Two more Sarah Palin books are coming out. “The Persecution of Sarah Palin” blames the media elite for Palin’s problems. “Sarah From Alaska” is sympathetic to the challenge Palin faced but argues that her lack of preparation contributed to her poor interview and debate performances. But neither book fully explains why Palin causes such derangement in many of her supporters and critics, a Washington Post book review argued.
In his Oct. 28 column, Cal Thomas compared the Obama administration’s complaints about Fox News to “dictators who desire control over the flow of information in order to enhance their power.” So, asked Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show,” does that mean Thomas also objected when the Bush administration leveled similar complaints last year about MSNBC? No. Thomas groused in May 2008 that the Bush administration waited until its last year in office to criticize media coverage. “They should have taken on the media a lot sooner,” Thomas said.
An article in the Sunday Eagle about the strong competitive challenge that Brazil’s Embraer poses to Wichita’s planemakers brought to mind one frustration of flying certain routes in and out of Wichita Mid-Continent Airport: The American Airlines flights operated by American Eagle (to Chicago) and Chautauqua & Trans States (to St. Louis) and the Continental Express flights operated by ExpressJet Airlines (to Houston) all use Embraer regional jets. The flights and equipment help support Mid-Continent service, but it always feels wrong to be leaving or returning to the Air Capital of the World on a plane with no local ties. At least, as the article noted, Wichita planemakers also sell planes to buyers in Brazil.
Some parents understandably aren’t comforted or satisfied by the efforts of day care employees to keep Margaret E. Walker (in photo) from driving, because their children still ended up riding in a van driven by someone who was legally drunk, according to a police report. But the employees of Creative Connections Learning Center deserve credit for calling 911, particularly when they knew that doing so meant they would lose their jobs. “I knew once I call, we’re done,” teacher Lindsey White told The Eagle. The employees also called police and confronted their boss before she left, told her not to drive and attempted to take away the van keys, according to White.
