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March for Our Lives was a big success in Wichita.

March 24, 2018, 2:34 pm
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By SJ Otto
A March for Our Lives took place today, in Wichita, and it was probably one of the largest marches I've seen in several years. One thing that stands out for this march run is that it was run mostly by, and largely attended by high school students. A few thousand people Marched from ParkElementary School to the old Sedgwick County Courthouse.
People also marched in other cities across the country.
The marchers had many slogans, including "this is what democracy looks like" and "say no to the NRA."
"We've been patient long enough," said Camilla Pierce, one of the students who spoke at the rally. "That's 17 lives taken, 17 futures gone. We want change and we need change."
She pointed out that using a knife or a shotgun would not have killed as many as an assault riffle (AR-15 rifle) did.
"If you take blood money from the NRA we will not re-elect you," she added.
Politicians who did come to the really included  Rep. Jason Probst, D-Hutchinson. He said the country has done “little more than shrug our shoulders” since 1999 and again in 2005. ‎
"Any one of those events should have spawned action," he said. "This is a movement of students in action."
Later a speaker was heard to ask, "where is Ron Estes?" Of course Republican Representative Estes could not be  bothered with the needs of our young future voters.
Nathan Dominguez, another high school student who spoke at the event, called for 17 second of silence for the 17 students shot at MarjoryStonemanDouglasHigh School.
"Representatives sit in big fancy chairs and except blood money from the NRA," Dominguez said. "They say this is just a big liberal plot. But we will not stop."
Almost all the speakers said that registering to vote and then voting is a major action that young people need to take part in. Some at the march expressed frustration that they are too young. There at least a thousand of students just here in Wichita, which has been a traditional strong hold for conservative politics and a gun friendly city and state. If these young people actually stay interested in this issue, the balance of Republican power may actually shift in the years to come.
Other rallies, in other cities, also drew heavy crowds. According to CNN:

"Survivors of the deadly shooting rampage at a Parkland, Florida, high school led thousands Saturday in March for Our Lives on Washington, delivering impassioned pleas to the nation for stricter gun control laws.
Building on the momentum of last week's National School Walkout, these members of a generation raised with gun violence have rallied Americans around their cause while honoring the 17 students and faculty members killed February 14 at MarjoryStonemanDouglasHigh School."

If the momentum from these marches continues and these students stay active in politics, this could represent the largest shift in politics, both in Kansas and the US, in the last 30 years.



A Band played music at the courthouse.

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The March For Our Lives is proof that this Generation can’t be stopped

March 26, 2018, 10:25 am
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By SJ Otto
Will support from the NRA finally cost politicians their jobs? Should they get their resumes out and start looking for new employment? Some people think they should.  The March for Our Lives events last weekend points to such trends. About 200,000 students marched across the country with such slogans as “Not one more,” “Vote them out” and “The NRA has got to go!” according to the Huff Post. It won't take a lot of those voting students to turn the tables on Republicans in the tight races that they mostly won, in the last election.


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Do people really need to carry such big guns everywhere they go?

March 29, 2018, 8:31 am
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By SJ Otto
These are strange times we live in, at least for those of us who grew up in a time when handguns were strictly forbidden to be carried.  Until I was 13 years old, I lived in St. Louis and hand guns in Missouri were hard to buy and getting a permit to carrying them was even harder to come by.
Then I moved to Kansas where it was a lot easier to buy handguns. I had to be 21, but that is all it took.
Since the Cowboy days, which I often see on TV, the idea of carrying a gun for protection fell out of favor by the 20th century. According to Wikipedia:

“Concealed weapons bans were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813. (In those days open carry of weapons for self-defense was considered acceptable; concealed carry was denounced as the practice of criminals.) By 1859, Indiana, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, and Ohio had followed suit. By the end of the nineteenth century, similar laws were passed in places such as Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma, which protected some gun rights in their state constitutions. Before the mid 1900s, most U.S. states had passed concealed carry laws rather than banning weapons completely.”


