Last week I was in Jefferson City attending a social function for a friend. The dinner was held in a popular downtown restaurant. It was so good to see old friends but I could not get over how difficult it was for me to eat in a restaurant that allowed smoking. Jefferson City is not a clean air community and as soon as I opened the door of the restaurant, the nasty smell of cigarette smoke filled my senses.

As I returned to Kansas City, I couldn’t help but notice the smell of cigarette smoke in my clothes and in my car. As soon as I got home I took a shower and washed my clothes.

The Kansas City region has done a good job a supporting clean indoor air laws. However, recently two local communities have passed clean indoor air laws that have big loopholes in them. These loopholes allow most bars and restaurants in their community to continue to allow for smoking.

Recently, the Kansas Health Institute issued a research paper studying the economic effects of the smoking ban on bars and restaurants in Lawrence, Ks. The results of this research are similar to virtually every other study conducted in different communities who have implemented a smoking ban . These studies all showed that business at bar and restaurants were not adversely affected in the long run.

The health of our community is too important to allow cigarette companies, bars and restaurants to use economic excuses to explain why a smoking ban is not warranted. As KHI and other studies show – these economic excuses are simply not true . Now is the time to implement state wide clean indoor air smoking bans.

Sunday was an exciting day for football fans. But it was hard to get too interested in hype that surrounds the Super Bowl this year because of all the heartache that is going on in our community and nation.

I compare the great game played between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals to a cruise I took a few years ago to the Bahamas. I can remember all the planning and anticipation for the cruise, but once we set sail, I became uncomfortable enjoying the beautiful sites of the island because I could also see the unbelievable poverty that is not talked about in the cruise brochures.

As we celebrated the end of the NFL season, Governors in Missouri and Kansas are recommending significant cuts in state budgets to a whole host of programs. City government officials, local business and nonprofit leaders are making significant program and personnel reductions. The number of unemployed is at its highest in many years. Most families I know have been directly affected by this historic downturn in the economy.

I do not know what to think about the financial stimulus package being debated in Washington, DC. I am worried that the greedy and unscrupulous folks who caused this financial crisis will be the same folks who will benefit most from the stimulus package – that’s not fair and I hope our new President and Congress will not allow this to happen.

So I wonder - who cares about the Super Bowl? Let’s focus on getting the millions of unemployed people back to work.