Readers share views on police body cameras, house cleaning, teachers’ tenure
Police body cameras
After the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Mo., many people have suggested that police officers should wear body cameras.
Although a police officer wearing a body camera is less likely to use excessive force, the costs of storing the data created by the camera and managing the footage pose new questions to law enforcement. The costs would strain the departments’ tight budgets.
The footage the body cameras produce would be valuable evidence in court but storing this sensitive data could become a problem because hackers could break into the system and steal or even publish the evidence.
Equipping the police with body cameras could solve some concerns, but the problems that these cameras create could be even worse.
Everett Woolsy
Kansas City
Cleaning house
What is the cause of all our problems these days? Everyone is going broke but the oil companies, lawyers, politicians and bankers.
With all the wars, high gas prices, bankruptcies and crime, we should know our government and lawmakers have a hand in some of the problems. It seems the world needs to focus on a more productive means.
This world needs a good cleaning. We see an honest small farmer who tries to be clean with his products while the big money groups want to poison us and themselves, too.
What can be done when crooks and cults outnumber the good guys? It is so bad these days, it’s hard to tell who is better off, the living or the dead.
Maybe with everyone being this greedy, the Lord should take charge. If all our world leaders can do is take or waste or kill or protect the evil, maybe it’s too late.
Why are we so ill-informed? Don’t let yourself become part of any poison like our lawmakers and world leaders.
Every honest citizen in this world needs other people and this beautiful Earth. Focus on that.
William Leroy Elwood
Osceola, Mo.
Tenure for teachers
Teachers need to feel safe. Tenure helps a teacher feel safe.
It is up to the supervisors to weed out the bad ones.
A good baseball player is hired for a season, signs a contract and makes a lot of money. On the other hand, a new teacher, no matter how good, signs a contract for the same small amount of money as all other beginning teachers, which is demeaning.
A teacher who stays four years has really accomplished something. This teacher needs to be rewarded.
Money? I never got what I was worth.
Most teachers do not. So how does a school keep good teachers?
One answer is security — a safety net for their families. Take away tenure, and the opposite of what is hoped for will happen.
Teachers who do not feel safe may become fearful. Do you want a scared teacher in a classroom?
Sarah Nunnally-Goosen
Windsor, Mo.
Euphemism fatigue
Who thought up this term “preborn baby”? It’s like calling each of the people who are living a predead corpse.
Why can’t we avoid the euphemism and just use the appropriate terms: embryo, fetus, birth, infant, child or adult and in death, corpse or angel?
Alma Rae Price
Fairway
Complex economics
Seneca, the Roman philosopher, worried about information overload. Economics information today is overwhelming. How are we to separate fact from fiction?
Start with reports such as layoffs because of a decline in business. Other layoffs are attributed to shift reduction. A third company blames it on declining demand. All are easy statements to read and understand.
Not one business reduction is blamed on excessive taxation. Not one hiring or production increase is credited to reduced taxes.
The demand side of the law of supply and demand directs our economy.
Leave the econ books on the shelf and apply common sense. When Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Larry Kudlow or some politician screams business tax relief is the path to prosperity, you should know better.
The Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy tells us that 99.7 percent of all businesses are considered small. Small-business profit passes through to the owner’s personal tax return. Ask some small-business owner if his personal income tax dropped to zero, how many $40,000-per-year jobs would he create and when?
Business expansion and the corresponding hiring is the result of consumer demand. Money in consumers’ pockets puts money in cash registers.
Stanley Robinson
Princeton, Mo.
Guns for defense
Concerning gun-control laws, I think that taking away the right to bear arms from everyone would not reduce the crime rate or solve the problems we are facing. Guns do not kill people, but rather the person behind the gun.
Making a law to control guns does not mean that criminals will not get hold of guns. There are many laws made, but laws do not stop everyone.
Many people continuously break them. Although drugs are illegal, criminals find ways to buy them, deal them and use them. Do people not think that guns would be the same?
Restricting guns would not reduce murder but rather take away the right of self-defense. Criminals would still find ways to get guns, and it would result in equal or more murders because innocent citizens would not have guns for self-defense.
Angel Meyer
Kansas City
Keep babies safe
As a pediatrician, I consider the growing trend of infants wearing amber teething necklaces one of the many worrisome sights I see.
Some mothers swear by these necklaces. I hear stories of how little Tommy was inconsolable before the necklace, and now Mom never takes it off.
There is no evidence that amber teething necklaces are effective. There is evidence, however, that they pose choking and strangulation hazards.
Having a toddler, I know a teething baby will gnaw on anything. Necklace packaging reveals they have never been tested to withstand this constant chewing, leaving baby at risk of choking on freed beads.
Additionally, a hand wedged under the necklace can make the necklace too tight and could strangle the baby. This can happen quickly, even with supervision.
The theory behind amber teething necklaces is that they release succinic acid when exposed to body heat. There is no evidence that this chemical release occurs and no research that amber teething necklaces actually have any pain-relieving properties.
Perceived benefit is likely related to the natural waxing and waning of teething pain and is unrelated to the jewelry. Anecdotal stories alone are certainly not enough to put your baby at risk.
Dr. Stephanie Clark
Olathe
Eclipse to occur
Ask my students what you get when the new or full moon is at a node crossing, and they will correctly say an eclipse. And that is exactly what we will have this month. Eclipses at full moon and then at new moon.
Starting at around 4 a.m. Wednesday, the full moon will enter the penumbra, the faint outer shadow cast by the Earth. About an hour later, the real excitement begins when the moon enters the inner and darker umbral shadow. The eclipse will continue as the sun rises and the moon sets.
Two weeks later, a solar eclipse will be visible during the afternoon of Oct. 23 and will continue as the sun sets around 7 p.m. This partial eclipse will start at 3:34 p.m., with about 50 percent of the sun eventually covered by the moon around 4:30 p.m.
Remember, never look directly at the sun. One safe, easy way is to look on the ground for the shadows and light cast by leaves on a tree. Each spot will show a light and dark shape mirroring the appearance of the eclipsed sun.
Bob Riddle
Lee’s Summit
This story was originally published October 6, 2014 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Readers share views on police body cameras, house cleaning, teachers’ tenure."