One reason Missouri is watched so keenly in presidential election years is because it has picked the winner in every election in the past century but one (1956, when it didn’t like Ike as much as Adlai Stevenson). Not so Kansas, where voters’ Republican leanings have put the state in the losers’ circle on election night seven times since 1900 (most recently when it went with favorite son Bob Dole in 1996). With winner Barack Obama driving huge turnout in the Feb. 5 Kansas caucuses and long shot Mike Huckabee sweeping the state in the Feb. 9 GOP caucuses, there suddenly is some suspense as to which color Kansas will be, red or blue, on the TV maps on Nov. 4. Or is there?
The six other times since 1900 when Kansas preferred to be Republican rather than right, by the way: 1992, 1976, 1960, 1948, 1944 and 1940.
With more bleak national economic reports last week, it is reassuring that Wichita planemakers say that they should weather any slowdown in the U.S. economy. If fact, because of a backlog of orders, new models, increased international demand and the federal stimulus package, the companies expect continued growth for the next several years. “These are wonderful times for us,†Hawker Beechcraft chief executive Jim Schuster told The Eagle.
But the success of the airplane manufacturers also presents a challenge for our region and state. As J.V. Lentell, outgoing chairman of the Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition, warned last week, other states will aggressively seek to lure away the companies. He said that Wichita and the state need to be ready to fight to retain these companies.
One state move that would help is funding for aviation training and research. Kudos to local lawmakers for helping last week to include $5 million in funding for each effort in the House Education Committee budget.
This is depressing. A new study finds that Americans are spending less time communing with nature in activities such as hiking, hunting or gardening as they spend more time indoors playing video games, watching TV, surfing the Internet and other electronic diversions the researchers call “videophilia.â€
The implications are especially troubling for the health of children. “The replacement of vigorous outdoor activities by sedentary, indoor videophilia has far-reaching consequences for physical and mental health, especially in children,†one of the researchers said. “Videophilia has been shown to be a cause of obesity, lack of socialization, attention disorders and poor academic performance.â€
The turn away from nature also has troubling implications for our national parks, which have experienced a steady decline in visitation, and for environmental groups, which rely on the public’s attachment to nature as a basis for conservation efforts.
If Americans have no real experience in or connection to nature, what do they care?
Not only do the homeless need protection against the elements, they also need protection from teenagers who think it’s fun to attack vulnerable people. Nationally, there were more than 142 unprovoked attacks on homeless people in 2007, a 65 percent increase since 2005, the New York Times reported. And most of the attackers were teenagers and young adults. Why the increase and why such inhumanity? “I think it reflects a lack of respect for the homeless that has reached such extreme proportions that homeless people aren’t viewed as people,†said Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
One reason Missouri is watched so keenly in presidential election years is because it has picked the winner in every election in the past century but one (1956, when it didn’t like Ike as much as Adlai Stevenson). Not so Kansas, where voters’ Republican leanings have put the state in the losers’ circle on election night seven times since 1900 (most recently when it went with favorite son Bob Dole in 1996). With winner Barack Obama driving huge turnout in the Feb. 5 Kansas caucuses and long shot Mike Huckabee sweeping the state in the Feb. 9 GOP caucuses, there suddenly is some suspense as to which color Kansas will be, red or blue, on the TV maps on Nov. 4. Or is there?
