Moving in the same circle
Most big business starts with an idea. However, most wouldn’t get anywhere if it weren’t for the workers the company hires to make that idea a reality. These companies got their start (and their money) off the backs of workers; when they no longer wanted to pay a living wage, they took their companies out of the country.
What big business doesn’t seem to understand is that it all makes a circle. The business provides jobs, the workers provide the labor (and ultimately the product to be sold) which, when sold, produces the money to pay the workers and the employer and his expenses. Then, the workers buy the products and it goes round and round. When you transport the jobs overseas, you break that circle and everything goes to hell. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. If you want to sell a product here in this country, it should be made here so people can afford to pay for it, and so those workers can pay taxes.
Everyone can’t start a business, or there would be no workers (unless you are talking about family businesses where one does his own work). The world is kind of like an ant farm—everyone has their purpose and place. Everyone isn’t a doctor or lawyer or teacher or actor or entrepreneur. It takes all kinds. I believe some of the people starting businesses are just greedy. They want all the money their company makes and don’t want to share with those who helped them get where they are, the workers and the purchasers. They didn’t do it alone.
LINDA CHRISTY
Springdale
Put an end to the war
Afghanistan is not like any war we are used to fighting. The enemy does not wear uniforms. We can’t tell who they are until they start shooting at us.
We send our soldiers out on patrol, wondering how many will die on this one. We teach Afghan soldiers how to defend their country, and they turn around and kill us.
We are the most effective recruitment tool the Taliban has ever had. We are occupying their country against their will.
When our soldiers can no longer take the constant pressure, they are committing suicide. The present rate is nearly one a day.
To maintain this madness, we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Imagine what that would do for Medicare and Social Security.
Many of those billions of dollars are going to the Afghan government, which is rated as one of the most corrupt governments in the world. Even having the best Congress money can buy pales by comparison.
When will it end?
BILL KELLER
Bella Vista
Confused? Not really
I would like for Frances Henson to cite her references on the statement “Many ended up on drugs, etc., and very confused.”
As a post-Sexual Revolution child, I am neither on drugs nor “confused.” As a single, successful 40-year-old, I’m happy to benefit from pioneers such as Helen Gurley Brown who knocked down barriers and helped women become powerful forces for their own worth and not leave it up to men to define them.
I think Henson and people like her are the ones who are confused.
LISA LUYET
Little Rock
A sad state of affairs
What a hoot the letters would be if the ignorance and prejudice shown in them were not so sad.
One man writes that “If homosexual marriage is permitted, will a father be allowed to marry his consenting adult son? If not, why?” Could it be the same reason that a heterosexual father cannot marry his consenting adult daughter?
Another fears the day “when preachers will be arrested for preaching God’s word concerning the evil happening in America right now.” Methinks he’s been listening to too many ultra-right-wing fear-mongering lies. Since he says President Barack Obama has no common sense, I suspect he and the majority of Arkies will vote for Romney. How sad.
The majority of Arkies seem to think they have the right to tell others who they can’t marry. I’ve read and studied the Bible a lot in 74 years, and can’t find where they are given the right to decide anything about other people’s lives. All people should have the same rights, including those wanting to marry someone of their sex. How can someone else’s marriage affect you and your marriage? It didn’t mine, and won’t yours.
Why would some congressmen feel they have the right to force a woman who has been raped to carry a baby to term when the horror of being raped is ruining their lives even without the nine long months of the travails of pregnancy and then the tremendous pain of childbirth? Sounds like another form of domestic terrorism.
DAVID McNULLY
Little Rock
Some biological logic
Recent letters have been unusually strident against homosexuality. Hiram B. Cooper Jr. takes homosexuals to task for “forcing their lifestyles and beliefs onto the rest of the world.”
I have known or been aware of a number of homosexuals in my long life. Never has one tried to force his lifestyle or belief on me.
I am aware that some passages in the Bible condemn this practice. The one I am most acquainted with is the King James Version. Why is it that this Bible, written long ago and barely comprehensible with its thees, thous and thines, should carry so much weight? The King James Bible itself is, in part, a revolt in its time against the tyranny of Latin that preceded it as the voice of God. And the voice of God that preceded Latin was Greek.
