OK, we have to admit that we were taken aback by the winning name for Wichita’s new independent league baseball team — the Wingnuts.
Wingnuts? Isn’t this an image that Wichita is trying to shed?
But then we relaxed and saw the humor in it. How can you not like a team called the Wingnuts? Or forget the name?
“In the end we wanted a unique name and a look that would suggest fun, while still maintaining a tie-in to Wichita’s great history of aviation,†said Chris Presson, president of Wichita Pro Sports.
The offbeat, eye-catching name should help move team merchandise.
There’s a precedent for tongue-in-cheek names, too — take the Macon (Ga.) Whoopees, a minor league hockey team.
Need we say more?
Welcome, Wichita Wingnuts, to Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.
Let’s play ball.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The American death toll in Iraq this year is more than 850, making it the deadliest year since the beginning of the war — though troop casualties have been declining since early summer.
U.S. military spokesman Maj. Winfield Danielson told Associated Press that the deaths are part of the price tag attached to the surge that officials claim has stemmed violence in the country, making it essentially a trade-off between Iraqi civilian and American military lives.
“It’s due to the troop surge, which allowed us to go into areas that were previously safe havens for insurgents,†Danielson said. “Having more soldiers, and having them out in the communities, certainly contributes to our casualties.â€
Posted by Kristin Mehler
Whatever one thinks of the costly water-projects bill that Congress successfully defended against a presidential veto this week, it found the legislative branch asserting its constitutional equality with the executive branch. That’s been all too rare during George W. Bush’s commanding presidency. But the veto override, which did not have help from Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, may not lead to a more powerful Congress, especially on difficult issues such as Iraq spending.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Kansans still convinced that public schools should teach creationism or the intelligent design theory should watch a two-hour NOVA program on KPTS, Channel 8, next Tuesday at 7 p.m.
The program is about the 2005 landmark case in which the Dover, Pa., school board was sued for ordering its science teachers to read a statement suggesting that intelligent design — an idea that life is too complicated to have evolved naturally — was a scientific alternative to evolution. District Judge John Jones ruled that intelligent design was a religious-based theory and couldn’t be taught in the science classroom.
NOVA producer Paula S. Apsell said that the case is instructive in that it “provided a crash course in modern evolutionary science†and “explored the very nature of science — how science is defined.â€
Click here to watch a YouTube trailer of the program.
Meanwhile, the Discovery Institute, which promotes intelligent design, contends that intelligent design is not religious based and that a teacher guidebook about the show distributed by NOVA violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Sedgwick County Commissioners Gwen Welshimer (in photo) and Kelly Parks voted Wednesday against a redevelopment plan for the neighborhood surrounding the new arena. Big surprise. It seems as if they’re against just about anything to do with the arena, no matter how good it could be or whether it will help protect taxpayers, such as the arena management contract that they earlier opposed. As Welshimer noted, “There’s no stopping the arena.†But she and Parks seem determined to place as many roadblocks as possible in its path.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Sleeping pills for schoolkids? Say it ain’t so. But the U.S. subsidiary of a Japanese firm really did market the drug, Rozerem, to American kids under U.S. direct-to-consumer advertising laws. And it gets the top award for the world’s worst products, according to Consumers International.
The commercial reportedly featured images of blackboards and school buses and a voice over saying, “Rozerem would like to remind you that it’s back to school season. Ask your doctor today if Rozerem is right for you.â€
Got that, kids?
“This case demonstrates the lengths to which some drug companies will go to increase sales of their products, how direct to consumer advertising can promote irrational drug use, and how weak regulation can foster irresponsible corporate behaviour,†the group said in a statement.
Among the other “winnersâ€: Toymaker Mattel for its massive recall of millions of toys made in China with lead-based paint and subsequent “stonewalling†on accountability; and Kellogg’s, for marketing high-salt and sugary breakfast cereals to kids worldwide.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
