As the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly upheld one Kansas death sentence Monday — of Wichitan Michael Marsh — it also made it possible for the will expressed by Kansas lawmakers in 1994 and the death sentences handed down by Kansas juries in seven other cases to be served. Whatever one thinks of capital punishment, it is a relief of sorts that the state doesn’t have to start over with its law — and that heinous killers such as the Carr brothers, John Robinson, Gavin Scott and Douglas Belt can get the punishment their juries accorded them. That said, the debate will continue about whether Kansas’ death penalty law — still unused after 12 years — is worth the cost and trouble. And this judgment doesn’t do much to shore up the uncertain credibility of Kansas’ highest court. Meanwhile, the 5-4 decision and sharply worded dissenting opinions show the depth of the divide on the nation’s highest court.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The wild gunfire in Old Town over the weekend that wounded seven people — two others were stabbed — can’t help but give pause to Wichitans considering an evening out in the popular entertainment district.
The shootings might be another “anomaly,” as police called the January incident in which police fired two dozen shots at a suspect in Old Town, but there’s cause for concern: Another shoot-out or two could permanently damage the area’s image.
A review is in order by police and Old Town merchants: Should nightclubs be adding more private security for their parking lots? The perception of safety is crucial for Old Town’s success, especially with the new arena going in nearby.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
What a long, strange trip Sedgwick County’s solid-waste management has been. But is it over? As The Eagle recently reported, the county finally has ruled out the use of the Wichita-owned Furley site for a landfill, in part because of the increased risk of bird strikes in Raytheon’s flight path. The idea of building elsewhere in the county appears to be off the table, too, not only because of the legal fight it would invite with neighbors but because a publicly owned local landfill no longer makes sense: Most of the county’s trash now goes to Waste Connections’ own landfill in nearby Harper County. But this means, as our editorial Friday argued, that Wichita is now stuck with the Furley acreage, and “Harper County is stuck with most of our trash. Wichitans pay far more and get far less for trash service than residents of comparable cities, because City Hall has refused to franchise trash service. And Sedgwick County’s recycling rates are laughable — 9 percent compared with an average 18 percent statewide and 25 percent nationally.” Is this any way to manage solid waste?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Americans should be alarmed at how easy it is for private data brokers to get their hands on anyone’s personal banking and telephone information. The data peddlers’ aggressive tactics, including impersonation and trickery, are almost certainly illegal, according to the FBI.
But that hasn’t stopped federal and local law enforcement agencies — including the FBI — from paying millions to data brokers for the private information, according to a congressional investigation, in the process sidestepping warrants and subpoenas and violating citizens’ rights.
One ex-data broker’s testimony about how easy it is to get any information about anyone astonished lawmakers and prompted Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., to remark, “I don’t think we have any privacy at all.”
It’s another example of how our government is literally selling out our civil liberties.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Among the Internet’s worst features is the temptation it offers would-be plagiarists, especially schoolkids. The Los Angeles Times noted that teachers across the country increasingly don’t even assign term papers. Bobbie Eisenstock, who teaches journalism at California State University-Northridge, said, “I got tired of night after night checking for cheaters.” John Barrie, who owns a company that makes plagiarism-detection software, said: “Students are using the Internet like an 8-billion-page, cut-and-pastable encyclopedia.”
The alternative to such research papers, though, doesn’t sound like a sufficient substitute: oral exams, role-playing demonstrations and in-class writing exercises.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Are small government conservatives concerned yet about the secret government snooping? They — and everyone else — should be.
The latest disclosure is that the Bush administration has secretly been tapping into a global database of confidential financial transactions for nearly five years. The program is based on a broad new interpretation of Treasury Department powers, The Washington Post reported, and involves collecting information on international money transfers, including many made by U.S. citizens and residents.
The goal, which everyone can support, is to locate and track suspected terrorists. But the database’s wide net mostly catches the private transactions of Americans and others who have nothing to do with terrorism.
Many conservatives have shrugged off reports of government eavesdropping on international phone calls and snooping on e-mails, and of a massive government database of American’s phone records. And they likely will point to Friday’s indictment of seven terrorist wannabes in Miami as justification for the spying.
But they shouldn’t be so complacent about a loss of civil liberties. At the least, shouldn’t we demand that these programs have some congressional and judicial oversight, as Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan, has argued? Or how about putting it this way: Would conservatives still not care if it were President Hillary Clinton who was collecting all this private data and doing all this spying?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Former vice presidential nominee John Edwards, who connected with voters in 2004 with his “two Americas” stump speech, is again focusing on poverty in preparation for a possible run for the presidency. Hurricane Katrina, he says, made the issue more urgent.
