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Our nation is facing a shortage of teachers trained to prepare students for 21st-century careers and to help high-needs students. Interestingly, these challenges are really not so different from those faced throughout our nation's history.

In colonial New England, struggling villages had difficulty keeping their schools open, and when settlement moved west, it was often not easy to find teachers for the one-room schoolhouses that dotted the prairie.

Nevertheless, as early as 1647, Massachusetts law mandated that every town of 50 or more families support an elementary school, and by 1918 compulsory education for elementary school became law in all states. Today children in America enjoy 12 years of free public education. However, overall population increases have contributed to severe teacher shortages in urban and rural schools.

In the mid-20th century, when the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act. It provided scientific equipment for schools and emphasized the study of math, science and foreign languages. But as baby boomers reach retirement age, our schools are not producing enough graduates to fill vacancies in science-based fields such as engineering, nursing and pharmacy.

The civil rights movement of the 1960s opened doors to equality in education and a better life for millions. Yet our nation's schools currently are not prepared to teach children growing up in poverty or the growing number of children for whom English is not their first language.

Barack Obama sells the Democratic Party short. He talks about his fundraising success as if his donors were part of a spontaneous movement of small-money enthusiasts who cohered around him. In fact, Democrats have spent years building their donor network.

As in other recent campaigns, lawyers account for the biggest chunk of Democratic donations. They have donated about $18 million to Obama, compared with about $5 million to John McCain, according to data released on June 2 and available on the Web site OpenSecrets.org.

People who work at securities and investment companies have given Obama about $8 million, compared with $4.5 million for McCain. People who work in communications and electronics have given Obama about $10 million, compared with $2 million for McCain. Professors and other people who work in education have given Obama roughly $7 million, compared with $700,000 for McCain.

Medical professionals have given Obama $7 million, compared with $3 million for McCain. Commercial bankers have given Obama $1.6 million, compared with $1.2 million for McCain. Hedge fund and private equity managers have given Obama about $1.6 million, compared with $850,000 for McCain.

When you break it out by individual companies, you find that employees of Goldman Sachs gave more to Obama than workers of any other employer. Next are employees of the University of California, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, National Amusements, Lehman Brothers, Harvard University and Google. At many of these workplaces, Obama has a 3-1 or 4-1 fundraising advantage over McCain.

Being British, I've always had an uneasy time during the Fourth of July, imagining some people looking askance at me as if I were somehow working to win America back for the queen.

No longer.

On Friday I celebrated Independence Day as an American.

After an emotional and heartwarming ceremony in Philadelphia last week, I took the Oath of Allegiance and became a citizen of the United States.

A Scottish relative of mine recently asked me with a hint of accusation, or perhaps it was hurt, why I would want to become a naturalized American. I rambled on at length about the beauty of the country, its great people, about how I have spent more than half my life here, but the truth did not require so many words: I love America and I believe in her.

So much for a July Fourth week spent in idyllic celebration of our country's birthday. This year's festivities were marked instead by a debate -- childish, not constitutional -- over who is and isn't patriotic. The fireworks were sparked by a verbally maladroit retired general, fueled by two increasingly fatuous presidential campaigns, and heated to a boil by a 24/7 news culture that inflates any passing tit for tat into a war of the worlds.

Let oil soar above $140 a barrel. Let layoffs and foreclosures proliferate like California's fires. Let someone else worry about the stock market's steepest June drop since the Great Depression. In our political culture, only one question mattered: What was Wesley Clark saying about John McCain and how loudly would every politician and bloviator in the land react?

Unable to take another minute of this din, I did what any sensible person might do and fled to the movies. More specifically, to an animated movie in the middle of a weekday afternoon. What escape could be more complete?

The "Wall-E" crowds were primed by the track record of its creator, Pixar Animation Studios, and the ecstatic reviews. But if anything, this movie may exceed its audience's expectations. It did mine.

