In the midst of government shutdowns, an “ailing” healthcare website, and wars both within and beyond our borders this past year, it comes as no surprise that local stories are sometimes consumed by larger headlines and weightier matters affecting the nation, if not the world. The year 1965 was no different.

As the Beatles sang, “We Can Work It Out,” the Civil Rights Movement steamed forward; Vietnam escalated; President Johnson’s quest for the Great Society gained traction; and the conspicuous “Space Race”—which pitted the United States against the Soviet Union—intensified.

But beneath the headlines, and out of view from most of the nation, the worst non-natural disaster in Kansas history struck on January 16, 1965. Long forgotten by many, some, like Gladys McGlon, still remember that fateful morning in Wichita.

IT WAS AS IF THE SOUND CAME FROM ANOTHER WORLD, a motorized deafening roar, incomparable to anything ever heard in the quaint community. It was like no other sound—a low, heavy, continued rumble, which Gladys would describe years later as a “freight train passing over their roof.” Her small brick house began to shake beneath the sound. The venetian blinds in the kitchen slammed back and forth. Silverware shuttered in drawers, while dishes tumbled from cabinets. The stout wood floors in the living room creaked; picture frames fell, doors rattled on their hinges, and windows shivered.

And then, it became even louder.

The sound began just after 9:30 a.m., coupled by a blood curdling scream from the kitchen. It was Gladys’s mother, Annabelle Foster, whose sudden, piercing outcry, accompanied by the jarring sound, had brought an end to the once peaceful and calm morning. Rushing to her mother’s aid, Gladys saw the distortion in her face, the veins pulsating in her neck, and her blaring white teeth—each one aligned perfectly like keys on a piano—but the scream was somehow slowly muted. Something was drowning it out. As dimmed sunlight pricked through the kitchen windows and revealed the tense creases above her mother’s eyebrows, Gladys froze, captivated by the alien sound that strangled her mother’s incessant cries.

Her younger sisters and brothers dashed alongside her into the kitchen, clasping their ears, as their worried eyes fastened on their mother. But the comfort they sought in her face was not there. She wore a preoccupied look, as if her mind and spirit—searching for an escape—had traveled somewhere beyond the frightful event. The peaceful Saturday morning, where cereal and cartoons had started their day, was gone. Now, terror and panic gripped the setting, the source of which was still a mystery.

Their minds instantly tried to rationalize the trauma: they knew it couldn’t have been an earthquake, at least not in Kansas; a tornado, perhaps, but then again, it was a frigid January morning. Nothing seemed to fit.

As they stood there, horrorstruck and puzzled, the intense sound ripped the ceiling. A trail of dust followed the crack like speeding cars on a gravel road, cutting the house in half as the rumbling moved swiftly across the rooftop.

The powerful noise reached a crescendo just before colliding with the earth. The impact—both heard and felt throughout Wichita—bounced homes along the narrow street from their foundations. And for a brief period, only seconds, there was silence; her mother’s screams cut short. Indistinct pecks of debris falling on the roof and the flickering of fire were the only sounds heard for the moment.

Running to the front porch, still confused, wearing pajamas and shoeless, they found the air outside thick and hard to breath. It caused them to squint as the wind shifted and blew a pungent odor of jet-fuel in their direction. Peering into the dark curtain of smoke in front of them, they watched silently while oily, bluish-green drops rained down on their faces. Whaling sirens grew closer and, one by one, their neighbors staggered out of the black clouds—burned, bleeding, naked, and disoriented.

Fire trucks, police cars, and military jeeps arrived in droves within minutes. Uniformed men, pouring out of vehicles, hurried into the tiny home to evacuate Gladys and her family. Their mother, still in a state of shock, managed to ask one of the rescuers what was going on. He replied, “Ma’am, we’ve got it under control; just a plane crash.” But his ineffectual statement did little to hide the fact that they, too, were overwhelmed by the magnitude of the sight before them.

Puddles of jet fuel, an ominous sign, had now formed on the front lawn.

Swallowed up by grander headlines in the 1960s, then tucked away into dusty archives, most have never heard of the Piatt Street plane crash in Wichita, Kansas, and its terrible sound. Forty-nine years later, it remains the worst aviation disaster in Kansas history.

