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We have become a nation that believes we can enjoy constant economic growth with no pain. Not only do we expect prosperity, but we expect a constantly increasing level of prosperity.

But prosperity without sacrifice produces many problems: high gasoline prices, the housing bubble, the broken health care system, Social Security and Medicare systems headed for bankruptcy, the environment headed for disaster.

The generation who lived through the Great Depression and World War II understood sacrifice, but wanted their children to have a "better" life. However, that better life is unsustainable, according to David Walker, former U.S. comptroller general.

In an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes," Walker said that even though we don't face an immediate crisis, we suffer from a fiscal cancer that, if not treated, could lead to catastrophic consequences. One of the biggest problems is that we have massive entitlement programs that we can no longer afford.

We don't like to deal with reality. Because of that, politicians often pander instead of lead. Instead of facing the reality that the stock market is overpriced because of the housing market meltdown, they give us a $120 billion tax rebate. Instead of sustainable renewable energy strategies, a handful of congressmen in corn-growing states give us ethanol (which contributes to the world food shortage). Instead of better public transportation and more efficient automobiles, we get a proposed "tax holiday" on gasoline taxes.

Oh, no, she didn't. Or, as the young hip-hop generation might say, "Oh, no, she did-int!" But, oh, yes, she d-id. A day after her hoped-for monster triumph in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries fizzled, Sen. Hillary Clinton no longer seemed to care whom she offended. She dared to speak about race and gender in public with the candid language that even political consultants usually keep private.

Despite losing big to Sen. Barack Obama in North Carolina's Democratic primary and barely squeaking out a victory in Indiana, she said in an interview with USA Today that "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on."

And who might that "broader base" be? She cited an Associated Press story "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

She added, "There's a pattern emerging here."

Yes, there is a pattern here, and it's not a very pretty one. When Clinton is sounding like Ms. Cranky -- implying out loud that her opponent's supporters are not hardworking enough, white enough or undereducated enough -- it's hardly a high point in her campaign.

Joaquin Burse wants to go to Harvard and be a laser tech. You might think that's a lofty goal. Truth is, you have no idea how lofty it is.

Because Joaquin, 13, is black and lives in a town called Sunflower in the heart of Mississippi's Delta, where median family income is $25,000, the teen pregnancy rate is said to be about 25 percent, and half of all young people grow up in poverty. To get to Sunflower from Memphis, you drive past two prisons, dozens of cotton fields and innumerable junk cars. It is not, in sum, a place where most people have even heard of the career Joaquin dreams.

But he has an advantage: the Freedom Project.

If the name resonates, you're remembering Freedom Summer, 1964, when college kids descended on Mississippi to teach black children in "freedom schools" and register their parents to vote. The Freedom Project, created in the idealistic spirit of that era, was founded in 1998 by Chris Myers Asch and Shawn Raymond (alumni of Teach for America, which recruits recent college graduates to teach in urban and rural schools) and Charles McLaurin, an organizer of the original Freedom Summer.

The result? A nonprofit program, tucked into an obscure corner of an obscure place, offering academic enrichment, martial arts, media production classes, mentoring, exposure to writers like Rudyard Kipling, Alice Walker and Albert Camus, and field trips to such far-flung places as Mexico, Washington and Orlando. In short, something that works, as in my series of columns spotlighting what has proved successful at steering black kids away from the well-worn catalog of dysfunction to which too many of them are too often lost.

"The session had way too much ultimatum and not enough collaboration."

-- Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, on the legislative session

"I say Hail Marys all the time, and this is not a Hail Mary."

-- Sebelius again, on the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, the Legislature's third try at green-lighting a coal plant

"The Carbon Dioxide Stimulus Act of 2008."

A defining moment for Christian history occurred when the Roman Emperor Constantine embraced Christianity in 313. However, his actions were calculated much more to consolidate his power in the empire than to express any true heartfelt feeling of religious conversion.

The Christian faith has suffered ever since from the loss of the original message of love and care that Jesus shared and the mission of the early church, which was to speak truth to power and be a voice for the disenfranchised and oppressed.

Sadly, since the fourth century, Christianity has often come down on the side of the powerful. Church hierarchies have even actively promoted Christianity through policies of death and destruction of other human beings, as in the Crusades of the 13th century.

One need only look at the history of what was done in the name of Christianity to the people of the continents of Africa and South America and the native population of North America over the centuries to see the tragic loss of the message of Christ: Black people bought and sold like cattle. Indigenous people in South America forced to convert to Christianity on threat of death. Native Americans subjected to genocide and herded into reservations, where they were indoctrinated into the ways and faith of Christian whites.

The legacy of oppression remains today, despite attempts by some of white privilege to deny that there is any racial and ethnic problem in our nation and the world.

As a state, we stood at a crossroad earlier this year. Facing a tight budget year and no increase in the tobacco tax, legislators had to make difficult decisions about the direction of health reform.

In the end, the Kansas Legislature chose wisely by approving a health reform package that will make health care more accessible to children in working-class families, provide expanded medical and dental services for low-income pregnant women, and more adequately fund safety-net clinics across the state that provide medical care for uninsured Kansas families.

This investment in the health of our youngest citizens is a first step toward health reform and an investment in tomorrow's health care system.

We know that children who have access to health care will experience fewer chronic illnesses and are more likely to grow up to become healthy adults. A healthier next generation will pave the way toward health reform through reduced insurance premiums for Kansas consumers and employers, reduced uncompensated care for our doctors and hospitals, and fewer incidents of overcrowding and costly care such as those occurring in our emergency rooms.

The Legislature's action will also position Kansas alongside the 26 other states that have moved forward in modernizing eligibility levels for their children's health insurance programs. It would have been foolish for Kansas to pass up the opportunity to offer affordable health care to more children while other Midwestern states -- such as Missouri and Oklahoma -- were poised to maximize federal resources earmarked for children's health care.

After the Tuesday primaries, Hillary Rodham Clinton now has maybe a 2 percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination. But if she pursues her losing battle, she has perhaps a 20 percent chance of costing the Democrats the presidency in the fall.

So should she soldier on if continued campaigning is 10 times more likely to benefit John McCain than herself?

My percentages are, of course, wild estimates, but they suggest the orders of magnitude. With Clinton trailing by 700,000 votes in the cumulative popular vote, and also behind in pledged delegates and number of states won, she just doesn't have a plausible route to the nomination. Even if you include Florida, she's more than 400,000 votes behind.

In contrast, Clinton does have a plausible route to winning the election for McCain.

The most terrifying numbers for Democrats in Tuesday's exit polls should be those showing how many of Clinton's supporters are planning to vote for McCain in November.