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• KCK woman is honored for bravery, but memory of lost child weighs on her

  Mar 13, 10:56 AM

  It’s a great honor, her friend explains in Spanish, given to very few people. For your bravery in the fire, she’s told. No, Claudia Gonzalez says, shaking her head and beginning to cry. “I don’t care if everything burned,” she says, “but the baby, the baby.” A hero, she insists, would have saved all of her children.

• One major failing for Scouting

  Mar 8, 7:57 AM

  To Robert Mazzuca, chief Scout executive, Boy Scouts of America: Welcome to Kansas City, a town immersed in the laudable history of the Boy Scouts. May you find our community passionate for the virtues of Scouting. And yet respectfully insistent that your organization stop casting out young men and adult volunteers who admit being gay.

• How GOP candidates can reach swing-state Latinos

  Mar 5, 6:43 PM

  American politicians have a Latino problem. And it isn’t the stereotypical immigrant patting tortillas, singing corridos or crossing the border.

• Kansas shouldn’t use prisoners to influence redistricting

  Mar 4, 6:46 PM

  Kansas, you’re being watched.

  • Corrections populations as counted in the 2010 Census

• Artist’s message flew coop amid Lawrence chicken debate

  Mar 1, 3:05 AM

  No chickens were harmed in the writing of this column. Don’t want to disturb the vegan out-of-state animal rights folks who slammed a Lawrence artist into submission. Amber Hansen, a University of Kansas artist-in-residence, unfairly landed in their sights.

• Note to GOP field: Bluster doesn’t show leadership

  Feb 27, 7:30 PM

  Playground antics come to mind when watching the remaining GOP candidates take aim at the sitting president.

• Court case shows threats must be addressed

  Feb 26, 11:48 PM

  Target practice crosshairs have been stuck to legislator’s nameplates in Jefferson City. And menacing emails and calls have aroused tension for some Missouri politicians. A conviction in a Phoenix federal court on Friday offered one way to approach the problem: measured vigilance balanced by calm skepticism.

• Once a victim, now an advocate

  Feb 23, 1:42 AM

  An estimated one in five girls and one in 10 boys will be sexually victimized before they are 18. Only one in three will tell. It’s important that they do; even if the recounting comes years, even decades later.

• Teachers deserve more than apples, gold stars

  Feb 20, 7:06 PM

  The White House could use a little help from Aretha Franklin to boost its new education initiative.

• Are more ears needed at parole hearings?

  Feb 20, 12:05 AM

  No review or parole board, no matter how it is configured or managed, can allay every concern. Emotions loom large, a factor these family members admit. Yet the value of people feeling like their input matters is also imperative to justice being served.

• Is pro-teacher school reform possible in this country?

  Feb 17, 4:17 PM

  The White House could use a little help from Aretha Franklin to boost its new education initiative.

• Kansas will fail this test

  Feb 16, 1:37 AM

  If Kansas legislators really want to help people on welfare become self-sufficient, they would stop focusing on pee cups and put more effort into job training, mental health assistance and increasing bus lines.

• It’s 2012 and we’re still debating birth control?

  Feb 13, 7:55 PM

  Oh, dear, what is that baying? It sounds like the religious right has let slip the dogs of culture war. Listen to Pat Buchanan: “In forcing the (Catholic) Church to violate its own principles, Obama has committed an act of federal aggression, crossing the line between church and state to appease his ACLU and feminist allies, while humiliating the Catholic bishops.”

• Presence of CPAC panelist raises troubling issues for GOP

  Feb 13, 12:42 AM

  On Saturday, Robert Vandervoort sat alongside Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach for an immigration panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. No one questioned that Vandervoort once led a group that preached the genetic superiority of white people.

• Backlash against Kris Kobach on immigration is growing

  Feb 9, 1:16 AM

  Backlash built this week against Kris Kobach for gallivanting state-to-state, drumming up support for laws bent on driving illegal immigrants out. But the rebukes aren’t coming from his usual critics. Supporters of the Kansas secretary of state are barking back now.

  • Read the Press-Register's editorial
  • Read the self-deportation report

• Jim Caccamo put the kids first — always

  Feb 5, 11:22 PM

  Jim Caccamo’s example is a lesson to those who take unfair jabs at Catholicism, painting all of its faithful in a negative light because of the scandals. The church is its people, those who fill the pews. And Caccamo, who is resigning as chairman of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese’s Independent Review Board, is among the finest.