D. W. Carter is a military historian and best-selling Kansas author. His new book, “Mayday Over Wichita: The Worst Military Aviation Disaster in Kansas History,” examines the KC-135 tanker crash of 1965 in Wichita. www.dwcarterbooks.com

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

Let’s go to New York, where an excited consumer has just made a purchase. It is a cellphone case for an iPhone – and not just any cellphone case, but one that is made of bioplastics. Where do you suppose those bioplastics came from? Would you believe, rural Kansas? Today we’ll meet a company which is specializing in the type of renewable, compostable, bio-based technology which is helping more businesses go green.

Mark Remmert is chief executive officer of Green Dot, a Kansas company which created these bioplastics. Mark is well-suited to lead this company after a career in the plastics industry. After earning a degree in geology and geophysics from the University of Wyoming, Mark’s career with Dow Chemical Company took him around the world. He then retired and moved back to a ranch which his family owned near Cottonwood Falls, Kan.

Mark was approached by some investors who were working on an idea for a bioplastics company.  They wanted Mark to lead this new business.

“I’ll do it – as long as I can stay in Kansas,” Mark said.

With that, the company known as Green Dot was born. It takes its name from the fact that compostable products in Europe are marked with a green dot. In 2011, the company opened its headquarters in Cottonwood Falls, not far from Mark Remmert’s ranch.

Green Dot did product testing at the Kansas Polymer Research Center at Pittsburg State. The company acquired a production facility, product development laboratory, and bioplastics product line from another Kansas company. Green Dot also received support from the Kansas Bioscience Authority.

Today, Green Dot produces biopellets that are used to make three types of items: Elastomers (which are essentially elastic polymers), biodegradables, and starch and wood-plastic composite products. Kevin Ireland works in corporate communications for Green Dot.

“We want to show the plastics industry that they can use this kind of biopolymers in their products, and they are often less expensive and perform better,” Kevin said. The raw materials for some of these substances might be corncob materials, wood fibers, or other non-food products. “We’re using products that wouldn’t have been used otherwise,” Kevin said.

These renewable biobased resins produce a lighter carbon footprint and reduced carbon emissions. The ultimate goal is to improve the environment and build a more sustainable world.

What are examples of finished products using the Green Dot technology? They include durable goods such as toys or pet supplies, electronics accessories such as cell phone cases, or wood-related products in furniture.

“We work with manufacturers to make new products or to make their existing products more sustainable,” Kevin said. Obviously, the sustainable and non-toxic nature of Green Dot’s products makes them especially attractive.

One toy company named Begin Again uses Green Dot’s products in their toy line, including a product called Scented Scoops which looks like ice cream cones complete with the aroma of strawberry, for example. The cornstarch base enables the products to carry the scent.

Today, Green Dot products are going all over the nation, but the company is based in Kansas.  Company headquarters is in Cottonwood Falls, the lab is in Atchison, and the production plant is in the rural community of Onaga, population 697 people. Now, that’s rural.

Kevin Ireland points out that Kansas is a leader in the growing biosciences industry. “Kansas is the fifth leading funder of biosciences among the states,” he said. “I was at a meeting in Berlin last year where we were a finalist for the international bioplastics award. Europe has a reputation for being green, but I think we do the commercialization of green products best in the U.S. We have an advantage in cost, turnaround time, and quality.”

For more information, see www.greendotpure.com.

It’s time to leave New York, where an excited consumer has just bought a compostable, biodegradable biocase for her cellphone. We salute Mark Remmert, Kevin Ireland, and all those involved with Green Dot for making a difference by developing these sustainable materials. As the company says, their broad range of biobased and compostable plastics aren’t just greener, they’re better.

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

From the White House to the Vatican, everyone these days seems to be talking about income inequality. But our politics hasn’t kept up. Concrete proposals that could actually narrow the gap between the rich and the rest of us haven’t yet moved onto our public policy center stage.

That could change in 2014.

We saw the first rumblings of that change this past fall in Switzerland, where young activists ran a spirited referendum campaign to cap Swiss CEO pay at 12 times worker wages. This 1:12 pay cap was running even in the polls until a corporate ad blitz sent the measure down to defeat late in November.

That setback hasn’t doused interest in pay ratios. In Germany, France, and Spain, activists are now working on their own versions of pay-ratio caps, and the ratio spirit has even spread to the United States, home to the world’s most generous CEO paychecks.

Major U.S. execs now average over 350 times the pay of America’s rank-and-file workers. How high does that CEO-worker pay gap go at individual corporations? We’ll soon know. The federal Securities and Exchange Commission will probably release new regulations soon that require America’s top corporations to annually reveal the ratio between their CEO and median worker compensation.

