LETTERS

The fairness principle

Our president keeps repeating that each of us should do our fair share. We all are doing the best we can with less money.

I think his fair share could be keeping Air Force One in its hangar for a while. Also, he could stay in the White House and run the country and do what he has promised in his last two campaigns.

Instead, he’s seeing the world on our dime.

PENNY ROWE KALINOWSKY

Little Rock

Suggestion misguided

I believe Eagle Scout Nate Kennedy’s letter suggesting the “local option” is misguided.

The idea the Boy Scouts of America would even think about allowing gay adults to be unit leaders is beyond my comprehension. To place this responsibility on the sponsoring unit instead of the national BSA is a complete abdication of responsibility at the national level. It only invites lawsuits by gays.

I have over 56 years of BSA leadership experience with many awards as a Scout, Cubmaster, Scoutmaster, and Scoutmaster of three National Jamboree troops. Parents have entrusted many hundreds of young men to my leadership; 32 have earned the rank of Eagle. Under no circumstances would I have entrusted any one of my three Eagle Scout sons and my two grandsons or any of my troop Scouts to a gay Scoutmaster.

Under the newly proposed BSA rules, how am I to counsel my leaders and Scouts to respond to a homosexual advance? When Nate becomes a Scoutmaster, he will have to set the ground rules. How will he advise his leaders and Scouts on how to deal with homosexual advances by others on a campout, in a tent, in the middle of the night?

I think if gays are allowed to join, the BSA will be relegated to just another watered-down youth program, with few principles and no character, if it even survives. Let gays start their own youth program.

BOB GILLSON

Fort Smith

Sure,that will fix it …

More bad news: Governor’s Distinguished Scholarships will be slashed by two-thirds from 325 to 112. Higher Education Opportunities Grant recipients will drop from 4,500 to 788. All this while, according to U.S. Census data, Arkansas is second-to-last in the nation in the percentage of adults with college degrees.

Yet legislative leaders said they want to cut taxes by roughly $100 million a year in fiscal years 2014 and 2015.

Defies logic.

KARIS ALDERSON

Hot Springs Village

Taking life for granted

I am physically disabled with a broken left ankle and neuropathy in my right foot.

There is so much that we tend to take for granted, especially when it comes to our mobility. I see able-bodied men parking in a space reserved for the handicapped, and people in such a hurry to go nowhere that they will run over the handicapped rather than aid them.

It appears that so many of us are shortsighted in our relationships. Do we not recognize how selfish we are? To feel better about ourselves, we need to take some time every day, reaching beyond ourselves and positively affecting the lives of someone different from us.

Let us remember that the tables could be turned. May each of you be blessed by a life-altering experience.

JAMES A. VAULT

Little Rock

Location was bad idea

I was wondering who pays for the four to five policemen that stand outside the eStem school downtown. I leave work at 4:30, and they are always around the school directing traffic.

I have no kids, so I should not be paying for them. The school should be paying for them.

Bad idea to put a school in the middle of downtown Little Rock where parents picking up kids block one lane of a four-lane road.

SCOTT TREITMAN

North Little Rock

Bridging a disconnect

I never stop being amazed by what happens and how the big picture is never looked at.

The old girl (the Broadway Bridge) is going to be torn down. No one is going to stop it now. A style was chosen as a replacement, a replacement that will take several years to build. On a daily basis, 23,000 cars cross the bridge.

I attended the public meetings in North Little Rock and asked all the officials that were there if they used the bridge. All said no, so none had any personal stake. I asked how they planned to get me and the other people to work every day. I was told I could use the Main Street bridge as it was underused.

Everyone who thinks that needs to travel that way every day for at least one month. The traffic is not what it will be, but will be a taste of what is to come. When crossing that way during rush-hour traffic, there are several traffic problems over and above the regular amount of people driving, including the River Market, the convention center, the trolley and the eStem school. There is also all the construction in downtown Little Rock. I certainly don’t see that stopping any time soon.

Mark Stodola is concerned about the eStem school kids. Metroplan is worried about bicycles and pedestrians not being safe. Are you kidding me? Why is no one concerned about people getting to work? If you have a decent job, you want to keep it, and if we don’t work, we don’t pay taxes. If we don’t pay taxes, there is no money to pay government workers, and that all means no money to build bridges.

SHERRY BRUNO

North Little Rock

Milk getting a raw deal

According to a recent editorial in this newspaper, unpasteurized milk apparently is a health hazard.

Louis Pasteur’s research led to pasteurization. Others at the time claimed the poor condition of the terrain (body) was the cause of disease, supported by the fact that not everyone who is exposed to certain germs will develop disease. Still, limited exposure to germs is advisable. A healthy immune system is able to fight off most germs. That includes the bacteria that are inevitable in milk, pasteurized as well as unpasteurized. Even raw vegetables like spinach can carry pathogenic bacteria. Cleanliness is important for any food.

Your first line of defense from external germs is the beneficial bacteria living in your digestive tract. Intestinal flora is easily disrupted by antibiotics, and anyone who has utilized numerous rounds of antibiotics is at risk from bacteria or germs introduced in foods, unless they have supplemented with probiotics.

Raw milk collected under sanitary conditions from healthy dairy animals will not contain enough pathogenic bacteria to harm healthy individuals. Those who want more insurance can culture the milk to yogurt or kefir by introducing beneficial bacteria that will kill pathogenic bacteria in the milk.

Raw milk should be able to be consumed so let’s find a way to educate safety, not legislate it.

PERRY AMBROSE

North Little Rock

No tax representation

The push for a tax on Internet/ remote sales is being backed by Wal-Mart and other groups, I believe for the benefit of politicians and bureaucrats.

Once again, we have no representation in Washington or other government entities.

WOODY NUTTER

Fort Smith

Or perhaps some paté

The proposed “Chained CPI” brings rise to a corresponding proposal: Index government spending to a “Chained GDP.”

After all, don’t you think that what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander?

RON HAIRSTON

Clarksville