LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Only athlete left out

State Rep. David Sanders’ sports agent bill only highlights the fact that everyone makes money from a college athlete’s labor except the athlete himself.

Cam Newton would not be committing a crime by accepting payment to play for Mississippi State, so how can it be a crime to offer him such a payment?

Any allegedly illegal payments to college athletes should only be between the NCAA and the athlete himself. The fact that a school wishes to protect its labor monopoly shouldn’t be our concern.

If they are so afraid of a star playing for pay, let them pay the athlete a wage instead of the institution getting his services essentially for free.

ROBERT GLOVER Lepanto

Disturbed by report

An interesting article published on World Net Daily is disturbing beyond my ability to understand. Our government, in its zeal to get the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed with the Russians and share our security secrets with them, agreed to undermine the safety and security of our historically staunchally, Britain.

Washington lobbied Britain in 2009 for permission to supply Moscow with its secret data, but of course they refused. Regardless, the U.S. is said to have agreed to hand over the serial numbers of the Trident missiles it transfers to Britain. While Britain had announced how many missile it owns, there was no way to verify, which is what secrets are all about. Now Barack Obama has given them the key.

The Telegraph of London reported that information about every Trident missile the U.S. supplies to Britain was to be given to Russia. Defense analysts claim that the agreement risks undermining Britain’s policy of refusing to confirm the exact size of it’s nuclear arsenal. WND further opined that the fact that the Americans used British nuclear secrets as a bargaining chip sheds new light on the so-called special relationship that is often shown to be a one-sided affair.

This, along with some other questionable decisions, was rushed through in the infamous lame-duck session of 2010. I wonder if the voting members read this beauty.

EARL MORRIS JR. Conway

How to soften hearts

I was saddened to read the Voices letter, “Have some sympathy.” Talk about sympathy and about being cruel, how about some consideration for the babies being destroyed in the womb to the rate of 3,000 a day? That’s the equivalent of a 9/11 event every day.

Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, has said that America will not reject abortion until America sees abortion. If one really wants to seek the truth, visit a website that shows abortion for what it really is.

While viewing pictures of babies torn limb from limb is not easy, I suspect it would soften the hearts of many pro-abortion people who aren’t fully aware of what we as a society are doing to our unborn. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about civility, but in my opinion there will never be civility until the womb is considered a sanctuary for the unborn.

Please pray for all involved on both sides of the issue, but especially for the unborn, who have no voice but ours.

JOE FRANZETTI Little Rock

Reassurance, please

Re the new census figures reflecting Little Rock’s majority/minority status: I was profoundly perplexed by Mayor Mark Stodola’s declaration that diversity brings such wonderful benefits to his city. Could he possibly enlighten us outlanders on some of the professed benefits so that we also could share his pride in our capital city? Then we could possibly overcome our misplaced fear of being robbed or killed while traveling or dining therein.

RALPH T. BAILES Mountain Home

Make up your mind

Please let me quote David Longinotti, assistant general manager of racing at Oaklawn Park: “At this point, we fully intend to race.” No, they were not going to race.

What a terrible case of misinformation to racing fans across the state to cancel the live race card one hour before post time.

I paid for parking and entered the track, and it wasn’t a few minutes until track announcer Terry Wallace announced the cancellation at 12:30 p.m.

Oh, well, the owner, Charles Cella, takes another million-dollar bite in the wallet for a lost race card. I have a friendly suggestion for Longinotti: Next time we have any bad weather issues, please make up your mind well before post time or you could be looking for another job.

CHRIS T. McALLISTER Hot Springs

No fun with numbers

I think the vast majority of American citizens resent having to press a specific number to continue a phone request. What if we do not speak English or Spanish? What if we speak

Navajo, Cherokee, Sioux or Polish? My grandparents immigrated to the U.S.A. in the 1890s under a legal process. They were not given the option of pressing numbers to communicate. They learned to speak English. The requirement to press a specific number is a form of discrimination and profiling. The way this country is proceeding, we will have to press 3 for Arabic. Is this the precursor to sharia?

RICHARD ZEMANN Little Rock

Protests touched all

For one brief, shining moment we were all Egyptians.

Also, I agree with letter writer Renee Hunter of Conway. Where did your editorialist study math? If he could correctly answer the question he posed, he must be psychic.

VERLA SWEERE Little Rock