Today's Kansas City Star

For anyone and everyone who has ever complained about the state of the newspaper in general but the Kansas City Star, in particular, including myself and Tony at the TKC blog, today's paper proves itself to be everything a good newspaper issue should be.

The front page alone, with an article on the alleged Waldo rapist and another on the KCMO School District and a third on mothers who became moms at a young age and what they learned from it--gave terrific local coverage and color to these stories.

Nowhere on that front page was an article about national, international or--worse yet--sports issues. Just great, local, important stories and writing.

So here's to the Kansas City Star today. Kudos. You did a great job. We'd love to see more in this vein.


Other, brief notes on Star stories today:

--If you haven't read that article, mentioned above, on the KCMO School District and Superintendent Covington's plans to take it into "standards-based education", you need to. It's well researched, it seems and explained. It's important for the city to know what's going on, besides being a fascinating read;

--It looks as though, finally, President Obama may move the country towards banning land mines. (Pg A2). This is way overdue;

--A woman was elected, for the first time, to head the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Another milestone in women's growth;

--There's a terrific, if surprising and, for me, disappointing article (pg A12) on President Obama inspiring blacks to run for office. The only disappointment for me is that they're Republicans and running for those seats. (Question: Why join a group that hates you?);

--Good news--if not great--from the Pope, the Vatican and the Catholic Church in that the resignation of a Cardinal in Germany was accepted (pg A17). He admitted to slapping (read: abusing) children and apparently also sexually abusing some, too. Change seems to be slowly coming to the church after all, at long last;

--The story about the Jordan River (pg A18) being grossly over-drained and polluted through Israel, Jordan and Syria is an important one for that entire area but also as a lesson to the rest of the world on what we do with water and what a precious resource it is. Water will clearly become one of the most important scarce resources in the world shortly, it seems. Maybe, if we're lucky, it will mean we'll all finally start treating it better and wiser as the vital, important item in our lives it really is and so, stop wasting and polluting it. Who knows? Maybe it could bring us al together, as people, to work together for what we need. Call me a dreamer;

--There is a fairly short but important article about a US-born Muslim cleric now living in Yemen who's calling for a Jihad against the US.


So there you are, folks--just good stuff. I hope you caught or catch it.


Now let's all go out and have a great week.