Want to avoid being harassed for wearing a mask? Try putting this symbol on it

Protest this

Like many others, including brave Clara Kribs, who was featured in Monday’s front-page story, “‘I’m anxious now’: Woman worries of mask retaliation as new mandate looms,” I have been a victim of verbal abuse for wearing a mask in public.

My solution? My masks now bear the United States Marine Corps emblem. That mask helps people know that my USMC nephew who volunteers to protect our country is vaccinated and wears a mask, encouraging me and others to do the same.

I’ve gotten no negative comments when wearing the USMC mask.

- Jimmy Mohler, Liberty

It won’t be on me

I don’t want to be party to the death of an unvaccinated person. I understand that the delta variant of COVID-19 is so much more transmissible than the early variant that even we vaccinated people can unknowingly spread it.

Last year, when we took COVID seriously, we stayed home as much as possible and wore masks when we went to the store. We did not go to restaurants.

Now, hospitals and their intensive care units are again full across the metropolitan area, and emergency rooms are boarding patients in hallways. But only about half of us are susceptible to COVID-19 — those who are not vaccinated. Virtually all of the deaths these days are among the unvaccinated. I could be spreading the coronavirus to them.

However, many of us seem to be willing to risk it. We are not sheltering in place, avoiding restaurants and bars, or masking when with others. If the unvaccinated are willing to risk their lives instead of preventing serious illness or death by getting vaccinated, then I ought to stay home so I will not be a party to their deaths.

- Norman Kahn, Prairie Village

Guns pulled first

Why is it that so few of the news stories about the gun-packin’ Mark and Patricia McCloskey’s so-called “standoff” with a peaceful crowd near their home ever describe just where the protesters were when the famous photos were taken? (Aug. 4, KansasCity.com, “Parson keeps promise to pardon Senate candidate McCloskey, who waved gun at protesters”) The people walking past the couple’s house were clearly on the street and sidewalks, not on the McCloskeys’ lawn.

There was absolutely no reason for the McCloskeys to feel threatened in any way, regardless of whether they had stood outside and watched or just stayed inside. The “mob” wasn’t interested in them — something they would have realized if they hadn’t acted like paranoid babies.

- Dennis Kiernan, San Francisco

Lesson time

In kindergarten, children learn not to call each other names, not to hit each other with hard objects, not to tell or believe falsehoods. We teach them how to listen and how to share.

Let’s send the entire U.S. Congress back to kindergarten.

- Barbara Loots, Kansas City

Hope for all

My brother, Mike, passed away last week. He was born in 1955. It was a time when mental illness was not understood by most people. He struggled through high school. He joined the Air Force, where he served honorably.

After his discharge from the military, his demons took over his life. He was rejected and shunned by people. It led to alcoholism and run-ins with the law. He disappeared for years before I finally found him homeless living on the streets of Kansas City. We found him a place to live, and he was put on disability. Finally, he started receiving treatment. His final years were spent in assisted living, and then a nursing home.

Many did not understand Mike, just as they don’t understand mental illness. Yes, we all make our own choices in life, but we don’t have the same choices.

Near the end of his life, we talked on the phone every day. He always supported me. When I picked up his belongings, there were three shirts, one pair of pants and a Bible he always hung on to for hope.

I will miss him. It ought to matter when people die. Mental illness is real. But there is hope.

- Thomas R. Krause, Kansas City