Unfettered Letters

Weighty insult

So Laura Ingraham thinks Meghan McCain is too “plus-sized” to have an opinion? (3/24, Opinion, “Ingraham insult to Meghan McCain mean, intellectually lightweight”)

I have just two words for you, Laura: Rush Limbaugh.

Shirley Lewis
Overland Park

Apathy toward abortion

Mary Sanchez (3/10, Opinion, "Abortion foes disrespect church-state separation") profoundly states "I agree with (Archbishop Joseph Naumann) that abortion is abhorrent and morally wrong." If she truly believes this, then the rest of the article makes no sense.

Abortion is morally wrong only if the fetus is a human person. Otherwise it is no different than a mole or gallbladder removal. If so, what's the fuss all about? And if the fetus is a person, then abortion stops the life of a person.

Shouldn't stopping a human life trump all other values? Sadly, in our society it does not. There are more important values and agendas such as the economy, the war and unemployment. This attitude of apathy toward the vulnerable translates into atrocities elsewhere. Articles supporting abortion, however disguised or rationalized, only further this agenda.

I watch what I do to see what I believe.

John Miller
Fairway

Obama's 'cure' has vision

Charles Krauthammer erroneously states that President Obama cited energy, education and health care as causes for the economic collapse (3/10, Opinion, "Obama's cure has nothing to do with what ails us"). I can find no place were the president says these are directly causal. He does, however, have the vision to see that they are a part of the solution.

To limit Obama's solutions ideologically to only those things that are the causes is precisely the kind of single-focus linear thinking that got us into this mess. "The economy" is made up of more than banks and car manufacturers. It also includes agriculture, education and, yes, health care. Obama is using "systems thinking" (see Peter Senge et al.) to find a cure, not the knee-jerk ideological response of the neocons who brought us this debacle.

Albert Einstein once said, "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." If Krauthammer has some magic formula, he should share it. But don't tell us we can't use a particular remedy because it's not in his 20th-century toolbox and it violates one of his principles of pseudo-economics.

Dick Sumpter
Lenexa

‘Looting’ the U.S. Treasury

E. Thomas McClanahan (2/8, Opinion, “Be careful what we let Washington decide”) gets it wrong with his assertion that “The larger issues raised here are troubling. In Washington we now have a lot of people who believe they ‘know’ exactly how much bank executives ‘should’ be making.”

No, Thomas. What we have are a lot of people all over the country, including Washington, witnessing the looting of the U.S. Treasury. These brilliant financial people need a good spanking in the only language they understand. The single most effective way to stem the crisis will be to impose compensation limits on executives of those institutions that created this train wreck and now need the taxpayers to bail them out.

And don’t even suggest we need to pay big rewards to retain this top talent. Top talent like this is the kind we don’t need.

Bob Hoffman
Olathe

Prescription drug costs

I read George Will’s hand-wringing column about the imminent demise of Medicare (2/7, Opinion, “Obama willing, Congress weak on entitlements”). Maybe if our government were willing to curb corporate welfare for the prescription drug companies, we could save a few billion.

I was shocked to find that my Medicare Plan D cost for one of my prescriptions, for both my co-pay and Medicare, was $392 for a 90-day supply, and another was $265 for 90 days. I checked prices at a Canadian pharmacy and found their price was $110 for the former and $200 for the latter for the same product.

I have heard all the special pleading from pharmaceutical companies about the cost of research being high. But does this mean that the U.S. is footing the bill for it while other countries regulate prices? Maybe, but I think we have a case of what Will euphemizes as “political free speech”— i.e. bribery of Congress.

Drug companies enjoy a monopoly on patented prescription drugs. We should regulate their prices.

Carrol L. Fry
Maryville, Mo.

Stop feeding fat cats

Maureen Dowd (2/5, Opinion, “Disgorge, Wall Street fat cats”) rightly criticizes those princely corporate executives who are still taking mega-bonuses and salaries after having driven their companies into the ditch. She laments that it is nearly impossible to make them pay back the monies and perks they continue to grab off.

Republican congressmen still contend that it would damage the economy further if George Bush’s eight-year-long tax cut for the super-rich were reversed. How so? We now know that their supply-side economic theory, where big money is directed and retained at the top and is supposed to trickle down to the masses is, and always was, a lie.

It’s simple. Go to the end of the feeding chain and enact today, not tomorrow, progressive income tax rates that seriously increase taxes on the soaring income of the super-rich. Chances are that much of what the IRS would be gathering in would be ill-gotten gains or at least stimulate a return to democracy from plutocracy.

