Weekly newspaper column, 1/16/06

With all the disagreements, controversies and just-out-and-out sniping that occurs in our community—not to mention our great nation—it’s good to be able to talk about something we can all come together on and agree.
Last week, the Wichita USD 259 Board of Education released the results of a survey on busing.
Much to my surprise, the majority of those surveyed didn’t say, “just end busing”.
And how. A whopping 78.4 percent said they would be willing to pay more in taxes for a bond issue for new schools inside the area in which African-American children are bussed to other schools.
Good call.
Everything comes at a price, and those surveyed understood that in order to end busing, a commitment has to be made to provide a quality education to those students currently being bussed to other schools.
Such a move will be costly. Keep in mind:
--We’ll still be paying for the current bond issue for another 13 years;
--Jackson Elementary cost $7.3 million back in 2000…and it was built on vacant land;
--There are no schools within the so-called “Assigned Attendance Area” large enough to be used for a school today;
--Some existing schools could be used initially, but at the price of limiting some popular magnet programs at L'Ouverture and Buckner schools.
Any neighborhood schools created would come with increased needs for years to come…more teachers, more federal programs like Title I… than other schools. And let us not forget the additional burdens placed upon schools by President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act.
If you’re ignorant enough to believe that all we have to do is build 1-3 new schools and leave them to their own devices, you are sorely mistaken. As Wichita NAACP President Kevin Myles told the Wichita Eagle, “…I just don’t accept the fact because there are flaws, return to 1954 and see if that works better.”
Neither should any of the rest of us.
To assume that everyone is pretty much the same is to deny your own existence.
To believe that just because one way of educating worked for you—or works today for your child—it ought to work for everyone denies differences in race, culture, personality...even brain chemistry…much of which we didn’t know when we were growing up.
Thankfully, this survey shows that I am preaching to the choir, in most cases. However, there are still some of you who still won’t—or don’t want to—understand…and you’re more likely to speak out.
And to you I say, “don’t disturb this groove”. Nobody likes to pay higher taxes, but most reasonable people can agree to it when we agree with where the money is going.
It’s amaaing, the things we can do when we seek consensus.

This week's DWM

This week, we salute yet another Dimwit With Money--Kirk Kerkorian.
Kerkorian has suggested that GM cut executive salaries, and eliminate the Saab and Hummer lines.
Of course, there's only one thing wrong with cutting executive salaries--it makes sense.
And people who own Saabs scream "I have no life".
But Hummers?
Cars that Wichitans, on a daily basis, drive 300 miles to drop 50 grr to buy?
Okay, Pontiac, maybe. Buick, definitely.
But Hummer?
Mr. Kerkorian, go drive a Saab.

My new crusade

The past five days have opened my eyes to a glaring need in the law.
Both the Kansas Corporation Commission and the Kansas Attorney General's office require that, before you file a complaint against a company, you make contact with them.
But what if you can't?
Five days ago, one of my cel phones started beeping every minute or so...night and day, for four days. If my phone had been in a cell at Guantanamo, it would be in violation of the Geneva Convention...not to mention that every terrorist plot in the last 10 years would be revealed in short notice.
I tried calling the customer service number...it referred me to a shortcut on my phone.
I dialed that...no answer after 20, 30, 40 minutes.
I tried the local number...it kept asking for a five digit extension I didn't have.
I tried another number...I got a voice mail that prompted for my number. I put it in, and the system did not recognize my number.
Never was there a "real person option".
Needless to say, after five days of this, my most deep-seated fantasy has gone from Mariah Carey, Britney Spears and a bottle of champagne to my cel phone, a sledgehammer and thermonuclear weapons.
Another state (South Dakota, I think) is considering legislation that would impose a $500,000 fine on any company not offering a "real person option".
I think that's a good idea--but the fine should be 10 times that.
Like Mr. Conservative, the late Kansas Congressman Jim Jeffries always said, "If you tax something, you get less of it; if you subsidize something, you get more of it".
Thus, we should tax automated answering machine systems and subsidize human contact.
Oh yeah--and Kansas should also pass a law giving the death penalty to the president of any Wall Street equity firm which owns more than 5 percent of any company not offering a "real person option."
Okay, who's with me?

