Letters

All are welcome here

If you want to marry your 14-year-old daughter to a 56-year-old man, come on down. If you want to handle poisonous snakes and strum guitars, come on down. If you are the high priest of a sect that uses wacky tobacky as its sacrament, by all means, come on down. If you feel that homemade likker is truly your holy water, for pete's sake, come on down.

You all will fit in like white on rice.

BILL BUNDY

Heber Springs

Twists on language

Whoever criticized the headline writer last week apparently just doesn't understand good twists on language.

For example, a headline about higher wages at Wal-Mart was a puzzler that led me to an amusing solution once I figured out the cleverness. "Wal-Mart raises' economic heft hazy"--brilliant use of possessive on a noun that at first appears to be a verb. Brilliant and enjoyable.

Thank you, headline writer, for amusing challenges, and please keep it up.

LIZ LOTTMANN

Bella Vista

Newspapers stolen

Some time ago, I had a conversation with a lady who lives way out in the country but could not get her paper delivered.

At first she thought maybe the paper carrier might have taken a day off, but then she saw the paper carrier out early one morning. She asked him why her paper wasn't being delivered and he assured her that he had been throwing it the whole time.

She told me some time later that she had caught a young couple stealing the newspapers and running away. She called the sheriff to report it.

The woman explained that it's against the law to steal mail out of mailboxes and you just about have to lock your mailbox. Why can't they put out paper boxes that lock? Why doesn't law enforcement do anything? Some parts of the state are non-serviceable. It seems you can put a man on the moon, but you can't service some areas. Why is that?

JANET WAGES

Jacksonville

Define participation

Although I rarely agree with the editorials penned by your esteemed Mr. Greenberg, I do respect his intellectual honesty.

More the pity, then, that in his absence you seem to have outsourced some space to someone who is not even up to the standards of Fox News. (Yes, an extremely low bar.)

I refer to the piece attributed to John Stonestreet regarding the media's alleged excoriation of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in which the writer cites "Christians being forced, under penalty of law, to participate in ceremonies that violate their religious beliefs."

What utter hogwash!

If one is now claiming that an exchange of cash for a wedding cake (to mention but one example) constitutes a "ceremony," then I can only assume the protester is a member in good standing of the First Church of Mammon.

If a dry-cleaner gets some stains out of a blue dress worn to an extramarital tryst, has he "participated" in the affair?

RAY DILFIELD

Eureka Springs

Chip on his shoulder

I take strong exception to views expressed in the editorial, "Freedom Comes to Yale." In vilifying Ivy League universities in general and Yale in particular, Mr. Paul Greenberg reveals a large ivy-leaf chip on his shoulder while extolling the William F. Buckley Jr. program, also located in New Haven, that supports the "conservative" values Mr. Buckley (BA, Yale, 1950) first espoused and profited by in his 1951 book, God and Man at Yale. Later in the '50s Mr. Buckley was an avid supporter of McCarthyism and white supremacy. Many thought his tone, accent and point of view as editor of the National Review and television personality reeked of entitlement and privilege.

Born and raised in Little Rock and a student at Yale in the turbulent first half of the '60s, I never experienced any attempt by "fossilized" faculty or administration to sway my philosophical, ethical or political views one way or the other. Yale's "liberal" arts challenge to me was to learn to think for myself; arrive at and act on my own conclusions about what were the most honest, humane and effective solutions to the problems confronting the world as a whole and me personally during a very challenging period overshadowed by the Vietnam war and the civil-rights movement. The Yale motto, Lux et Veritas, permeated the university and inspired liberal and conservative students alike. Yale graduates with surnames Bush and Clinton would agree.

So, Mr. Greenberg, from one old fossil to an older one, consider adjusting your Yale binoculars. The first Divination dinner sponsored by the Buckley Program will be held at the exclusive Pierre Hotel in New York City today. Tickets start at a mere $1,000 each for the privilege of hearing the conservative gospel according to George Will.

JAMES B. RULE

Maumelle

Lightning may strike

Gonna put the Ten Commandments at the state Capitol. Another insult to God. Putting it in front of a bunch of liars, thieves and hypocrites. Another is when they swear on the Bible and lie in front of God and ask him to bear witness to a pack of lies. And we elect this pack of creeps.

BOB MASSERY

Little Rock

To get his attention

So Iran's supreme leader rejects the agreements of the six-nation negotiating team.

Tighten the screws. Until we get his attention, we will never get an agreement.

ED HANCOCK

Springdale

Editorial on 04/15/2015

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