Letters: KC readers discuss Chiefs’ defense, Parson’s ‘hack’ nonsense, Biden’s work

Facts over feelings

I so appreciate William Skepnek’s thoughtful response to Michael Ryan’s column. (Oct. 14, 8A, “Can we focus on facts instead of feelings?”) A large step in attaining maturity, knowledge and wisdom is learning to grow past “feelings” and gracefully accept and grow into reality.

Our democratic process is too precious — and too fragile — to be decided upon feelings based on things that “seem” to be true with no basis in fact.

- Joanne King, Lawrence

Keep them home

I have a simple solution for parents not wanting to vaccinate their children: Home-school them.

- Michael J. Smith, Independence

Chiefs’ D line

It seems the Kansas City Chiefs’ defense has been playing like a high school team lately. And it’s not defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s problem. We have the offense, yet we have no defense.

As history tells us, you have to have a defense to win a Super Bowl. We have to have a pass rush, but the only one we have is Chris Jones. Without a pass rush, we will never get to where the New England Patriots have been — and where the Chiefs have been working hard to get to.

Kansas City deserves a dynasty. The fans from this city have been nothing but great. They are entitled to better than what the owners are giving us on defense. Maybe I’m alone on this, but I believe Kansas City has the dynasty sitting in front of us, except for a Chiefs defense.

- Michael Tutorino, Kansas City

I’m a hacker!

Last week, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson claimed that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education system was “hacked” and up to $50 million will be spent investigating the incident and journalists’ reporting about it. (Oct. 17, 16A, “Parson blames journalism for his own sorry failures. He should apologize”)

Wow. And here I thought one had to be some computer genius wizard to be a hacker, when all I or anyone else using a web browser needs to do is hit the Ctrl and U keys at the same time to display any site’s “source code” — the letters and numbers that make a webpage work. This very public data is where state workers’ Social Security numbers had been on the agency’s website, freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

Guess I’m smarter than I thought, because apparently I’ve been hacking for years.

- Mike Cunningham, Kansas City

This is failure?

The author of a Sunday letter to the editor (16A) claimed President Joe Biden has been “amazingly successful at failing.” I would like to know if the writer cashed any of the stimulus checks sent to Americans. This is just one of Biden’s many accomplishments in just nine months since taking office.

He inherited a badly mismanaged pandemic and a coup attempt. He has delivered hundreds of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines, saving countless lives, by making that his first priority after taking office (after losing at least 400,000 Americans to the coronavirus during the previous administration). He issued $250 to $300 monthly child-care tax-credit payments until the end of 2021 to help families hit with job losses or hard times. He ended a 20-year, unwinnable war with no end in sight in Afghanistan and brought members of our military home. He has gotten the Affordable Care Act exchanges back running again, extending the time Americans can enroll. Unemployment is low, and wages for low-earning workers are up.

I’m not sure where this letter writer has been, but it sure sounds like Biden and the Democrats have accomplished quite a lot since January. I pat them on the back for all they’ve done.

- Karen M. Zentz, Raymore