Here’s something I’ve only been able to say for a couple of days — I am a Washingtonian. It’s still hasn’t truly sunk in yet, but the major components, myself included, arrived in Washington, D.C., intact. Being here really makes me want to revisit movies and shows set in D.C. — “House of Cards,” “Olympus Has Fallen” and “National Treasure” come to mind. My sincerest thanks to all who helped launch me on this new adventure, especially my parents, Wayne and Sandie Gerstner and my sister Whitney. Thank you so much, for everything.
While not set in D.C., I did make time to see “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” this weekend and I’m rather glad that I did. Henry Cavill (Superman from “Man of Steel” ) and Armie Hammer (the Winklevoss twins from “The Social Network”) star as American and Russian spies, respectively, who must cooperate to stave off a world-ending plot.
From a production design and directorial standpoint, the film oozes style. Cavill and Hammer are well-suited to their roles as an espionage odd couple. Occasionally a joke or dramatic bit doesn’t stick the landing but the stumbles are slight and the acrobatics are fun to watch.
The meat of the story is pretty standard fair and somewhat poorly executed. Nevertheless, Cavill and Hammer, and stylish director Guy Ritchie, easily make up for the deficiency in plot. Films that are more style than substance, which “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” definitely is, are often captivating in small doses, but become less enjoyable as the novelty wears off.
Luckily for “U.N.C.L.E.,” my desire to see more odd couple adventures and misadventures of Cavill and Hammer never abated. In fact, I would happily welcome another “U.N.C.L.E.” film. All said, witty, charming fun can be had with “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”
John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.
Students returning to fall semester classes are facing sticker-shock in college bookstores. Textbooks that formerly ran $40-to-$80 a few years ago are now costing $200 and $300 each.
As a result, students’ textbook-buying behavior is changing. According to a survey of students by the National Association of College Stores and reported in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education, more college students are viewing textbooks as recommended rather than required and “…students are waiting to see how much the material is used before they buy them.” Meanwhile, professors “…almost never see the course materials as optional.” More and more, “…students are waiting to see how much the material is used before they buy them,” according to the survey manager.
The survey found that student spending on class materials dropped from $638 in the 2013-14 academic year to $563 for the 2014-15 year. In addition to students waiting to see if the materials will actually be used in class, part of this drop was a shift to cheaper textbook rental.
And about 11 percent of students now have some courses that use new “integrated learning systems”
where the text, videos, quizzes and homework are delivered online. Publishers have realized that at big research universities that only value research, many instructors of large classes are glad to turn over these teaching duties to a publisher’s online system, essentially turning the lecture course into a pre-packaged online operation that is impersonal and standardized.
The production cost for a paper textbook is actually very low—most $200 textbooks could be profitably sold to students for $40 if it were not for the electronic ancillaries and support services that publishers feel they must provide to compete—extra bells-and-whistles that most students do not use.
Meanwhile, surveys of college students reveal that students continue to overwhelmingly prefer paper text over e-Texts for a variety of reasons that are supported by research on deep reading, reading speed, comprehension and skimming.
Some professors are sensitive to their students’ dilemma and recognize the legalized extortion involved. They are encouraging colleagues: “Don’t require a textbook if you don’t use it!” Some make textbook adoption decisions based on the best-book-at-the-cheapest-price and only adopt a text after it has been on-the-market a semester so there are used books available.
One solution that is not working is the use of “open source” online materials. Depending upon the discipline, there can be serious concerns with quality. Copyright-free material is often out-of-date.
Good publishers subject texts to careful peer review that is often missing in open source materials that are cobbled together from questionable sources. And online open source materials continue to have the drawbacks of e-texts and other electronic media.
Royalties to authors of bonafide textbooks are rarely a factor in the high costs of textbooks. When a quality book is adopted by many universities, the royalties the author receives are in the range of a few coins. Copyright is not the problem driving up textbook costs.
