LETTERS 07/24/08

Cars and bikes a dangerous mix

Let’s think about what the slogan “Share the Road” means. You are on a bicycle cruising down a busy street. Cars are now “sharing the road” with you. You are moving slower than the prevailing traffic, and every car behind you is going to negotiate the act of passing you. The lanes are narrow and traffic is heavy in places like Ward Parkway.

When riding the bicycle, you are trusting that every one of those drivers is up to that task physically and mentally. Is the driver about to pass you young and inexperienced? Elderly with slow reactions and questionable vision? Anxious? Depressed? Fatigued? Angry? On a cell phone? Under the influence of drugs or alcohol?

When a bicycle rider is so defenseless, why would anyone want to share the road with all those rude, selfish, discourteous and inattentive drivers?

I have friends who ride many miles and ride often. I’m not against riding bikes. I’m just pointing out how dangerous it is sharing the road with vehicles that have speeds so fundamentally different.

When I was riding a bike in my younger days, I rode on the sidewalks, often with no problems, but I guess things are different now.

Mark Rost

Shawnee

I find it interesting that the economic stimulus package approved by Congress excluded those individuals from the government larder who make more than $75,000 a year and couples whose combined income exceeds $150,000 a year.

At one time we, as American citizens, were one piece of fabric. Today we are taking this same fabric and tearing it to shreds with federal, state and local government programs like special endowments, grants, welfare, child care, TIFs, special education, health care, food stamps, entitlements, farm subsidies, government bailouts, economic stimulus packages and affirmative action.

Into how many pieces can the fabric of America be torn until it simply becomes a rag?

In today’s society one can be sent to jail for sexual, racial, age or religious discrimination. However, if you make too much money, economic discrimination is considered legal, openly encouraged and sanctioned at all levels of government.

Tell me, where is the justice and fair treatment in economic discrimination?

Paul Styers

Overland Park

The paper tells me retirees are still not saving enough (7/17, A1, “ ‘Near retirees’ warned of need to be frugal; About 75% of those 58 to 65 will outlive their savings unless they live leaner now, a study says”). I’m retired. I didn’t save enough, but it’s my own fault.

I spent most of my money on an expensive hobby. I raised children.

Joanne Soraya

Platte City

It seems strange that the Democrats keep blaming the Bush administration for the oil shortage. The Democrats won’t let the companies drill where the oil is found. They keep saying the oil companies have 68 million acres to drill on. This is only good if there is oil there. They lease land and hope there is oil. The Democrats have blocked legislation to allow new refineries to be built. They keep blaming the Bush administration.

If they would get up and do something, we wouldn’t have this problem at all.

Democrats have been in control of Congress for almost two years and have done nothing to solve the energy crisis. If they get into the White House, what will change? Barack Obama is a senator now. How will energy magically become his top priority if elected?

Democrats should worry about cleaning up their act before pointing fingers at the other side of the aisle.

Richard Minear

Kansas City, Kan.

Have we forgotten that it was former Sen. Phil Gramm (Republican) who introduced legislation back when he was in Washington that included the “Enron loophole” deregulation (passed by a Republican Congress), which allowed speculators to make large gains on the price of oil and drive up our cost?

Also, from the very outset, the Bush administration (Republican) allowed the petroleum companies and Dick Cheney (Republican) to write the energy policy.

Paul Budd

Sugar Creek

Uncle! OK, KCATA, I give up. I have tried on multiple occasions to do the right thing by riding the bus on weekend outings.

My family and I arrive at the stop right before the scheduled arrival. We use KCATA’s own schedule or Google Transit to determine the time. And far too often, we are left waiting as the bus comes 20 or 30 minutes later. And we take only the MAX line.

I have ridden similar rapid express lines in Los Angeles, and their appeal is that they run often and run regularly. MAX currently does neither.

I could deal with the dearth of buses if they would arrive on time. Instead, we have to spend an unplanned half-hour keeping our 3-year-old from darting into traffic and distracting her from the occasional near-fisticuffs at the stops.

I sympathize with riders who need to transfer to and from local lines. And woe to the citizen who relies solely on KCATA for transportation.

If light rail means regular service, then the people of Kansas City should continue their support for such a system. As it is, KCATA has lost a once-enthusiastic recreational bus rider until service improves.

Joshua Rabinowitz

Kansas City

Last week, I picked up my grandson and his friends after sports camp at Indian Hills Middle School. I arrived a little after dismissal time, and all the spaces in the large circle drive were taken.

I parked by the street and walked to the school to sit on a bench by the door. As I waited about 15 minutes, I observed all the cars, mostly SUVs, with the drivers sitting inside with the motors idling and the air conditioning on.