By 1990 all of that began to swing back the other way. It started with a few states allowing people to buy a conceal and carry permit. In Kansas, as many other states, a one day eight-hour approved class, was all that was needed to buy the right to carry a hand gun. Since that time, almost all states now allow people to carry guns. Most don’t require a lengthy class.  
Since 2015, Kansans can now carry a gun with no permit at all. It is perfectly legal to put a gun in someone’s pocket and carry it around.
I used to carry a gun in the late 1970s and it was not legal at that time. For a while I carried a derringer in my pocket wrapped in a handkerchief. Later I lost that gun and bought a 22 pistol. It was small enough I could carry that gun the same way.
Today we live in a paranoid society where about half the people are packing a gun. And unlike the small unnoticeable guns I carried, they seem to feel a need for a large high powered pistol which needs some kind of clever holster that can be concealed somewhere on the person. Just recently I noticed an article about Tomi Lahren, a right-wing commentator, plugging Alexo Athletica leggings, which are meant to conceal a person’s firearm as they exercise. She and many other gun nuts need exotic holsters to carry what amounts to a small cannon on their person. And who really needs a gun on them when they are in a gym exercising?
It wasn’t much of an inconvenience for me to carry a gun in my front pocket. And I never needed it everywhere I went. There a plenty of places I went where I didn’t feel I needed a gun. There seems to be this new mindset that people need really big guns, such as a 44 magnum and they need them everywhere they go. I certainly couldn’t carry such a gun in my front pocket. And I have to wonder how wise such a big gun is?
My smaller guns were just as protective as those big mini-canons most of these gun nuts like to carry. The bigger calibers are not that accurate. If the barrels are long enough to give as person some accuracy they want, then the guns is bulky, heavy and hard to conceal. A small short barreled 22 can be very accurate. If used properly they can be just as deadly as any other gun. And they are easy to conceal. They are not cumbersome and they are not uncomfortable.
I can now legally carry my 22 pistol, which easily fits in my front pocket. But after all these years I just don’t really feel I need it. Maybe I can carry it to places that I feel are unsafe, but I don’t need to take it to a gym when I exorcise.
Gun dealers are making a fortune off of the fear and paranoia of a lot of US citizens these days. I’m not completely against people carrying guns, but I do feel that an 8 hour safety class is ridiculous. I like that poor people can now carry a gun. The permits cost $300 and a lot of poorer people can’t afford that. But we have reached a point where people’s attitude is “if I have a gun or a permit, I should not get in trouble just for shooting the wrong person.” There have been a few cases here a women was surprised people didn’t want her to shoot a shop-lifter. These permits should not be, as James Bond once said, “a license to kill.”
There are a lot of people who really should not be carrying guns. They can just as easily shoot a bystander as the crook they are aiming at. And that does not make me feel safe.
There needs to be cheap permits that anyone can afford, along with a real training class requirement that makes it clear to a person that they can be held accountable for what they do with a gun.



Pix from Cheaper Than Dirt, Cheaper Than Dirt.

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April Fools! The Joke is our fool president

March 31, 2018, 8:48 pm
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Help stop a dangerous anti-abortion bill

April 3, 2018, 8:34 am
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From Julie A. Burkhart, Founder & CEO, Trust Women Foundation:
You’ve seen the news, 5 states in the last 5 days have introduced or passed extreme, punitive and dangerous bills limiting abortion rights even further. Here in Kansas, we know how destructive and dangerous these laws are.
Now the Kansas legislature is adding an appropriations amendment that would outlaw embryonic research from fetal tissue. To add insult to injury, anti-choice Rep. Steve Fitzgerald compared fetal tissue research to the atrocities of the holocaust during WWII.
Not only is Rep. Fitzgerald’s comparison abhorrent, false and cruel, but his proposed amendment would outlaw any research that uses tissue samples from fetuses. His amendment severely limits innovate research that could help all kind of patients, including those trying to get pregnant.
Kansas has always been a state that supports science and seeks to innovate and find solid solutions. This bill is a step away from the pioneering spirit of Kansas, as well as a blatant attempt to win anti-choice points on the Senate floor.
We need folks to urge the Approriations Committee to vote NO! on Rep. Fitzgerald’s amendment, Sec. 101 in SB 269:
Chair    
Representative Troy Waymaster               785-296-7672            troy.waymaster@house.ks.gov
Vice-Chair          
Representative Richard Proehl                  785-296-7639             richard.proehl@house.ks.gov
Ranking Minority            
Representative Kathy Wolfe-Moore           785-296-0424               kathy.wolfemoore@house.ks.gov
Members           
Representative John Alcala                      785-296-7371                john.alcala@house.ks.gov
Representative Clay Aurand                     785-296-7637               clay.aurand@house.ks.gov
Representative Barbara Ballard                785-296-7697               barbara.ballard@house.ks.gov
Representative Tom Burroughs                 785-296-8153               tom.burroughs@house.ks.gov
Representative Sydney Carlin                   785-296-7657               sydney.carlin@house.ks.gov
Representative J.R Claeys                        785-296-7670               jrclaeys@house.ks.gov
Representative Susan Concannon             785-296-7644               susan.concannon@house.ks.gov
Representative Henry Helgerson              785-296-7668                henry.helgerson@house.ks.gov
Representative Kyle Hoffman                   785-296-7643                kyle.hoffman@house.ks.gov
Representative Steven Johnson                785-296-7696               steven.johnson@house.ks.gov
Representative Kevin Jones                      785-296-6287               kevin.jones@house.ks.gov
Representative Jan Kessinger                   785 296-7436                Jan.Kessinger@house.ks.gov
Representative Brenda Landwehr              785-296-7488                brenda.landwehr@house.ks.gov
Representative Fred Patton                      785-296-7460                 fred.patton@house.ks.gov
Representative Eber Phelps                      785-296-4683                eber.phelps@house.ks.gov
Representative Brad Ralph                       785-296-7501                 Brad.Ralph@house.ks.gov
Representative Don Schroeder                  785-296-7500                don.schroeder@house.ks.gov
Representative Bill Sutton                        785-296-7676                bill.sutton@house.ks.gov
Representative Sean Tarwater                  785-296-7685                Sean.Tarwater@house.ks.gov
Representative Kristey Williams                316 775-1440                   kristeywilliams@yahoo.com
States across the country have seen a dangerous course of anti-choice laws introduced or passed in just the last week. We need to make sure our state doesn’t fall prey to inaccurate information, horrific comparisons and lies that make it into our laws here in Kansas.
Please call these lawmakers and tell them to vote NO on Sec. 101 in SB 269, because lies should not be part of our laws! 
Thank you for all you do,


