One reason to detest social media – as if you needed another reason – is the way it is used to blow tiny slights and small incidents into worldwide outrage.

When the exaggerated importance of singular incidents is coupled with the growing issue of fake news being treated as real by such media giants as Facebook, Twitter and Google, it’s easy to see why so many Americans have a distorted view of their country and the world.

The craziness may have peaked after the election, as everyone from president-elect Donald Trump to ultra-liberal college students used social media to tell the world how offended and victimized they felt.

For his part, Trump returned to Twitter with vengeance following the election.

On Nov. 10, he gave credence to an inaccurate claim that anti-Trump protesters were being bused to Austin for demonstrations. The Texan who initiated the fake protest tweet said later that he saw a lot of buses and figured they had been used to transport paid protesters to a nearby demonstration.

That wasn’t correct, but none of the thousands of people who passed along the bad info bothered to check. Only the mainstream media did.

For Trump, it was another chance to complain about being treated unfairly.

And he saw another the next week, when he used Twitter to repeatedly demand apologies because cast members of the Broadway hit “Hamilton” criticized Republicans’ policies in a statement from the stage after the show. The statement was directed at Mike Pence, vice president elect, who was in the audience and was booed.

Playing the role of the adult in the new administration, Pence reacted to the great hullabaloo by saying “Hamilton” was a great show and that he wasn’t bothered by the comments or the booing.

It is, he noted, what freedom looks like

Meanwhile, back on Twitter, Trump was suggesting that theater should be a place where political commentary is prohibited. And while he was at it, he blasted “Saturday Night Live,” a late-night TV comedy show, and wanted to know whether he would get equal time.

All this led to many social media posts and headlines at legitimate news outlets, questioning Trump’s grasp of history and the U.S. Constitution.

It’s not just the newly elected president who is ginning up angst and anger online.

It seems we are all supposed to be outraged by every anecdote that gets communicated through Facebook, Twitter or other outlets.

It’s as if every incident is worthy of national attention and outrage: every bigot who threatens a Muslim; every public official who posts racist insults about the Obamas; every liberal protester who steps on a flag; every act that is – or is perceived as being – a slight to military personnel or their families.

Recently, an angry Trump supporter who didn’t get his coffee fast enough at a Starbucks near Miami, Fla., started yelling at a Starbucks employee, claiming she refused to serve him because he was a white man who voted for Trump.

Someone in the store caught his tantrum on video and put it on social media. He then complained that people were harassing him because of the video.

Such incidents are turned into events that are supposed to symbolize trends or values among large segments of Americans.

They do no such thing.

They are simply anecdotes.

They might be indicative of larger trends, but without more research, more reporting and more analysis, no one knows.

For the most part, mainstream media and the public are still figuring out how to responsibly use social media. It’s clear that it has become a major source of information. It’s just as clear that it’s not reliable.

Making sense of news in a world where anecdotes and oddities are conflated into national issues is tough. That’s especially true when there’s an overload of information, and much of it is inaccurate.

All of us need to get better at discerning between the trivial and the important, the trend and the anecdote, the real and the fake.

Otherwise, all the “news” flying around social media will just distort our view of the world rather than help us better understand it.

 

“Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration announced plans Tuesday to fill a $280 million shortfall in the current fiscal year’s budget … But those cuts will do nothing to address the additional $436 million shortfall projected for the fiscal year that begins July 1. …”

That excerpt is from a December 2014 story in the Lawrence Journal-World. Here’s one from the Topeka Capital-Journal published earlier this month:

“Kansas revenue forecasters unveiled a dark outlook on Thursday, massively increasing the projected size of the budget shortfall … Just two days after the election, state budget director Shawn Sullivan and legislative research staff outlined a forecast setting the shortfall at more than $345 million in the current fiscal year …”

Huge holes in the Kansas budget are not new, and despite what you have heard, they are not the product of a lousy farm economy and low oil prices.

Gov. Sam Brownback and his supporters like to blame the agriculture and energy sectors for the budget shortfalls that have led to cuts in programs and services.

