LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Lights brighten up holidays

When my lovely wife Cindy and I were little kids, growing up in separate places, we both loved riding around town at Christmas to see the light displays. It didn’t matter whether it was a single string of dim bulbs on the most humble home in the county or hundreds of bright ones on the state Capitol. We loved them all.

Now that we’re bigger kids, we love’em even more and look forward to wrapping our pines and oaks with white lights, spilling strings of blue lights on the ground to form “water” and arranging lighted deer around them. And we’re grateful to all the residents, businesspeople, organizations and governments that worked to make this time of year a little brighter for everyone.

We can’t imagine Christmas in Arkansas without the wonderful University Park neighborhood in Little Rock, Garvan Woodland Gardens near Hot Springs, Iron Mountain Marina on Lake DeGray or many other wonderful spots on the Arkansas Trail of Lights-and the light displays of all designs and sizes on all the decorated homes and buildings in between and beyond. Thank you all.

STEVE TAYLOR Little Rock Where does it stop?

Isn’t the amendment that Blanche Lincoln introduced during the Senate’s health care debate really about President Obama’s plan to spread the wealth around?

It seems so to me. Her amendment will lower the amount of insurance company executive pay that qualifies for tax deductions. On the surface,that sounds relatively harmless and besides, it will raise a projected $651 million in revenue for Medicare.

Sounds like Lincoln has decided that some of the folks in the health insurance business make too much money and the government needs to intervene, i.e., spread their wealth around-not exactly what you would expect from a self-proclaimed moderate, centrist Democrat.

Aren’t the insurance companies in business to make a profit? Don’t they have a right to use that profit as they want? Does the government have the right in a capitalistic society to decide private-industry compensation levels in an effort to force redistribution of their profits? The distinguished senior senator from Arkansas must think so.

By the way, she is flanked in this amendment by California’s distinguished Sen. Barbara Boxer, which is even scarier. Given that this is the ideology of Lincoln, one must ask her where it stops. He is about redistribution of wealth in this country and he has the likes of Lincoln and Boxer making it happen.

DON R. PURTLE Pine Bluff Pols act like thieves

Like thieves, U.S. senators work in the dark while their victims (majority or opposing Americans) who have jobs necessary to fund the government are sound asleep. Good time for them to act, as typical thieves do.

Any bill that fosters dependence on the government is wrong.

ROCKY HALTER Sherwood Attitude unbecoming

We all have rights. But years ago my grandpa told me, “Son, your rights end where the other fellow’s nose begins.” This is the way I see the celebration of the holidays.

There is no question that not all people believe in the reason behind the holidays we celebrate. But all the American Civil Liberties Union cases and the court decisions will not change this reason for the season.

Over the years, our Congress has established national holidays to honor persons or events in our history. On the Fourth of July and on Veterans Day, many states and cities fly American flags. If Christmas is to honor the birth of Jesus, then why can’t these same states and cities put out manger scenes to honor his birth? Jesus certainly had more influence on all people than Martin Luther King Jr.

or Robert E. Lee.

If your beliefs keep you from celebrating a national holiday, so be it. No one forces you to celebrate. But your non-belief should not keep believers from celebrating. Trying to stop such celebrations is about as un-American as you can get. This attitude is just not what made America great. We will probably see more attempts to eliminate some days of celebration because of the rights and beliefs of a few. But the reason for the season is what made us a great country.

CHARLES LASITER Fordyce Just ask for discounts

AARP contacts everyone 40 and older to join. They say that for a mere $16, you, too, can enjoy discounts on every item they endorse. The truth probably is that they get a slice of the amount you pay the vendor that you can get without them-you just have to ask-so if what they do is make money for themselves, why join?Because they advertise and we believe what is presented to us.

What is not said is that the company uses the membership number as a group with political clout that agrees with their positions to the House and Senate in Washington, D.C. This just is not so. Why it is believed is difficult to understand.

I don’t believe that, as a company, AARP ever takes positions by getting votes from those who joined to get discounts on insurance, hotels and shops. That isn’t political backing.

