Dear editor,
Like Tracy Call-Keagle, I have often lamented the uneven distribution of wealth in this country. I particularly wonder about the value our society places on various professions. We pay men millions of dollars to chase a football or a baseball around a field, yet our teachers to whom we entrust our children have to get second jobs to afford houses. We pay actors millions of dollars to play make-believe, but nurses, firefighters and police officers, who have peoples lives in their hands every day, are paid a very small fraction of that amount.
Laborers have things even worse, and yet their jobs are critical to our functioning. Have you ever considered how quickly life as we know it would unravel without garbage collectors, janitors, waste water processors, road graders, oil and tire mechanics, or construction workers? We would rapidly suffocate and drown in our own filth, head to hell in a handbasket, and have no vehicles or roads to get there with.
I wonder what would happen if people were paid according to how vital their professions are to society rather than how well they line the pockets of professional sports and studio executives.
Sincerely,
Kathy Rytter,
Iola, Kansas
Dear editor,
In todays economy it is hard to make enough money just to pay for bills, but when you have a disability and are a single mom, it makes it even more difficult (especially when you have been denied disability numerous times).
This is my case. I moved to Iola in 2012 with my son who was in elementary school at the time.
I thought by moving here things would be different; that since it was a bigger town, I would be able to find a job even though I have a disability.
So far, that has not been the case. I struggle monthly just to come up with money to pay my bills and when I finally found a job, it lasted only about a month because the boss said I was too slow.
It seems to me that nobody around here will hire someone with a disability like mine.
I have a traumatic brain injury (TBI) from when I was in an abusive marriage. I was strangled, beaten and almost killed.
For the past eight years I have been working with Parmele Law trying to get disability, but I keep getting denied even though my neurologists and doctors verify that I continue to have seizures. It has gotten to the point that my son last December started a paper route just to help pay my bills. My son loves me and he knows the struggles I have had trying to find a job.
Now most teenagers his age would not do that for their mom, and I consider myself lucky because not only do I have a special son, he has also saved my life in the past.
To this day, I am still trying to find a job that I can actually work but things just keep getting worse for me.
Our financial situation is not good (and I am not at all asking for charity) but I would like to bring awareness to what a single mom with a disability goes through on a daily basis.
I feel guilty all the time because my son is basically supporting me, and I dont want that. I want to actually be able to hold down a job and make a living without struggling from day to day and not knowing if Im even going to have a house to live in the next month because I cant afford the utility bill.
I have sold almost everything I have to help out, but it just does not seem fair that I have to do that.
I will keep applying for jobs but dont know if I will ever find one I can do or even keep.
