Letters

Respect for the police

I would like to thank your writer, Dana D. Kelley, for his column on how to treat our policemen. He touches on about seven rules to use when being approached by a policeman, things my parents taught me when I was very young.

I think this should be on the front page of the paper every weekend so the knuckleheads that get out running around on the streets and highways might accidentally read it!

ROGERS REVIER

Bella Vista

Pokemon Go? Stop it

This whole Pokemon Go thing has an old person like me confused. Grown people get on their phone, go to a site, and chase imaginary people down in real places?

I'd say get a life, but reports indicate this has not only made some people who weren't active and exercising do so, but made them socially compatible, aka, getting out in public.

To that I'd say, if you couldn't do that on your own, stay in bed, turn off your alarm clock, and stay there. Society would be better off without you.

Is this really where we are today? Want a reality TV show? Stop these morons as they are doing this and ask them five simple questions, starting with "Who are the four presidents featured on Mount Rushmore?" When they can't answer three of the five questions, preclude them from voting and continue to allow them on their idiotic quest.

I'm sorry, that's not politically correct to say. These are people. Now I'm not sure what happens when they play this game and actually catch one of these computer-generated entities. Do they kill them? Capture them? Convert them?

That's an important question, because, after all, "Imaginary Lives Matter." Losers.

ANTHONY LLOYD

Hot Springs

Uh, but we know that

Leave it to Wally Hall to point out the obvious: Men should never hit women. How can one argue that?

Maybe if the athlete was suspended without pay for a season, maybe then it would cause him to think twice. That will never happen because the players' union would not entertain such a radical idea. I can hear it now from the player's mouth. "I have to put food on the table. You can't expect me to go without my money for a whole year."

Now if it was me facing the same charges, I'm sure the justice system would move heaven and earth to make sure I spend time in jail and would not care about my potential loss of a year's work. It illustrates how our legal system works for those with money and makes examples of the rest of us.

On a different subject, would it not be refreshing were Wally to inform us of something we don't already know?

DAVID BARR

Little Rock

The Sowell of wisdom

Is there any way we can get Thomas Sowell on the November ballot?

Maybe the American people will decide to vote for wisdom and judgment rather than splash. Only the Shadow knows.

ROY MELTON

Little Rock

Protesters no cowards

Bobby Gene Willis' assertion that the Black Lives Matter movement is analogous to the KKK is the biggest crock of you-know-what I've read this year. If it weren't so pathetically uninformed, it would be laughable. For those who think like Willis, please Wikipedia the term "racist" and Google historical facts before you spout nonsense.

I believe the BLM movement can't be racist because it has no ability to enforce prejudices against whites or the police. That's why the movement exists--communities of color feel powerless to prevent senseless and unnecessary deaths at the hands of police.

Some biased police panic when they approach a black potential suspect. They shoot to kill before they think, even if the suspect is a 12-year-old with a toy gun or a mentally ill person in crisis. After shooting, they claim the black person was a monster instead of a fellow human.

Non-white communities can only protest since the criminal justice system ignores some officers' shoot-first mentality. Meanwhile, many citizens think police are gods who do no wrong.

Have you seen BLM protesters lynching anyone while cowardly hiding their faces? Have you seen BLM protesters burning crosses before police stations? The largely peaceful BLM protests are a far cry from KKK violence and intimidation. Instead, some police use military tactics to intimidate protesters.

One obviously disturbed person's dreadful decision to shoot policemen is not a vigilante mob of haters incensed that their supposed superiority is threatened.

Until black lives matter, the defensive retort that all lives matter is nothing but a lie.

DEBORAH HIGGINS

Little Rock

Darkness not chosen

Many thanks to Dave Boxx for his heartfelt letter of light. It was very uplifting and encouraging. It may have oversimplified a little, but I know well the limitations of word-counting.

It's important to point out that very often when people obscure their light, they are not "choosing evil." That veil (to speak metaphorically) which enshrouds each particle of light, making a person, is as nearly transparent as any woven thing can be, finer than the sheerest Egyptian linen. One single layer is required and all that is necessary to make a person. (It gives us form, so to speak.) Scarcely any shadow is cast.

But the person, through the course of a life, and in what are mostly mistaken and defensive reactions, wads the stuff up in bunches, and weaves out the fabric for more layers, winding and folding it over on itself. Before you know, you've enveloped yourself in a sort of cocoon.

It's not that the darkness was chosen, but the light can no longer be seen.

Lest my metaphor be misapprehended, let me hasten to add, it is no butterfly a-borning in that shell. People are not insects, but if pressed for an analogy I would say the self-enswathed soul is more like some hapless fly eagerly ensnaring and encasing itself for the benefit of Lord Spider.

Of course, such things don't happen in nature.

STANLEY G. JOHNSON

Little Rock

Editorial on 07/22/2016

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