Letters: KC readers discuss youthful wisdom, mail-in voting failure and awful political ads
Listen to her
I would like to thank Rosemary Morgan for sharing her 13-year-old granddaughter’s essay on patriotism in the Wednesday letters. (14A) Out of the mouths of babes. At least it appears that our children are paying attention and learning.
Like Bill Vaughan’s “Tell Me a Story of Christmas” that The Star shares every year, I believe this should be republished regularly.
Thank you, Rosemary — I needed that.
- Deanna Jacaway, Loch Lloyd
She didn’t count
To find voter suppression, look no further than Kansas City.
My wife, who is 92, was certified to receive a mail-in ballot. It never came. A clerk at the Kansas City Election Board said the office had “dumped too many ballots” on the U.S. Postal Service. My wife was directed to vote at the polling place, which she is unable to do.
Joe Biden lost a vote because of this woeful incompetency.
- Donald Hoffmann, Kansas City
Kill that tune
Another thing I won’t miss besides all the political ads is the “election music” on the networks. Gah! We either need something new, or we just need to skip it.
- Mary H. Dyer, Independence
Only skin deep
Back in the 1970s, I learned in my anthropology class that Africa is the cradle of civilization. I believe this means that tracing our family trees back far enough will reveal we all have a Black heritage.
Our differences are superficial, and we all bleed red. Together, we make up the human race.
- Armand Way, Topeka
What a waste
The amount of money spent on election TV ads is obscene. Candidates in American elections spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting themselves via television commercials this year, numbing our brains and activating our fingers to press mute on our remote controls.
What if candidates publicly stated that instead of spending all their funds on ads, they would donate a percentage of their campaign budgets (from 1% to 10%, for example) to local food banks or other charities? Contributing even 1%, particularly amid the coronavirus pandemic and its effects, could have been a strategy that would have helped their candidacies and communities.
The world would have been a better place with one or a hundred fewer Roger Marshall-Barbara Bollier or Joe Biden-Donald Trump ads, not only within our homes but in constituents’ tummies.
- Ron Frigault, Kansas City
Some relief
Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would prefer watching pharmaceutical commercials on TV versus political ads.
- Mike McIntosh, Prairie Village
Fight poverty
As fall is changing into winter and the second wave of the deadly disease COVID-19 is upon us, many U.S. citizens in Kansas City and around the nation are understandably expressing concern about our health policies. However, the implications and harm of the coronavirus spread far beyond Kansas City.
According to the United Nations’ World Food Program, COVID-19 has the potential to put 265 million people around the world near starvation by the end of 2020, and this number is continuing to rise. More than 50% of the world’s population could suffer from poverty because of the pandemic.
A proposed emergency supplement to the International Affairs Budget could give $20 billion to fight AIDS and malaria and to fund life-saving treatments.
I urge Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and Sens. Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley to support this bill. In unprecedented times, we must stand united against global poverty.
- Breanna Bonner, Kansas City
Ads versus reality
I voted early in Kansas, and the political ads I saw had me confused. Neither former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback nor House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was on the ballot. I didn’t know whom to vote against.
- Gene A. Wayenberg, Mission
This story was originally published November 5, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Letters: KC readers discuss youthful wisdom, mail-in voting failure and awful political ads."