Letters: Let's get a real number cruncher

I read in yesterday's Wanganui Chronicle (June 2) that Philippa Baker-Hogan seems to think there is a strong argument for fewer councillors but she is also saying fewer councillors would get paid more, and I'm saying we pensioners again will have to dig deep, which is nothing unusual.

I say let's get rid of all the councillors and have an accountant or someone of that nature.

Ratepayers, what do you think about all of this?

Would love some feedback.

J.M.J. MORRIS
Whanganui

A blur of slurs

Recently you published my letter criticising Jay Kuten's column on the removal of legal protections in Ireland for children within their mother's wombs. In it I also pointed out that Mr Kuten was attacking Christians, as is obvious in his column, and was misrepresenting opposition to the Civil Rights Movement in the USA. If any of my points was incorrect it should be simple enough to show how and why.

A subsequent letter from Mr Kuten claimed "almost every word" in my letter "is false — or misleading" and that I have "wilfully misread" his columns, but not how. In the immortal words of Professor Jonathon Haidt and journalist Frank Bruni, Mr Kuten's letter "is a slur, not an argument". In fact, the letter is a collection of slurs.

The closest Mr Kuten gets to addressing any of my criticisms is when he said I claim he attacks "Christianity". I actually said he was attacking "Christians", and he then claims to "admire Christianity" and says "it is a pity that there are so few practitioners of it — especially among ... its defenders." And thus again he attacks Christians, who he has also just inferred are hypocrites.

Mr Kuten claims he prefers to avoid "entanglements" with correspondents and let his columns speak for him. In the one recent column he rejoices in the removal of legal protection for unborn children, surely the most vulnerable members of any society, and in another attacks US President Donald Trump and his administration for its following of US law in dealing with people trying to illegally enter the US, by stating that the "greatness of a country" is measured by the way "it provides for the most vulnerable among its people".

This certainly seems to fit the definitions of hypocrisy that I looked at in four different dictionaries.

In fact, Mr Kuten's entire column on the immigrant and border situation in the US is misleading, a political and personal attack on President Trump and members of his administration. While trying to assign "spiteful hatred" to the actions of the administration, Mr Kuten fails to deal with most of the pertinent facts of the situation, or even to mention that the US has appropriate means for these people to immigrate legally and the largest humanitarian-based immigration system in the world.

K.A. BENFELL
Gonville

Give us our news

Why has the Chronicle changed to look more like the NZ Herald?

And why are we getting more and more articles that are credited as coming from the Herald? Don't we have any news in Whanganui any more or have we become a suburb of Auckland and no one told us?

D. BUNKER
Whanganui

Editor's note: The Chronicle has been redesigned and so, in appearance, may be more like the NZ Herald. However, we are NOT carrying more articles from the Herald, and — yes — there is plenty of news in Whanganui, almost all of it in the Chronicle.