Daily Archives: Oct. 14, 2006

Open thread

Oct. 14, 200612:05 a.m.

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Open thread | Comments (27)

What ails State BOE bigger than one election’s results

Oct. 14, 200612:04 a.m.

Too many Kansans only notice the State Board of Education when it does something dumb. That has happened a lot lately, which is why GOP primary voters broke up the six-member conservative majority in August. But the problem of K-12 governance in Kansas is bigger than one election. It started with a badly worded constitutional amendment passed 40 years ago that inadvertently gave the 10-member school board self-executing powers. So the editorial board, usually no champion of constitutional amendments, was happy to hear Gov. Kathleen Sebelius propose making the state school board advisory and having each governor appoint a Cabinet-level education secretary. As we said in an editorial, “Legislators should not only scrutinize the board’s troubled history but ponder the exciting possibilities of reform — one that makes it the official business of the governor and Legislature to not only pay for public schools but to make them the best they can be. Sebelius’ proposal is a good place to start.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Kansas government | Comments (31)

North Korea policy: Blame Clinton

Oct. 14, 200612:03 a.m.

President Bush argued this week that his multilateral approach to North Korea was better than Bill Clinton’s bilateral dealings. “You have a better diplomatic hand with others, sending the message, than you do when you’re alone,” he said. But as the Washington Post reported, the reality is more complicated than that. The Bush administration policy would include bilateral negotiations on some issues, while the Clinton negotiations were more multilateral than Bush and conservative critics suggest.
Columnist Tom Teepen argued in our Opinion pages that “blame Clinton” has become the administration’s new North Korea policy. He wrote: “Here is Bush, almost six years into his presidency, nearly three-fourths through his two terms, and it’s the guy who hasn’t been president for six years who is supposedly to blame.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Foreign affairs, President Bush | Comments (57)

Pitts’ opinion of Kansas a work in progress

Oct. 14, 200612:01 a.m.

Out of frustration over the Kansas State Board of Education’s actions relating to evolution, columnist Leonard Pitts once wrote that if he lived in Kansas, “I’d be out of there so fast my shadow would have to catch a later flight.” But he was so impressed by the full house he drew recently for a talk in Lawrence that he couldn’t help but re-examine his view of the state. “I was proud of that line, but now I feel kind of guilty,” Pitts told the audience. Then added, “Actually . . . I’m still proud of that line.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Kansas government | Comments (30)

O’Neil also showed power to forgive

Oct. 14, 200612:00 a.m.

The Amish community in Pennsylvania demonstrated the power of forgiveness, and so did Buck O’Neil, the Negro Leagues baseball star and manager of the Kansas City Monarchs, who died last week. As Michael Bates noted for the ChronWatch Web site, O’Neil had every reason to be angry and bitter as he was passed over at the Baseball Hall of Fame earlier this year. But O’Neil responded: “I can’t hate a human being because my God never made anything ugly. Now, you can be ugly if you wanna . . . but God didn’t make you that way.”
Ugly exists, hate exists — but what is more important is that the power to forgive also exists.
Posted by Angie Holladay

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under American life | Comments (5)