Every spring the Legislature has an opportunity to do something about Kansas’ embarrassing lowest-in-the-nation minimum wage of $2.65 an hour. Every spring it does nothing. This spring should be different. “Kansas is better than that,†said state Sen. Roger Reitz, R-Manhattan. “The time has come to make a statement of fairness to all of our work force.â€
Reitz proposes aligning Kansas’ minimum with the federal minimum wage, now $5.85 an hour and to be $7.25 an hour in 2009. True, most lower-wage Kansans fall under federal minimum wage laws, but one state survey suggested there are 17,000 Kansans earning less than the federal minimum.
Judging from the TV commercial touting Sunflower Electric Power Corp.’s proposed expansion of “Holcomb station,†coal-fired power plants make sunflowers grow and families grow closer. They also involve wind turbines. “The visuals overwhelmingly show images of a clean, healthy, sunflower-filled Kansas, hoping viewers will actually associate the Holcomb coal-fired power plant with beauty and health rather than what many may normally associate burning coal with, which is dirty air,†observed Washburn University political scientist Bob Beatty.
Sunflower president Earl Watkins said: “We think the public’s entitled to know both sides of the debate.â€
The Feb. 5 Democratic caucuses caused a lot of excitement in the state, a few days before Kansas Republicans gave Mike Huckabee a blowout over John McCain. But when the votes are counted on Election Day, Kansas still is likely to be in the GOP’s column, according to the latest SurveyUSA poll. The poll, conducted last weekend and co-sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12 Wichita, has Kansans favoring John McCain over Hillary Clinton 59 to 35 percent and McCain over Barack Obama 50 to 44 percent.
A casual observer might see the New York Philharmonic’s historic Tuesday concert in North Korea as an apolitical event of cultural diplomacy. “Sometimes the North Koreans don’t like our words; maybe they’ll like our music,†said Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill.
Music critic Norman Lebrecht objects, noting dictator Kim Jong Il’s appalling human rights record and suggesting the orchestra and music director Lorin Maazel are being used in an Orwellian game. “Music is the loser in this transaction,†he wrote, “a poisoned pawn on a dirty board.â€
Please. If this is a game, the sure winners are Dvorak and Gershwin, whose “New World†Symphony and “An American in Paris,†respectively, are on the program. And recall that Henry Kissinger credited a Philadelphia Orchestra tour to China in 1973 as playing a role in normalization of Sino-U.S. relations.
Every spring the Legislature has an opportunity to do something about Kansas’ embarrassing lowest-in-the-nation minimum wage of $2.65 an hour. Every spring it does nothing. This spring should be different. “Kansas is better than that,†said state Sen. Roger Reitz, R-Manhattan. “The time has come to make a statement of fairness to all of our work force.â€