Julie A. Burkhart
Founder & CEO
Trust Women Foundation
Trust Women Foundation
5107 E. Kellogg Drive
Wichita, KS. 67218

Trust Women Wichita
5107 E. Kellogg Drive
Wichita, KS. 67218

Trust Women Oklahoma City
1240 S.W. 44th St.
Oklahoma City, OK. 73109


Trust Women Seattle
1325 4th Ave, Suite 1240
Seattle, WA 98101
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Members of the community continue to support WSU's The Sunflower newspaper

April 4, 2018, 7:26 am
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Letter to the Editor — Sandy West

March 31, 2018 
From The Sunflower (Wichita State University):

As a Wichita State alumnus, who worked closely with the university administration and Student Government Association in a variety of capacities as a student, including as a reporter for The Sunflower, I have to say I have never been so disgusted with my alma mater as I am now.
Perhaps it is because back then, WSU administrators and the SGA understood that WSU is a public institution – that taxpayers and tuition-paying students are stakeholders, and that as such, backroom deals and the ominous threats more common in private industry have no place on a college campus. Perhaps it is because the administration lacked hubris and did not believe that they and they alone controlled the narrative. Perhaps it is because the administration respected the independent press and wasn’t threatened by oversight.

Let’s put to rest the notion that the SGA vote, planned and plotted by university officials — including Vice President of Student Affairs Teri Hall, and the SGA President — financially knee-capping The Sunflower was anything but retaliation for the excellent work of the student staffers, who despite ongoing threats from administrators, reported on financial deal-making intentionally kept from the public eye. Those students had the courage to report on arrangements between university officials and private developers – including a member of the State Board of Regents – that this year will see a transfer of millions of dollars from university coffers to the pockets of those developers. Student reporters have pursued stories about the development of publicly owned land to the benefit of corporate interests and private-sector financial benefactors. They wrote about artificially inflated enrollment figures.
Student reporters also wrote human interest stories, covered sports, clubs, events and recorded the daily history at Wichita State.
Student reporters wrote stories that informed us – the taxpaying public, tuition-paying students, and alumni who poured our hearts and souls into WSU long before Hall, John Bardo, or any current administrator set foot on campus – because we are entitled to know, because WE paid the bills.
After repeated threats over the past year to withdraw student fee funding from The Sunflower – a revenue stream that is historically non-controversial due its status as a STUDENT-RUN newspaper – Hall promised in an email (addressed to administrators at WSU) to “fix” the (funding) problem that is The Sunflower. That would be the same Hall, who: after one year on the job, secured a $100,000 increase in the student fee allocation to heroffice while simultaneously stripping The Sunflower of $80,000; reportedly said in an SGA meeting on Wednesday, March 28, 2018, that students have no business questioning how her student fee allocation is spent; who appears to lack a fundamental understanding of how The Sunflower fits into the structure at WSU; who seemed unable to comprehend the difference between KU/Lawrence and WSU/Wichita in a telephone conversation with me;  and who belligerently defends the initial decision to conduct an SGA Student Fees Committee meeting behind closed doors. Hall has repeatedly sworn that stripping funding for The Sunflower was not retribution despite her email promise to “fix” The Sunflower problem, and despite it being single largest cut to a campus organization – which coincidentally is the entity most reviled by university administrators. Apparently, Hall, the SGA and WSU administrators expect everyone to disbelieve the truth plainly before their eyes.
If this really is all about fiscal responsibility, perhaps someone can explain how the SGA passed its own $256,000 allocation? Or why Hall deserves an extra $100,000 – and why no one is allowed to question it?
I hope Mr. Bardo takes some time to reflect on this situation before forwarding a student fees budget designed to destroy the 123-year-old campus institution that is The Sunflower.
No vibrant, exciting and welcoming university in America lacks a student newspaper. The majority of those papers, whether strategically independent or not, rely on student fees. Most universities are run by intellectually honest people who understand their campus and community market enough to know when there are limitations on the prospects for ad revenue. The argument that The Sunflower can simply make up lost student fees in ad revenue is specious and stupid.
Most university administrations don’t, in conjunction with the student government, declare war on student newspapers they don’t like in order to justify destroying those organizations. Regardless of all claims to the contrary, that is EXACTLY what has happened at WSU.
Hall and others may think they have “fixed” their problem. They would be wise to realize those of us standing with The Sunflower and on the side of good and open governance aren’t going anywhere.
—Sandy West, WSU ’89 ’91
Professional journalist (Arkansas City Traveler, Wichita Business Journal, Orange County Business Journal, Associated Press, Money), writer
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The 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.- be prepared for a lot of phony speeches

