OPINION | LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Just get vaccinated | Trashing Arkansas | They have my vote

Just get vaccinated

The collective judgment of the worldwide medical community is that covid vaccines are safe and widespread vaccination is necessary to stop the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more people in the U.S. than were lost in World War II.

Fort Smith police officers--graduates of police academies, not medical schools--apparently disagree. Only 25 percent of department employees reportedly got covid vaccinations recently when they were offered. Where is their common sense?

Not one of the many branches of science has delivered benefits to mankind like the men and women in medical science. Thanks to their knowledge and skill, their gifts to us have been miraculous. We should revere them, but kooks have spread the idea that they can't be trusted.

Sensible people know that the job of a police officer is one of the most challenging professions. They are not paid enough, by far. They often behave heroically. We should back them up, but boy, do they sometimes make it difficult.

JOHN CASEY

Fort Smith

Trashing Arkansas

Thank you for your editorial and news coverage about trash in the environment, worldwide and here at home in Arkansas. Rex Nelson mentioned litter in his New Year's column, expressing a wish for someone to do something about it this year.

Everywhere I drive, I find that the Natural State is also the Trashy State. Anyone traversing our state via Interstate 49 can see it, many of whom come from out of state. As a resident of northwest Arkansas I see litter everywhere, on the back roads and main arteries. It shows the disrespect of our state toward our state.

What to do? I brought it up once on the NextDoor app and a typical response was that, well, the jail inmates pick it up. Yes they do, periodically, so that means citizens are justified in throwing trash from cars and discarding it as we walk, run or bike?

I have looked for anti-littering signs and found only one on the southbound lanes of I-49 between Exit 85 and Exit 62, a stretch I often travel. The sign says: "To report littering call ..." and gives a toll-free number (which I couldn't write down because I was driving). How about asking the drivers and passengers of vehicles not to litter and to keep the Natural State beautiful?

As we saw in the photos you published, trash ends up in waterways--from the roadside ditch to the streams to the rivers to the sea. In Arkansas the ultimate journey is likely to be into the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Litter (trash) is destroying the health of our planet and ultimately us.

SUSAN SNELL

Farmington

They have my vote

I think the photo of Richard Barnett of Gravette leisurely leaned back in the chair of the California nutjob is absolutely hilarious. The man should be given a gold medal for his efforts with no prosecution whatsoever.

I believe both Trump and Barnett possess something that appears to be on the shortlist for extinction these days. That would be common sense. They have my vote, past, present and future.

JIM BOWLING

Mena

So highly qualified

Sarah Huckabee thinking she is qualified to run for the governor of Arkansas is like me thinking I am qualified to be president of General Motors because I worked for them for 27 years.

MARY CAIN

Little Rock

Need better candidate

I agree with Democrat-Gazette senior editor Rex Nelson in regard to the huge drop in quality of the Arkansas Legislature. Nelson, a longtime Republican, is a moderate who worked for Gov. Mike Huckabee, also a moderate, as were most recent Arkansas governors.

Some blame the quality loss on the Republicans, but I prefer to blame it on several poorly informed legislators who seem to believe most Arkansans are right-wingers.

Moderate governors such as Asa Hutchinson, Mike Beebe, Dale Bumpers, Bill Clinton, Huckabee, Winthrop Rockefeller and perhaps others seemed to better represent the views of Arkansans than do the three gubernatorial candidates thus far announcing.

All three--Leslie Rutledge, Tim Griffin and Sarah Huckabee Sanders--are in my opinion too far to the right and not likely to change.

I believe a Republican with strong moderate views could run as an independent and draw lots of votes from both parties. That person might be Sen. Jim Hendren, who seems to come up with good ideas for solving problems.

Having served in the political arena for 18 years including 12 as a mayor and six as a council member, I have some experience on which to base my views.

Hopefully, the Democrats will also field a good, moderate gubernatorial candidate. But thus far I have heard no names mentioned.

After all, polls show most Arkansans are now independents, as is the nation as a whole. Don't be surprised if our next president is also an independent, as both parties are spending us into bankruptcy. They don't seem to care that we must borrow money from the Communist Bank of China just to stay afloat. And by the way, it isn't interest-free.

VERNON McDANIEL

Ozark

Tragedy in election?

In response to James Wells of Osceola, the only tragedy in the recent election is that we had a leader for the past four years that helped create a conspiracy that eventually evolved into convincing a group of people that the election was "stolen."

By all findings of the courts and states' election officials, the 2020 election was legitimate with no findings of widespread fraud. It is time to move on and help the new administration create a country of togetherness.

BEVERLY ALBERSON

Maumelle

Upcoming Events