LETTERS

Doing more with less

Our state highway department says it needs more employees to work the snow and ice. It compared Missouri to Arkansas.

In a recent Drivetime Mahatma, Frank Fellone reported that Missouri has 54,100 employees and a $2.8 billion budget. That comes out to $51,756 per person. Arkansas has a $1 billion budget with 3,600 employees; that’s $277,778 per person.

I don’t know how Missouri can have all them employees and trucks. Maybe Arkansas should hire their highway department director. He’s doing more with five times less.

MARK A. HIGHFILL Jacksonville

Columnist Frank Fellone responds: That should be 5,100 employees in Missouri. Mea maxima culpa. Translation: My bad.

Thanks for newspaper

I would like to add my thanks for a great newspaper. I have received it for many years and look forward to sitting down to read it along with a cup of good coffee. The coupons I clip and use pay for the paper.

I would also like to say thank you to the wonderful hardworking people who deliver my paper. I am one of the older generation and these nice people go to the trouble to throw the paper into my carport in frigid, icy weather.

You can be proud of the people who work so hard for you.

GERTRUDE STANDLEY Berryville

Understand gamblers

I have enjoyed Oaklawn racing for over 30 years. I had a good friend who passed away 20 years ago, and he had been going to the races with his father-in-law for about 10 years. He would come by every Saturday morning and honk his horn in his Bronco. If I was up and ready to go, I would, within a minute, go out the front door. If I did not show, he would drive away.

We had a great time. He called me Long-shot Wimpy because my wife called me a wimp for going with him. And he called me Long-shot-well, because I bet long-shots. Times have changed and I still bet the horses, but now it’s on my computer and I just simply add funds from my credit cards online.

Now I appreciate that Rick Lee has a job handicapping races. Everyone able should work. But for him to lose $1,000 and not be more sensitive to problem gamblers-I do not understand. Suddenly he has a new $1,000, and not everyone has that option. I think he needs to address this issue with more understanding of people who have gambling problems.

DONALD ENDERSON North Little Rock

New complaint source

What are the curly-paper whiners going to complain about when the humidity pods settle over the state and straighten out the corners of the paper?

ERIC M. MAXWELL Conway

Employ a 16-year-old

All places in Arkansas should hire people who are 16 years or older.

Why should they? There are many 16-year-olds out there who want to work but can’t because it seems most places hire people who are 18 years old or older. By the time that 16-year-old turns 18, they would be more focused on which college they want to attend than a job.

For example, I have wanted to make my own money since I was 13, but I have to wait until I turn 16. Now I’m 15 and I have nine months until I can get a job. I had been talking to my mom about where I would like to work and she told me that only a few places hire at age 16. The majority hire at 18. This is why I wish that every store in Arkansas hired people at 16.

BRE’UNNA HAYNES Sherwood

Careful what you say

When an officer dons the public face of the Little Rock Police Department, it might be best to use the phone when possible. By sending texts, instead of using that same device to speak personally to reporter Spencer Willems, the responses came across in Willems’ story as condescending and snippy.

In response to Willems asking how investigators connected a suspect to additional robberies, the terse text response, “he committed the crime,” might not look good when the case goes to court.

You know, “innocent until proven guilty.” GLENDA EDDINS Little Rock

Abundant hypocrisy

Yet another letter from a self-righteous Christian conservative or conservative Christian damning liberals for their failure to address the strawman issues currently being promoted by the COMMies (COnservative Media Machine).

Conservatives seem to believe this is a Christian nation and they are the only true Christians.

If that were true, why then can I not recall a single instance of a conservative pundit, politician, money-grubbing minister, or a single one of these self-styled Christians bemoaning the fact that this Christian nation is not spending enough money to clothe the naked, house the homeless, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, or visit the prisoners?

That paragraph is a reference to what Jesus is quoted as saying in the gospel of Matthew.

No, conservative Christians and Christian conservatives seem to whine only that we are spending too much money.

Jesus also stated that no man can serve both God and money.

Therefore, to those of you who place money before the needs of your less-fortunate neighbors, please replace your Jesus bling of crosses and fish symbols with the much more appropriate dollar-sign symbol around your neck and on your Lexus or pickup.

Based on their implementation of what Jesus actually said and did, I believe the phrases Christian conservative and conservative Christian are oxymorons.

Before you write your reply, please read the gospel of Matthew and tell me that’s what you believe and that is what directed your choice of the politicians you voted into office for the last 30 years.

Nah, it’d take a miracle.

JOE MARTIN Fayetteville

Pushes liberal agenda

Being a Catholic, naturally a recent headline, ”Catholics join Oregon gay-marriage clash,” caught my eye.

The story took up a large portion of the page and was written by Maria La Ganga of the Los Angeles Times.

It was about Catholics who would be receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday while wearing pins stating “Catholic Oregonians for marriage equality.” One of the members was interviewed.

The entire story was 22 paragraphs and seemed to insinuate that Catholics are rubbing their defiance of the Catholic Church’s stand on gay marriage in the church’s face. It isn’t, however, until you get to paragraph 20 out of 22 paragraphs that you read that this group is comprised of “a few dozen members.”

Does the action of “a few dozen members” warrant a 22-paragraph article in the national news, across the United States? I doubt it! I guess if you are trying to slam the Catholic Church and promote gay marriage it might.

However, I doubt if I formed any group of only “a few dozen members” in my small community of Cherokee Village that it would even be worthy of having a local daily newspaper cover it.

However, amazing what can/does make national headlines if it promotes a liberal agenda that a journalist wants to push (I use the word “journalist” quite loosely here).

DOUGLAS MacARTHUR Cherokee Village