Letters: Readers discuss Jesus’ message, the civic spirit and a truck-gun analogy
Jesus’ true message
How do conservatives become so confused about the teachings of the greatest liberal of all time, Jesus Christ?
Jesus taught us to love thy neighbor, help the poor and not to judge others.
Conservatives interpret these teachings as protect the wealthy, demonize the poor and punish those who differ.
How does it become so twisted?
James Burkhart
Kansas City
Rural-urban divide
It is a shame to see animosity between rural and urban communities. This is particularly true in Kansas and Missouri, where many urban residents are just one generation removed from the farm and enjoy visiting rural relatives.
In reality, both groups work hard, pay taxes, often go to church and want what’s best for their kids and communities.
The big difference is population density. While six households may pay for that cul-de-sac, one family might require many miles of rural road. While Advanced Placement classes may be overflowing in the suburbs, how do you afford an AP instructor for only a few kids in a rural county?
It is time to come together to solve these problems — particularly the problem of providing services to rural areas. For example: Some areas are experimenting with wider use of gravel roads. Can this work on a larger scale? Can internet-based distance learning be more widely used?
It is time for more civil conversation and constructive brainstorming. The shouting from Fox and MSNBC aren’t getting us anywhere. Let’s change the channel.
Tom Stroud
Overland Park
Voting is strength
It’s not enough to wait until “significant” elections to vote if you want to have reasonable choices. If you care about your community and our nation, you must participate in all elections and primaries that you’re eligible to vote in.
Look online to find out how to register to vote or to participate in a primary or caucus. Research the candidates.
Let’s not lament our choices when we can put better candidates on the ballot if more of us get involved early.
The elections Tuesday may not have implications for next year’s primaries, but those will be coming up soon enough.
Kim Harrison
Overland Park
Enough, enough
We have the (somewhat successful) options of blocking unsolicited and unwanted phone calls and spam emails. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could notify cable and satellite TV providers that we want to be blocked from political ads?
Vicky Keeton
Liberty
Real KCI fears
As a retired Aviation Department facility maintenance manager, I offer the following facts on Kansas City International Airport’s current condition and design limitations:
The terminal structures are suffering significant issues with ground settlement, hundreds of miles of sclerotic plumbing, rapidly degrading high-voltage wiring, high-maintenance climate control and worn-out baggage-handling systems. These vary from virtually impossible to prohibitively expensive to repair or replace.
The larger problem is KCI’s structural shape and “hard points” that prohibit expansion: the tiny restrooms, outdated aircraft access and, critically, inconvenient gate-to-gate movement of connecting passengers. Then there is the terminals’ shape, which obviously precludes modern restaurants and retail amenities.
Kansas City residents should not fear a loss of convenience in an age of moving walkways, two-level pickup and drop-off and security checks without choke points.
What they should fear is dumping half a billion dollars into rehabilitating substantively unusable structures or delaying improvements and ending up with the airport equivalent of the sewer-system debacle.
Jeff Gerner
Gladstone
Insulting argument
Each morning, I eagerly await my Kansas City Star, and upon its arrival, I start with the Opinion section. I enjoy reading letters to the editor because I appreciate exposure to ideas I had not previously considered.
But on Thursday, dear letters editor, you insulted this loyal, longtime reader by publishing a letter with spurious arguments and outright drivel: “Trucks kill people.”
Of course, any item can be used to kill people — twine, paring knives, pillows and more.
Trucks were designed to get people and things from point A to point B. Deadly automatic assault weapons were designed for one purpose only: to kill people as rapidly as possible.
People will write absurd commentary. However, I do not expect my Kansas City Star to give nonsense a forum for expression.
Angela Schieferecke
Prairie Village
This story was originally published November 3, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss Jesus’ message, the civic spirit and a truck-gun analogy."