Kansas.com: Opinion

MARK GERBINO: REDUCING VIOLENCE WITHIN REACH

MARK GERBINO — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

I was moved by the Rev. Dave Fulton's commentary "Combat violence by providing hope" (July 13 Opinion). I am a recent transplant to the Wichita area from Rochester, N.Y. My thoughts and opinions, though personal, are rooted in a career of working against violence in communities such as ours.

I humbly present my belief that the answers to reducing and ultimately eliminating violence in our community are within reach.

We must establish new partnerships at all levels of government and community while maintaining those that exist. We must educate our children. Finally, we must instill hope in our children's hearts that they can succeed.

By engaging in these activities, we can change the negative socioeconomic factors that are jettisoning our youths into engaging in crime.

Who should be the positive agents of socialization in the lives of our youths? Family, church, school, friends and relatives. When there is a lack of any or all of these, the results are reflected in negative behaviors.

Readers sound off on Bud, cat leash, cartoon

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

The following are reader comments from our blog, http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog:

Budweiser sale

America is dying. Just wait until GM closes its doors. Why won't "we the people" wake up? No, we'd rather fight between left and right for no good reason.

With such a weak dollar, InBev had no problem buying up this American icon.

Maybe the sale to InBev of Belgium will improve the taste and quality of Budweiser beer.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: EDUCATION, NOT MISSILES

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:40 CDT

Since Sept. 11, Westerners have tried two approaches to fight terrorism in Pakistan, President Bush's and Greg Mortenson's. Bush has focused on military force and provided more than $10 billion -- an extraordinary sum in the foreign-aid world -- to the highly unpopular government of President Pervez Musharraf. This approach has failed: The backlash has radicalized Pakistan's tribal areas so that they now nurture terrorists in ways that they never did before Sept. 11.

Mortenson, a frumpy, genial man from Montana, takes a diametrically opposite approach, and he has spent less than one-ten-thousandth as much as the Bush administration. He builds schools in isolated parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, working closely with Muslim clerics and even praying with them at times.

Mortenson's superb book about his schools, "Three Cups of Tea," came out in 2006 and initially wasn't reviewed by most major newspapers. Yet propelled by word of mouth, the book became a publishing sensation: It has spent the past 74 weeks on the paperback best-seller list, regularly in the No. 1 spot.

Mortenson found his calling in 1993 after he failed in an attempt to climb K2, a Himalayan peak, and stumbled weakly into a poor Muslim village. The peasants nursed him back to health, and he promised to repay them by building the village a school.

Scrounging the money was a nightmare -- his 580 fundraising letters to prominent people generated one check, from Tom Brokaw -- and Mortenson ended up selling his beloved climbing equipment and car. But when the school was built, he kept going. Now his aid group, the Central Asia Institute, has 74 schools in operation. His focus is educating girls.

LEONARD PITTS: NEW YORKER CARTOON NOT RIDICULOUS ENOUGH

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:40 CDT

Satire is tricky. It makes its point by exaggerating wildly with a straight face. In inflating a thing beyond all common sense or propriety, it seeks to render inconsistencies and hypocrisies glaringly apparent. Satire seeks truth in the ridiculous. For illustration, see any given episode of "The Colbert Report."

What makes satire difficult is that sometimes, people don't realize they are being had.

The New Yorker is under fire for a cover illustration depicting Barack Obama in the Oval Office wearing a turban and bumping fists with his wife, Michelle, who wears an Afro, fatigues and has an assault rifle slung over her shoulder. Osama bin Laden watches from a portrait on the wall. An American flag burns in the fireplace.

The Obama and McCain campaigns have pronounced the cover offensive. There have been calls for a boycott.

I like the cover. It strikes me as an incisive comment on the fearmongering that has attended Obama's run for the presidency. Still, I understand why it is incendiary: Some of us will take it seriously.

CAL THOMAS: TWO MEN OF CHARACTER

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

Two longtime friends of mine died last week. One was the renowned cardiovascular surgeon Michael DeBakey. I first met him as a young reporter in Houston in the late 1960s, and we kept up over the years. He lobbied me to write about health issues and the importance of research. I occasionally asked him for medical advice, which he was always happy to give. A brilliant man with fingers so long he might have been a concert pianist, DeBakey invented many of the instruments now used in operating rooms and pioneered procedures that have extended human life.

"Rebuilder of Hearts," said the New York Times' front-page obituary about this unique and extraordinary man, the son of Lebanese-Christian immigrants, who died two months shy of his 100th birthday.

