Letters

A telling placement

I found it humorous, yet not surprising, that the Democrat-Gazette sports department buried the story of KeVaughn Allen's signing with the Florida Gators basketball team on the bottom corner of page 7 on Thursday. Perhaps the article was pushed back further for more riveting, eye-catching stories like the Fishing Report on page 6, or the heated battle to earn the starting assignment going on between the Razorback football team's kickers.

Yes, the kickers ... or maybe it had something to do with KeVaughn not signing with the Hogs.

JOHN ZACH

Maumelle

Astute legal analysis

Re "The decline of language in our time": Paul Greenberg's childlike fascination with the writings of George Orwell apparently leads him to conclude that an unarmed and sinister protagonist is once more attempting to "interpret a law to mean the opposite of what it says."

Perhaps Mr. Greenberg's status as a legal scholar is well-known to his regular readers, but I find no such professional training in his official biography.

During the fractious and time-consuming legislative debate over the passage of the Affordable Care Act, numerous Republican congressmen and conservative editorial writers railed against the fact that the act was thousands of pages long and much too difficult to interpret in the short time permitted. Yet Mr. (Justice) Greenberg refers to it as a "seemingly simple statute," the meaning of which he seems to understand implicitly.

Thankfully, Mr. Greenberg seems to know that the essence of the ACA is a shameless power grab by the federal government, or Big Brother, to force states to allow the Feds to subsidize health insurance for its citizens. Shame on Big Brother for wanting to help the working poor and the working middle class stay out of emergency rooms or receive regular preventative health care.

Finally, Mr. Greenberg quotes Humpty Dumpty on the meaning of words. I assume they were students at the same law school since Greenberg apparently believes him to be an expert on the rule of law as well. Kudos to them both for their astute legal analysis.

If only there were room for the two of them on the Supreme Court, life would be so much simpler for Republicans.

DAVID E. COCKROFT

Little Rock

Force's correct name

I enjoyed the Perspective article about the Doolittle Raid. It always makes me think of my older brother who flew P-38s during the war. It often upset him to hear the name Army Air Force. He always informed them, in a nice way, of the correct name at that time, Army Air Corps. Thanks for the article.

F.S. "ANDY" SPANEL

Heber Springs

Jump to conclusions

It's been nearly six years since that November event at Fort Hood. I wonder if any of us have jumped to any hasty conclusions.

R.J. PARKER

Amity

At the horses' expense

Oaklawn's version of the Sport of Kings has come and gone this year, and now it's time to tally up the damages, a task not as easy as it would seem.

A review of daily reports in this newspaper turned up no race-related deaths, statistically impossible. But there were some. I am indebted to such websites as horseracingwrongs.com for help. Only California and New York publicly report such deaths, but then only on-track racing deaths, not reporting "found dead in stall," "severe colic," or "broke down or vanned off," euphemisms for dead.

An accounting for Oaklawn, as best I can tell, were 29 horses listed as DNF (many likely dead) or finishing 99th, a euphemism for not finishing. Vanned off: Summer Heavens, Jitterbug Shoes, Springsteen Road, Southern Flash. Zenaro was killed March 6, Cowboy Con April 11; Five Seasons was either killed or vanned off.

For 2014, there were 78 deaths at Charles Town track in West Virginia, and 73 deaths throughout Louisiana.

For those who would say thoroughbreds are "bred to run," sure, but not at breakneck speed, under whip, lateral vision impaired, and drugged. You try it.

The Sport of Kings? I think not. A multibillion-dollar industry designed to advance the wealth of a few while giving hope to small outfits at second-rate tracks? I think so, and at the expense of exploited and largely mistreated gorgeous animals.

STEVE JONES

El Dorado

Opinion sold as news

Recently, I read an article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by Reid Wilson headlined, "Constitutional convention talk reignites." I believe that while it masquerades as news, it is an opinion piece that contains factual errors and "spin" so egregious as to suggest the author is either constitutionally illiterate or is intent on deliberate deception.

There is no evidence he talked with anyone who is truly knowledgeable about Article V of the Constitution, such as Professor Robert G. Natelson of the Independence Institute. Such pieces do not serve the profession of journalism well.

MARK ALSPAUGH

Hot Springs Village

Return market pages

On a recent day, the market went up 259 points. With the new condensed version of the market listings, though, it is impossible to see what happened.

Please return the markets page to the way it was. I really miss getting black ink all over my forearms leaning over the table reading the business section every morning. I do not want to open the Wall Street Journal on my computer to see the markets; it makes buying the Democrat-Gazette kind of dumb.

BILL DAVIDSON

Hot Springs

Give peace a chance

I'm not impressed with presidential candidates and people like Senators John McCain, Tom Cotton and Bob Corker of Tennessee.

We do not have to have a war with Iran. We can give peace a chance.

Those beating the war drums should institute a military draft and make sure that their kids and grandkids are on the front lines.

The rest of us don't want an unnecessary war.

STEVE WHEELER

North Little Rock

Editorial on 04/19/2015

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