The Kansas Free Press is honored to occasionally publish illustrations created by our friend, Angelo Lopez, a regular contributor to KFP's sister publication, Everyday Citizen. Turn this page if you'd like to read Angelo's very interesting essay about his inspiration for drawing this cartoon.

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.

MCDOWELL CREEK, Kan. - I'm so glad this wild winter storm didn't come in over the weekend, as I was able to drive to the Salina Art Center on Sunday and take in Stephen Vitiello's exhibition, "Tall Grasses."

Stephen Vitiello is a composer, electronic musician, and "soundscape" artist. He is known for recording the sounds of a particular place and using those sounds in his compositions. One of his best known works is "The World Trade Center Recordings," made in 1999. Two years before the destruction of the World Trade Center, he recorded the sound of wind around the 91st story, with city traffic in the background. He has also used the sounds of bells, firecrackers, planes, insects, and barking dogs in other works.

For his Salina installation, Vitiello recorded sounds on a ranch west of Salina. Being a fan of the prairie, I was eager to hear what an artist of Vitiello's stature had done with Kansas's signature landscape.

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WICHITA, Kan. - If Kansans want to understand their own local politics a bit better they might want to read Joan Waugh's biography: U. S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth. Waugh sets out to try and explain why so many Americans today believe Grant was a corrupt politician who drank his way to victory during the Civil War with callous disregard for his troops by sending them to their slaughter. She adeptly explains that this version of Grant was constructed by southern historians who did not think too highly of the common farmer who bested the elegant and aristocratic Virginian, Robert E. Lee.

Surprisingly we learn that Grant was a very gentle man, whose father made him attend West Point and whose skills in horsemanship had few equals but many admirers. Grant understood precisely why war was being waged. The South tied itself to an evil institution. To hold onto slavery meant maintaining power in Washington, D.C.

HAYS, Kan. - William Herzog's slim volume, Parables As Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed (Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), is deceptively heavy in concept at points, and deceptively heavy in implications.

At first glance, a treatment of the parables of Jesus would seem to be of interest only to Christian persons of theological inclination. Of course it would be of interest to that sector, at least to those who are willing to ponder an alternative understanding of Jesus' meaning in certain parables and, by extension, an alternative understanding of what Jesus was about in his earthly ministry. The volume might be also of interest to Jews and Muslims, the other two "religions of The Book." They might be interested to know that the Christianity that has impacted them is not the Christianity that might have been, or the Christianity that might come to be.

HAYS, Kan. - "My name is Wendell Potter and for 20 years I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick -- all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors." This is how he introduced himself to a Senate committee.

As a senior vice president of CIGNA, Potter had access to the inner workings of major insurance companies.

He had walked away from a six-figure salary and two decades as an insurance executive because he could no longer abide the routine practices of an industry where the needs of sick and suffering Americans take a backseat to the bottom line. The last straw: when he visited a rural health clinic and saw hundreds of Americans standing in line in the rain to receive treatment in stalls built for livestock.

Truth tellers, like Potter, are becoming the insurance industry's worst nightmares.