My second friend, Tony Snow, succumbed to colon cancer at age 53. His mother died of the same disease when Tony was 17. I spent more time with Tony in recent years because of our proximity in Washington, D.C.

In a different way, Tony was also a rebuilder of hearts. No one could be depressed in his presence. Though battling his own cancer, he encouraged many others with the same disease. His smile lit up any room in which he appeared. His optimism was infectious. His situation didn't matter; he always wanted to know how someone else was doing.

At a Washington dinner in January 2007, Tony talked about his struggle with cancer and the perspective it had given him. Before a room full of fellow journalists and entertainment people, he bared his soul: "You have to learn something that is very hard in the modern era," he said, "and that is you have to give yourself to God, to surrender. It's not really saying, 'God, it's in your hands,' but understanding whatever may come afterward is a matter not of trying to get God to do stuff for you, except maybe to knock down some of the barriers that separate you from God, because for all of us our vanities get in the way."

NANCY JACKSON: ENERGY POLICY PROCESS OPEN AND TRANSPARENT

NANCY JACKSON — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

In recent weeks, sensible questions have been raised about the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy advisory group, chaired by Cessna CEO Jack Pelton. Though I cannot speak for the group, as a citizen appointee I would like to provide a glimpse into KEEP's goals, process and product.

In the executive order that created it, KEEP is charged to develop recommendations to the governor "to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in Kansas, recognizing Kansas' interests in continued growth, economic development and energy security."

Twenty-five states have conducted similar processes, and Kansas joins a group of 11 states doing so now. The good news: Regardless of where you stand on climate change, most of what can be done to manage that risk provides real benefits in terms of energy independence and security.

KEEP's process itself is open and transparent. All Kansans are invited to attend meetings, join work group conference calls, and examine all documents. Complete information is available at the Web site www.ksclimatechange.us, where public comment is encouraged.

Work groups include appointed members, plus additional experts and citizens. Each group starts with a large catalog of options that other states have considered and employed. We then add to that list, amend it and ultimately recommend solutions that make sense for Kansas.

CLARENCE PAGE: JACKSON WAS ANGRY OVER LOST SPOTLIGHT

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

What did the Rev. Jesse Jackson mean when he accused Barack Obama of "talking down to black people"?

That was the second question on my mind in a telephone interview with Jackson. My first was something like this: "Did you really say you wanted to castrate Obama?"

Jackson said he didn't know he was wearing a "hot mic," a turned-on microphone, on the set of a Fox News program when he made what one newspaper headline called his "cutting remark." But his whispers about America's first likely black Democratic presidential nominee revealed Jackson at his worst. He sounded frustrated, marginalized and left by the side of the road in the rising glow of a younger star.

Jackson did not dispute that he made the vulgar remark in angry whispers to another show guest about Obama's recent call to expand President Bush's faith-based initiatives. Twice he complained that Obama has been "talking down to black people."

That was a reference, Jackson said, to speeches like Obama's address on Father's Day at the predominantly black Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. It was a speech in which Obama revealed his inner Bill Cosby. He called for more parental responsibility, whether it was assisted by government help or not.

BOB SINGLETON: 'BARNEY' SONG NOT TORTURE

BOB SINGLETON — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

Some months ago, Mother Jones magazine put together what it called a "torture playlist" of songs that American interrogators have used in their sessions with detainees during the past few years. "Torture's Top 10" was what one newspaper called it.

I have no idea whether the list is accurate. It includes mostly the kinds of songs you might expect -- by Metallica, Drowning Pool, Deicide, Eminem.

But I must admit I was surprised to see that one of the songs supposedly used to break the will of terrorist suspects and cause them to confess to crimes against humanity was the well-known "I Love You" from the "Barney" TV series. That's a song that I produced and arranged in the 1990s (to the tune of "This Old Man"). And this is certainly not a use I ever would have dreamed of for it.

After hearing that news earlier this year, I put the issue aside. But the story came up again recently when the British newspaper the Guardian, in a follow-up article, quoted some musicians and songwriters saying they were upset about the morality of using their art for torture.

Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not terribly upset about the use of "I Love You." I'm amused and slightly perplexed, but I frankly don't believe that any artist or composer can really have much of a say about what happens to his songs after they leave his hands.

KATHLEEN PARKER: LEARNING ENGLISH KEY TO IMMIGRANT SUCCESS

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

Juan y Baracko have been busy lately wooing los que hablan espanol. That is, people who speak Spanish. With an estimated 9.2 million Hispanic votes in play this November, the stakes are high. And the pandering is in high gear.

