Unfettered Letters

Help Harvesters feed hungry

Every time people go to the supermarket if they would drop just one item (or two) in the Harvesters food donation barrel, it would be a small cost that would add up to so much for the needy families in our community. And encouraging children to place the items in the barrel might start a tradition for future generations.

Roberta Newth
Leawood

Medicare extends lives

After picking up my jaw out of the cereal bowl, I decided Jon Baird’s take on Medicare (11/22, Letters, “Health reform a tragedy”) should not go unchallenged.

Mr. Baird, I don’t know anything about your family’s experiences with Medicare. Possibly they are financially able to not be burdened by health care costs. I am personally old enough to remember what seniors faced before Medicare came into being, including members of my own family.

I might point out one interesting statistic about health care in the United States. We rank behind most industrialized (and some developing) nations in health care outcomes, including life expectancy and infant mortality. We rank near the top if we consider the life expectancy of people who manage to reach age 65. Could it just be that access to decent medical care has something to do with that?

Medicare is not perfect by far, and certainly needs to be improved, but the extreme “I’ve got mine; go get your own” attitude such as Mr. Baird’s is inappropriate in any civilized society.

Ross Warnell
Smithville

They’re out to get Obama

For President Obama’s critics, whatever he does is wrong. Now there’s screeching and flapping of hands over terrorist trials in New York. The terrorists’ “declaration of war” was not an attack by a foreign state. It was by a gaggle of frenzied jihadist individuals. We’ve already tried many dangerous terrorists in this country, including in New York City. New York can handle it.

Republicans have flatly stated their intent to break Obama, and health care coverage would be his Waterloo. Why didn’t they do it their way during their ruinous eight years in charge? They strive to crush any Democrat in power, whatever lies and slander it takes. Then it’s back to righteous Republican rule: serving Big Pharma, Big Insurance (which really does come between you and your doctor) and Big Money, ensuring that all money goes up, not down to us peasants.

By the way, many members of the panel that made the outrageous mammogram recommendations were appointed by the last administration.

Mary Dyer
Independence

What’s wrong in Washington?

To President Obama and Congress:

With all due respect, what’s wrong with you? Yes, our health care system needs reform. But people without jobs can’t pay for health insurance premiums or medical treatment. Unemployment is now more than 10 percent with no end in sight. More than half the jobs created since the stimulus bill are in government, paid for by tax dollars. Small businesses that fuel job creation are still being denied credit by the banks you bailed out with our money. Alternative energy development is going nowhere, and our infrastructure continues to crumble.

You were quick to bail out Wall Street. But all Main Street has gotten from you in the last 11 months is political gamesmanship. We don’t need 2,000 pages of indecipherable health care legislation. We need jobs — right now — and not just minimum wage service jobs.

We elected you because we thought you were smart enough to multitask. Apparently, we were wrong, and you should all be replaced at the earliest opportunity.

Carole Damon
Kansas City

Containing health care costs

It is unfortunate that the president and congressional leaders are so busy that they don’t have time to talk.
 
President Obama has been talking about the ruinous costs of health care in America since last winter. He tells stories of businesses and individuals left destitute by medical bills. And then Congress produces giant pieces of legislation that barely address anything that might reduce costs.

How can that be? It can only happen when Congress works long and hard to protect the interests of the people who keep them in office: the lobbyists.

Only in the fantasy world of a U.S. congressmen do huge tax increases allow them to change $849 billion in spending into “savings.”

And then Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois comments that Congress needs to get this legislation passed so lawmakers can turn to work on growing the economy and jobs (11/23, A1). At least that gave me a good laugh.

When will we start drug testing members of Congress?

Tad DeOrio
Lee’s Summit

Providers of health care services have no incentive to provide a good service for a low price, and the health care bill does nothing to change this fact. If practically all services are of little economic consequence to the user of the service, and the provider gains no competitive advantage by providing a lower price, then there will be no downward pressure on prices. Not many businesses function in a similar environment.

Republican solutions generally approach the problem from a standpoint of trying to change this dynamic, while the Democratic approach is to increase access and try to control costs by fiat (price controls on provider services) later. I prefer more traditional market approaches, if they are allowed to work.

