Not society's outcasts
Sincerest kudos to Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Cordova, Tenn.! Recently it partnered with the Varner Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction, which is a maximum-security prison ("Seminary program starts at state prison").
Offering BA degrees in Christian studies to prison inmates, even those with life sentences resulting from murder convictions, requires boldness and vision on the part of academic leadership. May the school be blessed for not viewing these men as society's outcasts.
Here's hoping (and praying) that Mid-America's leadership will apply that same spirit of boldness and vision toward another group of people--divorcees. May they drop from their school catalog a long-standing academic disqualifier--anyone who has ever been divorced (or has a spouse who has ever been divorced) may not apply for a degree in Mid-America's master's or doctoral programs.
Divorced people, like prison inmates, are not society's outcasts.
J.J. SMITH
Fairfield Bay
Medicare and doctors
In response to Ms. Linda Burton, who wrote that she could not find a doctor who would accept her Medicare, I wish to relay that I see a doctor at the UAMS Institute on Aging. I do not know if they accept new patients with Medicare, but they've been accepting my Medicare for years. Both doctors I've seen have been kind and competent. You may have to wait a while for an appointment, but nurse practitioners are available for emergencies.
Do not accept wearing the scarlet A! The problem is with our society, which does not value its old people and is obsessed with youth and beauty. Many of us expected that we would be supported by family members as we aged and, in my case, that did not happen.
In the editorial "Proof, meet pudding," the writer uses Ms. Burton's letter to argue against Medicare for all. I believe the fact that doctors do not accept Medicare patients does not speak to the deficiency of the program, but to the greed of many doctors. Perhaps they might have to forgo that second BMW or lake home and actually live by the philosophy of the Hippocratic oath. Doctors should be required to accept Medicare. Otherwise what is the point of having it?
CATHERINE LAMB
Little Rock
Finally went digital
This is a reluctant thank-you note. A bit of background is in order. I am retired military, born and raised in Arkansas. I served in places ranging from Suffolk County, England, to Guam, Texas, Ohio, Alaska, Hawaii, and more. For all my adult life I treasured an early morning read of whatever local rag was available. Slowly but surely I came to the realization that my home-state paper was not just good, it was great.
Fast-forward to the present and I am now a cranky old man. To illustrate my point, the comic strip I turn to first in the paper is Pickles; I can very often relate. When talk emerged that I would not be able, at some point, to spread the paper and start my day in the manner I enjoy, I was not happy.
Go digital? My attitude was not only no, but never. But no and never are adjustable, as most young children soon learn. Lately I found myself out in the Bering Sea on a cruise ship running from Unalaska (Dutch Harbor) to Petropavlovsk, Russia, then Japan. I was hungry for news and a paper to read. So, with time to kill I tried pulling up the Democrat-Gazette on my phone and the ship's Wi-Fi. After some frustration and less than gentlemanly messages (thank you, technical staff, for your patience), I accessed the paper. What a joy! It was utterly amazing to me how easy it was to flip pages, expand the pictures and enlarge the print to work for these old eyes. It was joy.
The best part--or maybe not--is I can no longer sit at my dining room table fuming and fussing at "O-dark-thirty" when my "real" paper doesn't get to my front door on time.
Thank you for the vision, investment and the guts to keep my paper alive.
KEITH D. HAWKINS
Little Rock
The case for Cotton
The Arkansas River Valley yields abundant crops, and while the region is diverse, you can only find one type of cotton there: Sen. Tom Cotton.
We believe Senator Cotton is proof that those committed to public service make the best elected officials. Few people raised on a cattle farm in Yell County make it to Harvard Law School, yet that is not the senator's most impressive accomplishment. He left behind what would have been a lucrative legal career to serve his nation on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The senator embodies Arkansas values and fights for real improvements that have positively impacted Arkansans. He led the charge to repeal the individual mandate, a penalty tax on Arkansans who were unable to afford expensive, government-mandated health insurance. He has worked to improve veterans' health care and speed up the prescription-drug approval process to lower the costs of prescription drugs for Arkansans.
It is no secret that the opioid crisis has hit our state hard, as Arkansas has the second-highest opioid prescribing rate in the nation. Senator Cotton has been a leader in the Senate in combating this epidemic. He has worked to increase penalties for opioid traffickers and introduced legislation to more effectively prevent the importation of harmful drugs into the U.S.
As two young people born and raised in rural Arkansas, we write today to encourage Arkansans to cast their ballots next November for Senator Cotton. We have seen the progress our state has made thanks to Senator Cotton's service. He is the kind of public servant and leader Arkansans need and deserve to represent our interests in Washington.
JESSICA KLOSS
and DRAKE MOUDY
Fayetteville
There are two of us
A recent editorial commented on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's need to distinguish herself from the first woman on the United States Supreme Court. A shirt Justice Ginsburg received as a gift said "I'm Ruth, not Sandra." Funny, but also sad that two outstanding jurists would be confused, and sad that there were only two women on the court.
This reminded me of Rudolf Bing's move to bring black singers to the Metropolitan Opera in the early 1960s. Leontyne Price was the big name at the time. Another great singer, Martina Arroyo, was coming into the opera house one day and was met by a doorman who welcomed her as "Ms. Price."
The reply: "I'm the other one, honey."
RICHARD CHAPMAN
Little Rock
Editorial on 09/09/2019