Lloyd Hellman
Leawood

California octuplets

Columnist Ellen Goodman opined that the birth of the Suleman octuplets “is more than an individual decision” (2/8, Opinion, “Case of octuplets shows lack of sense and limits”). Goodman implies that because public dollars may be needed to care for these children, the government should be entitled to regulate the implantation of embryos.

Goodman has previously established her belief that government should not interfere with women’s privacy “rights” to abortion. What twisted logic. If a woman’s womb is a private matter, then her decision to deliver a “litter” is private. On the other hand, if the concern is that tax dollars are going to be spent contrary to Americans’ wishes, then public money should not be used to pay for abortions.

If Goodman is truly concerned about how our tax dollars are being spent, she should be outraged at President Obama’s decision to lift the ban against using tax revenues to procure abortions around the globe. A Gallup poll reveals that only 35 percent of Americans approve of President Obama’s decision to lift that ban.

It is hypocrisy to play the “privacy” and “public money” cards when it suits only one side of a debate.

Kim Wetzel-Williams
Kansas City, Kan.

Nadya Suleman chose to have in vitro fertilization and now has eight more children. I wonder if her unidentified fertility doctor is married. If not, maybe he should consider marrying Nadya to help care for these innocent children.

If he is not available, maybe she should consider adoption. That decision would demonstrate responsibility, maturity and love, which seems to be a huge deficit in this sad scenario.

Susan Hidalgo
Lake Quivira

Positive news

Thank you, Steve Penn, for your column about both an inspiring young man named Mark Fields and his mentor, Charles Parker (2/5, Local, “Inventing a better life for himself”).

Reading this story about how Mark overcame a tough childhood and how Charles reached out to this parentless child was a great way to start my morning. Much better than reading about the usual murders, shootings, arrests, layoffs and economic woes that dominate much of the newspaper. Please keep these positive stories coming.

A daily reminder of the good in this world will keep my subscription going.

Anne Hooper
Overland Park

Gitmo detainees

I enjoy reading Barbara Shelly but disagree with her column “Kansas politicians share yellow stripe on Gitmo” (2/6, Opinion). I do not believe they insult the military by implying they are not able to handle the task. If given this mission, our military forces would accomplish it. What it implies is that perhaps this task is better suited for another federal institution such as the Supermax facility in Florence, Colo.

It is easy for those not affected by the decision to house the Gitmo detainees to be critical. The global yearning to shut down Gitmo has not had a corresponding global willingness to share the burden. Kansas politicians were advocating on behalf of their constituents when they joined forces to secure the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility, just as they are in denouncing the idea of transferring Gitmo detainees to Fort Leavenworth.

Glenn K. Grothe
Fort Leavenworth

The Star’s editorial (2/7, Opinion, “Fort can handle Gitmo detainees”) regarding placing terrorists at Fort Leavenworth is an amazing display of ignorance and naïveté.

Members of al-Qaida and Lashkar-i-Taiba have a goal of killing Americans. The judgment of The Star’s editors apparently is so clouded that they do not understand that terrorists see no distinction between those in uniform and civilians. They will gladly kill themselves if it means killing Americans. The editors cannot grasp the cultural difference between those cowards and our culture that distinguishes between combatants and non-combatants.

Unfortunately, The Star’s editors are quite willing to place Gitmo detainees in our community. That terrorists might seek vengeance by sending suicide murderers wearing explosive vests into our city schools is of no consequence to The Star.

In short, before editorializing from ignorance, you would do well to educate yourselves, take off your blinders, and get your heads out of the sand.

Richard L. Kiper
U.S. Army Special Forces (retired)
Leavenworth

War criminals must be prosecuted

A recent letter writer (1/28) criticized columnist Eugene Robinson’s opinion that a light must be shined upon the truth about torture (1/25, Opinion), saying that it was just the Democrats’ desire to jail predecessors and thus stay in power.

Eric Holder, President Obama’s choice for attorney general, testified recently that waterboarding was indeed torture, a war crime. So far, only a few underlings who performed waterboarding have been prosecuted. The Nuremberg War Trials determined that “the officer ordered me to do it” excuse is not a valid defense.

How many more carried out orders to commit war crimes, and who gave the orders? Donald Rumsfeld? Dick Cheney? Others?

Will our country “stand up” on this point, “dust itself off,” and prosecute all who are guilty, thereby removing the torture tarnish from Lady Justice and making her blind, just and shiny again? Americans ought to demand it.

Byron A. Stewart Jr.
Independence