One of my favorite former politicians is Lloyd Daniel, a poet and educator who spent two terms in the Missouri House of Representatives in the mid-'90s. These days Daniel writes, travels the country giving lectures, and once in awhile, puts on a cool poetry reading accompanied by a sax player, like he did with the young and talented William Sanders on the Saturday before election day at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center. The morning served as a reminder that words, music and action a
Rep. Jonas HughesHere's a story that didn't get enough coverage: Late last month, Republicans in the Missouri House of Representatives refused to extend health-care coverage to 20,000 poor kids. Today, Rep. Jonas Hughes held a press conference at Operation Breakthrough, an organization that helps children living in poverty, to protest the fact that the Missouri Legislature is once again considering cruel budget cuts that only inflict more pain on some of the state's already-most-screwed people.T
Library of Congress
Waiters Strike, 1910
Tomorrow, a delegation of servers wearing customized aprons ("Save Our Tips" is embroidered on the front, "Stop House Bill 258" is on the back) will arrive in Jefferson City to lobby members of the Missouri House of Representatives to vote no on House Bill 258, which would roll the minimum wage for tipped servers back to what it was 15 years ago. I was a waiter 15 years ago, so I can personally attest to how lousy that minimum wage was!
House
Now that we're skirting the precipice of a depression, if we haven't already fallen in, we should have some new respect for those men and women who grew up in the '20s and '30s. Be a cynic about that Greatest Generation title all you want -- it is a damn fine way to sell books -- but the people in my grandparents' generation survived crap economies, fought off Nazism and had to watch their kids enshrine that sniveling punk John Lennon. Yeah, sure John, you stay in bed until there's world pe
Kansas City Rep. Jason Kander had an expectation of progress on health-care reform when he took his seat in the Missouri House of Representatives earlier this year. The freshman Democrat thought a landslide victory for Gov. Jay Nixon, who put health care at the forefront of his campaign, would translate into a mandate to provide coverage for more low-income Missourians.
"I was naively confident that the Republicans understood the mandate from the people of Missouri to restore some access t
