Thirty-two-year-old Jerome Dixon was shot to death by Wichita police last Friday. He died because he pointed a gun at a policeman and refused to drop it when ordered to do so.
We don’t know much about Dixon. Police were called to his place by neighbors who said they heard shots and complained about loud music. Maybe he was drunk or high on drugs. Maybe he was de-ranged.
We also know that when police went to the door to investigate, Dixon opened it and pointed a gun at the officers.
Dixon had a right to have a gun in his house. All of us do. But the police have a right to protect themselves, as well. Confronted by a person with a gun who refuses an order to drop it, an officer can either shoot or take the risk of being shot. The decision is made in a fraction of a second. The Wichita officers acted prudently.
This sad story illustrates another fact about our society: Too many of us have guns and shouldn’t.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.

A Kansas Board of Regents task force recommends that the  state’s six universities raise their entrance requirements to give young men and women  a better chance at life.
Board chairman Gary Sherrer led the task force which recommends, he said, that high school students with college in mind take a pre-college curriculum, complete it with at least a C average and take four years of math.
Out of consideration for today’s high school students, the new standards wouldn’t go into effect for four years.
Mr. Sherrer’s recommendations fall short of the need.
Today’s entering college freshmen also should have at least two years of a foreign language; a thorough understanding of U.S. and world history; math skills sufficient to let them understand statistics, graphs, tables and rudimentary bookkeeping; and be able to read a book and then write a summary of the information presented in it.
Too much? Not enough, really. This is the information age. High school graduates in the nations with which American college graduates will compete enter their freshman years that well equipped.
U.S. students are behind, not because U.S. schools have lowered their standards but be-cause the rest of the wealthy world — and the nations determined to break into that category — are moving faster forward.
In addition to tougher academic requirements, most of the nations with which we compete have longer school days and longer school years. They accomplish more be-cause they spend more time at the books.
It is a crying shame that at the very time when Kansas and many other U.S. states are reducing the amount of money they will spend on their public schools and universities, other nations are putting education at the forefront of their prior-ity list.
We will get what we are willing to pay for.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.

Last Thursday the United Nations named Norway as the country with the best quality of life. Norwegians will shrug at the announcement. So what’s new, they’ll ask. This is the eighth straight year they’ve been told what they already knew.
Why best? Let us count the ways. The UN’s annual A-to-Z of global wealth, poverty, health and education lists these particulars: life ex-pectancy is 81 years; the average annual income is $58,810 and the average resident has 12.6 years of school.
Unemployment is about 3.5 percent. Health care is provided to all.
The top five nations were Norway, Australia, New Zea-land, the United States and Ireland.
We came in fourth.
Perhaps delegations could be sent to Norway, Australia and New Zealand to pick up tips.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.

Legislative researchers predict a $492 million deficit in the Kansas budget for fiscal year 2012, which begins July 1. Much of the shortfall will be created when federal stimulus funds dry up next year. Hope for new federal money dried up when the House of Representatives went Republican with a bang on Nov. 2.
The Kansas Legislature went even farther to the tax-cutting right and Gov. Sam Brownback won a smashing 63 percent victory with his pledge to freeze spending.
But spending will have to be more than frozen if today’s fiscal estimates prove accurate.
It will be necessary to take all of the income from the penny sales tax increase and all of the funds earmarked for a new highway program, along with the gambling revenue which usually goes to economic development to keep spending level, according to outgoing Budget Director Duane Goossen.
But even if the governor and the lawmakers agree to make these temporary diversions, it still may be necessary to cut school aid or trim spending for education or social services in some other way, the bean counters say.
Without getting specific, Gov. Brownback says he wants to make “structural” changes in the way the state taxes and spends rather than shifting money around in the coming year to keep the budget balanced when it is obvious that the problem will re-emerge the following year.
He would like to reduce state income taxes, for example, to stimulate the economy. That’s a tactic that will make even more spending cuts necessary. He has yet to hint at which state function he wants to shrink.
Since he was elected to Congress in 1994, Gov. Brownback has consistently favored smaller government and held to the theory that cutting taxes and reducing government regulation will strengthen the private sector and make life cheerier for all. He and those who subscribe to this economic and political catechism have never had a better opportunity to give it full rein.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.