Letters

The ultimate sacrifice

An enormous wave of emotion washed over me as I looked up at the war planes hoisted overhead at the World War II Museum in New Orleans. The F4U Corsair I recognized from old war movies. The B-25 Mitchell was an old friend from Warner-Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. I flew from Memphis to Georgia and almost froze at high altitude from not having the proper clothes on.

Being in New Orleans on this day was a result of my daughter wanting to take my mind off the love of my life, who I lost a few days earlier. I couldn't cope with her loss. After loving someone all those many years, you don't get over them overnight.

Watching movies presented in the museum, it's hard to believe that so much destruction and mayhem could be done to fellow humans. But the greatest generation was there to bring it to a screeching halt.

A member of the greatest generation was with us that day, my son-in-law's dad. He had gotten a bullet through the leg from a Japanese plane and lived to tell about it.

I had a brother in the 101st Airborne who made the invasion on June 6th, 1944, at Normandy and lived to tell about it. He's gone now, along with most of them. They are slowly but surely leaving us at an alarming rate.

If you know any who are still around, shake their hand and thank them for the sacrifices they made back then, so that today we can breathe the air of freedom and walk this earth and worship who we please and not have to take a back seat to anyone or anything because we are Americans and damn proud of it. Those men made the ultimate sacrifice and should not be forgotten.

G.C. WATTS

Little Rock

Running on adspeak

Ad writers understand that people have incredible mental powers to protect their existing beliefs, so they work with what the target audience already thinks based on polls and focus groups.

The scary part is that we can use the ads to see what people are thinking. Here are some observations:

In spite of the Affordable Care Act being one of the best things that ever happened to Arkansas, Obamacare is a big negative. Mark Pryor should run an ad saying, "I didn't vote for Obamacare, I voted for the ACA."

Any difficulty anyone has with medical care is due to Obamacare, not their private, for-profit insurance company. Nobody, of course, has Obamacare.

Mark Pryor did not cast the deciding vote for Obamacare. It was some dude from "liberal" Lawrence, Kan., running for the Senate out there. I learned that from a TV ad I saw in Wichita.

People think Mike Ross voted with Nancy Pelosi for trillions in new debt while, of course, Democrats haven't passed anything that has added to the deficit. Constant references to Pelosi suggest that a smart woman is as threatening as a black president.

People actually think a balanced-budget amendment would fix the deficit, while anyone who is not economically illiterate knows that it is possibly the worst economic idea ever. Anybody smart enough to go to Harvard who would back that turkey is clearly a lying opportunist.

Issues like health-care reform and the deficit really are complicated, and the ads suggest that people are having a hard time keeping up. Think how much easier it was to grasp Pearl Harbor compared to 9/11.

Can we run the country with a voting public who thinks at the level implied by the ads directed at them?

ROGER A. WEBB

Little Rock

Athlete was in right

I think the ball player did right. He did what the Bible tells you to do. He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Withhold not correction from the child; for if thou beateth him with the rod, he shall not die. The dictionary says a rod is a straight, thin piece or bar of metal, wood or other material; a stick or bundle of sticks used for chastisement.

HERBERT PAGE

Conway

History is a witness

Folks who have been paying attention believe civilization may be tottering on the brink. It is possible that our grandchildren will in fact witness the fall of civilization as we know it. We need only to open any daily newspaper to realize our world is coming unraveled compliments of religious fanaticism and greed.

On the evening of Sept. 11, 2014, people of various faiths gathered at St. Margaret's in Little Rock to pray for peace, a wonderful gesture to be sure. Man has been praying for peace since he could form such a concept. However, it has proven to be a decided failure. I believe those good people attending that prayer meeting demonstrated that they are caring human beings, even if they are sharing a common delusion. Only humankind can bring peace to this suffering planet.

It is sad that nearly every religious faith known has shown a propensity toward violence. They all claim theirs to be a peaceful religion, but the proof is in the pudding. History is a witness to the unspeakable atrocities committed in the name of their gods. Nothing in theology can remedy the appalling deficiencies found in their holy books. Therefore, if religion is the cause of such celebration of violence, then it certainly cannot be the cure.

I do not know if humans are the only animals that feel shame, but they are the only ones that need to.

AL CASE

Enola

Unmask true charade

A well-known tongue-in-cheek definition of the title "Ph.D." Is "Piled higher and Deeper." I believe that aptly describes the column of "Dr." Bradley Gitz last week, "A tragic charade."

Bradley, and his source, Dr. Walter Williams, take to task the whole array of problems of the black underclass, poverty, unwed pregnancies, female-only head of household and welfare cases, and manage to place it all on the threshold of the dearth of intact black families.

Oh, that the world were so simple! What Bradley, and William, fail to mention are such pesky items as: the disproportionate rate of unemployment among blacks, especially young males; the disproportionate incarceration rate of black males in this country, which has the highest total rate of prison inmates in the world; and, despite Bradley's assertion that "Racism has precious little to do with any of this," the incidents of Ferguson, Mo., and the tragedy of Trayvon Martin are more than just anomalies. One only has to look at the daily paper to read all-too-common instances of the injustices resultant from racial biases. Or, the disproportionate number of black men who are released from prison due to the re-examination of facts, largely indisputable DNA evidence.

What is truly a charade is the "The World according to Gitz." Bradley needs to widen his narrow scope of sources and consider that the real world is never as simple as he would have us believe. The "family problem" is only the tip of the iceberg of the many racial issues that still plague this country.

JERRY ROBERTSON

Van Buren

On uncaring people

To the person who, on August 12th struck a little momma dog between the last Searcy exit and Carruthers, you must feel real good knowing that you struck a little animal and then just left it along the road dying.

My wife and I stopped to help this little animal and watched, not being able to do anything as it gasped for air and. all broke up. laid there and died, but we sure stayed by its side and gave it its last human contact with soft words and a warm blanket, then picked her up and took her away for proper burial.

A lot of people don't seem to care about an animal that is along the highway as long as you get where you're going and zip to anything else. It is sickening when people don't have the decency to even stop or turn around to see if they can help the animal if possible. This little dog was pregnant and only trying to get something to eat for her soon-to-be-born puppies that will not even get born.

This little animal may have had a human, one who surely must not care, as they let the dog run loose, looking for food, probably. The people that own animals and never take care of them should have to sit out in a hot car or on a small leash in the yard in the scorching sun without water--but then it's only a animal to them, and who cares, right? People are so stupid that they get an animal and let it starve or get tired of it and dump it along the roadside. Too bad that they cannot trade places with the animal and see what it's like. Hey, it's only an animal ...

Please, if this little dog was yours, do the rest of us a big favor and don't get another one!

ART ROGERS

Beebe

Editorial on 09/22/2014

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