Letters on River Festival, Netanyahu speech, Obama, ISIS, racial profiling, pot vote

Riverfest is still an amazing value

The cost of everything has increased over the past 10 years, including the cost to put on the amazing nine-day Wichita River Festival. Even with more than 5,000 volunteers, some of them working almost year-round, it costs money, a lot of money, to put on a festival that Wichita can be so proud of.

And lots of high-minded companies and individuals all across the city pony up big bucks to bring in classy entertainment. OK, it isn’t Top 40. But last year we got to hear Joan Jett, Marky Ramone and Jerrod Niemann.

We won’t know the lineup for 2015 until later this month, but the Village People are coming, so you can see them for a $5 button if you buy it ahead of time. If the Village People aren’t your thing, there will be eight other days of great music and other fun stuff.

So it’s still an amazing value even if you don’t buy early. But if you plan ahead there’s no price increase for adults, and kids’ buttons are staying at $3.

There are lots of great movies and concerts in Wichita, but try finding one, here or anywhere else, that gives you nine days for just $10. Can’t be done.

Need strong rebuke

The U.S. Constitution reserves to the president the right to conduct foreign policy. House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress comes close to violating the Constitution.

President Obama’s policy is to seek a diplomatic solution regarding Iran. Israel, in contrast, wants to draw the United States into war with Iran.

Boehner and Netanyahu are allies in an effort to overturn the U.S. government’s diplomatic efforts. They are cooperating to generate public support in America for Israel’s aggressive military designs in the Middle East.

The issue of foreign interference in American foreign policy also arose in the administration of our first president, George Washington. In 1793 a French ambassador, “Citizen Genet,” conspired with some Americans who disagreed with U.S. neutrality in a conflict between France and England. President Washington and his Cabinet demanded that Genet be recalled.

The conspiracy today of Boehner, Netanyahu and Israel’s ambassador Ron Dermer deserves as strong a rebuke as Washington delivered to “Citizen Genet” and his American friends in 1793.

Day of infamy?

Imagine if Franklin Roosevelt had been a simpering, gutless dolt:

“Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of, well, by naval and air forces. No country is responsible for bombing Pearl Harbor. We are not at war with Japan. We are at war with those who perverted Japan. We should address their economic grievances and send them more jobs. Get off your high horse and recognize the terrible deeds we committed 800 years ago during the Crusades.... And if Stalin wants Ukraine, he can have it.”

Still primitive

I recently read the book “In Paradise” by Peter Matthiessen. The book deals primarily with Auschwitz-Birkenau, the former World War II extermination camp in Poland. Here is a quote from the book that works perfectly well if one substitutes the opening “Auschwitz-Birkenau” with “the Islamic State”: “Auschwitz-Birkenau is all the proof needed that as a species, the human animal has never lost the most primitive traits of the primate predator-scavenger on the Savanna, the incipient killer. Morally man’s consciousness has made no progress in all the millennia since his graffiti first defaced cave walls.”

Retraining brains

Through stereotyping, some people’s brains associate a black male with fear, violence and harm. Too often this leads a police officer to shoot to kill.

What can a police department do? Using the Implicit Association Test helps individuals become more sensitive to their prejudice. By working through the Weapons Identification Task, test subjects learn to identify real threats and respond appropriately.

Police officers who kill unarmed citizens should be fired and face criminal charges. The others need to retrain their brain to avoid putting unarmed citizens at risk.

Will you vote on pot?

On April 7, we are all going to have some hard choices to make. Will you have a say in those choices? Will you vote?

Only voters will decide if marijuana is sanctioned. This one issue could change your life.

Did you ever share a freeway with a bunch of people with Colorado tags? I’d advise you to experience that before you cast your vote.

This story was originally published February 20, 2015 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Letters on River Festival, Netanyahu speech, Obama, ISIS, racial profiling, pot vote."