Happy July Fourth to all you bloggers. Hope you have a good day celebrating our country and its freedoms. If you have a moment, you might read the Declaration of Independence, which is printed on today’s Opinion pages. Also check out the video of Wichitans reading excerpts from the declaration.
The Fourth of July is made for food overindulgence, but this seems to define wretched excess: Krispy Kreme bacon cheeseburgers, aka Luther burgers. (Or should it be Lucifer burger?)
This is sick. Just looking at the picture might clog your arteries.
But part of me would like to try one.
Are any of you fans of George Carlin, who died Sunday of heart problems? I didn’t follow his career or act much. He is best known for his “Seven words you can never say on television” bit, which led to a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government’s authority to sanction stations. But he also won four Grammy Awards for his comedy albums, was nominated for five Emmys, was a best-selling author and was to receive the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor this fall. Actor Ben Stiller said of Carlin: “He had an amazing mind, and his humor was brave, and always challenging us to look at ourselves and question our belief systems, while being incredibly entertaining.”
If you want to take a break from politics and you have seven minutes to spare, you might watch the new YouTube video sensation, “An Engineer’s Guide to Cats.” It was done by Wichita aerospace engineer Paul Klusman and pokes fun at engineers and cats. So far, it’s had 2.26 million views. As an Eagle article today reports, Klusman has received proposals from filmmakers and from cat-loving ladies worldwide.
This is funny: A Salina man said he lost control of his car and slammed into a house after he suffered a “brain freeze†from drinking a super-cold frozen drink from Sonic. The brain freeze spread into a “chest freeze,†he said, and momentarily incapacitated him.
Expect to see “brain freeze†warnings soon on your cold drinks.
Especially as American education slides back toward “the basics,†one element of the landslide “American Idol†victory of David Cook deserves some notice — his gratitude to his Blue Springs, Mo., elementary music teacher, Fredalyn Gentry, who appeared on Wednesday’s finale. Asked what went through his head when he heard his name called, Cook said: “That my music teacher, Mrs. Gentry, made me sing in the Christmas pageant in second grade. Now I’m here. The ride has been pretty nuts.†Let it also be noted that Cook, now a cool rocker, appeared in high school productions of “The Music Man,†“West Side Story,†“The Taming of the Shrew†and “Singin’ in the Rain.†(His pratfall-filled “Make ’Em Laugh†from a 2001 “Singin’ in the Rain†can be seen, sort of, on YouTube.) Who says arts education is a frill?
Here’s a funny Onion spoof of Kansas, taking off on the Bermuda triangle. Ouch.
It’s not as pithy as “wear sunscreen†or “if opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door,†but Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ worthy suggestion for graduating seniors, offered in a recent commentary, bears repeating: “Take a moment to be proud of your accomplishments and don’t forget to thank your parents, your teachers or that special person in your life who has helped you reach this milestone and who will be with you as you strive for more to come.â€
It’s good that President Bush asked the graduating seniors of Greensburg High School to consider public service. According to a recent poll, American youths are willing to serve — if someone asks them.
A Gallup survey showed that about one-third of young Americans ages 18 to 29 would give a “great deal of consideration†to national service if asked by a parent, teacher, or the next president. Unfortunately, most of them — 60 percent — had never been asked.
For his part, President Bush is best known for asking Americans to go shopping.
The next president has a great opportunity to harness the energy and idealism of young people, as John F. Kennedy did in the early 1960s. They’re waiting for the call.
Aging boomers clinging desperately to their youth should take note: Researchers say old age is actually the happiest time in life for most people.
Despite the inevitable pains and sorrows of aging, the University of Chicago study found that older people are more satisfied — the odds of being happy increase 5 percent with every decade. In part that’s because older people have lowered expectations about life. They’ve found the secret of happiness: being content with what you have.
Danica Patrick has received lots of attention as a woman race-car driver in a male-dominated sport — but she’s been dogged by questions of whether she can win a big race. She put those questions to rest Sunday, crossing the finish line in the Japan 300 to become the first woman to win an Indy car race.
“This reaches outside racing,†Patrick said. “This is about finding something you love to do, and following through with it.â€
That’s a message every young girl needs to hear.
“Once upon a time, you became famous because you ostensibly had some talent most of us lacked or because you did some heroic thing. That day is long gone. Fame has devolved. It has been dumbed down,†Leonard Pitts wrote about the six Florida girls who videotaped their assault of another girl because they wanted to be famous.
“The kids got their wish,†Pitts observed. “They are famous. One hopes that someday, they will be intelligent enough to recognize and lament what they are famous for.â€
Amid all the talk about what students don’t know, there was a news item last week that gives me hope: Michigan fifth-grader Kenton Stufflebeam, on a recent trip to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., noticed a mistake in a display about prehistoric time.
The exhibit identified the Precambrian as an “era,†but Stufflebeam remembered that his teacher had told him that the Precambrian was a dimensionless unit of time.
Did you know that? Of course you did.
Museum officials admitted the error and are correcting the display. At least some students, it seems, are paying attention in class.
Since his assassination 40 years ago today, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s stature has grown and his message has gone mainstream, our editorial today notes. His words have inspired people of all races and religions and backgrounds, serving as beacons of liberty, economic justice and racial harmony. So accepted and revered is the man that the full measure of his views — especially against senseless, unjust wars and against his country, as he judged it to deserve criticism — has been subject to sanitation and selective memory.
