Home

Letters | Health care, free market, helping victims

18.05.12

<span class="subhead">God help America</p><p></span>I did not agree with the government&#x2019;s decision to bail out the automobile companies, banks and Wall Street. </p><p>We are now strapped with debt we will never recover from. If they had been allowed to go through normal bankruptcy procedures, they would have found a way out it.</p><p>If I had to file bankruptcy, would the government come to my aid? Clear and simple, incompetence was rewarded.</p><p>Why were bonuses paid at any level? Our free-enterprise system has been severely sacrificed, and no one is able to understand the ramifications.</p><p>God help us.</p><p> <span class="bold">Stephen B. Hester</span></p><p> <span class="italic">Overland Park</span></p><p><span class="subhead">Time to stop fighting</p><p></span>Recently, Rick Santorum announced that he was suspending his presidential campaign. He added that &#x201C;the fight was not over.&#x201D;</p><p>Am I the only one who is tired of the fighting? Is there any one of the candidates running for any office who is not going to work toward a goal?</p><p>For too long we have been well aware how well Congress can fight. Get back to work, please.</p><p>For some of you in the House and the Senate, this will be a first.</p><p> <span class="bold">Steven Cottrell</span></p><p> <span class="italic">Kansas City</span></p><p><span class="subhead">Health care repair</p><p></span>With all the talk about what health insurance should cover, why has nobody thought about this solution? Insurance will cover everything for all health and medical reasons such as cancer, diseases and illness.</p><p>A supplement for birth, contraception, abortion, male enhancement and anything else involving procreation will be made available. It would stand to reason that a single male probably would not purchase this supplement, but a family male would.</p><p>A single, older or religious female has a choice to purchase this supplement or not. All businesses will have to offer the insurance and supplement, but it will not be mandatory to purchase the supplement.</p><p>Insurance companies already do this today with anticancer supplements. </p><p>You are covered for the &#x201C;big stuff&#x201D;; you choose the rest as to what your needs will be. If your status changes, such as getting married, then you can upgrade with the supplement.</p><p>Children&#x2019;s policies would not require the supplement until a later age. This seems fair.</p><p>How would you like to just want to buy a car, but to insure it, it has to be four-wheel drive?</p><p> <span class="bold">George Rivaux</span></p><p> <span class="italic">Lenexa</span></p><p><span class="subhead">Helping poor families</p><p></span>We call on our state legislators to protect families and children by maintaining Kansas&#x2019; version of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit. The Kansas tax credit supplements the federal program, with 90 percent of the tax-credit dollars going to low-earning families with children.</p><p>Family budgets have been battered. Stresses caused by poverty exacerbate mental health issues among parents and children, negatively affecting depression, a parent&#x2019;s ability to work, family income, children&#x2019;s behavioral problems, school outcomes and the need for social services.</p><p>The Kansas tax credit allows low-income families to keep more of what they earn to help make ends meet. Research suggests the credit might improve the mental health of poor single mothers.</p><p>Repealing the tax credit would result in lower earnings, with nearly 4,000 children falling into poverty, as well as increases in hunger, behavioral problems and poor school performance. None of this is good for Kansas&#x2019; families, schools or communities.</p><p>Contact your elected officials in Topeka in support of this important tax credit. We shouldn&#x2019;t raise taxes on struggling families who are working low-wage jobs.</p><p>For low-income parents and their children, this credit makes all the difference in the world.</p><p> <span class="bold">Rick Cagan</span></p><p> <span class="italic">Executive Director</span></p><p> <span class="italic">National Alliance</span></p><p> <span class="italic">on Mental Illness-Kansas</span></p><p> <span class="italic">Lawrence</span></p><p><span class="subhead">Climate change no myth</p><p></span>Questioning what we read on the Internet and what we hear on Fox News and talk radio, where standards of accuracy and accountability don&#x2019;t seem to apply, is critical. </p><p>Perhaps if global-warming naysayers, who claim climate change is a myth begun by Al Gore, would read legitimate sites such as NOAA.org (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration&#x2019;s site) or NIST.gov (the National Institutes of Standards and Technology) among many others, they would learn that scientists and climatologists around the world, not just in the U.S., are concerned about climate change.</p><p>I doubt that even Al Gore has the kind of influence that could lead international scientists to warn about the effects of global warming if they did not truly believe there is imminent danger. I&#x2019;m sure there are some in the scientific community who don&#x2019;t buy into the urgency in combating global warming, but we cannot underestimate the opposition of the oil and mining industries, which appear to be more interested in profit than the environment.</p><p>If you follow the money, it leads to Exxon and BP not Al Gore.