On paying attention
Three conversations just this month have given me new slants on reality.
Frances said new variations of covid-19 could continue being created if people can do what they want about shots and masks. We might be in for another black plague-like epidemic.
Joann said they came back early from their vacation because of storm warnings. She said the family vacation was great until they got back to Arkansas where the roadsides were littered with trashy paper, plastics and tins. She said the other states they'd been through were clean. She said she wanted to report this somewhere but found only lots of general resources. Remember when too much information confused the facts?
I asked Marilyn if she thought we'd come to a point where Americans were for sale. She said, "They've already sold out," and my stomach became an iced knot. What came to mind was the Boy Scouts of America and leaders who had different goals and purposes and lots of folks not paying attention.
Well, I've been around long enough to see lots of changes in the USA, but I still think the good outweighs the bad. Maybe paying attention to what's beyond our own paths and interests will help us get that good old American savvy back on track.
JUDITH BAUM
North Little Rock
On American football
Many of my friends and colleagues over the years have asked me how a foreigner raised with an obsession for cricket and Manchester United could fall so deeply in love with American football. Admittedly, I have always struggled to answer that question. Growing up, football to me was an abstract idea more than a sport. That a sport where you primarily use your hands to pass and catch is called football is something I still quite don't understand.
What has truly made me fall in love with football are the few seconds that lead up to each snap. These seconds capture the crux of football. It is the time when offensive and defensive players get one last look at each other's formations, adjust to a different play, identify which players they may be up against in that play, and in their minds go through how they expect the other 10 men on the field on their side to work in lockstep with them.
In most football games these few seconds repeat themselves somewhere between 75 to 100 times, capturing my full attention and imagination each time. These are also the few seconds that give me, a spectator, the chance to be a living room coach, allowing me to predict in my mind (or sometimes shout to others around me) whether the next play is going to be a run or a pass, will the defense blitz or drop into a soft zone, will the field goal go wide right or bang through? An excitement I quite enjoy.
It is the art and science involved in the few seconds before each snap that I cherish the most and what has truly made me fall in love with football.
AMMAD AMIN
Bentonville
Sorta sounds like him
Of course I can't know this for certain, but I feel pretty sure Donald Trump was responsible for Hurricane Ida.
L.R. KILLOUGH
Searcy
We reap what we sow
I will try for brevity in response to Albert Hart's sarcastic offering. Yes, equipment was abandoned in Afghanistan, just as it was in other previous failed wars. The exit was messy, but how do you evacuate a vast military stockpile accumulated over 20 years and save face when ending an unwinnable war?
It took the Biden administration to ultimately terminate the ongoing hemorrhaging of lives and money. A belated exit because all the previous administrations lacked the backbone and were content to let the bleeding continue. A 20-year Ponzi scheme, fueled by the military industrial complex that sucked our country into a doomed abyss, has finally ended.
Tragically, a historical blueprint foretelling the folly of ever invading Afghanistan militarily was readily available for all of Washington to see. It went unheeded in 2001.
No amount of smart bombs or advanced high-tech weaponry was going to defeat the Afghans on their home turf. The almost instant resurgence of Taliban and ISIS fighters proves there is no military solution to terrorism. They knew all along that time was on their side in the Graveyard of Empires.
So you see, Albert Hart, the seeds sown for this massive military invasion 20 years ago fell on contaminated ground. America has now reaped another foul harvest of our own making. And that sir, is the real fiasco.
ROGER MARSH
Little Rock
Cool down the climate
The political climate in the U.S. is as heated as our planet has become. Trump still desires to run a country in his narcissistic world. His followers are loyal, equally narcissistic, selfish, blind to science and medicine, and eager to follow their orange Pied Piper to wherever.
I propose that we give Trump and his cronies Puerto Rico. In doing this, the citizens of Puerto Rico obtain all of Trump's holdings, Mar-a-Lago and all his properties here in the U.S. It could be a fair trade, but we might need a Russian bank loan to the citizens of Puerto Rico to make it fair. For the loyal Trumpites, move the Jim Jordans, the Ted Cruzes, the Mo Brookses, the Josh Hawleys, etc., to Puerto Rico so they can bow to their loathsome leader.
Let Trump throw paper towels at his followers with the next hurricane. His health-care system will only have to treat one person with appropriate medicine (Trump) and the rest can take hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, bleach, and all the internal irradiation a person can tolerate. His military will be run by militias like the the Proud Boys, which I'm sure will be fair and will apply true justice, but only if given the appropriate alcoholic beverage first.
The USA that I once knew may return to trusting science, medicine, and our government may return to normal debate and work for the people of the U.S. If only it was that easy.
ANDY CONAUGHTON
Vilonia
Nothing is inherited
Nothing is more unbecoming than to listen to a politician or political appointee say they inherited a problem they have made worse or cannot fix from a previous administration. That dog don't hunt. You decided to run for office or accept an appointment.
Biden and Blinken, you lost me the minute I hear "inherited" in a sentence from you. You own it now.
PHILLIP BASINGER
Conway