“Divergent” is yet another franchise based on young adult novels that is strikingly similar in structure, characters and tone to almost every other film in the same genre. It’s lack of originality is matched only by its glaring obvious metaphors and messages.

Watching this film felt like a repeat viewing instead of a new experience. With laughable ease, I was able to predict exactly what would happen and when. There’s just something about the perceived infallibility and invincibility of youth that is very off-putting and hard to watch — either in person or on the silver screen.

From a filmmaking point of view, there is almost nothing that lands outside of sub-mediocre range. The production design, score, cinematography and acting are all very run-of-the-mill. Granted, in a well-made movie those pieces shouldn’t draw individual attention because they are serving the greater experience. However, in “Divergent’s” case — a film about individualism that is plagued by conformity — a standout element would have been a welcome respite.

“Divergent” simply isn’t a film that elicits an overabundance of thought or discussion. While I am less-than-enthusiastic about Hollywood’s current frenzy to make young-adult movies, some part of me is tempted to jump on the bandwagon. It would an interesting experiment to see if I would be capable of writing a story like this and, maybe more importantly, if I could stomach the experience. If anyone wants to be the financial backer of a long-shot attempt at being the next big young adult story, shoot me an email.

3 of 6 stars

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Dear Dave,
I recently got a new job that will increase my income by $20,000 a year. I’ve got $65,000 in debt, and I’m trying to pay it off, so I know I need to adjust my budget. Do you have any suggestions for a situation like this?
Mitchell

Dear Mitchell,
Congratulations on your increased income! The first thing I’d tell you is not to get used to any permanent luxuries while you’re paying off debt. Go out and celebrate with a really nice dinner or something like that after you get your first paycheck. But don’t go nuts or pick up any big, new stuff. The more you put toward debt, the faster it goes away.

I’ve been doing this financial thing for a lot of years, and the one thing I’ve found that gets people out of debt is passion. I want you to be so passionate about getting out of debt that you don’t even consider doing anything else until it’s all gone. Your thought process needs to be, “Wow, I got a new job making more money. I can get out of debt even quicker!”

Again, I’m okay with you adjusting a bit that first month and having a little fun to celebrate your good fortune. But after that, I want you to turn around and attack the debt with even more intensity than before. Way to go, Mitchell!
—Dave

Dave Ramsey is America’s trusted voice on money and business. He has authored four New York Times best-selling books: Financial Peace, More Than Enough, The Total Money Makeover and EntreLeadership. His newest book, written with his daughter Rachel Cruze, is titled Smart Money Smart Kids. It will be released April 22nd. The Dave Ramsey Show is heard by more than 6 million listeners each week on more than 500 radio stations. Follow Dave on Twitter at @DaveRamsey and on the web at daveramsey.com.

In recent months, legislators in more than a dozen states — from Hawaii to Georgia — have attempted to enact laws they describe as necessary to protect religious freedom.

Some are broad “religious freedom restoration acts” very similar to laws already on the books in many states. Others are amendments to existing laws aimed at allowing businesses to deny wedding services to gay couples on religious grounds.

All are driven by the rapid growth of public support for same-sex marriage and gay rights, reflected most powerfully in a series of recent court decisions favoring challenges to bans on same-sex marriage in even the reddest of states.

None are expected to pass any time soon, due in large measure to fallout from the bitter debate over Arizona’s proposed law vetoed earlier this month by Governor Jan Brewer.

In calmer times, many of these bills might have faced little or no opposition. After all, the original Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed Congress almost unanimously and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993.

What’s changed, of course, is the ascendancy of gay rights and same-sex marriage. Those once in the majority on the gay rights issue — successfully passing laws and state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage — are increasingly in the minority.

In this new environment, many religious conservatives are rushing to put in place legal mechanisms for seeking exemption from laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Unfortunately, intemperate voices on both sides are making it difficult to have a civil discussion about if and when to accommodate conscientious objectors to same-sex marriage.

Far too many proponents of gay rights dismiss any and all attempts to carve out exemptions for religious people from non-discrimination laws as nothing more than bigotry disguised as “religious freedom.”

