816 North Letters: Readers discuss a promising young scientist, taking a knee and Burns & Mac
Science standout
I want to highlight a good friend of mine, Margarita Araiza. She wrote a research paper with two other friends, and it was accepted, reviewed and published in the scientific journal, The Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology.
Their highlighted work focused on a quantitative study of glossopterids, an extinct seed plant.
These three smart young women are dedicated to promoting the new face of science that is sparking in the younger generation. They all attend Park University in Parkville.
Margarita is a humble person and never meant to seek glory or recognition. She always seeks out knowledge.
For a 22-year-old to receive so high an honor as to have her research published is a great accomplishment. I ask The Star to help me recognize that a Kansas Citian can accomplish great things.
Ali Zantout
Kansas City
Honor troops
In America, we have many freedoms. But these freedoms are not rights. They are privileges.
Everyday there are men and women fighting for our country. They are risking their own lives so that we can live the lives we do.
We hear or sing the national anthem mostly at sporting events, but it is also played at flag raisings. The national anthem honors our country, our flag and our troops fighting for us.
When football players or any athletes take a knee, they are paying disrespect to the risk that troops take every day for those athletes to get the privilege to play their sports. It has gotten so serious that Liberty High School keeps the players in the locker room before football games so no one can kneel.
People need to learn to respect the national anthem and our flag. If someone wants to protest, I believe it should be done in a more respectful manner and not during the national anthem. All that does is cause attention to them and not to our country and the troops fighting for us.
Take a stand and respect our troops.
Haley Bauman
Kansas City
We’re the future
I’m 17 years old. I’m a junior in high school. Did you stop reading? I’m sure it would be easy to dismiss my opinions because of my “immaturity” and “naivety,” but why?
The stereotype that high schoolers don’t care about politics is completely ludicrous. I am a member of the LHS Young Democrats and Diversity Council, a fascinated AP government student, a prospective political journalist and an avid news follower. Much of my time is spent scrolling through MSNBC.
I am so involved and have learned so much, yet opinions and ideas from teenagers like me are still discarded. I think we’re forgetting one thing: We teenagers are the ones who will have to clean up the American mess that was left for us.
We younger people will eventually take over all government positions. We have some pretty big jobs to do. We have to solve issues like gun control, immigration and climate change, and we have to do it quickly. If we take too long, the parties might annihilate each other, providing they don’t self-destruct first.
Now is the time for us teenagers to open our eyes, pay attention, start learning and make a change for the better.
Joseph O’Kelly
Liberty
KCI leadership
If the single-terminal proposal for Kansas City International Airport is the right thing to do — and the majority of Kansas City voters think it is — then we owe a great debt of gratitude to local engineering firm Burns & McDonnell.
There was virtually no public support for this project until Burns & McDonnell made its viable proposal, which did not require any public debt.
The company single-handedly proved the concept to us by being willing to take on the financing itself. I, for one, am sorry our thanks have to be enough this time.
Arthur Freeland
Independence
Climate action
Nearly half the carbon dioxide humanity emits by burning fossil fuels dissolves into the oceans, making them more acidic every passing year. The increase in ocean acidity is already endangering numerous species. Many — coral, phytoplankton and pteropods — are the foundations of the food chains that support the larger, more visible and familiar animals, such as whales, dolphins, tuna and salmon.
Shellfish are also suffering, because the acids inhibit growth of the defining and vital calcium structures.
Unless we live up to the Paris agreement on climate change by rapidly reducing our carbon dioxide emissions, rising ocean acidity will kill all the corals and countless other creatures of the sea by the end of this century and the present ocean ecosystems will collapse. We are forewarned.
How do we want our generation of humans to be remembered? As the uncaring ones who chose not to act, responsible for mass extinction in the oceans? Or as the heroes who placed the life of the planet ahead of our own conceits?
We vote every day with our actions, or lack thereof. Please tell your elected representatives that you support the Paris agreement and vote accordingly.
Stephen Melton
Citizens’ Climate Lobby
Parkville
This story was originally published November 21, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "816 North Letters: Readers discuss a promising young scientist, taking a knee and Burns & Mac."