Letters: Readers discuss holding Ted Kennedy accountable, dreadlocks and stingy employers
Upstanding target
I am curious: After President Donald Trump’s physical earlier this year, his doctor never mentioned anything about the bone spurs that apparently let him avoid military service (ha ha). What a coward.
And yet this disreputable man has the audacity to make disparaging remarks about special counsel Robert Mueller, who served honorably in the military.
Delores Mair
Kansas City
No myths here
In John Kass’ column on the movie “Chappaquiddick,” he wrote, “America has been spoon-fed the ‘Camelot’ saga of the Kennedys and their tragedies by an adoring media for decades.” (April 12, 15A, “‘Chappaquiddick’ shows the power of political mythmaking”)
The notion that the media gave Ted Kennedy a break is nonsense. I read the first Time magazine article on the accident when it appeared. It clearly stated that parts of Kennedy’s account, such as his reason for being on the bridge he drove off, were unbelievable and his reason for waiting so long to contact the police, if true, would make him a poor choice for president.
I was 10 when that article was published. Kass was 13. Did the Kennedys keep him from reading it?
Not to be outdone, Kass made some unbelievable assertions himself, including “(Mary Jo) Kopechne was trapped in the black Oldsmobile in the water, gasping in an air bubble in the submerged car, saying the Lord’s Prayer, suffocating alone.” If she was alone, how do we know what she said?
If you think I’m being hard on Kass now, wait until after he’s dead.
Robert O’Rourke
Leavenworth
An easy equation
It seems that people too often complicate simple things. The April 9 story, “Teen’s dreadlocks cost him job; that’s legal, but is it right?” was about a person with dreadlocks who wanted a job with a company that deals with the public but doesn’t allow its employees to wear their hair in long dreadlocks. (1A)
The simple solution is if you want a job more than the dreadlocks, you would cut the dreadlocks. If the company needs the help enough, it would change the rules of employment and allow the dreadlocks.
The company probably didn’t need the help that much. Compassion is good, but unbridled compassion is counterproductive.
Don L. Heath
Kansas City
No deadbeats
I’m glad to see the Kansas Department for Children and Families’ new initiative to post a “most wanted” list of child support evaders. (April 12, 4A, “Kansas posts mug shots of child support ‘evaders’”) It is a creative idea, and I hope many delinquent parents will be found by the program.
I would like to propose that the Department of Labor create a similar page listing the businesses with the highest number of full-time employees whose wages are so low that they qualify for public assistance.
Much as delinquent parents shift child support to taxpayers, large businesses paying low wages take advantage of welfare programs to subsidize their labor costs. Although these businesses are not breaking any laws, perhaps a website like this would encourage them to increase employee pay.
If this is enacted, employees would win because they no longer would have to deal with the welfare system to make ends meet. Businesses would win because their employees would be happier and more productive. Finally, taxpayers would win because the cost of welfare would be reduced.
It’s win, win, win.
Richard Pund
Overland Park
Better than Paseo
As a longtime resident of a neighborhood bordering The Paseo, I have decidedly mixed feelings about renaming the boulevard after Martin Luther King Jr.
In “Boss-Busters and Sin Hounds: Kansas City and Its Star,” Harry Haskell wrote: “Racial segregation … magnified the tendency of the parks-and-boulevards system to ghettoize African Americans on the city’s east side. … (Park Board president August) Meyer and (landscape architect George) Kessler never used the word race, but racial zoning was a natural consequence of their stated intention to establish, once and for all, the best and most valuable residential property in the city.”
In addition to the goal of creating a beautiful city, our magnificent and historic boulevard system was built with the implicit intention of institutionalizing racial segregation and dispersing poor neighborhoods. I fear that by renaming the main artery of this system after King, we would be further cementing the concept of a racial dividing line.
Instead, I favor conferring the honor on a numbered street, such as 39th Street, which would symbolize a bridge between racially and economically diverse areas.
Given Kansas City’s unfortunate tendency to name things after still-living politicians, perhaps Congressman Emanuel Cleaver would be willing to give up his eponymous boulevard.
Sam Bennett
Kansas City
This story was originally published April 15, 2018 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss holding Ted Kennedy accountable, dreadlocks and stingy employers."