This world’s loss is heaven’s gain with the passing of the great Jack Kemp.  His political dynamism and respect for the dignity of every human being blazed a beautiful trail in our culture.  SBA List friend Mary Cannon was Kemp’s close ally and colleague for years.  In this week's Weekly Standard she articulates beautifully how she learned from him.  What a point of great hope that Kemp’s  irrepressible vision, energy and passion is alive and well, arming us for today’s challenges:

One of Jack's enduring legacies is the amendment he offered along with Senator Bob Kasten of Wisconsin to deny federal funding to organizations, like the U.N. Fund for Population Control (UNFPA), that supported China's use of coerced abortion as a method of enforcing its one-child per family rule. The Chinese government was taken aback by this initiative when it was first offered in the mid-1980s and sent its ambassador to meet with Jack in his office on Capitol Hill. The diplomat made some formal comments, and Jack listened quietly, a rare response. When he began to respond, he sought to engage the ambassador on a personal level, taking about his own family and background, and asking the ambassador about his. The ambassador seemed stunned by the personal nature of the conversation, but when Jack asked him, "how many children do and your wife have?" he answered quietly that they had three, two more than the number allowed by his regime's population control policy. Jack said, "I know you must love them all very much, and believe they each have something unique to contribute. Could you imagine life without any one of them?"