If you are a male, whenever you see a nude reflection of yourself in the mirror, you see nipples. What does this indicate except that, at some point in the gestation process, your body did not know which direction to take? It seems logical biologically that if there are billions of females and males, a certain percentage will not be entirely one or the other, no matter what some centuries-old book says.
GLENROY EMMONS
Hot Springs Village
Confidence runs dry
The Maumelle water shortage is very hard to understand when you consider we are next to and connected to Central Arkansas Water, which has water to sell and is looking for customers at a rate as good or better than what we are paying. Instead, Maumelle Water Management depends on individual water wells, which by all accounts are the most antiquated and unreliable (in regards to quality and quantity).
It begs the question, why?
Maybe there should be an investigation of the Maumelle Water Management’s competence and/or integrity instead of trying to govern the residents’ (customer) water usage.
MIKE JONES
Maumelle
Animals paying for it
I agree with Deborah Meldahl’s letter about animal abuse. Abusers need serious jail time, but very few seem to be caught. Many sneak around and dump animals, especially in the country. They are cowards. The animals have to pay for what lowdown humans do.
Those who don’t like the fat-loss commercial need to do what I do when a gross diaper commercial comes on. Pick up the remote and click it. It’s that simple. At least the man doing the commercial is working and not on public assistance. I think the commercial is cute. Get a life.
MAXINE McCUE
McCrory
Actions went too far
Mitt Romney visited Little Rock recently to seek $50,000 donations in exchange for a meal and face time with the Republican nominee. Setting aside his willingness to charge large sums for a meet-and-greet, paired with his steadfast opposition to raising taxes on the rich to pay for social services, the event was marred by what I believe were unconstitutional actions by police.
As the evening progressed and the candidate was en route, police, initially observant of free-speech and assembly rights, began cordoning off large sections of the area and restricting both protesters and supporters to designated zones out of eyesight and earshot of where Romney might appear should he walk the public streets. When some protesters questioned the action, an officer implied that arrest would be imminent if they didn’t relocate, saying he was following orders.
It is a shame that the police apparently hold the First Amendment in such short regard. This democracy is better served by law enforcement that understands and appreciates the need of citizens to assemble peacefully near candidates to voice their thoughts. Providing security is understandable, but such overreactions undermine this country’s foundational principles of free speech and assembly.
I believe no candidate for office should use our police to close public streets from peaceful protest, nor should the police agree to take such unconstitutional measures.
SAMUEL KAUFFMAN
Little Rock
Bridging differences
Buddy “The Bridge Builder” Villines’ idea of tearing down the archaic, eyesore and unsafe Broadway Bridge and replacing it with an all-new structure with a “signature design” is an outstanding use of taxpayer funds. As a matter of fact, tearing down and replacing the bridge at its existing location with a neat signature design will be well worth the logistical nightmare commuters will have to endure.
On top of that, the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department will not have to use allocated federal funds since Pulaski County taxpayers will be more than willing to foot the bill for this project. If a sales-tax increase needs to happen to get it done, so be it. There is nothing better than spending other people’s money as opposed to using allocated federal funds.
Elected officials are immune from being held accountable for being economically feasible to repair something just to make it safe if that avenue is possible when you can build yourself a new, shiny, neat bridge.
Just ask Buddy the Bridge Builder.
ALAN H. DOBBINS
Little Rock
Feedback
Step aside, Stalin
Re the recent editorial on Gore Vidal: I have never read such a diatribe in my life. To read it, one would think that Vidal was the most wicked man in history. Forget about Hitler, Stalin and Attila the Hun.
Such passion, such metaphors, such a vocabulary. Too bad it is all wasted on vilifying someone who wasn’t that important in the scheme of things.
I suspect that somewhere Vidal is smiling smugly; he certainly got your attention.
GRACE WATT Springdale
Mess multiplication
We have got to change the Arkansas nickname from The Natural State to The Trash State.
Recently, four mowers were sent to mow two miles of ditches on Arkansas 210 just east of Heber Springs. Mow they did, with about 10,000 pieces of trash—paper, plastic sacks, cardboard, cans, bottles, etc.
The mowers made them into about 100,000 pieces of trash.
What a mess we now have.
BILL BROOKER Heber Springs