06-04-2025
Decimation of federal library funder by DOGE hurts essential services to community
The staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services has been put on administrative leave by the federal government, pausing all the vital work they do. The IMLS supports libraries, museums and archives across the country with federal funds.
Libraries are great levelers and essential to democracy, standing up for free speech and providing their communities with essential services such as internet access, job-searching support and many other resources.
I respectfully urge Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver to do right by the people of our community and our country by speaking out for libraries, museums and archives, and restore the IMLS immediately.
- Lissa Sloan, Independence
I am an almost 35-year-old man from Sioux City, Iowa, with fond memories of going to Worlds of Fun since I was little in the 1990s. We used to go on Father's Day weekend and sometimes for my birthday.
After I outgrew the Wacky Worm (now Cosmic Coaster), the Timber Wolf became my favorite roller coaster of all time. It is roughly 14 months older than me, and it was no April Fool's joke when it opened on the site of the old Screamroller. I remember going on this woody around my 15th birthday and what thrills I remember — and for my 18th birthday, too.
When they redesigned it back in 2018 to replace the aging helix with an over-banked turn, that made it an even better ride than ever. I even have been collecting merchandise honoring this beast of a woody.
Worlds of Fun has announced the Timber Wolf will be closed this season. If the park wants to remove a wooden coaster or revamp it substantially, it should be the Prowler instead. Retiring the Timber Wolf would absolutely kill the fun going to the park.
- Zachary Kudrna, Sioux City
The hypocrisy and irony in this administration are almost comical, but in reality, they're setting up a tragedy for the nation. That tragedy is compounded by the fact that Republican legislators refuse to protect the Constitution and have instead mastered the art of 'bowing low.'
The incompetence of the administration's national security team is stunning in Signalgate. Equally stunning is that rather than taking responsibility, the Trumpian response tries to spread disinformation and shift the blame.
Our First Amendment rights, especially freedom of speech and the press, are threatened. Universities, law firms, journalists, citizens and elected officials are subdued and silenced by threats of retribution. Dissent and accountability are how we protect democracy. The irony is that the real threat to our civil liberties comes from the executive branch.
As a historian, I'm appalled at the blatant attempts to rewrite and whitewash our nation's history by attacks on curriculum, academic departments, scholars and even exhibits at the Smithsonian. Much of America's history is being lost and stolen. An 'othering' of American citizens is being encouraged.
The days of Orwell's Newspeak and Thoughtcrime have arrived unless we challenge the attempt to remake our history and our political system.
- Vicki Arndt Helgesen, Overland Park
Melinda Henneberger's commentary on Jimbo Gillcrist being removed from Holy Spirit Catholic Church for attempting to proclaim Catholic social teaching on love for our neighbors, including immigrants and migrants to this country, (March 30, 17A, 'KC man tackled, handcuffed at church after unauthorized but straight-from-Jesus prayer') reminded me of Luke 4:18-30. This is the story of Jesus speaking in the temple in his hometown of Nazareth.
He spoke of love and respect for the outcast, poor, blind and oppressed. His community did not like or want to hear what he had to say and 'drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.'
It makes me wonder which side of Christianity we want to be.
- Steve Williamson, Kansas City
I recently listened to an NPR interview with Missouri's Kenneth Hartman Jr., president of the National Corn Growers Association, who worries that the new tariffs will boost competing nations' farmers, and 'take a lot of our markets away.'
To the good people of Missouri and Kansas: Elections have consequences. Embrace them, because that is what the majority of Missourians and Kansans voted for — not once, not twice, but three times. Perhaps in the future, they and others will read the fine print before voting.
In the meantime, those with voter's remorse should contact their stone-cold-silent senators and representatives to oppose the tariffs and the cutting of federal programs, as Missourians and Kansans will be losing more than just their livelihoods.
- Allen Sanderson, Salt Lake City, Utah