But thanks to the internet and predatory publishers, there are now offers to professors to send in their class notes. These can then be “published” online and required by that single instructor. The publisher will split the exorbitant price with the author-professor. Nowhere the quality to be adopted by any other instructor, this “text” can bring in more income to the instructor than their salary, especially if they are a poorly-paid part time adjunct.
Honest professors, departmental chairs and higher administrators can and should bring such practices to a stop. But so far, the runaway costs of textbooks due to some inconsiderate professors, some disgraceful publishers, and some technology crazies—continues.
This week I was again reminded of the problems that sometimes arise as humans and wildlife attempt to share this same planet.
As proven by the slow but constant increase in their dead carcasses along our south central Kansas roads, more Armadillos are moving into our part of the state all the time.
Last week, I got a call from a friend who lives in the community surrounding the Highlands Golf Course northwest of Hutchinson. Something was riddling her lawn at night by digging small holes all over it and she was told it was probably an armadillo.
Now armadillos are quaint little creatures that usually cause no trouble. They are especially fond of grubs and worms and are second only to badgers in their digging ability, and the sand hills area around the golf course makes for easy digging; not a good combination especially in this part of the world where pristine lawns rank right up there with good fried chicken.
They can hear or smell the grubs under the surface of the soil and waste no time digging them up for a tasty midnight snack. When I was a kid there was a Japanese beetle infestation in our part of Ohio and skunks, who also relish grubs, were ruining golf course greens at night by digging out Japanese beetle grubs from beneath the soil. Both situations had the same outcomes. All involved were glad to get rid of the grubs for sure, but not for the price of their lawn and golf course greens being ruined. The armadillo and skunks were both just doin’ what God created them to do.
Beavers are another good example of this predicament. Beavers are engineers and dam builders deluxe, and their dams create many nice ponds when creeks and streams are dammed-up.
In mountain settings or in pastures or other locations where these resulting ponds are not a problem for anyone, the beavers can live their life without interruption. After all, these ponds become watering holes for wildlife (and in some situations even livestock I suppose,) they become marvelous trout and fish ponds and they make magnificent duck and goose habitat.
The problems arise when creeks, streams and rivers in farm country are dammed-up and flood crop land, and most farmers can’t or won’t put up with that. Beavers also tend to cut down the best trees available. When I was first learning to trap beavers here in Kansas, I came upon a spot along wolf creek just outside our little town where so many nice trees had been felled it looked as though someone was preparing to build a log home there.
If a strain of beavers could be bred to cut only brush and unwanted intrusive timber along creeks, I could probably make my fortune by leasing out flocks of them to local farmers! Once again, beavers get themselves into hot water by doin’ what God created them to do.
There are other examples of this same dilemma; deer/vehicle collisions in the fall because of deer following their God-infused desire to multiply, coyotes taking down a calf or a lamb because they were created to be a predator, etc.
You all know that my wife and I are trappers and hunters, and heartily advocate the harvest of wildlife to control their numbers and the removal of problem wildlife when necessary, so I’m not even hinting at giving wildlife free-rein of our countryside because they simply follow their instincts. It just helps me see things differently when I consider that all wildlife are just doin’ what God created them to do.
Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors.
Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].
We’re locked in the Dog Days of summer and the humidity is rolling through the roof. If the first few days of August are any indication, this summer may continue well into September. And while some don’t venture outdoors much except on weekends, for many outdoor work continues as usual.
Working outside in 95 to 100-degree heat can result in dehydration. Farmers, ranchers, construction workers and other folks who toil in the sun can forget to drink enough fluids.
Every year, emergency rooms and health-care facilities across Kansas treat cases of heat exhaustion. Often it takes two to three days to recover from severe heat exhaustion.
Anyone working outdoors during the summer months should always have plenty of fluid within easy reach. Drink small amounts, up to a pint, and drink often.
While experts don’t always agree, water still seems to be one of the best fluid replacements for those who work in the summer sun.
Sports drinks are also recommended, especially those that contain no more than 8 percent carbohydrates.
Pure fruit juice mixed with an equal amount of water is another excellent drink to replace lost fluids.