But as the 2014 story shows, budget craters appeared even when oil and agriculture were booming.

In November 2014, for example, Kansas oil was selling for about $65 a barrel, down from $90 a barrel in March of that year. And wheat was still about $6 a bushel, down from more than $7 the year before.

That compares to oil selling for about $35 a barrel this November, and wheat sinking to $3 and under.

Even when oil and ag were doing well, Kansas couldn’t generate enough tax revenue to meet its obligations.

Then, as now, the problem was not the economy. It was the failure of state leaders to develop a sound budget.

Instead, they undermined the financial foundation of state government with reckless tax cuts. The main beneficiaries of those cuts were the wealthy, farms and more than 300,000 businesses.

After it became apparent in late 2014 that the tax cuts would leave the state more than $600 million short of its budget obligations, lawmakers raised the sales tax, which put a big hit on low-income Kansans.

State leaders also eliminated or reduced many Kansas services and programs, and they added to the state’s debt.

As it became clear in 2015 that the good times in energy and agriculture were fading, it also was clear that lower oil and farm prices would exacerbate Kansas’ budget shortages.

Instead of reacting responsibly to the downturns in agriculture and energy, however, state leaders merely started to use them to excuse their failed fiscal policies.

Those failures affect every Kansan, and will for generations.

The continuous budget crisis means less money for highway improvements; cuts to education and health care; more debt for future state taxpayers; stagnant or lower wages for state employees; and an inability to plan strategically or effectively.

The situation is especially dire because we blew the chance to take advantage of the state’s good times.

As the national and state economy started to rebound after the recession, Kansas had a chance to build up reserves and make sure its finances were rock solid.

It had a chance to fill vacancies and upgrade pay in its state prisons, state hospitals and among the ranks of its state troopers.

Instead it charted a course into financial ruin, chronically short-changing critical state institutions and programs, leaving them unable to fulfill their missions.

The governor and his staff inexplicably insist that their tax plan is working. They say their plan has revived the Kansas economy – and then they blame the poor Kansas economy for their budget disaster.

To rebound from this ongoing fiasco will require leadership from a different quarter.

Kansas lawmakers must buck Brownback on taxes and restore sanity to the state’s finances.

Lawmakers should not wait until January. Those willing to lead the way should be forging bipartisan plans now and creating alliances between the House and Senate.

It should be clear to every member of the Legislature and to every Kansan: If the budget is to be fixed, it will not be fixed by the governor, but despite him.

 

 

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There will be few issues before the state in coming months as important as approval of a school finance formula.

State leaders and lawmakers have an opportunity to create a plan that provides not just funding but also a blueprint that emphasizes learning.

To achieve that goal, politicians will need to distinguish between legitimate and constructive criticism of the status quo and efforts to undermine public education.

A significant number of arch-conservatives favor dismantling Kansas’ public education system. They want to hand the public’s money over to private schools and parents who operate home schools.

Ironically, many of these same arch-conservatives bemoan the lack of accountability in public education. There would be virtually no accountability in the funding scheme they envision.

However, most Kansans, including conservative Kansans, support public schools. They understand the critical role they play in the state and how important they are to its future.

But many doubt that school districts are as careful with their tax dollars as they should be. Raising concerns about effective and prudent spending doesn’t make them enemies of schools.

Even more gnarly than debates over frugality will be geographical disputes.

To an extent, it’s the “Johnson County versus western Kansas” debate, but it’s actually more complicated.

Managing big, growing, wealthy districts is different from managing rural districts where enrollments are falling. And managing urban and mid-sized districts that aren’t seeing much economic or student growth is a different challenge still.

What Kansans and their lawmakers need to understand is that it’s in every Kansan’s interest to make sure all kids across the state – in Blue Valley, Ingalls, Hays, Elkhart, Paola, Wichita etc. — all get good educations.

To further complicate funding, there also will be debates over money for special needs students, gifted students, at-risk students, and students enrolled in vocational programs.

Developing a finance formula that takes all that – as well as issues such as building funds and transportation – into account seems overwhelming. But remember, the framework has been tested and used, not only in Kansas but in virtually every state of the nation.

