Dear Dave,
I gave my wife $350 for Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart. While she was there with our 6-year-old daughter, she cashed her bonus check to put with the Christmas money. When she tried to check out, the money was gone. My wife even asked our daughter if she took the money out of mommy’s purse, and she said no. Later, we found the money in our daughter’s coat, and she didn’t seem sorry at all for having taken it. How should we address this?
Jonathan

Dear Jonathan,
Most children that age really have no idea something like this is such a big deal. But this is more than just a money thing. It’s something of great value, and it’s someone else’s stuff. Not only that, but she took it, lied about it and then showed no remorse. I’ve got a really short fuse when it comes to lying, but the lack of repentance and sorrow associated with something like this are my biggest problems.

First of all, you and your wife have to present a united front when you talk about this with your child. This is an incredible example of a teachable moment, but you two have to be on the same side and treat it with appropriate seriousness. You have to make your daughter understand that what she did was wrong and why it was wrong. Perhaps you could also use an example of someone taking something from her — something that was very valuable to her — and ask how she would feel in that situation.

Lots of times this approach, especially with little kids, will touch their hearts and help them realize the magnitude of their actions. In a case like this, I think I’d hand out very little in the way of punishment. Regardless, you have to nip this kind of thing in the bud immediately. This is the kind of violation you cannot allow to happen unaddressed. And whatever the consequences of her actions end up being, you must make sure she clearly understands why she’s being punished and why what she did was wrong.
—Dave

Dave Ramsey is America’s trusted voice on money and business. He has authored five New York Times best-selling books: Financial Peace, More Than Enough, The Total Money Makeover, EntreLeadership and Smart Money Smart Kids. The Dave Ramsey Show is heard by more than 8 million listeners each week on more than 500 radio stations. Follow Dave on Twitter at @DaveRamsey and on the web at daveramsey.com.

About this time each year we begin to hear and read stories that all center on the illegal taking of Kansas wildlife. Whether it’s bald eagles being shot, outfitters being investigated for assisting their clients in illegally taking and transporting game, or numerous game law violations intentionally and knowingly committed by people mistakenly calling themselves hunters, it all amounts to theft from those of us who attempt to abide by all the game rules and regulations of our state.

Kansas is divided into 105 counties and currently a drastic shortage of game wardens saddles only 62 natural resource officers (NROs) with the intense responsibility of patrolling all those counties, making Kansas wildlife some of the least protected in America.

Each year those NROs check tens of thousands of hunters and fishermen in the field and about 96% of them are found to be law-abiding. Unfortunately, many non-hunters associate ethical hunters with the small percentage who are not.

Kansas Dept. of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism has an excellent tool to help fight wildlife crimes called Operation Game Thief. It’s a toll-free telephone hotline, (877) 426-3843 that can be accessed anytime of the day or night, any day of the year. Callers are given the choice to remain anonymous and each call is immediately relayed to the natural resource officer nearest the violation. Examples of activities that can be reported over the game thief hotline are road hunting, trespassing, littering, vandalism, drinking while hunting, taking more game than allowed by law, using illegal equipment, hunting out of season or taking wildlife for which there is no legal season.

Two important rules to remember when observing illegal wildlife related activities are:

• Never confront the suspects you observe committing these crimes

• Be observant and be prepared to provide as much information as possible about what you observe, such as detailed descriptions of the people and vehicles including license plate numbers, and location and time of the incident. My wife also reminds me that everyone these days has a cell phone, most with a camera, and everyone (excluding me) knows how to use it.

Calls to Operation Game Thief have resulted in arrest and convictions on violations from vandalism to deer poaching and everything in between. Drug operations have even been uncovered as a result of calls to this number. Perhaps the worst result of wildlife related crimes is the damage caused to the image of those of us who attempt to abide by all the wildlife rules and regulations. I refuse to be categorized with those who call themselves “hunters” but refuse to abide by the rules.

If they insist on being known as “hunters” then perhaps the rest of us should find a different term for what we enjoy. Remember, Operation Game Thief, (877) 426-3843. Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors!

Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].

The holidays may mean lots of extra baking for gifts or serving to guests. But rather than staying up until dawn to finish the last batch of cookies before your party, do some of your baking now and freeze for the festivities later.

Freezing baked goods is a great way to spread out the cooking duties of the holidays and minimize the “kitchen stress” that can build before a big holiday meal.

I’m not the only one thinking about baking ahead. I received several calls before Thanksgiving asking about freezing baked goods, and I’ve already had a couple of calls last week inquiring about baking and freezing holiday treats.

Many baked goods freeze and thaw beautifully. But the key to doing it successfully is following recommended procedures.

The first rule is to cool baked goods completely before wrapping for the freezer. This will prevent moisture condensation from the warm food making it soggy after thawing.

When cool, package the baked goods carefully to maintain the quality or freshness of the food. Use heavy-duty foil, airtight freezer bags, freezer paper or air-tight containers.

Cakes and cupcakes should be cooled, wrapped and frozen without fillings which make the cake soggy. Some frostings will not freeze well either, but confectioneries sugar and fudge frostings may be frozen satisfactorily. Place the frosted cake in the freezer to harden the frosting before covering. Thaw frosted cakes overnight in the refrigerator, unfrosted cakes may be thawed at room temperature.

Cookies seem to have the edge over cakes or cupcakes when it come to freezing ease. Cookies can be frozen either baked or unbaked. You can shape dough in a roll, wrap and freeze, or chill dough in the refrigerator, then slice and freeze.

Drop-cookie dough may be frozen in freezer containers. Before baking, thaw dough in the refrigerator until it is soft enough to drop with a spoon. Another option is to drop cookie dough in mounds onto a tray covered with wax paper and freeze solid. Pack into a container or freezer bag when firm. Bake cookie mounds without thawing at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Baked cookies may be cooled, packaged in rigid container to prevent breakage and frozen.

Yeast bread and rolls should be cooled completely, then wrapped in tightly sealed packaging. Bread baked at a temperature of 400 degrees for about 45 to 50 minutes is less crumbly and more desirable for freezing than bread baked at a lower temperature.

Most baked quick breads freeze well, too. Follow the basic guidelines for cooling and packaging tightly.

You may also freeze baked pecan pies and baked or unbaked fruit pies. The crust of an unbaked fruit pie may absorb juices from the filling and become soggy. However, unbaked pies retain a fresher fruit flavor.

Baked pies also should be completely cooled. Place them unwrapped in the freezer and freeze until firm. Pies are easier to wrap and there is less breakage of the crust after they are frozen.

To bake unbaked frozen pies, unwrap, cut slits in the top pastry and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then lower temperature to 375 degrees and continue baking for 45 to 60 minutes or until the center becomes bubbly.

If your pie is already baked, allow it to stand at room temperature for a short time, then pop it in a 325 degree oven for 30 to 45 minutes or until just warm.

Custard pies, cream pies and pies with meringue topping do not freeze well.

There is some disagreement on the success of freezing pumpkin pies. One of my references suggests freezing baked pumpkin pies but not unbaked ones, another says either will work. Another reference says that pumpkin pies should not be frozen at all. Based on the conflicting recommendations, I think it may be safer to freeze the fruit and pecan pies ahead and bake the pumpkin pies fresh to avoid problems.

For specific advice on freezing other baked goods, ask for the Extension fact sheet on “Freezing Baked Goods” at the Ellis County Extension Office, 601 Main Street in Hays, or find it on our website at www.ellis.ksu.edu.

Linda K. Beech is Ellis County Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences.

On December 10, 1948, the nations of the world gathered at the United Nations to adopt the Universal Declaration of Rights, an American-inspired proclamation that launched the modern human rights movement.

Voting in the shadow of the Holocaust, religious freedom was prominent among the inalienable rights that the world agreed must be guarded for all people.

According to Article 18 of the Declaration, “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

Sixty-six years later, however, 5.8 billion people — 76% of the world’s population — live in countries with a high or very high level of restrictions on religious freedom, an estimate based on the Pew Research Center’s most recent study of religious hostilities and oppression across the world.

