Unfettered Letters

Fail to the Chiefs …

If Zack Greinke was a Kansas City Chief, he’d have been traded by now.

Bob Bliss
Prairie Village

Praise for Chris Stigall

Mike Hendricks’ piece on Chris Stigall was totally uncalled for and unfair (11/20, Local, “Politics trims this tree in KC”). He said he was not jealous. Well, I think he is. Too bad.

Chris Stigall is an honest and fair addition to my early morning. He tells the truth, and if he sees a lie he speaks up. Oh yes, he’s also very funny. And he does a lot for this community. Is there a problem with those qualities?

Chris, we’ll continue listening to you, regardless of what Mike Hendricks says.

Patti Weinrich-Davis
Overland Park

Careful how you talk to seniors

Please observe the tuft of white hair showing beneath the Kansas State cap worn by Coach Bill Snyder in a striking photo on the front page of The Star’s 11/19 Sports section.

During your travels, if you see similar gray hair worn proudly by one of our society’s senior members, be respectful and refrain from infantilizing that individual by using the names “sweetie,” “honey,” “dear,” “old timer,” “young man” or “young lady,” to name a few.

Be kind to whom you speak. You might be talking to a champion.
 
Bob Marrin
 Kansas City

Guns could have averted tragedy

On Keith Evans’ question of “Will they ever learn?” on the gun control debate (11/19, Letters, “Guns don’t make us safer”), the “they” actually needs to be pointed at those who share his opinion.

There are more than 60 million gun owners in the U.S. If every single lawful gun owner in this country rendered themselves defenseless by turning in their weapons tomorrow morning, there would still be millions left in the hands of criminals who would think their dreams just came true starting tomorrow night. Facts are facts. Criminals go where their goals are the easiest to achieve.

Nidal Malik Hasan didn’t go to a part of the base where he knew the soldiers would be armed. He went to where he knew they wouldn’t, so he could cause more damage. Had more soldiers in that area been armed, this tragedy would more than likely have never happened because he would have known that he’d be stopped right in his tracks.

Why is this so difficult for some people to understand?

Barry Kaplan 
 Overland Park

Listen up, media and politicians

News flash to all media outlets and all politicians, regardless of party affiliation:

We the American people know terrorism when it strikes, regardless of how you choose to report or spin it.

We the American people know socialism when it presents itself, regardless of code words such as “public option” and “single-payer.”

We the American people can identify financial irresponsibility as it occurs, e.g. spending more than what is earned. And FYI, the government “earns” nothing. It takes from those who have earned.

We the American people identify corruption and arrogance when it speaks, e.g. tax violators running the very agency they cheated.

Seems this “hope and change” thing just isn’t working out.

Paul Howe
Platte City

Declaration of Dependence?

How can many Americans not be dismayed by the current tide of public sentiment rushing headlong into a slavish bondage of government dependency? What will become of a citizenry of serfs, dependent upon ever-increasing handouts from a faceless political bureaucracy, subject to political whims calculated to reward or punish one group or another?

What has become of the virtues so ably demonstrated by the founding Americans displaying fierce independence, individual self-reliance, personal responsibility and reward based upon merit rather than the destructive drug of unearned handouts?

Americans, familiarize yourselves with the ideals, motivations, virtues and character of those whose visions and sacrifices forged this nation on the liberating notion of declaring themselves free and independent. That timeless document in which they declare truths that were self-evident and to “mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” was not titled the “Declaration of Dependence.”

Larry Seitter
Olathe

‘Subsidiarty’ and health care

The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks that cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level. Geriatrician Austin Welsh tells us that Pope Benedict XVI mentions “subsidiarity” in his recent encyclical a dozen times (11/18, Opinion, “As I See It”).

In Chapter 7 of Matthew, we are told, “Why behold the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the beam in your own?” Scripture reminds each and every one of us that we are created in God’s image and likeness. I ask Mr. Welsh: Is there a more top-down, hierarchal, dogmatic authority on the planet than the Catholic Church? Does not every woman have the right to seek the counsel of her God, her partner, her pastor or priest, and her physician to decide, given reasonable restrictions, if she should give birth to another human being?

