Letters: Readers discuss life’s greatest joy, editorial cartoons, minimum wage, illegal voting
Joy of others
I recently lost my job after working at the same place for almost 30 years. Looking for work at 66 years of age became my new full-time employment.
After three weeks and probably 75 online applications with almost no responses, I believe I have learned the true value of being a productive member of society.
To touch someone’s life, to help a longtime customer and friend, to have the honor of attending his or her funeral — that was my life’s greatest joy.
Penny Carminucci
Kansas City
Unfunny cartoons
I read the “Off the Easel” and “Judge’s Opinion” cartoons every day. But since the election, they have not been funny.
This is a time to help unify, not to keep harping on Donald Trump.
Please move on.
Judy Bishop
Lee’s Summit
Accept reality
A recent letter writer sought to explain President-elect Donald Trump’s victory by stating, in part: “Down-home blue-collar folks were tired of the left insisting we must change to their worldview of multiculturalism, a borderless world and tolerance for those who hate us.”
Well, “down-home blue collar folks” are going to have to wake up and realize it’s a multicultural world where borders are being lowered by commerce and by technology.
We can’t control “them.” We must be able to deal from a stance of tolerance.
The world has changed. Neither Donald Trump nor any other president can wall us off from the world and expect us to prosper.
John A. Chilcoat
Kansas City
Airport reference
I read that Newark’s three-terminal airport is a big success. Let’s look at it more closely.
Elizabeth Cook
Shawnee
Fines cut too deep
Kansas City police arrested about 100 low-wage workers and protesters for blocking a street as part of the demonstration to bring attention to the need for fair wages (11-30, A13, “Kansas City protesters call for higher wages”).
Police department employees benefit from being unionized. I wonder if some of them logged overtime hours detaining and processing these demonstrators.
The city court should waive any fines levied against these demonstrators, because they only worsen the financial situation the protesters are trying to draw attention to. These workers do not have the benefit of government wages and pensions, nor the protection of a union as the municipal employees and police do.
Public demonstration is the only recourse in their fight for fair wages, and punishing them with fines is downright shameful.
Not one person in the city government or the police department stands to lose a thing if these fines aren’t levied, but those demonstrators stand to lose quite a bit if they are.
John LaPointe
Navarre
Kansas City
Word is deceptive
One would think that editors at The Star would have some idea about what’s going on right under their noses, but apparently not.
A Nov. 30 guest column by Jeremy Cady listed him as “state director of Americans for Prosperity, a right-leaning grass-roots organization.”
This organization is most certainly not “grass-roots.”
It was founded and is funded by Charles and David Koch of Wichita-based Koch Industries. Although the Kochs claim not to control AFP’s propaganda, they have funded it at levels that would astound most of us “grass-roots” folks.
Mr. Cady advocates taking a “hard look” at programs such as Social Security, which he claims are “unsustainable.”
If Missourians would like to see Social Security and Medicare go away, they might want to support Mr. Cady’s agenda for Sen. Roy Blunt.
I suggest, however, that Blunt may want to fight to preserve Social Security and Medicare and to find ways for all Missourians to receive medical treatment when they need it.
The Koch brothers don’t need that kind of agenda, but most Missourians do.
Bruce Lindgren
Independence
Why no proof?
So Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach agrees with president-elect Donald Trump about rampant fraudulent voting in the presidential election (12-1, A9, “Kobach agrees with Trump that ‘millions’ voted illegally”).
Kobach has also claimed voter fraud is widespread in Kansas, but he has found and prosecuted fewer than half a dozen cases.
Is it because Kobach is incompetent, or is it because there is absolutely no evidence or proof that there is the voter fraud that he and Trump claims?
Garry Helm
Blue Springs
This story was originally published December 2, 2016 at 6:24 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss life’s greatest joy, editorial cartoons, minimum wage, illegal voting."