As it happened, "Wall-E" opened the same summer weekend as the hot-button movie of the 2004 campaign year, Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." Ah, the good old days. Oil was $38 a barrel, our fatalities in Iraq had not hit 900, and only 57 percent of Americans thought their country was on the wrong track. (Now more than 80 percent do.) "Wall-E," a fictional film playing to a far larger audience, may touch a more universal chord in this far gloomier time.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused last month to take up the appeal lodged by environmental groups that focused on a two-mile stretch of border fence in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area near Naco, Ariz. The fence, which has been built since the petition was filed, is a vital part of the Bush administration's drive to secure the border between the United States and Mexico. The Supreme Court's decision is a welcome and needed victory in the war against illegal immigration and the efforts to preserve the unique character that is America.

The environmentalists based part of their challenge on claims the fence would harm the mating habits of two types of wildcats. To them, it is more important to allow wildcats to procreate than to control our borders and demand that everyone who comes here obeys our laws.

Time magazine's June 30 cover story was titled "The Great Wall of America: A billion-dollar barrier between the U.S. and Mexico. It's reducing illegal immigration -- but does America really need to wall itself off?"

This isn't about walling ourselves off. This isn't a Berlin Wall erected to keep people in. It is a fence designed to keep illegals out. Anyone who doesn't understand the difference will not be persuaded by facts.

This fence and other inhibitors to illegal immigration should have been built long ago. But politicians -- Republicans and Democrats -- have been reluctant to offend Hispanic voters, so they have dragged their feet. Democrats, especially, wish to import votes, and so they welcome illegals and seek to help them become citizens. Their message: Vote for Democrats, or your relatives won't be able to come here, and mean Republicans will try to throw you out. It's a twist on their demagoguery about Social Security, which has worked for them over many election cycles.

Until recently, one of the biggest raps against Barack Obama from conservatives was his delicate dance around any issue that might upset his core constituents. How can he claim a break from "politics as usual," they said, if he wasn't willing to upset the left? They can't say that anymore. Now they say he's flip-flopped.

That's OK. If you want to please everybody, you don't belong in politics. Obama's bigger worry is the old slogan of liberal commentator Jim Hightower, a former Texas officeholder: "There ain't nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow line and dead armadillos."

In recent weeks, the likely Democratic presidential nominee has taken that risky road. He has softened or abandoned his earlier positions on a parade of issues, including wiretaps, abortion, trade with Mexico and Canada, gun control and public funding of his own campaign.

Liberal bloggers such as Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post have howled that Obama is selling out the left. But viewed another way, he's buying into the middle. He's reaching for what Colin Powell has called the "sensible center," that big, broad terrain in the political middle where most American voters live.

Ironically, his best ally in this venture is presumptive Republican opponent Sen. John McCain, whose supporters have cast Obama as a "flip-flopper," as they branded Sen. John Kerry in 2004.

Physicians and patients participating in the Medicare program face uncertainty about the future of Medicare. As Kansas experiences a shortage in health care professionals, the largest group of health care consumers -- the elderly population -- continues to expand. Add to this combination an automatic annual cut, triggered by federal law, in payments to physicians who serve Medicare beneficiaries, and you have a full-blown crisis in the health care system.

Every year, Congress votes on whether to delay impending federal reimbursement cuts to physicians who serve Medicare patients, and every year since 2003 that I've had the chance, I have voted to delay these cuts. Kansas seniors should have access to the highest quality health care professionals and services, and health care professionals should be encouraged, rather than discouraged, to serve our Medicare beneficiaries.

Last month, the prospect of delaying physician-payment cuts in the Medicare program looked promising. A bipartisan bill was drafted and would have delayed the payment cuts for a year and a half. Had the Senate passed this bipartisan bill, it would have been quickly signed into law and would have gone into effect prior to the scheduled July 1 cuts.

It was disappointing, to say the least, that acting against the best interest of the country, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the American Medical Association brokered a deal that took this proposed bipartisan bill off the Senate floor. Rather than voting on a bill that was all but guaranteed to pass into law, Reid called a vote on a controversial bill, H.R. 6331, the night before Congress adjourned for the Fourth of July recess.

H.R. 6331, which the Senate ultimately approved Wednesday, was considered controversial because a number of employer organizations have expressed concern that the legislation will cut payments to Medicare plans that offer coverage to their retired workers. In response to this concern, the Bush administration issued a veto threat on H.R. 6331, thus requiring a vote of two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override the veto before the July 1 payment cuts went into effect.