The Washington Post detailed his plan, which he would pay for by rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans: “His policy proposals include raising the minimum wage to $7.50 an hour, which he said would lift a million people out of poverty. He also proposed creating a million temporary government-subsidized jobs over five years, tax credits for first-time home buyers, a radical overhaul of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, tax credits to help low-income workers establish savings accounts, and expanded opportunities to attend college.”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
There is no confirmation that the Wichita Wranglers will move to Springdale, Ark., should voters there approve a 6,000-seat, $33 million stadium next month. But there’s also no question that the Wranglers are the least-supported team in the Texas League, with an average turnout of 2,700. Can this franchise be saved? Should it be? Maybe Lawrence-Dumont Stadium could use a makeover. But as we argued in an editorial last week, it “isn’t just any old place to play baseball. It’s a community treasure in a picture-perfect spot.”
Meanwhile, a letter writer suggested that the Wranglers play at WSU’s Eck Stadium instead of Lawrence-Dumont. He said that the University of Nebraska baseball team shares a stadium with the minor-league team in Lincoln.
Got any creative ideas to boost attendance and keep the team in town?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Kansas Republicans have sworn to use out-of-control immigration against Gov. Kathleen Sebelius — a stretch, given that it’s primarily a federal issue and the GOP-controlled Legislature passed the in-state tuition bill before she signed it. But maybe they think they can blame her for what she isn’t doing about it. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, for example, wants an agreement with the feds to allow his state troopers to arrest illegal aliens just for being in the state, something troopers in Florida and Alabama already can do. The other side says: Don’t troopers have enough to do? And when these people are picked up, won’t federal authorities just let them go?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Writer-musician-character Kinky Friedman last week got on the November ballot as an independent candidate for Texas governor. If elected, he would be Texas’ first independent governor since Sam Houston won in 1859. Another independent candidate wants to use the nickname “Grandma” on the November ballot. Kind of makes you wonder why Kansas’ gubernatorial elections don’t attract colorful candidates. Then again, gay-bashing Topeka pastor Fred Phelps competed for the Democratic nomination in 1998. Worse, he drew 10,881 votes.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
A recent Eagle article and editorial revealed that LoanMax, a payday loan business, had paid hundreds of “witnesses” to appear at a local public meeting.
It’s disturbing that the payday industry is spreading its money and influence around in Topeka, too. In 2005, LoanMax made thousands of dollars in political contributions, including $1,000 each to top leaders such as Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, House Speaker Doug Mays and Attorney General Phill Kline.
In fact, scores of state legislators have received LoanMax contributions — all the more reason for voters to hold them accountable for their action, or lack of same, on this issue.
State Sen. Donald Betts (in photo), D-Wichita, called The Eagle editorial board to say he had received a contribution from LoanMax that he intends to return at a town hall meeting Saturday in Wichita. “I’ll be encouraging other Kansas senators to do the same,” he said, and work to pass new regulations on the industry.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
No one knows how the Kansas Supreme Court will rule in the state’s school finance case, but the justices asked the right questions and made good observations during oral arguments Thursday.
For the state’s attorneys: Why didn’t lawmakers follow their own cost study? Does the state object to its own audit? What guarantee is there that future Legislatures would fund the phased-in spending increase?
And for the school districts’ attorney: Where do you draw the line on spending? Doesn’t the Legislature have to balance competing needs? Can schools even absorb such a large funding increase?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Stephen Hawking recently said that he thought humans needed to start colonizing space in response to threats such as nuclear war, global warming and other doomsday scenarios.
Count me out.
As my column Friday suggested, who really wants to live on Mars? It’s a dreary, barren place.
