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They killed a killer last week. I kept waiting to feel something when news came that John Allen Muhammad had been executed in Virginia. As a staunch opponent of capital punishment, I wanted some nugget of remorse at the knowledge that the government had taken his life.
Large districts are inefficient, too
Plant closing —It's hard to gauge the extent of damage from losing the Hawker Beechcraft manufacturing plant in Salina. But there's no doubt it is far- reaching. This closure means a loss of nearly 240 of the best-paying jobs in Salina. According to government reports, the average annual earnings for Kansas aircraft workers outside of Wichita is $53,004, including both entry-level and management employees. By the time doors close on Hawker Beechcraft operations, $12.6 million in payroll will be lost from Salina and surrounding communities. We estimate a similar amount has disappeared already since the plant started losing workers a year or so ago. At one time employment was up to 500. Those losses are a big blow to local economies, no matter how one looks at it.— Salina Journal
What began as polite resistance to the idea of opening a satellite Lord’s Diner in central-northeast Wichita had turned defiant in recent days. So it seemed inevitable, if regrettable, when the Lord’s Diner dropped its proposal Saturday and asked Mayor Carl Brewer to pull the item from Tuesday’s City Council agenda.
For millions of American children, the Great Depression was more than an economic crisis. Their schools were closed, medical and dental care was hard to come by, and their parents were struggling to make ends meet.
The subjugation of women under the Taliban — who forbade them to work, attend school or leave home without a male relative — once galvanized Americans' emotions. The freeing of women was a big achievement of the Taliban's ouster. But that issue is receiving little attention as the debate heats up over what our Afghan strategy should be.
As expected, the House took the first swing last weekend at passing a plan to overhaul the nation's health care system. The bill includes some long-needed reforms, such as preventing insurers from turning down patients with pre-existing conditions. But it misses the mark in numerous other ways, including the risk the proposal poses to the deficit over the next two decades.
Last week, the voters began applying the brakes to the Obama administration's leftward joyride. If the Democrats are listening, they'll get the message. What we saw had an undeniable intensity. The voters are restive and fearful.
There is a profound difference between watchfulness and a witch hunt. In the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings, that's a crucial distinction, though nothing the authorities — and particularly the U.S. Army brass — have said so far has done much to help people make it.
Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan demonstrated many things when he allegedly committed treason in the war on terror. For starters, he showed — gratuitously, alas — that evil is still thriving.
Reform bill a step in right direction
Once again, state voters — this time in Maine, hardly a conservative stronghold — have voted down same-sex marriage. Leaving what she thought would be a victory party after last week's balloting, an emotional Cecelia Burnett said, "I don't understand what the fear is, why people are so afraid of this change."
The Berlin Wall was one of the shameful symbols of the Cold War and the dangerous division of the world into opposing blocks and spheres of influence.
Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess? Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul, and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution?
Republicans are celebrating two high-profile electoral successes last week; Democrats are licking their wounds. But the results and dynamics revealed long-term problems for both national parties.
Student testing —First, the good news: The nation's elementary and middle school students are scoring better on achievement tests. Now, the bad news: States are dumbing down the tests to meet No Child Left Behind benchmarks and receive funds. Education Secretary Arne Duncan released a press statement accompanying new research by the National Center for Education Statistics. NCES researchers attempted to translate scores from the tests that the states administer as part of the No Child Left Behind program to the more rigorous federal National Assessment of Educational Progress, know as the "nation's report card." The findings are not promising. A total of 15 states lowered standards for the grade of "proficiency" on at least one test, while only eight raised them. More shocking than the dumbing down of tests is the gap between states like Massachusetts and South Carolina, with the highest standards, and states like Tennessee and Mississippi, with the lowest standards. For a fourth-grader to score proficient in math in Tennessee requires 198 out of 500 on the NAEP exam. Massachusetts requires a score of 254. How does Kansas score on the thoroughness of exams? Like most other Great Plains states, Kansas set lower proficiency levels for fourth-graders in reading than those used on the 2007 national exam. Congress probably placed the bar too high by expecting absolutely everyone to magically score at a basic level by 2014. Mandates like that only encourage teaching for the tests and lower standards to meet the requirements in writing, but not in spirit. Raising standards is absolutely the right thing to aim for, but the implementation is crucial. Without a strong plan for improvement, No Child Left Behind has unfortunately become No Child Put Ahead.— David Shaub, Wichita State University's the Sunflower
Health care reform still faces some high hurdles to becoming law, but its passage Saturday in the House of Representatives was a major achievement — hence the cheering by Democrats following the vote and the grousing by GOP lawmakers, including those in Kansas' delegation.
Payroll taxes are taken by force: Regarding "Selfish protesters" (Nov. 8 Letters to the Editor): I am fed up with the view that I shouldn't protest about government intrusion in my life because I'm a senior citizen getting Social Security and Medicare benefits.
It's all so terribly sad.
Crimes against gays already illegal: I found Mary Sanchez's column "Hate crimes law no threat to religious liberty" (Nov. 3 Opinion) to be sarcastic and mean-spirited