Avoid beer and other alcoholic beverages that only lead to greater dehydration. Carbonated beverages and drinks high in caffeine should also be avoided.
Don’t rely on how thirsty you are to gauge when to replenish your liquids while working or playing in the sun. Your thirst mechanism isn’t always reliable.
In classic cases of dehydration people feel unusually tired. The victim may have a headache and is usually nauseous. In severe cases, people perspire profusely, are extremely weak and their skin is usually pale and clammy.
If these symptoms occur, move the victim into the shade immediately and loosen any tight fitting clothing. Offer the person cool fluids, but applying ice to the body or drinking extremely cold liquids can make the symptoms worse.
In extreme conditions, such as heat stroke where the person has hot, dry skin, take the victim to a medical facility immediately to receive necessary evaluation and care.
Remember, the key to avoiding heat exhaustion is drinking plenty of cool water throughout the day. Anything that heats the body, such as exercise or strenuous work, puts an extra load on the system. Fortunately, these conditions can almost always be prevented with sensible hot-weather care.
Make mine water – nature’s natural coolant.
John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.
Gene Policinski is senior vice president of the First Amendment Center
Journalism is neither criminal activity nor the action of an enemy, at home during domestic strife or overseas in a time of war.
Still, charges have been brought in Ferguson, Mo., against two journalists a year after they were detained in a McDonald’s restaurant by police in the first days of violence during protests over the police shooting and death of Michael Brown.
And a new, 1,176-page Department of Defense “Law of War” manual distributed in June opens the door for U.S. military commanders — and, ominously, for repressive regimes around the world — to deem reporters who operate outside of official channels and who resist censorship as “unprivileged belligerents,” military-speak for spies and saboteurs.
Reporters doing their jobs may be inconvenient or irritating, or witnesses on behalf of the public to activity that is later challenged as illegal, unwise or just plain embarrassing. None of that ought to be subject to official sanction, arrest or worse.
And to connect that Orwellian “unprivileged belligerents” turn-of-phrase with journalists just buys into the kind of despotic thought process that has a Washington Post reporter facing a secret trial in Tehran, accused of espionage and distributing propaganda against the Islamic Republic for simply doing what journalists do: Gather news and fairly report the facts.
Let’s clear out the easy criticisms: The issue is not actions that clearly interfere with lawful police activity, inflame tense situations to create a sensational atmosphere, that directly or intentionally place bystander, police, or American military lives at risk or aid an enemy nation.
Civil authorities and military commanders ought not to have a right — or think they have a right, based on fuzzy guidance from above or by virtue of trained bluster and bravado — to ignore, override or punish journalists in the performance of their legitimate, constitutional “watchdog” role protected in the U.S. by the First Amendment.
A year ago in Ferguson, in one of the first nights following the police shooting and death of Brown, reporters for The Huffington Post and The Washington Post were working in a McDonald’s restaurant. Just in the last few days, the pair was charged with trespassing and with interfering with a police officer’s performance of his duties. Police say the journalists didn’t leave the restaurant fast enough.
About two dozen journalists have been arrested while reporting on the continuing Ferguson protests. Officials recently settled at least one lawsuit brought by a reporter who was arrested, agreeing to pay $8,500 and dropping three charges. At the same time, similar charges against another reporter were dropped.
Editors at the The Huffington Post and The Washington Post have criticized police conduct in the arrests of their staffers. Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron said the decision to pursue charges “represents contemptible overreaching by prosecutors who seem to have no regard for the role of journalists seeking to cover a major story and following normal practice.”
Police and prosecutor conduct around events in Ferguson also seems part of the artful pattern that persists in police actions nationwide, around not just civil disorders but also protests at political conventions or economic summits, of “arrest now, clean it up later” — often with an accompanying financial settlement at cost to taxpayers.
The new U.S. military manual represents a less direct — but just as misplaced — threat to journalists doing their jobs. A New York Times editorial on Aug. 10 also said it would make journalists’ work “more dangerous, cumbersome, and subject to censorship.”