On the other side, many conservative groups characterize all opponents of religious exemptions as part of the “homosexual lobby” intent on denying religious freedom.

Same-sex marriage vs. religious freedom is fast becoming a shouting match where any concern for the common good is lost in the din of charge and countercharge.

Before more damage is done, people on all sides should take a deep breath and acknowledge that non-discrimination and religious freedom are both core American principles. Resolving the tension between these two fundamental rights should be a balancing act, not a zero-sum game.

To some extent, of course, same-sex marriage proponents have already (grudgingly in most cases) acknowledged the need to signal concern for religious freedom.

All states that have passed laws legalizing same-sex marriage have included language ensuring that clergy will not be forced to conduct same-sex ceremonies (politically smart, but unnecessary because this would never happen under the First Amendment).

In some states, laws or court decisions extend protections to religiously affiliated groups seeking exemption from participating in or recognizing same-sex marriages.

Thus far, however, no state explicitly grants exemptions to wedding businesses that, on grounds of religious conscience, object to providing services for same-sex weddings.

Is there any room for accommodating conscientious objectors who would be required to participate actively in the ceremony or preparing for the ceremony such as photographers or marriage counselors? Can the law draw a distinction between those who want to discriminate against LGBT people (which should not be allowed) and those who object to participating in a ceremony that offends their faith?

However we ultimately answer these and related questions about religious claims of conscience and same-sex marriage, these issues require getting beyond the name-calling and engaging in civil, respectful dialogue.

It’s easy to understand why LGBT people may not be enthusiastic about finding ways to accommodate those who have opposed (and continue to oppose in many cases) laws protecting LGBT people against discrimination.

But to paraphrase religious-freedom advocate Roger Williams (in his 17th century argument with Puritan minister John Cotton), when you are at the helm — after being so long in the hatches — don’t forget what it was like to be in the hatches.

Claims of conscience don’t always — and shouldn’t always — prevail. But a society that takes freedom seriously must seek ways to protect liberty of conscience whenever possible.

After all, the right we guard for others today may be the right we need for ourselves tomorrow.

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

Higher education officials in Kansas sighed with relief. The Kansas Supreme Court did not mandate $400+ million more in K-12 funding. But that ruling punted the education adequacy decision to lower courts. If that postponed decision comes in 2015, it will coincide with another disaster that could result in far worse higher ed funding than had these disasters occurred separately. The dramatic enrollment downturn due to the Qualified Admissions standards could trigger a major cut in university funding.

Kansas universities have taken small hits in funding three times over the last three decades. Kansas is a balanced budget state. Kansas cannot spend more than it receives in tax revenue. When taxes fell below estimates, state entities including universities had to give back allocated money. These “rescissions” occurred mid-year. But those amounts were minor compared to the shortfall that will occur due to the recent dramatic state tax cuts combined with any future ruling to restore funding to K-12 schools.

K-12 schools consume half of the state tax dollars. Other state agencies have been cut to the bone, leaving support for public universities the most vulnerable state expense. While the KS Supreme Court decision requires the state to address the equity issue, and either allocate $100+ million to poorer K-12 schools or tinker with the funding formula, the lower court decision on adequate funding continues to threaten Kansas public university funding.

If the decision to increase K-12 funding comes down in fall of 2015, that train wreck will coincide with a second disaster: the dramatic drop in regent school enrollments due to the Qualified Admission.

Kansas legislators will then have the perfect solution. They can shift large amounts of money from  shrinking universities to K-12 schools and not raise taxes.

That would result in a university draw-down on the scale of the 1970s nationwide post-baby boom drop off in university enrollment. That was an academic blood-bath. Under financial exigency, tenured professors were fired. Departments were closed. Meanwhile, Kansas community colleges and Washburn will overflow, not being bound by the Qualified Admission standards.

Only the Kansas Board of Regents (KBOR) can address this issue. Unfortunately, many in higher education remain in denial, expecting this problem to go away. After all, over three years ago the KBOR announced the tougher standards that added an extra math and would move from ACT-of-21 OR QA curriculum, etc. to ACT-of-21 AND QA curriculum, etc. So, when the KBOR issues commands, the Kansas high schools that send students to Kansas colleges must follow—right?

