Letters to the editor on the Wichita Open, plant-based meats and Juneteenth

Wichita Open

I have been involved with the Shell Houston Open, Independence Bowl, New Mexico Bowl and was co-chair of the 1993 U.S. Amateur.

All of these sporting events had one thing in common, TV coverage. TV coverage is critical to a sustainable/successful event in showcasing the community and the event to the region and to the world.

The Wichita Open is the largest sporting event in the state of Kansas and the city of Wichita. So the question is, “Why doesn’t the Wichita Open have TV coverage?”

Its time for the state of Kansas, city of Wichita, Sedgwick County and private sector to come together and raise the necessary funding to have the Golf Channel cover this great sporting event.

Many businesses/industries are moving out of over taxed/regulated states like California, Illinois and New York in seeking new opportunities. Wichita Open TV coverage provides the platform for messaging that Kansas is a great place to live, work and play. The return on this investment would be multi-fold for sure, just like the sporting events mentioned above have all seen great ROI for their communities.

Now’s the time to make this happen. Let’s Do This.

Plant meats

Plant meats and milks are winning over Kansans with delicious flavors, falling prices and their reduced heart disease risk. That’s why factory farms are begging lawmakers to force businesses to label “oat milk” a “milk substitute” to stigmatize their competition. Next they’ll force us to call peanut butter “peanut spread” to please dairy corporations?

Producing cows, pigs and chickens wastes far more crops than producing veggie products. As they’re fattened, animals’ bodies convert 90% of the caloric energy from crops to feces methane, and inedible bones while less than 10% makes it to consumers’ bodies.

As a result, plant meats (made with peas, wheat, or soy) and milks (from oats, cashews, or hemp) use 90% less land and carbon emissions than animal products. These innovations will save our state’s prairies being destroyed at nearly four football fields every minute by tilling. After all, the overwhelming majority of Midwest crops are for animal feed.

As heart disease kills one in four of our friends and neighbors, plant burgers and milks are what the doctor ordered. These higher protein, lower fat, and zero-cholesterol products save lives in contrast to animal feedlots now killing more people than coal power plants through air pollution.

Juneteenth

Anyone tuned into the news recognizes that America is embroiled in a deep divide along racial lines. We need a cause around which all Americans can rally. I am proposing that that rallying point should be Juneteenth, which references the June 19, 1865, cavalcade of Gen. Gordon Granger’s federal troops that rode into Texas with the news that the North had won the war.

If the dissolution of slavery in America is not important enough for ALL Americans to celebrate, think about this: Juneteenth is the only American celebration connected in any way to the re-uniting of the United States.

While the Civil War is long ended, our nation has not healed. Nationwide education on race relations and authentic American History is direly needed. Juneteenth commemorates the possibility that ALL should be free and signals the reuniting of the two Americas. As we approach Juneteenth and Independence Day, I submit that our freedom is still at stake. We do not know the depth of our bitterness and strife, because we hide from the discussion.

Juneteenth celebrates America’s truth: the good, the bad and the ugly. We must try to bridge the gaping hole that slavery, segregation and discrimination have wrought. It won’t happen without an intentional national educational initiative. Juneteenth is the natural place for all of us to start.