LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Of course they’re worth it

Boy, I’m glad I’m not superstitious. Otherwise I might think the designer change in Razorback football uniforms has something to do with the ominous turn of events this year.

I mean, after all, the ghostly white helmets and ashen-gray jerseys are genuine Nike brand, and we all know how “high on the hog” you must be living in order to outfit the gang in these pricey duds.

What? You say this break with 60 years of tradition stinks like a three-day-old carp lying on the riverbank? Blasphemer. Don’t you know that once you have graced the highest echelons of football heaven you deserve such a change in costume? Otherwise, how will folks know of your newly exalted status?

In fact, I think that whoever in the athletic department came up with this idea deserves a big raise, maybe enough to buy a motorcycle and tour the beautiful Ozark hills this fall with his favorite blonde on the back.

I reckon there’s no doubt about it, the new Hog togs were just the right thing to concentrate on between seasons. No more image of a modest state with a team of determined players, oftentimes performing well above their natural limits due to gritty resolution and lots of team spirit.

With these new uniforms everyone will know . . . well, we have arrived, and are now a boss-team to be reckoned with, by golly.

I mean, after all, it’s not just anybody who can show off the latest sporting styles on the playing field.

JOHN R. BOMAR

Arkadelphia

List was not complete

Are the nuts crazy or just some people from Berryville? Letter-writer Richard Waxenfelter left out something on his list. Those not voting for President Barack Obama for another term should expect the following:

1. Mental health assessment: Most nonsupporters of the president can probably get that assessment through Obamacare because Obama cares.

2. All people who would like to see the EPA banned, please don’t buy bottled water. We want you to drink from the same creek, river or canal the Koch brothers dump their waste into.

3. Another mental health evaluation to take care of that bigotry. That, too, can be provided through Obamacare.

The first item on his list was pathetic. Are those types of comments a good representation of Christian values? Not sure why he felt the necessity to degrade himself with that comment. It may be time for intervention. Waxenfelter needs to seek help; he will be a better person.

STEPHANIE HACKER

Bella Vista

Come back, Petrino

Rutgers? Rutgers? How about that John L. Smith, huh?

Now can we bring Bobby Petrino back? Give him a million-dollar raise and buy him a new Harley. Shoot, buy him 10 new Harleys. Bring Jessica back too. Make her athletic director. She couldn’t do worse than the botched-up mess Jeff Long has made of the Razorback football program. Or we can sit back and watch the horror show continue. At home-there won’t be many in the stands.

QUINCY JACKSON

Rogers

Situation looks bleak

The Democratic National Convention seems to have inspired the delegates in Arkansas to bombard the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with letters to the Voices page in an effort to denigrate the people who have the audacity to vote for a change in leadership.

Also, the mainstream media is making much ado about the Republican candidate having no foreign-policy experience. I would note that the current administration has a proven track record on foreign policy, and it is an abysmal failure. At no time in my long lifetime has America lost respect in the worldwide community as has been seen in the anti-American rioting going on in the Mideast and South Pacific countries in the last few weeks.

If this is evidence of foreign-policy experience with the present administration, may God help us.

ROLAND NILES RAINS

Green Forest

Being used as pawns

We act so bewildered when we see Muslims riot in the streets because Christians degrade their prophet. Yet Muslims must be bewildered about how Christians, in protest to their prophet being degraded, go out and buy things (i.e. Chick-fil-A).

Does anyone recognize that each religion is being used as a pawn, in certain circumstances, to get the masses to act in accordance to the prevailing authority-American capitalism versus Islamic extremism? Stop it. Love your God and love each other.

LUKE KRAMER

Little Rock

We’ll weather storm

The last I heard, David beat Goliath. There are a lot of David versus-Goliath situations in the game of life. Thumbs up for the Louisiana-Monroe victory over the Arkansas Razorbacks. The Hogs went into the game as 30-point favorites, ranked eighth in the country, with SEC title hopes and as a BCS bowl contender, but the house fell apart.

With all due respect to John Smith, he is not Bobby Petrino. This present football team, with all of its preseason hopes, was the house that Bobby built. Most of us don’t know what all the university did to keep Petrino, but believe it or not, accept it or not, he made a difference. Best of luck to him and his family wherever they go. Razorback Nation fans will just have to weather the storm this season, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

KENNETH MURPHY

El Dorado

Valuable lesson given

Guest columnist Lanette Grate seems to have entirely missed the point of the punishment meted out recently to the young man who vandalized Catholic High School. Had the young man been asked to write “I will not vandalize football fields” a thousand times, she may have a point.

