Troop suicides, Obamacare, college athletics

News stories have reported that more than 2,000 veterans have committed suicide since the first of the year. This means that more of our soldiers are killing themselves than are being killed by the Taliban or other enemy combatants.

We as a nation have become numb to the effects of war these past 13 years. It doesn’t matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat, these numbers are outrageous.

There is a bill in the U.S. Senate that addresses this problem. Sen. John Walsh of Montana, himself a veteran of the war in Iraq, is putting a bill together.

Walsh has only one co-sponsor, Sen. Jon Tester, his fellow senator of Montana. I suggest that everyone who reads this contact both Sens. Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt and urge them to co-sponsor this piece of legislation.

It’s time that we really support the troops to make sure they get what they need when they come back home.

No one yet knows what caused Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to disappear. However, listening to the Washington, D.C., Republicans, I’m surprised they haven’t yet claimed the disappearance was caused by Obamacare.

They contend that the Affordable Care Act has caused increased premiums. Obviously before Obamacare, insurance companies never raised premiums.

Republicans contend that Obamacare has caused increased deductibles. Likewise, insurance companies never raised deductibles before Obamacare.

Republicans contend that Obamacare has caused people to lose their jobs. Obviously, unemployment didn’t exist before Obamacare.

Republicans contend that Obamacare has caused massive paperwork. Obviously, before Obamacare insurance companies never required medical offices to submit any paperwork.

I’ll bet anyone a $100 you couldn’t get a Washington Republican to say anything good at all has come from Obamacare.

Circa 400 B.C.: Lee Judge’s ancestor creates a clever cave drawing depicting crazy flat-Earth deniers with heads in the sand.

It seems to me that the NCAA and colleges could solve the problem of athletes and compensation by offering them a choice:

A. Play and learn.

B. Play and earn.

Those choosing option A would receive scholarships for their education. Those choosing option B would earn a salary to play for the school but would be non-degree-seeking employees.

The compensation for those choosing option B would be comparable to what the student-athlete is receiving for his/her education, with a national cap set by the NCAA. At the end of each season/term, athletes could continue or change their options.

At the end of the day, everyone wins. College athletics would continue to thrive, professional sports organizations would have a pool of athletes for their teams’ selections and some of those choosing option A could earn an embossed piece of paper to hang on their walls.

Framing is extra.

Does Hobby Lobby refuse to sell to people who support the use of contraceptives (3-26, A8, “High court hears birth control case”)?

Whatever you think of Fox News, my admiration goes out to Megyn Kelly, who announced after the Wednesday Fort Hood shooting that the names of mass shooters would never be mentioned on her show.

I agree with her comments that too often mass murderers are looking for their 15 minutes of fame.

I hope more media organizations make it a policy to not mention the motives or names of mass murderers.

My concern is with the victims and their families. They deserve to be honored.

I don’t care to know anything about a person who chooses to take innocent lives because he or she is depressed, out of control or has a message to send to the world.

I agree with many letter writers who think we should spruce up Kansas City International Airport rather than build an expensive new terminal.

As it turns out, the closing of Terminal A presents a golden opportunity to refurbish the airport without disrupting operations.

Start by revamping and expanding Terminal A.

Once the construction is finished, transfer the traffic from Terminal C to the new A.

Terminal C could be refurbished without undue disruptions to the rest of the airport.

Finally, once we have updated Terminals A and C to modern standards, a decision could be made about what to do with Terminal B.

If it isn’t needed for increased air traffic, perhaps it could be converted to a central waiting, dining and shopping area that some people think KCI needs to compete with other airports.

It would be interesting to hear what people with expertise in architecture think about the viability of such a plan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a thug, or is he? I say he’s a piker. He doesn’t even approach thug.

When our guy, “Dubya,” invaded a country, hundreds of innocents were killed on the way toward thousands of deaths. Then-President George W. Bush collapsed the electric grid in Iraq and water resources in many areas and was setting up Halliburton with no-bid contracts to funnel millions to his vice president.

The Bush administration was busy seeking legal opinions to permit the torture of detainees. Oh, and Bush cut taxes, especially for the wealthy, while his buddy, “Kenny-boy” Lay of Enron, destroyed the economic futures of thousands of good people, setting the stage for what too-big-to-fail banks and Wall Street were about to do to millions of people.

That’s a thug, American-exceptionalism style.

Please consider that we live in a time in which many conservatives are:

• Decrying raising the minimum wage, while demanding cost-of-living adjustments for their own benefits.

• Wanting freedom from government, while demanding abortion restrictions.

• Criticizing the Corps of Engineers for not controlling 100-year flooding, while denying mankind is capable of affecting climate.

• Hiding family assets to qualify for Medicaid nursing home care, while condemning food stamps.

• Demanding state’s rights but not allowing local communities to pass gun laws.

• Pushing for democracy abroad while passing voter restrictions at home.

• Voting for free trade, and then blaming unions for manufacturing decline.

• Glorifying veterans, while cutting veterans’ benefit programs.

Although I have always liked the quote that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, I think the above reflects a broad stroke of hypocrisy.

I’m thinking about the National Security Agency spying on me and know NSA officials would fall asleep tracking my conversations and activities. Still, I agree that this practice needs to stop.

No government should be allowed casual access to the everyday activities of its citizens. But as long as we’re addressing issues of privacy and spying, what bothers me more is that everything I do on the Internet, every grocery or retail shopping trip I make, every medical record I have, in fact every move I make is tracked and compiled in a database.

At least the NSA spying is confined to a huge dump that will probably never be looked at by any actual person. It is very disconcerting to me to look up a topic on the Internet, and then find dozens of ads, mailings and phone calls following up on that exact topic.

Duh. Someone is watching, and it isn’t the government. I find that intrusion much more offensive and potentially dangerous.

This story was originally published April 5, 2014 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Troop suicides, Obamacare, college athletics."