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Best part of being a mom
The most difficult aspect about being a mom is being a mom. A child brings smiles, laughter and sticky fingers wrapped in a hug. You cry when they are hurting and explode in excitement for their accomplishments. You let the string extend beyond your reach, secretly wishing it wouldn’t extend at all.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no secret book holding the key to parenting that only moms can decipher. Moms learn by the modeling of others and by experiencing life along the way. We plan for their future, just hoping that it doesn’t come too soon.
So cherish these moments as we celebrate yet another Mother’s Day, as they go ever so quickly. And hope that someday our children will understand that the most difficult aspect of being a mom is being a mom, but it is the best experience you take together.
Charlotte Melson
Raytown
Pain at the gas pumpWith gas prices surging to dizzying new heights, we all want solutions.
Everything I can find on high gas prices says the greatest single cause is still a lack of refinery capacity, causing enough of a shortage of gas to drive up prices. We have less refinery capacity today than we did in the ’70s, as they were not replaced as they went offline due to age.
Also from what I read, the gas companies have no incentive to build more refineries, as they have discovered that the profit is much higher when the free market drives up gas prices because of their lack.
Sounds like we need to give them an incentive to build more, or perhaps the government could build a few — whatever it takes to solve the problem and lower gas prices.
The other issue: Why are we paying more than $120 per barrel of crude oil when we have the technology to make synthetic gasoline from our abundant coal shale? According to radio program and CNN show host Glenn Beck’s sources, the per-barrel cost to make synthetic gas is half that.
Chad Kincham
Pleasant Valley
To all of you out there concerned about the economy, and specifically high gasoline prices this election year, I would ask you all to think about something.Sens. Clinton and Obama propose a “windfall” or “excessive” profits tax against those evil oil companies. Any profit above some arbitrary number someone sets, they want “to take those profits,” in the words of Sen. Clinton.
Think long and hard about that. Do you really want someone, especially someone in Washington, to set some artificial level of how successful a certain business is allowed to be and to penalize it for succeeding beyond that level? Today it’s the oil companies. A few years ago it was Microsoft. What is it tomorrow, or next year? Maybe it’s the business that you are in.
The fact is that almost anything that Washington does, from the “gas tax holiday” to “windfall profits taxes” and every mandate in between will result in nothing but higher prices at the pump. We must increase the supply or drop the demand (preferably both) in order to lower the prices.
James Helton
Independence
Delegating our voting rightsI believe our country, even with its millions of voters, should allow each voter’s vote to count for the specific person being voted for. I do not trust the concept of delegate votes.
America’s people are losing all of their freedoms. I want my freedom to vote specifically for my favorite candidate to count.
Diana Hughes
Overland Park
Prescription drug price markups
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