Jack Whitaker
Leawood

No one should die for lack of insurance

E. Thomas McClanahan (11/15, Opinion, “A plan so flawed even some Dems have doubts”) fails to consider one major fact about health care reform. His first point is that restoring the economy is more important than health care reform.

But the American Medical Association estimates that each year thousands of Americans die early because they lack affordable health insurance. How many more lives is McClanahan willing to sacrifice before we make health insurance available to every American?

Byron Combs
Kansas City

Media coverage of Mohlers unfair

I find it appalling that The Star and every local TV station have taken it upon themselves to publish or air the pictures and names of the men accused of the crimes in Bates City. These men have been accused of horrible crimes. If  found guilty, their names and pictures should be published and put on television. But until then, the public has no right to any of that information. What if this story turns out to be untrue? How do these men get their reputations back?

If your picture is in the paper or on the nightly news as having been arrested for a sex crime, most people figure you’re guilty. Consequently, I think there should be a law forbidding this kind of sensational journalism. There’s no question in my mind that anyone reading this, if falsely accused, sure wouldn’t want his or her picture on the front page of The Star or to be the lead story on the local news.

After all, you are innocent until proven guilty, right? Or did I miss something?

Warren Thomas
Olathe

No raises for Congress

Many Missourians have written letters about Social Security beneficiaries not receiving a cost of living adjustment (COLA) raise this year. Unfortunately, our economic downturn has created many hardships but has also resulted in no inflation. Under the law, that results in no COLA for Social Security recipients.

In order to help seniors cope with these hard economic times, we voted for a $250 payment to seniors in 2009, and we’re trying to do that again in 2010. We hope that will help.

I couldn’t agree more that Congress should not receive a raise next year under these circumstances. I voted to make sure there were no congressional raises next year — and now there won’t be one — as we continue to recover from the economic mess President Obama inherited.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill
 Democrat, Missouri
Washington

Be truly thankful this Thanksgiving

Soon we will be celebrating Thanksgiving. Do we know what we are giving thanks for and to whom are we giving thanks?

  If we go back to the start, the days of the Pilgrims, we would find that they gave thanks for a bountiful harvest and for the new life that they were living. If we look at who they were giving thanks to, we would find that they were thanking God.  

And this is what we should be doing: being thankful that we live in a country that allows us to worship freely and have a bountiful harvest, and thanking God for all of this.

The pilgrims were thanking a Christian god, but this year we can thank a god of our choice, whatever religion we believe in.

If you don’t believe in God, then thank your parents for having you. Thank your newspaper deliverer for a daily delivery. Thank your neighbor for being friendly. The main thing is to really be thankful and make this holiday have a real meaning.

David Napoli
Kansas City

Shift in breast advice

We learn with horror that the panel that rejected the 2002 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations for annual mammograms in women from age 40 was a panel of bean counters. Their concern was with spending, not with health care. The 2009 panel did not include radiologists or oncologists.

If a breast biopsy does not reveal cancer, it is not unnecessary, save perhaps in retrospect. Biopsy is the definitive test for malignancy and for other lesions as well. Borderline lesions of the breast exist, often providing signals for close follow-up. Early biopsy following the introduction of mammography reveals lesions likely to enjoy favorable prognosis.

Death from breast cancer in American women has decreased substantially since the advent of mammography. Breast cancer does develop in women under 50 and over 75 who lack special risk factors or who are unaware of their risk factors.

David S. Jacobs, M.D.
Overland Park

Gail Collins’ column “Breast-exam advice just the latest medical shift” (11/20, Opinion) identified one of the big problems in health care: figuring out what actually works and what simply benefits medical technology and drug companies.
 