Activists aren’t waiting for these new pay ratio numbers to start emerging. They’re already mobilizing to build compensation ratios into the fabric of America’s economic life.

In Massachusetts, nurses have collected over 100,000 signatures for an initiative that would levy fines against any hospital in the state, profit or nonprofit, that compensates its CEO over 100 times the hospital’s lowest-paid worker.

State lawmakers now have until May to advance the nurses’ plan. If they don’t, nurses say they’ll collect the additional 11,000 signatures necessary to get their ratio plan on this November’s statewide ballot.

Similar ratio organizing has also hit another bastion of America’s growing inequality: college campuses. Compensation for academe’s top executives has been riding up a steep escalator over recent years, at the same time pay for faculty and staff has struggled just to keep pace with inflation.

Students on these campuses, meanwhile, are graduating into ever greater debt, and all these dynamics combined may help make the nation’s colleges the coming year’s most heated pay ratio battleground.

At St. Mary’s College, a prestigious liberal arts campus in southern Maryland, the pay-ratio battle has already begun.

Students at the public college have been organizing for pay justice for over a decade now. Between 2002 and 2006, their campaign for a campus-wide living wage boosted the lowest annual pay for school employees from $15,700 to $24,500.

But inflation has eroded that minimum wage. Pay for top college administrators, by contrast, has increased. Their pay even rose during what was supposed to be a statewide wage freeze.

This past September, students and allied faculty and staff formally unveiled a response to this newly widening gap: a proposal that would set their college’s lowest pay at 130 percent the official poverty level for a family of four and limit the college president’s pay to ten times that lowest pay.

This 1:10 ratio proposal will soon be going before the St. Mary’s student government and faculty and staff senates. The next goal after that: approval from the college’s board of trustees.

St. Mary’s activists have a broader goal as well. They’re hoping, as St. Mary’s emerita professor of psychology Laraine Glidden explains, to “not only address the wage inequity on our campus, but also inspire others to similar efforts.”

And those activists appear to be succeeding on that score. Students on other campuses have already made contact with them.

Those contacts will probably multiply in the year ahead. The Chronicle for Higher Education recently reported that 42 private college presidents took home over $1 million in 2011, the last year with data.

Two of these execs made over $3 million, a take-home almost 200 times the pay of a minimum-wage worker.

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. OtherWords.org

In 2003 and again in 2008, attempts were made to close down sex education in Kansas across both the K-12 and university levels. The 2003 effort was vetoed by the governor and the 2008 effort failed to pass the Kansas House.

Similar to many other states, Kansas has an obscenity law based on “community standards.” But medical doctors and teachers have an exemption, an “affirmative defense” against prosecution. Kansas has long recognized that pictures and words that are “obscene” when viewed on Main Street are quite appropriate and necessary for both physicians and teachers in appropriate medical and school settings.

In these cases, the legislators who proposed the laws were responding to what they perceived as teaching conduct that went beyond what is expected of professional teachers. So they attempted to prohibit any teaching about sex at all, whether presented professionally or unprofessionally.

In the classroom, “professional” conduct is defined by the common and widespread practices of similar teachers nationwide. It is also constrained by the professional need for good communication and respect for the students.

Academic freedom is not academic license.

Academic freedom comes with academic responsibility.

At the university level, the American Association of University Professors has clarified this in their “Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.”

In the classroom, the AAUP summarizes in section 2: “Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject …”

This is a place where the teacher’s supervisors, departmental chairs and deans, have a responsibility to ensure that teachers under their jurisdiction are not going beyond the limits of the course, politicizing the course, proselytizing, or treating students in a disrespectful manner. Administrators from kindergarten to graduate school not only have a right to corral a “loose cannon” who is not fulfilling their professional responsibilities, they have a duty to do so. Both schools and the AAUP have procedures to accomplish this that provide due process.

But what about outside of the classroom? Section 3 states: “College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.”

Teachers are held to a standard higher than we generally find in public forums, where uncivil comments and often anonymous slander are rampant in public comment blogs.

In the future, it is possible that Kansas sex education teachers at all levels will again have to defend our courses against attempts to remove our exemption from the obscenity law.

Such an attack will likely occur because somewhere, a teacher failed to teach with professionalism, was cavalier, or violated the dignity of students in the class.

These attempts to curtail sex education are not an academic “freedom of speech” issue. Our Legislature has full authority to remove the obscenity exemption. And schools have the authority to hold their teachers to professional practice.

