MORE NEWS

• Diagnose the pain of pill popping

  May 13, 10:14 PM

  Kansas City’s Center for Practical Bioethics is part of a Senate investigation into the links between pharmaceutical firms and addiction to painkillers.

• Maintaining the integrity in ‘student-athlete’

  May 9, 7:13 PM

  Pitching hoops for UMKC is not exactly a pipeline to the NBA.

• The talented, and troublesome, Mr. Chen

  May 8, 6:20 PM

  Chen Guangcheng’s next move should be up to him. If the blind Chinese dissident and his family must flee China to save themselves, so be it. But, strange as it is to say, while that may be good for Chen, it wouldn’t be for the people and the causes he championed.

• Legoland rule is for adult blockheads

  May 6, 10:08 PM

  No, Kansas City, Legoland does not presume everyone 18 and older could be a pedophile.

• Judge’s ruling gives KC school district time for tempers to cool

  May 2, 6:32 PM

  Cease the political tinkering, plans for educational social engineering and efforts to use children to augment adult arguments.

• Wal-Mart de Mexico: Bribery or business?

  May 1, 12:02 PM

  Poor Mexico! So far from God and so near the United States. The words are attributed to Mexican President Porfirio Diaz, who governed for a 35-year period ending in 1911. The angst-ridden quote feels pertinent today. Our countries are entwined in ways that don’t always redound to the moral credit of either party.

• Supreme Court must set states straight on immigration

  Apr 24, 7:47 PM

  Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer argues that it was failure at the federal level that created the illegal immigration problem. And she’s right. However, only federal action can fix this problem. And on this point, the U.S. Supreme Court must unequivocally set the states straight. Then Congress has to get to work. No excuses.

• Crisis of problem Catholic priests is far from over

  Apr 16, 7:25 PM

  The procedures that the Catholic Church has put in place to protect children are positive steps. But if the men at the top of the chain of command are still inclined to cover questionable behavior by priests, to shuffle them off to less public assignments rather than alerting police, it’s all for nothing.

• Question lingers in teen’s death

  Apr 16, 12:42 AM

  A mother shouldn’t learn from an autopsy report that her institutionalized teenage daughter was prescribed drugs. Especially not if they are strong medications, possibly to combat a bipolar disorder and a patch to prevent pregnancy.

• Cities need to build relationships one resident at a time

  Apr 12, 1:50 AM

  Dottie Newsom is recharging her battle to get the Unified Government of Wyandotte County to pay for damages to her home that she says came from the construction of the four-lane Parallel Parkway Project. The roadway is adjacent to Newsom’s home, separated only by a sidewalk and a bit of grass.

• The spread of ‘gun rights’ laws encourages violence

  Apr 10, 12:58 AM

  Shooting deaths of unarmed young men raise questions about how state legislatures have been encouraged by gun advocates to pass laws that encourage everyday citizens to use deadly force in situations where it previously would not have been allowed.

• Leaving life of crime is not easy

  Apr 9, 1:22 AM

  People latched onto the promise of Nelson E. Hopkins Sr. — police, crime activists, philanthropists, politicians and, yes, columnists. Hopkins still may emerge as a storyline of redemption. But it will be from inside, not out, of prison.

• Missouri’s shift on school control reflects reality

  Apr 5, 12:57 AM

  Most desegregation cases were just that — efforts to seat white and black children in classrooms together. Racial isolation can harm young people’s attitudes and ability to interact with people different from themselves. But a poor education will seal their fate faster.

• Tool or hero — what role will Marco Rubio play?

  Apr 2, 9:58 PM

  The GOP is launching its secret weapon. The one with an ethnic persona and an assumed comfort level with a coveted demographic, along with boyish good looks and tea party credentials for added charm. Good luck, Sen. Marco Rubio. You will need it.

• Ethnicity doesn’t matter in Trayvon Martin case

  Apr 2, 12:15 AM

  Deciding whether George Zimmerman’s half-Hispanic ethnicity means anything in regard to his actions in killing Trayvon Martin is a separate and foolish exercise. It also reveals something about the convoluted nature of Hispanic racial designations.

• On race, we pick our own truths

  Mar 29, 4:32 PM

  Which version sounds like the truth? A white male vigilante stalked an unarmed black teenager and shot him dead. Or a black young man, suspiciously wandering around, is shot after he attacks a neighborhood watchman. Careful. The choice can say less about established fact and more about what you want the facts to be.

• A disastrous decision based on a flimsy pretext

  Mar 26, 8:11 PM

  Susan G. Komen for the Cure continues to be a cautionary tale about the toxicity of our politics and how easy it is for those politics to drive a large and trusted charity into a ditch.

• ‘Stand your ground’ laws deserve careful assessment

  Mar 26, 1:23 AM

  The nation must discover whether “shoot first” laws like the ones passed in 2007 in Kansas and Missouri are impeding police investigations and the pursuit of justice by prosecutors. It is the very least that can be done for Trayvon Martin now.

• Freedom Inc. needs to tout its laudable past

  Mar 22, 12:42 AM

  Freedom Inc. is not the first long-term organization to face a need to regenerate. Any group that formed around such important causes and that filled a need for decades, can eventually find itself in a lull. The organization’s fascinating history may be a place to start.

• The Republican Party’s odd quarrel with reality

  Mar 19, 7:37 PM

  Women get a lot of lip service about being equal and fully valued members of society, although sometimes we have to wonder.

• Remember the real victims

  Mar 19, 7:48 AM

  Karma is a b----. It’s that sort of language, amped up with descriptions of sex acts and racial taunts, that is the crux of problems two Lee’s Summit North High School students seem to have constructed for themselves.

• Don’t blame the beef; we’re the ones who pick the portions

  Mar 14, 10:25 PM

  The pig lay prone, eyeing me snout up.

• The hollow character of the GOP’s front-runner

  Mar 12, 7:44 PM

  Mitt Romney’s backers decided to sully U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s good name. It was one of their latest jabs against GOP opponent Rick Santorum — another craven attempt to prove their candidate is the “true conservative.”

• 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.