LETTERS

Best for community

The Benton County Boys and Girls Club after-school program is absolutely beneficial to at least 500 students in Bentonville. Their programs include helping students with homework and providing activities for students whose parents may not be home because of their jobs.

These activities benefit students’ learning and safety and are in concert with what should be in the district’s mission statement. The people that I associate with the leadership of the Boys and Girls Club are unpaid volunteers who are responsible and of high character and only have the best interest of the students at heart.

Please read Mike Masterson’s recent column for additional information and urge the Bentonville School Board members to continue the 20-year tradition of busing students to the Boys and Girls Club after school.

I believe it is in the best interest of the community at large.

STEVE EARNEY Bentonville

Improve drug rehabs

A lot of today’s deaths have to deal with drugs. I believe there are not enough rehabs where addicts can stay for six months or for a full year. Most rehabs are outpatient.

I think there should not even be such a thing as outpatient rehab. That’s not doing a thing to help addicts; that’s giving them more freedom to go buy more drugs.

I know someone very close to me who did an outpatient rehab. Did it help? No, it did not; he stopped after three days. He is still addicted today; he still has received no help.

It seems all the rehabs that are not outpatient are full; they need to get more beds and more room. We need to have more inpatient rehabs. No outpatient rehabs!

It has become so easy for anyone to get drugs today. Someone could walk down the street and get some type of drug whether it’s weed, cocaine, meth, or ice. We need to crack down on drugs and get a lot more inpatient rehabs.

SELENE PADRON Sherwood

Positive side of things

Am I the only one to see the benefits of the curling newspaper pages?

First, I see it as an automatic page-turner. No more licking your fingers or blowing on the edges to separate the pages. Just reach up, grab it and turn.

Second, by the time you get to the Voices page, the curl in the top of the page has already covered up John Brummett’s face.

When you reach “seasoned citizen” status as I have, you must look for positives in life.

BILL PLEGGE Little Rock

Give Ross the chance

I think Mike Ross would be a fine governor of Arkansas, no matter what these negative commercials say about him; Asa Hutchinson is no angel.

I believe Ross had to vote for the Wall Street bailout; otherwise we would have been in another Great Depression worse than the 1930s. Franklin Roosevelt pursued the New Deal and Social Security to help people out during the Great Depression.

I think Mike Ross will put Arkansas first. Let’s give him a chance.

DONALD L. PUTMAN El Dorado

Not on veterans’ side

I believe it’s well-known that the GOP (greedy obstructionist party) is anti-: jobs; women’s rights (Tom Cotton voted no on the Violence Against Women Act!); equal pay for women, blacks and Hispanics; LGBT; Social Security; Medicare; Medicaid; voting rights; etc. I could go on ad nauseum, but it’s just as easy to ask what ideas they have for the average American (other than big oil subsides, big banks, Wall Street, big business, tax breaks for the wealthy, and shutting down the U.S. government).

Now, the most despicable has happened. The Republicans in the Senate blocked the bill for increased spending for our veterans. The bill included spending for medical (care for critically wounded, and for adoption and fertility), education, job training and increased death benefits. The bill would have been paid for by savings from the Afghanistan and Iraq troop withdrawal.

This bill was blocked by the Republicans apparently not only because of cost but also because they wanted to vote to impose stricter sanctions

on Iran. Apparently the GOP prefers sanctions over American veterans.

Republicans seem to wrap themselves in the flag and are constantly saying we should support our troops, but I believe blocking this bill shows the opposite. Republicans love to vote for tax breaks for the millionaires/billionaires and large corporations but when it comes to our servicemen and women, it seems there just isn’t the money. Republicans want more money for the military, but oppose spending for the care of veterans returning home.

LINDA FARRELL Bella Vista

Indication of disdain

You’ve gotta love this country. Where else in the world could an elected official be convicted on 11 counts of extortion and bribery, essentially costing taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars, and then expect the very same government that was bilked to pay the legal fees?

I believe Martha Shoffner was admirably represented, got a fair trial, and was found guilty. That she has no more money to pay her lawyers is her problem, not the taxpayers’. That she would request that her lawyers be paid by the government is yet one more indication of her disdain for the rest of us taxpaying peons.

On a side bar, I think she needs to be in prison now, not after lengthy appeals. We’ve waited long enough for her reward.

WILLIAM BEATTIE Little Rock

What is the message?

Increased mudslides, sinkholes, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, tsunamis, human evils.

Is it a message?

MARION LIMPERIS Prairie Grove