E-cigarettes, KCI, overcoming hate

Electronic cigarettes are rising in popularity. It’s no surprise the Missouri legislature has passed bills addressing them.

On the surface, the bills appear to prohibit e-cigarette sales to minors. But looking deeper, you will see the real reason the tobacco industry is pushing thesebills.

It’s to undermine effective tobacco-control laws by creating loopholes for e-cigarettes. Under these bills, e-cigarettes would be exempt from Missouri’s tobacco-control laws.

The e-cigarette industry wants people to believe that these products are a safe alternative to smoking. There is no scientific research to support that claim.

E-cigarettes may contain some of the same toxins as traditional cigarettes, potentially addicting a new generation to nicotine. Without more research, e-cigarettes should be treated the same as tobacco products.

It’s concerning that Missouri lawmakers feel the need to pass a bill that would give special treatment to e-cigarettes and other electronic smoking devices with so many unknowns. Legislators need to understand that there’s too much unidentified about these e-cigarettes.

These bills are too flawed to become law. Tell your representatives to not put legislation before science and to amend the bills to include e-cigarettes in Missouri’s current definitions for tobacco products.

I have a pretty good idea of the points made by both sides of the argument over Kansas City International Airport. The airlines are considering all of this with regard to their convenience and profit.

I am one of many area people who has to fly for family and professional reasons. I keep coming home with back and leg problems caused by terrible seats, not only in tourist class but in business class, which is supposed to have comfortable seats, for which passengers pay extra.

Comfortable seats with rigid backs? Tourist-class seats have brought me home bent double. For all this I am paying through the proverbial nose because the normally vocal public mutters about these things and refuses to stand up and protest about the way we are being treated.

We are being jammed into seats an elf couldn’t endure for five or six hours crossing the high seas.

I would like the public to stop complaining about the airport and start screaming about the terrible seat menace affecting our well-being.

It ought to be illegal.

Hate crimes are dehumanizing. The April 13 shootings again reinforced this sad reality.

Tragic events like this recall many sad moments in our common journey — the Holocaust, events in the civil rights movement, apartheid and genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda. The list goes on.

The unique call of these tragic moments to all of us as decent human beings is to unite in compassion and shared humanity. We are invited to dissolve divisions of faith, denominations, race, nationality and ethnic origin and stand as one sacred people against these horrors. Silence cannot be an option for people of conscience.

Recent actions show our desire to stand together in our diversity to promote healing:

• The first community vigil occurred in an Episcopal church.

• A diverse community rallied around a targeted Jewish community.

• A letter from the leader of the Jewish Community Center to its members quoted a prayer for peace attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.

• The victims were two Methodists and a Catholic rather than members of the targeted Jewish community. The victims’ families called for all of us to mourn with them and celebrate the lives of their loved ones.

Perhaps there is still hope for us all.

I enjoyed Kevin Collison’s April 15 column, “Downtown’s truly a neighborhood transformed,” about good news for downtown Kansas City. However, I disagree with Mr. Collison’s negative views of downtown’s haunted houses.

As a father of two teenagers, I have spent considerable time at the Beast, the Edge of Hell and other area haunted houses and believe they are great assets to the city. In addition to being loads of fun, they are safe and clean and attract thousands of paying customers to downtown every fall.

When they were younger, my children would have loved to attend the Easter egg hunts mentioned in Mr. Collison’s article, but they now prefer more mature entertainment like the haunted houses and will too soon want to frequent the Power Light District.

Let’s celebrate and encourage all types of development in downtown Kansas City and not denigrate the haunted houses and other businesses that have been supporting downtown long before it was popular to do so.

I have called the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department wondering whether the city will continue to let Case Park completely crumble into disrepair.

All around the park and surrounding areas the stonework is falling apart. Big chunks lie on the ground.

This is a very important historic area. I see groups touring the area several times a month.

It is a real shame to keep letting it go. It looks absolutely terrible.

I guess no one cares. It is terrible for the Quality Hill area.

I saw on the news that the University of Kansas is having funding issues because the Legislature sees KU as being liberal in a conservative state. As I pondered this, I realized that KU does indeed teach science from textbooks, rather than using the Bible to explain everything.

How dare a state university do such a thing. It makes me realize as a political independent that members of the religious far right (Kansas Legislature) consider everything but their own opinion as “liberal,” which isn’t true.

They are sounding like the Vatican during the Middle Ages — at war with opposing views, and the only right one is theirs. They need to realize that even the Vatican apologized to people such as Galileo and has learned to grow with educational and scientific advancement.

In all fairness, members of the far left are the same way when it comes to the only right view is theirs and they don’t give a darn what anybody else says.

So I will remain an independent because, thanks to funding from Topeka, the University of Kansas taught me to think for myself.

Pop quiz: What are the constitutional requirements to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court? Actually, it’s a trick question.

There aren’t any. Right now, everyone in the entire world is eligible to serve on the Supreme Court. Once justices are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, they serve for life, no matter what.

Even if justices become comatose or senile, they will continue to serve unimpeded.

Americans wanted an independent judiciary, but we made it unaccountable, a high court so high it’s completely out of reach. The only way to improve this situation is with a constitutional amendment.

The Supreme Court amendment would require that justices be naturalized citizens over age 40, and it would set a term of office of 12 years, when justices would be eligible for re-nomination and re-confirmation by the sitting president and Senate. It would also grant the Supreme Court the power to expel a member with a two-thirds majority because of misconduct or inability to serve, the same right granted to both chambers of Congress.

This amendment is a bipartisan issue, so concerned citizens could either contact Sens. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, or Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution.

One thing is certain about old age: You find out how many true friends you don’t have.

This story was originally published April 20, 2014 at 5:00 PM with the headline "E-cigarettes, KCI, overcoming hate."