Dear Dave,
I’m trying to pay off my credit card and get out of debt. Do you think I should transfer the balance to one with a lower interest rate while I do this?
Kelsey

Dear Kelsey,
I’m not against this idea, as long as you understand that you’re not really accomplishing much. All you’re doing is moving money around, and maybe saving a tiny bit on interest. If you were planning on keeping the debt around for 30 years it would become a big deal. But if you’re talking about a few months, just until you get it paid off, it’s not that much money.

The problem with balance transfers is that you feel like you took a big step forward when you really didn’t. Lots of times this causes people to lose focus on other things they can do to get out of debt, like picking up an extra job or selling a bunch a crap they don’t want or need. That kind of stuff, along with living on rice and beans and a strict written budget, is 98 percent of the battle when it comes to getting out of debt!
—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. 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.

“Endless Love” is one of this year’s obligatory Valentine’s Day film releases. As a rule, I don’t have a problem with holiday-inspired or holiday-appropriate films. However, such a film shouldn’t have to rely on the the holiday’s proximity as part of its emotional outreach. The experience should be able to stand on its own and be enhanced by the expected mood in which a patron enters the theater.

“Endless Love” absolutely excels at fitting into a generic mold. This movie is Jell-O. It has very few variations in ingredients and wide variety of shapes — even though only four or five are commonly used. Jell-O, by its nature, is very ordinary unless it includes wildcard ingredients or a strong deviation in the shape it takes.

As far as ingredients go, “Endless Love” is pretty standard-fare. It has a naive young girl who somehow manages to fall in love at Romeo & Juliet speed. It has a good-looking guy with glaring personality holes. It has an overprotective father, and it has a scorned woman with all the fury that hell hath.

To tell a good story it is essential to either have interesting characters or an interesting plot, preferably both. “Endless Love” has very little of either. The narrative is as cookie-cutter as it gets.

The biggest fault of “Endless Love” is its lack of ambition. There was nothing about this film that reached for anything above ordinary, above easy. The execution is passable but very forgettable. If there was anything endless about “Endless Love” it would certainly be its mediocrity.

3 of 6 stars

James Gerstner works at Fort Hays State University Foundation.

On Valentine’s Day, I’d like to turn to Dr Sheldon Cooper, a leading character on TV’s “Big Bang Theory,” to help us learn a lesson about love.

Those of you familiar with the show — which depicts the nerdy antics of a group of brilliant, but socially awkward, young college professors — may be scratching your head and wondering what Sheldon can teach us about building relationships.

OK, I agree, virtually nothing is done by self-centered genius Sheldon to strengthen his on-screen relationship with girlfriend Dr Amy Fowler, but stick with me — I have something specific in mind.

In particular, I’m thinking of the episode when physicist Sheldon belittled his girlfriend’s research article in a prestigious scientific journal because “biology is not a true science.” (I didn’t say Sheldon would be a good example.) Naturally, Amy was crushed. And thus we learn an important lesson about what not to do in love.

Scientists who study relationships have long focused on how couples handle love´s headaches, heartaches, quarrels and stress. But the way that partners respond to each other´s triumphs may be even more important for the health of a relationship.

A 2006 research study found that the way a person responds to a partner´s good fortune — with shared pride or indifference — is a crucial factor in tightening a couple´s bond, or undermining it.

In the study, researchers asked couples how their partners typically reacted to positive news. The researchers also had members of the pairs rate how satisfied they were in the relationship. In their analysis of response styles, the researchers found that it was the partners’ reactions to their loved ones’ victories, small and large, that most strongly predicted the strength of the relationships.

Celebrating a partner´s promotion as if it were your own provides your partner with a tremendous emotional lift, while playing down or belittling the news can leave a deep and lasting chill.  So, when something good happens to your loved one, you’ve got a terrific opportunity to strengthen your relationship by applauding that success.

The K-State Research and Extension publication “PeopleTalk” quotes John Gottman, one of the nation’s leading experts on couple relationships. Through careful observation of hundreds of couples, Gottman has come to the conclusion that to maintain a good relationship, positive interactions should outnumber negative ones by at least five to one.

But when it comes to building an even stronger relationship, you get more “bang for your buck” by truly celebrating your loved one’s accomplishments. It’s a lesson Sheldon Cooper should learn.