Stephen R. Kunz, M.D.
Overland Park

Trial of 9/11 terror suspects

Columnist Eugene Robinson is an alarmingly naive person (11/22, Opinion, “Trial could showcase commitment to justice”). There’s no precedent or sound legal justification for trying Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the other terror suspects in U.S. civilian court in New York.

Robinson proposes that a civilian trial, as opposed to a military trial by uniformed men and women, would in effect help to disabuse radical Muslim jihadists of their justification to fight against our so-called “war on Islam” because it shows that the U.S. is not “afraid” of them. That is elementary school-level naivete.

The outrageous and unnecessary expenditure for what amounts to a show trial will do the exact opposite of what Robinson claims. An open civilian trial will only serve to better elucidate the “Great Satan” on his own soil, will be recognized as another triumph by the “preachers of hate” and is certainly a high insult to the 9/11 families who will have to witness such barbarians being afforded U.S. civilian legal protection.

I wonder if Mr. Robinson has ever considered that, or if he’s really that naive.

Tim Baynham
Overland Park

Recent statements in The Star by a U.S. senator (Pat Roberts), a former U.S. attorney general (John Ashcroft), and a former vice president of the United States (Dick Cheney) all display a common negative attitude toward our Constitution. All three are fearful that our ideals cannot stand up to the terrorist ideology of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed when he appears in open civilian court in New York City not far from the 9/11 site.
 
Who are these three leading public figures trying to kid in defending the abrogation of constitutional procedures, both now and throughout the eight years of the Bush-Cheney (read Ashcroft-Gonzales) administration of our laws? It is such a defeatist approach displayed by all three of these former high-ranking officials that scores easy victories for terrorists, whose ultimate aim is precisely to undermine the very rule of law that these gentlemen have already proved they will not uphold under terrorist pressure.
 
Owen de Long
Merriam

Kind stranger pays for groceries

I would like to share a story of holiday spirit expressed through a kind deed. On Saturday Nov. 21, about 11 a.m., I was getting groceries at the Hy-Vee store at North Oak and Englewood. As I went through the checkout line, a young woman ahead of me stealthily managed to pay for my groceries. She wished me “Happy Thanksgiving” as she walked away. I managed to stammer a thank you when I realized what she’d done, but I’m not sure she heard me.

My aunt, for whom I was getting the groceries, was quite touched by the woman’s kindness, as was I. The unknown benefactor has given us another reason to be thankful this year. I would like to thank her again and hope that her kindness is returned to her tenfold.

Kenneth W. Schultz
Kansas City

Data support new breast advice

David Jacobs, M.D. (11/24, Letters) writes that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which made the recent recommendations on breast cancer screening, was a “panel of bean counters.” Nothing could be further from the truth. They are physicians and epidemiologists whose recommendations are based on the best evidence available.

That the “panel did not include radiologists or oncologists” (specialties that indeed might have a financial stake in the recommendations) is irrelevant, as their job was to evaluate the data. Their recommendations are made for doctors and other clinicians to inform their discussions with their patients, and it is incredibly valuable to have an unbiased independent panel that will look at all, not selected, studies.

Dr. Jacobs may remember that the 2002 recommendations, which lowered the age for beginning screening from 50 to 40, were very controversial at the time. Now there is more research data to inform the recommendations.

Joshua Freeman, M.D.
Kansas City, Kan.

Glad to see Moore go

An open letter to Dennis Moore:

I see the reason you have not answered any of my letters or e-mails to you. You are not running for re-election, so why should you care? This also explains your not holding any town hall meetings on health care. You don’t need to listen to anyone because you are not running again. So now you can spend 2009 and 2010 being the voting lap dog of President Obama’s Marxist policies. I saw where you were listed as one of the Blue Dog Democrats. Well, at least they got that half right.
Dennis Moore, if you really want to do something good for the Kansans you “represent” then resign now. You already have your sweet congressional retirement deal wrapped up. We will all be much happier, and you would give all Kansans a great Christmas present.

Ed Bledsoe 
Olathe

So Dennis Moore is quitting. What a coward. He couldn’t face the voters in August to defend his position on health care. Now he can’t face them to defend his vote.

