There are twenty states that have no women representatives in Congress. In addition, Delaware, Iowa, Mississippi and Vermont have never had any. True equality means more than just jobs and pay, it also means leadership. Research shows that increasing the number of women in leadership positions to just 30 percent makes for a better bottom line.

Forty-six years ago, President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas. It was an act that has both repercussions and parallels today. In examining the reasons behind the assassination of President Kennedy, one author and peace-activist says it was an act that very likely extended the cold war for decades. It was an act that was aimed at not just a man, but at that man’s vision. And, was perpetrated by those who had come to see the president as a traitor to the American cause.

Following the American Civil War there was a brief period of reconciliation called the reconstruction era. And, while it is viewed differently by many, one journalist says it seemed for a while as if Blacks and Whites might be able to get along. But, beginning in the early 1900s, after Blacks and Whites had shown they could rise above the onus of race without the sky falling, there were those who feared the sky might fall. Consequently, throughout the country, and particularly in the south, racial separation became the rule of the land.

The last case of smallpox occurred in October of 1976. That case came at the end of a ten-year effort to eradicate a disease that annually killed at least two million people…and had, for more than 3-thousand years, killed, scarred, or blinded hundreds of millions of others. The effort to eradicate the disease was led by the World Health Organization, and is a story that has implications for us today.

All across the country, universities are grappling with tremendous cuts coming in the funds they need to operate. Kansas State University, just like so many others, is looking high and low for both money and for ways to save that money. In the short run, that search means cuts in programs and increases in tuition. In the long run, it means the future may well offer not only very different degree programs in higher education, but also very different avenues for getting those degrees.

At the end of July, the federal minimum wage got a boost, but some feel the increase was simply not enough. In today’s dollars, the hourly minimum wage from 1968 adds up to over $20,000 a year. By comparison, the new hourly federal minimum wage of $7.25, adds up to just slightly over $15,000 a year. A higher minimum wage, according to one group, is good for workers, business and the economy…and a ten dollar minimum wage next year would be even better.

Many U.S. citizens dearly love their guns and embrace the philosophy that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees them the right to keep and possess those guns. But does it? The Second Amendment to the Constitution says: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. But, just what does that mean? Almost since the beginning the U.S. Supreme Court has ducked the issue of whether or not that gives an individual the right to own…to possess a gun. And, their most recent decision in 2008 seemingly carries on that tradition.

On the night of May 4, 2007, Greensburg, Kansas, was devastated by a tornado. It was an EF-5 tornado that killed eleven people and destroyed almost 95-percent of the small, southern Kansas town. Today, over two years later, the people of Greensburg have rebuilt nearly 50-percent of their town…and in doing so have gone green. 

Everywhere one turns there seems to be some kind of confrontation with sex. From clothing to movies to television to books and even cartoons, sex is in one’s face. And for many it is the marketing that is so disturbing, especially since sex is aggressively marketed to our kids. And, in many cases not to teenagers, but to very young children. Not only are young girls idolizing the hot, young female pop stars in their provocative clothing, but our sons are learning to more and more see them as just objects of desire. One expert says this whole attitude is doing a great deal of societal harm.

The world’s entire wheat crop is currently at risk. A fungus, called UG-99, capable of destroying most of the crop worldwide, is threatening both famine and economic disaster. And, because of the threat, scientists are working desperately to develop new varieties of wheat to resist the fungus, but time is short.