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Here’s one to ponder:
The 2010 U.S. census will soon be upon us, and by now you may have heard one of the patriotic pitches to comply. Every breathing soul must be tallied during the massive federal endeavor, the national headcount taken every decade. The census is central to the functioning of our democracy, we’re told.
Nice try, Mr. Defense Attorney. The pitch last week in a Johnson County court was for judicial leniency in regard to a young woman’s addiction. Cut the $100,000 bond in half, went the lawyer’s plea. Let her drug treatment continue.
A certain wisdom comes with being poor. Be grateful if you can’t lay claim to it. Miss enough paychecks, fall behind on enough bills and people get savvy quick to the ways of making do.
The clergy is nervous — the hellfire-and-brimstone cultural conservative clergy, anyway. Congress’ recent vote to finally include sexual orientation in hate crimes legislation has caused near hysterics in some religious communities.
Step away from that chimichanga, that deep-fried mess, among the greatest gastronomic bastardizations of all time. You can do a lot better, mi amigo.
Before anyone gets too huffy, please remember that the Halloween we enjoy as adults is an equal opportunity offender.
In the media and in conversations anywhere people gather, all sorts of compelling arguments are being made against the U.S. deepening its military commitment in Afghanistan. But somehow they’re not quite compelling enough. “We don’t need another Vietnam.”
What if the conservative movement had the common sense recently exhibited by the National Football League? Most of us might have been spared Rush Limbaugh’s over-hyped provocations, such as his charming rendition of “Barack, the Magic Negro.” And his sour wishes of failure upon the White House as our nation struggles with the burdens of two wars and the worst economic crisis in generations. If the right hadn’t pinned its political aspirations on Limbaugh’s brand of divisiveness, he might never have amounted to more than an interesting sideshow performer, tolerated but never offered a seat at the table of political power.
The upstart Missouri legislator was at his computer early Sunday morning, pushing his ideas for ethics reform via e-mail. No doubt, a few more seasoned political foxes had already begun to gather around the chicken coop that is Jefferson City, protective as they can be of the status quo.
I suspected God didn’t like sprawl, wasteful as it can be to divinely created resources. Apparently, he’s fed up enough with ours that he sent an A-team for a downtown marketing push.
Let’s be honest. No “national conversation on values” is going to take place because of Derrion Albert. The honor roll student deserves to be remembered. But don’t expect many people to recall the 16-year-old’s name for long, despite voyeuristically watching his death, recorded by a cell phone camera.
Dear Mr. Snyder: Please, consider saving your strength for grieving, for getting on with life without your soldier son, lost to the Iraq war.
I realize this message, coming from someone who is decades away from 65, may offend those at its doorstep. But demands on Medicare will increase exponentially soon; Congress seems intent in holding costs down. My choices when I retire may be paltry by comparison to today.
Consider this love story gone sour. A U.S. citizen falls in love with an immigrant. They marry. The citizen requests that the new spouse be allowed to remain in the U.S. permanently.
The easy thing would be cynicism. To recite the familiar potshots at the Kansas City School District and its latest effort to self-assess and plan a future.
Here’s something for Wyandotte County’s commissioners to remember as they take up proposed code of ethics changes tonight: Perception matters. The changes for the Unified Government up for vote are reasonable and should have been in place years ago:
What are we to make now of the remarkable accomplishment of Elizabeth Rickey? Rickey was a longtime Louisiana Republican activist who made it her personal crusade to expose David Duke as a race-baiting charlatan bent on infiltrating politics with his vile potion of anti-Semitism and white supremacy.
Is Operation Rescue on its last legs? That’s the question many are asking in light of an Internet appeal the once-prominent anti-abortion organization made recently pleading for donations to save its life.
I want to believe a boycott could shut Lou Dobbs up. But I live in reality, not the land of wishful thinking that is behind a campaign called Drop Dobbs ( www.dropdobbs.com).
To assess the extremely valid concern that Mark Funkhouser may swing city boards and commissions too far from the interests of many developers, look closer at Mary Lindsay, the mayor's other appointee to the Tax Increment Financing Commission.
God bless Joe Wilson, the Republican congressman from South Carolina. He was acting the clown the other night when he heckled President Obama, but out of his foolishness perhaps a lesson might be learned.
So was anyone else startled by the new rules for the city’s community centers? No? The recent news should have caused a head snap.
Missouri risks cementing an image as a backward and out-of-touch locale if it loses hold of the Tour of Missouri through political pettiness.
Phil’s compound wouldn’t have remained a secret in the neighborhood of my youth.
Military history is fascinating, albeit more to some than to others. For a handful of Americans, it’s not enough to read about Bunker Hill or Bull Run. They need to get out in the mud and shoulder a musket while wearing authentically scratchy woolen underpants and feel what it was like to be there when the hot lead flew.
In judging Latin governments, too many in the United States lose sight of the fact that democracies — even ours — evolve, molded over the decades by events and the clashes of opposing interests.
Just a few days after ex-con quarterback Michael Vick’s rehabilitation kicked off on national TV, a group of former fellow inmates at the U.S. Penitentiary, Leavenworth began their journey toward life on the outside. Vick got his shot at redemption in the form of a $1.6 million deal to play for the Philadelphia Eagles.
The bullet holes in the president’s back door belie the docile version of the Honduran coup, the story many have latched to through snippets of news. Was Manuel Zelaya removed from office because he attempted a power grab, bent on reworking the constitution to allow for more than a single four-year presidential term?
So KU is resorting to required online coursework to drill the dangers of drunkenness into students. As if computer-generated replies to a student’s replies will circumvent hormones, free shots at the bar and the never-ending pressure to be as carefree as the next coed.
