Letters: KC readers discuss nursing homes, liberal Star and partisan JoCo school attacks
Recognize rights
October is National Long-Term Care Residents’ Rights Month, a time to acknowledge the contributions nursing home residents have made to their communities and to call attention to their rights in the facilities where they live. This year’s theme is “Reclaiming My Rights, My Home, My Life” to acknowledge the impact this past year has had on residents and to recognize that the nursing home is their home.
This month, we are working to raise awareness of federally mandated residents’ rights that underscore the need for dignity and self-determination for residents. A list of rights can be found at www.mcqc.com.
As the Missouri Coalition for Quality Care celebrates Residents’ Rights Month, we encourage community members to connect with the people they know who live in nursing homes and to ensure that their voices are heard and that they have not been forgotten. If you have concerns about a loved one’s care, we encourage you to contact us and to report any abuse, neglect or violation of a resident’s rights to the Missouri Adult Abuse and Neglect Hotline at 800-392-0210.
- Dave Damico, President, Missouri Coalition for Quality Care, Rolla
Why the hesitancy?
Mr. Steve Bannon, it’s unclear to me why you won’t testify before the bipartisan House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Did you already submit the questions that can be asked of you? Have you already indicated what your answers will be? It’s hard for me to understand what’s so hard about that.
I need clarification on a few more questions. Are you maybe claustrophobic? Are you nervous about appearing on live TV? Is your dog groomer out of town and not available to spiff up your shaggy-dog look? Is the specter of Republican committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney questioning you horrifying? Perhaps you are back on that gorgeous yacht owned by Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, where you were arrested in August 2020 on fraud charges.
Is your former “boss” suggesting you not testify? Please don’t think he doesn’t want the investigation to be transparent. He does — he just wants to look over the questions and be able to veto certain personal parts of his presidency.
I’m sure you’ll be fine, but still …
- Carole Sapp, Independence
That’s not news
Many of The Star’s news articles are not news; they are your lousy liberal opinions. You are much like CNN.
- Al Lee Lilleoien, Leawood
Divisive candidate
We received two campaign mailers on behalf of Shawnee Mission School Board candidate Brian Neilson, and we concluded we are not voting for him. I believe the role of the board is a strategic one — budget, capital investment, hiring a superintendent. With more than 27,000 students in five high schools, five middle schools, 34 elementary schools and six instructional centers, and with teachers, aides, student teachers, substitute teachers, principals, grade-level coordinators, curriculum-development specialists and the Kansas State Board of Education, I believe there is sufficient oversight as to what is taught in schools.
Discussion and answers to questions in the classroom and dialog among teachers and students are not scripted events. You have to trust the teacher. The incendiary rhetoric of Neilson’s mailings, such as warning “the left is coming for our kids,” appears meant to divide parents from their children’s educators and appeal to a “sky is falling” mentality.
Slavery did happen in this country, and the Emancipation Proclamation was also real.
- Dave Smiley, Shawnee