He was asked to write an essay on a man he defamed. A man, interestingly enough, who devoted a lifetime to helping young men just like that vandal. I suspect that Steve Straessle had that in mind when he conceived the punishment. Straessle’s background is in history, you see.

For many students today, Father George Tribou is a name on a street sign or something of a mascot for Catholic High. To generations of men in this city (and around the country, for that matter), he was a difference

maker. I believe that may be the lesson that Straessle was hoping to impart, along with some of the principles that Father Tribou held in high regard and that Catholic High continues to teach today.

I respectfully submit that many of Grate’s points on the current state of student writers have nothing whatsoever to do with the use of writing as punishment. Rather, it is reflective of watered-down curricula common in many schools where students are simply not asked to write very much at all or, when they are, are not graded rigorously.

Thankfully, that is not the case at Catholic High.

MIKE O’MALLEY

Little Rock

Start paying attention

All those who do not perceive religion as a major stumbling block to world peace have not been paying attention. One needs only to scan the pages of any daily newspaper to view the carnage created by Islamic fanaticism and the persistent violation of international law by the state of Israel.

A vast majority of fundamentalists, both Christian and Jewish, have remained silent about the inhumane policies being carried out by Israel, and are often directly complicit in their implementation. Even our politicians act like trained poodles jumping through the hoop held by Israel’s powerful lobby when it concerns our Middle East policy.

The fundamentalists who accept Israel as their religion feel compelled to defend it from all criticism. They are driven by religious conviction, embracing a towering myth hatched in the minds of Bronze Age semi-barbaric tribesmen. The influence those fundamentalists hold over our national and foreign policies is of great concern, as power and ignorance are a dangerous combination.

In every religion there is a lunatic fringe who take its myths way too seriously. They interpret their holy books as it suits them, and, feeling their barbaric urges, think heaven is on the line, and in their hysteria, proceed to create hell on Earth.

The world is burdened by a variety of faiths, all holding each other in infinite contempt, making rational discourse impossible. Religion is a detriment to civilization and the greatest threat to mankind’s continued existence.

AL CASE

Enola

Those days long gone

When Bobby Petrino got fired after being the greatest lying, cheating, lusting, playboy Arkansas football coach of all time, a man who put those things before Razorback Nation, the snake got what he deserved.

John L. Smith was minding his own business at Weber State. He didn’t run back to Arkansas asking for that job; Arkansas ran to him. After he accepted the head coaching job, he told the Razorback Nation that he was going to let the staff that was already in place do their jobs. Smith is nothing but a player coach. He’s not the type who’s going to cuss out his coaching staff or yell at his players,because he believes in their God given talents without doing all that other nonsense.

Win, lose or tie, there’s nothing wrong with being blessed with this kind of thinking, because hell-raising doesn’t live inside him. The days of coaching like Woody Hayes are gone. Thank God.

JAY J. JAMES

Lonoke

Tyranny of conjecture

Injecting religion into politics leads to tyranny in government. Jesus of Nazareth knew this. The framers of the Constitution knew this. The early Baptists knew this. Any student of Western civilization knows this. Any person who can read a newspaper or watch television and can identify the Near East knows this.

Apparently it escaped the attention of the letter-writer who speculated that half the representatives to the Democratic National Convention do not believe in God.

OTTO HENRY ZINKE

Fayetteville

Feedback

Training for races

Some time ago, I flew to Dallas to visit my son. As he drove into an access lane, he floored the accelerator and was quickly doing 85 to 90 mph. My legs shot out straight in front of me so I could brace myself. I felt my heart pounding as we merged left.

Every few miles, we passed troopers parked on our right. I expressed my disbelief as we merged into six lanes of Dallas traffic. I asked my son why the cops weren’t slowing everyone down.

He laughed and said, “Mother, how would the police be able to get on the interstate? They’re here for damage control and to pick up the injured and dead.”

The cars there were riding each other’s license plates to get to their next exits. I’m so glad I live where the traffic is less crazy. I have no desire to ever live in Dallas.

PATTI ANNE SHELL

Little Rock

Have a nice nap?

In her recent letter, Sharon Williams said, “I have never seen such disrespect for a president in my lifetime.” She must have been an incarnation of Rip Van Winkle during the George W. Bush administration.

I don’t agree with disrespectful comments about any president, or anyone else, but valid criticism is not disrespectful. As for voter fraud, she and others who believe it isn’t a problem need to do more research.

ROBERTA S. WILSON

Hot Springs Village