Remembering history, COVID-19 in schools and ‘Chief’ Bartle

Some choice

I was driving down the highway the other day and decided it was time for lunch. I took the next exit and came upon a seemingly pleasant little town.

There were only two restaurants to choose from. On the left side of the road was the Cancel Culture Café, and to the right was the Orange Buffoon Buffet.

Never did a rest stop vending machine look so good.

- Jerry Engler, Blue Springs

Deal with the past

As a senior, African American male citizen of the United States, I believe that we do a disservice to our cultural accomplishments by completely removing names, statuary and other commemorations that acknowledge Confederate history.

Certainly, factions, states and individuals who fought on behalf of the Confederacy should not be honored. Honors and tributes should be reserved for those who fought to preserve the United States.

But the attempt to erase events of the past because we think different thoughts today is, I think, misguided.

Events such as the Civil War have formed us as a nation, and the truth of that conflict should be preserved through visible as well as written information.

And, if we African Americans are so intent on removing offensive monuments, shouldn’t we course toward Fort Leavenworth to remove the commemorative Buffalo Soldiers monument from that and all other locations where these tributes are housed?

Would Native Americans be pleased with our success in helping Europeans ostracize them from their homelands and destroy their populations and ways of living?

- Edward G. Bohannon, Fairway

Domino effect

If you consider science a left-wing plot, don’t believe in vaccines or think that COVID-19 is a hoax, then I suggest you ignore what I have to say, because you will anyway.

Now, my message to the sensible element remaining in society, to parents and guardians of school-age children: Please, please don’t sacrifice your children on the altar of economic recovery by sending them back to school with other students whose parents think that wearing a mask is akin to some kind of leftist secret handshake.

The crackpots in government now do not care about your kids’ lives. Concentrating people in a closed environment and then sending them home is a recipe for turning a pandemic into a cataclysm.

- Steve Shaft, Prairie Village

Fine by me

How soon we forget. I have been around a long time, and I remember when Lamar Hunt was looking for a city to move his football team from Texas. At that time, Kansas City Mayor H. Roe Bartle reached out and was instrumental in getting the team moved to the city.

Bartle was affectionately called “Chief” for his work with the Boy Scouts’ Tribe of Mic-O-Say, which uses a great deal of Native American imagery. Consequently, we have the Chiefs in Kansas City.

I am one-sixteenth Cherokee, and I am not offended.

- Al Dial, Lee’s Summit

Something to hide?

Recently, Brad Lemon, president of Kansas City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 99, called in to a local radio show. He gave excuses for not allowing Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker to examine alleged wrongdoing by some Kansas City Police officers. He called many people liars.

In my experience, when a cover-up is in place, people who don’t want to answer questions simply call other people liars.

This city deserves more transparency.

- Lesa Santoro, Kansas City

A great sadness

My heart breaks for the family of Chris Ingram, who was shot and killed at his own home last month in Kansas City, Kansas. (July 24, 1A, “Husband with ‘big heart’ was shot and killed in his garage”) It seems unbearable to think that someone so generous and offering of his time, gifts and mentality to a troubled friend’s son had his life taken by someone who values life so little.

I believe Ingram recognized what is lacking in the lives of so many young men today — a responsible adult willing to listen, teach and be patient in their lives.

May his family be comforted knowing their Chris lived in a light and life that was an example to others.

- Bonita Galey, Leawood

Not political

Wearing a mask during a pandemic means you respect your fellow humans enough to avoid even a small risk of infecting them. There should be no political component in this choice.

- Armand Way, Topeka