He was wrong on the government bailout, wrong on health care and wrong on cap-and-trade. He’ll leave our grandchildren with a heavy price to pay. Some legacy. I’m glad he’ll be gone and hope it stays that way.

Jim Wagner
Lenexa

I’ll take the bureaucrat

I hear Republicans oppose health reform by warning that it will put a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. Whom would I trust more: a government employee overseen by elected officials or an insurance company employee overseen by a profit-driven company executive?

 I say give me the government bureaucrat any day.

Jim Rawdon
Lee’s Summit

Government plays vital role

Government doesn’t produce anything, according to Brian Maday (11/23, Letters). I am sorry that Mr. Maday is so disillusioned with his country and government. Actually, government produces plenty of things, including products.
First, government produces services for all of its citizens. It allocates money to businesses to manufacture lots of things for the military and other government agencies that benefit the entire country. It produces laws that protect us from each other and from outside threats, as well as laws that benefit its citizens. We are a country of laws.

Government is not the big bogeyman that he would have you believe. Big business and private insurance surely have not been the answer to all of our problems. There was too little regulation from government. In fact they are the ones that the “evil” government had to bailout to avoid the second Great Depression. I also have yet to get a straight answer from people who believe like Mr. Maday about what freedoms are at stake.

I applaud going to the polls to vote. Just make sure you are fully informed of the facts.

John Seeley
Independence 

Older women need exams, too

Ladies, be sure to check your vulva as well as your breasts for cancer. When I reached 70 years of age, I was told by my doctor I no longer needed Pap checks because I was too old.

I have been diagnosed with melanoma cancer of the vulva. Treatment is painful. I know Medicare would save money if it would pay for physicals.

Jacquelyn B. Carpenter
Kansas City

Dress code aimed at African-Americans

W.F. Miller (11/18, Letters) claims black-on-black crime, drive-bys, and problems in the inner city trump dress-code discrimination in the Power & Light District.

However, the dress code is not about teenage thuggery, blighted areas, Hank Williams traditions or some banjo player from “Deliverance.” This is about characterizing African-Americans as enemy No. 1.

African-Americans didn’t kill 3 million Jews or 100 million Native Americans or wipe out an indigenous aboriginal culture.

Miller’s attack on community leaders is expected, but black codes have and will always produce great leaders. Diamond, Mo., produced a slave named George Washington Carver. Lawrence, Kan., produced Langston Hughes. Roy Wilkins joined the civil rights movement because of what he saw as an editor for The Call of Kansas City. If not for Wilkins, the world may not have heard Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.

Cordish Co. modified its dress code for last year’s Big 12 tournament. Then our money was good enough. There were no drive-bys, and people had a good time.

Courtney A. Phillips
Overland Park 

Islamic ban on blasphemy

Islamic nations are proposing an international treaty protecting religious icons and beliefs from mockery (11/22, World, “Ban is suggested on blasphemy”).

The article presents the obstacle of Western free speech to such a treaty well, but let’s not forget another obstacle, that of demanding respect for oneself while displaying total disregard and contempt for all others. Let them get their own house straight before they start trying to get everyone else’s house in order.

To show good faith, they could put forth and actively enforce a treaty condemning any and all violence in the name of any religion. That will keep them busy at home for quite a while.

Greg Ewing
Lake Lotawana

You might be an ‘elite’ …

Oh, golly, gee whiz. I’m so excited! As the product of public schools, from a farming background and living in a rural area all of my life, taking my kids to church every Sunday, I thought I was a pretty common, ordinary person.

Imagine my amazement to find that I am now one of the “elites” because I am puzzled that a beauty contestant, who floated around to four colleges in six years until she finally got a journalism degree, somehow thought Katie Couric had ambushed her by asking about personal reading habits. And that was before her rambling speech when she bailed out of her job.

I never thought the likes of Weekly Standard writer Matthew Continetti would elevate little ol’ me from country bumpkin populist to the “elites” just because I can see through the new clothes a slick salesgirl is trying to sell to the emperor (11/22, Opinion, “Pro-Con: Does Sarah Palin’s new book make her a more appealing candidate?”).

RitaLynne Broyles-Greenwood
Chillicothe, Mo.