John McCain and Barack Obama have put out Spanish-language ads, and both made appearances last week at the national convention of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Obama, however, seems to know something about the Hispanic soul that McCain doesn't.

Thus, while McCain talked about clean energy initiatives as alternatives to foreign oil, Obama recalled a young girl named Cristina who asked for Obama's autograph, then translated his comments for her non-English-speaking parents. It was in that moment that Obama, dream weaver and healer, realized that Americans have nothing to fear but fear itself --"that for all the noise and anger that so often clouds the discussion about immigration in this country, America has nothing to fear from our newcomers. They have come here for the same reason that families have always come here... in the hope that here, in America, you can make it if you try."

It may be true, as Obama said, that a problem for one American is a problem for all Americans. But are problems for non-Americans also problems for all Americans?

Are those 12 million people "hiding in this country" because paranoid, xenophobic Americans fear people of different colors who speak other languages, as Obama implied? Or are they hiding because they came here illegally? Does that matter?

LEONARD PITTS: SEPARATION CAN BE NEEDED BUT IS SCARY

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

Success breeds separation. That's the thing no one tells you, the thing sometimes you don't realize, the thing that might make a child turn from his own potential. Success is like a pyramid, broad at the bottom but narrow at the summit; the higher you go, the fewer people go with you.

It's a frightening thing for anybody, but especially frightening perhaps when you are young, gifted and black and coming of age in a culture where "everything" -- from the shows on television to the friends at your side -- says there is a certain way people like you are supposed to walk and talk and act and be.

The young men and women of Self Enhancement Inc. know all about it. Take Emanuel Ford. He is 18, a student at Grant High School in Portland, Ore. Ford was born in Inglewood, Calif., in the territory of the Bloods street gang. His parents were both drug-addicted.

Then his mother straightened herself up and moved him to Portland, where he is flourishing. He looks back at the old places and, yes, he feels that separation. "My cousins and all my family members down there are still doing the same thing," he said, "still smokin' weed, still bangin'. I feel like if I was still in that kind of position, I'd probably be shot, probably dead or in jail. By the grace of God I... changed my life, got on the right road, and now I'm headed on the right path."

For 11 years, Ford has been a client of SEI (www.selfenhancement.org), a network of support programs (tutoring, college prep, sports, counseling, music and more) serving 2,300 students a year between second grade and age 25. It is featured in this installment of What Works -- my series of columns on programs that are making a difference for black kids -- because it, well, works. Two-thirds of its students improve their grades and behavior; 98 percent of its high school freshmen graduate on time; 85 percent go to college.

JERE WHITE: ETHANOL INDUSTRY HELPS RURAL KANSAS ECONOMY

JERE WHITE — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

Seaboard Foods' Rod Brenneman complained that the ethanol industry is strangling pork producers ("Ethanol mandate hurts livestock producers," July 6 Opinion). These are strange words from the executive of a company whose first quarter earnings were up 42 percent from the same quarter last year.

Brenneman is a leader in the Food Before Fuel coalition. The coalition is managed by Glover Park Group, the same East Coast public relations firm that is handling the Grocery Manufacturers Association's now infamous ethanol misinformation campaign. The goal of these two groups is simple: Get rid of ethanol so food companies can once again have access to cheap corn. Unfortunately for Seaboard and the other big food manufacturers, it isn't that simple.

Seaboard has been a good friend to corn growers over the years, especially when corn was priced below our cost of production. Writing his commentary from his corporate office in metropolitan Kansas City, Brenneman feigned concern for the small family pork producer.

Our office is located in rural Garnett. All four of our employees come from family farms -- both livestock and grain. We know that small livestock producers are struggling with higher corn prices, because those producers are our friends and neighbors, association members, and two of our four employees.

Several factors have contributed to higher corn prices. One factor is certainly ethanol, and we will gladly take some credit for that one.

THE REV. DAVE FULTON: COMBAT VIOLENCE BY PROVIDING HOPE

THE REV. DAVE FULTON — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

There was a practice in medieval England of ringing the church bell one time for each year of the life of a person who had just died. Commenting on this practice, John Donne said, "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.... Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

The bell tolled recently for two young women who were murdered in our city. There has been a healthy response to these acts of violence on the part of local clergy and in a challenging editorial cartoon in the July 6 Eagle by Richard Crowson questioning just what we value in our city.

