It's in how you say it
I had to chuckle reading Sonny Starnes' letter about returning to the state to see that Arkansawyers are now Arkansans. I moved to Arkansas in late 1981 as a radio news director.
After my first newscast, my very first day on the job, I was greeted by a telephone caller with a high-pitched shrill voice saying, "Sonny, I want you to know there is no Kansas in Arkansas." She went on to advise me that the Arkansas Constitution says, "The people of Arkansas shall be known as Arkansawyers." I later was told that in 1978 the state Legislature passed a resolution declaring that the people of Arkansas were to be known as Arkansans. I don't know how a legislative resolution could trump the Constitution. However, I never did check to see if either of those statements is true. Thanks for the reminder!
B. KEN WILLIAMS
Centerton
To see damage done
Coralie Koonce, along with a whole host of other informed letter-writers recently, has weighed in on global climate change. They've documented the science of the issue, but perhaps there is a better way for them to make their points.
I suggest that we--along with the obvious majority of scientists and informed governments all over the world--take up a collection to send the climate deniers, most especially the ones in Congress, on an eye-opening vacation to see the planet's degradation they so blatantly ignore. We can start with the Mid-Atlantic states of the U.S. so homeowners in the Chesapeake Bay area can school them about sea-level rise. A trip to Glacier National Park to see the 30 dwindling former ice giants that remain of the original 150 might jolt a few. Then, for the literary-minded, perhaps a Hemingway-inspired trip to the fabled "Snows of Kilimanjaro" might make an impression--if they can find any of the white stuff. Right after that, we can whisk them off to Australia's Great Barrier Reef so they can see for themselves the bleaching of the coral beds which--by the way--are living systems. A plane ride over drought-ridden farmlands right back here on their home turf might be a great way to end their tour.
We can pretend not to see the damage we've done, but don't we owe it to our kids to at least peek under the blindfold?
LINDA A. FARRELL
Bella Vista
Another euphemism
I read the thoughtful and accurate editorial "Abortion care?" and my thought was that "abortion" is a euphemism itself. To describe the killing of an innocent baby in its mother's womb with a derivative of the word "abort" is as muddy a description of this heinous act as is possible.
A mission can be aborted. A political campaign can be aborted. When a baby in the womb with a working brain, a beating heart, and blood flowing through its body is killed, that life is not an "action" suddenly ended like a walk into the woods too far. It's the killing of an innocent life.
If you have witnessed the killing of an unborn child and not thought it against humanity, something is seriously wrong with you.
MARK MASSEY
Little Rock
Confidence trickster
Every day thousands of women, mostly white, sit in reverential silence, almost urinating with excitement at the prospect of viewing and listening to the object of their worship and adoration.
Just who is this extraordinarily gifted and charismatic person expected to come before them to warm their hearts and enlighten them? Is it Shakespeare, Mozart or Michelangelo? Or Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein or, perhaps, even Jesus Christ?
Sadly, it is none of these illustrious men of sublime and towering genius but, instead, that conceited, insincere, entirely undistinguished, mind-numbingly boring O. Winfrey, a woman I regard as little more than a confidence trickster.
Devoid of talent herself, she basks in the golden glow of the sometimes worthy achievements of her guests and yet, inexplicably, somehow manages to convince her sycophantic, half-witted audience that those achievements were of her doing.
Now, shamefully, it would appear that this whole nation is contributing to the entirely misplaced and unwarranted euphoria for this very ordinary woman who is famous simply for being famous. Another example, I fear, of that all too common American affliction, "The Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome.
In the name of humanity, just what is happening to this nation, once on the brink of greatness, but now a sad, pale shadow of its former self?
WILLIAM G. CARLYLE
North Little Rock
Who these people are
When I saw the header of your Friday editorial ("Who are those people? What are these Christians doing?") I naturally assumed that your editors were bravely challenging the actions of our representatives in the U.S. House and Senate.
After all, what kind of Christians would carve tax cuts for the wealthy out of the backsides of millions of Americans who will find themselves deprived of decent health-care coverage by the so-called "American" Health Care Act and its Senate equivalent?
But I guess I expected too much of your editors. It's easier to write inspirational puff pieces about missionaries saving lives in Iraq than to take a stand against corrupt politicians destroying American lives at home.
So, no, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus--just Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Tom Cotton, John Boozman, and the other pseudo-Christian munchkins that populate Congress.
Good night and good luck!
ALEX MIRONOFF
Fayetteville
Editorial on 06/28/2017