Twice for the money
About them hogs ... does this careful planning mean that with chosen nutrients, hog liquid and poop will not pollute earth, trees, rocks and the Buffalo River? Brilliant. Now if it is possible to get several entities to agree to continuously share information and outsiders to enforce things, Arkansas will have beat nature.
Maybe it's time to change the state name from The Natural State to the Go Hogs State! Might as well get two for the money.
JUDITH BAUM
North Little Rock
They are a mystery
Ten things I will never understand:
Why do kids and sometimes even their parents go around with their shoes untied?
How parents can feed their dogs and cats but can't feed their children, forcing our schools to serve three meals a day to feed them. I always thought this was the parents' responsibility.
Why can't people learn the difference between recycling and trash?
Why nightclubs are allowed to stay open until 5 a.m. Most shootouts happen, it seems, between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.
Why isn't there a curfew for all young adults out past 10 p.m.? I realize that some teenagers do have jobs, but many are just loitering and up to buying and selling drugs.
Why many people will not wear their seat belts, and text while driving.
Why people dislike our country so much they are covering it up with trash.
Why are we paying extremely high prices for cars with satellite radio and GPS when what we really need is a built-in tire-pressure inflation system along with an oil-pan heater to warm our cars on cold and icy mornings?
Why cars have between 120 mph to 165 mph on their speedometers when the speed limit is 70 mph on the freeways. This just entices teens to see what traveling over 100 mph feels like.
Why our citizens are getting Lime scooters when it is known that walking is much healthier, while three out of five adults and their children are obese and are having heart attacks and strokes.
TOM KNIGHT
Little Rock
Their purpose for tax
Another tax on cigarettes? Who are they taxing? The poorer among us and veterans, because a good deal of them smoke. They tax cigarettes because they know they will get little or no resistance. But let 'em tax sodas or liquor, and listen to the howling and carrying on.
Of course I like it when they say, "We're doing it for their health." Really? How much of the tobacco settlement money did they spend on cancer research?
In my opinion it's not about my health or your health, but about revenue for the state. The same governmental body that put up a statue of the Ten Commandments is the same uncaring bunch that will let hog waste go into the Buffalo National River, tax poor people's and veterans' cigarettes and medical marijuana, and don't care who it hurts as long as they get the money. Really?
PHILLIP FREEMAN
Benton
They aren't the threat
I'd like to make a few comments on Hayden Shamel's letter, titled "Vote no on HB1694." At times I feel like a broken record because some people simply can't see the inconsistency of their views. Is it really that difficult to understand that when you restrict trained, certified, law-abiding citizens from carrying a concealed weapon, you're giving violent criminals free rein to do their worst, because they simply will not obey your shiny new anti-gun law? They'll bring their gun into that store or school to do their dirty deed, because that's what criminals do. They break the law. So when you restrict law-abiding gun owners, they won't be there to intervene and hopefully stop the carnage.
When that violent felon comes through the door to your child's school, would you prefer he encounters a bunch of unarmed teachers and parents, or would you rather he finds a couple of legally armed and trained civilians (or teachers) who could put a stop to his threat?
Here's a challenge for you: Find any federal, state or local crime statistics that show armed, law-abiding citizens present an increased threat to the public. I tried and failed miserably. You should be far more concerned with too-lenient criminal sentencing guidelines that put these thugs back on the street, again and again, after a short vacation.
MARK DAGUE
Bentonville
See cause and effect
While I'm not an expert on thermodynamics, as Mr. Dick Gunderson, I've often wondered about the effect of Earth's molten core on our climate. His one sentence, "Then radiation and convection take over and the heat is lost to the atmosphere and space," brings me pause because isn't that the reasoning behind "greenhouse gases" and climate change?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website explains how CO2 and other gasses create a "blanket" around the planet and prevent this heat from escaping, raising our temperature.
I spent a year in Greenland with the USAF in the early '70s and was impressed with the coverage and depth of the ice cap, but now I see photos of bare land and rocks as the ice and snow melt. I also read about sea levels rising and some islands becoming uninhabitable, and I see these two events as being cause and effect.
And yes, I believe in global warming.
GENE GARNER
Hot Springs Village
Editorial on 03/30/2019