Conservation fund
If you enjoy clean water, fresh air, healthy lands, vibrant communities and a robust economy, you’ve benefited from the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Since 1965, the fund has used a small percentage of revenue from offshore oil and gas drilling to invest in recreation and working landscapes. The fund uses no taxpayer dollars. None.
Its investments have created or enhanced parks, working farms and forests, wildlife refuges, national forests, historic battlefields and cultural sites. They have protected some of our most important natural treasures, including the Ozark National Scenic Riverways.
Healthy natural places help safeguard our communities, and outdoor recreation contributes $725.5 billion annually to the economy, supporting 6.15 million jobs.
But the fund expires Wednesday. If Congress doesn’t reauthorize it, we can’t continue to make these investments in the places that make our communities whole and healthy. Congress needs to hear how much its constituents value the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
I hope my fellow Missourians will speak up and our representatives in Congress will act to renew and fully finance the fund.
Adam McLane
State Director
Nature Conservancy
in Missouri
St. Louis
Truth overstated
I think the Kansas City news media, as well as the streetcar promoters, are overstating the importance of having the new streetcar system up and running in time for March Madness.
It seems that these fans would concentrate on basketball at the Sprint Center and walk across the street for entertainment in the Power & Light District.
Steve Cunneen
Leawood
Same-sex issues
A conversation with one of my aunts about one of my children went from dating a member of the same sex to dating a member of the opposite sex. And the response I got was a chuckle and “Prayers have been answered.”
When I said it does not matter which sex my children are with, I was met with “Yes it does,” and I said it does not as long as they are happy. I said that being gay is not a choice and that people are born this way, and the answer was “No they were not born that way. It is a choice.”
I love my aunt, but in this she is dead wrong. I will always support my children in whatever they do and whoever they love as long as they are happy.
I think people need to realize that a book written more than 2,000 years ago may not be as relevant today as it was, say, 1,000 years ago. Times change, people change, cultures change and societies as a whole change, and yet the Bible never does nor can it.
Dwayne Eads
Lathrop, Mo.
Misunderstanding
In The Star’s Sept. 19 Voices of Faith column, a Christian minister answered the question, “Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?” by saying that “a non-Trinitarian ‘God’ describes a false god, leaving mankind with no hope of salvation.”
Muslims are not Trinitarian. But neither are Jews. What are we to make of many passages of Christian scripture that affirm that the Christian God is the God of the Jews? For example, in Matthew 22:32, Jesus himself makes this claim.
In Acts 3:13, Peter makes a similar claim. In Romans 4, Paul justifies Christianity in terms of the God of Abraham, who was not a Trinitarian. James 2:23 says that Abraham was God’s “friend.”
Apparently you can be God’s friend and not be a Trinitarian. Other citations would be redundant.
Although their understanding of God’s nature varies, Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Even among Christians, how God is perceived varies greatly.
Misunderstanding another’s faith can lead to much mischief, but friendships among folks of all faiths can bring surprising blessings.
Vern Barnet
Founder
Greater Kansas City
Interfaith Council
Kansas City
Trump’s bragging
Is everyone as tired as I am of listening to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump constantly bragging about his millions and good looks (yuck) and that he is so rich he doesn’t need money from donors?
I always thought in a democracy money should not buy elections. Moreover, money cannot buy intelligence or fitness for office.
Hopefully, voters will remember this and will not be swayed by Trump’s tiresome braggadocio and will recognize how incredibly uninformed and just plain stupid he appears to be.
Delores Mair
Kansas City
Medicaid expansion
My daughter recently received a bachelor’s of science in nursing from the University of New Mexico. She was among the first students to graduate under the New Mexico Nursing Education Consortium program.
It is a cutting-edge initiative of nursing-education programs, organizations and individuals throughout the state that is committed to improving efficiency and quality and building a nursing workforce in rural areas.
A similar nursing action coalition is underway in Kansas.
New Mexico Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, a strong proponent of the consortium, spoke at the College of Nursing convocation. Among other things, it was refreshing to hear a Republican tell how she agreed to expand Medicaid to an additional 250,000 New Mexico citizens and how this has improved access to quality health care.
Kansas should take a bow for following New Mexico’s lead toward innovative nursing education that will strengthen the state’s health-care delivery system. Now Republican Gov. Sam Brownback needs to follow the lead of fellow Republican Martinez and expand Medicaid in Kansas to an estimated 150,000 uninsured low-income and disabled residents.
Ron Fugate
Overland Park
Sensible Republicans
Responsible Republicans (and there are plenty) wring their hands and asking who can replace Rep. John Boehner as House speaker. Whoever takes the office will still have to contend with an extreme faction that does not want government to work.
Yet, the thinking goes, this belligerent bloc must be accommodated to secure the necessary all Republican majority to pass any legislation. This pre-supposes that the majority must be all Republican.
Actually, this “purity” demand has been a relatively recent congressional construct. For most of our history, House legislation has resulted from a bipartisan majority with smaller factions of both major parties left out in the cold. Well, out in the cold with a new canal or highway or whatever.
It is time for the GOP to reintroduce compromise. Their new speaker should not accommodate the belligerent bloc and instead reach out to Democrats and pass legislation heavily tilted in the GOP favor but preserving certain Democratic sacred cows.
GOP House members may shake in fear at such a suggestion. It may open them up to a primary attack by extremists.
It is time for them to show some guts. Fight the nuts by rallying that sensible Republican majority and have it show up and vote at primary time.
Tom Stroud
Overland Park
Park improvements
Kansas City needs to do something to improve drainage at the otherwise very nice Swope Park off-leash dog park.
A muddy lake has been festering there for more than a year, a problem exacerbated by this year’s rains.
Regulars at the dog park think the problem could be solved in an afternoon with a backhoe to create a drainage ditch and construction of an inexpensive footbridge over the ditch.
I and others who regularly use the park are concerned about the health and safety of our dogs, who run through the standing water, which is a breeding ground for bacteria and mosquitoes.
Anne S. Canfield
Kansas City
Comments