WICHITA, Kan. - At the height of the 2011 Kansas drought that lasted through spring, summer, and into the fall, Gov. Sam Brownback called a summit of "stakeholders," for a discussion on the future of the Ogallala Aquifer.

The Governor's Summit

The four hundred attendees who gathered in Colby, Kansas, included, among others, representatives from the Kansas Geological Survey, Kansas State University, Kansas Ag bankers, and the Kansas Farm Bureau, as well as Carolyn Armstrong, Colby City Manager and Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, representing the League of Kansas Municipalities.

A hydro-geologist from the Kansas Geological Survey, Dr. Geoffrey Bohling, said of the meeting, "A common statement at the summit was, 'I don't like big government [or government regulation], but we need to regulate use of the aquifer.' This was coming from the stakeholders: irrigators (farmers and ranchers) and people responsible for municipal water supplies. Attached to that was the idea that people would prefer more of a grassroots approach to regulation -- for example, all irrigators in an area cutting back their use by a certain percentage voluntarily."

WICHITA, Kan. - In the discussions relating to education on this blog, the topic of one-room country schools has come up a few times. One faithful blog reader and poster asked if I would write about my experience teaching in a one-room country school. I will be happy to do so as long as people realize that my experience may not have been typical for a variety or reasons, the major reason being my incompetency as a teacher at that point in my life.

My then husband, a librarian, took the job as the Audrain County librarian in the summer of 1965. The library was located in Decatur, Michigan, a town of 1,800 located thirty-five miles southwest of Kalamazoo. Decatur was the ideal place to live and raise children. Lake of the Woods, a small lake, was within walking distance of our house. We were on the edge of town and mornings we woke to the sound of cows mooing and the good country smells that come with rural living.

WICHITA, Kan. - Beginning the first week in November, Kansas poets and those with ties to Kansas will begin a twenty-city reading tour to commemorate the publication of Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems, published by Woodley Press.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Poet Laureate of Kansas, organized the book publication and the reading tour, and will attend several readings. This project, which celebrates the Kansas Sesquicentennial, started in April, National Poetry Month, with poets submitting work that related to Kansas.

Information about the twenty-city reading tour is available on the poet laureate web site. Two reading events, one at Eighth Day Books and one at Watermark Bookstore and Café, will kick off the tour in Wichita. A reading in Manhattan is set for Nov. 4, and one in Lawrence will take place on Nov. 6.

Dr. Margaret Flowers, of Physicians for a National Health Program, will bring her expertise and discuss her experiences at a free presentation, "Medicare and The Deficit: How to Improve Health Care and Save Money at the Same Time," 7 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011, at the Murdock Theater, 536 N. Broadway, Wichita, Kansas. A reception will follow the presentation. For more information call 316-440-3271.

WICHITA, Kan. - Margaret Flowers, MD, mother, pediatrician, human rights activist, crackles the phone line with her passion as she speaks about single payer health care. Dr. Flowers, of Baltimore, Maryland, is the mother of three teenagers. She trained and worked as a pediatrician until 2007, when she left her practice to become an advocate for health care reform with Physicians for a National Health Program. Because of her advocacy and activism, she was arrested when she spoke out at the Senate Finance Committee Roundtable on the Expansion of Health Insurance Coverage.

A moving moment that year came when McCutcheon, Tom Chapin, and others, with Linda Tilton signing, led the crowd in the grandstand in a rousing rendition of, "The Great Storm Is Over." Everyone in the crowd that night needed a chance to come together, without the bitterness of politics and hate, and sing as one voice.

WICHITA, Kan. - It's in the air along about the middle of August. Even though we're still in the heat of summer, and this particular summer has been brutally hot, an undercurrent signals sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the Walnut Valley Festival, which has taken place in Winfield, thirty-five miles south of Wichita, on the third weekend in September for the past thirty-nine years. This coming Sept. 14-18, forty years of bluegrass will once again fill the Winfield air and double the population of the town for one weekend.

To the Winfield natives and those of us who have attended for most of those years, the Festival is just known as "Bluegrass," as in, "Are you going to Bluegrass this year?" Or people will ask, "Will I see you at Winfield this year?" We know what they mean and, yes, I will be there.