April 4, 2018, 11:34 am
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By SJ Otto
 Today Ceremonies and other events are being held nationwide to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Of course most of us remember him as the leading figure of the civil rights struggle that lead to the end of "Jim Crow" laws, racial segregation and the guaranteed right for all people of all races to vote.
The other thing he is known for is his philosophy of non-violence.
King was a major mover and shaker in the civil rights movement, but that is not all he did. He also wrestled with such topics as poverty and ending the Vietnam War. I emphasis the last two things because politicians of all stripes will be giving speeches, today, on King and his work with the civil rights movement. They will focus on his commitment to using non-violence to accomplish his goals. Politicians today love a man of peace because conservatives are all about violence and intimidation to get what they want. Some conservatives have openly carried guns as a form of intimidation while protesting against Muslim Mosques. That happened here in Wichita in May of 2016. Then there were the heavy handed police attacks on the peaceful protests of the Occupy Movement. Oaklandpolice used violence against some protesters back in 2012. So the idea of a group of political activist who will always reject violence is a wonderful thing for the conservatives who oppose most of what our modern protesters stand for.

As for poverty and inequality, no conservative Republican is going to champion that cause. And some Democrats are just as bad as Republicans. Today we have one of the  most crass champions of the rich and their greed, as well as open hostility to those who are working poor or those living in poverty, President Donald Trump. As King once said:

"We have come a long way in our understanding of human motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we realize that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. The poor are less often dismissed from our conscience today by being branded as inferior and incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands it does not eliminate all poverty."

This is not something that our Idiot 'n Chief, Trump would ever embrace. And almost all of our Kansaspoliticians, including our very own Representative Ron Estes would not touch the quote with a 10 foot pole. Today we have some of the nastiest-classist anti-poor leaders this country and the world have ever seen. Greed is rampant and guarded by our present day Republican Party. The country has moved very far away from the ideas and goals that King professed.
Another area sure to be disputed was King's dislike of the Vietnam War. According to The New York Times:

" Fifty years ago today — and one year to the day before his assassination — the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the most politically charged speech of his life at RiversideChurchin Upper Manhattan. It was a blistering attack on the government’s conduct of the Vietnam War that, among other things, compared American tactics to those of the Nazis during World War II.
The speech drew widespread condemnation from across the political spectrum, including from this newspaper. Other civil rights leaders, who supported the war and sought to retain President Lyndon B. Johnson as a political ally, distanced themselves from Dr. King."

Today this nation is involved in wars all over the world. We occupy Iraqand Afghanistan. We are involved in wars in Yemenand Syria. This nation is addicted to war and there is almost no opposition to it at all, especially missing is anything from the Democrats. This nation hasn't been so found of war since World War II. Our culture and even our advertisements are full of pro-war messages.
So be prepared for some of the most hyped up, hypocritical and phony praise for Martin Luther King Jr. This is America, an anti-poor and pro-war nation. We have collectively ignored most of the advice from King and we are paying for it.

Pix by The Atlantic.
To be clear, I'm endorsing this event. 

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Class, race, and U.S. wealth inequality

April 7, 2018, 12:21 pm
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From Monthly Review:
by Martin Hart-Landsberg
Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front (January 3, 2018)  
People tend to have a distorted picture of U.S. capitalism’s operation, believing that the great majority of Americans are doing well, benefiting from the system’s long-term growth and profit generation. Unfortunately, this is not true. Median wealth has been declining, leaving growing numbers of working people increasingly vulnerable to the ups and downs of economic activity and poorly positioned to enjoy a secure retirement. Moreover, this general trend masks a profound racial wealth divide, with people of color disproportionally suffering from a loss of wealth and insecurity.

A distorted picture of wealth inequality

In a 2011 article, based on 2005 national survey data, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely demonstrate how little Americans know about the extent of wealth inequality. The figure below (labeled Fig. 2) shows the actual distribution of wealth in that year compared to what survey respondents thought it was, as well as their ideal wealth distribution. As the authors explain:
respondents vastly underestimated the actual level of wealth inequality in the United States, believing that the wealthiest quintile held about 59% of the wealth when the actual number is closer to 84%. More interesting, respondents constructed ideal wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution, reporting a desire for the top quintile to own just 32% of the wealth. These desires for more equal distributions of wealth took the form of moving money from the top quintile to the bottom three quintiles, while leaving the second quintile unchanged, evincing a greater concern for the less fortunate than the more fortunate.

For the rest click here.

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Radio ads appeal to greed and voter stupidity

April 11, 2018, 2:43 pm
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By SJ Otto
Some smarmy under-handed conservative group is running dozens of ads every day, on NPR (National Public Radio), trying to tell us that we need to let the "elected" officials in Kansas decide how much school funding Kansas schools need. These new adds are filled with inaccurate information, appeals to personal greed and fear mongering.