Kansas Republicans tossed out the school finance formula a couple of years ago as a legal maneuver, but that doesn’t mean the 2017 Legislature will need to start from scratch.

There are plenty of plans and ideas that can act as the rough draft.

What lawmakers need to do is focus on doing right by students and taxpayers.

To that end, they should take a hard look at the funding provided to school districts for building projects. In some cases, the scope and cost of such projects seem excessive.

What’s excessive is a subjective judgment, of course. But do so many communities need so many sports arenas and stadiums?

Sports – and not just at the high school level – have become an area where spending has grown unnecessarily.

About two years ago, a state lawmaker denounced a Kansas City school that serves students seeking careers in music for spending $47,000 for a grand piano. That’s a pittance compared to what many high schools spend every year to build, outfit and maintain weight and training facilities, not to mention stadiums and arenas.

Beyond sports, there are also buildings that are underused or vacant in many districts.

Local school boards have been taking advantage of state funding programs, getting projects approved before the money ran out. It’s not that districts were reckless, but the criteria need to be adjusted.

And it’s not just building projects that deserve more scrutiny. Districts that hire or contract public relations personnel or produce full-color booklets that are mailed to every household in their district may have good financial reasons for doing so, but taxpayers have a right to question whether such expenditures add to students’ learning experience.

Other such marketing and administrative expenses that don’t directly serve students’ education also deserve to be questioned.

Kansans have made clear they are willing to support public schools. But they want their tax dollars spent effectively.

That’s the sentiment that legislators should keep at the forefront as they work to craft a new funding plan.

 

 

Politics this year are especially demoralizing, with campaigns at every level designed to defame and deliver bad news.

At the presidential level, Democrats claim Donald Trump is an unhinged bigot who won’t pay his taxes. Republicans claim Hillary Clinton is a greedy crook who needs to be imprisoned.

Here in Kansas, mailers arrive daily to scare people into voting a certain way.

And our critics say journalists are negative.

People who cover the news for the much-maligned mainstream media are Pollyannas compared to the people making the news.

It’s a good time to take a break. To take some time to remember that regardless of Tuesday’s election results, our state and our nation will be in pretty good shape.

There are many ways to measure the quality of our lives individually and collectively. People’s metrics differ based on their circumstances. But here are five issues that might help put the politics of the day in perspective:

1. Cancer deaths continue to decline.

Across the country, more people who are diagnosed with cancer are being successfully treated.

Even better news is that incidences of most kinds of cancer are declining, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Exceptions include skin cancer (related to sun and tanning bed exposure) and liver cancer (related to the huge growth in hepatitis C among baby boomers).

But overall, the news is good: Fewer people are developing cancer, and more cancer patients are surviving.

2. Travel is relatively cheap.

Gas prices continue to be low, and airline fares are cheaper now than a year ago, or even five years ago.

Nationally, according to data maintained by the federal government, the average cost of a domestic airline ticket in 2011 was $370. For a comparable period this year, it was $353.

If you fly out of Wichita, the average domestic airfare for 2016 was $381, compared to about $390 five years ago.

Wichita and cities such as Garden City get help to keep airfares affordable. The state provides funds to help keep commercial service available and affordable in the state.

That funding might end in the coming legislative session, but up to now, it has helped thousands of Kansans book affordable flights closer to home.

3. More Americans are graduating from high school.

The most recent data collected by the U.S. Department of Education shows more than 83 percent of U.S. teenagers graduate from high school on schedule.

Kansas reported a graduation rate of 85.9 percent, a few points ahead of the national average, according to the state’s education department.

The increases are important because high school graduation is one of the most reliable indicators of future success.

The gains represent a concerted effort to improve public schools and reduce the number of students who drop out, especially among low-income families. It’s an effort that got a big push and attention from President George W. Bush and one that President Barack Obama continued.

Kansas lawmakers getting ready to fashion a school funding plan need to appreciate how critical public education is to the state’s social and economic health.

4. The economy is growing.

The U.S. economy continues to expand, growing at a faster than expected rate this summer.

