OPINION | LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Of belittling mockery | Give eatery a chance | On rental assistance

Of belittling mockery

I would like to address the "End of the Roe" editorial of last Wednesday. Firstly, the flippant tone with which you treat such a momentous issue is petty. It is plainly wrong to belittle women who will be subject to baldly ideological and largely incompetent state legislatures who will now be able to codify their fate regarding their pregnancies. Fair enough that states shall be "laboratories of democracy," but that sentiment does little good for women who will find themselves the victims of experimentation.

Which brings to bear a second point: This decision has profound potential to roll back the tide on many individual liberties outside abortion. Roe was decided based on a legal interpretation of a right to privacy--which you conveniently failed to address in your mockery of liberal outrage--and reinterpreting judicial review to only protect individuals from the states' encroachment upon the rights enumerated in the Constitution or otherwise deeply rooted in conservative interpretation of the nation's history and tradition could evoke and threaten the rulings in, for example, Griswold v. Connecticut, Lawrence v. Texas, and Obergefell v. Hodges, and thereby threaten the individual liberties that are enjoyed by the LGBTQ community. These are liberties, as with a woman's right to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy, that are intrinsic to an individual's ability to attain meaningful selfhood, a capacity that is unjust to leave to partisan culture warriors.

And finally, outside the legal precedent, this decision is the political reality that individual liberty is now circumscribable by politicians. That is, conservatives now have a clear means to tell their fellow Americans that "your liberties and right to decide your own life only extend as far as I do not find it morally objectionable," which is a rather un-American limit on freedom.

MATTHEW MAASS

Hampton

Give eatery a chance

I'm trying to understand why Eric Harrison would jump out and look for all the wrong things about the new restaurant, Sullivan's, the first month it is open to write his review in the May 5 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Little Rock has lost a number of eating establishments (Del Frisco's, Bone's, Bravo's, The Tavern, Mimi's, to name a few) in recent years. We finally have someone take a chance on establishing a new sit-down eating alternative, and the reviewer rushed in to Sullivan's to eat when the restaurant has been open less than a month to review it.

Sullivan's competes with every other business now in trying to find help that measures up to the task, and among other things, he complained that the server had to make a trip back to the bar for a wine glass, and the server didn't read him the portion of the menu describing the Prix Fixe meal.

I'm surprised that a restaurant reviewer waited to read the menu until after he went there to realize that the Prix Fixe option existed. The Prix Fixe provides an outstanding price for a choice of salad or soup, choice of entrée, and choice of dessert.

My husband and I took a chance and dined there for our wedding anniversary dinner shortly after Sullivan's opened, and we had superb service, wonderful food and were so happy to see a formerly vacant building in Little Rock once again offering a sit-down dining choice. We liked it so well that we took our niece from California there for lunch when she came to visit the next week. We had a delightful meal with very attentive servers.

I don't have any vested interest in this restaurant, but I am happy to support a much-needed business and would like others to give a new business a break while they work out the initial kinks.

JODY ALLISON

Little Rock

On rental assistance

Well, Governor Hutchison, you did your constituents a terrible service when you canceled the rental assistance program from the federal government! What made you decide to "cap it off"?

Imagine a terrified mother of four, left by her husband, who can't keep a roof over her head. That money was provided for Arkansans in need so they would not become homeless.

This money would not have hurt the state in any way. It was free.

What would you say to this woman?

MARCIA ADAMS

Little Rock

It isn't how it's done

Enough with the dirty politics. Jake Bequette hasn't lived in Arkansas for years. Now he is back and is bringing dirty politics with him. There is a new commercial that was put out by Jake Bequette's campaign, paid for by a Chicago billionaire, Dick Uihlein, who is single-handedly bankrolling his campaign. The commercial is so blatantly over-the-top false it is laughable. It looks like it belongs on an episode of "Saturday Night Live"--where the desperate candidate will go to any length necessary to slander the other and it just gets absurd.

Arkansans are smarter than this, Jake. We actually know John Boozman and what he stands for. We know he is a strong conservative, and if there is any doubt we can use the Internet, where fact-checking takes literally seconds. Boozman is known in D.C. as one of the most conservative members in all of Congress. He has voted with the Republican Party 98 percent of the time. To say otherwise is just not true.

This is an Arkansas primary election. We don't treat our own like this--or we didn't used to, anyway. Jake has to make up lies about Boozman because he doesn't have anything to say about himself or what he would do differently.

Boozman is a humble statesman, not an entitled millennial. He is highly respected among his peers in the U.S. Senate, which is far more valuable to us Arkansans than a loudmouth self-proclaimed "fighter." Yelling and screaming and playing dirty doesn't get actual legislation done--working across the aisle in a dignified manner is how Boozman has been able to make his way on to critical committees for Arkansas such as Agriculture, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Environment and Public Works.

At the age of 32, maybe Jake should think about starting a career, getting some life experience, and looking into politics on the local level to learn how it's done here in Arkansas.

LA DONNA HILL

Rogers

Review was accurate

Eric Harrison, I've enjoyed your dining reviews for years.

Sullivan's is a train wreck. Had dinner last Saturday from 4-6:30 p.m., table of three with reservations. Everything you mentioned in your review and so much more happened.

This joint is a crying, head-shaking shame. Will be closed in 12 months, maybe less.

DAVID MARKS

Little Rock

Just asking question

If Donald Trump runs for president and they have more GOP candidates running against him, and one of them wins the GOP nomination, will he have an investigation of a crooked win?

BOB MASSERY

Little Rock


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