Wrong. Despite recent school consolidation, some rural Kansas schools still graduate less than ten students. That is a complete high school of less than 40 students. Such small schools cannot hire teachers to teach just math or just science. Their small staff must teach across disciplines. There is no talent nor time to offer the added course.

Even in larger schools that offer the full QA curriculum, there are many students who just do not have the interest to pursue the added math. That is not to say that they are not “college-able.”  They want to study literature or art or history. But they are not going to take that extra year of high school math. In fall 2015, they will have to attend community colleges first and transfer to a four-year school later. Some Kansas universities will lose over 40 percent of their freshman class.

Topeka officials believe that they only need to mandate that something be done, and it will be done. They do not recognize that they cannot enforce mandates that are beyond the capacity of schools and students. The extra math was a-course-too-far. Some of our future Einsteins and Rembrandts will have to attend community colleges for awhile rather than state universities because the KBOR insisted every college student must be better in math.

There is no wiggle-room to “gradually” or partially implement the QA standards. They were set in regulations. Putting them off a year or two solves nothing. This problem will still remain the third year onward.

The KBOR has less than a year to bring QA requirements back to reality. If they do not, the resulting drop in enrolments in 2015 can provide our Legislature with a rationale for switching funding to K-12.

The old adage bears repeating – eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.

Put another way, nutritionists believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It breaks the fast, provides fuel for the body and prepares for healthy nutrient intake.

Breakfasts vary, however, and beginning your day with a meal that includes plenty of high quality protein remains the foundation for experiencing healthy benefits.

The ideal breakfast for weight loss contains 25-30 g of high-fiber, low-sugar carbohydrates. Foods such as eggs, lean meat, low-fat dairy, beans afford good choices for breakfast as well.

“If you’re too busy for breakfast, you’re probably giving up more than a meal,” says Karen Hanson, Manhattan Hy-Vee registered dietitian. “Research shows kids who eat breakfast perform better in school. And if you’re trying to lose weight, eating breakfast jump-starts your metabolism and keeps you from over-eating later.”

Children rely heavily on a consistent food intake, the dietician notes. If they miss breakfast, that period of semi-starvation before lunch can create physical, intellectual and even behavioral problems.

Kids who eat breakfast and are physically active concentrate better. They typically score higher on tests.

Keep grab-and-go items like cereal, yogurt, fruit and string cheese on hand for busy mornings. On those really rushed mornings, kids can eat in the car on the way to school or day care. It’s better than not eating at all.

Other tips include making oatmeal with milk instead of water; eating lunch, dinner or snack foods (ham and cheese sandwich, leftover veggie pizza) for breakfast; or using yogurt or low-fat milk to make breakfast smoothies.

Adults need a breakfast boost too.

“Breakfast recharges your brain and body after the overnight fast,” Hanson says. “If we skip breakfast, our body responds by increasing hunger and hanging on to calories. If you’re trying to lose weight by skipping breakfast, you’re sabotaging yourself.”

A bowl of whole-grain cereal and a banana is a quick breakfast that will keep you focused all morning. Try leftover pizza with 100 percent juice if you’re not a breakfast-food fan.

A balanced breakfast makes a big difference in overall health and well-being, Hanson says. Here are three tips for making breakfast fit into your morning routine.

Organize the night before. Set the table with bowls and spoons for cereal. Ready a blender for smoothies. Make muffin or waffle mix so it’s ready to cook in the morning.

Keep it simple with a bowl of high fiber, higher protein cereal and fruit.

Pack breakfast to go. Plan a nutritious breakfast that can be eaten in the car or on the bus. Teens might like a banana, a bag of trail mix and a carton of milk. You can also check out breakfast options at your child’s school.

A recent American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study suggests a breakfast containing 35 g protein from lean beef and eggs leads to improved appetite control and satisfaction throughout the day.

