LETTERS

Questions to answer

Regarding the Teacher Corps: It’s been reported that there are enough teachers, but that there are areas that they don’t want to move to or teach in. Therefore, an outside organization is going to pay noncertified people a $5,000 per year bonus to move to these places to teach.

This is commendable, but won’t paying uncertified people more than certified teachers create attitude problems among existing teachers? Why not offer the $5,000 to certified teachers? Or increase the salary of teachers in that location to entice the people there?

Also, many of the people involved talk about benefiting the students; if that is the reason they want to teach, why are they accepting the extra $5,000? Finally, does the extra money continue forever?

What is good for our schools is okay in my book. I am just curious about these things.

GEORGE HALL

Newport

He overshot his target

I believe New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent $350,000 ad buy to criticize Sen. Mark Pryor’s “no” vote on gun control will only backfire on New York City. Bloomberg is going after Pryor for correctly, I believe, representing the wishes of the majority of people in Arkansas, and sticks his head in the sand concerning the mental issues so common with gun deaths.

As an individual who travels to New York about twice a year, I will not be returning there until Bloomberg is history, and I think other Arkansans should do the same.

SAM KING

Fort Smith

Remember it fondly

The “Good Old Days”: When we got the news from the daily newspaper and NBC, CBS and ABC had 30 minutes of local news and 30 minutes of national news at 6 p.m.

Before CNN and Fox had to stretch one story into 24 hours of reporting by showing the same film coverage over and over. And over.

Before hate radio with Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and countless others.

At least we still have the on/off switch, and for that, I am grateful.

GEORGE W. McCLAIN

Little Rock

Cease grandstanding

The recent oil spill in Mayflower is a terrible tragedy. The environmental damage, property damage, and impact on lives are all serious issues that together we should all be working to address.

I am concerned, however, by recent saber-rattling press conferences by the attorney general, who seems more focused on finger-pointing, blame and preparing for a lawsuit than he does working to see that the spill is cleaned up, property owners are made whole, and steps are taken to prevent this type of incident from occurring again.

If there was negligence or misconduct on the part of Exxon, then they should absolutely be held accountable. But we won’t know if that’s the case until a full investigation has been completed.

However, it seems that many,including our attorney general, have reached that conclusion already-before all the facts have been gathered. Quite frankly, I believe it’s not the attorney general’s job to be paving the way for class-action plaintiffs’ attorneys to line up to get a piece of the action in a lawsuit against Exxon.

Furthermore, the oil and gas industry plays an important role in our state, including employing thousands of Arkansans. We would be wise to make sure that the actions we make and the words we say are constructive and purposeful, and not grandstanding rhetoric.

DAVID MEEKS

Conway

State Rep. David Meeks represents District 70.

All won in the lottery

Watching the developments that occurred leading up to the May 18 Powerball lottery drawing and the response of the people who were buying lottery tickets for the largest lottery known, one would conclude that regardless of the odds of winning the lottery, the idea of spending $3for a ticket for the biggest lottery in history was a no-brainer.

Listening to the media talk about the odds of winning, the number of lottery tickets sold struck me as odd. Out of all the tickets sold, only one had the winning numbers.

The number of tickets sold was irrelevant. The amount of money in the lottery was irrelevant as well. The machine used to select the numbered ping-pong balls for the winning number has x number of balls in it that will determine the winning number. How one could determine the odds of having the winning set of numbers on his ticket from this system cannot be determined by statistics. This machine cannot be programmed to pick a specific number or set of numbers. Every ticket has equal chance of being a winner.

We all bought a ticket on this lottery and for a brief moment we all imagined what we could do with all that money. We have little or no knowledge of the taxes involved or for how many years we would have to pay taxes on this money.

A winner was determined, but the truth is we all won. All the lottery money will add up in taxes and in our economy.

LUCIAN SIMMONS JR.

Oil Trough

Misers or spendthrifts

Have you ever noticed how the conservatives in Washington call Medicare socialism? But they like their hospitalization (socialism). They want to cut our Medicare and Social Security.

They say it costs too much, but we pay for these benefits.

Now Oklahoma’s U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R) wants to help the tornado victims … but only if he can cut something to do it. By the way, he isn’t running next term.

But when it comes to pouring billions and billions of dollars into foreign countries, you don’t hear anybody yapping about not having money for that. They are apparently all for that, no matter how much it costs.

BOB MASSERY

Little Rock