Letters

When will it be time?

Dec. 15, 2012, the day after the Sandy Hook school shooting: "This is not the time to discuss gun control."

June 18, 2015, the day after the Charleston church shooting: "This is not the time to discuss gun control."

June 13, 2016, the day after the Orlando nightclub shooting: "This is not the time to discuss gun control."

Oct. 2, 1017, the day after the Las Vegas concert shooting: "This is not the time to discuss gun control."

Nov. 6, 2017, the day after the Sutherland Springs church shooting: "This is not the time to discuss gun control."

Feb. 15, 2018, the day after the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting: "This is not the time to discuss gun control."

Sept. 12, 2001: "This is not the time to discuss terrorism." Do you know who said that on the day after 9/11? Nobody.

When did we get so stupid about "the time"?

EARL BABBIE

Hot Springs Village

Better obey teachers

There was a recent article in the local Catholic newspaper where a woman from Rogers implied that if her child got a detention for participating in a protest connected with the Parkland, Fla., shooting, that it would be OK. My reaction was that if my child got a detention for disobeying a teacher, they would also get grounded. If I had an issue with the teacher, I would have a private meeting with the teacher, but the child would know that they had better obey the teacher.

We parents have a God-given authority to raise and discipline our children, and we delegate that to our teachers. That authority to raise and discipline is not given to the child. And we wonder why there are so many discipline problems in the schools when our children know that we parents will not support the teacher.

Catholic High for Boys took a good approach to the protest. A teacher told me that the principal announced that there would be no disruption of classes for the protest, but the students could come up with a suggestion of what they thought they could do. They suggested a 17-minute silence at the beginning of lunch/study hall in memory of the 17 students and teachers killed. This was approved by the teachers. The teacher told me you could hear a pin drop in the hall at the beginning of lunch.

This was a fitting tribute--not a detention--not a rebellion against authority. God bless our teachers and may they experience our support.

JOHN HARTNEDY

Maumelle

Could save on the ink

Mr. Mike Masterson and these other snowflake friends of the Buffalo could save a ton of ink and much wailing and gnashing of teeth if they would just raise the money and buy the dang hog farm and shut it down.

Simple as that.

Or is all this outrage as phony as a $3 bill, and they just want to punish the government that hates nature and wants to poison their own kids by making the taxpayer bear the burden?

Then I suppose they can move on to stopping those so-and-so deer and elk and bears from ... well ... you know.

EDWARD CHEVALLIER

Horseshoe Bend

Undeterred by tactics

I write as mayor of Clarendon to respond to the op-ed by Mikki White in the Democrat-Gazette Monday. A citizens group, Friends of the Historic White River Bridge at Clarendon, has been working for four years to save the 1931 Clarendon Bridge and convert it to a hiking and biking trail. Ms. White opposes the effort to save the old bridge. In her first paragraph, she writes that the Friends have been "wrongly convinced by outside influences that the old bridge is the one and only key to economic rebirth in Clarendon."

"Outside influences"? Who are these outside influences? The group has eight board members, seven of whom are Monroe County people. The Friends commissioned a tourism development plan done by a resident of Birdeye. For those who don't know, that's "outside" Wynne.

Instead of spending $11.3 million to demolish the bridge, the Friends will use $5 million from the same source to repurpose the bridge for tourism. And that is a complete renovation based on a study by a national engineering firm hired to study the costs of repurposing the bridge. When renovation is done, the bridge will be turned over to Clarendon. Reimbursement for the $5 million expenditure will be paid after each expenditure as we go along in the renovation, not one lump sum at the end, as Ms. White implies.

Ms. White poses the question, ''Will visitors to the bridge want the refuge area around the old bridge/highway closed to hunting and shooting?" Hunters, sport shooters and fisherman won't buy that kind of a scare tactic. All of us hunt and fish. We will never allow hunting, shooting and fishing to be compromised by anything.

Ms. White's op-ed seeks to alarm. Instead of innuendo, give readers the facts of your opposition to saving the bridge as we have done advocating its reuse. We in Clarendon are ready to accommodate new visitors who will come to hike, bike, picnic, and view wildlife on the bridge. We can't let scare tactics deter us. Straight ahead, Arkansas.

JIM STINSON III

Clarendon

Astute observations

Hey! What happened to Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore in the daily classified section? Mallard has a most astute observation of our political morass.

WILLIAM G. FRANKLIN

Jonesboro

Missing those comics

Please bring back Mallard Fillmore and Doonesbury. It is the first thing we read when we pick up your wonderful newspaper!

SHARON VANDER ZYL

Cherokee Village

Editor's note: The Doonesbury daily comic and Mallard Fillmore, which balances its liberal stance, were discontinued because the Doonesbury strip has been in reruns for several years. The Sunday Doonesburys are new. Both comics will still run on Sundays.

Editorial on 04/05/2018

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