LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Please don’t roll back clock

How could a black man, a liberal political nobody, not a rich man, become president of the U.S.A.? This seems to be the underlying anger and disbelief by many right-wing conservatives.

The constant hate mongering, angry personal attacks and fear mongering is their answer. President Obama won without the help of a governor,brother or conservative U.S. Supreme Court. He won with hard work, brains and help from many voters. Sure, he did get some corporate money. Itis reassuring that our democracy can elect a president who is willing to represent every citizen and not just the privileged money-connected.

The conservatives tell us only rich people make jobs so they should not have to pay higher taxes. The rich have had tax reductions for the past 10 years and most of the jobs made were in China, India and Mexico.

As a political independent, I did not vote for the man or his politics. I voted against the greedy, selfish people who hate Obama, hope he fails and make Second Amendment threats against him. They want to turn this country back to 1920. At that time we had no civil rights enforcement, no environmental regulations, no Medicaid, no Medicare, no Social Security, no labor unions, no job security, no Occupational Safety and Health Administration, no food stamps for poor kids or old people living in poverty. Please let us not go back to those times.

RICHARD J. SNIVELY Fayetteville

Too late with analogy

You are too late with your Monopoly analogy in the recent Perspective feature. The real estate sector put out a bubble version of the game that featured a multi-sided board, so any number of people could play.

A large number of houses and commercial buildings came with the game so they would never run out. Instead of money, they used mortgages, every type imaginable.

The game was all the go in the ’90s. Very few knew it was a bubble until it burst.

Education is repeatedly hailed as the hope of the nation. Yet how many Ph.D.’s from the exact sciences abandoned their fields for jobs in the financial sector? There they could show their non-expertise by writing complex algorithms based on the faulty assumption that real estate would continue onward and upward in demand and value forever.

With regard to the money supply, let’s hope that Ben Bernanke knows when to hit the off switch on his money machine.

The government can be an effective participant in economic growth if there are existing projects, business categories or industries it wants to encourage. It cannot imagine or invent new ones, though. And the ones it wants to encourage should be targeted. Just pushing money at them generally just will not do it.

GARY SCHMEDEMANN Morrilton

TSA is our own fault

Has our country become completely illogical? We have people complaining about how they are being scanned or given a pat-down. How did we get here? Because we wouldn’tlet agents profile. We were so afraid of being politically incorrect, we ignored the obvious.

The people whocarried out 9/11 had all these things in common: non-citizens who spoke with a heavy accent, male, within a specific age range. That’s not racial profiling, just profiling.

Either restart profiling and use some common sense. Or tell passengers you have to be subjected to a body scan or pat-down by a bunch of people who don’t really know what they are doing.

And to the folks in Washington, D.C., why not take some advice on how to screen from the folks at El-Al? They do it better and cheaper.

ALLEN VEASMAN Dover

Solution at no charge

The editorial “Not as hard as all that” lamented the problems of “assessing” Arkansas teachers and noted that a national consultant might be brought in.

Let me fix the problem for no charge and actually save the state some money.

Gov. Mike Beebe divides Arkansas into four regions (possibly five: Pulaski County needs enough help) and assigns to each teams of 10 consisting of seven retired teachers, tworetired private business owners and one retired administrator.

They are paid $40,000 each, no retirement, with a fair travel expense. Each team shows up unannounced and does a two-day random sit-in of classes while the retired administrator and businessmen conduct an audit of school expenses down to the toilet paper. They can only (and may want to) serve for two years. They are answerable only to the governor, not the Arkansas Department of Education.

At two days devoted to each district, they cover each school in their region at least twice that year. Each week they submit a grade on the scale of 100 percent on the given district, that Friday to the governor.

At the end of the year, the amount of state funding a district receives equals its grade: 87 percent equals 13 percent less funding. Any teacher receiving an individual score below a 70 percent will be dismissed without retirement.

ANTHONY LLOYD Hot Springs

Lesson from airport

I recently returned from a trip to Israel and experienced no full-scale body scans, no body pat-downs, and did not have to take off my shoes or belt or put liquids into small, seethrough bags. Yet, Israel’s airport security is the most advanced in the world and has stopped numerous terrorist plots.

How do they do it? By questioning each entrant into the airport several times at four different locations with simple questions. They don’t care about the answers(except the one about carrying weapons). They look into your eyes for any deceit. And it evidently works.

And it only took us 30 minutes to get from our car to the gate. Perhaps we could learn a thing or two about non-intrusive means of ferreting out terrorists from our airports.

WILLIAM H. JACOBSON Little Rock

Resemblance noted

Fraternal twins? When looking at photos of John Boehner, about to become speaker of the House, I was reminded of a long-ago political figure with an amazing resemblance.

The German name Boehner reminded me of Bormann as in Martin Bormann. Take a look at photos of both to see. We can only hope that the resemblance is purely physical and not ideological, although rightwing types seem to confuse the terms socialist and Fascist.

Bormann for those unfamiliar with history was Adolf Hitler’s secretary and a very high-ranking Nazi. Hopefully, Boehner won’t appear at the speaker’s rostrum wearing a brown shirt.

LLOYD THOMPSON Mountain Home

Be nice to screeners

My husband worked for Transportation Security Administration here in Little Rock and I complained to him about the recent security measure to pat down or, as I call it, strip-search us. He cleared up a couple of matters about it.

First, if you wear the right clothes and do not have heavy jewelry or metal on you, you won’t have to go through that ordeal. And if you are scanned, the person scanning you is located far from you and cannot see you.

But with that said, I still don’t like it. I think it’s plain wrong to touch our private parts. I thought that was for criminals.

I know this is definitely for our safety, but I sure hope TSA comes up with something else, and soon.

One more thing: The TSA screeners did not create this procedure, so please be nice to them. It’s not easy to do a job where people can dislike you so much.

REBEKAH GREENLEE Little Rock

Activism is apparent

As I read the recent editorial titled “A bully bullied,” my mind just went off like a rocket. The writer was castigating “a poor slob of a school board member” for having the audacity to criticize homosexualism.

He stated that “this misguided soulhad described himself as a Christian.” He obviously does not believe the man is a Christian because, he then asks, “Isn’t that the faith whose God is love?” The answer to this question, of course, is yes.

The Christian God is love. He loves the sinner but hates the sin, and the practice of homosexual sex is a sin. It is described in the Holy Bible by God as an abomination to him and by my Lord’s apostle Paul as a vile affection.

Make no mistake about it. What people do when they go into their home and close the door is nobody’s business but theirs. They don’t have to answer to me or anyone else. However, there will come a time when they will have to answer to a higher authority.

No real Christian can see homosexual sex as normal or acceptable to God. The sexual relationship of marriage must be limited to one man and one woman as ordained by my Christian God and my faith. It seems to me this piece of drivel must have been written by a homosexual activist.

JOHN G. VOWELL Little Rock

Border is neglected

We are approaching the busiest traveling season of the year. Rest assured, as the Transportation Security Administration guys in their bright blue gloves gropes your wife’s most private areas and then smile as your 14-year-old daughter is pulled forward for her turn at the “security” gropefest, that you are not secure.

The alleged “panty bomber” who bought a one-way ticket to the U.S.A.- huge red light-and whose own father

reported him to be a security threat

to the appropriate American authorities would not be caught by our current TSA’s own version of a stimulus program.

It should terrify you that while all this groping is going on to “make us safe,” President

Obama and the head of all homeland security, Janet Napolitano, refuse to defend and protect our wide-open southern border. [It’s estimated that] over 15 million illegal aliens have entered our nation. Who are these aliens? What is their criminal background? What nations are they from and how many are from radical Islamic nations who intend to murder as many Americans as they can?

Answer to all above questions: We have no stinking idea. However, we do know that the numbers of what the Border Patrol call OTMs-other than Mexicans-has been exploding. Many are just walking across our border while your family is being assaulted by the blue-gloved grope squads at the airport.

DANIEL A. MORRIS Rogers

Feedback Tighten those belts

Since there is a push to cut government spending, I recommend that Congress make the same cuts in its spending on Capitol Hill. For example, if they cut Social Security, then reduce their pension plans the same amount and change when they qualify for their pension, not give a full pension when they leave office after two years.

Make the same cuts to their medical plan that they make to Medicare. Cut their congressional office budgets the same amount they cut other government offices. Cut such expenses as a personal car on the taxpayer’s dime or other perks.

Are they willing to tighten their belts the same way they expect everyone else to?

LOLA SHATTUCK Fairfield Bay

Politeness is noted

No one has ever mentioned anyone with artificial knees being patted down. I am an elderly grandma flying very often and have been patted down for many years. With the hiring of federal employees, I have noticed how mannerly and efficient the screeners are, much different from when the private sector did the hiring.

What happened to the big containers that puffed air all over you? I watched this in Cincinnati airport years ago. The containers were very expensive and being placed all over the country in airports. I also noticed a young girl whose skirt blew over her head. Why not have a watch list for people who fly all the time? Just a thought.

JAN USCHKRAT Bella Vista