LETTERS

Ignoring northwest

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has really disappointed me. It appears that Northwest Arkansas is not important enough to be included in the Family and Community Fishing Program, where ponds are stocked with tagged catfish. These tags can be turned in for prizes.

We live in Harrison, and the closest ponds stocked (but not with the catfish) are Springdale or Rogers, 73-plus miles away, over an hour and a half away. But, like I said, they were not stocked with the catfish.

It appears that Little Rock is the most important part of Arkansas since the commission did stock seven out of eight ponds with catfish there.

I do not know the reason why it apparently was decided to not stock ponds or creeks in Northwest Arkansas, but I do know that if you are going to have something so exciting to our future fishers in the state, then it should be available somewhere close to our area and to everyone in the state, not just a select few places.

I’m so disappointed in the Game and Fish Commission. Shame on you! RHONDA PURDY Harrison

Don’t deserve medals

Bloomberg News’ recent piece droned on and on about the necessity for drone pilots to be given medals. Why and on what basis?

I think comparing drone rangers with combat fighter pilots is without forethought. Fighter pilots go head to head with an adversary, and in this duel, each has an equal chance. The drone rangers are unseen paid killers.

Two individuals sit in a cubicle, one a pilot and one a sensor operator. Their orders are to spy and fry. Again, why should a medal be designed for drone pilots?

The column got one thing right, that “the job lacks esteem within the military and in the public mind.” It goes ahead to exclaim that what these drone rangers are doing is nonetheless honorable. How so?

The writer would have us believe that drones only hover in the skies above Afghanistan. Surely he jests. The drones hover over the U.S. and it has been proven so, coupled with killing innocent people around the globe. No remorse from the killers in the cubicles. Ask yourselves what kind of a person would undertake such a scurrilous assignment.

I believe the drone commands violate every tenet of the Fourth and 10th Amendments while Americans, for whatever their reasoning, allow these acts to proliferate in the name of security.

Ultimately, the drones are under the command of the National Security Agency and, thanks to Edward Snowden, a real patriot in my view, citizens have been made aware of the treachery of the spying and frying machines and NSA’s invasion of communication networks.

The spying/frying machines are overflying the U.S., all under the aegis of what I believe to be the 13-year phony wars on terrorism.

JOE McCUTCHEN Fort Smith

Redefine terms? No

Bicycles not vehicles?

Please, Danny DeClerk, say it isn’t so! Say you don’t want our dictionaries and lexicons to be forced to knuckle under to legislative prerogative.

I have at least two dictionaries and an encyclopedia in my home which define and describe bicycles as vehicles, not to mention the Arkansas State Police rules and regulations for drivers, the law of the land.

Further, I cannot imagine that redefining bicycles as other than “vehicles” would be able to reduce the possibility of road rage, that is, deliberate attacks on cyclists by automobile drivers. Where might the logic be in this?

The relative rarity of auto-cycle collisions speaks to the general care taken by both motorists and cyclists. That they happen at all speaks to a need for more and continued caution by both, as well as adherence to traffic laws specifically, and common sense generally.

Jeeps (4-wheel drives), 18-wheelers, sedans and bicycles all have valid purposes and presences. There is no need to try to abolish any of these.

And leave my pickup alone, as well. DENNIS A. BERRY Bryant

For her sentence …

Would a 20-year sentence be a fair judgment for Ms. Martha Shoffner’s crimes? How is that fair when more-prominent politicians get off with only probation for worse crimes?

How about three years with early release and probation after 18 months? NEALUS WHEELER Mountain Home

Refreshing remarks

In regards to the editorial, “A blow for liberty,” which concerns the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision on campaign contributions, I find the editor’s remarks somewhat refreshing even though he failed to enlighten the readers on the original intent involving the Bill of Rights. This decision was based on the First Amendment in which these “rights” were stated, proposed, and ratified in order to protect the citizens from a federal usurpation of the Constitution.

To remove all doubt of the strictly limited powers within the 10-mile square occupancy of Washington, D.C., U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall gave this opinion on the Bill of Rights’ applying to the federal government and not to the several states in Barron v. City of Baltimore, 1833:

“Had the framers of these amendments intended them to be limitations on the powers of state governments, they would have imitated the framers of the original Constitution, and have expressed that intention. Had Congress engaged in the extraordinary occupation of improving the constitutions of the several States, by affording the people additional protection from the exercise of power by their own governments, in matters which concerned themselves alone, they would have declared this purpose in plain and intelligible language.”

This is of course when state governments were the true guardians of liberty as expressed in Madison’s Federalist 45, but I believe today the citizen’s liberty is an illusion and erroneously viewed as a gift bequeathed to us from our federal masters.

LOY MAUCH Bismarck

Perfect night indeed

How great was it to read a reference to one of the best baseball announcers of all time-Gordon McLendon-in your editorial, “The Perfect Night?”

It’s too bad the Gen-Xers and subsequent generations may never even appreciate baseball in April in Arkansas or the Great McLendon (The Old Scotchman). McLendon’s radio call of Bobby Thompson’s “Shot Heard ’Round the World” in the 1951 New York Giants’ playoff victory over the Dodgers is almost as good as Russ Hodges of the Giants. But hearing McLendon’s complete game oratory is a rare treat. Such complete, insightful and colorful dialogue is not, nor will ever be, uttered by today’s alleged broadcasters.

It’s a shame an article so poignant would never be seen in the apparently anti-baseball Trusty Scribes’ Democrat-Gazette sports pages.

This is truly a welcome break from your pro-conservative rants.

BARRY JACOBSEN Hot Springs Village

Sentiment not same

Mr. Glitz (I hope I am spelling it right; it so fits his writing style) says there is “anti-Christian sentiment.”

If he thinks there is anti-Christian sentiment, he should look at atheism. Have you ever heard a candidate get up before a crowd and say, “I am running for county dog catcher, and I am an atheist?”

I don’t think so. People don’t want their dogs around atheists.

WAYMOND TEAGUE Greenbrier