Letters: Royals broadcasts, Joco commissioners’ vision, Fiorina treatment

Royals broadcasts

Like so many in our area, I have become a devout Kansas City Royals fan. I watch almost every game on television, which has become a real luxury.

Thank you, Fox Midwest for giving us the ability to watch every game. And, the coverage has been excellent, including the announcers. My complaint is that the commercials are tiresome and repetitious.

I realize that the commercials are what allows you to bring every game to us. I am wearing out the mute button on my remote for the frequently broadcast commercials.

There are actually several items and places I might boycott as the result of being inundated by the commercials. I am certain that there is both an art and a science to creating effective commercials.

Neither is not being used in this instance.

Steve Katz

Leawood

Visionary thinking

Thank heavens for our rational and visionary-thinking Johnson County commissioners. They realize that the future enhancements and maintenance for our community will need an additional revenue source because of the loss of the mortgage registration fee (thanks to our fumbling Kansas Legislature).

We moved to Overland Park for retirement 14 years ago and so much enjoy the many amenities that decades of sensible, responsible and farsighted governing has brought us.

We are happy to pay it forward to keep a great community thriving for the next generation.

Stefan Carlgren

Overland Park

War-time rhetoric

There is a maxim that war is the best teacher of war. As none of the “hard charging,” “no compromises,” “get tough on Russia, China, Iran, Cuba and Mexico” GOP White House hopefuls has either been in the military or has limited experiences, it might behoove them to back off from the “macho” rhetoric.

I do not think anyone would want one of them as a wartime president. President George H.W. Bush was the last to have such credentials.

You may not like the Democratic candidates or their politics, but at least they are not looking for their own personal war to bolster their egos.

John Nelles

Shawnee

Fiorina treated unfairly

CNN had chosen to allow top Republicans with polling numbers from the three weeks prior of the first debate at Fox News to have the privilege of entering their debate on Sept. 16 at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley.

CNN had unfairly taken polling numbers before the debate to keep Carly Fiorina off the center stage. That appears to have changed (9-2, A10, “CNN shift may put Fiorina in GOP debate”).

I am not sure Ms. Fiorina is my first choice but I feel she can give Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton a run for her money.

I would like, as many others, to hear Fiorina's voice. It is my opinion that in a woman-to-woman faceoff, Carly Fiorina could be the Republican Party’s shining star.

Kathleen Moorman

Leawood

Glut of firearms

A psychiatric study of gun violence and suicide published in the medical journal, “Annals of Epidemiology,” concluded that most gun-related violent behavior is due to factors other than mental illness. While acknowledging that psychiatric disorders, such as depression, are strongly implicated in suicide, which accounts for more than half of gun fatalities, it points to behavioral risk factors shared by both the mentally ill and and those who are not as predictors of gun violence.

The article said temporary access to guns should be barred for persons convicted of violent misdemeanors, those subjected to temporary domestic violence restraining orders, or individuals convicted of two or more DUIs or misdemeanor crimes involving controlled substances.

But how does society prevent access to guns by this population, especially guns obtained illegally, when there are more than 300 million firearms in America and more than 8 million manufactured or imported annually into the United States? Lawmakers continue to kowtow to the National Rife Association in lieu of implementing sensible regulatory approaches to reducing gun-related violence in America. In the meantime, gun-related deaths will continue to escalate aided by easy access to a galloping glut of domestic armaments.

Ron Fugate

Overland Park

Making usable water

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. Words from an old movie, referring to booze, not drinkable water. We in the United States are surrounded by oceans.

Yes, it is difficult and expensive to make fresh water from the seas. Why not use nature to help change some otherwise arid areas?

Why not pipe seawater to manmade lakes in our deserts, allow natural evaporation to take its course, and reap a benefit from nature when this evaporated water returns as rain. Electricity from wind-powered generators could be the power source?

It always seems to rain a lot around large lakes. This type of project could prove useful in many ways — putting people to work, helping drought areas and providing undrinkable water to areas with no water.

That’s water that can at least then be purified for human use. Or we could just point fingers, complain and do business as usual. In other words, nothing.

Tom Spath

Lenexa

This story was originally published September 8, 2015 at 5:58 PM with the headline "Letters: Royals broadcasts, Joco commissioners’ vision, Fiorina treatment."