Letter: Military icon

Your sentiments are not just your own; many others share your sentiments as well, just as I suppose there are others who don't. Like I said during the last round of comments on this topic, the missile to me is a symbol of humanity's brilliance and at the very same time a symbol of our shortcomings. And to ignore or downplay either one of these very human traits is to do so at our very great peril. This double edged sword characteristic is what this icon represents to me, and to have a public reminder of this is akin to the Icarus statue on west campus or other such complex symbolic depictions of our ambivalent nature.

May 11, 2013 at 6:50 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Dandelions

Sorry, buddy, you need to check your facts. When settlers moved into Douglas County in the 1850s, it was around 85% tallgrass prairie and 15% oak-hickory/floodplain forests. It's true that you need fire to maintain the prairies in this part of the state, but the prairie grasses have been here since the ice age ended and they do just fine here. Do you think someone planted the Prairie Nature Park prairie? Or the Akin Prairie? Come to think of it, you should consider coming to the free Prairie Wildflower walk coming up on May 25 at the Akin Prairie--there will be lots of folks there who can answer your questions about it:
http://kansasnativeplantsociety.org/e...

May 11, 2013 at 12:06 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Dandelions

I detect a rant, one well clothed in playfulness. And why not? The European invasive has had ideal cool, wet weather to flourish this year to maximize its productivity, at the expense of many a near monoculture lawn. For me, it's a bit of cosmic humor that we are offended by a plant that has piggybacked itself on top of our imported English lawns that we seem so intent on spreading across this part of the planet. If we were really wanting carefree lawns, we'd all have prairie grasses in our lawns instead, as dandelions don't mix nearly as well with them, and those warm season natives seem to have adapted to every climatic extreme that has been thrown at them for the past 8,000 years.

May 10, 2013 at 6:28 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Wildlife warning

I'm not sure what your issue is here. Are you implying that raising funds to rehab injured wildlife or raising parent-less wildlife babies is creating a dangerous disease vector because they are not taking necessary precautions against the spread of disease? Do you have any evidence that this is the case? If so, please let us know. Otherwise, it seems that if necessary precautions are taken that wildlife rehab operations like Operation Wildlife are providing a valuable and valued service that not only helps keep other species populations healthy, it also provides a valuable monitor on the health of habitat and alerts us to threats earlier than if these services were not provided.

Your reminder that there need to be precautions against disease is of course a sensible position to state. But implying that there is no value and even danger in providing wildlife rehab services to our community and communities like us is not sensible at all. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. As a veterinarian perhaps you should consider volunteering some of your services to the organization, something they no doubt would value, and if there are any actual concerns that arise (and it's not at all clear that there are), help provide safer protocol so that this valued service can continue in a safer manner.

May 8, 2013 at 6:24 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Missile message

Thank you. Like so many things in life, this sword is definitely a double edged one. To treat it as one or the other only is to either ignore our brilliance or our failings, either of which we do at our own peril.

May 4, 2013 at 2:58 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Ecumenical Campus Ministries pastor Holcombe retiring after 22 years of listening

I wasn't really amazed when I checked the following definition at dictionary.com and found the following:

http://www2.ljworld.com/users/photos/...

May 4, 2013 at 2:48 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Gun ‘rights’

You got lost in the pronoun, I'm afraid. By "they" I was clearly referring to state militias/state national guardsmen, not state laws that differ from federal laws. You, hawkins, Did I Say That still have no point until you can give an example of a state militia fighting the feds.

April 30, 2013 at 9:30 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Gun ‘rights’

Agreed. And that changes nothing about the need for a good list of who is currently suspended, correct? You would have to go through the same legal channels to reinstate your name on a gun registry just as you do to regain your other suspended rights, correct?

April 29, 2013 at 7:42 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Gun ‘rights’

Agreed, that this is a right, as defined in the Bill of Rights. This, of course, doesn't mean that you can't legally lose those rights because of your behavior, just as a felon loses her or his right to vote and any number of other "rights" guaranteed by law, correct?

It seems to me that lots of folks are overly concerned about stopping the potential for voter fraud but then turn right around and say if someone who has forfeited their right to legally hold a lethal weapon because of their behavior, well, that it's OK to have an accounting system that's full of loopholes and gaps for keeping track of that. Of course, breaking the law by carrying a gun when you're no longer entitled to do so is much harder to stop than preventing voter fraud, but it seems that at least closing the most obvious loopholes would be in the interest of all law abiding citizens.

And speaking of education, do you support funding research that will lead to a better understanding of the nature of gun violence and how to reduce its incidence, within the context of our rights, of course?

April 29, 2013 at 11:05 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Letter: Gun ‘rights’

Wikipedia has an interesting article about them, and they've been almost exclusively used for everything BUT against the feds. Even in the southern states who used their militias against the north during the civil war, you could make the case that since they seceded, they were fighting against an invading foreign force, and from the North's perspective, they were suppressing an insurrection within the US, so neither would be technically against the federal government.

In more recent history, many states have state conscripted National Guards, as opposed to the US National Guard, but once again, they have pitched in to fight national wars overseas, helped keep the order and provide assistance to their own citizens during disasters, etc. That's a bunch of times where they did NOT fight against the feds. Give me an example of where they did, and then you might have a point.

April 29, 2013 at 10:25 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )