Posted on Wed, Apr. 30, 2008

Hog farm near soldier’s home

What kind of people would take advantage of a neighbor, let alone a deployed soldier? (4/28, A-1, “Hog farm puts soldier at war on two fronts”)

That the Penn family would pursue building a hog farm near their neighbor Randell Hettinger in Knox County, Mo., without considering his home is bad enough. That they would try to take advantage of a soldier serving in Iraq is worse than unneighborly. It’s downright unpatriotic. They should be ashamed of themselves. I hope someone will stop them.

Cheri Wright

Kansas City

Long-range weather forecasting

Thanks to J.D. Eggleston and his daughter for a great analysis of man’s inability to predict weather reliably (4/26, A-1, “Weather trackers put TV in KC to the test”). The analysis highlights the extreme difficulty and inherent uncertainty in making these predictions, which result in cascading errors beyond a couple of days. It’s no discredit to the meteorologists, as they are trained scientists using the most advanced tools available.

But Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc. says “we don’t have enough computing power and understanding of the atmosphere to be infallible.” And Andy Bailey of the National Weather Service states that for seven-day forecasts, “we’ll look at three to five or more different computer models,” which “have wildly different solutions (predictions) for what will happen on day seven.”

Yet the general public has swallowed detailed catastrophic global weather predictions for 10, 20 and 50 years into the future by Al Gore, a politician. All global warming predictions are mere speculations of extrapolated assumptions produced by computer models that contain as much certainty as Bryan Busby predicting the exact weather conditions for April 28, 2018.

Larry Seitter

Olathe

Get with it, TV station program directors. A butterfly flaps its wings in China and the weather in Kansas City is affected a couple of weeks later.

What is wrong with our forecasters? Nothing. Just don’t waste 10 or 15 minutes of TV time having them babble on about something they really can’t predict.

Steve Bailey

Fairway

War in Iraq

What took you so long, Congress? Why does it take our elected officials more than five years to decide that Baghdad has the resources available to pay for reconstruction, fuel used by American troops and payments to Sunni fighters? (4/15, A-8, “Push is on for Iraq to assume rebuilding costs.”)

Why not go one step further and reimburse our government for the billions of dollars this effort has cost our country? While we’re at it, tack on a program requiring Iraq to fund an initiative that financially takes care of our injured troops and our deceased troop survivors. Iraq has the assets and should be required to pay a price for freedom, just as our troops have paid the ultimate price liberating that country from a dictator.

John Reilly

Blue Springs

I would say that President Bush is keeping “single-minded focus” on the troops in Iraq. The American government is trying to find the best way to help this country, and it is taking longer than anyone expected.

It is not that Iraq is ungrateful for America’s help. It is simply difficult for a country to change its system of government. One cannot snap his fingers and say, “It is mended.” People need time to change and to adopt new ways into their cultures.

Please realize that a thriving country, the U.S., is trying to mend a surviving country. President Bush does seem to know how to handle Iraq and its situation. However, we as the American people don’t know how to accept a country that is not united.

Kim Kennaley

Kansas City

Work at home, save Earth

If people who drive to work each day just to sign in on their computers and work could just stay home and work on their computers at home:

•Use of gasoline would go down.

•Reduced need to build and repair roads might result in lower taxes.

•The air would be cleaner.

•Car insurance rates might drop.

•Companies would need fewer buildings.

•Fewer colds would be spread.

•The air would be cleaner.

Larry Kelley

Lee’s Summit

A wonderful Discovery

After teaching more than 30 years, most of those in the Kansas City area, and going on countless field trips, I just found a gem in Kansas City I didn’t know about.

The Discovery Center at Kauffman Legacy Park was the site of a recent field trip, and I was so impressed. We had been sent packets of pre-visit activities and supplies. And the center itself is a child’s dream come true: stuffed animals everywhere, live animals outside, a greenhouse full of plants, a chance to touch a snake and all kinds of hands-on activities to go along with the excellent program, given by friendly, well-trained facilitators.

I highly recommend that teachers everywhere check out this center. I plan to head back every chance I can get.

Deanna Whitford

Teacher, Holt Elementary School

Kearney

Instead of watching TV …

Last week was National Turn Off TV Week. I looked for mention of it or suggestions for TV-free activities in each day’s paper, but saw none. So, for families with younger children, I offer these simple and inexpensive ideas.

Instead of watching television, you can: work a puzzle, write letters to grandparents or soldiers, visit a nature center, blow bubbles, play board games, have a sing-along, try a new recipe, color or draw or paint, clean out a closet, play I Spy on car trips, plant flowers or veggies, look at photo albums, go to the park, have an at-home spa party and give each other hand massages and manicures, fly a kite, bird watch, visit your local library, build a blanket “fort,” volunteer, hold a progressive play date with a group of friends where children do one activity at each home, play catch, have a garage sale, visit a museum, take turns reading aloud or making up stories, or play in the sandbox.

