Letter: Disrespect displayed at town hall meeting

I recommend that The Gazette publish an article explaining the difference between a basketball game and a town-hall meeting. I attended the town hall meeting held by 1st District Congressman Rod Blum on May 9 at Johnson Hall on the Kirkwood Community College campus in Cedar Rapids. Johnson Hall includes the gymnasium where the Kirkwood Eagles play their home basketball games.

From the behavior of some in attendance, it is obvious that there are those in our community who cannot differentiate between a basketball game and a meeting intended to be informative.

For example: At a basketball game it is disrespectful to jeer at the announcer introducing the participants. It is disrespectful to holler at the young person leading the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem. It is disrespectful to mumble disparaging remarks about the clergy leading the invocation. These are all behaviors I personally observed at Congressman Blum's town hall meeting. The people who did these things don't even know how to behave at a basketball game much less a town-hall meeting.

On second thought, an entire article may not be appropriate. Based on some of the uninformed comments made at the town hall meeting, an entire article may be overkill. If our target audience can read, they probably will be unable to comprehend the complexity of an entire article. The message must be short. Something like 'Go Hawks” may be comprehensible.

Roger Kistler

Olin