Good people in world
We went to a car wash on Colonel Glenn Road in Little Rock where they do a great job. While we were waiting, one of the men saw a sticker on the car for the Animal Village.
He went in the back and brought the cutest puppy out. All those guys had been keeping the puppy safe all day. They had found him wandering. They had been asking everyone if they knew anyone who could take him.
We did, and I would like to thank those guys who had the heart to protect this little dog and help him find a home. There are good people in our world, and they deserve credit. Thank you, young men, for being so kind.
FRANCES LOFTIN
Roland
Combat truancy first
Guest writers Randy Zook and Gary Newton say it is bad news that at the current rate it will take 20 years for all Arkansas kids to be competent in reading. Bad news? I would rejoice if I thought it will happen.
Highly trained, well-supplied teachers can't teach kids who aren't in class, and in Arkansas, they aren't in class. In reality, school attendance here is not compulsory. It is voluntary. Truancy is a big problem in Arkansas schools. Consider this: If a student misses on average 12 days per semester, by the ninth grade he has missed a year of school. No reading program can make up for that.
The attendance numbers schools turn in to the state mask the problem. A school can turn in a respectable attendance number and still have a big attendance problem among the lower 20 percent, the group that doesn't read well. Prosecutors are swamped; they want schools to enforce attendance but schools can't, no more than they can enforce traffic laws. They don't have the will or the authority. They try to educate parents by sending them letters and making phone calls. I admit it would help if schools retained more kids who are chronically truant.
Not many truant kids end up in juvenile court, and their parents, who are breaking the law, rarely get fined. How many people would obey traffic laws if no one got fined?
There is only one fix: The state should refuse to give the thousands of dollars per pupil per year expenditure to schools when those pupils are chronically truant. When that happens, alarmed superintendents will meet with prosecuting attorneys and chiefs of police, and parents will start getting citations for truancy and will have to appear in municipal court and pay fines. The word will spread. Attendance will improve.
Zook and Newton are trying to do a great thing, a heroic thing. They will fail without the help of the school systems and the legal system. It's a shame.
JOHN J. CASEY
Fort Smith
The liar in this picture
In Saturday morning's paper, our liar in chief decried Andrew McCabe's termination and James Comey's book as lies, lies, lies!
This from our president who has lied and/or misconstrued the truth by this time, according to Time and others, over 2,000 times since he has been in office.
So my deduction is that our eminent leader wouldn't know the truth if it bit him in the ischial tuberosity.
ED HANCOCK
Springdale
Persuasive argument
Congratulations to Jacqueline Highsmith of LM Wind Power in Little Rock for her persuasive appeal for the Wind Catcher project. This idea of a mega-size Wind Catcher project has excellent potential to provide economic, social, and technological benefits not only to Arkansas but to its neighboring states.
The rationale for building a wind farm is timely as the U.S. is pursuing becoming an energy-independent nation, and yet vacillating to choose a balanced mix of energy sources. It makes sense to mix in pollution-free wind energy as part of solar, fossil, and nuclear energy sources. Moreover, the input to wind energy is free and adequate in Northwest Arkansas, Oklahoma, and the Texas panhandle, and with the sensible state support through extended and sustained tax breaks and other incentives, all energy consumers in the region stand to gain clean air and cheap energy costs.
However, there is a misguided notion that windmill technologies are old, dated, and not part of emerging technologies. The opposite is true. Windmills present significant engineering and technological challenges in their design, manufacturing, materials, transportation, and sustainability.
LM makes noteworthy economic and intellectual contributions to benefit local communities and educational institutions. Its engineers (Mike Belote and Erin Lanford) strive to mentor Arkansas engineering and technology students to come up with creative, efficient, and innovative wind-energy technologies. These interactions have helped enhance creative and critical thinking skills among students. Such relationships between industry and technical colleges in Arkansas offer an opportunity to create a consortium of excellence for wind energy technologies to develop advanced technical solutions to benefit the economy of the region and nation.
SWAMI N. MIDTURI
Little Rock
Retailing has changed
When I read about Starbucks and the code required for the use of its bathroom, I realize how much retailing has changed since our bookstore, Publishers Bookshop, closed in 1994.
We operated on the backside of the Tanglewood Shopping Center for a quarter-century. During that time, our public restroom was open to anyone who wanted to use it. A purchase was never necessary; it was open to all. As far I know, we never checked to see who used it. Sometimes, mothers left their children at our bookstore while they went shopping at Safeway (now Edwards Food Giant) on the front side of the shopping center. A purchase was always hoped for, but never required.
Today's retailers are much more efficient than we were. Although we computerized the store in 1981, it still took us two weeks to get a special-ordered book for a customer. Amazon.com can not only get it for one of its Prime customers, but can have it delivered freight-paid to his front door in two days.
Today's retailing--at least in bookselling, which has been largely digitized--is infinitely more efficient and moves at warp speed compared to the past. But, because it's so heavily focused on sales maximization, the personal touch seems to have been intentionally minimized or entirely discarded.
JAMES W. BELL
Little Rock
Editorial on 04/19/2018