The manual says that U.S. armed forces may withhold protection, censor reports and even deem journalists as “unprivileged belligerents” — which it elsewhere defines as including “spies and saboteurs,” with fewer legal rights in war zones than the armed opposition forces. Driving home a point, the manual says that “reporting on military operations can be very similar to collecting intelligence or even spying.”
The Times’s editorial notes that “to cover recent wars, including the civil war in Libya in 2011 and the war in Syria, reporters had to sneak across borders, at great personal risk, to gather information.” The editorial also properly says, “Authoritarian leaders around the world could point to it to show that their despotic treatment of journalists — including Americans — is broadly in line with the standards set by the United States government.”
The 1,176-page manual’s introduction says it “reflects many years of labor and expertise, on the part of civilian and military lawyers from every Military Service. It reflects the experience of this Department in applying the law of war in actual military operations, and it will help us remember the hard-learned lessons from the past.”
I would add that the manual also ignores the very “hard-learned lessons from the past” — from the world wars to Vietnam to the Gulf wars — that more news reported independently bolsters the public’s understanding and support for the U.S. military, not the reverse.
More than two decades ago, in explaining the Defense Department’s rationale then for journalists to “embed” with active U.S. combat units, officials got it right: “We need to tell the factual story — good or bad — before others seed the media with disinformation and distortion.”
The “fog of war” — or the confusing circumstances surrounding civil disorder — may well make confrontations inevitable between authorities and a news media charged with closely and critically observing and reporting on them.
But that’s no reason for poor judgments, or for policies set in the light of day and calmer times, which encourage or institutionalize a disregard for the needed presence of independent journalists and a free press.
Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Washington-based Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. [email protected]
The Legislature is within weeks of approving a contract for up to $3 million with some probably out-of-state consulting firm to take a look at how we do government here and suggest ways to do it more economically, or even decide whether the state is doing stuff that it really doesn’t need to do.
That’s the “fresh eyes” concept that a nearly broke state approved with surprisingly little debate last legislative session and the governor signed into law.
It’s to bring in a consultant to see what the state does and whether it is doing it in the most efficient, economical way. Sounds good, of course. Less spending, fewer taxes: That’s what lawmakers are looking for as 2012’s massive income tax cuts/eliminations effects are finally becoming troublesome. The surpluses in the budget that allowed some to say “just a little more time for these tax cuts to spur the economy, and by the way increase tax revenues” are gone.
So far those cuts haven’t dramatically boosted the state’s economy and budget, and something has to be done.
This hiring outsiders to dissect state spending sounds like a fairly good idea.
There may just be things that Kansas does that other states don’t. We may have a 155-year tradition of doing thing the Kansas Way, partly because, well, that’s how we do it here, and partly because, well, that’s how we’ve always done it here.
Fresh eyes, especially those of accountants and efficiency experts, might just yield some ideas for saving money. Saving a few bucks by eliminating warning shots (do cops still do that?) or copying on both sides of the sheet of paper isn’t going to cut it. But centralizing state functions—say human resources and payroll departments, computer operations among state agencies—probably makes some sense, though it is likely to mean fewer state workers, and you can either say the state is becoming more efficient or just shedding jobs. That assessment depends on the location—government centers—and to some degree, the House and Senate members whose constituents are those laid-off workers.
And, if those consultants come up with a money-saver that has already been proposed, but not adopted, well, now “fresh-eyed” professionals have vetted those ideas, which will make them easier to get passed by the Legislature.
Oh, don’t forget that likely targets for efficiencies are the state’s more than 290 independent school districts. Look for an accountant to decide that they don’t all need their own business offices, payroll clerks or purchasing agents. That’s probably the quickest, simplest and potentially explainable to the Kansas Supreme Court as a reason to carve money out of already tight state appropriations for K-12 education.
The state probably spends money on people and things that it doesn’t need to spend our tax money on. Most state spending doesn’t affect us, but remember that all state spending impacts someone. It might come down to deciding who those “somebodys” are and whether they vote in Republican primary elections where most of the decisions are made on who gets into the Legislature.