I was a part of a groundswell of passion in Topeka 14 years ago that led to the formation of Safe Streets in Topeka (www.safestreets.org). My efforts in Wichita have met with interest on the part of law enforcement. But government officials have said point-blank, "It's a fine idea, but we have no money for such things."

Indeed. We have the wherewithal to build a downtown arena but not to fund crime prevention (the point of Crowson's cartoon, I believe). Where is the discussion of violence in our cities on the national scene, state scene and local scene? It seems all Wichitans are interested in is electing people who will cut taxes.

Imagine this scenario: Elected officials decide to get serious about preventing crime. Our mayor uses his office and influence to bring together a coalition to form an organization called SOAR. Building on Wichita's aeronautical heritage and identity, leaders from industry and the military advocate for HOPE scholarships so that every young person in our city will have funding for college or trade school. The funds for these scholarships come from gambling revenues, a city sales tax for HOPE scholarships, and private sources. Youths receive a one-year scholarship for each year of participation in SOAR, which includes a promise to stay drug- and alcohol-free, participate in a youth service organization (congregation youth groups, Boys & Girls Clubs, scouting, etc.) and perform public service.

JAY BOOKMAN: THIS WAY TO THE EXIT IN IRAQ

JAY BOOKMAN — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

The elected leader of Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, is demanding a timetable for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops from his country.

In the holy city of Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the religious leader of Iraq's Shiite majority, signaled to his followers last week that it was time to negotiate an end to the "illegal" U.S. occupation.

"We will not accept any memorandum of understanding that doesn't have specific dates to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq," Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said after meeting with Sistani.

Such statements ought to be embraced as good news. They suggest an Iraqi government increasingly confident in its authority and ability, ready to stand up so we Americans can stand down. They represent a flashing neon sign, written in English, reading "This way to the exit."

But the Bush administration refuses to read the lighting on the wall. It doesn't want to leave Iraq. Not now, not tomorrow, and not ever.

SO THEY SAID

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

"Kansas Democrats have never been screaming liberals. All our Democrat leaders have been moderates. We don't know what a liberal is in Kansas."

-- Former Republican Gov. Mike Hayden, now a member of Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' Cabinet, in a Salon profile of Sebelius

"She knew how to get re-elected. I didn't."

-- Sebelius' father, former Ohio Gov. John Gilligan, also in Salon

"I just don't associate voting with 102 degrees."

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: STOPPING GENOCIDE IN DARFUR ISN'T 'OVERRATED'

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

As President Bush and the Group of Eight leaders again shun their responsibilities in Darfur, there is a serious argument to be made that genocide is overrated as an international concern. The G-8 leaders implicitly accept that argument, which goes like this:

Genocide is regrettable, but don't lose perspective. It is simply one of many tragedies in the world today -- and a fairly modest one in terms of lives lost.

All the genocides of the past 100 years have cost only 10 million to 12 million lives. In contrast, every year we lose almost 10 million children under the age of 5 from diseases and malnutrition attributable to poverty. Make that the priority, not Darfur.

Civil conflict in Congo has claimed more than 5.4 million lives over the past decade, according to careful mortality surveys by the International Rescue Committee. That's at least 10 times the toll in Darfur, but because Congo doesn't count as genocide -- just as murderous chaos -- no one has paid much attention to it.

The world has been trying to pressure Sudan to stop slaughtering Darfuris for nearly five years, yet the situation in some ways is worse than ever. In contrast, we know how to combat malaria, child mortality and maternal mortality. The same resources would save far more lives if they were used for vaccinations and bed nets.

PAUL CHESSER: ADVOCATES BEHIND CLIMATE PANEL

PAUL CHESSER — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

Imagine that former Republican Gov. Bill Graves created and appointed members of an "objective" commission to study school choice, but the panel would be managed by a conservative-funded, limited-government nonprofit organization from out of state that disavowed its advocacy origins on the issue.

This group would run the commission process, provide the research, run the Web site and set the meeting agenda. No input from voucher opponents (teachers' unions) would be allowed (because there is "consensus" that vouchers work).

How would this be perceived? Outrage would leap from newspaper editorial pages, teachers' unions would organize mass protests, and liberal legislators would demand an investigation.

And they would be justified in doing so. It's wrong for an advocacy group, funded by like-minded activist benefactors, to so completely control an "objective" commission to create state policy -- on any issue.

Yet that is the reality with the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy advisory group, created and populated by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, and the group's management team, the Center for Climate Strategies.