Give back the membership and quit being used so that the AARP can get a profit from the companies it advertises and then use the number of people who do buy through it for political positions most members don’t agree with such as the programs being pushed by the Democrats to change the health system.

MARION B. DELONG Little Rock Report appreciated

Thank you for publicizing the tragic story of Carmeletta Green.

Those of us who knew Carmeletta when she was a student at Rockefeller School have been haunted by her disappearance. Your investigations have brought her story to her family, our police department and our city. Rest well, Carmeletta.

DORIS SARVER Little Rock Senators got nothing

Arkansas must have two of the dumbest senators in Congress, Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln. In voting for the health care bill, they held out for nothing.

Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisianaheld out for $300 million and Sen.

Ben Nelson of Nebraska held out for $100 million, plus Nebraska will not have to pay for Medicaid. Connecticut and Massachusetts got hand-outs. What did Arkansas get? The shaft as usual.

I suppose we don’t need anything, since we are such a wealthy state. The sad thing is that they probably will be re-elected. We deserve them.

BILLY J. BURKE Hope Attention is diverted Just wanted to say something about the “Freethinkers” and their monument on the Capitol grounds next to the Nativity scene.

Eternity is a long time to think about what we should have done. I would hate to know that if I died, I would stand in judgment and try to explain to God why I mocked the birth of his son, the king of kings, Jesus Christ.

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. We celebrate his birth because he was born so that we don’t have to suffer eternal damnation because he took our sins on himself on a cruel cross.

God loves us so much that he sent Christ to die for our sins so that we may have eternal life. Hell is a reality as the Bible teaches us. This winter solstice trash is just Satan’s way of diverting our attention to what we should really be celebrating.

When you hit your knees in prayer, ask God to show these blasphemers the light before it is too late for them. When you go to the Capital grounds, look at the Nativity scene and praise the Lord and ignore the atheists’ attempts to undermine Christmas. God loves all and Merry Christmas.

MIKE JENKINS North Little Rock Take stand for rights

All of us on Medicare better wake up and write our representatives concerning the Democrats’ health bill and tell them that in the form it is in, no way.

If people don’t stand up and fight for their constitutional rights under Amendments 2, 4 and 8, then we the people are doomed.

The Declaration of Independence says that governments “are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed-that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” People, we are losing more and more of our constitutional rights, freedoms and power. Our representatives will say anything to win but forget those promises when they make it.

All Democrats who voted for that thing called a health bill should be voted out. By doing that, it will show the rest of them who still has the power.

MELVIN PHILLIPS Pine BluffNo real compromise Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., got the “Louisiana Purchase,” a $300 million bump in Medicaid funding for her state. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., got the “Cornhusker kickback.” The cost of the Medicaid expansion will be shared by state and federal governments except in Nebraska, where the federal government will pay for all of the new enrollees-about $100 million worth.

What did Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., get? Oh, yes, she was just named the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

When asked about seedy Chicago politics, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, “A number of states are treated differently than other states. That’s what legislation’s all about: compromise.” I have another word for it. It starts with a B.

ERWIN HOEFT Hot Springs Village Feedback Express gratitude

Now that the Christmas season is here, I would like to remind everyone of some people who will be working that day trying to make sure you have a safe holiday. I’m speaking of firefighters.

This is the profession I enjoyed for 31 years. During that time, I spent several Christmas holidays at the fire station. When my daughter was little, I would wake her early before leaving for work to see her open presents left under the tree by Santa. If I worked the day before, I would hang over so my relief could spend a little time with his children before coming in to work.

I can’t remember working a Christmas day without having at least one fire. One Christmas, the streets were ice-covered. Chief Rubin Webb decided to show up at a fire to cheer us up. When he slipped and fell on the ice, we tried not to laugh, but I caught his wife with a big grin on her face.

Too many times we had to witness the tragedies of our profession: loss of property, people injured and sometimes even death. So if you are out and about this holiday season and you come by a fire station, stop in and tell them how much you appreciate the job they do. Merry Christmas.

ALLAN GOODWIN Little Rock