Readers share views on car charging, Oscars, tweets
Car recharging cost
We are Kansas City Power & Light Co. customers 50 miles from Kansas City, and not one of the new electric car plug-in stations will be installed here. Not many of us can afford a 40-grand car.
So why should we pay for your plug-ins? Also, you can’t rely on constant flow of electricity here.
Robert A. Stomoly
Lexington, Mo.
Diversity in Oscars
What a dynamic Oscars presentation we just had. Winners represented white, black and brown persons, the aged, the young, veterans, homosexuals and the mentally ill and physically disabled.
Kudos to the Academy, whose selections were outstanding and very much reflective of the diversity that is American society.
Maria Coughlin
Kansas City
Unbelievable tweets
Unacquainted though I am with the practice of tweeting, I was astounded to my marrow to learn of the tweets recently making the rounds regarding Sir Paul McCartney, formerly with the Beatles, and his recent collaboration with contemporary musician Kanye West.
I’ve heard (via other, more comprehensible media) that some people, ostensibly young ones, are unacquainted with McCartney and are lauding Mr. West for his “discovery” and commenting with thanks to him that McCartney will now “have a career.”
Laura Jackson-Radford
Warrensburg, Mo.
Homeland Security
To the people who suggest we get rid of the Department of Homeland Security: Which services would you like to cut?
▪ Customs and border protection: Allow any number of illegal immigrants, criminals and terrorists to enter our country unhindered. Allow the smuggling of dangerous weapons, deadly pathogens, invasive organisms and all types of counterfeit goods.
▪ Coast security: Forget rescues at sea and maritime customs protection. Disable aids to navigation, making coastal navigation impossible.
▪ Transportation security: Play Russian roulette every time you fly or take any public transportation.
▪ Citizenship and immigration service: Shut out all legal immigrants and foreign tourists and send them home today.
▪ Secret Service: Invite a flood of counterfeit money from North Korea.
▪ FEMA: No federal response to large-scale disasters, natural or otherwise.
▪ Office of Infrastructure Protection: Invite saboteurs to damage our power, water and highway systems.
There are plenty of criminals, haters of America and nut jobs to keep these agencies busy around the clock.
If we want to live in a safe, secure environment, we need to pay for it.
Jim Meyer
Lenexa
Kansas gun rules
This is beyond belief, even for Kansas (2-26, A1, “Kansas may ease conceal gun law”). No permit, no safety training, no background check.
Does this mean I can buy my 11-year-old grandson a Colt .45 for his birthday? I can testify that he has more sense than the majority of the leaders in the Kansas Senate and the House combined.
I have been roaming this earth for 88 years in various parts of this country and abroad and never once have I felt the need to carry a gun. Never once have I felt that my life was in danger to the point that I wished I had a gun for protection.
Will Missouri have to establish checkpoints to ensure that these demented people keep their weapons in Kansas, or will their cockeyed rules follow them?
God help us.
St. Louis is beginning to look a lot more inviting.
Grace Borgmeyer
Kansas City
Kansas poverty panel
Ha! Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is creating a task force to find ways to decrease poverty? Talk about a waste of everyone’s time and effort.
It would be better if he put together a committee to find ways to better serve the Koch brothers. That at least would be something the governor actually does believe in.
Mike Alley
Lenexa
Adjunct staff abuse
I was pleased to read the Feb. 24 article, “Adjunct faculty looks to unionize,” regarding the excessive use and abuse of part-time faculty throughout colleges and universities in our region, a pattern that is national as well as local. I can attest to its accuracy.
For many years, I was one of the fortunate full-time faculty. As a department chair, I recruited and worked with many excellent part-time colleagues. Indeed, I could never have run my department without them.
But before that I spent eight years teaching as an adjunct all over the area. One semester, while pregnant, I taught at three different campuses.
As an undergraduate and graduate student in the late 1960s and 1970s at two area schools, I had no adjunct instructors.
I hope that a follow-up article will examine the extraordinary rise in the percentage of college administrators in recent years.
In my opinion, boards of trustees and university administrators, here and across the country, have decided to exploit highly qualified professional educators and rest an increasing percentage of the mission of their institutions’ teaching on their shoulders.
Donna Bachmann
Professor emerita
of fine art, retired
Park University
Roeland Park
Stop school bullying
Instead of threatening to withhold needed school funding as a reaction to the horrific beating of 74-pound Blake Kitchen by his 200-pound assailant, Republican Sen. Kurt Schaefer, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, should be asking school administrators what they need to mount effective anti-bullying programs and stand ready to fund those programs (2-26, A1, “Lawmakers warn schools: Stop bullies or lose funding”).
The knee-jerk punitive approach Schaefer and Sen. Ryan Silvey have proposed would penalize all the children at the school. What is needed is an energetic response, including quick intervention, counseling and increased adult presence and supervision in places where students congregate and move about freely.
Let’s not follow Kansas down the path of financial cuts in needed services as a panacea for all public problems.
Albert de Zutter
Kansas City
Men’s right attire
Men’s attire has finally caught up with the frippery displayed on the runways of women’s high fashion.
Suit pants now buckle about halfway between a guy’s navel and his crotch. Suit coats button about halfway up a man’s chest so that the bottom of his tie sticks out around his belt buckle.
The result is that businessmen now look as if they are wearing clothing that is several sizes too small. No wonder they look embarrassed when they are out in public.
Let’s hear it for the designers as they foist a whole new ensemble on the paying public.
Blue jeans anyone?
Larry Kauffman
Kansas City
Bouncing checks
We need a contest to guess the date that Kansas’ checks will be returned as a result of insufficient funds. The most ironic date would be April 1.
However, rather than solve the revenue crisis this fiscal year, ending June 30, the Kansas Legislature will most likely deplete the treasury by transferring funds from all dedicated budgets to the general budget.
By digging the budget deficit hole even deeper by robbing reserves, legislators will probably make the Kansas insolvency a reality when the next fiscal year begins July 1.
Consequently, Gov. Sam Brownback will be vilified as the economic idiot of Kansas.
It’s amazing that the same legislators who support Brownback’s scheme to decrease the progressive income tax for the ultra-wealthy are eager to increase the regressive sales taxes, property taxes and user fees, which would have the greatest effect on the least wealthy.
Ultimately, the responsibility rests on those of us who either don’t register to vote or fail to vote. As a result, the ultra-wealthy can purchase favorable legislation through their millions in contributions to campaigns of legislators and governors.
Kansas is the perfect example of the power of the ultra-wealthy.
Holly John Blythe
Shawnee
This story was originally published March 2, 2015 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Readers share views on car charging, Oscars, tweets."