TOM TEEPEN: FLIP, FLOPS AND 'OOPS' BY CANDIDATES ON IRAQ

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:39 CDT

The military and political winds are slewing around so wildly these days on Iraq that both Barack Obama and John McCain have been sent chasing after their own hats.

Obama built his primary election success in major part by emphasizing his commitment to a phased U.S. withdrawal over 16 months.

The continuing and apparently accelerating decline in violence in Iraq -- with exceptions duly noted -- has pressed Obama back to a caveat that was part of his position from the start but little mentioned by the candidate or the media when he was working his party's base.

With the candidate now acknowledging that he would take into account as president the changing circumstances in Iraq -- the necessary position of any would-be commander in chief -- Obama is getting slimed as a sellout by his own party's Iraq-centric left and mocked by Republicans as a flip-flopper.

Awkward as all that may be at the moment for Obama, pity more John McCain.

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK: DEMOCRATS PLAYED GAMES WITH MEDICARE

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:40 CDT

Physicians and patients participating in the Medicare program face uncertainty about the future of Medicare. As Kansas experiences a shortage in health care professionals, the largest group of health care consumers -- the elderly population -- continues to expand. Add to this combination an automatic annual cut, triggered by federal law, in payments to physicians who serve Medicare beneficiaries, and you have a full-blown crisis in the health care system.

Every year, Congress votes on whether to delay impending federal reimbursement cuts to physicians who serve Medicare patients, and every year since 2003 that I've had the chance, I have voted to delay these cuts. Kansas seniors should have access to the highest quality health care professionals and services, and health care professionals should be encouraged, rather than discouraged, to serve our Medicare beneficiaries.

Last month, the prospect of delaying physician-payment cuts in the Medicare program looked promising. A bipartisan bill was drafted and would have delayed the payment cuts for a year and a half. Had the Senate passed this bipartisan bill, it would have been quickly signed into law and would have gone into effect prior to the scheduled July 1 cuts.

It was disappointing, to say the least, that acting against the best interest of the country, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the American Medical Association brokered a deal that took this proposed bipartisan bill off the Senate floor. Rather than voting on a bill that was all but guaranteed to pass into law, Reid called a vote on a controversial bill, H.R. 6331, the night before Congress adjourned for the Fourth of July recess.

H.R. 6331, which the Senate ultimately approved Wednesday, was considered controversial because a number of employer organizations have expressed concern that the legislation will cut payments to Medicare plans that offer coverage to their retired workers. In response to this concern, the Bush administration issued a veto threat on H.R. 6331, thus requiring a vote of two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override the veto before the July 1 payment cuts went into effect.

CLARENCE PAGE: OBAMA SEEKING MIDDLE

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:40 CDT

Until recently, one of the biggest raps against Barack Obama from conservatives was his delicate dance around any issue that might upset his core constituents. How can he claim a break from "politics as usual," they said, if he wasn't willing to upset the left? They can't say that anymore. Now they say he's flip-flopped.

That's OK. If you want to please everybody, you don't belong in politics. Obama's bigger worry is the old slogan of liberal commentator Jim Hightower, a former Texas officeholder: "There ain't nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow line and dead armadillos."

In recent weeks, the likely Democratic presidential nominee has taken that risky road. He has softened or abandoned his earlier positions on a parade of issues, including wiretaps, abortion, trade with Mexico and Canada, gun control and public funding of his own campaign.

Liberal bloggers such as Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post have howled that Obama is selling out the left. But viewed another way, he's buying into the middle. He's reaching for what Colin Powell has called the "sensible center," that big, broad terrain in the political middle where most American voters live.

Ironically, his best ally in this venture is presumptive Republican opponent Sen. John McCain, whose supporters have cast Obama as a "flip-flopper," as they branded Sen. John Kerry in 2004.

ADRIAN PRATT: IMMIGRANTS WANT TO BE BETTER, MAKE DIFFERENCE

ADRIAN PRATT — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:41 CDT

Being British, I've always had an uneasy time during the Fourth of July, imagining some people looking askance at me as if I were somehow working to win America back for the queen.

No longer.

On Friday I celebrated Independence Day as an American.

After an emotional and heartwarming ceremony in Philadelphia last week, I took the Oath of Allegiance and became a citizen of the United States.

A Scottish relative of mine recently asked me with a hint of accusation, or perhaps it was hurt, why I would want to become a naturalized American. I rambled on at length about the beauty of the country, its great people, about how I have spent more than half my life here, but the truth did not require so many words: I love America and I believe in her.