If you listen to the dire predictions of many casino opponents, a Wichita casino will end life as we know it in our fair city, unleashing a wave of crime and economic decline and forever damaging the community’s character.
Don’t believe it, we argue in today’s editorial. An Eagle series this week is taking a close look at the actual experience of communities with casinos, and the reporters have found that cities such as Des Moines seem to have prospered from casino tax revenues while not suffering any increase in major crime.
People might still choose, on balance, to oppose a casino in Wichita, but the evidence doesn’t support doomsday scenarios.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles this week became the latest diocese to make a huge payoff to sex abuse victims — $660 million — dwarfing past payments and reminding the nation once again of the scope and pain of these sex scandals.
Since 1950, the Roman Catholic Church of America has paid more than $2 billion in settlements to victims abused by deviant priests.
Cardinal Roger Mahony apologized for the past abuse, but L.A. abuse victims remained bitter that Mahony himself now won’t have to testify in court about why some of the wayward priests were protected for so long by the church.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Let’s see: 69 percent of Iraqis say that U.S. troop presence in Iraq is worsening security. And Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday that American troops can leave “any time they want” (then backed off Monday, saying that he hoped that Iraqi security forces would get enough training by year end).
Meanwhile, GOP defense and foreign policy lions Sens. John Warner and Richard Lugar want a new congressional resolution on the war, because the mission has changed since 2002.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The “Crush on Obama” girl is back with a new YouTube video. This time she and other supporters of Sen. Barack Obama are taking on equally scantily clad backers of Rudy Giuliani. Of course, the showdown includes a pajama pillow fight. Some of Obama Girl’s better lines: “I like my man like I like my coffee” and “At least Obama didn’t marry his cousin.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Reading Beccy Tanner’s poignant article about the Last Man’s Club, the Robinson schoolmates and 1937 East High graduates whose numbers have now dwindled from 14 to one, Howard Babcock, it was hard not to envy their rare bond, and wonder whether it had something to do with pulling the men all back to Wichita as they retired.
It seems doubtful that many of today’s youths, for all their texting and cell chatter, will ever experience such friendship. (Then again, who does in these hurried, disposable times?) Surely the best gift to the last man would be if his story inspired some current group of Wichita middle-schoolers to make a similar pact, then be even half as steadfast about holding true to it in the decades to come.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Water and children have proved a deadly combination this summer in Wichita, most recently in the case of a 2-year-old who died after apparently wandering away from his home Saturday and falling into the Arkansas River. Early this month, a 3-year-old girl died in a 3-foot-deep backyard pool. As heartbreaking as every such story is for the community, of course, the pain is incalculable for the families involved.
Ensuring that a child knows how to swim — well — is the best way to avoid such tragedies; pool alarms and security fences can save lives. The goal of the Midway Kansas Chapter of the American Red Cross to “have someone in every household be trained in CPR” is excellent, too. But the surest safety precaution is at least one set of adult eyes on a young child at all times.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
