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Daily Archives: March 17, 2006
If not gaming, then what?
March 17, 200612:00 p.m.
It wasn’t surprising that the Kansas Senate voted down a bill Thursday that would have expanded gaming. And from Wichita and Sedgwick County’s perspective, it’s just as well — as the bill would have allowed only slot machines at Wichita Greyhound Park, rather than the full-service local casino that opinion polls and area nonbinding votes have shown the public wants. But now, lawmakers are still faced with the question of how to cover their future spending obligations, including a court-ordered increase in school funding. If not gaming, then what?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
State BOE conservatives to schools: local control, schmocal control
March 17, 200612:09 a.m.
The Kansas State Board of Education misstepped and overreached when it told school districts this week that parents must sign a permission slip before their children can study sex education. That likely will mean that many of the students who need this education the most — the ones with disengaged parents — won’t get it. Now, board member Kathy Martin wants to require that local school districts teach abstinence-only sex education or lose their accreditation. Not only is this an unwise policy — schools should strongly emphasize abstinence but also teach about contraception — it is more state interference in what should be a local decision.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
What Dubai deal slayers have won
March 17, 200612:07 a.m.
It’s hard to argue with the anti-Dubai deal folks, especially now that they’ve won. But here are a couple of final morsels for thought on the uncomfortable message it has sent to the world.
On how this “ignorant, bogus, xenophobic, reckless debate” has ended up painting “decent, modernizing” Dubai as evil, from The New York Times’ Tom Friedman: “Dubaians are building a future based on butter not guns, private property not caprice, services more than oil, and globally competitive companies, not terror networks. . . . Dubai is where we should want the Arab world to go. Unfortunately, we just told Dubai to go to hell.”
On the economic consequences, this from Newsweek’s Robert J. Samuelson: “Every country has the right to protect its security interests. But those interests must be defined coherently and not simply as the random expression of political expediency. That’s what happened here, as it did last year when Congress pressured a Chinese oil company (Cnooc) to withdraw its bid for a U.S. firm (Unocal). The more this process continues, the more it corrodes confidence in the dollar.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Heartlessness in the heartland
March 17, 200612:05 a.m.
“There is, it seems, a heartlessness in the heart of America,” David Chartrand, a syndicated columnist from Olathe, wrote in a commentary in Thursday’s Eagle. Chartrand was observing that most of the eight states — which included Kansas — that received F’s on their services for the mentally and emotionally disabled are in the Midwest. He then challenged Bible thumpers to practice what Jesus preached: “Midwestern conservatives want schools to teach the message of Jesus, which, last I checked, is the Gospel of compassion for the weak and sympathy for the unfortunate. And given that nothing shatters families like untreated mental illness, you’d think these moral guardians would also be enraged about their communities’ treatment of the emotionally disabled.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
QuikTrip killing shock to conscience
March 17, 200612:03 a.m.
The brazen shooting of 17-year-old Brian Hall at a QuikTrip on Monday evening was appalling enough. But how shocking that another man, minutes after the shooting, stepped over the injured clerk allegedly to try to steal cigarettes. News accounts suggest Hall was everything that the alleged shooter and shoplifter clearly are not, a young man who was doing the right things and trying to make an honest living and good life. Our thoughts and prayers are with Hall’s family. As for the other two players in this community tragedy — they are something else again, something ugly and unrecognizable to people of conscience.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It’s supposed to be off the record, but . . .
March 17, 200612:01 a.m.
Some quips from the weekend’s Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, D.C., where the humor and humorists were refreshingly bipartisan.
Second lady Lynne Cheney, on her spouse: “I know he has a great sense of humor. Just the other day I asked him, ‘Do you know how many terrorists it takes to paint a wall?’ and he answered right back, ‘It depends on how hard you throw them.’”
President Bush, on the same topic: “By the way, when Dick first heard my approval rating was 38 percent, he said, ‘What’s your secret?’”
Bush again: “I’m proud that from across the political spectrum Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, came out in opposition to the port deal. I’ve always said I’m a uniter not a divider.”
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., to the vice president: “For years, we Democrats have succeeded in doing little more than shooting ourselves in the foot. You’ve taught us a valuable lesson: aim higher.”
Obama again, on being asked to be the Democratic spokesman on ethics reform: “Turns out, it’s a little like being given the Kryptonite concession at a Superman convention.”
Perhaps of most note to Kansans who’ve lived through the evolution wars, Obama offered this: “You know, the Bush administration’s been a little skeptical about the whole concept of global warming. It’s actually not the warming part they question. It’s the globe. The president was so excited about Tom Friedman’s book ‘The World Is Flat.’ As soon as he saw the title, he said, ‘You see, I was right!’”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