For those who want to learn more about strengthening relationships, the Ellis County Extension Office offers the fact sheet “PeopleTalk” and the 6-part personal study course “CoupleTalk” from K-State Research and Extension. Contact us at (785) 628-9430 or go to www.ksre.ksu.edu and use the search function on the K-State Research and Extension home page to find these helpful resources online.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Linda Beech is Ellis County Extension family and consumer sciences agent with Kansas State Research and Extension.

By Kansas Wheat

MANHATTAN — U.S. wheat is the world’s most reliable choice. This is the message U.S. Wheat Associates takes to our foreign markets through its 17 offices all over the world.

Shannon Schlecht, vice president of policy, spoke to the Kansas Wheat boards and at the Kansas Commodity Classic. He told growers that Kansas is very important to overseas buyers.

“Kansas is the biggest hard red winter producing state so customers do want to know what’s happening in Kansas so they’re always interested to stop and see what’s going on here in Kansas.
And the impact that it might have on their purchasing decisions or on the wheat market in general.”

U.S. Wheat Associates focuses on value, rather than price. Although buyers might be able to source cheaper wheat from elsewhere, U.S. wheat can provide our customers with a better quality product.

“One of the main focuses of our work is really to look at value. We do a lot of work, especially in Latin America, as to how can hard red winter perform better and be a greater value to our customers than Canadian or Argentinean wheat.”

Schlecht also discussed the impact of the passage of The Agriculture Act of 2014 on the work of U.S. Wheat Associates.

“With the farm bill being passed, in the trade title, there is funding for the market access program and the foreign market development programs. These are cooperator programs that U.S. Wheat Associates uses to do our overseas market development work in addition to the checkoff funds from the 19 state wheat commission members.”

He said the work that U.S. Wheat does on behalf of producers is essential.

“We have competition around the world. Wheat is grown in many different countries. Buyers have opportunities to go and source their wheat from different regions. Having lived overseas, I can tell you that it is critical for us to maintain those relationships and to go visit our customers on their home turf and to build that relationship and to have a name and a face for the U.S. wheat producer around the world so that our customers know who they can reach out to if they have a question, if they need education, or need some help as to how to purchase U.S. wheat. They know exactly who to turn to, and we can assist and make sure that we keep us wheat in front of them as the most reliable choice and the best value for the products they need to produce.”

Kansas wheat producers, through their two-penny per bushel checkoff, are able to maintain these relationships all over the world.

If you associate the First Amendment more with the rarified air of constitutional debate, or powdered wigs and colonial days, try thinking in more modern terms — say speed traps and blinking headlights.

For most of us, much of the Bill of Rights comes into play infrequently, if ever. A few examples: According to a 2013 survey, only one in three U.S. households are home to a firearm (Second Amendment). And thankfully, protection in our lifetimes against illegal search and seizure (Fourth) or self-incrimination (Fifth) will be more legal theory rather than active tool.

But the First Amendment — the nation’s “blue collar” amendment — goes to work every day alongside us. We regularly, if not daily, use the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition to worship as we will, to speak our minds freely, and to ask our elected leaders to make changes on matters of public interest.

There are disputes over the way we apply those core freedoms, sometimes reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. But at other times, the legal collision and decision are more down-to-earth and closer to home. Case in point, Michael J. Elli challenged a city ordinance in his hometown, Ellisville, Mo., that permitted police to ticket drivers who flashed headlights to warn oncoming motorists approaching a speed trap.

About 2:50 p.m. on Nov. 17, 2012, Elli flashed his headlights after passing police. He was stopped and ticketed. Elli faced a $1,000 fine, and later was warned by a municipal judge about a charge of “obstruction of justice.”

The city dropped the prosecution after Elli pled not guilty, and later said it ordered police not to enforce the law. Nonetheless, Elli proceeded with a federal lawsuit. In early February, U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey issued an order to make certain he stopped the “chilling effect” on citizens exercising their First Amendment right of free speech.

Judge Henry’s ruling makes the important point that Missouri law forbids someone from warning of “impending discovery or apprehension,” but specifically excludes telling someone to comply with the law. In other words, communicating “slow down” is protected speech because it encourages safer driving.

An attorney for Elli from the American Civil Liberties Union, Tony Rothert, told The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog that there was a higher principle involved, too: With rare exception, the police shouldn’t be stopping or prosecuting people because of the content of their speech.