These ads imply that it is unfair to let the "unelected" supreme court justices decide how much money we really need for our schools. And they go into fear mongering—warning listeners that property taxes could double or we may end up paying more than 10 percent sales tax (which is close to what we pay now).
As someone who actually works for the school system, I have watched while our past Governor Sam Brownback, gutted our schools and cheated Kansas youth out of the quality education that the generation before them had. The damage that Brownback did will take years to fix. But not if the people who run the ads get their way. As with the rest of the nation, we have an obligation to provide a reasonable and adequate education to every citizen of both Kansasand this country. In the long run, allowing poorly educated citizens to mature, vote, work and live in our society is very dangerous. We already have seen what the poorly educated citizens have done to the office of the president. We have a man who was elected by those poorly educated and easily fooled into believing a $billionaire con man would be an ally of the working class. Our president today has done nothing but take the rights of working people away and has done all he can to make sure that employers have all the rights and all the decision making power over working people who have been stripped of any rights or control over their jobs.
Trying to educate on the cheap is irresponsible and just plane wrong. There are too many people who whine about having to educate someone else's kid. They need to get over it. A lot of the politicians who have gotten elected over the last 10 years have been counting on the less educated and the gullible. When these folks get elected we all pay.
We need to stand up to the big money and greedy political people who have wrecked havoc on our school systems and want to continue this mistreatment of our young. We need to be responsible for education all citizens, so they can enter the work place with the knowledge they need to function well, the ability to understand the system they live under and the ability to see a con job when they vote.


Pix by NBC News.

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May Day and other events planned by DSA

April 13, 2018, 6:23 pm
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By SJ Otto
May Day is coming and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members will be attending a May Day celebration at the Machinist Hall, put on by the Wichita and Hutchinson Labor Federation. The event will be free, but those who want to attend must RSVP, 316-941-4061. The event will be April 26th, 6pm at the Machinist Hall. All this was decided at the last DSA board meeting April 8.
Also the Peace and Social Justice Center will be showing films on the Actual May Day, Tuesday, May 1, including Maestra.[1] 
DSA will be taking part in the Science March from 11am to 2pm, this Saturday, at the Sedgwick County Courthouse.
DSA has plans to print and sell T-shirt that we can wear to such events as the Junteenth Celebration, which DSA will take part in this year. The design for the shirts were voted on at last week's meeting.
DSA members are still working out the details of the weekend campout in EisenhowerState Park, May 18-20. DSA Chapters from all the surrounding states will be there. There will be officials from the national DSA organization at this event. There will be several educational events, such as Jim Philip's giving a history of socialism here in the US. There will be plenty of time for swimming and other fun activities.
They will also be taking part in PRIDE Day.
DSA is considering a possible information table at this year's JunteenthCelebration.
(Remember that any mistakes or correction can be fixed in this article. Just leave a note at the e-male above.)
[1]Join us to celebrate International Workers’ Day with a potluck and a recent Cuban film,  Maestra (Teacher). Maestra explores the personal testimonies of the young women who taught literacy in rural communities across Cubaduring the Cuban Literacy Campaign of 1961, when 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. Please bring food to share–we have place settings. We’ll also have information about the Pastors for Peace yearly Cuba Caravan.

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Syrian Researcher: Focusing on an Alleged Chemical Attack Ignores War’s Ongoing Deaths by Airstrikes, Bullets

April 14, 2018, 5:32 am
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I have come across several people on the left who believe we should take a stand against the Bashar al-Assad (بشار اسد) Regime and some have even suggested supporting the Free Syrian Army, which the UShas been supporting. There are a few points they try to make. Most have claimed they are not supporting USimperialism and yet they believe we should demand Assad step down. That is the same position the US takes and as far as I am concerned the US has no authority to tell a foreign leader to step down. Some of these so-called leftists are claiming that the slaughter of his own people is unjustifiable and we should take up the cause to get rid of him. I don't actually support Assad, but I oppose the FSA because it is a reactionary faction, similar to the Nicaraguan Contras. They are mostly Islamists. I am not an Islamist. I don't support Islamist revolutionaries. Many of those people would kill us if we went to Syria. I refuse to take up the causes of USimperialism. They plan to put puppet governments all over the Middle East. That does not help anyone. One thing I will not support is the imperialist efforts to replace Assad with a puppet government. - SJ Otto

From Democracy Now:
As the United Nations Security Council holds an emergency session over the growing prospect of a war between Russiaand the U.S., after President Trump threatened U.S.strikes in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, we get response from Syrian-Canadian writer Yazan al-Saadi. “Let’s remind everyone that the U.S. is striking Syria already. You have more than 2,000 soldiers on the ground. There are bases.” He adds, “For me, as a Syrian, I see it as an occupation, just like how I see the Russians are an occupation on the country.” Regarding the alleged chemical attack in Syria, he says, “This ignores the fact that most deaths are happening through conventional means,” such as airstrikes.


