Opinion

Humans regularly confuse words and actions.I understand why. We communicate mostly through words, written and spoken.

It is almost the time of year to consider treating your black oak trees for iron chlorosis. I use black oak as a general family of oaks which includes pin, red, black and other black oak family trees that grow in this region.

This week, Kansas Secretary of Transportation Calvin Reed kicked off KDOT’s annual Transportation Safety Conference in Wichita by emphasizing the key components of decreasing fatalities on Kansas’s streets and highways: safer drivers, safer vehicles, safer speeds and safer roads. He was immediately followed by the conference’s keynote speaker, Charles Marohn, the founder of Strong Towns, an organization dedicated to helping America’s cities manage their finances and built environments better.

“I feel sometimes like I am trying to keep alive a dying art form,” Greg Kearney says at the dining room table of his Topeka home.In the next room, a drafting table holds his work of the day: an editorial cartoon, like thousands of others that Kearney has created — a sheet of artist’s paper firing a zinger at the news of the day, most often about Kansas.The first time I met Kearney, he drew a brilliant editorial cartoon so fast that it was a magic trick. Someone casually suggested the topic, and within 10 minutes he had a wickedly biting image.

In the spring, things that appear to be dead start to show signs of life. Every year as spring begins to show up, we see trees and flowers blooming and filling the “sky” with colors.

I recently read a headline that reported how the Department of Government Efficiency closed the Topeka regional office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Risk Management Agency.DOGE, which is run by an unelected billionaire, claimed it was to save “millions.” The truth is, the savings only come if the office remains closed for nearly a decade.But something else was missing from the article: the story of the dedicated, hardworking Kansans who have filled those halls for years.

I was the legislative lead and worked with notable Kansans on an interview led by the Kansas Oral History Project with local artist Mr. Michael Young.

Two weeks ago, my wife was fired from her job with the federal government. We were playing a board game and having a beer when her phone rang.

It is clear that President Zelensky of Ukraine suffers from both the anger of righteousness, and the resentment of weakness. After three years and over $400 billion in funds, weapons and humanitarian aid, Ukraine is at a stalemate in its war with the Russian machine, now in a WWI style meatgrinder ground war.