Last week was very special for our family. Our oldest daughter and her husband became the proud parents of their first child and our first grandchild. Isabelle Marie was born on 11/11/11 and joined our family.

As a first time grandpa I realize my comments are not without bias, but Isabelle is simply amazing. She is very alert and her eyes follow whoever is talking to her. I look forward to getting to know my new granddaughter.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office in Washington, DC recently released a report that gives evidence that not only are the rich are getting richer, but the gap between the very rich and the rest of us is expanding more now than any time in our history.

The upper 1% of the population saw its income increase by 275% between 1979 and 2007. The middle income earner saw an increase of 40% in that period, while the bottom 20% saw an increase of 18%. The wealthiest 1% of the population managed to take control of about 25% of all the income increases in the US during that period.

The Kansas Leadership Center in Wichita, Ks. (funded by the Kansas Health Foundation) fosters civic leadership. Its initiatives are designed to inspire, educate and connect Kansans from all areas of civic life, including business, government and nonprofit organizations. Periodically they publish “The Journal” which includes interesting stories about leadership issues and often they tell the story through the lenses of individual leaders.

Last week, I saw the documentary “The Interrupters” at the Tivoli Cinema. It was one of the most thought provoking movies I have seen in my life. The movie is about an evidence based violence prevention program in Chicago called CeaseFire. Throughout this moving story, my mind would wander to the similar concerns we have in Kansas City over violence and our local effort to interrupt this cycle, Aim4Peace, which is modeled after the CeaseFire program.

Our foundation office is located on the corner of 18th Street and Prospect in downtown KC. Though we have a nice office space within close proximity to the wonderful Negro League Baseball Museum and the Jazz Museum and a beautiful view of Downtown KC, our neighborhood is also home to a lot of crime and violence. There are many wonderful caring people living in the neighborhoods around our offices who care deeply for their families, but are sometimes frightened to go outside for fear of being shot.

Approximately 450,000 people in the KC metro area either are uninsured or on Medicaid. This represents about 25% of the total population in our area. Of this amount, over half are uninsured. This number has been rising dramatically in the last few years as people have lost their jobs – especially those with quality education who have never been uninsured before.

It is amazing to me the influence sports teams have on the energy and mind set of a community.

A former KU Chancellor told me that it was much easier being Chancellor during the KU basketball season than during the football season…alumni are much more forgiving and more appreciative during a typical winning basketball season.