Several years ago there was a long piece in The New Yorker about back problems. The author was a doctor, trying to figure out what to do about his own back. He quoted studies and questioned why some issues hadn’t been studied. The article took up half the magazine, told you everything you could possibly want to know about back pain, and came to no conclusions.

 We don’t deal well with ambiguity, but as the world, including medical care, becomes more complex, there are fewer simple answers.

Rae Ann Nixon
Kansas City

Positive attitude, positive life

Over the last several days there has been a lot of negativity directed toward a proposed resolution by Congressman Emanuel Cleaver to declare the day before Thanksgiving “Complaint Free Wednesday.” Unfortunately, those who are writing these negative words are confusing complaining with leading.

In the early 1960s, many people claimed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was radical for devoting his life to ending racial discrimination in this country. Almost 50 years later, we celebrate the man and the dream he gave us. And did he do this by complaining? No. He led not by complaining, but by providing hope.

Rep. Cleaver’s resolution encourages each person in the U.S. to remember that having a positive life begins with having a positive attitude. It recognizes and reaffirms the meaning of Thanksgiving by asking each person in the U.S. to use Complaint Free Wednesday to refrain from complaining and prepare for a day of gratitude.

What a world this would be if everyone, especially those who are so negatively denouncing Rep Cleaver, would, for just one day, pause, reflect, give thanks and maybe, just maybe, stop complaining and start being nice to one another. That’s Rep. Cleaver’s vision, and my vision as well.

Tom Alyea
President, A Complaint Free World
Kansas City

Anger, not weight,is coach’s problem

 Jason Whitlock’s column (11/18, Sports) where he asserts that University of Kansas coach Mark Mangino’s problems are a result of his weight is laughable. No, it’s totally stupid, inane and incomprehensible.

This is blatant minimizing of what is obvious: Mark Mangino simply has an anger-management problem. Mangino’s behavior would not be tolerated in any other professional setting, but since he is an overpaid coach, it is just his coaching style and not his fault. McDonald’s obviously made him do it.

Come on, Jason. Get a grip, grow up, and stop making excuses for a foul-mannered, boorish buffoon. Were I the athletic director at KU, he’d have been gone after his now-famous televised temper tantrum.

Coaches are supposed to support and teach their players, not humiliate them in front of the world. Oh, I forgot — McDonald’s made him do it.

Mark Anderson
Lee’s Summit

Trial of 9/11 defendants

It’s understandable that Republicans despise President Obama for bringing the 9/11 defendants to New York (11/19, A1, “Holder takes heat for terror trials decision”).

That decision seems to prove we didn’t need to jail terror suspects overseas, thus keeping them outside the jurisdiction of American courts that would not allow torture. Obama’s decision says we didn’t need torture any more in the endless war on terror than we did in previous wars. It says we didn’t need to imprison hundreds of suspects overseas for many years without trial, without evidence of their guilt, and then just set them free.

Republican cries about the deadly dangers of trials in America do puff out a wonderful smokescreen. Truly, they need it to hide the torture and unjust imprisonment without trial that the Bush administration inflicted at Guantanamo and prisons in Iraq.

Charles Hammer
 Shawnee

I understand that the alleged conspirators now facing trial in New York have many who believe that the U.S. civilian courts are the place to properly try these men. The argument is that these non-enemy, non-combatant civilians charged with crimes committed on U.S. soil should be “brought to justice” in U.S. civilian courts.

Given this line of thinking, one would expect to argue in federal court that the idea of using armed, uniformed soldiers of the U.S. Armed Forces to bring in civilians to U.S. courts for “justice” is unconstitutional and all of these alleged conspirators — civilians — should be immediately released because they were seized, transported and held improperly (see the Bill of Rights, Articles IV, V and VI).

Otherwise, the next time I allegedly break a federal law, I should expect the U.S. military to be dispatched to strafe my house, pull up on my lawn in loaded tanks, blow open any remaining doors and extract any survivors to be carted off to a military base to await a civilian trial. The precedent is being set.

Charles Brents
Greenwood