LETTERS

Time for refresher course

Having finished reading the story on cuts to Head Start, my wife finally figured out that CPR was unnecessary and I proceeded to enjoy my Sunday morning breakfast in a distinctly disgruntled mood.

I think Brenda Bernet, who researched the article, must be living in a cave. Further contributing to my angst was the statement by our newly elected Republican representative, Mr. Tim Griffin, that he “understand[s] the value this program provides our children”-with the gratuitous note that one of his parents was a former director of the Arkansas Head Start program.

It does not take a nanosecond to Google up Health and Human Services’ Head Start Impact Study-the OPRE Report 2012-45b-and to read that the $8 billion program has had minimal impact and perhaps a deleterious effect on the program’s beneficiaries.

Nowhere in the article was this mentioned. I searched in vain for a reference.

If this is an example of the newspaper’s current editing, then maybe a refresher course in journalism school is in order. Head Start has the same educational impact as would a vast, federally subsidized baby-sitting project.

I cannot help but quoting Philip Martin in the very same issue if Ms. Bernet would like to be hoisted by the Democrat-Gazette’s own petard: “Just like we’ve settled for mediocre writing, for the shuttling of cliches back and forth, and for lazy readers who can’t be bothered to think about the lies that cynical people tell them to accrue money and power,” then we could not have a more perfect example.

WAYNE ELLIOTT El Dorado Bigots and troglodytes

I’ve been reading about the Baptists and their resolutions against supporting Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts have voted to come part-way out of the Dark Ages and the Baptists apparently can’t stand that.

My father and three of my brothers are/were Baptist preachers, and like all Baptists I’ve known, they found it far easier to tell their followers what to think rather than teaching them how to think for themselves.

Before my eldest brother, who was a preacher, died at age 70, he was astounded to find in the Bible what the sin of Sodom was, and it was not sodomy, as they have taught for decades.

I don’t hear many Baptists telling their kids not to be Catholics or be around them. But we know over 900 priests were accused of being, or were, child molesters and some were enabled by their bishops to continue.

It seems they don’t want to deal with the difference between a homosexual and a pedophile. Folks, I’m not gay, but neither am I stupid enough to think those who are have a choice in the matter. A preference it definitely is not.

Personally, I think the Boy Scouts will be immeasurably better off without those bigots and troglodytes around them.

KARL HANSEN Hensley Meaningless diatribes

After reading the offerings of Rick Burry, Jim Blok, etc., I’ve come to the conclusion that the religion of atheism is nothing more than hatred of those you don’t know, intolerance of their beliefs and self-worship.

I believe if one can’t express how his creed is superior, and what it has done to provide a lack of fear and a source of joy, it’s meaningless.

STEVE HILL Bella Vista Trust was a mistake

Let’s get one thing clear. I’m entirely in favor of all or any programs that protect me and the rest of us from foreign or domestic assaults and/or terrorists. But the way our government is going about these programs seems to be a problem.

A long time ago, aboard ship, I hadtop-secret security clearance, necessary for me to decrypt submarine movement reports. I don’t think there were more than three or four other people aboardwith that degree of clearance, and receiving it involved a thorough examination of me and my background.

The center of controversy about government security programs is a young man named Edward Snowden who is currently hiding out overseas. He is one of over 1.4 million people with a top-secret clearance. He isn’t a member of the armed forces. Instead, he works for management consulting company Booz Allen Hamilton, which received over $3.8 billion from the government last year. That’s billion with a capital B.

Mr. Snowden’s background andqualifications for his highly paid position of trust troubles me. He never finished high school. He spent all of five months in the Army. Somewhere along the way, he worked as a security guard.

All things considered, I don’t think I would trust him with important or sensitive matters, or with my daughter, come to think of it, but I guess things have changed.

So far as his top-secret clearance is concerned, I wonder about the criteria for its award to Mr. Snowden. OK, is it just available nowadays in a box of Cracker Jacks?

JON ZIMMER Fayetteville Writers did know him

In Rick Burry’s most recent letter, he tops off his arrogant and insulting denial of Biblical truth with this comment: “… not a single line was written by anyone who ever saw or heard him. Think about that.”

It didn’t take too much thought for me to come up with Matthew, the tax collector turned apostle; John, the fisherman cousin of Jesus; Peter, the fisherman; James, the brother of John; Jude, the cousin of Jesus. Those are just the flesh-and-blood friends and relatives of the earthly humanity of Jesus. I won’t bother Burry’s unbelief with Saul of Tarsus, who spoke to the ascended Jesus on the road to Damascus and not only wrote about that, but wrote 13 epistles to the New Testament churches.