Eating breakfast results in diet quality. It sets the stage for the rest of the day while moderating appetite swings and improving vigilance and memory tasks.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas. Born and raised on a diversified farm in northwestern Kansas, his writing reflects a lifetime of experience, knowledge and passion.

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

The business executive and his wife are building their dream home. For the kitchen, they are preparing to order fancy cabinets from Italy. But they decide to make a change. They end up with beautiful cabinets for less money by sourcing those cabinets from an expert cabinetmaker in rural Kansas.

Thad Wende is founder and owner of Wende Woodworking in Mayetta. He came by his woodworking skills naturally from his father who was a do-it-yourselfer.

“My dad was one of those guys who didn’t hire anybody to do anything around the house,” Thad said. “If something was going to be done, we had to figure it out and do it ourselves. We grew up around concrete and lumber.”

In high school, Thad spent lots of time in woods shop. He planned to go to Pittsburg State for a wood tech degree, but his cabinet-making business grew. In 1996, he formed Wende Woodworking LLC and started doing projects in his wife’s family’s garage.

One day Thad went to an auction where he purchased a hinge machine. Inside the machine was a book titled “How to Make European-Style Cabinetry.” Thad read the book cover to cover and it had a tremendous influence on him. The book may have been more valuable than the machine itself.

European styling uses lots of panels of plywoods and composites and has sleek hardware which gives the cabinets a modern, contemporary look. Demand for Wende Woodworking cabinets continued to grow.

Thad learned about Blum, a major hinge manufacturing company in North Carolina which pioneered the concept of dynamic space in designing kitchens. Thad is now the only certified dynamic space fabricator and has the only such showroom in the Midwest.

Custom-made cabinets have become the specialty of Wende Woodworking. “We are what I describe as a job-at-a-time shop,” Thad said. Whether in a remodel or new construction, Thad will design the cabinetry with the client and then build it to suit.  Wende Woodworking will deliver and install.

In 2007, Thad built a 10,000-square-foot shop to go with his 3,000-square-foot house.

He partnered with a company in Topeka to acquire a sophisticated computer-controlled router which could do fabulous designs and handle wood very efficiently. Once a design is created and assigned a bar code, the operator can select the file and the machine will use a vacuum device to load a single sheet at a time and automatically custom-cut the design.

“It’s pretty high-tech for redneck Mayetta,” Thad said with a smile. Mayetta is a rural community of 312 people. Now, that’s rural.

“Thanks to the router, our revenues grew one and a half times,” Thad said. He works at staying current on the latest trends in hardware and materials and attracts customers through word of mouth.

“All our business comes from referrals,” he said “We believe we have a unique skill set and we understand our customers’ needs. We’re fortunate to have great clients with great ideas.”

Thad enjoys the challenge of designing different cabinets for his customers, adding, “My brain would go numb if I was doing the same thing every time.”

Examples of Thad’s work can be viewed online at www.houzz.com/wendewood.

One day, Thad was called in to meet a couple who wanted some built-in cabinets in their library. It was a business executive and his wife who were building their dream home.  “What are you doing for the cabinets in the kitchen?” Thad asked. The couple explained that they were ordering cabinets from Italy. Thad offered to prepare a bid but they explained that they had already paid a retainer for the Italian cabinet company. “If you don’t mind, I’d still like to prepare a bid,” Thad said. He designed and prepared some creative ideas in cabinets and in the end, earned the bid.

We commend Thad Wende of Wende Woodworking for making a difference with entrepreneurship in cabinetmaking Will such a business benefit the rural economy? It sure would.

And there’s more. Remember that company that Wende Woodworking partnered with in Topeka? We’ll learn about that next week.

Trichomoniasis, or commonly referred to as Trich, is a veneral disease of cattle caused by a single-celled protozoan parasite. Trich causes infertility, open cows, and abortions in cows and heifers.

The protozoan organism lives in the microscopic folds of the skin that line the bull’s penis and internal sheath. In the cow or heifer, the organism lives in the cavity of the vagina and uterus until her immune system eventually destroys it. That destruction process (immunity) may not occur for 3 to 20 weeks. Also, the immunity is short-lived, so a cow or heifer can become infected again by an infected bull.