The abject failure of governments to uphold the Universal Declaration has had dire consequences in the 21st century. It is no exaggeration to say that denial of religious freedom is today a leading cause of repression, division and conflict across the world.

Consider that in recent weeks alone:

The Chinese government banned any practice of religion in state institutions, public schools, and businesses in the Xinjiang region in an attempt to further repress the Uyghur Muslim population.

A Christian couple in Pakistan’s Punjab province was lynched and another man hacked to death by a policeman for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam. Blasphemy is a capital crime in Pakistan — and villagers often take matters into their own hands.

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar fled by the thousands in the wake of new requirements by the government designed to force the Rohingya out of the country. Many Rohingya are already confined to concentration camps and are, in the words of one aid worker, “treated like animals.”

The French Interior Minister announced that anti-Semitic threats and incidents in France have more than doubled this year. Feeling frightened and unsafe, thousands of Jews are leaving the country.

From the burning of churches and mosques in East Africa countries to the destruction of ancient Christian communities in Iraq and Syria to the imprisonment of Baha’i leaders in Iran, much of the world’s population suffers from religious persecution, extremism and hatred.

That’s why the United States must move religious freedom from the margins of foreign policy to the center of our relationships with other nations, including strategic allies like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia — two of the worst violators of religious freedom in the world.

American advocacy of religious freedom is not only a moral obligation; it is in our national security interest. Where religious freedom is denied, religious division, extremism and conflict flourish.

Without religious freedom, there will be no lasting peace.

Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Washington-based Newseum Institute. [email protected]

What If? by Randall Munroe

Randall Munroe left NASA in 2005 to start up his hugely popular site XKCD, which offers a witty take on the world of science and geeks. It’s had over a billion page hits to date. A year ago Munroe set up a new section – What If – where he tackles a series of impossible questions: If your cells suddenly lost the power to divide, how long would you survive? How dangerous is it, really, in a pool in a thunderstorm? If we hooked turbines to people exercising in gyms, how much power could we produce? Far more than a book for geeks, WHAT IF explains the laws of science in operation in a way that every intelligent reader will enjoy and feel the smarter for having read.

I’ve read XKCD a few times and have been impressed by Munroe’s wit and unapologetic geekiness, so I looked forward to reading this collection. This book is definitely scientific, but don’t be intimidated: while you’ll learn plenty about ideas ranging from putting a submarine into orbit around the earth to the Richter scale to how much actual power Yoda can produce, you thankfully don’t have to be a rocket scientist to enjoy the humor found here. The most enjoyable portion for me was the “Weird and Worrying Questions” section, in which you do have to wonder what happened to make the submitter think of that particular query.

Folks who are regular readers of the webcomic will find new entries here, and those who haven’t visited the site will likely do so after getting a taste in this book.

An old bumper sticker offered a stinging response to the Bush-Cheney regime’s enthusiasm for waterboarding: “Impeach Bush,” it urged. “Torture Cheney.”

Bush and Cheney escaped unscathed. The Senate has just released an astonishing report detailing the depths of their depravity, but neither is likely to end up before a judge.

Yet stunningly, there’s a new debate — this time within the Obama administration — about whether anti-torture treaties apply to U.S. troops and intelligence agents overseas.

Once upon a time, Barack Obama himself took a firm stand against torture. As a U.S. senator in 2005, he strongly supported a bill by his Republican colleague John McCain to prohibit American officials from engaging in cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment of detainees — not just on U.S. soil, but anywhere in the world.

Then, on his second day as president in 2009, Obama proudly signed an executive order banning torture.

Well done.

But now, military and spy agency lawyers are pushing the administration to embrace a loophole that Bush created after Congress passed the McCain bill.

Goaded by his snarling, autocratic vice president, George W. claimed that as commander in chief, he could override the torture ban if the cruelty took place in detention camps and other “black site” facilities on foreign soil.

