Opinion

OPINION – Luke 1: Mary’s song, The Magnificat

MY PERSPECTIVE, Gary Damron

We continue a series, "Introducing Jesus in the gospels", by looking at Luke 1:46-56, Mary's response to her relative Elizabeth's greeting. The song Mary sang has become known as The Magnificat, a combination of two Latin words meaning "to make great".

Some may find it surprising that a peasant girl from a small village would voice such a masterpiece of poetry and prophecy. Many of the words, however, come directly from psalms and other Jewish scriptures that Mary would have heard all her life. Also, through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, she honored God in song.

OPINION – New procedures proposed will help with grant acceptance

LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Susan Lukwago, Liberal

This letter is in response to the front page above the fold article in (Tuesday’s) newspaper. The article is entitled “Commissioners sign documents without approval.”

What was the procedure in place that governed the receipt, acceptance and approval of the grant applications mentioned? Having a copy of the procedures for these actions would help make the research that was and is being conducted more complete.

OPINION – How should Republicans move forward?

GUEST COLUMN, Star Parker

Reading commentary about the recent elections, I thought of an observation of Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman.

Feynman said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."

That is, we must always be disciplined in looking at things as they are and not bend to the temptation to see them as we wish them to be.

After the recent Democratic election sweep, we are hearing that there is unhappiness out there.

But is this really news?

OPINION – Let’s not get ahead of ourselves

GUEST COLUMN, J. Basil Dannebohm

On Nov. 4, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger won their gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia by double-digits. GOP strategists blamed the Democratic victories on bad Republican candidates. While it’s true that Virginia’s Winsome Earl-Sears was unhinged and New Jersey’s Jack Ciattarelli had lost two previous bids for governor, Mr. Trump blamed the losses on the government shutdown and the fact that he wasn’t on the ballot.

Not everyone agreed with the President.

“Virginians and voters spoke loud and clear that they’re pissed off at the Trump administration,” Christina Freundlich, a Democratic strategist who worked on the Virginia lieutenant governor’s race, told Politico. “Democrats came out in record numbers, and this is a foreshadow of what we’re going to see next year.”

OPINION – With rogue local leadership, pressure builds to make changes at state level

L&T Publisher Earl Watt

When I saw an email from Dave Trabert of the Kansas Policy Institute, I wasn’t surprised.

Trabert and his organization do an outstanding job of informing Kansans on how tax dollars are being used across the state as well as when those dollars are not garnering the results expected.

The KPI also gives Kansans some baseline comparisons to see if their local units of government align with similar communities across the state, like certain local costs of government per person.

We hope to be sharing with you some of those numbers in the weeks ahead.

So what put Seward County on the radar for the watchdog group concerned about taxpayers in Kansas?

I’ll give you three guesses and two don’t count.