LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Journey wasn’t in vain

An important part of the Christmas story we celebrate this time of year is the long journey taken by wise men from the East to witness a gift from heaven.

In the early 1830s, four Nez Perce warriors left their home in the Bitterroot wilderness of Idaho on their own long journey to St. Louis, where they hoped to find William Clark, whom they had befriended some 30 years earlier, to help them obtain a copy of the Bible. The Nez Perce had first learned of the Christian religion in 1816 from an Iroquois Indian from Canada.

When the four reached St. Louis, Clark, by then the superintendent of Indian Affairs and former Missouri governor, graciously welcomed them. He recognized two of the men who were old enough to have witnessed Clark and Meriwether Lewis’ famous trek through their homeland. They stayed several months in St. Louis but could find no one who could produce a copy of the Bible in their language. The two older men died there.

Discouraged, the other two made plans to leave for their homeland. They were given a going-away banquet where one gave an impassioned speech lamenting that his people would die in darkness without the Book of Heaven. His speech was picked up by newspapers in the East where churches called for missionaries to carry the word to the Nez Perce and in 1836, four ministers set out for the Bitterroot valley.

Like the wise men of old, the long journey by the four warriors to find a gift from heaven had not been in vain.

JOHN McPHERSON

Russellville

Like Moses at the sea

Maybe Coach Bret Bielema needs a nickname. He was born in Prophetstown, Ill., and grew up on a hog farm. How about “The Hog Prophet?” He may split the Tide and lead the Hogs to the promised land.

Is it destiny, fate? Go Hogs!

JAMES B. BIENVENU

Little Rock

Some being penalized

In a recent John Brummett column, he proposed higher-income people getting reduced Social Security benefits as a partial solution to the country’s debt reduction.

Apparently Brummett has not been talking with his rich Democratic buddies, as people who worked hard throughout their careers are now being penalized by having their Social Security checks reduced for Medicare and prescription-drug charges. This has been going on for at least the past four years.

It’s these types of policies that penalize people who were successful in their lives that are destroying this country by discouraging initiative and the drive to achieve.

Please, John, keep current as to what is happening to the people.

NICK PALANGIO

Damascus

Wasting time, money

Arkansas high schools regularly graduate students who are not prepared for college, and Arkansas colleges and universities regularly admit students who are not prepared.

Perhaps instead of colleges/universities admitting students who need remedial classes just to meet the entry levels, higher-education institutions shouldn’t admit students who are not ready for college. Perhaps before giving a student a high school diploma, our school districts should actually require that high school graduation standards be met.

Taxpayers are being charged twice for students to meet a minimum standard: once in high school and again in remedial courses in college. Rather than address the real problem of failures at the high school level or the problem of higher-education institutions admitting unprepared students, the Department of Higher Education apparently wants us to believe that taking remedial courses in high school, where the student didn’t acquire the knowledge in the first place, is somehow a solution. Then are they going to go to college and still need remedial courses?

And now they want these students to start taking college courses while in high school. How about high schools actually teach high-school courses and don’t graduate students who shouldn’t get a diploma, and colleges don’t admit students who are not ready to do college work? We can’t afford to pay for high school twice, nor pay for wasted time in college.

MARK BARNHARD

Little Rock

The legacy of division

I read W. Stuart Towns’ guest column about the enduring legacy of the Civil War and its celebration in Arkansas. I have visited Reed’s Bridge battlefield near Jacksonville.

As a black retired Vietnam veteran, I understand the cost of war, the hell of it.

My Vietnam ranking sergeant who lives in Minor Hill, Tenn., called me during the week of Thanksgiving. I served under him in 1968; we haven’t seen each other since then. He was going to Conway, passing by North Little Rock, where I live, and wanted me to meet him off the exit. I told him he was welcome to visit at my house. His reply was that he was told that visiting a black man’s neighborhood is dangerous and that he had an RV and I could come and sit inside it and talk. I told him, no, come to my house, I will meet you, and you follow me. He said okay, but failed to call or visit me.

The wounds are equal for blacks and whites. I know when I see a rebel flag, I think of slavery, the civil-rights movement in Arkansas, Central High School, police killing of blacks. I read that Southern states want to secede from the union now that we have a black president elected to his second term.

I am a 68-year-old black man. In Arkansas, Confederate Memorial Day is celebrated on the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s birthday. Towns said: “It is highly unlikely that discussion and debate over Confederate symbols will disappear any time soon.” That’s true.

RUDOLPH FRAZIER

North Little Rock

Cut own benefits first

As I was reading the paper recently, I was wondering if the president and his Cabinet had thought about cutting their benefits to help out. They are always talking about cutting Social Security and Medicare, yet I never hear anything about cutting any of their money. They should have to live like the rest of us do. If they did that, then maybe we common folks could understand better why our benefits have to be cut.

After all, I worked many years and paid into Social Security and Medicare. It’s not free; I earned everything I receive monthly, so don’t threaten to cut my benefits.

CHESTAMAE STURCH

Gurdon

Still some good here

As I turned on the usually depressing news recently, I was so happy to see a New York City policeman kneeling beside a barefoot homeless man on the sidewalk.

I shed a tear as I heard their story. The policeman bought him a new pair of winter-type boots.

There is still some good left in this wicked old world. May the Lord bless the homeless man and the policeman who helped him.

PEGGY WOLFE

Pangburn