Tattoos only signal the greater issue
The current issue of trooper tattoos isn’t about tattoos, but about the state’s slide into mediocrity, and worse.
The surface question is whether the Kansas...
The great floods expose our comforting lie
In Kansas, land of the dry wash and the mud creek, where a trickle of sludge or a slow heave of brown syrup passes...
The law vs. Brownback, et. al. Freedom or tyranny?
Among the government branches, our judiciary is the lone thread of hope, a cradle of equity in the people’s desire for a fair shake....
Christmas past; missing Norman
Much of Christmastime is about faith and miracles, pleasures that are unpurchasable, satisfactions unpredictable, pleasures unexpected – the joy in ribbons and music and...
The Valley at Christmas
This is a moment in the year we are glad we’re not in Florida, staring at people our age playing shuffleboard, or on a...
Reaction to terror can threaten us all
On April 19, 1995, a massive truck bomb was detonated in downtown Oklahoma City, demolishing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, leaving 168 dead...
A new ‘premium’ for the gun debate
America stands as a dangerous place. A lot of guns, a lot of murder by guns. A lot of talk about gun control for...
Kansas elections are not the answer
Among the notions inspired by the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling is that the issue is far too important to be settled in a...
The Garfield Expressway: why we have (good) government
We have now driven the glorious new Garfield Street Expressway from Second Street to Kansas and back, and there’s not a bump in the...
Billion dollar bond sale and welfare mandates – in one package
Let’s not forget mid-April, the month of “before.” Mid-April: that carefree interlude in state government when legislators were content to take sport in the...