Fred Logan

         I have loved reading and writing since I was a young boy. I read constantly beginning in the second grade. I even attempted some writing but that was a more difficult enterprise for a kid. When I graduated from law school in 1977, I had to focus on practicing law. Reading yes, writing no.

        But I decided to write a long essay after I went on a ten-day trip with a Johnson County Community College delegation to the People’s Republic of China in 1993. I had focused on studying China during my junior and senior year at Indiana University.

        I wrote on my interview of three elderly veterans of the Long March, the mid-1930s retreat of Chinese communists from engagement with the Nationalist army. I wondered in the essay about the changes in Chinese society. On December 26, 1993, the Kansas City Star printed my article, “In Search of Mao – Does the ‘Great Helmsman’ still rule China?” and included photographs I had taken. You will find that article and others I have written on China in that section of this website.

        I wrote a public affairs column in the Kansas City Business Journal in the years 2007-2012. I have included several examples. In the “Personal” section you will find a favorite, “Hands across time and place tether children and parents.” I wrote about my feelings as our twin boys prepared to leave for college.

        There were certain subjects on which I consistently wrote opinion pieces. In the section on “Public Policy,” for example, you will find essays on civil rights, the statesmanship of Senator Bob Dole and Senator Richard Lugar, and maintaining a merit selection process for choosing judges in Kansas.

        In the opinion pieces in the section on “Immigration,” I focused, among other things, on the importance of maintaining a system that allows the children of undocumented persons to pay in-state rates for tuition at the six higher education institutions in Kansas. That remains the law in the Sunflower state.

        I wrote about cancer research. In the section on “Cancer Research, Life Sciences” you will see essays printed by the Kansas Reflector in which I criticized the Trump administration’s effort in 2025 and 2026 to cut funding for cancer research. You will also see an opinion piece praising the successful effort of the University of Kansas Cancer Center to achieve National Cancer Institute designation in 2012.

        I have included on this website sections on other subject areas of interest: “Arts,” “Tributes,” “Criticism,” “Satire,” and “Fiction.”

        I will close with this. In the “Satire” section, you will see that the Kansas City Business Journal printed my column “Welcome to the credit circle of hell – with apologies to Dante Alighieri.” I attempted to write on the 2008 financial crisis in the style of Dante in “Inferno,” the first part of his masterpiece, “The Divine Comedy.” You may be thinking, ‘this guy is crazy’.” So be it.

        I hope you enjoy the writing that I have included on this website.