A preview of climate
Do you watch the weather people on TV or listen to the forecast on the radio? Why would you do that when you can just look out the window and "see" what the weather is doing? Is it because they have special knowledge and training regarding the weather? It's nice to make plans for the weekend and have some idea of the weather conditions that might affect those plans.
This is what climate scientists do on a much larger scale and further into the future. Our previous administration seemed a little slow to accept some of this information. Finally it made some effort to acknowledge the scientists' predictions. One action was the Paris Climate Agreement, now ended by Donald Trump. Another effort in 2015 was flood-risk management for infrastructure to be climate-resilient. This was ended by Trump on Aug. 15.
Did you watch the record-breaking flooding in Texas from Hurricane Harvey, followed by a record-breaking Atlantic hurricane, Irma?
We don't see much reporting on other parts of the world, but at least 1,200 people are dead from increasingly devastating monsoons in Bangladesh, Nepal and India. One third of Bangladesh is flooded. These types of events create climate refugees.
Now that we have seen the preview, shall we watch this "movie" together? It may not be too late to change the ending, but it will take everyone working together to do that.
TRUDI RUST
Fayetteville
Memories of college
Where there is a will, there is a way. My grandmother said this to me many times. I tested this a few times on my journey to a college degree. The first big test came in September 1953 at Arkansas State College (now University). The first three years of the 1950s, droughts ruined most of the crops in the Ozark foothills and money was scarce. I saved about $125. The college publication suggested on-campus jobs. With faith backed up by the possible campus job, I left to enroll.
Minutes before it was my turn at the enrollment window at Wilson Hall I asked one who had already registered about the cost of the mandatory upfront fees. He replied, $140. I dropped out of line.
The Dean of Men, Robert Moore, was in his second-floor office. I went there. I explained my shortage. On the bottom of his yellow legal note pad he wrote, "If possible, please give this young man a job." He directed me to take the note to the campus cafeteria manager, Mrs. W.W. Nedrow. She fulfilled the request and gave me a document to take to the money-taker. Mrs. Nedrow's words verified my employment. That day, I began my job in the cafeteria. For working four hours and 45 minutes a day I received a room and three meals daily, a monthly value of $45 that I didn't have to pay upfront, leaving money for future expenses. I believe the per semester tuition fee then was $35.
In that era, the only cafeteria occupied the bottom floor of the largest campus structure, the Commons dormitory for men. My room was in the basement of Danner Hall, a smaller men's dorm, about one block from Commons.
After 64 years, the memories linger of Dean Moore and Mrs. Nedrow and that pivotal note that made college possible for me that day. I had the will. They provided the way, fulfilling grandmother's hopes and mine.
WILLIAM C. KRAMER
North Little Rock
Better to ditch the TV
With everything that's been going on lately, I find there's nothing better than sitting on the front porch and watching the hummingbird family living in the big cedar trees in the middle of the driveway.
When the youngest of the three spends too long at the feeder on the porch, Mom comes to usher her back and gives her an earful on the way.
That little bit of family drama is much more entertaining than death, destruction and The Donald, all shown on my TV in living color. I'm hoping the hummingbirds are renewed for next season.
LML TERRELL
Dayton
Pack your bags, guys
If Bret Bielema and Jeff Long had real jobs, I think they would have been fired long ago. We could probably spend less to be below 50 percent in wins. Oh well, there is always next year.
JOHN LEONARD
Fayetteville
Re-imagined nation
Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities argues that communities exist only with their imagining. We imagine ourselves to be Americans, Christians, Southerners, etc., and pledges of allegiance, myths, and symbols follow to make the imagined community a reality.
Colonists imagined their community in relation to Indians who occupied the land for which they lusted and Africans whose labor they exploited. White supremacy was basic to the formation of an imagined "American" community.
In the industrializing era following the Civil War, the North affirmed white supremacy in the West by relegating Indians to reservations, while the South subordinated freedmen to the laws of Jim Crow. Yet industrialization in the North led to an influx of European populations that barely touched the South. The North had to begin re-imagining who belonged to the "American" community. (Irish Catholics? East European Jews?) The South didn't.
During two world wars, Southern blacks moved north to industrial centers, took advantage of new freedoms, laid the basis of high culture, served in the military and returned demanding liberty and justice for all. The North moved reluctantly toward re-imagining an "American" community that included blacks. The Democratic Party under Lyndon Johnson effected the change, so the South moved to the Republican Party.
Ethnic tensions continue to rise because whites are slow to acknowledge that traditional "American" institutional and cultural forms affirm (and sustain) white supremacy. Someday we'll have to begin the process of re-imagining "America" as multi-ethnic. As Einstein reportedly observed: We can't solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.
DAVID SIXBEY
Flippin
Change school's name
I am a 1961 graduate of Little Rock University. Back then, it was a small private school, and a very good one, I might add. I will spare the details of how it became the much larger state school with the cumbersome name of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
To be honest, I was never happy with the name change.
Let's change the name back to Little Rock University and join such prominent state and private universities as Clemson, Auburn, Boston, and St. Louis.
You may say, "But we've already changed the logo to emphasize Little Rock." This is a move in the right direction, but it is only a Band-Aid on the problem. The problem is having the word "Arkansas" in the name. Until we remove it, we are seen as a distant step-cousin of the U of A at Fayetteville.
You may also say, "what's in a name?" I say a lot, and perhaps this will help stir some input, pro and con. Go Trojans and Hogs!
P.S. I suspect that being in the U of A system will have an effect on this suggestion.
JERRY SAMONS
Little Rock
Editorial on 09/15/2017