To the editor:

My days are suddenly longer. I have more time. No news being watched or papers read, no opinion feeds opened from my in-box. I have only Chiefs and Jayhawks, and some Royals hot stove news. I’ve been through this before, eight years ago, but this is different.

The beginnings of planning a trip to Europe to celebrate our 50th are beclouded with shame. I project feeling the shame of being recognized as American. I am ashamed of being American, ashamed of my country. It’s not enough to say the source of my shame has been inflicted upon me, against my will or that I spoke and voted against it. We — all of us — are fully responsible collectively for what we collectively choose.

I cannot help but reflect that a nation of poets and philosophers, artists, scientists and composers in 1934 gave Adolf Hitler 88% of its vote to be their Fuehrer. He would be good for the economy. Germans were afraid and he would protect them by making Germany great again. Nor can I forget images of ragged people seemingly lost amid piles of broken brick and useless rubble 11 years later in bombed-out Berlin. Were they thinking back to 1934? The famous line from the trials at Nuremberg was they had only followed orders, obeyed the law. Few would admit to being Nazis. But so, we judged them, nonetheless. Nearly 5,000 miles distant, here in Kansas, they all looked the part, all responsible. And in trial after trial, we held them so.

And now today? We, no less.

William Skepnek,

Lawrence