Another key is that the contractor will be hired by Oct. 1, and by Jan. 1 will have some ideas for efficiencies—which is the Legislature’s term for cutting spending. Enough ideas bearing the seal of an independent, not-from-here consultant and it might be possible for lawmakers to quickly adopt something that will carve spending so that there is no need for an election-year tax increase that would certainly mean some legislators won’t be returning after next year’s elections.
Interesting possibilities for a Legislature that doesn’t want to raise taxes…
Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com
H. Edward Flentje is professor emeritus at Wichita State University.
Thanks to Gov. Sam Brownback and his legislative backers, your child or grandchild born this year will still be paying off a new $1 billion state debt in the year 2045. Of course, this assumes your children and grandchildren will choose to live in Kansas and take on the financial burden state lawmakers are placing on them.
With this new debt Kansas taxpayers are now saddled with a total debt load of over $4 billion, by far the highest in state history and a jump of one-third over current borrowing. Debt recently authorized by lawmakers but not yet issued could bump these figures up even higher.
State decisions on taxing and spending draw public attention because of their immediate impact on our pocketbooks. Yet, bonded indebtedness represents fixed obligations that reorder state taxing and spending priorities for the long term and therefore requires careful public scrutiny.
Most Kansans may not be aware that state government has been aggressively using debt to meet its obligations for the past 25 years. As of last year the debt burden of Kansas taxpayers was more than twice that of surrounding states in terms of per capita debt and debt as a percentage of personal income. The new debt will boost those numbers further.
So, why are state lawmakers so hell bent to borrow another billion dollars? They are gambling that state officials can invest proceeds from the $1 billion bond issue in marketable securities that will earn better returns than the interest charged on the debt—at least over the long term. Their betting scheme may carry less risk than playing games in the state lottery or at a casino but could backfire on Kansas taxpayers.
The real story here is that the governor and his legislative coalition want to borrow a billion dollars in order to reduce state pension obligations this year and next and in doing so help pay for the revenue lost from state income tax cuts. But, their borrowing is projected to pay for less than $50 million of the tax cuts over these two years, well less than one-half of one percent state’s biennial budget. This speculative venture represents another act of financial desperation designed to rescue for two more years the risky, ill-advised tax cuts of 2012 and 2013.
Without question the state’s deteriorating financial condition has elevated the state’s risks. National rating agencies downgraded state credit last year, and last month Moody’s graded the planned pension debt down one step from a similar bond issue in 2004, citing “the structural imbalance in the state’s budget and reliance on interfund borrowing, as well as an underfunded pension plan.” These downgrades translate into higher interest costs that narrow the potential for any state benefit.
Earlier this week Moody’s took the additional step of warning that the new debt would do little or nothing to alleviate the state pension’s unfunded liability of $9 billion.
Further, state lawmakers have played fast and loose with highway debt in recent years. During the Brownback administration alone $450 million in new highway debt has been issued, but that amount plus another $750 million has been swept from the highway fund to help pay for current obligations, such as state income tax cuts for the wealthiest Kansans, rather than highway improvements.
Growing debt levels will skew state priorities and have long-term costs for Kansans. Repaying bonded debt immediately becomes the state’s highest spending priority, leaping past school and university funding, highways, and assistance to vulnerable Kansans. Further, repaying debt may foreclose taxing options such as reducing property taxes or eliminating the state income tax. Future state borrowing will be more constrained, and Moody’s recent warning may signal another credit downgrade for the state.
Finally, mounting debt will hasten the shift of state obligations and tax burdens onto future generations. So, while you are enjoying this year’s tax cuts, remember to thank your children and grandchildren, who will be paying for them for many years to come.
H. Edward Flentje is professor emeritus at Wichita State University.
Ron Wilson is director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.
By RON WILSON Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development
“Creating a classroom.” That’s something that teachers do frequently. Today we’ll learn about a Kansan who is creating a classroom for agriculture, but not inside a traditional school. This Kansan is leading a national center which provides a living experience to help people of all ages learn about agriculture.
