Belcher tragedy

The Jovan Belcher murder-suicide (12-2, A1, “Linebacker writes two tragic endings”) is a prime example of how domestic violence is a tragic part of our culture.

Over and over in our society, we have diminished the reality of the impact domestic violence by overlooking it and instead saying that this was just not like him, something must have been wrong.

Many of the perpetrators of domestic violence seem to be upstanding citizens to everyone on the outside, and it is not until afterward that we begin to see the hell that the partner had been living through.

We need to use this incident to look carefully at our lives and our culture and realize that domestic violence is not just an inconvenient reality.

There are an estimated 1.3 million women who are victims of physical assault by their partners each year, and one in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.

What happened with Jovan Belcher is not a rare occurrence in our society. Rather it is sadly a regular occurrence that is grabbing headlines because this time it happened with one of our upstanding citizens that we tell ourselves about.

Chris Hermesch

Kansas City

Taking blame

Jovan Belcher may have already been troubled before this football season, but I’m quite sure it didn’t help for Kansas Citians to voice their frustrations daily on how bad the Chiefs were playing.

It’s a double standard. First of all, it’s a game. Somewhere along the line, it was decided these guys should make millions for playing a game. It’s supposed to be entertainment.

But does that give us a right, as human beings, to degrade the guys who try and play? Do we have that right? Is it any better than bullying?

Something to think about.

Barbara Heizman

Greenwood

Violence epidemic

Saturday’s tragic murder-suicide that involved a Chiefs player and the victim, his girlfriend, was terrible. My prayers go out to all involved. But perspective is lost.

There are numerous instances of this happening, but it doesn’t become front-page news. If Jovan Belcher worked at Ford or sold insurance, would it make front-page news? If it happened in front of Joe the plumber and his wife, would we be thinking of how this would affect them long term? I think not.

I challenge all of us to be as curious concerning the many instances of this tragedy that occur.

Why does it happen? What can we do to help stop/slow this epidemic? It is a societal illness.

Patrick O’Malley

Overland Park

Gun’s role

I don’t doubt that linebacker Jovan Belcher had his own private demons to contend with, but he also had a semiautomatic handgun that might help explain the full extent of this tragic murder-suicide in a painfully succinct way.

He won’t be the first macho man who ever pulled a gun or waved one at his girlfriend. However, to pull a lively semiautomatic makes it really easy to fire a round, and to fire once makes it that much easier to fire several times.

Once you’ve killed your girlfriend, your own life is as good as over. Might as well either kill yourself or set off to seek those to whom you feel you owe something, like your coach and general manager. Those men are lucky that all they received was a parting thank-you rather than some parting shots.

This man committed a horrific act, but neither his victim’s family nor his own family should underestimate the role played by keeping a lively, loaded, rapid-fire gun in his home.

Somehow, the gun always gets off easy.

Ron Charach, M.D.

Toronto

GOP history rewrite

I always have to laugh when Republicans try to rewrite history. Only a Democrat could get 30 million more people health care, end a war, kill Osama bin Laden, rebuild our infrastructure and create 5.4 million jobs in less than three years, and then be told he doesn’t have a plan.

I say that’s quite a record for somebody who the Republicans think is a foreign-born black Muslim, socialist and communist. Obama received no help from any Republicans, whose aim was to ensure he was limited to only one term in the White House.

Jim Corn

Belton

Lottery game

I like the lottery. I think it is great that someone from the area won (11-30, A1, “Platte County town has a new multimillionaire”). It gives the whole area a good feeling.

But if you are getting entitlement money, don’t spend it on lottery tickets. Those are my tax dollars, and I don’t want them spent on lottery tickets, cable, video games or cellphones. I want them spent on food, clothing, shelter and health care.

If you spend them otherwise, chances are you are going to need more entitlement money, and guess what? My taxes will go up some more.

George Hale

Liberty

Medicare minuses

According to the Congressional Budget Office, $308 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage plans would result in a 50 percent reduction in members over four years because premiums would rise and benefits would be reduced.

The projected winners: Obamacare, which has more money to spend, and AARP, which sells supplemental policies to Original Medicare.

The losers are seniors on Medicare Advantage.

According to the government’s website, Medicare Advantage can save $2,600 a year compared with Original Medicare.

The CBO says that because more low-income seniors (specifically Hispanics and African-Americans) adopted Medicare Advantage at a higher rate, they would be affected the most.

What happened to the scheduled cuts for 2013?

The Obama administration created a pilot “award” program, which restored 90 percent of the reduction.

The losers are taxpayers, because the CBO said this program was so poorly designed that you could not tell if it would produce any meaningful results.

The winner is Obama, because the program delayed the effect of this phase of Obamacare until after the election.

Doris Fuller

Lee’s Summit

Tax the Catholic Church

To the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph concerning the ad, “It’s That Simple”: On your ad referring to Obamacare, I am Catholic, and I do not understand why you pay for political ads with money we give to the church for charity and church upkeep.

Many of my fellow Catholics don’t understand either.

We don’t like our politics from the pulpit.

Perhaps this is the time for our churches to help support the country whose laws they are trying to form — by paying taxes.

Mary Lindley

Sweet Springs, Mo.

Unemployment myth

I thought that there were many reasons for the current high unemployment, such as the unregulated banking industry under President George W. Bush, the near-collapse of the real-estate market and its worldwide financial effect, the financial struggle of the so-called PIIGS countries (the five Eurozone nations that were considered weaker economically after the financial crisis: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain), the shipping of jobs overseas so companies could reduce their labor costs, the ability of companies to demand more work from their scared-to-be-unemployed workers, the intransigency of Congress to compromise on any helpful bills ...

From Missouri and Kansas Republicans, we’re told the current high unemployment is solely because of Obamacare and federal regulations.

Once those two are removed, we’ll be swimming in jobs.

Give me a break.

Mike Cunningham

Kansas City

Travesty in Libya

Based on the significant number of discrepancies in explanations by the Defense Department, CIA, State Department, White House administration and President Barack Obama, it is clear that it will be months if not years for all of the facts to be revealed to the American people about the Libyan travesty and loss of American lives.

I base this on the Fast and Furious investigation, which took almost two years before the president invoked executive privilege, thereby squelching any further investigation into another American death (border agent Brian Terry).

Had President Barack Obama spent as much time researching the problems and requests for additional security in Libya as he spent trying to be re-elected, maybe our ambassador and his staff would be alive today.

Shame on you, Mr. President.

DeWayne Steele

Kansas City

KCI design problem

The problem with the current Kansas City International Airport design is its lack of a secured connection among the three terminals. Atlanta and several other airports have underground trams to connect the facilities.

This would solve the interconnect security problem while maintaining continued use of all the terminals during the construction.

Robert Patterson

Lee’s Summit