LETTERS

Higher education pass What a relief for the citizens of Arkansas. The prosecutor looking into one of the circuses at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, the Advancement Office, found no criminal activity in the long series of missteps at the office. In the wonderful, wacky world of state-run higher education, where irresponsibility and wastefulness are the norm, we are hardly surprised by any of the stories coming from the various universities around the state. And we are to believe that the firing of a few token participants, including the whistle blowers, and a few policy changes that won’t be followed any better than the previous ones, makes it all good now. Of course, those up the food chain in administrative and finance positions in both Fayetteville and at U of A headquarters in Little Rock are now free to continue their usual business. Sleep well, Arkansas-all is well in the kingdom on the hill. Until the next one. And there will be a next one.

MARK BARNHARD Little Rock

Weather warnings

My wife and I were watching the local news on December 20. The weather forecast called for wet conditions (rain). The weather correspondent actually said, “If you don’t have to go out, please stay home.” She went on to say, “If you do venture out, make sure to pack a blanket and flashlight because the temperature might drop to 30 degrees.” Against sound advice we loaded up to drive to my mother in-law’s house across the street. It was a daring trip but we made it. We bundled up, had flashlights, and were prepared.

I am serious, the correspondent really said to stay home. I often wonder how my relatives in Iowa, Minnesota, and Montana survive. This is Northwest Arkansas, not the barren desolate lands of the Midwest or north. I don’t understand how frontiersmen, ranchers, farmers, adventure seekers, etc. can survive. Americans, most of us, are tougher than nails and know how to prepare when conditions warrant. We don’t need to be schooled on what to do.

I appreciate the forecasts but can do without the parental guidance that is so prevalent now. It is sad that people have lost the ability to be independent and instead rely on advice from people that have no business giving it in the first place.

MARK L. BERNTHAL Bella Vista

Artistic expression

In a recent letter to the Voices page, Rod J. Parker commented on some paintings by Mark Rothko. “His art of putting two colors together along an exquisite seam is absolutely the seamiest anti-convulsion of seams I have ever examined. Rothko was a courageous innovator who designed lines that were more than lines. They were boundaries with very present eventualism …”

That’s pretty heady stuff considering that it’s a description of some one-dimensional pictures of boxes. I don’t know why it is, but some folks just seem to have a need to talk funny when discussing art … or wine, for that matter.

PAUL GRISSOM Bella Vista

The joy in this season

Traffic is getting worse. The stores are all packing up. The hustle and bustle of the city intensifies a little each day. The perceived level of activity is approaching a crescendo. The buzz in the air is almost electric.

It’s the same way every year this time of year. So much is packed into the last few weeks of the year that everything speeds up. As a people, we place so much expectation and planning into the celebration of a couple of holidays that we at times forget the joy of just celebrating.

Joy in this season is not in the rush to shop. It’s not found in the parties. It can be found in the simple bliss of family get-togethers, though that has more to do with the joy of family, not the season. The joy of the season isn’t even necessarily found in an abundance of church activity.

The joy of the Christmas season, or Advent, is a culmination and celebration of the other gifts of Advent. Hope that does not disappoint. Peace that calms, centers and focuses us. Love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. The joy of Advent is in God’s fulfilled promise to intervene

graciously into human activity. In the Advent, God speaks life into a world that is hurting, broken and dying.

Joy is essential to abundance. It flows naturally. Because we are blessed, if we are at all spiritually inclined, things like fear, anger, and discouragement disappear. Through Christ, God changes our reality from scarcity to abundance. In so doing, hope, peace, joy and love are able to reign o’er us, within us, through us, and around us. Joyous!

KEVIN A. ROBBINS Little Rock

Giving country away

Recently, I went to the local bigbox store to buy a pair of jeans. They had American company labels, but they were made in Mexico.

It occurred to me that the young illegal immigrants who have a dream to be given legal residency are part of the nightmare that is our reality. American companies send our jobs to Mexico and China, and the Mexicans come here to take the jobs that Americans won’t do. This is ludicrous. It seems Americans won’t do those jobs because our government pays them not to with all the social safety nets that are available. Those young illegals won’t do those jobs either. They are after your grandkids’ jobs.

President Barack Obama wants to renew federal aid for the long-term unemployed. I think this is wrong. Let them work at the jobs illegal immigrants are doing, and then we won’t have to borrow so much from China to pay them. Cure illegal immigration by going after the employers and putting U.S. Army bases along the Mexican border.

I believe politicians are trying to give this country away. Obama visited immigration hunger strikers on the National Mall and thanked them for their sacrifice and dedication. Just a few weeks earlier, the World War II Memorial was closed to elderly veterans who know what real sacrifice and dedication are.

Illegal immigrants and their dream children remind me of the cowbird. This is a bird that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. The young cowbird nestling then displaces the other legal baby birds. These cowbirds are parasites. They live off the mindless reflex action of parents who don’t recognize their own.

W.B. HARRIS Little Rock

Editorial, Pages 15 on 12/24/2013

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