Selfishness, medical records access, Kris Kobach, Steve King

All about me?

Very few, if any, of us — whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or atheist — teach our children to go around saying, “Me first! Me first!” There are good reasons, tried and true over the centuries.

Why do we think it is OK for a country to go around saying it?

Rosanne Stoneking

Prairie Village

A tech solution

Have you ever taken your child to the emergency room and in the panic of the moment given registration the wrong birth date? As a stressed-out, sleep-deprived mother of a healthy boy who broke his ankle, I drew a complete blank, then gave the hospital staff my daughter’s birth date.

Now imagine having one of the more than 10 million children in the United States who have complex medical needs. These parents deal with frequent emergencies where they must give large amounts of health care information for responders to appropriately care for their children. They need way more than the kids’ birth dates.

Recent medical advances allow children who would have been hospital-bound to live in their homes. As a result, families, providers and responders need to prepare for specialized medical care in an emergency. We as parents and care providers need to advocate for technology that interfaces with electronic medical records to enable medical staff to look at the patient’s medical record rather than relying on scared parents.

Access to this information in these critical moments could be the difference between life and death for these remarkable children.

Trisha Williams

Gardner

The wrong crowd

Is it any surprise that Kris Kobach is friends with Rep. Steve King of Iowa? (March 10, 6A, “Video of Kobach reveals details of private talks with Trump and Iowa congressman”)

Kobach is well known for making inflammatory statements. Now we find out he had an agreement with one of the most racist members of Congress to further voting legislation in Congress if Kobach loses his court case.

King is supported by David Duke and other members of the Ku Klux Klan. He has said he would prefer a country in which “we all look a lot the same” (white). He believes that non-whites have contributed less to civilization than whites and that mixing cultures will not lead to a higher quality of life but a lower one, as noted in The Des Moines Register last December.

Here in Kansas, would we vote for someone like King? I certainly hope not. However, if you vote for Kobach you are endorsing that mindset.

Hey, Kansas GOP: Denounce this kind of politician now, please.

Jerry Harper

Lenexa

Not so short

Missouri tax forms have always involved myriad convoluted steps, but this year officials have turned the one-page 1040A short form into three pages.

Simply wasteful.

Gary Gibson

Kearney

Grim reminder

I understand that the wheels of justice move slowly, but I find it very disturbing that the tower and slide at the Schlitterbahn Waterpark that were responsible for a child’s death remain very much in view of all of us.

I cannot imagine how family members must feel if they drive by that location. I hope it will be dismantled very soon.

Sally Girdon

Overland Park

No levy increase

The proposed Raymore-Peculiar school tax levy is unwarranted. I’ve served six years on the Ray-Pec school board and have been a career teacher in Cass County and in Ray-Pec.

The last attempt at passing a school-tax increase in the district occurred just a few years ago. Voters were told of the dire consequences of the levy failing, including services, programs and staff being diminished. Instead, we have increased programs and services and spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on new (and mostly unnecessary), technology. Also, teachers’ salaries have been justifiably increased to make up for salaries that were frozen to attempt to persuade voters to pass that failed levy.

All this has been accomplished with funds that, according to administrators and school board, were depleted. We need well-paid teachers, but the administrators who push for tax levies know they won’t be getting raises if teachers don’t. Further, we’ve hired additional administrators over the years, while the number of elementary reading teachers has remained stagnant.

Students’ success doesn’t depend on our ability to buy every shiny new idea to look good compared with other districts. Vote “no.”

Barbara A. Boucher

Peculiar

This story was originally published March 12, 2018 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss selfishness, medical records access and Kris Kobach’s alliance."