Noting the attention the HBO series “Big Love” (in photo) is getting, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer argues that it is illogical to argue that gays should be able to get married but that polygamy shouldn’t be allowed. “Don’t tell me that we can make one radical change in the one-man, one-woman rule and not be open to the claim of others that their reformation be given equal respect,” he wrote. But Krauthammer isn’t buying the arguments of many conservatives who see gay marriage or polygamy as threats to traditional marriage. “The assault came from within,” he wrote. “Marriage has needed no help in managing its own long, slow suicide, thank you. Astronomical rates of divorce and of single parenthood (the deliberate creation of fatherless families) existed before there was a single gay marriage or any talk of sanctioning polygamy. The minting of these new forms of marriage is a symptom of our culture’s contemporary radical individualism — as is the decline of traditional marriage — and not its cause.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
President Bush released a new national security strategy Thursday, the first update since the eve of the invasion of Iraq, and the document still champions the controversial Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war — striking perceived enemies before they initiate hostilities. But the Iraq debacle — perhaps the greatest U.S. strategic blunder in a generation — points to a fatal weakness of pre-emption, and why it must be used only as a last resort: It relies heavily on good intelligence, and Iraq proved just how unreliable our intelligence is.
As one strategic expert told The Washington Post, “Pre-emption is and always will be a potentially useful tool, but it’s not something you want to trot out and throw in everybody’s face. To have a strategy on pre-emption and make it central is a huge error.”
Posted by Randy Scholfield
I finally got around to seeing “Crash,” which I thought was a pretty well-made film — but best picture Oscar? No way. I think Ang Lee has reason for sour grapes — “Brokeback Mountain” got robbed.
Some of the performances are good (notably Matt Dillon’s), but the characters are stereotypical and the dialogue about race heavy-handed and manipulative (and unrealistic). Everyone, even the racists, have hearts of gold underneath. This was an exercise in predictable, self-consciously “important” message filmmaking. Did the academy lose its nerve and decide to choose the “safe” controversial film?
Did you see it? What did you think?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
When Kansas House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, introduced a plan to prevent registered sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of schools, school bus stops and day care centers, a lot of people warned it could make life so difficult for offenders that they might become more likely to reoffend. Iowa, which enacted a similar plan, is witnessing some of the law’s drawbacks. A story in The New York Times told of sex offenders in that state clustering in rural motels and trailer parks because they cannot find anywhere else to live. And officials are starting to lose track of offenders. The state now has nearly three times as many registered sex offenders considered missing as before the law took effect.
A woman who lives next to one of the rural hotels that is now home to 26 sex offenders said, “If the point of his law was to make us safer, we are not.”
Kansas lawmakers should heed her warning and make sure that in their desire to get tough on sex offenders, they don’t start passing laws that don’t work.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
It’s good that the Wichita Police Department plans to formally investigate how a near riot occurred last weekend at the Cotillion, where some people turned ugly after being forced to leave the building when inspectors found the crowd exceeded the 2,000-person occupancy limit.
The incident raises a lot of questions, including whether enough bilingual officers were there to explain what was happening to the largely Hispanic crowd, why some crowd members got out of control, and whether the police’s use of Tasers against them was appropriate.
Overcrowding is a serious safety hazard that can lead to tragedies. But police should determine whether this situation could have been better handled.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Turns out it doesn’t take a White House staffer to out a CIA agent. An investigation by the Chicago Tribune found lots of information about undercover intelligence agents via the Internet — a situation that reportedly has “horrified” CIA Director Porter Goss. “When the Tribune searched a commercial online data service, the result was a virtual directory of more than 2,600 CIA employees, 50 internal agency telephone numbers and the locations of some two dozen secret CIA facilities around the United States,” the newspaper said. A spokeswoman told the Tribune that “Goss is committed to modernizing the way the agency does cover in order to protect our officers who are doing dangerous work.” He better be. Expect some to blame the Tribune, too, though it surely has done the nation a favor in bringing this security lapse to light.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
