Kudos To Local VA
With the sad news about possible chicanery and long wait lists for appointments for veterans to get to see a VA doctor in certain VA hospitals or clinics, I’d like to say “kudos” to our local VA hospital in Fayetteville. There are always a few people who will find fault with any and everything. Outside of those few, I have heard many good things about our VA hospital, the staff of doctors, nurses, and all the people it takes to make a hospital run smoothly.
I am a World War II veteran with service-connected disabilities who received my first treatment (dental) there in the summer of 1951. I have never been denied service or put on a long wait list. I have been a patient at the hospital no less than three or four times over the years. I always received the best care that was humanly possible. A few times, the doctors and nurses have gone beyond their required duties to see that the best care was administered.
In 1983, I had fallen and broke an ankle bone. An old doctor looked at the X-ray and went to work. He put a stainless steel screw in and pulled the bone back together. He put the cast on himself. He wanted to make sure it was done like he wanted it done. He told me if the pin ever gave me any trouble after the bone knitted back strong, to come back and he’d take it out. It never gave me any trouble. It did set off an alarm at an airport once. I’d even forgotten it was still there.
About 2010, I got a spider bite. My primary care doctors admitted me so they could treat the swollen arm. Before I was discharged, they were giving me “catch up” shots of my blood thinner and lacked about three giving them all. They sent those three already-prepared shots home with me. I had learned to give them myself, no problem. The doctor or the primary care nurse decided I needed home health care and arranged for a nurse to come to my home and give me the daily shot plus fill my medicine box so I’d be sure and get the right doses. When the nurse came all the way from Bentonville to do that, I had already given myself the first of the three shots and I fill my medicine box once a week myself. The nurse was nice and insisted she should come back the next morning to perform the tasks. I saw no need to run up a bill for the VA to pay when I didn’t need the service. She was determined to have it her way. I guess I convinced her when I told her to come on, but I’d be on the golf course somewhere. She didn’t show up.
I tell this only to emphasize the excellent, compassionate care I have received over the many years at our VA hospital in Fayetteville.
Bill Schaefer
Lincoln
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Individuals Can Help
I wanted to comment about the flood of immigrant children coming into our less-than-secure borders.
I was under the impression these children were being escorted by chaperones, but instead learned that they are being trafficked into our country by members of the drug cartels.
Who knows what horrors these poor children have experienced. I won’t get political, but it does appear that something very bad is going on here.
My husband and I have supported third-world children all of our married lives, and I must say it has been a rewarding experience, through World Vision and now through Ambassadors to the Nations. For a small amount of money per month, you can see to it that one child is helped to have a better life. We have supported children in Peru, Mexico, Bangladesh, South Korea, and now Nicaragua, among others. This isn’t to pat ourselves on the back, but if every person (or family) who had $10 to $26 a month could help one third-world child, (or if everyone over the last five decades of incredible prosperity in this country would have) perhaps we could have avoided at least part of this crisis.
We have notified U.S. Sen. John Boozman and U.S. Rep. Steve Womack that we do not want more federal money thrown at this problem, as we feel strongly it would not go to help these children. Time to call your representatives.
Bill and Eleanor Lock
Bella Vista
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Numbers Tell Tale
While the smoke appears to be clearing over the Tontitown City Council’s plans for a city-owned and operated fire department, cursory review of city financial information (available at http://www.tontitown.com/financials) prompts a few nagging questions: 1)Why the rush to establish a city-owned fire department? 2) Can the city afford this undertaking at the present time? 3) Are citizens better protected as a result of these actions?
1) City financial figures reflect the total budgeted 2013 service contract with the Tontitown Area Volunteer Fire Department was $115,000. As discussed and reported by various sources, TAFD was prepared to provide Tontitown with continued fire protection in 2014 and beyond under a service contract totaling $120,000 to $124,000 annually. TAFD also pledged to work with city officials for the orderly transition of TAFD to a city-owned department within a two- to five-year window. So why the rush to break with TAFD and establish a separate city-owned fire department in 2014? Can the city provide equal or better fire protection service at less cost? What do the numbers say?
2) Budgeted net expenditures to establish and fund the city’s make-shift fire department for the remainder of 2014 total $345,400, or almost three years worth of contracts with TAFD. Budgeted fire department payroll expense alone totals more than $136,000 for the nine-month period April-December 2014. And we’re just getting started. Look to our newly established police department for additional insight: City expenditures on police protection in 2013 increased more than 50 percent over 2012 costs. These growing expenses have resulted in net decreases in the city’s general and street fund reserves (essentially the city’s net worth) of $725,000 since 2012. Meanwhile, 2014 revenue appears stagnant, leaving Tontitown’s citizens peering down a financially cloudy rabbit hole, spending more and more just to end up where we started. At current rates of capital invasion, equity reserves could be fully absorbed in less than four years.