For the rest of this article click here.
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Science March was cold and windy in Wichita

April 15, 2018, 1:17 pm
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By SJ Otto
The March for Science was fairly small this year, maybe about 20 people, here in Wichita, KS. It was real cold and windy. The March was this Saturday at the Historic Courthouse stairs. The local march was sponsored by the Air Capital Sceptics.
Science Marches were conducted all across the country Saturday, April 14.

From CNN:
Crowds turned out in cities around the world Saturday for the second annual March for Science.
Saturday's crowds were notably smaller than those that showed up for the first march in April 2017, but attendees expressed as much optimism and hope as they did last year.
According to the non-partisan March for Science organization, the main event was set to take place in Washington, while more than 230 satellite events were scheduled around the world in different forms, be they marches, rallies or science exhibitions.
"There definitely aren't as many people present this year, but the people and speakers here are equally as passionate to help advocate for science," said Mackenzie Mittleman, 24, who attended the march in Washingtonfor a second year.

For the rest click here.
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The Failure of Welfare Reform

April 18, 2018, 11:35 am
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The following is in rebuttal to the very many articles by the likes of such writers asCal Thomas, who are jumping all over welfare reform as an example of great conservative politics. The only problem the reform is a disaster as the following article shows: By SJ Otto

From Slate:
By JORDAN WEISSMANN



If you want a sense of how thoroughly America’s welfare system has decayed thanks to the reforms Bill Clinton signed into law two decades ago, consider Arizona.
Despite being home to one of the nation’s most crushing child poverty rates, the state has all but stopped giving cash assistance to its needy. During 2014, for every 100 poor families with children in Arizona, just 8 families received aid. And even that tiny fraction is likely to shrink. Last year, while trying to chip away at a $1 billion budget deficit, lawmakers lowered the maximum amount of time Arizonans could receive welfare payments before being kicked off the rolls permanently—it’s now just 12 months.
This was a first. Most states enforce a five-year time limit. Some, including Arizona, have gone as low as two years. None had tried the one-year-and-you’re-out approach.
For the rest click here.




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The opioid epidemic is really a fentanyl epidemic—and we don’t need all the hype

April 20, 2018, 8:34 am
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By SJ Otto
At least a few times a week we hear of “The U.S. opioid epidemic.” The news is full of scary statistics, with staggering death tolls. Some news outlets claim this is one of the deadliest drug epidemics since the 1960s. But as with the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s, not all the news we got was accurate. If we could believe all the hype and hysteria the mainstream news media fed us, at times we should have seen the country fall apart with so many people using these dangerous drugs. But America has endured from one drug epidemic to the next.
What is being called the “U.S. Opioid Epidemic” should really be called the “fentanyl epidemic.” With all the deaths that are being reported, most are attributed to street drugs mixed with fentanyl. The latest celebrity to die from fentanyl was Prince. The singer was using the common painkiller Vicodin when, unbeknownst to him, it was laced with fentanyl. The obvious conclusion is that he bought bootlegged Vicodin and it was laced with fentanyl. Police are finding that drug all over the streets, even in cocaine.
According to the National Safety Council, “Over 42,000 Americans died of opioid overdose in 2016, and government and public health officials are scrambling to find effective ways to reverse this frightening trend.” Such death statistics are constantly thrown at us by the mainstream news media. But what seems to be coming across more and more often is the fact that fentanyl is largely responsible for many of these deaths.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is supposedly cheap and easy to make. It is real powerful and is added to all kinds of street narcotics to boost their potency. The problem with this drug is that it is extremely potent.

According to Wikipedia, “fentanyl is about 75 times stronger than morphine for a given amount. Some fentanyl analogues may be as much as 10,000 times stronger than morphine.” Street heroin, in the past century, has always led some people to die from overdoses. For a regular dose of heroin to a non-addict is usually about half a grain. An addict will need several grains. That is a really small amount. For the same amount of fentanyl for the non-addict and addict, to get the same affects as heroin would require amounts that are no more than specs. A spec of salt or a single salt crystal would be the amount of fentanyl an addict might need to get high. It would not take much more than that to kill a person, addict or non-addict.



