How do we discern truth?

John the gospel-writer got it right. “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” The problem: What’s true and what’s not?

Another writer, Barbara Kingsolver, gave a recent talk on eating locally. Her fact: in order to eat, each citizen “consumes” 400 gallons of oil per year. Outlandish? A lie? No. Transportation alone accounts for four-fifths of those gallons. The average food item travels 1500 miles to our plates.

Donald Worster’s desert—and ours

Donald Worster came to town recently. Some of us haven’t been the same since.

More kindly grandfather than Paul Revere, the KU Hall Center Distinguished Professor of Environmental History rode no horse through town, just spoke at the Art Center. Yet some in his audience were as galvanized as Lexington patriots of 1775.

Trickle-down climate change

Kansans and Kansas legislators, should you care about Bolivia? Maybe.

In early March, my NPR radio speakers brought a story of a high-mountain glacier called Zongo, near LaPaz. It acts as a “water-bank.” From time immemorial, it has offered its melted winter snow for the spring and summer crystal streams feeding the village below. But slow water-melt is no longer “glacial.” The village’s savings account is nearly gone.

A 2006 ice thickness of 20 meters now measures a scant 2 meters. Extreme water shortages are predicted by 2009, with resulting crop failure.

False gods leave us defenseless

Religious fundamentalism continues to do great harm throughout the world. But equal damage is done by the worship of “free markets.” This icon is more popular than Jesus—and more devastating than the devil.

Nuke-onomics in the Heartland

I know you’re weary. Floods, global warming, poverty, war. Threats not just to you, but your kids and grandkids. It gets old. But here’s a new one. The nukular nuts want to bring devastation to Kansas.

The good news is, you can do something about it.

The Bush administration has scared U.S. and world citizens with its drumbeat of threats against other countries developing nuclear weapons. The Bushies are quite right on that count. The only sane thing to do is eliminate nukes, not build them.

Problem is, they are building them.

Drug out by drug benefits

Seventy-eight dollars. A month. Not bad after the nearly $2000 to pay off the pharmacy in ’05! I wrote each check offering silent thanks for this good Republican program.

Then came the whiplash: October 06’s bill, a Category 5 blockbuster. Three hundred thirty-one dollars! The nearly 425% increase in drug costs hit my solar plexus like a fist. Where was our Part D insurance?

Social InSecurity

It lasted two years, but seemed the blink of an eye. In 1983, after 17 married years, my spouse was gone, taken by a virulent breast cancer. Besides the emotional trauma, another bruising reality jarred me. That reality: raising two daughters on one salary.

We did not sit down in the kitchen one evening, my 13-year-old offering, “Daddy, I could get a part-time job to help with the mortgage,” and my 8-year-old crying, “I guess I could give up piano lessons.” Nothing that dramatic. But the specter was every bit that real.

A life well lived

Even though he died of cancer only a few weeks ago, his writing and his activism, both in local issues and Democratic politics, lives on.

As nearly as we can tell, he didn’t change his party affiliation in his last months. He loved to tell the story of his Volga German loyal Democrat grandfather who did just that. When questioned on his deathbed about his decision, said, “Well, if this reduces Republican’s numbers by just one, I’ll have done a good thing.”

Losing Doonesbury loses dialogue

Doonesbury? Why be incensed over the loss of a mere comic strip? You’d think it would not be important.

After all, we daily workers sell our muscles and our time to keep the rent or mortgage paid and food on the table. Most have little time to analyze the state of the world. Laying tile, frying hamburgers, smiling through a bank drive-up window while carefully counting cash, cleaning someone else’s house, pouring cement: all require focus—and faith that all management and government folks are doing their job as well, namely looking out for us.

Consolidation pros and cons

“Consolidation” in Saline County and Salina has received much news attention recently. That is as it should be. All of us should be interested in improving our lives and the government which impacts us significantly.

It is of supreme importance, however, that we not operate out of a single-mindedness that shuts out debate, whether favoring or opposing consolidation efforts.