LETTERS

Specialists not all bad

I get the point of the New York Times article about how medical specialists can game the system to get more money. However, I would like to speak up in favor of the dermatologists and plastic surgeons regarding skin-cancer treatments.

About 10 years ago I finally realized the pencil-eraser-sized spot on the side of my nose was not my glasses rubbing and went to the dermatologist. After the basal cell carcinoma was diagnosed, my dermatologist referred me to one of the (then) few specialists in Mohs surgery, and to a plastic surgeon. I was familiar with Mohs surgery because my grandfather had had the procedure, leaving a silver-dollar-sized hole in his cheek; I wasn’t looking forward to having a similar-sized hole on my nose, so I was relieved to hear they recommended plastic surgery and that my insurance would pay for it.

Both in-office procedures were scheduled the same morning, done with local anesthesia and my nose healed up great. Usually wounds anywhere on my body do not heal well, so I was concerned that this area, where my glasses ride, would be problematic.

Not long after that, I saw someone who had not had plastic surgery after her skin cancer was removed. The holes in her nose were not pretty. Meanwhile, after the redness went away eventually, it is hard to see my scar.

Fix the abuses in the system, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

MARSHA GUFFEY Bryant The answers are there

I was so happy to hear from Mr. Bill Moreland as it means he is still alive; I love that old atheist.

He asks the same questions all of us have: Why is there so much suffering in the world? Why doesn’t God do something?

Well, I believe he did do something. He sent his son, Jesus, to forgive our sins. He gave us his word in the Bible, written by men, inspired by the Holy Spirit. But Moreland ridiculed that.

One agnostic recently said he couldn’t get any answers from a Christian priest or preacher. I think every answer he wanted is in the Bible, but he is too smart to find them.

You can’t be fooled, no sir, no one can pull the wool over your eyes. And yet you don’t have any answers. What do you have to offer, nothing. Well, how is that working out for you? You have no answers, no hope, no peace and no purpose for your life. It sounds kind of foolish to follow that logic.

The Bible doesn’t say, “Well, maybe God created the heavens and the earth” or “We think God created the heavens and the earth” or “Somehow the heavens and earth just appeared, but we don’t know how.” It says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and then proceeds to tell us how.

You want answers, well, there they are. Don’t be so smart you can’t understand them.

PHYLLIS FARISH Bella Vista

Horse racing carnage

The carnage continues at the Hot Springs sporting venue called Oaklawn. Two horses down in less than a week, one jockey out for an indefinite period.

I think this is a “sport” whose time has come, and should be gone. I believe there is no redeeming social value in forcing animals, who have no choice in the matter, to go the extra mile for the pleasure of a few thousand fans ganged around the finish line.

Fortunately, in other parts of the country this is a form of entertainment that appears to be on the way out; ’bout time.

STEVE JONES El Dorado

Cannot support more

I have been sitting here watching the coverage on the 41st annual March for Life in D.C. and a thought occurred to me.

Let me say that abortion has never been an issue with any of my family and I personally feel that the decision should be between the woman, her doctor and her maker. So leaving out all the religious arguments, let’s look at this from a completely pragmatic and practical point of view.

The last I heard, there have been 40 million-plus abortions in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade. If those babies had been born, we would have 40 million more people who cannot find a job, and a very conservative estimate of 50 percent of them would be supported by the government, either by welfare or in the prison systems, and this country is broke.

How can we support them?

Better question is why should we, the overburdened taxpayers, want to support them. I personally am tired of my tax money going to lazy families who are working on their third generation of welfare recipients. I think Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty has made the problem worse.

KIPP WOODBURY Mountain Home

Did not fit narrative

Are the writers of this paper’s editorials entitled to their own facts? Apparently they think so. We’ve seen it often, most recently in their return to Benghazi. Not an actual return, of course-this paper had no reporter on the scene-but the umpteenth editorial return.

It seems the writer was apparently upset that the New York Times had a reporter in Benghazi for weeks interviewing scores of people with knowledge of the events surrounding the attack on the diplomatic mission. I think that clearly the Times had a serious interest in obtaining the facts. Did I mention that this paper had no one there?

The Times reporter uncovered a complex story fitting no simple storyline but including elements of almost any narrative one might want. Except much of an al-Qaida involvement, which seems to be the pet narrative of our local editorialists. They were not happy. They savaged the Times, as if to say that no article would be better than this article.That’s right: Kill the messenger.

What were the editorialists’ opposing facts? That a week after the attack, long before any real assessment was possible, a counterterrorism official said there were “indications” that al-Qaida “might” have been involved. So this assessment, laced with “might” and “indications” is presented as compelling evidence overriding a comprehensive on-site investigation.

Do the editorialists really have to stoop so low? Yes, they do. And for any like the Times who might uncover inconvenient facts, they have a rebuttal: “Shut up.” LAWRENCE COLEMAN Little Rock

Freedom of thought

This is in regards to all these people whose thoughts, I believe, are imprisoned and who instead follow the thoughts of some ancient people back when everyone assumed the world was flat: Trying to intimidate Bill Moreland with all these threats about suffering in a torturous burning hell for eternity does reveal how much they all understand freethinking people.

Freethinkers may think that if you are going to be doing something for eternity then at some point it will become commonplace and the norm. This will make suffering cease into nonexistence since it becomes all you do and know. Freethinkers may wonder how we will feel pain in hell since the part of ourselves that we feel pain with doesn’t leave this real world. I believe the spirit can’t feel the pain of the burning fire without a live body to feel the pain with.

Honestly, I have much more fear of living robotically like those characters in the movie The Stepford Wives for eternity in some unrealistic realm than I fear living in a lake of fire for eternity. I feel like I can get used to hell after a while and tolerate living there as long as I get to be myself and not robotic.

And yep, that will certainly have to mean being able to be a freethinker, or it is a torturous realm instead.

GARY McLEHANEY Benton