The nation has seen three fatal school shootings in a week, two of them by obviously disturbed adult males. Monday’s tragedy in a one-room Amish school in Pennsylvania was the worst and most bizarre — an execution-style slaying that has left five girls and the gunman dead and others badly injured. In response, the Bush administration will hold a summit on school violence, and parents and educators across the nation are wondering what more can be done to prevent such horrifying crimes. It’s a tough issue. Must we better fortify and police schools? Re-examine gun laws? Do more to find help for mentally ill men and bullied boys? Or simply realize that in a free society, our best efforts sometimes are going to fail to keep horrible things from happening to innocents, even children?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
As Bob Woodward’s new book, "State of Denial," provides another look into the Bush administration’s mishandling of the Iraq war, one question stands out above all: Why is Donald Rumsfeld still defense secretary?
As we said in an editorialtoday, "President Bush’s refusal to hold Rumsfeld accountable for his bad decisions on Iraq, which have led to growing violence and mounting casualties, only hurts the entire administration’s credibility."
If Bush would dump Rumsfeld now, it would signal that the administration is serious about trying to "adapt to win" in Iraq. Instead, Bush recently called Rumsfeld to affirm his support.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Striking union workers began picketing Wichita’s Bombardier plant Monday. On Saturday, 80 percent of voting members rejected the company’s new labor contract, which included a general wage increase of 4 percent in the first year and 3 percent in the second and third years. The contract also would have kept existing health care plans but raised health and dental premiums. Workers, who agreed to a salary freeze and other concessions three years ago to help keep the plant in Wichita, didn’t think the company’s offer would pay them what they deserved. What do you think? Is the strike — the first ever at this plant — justified? Is it good for workers and good for Wichita?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Bob Woodward’s account in his new book, “State of Denial,” of a July 10, 2001, meeting between then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and CIA Director George Tenet is a bombshell revelation in the ongoing dispute about who did what to stop Osama bin Laden.
According to Woodward, Tenet and his top counterterrorism official, J. Cofer Black, made an urgent trip to the White House to warn Rice of an imminent al-Qaida attack on U.S. soil and to urge the administration “to take action that moment — covert, military, whatever — to thwart bin Laden.”
But Rice gave them a “brush-off,” writes Woodward, and they left frustrated. Later, “Tenet looked back on the meeting with Rice as a lost opportunity to prevent or disrupt the attacks.”
Some members of the Sept. 11 commission expressed surprise and outrage Monday that they had never been told about the meeting. For her part, Rice said Monday that she can’t remember the encounter, and finds it “incomprehensible” that she would have ignored a direct threat warning.
Then again, it was Rice who told the Sept. 11 commission that an August 2001 presidential security memo entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States” was just historical “analysis” and didn’t amount to anything pressing.
If Woodward is right about this meeting, then Rice is in serious trouble.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
It’s good that Congress is close to approving a bill that would cap the annual interest rate charged on payday loans to members of the military at 36 percent. The effective annual interest paid on such predatory loans can now exceed 400 percent. But why not extend this protection to all consumers?
The Kansas Legislature should look at passing a similar APR cap on payday loans during the next session. Denied their outrageous profits, some of these companies might move elsewhere.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
In recent years, Wichita has made great strides in making public places more accessible to people with disabilities, but there’s still a lot of work to do, as last week’s City Council meeting showed.
As reported in The Eagle, Shirley Yonce — a member of the city’s disability advisory board — couldn’t follow the proceedings because headphones supplied for the hearing impaired weren’t working.
As part of the settlement of a 2004 lawsuit against the city, a consultant group has inspected 180 public buildings and found about 3,000 violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act standards.
It will cost an estimated $2 million to $6 million over the next decade to bring the buildings into compliance, but this is money well-spent. All of our citizens should have the opportunity to participate in public life and democracy.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
