Sign a waiver, please
I believe that those who oppose mandatory seat-belt laws should sign a waiver stating that they will not receive state-paid medical care or disability payments for injuries resulting from their choosing not to wear a seat belt.
I support your right to not wear a seat belt. I do not support your right to expect me and other taxpayers to pay for your medical care and to support you for the rest of your life through disability payments taken from state funds.
JO LAUER
Sherwood
What's best for nation
I don't care--Democrat, Republican or independent--once elected to office of the president (or any public office), any and all campaigning and fundraising at the expense of all taxpayers should not be permitted. Elected officials are elected to represent the citizens on a full-time basis (not part-time). The president can't run again, so why instead of doing his job is he fundraising and campaigning on the taxpayers' dollar?
I think if politicians worked as hard doing their job as they do to be re-elected, we would have a better government.
If you are a politician and want to be re-elected, try the following: Stop the "What can you do for me?" attitude. Instead, do things which improve citizens' lives and the country. Stop voting party lines--anyone can have a good idea, even the other party; vote what's best for the country, not a small group of friends or their companies. Be honest, stop the lies.
Do what's best for the citizens and the country and you won't have to campaign. Your record will stand on its own merits. Citizens want those elected to be dependable, honest (no lies), have leadership qualities, and to work to make things better. Most citizens want to have the freedoms mentioned in the Constitution--is their life better, is the country better, is the economy better, are they safe from crime and other countries, can they look forward to a future and the American dream, is the country growing?
ROBERT L. MAYNARD
Hot Springs Village
On delay in delivery
I read about the mother in New York giving birth to twins on two separate days. I thought you might be interested in a story from the past with a more local flavor.
On the evening of Dec. 30, 1941, my parents, Margaret McKinney Wilkinson and Ralph McKinney Wilkinson of Warren, became aware that the first of their expected twins was about to make an appearance. The first baby, Donna Lea Wilkinson, was born at 9:20 p.m., Dec. 31, 1941. The second baby was a bit slower to arrive. Donald Webb Wilkinson was born at 12:05 a.m., Jan. 1, 1942.
Therefore, not only were my sister and brother born on two different days, they were born in two different years.
If the New York doctor thinks being born on two different days is rare, I wonder what he/she would think of being born in two different years?
Our twins, Donna Wilkinson Vittitow and Don Wilkinson celebrated their 72nd birthdays on their special days in 2013 and 2014.
LINDA WILKINSON BYRD
Clarksville
Conquer differences
As I sit here, I can't help but feel an overwhelming sense of sadness. Today we are faced with great challenges. I know that as a whole the human race is much divided. However, we are all bound by the desire to be safe, happy and healthy. We want to create and design a legacy, and to be love and to loved. We don't always do it right and we do stumble a lot. Humans are also very unique in our desire to hate, destroy, and conquer. It is the last part that worries me the most.
When we began to see each other as less than equal, we let a great gap form, one that drives our differences and our hate. When we can sit by and, with a cheerful glee, talk about how we are happy about the murder of children, women and men, we have come to a crossroads. When we can look upon these very faces and feel pride that our side is winning, that our belief is strong and somehow these deaths prove it. When we can see the hurt in a mother's face as she carries the lifeless body of her child and simply say, "They deserve it, should have picked the right side." When we can gather above a civilization of defenseless people, and with joy and excitement cheer on their pain, their death, and when we as a world can sit by and feel no desire to stop it, or help.
When we reach this point, we have lost our soul. We have lost our very future.
Being from a different faith or country doesn't change the fact that this is a person no different from you. I have studied many beliefs in my life and in most they command above all else to love, to help, to heal. I can only hope you won't let your simple differences be bigger than love, than life. It's time to make a choice.
CHRIS MORRIS
Little Rock
Generational effects
Maybe my revulsion at seeing Tom Cotton parading for public office in an ad where he was in uniform and brandishing a weapon is a generational response.
Taking public credit for political purposes, even inferentially, for the sacrifices made by those boys whose bodies were scattered like driftwood on Omaha Beach, rolled like cut timber in the incoming tide at Tarawa, or shared the frozen ground with artillery-felled trees in the Hürtgen Forest was something that most of our generation would not have done.
Has anyone ever seen a political ad of Bob Dole, Daniel Inouye, George McGovern, Footsie Britt, Sid McMath or Orval Faubus in uniform and sporting a weapon? The great majority of those of us who, by accident of circumstance, made it home in World War II would have regarded such posturing as a symptom of reprehensible immaturity.
OTTO HENRY ZINKE
Fayetteville
Editorial on 07/30/2014