Dawn Gabel is the new director of the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame in Bonner Springs. The ag center, as it is sometimes called, has deep history in Kansas. Congress approved a federal charter for the center. It was signed by President Eisenhower in 1960.
However, no funds are appropriated to support the center, so it relies on private sector funding. Today the facility has grown to include 10 buildings and tens of thousands of visitors – but a lack of funding caught up with the center in 2014.
When the previous director left, the board decided to close for the 2014 summer months. Now a new director has been hired and the center is again open and active.
Dawn Gabel is the new center director. She has deep roots in rural Kansas. Her family homesteaded in Jewell County. Dawn grew up at the rural community of Courtland, population 322 people. Now that’s rural.
Dawn’s mother had the café in Courtland. By age 10, Dawn was helping her there.
“I heard the people of the town come in to have coffee and talk about what the town needed,” Dawn said. “If something needed to be done, they would step up and do it themselves.”
This community spirit led Courtland to form one of the first PRIDE committees, an independent cable company, community festival, and more. It inspired Dawn. “I saw that we could find people who would care and volunteer and support a worthy cause,” she said. She even entered into a career working with nonprofit organizations at Hays.
Years later, she and her husband moved to Kansas City so as to be close to grandchildren. In 2015, she became the new director of the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame.
“I have the time of my life working here,” Dawn said. “We need to get the center back into the limelight.”
The ag center includes a huge collection of antique equipment in the Museum of Farming, plus a Gallery of Art, Agriculture Hall of Fame, 200-seat theater, National Poultry Museum, Smith house and barn, and more. In the center of the grounds is Farm Town USA, a recreation of an 1890s village complete with a one-room schoolhouse, hatchery, general store, and working blacksmith shop. The village surrounds a pond which was installed by the soil and water conservation districts. A miniature train circles the grounds.
The Smith house is a reassembled 1890s farmhouse. The Smith event barn has a modern kitchen and spacious facility which is available for rent for weddings, meetings, and exhibits.
The ag center hosts special living history events annually, such as the Barnyard Babies exhibit in the spring followed by a tractor cruise in May, Tractor Daze and touch-a-truck plus a truck and car show in July, the International Linemen’s Rodeo (which attracts some 5,000 people) in October and the Santa Express train ride in December.
In describing the work of the center, Dawn uses the phrase “creating a classroom for agriculture.” All programming is family-friendly, educational, and builds appreciation of history.
“We do great things with kids,” Dawn said. Field trips are frequent. For example, kids can wash clothes in a washtub and hang them on a clothesline to dry or shell corn to feed to the chickens.
The museum is also about the future. Dawn plans to have the facility digitized and modernized. “We want to be a shining star, a national facility hosted in the great state of Kansas,” Dawn said.
Creating a classroom for agriculture. That’s a part of the accomplishments of the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame. We salute Dawn Gabel and all the staff and volunteers of the ag center for making a difference in helping agricultural education come to life.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer and public speaker.
Novelist Thomas Wolfe famously wrote: “You can’t go home again.” But Eric Holder has proven him wrong.
Holder, who served as President Barack Obama’s attorney general until stepping down earlier this year, recently returned to his old home — Covington & Burling.
Where’s that? Well, it’s not actually a place, but a powerhouse Washington lobbying and lawyering outfit. It runs interference in Washington for such Wall Street heavyweights as Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo — and it’s a place where Holder definitely feels at home.
After serving as a deputy attorney general in the 1990s, Holder was invited in 2001 to leave his government job and join the corporate covey of Covington & Burling lawyers. There, he happily hauled water for corporations until tapped to re-enter the government in 2009.
The most striking thing about Holder’s six-year run as America’s top lawyer was his ever-so-delicate treatment of the Wall Street banksters who crashed our economy in 2008.
Despite blatant cases of massive fraud and finagling, Holder failed to prosecute even one of the top Wall Streeters involved. Indeed, he kindly de-prioritized criminal prosecutions of mortgage fraud, and even publicly embraced the soft-on-corporate-crime notion that Wall Street banks are “too big to fail” and “too big to jail.”