In the last few decades heroin has been sold in powder form, either in grams or “spoons” or “spoonful.” Recently some heroin has been stamped into pills. But the drug is almost always diluted or cut with other powders to stretch it out and make it appear as if the buyer is getting way more than they really get. Mostly milk sugar and quinine are used to stretch the heroin out. In the past, these powders have usually range from 10 percent to one percent heroin. So the user puts as much as a quarter gram, half or even a whole gram, when in reality the heroin is no more than a few pinches mixed with a lot of non-active powder. Some of the heroin today may be more potent and cheaper than in the past. The danger comes when a user buys heroin that is way more potent than usual. Other factors can contribute to an overdose, such as being drunk when shooting up. Alcohol and heroin are a deadly combination and should always be avoided.
In the case of fentanyl, the drug is so potent it almost has to be cut to prevent an overdose. And because it is so potent, it takes just a little too much, in a powder, to kill a person. It’s hard for the user to really understand how much of the drug they are using, especially when mixed with heroin, fake pharmaceuticals and non-narcotics such as cocaine.
The whole idea that doctors are the culprits, because they are writing too many prescriptions and luring people into addiction is ludicrous. Supposedly, according to recent news reports, people run out of their prescriptions and then head for the nearest heroin dealer. There are a lot of holes in this scenario. Overall this nation needs to be looking into stopping fentanyl and needs to stop wasting time chasing doctors who write too many pain killer prescriptions. There are plenty of people who need legitimate prescriptions for pain killers. There is no need to insist that the average person will become a heroin addict simply because he or she has a prescription to a common pain killer, such as Vicodin or Lortab. Such opioids are relatively harmless when prescribed for pain. We do need to spend public funds on drug rehabilitation for people who have serious problems or for addicts who want to quit. Funding for prevention also makes sense. What we don’t need is a lot of new regulations that make it harder for pain patients to get the medicine they need. We also don’t need more laws to punish people for having a drug problem. We don’t need more drug testing to throw addicts off of public assistance. Most of all we don’t need the hysteria that results from the hype and actions of politicians over these drug epidemics. We need to use common sense. In the 1980s we filled the prisons with people whose only crime was having a drug problem. Such laws created problems we are still trying to fix today. Recent statements and actions by our President Donald Trump make no sense at all, such as capital punishment for drug dealers. We need cooler heads and people who have common sense working on this epidemic and not reckless politicians.




Pix by Why fentanyl is deadlier than heroin, in a .

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Koch network success in Trump era draws Democratic pushback

April 24, 2018, 7:23 am
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The Koch brothers, David and Charles, with their sprawling networks, are now getting pretty much everything they ever waned in our government, thanks to our Idiot and Chief Donald Trump. They have watched with delight as Trump destroys the environment one piece at time, but definitely he is on track to leave us in the dust. Workers or losing their rights all the time and the Koch brothers love it. They love to see our workers graveling and begging their bosses for the most mundane rights.  They can’t stand to see workers controlling their own fate.
The Koch brothers are among the most dangerous men in the country today. They are fighting any action on global warming. They want to cook our planet and steam it up with industrial sludge.
-SJ Otto
Here is an AParticle on the brothers:

By Lisa Mascaro, AP Congressional Correspondent
The sprawling network funded by the billionaire Koch brothers is having a very good run with President Donald Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress.
Tax cuts are now signed into law. A conservative judge is seated on the Supreme Court. And many governmental regulations, including those on labor and environmental practices, are facing rollbacks.
That success is starting to get attention. Democrats are increasingly questioning how far the network's influence extends into the White House, casting the groups' backing by industrialists Charles and David Koch as puppeteers behind Trump's agenda and hoping to rouse their own donors to fight back. The network in turn is ratcheting up its focus on areas where it aligns with Democrats — most notably immigration legislation — and reviving calls for bipartisanship.
"We've come off one of the most successful years in our network's history," said James Davis, executive vice president of Koch-backed Freedom Partners and a spokesman for the
Seminar Network, the broader organization of groups and donors. "And we're going to turn up the heat on both parties to drive forward."
For the rest click here.

Pix from The Koch Brothers Hate America .

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Daily Kos defends Robert Mueller

April 27, 2018, 9:11 am
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From Daily Kos:

By Monique Teal
This is huge, HUGE news: Yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 14-7 to approve legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller. FOUR Republicans on the committee joined Democrats to pass this legislation to shield Mueller from Trump.

This is the first time Congress has advanced legislation to formally protect Mueller from being fired by President Trump. This would not have happened without strong grassroots support.
But our work's not done yet. Now we need to increase the pressure on Mitch McConnell and the Republican leadership to make sure this bill gets a vote on the floor. Can you chip in $5 to support Daily Kos and our work to protect the special counsel investigation?
Our next step in this campaign is to get Mitch McConnell to bring the bill to the full Senate for a vote. We will need the Daily Kos community to continue to put pressure on McConnell and the rest of the Republicans to do the right thing and protect Robert Mueller and his investigation.

Help us protect special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation by giving $5 now.

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Many came out for Take Back The Night March

April 30, 2018, 10:58 am
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By SJ Otto
Several hundred people attended the Take Back The Night March, last Friday Night. The marchers started at the parking lot in front of the Museum of World Treasures where several speakers addressed the event. The march was sponsored by the  Wichita Area Sexual Assault Center (WASAC).
" One in three women and one in six men will be sexually assaulted," said Jessica Stong, the main speaker.
There were four speakers, and all of the speakers were sexual assault victims. Two of the speakers were men.
“In England, in the 1970s, Women got tired of being afraid of walking home at night and that is where they got the phrase, “take back the night.”
“I was molested by a family member,” said Darrel, one of the survivors that spoke.
He added that he was molested by an uncle.
“My parents protected him, he said.”
Another survivor, Sarah, said she had been raped by a guy who was so rough, he dug his nails in her.
All the speakers said it was important to expose those who are rapist or sexual molesters. They said it is important to not be ashamed, as many felt they were.  