As it happens, along with headlight warnings, other courts have protected a range of “speech,” from the spoken word to expressive conduct, where government may not prosecute.

While it may be rude to do so, and may well mean a risk of arrest before later exoneration, courts have said people can confront police officers using insulting words, hand and finger gestures to a degree more than they could similarly challenge other “civilians.” In City of Houston v. Hill, in 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court noted “a properly trained officer may reasonably be expected to exercise a greater degree of restraint than the average citizen” to such expressive conduct.

The point is not that courts are encouraging us to be insulting or disrespectful to police or other authorities — rather that government, from the lowest to highest official in the land, cannot override our right to speak freely without presenting good reason rooted in law.

In Houston, Justice William J. Brennan wrote that “the right of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state. … The First Amendment recognizes, wisely we think, that a certain amount of expressive disorder not only is inevitable in a society committed to individual freedom, but must itself be protected if that freedom would survive.”

We traditionally celebrate freedom with fireworks on July 4, Independence Day. Maybe an occasional flick or two of the high-beams is in order, too.

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

American university students this spring are still using printed textbooks far more than eTexts. In 2010, it was predicted that eTexts would rise from 2 percent of college course materials to over 18 percent after 2014. It didn’t happen.

In the study “Student Reading Practices in Print and Electronic Media” to be published in the journal College & Research Libraries in September of 2014, researchers tracked the reading habits of juniors, seniors and graduate students at the College of New York. Although students used electronic media for non-academic reading, they relied on paper for academics.

There are “a lot of misconceptions about Millennials” as a digital generation, according to researcher Nancy Foasberg who led the study. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on Foasberg’s research: “Several students in Ms. Foasberg’s study expressed a distaste for digital textbooks. Some who had used e-books said they would not use them again because they found the embedded links distracting and because they could not interact with the content as they could with print texts—highlighting or taking notes in the margins, for instance. And since the students found themselves printing out digital texts, whatever money they had saved by not buying printed copies was largely lost to printing costs.”

Another writer, Ferris Jabr, details the extensive research over the last two years that confirms the science behind students’ intuitive preference for printed text. In the November 2013 issue of Scientific American, Jabr lays out the shortcomings of reading from screens in “Why the Brain Prefers Print.” Summarizing recent research from Tufts University, Indiana University, University of Stavanger (Norway), Karlstad University (Sweden), Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, University of Leicester, University of Central Florida and San Jose State University, the downsides of reading on-screen are piling up.

Research indicates that the brain treats words as physical objects which have a placement on a page but are fleeting on screen. Measures of brain activity are high when a student writes letters by hand, but not when they are typed. Many of us experience “drifting away” while scrolling. Research shows that scrolling promotes shallow reading and reduces comprehension. Text provides us with both “deep reading” and context.

Reading printed text is “less taxing cognitively” and provides us with “more free capacity for comprehension.” Reading on the Kindle “ink” format that imitates paper is less taxing than reading the backlit screens of other readers, cell phones, tablets and computer screens. Indeed, most readers report higher levels of stress, eye strain, and scrolling that “drains more mental resources.”

Researchers found that screens promote browsing, taking shortcuts, and scanning. Readers of print are much more likely to re-read and check for understanding.

For college students, the bottom line is: “Will the format affect my test scores?” Researchers found that “…volunteers using paper scored about 10 percentage points higher…students using paper approached the exam with a more studious attitude than their screen-reading peers….” Under both modes, students could superficially “remember” but those studying printed text “knew with certainty,”a trait likely related to the deep-reading of print.

Will the next “digital generation” avoid this difference and be better adapted to screens? Even with young children, researchers found the screens got in the way. Children were distracted into fiddling with the knobs on the device and otherwise being distracted by the technology.

Despite a decade of hype, American college students appear to agree with the survey of students at the National Autonomous University of Mexico where 80 percent of students preferred print to screen in order to “understand with clarity.”

You might agree, as well. After all, you could be reading this complex summary in print.

John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.

Dear Dave,
How can I get credit card companies to stop sending us preapproved offers? My wife continues to sign up for these, and now we have $40,000 in credit card debt.
Dan

Dear Dan,
Chances are you’ll never get credit card companies to stop sending stuff, but there a few things you can do that might help slow things down. Access your credit bureau report, and opt out of marketing offers. You can also freeze your credit report, and send direct requests to the credit card companies to take you off their mailing lists.

