Letters on Mid-Continent, Larned staff, mocking poor, secondhand smoke, Chris Norgren

Mid-Continent fondly remembered

The first flight into the Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport’s new terminal last week was met with excited greetings, balloons and cheers. However, a beginning is often preceded by a closing.

The day before, I was on a Southwest Airlines flight that left Chicago’s Midway Airport late and landed in Wichita about 10 p.m. We pulled into the gate on the far end of the concourse and began our way down the breezeway. It had been a long wait in Chicago, and home was near.

As we entered the terminal, we found moving crews waiting for us with packing crates and carts on wheels, and realized this was one of Mid-Continent’s last flights. I think we all had an “aha” moment and felt a little like dust bunnies scurrying ahead of a big broom.

The security section was gone, and as we waited at the carousel for our luggage, the lights were off and doors shut in the other areas. While watching for my suitcase, I couldn’t help but think of the times my husband and I flew out of Mid-Continent to visit family, the big changes made after Sept. 11, 2001, and the first time I flew out by myself.

The new and unknown are not always the best. Sometimes the best is found in the comfort and experience of the familiar, but we welcome the new terminal and wish her well.

Staff overworked

My wife has worked at Larned State Hospital for more than two years. She recently put in for seven vacation days next month. She has much more than that accumulated. Her vacation was denied, even though she put in for it more than one month in advance and went through all proper channels.

She is 71. I find it appalling and most disturbing the way that hospital is being run. They are working her an average of 50-plus hours a week, and have been doing so for most of her employment with the state. Now they won’t grant her vacation.

I think an investigation is warranted into how that hospital is being run. They can’t keep most new staff for more than about a month because of the slavelike conditions being mandated on the employees. I find it shocking.

If Gov. Sam Brownback cannot run or supervise this institution any better than this, he should resign.

Mocking poor

Leonard Pitts Jr.’s commentary criticizing the new TV reality show “The Briefcase” was on target and, sadly, much needed (June 8 Opinion). It reminded me of what God spoke through Solomon in Proverbs 17:5: “He who mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker.”

We’re not talking about the professional panhandlers, with their signs, but the real poor living each day on the brink of a utility shutoff or eviction notice. Try living on a single Social Security check without a pension or on the salary of a fast-food employee; there are no emergency funds.

We as a nation should be ashamed of not only mocking our Lord’s warning in Proverbs but now using the poor for entertainment. At a time when our church benevolent funds and the agencies that help the poor seldom have enough cash to help those in need, maybe that’s the “reality” we should be paying attention to.

Not entertainment

Leonard Pitts Jr.’s commentary “‘The Briefcase’ sinks to a new low” (June 8 Opinion) moved me to think of a problem with the poor, the “takers,” the “moochers.” If the poor are those who did not learn how to function properly in our society, most likely it is because they were not offered a proper public education. But we are taking the teachers and that quality education away from them. And now, like the Romans before us, we offer them up as “entertainment.”

I am sad. I’m poor, too.

Smoke a danger

Regarding “Meddling kids” (June 4 Letters to the Editor): If the letter writer had taken the time to review the World Health Organization’s current stance on secondhand smoke (rather than speculating on what may have been in an unpublished, two-decade-old study), he would realize that it recognizes the very real health consequences that adults (and, even more so, these meddling children) face when exposed to secondhand smoke.

WHO strongly recommends that all people limit their exposure to secondhand smoke – as do the U.S. surgeon general, the American Medical Association, nearly every licensed physician in the country and anyone who has ever done legitimate research into the issue.

I support the letter writer’s right to smoke, but I also support the rights of children and adults to enjoy fresh, smoke-free air at the Kansas State Fair.

Deserves medal

I will say nothing to degrade or take away from the Legion of Merit medal recently awarded to Beau Biden. But what did a U.S. Army lawyer, who died of a medical condition, do to be awarded this medal that Wichitan and U.S. Marine Corps helicopter pilot Chris Norgren, who was killed while conducting a humanitarian mission, didn’t do?

This story was originally published June 10, 2015 at 7:04 PM with the headline "Letters on Mid-Continent, Larned staff, mocking poor, secondhand smoke, Chris Norgren."