Bill Snyder, discrimination against baby boomers and McCoy’s

Modest aims

I remember the situation Bill Snyder took on when he became Kansas State’s football coach. It was pretty dismal, to say the least.

To illustrate, in the mid-1980s, when I was a grad student on campus, someone had attached a white bed sheet between the high limbs of a tree. The caption, in purple spray paint, was not “Beat Nebraska” but “Maintain Dignity Against Nebraska.”

I can’t recall whether the team did.

Janette C. Borst

Overland Park

Question of timing

If the Chiefs’ plan for last Thursday’s game with the Chargers was to play safety Eric Berry for only one half as they eased him back from his long absence caused by injuries, why did they play him in the first half? Since every Chiefs game is a nail-biter, would it not have been better to have him in the game at crunch time?

Jim Pruett

Kansas City

Put me to work

I’m trying to figure out why getting a job is so dang difficult. I have so many attributes — maybe too many. I owned a small business for 37 years without lawsuits. I have mechanical, clerical and computer skills out the wazoo. Plus, I’m a registered nurse who has worked just about every aspect of nursing (some good, some not so good).

I don’t have a bachelor’s degree in anything but life. We are the forgotten people who have so much experience that I wonder if employers could handle all we know. Are you afraid we may have old-school techniques that work better than a computer outcome?

I moved to this city with high hopes, and instead I met all walls head-on without air bags. Discrimination goes all ways, and as a tail-ender of the baby-boomer age, I dare you to find me a job. There is something unique about our group of worker bees.

Prove me wrong, Kansas City. Convince me you are the up-and-coming city you say you are. I’m available to work.

Cynthia Chase

Kansas City

Fond farewell

I have picked up brewers grain from McCoy’s Public House for 21-plus years, since the business started. (Dec. 11, 8A, “Sailor Jack’s Snack Shack suddenly closes, McCoy’s Public House next”)

For all that time I have been treated with kindness and respect. I am sure all its patrons have been treated the same.

I have seen the same faces for years, and not to say thank you and goodbye — to the brewers, Keith, Morgan, Emily, David, who serve us our beer with a smile, and Angel, who says, “Hi honey,” every time I walk in — would just be improper.

So, I say, go and say thank you. Shake hands, hug. Show up. I could say much more, but most importantly, this is my thank you to everyone at McCoy’s for all the familiar faces, for the many memories and all the fun. You will all be missed.

Gib Good

Belton

Off the wall

President Donald Trump wants a southern border wall to keep Latinos out of the U.S. How silly. The only things the wall would do are provide money to the builders, sell more ladders and produce Olympic-quality Mexican pole vaulters.

America is a land of immigrants.

Ascension Hernandez

Shawnee

Zero outcome

Shutting down the federal government for the security of our border with Mexico seems to fit well with doing nothing to secure our social media against Russian attacks on our elections. Both will have the same result.

James Heiman

Independence

Economic fantasy

Missouri state Sen. Bill Eigel’s legislation would phase out Kansas City’s earnings tax, which raises $260 million a year, but he doesn’t offer an alternative revenue source. (Dec. 17, 9A, “Why is this Missouri lawmaker trying to mess with KC’s voter-approved earnings tax?”)

I would bet Eigel is a true believer in GOP libertarian economic philosophy and is absolutely aware of the impact the deletion of this tax revenue would have on local services. And I’d bet further that he views these outcomes as not a policy bug, but instead a feature.

In the utopia promised by this worldview, services derived through taxation ought be categorized instead as limits on personal freedom. A principle component of this vision is the notion that taxation (other than those levied for police, national defense and some of the justice system) is simply theft and a violation of some claimed “natural order.”

Under this philosophy, Americans need to be “liberated” from socialist government structures (such as municipal water systems) to obtain services provided by federal, state, county or municipal governments through private means.

Private enterprise (naturally) would provide water, fire protection, streets and roadways, sidewalks, streetlights and so on. And at lower costs (cough).

If you have the necessary income to purchase these things, it’s your just rewards. If you do not, just deserts.

So goes the capitalist prosperity gospel.

Richard Olson

Herington, Kan.