Letters: Readers discuss A new KCI terminal, the Civil War and Cleaver on Trump
Fix, don’t replace
Mayor Sly James’ Wednesday town hall about Kansas City International Airport was a joke and an absolute hour of misinformation — in front of a whopping crowd of 60.
James clearly believes his own propaganda. You would think that after five years of dealing with this issue he would be more informed.
Renovating KCI’s existing gates would create jobs without destroying the golden goose. The Aviation Department has not recruited any significant new airlines or service, and there is an existing surplus of gates and a flight capacity that trumps many airports.
Then I ask the voters: How will a new $1 billion single terminal — which would significantly increases airlines’ costs, increase ticket costs and reduce the number of gates — make KCI a better airport or a better traveler experience?
Don Hensley
Kansas City
No confusion
I don’t think Kansas Citians are as confused about the “ongoing struggle over a new terminal at Kansas City International Airport” as your Aug. 17 editorial says. (14A, “What the City Council should do next in the airport debate”)
I think they know exactly what’s going on: We’ve got a bunch of two-bit politicians making a billion-dollar decision.
David Overman
Kansas City
Whom to honor?
Let’s talk about history. My family’s history includes my great-great-grandfather, John Conner, who fought for the Union and was wounded. My country’s history includes a failed attempt by certain states to secede and destroy the Union, fighting many bloody battles that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
My country’s history includes the fact that only the intervention by U.S. Grant to save a fellow soldier prevented Robert E. Lee from being tried for treason. Jefferson Davis was, in fact, imprisoned when the Civil War ended.
Who most deserves to be memorialized? The people who protected and maintained the Union or those who tired to tear it apart?
Those Union soldiers have few memorials. And the slaves who helped build this country have even fewer.
I have always wondered why the United States has so many memorials to people whose goal was to destroy it.
The true memorial to those who fought or were enslaved is that this imperfect union still endures more than 150 years later.
Mary Marxsen
Kansas City
‘A good Nazi’
I’m very disappointed in Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s remarks in Wednesday’s Star. (15A, “Rep. Cleaver on Trump’s remarks: ‘I have never, ever in my life seen a good Nazi’”)
I offer as a counter one Wernher Von Braun, the famous rocket scientist who was a card-carrying member of the Nazi party. These broad-brush generalizations are not in the least helpful.
Not everyone in the Charlottesville, Va., Unite the Right group was a white supremacist, and Cleaver knows that — just as not everyone in the other group was involved in the counter-protest civil disobedience.
When will our representatives in Washington put partisanship away and return statesmanship and the people’s good to their work?
Fomenting divisions between us instead of commonality among us does not help bring us together one bit.
John Rexford
Independence
The reasons
There were groups with two different intentions for going to last weekend’s rally in Charlottesville, Va.:
▪ Those intending to spread violence and hate;
▪ Those intending to bring peace and unity.
Intentions matter. They are not equal.
Jerry Featherston
Kansas City
Oh, grow up
This is small potatoes in the grand scale of today’s world, but I am completely ticked off by the immature behavior of the Royals.
A Gatorade dunking after every victory? Hand signals to the dugout after every hit? Hearing TV analyst Rex Hudler say that the most important thing is to have fun?
How much fun was it to get “pantsed” by Oakland after celebrating a four-run lead in the eighth inning, only to cough it up in the bottom of the inning.
Millionaire ballplayers disrespecting the game that made them famous is sickening, and manager Ned Yost allows it because he is a so-called players’ manager.
I find it sickening.
Gerald Bond
Boonville, Mo.
Trump
What did you expect?
Dick Davis
Overland Park
This story was originally published August 18, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss A new KCI terminal, the Civil War and Cleaver on Trump."