This anniversary of a national tragedy finds progress that would make King proud, but also much work left to do. We can best mark it by not only admiring the man but also by speaking out, stepping up and coming together to realize his imagined America.
“A 34-nation study found Americans less likely to believe in evolution than citizens of any of the countries polled except Turkey,†columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote. He argues that this is one example of the anti-intellectualism that is hurting our ability to solve serious problems and could harm our competitiveness as a nation in coming decades.
“There’s no simple solution, but the complex and incomplete solution is a greater emphasis on education at every level,†he wrote. “And maybe, just maybe, this cycle has run its course, for the past seven years perhaps have discredited the anti-intellectualism movement.â€
Is Kristof correct, or is this just another case of a liberal accusing those who disagree with him of being dumb?
Two fun facts from an account of last week’s “Defending the American Dream Summit†in Topeka, an event sponsored by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation that might as well have been sponsored by the Republican Party: Two people were honored with bronze busts of President Reagan, and the audience overwhelmingly identified Fox News Channel as the favored cable news network. “I can see we have a fair and balanced audience,†said speaker Michael Barone of U.S. News & World Report and Fox News.
Judging from the Academy Awards, the Bush administration already is in the rearview mirror. The Bush bashing was pretty minimal and tepid Sunday night, on the order of host Jon Stewart’s bit about the commercial failure of movies about Iraq and how “withdrawing the Iraq movies would only embolden the audience.†Michael Moore even lost — though the documentary that bested his “Sicko†was a war-on-terror-themed “Taxi to the Dark Side.†Nice touch: having some U.S. troops in Iraq act as presenters.
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OK, for those wanting a break from politics. . . . I’m remiss in not mentioning earlier the “underdog†victory last week by the beagle Uno at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. It was the first best-in-show win by a beagle. What made Uno special — and had the audience standing and cheering at Madison Square Garden — was his personality. The “people’s dog†jumped and bayed and acted like, well, a real dog.
The latest college mass shooting, in which a former graduate student opened fire in a classroom at Northern Illinois University, killing five, will raise more questions about campus security and gun laws.
Police revealed Friday that the suspect had stopped taking medication (no specifics on what kind) and had become erratic in the days leading up to the shooting.
He bought two of the guns just a week ago. The immediate questions: Did he have a history of depression or other mental problems, as the Virginia Tech shooter did? If so, how was he able to buy guns?
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 40 years ago, on April 4, 1968. On today’s celebration of the civil rights leader’s birth, we excerpted the conclusion of his 1963 “I Have a Dream†speech on the Opinion page. His words still ring with power and challenge the nation to live up to its ideals.
Also on today’s Opinion page is a Leonard Pitts column on the Clinton/Obama campaign dispute about who deserves credit for the civil rights movement. Pitts notes that this debate shows how much America has changed, in that it is occurring between a black man and a woman, either of whom may be the next president. “The most important thing about this argument is not who’s right or who’s wrong,†Pitts wrote. “It is, rather, who’s having it.â€
At least 40 people claim to have seen a mile-wide unidentified object flying in the sky Jan. 8 near Stephenville, Texas, including some guys who supposedly recorded it on a cell phone.
Many Americans are making year-end charitable donations, and two former New York hedge-fund analysts are hoping to help with that. The two left six-figure incomes to start GiveWell, applying their skills to evaluating charities on productivity numbers and effectiveness. Their findings are posted online to help potential investors weigh which organizations will be the best stewards of donations.
Their efforts have received mixed reviews from the philanthropic community, which questions the accuracy of gauging charities just by numbers. Nonetheless, not only does it give investors a clear view of where their money is going, the service adds an element of accountability in a hard-to-regulate climate of giving.
President Bush and Hillary Clinton are the most admired man and woman in America — though that’s not a surprise. They’ve shared the titles for six straight years, and the sitting U.S. president has been the most-admired man every year since 1981. Ten percent of Americans surveyed named Bush as most admired. Former President Bill Clinton was second with 8 percent, and Al Gore had 6 percent. Hillary Clinton was named by 18 percent of those survey, the 12th time she’s been in the top spot. Oprah Winfrey was a close second with 16 percent.
2007 has not been kind to poor college students on birth control pills. Since the Deficit Reduction Act took effect in January, the price of birth control for college students has gone from pennies a day to around $50 a month. That may not seem like much, but for a student sans steady income, it makes the pill a luxury. The American College Health Association reports that as pill prices rise, so do student visits for emergency contraception and pregnancy tests.
The solution is simple: Change the language of a few bills to include college health providers on the list of discount-eligible pharmaceutical providers, at no expense to the taxpayer. Supporters include Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.
It should be noted by those blocking such action that women at that age are prescribed birth control to regulate a wide array of medical issues aside from pregnancy prevention.
Posted by Kristin Mehler
Questioning American feminists’ lack of action on behalf of women’s rights violations around the world, particularly in Saudi Arabia, Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum pointed to how nearsighted the movement has become.
“American delegates to international and U.N. women’s organizations are mostly identified with arguments about reproductive rights (for or against, depending on the administration), not arguments about the fundamental rights of women in Saudi Arabia or the Muslim world,†Applebaum wrote.
If the feminist movement wants to be taken seriously, it should start prioritizing it battles and stop piddling with nonissues (such as “nonsexist car insuranceâ€), focusing that energy toward attaining fundamental rights for all women.
Posted by Kristin Mehler