Imagine that former Republican Gov. Bill Graves created and appointed members of an "objective" commission to study school choice, but the panel would be managed by a conservative-funded, limited-government nonprofit organization from out of state that disavowed its advocacy origins on the issue.

This group would run the commission process, provide the research, run the Web site and set the meeting agenda. No input from voucher opponents (teachers' unions) would be allowed (because there is "consensus" that vouchers work).

How would this be perceived? Outrage would leap from newspaper editorial pages, teachers' unions would organize mass protests, and liberal legislators would demand an investigation.

And they would be justified in doing so. It's wrong for an advocacy group, funded by like-minded activist benefactors, to so completely control an "objective" commission to create state policy -- on any issue.

Yet that is the reality with the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy advisory group, created and populated by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, and the group's management team, the Center for Climate Strategies.

The military and political winds are slewing around so wildly these days on Iraq that both Barack Obama and John McCain have been sent chasing after their own hats.

Obama built his primary election success in major part by emphasizing his commitment to a phased U.S. withdrawal over 16 months.

The continuing and apparently accelerating decline in violence in Iraq -- with exceptions duly noted -- has pressed Obama back to a caveat that was part of his position from the start but little mentioned by the candidate or the media when he was working his party's base.

With the candidate now acknowledging that he would take into account as president the changing circumstances in Iraq -- the necessary position of any would-be commander in chief -- Obama is getting slimed as a sellout by his own party's Iraq-centric left and mocked by Republicans as a flip-flopper.

Awkward as all that may be at the moment for Obama, pity more John McCain.

Seaboard Foods' Rod Brenneman complained that the ethanol industry is strangling pork producers ("Ethanol mandate hurts livestock producers," July 6 Opinion). These are strange words from the executive of a company whose first quarter earnings were up 42 percent from the same quarter last year.

Brenneman is a leader in the Food Before Fuel coalition. The coalition is managed by Glover Park Group, the same East Coast public relations firm that is handling the Grocery Manufacturers Association's now infamous ethanol misinformation campaign. The goal of these two groups is simple: Get rid of ethanol so food companies can once again have access to cheap corn. Unfortunately for Seaboard and the other big food manufacturers, it isn't that simple.

Seaboard has been a good friend to corn growers over the years, especially when corn was priced below our cost of production. Writing his commentary from his corporate office in metropolitan Kansas City, Brenneman feigned concern for the small family pork producer.

Our office is located in rural Garnett. All four of our employees come from family farms -- both livestock and grain. We know that small livestock producers are struggling with higher corn prices, because those producers are our friends and neighbors, association members, and two of our four employees.

Several factors have contributed to higher corn prices. One factor is certainly ethanol, and we will gladly take some credit for that one.

There was a practice in medieval England of ringing the church bell one time for each year of the life of a person who had just died. Commenting on this practice, John Donne said, "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.... Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

The bell tolled recently for two young women who were murdered in our city. There has been a healthy response to these acts of violence on the part of local clergy and in a challenging editorial cartoon in the July 6 Eagle by Richard Crowson questioning just what we value in our city.

I was a part of a groundswell of passion in Topeka 14 years ago that led to the formation of Safe Streets in Topeka (www.safestreets.org). My efforts in Wichita have met with interest on the part of law enforcement. But government officials have said point-blank, "It's a fine idea, but we have no money for such things."

Indeed. We have the wherewithal to build a downtown arena but not to fund crime prevention (the point of Crowson's cartoon, I believe). Where is the discussion of violence in our cities on the national scene, state scene and local scene? It seems all Wichitans are interested in is electing people who will cut taxes.

Imagine this scenario: Elected officials decide to get serious about preventing crime. Our mayor uses his office and influence to bring together a coalition to form an organization called SOAR. Building on Wichita's aeronautical heritage and identity, leaders from industry and the military advocate for HOPE scholarships so that every young person in our city will have funding for college or trade school. The funds for these scholarships come from gambling revenues, a city sales tax for HOPE scholarships, and private sources. Youths receive a one-year scholarship for each year of participation in SOAR, which includes a promise to stay drug- and alcohol-free, participate in a youth service organization (congregation youth groups, Boys & Girls Clubs, scouting, etc.) and perform public service.

The elected leader of Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, is demanding a timetable for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops from his country.