Pictures coming soon.
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May Day in Wichita, KS, This Year, 2018

May 1, 2018, 6:36 pm
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By SJ Otto
This year, progressive people in Wichita, KS, celebrated International Workers Day, May Day, with a potluck and a movie. These events took place tonight. The group wasn't very big. Every year some of us get together and try to celebrate this worker's holiday that has been a special day all over the world.
After dinner we all watched the film Maestra which gives the incredible history of the 1961 country-wide literacy campaign. The film followed some women who actually took part in a literacy campaign in the country side where there was no electricity or running water. It was inspiring to see that some countries put an emphasis on service to others rather than pandering to the greed of those who already have a lot of wealth.
For information on the founding of May Day click here.

Here we are watching the film.
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Pompeo believes in “swagger” for the US

May 3, 2018, 6:20 am
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From The World Can’t Wait:
Speaking at the State Department this week, Mike Pompeo, Trump's new Secretary of State pledged that the U.S. will get its "swagger" back. 
Democrats raised a little alarm about Pompeo when he was up for CIA Director, noting that he had called for the execution of Edward Snowden and was against the closure of Guantanamo or the ending of NSA surveillance.  And then, they gave him the CIA to run.  When the State job came up, again, they said it was going to be "very difficult" for Trump to get him confirmed. 

That was a set-up to everyone who thought the Democrats would actually try to stop the Trump/Pence regime's candidate.

Only five days after being swiftly confirmed - with the votes of 7 Democrats - Pompeo made a quick trip to the closest U.S. allies in the Middle East:
Is that the cold swagger of a bully with more than 4000 nuclear weapons threatening to attack North Korea and/or Iran for either having a few nuclear weapons (North Korea) or having had possible plans to develop one which, according to international experts and inspection agencies, have been halted (Iran)?

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WSU President Bardo trashes liberal arts education

May 8, 2018, 10:20 am
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By SJ Otto

Wichita State University President John Bardo (and we can assume with the backing of his “owners” David and Charles Koch), has taken aim at liberal arts education. He is taking a direct attack on a whole field of study. According to WSU’s The Sunflower:

Bardo said creating “an elite little liberal arts college” at WSU “ain’t gonna work.”
“Do we wish we were an elite little liberal arts college?” Bardo said to the crowd. “That’s not who we are.


“We’re educating people like you and me who have to go to work for a living.”
Bardo said Fairmount College — what WSU was formerly known as — was founded “to serve the working people of Wichita, not to serve the intellectual elite.”

He said he favored technology as a key part of his values of education. 
According to Wikipedia:

Liberal arts education can refer to academic subjects such as literature, philosophy, mathematics, and social and physical sciences, or it can also refer to overall studies in a liberal arts degree program. For both interpretations, the term generally refers to matters not relating to the professional, vocational, or technical curriculum.

Bardo and similar conservatives, across the country, seem to be taking aim at liberal arts, colleges, degrees and programs. For decades conservatives have had a hard time dealing with Universities that have been sanctuaries for leftists, both liberal and socialists. Universities have traditionally drawn out leftists to their staff. Conservatives have tried to get rid of tenure, which has protected leftists, such as Marxists, from being fired. Universities are one of the few places a Marxist can feel protected from being fired for their views. But now Conservatives are attacking an entire field of study. There is a new GOP tax bill that is the latest example of an anti-intellectualism that’s been brewing for decades.

According to The Atlantic;

The GOP and the American right consistently position themselves against the universities. This is a commonplace of the culture war. But why? America’s universities regularly rank among the most prestigious worldwide, making undeniable contributions to medicine, science, technology, economy, the arts, athletics, and the humanities. America’s universities also attract some of the world’s brightest minds, spurring innovation and dominating globally by countless measures. Conservatives might be proud of the universities as particularly stunning examples of American pluck and ingenuity. Instead, the tax bill appears to be symptomatic of the GOP’s growing disillusionment with higher education. This is, at least, how a number of college presidents and leaders have interpreted it.


So Bardo is part of a growing movement of conservatives who want to tear down public universities all across the US. Why do they hate this kind of education? They seem intent on creating a society of autotrons. They favour highly skilled students with technical abilities. They look up to technology as the one of the most important traits of modern society. But they don’t seem to favour letting a person question the essence of our society. The study of social interactions might bring up such questions as the issues of fairness. They may have to worry about the possibility that socialism or Marxism might come up for discussion. Anything that questions the absolute value of capitalism and the positions such people hold could threaten the conservative way of life. They don’t want their highly technical geniuses to be able to think about society and how it works. They don’t value a person who studies philosophy or sociology in general. That is especially true if such a person is not employed full-time. Thinking about society—questioning the system or looking for a better system is something our modern conservatives don’t want.
The worst part of all of this is that conservatives, such as Bardo, are willing to destroy an entire field of study just to get their agenda across. Such narrow-mindedness has no place in a modern university. Bardo and his cronies don’t belong on a modern-day campus. Bardo has no business running a university. People who do that job need to be education oriented. Bardo would do a fine job running a small business. 


But he has no business running a school of any kind.

Pix from The Sunflower and Nightron130Prime - DeviantArt.

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