By Arturo Mora, Kansas City Star Midwest Voices columnist
The global warming debate has become an ideological battle of dueling facts and Web sites. Lost in all the noise is the real reason to care about the environment.
Whether you believe global warming is real or not, what matters most is handing off a better world to our children.
By E. Thomas McClanahan, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
The Obama administration, we were told, would practice diplomacy that's "tough but smart." If only: A better description, based on what's unfolded so far, would be inept and incompetent, especially in the Middle East.
By Matthew Schofield, Kansas City Star editorial board columnist
Thank God for Sgt. Kimberly Munley.
The civilian officer at Fort Hood brought down Maj. Nidal M. Hasan with "an amazing and an aggressive performance."
By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Board Columnist
The warm weather Friday prompted a lot of people to work outdoors. In midtown, Marcus Lee Looney raked leaves in the 3900 block of Forest Avenue and talked about how federal stimulus money for the Green Impact Zone would improve the long-neglected urban community.
By Miriam Pepper, Star editorial page editor
The banks sure have a way with words. Overdraft protection sounds so soothing. What it masks are the costs of that protection. Those costs brought in $28 billion in fees in 2008.
That's a whole lot of protection, for the banks' bottom lines.
By Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star editorial page columnist
The murders of 12 soldiers and one civilian at Fort Hood are horrifying. They show us once again that the casualties of war aren't confined to overseas battlefields.
The Star's Saturday editorial
Last April, U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver began promoting an effort to use federal stimulus funds to upgrade 150 square blocks of inner Kansas City. He called it the Green Impact Zone.
“I’m so excited, I’m trying to calm down,” Cleaver had said. “This is a perfect storm of opportunity.”
The Star's Saturday editorial
There were warning signs that U.S. Army Major Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, was unstable long before he allegedly shouted “God is great” in Arabic and opened fire at Fort Hood Thursday.
By Juanell Garrett, Midwest Voices Panelist 2008
It’s been nearly twenty-four hours since I first heard the news from Fort Hood. A shooter opened fire there, killing thirteen and wounding 30 more. So far there have been no outraged epithets against the killer by the editorial board here on Midwest Voices. What a contrast to May 31st!
By Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star editorial page columnist
The merits of the discrimination case filed against a nightclub in the Power & Light District remain to be seen.
2012 contest?By Arturo Mora, Kansas City Star Midwest Voices columnist 2009
Any judgment of Barack Obama’s presidency based on a handful of off-year races is overstating the case. Trying to decipher the real meaning is something like reading tea leaves, and just as reliable. Still, they are clues and warnings, at least, for the national parties. My reading of the leaves: independents flexed their muscle and gave Obama a warning, passing health care reform is going to be a little harder but still in the cards, and New York voters deepened the Republican identity crisis. You could say this was in a part the opening blow of Obama vs. Sarah Palin 2012, and I’d have to call it an even match.
Frank Morris of KCUR, (our local public radio station at 89.3) interviewed General Casey, the Chief of Staff of the Army, on Wednesday. Frank’s story aired yesterday morning…
By E. Thomas McClanahan, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
Florida's move wasn't in the area of health insurance. It was property insurance. The state's property-insurance arm originally had above-market rates, but later it began competing directly with private insurers.
By Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
It doesn’t pay to be reclusive when you’re trying to build up a small university on the wind-blown Kansas prairie.
And so, once a year, Edward H. Hammond hits the road. The president of Fort Hays State University visits journalists, alumni and just about anyone who will take time to listen to his story.
By The Kansas City Star Editorial Board
The Missouri Housing Development Commission has been through a rocky period. In June, a state audit criticized it for incomplete record-keeping, conflict-of-interest problems and weak rules on contracting and purchasing.
By The Kansas City Star Editorial Board
Those extra coats and blankets in good condition can get a new home Saturday, during the annual Project Warmth drive to benefit people in need.
By Tom Ryan, Kansas City Star Reader Advisory Panel
My friends, Abigail and her brother Caleb are in their high school’s fall musical, “The Pajama Game”. They work very hard about six days a week leading up to the shows and their energy seems boundless.
practice...practice...practice
By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
The full-scale makeover of steroid user Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees is under way in The New York Times, Sports Illustrated and other media outlets.
Sorry, not buying the hype.
By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
Now that's more like it. Hanging together, Democrats on Thursday steamrolled GOP opposition to a climate change bill in a U.S. Senate committee.
For all the talk about dithering Democrats in Washington, at least they were able to pass a key measure despite a Republican boycott.
MVP cranks Game 6 homerBy Arturo Mora, Kansas City Star Midwest Voices columnist 2009
With a two-run homer, a two-run bases loaded single, and six RBI, World Series MVP Hideki Matsui put the nail in the Phillies coffin and sent the Yankees on the way to a 7-3 win and their 27th world championship, their first since 2000. Series vet Andy Pettitte did his part with 5 2/3 strong innings on only three days rest. It was a great ending to one of the best Series in years.
George Harris Kansas City Star Reader Advisory Panel 2008
The New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Phillies 4 games to 2 in the 2009 World Series. Kansas City must find a way to match the investment New York put into their team to capture this world prize.
By Tom Ryan, Kansas City Star Reader Advisory Panel
Since Barack Obama departed Grant Park in Chicago, a year ago, we’ve come to know a President who has traded his moral and spiritual message of change for a utilitarian process of bureaucratic maintenance, business preservation, public investment, and attempted change to an overpriced but thriving business sector.
By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
Democratic U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri isn't going to let those darn Republicans attack him as a pro-health care kind of guy.
So Skelton has made it clearer than ever that he's going to oppose the Democratic reform measure.
Part of his statement on Wednesday:
By The Kansas City Star Editorial Board
It’s not often you find one federal agency criticizing another, but that’s what happened after the investigation of a 2008 motor coach crash in which 17 people from Texas died en route to a southwest Missouri music festival.
By The Kansas City Star Editorial Board
Jackson County taxpayers missed out on a chance to save $56,000 — and probably much more — while holding Tuesday’s election that successfully renewed an anti-drug sales tax.
By: Danette Gamble, Kansas City Star Reader Advisory Panel
I love John Denver’s song, Rocky Mountain High. To this day I still get goose bumps when I hear it. Unless you have been on a mountain and looked at the stars from atop a “fourteener,” you don’t quite get it. Denver wrote the song after one such experience.
By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
Maine voters on Tuesday once again showed quite clearly that Americans have a deep belief that marriage ought to be between a man and a woman.
That's the obvious and rather harsh conclusion from the vote to repeal Maine's gay-marriage law.
By Miriam Pepper
Kansas City Star editorial page editor
Don't discount the now almost-quaint notion that voters choose candidates, not parties.
Following Tuesday's national election outcomes, much chatter focused on the Democrats' loss of two state gubernatorial races, with many pronouncing a Republican comeback.
by Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
It’s time for a bistate wrap-up of interesting developments from the past week.
First, Missouri-side voters were in a positive mood Tuesday and deserve a pat on the back for endorsing several needed issues.
By: Danette Gamble, Kansas City Star Reader Advisor Panel
The winds of change blew a slight breeze to the right yesterday. It wasn’t a tornado or a full-force gale, but it was perceptible.
It was like that first whiff you feel in early-mid September. You can’t really put your finger on it, but it just feels like “Fall,” and you know its coming.
