LETTERS

Just say no to increase

Kudos to the University of Arkansas System trustees for, once in memory, standing up to the universities in the system and saying enough is enough with tuition increases.

Granted, I would have liked them to say “no more,” period, but capping it at 3.5 percent is reasonable. Does any reasonable taxpayer find it ridiculous that, within the UA System, well over 100 positions within those faculties and administrations make more than the governor of our state?

The University of Arkansas at Fort Smith wants a nearly 10 percent increase. Chancellor Joel Anderson of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, God bless him, is willing to ask students and parents for only an additional 4.9 percent.

What a heart.

What none of these administrators is willing to do, however, is what all of us are having to in this economy: Do more, or at least the same, with less. I’m sure not one has rejected their annual raise, or agreed to work for a lower salary, certainly not any of these $100,000-plus administrative suits.

System Trustee and Chairman Jane Rogers is taking a courageous stance, and as much time as our legislators wasted with frivolous bills this session, they need to finish up the trustees’ work and stop this rubber-stamping of continued increases in state university funding, mandatory raises, and tuition increases.

ANTHONY LLOYD Hot Springs Preservation is the job

The Buffalo National River was created with one unambiguous mission: to protect this unique, free-flowing stream and all of its scenic and scientific values.

Now, had you or I had been given such a clear mandate, what would we have done? I’m pretty sure that we’d have done two things a long time ago: 1. identify the threats to the river-all the threats-and 2. create state-of-the-art monitoring systems to keep an eye on those threats. Notan easy job given the river’s length, popularity, numerous in holdings, and often meaningless boundaries. But it is the job.

More than a job, it is a public trust. We would expect difficulties, knowing that budgets get cut. We would know there are other demands on the administration, and, we know that it takes time and patience and vigilance. But it is the job.

What we would not have done is condone the possibility of human waste in the river by shutting down the toilets (to save money?) right in the middle of a huge public debate over potential pollution from a nearby hog farm. And we wouldn’t have shied away from embarrassing other agencies for their failures by not taking them to court to enforce the law and to protect our river from that hog farm. And we would not have failed to build an army of volunteers to monitor water quality and protect the watershed.

Dysfunction in government is pretty ugly in far-off Washington, D.C., but it’s downright unacceptable in our own backyard.

WILL LA PAGE Fayetteville Please, some civility

Doug Lemm’s recent rant about John Brummett’s opinion of Nate Bell’s tweet is truly revealing.

To excuse Rep. Bell’s actions based on the fact that the people of his district elected him is astonishing. Does he not remember that the good people of Germany supported Hitler, and that the good religious leaders of the day crucified Christ?

Mr. Lemm’s defense of Rep. Bell’s action reveals to me a hardness in his thinking about his fellow humans that seems prevalent in today’s society. To gloat over someone else’s misfortune strikes a blow to everything I was taught about civility. Whether it is the gun issue, corporate greed or Congress, there seems to be no room for civility.

We have to do better.

ED HUDNALL Bryant Simple, but it’s wrong

H.L. Mencken famously wrote, “There is always an easy solution to every human problem-neat, plausible, and wrong.” Which brings us to the recent editorial on hospital costs subtitled “Simple when you think about it.”

The editorialist calls for a free market to control health-care costs, not an artificial government solution-you know, like Medicare. But then there is this very non-neat fact that rather upends the Economics 101 approach advocated in the editorial, namely that the fine fix we are in, with its escalating out-of-control costs, came from the free market of hospitals run amok, while our savior has been Medicare. You see, Medicare refuses to overpay for hospital procedures. Private insurance simply shrugs and passes the inflated costs on to consumers.

For an extensive discussion of this inconvenient fact, read the March 4 issue of Time magazine, where the entire feature section of the issue is given over to a brilliant article by Steve Brill on the high cost of care. You will learn far more than by reading that editorial.

Perhaps you will conclude that the editorialists need to move on to Economics 102. At least.

LARRY COLEMAN Little Rock Think about decisions

There is the fear that if we make abortions illegal, there will be back-alley abortions performed with women dying, hemorrhaging, etc. What about the babies? Dr. Kermit Gosnell may think he has helped the poor women who came to him pregnant and could not afford to care for a baby. But what he did was absolute murder.

How could he have inflicted such pain upon the innocent?

If you are considering an abortion, think of what he did and what God has in store for those who commit murder upon the innocent. There are other options. The decision to have sex comes with a responsibility-it’s an emotional commitment. It’s not just a physical act; there are consequences. Maybe it’s a baby.

Many physicians perform abortions, apparently thinking they are helping pregnant women. Maybe their surgeries are not as brutal as Dr. Gosnell, but nonetheless they are killing innocent babies.

We all must live with our decisions. Please think about your decisions before you act. I know of women who have chosen abortions and are living with pain for the killing of their babies. Sometimes it’s hard to forgive ourselves.

JACKIE PHILLIPS Holiday Island