GOP convention, Sen. Pat Roberts, Bishop Finn
GOP convention 2016
We all realize the local governments of the area are attempting to bring the Republican National Convention to Kansas City in 2016.
Do we really want hordes of folks running around who are anti-education, anti-environment, anti-veteran, anti-middle class, anti-fluoride, anti-voter, anti-Medicare, anti-Medicaid, anti-Social Security, anti-science, anti-gay, anti-diversity, anti-unemployed, anti-disabled, anti-female, anti-equal pay and anti-teacher?
Besides, aren’t there enough Republicans running around here as it is?
Michael Yanez
Tonganoxie
Roberts’ residency
Isn’t it remarkable that Republicans found that Sen. Pat Roberts’ rented room is a legal residence so he can be a Kansas senator. Honesty is always the best policy.
Frank Thompson
De Soto
Opportunity lost
How astounding that someone with Bishop Robert Finn’s track record is authorized to judge a parish employee’s fitness for pastoral responsibilities (5-15, Commentary, “Church fumbles chance to change”). How unfortunate that Bishop Finn is immune from similar pastoral review.
Let us pray that Bishop Finn’s latest victim finds employment to continue her commitment to the poor and marginalized in our community.
Robert Florance
Kansas City
VA, Obamacare
With the news of the Department of Veterans Affairs abusing American veterans as well as American taxpayers, just what makes you think Obamacare will be run any differently than the VA?
Both are huge, government-run health-care systems.
Both are rife with waste, executive bonuses and incompetent administrations.
Again, why is Obamacare — floundering from the beginning and floundering to this day — going to be any different?
Larry Dickstein
Lone Jack
Drugs, death toll
The May 18 editorial, “The who, why and how behind murders in KC,” provided some interesting factors on shootings in Kansas City, but it was also very politically correct.
In my days as a television reporter in South Bend, Ind., we went further than just an argument in justifying a shooting. We asked whether the shooting was from drug trafficking or over sex. In one case, the shooting involved a dispute over a welfare check.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, drugs were a major factor in cities’ death tolls. South Bend is only 90 miles from Chicago (that’s another story).
Police would say that if people didn’t do drugs, stay out late at night and hang with the wrong crowd, they would probably be OK. But if people did drugs and hung out with the wrong crowd, they could end up on a slab.
David W. Anderson
Olathe
Royals broadcast?
As I work my radio dial looking for the Kansas City Royals baseball broadcast at the Lake of the Ozarks, I found five for the St. Louis Cardinals and zero for the Royals. The marketing department could not reach agreement with a single mid-Missouri radio station?
Donald L. Sprenger Sr.
Sunrise Beach, Mo.
Yoder, clean air
As the mother of two young children, I did not appreciate Kansas congressman Kevin Yoder’s recent action. Rep. Yoder introduced legislation to delay for five years clean-air safeguards that would deliver dramatic health benefits to Americans — especially children.
The safeguards would achieve steep reductions in mercury and other toxic air pollutants (like arsenic and lead) from power plants that burn coal. These plants are the nation’s largest emitters of mercury, a dangerous poison that harms the developing brains of children and the unborn.
These clean-air protections are projected to save up to 11,000 lives nationwide each year, including 160 Kansans. The standards would avoid 5,000 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks annually.
What’s more, the safeguards would deliver up to $90 billion in health benefits each year to the American people, with $1.6 billion in Kansas. Expected compliance costs would be a small fraction of those benefits.
As a new parent himself, I hope Rep. Yoder will reconsider his misguided proposal. Kansas moms like me want less toxic air pollution, and we want it sooner rather than later.
Melissa Cheatham
Overland Park
High tech, low touch
Thirty years ago, futurist John Naisbitt coined a term in his book “Megatrends,” “high tech, low touch.” He predicted that we would talk less, have fewer friends and be more disconnected in our personal relationships because of technology.
This was so clear to me on a recent Friday night during dinner at a casual restaurant. Two couples were near me with four boys. All four boys had their iPads going full blast. During the entire dinner, Mom and Dad never talked to their sons.
Also near me was a middle-age married couple. The only time they talked was for her to relay the score she just got on her cellphone game. How sad.
Then my men’s group had breakfast at First Watch. Next to us were four teenage girls, all with their cellphones out, thumbs busy at work. The only talk we heard was when they placed their orders. How sad.
It sounds like Naisbitt might have been right. It seems easier to text than talk.
Is technology truly an addiction? Will teenagers grow up with withdrawal symptoms when they have to talk? Is Facebook, texting and email the only ways we “talk” to family and friends. How sad.
Let’s put technology away and build relationships face to face. Let’s deal with people verbally, not textually. The text message can wait.
Tim Reed
Kansas City
Follow the money
People ask, “Who are the business leaders who continue to beat the drum for building a new terminal at Kansas City International Airport?” Those voicing opposition are Kansas City taxpayers, airlines and travelers who admire the convenience of the current terminals and parking lots.
So who are the supporters of new construction? Follow the money, and that appears to lead to the construction industry and politicians.
Carol Elkins
Gladstone
Raise workers’ pay
If Wal-Mart were to give all its employees much-deserved raises and give its part-time associates full-time status, the company could single-handedly save our economy.
First, it would improve morale and attract a better class of employees, improving customer service, which is good for business. Second, other businesses would have to raise their employees’ wages to compete. Third, more money in the hands of everyday people — the real job creators — would spur the economy into faster growth, much faster than any tax cut for people who don’t need it.
I’d like to call on Wal-Mart to be the hero we need. What do you say, Wal-Mart?
Cory Black
Sedalia, Mo.
Ruined graduation
I attended a graduation ceremony recently for Lee’s Summit High School, and it was wonderful to see so many bright and amazing young men and women celebrating this important milestone in their lives.
At the beginning of the ceremony, the audience was requested at least twice — once by a member of the student body and once by a member of the faculty — to hold our applause until all seniors had crossed the stage. They asked that there be no shouting or yelling throughout the reading of the graduates’ names.
Well, we almost made it ... until the last few minutes, when several incredibly rude people did exactly what they had been asked not to do.
Most of us weren’t surprised, and unfortunately we were expecting some to do precisely what those persons did. They showed tremendous disrespect for every other person in that auditorium, especially those graduating students.
Shame on the rude persons who just could not control themselves. I can only hope that if they had kids who crossed that stage that those kids would be a whole lot smarter and more considerate.
Jennifer L. Miller
Kansas City
This story was originally published May 20, 2014 at 6:21 PM with the headline "GOP convention, Sen. Pat Roberts, Bishop Finn."