• War against drug cartels needs new focus, strategy

  Feb 6, 6:16 PM

  A bit of respect, please, for the drug cartels. For their ingenuity, technological shrewdness and ability to adapt their products and services to a changing marketplace.

• Kansas avoids the real issue in food-stamp controversy

  Feb 2, 1:09 AM

  Kansas is running out of excuses. Social and Rehabilitation Services officials are digging in their heels, defending a change in how food stamps are allotted. Kansas used to handle the benefits in a morally responsible manner. Now, hundreds if not thousands of U.S.-born children have been severed from aid.

• Time to change behavior, not just change subjects

  Jan 31, 5:50 PM

  A recent report by the Violence Policy Center has reconfirmed what most of us already know: Black people are killing black people at astounding rates. But that’s not the end. It ought to be the beginning. What if we looked at consequences beyond the act? For the unresolved grief, played out for years and compounded death after death.

• Buyer finds trouble with purchase of foreclosed home

  Jan 29, 11:59 PM

  To say Jack Douglas got the runaround when he tried to pay cash for a foreclosed house is a huge understatement. He got ripped off. Literally, by the vandals who stripped out the furnace, water heater and most of the water pipes. And indirectly by others involved in the sale.

• Our zoos say much about us

  Jan 26, 7:42 AM

  Most people accept that zoos are preferred, a coexistence between humans and animals. Without zoos, our penchant to see animals from unrealistic perspectives would thrive. So in some ways, the animals need us. And we need them.

• A bit less buttah, a bit more love for Paula Deen

  Jan 23, 8:12 PM

  Don’t expect Paula Deen to go cold turkey on the hoecakes. If she did, she wouldn’t be Paula Deen. And her ardent fans — people who stand to learn from her newfound health challenges — would disengage.

• Homeless need solutions as complex as their problems

  Jan 22, 7:50 PM

  Nothing will change until people grasp that a poorly performing public school system, inadequate public transportation, a lack of affordable housing and unemployment have more to do with homelessness than the more ready rationale — someone choosing to live on the street. Blame is just easier.

• KC gets chance to show off jazz

  Jan 15, 11:34 PM

  Come summer, every baseball sportswriter in the country will descend on the 18th and Vine district. The All-Star Game will bring them to town. And the jazz district, with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum as the lead draw, better be ready. So it was a no-brainer for the city to trot out the checkbook recently and cough up $20,000 out of the tourism budget to resuscitate the Mutual Musicians Foundation.

• Court ruling equating money with speech still rankles

  Jan 19, 10:15 AM

  The U.S. Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission launched the era of the super PACs, entities that are separate from a candidate and able to reap unlimited contributions with little regulatory oversight. And the money isn’t affecting things in a good way, no matter what your political leanings.

• Ron Paul: The Great Contrarian

  Jan 16, 10:27 PM

  Does Ron Paul matter? The Texas congressman doesn’t have a chance of winning the GOP presidential nomination. In fact, it’s looking like no one does against Mitt Romney.

• Family drama turns to a hopeful chapter

  Jan 12, 11:30 AM

  It will be years before the baby is old enough to understand the drama of her first few weeks. Her mother was terminally ill with cancer when Camila was delivered at Truman Medical Center, and she never really regained consciousness.

• FBI’s rape definition brings stats in line with reality

  Jan 9, 12:25 AM

  On Friday, the FBI’s crime database joined reality. The agency issued a new definition for the crime of rape, rectifying a policy more than 80 years behind the times. The old definition had long contributed to skewed data and damaging attitudes.

• Republicans looking for Mr. Right

  Jan 9, 11:32 PM

  Rick Santorum’s surprise showing in the Iowa caucuses, losing to Mitt Romney by a mere eight votes, may be the last 15 minutes of fame allotted to the social conservative also-rans in the 2012 presidential primaries.

• Foolish gunfire disrupts holidays

  Jan 5, 8:23 AM

  Four days after his New Year’s Eve was rocked by semi-automatic gunfire in his neighborhood, Richard Wagner is still incensed. May he stay angry throughout 2012. And have the Missouri legislature join him.

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