What Dad would say
During the height of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, I remember my father, a farmer in East Texas, passing the room where the TV was playing. He stopped. A news story about Martin Luther King had caught his attention. He listened, then started out the door to start his day farming.
Under his breath I heard him say, "That man has a backbone of steel."
My father was a man of few words, but the ones he uttered were generally well thought out and to the point--often bluntly so. He was a member of what's been called the "Greatest Generation." While Franklin Roosevelt was securing his place as the third greatest president behind Lincoln and Washington, my father had done his part: from the invasion of North Africa, Sicily, Normandy and Central Europe. He didn't talk about the war much, but I think he thought about it a great deal in the quiet hours of the night when he was alone. He did not like war nor parades.
I often wonder what my father would say if he were alive today watching the tweeting, babbling, saber-rattling, posturing and half-thought-out policies emanating from the Mar-a-Lago White House from our current self-labeled "Great Man" president.
I can imagine him saying quietly to himself, "I don't think this feller is up to the job."
DANNY HANCOCK
Lonoke
Of disparaging words
I began observing politics when President Harry Truman upset Republican Thomas Dewey in November 1948. I know that former presidents have lied, but President Trump will lie, and walk down the hall and deny it. His unyielding political base calls it "walking it back." Today, I worry about the fate of truth.
President Trump has a well-stocked quiver of slurs and innuendos and he's quick with the bow string and he knows his targets, and his political base loves it. He's good with quick descriptives and pejorative words. His slurs such as "look at that face" when Carly Fiorina was one of the 17 or so GOP candidates in 2016. "A disgrace," "a nut job," "one of the dumbest human beings" to Sen. Lindsey Graham. Al "Frankenstein" for Al Franken. And the many pejorative words to Megyn Kelly, even about "blood coming out of her ... wherever" (Trump's words), just to name a few of his aspersions given to hundreds of his opponents.
Not a disparaging word have I heard Trump say about Vladimir Putin or Trump's consistent political ally, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton. Trump is good with words that can accurately depict adversaries like a cartoonist can draw caricatures. I shouldn't bring it up, but if Senator Cotton ever crosses Trump, Trump will pluck Tom "the Giraffe" Cotton from his quiver. To be fair to Trump, the caricature of Cotton, a good man, is giraffe-like. Think about it. And have fun.
WILLIAM C. KRAMER
North Little Rock
Set up a new hot line
"See something, say something." In Arkansas, there is a hot line to report child abuse. There could also be a hot line to report potential gun violence, staffed by the state police. The Legislature would have to fund it. Privacy laws would need to be to amended to allow for issues in the name of public safety.
CHARLES VERMONT
Prescott
Anticipation of doom
While reading the homeschooling piece in Sunday's Perspective section and its discussion of parental fears in light of recent school shootings, I couldn't help but think of the poem "The Goodnight" from the late American poet, veteran, PTSD sufferer, etc., Louis Simpson, which I prescribed to my own children as they were growing up.
Speaking to/of a daughter, he writes: "Though she may have intelligence, and charm, and luck, they will not save her life from every harm. The lives of children are dangerous to their parents ... some, for a child's sake anticipating doom, empty the world to make the world safe as a room ..."
I spent 34 years thoroughly enjoying teaching in a very large and diverse public high school in the Northeast. I would do it again, despite all the chancy goings-on in this land. And I would surely refuse to add being armed to my bag of tricks which constantly had to adapt to societal changes.
WILLIAM J. WEEKS
Mountain Home
Leaders endorse trail
I write today on behalf of myself and the mayors of Marvell, Elaine, Lakeview, Lexa, Marianna, West Memphis, DeValls Bluff, Hazen, Carlisle, and Lonoke, and the county judges of Phillips, Lee, Monroe, Crittenden, Lonoke, and Prairie counties.
As elected leaders of communities along the route of the envisioned Memphis-Little Rock bicycling trail that would cross the White River via the historic bridge at Clarendon, we have been following the unfolding drama of the bridge with great interest.
We've come to realize that what's interesting is not the bridge alone, but rather the compelling bike trail that emerges only when there's a historic bridge bisecting two refuges at its heart. This "River, Ridge, Row crop and Refuges" trail, as someone referred to it in a recent article, takes assets from across our communities and packages them into a marketable whole that is dramatic and varied enough to draw visitors from all parts of the world. As the trail utilizes only existing infrastructure (with the exception of the updates that would be made to the historic bridge), the trail is also otherwise ready to go.
The economic impact of overnight bicycle tourism is 19 times greater than that of traditional automobile tourists, a benefit that extends beyond traditional businesses to enterprising individuals who can earn extra income by providing special services such as renting an empty room in their home to passing cyclists.
We hope that the efforts to realize the bridge-trail vision are ultimately successful as we believe the final product will be of great benefit to our communities and the region.
JAY HOLLOWELL
Helena-West Helena
Jay Hollowell is mayor of the city of Helena-West Helena.
Editorial on 03/09/2018