Read before voting

Folks should read two books released this election year. “Don’t Buy It” by Anat Shenker-Osorio examines the conceptual metaphors we use with the economy.

She advocates the metaphor that “the economy is a constructed object.” If we discuss the economy as a bus, then it makes sense to choose a caring and safe driver who ensures everyone is on board before moving forward.

This metaphor reflects actual aspects of the economy, namely that it was created by people, that it goes off track without competent guidance and that it requires continual maintenance.

In their book, “The Little Blue Book,” George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling also use a metaphor. They write that President Barack Obama should defend his health-care law based on freedom because “when health insurance plans deny you care when you need it, they deny you liberty.”

The authors also point out that we have a moral duty to shift our subsidies from dirty old polluting energy to eternal, clean and free energy.

Energy from tar sand oil, gas, coal and nuclear put poisons in our air, water, soil and bodies, while energy from the sun, wind, water and soil keep our bodies and planet pure.

Grady Kallenbach

Wichita

NRA, Fast and Furious

Isn’t it curious that National Rifle Association members preach “guns don’t kill people; people kill people” until it suits their political agenda.

When the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms sting, Fast and Furious, goes haywire, they’re all over keeping guns out of the hands of the wrong people.

A perfect storm: the ATF, the federal agency the NRA hates; Eric Holder, the U.S. attorney general whom the NRA hates; Barack Obama, president and leader of the Democrats, the party the NRA hates; and an election year.

Who cares that the sting came out of the George W. Bush presidency years?

The important thing is to flex the NRA’s political muscle and mandate a contempt citation from its Republican puppets.

Sadly, a federal agent was killed with one of the guns lost track of in the sting.

But the thing that angered the NRA was the possible exposure of lax gun-sale laws and any effort by anyone to fix the problem of gun show personal sales.

It’s time to be honest and admit the NRA is yet another branch of the Republican Party.

John Meyer

Blue Springs

Romney’s tax returns

The latest flap over Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s 2011 income tax return illustrates perfectly why he was reluctant to make it public.

Anything on the return, however praiseworthy for anyone else, can be turned into a criticism of him.

For example, it would be seen as a generous gesture to understate one’s legitimate deductions so as to return more money to the treasury.

But in Romney’s case it is seen as manipulative.

Truly, everything looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

By the way, the same option is available to billionaire Warren Buffett, millionaire President Barack Obama and congressional members who think the rich ought to pay more taxes.

Robert Reimers

Gardner

Tom Toles cartoon

Has anyone other than editorial cartoonist Tom Toles noticed the resemblance between Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan and the werewolf boy, Eddie Munster, from the 1960s TV show “The Munsters” (10-6, Opinion)?

To avoid confusing the two, readers should keep in mind two facts:

1. Eddie, even though he was a werewolf, is more compassionate than Ryan.

2. Werewolves are a threat to humanity only during full moons. Ryan is a threat 24-7.

Joe Wolff

Merriam

Crime victim hurt twice

On Christmas Eve 2011, a transgender woman was murdered because she had the courage to live as the person she truly was. A hate-filled man took her life for the same reason.

Oct. 5, The Star ran an article headlined, “Sentence in prostitute’s death.” Dee Dee Pearson was victimized again.

She was a woman. Her murderer “obtained a handgun,” “chased Pearson” and killed her in cold blood.

The article could have been about why this wasn’t first-degree murder or about the transgender woman who was the victim of a hate crime. The article might have educated the public.

Transgender people are four times more likely to live in poverty. Once a month, a transgender person is murdered in America because of who we are.

No, the author participated in the same ignorance and discrimination that created this tragedy, that causes transgender people to attempt suicide at a rate 25 times the national average.

Dee Dee Pearson was a human being. She lived her life with courage as her true self.

Please, show her some respect.

Stephanie Mott

Executive Director

Kansas Statewide

Transgender Education

Project

Topeka

Democrats, GOP, women

The Democrats contend that they value women and Republicans don’t. Then why didn’t they choose former first lady Hillary Clinton to be their presidential nominee in 2008?

She had more experience than Barack Obama, who was only a community organizer before he was elected a state lawmaker and then a U.S. senator.

Also, when will the Democrats make the fathers of babies born out of wedlock pay to raise their children instead of the mothers and the taxpayers?

Obama promised us hope and change.

Instead we have despair and desperation.

When it comes to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney earning his wealth, the Democrats forget that presidents Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy came from very wealthy families and Sen. John Kerry is married to the heir of the Heinz fortune.

Jane Porter

Kansas City

Troubled U.S. economy

In 2008, the United States was in a sinking ship caused by cut-rate mortgages and financial institutions that bundled these mortgages on the gamble the bubble would not burst. But it did burst.

A bipartisan bailout was passed with borrowed money to save the bankers, and President Barack Obama was elected.

Who could say whether this was good or bad? It did save a bunch of investors, and the leaky ship had the obvious leaks patched.

In 2009, a stimulus bill was passed to create and/or save jobs, which supposedly would stop the remaining leaks. As President Obama said, the shovel-ready jobs turned out to not be shovel-ready, and General Motors bondholders were out of luck in deference to the automotive unions.

By 2012, the ship is still foundering and taking on water. In November we are being asked to continue the status quo.

Unfortunately, the pumps of government can’t keep up with the continuing leaks.

Can anyone realistically believe that the United States can indefinitely stay afloat with a static economy and trillions of dollars owed in borrowed money?

Dan Feland

Belton

Send Obama packing

Mostly because of President Barack Obama’s irresponsible spending, the national debt recently topped $16 trillion. This is just the funded portion; the unfunded entitlement liabilities of the Treasury (Medicare, etc.) and off-budget items are much larger.

Obama’s era of unprecedented fiscal irresponsibility means we are throwing away an additional $1 trillion or more every year.

The only reason this huge debt load hasn’t ruined us is the Treasury has been able to service it through historically low interest rates, allowing the U.S. to keep debt-service payments to a relatively manageable $300 billion per year.

On the current path, the national debt likely would hit $20 trillion at the end of a potential Obama second term. If, by that time, interest rates were to return to 5 percent, interest payments on the debt could run around $1 trillion per year.

That would be almost 40 percent of total current federal revenues and probably the largest item in the federal budget. It would create a fiscal crisis in the United States. Recovery might take generations.

It is time for Obama to go back to Chicago.

Steve Lanning

Lee’s Summit

Chiefs aren’t so bad

I’ve been listening to the guys on sports radio drone on and on about the Kansas City Chiefs. Come on, man, it’s only a few weeks into the season.

You’d think that the sky was falling with their doom and gloom. The Chiefs have never been a team that starts strong, so can we please wait to vilify Scott Pioli, Matt Cassel and Romeo Crennel?

Sheesh, you’d think the world was ending by listening to these guys. Take a chill pill.

Pam Kelley

Olathe