LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — WWII wasn't won solely by workers

I am so glad to learn that I had at least an indirect role in winning World War II, since, according to a letter in Voices, it was the civilian war workers who won the war.

For about a year, I was a radio operator on a patrol ship that helped guard Pearl Harbor and its civilian workers. Sometimes some of the workers came aboard to repair or modify the craft. I recall how one worker had nothing to do for a few hours while he waited for a "burner" to make a hole through a metal bulkhead for a cable. It was just too dangerous to be done by a welder who was working a few feet away.

We enlisted men were amused when the officers complained about the workers using their bunks for naps; their bunks were softer than ours. Of course, the exhausted, underpaid workers had to have some rest.

Later, I helped send men ashore to face the Japanese on the Gilbert, Marshall, Mariana and Palau atolls. I was on the ship that transported surviving Marines from Iwo Jima to Hilo, Hawaii. I hope that any of these men who are still living will appreciate knowing who really won the war.

Previously, I believed that the war was won by a combination of our armed forces, our civilian workers and our allies. Well, at age 88, I can still learn something every now and then.

CLAIR L. KOONS Jasper

Little benefit in prisons

Whoever invented the idea of prison will surely be rotting in Hell for eternity. Unfortunately for humankind, the idea caught on and spread until now no oneeven questions the notion of prison. It is accepted as necessary and not even evil. The institution of criminal so-called justice is a blot upon humanity.

The only purpose prisons serve is the lust for revenge, which is the lowest form of human ignorance. Prisons have never been proved to deter crime, just as cancer treatments have never been proved to cure cancer, and the reason we have not had another 9/11 since 9/11 is not because George W. Bush has made us safer.

The penal system, the medical industry and the war machine have everything in common: They all manipulate people by intimidation, and they are all profitable institutions which rob people and enrich the corporations.

Millions of people are rotting away in prisons today. Lives that could be restored have been literally trashed. The cost of maintaining these wasted lives is imposed upon society, for which society receives absolutely no benefits. The rising rate of crime confirms this and yet nobody questions it.

Prisons are being built at alarming rates. Society pays, corporations profit, and nobody asks why. For the cost of maintaining one convict for one year, some deserving person could go to college, possibly eventhat convict. This is not a Christian nation. If it were, we would not have prisons.

SID SARGENT Lincoln

Roughness ruined team

Your sports staff is guilty of unnecessary roughness and piling on in its treatment of Coach Houston Nutt. Collectively, your staff, along with the gurus of talk radio, has sucked the air out of this year's football team.

If Nutt goes, then will Razorback fans be happy to wait another five or so years for the new coach to get his players in place? If a change is made, the new athletic director should step up and hire an African American to be the next head coach at the University of Arkansas. It is only fair.

BILLY HENDERSON Portland

Maintain rural hospitals

A few months back there was a story in the Business section discussing the takeover of one hospital corporation by another with the implication that in baddebt areas the less economically viable hospitals would be sold off again.

The algebra of this business strategy of thinking of less profitable hospitals as expendable assets is not now carefully looked at by the state, but it should be.

The federal, state and sometimes local governments have invested a great deal in trying to deliver health care in rural, poor and underserved areas. Government should not bow to the unregulated profit motive in this sphere. Though already in decline, rural hospitals are frequently the hub around which local medical services are built. In particular, they are the best magnet for physician recruitment.

Part of the Medicare scheme for reimbursement has been to reimburse rural hospitals less than urban counterparts. This formula was conceived when gasoline was $1.25 a gallon and the population was younger.

The state should look to shore up the existence of rural medicine by enticing the alliances of smaller facilities with more sophisticated ones in the cities, but also by making sure that owners' hospitals are committed to the health care of the populations they serve, whoever they may be. To be fair to the owners, in baddebt areas assistance from the state and federal government may be needed.

CHARLES VERMONT Prescott

Low standards prevail

Little Rock can take comfort again in knowing the school system is once again controlled by low standards. The voters proved and are supported by the Little Rock Classroom Teachers Association, a.k.a., Mediocre Teachers Protection Agency, which ensures that the black children can once again blame non-progress on everyone else.

These children have total reinforcement by the NAACP, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the School Board so thatLittle Rock must remain just as it was in 1964. They must never take responsibility for themselves. This support is fully backed by the Democratic Party so it can continue to buy the black vote through Aid to Families With Dependent Children, Head Start programs and the many other "entitlement" programs bought by your tax dollars in action.

The School Board is now free to find another superintendent who will submit to play by the majority's rules-"Mother, May I?"-and not tamper with providing educational leadership like Dr. Roy Brooks dared to do.

Congratulation, Little Rock. You are still standing still with totally no progress. As far as the surrounding communities, they should get ready for more parent relocations so that their children can get a quality education.

PAUL M. DAVIS Cabot

Schools do much good

The Arkansas Association for Professional Teaching held its fall conference in Searcy recently. I thoroughly enjoyed the keynote speaker, former state Rep. Joyce Elliott. She is a wonderful example of a truly professional teacher, having taught in the classroom for 31 years, and now she is continuing her service to education outside of the classroom. She was an inspiration for all of the other professionals in education who were in attendance.

I wish that this paper could do more to promote the many good things that are happening in education in Arkansas. We now have nearly 600 nationally certified teachers in our state, and that is something to be proud of. National certification is a true indication of teaching excellence and it is not easy to attain.

This brings me back to Elliott. She was on the board of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards when the first Arkansas teacher became certified. She is a true professional in education, and I wish her well in her bid for a seat in the Senate. She is a voice for better teaching, better learning and better schools.

MARA CAWEIN Morrilton

Independents dream on

Just as many sorely disenchanted independent voters were beginning to feel that it would be worthwhile to elect more Democrats who would reunite our beleaguered country, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by the usually sane Democrat Tom Lantos, passed a resolution condemning the Ottoman Empire of genocide for the massacres of Armenians almost a hundred years ago.

Such action, as well as the timing of it, amounts to nothing less than a politically motivated preemptive public relations strike designed to torpedo Republican efforts to stabilize the situation in Iraq.

And Lantos' pathetic public attempt to justify the move as a long overdue moral judgment that should in no way offend the current Turkish nation was as insulting to any intelligent audience as it was to the Turkish government. This long-time NATO ally has rendered us immense service during the four years of our very unpopular war against, and occupation of, their neighboring fellow Islamic country.

Such cheap shots by the Democrats amid the spectacle of our Republican president shedding crocodile tears over the lack of respect for democratic principles in Burma while he disregards the trashing of those same principles by his administration make independents dream of, pray for and desperately seek a third party. Meanwhile, we independents hold our noses and vote for what the other two parties offer us-just more of the same manure.

JOEL TAYLOR Little Rock

Have compassion for all

I see that that first lady is in the Middle East trying to drum up awareness of breast cancer. I understand that both her mother and grandmother had this affliction.

Just once it would be nice to hear of a Republican concerned with a health problem that did not affect them or someone in their immediate family, as in compassion for all people with all problems.

DONALD L. FERGUSON Huntsville