The price we've paid
As I write this, I'm currently on day 5 of being hospitalized. No, not covid. But it is a serious hematology issue. Tonight it has started to affect my heart. I'm terrified. And I'm alone. Just like every other patient in this hospital.
There's a bed in my room where a loved one could stay here with me, but they can't. And now I watch the clock, each minute agonizing, watching the heart monitor, willing it to beat a little stronger. Alone.
This is the price many Arkansans are paying for the refusal of our leadership and fellow Arkansans to do the work to get and keep our state safe.
Schools, sports, continuing to gather in public, and the continued refusal to wear a mask by so many.
Not only that, but you're ensuring the continued transmission of this terrible virus. And leaving more to lie alone and scared in hospitals. This is the price being forced on us, the sick and vulnerable. Left alone, in literal life-or-death moments.
I hope I make it. I hope we all do.
RANDI ROMO
Little Rock
State's collective risk
Science magazine anticipates opposition to a hoped-for vaccine to covid-19--still another challenge to containing our out-of-control pandemic and its unnecessary deaths and disruptions. The expected resistance derives from lack of trust in authorities and expertise that has hindered public health responses from the outset, fostered in some nations and states by leaders who openly doubt evidence and dismiss science.
In Arkansas as elsewhere, we have been fostering distrust by failing to confront issues and data frankly. For example, state officials have denied climate change, an even larger threat than novel viruses.
Rather than forcefully taking protective actions provided by law and historical practice, the governor until recently only reported covid-19's daily progressive sickening, weakening, and killing of the unlucky and vulnerable. Suggestions alone of ways to lessen these avoidable losses don't seem effective enough. Past campaigns against health menaces have harnessed education and persuasion through media with slogans and celebrity endorsements--short of imposing legally enforceable edicts (which sometimes are indicated).
Relaxing social restrictions and sending children back to school without extensive preventive measures--while infections accelerate--seem to portend still wider transmission. Thanks to Walmart and other firms for sound business decisions to at least partially protect their customers and employees and indirectly their community.
Among conflicting messages of political leaders, one is: We are on our own as individuals about what to believe and how to protect ourselves. Those of us who can correctly judge sound information and who can heed recommendations have an advantage in surviving the virus.
Meanwhile, the collective risk to the state increases with the proportion of risk-takers who disregard best practices and (evolving) evidence. Our fate is our own doing as a people.
JIM WOHLLEB
Little Rock
Goes beyond slavery
What seems lost in the controversy over Confederate memorials goes well beyond the issue of slavery.
From Robert E. Lee to the last of his soldiers to die, once war broke out, the motivation for Southern men to join the army was the survival of their homes, property and families.
Many never owned slaves nor expected to, and would not have risked life and limb to fight for it. "States' rights" might have resonated with some, but again, not what would motivate a son or husband to leave home, perhaps forever. They were fighting an invading army (e.g., Sherman's March to the Sea).
Also lost is the contextual view at the time of nation versus state. Citizens held a much stronger bond with their state relative to the nation than we do today. As a result, the notion of "homeland" and associated loyalties was more state-centered. The Confederate army was a collection of fighting units which often marched behind the flag of their own state. "The War Between the States" is well-named.
Further, as soldiers have perennially done, they revered their leaders and took personal pride in having fought with them. So, the statues of Confederate leaders were memorials not to ideologies, but to individuals and the thousands of sons and husbands who marched and died for the purpose of saving their families and homes.
Keep the statues and use them to teach about the lives of those they memorialize and the context of the times in which they were erected.
KEITH GARRISON
Little Rock
Showing weaknesses
We as a country have lost so many battles against covid-19. We are slowly learning its strengths and weaknesses. However, we continue to show only our weaknesses. Masks, social distance, and hygiene could be our strengths. Instead our egos, "rights," wish for comfort, desire for quick fixes, lack of long-term resolve, lack of personal responsibly, lack of consistent messaging, and a lack of leadership have shown the world that we are a country of losers.
That is not the country I love.
Wear your damn masks, social distance, and wash your hands!
FRED FISHER
Conway
On service in Korea
On June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded the south. When the truce was declared three years, one month, and two days later, over 8,000 U.S. troops were KIA, MIA, or POW and unaccounted for. Through the dedicated detail work of the team in Hawaii, that number has been reduced to fewer than 7,000 unrecovered or unidentified. Nearly 100 of those are from Arkansas.
GEORGE W. GATLIFF
Little Rock
Bigger attention hog
Greg Stanford, in repy to your letter of cleverly turning AOC to AO-ME, positing that she is an attention-grabber, I think that there is someone much more accomplished on the world stage, an attention-grabber extraordinaire: DJ-ME.
SUSAN SNELL
Farmington