Readers share thoughts on voting, Kemper Arena and KCI

Encouraging voters

During a recent trip to San Francisco, I was struck by a strange and wondrous sight — local board of elections personnel were setting out tables around town to register people to vote.

According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, they have held more than 100 such registration events at street fairs, farmers markets and the like.

Coming from Kansas, where the national poster boy for voter suppression is on the state payroll, I was stunned and embarrassed.

Imagine government employees who actually recruit citizens to vote.

They were even handing out information on how to become a poll worker, along with listings as to what was on the November ballot.

How quaint. How refreshing. And how disgusted I am with Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who strives to suppress voting rights here and in other states.

While California officials reached out to their constituents, our tax dollars were paying this man’s salary as he went out on state time and did the exact opposite.

Rebecca Borton

Overland Park

Dear Mayor James

As East Side residents have seen with the problems our children experience going to the Country Club Plaza and other places for entertainment, we believed that you and your administration were looking for viable solutions.

With the announcement of a possible youth sports center in Kemper Arena, residents of the East Side were encouraged.

As we witness the American Royal seemingly poised to control a large part of the real estate of this city, your silence has become deafening.

Pay taxes for something our children will never use or see even from a distance?

As we witness those we choose to govern this city turn a deaf ear to the polls on what to do with Kemper, on our children’s needs and to their promise to respect their constituents’ wishes, we can only assume that we put the wrong people in office.

At least the East Side residents have heard your silence. Change in 2015?

Anita J. Dixon

Oak Grove

Diversity in U.S.

Recently I watched an old black and white movie titled “It’s a Big Country.” It consisted of vignettes showing people’s new ideas about individuals who are different from them.

I was reminded that we are the melting pot of the world. My analogy is we get together and make a large pot of stew.

We each contribute something to the pot, and although we obviously are not all going to like everything that is contributed, the mix becomes acceptable to everyone. The melding of various items becomes something good.

If you were to put those same ingredients on a vegetable tray many would pass over some items because of distaste. The same seems to happen when we blend cultures into one acceptable culture. The American way was that blending for many years.

Was that bad? The accepting of individuals with different skin color is harder, which only means that we should all try harder.

Fred Crosby

Belton

Modifications for KCI

My suggestion in regards to the Kansas City International Airport battle is to have the best of both worlds. I say keep the airport with a few modifications.

I think we all agree that it does need some money to upgrade a bit.

So do that and use the empty KCI terminal for restaurants, bars and a food court.

The terminals could be connected by moving walkways, so no one would have to lug a bunch of luggage around.

Tom Wallace

Merriam

Today’s appeasement

“While England Slept” is a 1938 work by Winston Churchill, pointing out the United Kingdom’s lack of willingness to believe that Germany’s 1930s rapid treaty-violating military expansion was, in any way, a viable threat to world peace.

In 1940, John F. Kennedy’s senior year thesis at Harvard was published under a similar title: "Why England Slept."

Both books treated the same basic theme: “naive appeasement” by England and other previous allied nations of World War I who now vainly hoped that the Reich’s new leader had absolutely no thoughts of expansive aggression in mind.

We, the people of the United States of America, have now been asleep since the events of 2003, and beyond.

Middle East oil and blatant lies about weapons of mass destruction have overcome our mental stability.

Too many of us have fallen into the sleeping spell of not caring enough to fight the despots who want our country as their own.

John Graff

Olathe

Progress stalled

With Republicans blaming President Barack Obama for just about everything, it took me a while to pick a subject that was so biased I could no longer contain myself.

In 1983, when Ronald Reagan was the Republicans’ do-no-wrong president, a tragedy similar to Benghazi took place in Lebanon, only much more severe.

A barracks containing 299 American and French soldiers was blown to pieces, killing all 299 by two truck bombs. Families lost husbands and wives.

Where was the Republican outrage then over a lack of adequate intelligence and proper protection? Where were the multiple investigations into what happened?

Why wasn’t the secretary of state asked to step down?

I want to know, and I am sure the families of those 299 soldiers want to know as well.

The Republican Party has made its sole mission since Obama was elected to ensure any ideas or proposals that come from the White House never make it out of the House of Representatives. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell even stated that nothing the president proposed would ever pass.

As a result, the rich have gotten richer, trickle-down economics is a lie and we have seen no progress.

Steven Addison

Kansas City

East Patrol Division

Mayor Sly James’ objection to naming the new police research center after Leon Jordan seems flimsily bureaucratic put against the facts that James is an unlikely mayor and Darryl Forté an unlikely police chief without Freedom Inc., organized and led by Jordan to bring home to Kansas City the truths of the American civil rights movement.

Local politics were mired in the injustice of racial discrimination when Jordan awakened the black community to its voting power and its leaders to achieve the positions their talents deserved.

The community as a whole was free to realize the value of men such as James and Forté.

After Jordan’s murder, The Star rightfully described Jordan’s achievement: “Along with a few other men he moved into an area that had been dominated by white, factional politicians who treated the center city as a personal fief and the people as voting pawns. ... Jordan helped make these days a relic of the past.

“He was a successful advocate of black power in its most efficient form. He could win at the polls. In a representative government, that is the way you influence events, and Leon Jordan did exactly that.”

Robert Farnsworth

Kansas City

Formers weigh in

Second-guessing for fun and profit is the preoccupation of many “formers” such as former defense secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta and former GOP presidential nominee John McCain and others.

They may have failed miserably when they had important decisions to make. But they have all the answers now and can’t wait to share them with all who will listen or read their books. It’s so much easier to make the right decisions in hindsight when they don’t have to worry about the consequences of their actions, and nobody can prove them wrong.

So, take whatever they have to say with a massive grain of salt, and then dismiss it.

Kenneth Lee

Raytown

This story was originally published November 13, 2014 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Readers share thoughts on voting, Kemper Arena and KCI."