Latino hopes unmet

Dear President Barack Obama:

I have and will work hard to get you re-elected. But people in the Latino community in this nation and in the Kansas City area are not happy with your lack of action on immigration and deportation.

These are the young men and women who do not see anything of the American dream for the Latino community. They want a good education, not deportation.

Please do more to address their concerns about immigration and the DREAM Act for the dreamers.

Their parents are being racially profiled and are being stopped on their way to church in communities such as Belton by the police. Things are out of control.

Florentino Camacho Jr.

Kansas City

Escaping conformity

Do people in this country who proudly declare themselves to be on the “right” or the “left” ever regard the uses of these terms in present-day world events or history?

In the Middle East today, it is the “right wingers” who are attacking their own people.

Putin has the backing of the “right” in Russia. In the Far East, the “leftists” control China, Vietnam and Burma.

Genocide is committed in Africa in the name of either wing.

It would seem that by calling yourself one or the other, you are admitting that given the chance you would act in a similar fashion.

The more compact group an individual sees himself/herself a part of, the more imitative the person becomes, without a distinct self. A bird with one wing flops in circles.

Perhaps it is time for all of us to think for ourselves and fly straight.

John Neles

Shawnee

Rising KU standards

The University of Kansas is to be applauded for its move to increase admission standards and show it is serious about providing a solid education to qualified students.

For those concerned about students being excluded from KU, isn’t that what the Ivy League schools do?

This establishes the university as a sort of “Harvard of the Midwest,” raising the academic bar and continuing to ensure the success of its graduates. Many kids don’t finish their degrees because they are not prepared to study, aren’t focused and spend their college years wandering through classes with no direction.

This can be attributed to immaturity, high school performance, parental input and other factors.

But now KU is saying, “The buck stops here.”

There are other quality schools in Kansas, which is great news for parents who can hang onto more of their money while still providing a good education to their kids at a lower tuition.

Charlie Weis, in an effort to build a quality football team at KU, gets rid of a few players who aren’t performing to standards, and not much is said. But when the school does the same thing in academics, people protest.

Terry Clevenger

Leawood

Definition of bully

A bully is an ill-raised child.

Alan Franklin

Independence

MU embarrassing

The University of Missouri leadership is proud of its athletic expansion while academics languish and low-income students struggle (6-27, A5, “University slashes budget”). No one has to ask what’s wrong with that picture.

I am embarrassed to be an MU alum, and don’t call me for any more donations.

Leigh Klein

Overland Park

Putting up with Kobach

So Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Rep. Lance Kinzer think the recent Supreme Court decision on Arizona’s restrictive immigration activities is a “green light” for copycat legislation in Kansas. What a way to spin the facts!

This from the guys who couldn’t pass a redistricting map in the last legislative session, obligating Kansas to pay $640,000-plus in legal fees after the recent lawsuit on redistricting. Never mind that any pursuit of “show me your papers” will result in racial profiling cases that will make the previous legal costs look like chump change.

Or that their masters, the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, supports a state program to allow illegal immigrants jobs in industries with job shortages, such as agriculture and meat packing. E-Verify isn’t very popular with the chamber either.

If Kobach wanted to write immigration legislation, he should have run for Congress instead of secretary of state, where all he has done is take a salary while on private business outside of Kansas and mess up a lot of potential voters’ opportunity to vote in local elections this year. Please tell me why Kansans continue to put up with this man and his cohorts.

Hoyt Hillman

Wichita

Cheers for nurses

Congratulations and thanks to the 580 Research Medical Center nurses who had the courage and resolve to organize for better conditions and a bigger voice in patient care (6-23, A14, “Research nurses, HCA reach accord”). Organizing a union is an extremely difficult endeavor, and these nurses should be praised as local heroes.

When nurses have a say in the management of patient care, the entire community benefits. Way to go.

Brian Fitzpatrick

Kansas City

Jobs for bored youths

News stories on the lack of entertainment options for our youths once again highlight the problem nicely but are totally absent of solutions.

Our city officials and civic leaders should resist the urge to create such venues for the youths.

Such short-term solutions might make great press, but they won’t last. Instead, give the youths the tools and training they need to solve their own problems and create their own entertainment options.

Make entrepreneurship training available to the youths and increase access to small-business loans. Strengthen job-skills training programs so qualified youths can be hired from the community to work at these venues. Encourage parental support and involvement.

Sustainable change comes from within, not from above. The city should act as a facilitator in this endeavor but not the fixer. Encouraging local ownership of this challenge will promote individual and community pride, generate profits that will stay in the community and ultimately offer better options for the youths.

Youth boredom is not a recent phenomenon. A long-term problem requires a strategic approach that can create sustainable solutions.

Tom Owens

Kansas City

Stop razing America

So the U.S. House has voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt? In my opinion, it is these same politicians whom the American public presumably elected to represent us who are in contempt for working so hard at destroying America.

Surely, they have far more important matters to worry about — the economy, unemployment, cleaning up their own “house” — before working so diligently to destroy yet another individual’s reputation.

My message to Congress: Do something positive and productive for a change that truly benefits the nation you call home.

Where will you find a place to live when you succeed with your destructive work?

Charles Ballew

Kansas City

Obama and court picks

For those who say they will not vote in the upcoming presidential election because presumptive GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is not the perfect candidate, let me remind you that in the next four years there could be up to four U.S. Supreme Court openings.

Do you want President Barack Obama appointing those judges?

Can you say Supreme Court Justice Eric Holder?

Glenn E. Schreiber

Overland Park

Presidential leadership

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney contends that his best qualifications for the presidency are his business experience and success as a turnaround specialist.

He said President Barack Obama has no such credentials. Huh?

About 41 months ago, Obama became chief executive of the United States, the largest economic enterprise in the world. Obama took over an enterprise that was failing spectacularly, losing thousands of jobs a month.

In a matter of months, he stopped the hemorrhaging and began a process of sustained job growth in the private sector, all this while half his board of directors (the Republicans in Congress) were undermining him.

How’s that for a turnaround success?

Forty-one months ago, Obama became commander in chief of the world’s largest, most sophisticated fighting force when it was engaged in two wars. Now one is over and the other winding down.

How’s that for logistic success?

Forty-one months ago, Obama took over U.S. security agencies. Now Osama bin Laden and a number of top al-Qaida leaders are dead, others in hiding, plots have been thwarted. How’s that for strategic success?

Match that, Mr. Romney.

Mark Hastert

Kansas City