Even though Obama’s 2009 executive order directly refuted the Bush “overseas” loophole, hawkish forces now want the White House to refute its own refutation, leaving wiggle room for torture in U.S. foreign policy.

Unfortunately, the Obamacans are wobbling, with some aides calling this change a “technical” issue.

Hardly! A ban is a ban — not a matter of fleeting policy, but of settled moral principle. It’s a statement to the world of who we Americans are.

Please call the White House comment line to tell Obama to stick to moral principle over the imagined convenience of torture tactics. The number is 202-456-1111.

OtherWords.org columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker.

File this under the heading of, who would have ever thunk it?

What I’m referring to is the notion that today’s farmers need a prescription and a degree in chemistry to apply herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers to their land in order to grow and produce the food we eat every day.

About this time, you’re probably chuckling to yourself, smiling and thinking, “Ah that can’t be happening. What’s he writing about now?”

Read on.

Some environmentalists remain mighty concerned about the plant food, bug and weed control methods our farmers use today on their wheat, corn, beans, vegetables and other crops. They’re also concerned about chemical residue and how application exposure affects them and their fellow human beings.

As technology continues to improve, the tools producers require to grow food fall under closer scrutiny. Some clamor louder for stricter control or even elimination. Others already believe pesticide use should be by prescription only.

Here’s an example.

Say a farmer has a corn borer problem. If these radical environmentalists succeed, the producer might have to call in a specialist to look over the problem. Once the situation is diagnosed, the government specialist would write the food grower a prescription for chemicals, just like a doctor would for a sick patient.

The farmer’s next step would be to call a chemical applicator who would come to the farm and apply the designated herbicide or insecticide. This additional help would subtract from the farmer’s bottom line.

If you’re thinking this may be a bit extreme – could be, however, it’s a safe bet we will see farmers losing the use of more and more chemicals. It happens every year.

Today, some chemicals are being lumped into the restricted-use category. This removes them from the hands of the general farming public. Some of these chemicals will never be used again.

It seems every year there are more stringent requirements for applicators who apply chemicals. Farmers must plan ahead and take part in the development of new rules and regulations that will strongly impact the way they grow our food in the future.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.

For weeks leading up to the midterm Nov. 4 election, I had the sense that the Democrat vs. Republican coverage in my Hays Daily newspaper was somewhat lopsided.

Those who know me, know I feel strongly that there is bias in most media. The bias, I feel, leans very strongly to the left, to the liberal left, to the Democrat liberal left. I, therefore, painstakingly, went through all my HDNews editions of the paper from October 12 right up to and including the day of the election of November 4.

I came across a grand total of 122 articles that had something to do with the election, which might in some way affect whether one would vote Democrat or Republican. I put Independent Greg Orman in the Democrat column since, obviously, that would be voting against the Republican Party even though not necessarily for Democrats.

I broke down my study into the following three categories: 1) articles in the body of the paper, excluding the Opinion section (44 writings), 2) Editorials and columnists in the Opinion section (27 writings), and 3) Reader Forum articles in the Opinion section (51 writings).

In the body of the paper, so to speak, including quite often front page news, out of 44 writings 33 favored Democrats (or Orman) and 11 favored Republicans. In percentages, that would be 75% for Democrats and 25% for Republicans.

In the Editorial and Columnist section of the paper, out of 27 writings 20 favored Democrats (or Orman) and seven favored Republicans. In percentages that would be 74% to 26%.

In the Reader Forum section there were 51 writings with 31 leaning Democrat and 20 leaning Republican. That would be 61% to 39%. I could not help but notice many, if not most, of these letters to the editor were from far-off Kansas locations, even some out of state and mostly favored Democrats.

If anyone is interested, my very detailed breakdown of the news during the period noted above can be obtained at the Hays Public Library, however, it was also submitted to the paper as well. I give the title of the article, author’s name when it is opinion, and how I labeled the writing.

Somebody might take issue with me on a little something here or there, but looking at the big picture, the picture is clear.

Is there bias in the media? You be the judge!

Les Knoll live in Victoria and Gilbert, Ariz.