If we have to fight this battle again, it will likely be triggered by unprofessional conduct in the classroom.

Incivility has consequences.

John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University. [email protected]

Do organically produced foods have higher nutritional value?

According to international, national and regional research studies the nutritional value of organic crops compared to conventional crops reveals little if any differences.

Colorado State University (CSU) researchers compared vitamin content of organically and conventionally grown vegetables (carrots and broccoli). They found no statistically significant differences.

Other research from CSU focused on growing potatoes using four different farming techniques under the same growing conditions: an intensive high-chemical system; a moderate conventional system; customary organic farming and virgin organic production. Nine minerals and seven vitamins were analyzed and no clear differences were discovered.

Another U.S. study found more soluble iron in conventionally grown spinach but the proportion of the soluble iron available to consumer’s system was somewhat higher for both spinach and peppers grown with compost and manure.

In overseas studies, Norwegian research found conventionally grown carrots contained more beta-carotene, more magnesium and more manganese. The organic carrots had more aluminum. When carrots of the same variety were compared, the only difference was a higher level of carotenoids in the conventionally grown carrots.

A German study discovered lower levels of nitrate in carrots, beets and potatoes grown with manure but the differences were minute under good storage conditions. Stressful storage conditions enhanced the difference.

Consumers can conclude from such findings that people who do not buy organically grown fruits and vegetables can find equally good products with equal nutrition at supermarkets and roadside stands. It also means people who wish to eat organically grown fruits and vegetables should do so.

Bottom line – differing farming systems produce virtually no difference in the nutritional value of the crops. The variety, or strain, of the carrots and potatoes grown appears to have a bigger impact on their nutrient value than organic production methods.

It’s no secret, plant breeders have long advocated that fruits, vegetables and grains require three main nutrients – nitrogen, phosphate potash and trace minerals in varying amounts according to the plant species. If a plant is sorely lacking in one of these nutrients, it will not grow. If it has access to these nutrients, it will grow into the crop its heredity determines and will pass along the nutrients its heredity intends.

Translation – for a healthy diet eat plenty of fruit and vegetables each day, regardless of how they were grown. Doing so will probably mean a person eats more fiber and that is healthy. It also means less room for fatty foods that are one of the major contributions to poor health.

Eating five fruits and vegetables per day reduces our risk for heart disease and cancer. Researchers tell us this health-enhancing effect is derived from the high levels of antioxidant chemicals in the fruits and vegetables.

So much of this research on conventional versus organically grown food has demonstrated little nutritional differences. In our society consumers have a choice. It is an individual decision.

The choice is yours.

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.       

Dear Dave,

My husband works construction, so we barely scrape by during the winter months. Should we build an emergency fund for the slow times?

Cathy

Dear Cathy,

I think that’s a great idea. Although, I’d probably call it something other than an emergency fund. How about a squirrel fund? Squirrels need to have nuts saved up for winter, and in your case you’d be setting money aside during the summer to get you through the slow winter months.

You may think I’m playing games with the name, but really I’m not. This sort of saving isn’t for emergencies. It’s a budget issue, because you’re planning and setting aside cash leading up to the down time you know is coming. Keep your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses separate from this, and take a careful look at what he made this winter and how much that left you short each month.

Remember, we’re not talking about some random amount of money here. It’s an exact amount that you can budget for accordingly. Teachers can do the same thing if they’re not paid 12 months a year. It’s a simple matter of planning ahead for the down time, and setting aside enough during the other nine months to see you through!

— 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.

By EDWARD CROSS
Kansas Independent Oil & Gas Association

As the American economy continues to struggle for recovery, policymakers and the public need to be aware of the key advantages available to our nation through increased domestic oil and natural gas production.

A recent Harris Interactive poll shows that American voters see great value in a strong domestic energy sector. Nine out of ten respondents said that developing more domestic energy here in the U.S. is important, and 73% support increased domestic oil and natural gas production.

Unfortunately, discussions taking place in Washington threaten to put the strength of American energy at risk. Whenever the debate in Washington turns to spending and debt, some policymakers repeatedly haul out proposals for punitive tax increases on oil and natural gas. This is not a popular idea, according to the poll, which found 81% of voters nationwide believe policymakers in Washington should solve the nation’s budget issues without raising energy taxes.

Tax reform is another area where voters are wary of the potential for harm to U.S. energy production and energy security. When asked about tax reform, 56% of voters said they opposed changes to the tax code that could decrease investment in energy production and reduce energy development in the U.S. versus just 30% who said they would support such actions.

