It’s two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. I’m listening.

Kansas, it would appear, is becoming the poster child for "electile dysfunction" when it comes to redrawing political district boundaries. It's not, as one might first suspect, a good old-fashioned donnybrook between Democrats and Republicans. It is a fight to the death between the Regular Republicans and the Destructionist Republicans. It’s GOP vs. GDP (Grand Old Party versus Grand Destructionist Party).

In the ocean of tattoos and body-piercings, I’ve seen evidence that some of our young people are not happy with the prevailing culture. They are not happy to go with the flow. They have the ability to endure pain to achieve a goal. They want to mark themselves as unique individuals. They want to take a radical stance.

It’s hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. — Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes)

Dear editor,

We are told corporate taxes are too high and with corporate taxable income of $335,000 taxed at 35% they are high, if they pay it. Citizens for Tax Justice have found that thirty brand name companies paid a Federal income tax rate of -6.7% on $160 billion of profits from 2008 through 2010.  All but Atmos Energy spent about $500 million  over those three years lobbying in Washington for laws and rules favoring their interests. Federal Express paid $37 million or less than 1% of the $4.2 billion in profit it reported in 2008 through 2010 and spent 67% of what they paid in taxes or $25 million lobbying Congress, or as FedEx explains it, “educating lawmakers”.

If you’re too busy to go fishing, you’re too busy.” — Anonymous

I am not from Kansas. Anyone who has read my columns in this newspaper already knows that, so it may come as no surprise that my exposure to hearing tornado sirens is very limited.

There is something to be said about the vicissitudes of Presidential campaigns.

Youngest daughter wants to paint her room.  It used to be her big sister’s room.  Her big sister had painted it Post-It Note Yellow, and a couple of years later she got married and moved out. The reaction on the part of youngest daughter was as follows:

“He was like a dad to me,” my former high school classmate Tim Gintner told me as he sat grieving next to me in a pew on Saturday. “We worked summers together doing carpentry projects all over. He was the reason I built my own house … everything but the fireplace. He always said, ‘If you’re going to do it … do it right … even if it takes a little more time.’”