LETTERS

Just seems defensive

It seems to me Brenda Looper feels like she needs to defend her position as editor of the Voices page practically every week. If you have a job to do, then do it and stop defending yourself all the time. Let the chips fall where they may.

I used to write funny one-liners that happened to me that I thought many would find to be funny as well. I don’t any more because of Brenda’s editing. As a comedian, the delivery of something funny is most important. Because of her editing I just simply stopped. I think my lines weren’t as funny and some didn’t make any sense.

I have accepted the fact she is editor and, as she pointed out to me, she has a job to do. Apparently as long as she is editor all of us will face her opinionated final decision. I say do your job and stop defending yourself. Please use the space for quality news stories.

One of the reasons I subscribe to this paper is because of the Voices page. I would like to see more letters and opinions from ordinary people instead of those that get paid for giving theirs. To me a simple solution to getting all Voices letters published is to create another page or just simply do away with Brenda’s and John Brummett’s columns. Both seem to me to constantly defend themselves or others.

MIKE DAVIS

Maumelle

Refuses to print facts

Assistant Editor Brenda Looper’s column last week detailed a list of potential reasons why letters to the editor may not be published or fit to publish. Let me add one more: letters from “global warming deniers” such as myself who question the relevant facts and, I believe, distortion of facts presented by those who believe that CO2 (the gas that humans exhale from their lungs which is also necessary for plant life to survive on earth) as the main cause of a phenomenon which I believe has not taken place for 17 years despite record levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

One might speculate that Looper may have adopted the same editorial policy as the Los Angeles Times, which has accepted man-made global warming aka climate change as reality and now refuses to publish letters which contain pesky little facts and figures disputing that reality. I really don’t expect this letter to get published, but I am writing with the hope that if it does it will prevent the letters editor from publishing another letter in this space about the stupid pages curling up on the print version.

RICHARD WEAVER

Greenbrier

Animal magnetism?

Ed Bethune concludes his discussion of “birds” in his recent letter by saying they are “flying to the Republican Party in droves.”

They are more likely acting as cattle, as birds would be “flocking” to the Republican Party. Nevertheless, Mr.

Bethune is probably correct about people in Arkansas moving to the Republican Party.

I don’t understand it, given the relative performance of our Republican congressmen versus our Democrat governor in benefiting our state, but then I am neither a bird nor a cow.

JAMES L. MAXWELL

Fairfield Bay

Get the ironing board

Lord Grantham had his butler iron his daily newspapers. The process removes excess ink, eliminates creases and makes the paper crisp and easier to read. Perhaps we should all stop complaining and get out the ironing board every morning!

SUSAN OSTER HAYES

Hot Springs

Tragedy of leadership

The abandonment of Hot Springs’ Central Avenue is an Arkansas tragedy. Maybe it is symptomatic of the lack of creativity and leadership by the business community, artistic community and local, state and federal officials.

If I sound bitter, maybe it is because I love Hot Springs so dearly.

Where were Hot Springs, Garland County and Arkansas state leaders when Alice Walton was searching for a location to build her planned museum of American art at the beginning of the last decade? Why didn’t they lobby her to build Crystal Bridges in a remodeled and renovated Majestic Hotel in Hot Springs?

The University of Arkansas Museum closed to the public in 2004. Hundreds of thousands of rare artifacts from the U of A Museum have been mostly hidden away from the public, in storage for more than 10 years. The only people who have had access to the exquisite collection are scientists working on research projects.

Where were our last two or three governors? Where were our most recent directors of the Arkansas Department of Tourism? Couldn’t they have drawn up plans with leaders to save the Majestic? Why didn’t they move a state agency to Hot Springs and into a renovated Majestic? Maybe the Arkansas Department of Education offices near the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts?

Mr. Governor, why not move the state Health Department?

I believe the tragedy of the beautiful Majestic Hotel is a tragedy of Arkansas leadership.

BARRY BENNETT

Fayetteville

Keep vote restriction

I was fascinated by Rekha Basu’s recent column on the editorial page, in which she decried the need for an NAACP delegation and other voting rights organizations to make their case at the UN against stripping former felons of their voting rights. Her argument was that this condition is somehow at odds with international agreements (although the bits quoted seemed to have nothing to say on the subject of ex-felons specifically).

Essentially, Basu’s argument boils down to the claim that a law-abiding citizen’s vote is worth no more than the vote of a convicted murderer, rapist, child-molester, dope dealer or sociopath. It is worth noting that Basu made no distinction between violent and nonviolent offenders or degree of rehabilitation. I suppose she believes their voting rights should be restored because these convicts have shown such good judgment and deep concern for their fellow citizens in the past.

Society places many restrictions on the ex-felon; why should voting be any different?

OTIS E. YOUNG III

Cabot