Woman to women

This Valentine’s Day, I want to send a special Valentine’s message to all the women of the world.

Women, we all have our challenges, our personal struggles.

Some of us struggle financially and some of us with relationships. Some of us struggle with our health and some with our faith. Some of us struggle to be heard and some of us struggle to feel loved.

To all of us, regardless of who we are, what we believe or what our own stories are, I’d like us all to know that we are not alone. We are connected to one another, and we are loved.

So to all the women of the world this Valentine’s Day, I say to you:

I love you woman ... ridiculed or abused.

I love you woman ... successful and strong and changing the world.

I love you woman ... fragile with failure.

I love you woman ... mother nurturer.

I love you woman ... grandmother, wise woman, forgotten, alone.

I love you woman ... lover, whore.

I love you woman ... saint, sinner.

I love you woman to be ... beginning the journey.

I love you woman who has ever been made to feel less.

To you, I say, I love you.

You matter to this world.

Vicki Neal

Dadeville, Mo.

Importance of love

In this sick and twisted world we live in, I find the only true and pure thing is love, whether that love is for oneself or another soul. Money is important but not as important as love.

Trying to entertain the idea of a life without a love is, well, depressing and repulsive. The idea simply breaks my heart.

To feel loved is, for lack of a better word, divine in every aspect. Where does it say that a soul mate is a pipe dream?

Love is all around us and in everything. I ask you Kansas City, when will I find that love?

Anthony Ray

Cleveland

Fox News watchdog

When we watch the media’s coverage of President Barack Obama, are we viewing professional journalism or another episode of “American Idol”? The tough, relentless questioning that follows the congressional Republicans vanishes when covering the Democratic/Obama left.

From Benghazi to the fiscal cliff, the Obama regime has been given a softball pass by NBC, ABC and CBS. These once-great news organizations have become grotesque caricatures as they shill for the “most transparent administration in history.”

The only light in this dark room has been provided by Fox News.

On critical issues, Fox is routinely excluded from White House briefings. According to White House adviser David Axelrod, “Fox is not a real news organization.” Could it be, Mr. Axelrod, that Fox tells the American people the uncomfortable truth instead of the administration’s spin?

As twilight descends on objective journalism in America, the only firewall standing between the American people and the complete subjugation of the press by the progressive/Obama left has been Fox News.

Gregory H. Bontrager

Hutchinson, Kan.

Grammys fail to please

Congratulations to the Grammy producers for providing us (after much hype) with the worst TV ever (2-11, C1, “Grammys mix it up”). The frenzied dancing and jerking and the repetitive, tuneless, non-understandable lyrics of the so-called music was right on.

Thanks to the Timothy Finn review in The Star, we were able to learn there really were names to the sounds they were screaming. Also, thank goodness for all those buttons on our TV control.

Virginia Winbigler

Olathe

Fed up and tired

I am a Republican and I am tired. I am tired of an imperial, secretive Obama administration that ignores and sees itself above the Constitution.

I am tired of the leftists in politics refusing to negotiate and then blaming it on the right for not giving into all demands. I am tired of the class warfare and hypocritical views from the left, such as constantly talking about everyone paying his “fair share,” except them, of course.

I am tired of being painted with a ridiculous, broad-brush, over-the-top negative stereotype while not even being known. I’m not racist, misogynistic, small-minded or only caring about the 1 percent.

I am tired of The Star showing its far left-leaning agenda by slanting stories to meet its view, writing only leftist opinions and printing mostly left-leaning letters bolstering its agenda. I am tired of the many, many letters chosen for the opinion pages seemingly coming from uneducated people who do no research and do not understand business or economics but instead restate exaggerated talking points and shared ignorance.

George Ferguson

Blue Springs

Voiceless in Kansas

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is a devout Catholic, a Christian guided by his religious beliefs — or so we are told. Aside from the issue of abortion, there seems to be a huge disconnect revealed by his actions.

Where is it taught in Christianity (or any other religion) that to take from the most vulnerable, voiceless and needy is righteous? The state under Brownback is arbitrarily removing eligibility for about one-third of people receiving housing, food, health care and other assistance.

It is stopping the $100-a-month benefit for about 2,000 disabled adults living in extreme poverty. The state under Brownback is refusing to fund assistance for military families with financial emergencies. These are a few examples.

Gov. Brownback is using people’s lives as stepping-stones to create his vision of the path to a better Kansas.

With all due respect, sir, as I understand it, Christianity teaches quite the opposite.

Given your disdain for dissent, it is unlikely that even the pope could teach you why your path is so misguided.

Nancy Richards

Overland Park

Death penalty cost

During this critical period in which the Missouri General Assembly is striving hard to attain a balanced budget by cutting services, I have become even more aware of how costly a drain to taxpayers the death penalty is.

In Missouri, the budget is strained to provide Medicaid services to poor citizens. Education cuts are causing many of our children to suffer.

Thus it is time that we, too, begin questioning the cost of the death penalty versus a sentence of life without possibility of parole. Senate Bill 61 is calling for a careful study of how much the death penalty is actually costing Missouri taxpayers.

Sen. Mike Parson is the chair of the Government Accountability and Fiscal Oversight Committee, which is hearing that bill, determining soon whether it should move forward for action.

It makes sense that our representatives in Jefferson City, stewards of our taxpayer dollars, investigate the cost of executions in Missouri to determine whether in these times of economic hardship and deep budget cuts, the death penalty is something that we can any longer afford.

Susie Roling, MSW

Kansas City

Subtracting U.S. rights

The Israeli model of security for schools and airlines involves a great deal of paranoia. I doubt that most Americans are alert enough to be paranoid to that extreme.

Given the lip service always paid after a disaster to the spew of morals-destroying garbage coming from Hollywood and the game companies, perhaps the only answer to that problem is to do away with the Second Amendment.

The First Amendment won’t last long under communism.

Jim Barber

Independence

Obama’s socialist plan

The Cloward-Piven strategy, named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, calls for the destruction of the economy so as to rebuild America into a socialist/communist state. Remember, President Barack Obama counted Cloward and Piven among his friends, along with Bill Ayers, Frank Marshall Davis (his idol and mentor) and his grandparents who raised him.

Yes, Obama’s agenda is proceeding according to plan. You who voted for this tyrant are getting just what you deserve.

It won’t be pretty.

Sharon Stathopoulos

Raymore

GOP keeps stumbling

Don’t House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell just exude sincerity, warmth and non-partisanship? Listening to them certainly makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

This is the fundamental problem facing the Republican Party. Republicans do not relate well with the middle class, women, minorities, the poor or people who have alternative lifestyles.

They also seem unwilling to try to work out issues by compromise. Their stance is my way or the highway.

They do relate well to the religious right, the tea party, the mega-wealthy and the National Rifle Association.

Until they come up with more moderate and dynamic leadership, they are going to have problems on the national stage. And no, neither Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback nor Secretary of State Kris Kobach is the answer.

Bob Duncan

Lee’s Summit