News opinion 2008-05-10 Andanh.com

Grocery competition — Good for market Sat, 10 May 2008 01:39:00 EST
Supermarkets in Topeka are taking on a different look.

Thumbs up — Nancy Perry Sat, 10 May 2008 01:39:00 EST
Anyone who knows Nancy Perry and is aware of even a fraction of what she has done for the community and United Way of Greater Topeka over the years is aware of how much she will be missed when she steps down later this summer.

Letter: Unfortunate accident Sat, 10 May 2008 01:39:00 EST
The death of the cat Peanut in a trap meant for a skunk was an accident. It was neither intentional nor malicious.

Letter: Making big difference Sat, 10 May 2008 01:39:00 EST
Last week was National Hospice Volunteer Week, and I want to commend all of the Hospice Care of Kansas volunteers who mean so much to our patients and families. They are extraordinary people who do ordinary things to change lives. These special people are essential members of our team and many know firsthand what it is like to lose a loved one.

Letter: Rights for all others Sat, 10 May 2008 01:39:00 EST
It is amazing to me how people rant and rave about this and that. Atheist who use the same tired arguments that Madalyn Murray O'Hair used back in the '60s. This kid at Fort Riley — it was like listening to her son on TV, when he said someone pulled a knife on him in the high school he attended. Twenty years later, he admitted he had lied about it, but the damage was done.

Letter: Not helping the planet Sat, 10 May 2008 01:38:00 EST
We're now seeing the results of pumping the world's food supply through our fuel tanks to appease obsessive energy haters. Many in the Third World are starving from food shortages caused by these people. But the eco-fanatics don't care.

KATHLEEN PARKER: CLINTON TRYING TO BE BEST 'MAN' FOR THE JOB Fri, 09 May 2008 01:40 CDT

All politicians adapt and mold themselves to fit their audience, but Hillary Clinton has elevated the art of identity politics to a science of morphology.

She doesn't just show people what they want in order to convince them that she's their "man" -- and we no longer use that word entirely metaphorically. She becomes the people she wants to sway.

Clin-ton's life as a political spouse and candidate has been a kaleidoscope of shape-shifting and morphed identity. In the past 15 years, Americans have witnessed her transformation from a more feminine first lady to lately becoming a manly whiskey slugger with "testicular fortitude," as an Indiana labor leader recently described her.

In news stories and headlines, she's increasingly been described as tough, determined, gritty, a fighter. North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley said Clinton made "Rocky Balboa look like a pansy."

In other incarnations throughout the campaign, Clinton has been whatever she needed to be. She can summon an African-American pastor's cadence in church or produce tears in a coffee shop surrounded by working gals who are tired, too.

DAVID BRODER: INDIANA, N.C. SHOULDN'T MATTER Fri, 09 May 2008 01:40 CDT

The endless Democratic presidential campaign has lurched from irrelevance to trivia, triggering a near-universal call to bring it to a halt.

The two states that voted on Tuesday -- Indiana and North Carolina -- are so unimportant to Demo-cratic chances of electing the next president that it is unlikely that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will make more than a token appearance there after one of them is nominated.

Unless John McCain butchers his campaign, he will be an odds-on favorite to continue the Republican winning streak in both states. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry and a host of earlier candidates failed to make them competitive.

In a sensible nominating system, these states would never become important battlegrounds. Lots of people complain that Iowa and New Hampshire enjoy disproportionate influence because of their place at the start of the process. But both are closely contested in November -- not throwaways.

Indiana and North Carolina were doubly irrelevant this year, because the "issues" that Clinton and Obama were discussing in their two weeks there were some of the phoniest of this entire election cycle.

Chinese Dir