Being pushed to extinction After reading about the charter-school millage option, I came away thinking of the gross injustice our Legislature did to small towns in regard to consolidation of their schools a few years ago. Now they are entertaining the idea by advocacy groups to use money intended for traditional public schools to help support public charter schools, whose enrollment falls far below 350, the magic number the state used to close schools across the state.
Many small schools had higher test scores than the larger schools, but with the escalating costs of maintaining numerous school districts, the Legislature selected the magic number to shut them down. They cut the heart out of many close-knit communities, creating a ghost-town appearance today. What incenses me is the irony of shutting down these good, small schools and creating a new type of public schools whose numbers often fall short of 350.
Escalating costs due to hyperinflation has many public schools slashing their budgets to maintain operations. Every dime of their millage plus what they get from the state is critical. They have to compete with charter schools who are drawing kids away, not only losing student dollars they get from the state, but pushing small districts closer to extinction. Now it seems members of the Legislature are being pressured by these groups to siphon off part of the money of a traditional school.
When they drive through these ghost towns, every member of the Legislature should think long and hard about what they have done to these good communities, and more importantly, the harm they could do to existing traditional schools if they vote to allow money to support them to go to public charters.
RAY DARDENNE
Stuttgart
The source of outrage
What is this “moral” outrage from some readers, so mad about something in the paper they threaten to cancel their subscriptions? What “abomination,” “disgusting” “un-Godly” news article provoked their “righteous” wrath?
Was it the abduction of over 200 Christian young women by a band of Muslim fanatics threatening to sell them into slavery? No.
Is it the atrocious treatment of our veterans at the VA hospitals? No.
Was it the many unreported rapes on campuses? No.
It was a photo of two adult women kissing in Arkansas. These holier-than-thou people have been expressing their “moral” anger over a photo they find offensive, and yet they said nothing about articles that reveal harm done to others.
While I don’t understand parts of the LGBT subject ( being a straight woman) due to my ignorance, I think it’s absurd to be so angry at a photo of two adults kissing. Their standards of morality must be different than mine. To me, war, hunger, abuse and cruelty are immoral, not two gays getting married and kissing.
Maybe these “moral” people need to loosen their halos. The lack of circulation to their brains is making them act irrationally. No wonder Arkansas is at the bottom of anything good, with these Taliban-ish Pharisees around.
MAUREEN McALLISTER
Dardanelle
About good and evil
I believe Christians should never accept what God calls an abomination; those that love the Lord are told to hate evil.
David said he hated those that hated God and was grieved with those that rise up against him. Christians should grieve when evil is called good and good is called evil.
B.E. SPURGEON North Little Rock
In another situation
Re Paul Greenberg’s May 18 column: I wonder if your editor would still be urging restraint, patience and deliberation had Judge Chris Piazza overturned a law requiring—just for sake of discussion—that Jews wear a distinctive stigma and have their property seized.
We’ll save the conversation on whether being Jewish is a choice for another time.
RAY DILFIELD
Eureka Springs
Wicked debauchery
Back in about the year of 1952, I went to Eureka Springs as a young preacher to pastor my first church.
That was the most beautiful, serene and quiet little city, with the most Godly, high-moraled, accommodating people you could ever meet. Look at it now. It seems the satanic powers of hell are destroying the beautiful handiwork of God. But worse yet, the most miraculous and beautiful thing the eternal God ever made is the heart and soul of man.
I believe the younger generation of our time is so caught up in the things they desire, they cannot see the truth; the most devastating thing of the whole diabolical mess is the leaders of our state who were elected or appointed to public office are betraying the very people who elected them by allowing or even supporting this most wicked debauchery.
I read somewhere the words of a very wise man who said, “The nation that forgets God cannot stand.” Where does America, and especially the state of Arkansas, stand today? It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God!
EVERETT MASON
Pangburn
Cut off money’s flow
Re “dark money” and campaign ads: I feel the solution to the problem is simple. Make it illegal for any media outlet to carry any ads not endorsed by the candidates and paid for by them and/or their named supporters. Fine any media that carries such ads in the amount of 150 percent (or more) of any revenue they received for them.
If there is no way to get the ads to the public, there is no point in making them.