How is Trich transmitted? Trich can only be spread during the breeding act, and can be carried by male or female. The disease may be spread from cow to cow by a bull. So it is nearly always a disease of cattle that are naturally bred, as opposed to Artificially Inseminated (AI) cattle. Very rarely, can it be transmitted by contaminated semen or AI equipment. Carrier bulls show no outward signs of infection. Older bulls over 4 years of age are of most concern.

The cow, after having been infected at breeding, may rarely show a very subtle, very mild vaginal discharge (5 percent to 15 percent) of infected females, 1 to 3 weeks later. A fetal loss at 50 to 70 days of gestation is common among infected females, the fetus is very small at this time only about 1 inch in diameter, so you will rarely see the cleanings or aborted fetus. So, there are no outward signs that the bulls, cows, or heifers are infected.

What is the primary sign that your herd is infected with Trich? It is a prolonged, drawn-out calving season, with a disappointing total calf crop and/or a high open rate at pregnancy check. The first year or two of infection in your herd may be very low, but in following years it will increase to being more noticeable by fewer calves on the ground and more open females. The immunity lasts 2 to 6 months, and females will be susceptible to re-infection late during current breeding season or the next. Less than 1 percent of females can become chronic carriers.

Is there a treatment for Trich? There is no legal treatment for either males or females, known infected bulls should be sold for slaughter only.

How can I tell if my herd has Trich? In spite of the fact that bulls don’t show any signs, the organism is easier to find in bulls than in cows, because bulls become “carriers” while cows eventually shed the infection. Bulls need to be sexually rested for at least 14 days prior to testing. A PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test can be collected by a veterinarian and sent to a veterinarian diagnostic lab. The sample must arrive in the lab within 72 hours of collection. The test is looking for the Trich DNA.

How does Trich enter a herd? Several possible ways–purchase of infected animals by buying non-virgin bulls that have not been tested for Trich and/or open/short bred cows. Also if your cows come into contact with infected animals, such as the neighbor’s bull in your pasture or your infected animals in a neighbor’s pasture.

How do I prevent Trich in my herd? Trich test every bull before each breeding season. This may be easily done when semen is checked or evaluated during a breeding soundness exam. Maintaining a young bull battery is advisable and cull all open cows and heifers. Biosecurity is never perfect. Keeping your herd separate or isolated from others is best.

In 2013 the Kansas Veterinary Diagnostic Lab tested 6,900 samples for Trich which resulted in 0.7 percent positive or 25 new herds became positive for Trich in Kansas. This doesn’t sound like much, however in 2012, 17 new herds tested positive for Trich and in 2011, 14 new herds were tested positive. Bottom line: it is increasing throughout the state. As a matter of fact the NW to NC region of Kansas appears to be the epicenter of Trich.

Stacy Campbell is Ellis County agricultural agent with Kansas State Research and Extension.

In L. Frank Baum’s novel, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” the “wizard’ turns out to be a phony — just an old guy sitting behind a curtain, using his booming voice to spew nonsense in a vain effort to fool people.

But now, a century after Baum’s fictional Oz, a real-life incarnation of the phony wizard has been discovered — hiding behind not one, but two curtains. He’s recently been circulating his nonsense in full-page newspaper ads that hyperbolically denounce economists who favor raising the minimum wage as “radical researchers.”

The ad directs readers to a website named MinimumWage.com, implying that it supports the positions of independent, unbiased, and non-radical economists. But, no — it’s not a group at all, just a curtain.

What’s behind it? Something that goes by the name of The Employment Policies Institute, which sounds rock solid, but it too is just a curtain.

Go to 1090 Vermont Avenue NW in Washington, the address of this “institute,” and you won’t find any economists or any other employees. The institute has none. Instead you will find the old wizard sitting there – manipulating statistics, twisting logic and spewing out economic nonsense.

