LETTERS

Climate stand skewed

If you are looking for answers to increasingly disruptive weather patterns, it seems you won’t find them in this newspaper. Paul Greenberg may be a Pulitzer Prize winner, but editorials in this paper are going to lean toward its conservative base.

Climate change may be the most alarming threat to our economic survival short-term, and to our survival as humans in the future. I believe if you want accurate information, you should go to apolitical websites and news agencies, the National Geographic or the library.

I think it would be responsible and Pulitzer Prize-worthy if this paper would take a strong stand on this critical issue, but I’m sure it won’t happen on these partisan pages.

DANIEL W. SHERMAN Bella Vista Should change tactics

Why is the Republican Party in a state of distress?

It seems the electorate is getting more diverse, less rural, more educated, less evangelical-in short, less demographically Republican.

It’s also getting less hostile to gays, gun control, even government-in short, less ideologically Republican.

I believe conditions will not get any better for the party despite some of the problems manifested during the Obama administration.Not enough angry white guys are manifested to achieve their goals. Other factors do not help in their goal achievements, for example, pushing more of the voter-ID laws and other anti-fraud measures.

Republicans need to change their approach to politics, message, tone, technology, strategy. They should not make revolting comments about rape, question Barack Obama’s birth certificate, brag about their unwillingness to compromise, et al.

ROBERT E. HYMER Little Rock

Direct fight elsewhere

I wish Paul Greenberg would dismount from his moral high horse and give marijuana a rest.

Instead of listening to his Guy Lombardo and Lawrence Welk records tonight, perhaps Paul should watch the 1930s propaganda classic, Reefer Madness. My favorite scene that I remember is the guy smoking a joint and then jumping out of an upstairs window.

Gateway drug? Sure, and those two beers at the fraternity house party turn you into an alcoholic. I believe decriminalization of the possession and use of small amounts of marijuana is both smart and inevitable. Too many law enforcement resources are wasted on chasing weed.

I think the biggest drug problem in our country today, by far, is the abuse of prescription drugs (like Oxycodone, methadone, Xanax, etc.). Paul should use his bully pen on those drugs. And when he’s done, he can go after tobacco, the biggest killer of them all.

SCOTT T. VAUGHN North Little Rock

Outstanding letters

Three letters to the editor last Monday deserve commendation: those by Gloria Gordon of North Little Rock, J.P. Hoskyn of Little Rock, and Curtis Adams of Sherwood, whose letter I believe was an outstanding exposé of the racism in a recent column by Bradley Gitz.

I pulled and read the Gitz column in question (I quit reading Gitz always proving conservatives were right). I am sure Gitz does not believe he is a racist-even has a black friend or two-but that column certainly can be classified as racist. Thanks, Curtis, for reminding us, especially those who grew up in “racist” Arkansas.

As a product of the ’40s, I distinctly recall the treatment of blacks by members of the then-racist Democratic Party and watched with chagrin when Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagan’s guru, implemented the “Southern Strategy,” persuading Southern Democratic racists to leave the Democratic Party and join the Republican Party, which it seems is now the racist party in the South. That plan married the religious right to the Republican Party, and the Republican Party has never been the same since.

As a registered Republican since 1952, voting nearly a straight Republican ticket through Richard Nixon, I began a slow transition away from straight Republican-ticket voting and voted my first-ever straight Democratic ticket in 2006, which continues to this day.

BOB SCOTT Rogers

Absurd comparison

In reference to the Bradley Gitz column last week, I think it is totally absurd for him to compare changing student scores to achieve equality in the classroom to our government’s trying to lessen the wide gap between the rich and the poor.

It is absolutely ludicrous.

It is a published fact that in our country today there is the widest gap ever between the rich and the poor. It seems large companies and their executives are living high off the backs of people making the minimum wage.

I don’t believe that people making $6.50 an hour and working 40 hours a week are lazy. They need more money and help getting the proper medical care to make a living for their families. Actually, most probably don’t get to put in 40 hours because then the company would have to offer them insurance coverage.

I seldom read Gitz; it’s not good for my blood pressure.

JEAN CUPIT Morrilton

Turning a blind eye

Congrats on your great editorial, “A quick lesson in math.” It was a real eye-opener!

It doesn’t seem possible that America has been so successful in eliminating 55 million members of its unwanted population in so little time of 41 (and counting) years. This apparently has been an ongoing dream of the liberal minds for years, and will evidently further their goals of improving the remaining human race as they march forward with their agenda. But what if God doesn’t turn a blind eye to all this?

CHARLES E. ROBERTS Rogers