I was dismayed and shocked to see that to so many, it makes no difference how much gas costs or how they are contributing to air pollution.

I guess they either don’t get it or don’t care.

Delia Tankard

Leawood

So what would an Obama presidency look like? He has stated that as president he would sign the Freedom of Choice Act into law. What would FOCA do? It would sweep away hundreds of state laws that protect women, parents, children and health-care workers, while forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for millions of abortions.

It would overturn commonsense laws like parental notification, conscience protections, abortion waiting periods, informed consent and regulations for women’s health.

Even more alarming, Sen. Obama, as an Illinois state senator, supported the partial-birth abortion procedure and opposed Born Alive legislation that would have protected those who survived abortion.

On the Illinois Senate floor, Obama was the only senator to speak against the Born Alive legislation, refusing even to concede that these babies, fully outside their mother’s wombs, with beating hearts and heaving lungs, were in fact “persons.” A federal Born Alive Infants Protection Act was approved by unanimous consent in the U.S. Senate six years ago.

Honestly, Americans, are these examples of a broken moral compass the kind of “change” we want to install in the White House?

Glenn Gordon

Liberty

Sen. John McCain does his level best to tout his experience and subsequent understanding and insight into foreign affairs. However, in 2003, while speaking in front of the Council on Foreign Relations, Sen. McCain said he was more concerned with Iraq and that we could “muddle through in Afghanistan” without a large number of forces. That foresight was poor, and his judgment was disturbing.

The result of “muddling through” Afghanistan is a serious and deadly resurgence of the Taliban. Al-Qaida is growing stronger, and its leadership is still at large, plotting against our troops and home soil. Now our commanders are faced with growing violence and the serious need for more troops from an already stressed military.

With such inaccurate foresight and judgment, I question whether we should consider “muddling through” four years with John McCain.

Ken Strange

Kansas City

The John Sherffius cartoon (7/16, Opinion) depicting the Confederate flag at half staff with the caption “Remembering Jesse Helms” is way off base.

Although I disagreed with Helms on most everything he stood for and said, it has nothing to do with the meaning of the Confederate flag that flew during the Civil War. And, by the way, I am not Southern by birth.

Meaningful symbols of history may, while passing down through generations, become destroyed and distorted until they take on a meaning so different and more evil than the original meaning of that symbol. One of these symbols is the Confederate flag. I suggest Sherffius take a history lesson.

S.R. Shaffer

Overland Park

How disrespectful! The gorgeous, newly renovated Bloch Cancer Survivors Park at 47th Street and Roanoke is slowly being destroyed. I’ve watched, every night, from my apartment window as skateboarders use it for their practice.

I recently visited the park, and the wooden benches are mangled and starting to shred.

We need signs and security personnel to enforce regulations to preserve one of the loveliest memorial parks in Kansas City.

Susan Goldenberg

Kansas City

I attended Cirque du Soleil at the Sprint Center last Thursday night. Besides loving the event, we were completely impressed with how Sprint Center guest services handled my 80-year-old mother and her friend.

With one call to guest services on Wednesday, there were two wheelchairs waiting at the disabled ramp entrance to transport my mother and her friend to our seats on the lower level. My husband and I were able to park without any worries.

After the show was over, the two Sprint guest services employees picked my mother and her friend up from their seats and took them to meet our car at the curb. It allowed all of us to enjoy the wonderful show. All of the employees we encountered were professional and cheerful.

We are going to certainly attend more events at the Sprint Center, knowing how accommodating they can be to the elderly. Truly impressive!

Jo Ann Mendenhall

Olathe

I really enjoyed the wonderful article about Custer State Park (7/20, Go). However, I feel compelled to point out that it is a travesty of justice for this land to be named after a man who was an egocentric fool and an anathema to native people, and who was rightfully defeated in the battle of Little Bighorn.

That park should be named after the joint tribal efforts that came together to get rid of that pest, or simply the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Merlene Bishop

Lee’s Summit

Maintaining a balance of power is vital to the life and effectiveness of large institutions such as the Kansas City Missouri School District. Yet the district administrators apparently are seeking to destroy that balance by unilaterally voiding the contract with the teachers’ union (7/10, Local, “Superintendent search faces two-week delay; Board has questions about selection process, while teachers clamor for a new contract”).

Teachers unions arose in the first place because teachers’ professional and civil rights needed protection from capricious, dictatorial administrators. Do we really want to go back to the dark ages?

If the district imposes a contract on the union, they will wipe out teachers’ rights with one stroke. Cronyism and favoritism will run rampant in a district where lack of trust is endemic.

The result will be a brain drain such as the district has never seen. Over the years, teachers with a vision for students have been outmaneuvered in a variety of ways. This move will trump them all.

Marla Unruh

Kansas City