I’ve been telling people not to use credit cards for 20 years and, believe it or not, even I get offers in the mail. The more mailing lists you get on, the more your mailbox will fill up with junk mail. If you have magazine subscriptions and things like that, your contact information is circulating all over the place.

The next thing I’m going to say may sound cruel, but I really don’t mean it that way. You don’t have a junk mail problem, Dan. You have a relationship problem. You two are not on the same page about money. Either she doesn’t feel like you two have enough money, and she’s resorting to credit cards for this reason, or she does this because she’s a spoiled brat who thinks she should always have what she wants when she wants it. Her behavior is destroying your financial lives and driving a wedge between you.

My advice would be to sit down and have a gentle, loving talk with her about all this. Try to find out why she feels the need to have all these credit cards, and explain that you’re worried about what it’s doing to your marriage and your finances. That may mean having to spend some time with a marriage counselor, but that’s okay, too. There’s no reason to be ashamed of something like that. The truth is, most of us who have been married more than 20 minutes could use a little help in that area of our lives!
—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. 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.

The Libertarian Party of Kansas is encouraging the Kansas Senate to use better judgment than they believe was demonstrated by the representatives in the Kansas House when they passed HB 2453, an Act concerning religious freedoms with respect to marriage.

The Libertarian Party has a number of serious concerns with the bill which they believe make the proposed law unacceptable for Kansas.

First, the LPKS points out that government officials and employees work for all Kansans, and that by choosing to accept a job paid for by tax-dollars those individuals have agreed to serve all citizens.

Second, the LPKS believes that Kansas businesses already have the liberty to choose who they do business with.  If those businesses make choices that are distasteful to the majority of our citizens, the free market will remove their support from that business.  More laws will not make the situation better nor move Kansas toward the Libertarian goal of “Liberty for All.”

Finally, the Libertarian Party finds this bill unacceptable because they believe it is clearly aimed at a single segment of our society.  The LPKS believes that all good laws should apply equally to all people all of the time, and this bill clearly does not meet that basic tenet of good government.

Should their call for ‘better judgment’ fail in the Senate, both of the Libertarian candidates for Kansas governor are calling upon current Gov. Sam Brownback to veto the bill.  Both Libertarian candidates say they would veto the bill if they were governor.

Tresa McAlhaney said, “As governor, I would veto HB 2453 based on the principle that it is inappropriate to use the force of law to justify discrimination by public employees.”

Her opponent, Keen Umbehr said, “We must remember that public employees are agents of the government and their actions within that role are the actions of the government.  It is not acceptable for the government to choose to provide services to some Kansans while refusing to do the same for others.  To do otherwise is contrary to the equal protection guaranteed within the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”

Regardless of which candidate wins the Libertarian nomination for Kansas governor, if Gov. Brownback does not veto this bill he will likely hear about it from his Libertarian opponent during the general election.

While LPKS Policy Researcher Stacey Davis doubts that Brownback will actually veto the bill should it be passed by the Senate, Davis hopes that Kansans understand that real Libertarians are not found within the ranks of the Republican Party.

“It has become very trendy for some elected Republicans to claim Libertarian leanings or to even claim that they are actually Libertarians, but that is simply not the case,” says Davis. “Real Libertarians understand that it is not enough to fight for the liberties that you personally agree with. Instead, real Libertarians understand that to finally break out of the political status-quo, our representatives have to commit to supporting everyone’s liberty.  That’s why I expect the Libertarian Party to remain the fastest-growing political party in Kansas.”

You know what America needs? More jobs, that’s what.

Not Walmart-style “jobettes,” but real jobs. We need more stable employment with a good salary and benefits, union jobs so workers have a say in what goes on, and jobs that have strong protections against discrimination.

This country needs more jobs that help launch workers into a career, in which you do useful work, take pride in it, earn promotions, and are respected for what you do.

Believe it or not, there’s at least one place where such jobs still exist. But — and you really aren’t going to believe this — those in charge are pushing like hell to eliminate them, turning positions that ought to be a model for American job growth into just another bunch of jobettes.

The place? Your local post office.