3) Those individuals exhibiting the desire and commitment to protect Tontitown citizens’ lives and property deserve our full support and respect. Those commitments are not questioned here. However, dual-service requirements for Tontitown police/fire department employees appear counterintuitive and worthy of scrutiny. Are cross-trained policemen/firemen really the permanent answer to fully staffing the city’s fire department? And what will be the ultimate cost? Currently, the city is scrambling to acquire equipment that duplicates what TAFD already possesses in an effort to adequately protect Tontitown’s citizens against fire loss. A bird in the hand …
So what are we as citizens to do? If you agree with the current path our elected (and non-elected) officials are pursuing, continue to support them. If not, remember the names of those responsible for the added financial burden placed on our city come November.
Irv Mantegani
Tontitown
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How To Be Poor
A short while ago, we saw many groups of fast-food workers across the nation, striking for higher wages. For most, $15 was the hourly wage these groups were demanding as a “livable wage.” Since then, the call has gone out to increase the minimum wage to $10 per hour to provide a “livable wage.” Because fast-food jobs were never designed to provide wages that could support a family but more for high school kids, college students, and retirees, perhaps those involved in these strikes and demands might take an inward look at themselves.
If you are 30 or older and not retired or a student, take a close look in a mirror to figure why you are still flipping burgers or taking taco orders. Maybe I can provide some insight.
1) If you dropped out of school.
2) If you had a child out of wedlock.
3) If you allowed yourself to become addicted.
4) If you have a bad attitude towards others.
5) If you have become obese.
6) If you have tattoos that can’t be covered by regular clothing.
A combination of any two or more of these will pretty much guarantee that you will not be in the upper brackets of salary earning.
The good news is that many of these are correctable.
1) Get a G.E.D. and begin studying for college or a trade.
2) Get child-care services through your state agency to allow you the time to complete your education or band together with other single parents to juggle hours for classes.
3) Get counseling at AA or drug rehab centers in your town.
4) Develop a better attitude toward others. No one is going to promote an employee over other employees if he has a negative effect.
5) Get on a diet and stay on a diet. No, it’s not your glands!
6) Have your tattoos removed (laser) or lightened (balm).
Yes, I know there are exceptions to these circumstances. And yes, you may have other reasons holding you back. But merely accepting your “fate” and demanding higher wages will not get you out of this place you’ve gotten yourself into. Improve yourself and your life will improve. Right now, you’re not worth the money.
James Stowe
Fayetteville
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Don’t Marginalize Religion
Imagine an editorial page where inquiring into the first assumptions of our senatorial candidates receives respectful treatment as a relevant subject deserving of readers’ interest, public discovery and careful scrutiny. “Majority view” Christianity and the controversies it wrestles with and answers ought not be marginalized or proscribed by editorial boards (How We See It, July 15) nor relegated to the religion page. Bemoaning inquiry into Tom Cotton’s and Mark Pryor’s most fundamental and informed religious convictions is a relevant example of the kind flippancy religion often experiences in the media. This newspaper, apparently, views as unfair and unseemly candid questions that probe into the candidates’ deepest convictions. Elsewhere, inquiry and scrutiny of, let’s say, Supreme Court candidates respects the concept that people’s most elemental persuasions will guide and inform their judgments. Ditto for our senatorial candidates.
Can scrutiny of candidates’ first assumptions, religious and otherwise, help readers and voters to be better informed about what choices candidates will be most likely make in office? Some of us think so. Candidates’ religious thought and anti-religious thought, the full spectrum, does and should inform the public about how they will align themselves and represent their constituents. In retrospect, what difference has the politic media practice of feeding the public with carefully scripted and generic religious inanities and photo ops done to improve public discourse or inform citizens on voting issues? What most people care most about is their religion or anti-religion. I hope readers can, somehow, recognize how religion is mostly evaded or treated as less serious than supposedly more serious political subjects. Representative democracy must include religion or it will fail to represent the people.
At least some of the degenerative confusion and polarization in our public discourse is caused by the practiced adroit pretenses of our candidates playing along with the media conducting the music. There are good reasons for public distrust of the media and government. Public cynicism with the democratic process aided by our media’s contributions is towing our public discourse toward further flippancy. “Lord help us?”
Even such common honesty as remains to us is under duress. Or did the newspaper really mean to ask for the Lord’s help? Religion is a dangerous subject.
Tim Kautzer
Fayetteville
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