Funding child care
This past week, the Child Care is Essential Act passed the House. Please contact your senators and urge them to take it up and pass it.
Unfortunately, District 2 Rep. French Hill voted against working families in his "no" vote on this bill. The early care and education (ECE) system in America, long under-funded, is now on the brink of collapse due to covid-19. In a nationwide survey, 20 percent of child-care owners say they will permanently close without additional assistance. That jumps to 50 percent for minority-owned businesses.
Child-care facilities that have remained open are doing their best to provide safe, quality care, but their income has gone down (lower enrollment) while their costs have gone up (personal protective equipment; cleaning supplies). Teachers are struggling with layoffs or reduced hours and increased pressure to provide custodial services in addition to care and education.
Dependable, quality child care is essential for economic recovery and for a bright future for Arkansas' youngest citizens. The Child Care Is Essential Act funding is specifically dedicated to stabilize the ECE system and keep child-care programs open. Fortunately, it passed the House on July 29. Unfortunately, Hill voted no.
Just one more reason we must elect state Sen. Joyce Elliott to replace him.
TERI PATRICK
Little Rock
Grandstanding pols
A number of Republican legislators have been extremely critical of the mandate that people wear a mask when unable to do social distancing. With Arkansas in a red zone with fast-increasing rates of novel coronavirus (covid-19), masks could save many lives. As masks primarily protect others, not the person wearing one, these anti-maskers who ignore science are stunningly selfish.
It is distressing to see legislators grandstanding against this simple, common-sense precaution. At a recent lengthy, acrimonious hearing, one of the legislators asked what will be next. Will a covid-19 vaccine be mandated?
If these legislators were on a sinking ship, would they say it is a matter of personal choice to wear a life vest, and people shouldn't have to get into a lifeboat unless they want to? Life vests are akin to masks, and vaccines are the lifeboats that can get us back to shore.
If we are fortunate enough to get a vaccine later this year, there won't be enough to go around at first. Decisions will have to be made about who gets priority for vaccinations against the worst infectious disease in 102 years. The priorities should be those who are most vulnerable: health-care workers, law enforcement, prisoners, the elderly, teachers, and poultry processing plant workers and their families, as these plants have proven to be very efficient incubators for covid-19. The Marshallese and Hispanic communities that have had a very disproportionate numbers of deaths from covid-19 should be among the first to be protected.
Legislators who have helped fan the spread of the disease by speaking out against mandatory masks should go to the end of the line for the vaccine. Then, if they don't want to get in the lifeboat, let them stay with the sinking ship.
BECKY GILLETTE
Eureka Springs
When it happens to us
What will we lose when it happens? By "we" I mean white Americans and by "it," the time 25 years from now when we become a minority in the United States.
We won't lose property. U.S. and state laws on real estate are unlikely to change, and our government has only seldom pushed people off their homelands since its first 100 or more years. Use of eminent domain will depend on our elected leaders.
We won't lose our right to help choose those leaders. We're steadily moving toward equal access to the ballot, protecting all minorities.
Will Southerners lose our claimed heritage? In the furor over statues we forget that many state and local governments erected them to honor only one claimed heritage, excluding all others. In some Southern states, Blacks outnumbered whites when the Civil War began. And twice the number of white Americans fought for the Union than for the Confederacy.
Here's the point: With a more diverse population, the trend will be toward honoring the claimed heritage of every part of our society, not toward dishonoring any.
The same trend will apply to religion. A multicultural society is more likely to protect the religious expressions of minorities. We will be returning to one of only two ideas our founding fathers unanimously agreed upon. One was that we should be our own country, and the other was that government and religion were utterly separate. All else was up for contentious debate.
What about rights based on the idea that this is our country, and only we belong here? Let's talk that over with those who were pushed out of their homelands during those 100 or more years.
We are good people struggling toward realizing humankind's best hopes. We will still be when whites are a minority.
CHARLEY SANDAGE
Mountain View
Accolades for reporter
I have been reading the Democrat-Gazette for many years. I believe Bill Bowden deserves extra praise.
Wednesday I was reading and enjoying his article about the sale of Dogpatch. Others had written about it, but his was more interesting. Thursday I did not pay attention to the writer when I started reading about the ousted mayor of Alpena. On the second page of it, I decided that I'd go back and see who had written it. No surprise: Bill Bowden again.
He has a real skill in making his articles interesting and enjoyable. So here is a well-deserved thank you to Bill Bowden!
BARBARA DUNCAN
Searcy