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I bet Hillary Clinton wishes Bob Johnson would stop trying to help her. Johnson is the billionaire BET founder and Clinton supporter who embarrassed his candidate and himself during the South Carolina primary by clumsily attempting to inject Barack Obama's self-confessed youthful drug use into the campaign and then clumsily denying he was doing it. To judge from his latest comments, he still hasn't learned to engage brain before operating mouth.

In March, Johnson told the Charlotte Observer that he agreed with comments that forced Geraldine Ferraro to resign from Clinton's campaign last month. Ferraro essentially called Obama the affirmative action candidate, saying that if he were not black, he would not be the political phenom he is.

Said Johnson, "What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called 'Jerry Smith' and he says, 'I'm going to run for president,' would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote? And the answer is, probably not."

Naturally, Johnson is wrong. If being black conferred, as he and Ferraro seem to think, some mysterious advantage in politics (unlike in virtually every other field of endeavor), the Rev. Jesse Jackson would have been president years ago. He is, after all, black. As are the Rev. Al Sharpton and Alan Keyes. All tried, yet none came close to winning the presidency.

Johnson is also wrong about black support for Obama. As recently as December, Gallup pollsters found Clinton had significantly "higher" favorable ratings among black voters than Obama. Of course, that was before Obama's resounding victory in Iowa, Clinton's gaffe about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.' s role in the civil rights movement, and clanking attempts by Clinton surrogates such as Johnson to kneecap Obama.

The popular misconception that increased usage of corn for ethanol production is the only factor driving higher food prices is just that -- a misconception.

Ethanol production has added and will continue to add to corn demand, but other factors also are playing major roles in higher food prices.

Global demand for U.S. agricultural products has increased significantly over the past several years. China and India are but two examples where growing affluence is leading to changes in diet and overall food demand. Helping add to export demand is the devaluation of the dollar. This makes corn, soybeans, wheat and other commodities produced in the United States particularly attractive to overseas buyers.

Above the farmer in the food chain are processors, distribution systems and grocery stores. We are all familiar with how energy prices are affecting the retail costs of goods. Food products are no different. And because of the refrigerated nature of much of the food system, those delivery costs can be even higher. Labor costs also are a factor. Finally, food suppliers are raising food prices simply because they can.

And, yes, there is ethanol.

"Just reorganizing from top to bottom in the first week."

-- Interim Wichita school superintendent Martin Libhart, joking when asked about his agenda for the district

"They blew it up in more ways than one."

-- Wichita school board president Connie Dietz on ex-superintendents Stuart Berger and Larry Vaughn, who, unlike the district's next superintendent, were hired to be change agents

"We are definitely carnivores in my family."

As a family member who has helped to care for an aging parent, I understand how frustrating navigating the maze of Medicare can be. We want our loved ones to have good care.

As a senator, I also see Medicare from another perspective -- as a federal program serving 44 million seniors, 400,000 right here in Kansas. That is 13 percent of our population.

Medicare affects physicians, nurses, hospital administrators and staff, pharmacists, and home health care workers. I meet on a regular basis with senior citizens and representatives from all of these groups, continually looking at ways to make Medicare a better and more cost-effective program.

Among the biggest challenges are the payment rates for physicians who serve seniors in Medicare. Because of a complex funding formula, doctors are being asked to take greater cuts in Medicare reimbursements for their services.

Though it's important to be cost-effective with tax dollars, it's to the point that doctors' costs often outweigh the payments they receive. As a result, fewer doctors can participate in Medicare. That's an extra hardship in rural areas where seniors face greater difficulty finding another doctor.

Wichita and south-central Kansas reached a significant milestone last week that will positively resonate for years to come.

The Wichita City Council and the Sedgwick County Commission showed the rest of the country -- and the world -- that we are serious about protecting and growing our aviation industry. Their approval of $10 million in local incentives for Cessna Aircraft joined the state effort to secure this new plant here.

Our local elected officials demonstrated both visionary leadership and sound business sense, especially when we consider the return on investment of these public dollars. Behind the scenes, our local elected leaders and county and city staffs worked together to make sure we sent a clear message to other states that are trying to lure our aviation companies and their jobs away from Kansas.

Our officials were prepared and responded with creative and responsible policy for an opportunity that other communities dream about. As a result, Cessna -- already an incredible corporate citizen -- is investing almost $800 million in our local economy to build a new large-cabin business jet, which means more than 1,000 high-paying jobs at Cessna and thousands more for local businesses providing goods and services for the planemaker and its new employees.

An economic development win of this magnitude requires public and private partners pursuing a seamless effort that features everyone pushing hard for an overall community victory. The return on investment is significant in terms of dollars, but the strength of our competitive culture produced a number of far-reaching qualitative benefits, including:

Congress already has authorized billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded subsidies for farmers who grow corn and the producers who turn it into the fuel that's pumped into your car.

Never mind that ethanol is helping spike food prices. Corn prices have increased by 70 percent since 2005, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects they will rise an additional 10 to 20 percent this year.

But that's not the half of it. Corn-dependent livestock also are increasing in price. The USDA estimates that corn feed price increases added nearly 9 percent to the price of beef last year. But this doesn't include the indirect costs. U.S. beef cattle herds declined by 338,000 in 2007, increasing beef prices further, in part, because of higher prices for feed, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Ethanol advocates claim that rising corn costs have contributed only modestly to the overall increase in food prices. They're not being entirely honest, as they're only counting the direct costs of ethanol. They don't count, for example, increases in soybean prices resulting from farmers switching to the more lucrative corn crop.

The ethanol program also is not reducing greenhouse-gas emissions as promised, but increasing them. That's according to two new independent, scientific studies published in the journal Science.