Right-wing government-haters in Congress, along with the corporate executives now sitting atop the U.S. Postal Service, claim that in order to “save” this icon of Americana, they must decimate it. These geniuses are privatizing the workforce, selling off invaluable community facilities, and shrinking services.

Hello — postal workers, facilities, and services are what make the post office iconic and give it such potential for even greater public use.

Their latest ploy is a “partnership” with Staples, the office supply chain. In a pilot program, 82 Staples big-box stores opened “postal units” to sell the most popular (and most profitable) mail products.

Rather than being staffed by well-trained and knowledgeable postal workers, however, the mini post offices will have an ever-changing crew of Staples’ low-wage, temporary sales clerks with weak performance standards and no public accountability.

Cheapening postal work might be good for a few profiteers like Staples, but it will diminish postal service — and it’s exactly the wrong direction for America to be going. For info and action go to www.apwu.org.

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

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

“The Common Good.” That’s a desirable, if sometimes amorphous, concept. The common good is something that should be good for everyone. But in our modern, polarized society, how can we achieve the common good? The answer is, it will require leadership – not from an elite few, but from all of us. That’s the concept of a new book by two authors who focus on redefining civic leadership.

David Chrislip and Ed O’Malley are co-authors of this new book titled “For the Common Good – Redefining Civic Leadership.” These two co-authors might be considered an odd couple. One is older, the other relatively young. One is a Democrat, the other a Republican. One grew up in a rural area, the other in the city. But both are definitely committed to the concept of civic leadership.

Ed O’Malley is president of the Kansas Leadership Center, which was created by the Kansas Health Foundation to enhance civic leadership so as to benefit the health of all Kansans. Ed, a proud Kansan, had been a state legislator and assistant to a Kansas governor.

His co-author is David Chrislip. David’s work took him from the National Outdoor Leadership School and Outward Bound to the American Leadership Forum to the National Civic League. David has already written two books: “Collaborative Leadership” and “The Collaborative Leadership Fieldbook.”

When the Kansas Leadership Center was first created, David served as its director of faculty development for five years. He and Ed wanted to chronicle and share the center’s work.

After much research and writing, they produced For the Common Good – Redefining Civic Leadership in summer 2013. It’s based on their belief that civic leadership can better respond to today’s civic challenges. They wrote, “Civic leadership can become more purposeful, provocative and engaging, and thus enhance our collective capacity to address the complex adaptive challenges we face.”

The book outlines leadership competencies and guiding principles such as the concept that leadership is an activity, not a position; that anyone can lead anytime, anywhere; that leading starts with one’s self and then moves on to engaging others; that clarity of purpose is essential; and that leadership is risky.

The book suggests four key leadership behaviors or competencies: Diagnose situation, manage self, intervene skillfully, and energize others. To explain those, the book tells the stories of five diverse individuals and the challenges they faced.

One was Doug Mays, former speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives. Another was Lance Carrithers, pastor of Dodge City’s Methodist church in which he sought to include more of the Hispanic population. A third was David Toland, director of a health coalition called Thrive Allen County. Laura McConwell is the mayor of Mission, Kan., who dealt with challenges of financing upgrades to the city’s infrastructure. The final example was pediatric physician Denise Dowd who sought to address the issues of wellness and prevention in an urban hospital setting.

Each one dealt with what appeared to be intractable issues. The book chronicles the lessons and applications of the leadership learning along their journeys.

While these examples are relevant to many states, all of these examples are drawn from Kansas. This is fitting because Ed O’Malley is a lifelong Kansan and David Chrislip grew up in rural Kansas, having come from Abbyville, population 127 people. Now, that’s rural.

These authors call us to a high standard: To set aside complacency, to care deeply, to intervene personally and to engage others in working together toward the common good.  For more information, go to www.kansasleadershipcenter.org/resources.

On March 11, 2014, the K-State Leadership Seminar will focus on the theme of Leadership for the Common Good. Ed O’Malley is the featured speaker. Every registered participant will receive a copy of the book. For information or to register, see www.k-state.edu/leadershipseminar.

The common good. In our modern times, finding the common good may be difficult, but this book describes processes and real world examples which can inform our journey.  We commend David Chrislip and Ed O’Malley for making a difference by creating this book. Such examples of outstanding civic leadership may not be common, but they are definitely good.

Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.