Helping boost the economy during the third quarter were agriculture exports, including big shipments of soybeans.

While Kansas’s job growth and economic indicators lag, the nation’s economic fundamentals are solid.

5. We’re breathing cleaner air.

Federal laws passed in the 1970s have led to what the Environmental Protection Agency calls “dramatic improvements in the quality of the air that we breathe.”

Regulations that cover vehicle emissions, the operation of power plants and other things have led to a 98 percent reduction in lead in the air since 1980. That’s one example, and other common pollutants also show impressive declines.

Laws that cover water quality have resulted in cleaner water as well.

Americans can and should debate about how far government regulations should intrude on business, but we also should appreciate the good that can come from federal rules.

That’s sometimes hard to do when politicians spew a continual stream of scary doom at us.

But here’s more good news: A lot of that political pollution should start to dissipate after Nov. 8.

 

Over the years, I have cast ballots from California to New York, and although I often thought the election system could be improved, I never thought it was rigged.

As Americans get ready to vote Nov. 8, they are being told by Republican nominee Donald Trump that the entire system is manipulated by a Democratic-run conspiracy.

He suggests that your vote won’t matter because the fix is in. It’s an odd message to send to people you presumably want to get out and vote for you.

But it’s no more odd than the feigned outrage offered by Democrats who insist Trump’s claims are a danger to democracy.

That wasn’t their story in 2000, when Al Gore and George W. Bush were locked in an election battle that was one of the closest in U.S. history. The battle came down to Florida, where ballot recounts in several counties led to the largest migration of lawyers in U.S. history.

The legal battles over the recounts ended up at the Supreme Court, and the court’s split ruling provided Bush with the win.

Gore gracefully conceded and went on with his life.

Many Democrats spent the next 16 years complaining that Republicans stole the election. Now they insist that Trump’s whining is different.

While the circumstances are different, t­­­he underlying message is the same: The system is corrupt.

Those who spent more than a decade undermining the public’s trust in U.S. elections can’t credibly call foul when the other side does the same.

Purveyors of corruption tales on both sides are interested in foisting discontent and anger.

Truth is, our system is pretty good.

There is some truth to claims that our elections are vulnerable to manipulation from elected officials and politicians. But the ways in which they can be rigged to hand someone victory are limited.

The most obvious manipulation is the very formation of legislative and congressional districts. Republican-controlled states draw the lines to favor Republicans, and Democrats do the same in states where they have control. Gerrymandering is the primary way major parties improve the odds that their candidates will win.

It’s also possible to make it more difficult for some demographic groups to vote. The more restrictive voter-identification laws passed in some states seem designed to lower turnout among the poor, for example.

And local officials in some areas – such as at big college campuses and urban centers — can purposefully create hours-long lines at polling places by short-changing the number of voting machines and poll workers.

On the other side of the political coin, I’ve lived in areas where the polling hours and rules made it hard for more conservative suburban commuters who leave home early and return late to cast ballots.

But for the most part, the U.S. election system is both accessible and trustworthy.

And over the past two decades, it has become more accommodating and less vulnerable to corrupt officials.

Across the country, more states and communities have added options, including more flexibility in where and when you can cast votes.

Databases of registered voters are more accurate than they have ever been, giving the public and officials more opportunity to check for problems.

And changes outside the system as well as within have helped ensure the integrity of elections.

Our votes are made and counted at the county level. They appear on boards and websites available to the public. They are then reported to the state, which also make the results public.

TV and digital media sites report election results – as well as exit polls – as the count comes in.

All this happens within a few hours of the polls closing.

Yes, there are sometimes technical glitches and human errors. But the process is generally fast and transparent.

Fraud and cheating are not impossible, but they are less common than critics would have you believe. Lyndon Johnson’s 1948 Democratic primary win for a Senate seat from Texas is perhaps the best documented case of cheating.

Overall, the U.S. record is remarkably good, and has gotten progressively better as technology has allowed for more timely and transparent counting of ballots.

Those who suggest otherwise are more interested in creating conflict than in ensuring fair elections.