LETTERS

— Shame to go around

“Fool me once, shame on you.” What do you say about people who get fooled by the same nonsense, not twice, but three times?

In 1980, Ronald Reagan promised to cut taxes, increase military spending and balance the budget. President Reagan managed to cut taxes for rich people (most people saw their taxes go up), take spending to record levels, and triple the national debt.

Moreover, 73 percent of all new pretax income went to the richest 1 percent of us. That was fooling number one.

In 2000, George W. Bush claimed the Bill Clinton surpluses justified more tax cuts and had the government back in deficit before the terrorist attacks of 9/11, eventually doubling the national debt. Nobody made money but the bankers, and the economy collapsed. That was fooling number two.

Now, Republicans Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan claim we can reduce tax rates, eliminate inheritance and capital gains taxes, increase military spending and wave hands over unnamed deductions to balance the budget.

We know how well this has worked in the past. If we get fooled a third time, “shame on us” will surely not be strong enough.

ROGER A. WEBB

Little Rock

Tying one on perilous

Frank Fellone, in his recent story on neckties as germ carriers, quotes pediatrician Dr. Charles Feild as claiming, “No real man wears a clip on bow tie.”

In the summer of 1951, when I was employed as a psychiatric attendant at the Toledo State Hospital, we male attendants were required to wear clip-on bow ties. That was a precaution against having a paranoid schizophrenic patient, in struggling with an attendant, choke the attendant with his own necktie.

RICHARD FROTHINGHAM

Little Rock

Fact-checking is vital

Re media fact-checking, fairness and objectivity: I’ve spent (wasted?) 40 years in the news business. I was raised up on on-the-job training in the newsroom by a bunch of veteran reporters at the Houston Chronicle and Post.

Note the word “reporters”-if anyone walked into the newsroom and said “I want to talk to a journalist,” they’d have had a copy boy (possibly me, at one point in career) escort our visitor to see “the blowhards over in Editorial Opinion.”

What did they teach about facts, fairness and objectivity? If a farmer came in and reported that he had found an apple pie growing in his field, they’d have said “Go check it out with an open mind. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. Look at it. Sniff it. Have some experts check it out. Work all the angles and present the straight facts, well-written. If it is an edible apple pie growing out of the ground, we’ve got a story. If it’s a cow plop with bits of apples in it-it’s just a cow plop in a pasture. No story.”

Investigate first. Report second.

KIRBY SANDERS

Fayetteville

Don’t confirm biases

Confronted by a federal deficit that can be measured in trillions, Gov. Mitt Romney unfortunately identified only that pocket-picking avian wastrel Big Bird as a target for elimination.

The administration gleefully and predictably pounced on this priority and made it the theme of recent campaign ads. In response, Romney is now forced to deal with what he has unleashed by ridiculing the ads as trivial and ludicrous. In fact, of course, the federal share of the budget dedicated to public broadcasting is trivial: less than 0.012 percent.

But the furor over Big Bird misses the point.

The United States, despite its economic woes, remains inarguably the richest and most powerful nation in the world. Though diminished, New York remains central to the international art scene, and Los Angeles anchors a worldwide entertainment industry. It is inconceivable that a country so significant should have no public television, no public radio, no public funding for the arts.

Many European countries already regard us as a nation of uncouth, ignorant, materialistic clowns. Let’s not confirm them in this belief by eliminating even that minuscule support we currently provide for the arts.

ANN LINK

Little Rock

Not state’s true colors

When did Arkansas’ uniform colors change?

I always thought we were red and white. What is this gray and red crap? Did we vote on this?

JIMMY L. MARTIN

Conway

Abdicating our duty

Mitt Romney, through his Mormon faith, believes that God ordained our Founding Fathers and that his will destined these United States.

It was “we the people” who ordained the framers of our Constitution and Bill of Rights to found and defend this nation. “We the people”have always included the religious believer, the agnostic and the secular humanist. “We the people” ordain those who govern and defend us still today.

Our nation will be lost when “We the people” abdicate our responsibilities to the promise of its protections from a higher power.

DAVID L. WILLIAMS

Atkins

Worth weight in gold

Under three presidents, various changes in administration, and different office and department heads, I can’t for the life of me figure out-with all the money the University of Central Arkansas has thrown away on erroneous ventures and near criminal endeavors-why they didn’t just pony up and hire Deborah Hale-Shelton.

We’re talking a pittance here, a fraction of the waste and misappropriation this reporter has uncovered. Someone at the university level should have figured out they should quadruple her salary and get her on board.

I’m going to lay this on Diane Newton, the vice president for finance and administration (though I believe she should have already been let go).

Now Hale-Shelton has discovered that a football coach’s radio and television appearances may well have been taxpayer-subsidized.

Shame on UCA for not buying this reporter out earlier; if we’re throwing taxpayer dollars out this frivolously, certainly they could have made it worth it to Deborah.

Seriously, I think this is a reporter not for sale, and a university in disgrace. Keep up the great reporting.

ANTHONY LLOYD

Hot Springs

Editorial, Pages 17 on 10/16/2012

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