The cheap pork state
Eight score and 18 years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new state, conceived in beauty and dedicated to the proposition that such a state could be a natural haven for those weary of cities and pollution.
We are now engaged in a battle over who should control the rights to the watershed for this great state--Cargill or the people of Arkansas.
Others states traded their rights to good fishing and clean water. North Carolina was one; Iowa another. No one really goes to these states to fish any more after dozens of livestock-manure spills bespoiled the rivers and streams.
We can have cheap ham now and let the future take care of itself. Or we can pay more for our daily bacon and get Cargill to move its operations to a more appropriate location. The choice is still ours to make.
I vote for taking "the natural state" off our license plates and substituting "the cheap pork state" instead. It only makes sense profit-wise in the short run, and half of us here are old so won't be around much longer.
What do I care about posterity with only one grandchild who will probably move out of Arkansas when she gets the chance? Long live cheap meat products! We can all drink bottled water in the sweet by and by (except for the fish).
My husband grew up on a farm where they practiced good husbandry. They regularly rotated crops to enrich the soil as well as fight pests naturally. No one rotates crops any more because it's easier and less work to just spray fertilizer and pesticides. This has resulted in a dead zone the size of Connecticut at the mouth of the Mississippi River. You get what you pay for, always.
EILEEN MERICLE
Bentonville
Burden's on students
The staggering increase in college tuition over the past two or three decades has been well-documented and publicized. However, the major reason has received little or no publicity.
When I worked as an administrator at Southern Arkansas University in the early 1980s, the vice president for finance told me that the state provided three dollars for every dollar we collected in student tuition. The current ratio is one dollar from the state for every two dollars in tuition. The burden of paying for a college education has shifted from a primarily state responsibility to a predominantly student responsibility.
This shift is not an undue hardship on wealthy Arkansans. Students from income-limited families qualify for Pell grants, which do not completely cover tuition and fees, but they also qualify for federal work-study jobs on campus. The students hit hardest are from middle-income families who do not qualify for grant money or on-campus jobs.
Arkansas Lottery scholarships have declined from an original $5,000 for one academic year to $2,000 for a freshman, which increases $1,000 each school year. This does not compare favorably with tuition costs of over $8,800. Student-loan debt nationally averages over $33,000 per student.
A recent Standard and Poor's report suggested "greater access to education would help ease wealth disparities." At a time when companies are looking for a more highly educated worker, Arkansas is making it more difficult for many of its citizens to achieve the education for those jobs. Arkansas needs to increase its investment in its public universities to better the lives of our citizens and promote the economic health of our state.
LARRY McNEAL
Waldo
Strange location for it
The site selected for the new Murphy Oil station and a weekly motel seems to me to be better suited to North University, maybe at the Cantrell intersection. I do not see many motels on Cantrell, maybe not any, actually. Why should South University and 12th Street receive all the glory bestowed by the Little Rock Board of Directors?
Just a thought. Spread the wealth ...
M.G. WARD
Little Rock
Aim blame elsewhere
In writing about our public schools, it seems your editorial writer has once again missed the mark.
Teachers comprise only a small percentage among those who have a vested interest in the success of public education, but most of us have been "distressed" for years. It was plain that rapid differentiation among school performance vectors would be one result when it seems the Little Rock School District gerrymandered the school attendance zones along socioeconomic lines. We saw results quickly, but instead of dissecting the reasons for poor academic performance among those schools with lower socioeconomic profiles, you attacked the teachers, pointing to a scant few who could not or would not ignite the flame of learning in their students as evidence to tar us all.
Using this same logic would allow us to point to your sports editor as evidence and accuse your entire staff of repetitive, juvenile writing.
Let me suggest how "distressed" needs to apply to public education in the Little Rock School District. Until our parents in all our schools are as distressed as our teachers about the lack of educational progress for their children; until our administrators recognize their job priority is to aid and assist teachers; until the media can logically and honestly review and evaluate the big picture we call public education without a predisposed inclination to blame it all on teachers--until those things come to pass, public education will be education in name only.
JERRY COOKUS
Maumelle
Acknowledge feelings
Since the gifted Robin Williams has passed, I as a mental health clinician will frequently hear the statement, "I always knew that he was in serious pain." Similarly, I can relate with these sentiments of predicted pain within Williams.
Despite his own openly admitted undiagnosed mental suffering of depression, it seems little stood in the way of his demise. One might ask, how can a man so talented and adored be so alone with such pain that was unbearable enough to take his own life? The next question that comes to mind is that if so many people could have sensed something was amiss or not right within another fellow human being, why was there not more done to prevent this?
Ultimately, as a human race when witnessing another's emotional pain, it's best to acknowledge this painful emotion in a kind, nonjudgmental and supportive way. Emotions serve an important survival function to communicate, motivate, and validate our inner and external environments. However, Westernized society is quick to turn away from uncomfortable and painful emotions that everyone experiences because of the discomfort it causes within us.
If we as a society can learn from Williams' tragedy, we could derive the fact that we as humans will benefit each other to be closer and more supportive toward each other in times of severe emotional pain. Conversely, those in emotional suffering cannot ignore the need to seek help, and accept that the pain can become manageable and that a life worth living exists.
JACOB WHITE
Fayetteville
Editorial on 08/18/2014