Letters

Flush to Judgment

Potty time: It’s impossible not to respond to Michelle McElroy’s letter (May 17) regarding Joe Miller’s article “Dishonorable Discharge” (May 3). She seems more concerned with the editorial slant than the major point she expressed: “Runoff, trash and upstream pollutants have fouled to some extent or another all our metropolitan streamways. That’s the real story that should be told to raise concern and effect change, not some trumped-up class war between ‘evil’ Johnson County and ‘victimized’ Wyandotte County.”

Perhaps if McElroy had not been so offended, she would have found that Miller had already addressed her complaint. Yes, 1) the creeks are being deliberately contaminated; 2) due to the deliberate contamination, most waterways are unsafe for swimming and boating and the governments cannot or will not attempt to control it; 3) city, state and federal agencies are turning farmland into polluted wastelands and a field of bad dreams for farmers; and 4) these wastelands that the government created are where part of your food (vegetables and meat) are grown. Perhaps McElroy should read Miller’s previous article “Up the Creek” (November 23).

The article about which McElroy complained is Joe Miller’s best and most disturbing. For the past ten years, a Johnson County treatment plant has been discharging plague-ridden effluent without a permit. As always, the public pays the high price for the government’s screw-ups and cover-ups. McElroy should be shoving Miller’s articles in the face of her government officials and demanding action to correct the problems Miller exposed.

James Bynum

Edgerton, Missouri

Bullet Train

The warped tour: Regarding the May 10 Kansas City Strip, I suggest a few more stops for the NRA, as long as your editorial board accompanies them: Jefferson City, where you can learn that all the murders and mayhem throughout Kansas City are already illegal; The Cato Institute, where you can learn that crime drops, not rises, when concealed weapons permits are issued; any detox facility, where you can make the surprising discovery that drug abuse, not gun ownership, is the driving force behind the majority of gun crimes.

Your simplistic reasoning (“someone got shot — it must be the gun’s fault”) is painful to see. It would be better to follow the approach we take to most other social issues. We penalize drunk driving, not drinking or driving. We attack rape, not sex. We do not outlaw prescription drugs. You would do better to attack the criminal uses of guns than the inert pieces of metal themselves.

Doug Dzur

Raymore

Foul Play

Johnny cash: Greg Hall did a great job of exposing the truth about Kevin Kietzman of W(ondering) H(ow) to B(ill) fame (“Damon-Possessed,” May 17). The only reason Kietzman wants to really heckle Johnny Damon is because the Royals broadcasts are on 980 KMBZ. He wants to be able to create some nuisance (like his voice isn’t enough?) so that WHB will get extra PR and take away from the broadcast.

This would be okay if it were something clever and creative. Yelling and screaming at a guy who wants to play for a team that wants him at fair market value is neither. This is coming from a guy whose main topic for a radio program is either selling me something or plugging someone who is selling me something.

Kevin’s show shouldn’t be called “Between the Lines” but “Between the Ads.” He likes to come across as this little ol’ country poor boy who is out fighting for truth and justice in sports, but in reality didn’t he leave his previous job for greener pastures and more $$? Sounds like Johnny to me. Maybe we should go down and yell in his mic while the show is going on. I can hear it now: “Hey Kietz! I see you traded teams! When are you going to get to a sports topic? I don’t need another hot wing!”

Brian Holmes

Independence

Hit Parade

Gene splice: Regarding the interview with Eugene McDaniels in the May 10 issue (“Heroes Never Die”), Shawn Edwards didn’t do his research properly. He says McDaniels “scored several regional hits in the early ’60s.” That’s not just misleading; it’s incorrect.

Recording as Gene McDaniels, the singer scored eight national chart hits between 1961 and 1963, and no less than three of them went Top Ten on Billboard‘s Hot 100: “A Hundred Pounds of Clay,” “Tower of Strength” and “Chip Chip.” These are classic oldies, familiar to any aficionado of pre-Beatles pop rock. McDaniels was a pop star during those years, and he made numerous guest appearances on TV and in movies. The songs he recorded back then came from the pens of such legendary songwriters as Carole King, Burt Bacharach, Doc Pomus and Jeff Barry.

While I can understand that Edwards wasn’t interested in talking about those records (McDaniels himself is dismissive of that period in his career), it was wrong to not mention them, and worse to mischaracterize them. There are those of us here in Kansas City who remember and love Gene, and we appreciate his work just as much as the hip-hoppers who are now sampling his output as “Eugene” McDaniels.

Don Charles

Kansas City, Missouri