The wiz turns out to be nothing but a 71-year-old PR and advertising hatchet man named Richard Berman. He’s just another lobbyist. Various corporations pay him to set up official-sounding front groups that advance their political agenda. The Employment Policy Institute, for example, is a front for the big restaurant chains. They want to keep profiting by paying poverty wages to their workers, so they’ve hired Berman to trash any and all who support raising America’s wage floor.

The “Institute” provides a varnish of academic legitimacy for unvarnished corporate greed. As the watchdog group, PRWatch, says of Berman’s flim flam, “They are little more than phony experts on retainer.”

OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown.

Dear Dave,
I recently traded in my old truck for a much newer one. I purchased an extended warranty at the time, and now I feel like I was pressured into buying it and that it was a mistake. What do you think?
Laura

Dear Laura,
Cancel it, if you still can. The reason you felt pressured is because you probably were pressured by a pushy salesman. Seventy-five percent of what you paid for that plan went straight into the dealership’s or salesman’s pocket as commission.

There’s even a chance they made more off the extended warranty than the sale of the truck!

Extended warranties are only about 12 percent actual, statistical risk. The other 12 to 13 percent goes to miscellaneous overhead and profit. On top of that, the company that wrote the warranty probably didn’t make as much on it as the dealership did. It’s weird, but that’s how a lot of those models work.

I don’t buy extended warranties, Tara. In my mind, they’re just crap. Besides, if you buy something and can’t afford to fix it if something goes wrong, then you couldn’t really afford the purchase in the first place!

—Dave

Dave Ramsey is America’s trusted voice on money and business. He’s authored four New York Times best-selling books: Financial Peace, More Than Enough, The Total Money Makeover and EntreLeadership. His newest book, written with his daughter Rachel Cruze, is titled Smart Money Smart Kids. It will be released April 22nd. The Dave Ramsey Show is heard by more than 6 million listeners each week on more than 500 radio stations. Follow Dave on Twitter at @DaveRamsey and on the web at daveramsey.com.
 

“Need for Speed” has fast cars and, um … well, it has fast cars. This very disappointing sophomore effort from Scott Waugh, director of “Act of Valor,” is an overly long action/crime movie based on the video game franchise by the same name.

My biggest problem with “Need for Speed” is not its lifeless characters, nor how ironically slow it approaches its opening act, nor the only marginally exciting racing scenes. My problem is the incredibly cavalier approach it takes to the crime of reckless endangerment.

Collateral damage is a given in any type of modern action movie. Stuff blows up and people get hurt. Somehow, watching superheroes destroy cities while struggling over the fate of the human race doesn’t tweak my moral compass nearly as much as watching punk kids drive the wrong way down a highway putting innocent lives in danger for nothing more than a cheap thrill.

“Need for Speed” takes generic characters on a cross country race against time that is only saved by Michael Keaton’s occasionally captivating performance as an underground Internet personality who organizes the film’s climactic race. Is it a surprise that a former Batman saves the day? No, it is not.

I admit to having some fun in the first part of the second act. The film picks up a little wit and a little big-picture perspective and the other problems started to fade. Unfortunately, the level of fun in “Need for Speed” is not sustainable and its flaws quickly flared up.

This is a hard movie to recommend. It’s not abysmal, but it certainly rubbed me the wrong way. For the car enthusiasts out there, I would recommend last fall’s Formula One racing movie “Rush” – it does cars better and swaps the insolent 20-somethings of “Need for Speed” for far more interesting and far more psychologically complex characters.

3 of 6 stars

You could almost see it happening last week, when the House’s voting board lit up.

It showed 116 “yes” votes for House Bill 2542, that little gem that exempts from property taxes hobbyist-built homemade airplanes.

But the key to that vote was the amendment by Rep. Julie Menghini, D-Pittsburg, a day earlier that drew 102 votes to put $45 million into the state’s little-used-of-late Local Ad Valorem Tax Reduction Fund.

That amendment, of course, proposed to put that $45 million in this election year into county budgets — with the requirement that it be spent only to reduce your property tax bill. No re-graveling roads, no redecorating commissioners’ offices or hiring new workers. Just cutting property taxes.

