Letters (Mar. 20, 2013)

Letter to the Editor

Written by Hillsboro Free Press Tuesday, 19 March 2013 13:38

Column distorts state stand on schools

 

As a Kansas school teacher for 33 years, in public and private high schools and also private and state colleges, I felt compelled to respond to Bob Woelk’s mischaracterization of what the Kansas Legislature is attempting to do with the House bills he described in last week’s paper (“Free Falling,” March 13).

To quote Mr. Woelk: “One of the bills would no longer allow teachers to deduct union dues from paychecks.” This is simply untrue. What occurred in the past is that dues for political action from the KNEA were deducted from teacher’s paychecks automatically. A teacher had to request that they not be deducted.

I can tell you from experience that heavy pressure was exerted...

Read more: Letters (Mar. 20, 2013)

Days filled reviewing House bills and budget

Opinion

Written by Don Schroeder Friday, 29 March 2013 15:26

Kansas House of Representatives

At this time we have only two weeks left in regular session and things move very fast. It becomes almost impossible to follow bills and issues.

I spend a fair amount of time simply looking up bills to see what has happened, and to find out if the bill numbers have changed. That is something that also happens this time of year, which makes tracking much more difficult.

This week we had a marathon session on the House floor debating an abortion bill for almost two hours and then spending all afternoon on the House budget.

The House budget this year is a 512-page document with many parts. A budget is always very difficult to vote on because it is nearly impossible to know exactly what is in a document...

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How many emails in your box?

Partly Nonsense

Written by Joel Klaassen Tuesday, 09 April 2013 12:48

How many emails do you have in your inbox? I have 31,665 since November 2010, plus almost 20,000 sent emails. And these are the ones I have kept. I have deleted probably eight times that many along the way.

So, that means I get roughly 30 emails per day that are useful and are regarding business or of a personal nature.

If you wonder why I keep that many, it’s because it’s easier to keep them than sort them and delete them. It takes enough time as it is to just keep up with what they are about and answer them in some fashion.

Many of them are from book and printing customers, and it’s useful to be able to go back and research what has been discussed over a period of time via inbox and sent mail.

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This week is our Midwest...

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Critical mass

Editorials

Written by Hillsboro Free Press Tuesday, 16 April 2013 12:49

Criticizing public leaders is a spectator sport in our culture. In some cases, the criticism is justified, for every profession has the self-promoting hucksters within. But every so often it’s good for us to remember the perspective of Teddy Roosevelt, himself a frequently maligned servant of the people in his day. Spoken in 1910, his words are worth pondering today:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or...

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