LETTERS

Our state at crossroads

During the last session, Republican legislators put aside their dislike of Obamacare to craft a unique way to accept federal dollars to provide health insurance to Arkansans who desperately need it-the “private option.” At a time when our federal government has reached a new level of childish bad behavior, Arkansas is an example of bipartisan governing at its best. Reports of our accomplishments have been touted in every state. Republican governors and state legislators are considering Medicaid expansion using the Arkansas plan.

Surely it was difficult to vote for the untested private option during the 2013 session. But now legislators know exactly what they will be voting for or against. Roughly 100,000 Arkansans have enrolled through Arkansas’ marketplace, cost-per-enrollee estimates are on target, and the percentage of young adult signups will keep insurance premiums competitive.

If Arkansas legislators renew their support for the private option, our state will retain its place in history as a leader in health-care transformation, and providing preventive care to uninsured people across the state will systematically attack our health statistics-one chronic disease at a time.

But what if our legislators vote to end the private option and snatch health care away from people visiting primary-care physicians for the first time in their lives? What will we say to Arkansans who had begun to hope that their lives might not be colored by progressive disability and the prospect of early death? If Arkansas legislators discard the private option while other states are scrambling to copy it, how stupid will we look in history books?

GLORIA GORDON North Little Rock Can do without these

I know. I know. These are not the great life-altering issues facing mankind, but I grow near-terminally weary of letters by folks claiming to know for sure what “the Bible” says about what the rest of us need to believe and how we should behave. Hell, in fact, may be that place reserved for those folks who spend their lives telling other folks they will surely go there. Now I’m doing it-drat!

For your consideration, a few things the absence of which would make life a good bit more tolerable: Sideline reporters at athletic events. They seem exactly as useful as pockets in undergarments.

Halftime shows at the Super Bowl. As an alternative, I suggest 20minutes of a nice full-color test pattern. Remember those? The entertainment value would be equivalent.

Fully half of all that Troy Aikman has to say in his “color commentary” role during NFL broadcasts. A good dose of dead air and an introduction, for Troy, to the concept and practice of inflection would be a most welcome change.

Most reality shows … except American Pickers. I’m opining. I get to choose.

Corporations and/or companies as “people” as defined by the Supreme Court.

Global warming.

Unrestrained, endless, strident, partisan, fact-less bloviation.

Trials and tribulations for those folks who make our world a better place. Perhaps some omniscient being could explain. Readers hereof need not reply.

Well, I feel ever so much better now, having unburdened my tortured self. Feel free to add to or subtract from the above list. Or submit your own.

J.P. HOSKYN Little Rock

Just losing all the time

It appears that Coach Mike Anderson has been spending too much time with the football coaches. He has learned how to lose at home, how to lose games his team should win, and how to assume they have a game won only to lose a lead.

It seems the only team in Fayetteville that knows how to win is the one that raises funds. I don’t think we are so proud of how they do that.

Go Hogs!

JIM MORRIS North Little Rock

Inflammatory column

Re Bradley Gitz’s column, “The new racists”: I’m a disabled Vietnam veteran, born and raised in North Little Rock. I subscribe daily to this paper and I believe this is the most inaccurate, racist column by a freelance columnist that I’ve read in a long time.

What state was Gitz born in? Better still, what planet is he from? He stated that the real purpose of the “quota systems” was to give preference to minorities. Where was he in the last century? He couldn’t have been in the South, a witness to the travesty of inhumane slavery and the trimmings that went with it.

He should redo his homework. He stated, “… at no point in human history has there ever existed anything even closely resembling such idealized proportionate representation” in comparing groups. From what archives did this information come?

In Arkansas, students were bused miles past all-white schools to all-black schools. Blacks had to sit at the back of the bus in sections labeled “colored.” At the employment offices, whites were given jobs and blacks, sitting for hours, were told they didn’t qualify or there were no jobs for them.

Tip to the wise: Do a little more research, and I promise you, your present mentality will be deeply compromised by what’s in documented archives.

I was one of those on the school buses, in the employment line, etc., but I did two tours in Vietnam so that you and I could stand and live together in a peaceful and tranquil society.

CURTIS ADAMS Sherwood

Seems like old times

Just when you think you have seen it all in football, along comes Auburn’s dramatic finishes against Georgia and Alabama.

Then, there was The Interview.

After watching Richard Sherman’s frenetic shouting about his greatness and how Michael Crabtree made the grave mistake of disrespecting him, I wondered if he was manic, caught up in NFL thug zeitgeist, or an aspiring entertainer. Or maybe all the above.

Then it occurred to me who he resembled: Crazy Chuck Karbo. Karbo was the quintessential villain/heel in the 1960s heyday of the National Wrestling Alliance. Karbo would push the rhetorical envelope in interviews, usually after a feud match with a local favorite like Danny Hodge. If anyone remembers this, their age is on display.

A possible storyline for the NFL next year: Crabtree bests Sherman in a rematch. During Crabtree’s interview, an enraged Sherman smacks Crabtree with a folding chair. Networks may then conclude their broadcasts with the old rasslin’ line, “Watch out for flying chairs!” BILL EPPERSON Fayetteville

Recruit bigger players

I think Mike Anderson had better start recruiting some big-body power forwards who can power their way to the basket like all the better teams have, instead of all the skinny guys who get pushed around, if they’re ever going to be a contending team. In today’s game, you’ve got to have big bodies.

It’s time to catch up with the rest and change their image.

VIC JOHNSON Mount Ida