Opinion

MY PERSPECTIVE, Gary Damron

Immediately after His baptism, where the Holy Spirit descended as a dove and the Father spoke, Jesus was led by the same Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1). After forty days and nights of fasting, the tempter came. The next ten verses reveal Satan's strategy and Jesus' responses.

Far from a mere psychological struggle or inner conflict, this was a real confrontation between the Son of God and a personal adversary whose aim is and always has been to derail God’s redemptive plan. The temptations targeted Jesus’ identity as Son of God, challenging His mission and His dependence on the Father.

GUEST COLUMN, Greg Doering, Kansas Farm Bureau

There’s a routine to spring calving season based on numbers. Once tiny hooves start hitting the cold ground, a rhythm takes over until the last mama cow has delivered her baby. Each day is different, but they’re all based on counting.

I can still picture being sandwiched in the middle of the bench seat between my grandparents as we made the rounds through pastures to check on the progress. My grandfather kept one hand on the steering wheel with a pair of binoculars ready in the other.

We would slowly roll through the field, stopping abruptly for my grandfather to take a closer look at a cow. He’d raise the binoculars and quickly read off the number on the ear tag as my grandmother dutifully recorded the information in a spiralbound notebook.

RYCKMAN RECAP, Ron Ryckman, 38th District Senator

The old idiom “calm before the storm” could well have been applied to last week’s proceedings, as the anticipated halfway point or “turnaround turbulence” very much characterized Week 6 of the 2026 Legislative Session. The Senate only met for three days, but came close to setting some kind of record by voting on fully 50 bills on just one of those alone.

To keep it in perspective, we had debated or “worked” half of them the previous day; still, being called upon to quickly process that much information on a wide range of subjects is a challenge for even the most astute and learned among us, whoever they are.

Thankfully, we have highly competent professional staff, informed interest groups, knowledgeable hearing witnesses, and concerned constituents to assist us along the way. One thing you can always be sure of is that your senator is never acting completely alone on anything.

THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon

My husband, Peter, and I have landed in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and already the strange seems familiar again.

One of the things that impresses me every time I am here is the attention given to jobs that I don’t always think of as needing a lot of attention. Masonry work is meticulous and crafted to last centuries. Cloth is woven one thread at a time, creating utterly unique works. Gardening is done with such patience and consistency that there are blooms every month of the year. But this morning, I was noticing the street sweepers.

The street sweepers are legion. I have no idea what their actual numbers are, but in the center of the old town, where we stay, you cannot walk down a street from the first light of morning until well after dark without encountering a person dressed in red, with a homemade broom and a sturdy dustpan affixed to a stick. Litter does not stand a chance in this town. Stray leaves are corralled as they fall. And, to me, the most amazing thing is how they sweep up the confetti.