Don't see how it aids
How will Little Rock Mayor Scott's hiring an equity officer, placing a social worker at LRPD, removing statues, proposing a sales-tax increase to expand the zoo and build a city park/sports arena stop the drive-by shootings like the one at Annie Abrams' home?
DON SHELLABARGER
Little Rock
On political leaders
It saddens me that so many children in our society, and particularly in Little Rock, continue suffering from poor political leadership. Truth is Little Rock is getting deeper into a crime society rather than crime being resolved by a new mayor and top cop. I believe peace is not imminent until all leaders in our communities work with truth to put the family unit back together. Mayor Scott should know that since he is clergy.
Leaders can throw trillions of dollars of your money toward what they perceive will resolve the crime problem, but nothing will change. And yes, that is true for all of the United States. Listen to the gobbledygook of two-parent homes not being needed if you wish, but you need truth. Children need a father and mother to mentor them.
Do not let anyone feed you the line that poverty causes the crime, because I was raised in poverty as a sharecropper's son, hoeing and picking cotton in the hot, muggy, mosquito-infested southeast Arkansas Delta. I received great mentoring from my father and mother and a great junior high teacher who all taught me the value of reading literature and memorizing from the Psalms, and also taught me English. My mother taught me the three A's--attitude, attitude, attitude--as she alone took me to church to learn how to live with other people. Then, when I married and we had a child, my mother said to us that she would do cute things that needed correcting, but that we must realize that the rest of the world would have to live with her. My raising put me above my contemporaries in the United States Navy, who were educated in all 50 states, as I was promoted to the top 1 percent in my field; I retired after 20 years' active service and six more years in the USN Fleet Reserve. Yes, I was blessed.
Why not a concerted effort by your columnists rather than writing about dead flower bushes? Surely they also care about the demise of our capital city we all want to be proud of.
JOHN EMMONS
Hot Springs Village
Medical ignorance
The Mayo Clinic says 10 to 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, but the actual rate is much higher because they happen so early the woman may not know she's pregnant. About half are results of chromosomal abnormalities. Several types of pregnancies occur wherein the fetus will not survive if full term.
Some religious types will claim all conceptions are the direct intent of God. But the obvious question then: Does it make sense that any God with common sense would cause that willfully? It says in Genesis that God breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life and he became a living soul. It didn't say when He was mixing the mud or, plainly put, at conception.
You fundamentalists have a hero in Joshua. How many know he also killed everything that breathed in several cities in Canaan? That included men, women, children, babies and animals. How do you justify killing babies that were breathing and then condemn a natural occurrence allowed by your God?
Folks, arrogance and ignorance of facts by your elected legislators is so obvious it is astonishing. When you can show credentials as medical doctors of gynecology, neurology, and endocrinology, you might have credibility in sending laws to an equally ignorant governor for enactment. Please learn your medicine and your scripture.
KARL HANSEN
Hensley
The historical record
Mike Zweifler ascribes to history an infallibility, not recognizing that it is the recorded impression of one or more individuals as to the events of the past. New historical records are intended to represent the bias of a particular group or individual, not a reflection that the original story may have been misleading.
I invite him to read a new rendering of the battle of the Alamo (tinyurl.com/alamohist) from a recent issue of Time Magazine. Good, freedom-loving settlers may have been found to be not so innocent or freedom-seeking.
PAT LAURY
Bella Vista
Independence Day
In just a few weeks, we'll celebrate the official founding of our country 245 years ago. What do you think of when you think of America? Tell us if you haven't had a letter printed in the past 30 days, and we'll do our best to get it in for the holiday.
Keep it under 300 words, and send it by mail to Voices, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark. 72203; by email to voices@arkansasonline.com; or through our Voices form at arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform.