LETTERS

— Grasped at straw men

Kudos on the straw-man argument in the latest charter-school editorial. What a great way to fool everybody! So clever to invent this charter-hating monster who wickedly chortles at the demise of any charter school. No one else has seen him but the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial writers;seems he only hangs around to prop up your rather thin arguments about education.

And I must admire the choice of verbs in presenting the key argument: Charter schools can be closed for poor performance.

Would you care to address the reality of whether charters are and have been closed for poor performance? I believe folks who look into this will find the facts somewhat different from what you’re intending folks to believe.

Nasty things, facts. It seems it’s really what most of your critics have tried to point out, but you prefer the company of your straw men. They speak your language. They take the words right out of your mouth, don’t they?

Readers need to be mindful of the hazards of a straw-man argument. Straw does not hold anything together and is merely a filler. Furthermore, straw-man arguments are favored because they can so easily fool those afflicted with vision problems.

Oh, we are wondering if there are plans for an editorial about the “dishonor” of those charter schools that fail. Isn’t that the fair-and-balanced approach since you had one about public schools?

JAKE TIDMORE

Little Rock

Don’t cheapen medal

U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin believes Pvts. William Long and Quinton Ezeagwula deserve Purple Hearts because they were shot for being members of our military. Long’s death and Ezeagwula’s wounding are regrettable; however, they should not serve to cheapen this award. It was intended for military personnel killed or wounded in combat. I believe awarding this honor to victims of 9/11 was wrong; the error should not be repeated.

CLYDE BELL

Mineral Springs

Honor French legacy

The disappearance of the French dialect in Louisiana troubles me. As an English-speaking person in the 1940s, I grew up in northern Maine among my much-loved Acadian friends in Madawaska, along the St. John River Valley separating the U.S. from Canada.

Being in Acadian homes was a special joy. These people had a joie de vivre (joy of life) that was much more subdued in the more conservative English homes. I only learned to speak French later on, but the sound of “la langue francaise” was in my blood. High school was with the Ursuline Order of nuns originally from Quebec City. They had an academic high school in Waterville, central Maine. They are the same nuns that came to New Orleans with French settlers in Louisiana in the 1600s. With this superior education, I was able to write an essay in a “foreign” language which earned me a full-tuition scholarship for college.

Louisiana has a deep heritage of this precious culture dating back to the 1600s. Instead of killing it, it should be cherished and expanded. Certainly that is one of the unique aspects of life in Louisiana. With the present globalization, this should be a priority.

ANNE MULVANEY

Camden

Medical-care puzzler

Insuring the uninsured and those with pre-existing conditions is noble, but to do this, the health-care delivery system does not have to be burdened by vast bureaucratic mechanisms that can dampen the spontaneity necessary for diagnosis and treatment in a timely manner.

The U.S. is in deep trouble financially. Our standard of living and the social safety net are at risk, and the cost of health care is in the middle of all this. The unspoken asset in recent debates is the capacity of the healthcare delivery system to address cost if turned loose. We are in a big game to prevent the money from running out. In big games, great teams turn it up a few notches. However, top down regulations in health care will probably create factions rather than the proposed coordinated care which best develops more naturally from the bottom up.

The governor is right to take federal dollars to expand Medicaid. In three years, a lot of care can be provided and people will come out of the woodwork to get it. I doubt we can afford this when federal dollars exit. It’s still true that Arkansas receives the lowest reimbursement from Medicare of any state. Retroactive payments to make up for this could be in the billions. Has Arkansas been discriminated against? Where’s the political noise about its fair share?

The Declaration of Independence ends with the pledge of “our sacred honor.” Bureaucracies, big money and cultural relativism don’t like that kind of talk, but under the surface it’s alive and well.

CHARLES VERMONT

Prescott

The creep of Marxism

I believe Floyd Quesnel’s recent letter was an insightful observation of the insidious creep of Marxism in America. “From each according

to his abilities, to each according to his needs”-in my opinion, those words of Karl Marx would be a fitting campaign slogan for President Barack Obama’s strategy to “spread the wealth around” through government control, even though the federal government is totally dysfunctional.

In my view, Obama revealed his true colors when he advised a group of Virginia business owners that they didn’t really deserve credit for their business success-it happened through the help of others! So, were they supposed to feel guilty and spread their wealth around?

As I see it, this Marxist ideology is now ballooning from the entitlement mentality of people who believe the government owes them the comforts of life-paid for by someone else.

BARBARA FOREMAN

Siloam Springs

They light up our lives

On the evening of July 4th while the temperature was in the 100-degree range, we heard a large boom from the power pole in our backyard, and our electrical power went out. My wife called the outage number for our city electric utility, and within a few minutes, a man from the power company was at our door explaining that the transformer had blown and would have to be replaced. He said he would get a work crew and would have the job completed within two hours. True to his word, our power was soon back on.

These men were working in the dark and in hot weather on a holiday for the comfort of others. We honor them and thank them. We have no complaints, just compliments.

TOM MONROE

North Little Rock

Editorial, Pages 11 on 07/23/2012

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