Letters to the editor (Nov. 29, 2020)

COVID-19 testing

I was exposed to COVID-19 at my workplace. Despite my close contact, I was given no directive to get tested, so I took it upon myself. Rapid testing was not available, so I visited the Sedgwick County Health Department’s mobile testing site on Nov. 3. I had to stand in a long, apocalyptic line out in the cold, and as of Nov. 16 I still had not received my results.

A call to the hotline advised me to leave a voicemail that might be returned in two business days. Luckily, I was impatient enough to get a rapid test at Walgreens and had my results emailed to me in two hours. I was positive. Had I not gone to Walgreens, I would have exposed scores of other people to my illness.

The Sedgwick County nasopharyngeal swab test is an ineffective waste of taxpayer money that jeopardizes the public’s collective health. We need to allocate funding for rapid testing only and abandon all testing that does not yield same-day results. The consequences of not doing so will be wide-reaching and grave.

Mike Pompeo

I never really cared for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s ideologies, which aligned with the Tea Party Republican stance. However, I thought at least he was a man of honor, a patriot and a man of integrity who graduated from West Point — one of his big selling points in his many election campaigns.

However, recently Pompeo has once again proven that he has never really cared about Kansas, Kansans, or the U.S. democracy. This year he has many times proven that his first and foremost priority is himself and those who have power in our and other governments — for example, his recent statement that “There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.” Pompeo should be held to account for the many wrongs he has done to our state and country, not unlike Trump needing to be held accountable.

WSU’s ‘Mangino moment’

Kansas football coach Mark Mangino won the Orange Bowl in 2007 with a 12-1 season.

Following the 2009 season, he was fired by then KU athletic director Lew Perkins, the same man who killed WSU football in 1986. The basis for firing was alleged abusiveness. Since then, KU football has a record of 21-83.

WSU has now forced the resignation of Coach Gregg Marshall, largely based on two allegations of physical abuse, both of which allegedly occurred a half-decade ago.

WSU did not fire Coach Marshall for cause. It had no cause.

Instead, it agreed to pay him $7.75 million dollars over the next seven years in exchange for his resignation.

In its haste to demonstrate its wokefulness, WSU has sacrificed one of the nation’s best coaches, whose outstanding family will now leave our community. It has also crippled the only sport which produces excess revenue for the rest of the athletic program, and it has squandered nearly $8 million in virtue signaling.

Congratulations, WSU. You have created your own Mangino moment.

Every Bottle Back

Over the last year, America’s leading beverage companies — Coca-Cola, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo — have taken significant actions to reduce our industry’s plastic footprint.

Launched by the American Beverage Association, in partnership with key environmental organizations — World Wildlife Fund, The Recycling Partnership and Closed Loop Partners — the Every Bottle Back initiative aims to decrease the use of new plastic through major investments that modernize recycling infrastructure and educate consumers on efficient recycling practices.

We at the Kansas Beverage Association are proud to partner with the Every Bottle Back initiative. Our bottles are made to be remade, and through the beverage industry’s leadership and unprecedented coalition of partners, we’re working to improve recycling so that more of our plastic bottles are captured and remade meaning less plastic entering the environment and fewer bottles ending up where they shouldn’t, such as lakes, rivers and waterways.

As we look ahead to Every Bottle Back’s second year, the Kansas Beverage Association extends our thanks to all of our partners and looks forward to expanding our unique collaboration between industry, environmental groups and local governments to achieve our shared goal of a circular economy.