It’s no surprise that Holder is once again spinning through the revolving door of government service to rejoin his corporate family at Covington & Burling. In fact, in his years away, the firm kept a primo corner office empty for him, awaiting his return home.
In a way, he never really left. But now his paycheck for serving corporate interests will be many millions of dollars a year. That should make this a happy homecoming.
OtherWords.org columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer and public speaker.
Dear Dave,
I have a question about home warranties. Are they a waste of money if you already have a fully-funded emergency fund, with six months of expenses or more set aside? Andy
Dave Ramsey
Dear Andy,
In my opinion, they’re a waste of money even if you don’t have that much set aside for emergencies. I recommend an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses to cover the unexpected things that life will throw at you. This amount of cash, sitting in a good money market account with check-writing privileges, will give you easy access in the event of a financial emergency.
I don’t do extended warranties of any kind, Andy. They’re not a good deal. You’re better off to self-insure against things breaking down, and put what would have been profit and marketing dollars for the extended warranty company in your own pocket! —Dave
Dave Ramsey is America’s trusted voice on money and business. He has authored five New York Times best-selling books, including More Than Enough. The Dave Ramsey Show is heard by more than 8.5 million listeners each week on more than 550 radio stations. Follow Dave on Twitter at @DaveRamsey and on the web at daveramsey.com.
The Fantastic Four do not good movies make. The highest rated of the three Fantastic Four films is the second installment of the first run, and it only managed a 37% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Unfortunately, that 37% (which is very poor) is more than three times higher than the “Fantastic Four” reboot that came out last week.
This movie quite simply fails to deliver on any of the things you want in a superhero movie. It’s dour, dull and defective. This incarnation of the Fantastic Four franchise is an origin story, but with high school kids instead of adults. This film makes the same mind-wrenching mistake that “Project Almanac” made earlier this year – it takes supposedly genius-level students and has them make stupid mistake after stupid mistake. This is a movie that prizes itself on its scientific acumen and then isn’t remotely scientific in its approach or ideals.
Furthermore, and perhaps worse, it’s not heroic. Superhero movies don’t have to be happy-go-lucky (Batman certainly isn’t a hugger) but they do have to be heroic. Director Josh Trank, who helmed the under-appreciated “Chronicle” from 2012, has a keen eye for visuals and has an interesting take on regular people acquiring superhuman abilities, but he does not, unfortunately, have an eye for what makes a hero a hero, or what makes a villain a villain. “Fantastic Four” was awash in inconsistent and incomprehensible character motivations that left the surprisingly little action feeling hollow.
I rather despise the first two “Fantastic Four” movies, but they are miles more entertaining than this heap. At least they have some humor and a believable hero’s journey. It’s very hard for me to recommend this film to any audience, under any circumstances.
On a much more exciting note, I wanted to take a second to let Hays Daily News and Hays Post readers know that I have accepted a job at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and will be moving at the end of the week. I very much intend to continue seeing movies and writing reviews, but if I do happen to miss a week, I hope that you will understand. I’m very much looking forward to starting my new position and starting a new chapter of my life in our nation’s capital.
John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.
As college students return to Kansas colleges and universities, there are new murmurs among the cohort. “Sure wish my parents had paid 300 dollars so that high school course would have counted for college.” And “College courses are so much more difficult! My roommate doesn’t have to take it because he got credit for his high school course.”
The 1993 Kansas Legislature opened up college enrollment to any student who had “…demonstrated the ability to benefit from participation in the regular curricula of eligible postsecondary education institutions, has been authorized by the principal of the school attended to apply for enrollment at an eligible postsecondary education institution, and is acceptable or has been accepted for enrollment at an eligible postsecondary education institution.”
The original intent was to allow a few exceptional Doogie Howsers go across the road and take college courses. Originally limited to high school juniors and seniors, the statute was amended to allow students to begin accumulating college credits after their high school freshman year.
