Letters to the editor: Keep these Royals, Bush’s war record

Entertainment picks

I confess that, although I am a prolific letter writer, I am not a movie critic. I frequently use the word epiphany to describe my Kansas City Royals’ experience. I agree with Mark Twain who said, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”

Epiphany is also a noun I would use to describe the movie, “Bridge of Spies,” which tells the riveting story of the Cold War exchange of a Soviet spy for the captured U.S. pilot, Gary Powers. Compare this movie to “Truth,” a fabrication of an allegedly true story about Mary Mapes’ and Dan Rather’s feeble journalistic attempt to discredit President George W. Bush’s war record.

“Truth is stranger than fiction” only when the premise is a truthful one. The movie, “Truth,” does not fit this standard.

I’ll stick with the Royals and “Bridge of Spies” for my entertainment.

Steve Katz

Leawood

Keeping Royals

Congratulations are in order for building a team that played in the World Series the last two years and winning the title this year. The Kansas City Royals are the envy of other teams and fans across the country.

The players who were drafted or acquired are not only exceptional athletes but care about playing as a team, their fellow teammates and the fans. With limited exceptions, this is a team that should stay together for many years.

The great fans in Kansas City finally have a team that has played together for a few years and they can identify with. The players seem to love playing in Kansas City and in front of the great fans.

The unfortunate consequence of building a winning teams with great players is that other teams want them. Let’s see what the team’s general manager Dayton Moore and owner David Glass can do to keep the core of this team together for the future.

We need to keep players who have the opportunity to leave like Alex Gordon, Ben Zobrist, Chris Young and others. Please open your check book and do what you can to bring more World Series Championships to Kansas City.

The fans love this team.

Greg Hill

Spring Hill

Royals, memories

Losing a parent is difficult, but you move on and take what they gave as lessons for the rest of your life. My dad and I did not talk a lot, especially during my adolescent years.

However, summer evenings during the 1970s we would sit together on the front porch and listen to Royals on radio together. Often Fred White and Denny Matthews would announce the Royals won again, and we hated to hear them lose but we listened every night we could together.

The Royals finally got past those darn Yankees, and the Phillies series had our ears burning but in different cities in 1980. Even though the Royals lost to Philadelphia, I knew all that listening together paid off, and there were two very proud dad and son fans celebrating during Thanksgiving.

Dad died the next November, but I took my ears, eyes and thoughts of him with me to World Series Game 6 in 1985. I would still listen, watch or read about the Royals wherever I was every summer since.

Even though Dad and I did not talk a lot I know he heard me shout this November. “Royals Win! Royals Win!”

Forever Royal.

Stephen Schorn

Lenexa

Complaining Yoder

In his Nov. 2 email message to constituents, Rep. Kevin Yoder reported that he voted against the two-year federal budget because it “must be coupled with matching spending cuts….”

But he then decries the deal cutting $3 billion from the crop insurance program. It seems to me that he doth complain too much, or at least not consistently.

Jack Mayer

Mission

Land of immigrants

Recently, I ran into Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on TV. He is a rich egomaniac.

His take on immigration — build a wall on the southern U.S. border. The result is Mexico will sell many ladders and develop Olympic-level pole vaulters.

Mexican immigrants are not rapists or drug dealers as Trump has stated. Trump is playing to the baser instincts of naive persons and is creating undue hate.

The U.S. is a land of immigrants. We Americans are all descendants of immigrants, except for American Indians.

Many Mexican immigrants have left their country because the North American Free Trade Agreement destroyed the Mexican economy. The immigrants are the persons repairing your roofs, mowing your lawns and doing the work Americans don't want to do.

Let's give them a path to citizenship.

Ascension Hernandez

Shawnee

GOP buck-passing

Overland Park Republican State Sen. Jim Denning was quoted in a Nov 3 article, “Tax receipts for Kansas miss mark again,” about continuing revenue problems in Kansas as saying, Brownback “now owns the tax plan, and will have figure out how to fill the hole.”

As I recall, Denning voted for the plan so that makes him an owner as well. Even worse, Denning is afraid to propose a bill repealing the business cuts because Brownback threatens a veto.

How do these clowns get elected?

Steve Weeks

Overland Park

Republican cop-out

It seems Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson may be missing the point. The debates are primarily for the benefit of the voting public, not the candidates.

This is our only real means of vetting the candidates. In order to make an informed decision we need to know what a candidate knows (or does not know), what his/her policies are (whether beneficial or detrimental, workable or impractical).

If they look (or feel) like a deer in the headlights, we need to know now, not after the election. Providing debate questions prior to the debates is a disservice to the public, even if it serves a given candidate.

Our world is fast-moving and complex. Few are truly qualified for the job of president of the United States of America.

Dawn Elliott

Overland Park

This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 4:50 PM with the headline "Letters to the editor: Keep these Royals, Bush’s war record."