River City Forum recap, 12/27/05

After the last two weeks, I can now confirm it: no doubt about it, George W. Bush is in trouble.
Last night, I shared this article with viewers, and not one of you called in with your usual venom toward my president.
Three callers called in to say that life was better under Bubba, and after one caller made mention of what some people were trying to do to agricultural policy, one of the Kool Aid drinkers called in to try to challenge the point...even though in reality, he probably agreed with the first caller.
Are the wing nuts being driven back underground after 25 years? Stay tuned.

Weekly newspaper column 12/26/05

Some commentators have said that last week’s federal court decision against the Dover, PA school board’s previous requirement that a statement on intelligent design be read to student before studying evolution marks the end of the debate.
Don’t bet on it. Like Yogi Berra says, “it ain’t over til it’s over”.
It ain’t over because there is still a conservative majority on the Kansas State Board of Education…and they’re going to be there until they’re voted out in the 2006 primaries and general election—hardly a foregone conclusion.
If there’s one advantage the so-called “Christian Right” has over whatever’s opposing them, it’s their ability to focus. The average American has the attention span of a puppy—they don’t.
For those of you who missed it, Judge John E. Jones—a George W. Bush appointee—declared that the Dover board violated the Constitution when it required biology teachers to read a statement criticizing evolution and directing them to a book on intelligent design in the school library.
In his decision, Jones chided the Dover board for its “breathtaking inanity”, stating that “students, parents and teachers…deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.”
Let me repeat: this was an appointee to the federal bench by George W. Bush.
Now, a normal person, having been so duly smacked by ostensibly one of their own, would likely give up. But there is nothing normal about the Kansas State Board of Education.
The decision comes after the Dover school board members who put the policy in place were all voted out of office.
Now, the wing nuts on the State Board of Education say they’re not paying attention to the Pennsylvania decision—Steve Abrams of Arkansas City calls it “apples and oranges”...but you know they have to be watching it.
Remember, conservatives were voted out of the majority in 2000, only to force a tie in 2002 and reclaim the majority in 2004.
The arch-conservatives also know that the attention span of non-conservatives is less than that of conservatives that’s why a) they’re so good at living in the past, and b) they remember when elections are actually held, which is why anti-tax, anti-education conservatives win during August primaries when most people aren’t thinking about their children’s education.
So, despite a decision that says in part, "The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy," the real question is: will Real Kansans remember to pay attention in August and November?
Or, is this just a tempest in a teapot? Legal experts agree that there can be no challenge to the board’s decision until a local school board adopts the state standards—something that hasn’t happened yet, and may not. It didn’t happen the first time we went through this back in 1999.
But whether the wing nuts get it or not, the whole thing has been a major embarrassment to Kansas. Abrams (who has a doctorate in veterinary medicine from K-State…I’d sure like to get a look at his transcript) says it’s not a big deal, but then again, my brain is larger than that of a companion animal.
The bottom line remains the same…evil—well, stupidity, anyway—triumphs when good people do nothing.
That means registering to vote, remembering when the elections are, and voting.
There’s more of us than there are of them.
All we have to do is stand up and be counted.

An exercise I can agree with

One look at me and you'll realize that I'm not much on fitness centers, but recent developments on the business front have me siding with, of all entities, Bally Total Fitness.
The company is considering excersizing a so-called "sharholder rights provision" to fight off the mechanizations of two DWMs, Liberation Investments and Pardus Capital Management.
It just seems to me that if you're going to tell me how to run my business, you'd better be willing to shut your piehole and put a shoulder to the wheel.
Now, Liberation head Emanuel Pearlman doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who could step in and lead an aerobics class, but if he's going to be telling a company like Bally what to do, he'd damn well better be wearing a leotard.

Who is this guy, anyway?

