Opinion > Letters to the Editor

Posted on Sat, Oct. 31, 2009

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Letters to the editor on casinos, trash franchising, NCLB, Obama spending, cookie help, honest people

Lottery should approve casinos

The Kansas Lottery Commission only wants to approve destination casinos with hotels. Meanwhile, seven days a week, hundreds of Kansans drive to Oklahoma, Missouri and Colorado to gamble. Kansas is losing millions of dollars to our neighboring states.

Kansas needs the jobs that will be provided by having casinos, most of which will be good-paying jobs with benefits. The casinos between the Kansas-Oklahoma border and Ponca City, Okla., don't have any problem getting business from Kansas without having hotels. I personally have seen Kansas license plates in the Oklahoma casinos' parking lots from as far away as Saline, Ford and Lyon counties.

I urge the commission to make the right decision for Kansas and approve the casino proposals before it. If it doesn't, will the last resident leaving Kansas please turn out the lights? We can't afford the electric bill.

TIM ANDERSON

Mulvane

Don't franchise

The editorial promoting a franchised trash system ignored the history of monopoly providers ("Layton is on right track on trash," Oct. 27 Eagle Editorial). Remember when there was only one phone company? After the monopoly was broken, innovation suddenly skyrocketed, and now we live in a comparative utopia of communications.

Do not forget the political payback that will go on once the city selects trash services. How much influence will a trash company try to acquire to protect its business? Lose that city section and go bankrupt. Personally, I do not want to import that kind of Chicago-esque practice to Wichita.

Most frustrating on this issue are the practices of The Eagle itself. Every few weeks it litters my property with an advertisement. It is hypocrisy for The Eagle to print editorials about how we need to recycle and be responsible for our trash, and then litter yards so it can make advertising money.

JAMES ROBBINS

Wichita

Values dilemma

The news about a 15-year-old student in California being gang-raped while on school grounds attending a homecoming dance reminded me about what schools today are forced to highlight in their curriculum offerings, thanks to the No Child Left Behind legislation.

I urge any parent to search the NCLB requirements, heavily tested and publicly reported, for any evidence of an emphasis on citizenship education (social studies), critical thinking (science) or character education. The demands placed upon teachers by NCLB heavily focus on two basic areas of the curriculum: reading and math. Data gained by persistent formal testing of students are reported in newspapers and to school boards for these two subjects, at the expense of school- sponsored learning experiences that might help prevent the kind of brutality this young lady experienced.

Only when the "test, test, test" emphasis on only academic skills is modified to include accentuating thinking and life skills should our schools be held accountable of helping young students display lawful and productive lifestyles.

JOHN H. WILSON

Wichita

Middle-class help?

Can anyone tell me what President Obama has done to help middle-class taxpayers? I tried to find something, and all I could come up with was that he and the Democratic-controlled Congress passed a credit-card bill that made people like me pay more interest on my balances to make up for those people who don't pay their bills. Gas is going up again; he's done nothing about that. He's trying to socialize America by passing a poorly funded health care bill. Because of his spending sprees, we now have the highest deficit in history, and he just wants to keep spending. The sad thing is that the liberal media don't report any of this. Obama is turning our once fine country into a Third World country.

EDDIE BRYANT Sr.

Wichita

Cookie aid

Kudos to Sonya Nicholson for baking 1,300 cookies to sell to stop eviction proceedings against her and her family (Oct. 24 Local & State), and also for giving 10 percent of her earnings to Advocates to End Chronic Homelessness. I wish everyone who read the article had passed up eating out one meal and bought cookies.

Let's help those who are trying to help themselves.

BEVERLY DeLANO

Wichita

Honest people

I had almost lost all hope that there were really honest people out there. Well, I found two.

I recently shopped at the Dillons at 13th and Woodlawn. When I got home, I realized I didn't have my wallet. I freaked out. I ran outside, backtracking to my car; it wasn't there. I called Dillons on my home phone, and one of the managers went out looking for it.

In the meantime, a gentleman called and said he had found the wallet in the parking lot. I asked him if there was any money in the wallet. He said "yes," and all of my ID, too. When I went to pick up my wallet, all my money was there. I tried to give him and his wife a reward, but they said "no."

I have been unemployed for three months, and even though it wasn't a whole lot of money, it would have really hurt to lose it.

So the moral here is that we all need to be like these people, and not be so greedy.

KIP HARDING

Wichita