Letters

Not-so-inevitable fate

I write for the edification of Professor Bradley Gitz. As reported by the Financial Times, a recent study by the Pew Research Center indicates that in 2011, the share of four-person households in the United States with an income of $73,000 or more a year was 56 percent. Canada equals that percentage. The following countries surpass it: Denmark, Germany, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Iceland and Finland.

All eight of those countries have more generous social-welfare systems than does the United States. And the Danes are reported to be the happiest people on the planet!

Perhaps Greece does not point to the inevitable fate of all Western democracies after all.

EARL RAMSEY

Little Rock

Curiosity encouraged

May I quibble just a bit with Jerry R. Kinney's and Vivian Lawson Hogue's recent letters regarding my mother Janet Hill's earlier letter about Dr. John Rosemond's stock answer to "why" questions? Reread her letter, please. She was not addressing those questions that Curie, Edison and others might have asked of themselves or others, nor questions asked in a classroom.

Her "please" at the end of a sentence was most definitely not an offer to have my brothers and me consider the matter further. Nor was there ever an "okay" at the end of it as if she were asking our approval. It was simply a word of courtesy, of respect, of civility, not unlike the "please" I used in the preceding paragraph. What might I have muttered (under my breath, of course) as I made my way up the stairs to my room had she ever used Rosemond's sarcastic "because I said so"?

Our curiosity was encouraged, never stifled. A favorite family story: Mother had found a "birds and bees" children's book that she had read to my oldest brother Stephen and left laying about for further leisurely perusal. It was full of colorful illustrations on everything procreative. He was hardly over 2 years old when he came into the kitchen with the book under his arm.

"Mama, I understand how the sperm fertilizes the egg and how the egg develops into a baby inside the mother's uterus, but how does the sperm get in there?"

She had practiced her answer and was braced for the day when the question would come. She calmly answered it in one short descriptive sentence.

Stephen thought for a moment, slapped his forehead and exclaimed, "Of course!"

And yes, my brothers and I all could speak in perfectly pronounced complex sentences by the time we were 2.

EDIE HILL

Fairfield Bay

Find some ointment

Hillary is back, like that bad sore on your butt that will not get well.

JERRY COLLINS

Gurdon

Protect human species

I am a lover of nature and all of God's creatures. However, with all the evil in our world today, I do not think whether or not to place certain species on the endangered species list is of great importance.

Many people are suffering in our world today and they are more important than any turtle or frog.

SHIRLEY HENDRICKS

Maumelle

Higher pay deserved

In regard to Nita McKelvey's letter, I would like to know where exactly she got the educated information that fast-food or restaurant or retail jobs are not meant to be a person's sole livelihood, that these particular types of jobs are for part-timers, kids starting out in the work world, or senior citizens supplementing their Social Security checks. Is this written in an official government handbook, or her own handbook, perhaps titled Ignorant Person's View on Types of Employment and Who Fills These Positions?

I work in the food industry. I have a college education, worked in the corporate retail/hair world for years and I am far away from the age of needing to supplement my Social Security check. I chose this type of employment and love it. I believe the way McKelvey rashly and loftily speaks of these types of jobs, as if looking down her nose at them, is both simple-minded of her and contemptuous.

She also stated that people in these types of jobs have no genuine skills. I am sure that means she is the type of customer that wants to combine five different coupons for one transaction when it clearly states on the coupons, "coupon cannot be combined with any other offer," and gets snippy when this is pointed out to her. But due to the excellent customer-service skills of said employee, her purchase is over $50 and she leaves with a smile on her face.

Next time she decides to adjudicate the monetary compensation an individual deserves for performing a customer-service job, she should think again.

RHONDA S. LYNN

Fayetteville

A perplexing question

There is an acute and perplexing need for adoptions in Arkansas. The state has about 4,400 children in foster care; presumably, many of these children await adoption. In 2012, 676 children from foster care were adopted in Arkansas, but another 1,023 were waiting to be adopted, according to the State Policy Advocacy and Reform Center.

Those adopting families deserve our praise and support. Furthermore, I know from the experience of my extended family that adoption can be a lengthy process; some of the kids in Arkansas awaiting adoption may be involved in that process. But that still leaves hundreds simply waiting.

That's where my perplexity begins. Many Arkansans are strongly opposed to abortion. They encourage us to see morally significant continuities between infants and children on the one hand, and human fetuses on the other.

Why, then, are there so many kids needing adoption in the state? Surely these children make at least as great a moral demand on us as the unborn supposedly do. Of course, some of those who oppose abortion cannot adopt, perhaps due to financial or health reasons; and surely many opponents of abortion are adoptive parents. But still ...

Could it be that opposition to abortion is not really about "the unborn" after all? Is it rather about the status of women and the desire of many of us to keep them subservient to men, to men's power and pleasure? What else is one to conclude about adoption and abortion in Arkansas?

THOMAS ATWATER

Bentonville

Editorial on 07/27/2015

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