LETTERS 07/28/08

It’s foolish, I suppose, to expect straight talk from any politician or administration. Yet this “Great Decider” and his merry band of spin doctors have gone too far.

How one yearns for the days of Harry Truman, who knew just where the buck stopped and when to get out of the kitchen.

Robert F. Willson Jr.

Emeritus Professor of English, UMKC

Leawood

Recently former Vice President Al Gore called for a 10-year plan to move the nation’s entire energy supply to solar, wind, and other renewable sources (7/18, A-5, “Gore urges 2018 goal of carbon-free energy”). But he failed to address the massive role of meat production in the global climate crisis.

A 2006 report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization found that animal agriculture accounts for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. That’s more than automobiles. It is also a major cause of land and water degradation.

Carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is emitted by burning forests to create animal pastures and by combustion of fossil fuels to operate factory farm and slaughterhouse machinery, trucks and refrigeration equipment. The much more damaging methane and nitrous oxide are discharged from digestive tracts of cattle and from animal waste cesspools, respectively.

Each of us can do our part now to reduce global warming. Our local supermarkets stock a rich variety of soy-based lunch “meats,” hot dogs, veggie burgers, dairy products and ready-to-eat frozen dinners. Did I mention the cornucopia of fruits and vegetables that have always been readily available to us?

More details are at www.tryveg.com.

Everett Donley

Kansas City

Partnership for Children would like to thank Jay Nixon for his plan to provide health care coverage to all children. More than 127,000 Missouri children are currently uninsured. Since 2005, nearly 70,000 children have lost state health coverage.

Missourians know that children must be healthy to learn most effectively. Even employers know that a healthy workforce is a more productive workforce. When children are healthy they miss less school, and their parents miss less work.

Health-care coverage for children isn’t a Democratic issue or Republican issue. We all have an interest in ensuring that our children grow up educated and healthy.

We call on Missouri gubernatorial candidates Kenny Hulshof and Sarah Steelman to adopt platforms that ensure that Missouri is a great place to be a child and to raise a child by providing all Missouri children the health-care coverage they need and deserve.

Emily Smith

Partnership for Children

Kansas City

This is an open letter to all my fellow baby boomers. I think it’s time we appreciate the skin we’re in.

I’m so tired of reading articles about older men and women dating younger people for their “hard bodies.” Now it seems women in their late 40s and 50s are choosing to date men in their 20s and 30s. Why?

The media tell me women want younger men for their six-pack abs and bulging biceps. Really? And older men want younger women for their youthful bodies. No news there. Is this why my generation has turned into a bunch of neurotic, youth-seeking, self -absorbed hypocrites?

Here’s a reality check, boomers: We’re not going to live to be 100 and look eternally 30 in the process. When did aging turn into a four-letter word, anyway?

• Most Read