In the holy city of Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the religious leader of Iraq's Shiite majority, signaled to his followers last week that it was time to negotiate an end to the "illegal" U.S. occupation.

"We will not accept any memorandum of understanding that doesn't have specific dates to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq," Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said after meeting with Sistani.

Such statements ought to be embraced as good news. They suggest an Iraqi government increasingly confident in its authority and ability, ready to stand up so we Americans can stand down. They represent a flashing neon sign, written in English, reading "This way to the exit."

But the Bush administration refuses to read the lighting on the wall. It doesn't want to leave Iraq. Not now, not tomorrow, and not ever.

As President Bush and the Group of Eight leaders again shun their responsibilities in Darfur, there is a serious argument to be made that genocide is overrated as an international concern. The G-8 leaders implicitly accept that argument, which goes like this:

Genocide is regrettable, but don't lose perspective. It is simply one of many tragedies in the world today -- and a fairly modest one in terms of lives lost.

All the genocides of the past 100 years have cost only 10 million to 12 million lives. In contrast, every year we lose almost 10 million children under the age of 5 from diseases and malnutrition attributable to poverty. Make that the priority, not Darfur.

Civil conflict in Congo has claimed more than 5.4 million lives over the past decade, according to careful mortality surveys by the International Rescue Committee. That's at least 10 times the toll in Darfur, but because Congo doesn't count as genocide -- just as murderous chaos -- no one has paid much attention to it.

The world has been trying to pressure Sudan to stop slaughtering Darfuris for nearly five years, yet the situation in some ways is worse than ever. In contrast, we know how to combat malaria, child mortality and maternal mortality. The same resources would save far more lives if they were used for vaccinations and bed nets.

The following are reader comments from our blog, http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog:

Budweiser sale

America is dying. Just wait until GM closes its doors. Why won't "we the people" wake up? No, we'd rather fight between left and right for no good reason.

With such a weak dollar, InBev had no problem buying up this American icon.

Maybe the sale to InBev of Belgium will improve the taste and quality of Budweiser beer.

I was moved by the Rev. Dave Fulton's commentary "Combat violence by providing hope" (July 13 Opinion). I am a recent transplant to the Wichita area from Rochester, N.Y. My thoughts and opinions, though personal, are rooted in a career of working against violence in communities such as ours.

I humbly present my belief that the answers to reducing and ultimately eliminating violence in our community are within reach.

We must establish new partnerships at all levels of government and community while maintaining those that exist. We must educate our children. Finally, we must instill hope in our children's hearts that they can succeed.

By engaging in these activities, we can change the negative socioeconomic factors that are jettisoning our youths into engaging in crime.

Who should be the positive agents of socialization in the lives of our youths? Family, church, school, friends and relatives. When there is a lack of any or all of these, the results are reflected in negative behaviors.

Since Sept. 11, Westerners have tried two approaches to fight terrorism in Pakistan, President Bush's and Greg Mortenson's. Bush has focused on military force and provided more than $10 billion -- an extraordinary sum in the foreign-aid world -- to the highly unpopular government of President Pervez Musharraf. This approach has failed: The backlash has radicalized Pakistan's tribal areas so that they now nurture terrorists in ways that they never did before Sept. 11.

Mortenson, a frumpy, genial man from Montana, takes a diametrically opposite approach, and he has spent less than one-ten-thousandth as much as the Bush administration. He builds schools in isolated parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, working closely with Muslim clerics and even praying with them at times.

Mortenson's superb book about his schools, "Three Cups of Tea," came out in 2006 and initially wasn't reviewed by most major newspapers. Yet propelled by word of mouth, the book became a publishing sensation: It has spent the past 74 weeks on the paperback best-seller list, regularly in the No. 1 spot.

Mortenson found his calling in 1993 after he failed in an attempt to climb K2, a Himalayan peak, and stumbled weakly into a poor Muslim village. The peasants nursed him back to health, and he promised to repay them by building the village a school.

Scrounging the money was a nightmare -- his 580 fundraising letters to prominent people generated one check, from Tom Brokaw -- and Mortenson ended up selling his beloved climbing equipment and car. But when the school was built, he kept going. Now his aid group, the Central Asia Institute, has 74 schools in operation. His focus is educating girls.