Tax reform may help keep America competitive in a global marketplace, but it must be done carefully. Cost recovery measures, like the percentage depletion deduction and the intangible drilling costs (IDCs) deduction, are neither subsidies nor loopholes but tax provisions critical for American independent oil and natural gas producers to sustain capital availability and formation to promote continued oil and natural gas exploration and production activity. By improving cash flow, these cost recovery measures allows American independent producers to invest more money into creating jobs and producing the energy that keeps our economy running.

For some companies in the retail and service sectors, reduced marginal rates might outweigh the loss of deductions that allow a business to recover costs. But for capital-intensive industries like oil and natural gas or manufacturing, cash flow and cost recovery will typically be very important factors in how they decide to invest in their operations.

Recent studies show that repealing percentage depletion and IDCs would result in fewer wells drilled, fewer Americans employed, and less energy produced here in the U.S. This impact is both significant and immediate. According to studies, over 190,000 Americans would be unemployed within one year if percentage depletion and IDCs were repealed; growing to 265,000 jobs lost over a decade. For states where independent oil and natural gas producers are responsible for the majority of production, oil and natural gas production could fall by as much as 60% and industry workforce could fall by as much as 33%.

Kansas Statehouse denizens/political junkies spent most of the last month considering just what amount of campaign contributions that the Democratic team challenging Gov. Sam Brownback would have to post to show that its effort is serious.

Surprisingly, though the Democratic team of House Minority Leader Paul Davis, D-Lawrence, and former Regent and well-known Democrat Jill Docking, of Wichita, came up with less than Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, they proved themselves a genuine challenge—not just an inconvenience.

Brownback goes into this election year with $1,990,000 in the bank, and the Davis/Docking team with $770,611, after expenses of $232,000. But the key here is that the Democrats raised more than $1 million before the political action committee/union/corporate contributions cutoff started on Dec. 31.

Now, let’s see, Brownback, as of the campaign funds reporting deadline, has about 2.5 times the cash-on-hand that the Democrats have. He had the full year to raise money, the Democrats about 145 days, but the $1 million mark…well, that has a little cachet.

Most political observers were surprised by the Democratic team fund-raising, and the halltalk in the Statehouse was that $600,000 or so would be a pretty good showing by Davis/Docking.

So, what did the numbers show?

Brownback’s obvious advantage is tempered a dab because, if you recall four years ago the Democratic team (remember their names? Sens. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, and Kelly Kultala, D-Kansas City?) spent $637,000 for the entire campaign, while Brownback spent $2.5 million. The Democrats didn’t even have a candidate until three days after Valentine’s Day, 2010.

This year’s Democratic team is coming into the election year with serious money.

Now, remember, the new numbers are just the candidate’s accounts…and slightly removed campaign contributors like the Chamber of Commerce and labor unions will spend millions in independent expenditures in favor of their favorites. And, after the Legislature adjourns, those folks will again be able to make contributions to the campaigns.

The initial reports show that there may be a genuine scrap ahead that is probably not just defined by the party registration of voters next fall.  And, it probably means that whatever tack the challengers want to take in their campaign, they’ll at least be able to tell people about it.

How’d you like to not have the money to challenge an opponent’s assertion that your campaign wants all cats in Kansas to be on leashes? Sobering, isn’t it?

But…just money isn’t the key to getting elected.

Just ask former Democratic Attorney General Steve Six, who spent $1.1 million in his campaign against challenger Republican (now attorney general) Derek Schmidt, who spent $655,000.

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

Ever dream of winning the lottery? If so, you’re not alone. Millions of people spend billions of dollars believing this is the only way they’ll ever achieve financial security.

The reality is that the odds of “hitting the big one” are about 13 million to one. You stand a better chance of getting struck by lightning than hitting the jackpot!

So how are you going to build your nest egg? Don’t bank on winning the lottery or beating the stock market or coming into a large inheritance. For most of us, the key to building savings is to begin one step at a time.

Fortunately, saving money is not something reserved for the privileged few (or the very lucky.) It’s a choice that each of us has. A new program from the Ellis County Extension Office can provide information and inspiration.

“Saving Dollars When You Don’t Have a Dime to Spare” will be offered at three locations in Ellis County in the coming weeks. The first presentation will be Wednesday, Jan. 15, at 6:30 p.m. at the Victoria High School FCS Room in Victoria. Please register two days before at the Ellis County Extension office, (785) 628-9430. A minimum attendance is needed to hold this program.