Most of you reading this know me from somewhere...either from my newscasts and talk shows on KCTU-TV in Wichita or KCTU.com, my weekly newspaper column in The Prospector, or my posts on other blogs as mrcontroversy.
But, with so many people coming in along the way, some of you might be asking: who is this guy, anyway?
I'm a native of Manhattan, Kansas, where my father worked at Kansas State University for over 40 years. I'm a product of Manhattan Public Schools and a 1979 graduate of K-State with degrees in Political Science and Journalism.
In 1975, I attempted to run for the Manhattan City Commission, unsuccessfully challenging a state law which had an age limit of 26 to run for local office. The Kansas Legislature that year changed the law, but I had to run as a write-in.
I worked my way through college, first as a reporter for the Manhattan Mercury, then as a real estate agent, dabbling a little in development until Jimmy Carter pulled Section 234 and 235 money out of Kansas.
While I was in college, I took a trip to what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, arriving in Johannesburg the day Steven Biko's death was disclosed.
After graduation, I dabbled as a free-lance photographer before spending a year in Herington as sports editor, reporter and photographer at the Herington Times. I don't know which caused me the most culture shock--moving to Herington, moving to Wichita, or travelling around the world.
I returned to Manhattan as an agent for Fidelity Union Life, eventually moving to Emporia as assistant manager and eventually General Agent.
I came back to Manhattan in 1982 to form my own independent insurance agency, which I built into $82 million of in-force business before personal problems--and the high cost of professional liability insurance--forced me out.
It was during the dying days of my insurance business that I got my first taste of lobbying--locking horns with a lobbyist for the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association by the name of Kathleen Sebelius. Even though we're ostensibly on the same side these days, I hear tell she still remembers our days as opponents...even though she cleaned my clock most of the time.
Politics was a gentler business back then. The words of real people still meant something to elected officals. My philosophy then was to get real people talking to legislators about how laws could or did affect them, and it worked in most cases.
Like I said, personal problems got the best of me, and in 1987, I got out of business and went to work for ITI (now APAC Customer Services) in 1988, a job created with economic development funds from the Kansas Lottery. The following year, higher wages lured me to Wichita, where I've lived ever since.
While helping out with training for Democratic precinct committeepeople in 1989, I was approached about running for Kansas Secretary of State. When the media and my opponent said I wouldn't get more than 100,000 votes, I got 385,107--still the fifth highest total for a Democrat in that race in Kansas history--went through nine cars, and encumbered a debt I still haven't paid off. But I wouldn't trade the experience of 1990 for anything in the world.
After the election, with a new governor and state officials few people understood, I, at the suggestion of a woman I had been dating, approached Prospector Publisher Devin Hefley about a weekly newspaper column on Kansas politics. R.J. Dickens' Kansas Journal was born in March of 1991.
The whole idea was to keep my name before the public until I ran for office again. That hasn't happened yet.
I've given serious consideration to running three times since then--for State Senator, State Representative and U.S. Senate--and all three times, the candidates who entered the race (and won two of them)--were enough to keep me out.
I'm a firm believer that things happen for a reason. My absence from elective politics has made me realize that the most powerless people in our democracy are our elected leaders.
In 1994, I had a radio talk show for six months on KSRX in ElDorado, and in 1996, I came to KCTU.
For those of you who still don't understand, KCTU is a real television station. We aren't on cable because we're a low power station. Cox Cable wanted $64,000 a month to put us on cable--when the stations on cable pay nothing. Last year, we submitted a petition with 6,000 names on it to Cox. They responded by raising the amount they wanted to put us on cable...by $6,000 a month. Coincidence?
The Wichita Eagle won't print anything about us--at least without a fight--for fear of offending Cox, one of their largest advertisers...and more likely hearing about it from one of Knight-Ridder's largest investors, Private Capital Management--an organization I feel is a greater threat to the security of the average American than al-Queada could ever hope to be.
And while we keep electing City Council members who are sympathetic to our cause, they are constantly thwarted by a cabal of holdovers from the Knight Dynasty on the 13th floor of City Hall who make all their decisions based on what direction the money is blowing.
It's that same attitude I see today in Topeka and Washington. The first question you hear from politicians today, whether they're Republican or Democrat, conservative, moderate or liberal, is all the same--"who's got the money on your side"?
It's the mentality that rules at the grocery store--why there's eight checkout lanes and a single line stretching clear to the back of the store behind the only one open--that companies are geese that lay golden eggs, and we'd all make more money if nobody was working.
Meanwhile, the real people of America stand around shaking their heads, trying to remember if there was something they could do about it.
Washington has become the ending to the Jetsons--we (George) take our dog Astro (our perceived beliefs) for a walk on the treadmill, out comes the cat (the other side), the dog and the cat run in place for a moment, then sit on the sidelines watching while George flails away, making a complete fool of himself.
If you take nothing else away from this blog, remember this: Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal--it doesn't matter. We're all being played.
There's more of us than there are of them. All we have to do is stand up and be counted.
The rest is just details.