You've been awfully quiet.

I have been busy, but out of the spotlight.

While I have been struggling to form opinions on things going on in the world right now, I have been myopic in my focus on local hunger and health issues.

ISIS, Ferguson, Israel/Hamas, the murders in South KC and many more things - all are rattling around in my brain bucket. These issues are too important to knee-jerk react with some bullshit Facebook meme that relies upon bumper-sticker mentality. These matters require careful thought and consideration of all facets. To borrow from the President, I refuse to act on these things until I have a strategy. Mock all you want, but a well-reasoned, purposeful and effective strategy takes time. It takes getting all the facts on the table and careful deliberation. You don't just start dropping bombs - literally or figuratively.

Right now, my righteous indignation is directed at recent changes in public policy by both the US Congress and the Kansas State Legislature, that are causing children to suffer, while those resources are diverted to lining the pockets of political allies, cronies and even out-of-state billionaires. This is happening right now. It's real. It is going on in my state and county and school district and neighborhood. And it pisses me off more than anything else happening in the world right now. These are my neighbors and friends whose lives are being turned upside down by malevolent political hacks doing favors for each other at the expense of those in need. And worse, these hacks are painting the needy children as vultures and themselves as benevolent victims. It's sickening.

While Americans thump their chests on social media, pontificating their cable-news-spoonfed, armchair "expertise" at geopolitics and world religions, most are oblivious to the silent suffering of some child in a house on their block. Suffering caused by politically-motivated, reverse-Robin Hood rule changes that are stealing the health, hope and future of our children in order to feather the nests of the comfortable.

It's un-American. It's un-Christian. It's wrong. And these politicians must be stopped.

But the first thing that has to happen - Americans need to get off the sofa, get involved in their neighborhoods and communities, and stop wasting time pretending they know exactly how to bring peace to the Middle East. One person really can make a difference with a little applied effort in their community. How about starting by taking some of that time wasted in futile, and worthless online debates about international politics, and reallocating it into something useful?