Doesn’t get much better than that, does it? Cutting the most disliked tax that is levied on voters who own property.

Well, after that amendment vote, it appears that 14 state representatives were taken to the woodshed — or at least to a short seminar on remedial politics. They got the message that cutting property taxes — or appearing to attempt to cut property taxes — is the best election-year game in town.

So, by the next day, 116 legislators got the opportunity to have a final-action vote to their credit for wanting to reduce your property taxes. There’s a straight line between voting to cut property taxes and the legislator’s name on the ballot.

So, what made that $45 million expenditure so popular among House members?

The answer is that it isn’t going to happen. Like the first time the baby turns over in his/her crib. It’s darling, but it doesn’t mean that the baby is going to stand up and walk over to you.

The Senate will just not pass that bill with that amendment, and the House knows it, and the poor devil who wanted his homemade airplane exempted from property taxes will have to come back another time.

There are House members who truly believe cutting local property taxes is the best use of state tax dollars. They get lost in the crowd of House members who think the state has better uses for your tax dollars and counties ought to cut their spending to lower property taxes.

For many House members, call it a free vote for their campaigns. We can almost see their campaign brochures now: A snippet of the page torn from the official Journal of the House, maybe slanted a little to make it stand out, with the candidate’s “yes” vote highlighted in can’t-miss-it yellow.

Turns out just four House members voted no (five members weren’t present) on that campaign-assisting bill: Reps. Randy Garber, R-Sabetha, Amanda Grosserode, R-Lenexa, Craig McPherson, R-Overland Park, and Allan Rothlisberg, R-Grandview Plaza. They won’t have to blush when asked why that tax relief didn’t happen.

Syndicated by Hawver News Co. of Topeka, Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report. To learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit www.hawvernews.com.

Twenty-five years ago, the British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee conceptually “invented” the World Wide Web — and set in motion a process that would rapidly make the online world an essential part of our daily lives.

By 1995, 14 percent of Americans were surfing the Web. The level today: 87 percent. And among young adults, the Pew Research Center notes, the Internet has reached “near saturation.”

Some 97 percent of Americans 18 to 29 are now going online.

Tim Berners-Lee never saw this inequality coming. He didn’t invent the Web to get rich. He released the code to his new system for free.

But others certainly have become rich via the Web. Some 123 billionaires today, Forbes calculates, owe their fortunes to high-tech. The top 15 of these high-tech billionaires hold a collective $382 billion in personal net worth.

Numbers like these don’t particularly alarm many of today’s economists. Their conventional wisdom holds that grand new technologies always bring forth grand new personal fortunes for the entrepreneurs who lead the way.

In the 19th century, the coming of the railroads created wildly-wealthy railroad tycoons. In the early 20th century, the dawn of the automobile age created huge piles of dollars for car makers like Henry Ford.

Why should the Internet age, mainstream economists wonder, be any different? A new technology gives rise to a new cohort of rich people. The simple way of the world.

But epochal new technology doesn’t always automatically generate grand new fortunes. The prime example: television.

TV burst onto the scene even more rapidly — and thoroughly — than the Internet. In 1948, only 1 percent of American households owned a TV. Within seven years, televisions graced 75 percent of American homes.

These TV sets didn’t just drop down into those homes. They had to be designed, manufactured, packaged, distributed, and marketed. Programming had to be produced. Imaginations had to be captured. All of this demanded an enormous outlay of entrepreneurial energy.

But this outlay produced no jaw-dropping billionaire fortunes. That would be no accident. By the 1950s, the American people had put in place a set of economic rules that made the accumulation of grand new private fortunes almost impossible.

Taxes played a key role here. Income over $400,000 faced a 91 percent tax rate throughout the 1950s. Regulations played an important role as well. In television’s early heyday, for instance, government regulations limited how many commercials could run on children’s TV programming. TV’s original corporate execs could only squeeze so much out of their new medium.

And television’s early kingpins couldn’t squeeze their workers all that much either. Most of their employees, from the workers who manufactured TV sets to the technicians who staffed broadcast studios, belonged to unions. TV’s early movers and shakers had to share the wealth their new medium was creating.

