“I accept this oath of office to serve a second term as your governor with profound pride in our state, with an unwavering belief in its citizens and with an unbridled hope for what’s to come,” Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said during her inaugural address this morning on the south steps of the Statehouse. As most politicians do after they’ve been re-elected, Sebelius also called for unity. “Only a failure to act as ‘One Kansas’ can compromise our future and dash our hopes,” she said. But will lawmakers and the governor really “come together around a shared vision of our state,” when many Republicans can’t even get along?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, will be one of about 15 lawmakers who are meeting with President Bush at the White House Tuesday morning to discuss U.S. strategy in Iraq. Tiahrt has been a reliable rubber stamp on Iraq in the past but is expressing some concern about the “surge” option expected to be proposed by Bush. “I think the surge should be Iraqi troops,” Tiahrt told the Lawrence Journal-World. “I’m tired of seeing the news about losing another young man or woman, losing an American over there.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Barack Obama admitted in a memoir he wrote 11 years ago that as a young man he tried cocaine. He’s the first presidential candidate to admit to having used the drug. (George W. Bush has steadfastly refused to answer the many questions about his alleged drug past.) It will be interesting to see whether Obama’s admission, made years before he ever considered a national office, will be used against him if he decides to run.
Do you think the American people welcome this kind of candor from a presidential aspirant? Or will his admission sink his chances?
For most Americans, I’m guessing, this confession alone won’t be a shocker or deal-breaker. They’re likely to look at the total package.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Today marks the five-year anniversary of President Bush’s signing of the No Child Left Behind Act. As our editorial on today’s Opinion page notes, the law has brought some progress, but it has major flaws — particularly its impossible mandate that all students must be proficient in reading in math by 2014.
The law is also requiring the Wichita school district to have to spend $400,000 so far this school year on private tutors to help several “failing” schools and their low-income students meet No Child Left Behind standards.
The tutoring itself isn’t so much the issue — the struggling kids need help. The problem is that no one seems to know whether the tutoring will make a difference in student achievement, or exactly how the program will be evaluated.
What if Johnny still can’t read after all that expense?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Every week, it seems, brings new reports that make it harder for global warming skeptics to deny that huge, destructive climate shifts are under way. Recently, scientists reported that a 41-square-mile chunk of the Canadian Arctic had broken off and drifted out to sea, an event that one scientist called “dramatic and disturbing,” adding, “it shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years.”
Another recent eye-opener is the disappearance of an inhabited island, Lohachara off the coast of India, due to rising sea levels — apparently a first. (Several uninhabited islands already have been lost.)
Scientists such as Jim Hansen at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies fear we’re seeing a world very close to the tipping point of unstoppable changes that, unless we act soon, could create a “different planet” for coming generations.
If we wait to act until the skeptics are convinced, it likely will be too late.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
