Some vegetable stew....

Saw an English teacher tweet "Wendsday" for the day of the week. And I don't think she was joking. Sigh.

****

This may be Wichita State's most athletic basketball team in 30 years....since I was in school there. Jeez, I feel old. But the Shockers this year have the kind of athleticism that reminds me of Antoine Carr, Cliff Levingston, Aubrey Sherrod and Xavier McDaniel.

****

KU has the players to win another national title. It's only a question of whether they will play cohesively enough consistently enough to cut down the nets.

****

This looks like the best Kansas State team since the Hartman era. A strong NCAA run appears likely. Texas looked like a team upon which the crown of "best team in the country" rested most uncomfortably.

****

What a startling start to 2010 for natural disasters and severe weather. A national cold snap not seen in at least 3 decades. A 7.0 earthquake that devastates Haiti's capitol, followed up 8 days later by a 6.1. Hard for me to call a tremblor that strong a mere "aftershock." Tornadoes that rake the Los Angeles metropolitan area. And we're barely past the midway point of JANUARY.

****

A Republican wins a Senate seat in Massachusetts? That hadn't happened in nearly 50 years. If the Democrats don't recognize that as a shot across the bow from voters - an early referendum on Obama's first year in office - the mid-term elections will be painful for them.

But both parties need to wake up. All the squabbling in D.C. sounds like children brawling on the playground...or firefighters arguing about the best way to use the water hoses while the orphanage is burning, with the children still inside.


****

The earthquake in Haiti, the tornadoes in SoCal and now (today) in northern Texas, the traffic pile-up that killed a 3-year-old near Kansas City --- all reminders of how suddenly tragedy can redefine our lives.

It seems so often we get caught up in what we don't have, when we should be focusing on what we DO have - so we can appreciate it more fully. Granted, that's a flaw of human nature, but it's something we should all try to be better at.

The outpouring of support for Haiti is moving, because it tells me that our reservoir of compassion hasn't run dry. If it ever does, we'll be in real trouble.

****