ITEMS IN THE NEWS

Tell us what's on your mind as the weekend approaches.

Wichita CityPaper has returned today with some tweaks and changes.
What do you think?
--R.J. Dickens

Kansas U.S. Senator Sam Brownback is disputing statements by Governor Kathleen Sebelius that the deployment of Kansas National Guard troops in Iraq has depleted the state's ability to respond to current natural disasters.
"That's what really got me, is her saying that," Brownback told MSNBC.
"So I asked, privately and publicly, the adjutant general, do you have the equipment you need?" he said. "Because if you don't, we're going to hit Fort Riley and McConnell (Air Force Base) and other places to make sure we have all the equipment we need to respond to disasters. Everybody there said no, we have the equipment we needed."
The report went on to quote Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting as saying the Kansas National Guard was equipped to about 40 percent of its necessary levels, down from the 60 percent it had at the start of the war. About 850 soldiers have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It just leaves you pretty tight," he said. "We're fine for now."
Good save for a guy who's been put in a tough spot by the state's biggest political heavyweights.
--R.J. Dickens

I didn't know anybody in New Orleans.
So, I watched the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with bemused curiosity.
Friday's tornado in Greensburg is different.
I'm a Real Kansan. This is personal.
You could blindfold me, stick me in the back of a car, and dump me virtually anywhere in this state, and I wouldn't be more than a 20 minute drive from someone I know.
One of those people is House Minority Leader Dennis McKinney of Greensburg, whose home was destroyed in the tornado. People around me saw me breathe a sigh of relief when I read that McKinney's wife had been in Salina at the time, and that Dennis and his family were all okay.
There were stories in the media that attempted to make McKinney out for a hero for helping to dig his neighbors out.
No doubt some right wing blogger somewhere is going to spew his hatred, and say that McKinney did it just to get the publicity.
Knowing Dennis, he was likely more than a little embarassed by the story. Publicity, politics or no, he would have done exactly the same thing.
In Real Kansas, people do for their neighbors. It's part of the culture we all grew up in.
There were others I knew who suffered damage in the weekend's storm. The same storm destroyed a business in Stafford County other friends of mine have operated for three generations.
Now, as I write this, other longtime friends of mine are suffering damages in floods in Shawnee County.
But inevitably, somebody is going to complain about the Wichita television stations breaking in to give weather warnings for any place that isn't in their neighborhood.
Get a life, cretins. Real Kansans care about what happens to their neighbors.
--R.J. Dickens

Tell the world what's on your mind this week.

MSNBC's Tim Curry makes some provacative points in this essay.
Conservative Republicans, who have pretty much been cocks of the rock in this decade, are torn about who to support in 2008.
None of the three frontrunners, Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain, or Mitt Romney, are "true" conservatives.
Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee get black marks for their stance on immigration.
Tom Tancredo's rants on large companies supporting immigration, and Duncan Hunter's inability to get traction leave them out in the cold, as well.
There just isn't a George W. Bush in the bunch--which may be a good thing, considering he didn't even make Time magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people.
--R.J. Dickens

The following e-mail was sent out late Wednesday afternoon by Wichita city officials:

Interviews with District I Wichita City Council candidates scheduled for this evening and Thursday have been postponed until further notice.
The interviews will be held at the Atwater Neighborhood City Hall, 2755 E 19th Street North.
District Advisory Board members will conduct the interviews and host any follow-up meetings over the next few weeks. The District I DAB will submit four to five names for City Council members to consider at the May 15 Council meeting. A majority council vote will determine who will be the next District I Council member.

KCTU has learned that an additional person, Urban League head Bryan Black, had been reportedly added to the selection process. Black is not a resident of District I.
After at least one of the candidates complained to several city council members, and contacts to City Attorney Gary Rebenstorf allegedly went unanswered,
the e-mail was distributed to reporters at 5 PM, 90 minutes before the first round of interviews was to begin.
--R.J. Dickens

To truncate Shakespeare, "all's well that ends".
And, with the passage of the omnibus budget bill this morning, the 2007 Kansas Legislature is over.
The most important thing that needed to get done, got done--sort of. Legislators approved a five year $654 million package for addressing the issue of deferred maintenance at higher education institutions, which some people--especially those associated with the University of Kansas--felt wasn't enough, and others felt it was too much.
Wichita fared well in the budget, with $4.5 million coming to the National Institute for Aviation Research at WSU, and additional money for expansion at ElDorado State Prison. The Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in Old Town can receieve $250,000 in lottery money if they can match the grant.
One possible fly in the ointment--to appease key conservatives, a proviso was added to the KDHE budget to require the department to obtain more information on the medical necessity of abortions by July 1, or have their funding frozen for the year.
But all in all, a heck of a lot better than expected.
No doubt, anti-tax conservative Republicans will come back and blame Democrats for all of it, but voters need to take it with a grain of salt--and a stiff shot of bourbon. There are only 10 Democrats out of 40 in the Senate, and 47 out of 125 in the House.
Democrats can only succeed when Republicans can't get their act together--which in Kansas, is most of the time.
--R.J. Dickens

Tell us what's on your mind as the new month arrives.

A total of 11 candidates, including our own James Barfield, have filed for the District I position on the Wichita City Council vacated when Carl Brewer was elected mayor.
There are quite a few familiar faces in the group: former State Senator Eugene Anderson; African-American Republican Party activist Treatha-Foster Brown, the Reverand Earl Burkhalter; State Representative Oletha Faust-Godeau; former Wichita School Board Member Michael Kinard; former City Council Member George Rogers; and District Advisory Board Members Lavonta Williams and Steven Roberts.
Also running are Lonnie Barnes and James Benage.
--Rogers and Anderson face allegations (albeit none legally proven) from their pasts;
--Kinard has a recent bankruptcy;
--Foster-Brown was trounced in her only bid for public office;
--Area residents wonder why Faust-Godeau wants to swap what most people perceive is a more powerful position in Topeka;
--Williams and Roberts are little-known outside their neighborhoods.
The District I Advisory Board will meet tonight and Thursday at the Atwater Neighborhood City Hall to interview the candidates, then recommend five to the City Council.
The Council will then pick one at their May 15 meeting.
--R.J. Dickens

April was a good month for reading.
It ended with a very insightful piece by Jonathan Alter in Newsweek.
"Historians will likely see the 2006 midterm election returns as indispensable to their work," Alter writes. "Without a change in party control, we would never have a chance to get to the bottom of what has happened to this country.
This is a must-read, especially for our Republican friends.
--R.J. Dickens