English spoken here, as it is everywhere
- 08/18/2008 09:30 PM CDT
To all those who fear the invasion of our shores by foreign languages — I’m speaking to you, stalwarts of the "English Only" movement — seriously, you need to travel more.
To all those who fear the invasion of our shores by foreign languages — I’m speaking to you, stalwarts of the "English Only" movement — seriously, you need to travel more.
The proverbial question for men has long been, “What do women want?” Well, I’m here to reveal the carefully guarded secret — at least to two men, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain. The rest of you fellas will have to keep guessing. (OK, I’ll throw a bone here: Recognize in women the things they value in themselves.)
Pray that you never need an advocate as much as those caught up in the Agriprocessors immigration raid in Postville, Iowa.
Barack Obama's speech Sunday to the Unity convention did not give me what I had hoped for: an Obama to compare with the Obama Missouri is likely to see as he attempts to woo votes in rural portions of the state — people who are less convinced of his suitability for the White House.
People say that Emmett Till never got justice. The fact that two men responsible for his savage, racially motivated 1955 murder were able to go to their graves free men would most certainly support the contention.
Rather than bemoan the sale of another national icon to a foreign firm, we should make sure America remains innovative and American students are educated to be players in a global economy.
Forty-one-year-old swimmer Dara Torres represents something society needs more of: images of accomplished, physically fit and beautiful women who are obviously “older.”
Barack Obama is channeling JFK these days. Oddly, he’s doing it through one of George W. Bush’s more controversial policies.
In the language of newspapers, some stories are “briefs.” Short reports, not considered significant enough to warrant full-length treatment, except they almost always could if a reporter had the time, and the paper the space.
There are many ways to address the problem of fathers abandoning their responsibilities. Preaching about morals is just one, and alone it probably won’t do the trick.
The world is becoming more and more connected, integrated by trade, migration and technology. So it is not surprising that people across the globe are following the U.S. presidential election with more than just passing interest.
As far as race goes, Barack Obama would make strides for the nation by simply being there; he wouldn’t even have to “address” the issue formally, although I suspect he would.
I suspect that part of Hillary Clinton believes that she is valiantly carrying on for women everywhere. The irony is, for my generation, we don’t need her to anymore.
Recently published research proposes that hospitals may inadvertently be placing differing values on the lives of patients, depending on whether they are a premature infant at the edge of viability, or an older patient.
For the “deport em all” crowd, the increase in federal workplace arrests of immigrants is no doubt cause for joyous applause. For those prone to deeper thinking, an obvious question presents itself: Are the raids really affecting the problem of illegal immigration?
“A lady always knows when to leave the party.” Or so my mother used to say. It’s time for Hillary Clinton to take a tip and leave — not the party, of course, but the presidential race.
Preventive public policy should take into consideration how violent criminals are created. If unresolved grief is at play, there are measures that could affect it better, and maybe limit the bloodshed.
God forbid that I should ever have to stand up and “clearly and unequivocally”denounce everyone I’ve ever been close to who has expressed views that are less than politically correct.
Both men proclaim a reverence to God. Both avow that faith is their guiding principle. Pope Benedict XVI in his actions seems to bear that out. As for George W. Bush, I’m beginning to have my doubts.
Deaths such as that of Lori Reynolds — the Kansas City, Kan., bartender who was shot six times because she refused to serve a man a drink — have to be taken into account as much as the right responsible people have to own guns.
I’m surrounded by the type of small Midwestern towns Barack Obama so carelessly labeled as full of “bitter” folk. My mother is from such a town, smack in the middle of Kansas.
There isn’t much of a national consensus on the benefits of free trade. True, machinists and textile workers dislike it, while farmers love it (at least for now). But most Americans don’t know what to make of it.
Certain commentary morphs to near mantra when the topic is the Kansas City School District. Among the most often repeated: “Why can’t the Kansas City, Missouri, School District be more like the Kansas City, Kansas, School District?”
The words came out of her young mouth as biting, harsh truths. American-born kids, the ones who are legally here, they waste it, the teenager told me. They do drugs, they drink, they don’t study. They join gangs or simply think the gang life is hip.
I have a dream. A dream that, one day, this nation’s veneration of Martin Luther King Jr. will not be limited to the platitudes that get wheeled out every year to mark his birthday or Black History Month.
It’s time for the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and others like him to get a clue that there are better ways to deliver their messages — which, I have no doubt, can be messages of hope to people who don’t have much.
Before rolling your eyes at the thought of yet another group convening to discuss Kansas City's schools, this one might be different. The Council of the Great City Schools is at the right starting point: the disconnect between the area’s residents and the children in the district.
If Barack Obama succeeds in winning the Democratic presidential nomination, the Latino vote will be critical to him in the general election. He’s going to need to court and closely guard it.
“I would reject and denounce.” With that utterance, Barack Obama deftly beat back yet another round of guilt by association, a game that continues to chase his campaign. In his televised debate with Hillary Clinton in Cleveland, Obama was baited by both his opponent and moderator Tim Russert to repudiate Minister Louis Farrakhan, the black separatist leader of the Nation of Islam, who recently opined that he liked the idea of a black man in the White House.