Instead of trying to run away into space, we’d be better off figuring out how to live successfully together here on this lovely planet.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
As has happened several times before, a claim this week that the United States found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq appears to be inaccurate. This time, it was made by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich. (in photo) — who ought to know what he is talking about. But according to intelligence officials, these WMDs were actually some chemical weapons shells that had been manufactured before the 1991 Gulf War and, for the most part, were badly deteriorated and unusable. The shells’ existence was already known, the officials said, and does not change the government’s conclusion that Iraq didn’t have WMDs.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The indictments of seven men who reportedly aspired to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and several federal buildings in Miami is another reminder that terrorists don’t just come from other countries. Five of the men were U.S. nationals “who for whatever reason came to view their home country as the enemy,” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Friday. The men allegedly were terrorist wannabes, who were seeking financial and logistical help from al-Qaida.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Thanks again to all of you who attended the meet-up Thursday night. A good time was had by all — especially by the editorial staff. I appreciate your suggestions for how to improve the blog. If you think of other ideas, please let me know.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Did you catch Charlie Rose’s interview with Al Gore on PBS Monday night? It focused on global warming and Gore’s new movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” But Gore also argued that there is a self-destructive connection between global warming, the war in Iraq and our national debt. “We are borrowing huge amounts of money from China to buy huge amounts of oil from the most unstable region on the planet, to bring it here and burn it in ways that destroy the habitability of the planet,” Gore said. “This is a dysfunctional pattern, every component of which has to be changed, and can be changed only when we look at the overall pattern.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
It’s good that the Wichita City Council is working to strike a balance between keeping people in touch through cell phones and keeping Wichita’s skyline open and uncluttered. Council members this week turned down a cell tower at 21st Street and Maize Road that was opposed by a majority of area residents; at the same time, they invited wireless industry representatives to meet and discuss ways to provide technology upgrades without creating eyesores.
The city needs good cell phone coverage, but it also should carefully site and camouflage those towers to avoid, as much as possible, technological clutter.
With some careful planning, city officials should be able to meet both goals.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Republicans have a canny way of turning simple phrases into effective weapons for their cause. The latest is “cut and run” — which came up repeatedly in the House’s Iraq debate last week and again Wednesday before the Senate rejected Democrats’ proposed timetable for troop withdrawal. “What it says is, ‘You’re a coward,’ and moreover it presupposes that the opposite is to stand and fight,” George Lakoff, a linguist at the University of California-Berkeley, told The Boston Globe. “Then they repeat it over and over until it becomes part of people’s brains. The Democrats haven’t learned to do that.” And their attempt to do it with the phrase “culture of corruption” was corrupted by their own Rep. William “Cold Cash” Jefferson, D-La.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The following satirical headlines come from the Web site borowitzreport.com:
ROVE, SATAN PLOT G.O.P. FALL STRATEGY; White House Adviser, Prince of Darkness Resume Longtime Collaboration
BRAD PITT TO GET DENTAL CHECKUP IN NAMIBIA; X-Rays to Be Sold for Charity
GORE FILM BECOMES MAKE-OUT MOVIE OF THE SUMMER; Global Warming Means Hot Loving at the Multiplex
AL-QAIDA CHOOSES ZARQAWI’S SUCCESSOR ON REALITY SHOW; ‘Jihadist Idol’ Debuts on Al-Jazeera
ANN COULTER CHALLENGES PRESIDENT OF IRAN TO INSANE COMMENT CONTEST; Conservative Pundit, Iranian Madman to Face Off on Live TV
IRAN TRYING TO OBTAIN PARIS HILTON’S ALBUM; Claims It Will Be Used For ‘Peaceful Purposes’
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has been promoting an idea that makes some sense but won’t sell at the ballot box: a $1-a-gallon gas tax, to be called the “Patriot Tax.” Last week he mentioned it on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” then expanded on the idea in the Times: “The billions of dollars raised by the Patriot Tax would go first to shore up Social Security, second to subsidize clean mass transit in and between every major American city, third to reduce the deficit, and fourth to massively increase energy research by the National Science Foundation and the Energy and Defense Departments’ research arms.” Best of all, in Friedman’s view, the tax would hike gas prices to a level that would make gas alternatives economically competitive. It’s a thought — though not one any U.S. politician could win on.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Vice President Dick Cheney this week defended his statement a year ago that the Iraq insurgency was in its “last throes,” but he said the administration underestimated the strength of the insurgency. “I don’t think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we’ve encountered,” he said, adding that “we didn’t anticipate . . . the devastation that 30 years of Saddam’s rule had wrought, if you will, on the psychology of the Iraqi people.” But as The Washington Post noted, many defense and Middle East experts warned administration officials during the run-up to the war about potential obstacles ahead. For example, a group of specialists who met at the Army War College in December 2002, three months before the United States invaded Iraq, warned: “The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace is real and serious,” and that “successful occupation will not occur unless the special circumstances of this unusual country” are heeded. Likewise, the Post reported, 70 national security experts and Middle East scholars issued a report before the invasion concluding that occupying Iraq “will be the most daunting and complex task the U.S. and the international community will have undertaken since the end of World War II.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