Peggy Bowman / courtesy of Antoine Doyen, whose professional photos can be viewed here

WICHITA, Kan. - Given the dismal state of affairs in the state of Kansas, now would be a good time to revisit the early 1990s when Operation Rescue (OR), then under the direction of Randall Terry, caused no end of chaos here.

For those active in the Wichita pro-choice movement during the summer of 1991, reading Fetus Fanatics: Memoir: When Government Collaborates with Anti-Choice Zealots brings back the upheaval of that time with full emotional force. Peggy Bowman, calls her book, published in 2005, a memoir, which is apt, as the events and facts of that summer are filtered through her eyes.

While others who were active in the battle against the anti-choice onslaught may have differing perspectives, Bowman's account covers the important highlights of that summer. She also includes timelines, maps, and transcripts of court decisions to help readers keep track of the geography and chronology of events.

WICHITA, Kan. - Since the takeover of the governor's office and the Kansas statehouse by extremist right-wing politicians, many people have advocated taking to the streets with their grievances. And there are grievances aplenty, including budget cuts and other legislation voted on by majority right-wing Republican legislators, and a few Democrats, and signed into law by Governor Sam Brownback.

In fact, many people have already taken their grievances to the streets. Protests so far have included rallies by union members and supporters in Topeka on Jan. 22, 2011, Planned Parenthood supporters, who marched in support of continued Planned Parenthood state funding, families and supporters of the disabled, public education, Kansas Arts Commission supporters, Public Broadcasting, and gay rights supporters, among others. Every one of these groups has mounted some kind of street action against budget cuts and anti-public education, anti-choice, anti-arts, anti-immigrant, and anti-gay rights actions in the Kansas House and Senate.

I think we as a country are just going to have to go back to really saying, 'OK what got us to where we are? Hard work, ingenuity, education, strong families, commitments, character.' (Gov. Sam Brownback in a speech to the Wichita Rotary Club)

WICHITA, Kan. - Gov. Sam Brownback spoke to the Rotary Club in Wichita on April 17, 2011, telling attendees that Americans should return to WWII values to get us out of our economic crisis. An excerpt of his speech appeared in the April 18, 2011, issue of the Wichita Eagle. "This is not something new to us. We know what these values are," he added. "I think we just kind of got away from it, in investing more in interesting instruments to change and trade money, rather than focus on how do I make something. We're going to have to start making more things." (Kansas Needs WWII Values)

It's not clear what Gov. Brownback means when he says, "We're going to have to start making things." He does mention that Kansas is prime territory for wind farms and for manufacturing the turbines necessary to create electricity.

WICHITA, Kan. - During the summer of 2008, two women, Lynn Stephan and Barbara Chamberlin, had a conversation in which they shared their frustrations at being liberals in a conservative world. Their conservative, right-wing friends assumed everyone was in agreement on issues that came up for discussion at social events. Stephan and Chamberlin spontaneously decided they'd "love to meet some women with like ideas," in Stephan's words.

"Let's do it," Chamberlin said. "Let's bring together who we know and see where it goes." They followed through and each of them came up with names of women who might be interested in such get-together. They then asked those women to contribute more names. Thus, the group known as The Group was born.

The list of participating women grew from forty to 225 in four months. Seventy women came to the first meeting. Those women stood up and talked, expressing ideas that they had never felt free to talk about before.

Thugs! Parasites! Bloodsuckers! Mediocre slackers! Class warfare against the rich!

WICHITA, Kan. - It's in the air everywhere -- unionized public workers are the cause of all the ills of the world, if not the universe. All those once trusted public servants, teachers, police officers, fire fighters, social workers, prison guards, health care providers, cafeteria workers, among others, have now become Public Enemy #1. Public sector workers, people who go to work every week day and sometimes at night and on weekends, are now, according to anecdotal reports, earning out-sized salaries and ruining our economy with their demands. They're taking taxpayer money (otherwise known as salaries) and using it to support corrupt unions. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and 18 Wisconsin senate Republicans think so poorly of unionized state workers that they voted to end collective bargaining rights. Is this opprobrium against public workers spreading throughout the country?