</p><p> <span class="bold">Nancy Lines</span></p><p> <span class="italic">Overland Park</span></p><p><span class="subhead">Making votes count</p><p></span>Missourians are used to voting in primaries to allot the state&#x2019;s presidential delegates. But this year the primary was meaningless, unconnected to the process of selecting delegates.</p><p>The politics are complicated, but essentially Missouri lawmakers last spring pushed to have the primary on March 6, rather than Feb. 7. The governor vetoed the legislation to push back the vote.</p><p>Returning in the fall, Republicans failed to pass a new bill and missed the Republican National Committee&#x2019;s deadline to settle primary dates or risk losing delegates. The Feb. 7 election stood and, rather than face the loss of delegates, Republicans decided to assign them through a caucus process and make the February primary non-binding.</p><p>A total of 17,576 people participated in Republican caucuses between March 13 and April 10. That&#x2019;s less than one-half of 1 percent of the state&#x2019;s registered voters.</p><p> Choosing a president is one of Americans&#x2019; most basic privileges. We should make every effort to have more people participate. The caucus system should be scrapped, and Missouri should return to a binding primary in the 2016 presidential race. </p><p>Every voter in Missouri deserves to cast a ballot and to have that vote count.</p><p> <span class="bold">Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder</span></p><p> <span class="italic">Cape Girardeau, Mo.</span></p><p><span class="subhead">Liberty Memorial</p><p></span>Star Magazine on April 22, &#x201C;50 things every Kansas Citian should know,&#x201D; listed 50-plus places everyone should know about and see in Kansas City, and the publication left out the signature icon &#x2014; Liberty Memorial and the National World War I Museum. How could that happen?</p><p>You mentioned Union Station. All you had to do was turn your head, and there it is. The tower is visible from afar, and even you said that Kansas Citians voted it the place where most of us wanted to have our pictures taken.</p><p> <span class="bold">Claudine Thomas</span></p><p> <span class="italic">Kansas City</span></p><p><span class="subhead">Voter IDs in Missouri</p><p></span>Have Missouri House Republicans uncovered a vast gray-wing conspiracy by seniors and the disabled to somehow commit voter fraud by voting absentee (4-30, A4, &#x201C;Proof-of-citizenship bill advances&#x201D;)? </p><p>Why else would Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem Shane Schoeller propose legislation that would require a designated surrogate to hand-deliver an absentee ballot for those physically unable to get to the polls?</p><p>I may have to take this insult sitting down (I&#x2019;m quadriplegic), but it won&#x2019;t stop me from speaking out against such an asinine proposal. What&#x2019;s next from the Republicans: requiring literacy tests to vote for all those who aren&#x2019;t registered Republicans?</p><p>How about bringing back the poll tax or maybe a loyalty oath witnessed by an approved state official? Jim Crow is making a comeback.</p><p>Who would ever have expected something like this in the 21st century? Did Republicans somehow discover that those voting absentee were overwhelmingly not voting the &#x201C;right way.&#x201D;</p><p>Is that why we are being targeted (along with women seeking contraception or an abortion)? I can&#x2019;t wait to see who is next on the hit list. All this from the party that claims to want to get government &#x201C;off our backs.&#x201D; Who are they kidding?</p><p> <span class="bold">Jeffrey Bushman</span></p><p> <span class="italic">Kansas City</span></p><p><span class="subhead">Good deed, but &#x2026;</p><p></span>Thank you, Black & Veatch, for the opportunity to recycle my old electronics recently. I am sure that the thousands of citizens from both sides of the state line also appreciated the chance to rid themselves of old, mostly useless junk. However, please in the future, staff for the occasion and anticipate the workload. You were grossly understaffed, and as a result many gallons of gasoline were wasted by the long lines of cars.</p><p>I spent one hour and 40 minutes divesting myself of a small amount of gear, and I am sure there were others who spent that long or longer. Then I was charged for the privilege, as were the others. Otherwise, thanks, at least it helped empty my basement.</p><p> <span class="bold">Dick Durbin</span></p><p> <span class="italic">Overland Park</span>

Source: Kansas City Star

Olympic champion Merritt has new home, outlook

18.05.12

LaShawn Merritt's life includes plenty of new things.

Merritt, the reigning 400-meter Olympic gold medalist, has a new home in Bradenton, Fla., and a new coach in Loren Seagrave.

Perhaps most important, though, the Portsmouth native has a new outlook after a humbling and embarrassing ordeal in 2010, when he tested positive for a banned substance found in a male enhancement product.

Merritt faced a two-year ban, but it was reduced to 21 months, and he's now preparing to defend his Olympic title in London this summer. He makes his spring debut Saturday at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia.

"I learned some things about myself and developed some character," Merritt, 25, said from Florida. "Now I'm more focused than ever."

Merritt initially was told he wouldn't get the chance to defend his title because of an International Olympic Committee rule that makes any athlete who receives a doping ban of six months or more ineligible for the next Olympics.

Source: The Virginian-Pilot