Readers share views on Bartle Hall, Kansas government and payday loans
Bartle Hall curlers
If art is in the eye of the beholder, it helps if the art has significance.
Most Kansas City area residents and their out-of-town guests have no idea of what the configurations on top of the Bartle Hall spires are supposed to convey.
Perhaps a trumpet, a saxophone, a trombone and a stand-up bass on top of the spires would salute and signify the great jazz heritage of Kansas City. There would be no doubt of the meaning.
If this came to fruition, the apparatus now on the spires could be used for future projects.
Dennis G. Oetting
Olathe
Topeka failures
So the Masters of Disaster in Topeka have gotten back together to debate how to keep our state’s schools open.
What they really are debating is:
1) What department to steal this money from.
2) How do they keep deflecting the blame to the state Supreme Court and away from themselves and their failed policies?
We have to get these people out of there. They have proved time and time again they are unqualified to hold the offices to which they were elected.
They are examples of what is wrong with my GOP and how tax zealots and single-issue voters (abortion) have taken our state down a deep well with seemingly no way out.
I need Republicans who will take the body blows, always thinking of the big picture, not the “get re-elected” picture.
What I know for sure is the people in Topeka are proving over and over we voters deserve better.
Jerry Harper
Lenexa
Payday loan costs
How terribly charitable you are, Bob Zeitler, that you charge interest of only $10 per $100 rather than a $100 per $100 per week (6-20, Commentary, “Federal regulations will hurt payday loan operations in U.S.”).
What do you charge for the second and third weeks, and so on?
You didn’t say. Even if you stick with a charge of $10 per week, ad infinitum, that eventually amounts to 520 percent simple interest.
What brass. What gall.
Bring on federal regulation of your industry. Your screed would have a more noble message if you were explaining how you help needy people with financial counseling.
It is just that simple, isn’t it?
Ralph J. Crumrine
Olathe
4-year-old’s death
The tragic shooting death of 4-year-old Mahsaan Kelley-Wilson produced the claim by the mayor that we need more gun controls, while the family observed that we need to “get these people (shooters) off of the streets.” (6-22, A1, “Family wants answers in death of boy”)
Gun control is a very complicated issue. Chicago has a horrendous death count of people, mostly in the black community, and yet we hear that Chicago has very strict gun laws.
Criminals are doing the shooting.
They undoubtedly will get guns illegally if not legally.
Many honest citizens believe they may need guns to protect themselves and their families against criminals or armed government employees. Oversteps by the government in the 1990s are still fresh in many older Americans’ minds.
Gun control is complicated.
A first step could be to control the criminals.
“Get these people off the streets.”
Carol Elkins
Gladstone
Suicide prevention
The Ride to Silence the Stigma motorcycle ride will take place at 8 a.m. Saturday in Lenexa to benefit the Greater Kansas Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
I became involved with the foundation in 2011, when I lost my best friend of seven years to suicide. He was bipolar and struggled with depression but chose to self-medicate.
I found the organization when I did my first out-of-the-darkness walk in October 2011.
Since then I have become a board member.
I also struggle daily with depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. The foundation has recently started to help those with lived experience, which is what I am classified as.
We work to raise awareness for suicide prevention along with mental health. I have personally struggled with mental health since I was a junior in high school.
I help with all the events that the Greater Kansas Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention puts together, which includes the Ride to Silence the Stigma.
It’s a great event benefiting an amazing cause.
It’s my fourth year helping with the event, and I love it.
Sarah Perkins
Warrensburg, Mo.
This story was originally published June 23, 2016 at 5:58 PM with the headline "Readers share views on Bartle Hall, Kansas government and payday loans."