Letters to the Editor (June 14)

Making a change

Almost daily, I find myself becoming more discouraged by a steady diet of negative news of all kinds - political, cultural, local, foreign. Isolationism is not an answer to the world’s problems, and I have become more concerned about a backward slide to the “good old days.”

News reports last week about a noose placed in the Smithsonian Museum of African American Culture sickened me; similar incidents have also been reported. In a recent visit to the Museum of African American Culture, I was, at once, impressed with what a wonderful job has been done in presenting so many aspects of what that culture has suffered, as well as its artistic, political, and intellectual, contributions to this country. I chatted with a few of the huge number of students from all over the country to ask their reaction. Each said they appreciated such a broad presentation and had learned lot; I told each to be sure to remember what they experienced there.

I am moving from a position of externalizing all of this, to thinking about what I can do in my own life and corner of the world to make any change and improvement. We all breathe the same air and are more connected than we want to acknowledge. Years ago I read a book, “Changing the Universe,” by Freeman Dyson, a physicist. He posits that when a molecule is moved, the universe is changed, and I believe that, and do not minimize any little thing I do.

Legislature

With the release of Netflix’s Season 5 of House of Cards, a fictional America, with President Francis Underwood, we see a scenario that is eerily similar to the Kansas led by Senate President Susan Wagle.

Underwood, like Wagle, leads the state through heavy-handed tactics, yet accomplishes nothing.

Kansas is facing a two-year $900 million shortfall and the Kansas Senates’ solution? To pass the largest tax increase in Kansas history while growing government and refusing to cut spending.

Too often, we place our fiscal blame on the shoulders of Gov. Sam Brownback, however, the governor only can sign or veto legislation. It is our House and Senate, our speaker and Senate president who lead the bodies that have failed us.

But, like Underwood, Wagle shifts her blame on someone else.

If I was a betting man, I would be on the lookout for Wagle to attempt to climb the political ladder just like Francis Underwood. And if she does, don’t let her distract you yet again.

One of these two may be sitting behind a fictional Resolute Desk, but, unfortunately for Kansas, we have a Senate president following his tactics and leading our state toward a fiscal cliff in the aims of political gain.

Michael Reagan

Michael Reagan’s column (“History lessons for Hillary, the anti-Trump media,” June 6) was completely below the belt when it comes to fairness, respect, and decency.

After writing that Donald Trump is only “guilty of beating Queen Hillary,” Reagan goes on to lambast the media, the Democrats, and of course Hillary.

According to him, none of the Trump crudeness or vulgarity during the Republican primaries ever occurred. And what of the Russian tampering? Using the same worn-out GOP tactic of the past, he claimed that the Democrats were guilty of doing the same and instead blamed Hillary’s loss on Hillary and not on the racism produced by Trump and the Republicans.

Not once did the word ‘character’ appear in his piece, and that is also incredulous, for when his father was president the Republicans were very fond of saying that “character matters.” Now that Trump is president, Reagan can’t even say it once, and for good reason, because evidently he has forgotten how Trump openly mimicked a New York Times reporter who suffered a disability or how he once defended the size of his manhood during an exchange with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).

Evidently for Republicans everywhere, character has a switch labeled On and Off.

This story was originally published June 14, 2017 at 5:03 AM with the headline "Letters to the Editor (June 14)."