Today’s Internet movers and shakers, by contrast, have to share nothing.

In an America where less than 7 percent of private-sector workers carry union cards, online corporate giants seldom ever need bargain with their employees.

In our deregulated U.S. economy, meanwhile, these Internet kingpins encounter precious few public-interest rules that keep them from charging whatever the market can bear — and rigging markets to squeeze out even more.

And taxes? Today’s Internet billionaires face tax rates that run well less than half the rates that early TV kingpins faced.

We can’t — and shouldn’t — fault Tim Berners-Lee for any of this. He freely shared, after all, his invention with the world.

“I wanted to build a creative space,” Berners-Lee observed in an interview a few years ago, “something like a sandpit where everyone could play together.”

Some people didn’t play nice.

OtherWords columnist Sam Pizzigati, an Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow, edits the inequality weekly Too Much. His latest book is The Rich Don’t Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class.

No one I know sent flowers or candy, but on March 9 we all had cause to celebrate the anniversaries of two very different First Amendment landmark moments.

Sixty years ago, on March 9, 1954, CBS’ Edward R. Murrow hosted an episode of the prime-time television program “See It Now,” in which he successfully exposed Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s mean-spirited and shoddy tactics in pursuing alleged communists in the U.S. government.

And on March 9, 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court, in deciding New York Times v. Sullivan, set a new national standard for “uninhibited, robust and wide-open” discussion on matter of public concern and on the performance and conduct of public officials. Some say the ruling effectively provided a second ratification of the First Amendment’s protection of the freedoms of speech and press.

The Murrow broadcast program contributed to McCarthy’s downward slide toward Senate censure later that year, prompted also by eight weeks of misbegotten televised hearings targeting the U.S. Army. McCarthy had soared to national fame following a 1950 speech in which he claimed to have the names of “205 communists” in the U.S. State Department. By 1954, his combative style and high-profile congressional hearings involving hundreds of government officials had captured national attention and boosted his political power.

With film clips showing McCarthy’s tactics and a no holds-barred narrative, Murrow told viewers that “no one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly.”

Murrow said to his audience that “we must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. … We are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.”

A decade later, the Supreme Court ruled in a case involving an advertisement published in The New York Times in 1960. The ad claimed “an unprecedented wave of terror” against civil-rights workers, particularly in Alabama. Even though a Montgomery, Ala., city commissioner, L. B. Sullivan, was not named, he sued the newspaper and those who “signed” the ad, citing a number of factual errors. Alabama law — and what well may have been biased state courts — favored Sullivan and he was awarded $500,000 in damages.

In overturning the verdict, the U.S. Supreme Court set out a new libel standard for public officials: “actual malice,” a high standard requiring proof the speaker or writer knew a statement was false, or had recklessly disregarded whether it was true or false.

Justice William Brennan Jr., citing an earlier decision, Whitney v. California, wrote in the Sullivan opinion that “public discussion is a political duty.” Brennan said the court “ … against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

Neither Murrow’s medium nor the Sullivan decision survives unscathed. The news media, protected in part to be a “watchdog on government,” is castigated as biased, inept or even irrelevant. Some legal critics, including Justice Antonin Scalia, see Sullivan as an affront to the intent of the nation’s founders in balancing freedom speech and protection of reputation and as an intrusion on each state’s right to create its own libel laws.

But none can deny that each, in its own way, helped re-shaped contemporary American life and how as a nation we perceive and apply our core freedoms of free press and free speech.

In an era in which few Americans can name the five freedoms of the First Amendment (religion, speech, press, assembly and petition) — and more importantly, many aren’t sure how those freedoms apply to their daily lives — Murrow, Brennan and colleagues provided historic proof of the power of the rule of law and the ultimate value of the Bill of Rights.

The Murrow and Sullivan anniversaries are opportunities for more than a celebration of history. Rather, they are a chance to revel in our individual freedom to speak out, and in our power to challenge the powerful.

Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. He can be reached at [email protected].