Other programs are slated for Friday, Jan. 24, at noon at the Extension Office meeting room, 601 Main Street in Hays and on Thursday, Feb. 6, at 6:30 p.m. at the Ellis Public Library meeting room in Ellis. Please pre-register two days before each presentation by calling the County Extension Office. A minimum number may be required for some locations.

Saving money begins in your brain, not your bank account. It’s not how much you make, but how you choose to spend and save that makes the difference.

This free Extension program will help you recognize how even small expenditures add up over time and will encourage money-saving changes so you can begin to save dollars, even when you think you don’t have a dime to spare.

You might be surprised to find out that many of America’s millionaires started out with very ordinary incomes.

So what did they do differently than the rest of us? They learned to save money on a regular basis, make sacrifices when possible and scrutinize expenditures carefully. For these folks, financial independence was more important than showing off expensive possessions.

Few people ever get rich from their wages alone, but by putting a few fundamental principles about money into action– along with patience and discipline– you can save thousands of dollars.

Resolve to make this the year you begin to build your own financial security. Call the Ellis County Extension office, (785) 628-9430, to register for one of the three free programs on “Saving Dollars When You Don’t Have a Dime to Spare.”

Linda Beech is Ellis County Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences with Kansas State Research and Extension.

It’s anything but a happy New Year for Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, an American citizen who has spent the last 12 months in an Iranian prison because of his faith.

In December 2012, the Idaho minister was visiting his native Iran to help start an orphanage when he was arrested for “undermining the Iranian government,” according to the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group working on Abedini’s behalf.

Despite torture, denial of medical care, and a painful separation from his wife and two small children, Pastor Abedini steadfastly refuses to renounce his faith – a condition reportedly set by the Iranian authorities for his release.

Abedini’s case has received media attention and high-profile support from many sources, including the White House and Billy Graham (thus far to no avail). But hundreds of other prisoners of conscience – people of many faiths – languish in jail cells across the world largely unknown and unheralded.

Last month, the plight of people imprisoned for practicing their faith got some much-needed attention in a report entitled “Freedom of Religion or Belief” issued by Human Rights Without Frontiers, an international advocacy group with offices and affiliates throughout the world. (See the full report at www.hrwf.org)

The report highlights 24 countries that arrested and jailed people in 2013 for violating laws that prohibit freedom of religion. Five nations – China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea and South Korea – are cited as “countries of particular concern” with large numbers of prisoners of religious conscience.

The dismal human rights records of totalitarian regimes like China and Iran are, of course, well known. In China, for example, members of “house churches” (Protestant groups not sanctioned by the government) are routinely harassed and often arrested.

Iran oppresses all minority religious groups, but gives special attention to Baha’is – a religious tradition condemned by the government as heretical and dangerous. More than 100 Baha’is are currently in Iranian prisons, including most of the community’s leadership.

It’s somewhat surprising and disappointing, however, to find South Korea – a democratic country and close American ally – high on the list of countries denying religious freedom.

According to the report, 599 young South Korean Jehovah’s Witnesses were serving 18-month prison sentences in 2013 for conscientious objection to military service.

Since the end of the Korean War, South Korea “has relentlessly prosecuted young Witness men who refuse military service and has not provided an alternative to resolve the issue.” An astonishing 17,549 Witnesses have been sentenced to a combined total of 34,100 years in prison for refusing to perform military service.

Behind the mind-numbing statistics, of course, are individual human beings – each one with a heartbreaking story of being forced to choose between upholding their faith and going to prison.

Akemanjiang, to cite just one example, is a Muslim in the Aqsu district of China arrested in 2008 for not following government policy requiring restaurants to stay open during the month of Ramadan. For this simple act of conscience, he remains in prison to this day.

Akemanjiang, Saeed Abedini, and the hundreds of other prisoners of conscience urgently need Americans to do at least two things:

First, urge the American government to move religious freedom higher on the list of priorities in our dealings with other nations. Where the United States has leverage – in South Korea for example – we should use it to make the case for liberty of conscience.

And second, call attention to the imprisoned so that they cannot be forgotten. By shining the spotlight of public awareness on the plight of people of faith, Americans can help hold these governments accountable – and, in some cases, embarrass them into releasing those they hold captive.

In 2014, let’s resolve to do whatever we can to help free the faithful.

Charles C. Haynes is director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20001. [email protected]