Turnaround coming
Finally there is some movement in the right direction for the Little Rock School District.
As a 1970 graduate of Hall High School, it has been many years since I could say that I even recognized my old district schools. Perhaps now the district can return to the business of educating students.
Over the decades I've watched the school board use my tax dollars to pay former superintendents with contract buyouts more times than I can remember. They've spent millions of dollars on program after program only to have them fail or be canceled. Consultants have been hired and either ignored or sent packing when the board squabbled over the reports.
I realize that many of the problems that show up in schools are the result of problems at home and in the community. But that is no excuse for the board letting the system slide into mediocrity or worse. It is its job to make things work, not sit by and argue while the schools sink. I hope the state Department of Education can quickly turn the district around. The students, parents and taxpayers deserve more than they've been getting.
MARK BARNHARD
Little Rock
Could be his agenda
It seems Mike Huckabee hopes to be the Chaplain-in-Chief of the United States. He apparently envisions carrying out his holy-war agenda to destroy radical Islam. He can even minister to the wounded warriors lying in our military hospitals.
Many folks will buy into his tough-yet-gentle manner. He most likely would even win Arkansas.
JACK ALBERT
Eureka Springs
To remain unpolluted
After reading Mike Masterson's column, "Question of legacy," I've decided I am not going to be quiet. Arkansans need to stop that hog farm from desecrating the Buffalo River. It is our shimmering, glimmering, pure-flowing happy place. It's a place for all to come who remember the clean rivers of yesterday and want to feed the soothing, pure flow of its waters.
Big money and big Cargill are not going to be allowed to change our lifestyle in Arkansas. They can be as big as they want in Minnesota, but we shall remain the unpolluted Natural State. We have a new governor who will carry the banner and the eyes of Arkansas are on Mr. Asa Hutchinson. Let there be no mistake that the Department of Environmental Destruction will have to get its act together and circle the wagons. We are not going to lay down and go along with the status quo.
Look out, fat-boy pacifiers! The new generation is coming. One family in Newton County is not with us. So be it. Somewhere I read, "A child will lead them."
BYRON ROZIER
Salem
Whose just deserts?
Re Ellis Williams' letter: Just deserts? Did the Jews get their just deserts when put into concentration camps and executed for their beliefs during the Holocaust? Williams says no one should mock any religion. Is Judaism a religion? Mormonism? Catholicism? Is atheism a religion?
If anyone or any organization deems whatever faith you follow not acceptable to their beliefs, does that make it okay to take the lives of your people? I don't think so.
DAVID GARRETT
North Little Rock
Much more to nation
Mike Huckabee's newest book makes the typical false distinction between people who live on the coasts and those in the middle of the country. It seems he completely ignores the part of the country I once lived in--the upper Midwest and Great Lakes region. I have lived in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Together these states hold about 55 million people, about the same number as the Northeast states.
This was not "God, guns, grits, and gravy" country. I never heard of anyone keeping a gun in the household. My classmates were of many different ancestries and religions, but their beliefs were held privately. My classes in the 1930s and 1940s in Minneapolis and Cleveland did not have prayers or Bible readings or postings of the Ten Commandments.
Schools had been secular for a long time before I went to them. These things had been worked out in the 19th Century, after incidents such as the 1844 riots in Philadelphia that killed a score of people and destroyed a number of Catholic churches. The issue was whose Bible was going to be read in schools. The solution was: nobody's.
Please understand, people, that this is a big and diverse country. There's more to it besides just the coasts and the former Confederacy.
CORALIE KOONCE
Fayetteville
Not much difference
I think the killing of another human being is a sin. I do not care who they are. If you kill another human being, it is a sin and you will pay a price.
There was a lot of lip service about President Barack Obama taking a vacation and not going to France. Just what was President Obama supposed to do in France? Make up your minds. Your lips were running when President Obama took a vacation in Hawaii. George W. Bush took vacation more than any other president. Slavery time is over. People of color can take a vacation.
If you are angry about the killing in France, we have had worse in Mississippi and Alabama. There were four little girls murdered in a church, of all places, and Emmett Till was shot and so badly beaten, his mother did not know him. Do not forget the 20 kids murdered in Connecticut. Please tell me--what is the difference in these killings? They are all sin.
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.
JULIA RANDLE
Jacksonville
Editorial on 01/31/2015