Letters: Readers discuss the sudoku, comic strips and the Gottlieb Planetarium
Faulty puzzles
I grow increasingly frustrated with The Star.
Time after time, I spend hours working on a sudoku with a five-star difficulty rating, only to find that I can’t solve it. That leads me to conclude those hard puzzles must be misprinted. So unfair! Please take greater care.
Also, bring back the Jumble for Kids. I liked that one.
Carl Weaver
Merriam
Funny business
I had to laugh at the Feb. 21 letter that found an “Argyle Sweater” cartoon to be in “egregiously bad taste.”
Imagine the irony of finding something funny in the Opinion section, yet complaining about a cartoon in the comic section. Jeez, does he not ever see “Judge’s Opinion” in the Opinion section? I think “Argyle Sweater” and “Judge’s Opinion” are the best cartoons in The Star.
This comes from a conservative Republican who enjoys cartoons even if they sometimes require a little thinking outside the box.
Jim Kerske
Pleasant Hill
Be protected
I am a concerned registered nurse. The flu virus plagues our community every fall and winter. This leads to missing work, hospitalizations and, in worst-case scenarios, death.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, getting an annual flu vaccine is the best way to protect yourself and your family from the flu. The more people get vaccinated, the more protection the community will have.
Although flu season starts in October, it can run well into the spring months, sometimes as late as May. If you have not received a flu vaccination, it is not too late.
The CDC recommends that anyone older than 6 months of age, especially those with weakened immune systems and pregnant women, should receive the vaccine every year. Many clinics offer the vaccine for little or no cost, depending on your insurance coverage or lack of coverage. One option is the Kansas City Health Department.
Please consider getting vaccinated. It could help keep you and all of Kansas City healthier.
Ashley Ellen
Bearkheimer
Kansas City
No noise
I would like to support the “Short Take” by Daniel Fink, M.D., in the Feb. 20 Opinion section (6A).
As a pediatric neurologist at Overland Park Regional Medical Center, I am concerned about young people’s exposure to excessively loud noise at movie theaters and rock concerts. Some organizers believe that louder is better, unaware of the permanent damage to hearing this may cause.
I am also averse to unnecessary noise in hospitals, such as squeaky cleaning and transport carts, loud messages paging doctors or announcing red and blue codes. Noise should be prohibited there as it is in any church or theater as a sign of respect for sick people.
Motorcycles, trucks and racing cars’ noise in our streets is also anathema to my ears. I wish police would ticket these careless offenders for polluting our environment and damaging our precious hearing organs.
Enrique Chaves, M.D.
Overland Park
Planetarium credit
Just to set the record straight, in 2005, Union Station officials were ready to dismantle Gottlieb Planetarium and make the area an entrance into Science City. If it weren’t for more than a thousand man hours and huge amounts of expertise donated by the Astronomical Society of Kansas City (of which I am a longtime member) and others, there would not be a planetarium.
Rick Henderson, Bentley Ousley, Dave Hudgins, Tim Kristal and Mitch Glaze of the society convinced management the planetarium could be rejuvenated. They learned its operation with no instructions, then wrote, created and produced shows for more than a year. Joe Wright and other Astronomical Society members volunteered as docents, presented solar exhibits, hosted Astronomy Days and loaned photos to engage the public.
The original Starscape Star Ball was repaired by Roger Gruenke and Rick Henderson until it totally died.
In 2010, the local volunteers contacted Australian Paul Bourke, inventor of the spherical mirror projection system, who referred them to Jack Dunn of Mueller Planetarium at the University of Nebraska. Together with software guru Tom Deffet, they created a spherical mirror projection system for the Gottlieb for $27,000.
It is far more than “a projection system that was pieced together,” as The Star’s story “‘World-class planetarium’ now beckons” said (Feb. 17, 4A).
It has been educating schoolchildren and the public for years.
Marcia Young
Kansas City
This story was originally published February 22, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss the sudoku, comic strips and the Gottlieb Planetarium."