SALLY L. BRUNE
Russellville
Robo-calls cost votes
I realize it may not matter to the party seeking office and my vote, but I’m sick and tired of the robo-calls asking for my vote. I am an informed voter and have already decided where my vote will go. There are four changes to my original list where my vote will change because of the robo-calls. I will not vote for anyone from whom I have received a robo-call, even if I had previously planned to vote for them. I have made a list of each person who has called me asking for my vote.
To the party calling, I don’t know you and we are not friends. I am on the Do Not Call list. I have no reason to speak with you; if I do, I will call you.
Starting this year I will never again vote for any person who I have received a call from asking for my vote by way of robo-calls, so save your money. Several other people I know has decided to do the same thing.
ROBERT L. MAYNARD
Hot Springs Village
Would carry a sword
Russell Lemond bemoaned a “bumper crop of Christian gun-toting candidates,” and opined that “something about that doesn’t jibe with what I’ve taken from the teachings of Jesus.” Well, perhaps he hasn’t read the last thing that Jesus taught his disciples at the Last Supper: He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your coat and buy one.”
Seems that Jesus was highly in favor of his disciples carrying sidearms.
FREDDIE R. HOUCK Hot Springs Village
Where was outrage?
Sen. Jason Rapert presented a resolution to the Legislative Council stating that Circuit Judge Chris Piazza abused his authority in ruling that Amendment 83 was unconstitutional.
Arkansas Advocates for Nursing Home Residents takes no position with respect to the merits of Judge Piazza’s decision. However, AANHR wonders where the outrage was when Circuit Judge Mike Maggio, of Faulkner County in Senator Rapert’s district, made derogatory comments on a blog regarding women, people of color and Arkansans in general.
Where was Senator Rapert’s outrage when evidence was presented that his predecessor in office, Gilbert Baker, orchestrated secret contributions from nursing-home magnate Michael Morton to Judge Maggio’s campaign while Judge Maggio was presiding over a lawsuit involving one of Mr. Morton’s nursing homes?
Where was the outrage by Senator Rapert when public records demonstrated that, while these secret contributions were being made, Judge Maggio ordered that the judgment entered against Mr. Morton’s nursing home be reduced by $4 million?
Did Senator Rapert take any action at all? No. Instead, he accepted campaign contributions from Mr. Morton and his companies.
Senator Rapert makes it a point to vocally support people and issues that he holds dear. AANHR urges Senator Rapert to stand up for the rights of our frail and elderly citizens who reside in the nursing homes throughout this state.
MARTHA DEAVER
Conway
There’s no substitute
The suggestion to allow civil unions for same-sex partners is out of date. I was once one of those gay people who thought it was better to promote civil unions in all 50 states because the marriage issue was so divisive.
I regarded my own marriage as a sacred and private covenant. Then, the Defense of Marriage Act passed and I felt crushed. I realized that I had cherished the hope of being legally married after all.
In 1994, we established our legal relationship in a lawyer’s office with durable powers-of-attorney, wills and living wills. But we couldn’t address everything. Life happened, with mortgages, in-laws, illness, job changes and retirement planning. It was impossible for marriage to be a solely private arrangement as our mutual responsibilities to each other affected every aspect of our lives.
With DOMA overturned, we could enjoy legal protection under federal law, so we got married in Iowa on April 12, 2014, and felt a new sense of security and legitimacy.
How can a civil union give us the same peace of mind as legal marriage? What’s the point of settling for another substitute for marriage when we’ve been together for 20 years?
If we had not been legally married in Iowa, we would have gone to the courthouse that Monday, just as all those other couples did. We’re married now and no one can take it away.
HOLLY PARK
Fayetteville
Feedback
Trouble of offense
I didn’t like that picture on the front page of the Sunday paper either, but I think to quit taking the paper, as some have threatened, is just as radical.
There are things in the paper we don’t agree with, just as there are on the evening TV news. To stop listening or reading would render us ignorant of current events. I believe that’s how Hitler and other radicals took over and destroyed good.
Let’s not be so offended that we act stupid.
CAROLYN HOWARD
Searcy
See any parallels?
I do not mean to trivialize all of the four deaths in Benghazi or all the deaths of diplomats during the Bush administration. I only want to establish a metaphor with a little parable:
An elephant is seen beating on a dead horse in the middle of a race. “Why are you beating a dead horse?” the elephant was asked.
“That horse can win this race!” the elephant said.
BILL RHODES Mountain Home