Burry has some real gall, pronouncing those of us who know the word of God and its human scribes ignorant. These are historical facts. He’s stepped in over his head. Think about that.

LINDA DIXON Arkadelphia Does not have a clue

Poor President Barack Obama. He is clueless in our nation’s capital. He apparently wants all of us to think he’s a Sunday School teacher just trying to do the right thing; that he doesn’t know anything that’s happening around Washington; that no one ever tells him anything and he has to find out almost before it hits the news.

It seems Obama would like us to believe the IRS, CIA, FBI and all those other secret agencies act willy-nilly without direction from the president so when our phones are tapped, our Internet searches are monitored and our medical information is obtained, Obama will be clueless and surprised as much as we are. In fact, he’s such a salesman, he apparently wants us to believe he’s better than the Clintons ever thought about being.

He’s such a nice guy and he’s clueless in D.C. If you believe that, then he has oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you, too.

JOYCE HOOVER JacksonvilleBelief and nonbelief

Last month on this page, a believer issued a challenge to nonbelievers to state without name-calling why nonbelieving is superior to believing. Instead, there have been numerous letters written with name-calling, brimming with hate and crammed with arrogance, attacking both God and believers.

One letter even demanded someone prove the existence of God. I believe this cannot be done because God, who knows everything, including who will and who will not believe, nurtures and develops those who will listen with their hearts when he calls. We do not seek God. He finds and calls us with Jesus’ death in our place on the cross. Everybody can be adopted into God’s family, thus making all true believers kin and inspiring them to extol the virtues of a relationship with God the Father, Jesus the Savior and the Holy Spirit who lives in believers’ hearts.

I think nonbelievers lack the faith it takes to be willing to die for God and the courage to live for him. Curiosity makes a scientist, but faithmakes a Christian. Faith brings the grace needed to be forgiven for the transgressions we commit. Belief leads to paradise. Nonbelief leads to nowhere.

To say that God does not exist, I believe, blasphemes the holy trinity, imposes upon the integrity of every believer who ever lived, minimizes their contribution to his ministry and denies the plan God has for all mankind. Think on these matters with your heart, listen, and act with strength and courage.

LEE BOYETT Little RockWill not forgive them

Why do people keep rehashing the, I believe, implausible tale about Jesus Christ’s crucifixion like it was the worst death to ever occur? If I was to grieve somebody’s death, then it would be over the three 8-year-old West Memphis boys that were brutally killed in 1993. The profoundly disturbing images in a television documentary showing them exactly as they were found haunt my mind endlessly. These victims were horrifiedlittle boys, while Jesus Christ was an old man, according to life expectancy back then.

It’s so ghastly bothersome that whoever did this went unpunished and clergymen insist that brutal child-killers can be forgiven and go to heaven. Also as bothersome is parents who will forgive their child’s killer and a God who allowed it to happen. Forget blaming the devil because God is the almighty who is responsible for the devil’s existence and demise. Forget the free-will lecture because just like my free will not to forgive, if I’m going to suffer for eternity for using it, then it wasn’t really free.

If I was a murdered child waiting in heaven and my murderer showed up along with my parent who forgave him, then I’d demand to be sent to hell rather than live among nutty people who think brutal child-killers should be forgiven. I don’t personally know any children that were brutallymurdered, but I do know I refuse to forgive their killers and will gladly debate God about it if he wants to argue.

GARY McLEHANEY BentonFeedback

Let freedom ring I love the word “freedom.”

Think about what it means to

you. What would be our purpose

in life without it? We would be

used and ruled by the dictates of

others. No, thank you!

The Sandy Hook shootings,

among others, were very unfor

tunate. It was also an opportune

time for Barack Obama and his

advocates to push for more gun

control. Thanks to the NRA, the

Tea Party, Mark Pryor and other

senators who had the courage

to cause the gun-control bill to

fail. Obama and others appar

ently want our guns, as well as

to eliminate some of our consti

tutional rights. A time will likely

come when more people will

be thankful as they realize what

it did for the American people

when the gun legislation failed

to pass. Stand fast, people. Don’t

give our freedom away.

HERSHAL KITCHENS SR.

De Queen

Show him the door Like Blanche Lincoln, Mark

Pryor has been an ardent sup

porter of the scandalous, forced

upon-us “Patient Protection

and Affordable Care Act” that I

believe neither protects we the

patients nor is it affordable.

Folks, there is an election in

November of 2014, and that is our

opportunity to remove those who

say they vote Arkansas values but

vote opposite the desires of those

who elected them. In particular, I

believe Pryor, who voted for the

chaotic and shameful Obamacare,

should be ushered into retirement

just as Lincoln was in the previous

senatorial election.

JIMMY CURTIS Benton