While there are some rigorous and well-taught high school classes that approach the level of some introductory college courses, a large number are average secondary level courses awarded dual credit. The driving force has been the fact that these college credits boost the university’s tuition inflow and higher education is becoming more about money than about education.
So many high school courses are being counted as college credit that a four year bachelor’s degree may now only be three year’s of genuine college work—or less. The bona fide student who walks across the stage to receive a genuine 4-year degree may now be followed by a student who receives the same degree for half the academic achievement. Faculty, under pressure to increase retention and graduation rates, are powerless to solve this problem.
Fortunately, the Kansas Board of Regents has finally taken action to turn around the rigor of concurrent enrollment courses. Starting this fall, teachers of any course that can be counted toward the baccalaureate degree, including high school courses that can be transferred for that purpose, must meet Higher Learning Commission standards. HLC requires instructors to have a master’s degree in the same disciple as the course OR a master’s in a related discipline with 18 graduate credits in the same discipline as the course.
This has sent a shock wave through Kansas secondary schools, technical schools and community colleges. Until now, the tech schools and community colleges could hire instructors with only a bachelors degree and far less coursework in the discipline than required to teach at high school level. Now the minimum is a masters degree with 18 credit hours in the discipline.
Having an instructor who has depth-in-knowledge in the discipline is critical to maintaining course rigor (although it is admittedly not a guarantee of good teaching).
Despite eroding academics, the loose dual credit system has been a money-maker for Kansas colleges and a symbol of prestige for high schools. There will be many attempts to game the system. We can expect some parties to ignore the requirement because they use the syllabus or tests from a college course. Others may represent their course as working under the distant sponsorship of an off-site university professor. But the HLC requirement is clear: the day-to-day instructor of the course has to have the masters degree with 18 hours in-discipline. Period.
This will make a dent in the over-abundant concurrent offerings. The KBOR has encouraged regents schools to help get these instructors qualified.
But who is going to check the qualifications of teachers of dual credit courses? The understaffed Kansas Department of Education has no jurisdiction. And the KBOR office is not sending out anyone with authority and ability-to-fine. This burden is being placed on the postsecondary institutions that work with high schools offering dual credit.
Meanwhile, if a student is taking a concurrent credit course this fall from an instructor who does not have a masters degree and 18 credit hours in the discipline, the student would be well advised to ask for their money back.
Picture this: Trail cameras; sometimes you love em’, sometimes you hate em’, but the pictures they take sure can be entertaining.
We use photos from our trail cams this time of year for their entertainment value. Each time we change chips in our cameras it’s like going to the movies for us.
We turn off the TV, Joyce puts them into her laptop and we enjoy the show. Last year, we watched a pair of twin fawns and a set of triplet fawns grow from small, spotted, spindly-legged youngsters to young adults, and this year the triplets still making occasional appearances.
We’ve gotten pictures of an armadillo in a hayfield west of town, and one of a coyote walking away with an apple in its mouth from a bucketful I dumped there. In short, its great fun for us to see what lurks beneath our feeders after dark.
The hateful part of our love-hate relationship with trail cameras is when we pop the chip into the laptop to find 650 pictures of shadows crawling across the ground or tree limbs swaying in the breeze.
I used to think we were the only trail camera owners who experience that, but I’ve since learned it’s not that uncommon. Here are a couple things I’ve learned to do to alleviate some of those problems.
When we set out a camera, we always have a chain saw and pruners handy and we prune off every tree limb that could possibly blow into the cameras vision.
We also try to choose a spot with no tall grass nearby that will wave around in the breeze and trigger the camera.
Instructions that come with new cameras always warn against pointing them directly east or west as they will actually give you hundreds of shots each day of the rising or setting sun. They are so sensitive that they will also follow shadows that creep across the ground from large tree rows, so whenever possible, tuck the camera into a corner facing out toward the open field and away from the trees.
So keep experimenting with camera locations until you find just the right combination and then sit back and enjoy the show as you continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors.
Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].