Make your own list of fun things to do instead of watching TV.

Alyce Leytham

Lawson, Mo.

KC budget cuts

Regarding Kathryn Rainey’s letter (4/26) “Let Funkhouser do his job”): Please do not be taken in by the mayor’s baloney. On the very day Mark Funkhouser and the City Council voted to slash the zoo’s budget, these same individuals voted not to fill the police personnel that had been promised to the voters.

It is not a case of either the zoo or the police. It is neither.

Linda Brunk Smith

Kansas City

Who’s doing senators’ jobs?

Sen. Barack Obama remarked recently that he had been running for president for 15 months. So have the other two candidates, Sens. Clinton and McCain. It occurs to me that they are neglecting their day jobs.

I’m paying their salaries, and I am wondering what I am getting for my money. There is no reason electing a president should take so long, and it isn’t over yet.

Mary Anne White

Bonner Springs

Men’s gift registries

Reading Mike Hendricks’ column (4/28, Local) about men’s wedding gift registries brought back memories of our wedding in 1950. My Bride’s Book records that “a stag party for Bob was held at the home of Max Erath, where they watched television, played cards and gave Bob such things as a plane, tack hammer and tacks, mouse traps and other useful house tools. Refreshments of Dagwood sandwiches were served.”

Times were simpler then, but even then the men were not totally forgotten. My husband tells me that even after almost 58 years of marriage, some of those tools are still in use on his workbench.

Mary Louise Beltz

Lenexa

Let the parker beware

Regarding Lisa Archie’s frustration about the 10-hour meters downtown (4/27, Letters) and how she was “about five minutes past the eight hours” she paid for: I, too, have helped balance city budgets when I was too cheap to put a couple of extra coins in a parking meter.

The fact is, since U.S. Patent No. 2,118,318 was issued May 24, 1938, annoying slips of paper under windshield wipers have raised millions of dollars for cities, colleges and private parking facilities the world over for being “about five minutes late.”

So caveat emptor (let the buyer — of that coveted parking spot on the street — beware).

Clyde Waltermate

Raytown

Gun-free zone signs

E. Thomas McClanahan reports that a major concern of the Kansas Board of Regents is finding the best places on campuses to post signs prohibiting concealed weapons, presumably so that those bent on mass murder cannot fail to see them and be deterred (4/27, Opinion, “Gun bans can’t stop wackos bent on murder”).

I suggest every student be issued a small card with “Gun Free Zone” printed on it, which they can carry on their persons. If attacked by a gun-wielding psychopath, the students can merely show their cards which, I’m sure the Board of Regents must agree, will cause any potential mass murderer to spare them and leave the area.

In fact, if everybody carried such cards at shopping malls and other gun-free zones, unprovoked, random shooting attacks would be completely eliminated. It’s simply a matter of informing killers of the rules, isn’t it?

Bill Harkins

Blue Springs

Missouri abortion bill

Your editorial “New intrusions on a right for women” (4/23, Opinion) concerned my House Bill 1831. This legislation, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of 113 to 33, strengthens Missouri’s abortion informed consent law and makes it a crime to coerce a woman into having an abortion. The editorial alleges that the bill “defines coercion too broadly and could leave doctors reluctant to perform abortions …”

To the contrary, the bill is very specific as to what conduct is prohibited. It would be illegal to coerce a woman into having an abortion by:

•Illegal acts such as assault, battery, kidnapping or threatening with a deadly weapon,

•Stalking or perpetrating violence against a woman,

•Threatening to fire a woman, or

•Threatening to take away a woman’s scholarship unless she has an abortion.

Ideally such a law would be unnecessary. Unfortunately there are all too many examples of women being coerced into having abortions by the behavior above.

This bill is designed to protect women and ensure that they are acting freely and are fully informed should they choose to have an abortion. I look forward to the prompt action of the Missouri Senate and the governor to protect Missouri women.

Missouri Rep. Robert F. Onder

Lake St. Louis, Mo.

Religion and military

As I read the article “Lawsuit involves religious and military” (4/26, A-2), I realized that people who attempt to say that our Constitution is a Christian document have never read it. There is no hint of any kind of religion contained in it and, by reading it, one would have no idea what religion is practiced in the United States, if any.

Our founding fathers were geniuses. They knew the tyranny that nations wielded when they forced a particular belief on their citizens. Therefore they wrote that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

When Maj. Wellborn stated to the soldiers who were meeting as free thinkers that “they had disgraced those who had died for the Constitution,” he was precisely wrong. Those who have given their lives for the United States have done so that Pvt. Hall can hold meetings for free thinkers and atheists or for Buddhists or Lutherans or any other group.

Anne Asakura

Lee’s Summit

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