Letters

Construction lagging

Recently, on a sunny weekday morning, I drove through a series of work zones between Camden and Magnolia. I found only one person on a bulldozer in one of the four construction areas. One person in a total of 4.8 miles of highway construction. This particular project was started in March of 2016. When I inquired about the construction project, a transportation official described it as 38 percent complete. Sixteen months and 38 percent complete, with a target date for completion early in 2018.

In the meantime these areas are left with hazards such as steep dropoffs where the shoulder should be. I guess the construction company is not liable for the injury or death of a motorist as long as it has its traffic cones and barrels in place. No matter how long it leaves them there.

It is past time for the highway department and commission to address the slothfulness that is allotted in the contracts that are given. If they cannot remedy problems such as this, it may be best to repeal Amendment 42 and place the Arkansas Highway Commission in the hands of the Legislature. Voters should be able to hold their state senators and representatives' feet to the fire on such issues more effectively than five commissioners appointed to 10-year terms.

DAVID HOLLY

Waldo

Shift of Cuban policy

The recent wire-service article written from Havana reporting on Mr. Trump's change in Cuba policy was a bit obscure about the effect on the island. Perhaps the reporters feared losing the right to be in Cuba and could not be more direct. Cuba is still a police state run by an entrenched elite--the pigs on the Animal Farm island.

For those of us who have been to Cuba and speak Spanish, the message was crystal clear: Trump's change in policy only strengthens the hand of the communists while undermining the emerging forces of democracy on the island. Once again average Cubans see the heavy hand of Uncle Sam trying to dictate how Cubans are to manage their own affairs.

Such attempted bullying by any outsider is deeply resented.

One thing the rulers in Cuba understand very well is the fierce determination of her people to preserve their right to self-determination. Thus, the elites have played up this misguided policy change--using it to their personal advantage. Mr. Trump's ignorance has pulled the rug out from under the libertarians on the island, forcing them to back down from their challenges to los jefes, the state security thugs.

Sadly, the visceral hatred of Cuban-American hard-liners here in the U.S. who promoted these changes clouds their ability to understand they are actually working on the side of the oppressors in Cuba. When the castle (or island) seems under siege, those holding command power inside actually get stronger, not weaker.

JOHN ROBERT BOMAR

Arkadelphia

It's cloaked in respect

One of France's most respected physicists, Jean Eisenstaedt, understood Albert Einstein's general relativity very well. So on his 65th birthday, to celebrate his retirement from orthodoxy and dogma, he wrote a cryptic riddle that praised relativity--The Curious History of Relativity: How Einstein's Theory of Gravity was Lost and Found Again. In 2006 the book was translated into English and published by the respected Princeton University Press.

In France, protest is cloaked in respect. Truth is hidden in the Trojan horse.

JOHN ROACH

Yellville

Climate has changed

Climate-change facts: NASA scientists have recorded the last decade as the warmest on record, with rapid warming the past few decades. Our climate has changed throughout history with glacial advance and retreat, but the current trend is important due to human activity and heat-trapping carbon dioxide so the greenhouse gases have caused the earth to warm. Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica and mountain glaciers, along with tree rings, ocean sediment, and coral reefs reveals current warming occurring 10 times faster than the average Ice Age recovery.

Sea levels are rising due to ice melt, putting some islands and coastal areas in jeopardy. Some streets of Miami are being raised or rebuilt, and new storm sewers installed in a $100 million flood prevention project. The Solomon Islands are disappearing.

The oceans' absorption of carbon dioxide has increased by 2 billion tons per year due to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. The more carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere, the more moisture it can hold, which translates to more rain, hurricanes, snow, hail, floods, and extreme weather events. The property/casualty insurance industry is preparing for these events. Some insurance companies have filed suits against municipalities for losses as cities were not preparing.

The Pentagon is preparing. Gen. James Mattis, secretary of defense has said climate change is real and is a threat to American interests abroad and the Pentagon's assets everywhere. It all comes down to fossil fuels, which we are doing something about with the increase of solar and wind. Clean-energy jobs now outnumber fossil-fuel jobs by 2.5 times.

Please educate yourself instead of listening to opinion TV and radio. Learn the facts. The only financial scam is that taxpayers are still subsidizing big oil companies.

EDITH SEAMAN

Lakeview

Tell that to the bees

I had a dream the other day that all the bees of the world were suddenly granted consciously individual self-awareness. All the hives were immediately disbanded, each bee feeling its own work was of prime importance. The change was unexpectedly dramatic.

Pollination continued, after a fashion. From the bee's perspective, pollination is a by-product of feeding. Not what you would call done "on purpose." So it proved impossible to get large fields of crops pollinated in a timely manner. The bees would not cooperate, preferring their own interests.

Honey became extremely scarce. Each bee made only enough to keep itself alive. Legend arose, telling of a shining palace, of beautiful symmetry, where honey flowed in rivers.

Meanwhile the humans, to keep their agri-businesses going, had to put most of their people to work doing the job bees used to do in the fields. It is a tiring task, simple but tedious, endlessly repetitive yet requiring constant focus on tiny stuff. Unless of course you are a bee. At each day's end, people had to continue working together to accomplish the other necessities of existence, combining their remaining energies. Life in human society became much pleasanter.

Then I woke up.

STANLEY G. JOHNSON

Little Rock

Editorial on 06/25/2017

Upcoming Events