Museum politics

The museum has taken some heat from Chris Mayer, the archeologist at Cowley College, who is very critical of how the museum board is changing the museum. As an archeologist, he has some standing on issues of preservation and local history. However, I haven't seen anything that supports his claims that the museum is tossing stuff out on a haphazard basis. In a reorganization, some things would have to be moved around, or even discarded, if they were not of any historical value, one would think.

I did not attend the new exhibit opening but plan to see them. I think promoting and honoring the history of Gov. Docking and the Docking family is a great idea, long overdue.

I was a little shocked at how the Indian fort was destroyed. Perhaps disposing of it was a good idea, but it did have a feel of disregard to past efforts at recognizing Native American history. It wasn't subtle.

The uninsured

If there ever was a reason for universal health care coverage, this is it. A hero from the Joplin tornado has more than $2 million in medical bills, but has no health insurance. The story was about him being denied workers comp. But that wouldn't be such a big deal if he had health insurance.

ESI

It's interesting that a lot of the top city officials and much of the city commission are gone from when this case first started. I think some folks are wondering whether this will make the city more inclined to just settling instead of racking up more attorney fees.

Robinson's case sounds pretty strong, but the city is going to present its case in detail soon, so we'll have a better idea of its defense.

Occupy Wall Street

Good column here in the Wall Street Journal about the underlying feelings and risk of targeting our frustrations on big business and financial institutions.

Obama's proposed millionaire tax has probably spurred this movement a bit, but it indeed taps into growing frustration over wealth disparaties and the perception that corporations are sitting on fat profits and financial institutions that caused the recession got bailed out while the average Joe has been hosed.

Doubt this movement will have the influence the Tea Party movement has had. They do share a common disgust at government bailouts of big businesses, although the end goal is surely much different.

Mental Health meltdown

The problems at the Cowley County Mental Health agency seem to have more to do with internal human resources issues than with services to clients, although if one is troubled you'd think it might affect the other. The new board was tasked with making big changes, so I'm sure there are more to come. Linda Young, the director who has been terminatedis making the big news, but what else is going on?

Artsy fartsy

The National Endowment for the Arts did what some warned and denied a $1 million matching grant to Kansas to support local arts programs, because the state eliminated its arts agency.

While the general public probably doesn't worry too much about art and art funding, there is a fairly influential set of folks who do. Meanwhile, our local arts council will either have to beg for more money to keep up their programs or cut something. They already have done amazing private funding to restore the Burford (I'm a former board member) and can only ask for so much .....

Town hall tumult

I think Sen. Moran was genuinely caught off guard by the confrontational tone of this town hall, but he handled it pretty well.

They expected about 30 people and he said that he wasn't accustomed to people coming in with signs. Some of the Wichita folks there said Moran did not have an open town hall Wichita and so they came here. They might have followed him to Sedan.

It was a bit of a reverse of the Tea Party rebellion in the 2010 town halls — with liberals doing the chiding and challenging this time.

One thing Moran probably should have done is only answer questions of those people who raised their hand and followed procedure. He responded to questions shouted out from the crowd, which gobbled up some time and led to a free-wheeling session.

He did stay afterward to greet people and talk one on one, which I think showed poise and character.

Moran sounded like he wanted to find consensus and compromise on deficit reduction and job creation, although he voted against the compromise debt ceiling package passed earlier this month. He also voted against the compromise package signed last year to extend the bush tax cuts and unemployment benefits. He has not really shown that he will play in the middle, but maybe he's drifting toward it?