Proposal on plastics
I propose a three-step solution to our waste plastic problem.
First: Require all future plastic products to be recyclable. Second: Collect all unrecyclable plastic and compact it in the most efficient way. Three: Store the compacted plastic in abandoned mine shafts.
Random thought: The Republican Party should change its mascot from an elephant to ouroboros (a snake eating its own tail).
HOWARD GARRISON
Hot Springs Village
Should be thankful
Everyone who lives in the United States should be very thankful for the covid vaccines. But people like President Biden, I don't believe he has ever told nor said thank you to President Trump. Without his action, I believe Biden would be totally lost and wearing a dozen masks.
FLOYD HOPSON
Hazen
Interesting strategy
Regarding the expected rise in Alabama's covid vaccinations after Nick Saban took to the airwaves and encouraged Alabamians to get theirs and fill his home stadium: Could he be encouraged to ask Arkansans not to get theirs so Razorback stadium is empty when Alabama plays here? That might bump up our numbers. Might work in the other SEC states as well.
JEFF REDDEKOPP
Fayetteville
On personal identity
As a young woman, and a product of my time, I wanted to accomplish something unique. I also wanted to find The Man, that special someone with whom I could have a life-centering relationship. How to find a special man? One indicator may be a man's work, but for a man with a strong focus on work, a wife is often secondary. Thus that which attracts precludes the relationship being central. I loved such a man once and gave up said man for this reason.
My parents both worked, but they did so to support their large family. Their work was in service to their relationship. The results of their lives, well-lived, shines in the beautiful faces of dozens of wonderful human beings with countless more to spill out over the generations.
For being a Family Man was central to masculine identity in my father's day. Now, a man's identity focuses more on success, and only a few can be at the top of their professions. Increasingly. young men are opting out. Today more women than men attend college. Women put off marriage for career and often run out of time for family.
The loss of relationships and the erosion of family-based masculine identity takes a heavy toll. We have seen sharp increases in suicide among white females, especially in middle age, and while male suicide rates are not rising as fast, they are much higher overall. Drug and alcohol use are also on the rise in recent decades. We see fewer marriages, more divorce, fewer children.
Our current political unrest is partly rooted in these cultural shifts. Identities based on group marketplace values of income and success leave people vulnerable to manipulation, whereas identities based on close relationships anchor us emotionally and buffer us against propaganda and faux culture wars.
KATHY CURTIN
Fayetteville
Put surplus to work
If your editorial is correct, Arkansas is supposed to have a $600-plus million budget surplus this year. We should all rejoice and use the money wisely instead of immediately thinking tax cuts for the wealthy.
Because if the Interstate 40 bridge at Memphis will take months to fix, it will have a huge impact on our economy, and we will be needing to use that surplus and probably much more.
Now is the time to fix our infrastructure; our grandchildren will thank us for not leaving them with crumbling roads and unsafe old bridges.
ANNCHA BRIGGS
Little Rock