Corporate farms hurt
Grant Williams' letter to the editor was truthfully telling the plight of family farmers in our country. Willie Nelson and other sympathetic musicians have had concerts every year since 1985 trying to help our quickly decreasing farm population.
Large food corporations have vigorously pursued a campaign of monopolizing the food industry. Foreign investors have acquired massive amounts of land along with packing and processing facilities around the world. With free-trade practices, food may be shipped to several places before it reaches the supermarket.
Cheaper is not always better. The average Big Mac can contain meat from up to 1,000 different cows that come from five different countries. Many other countries do not have sanitary safeguards like our Food and Drug Administration. When I buy food, I follow the expression, "You get what you pay for."
A worldwide problem from company farms is that corporate farms are estimated to cause 44 percent to 57 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. According to GAIN, corporate farms do this through unhealthy land practices such as deforestation, farming with chemicals, and using excess manure and petrol for machines. These big companies also control processing, transportation, packaging and freezing.
Small farmers around the world are vested to their land. They tend to practice proper land management. Family farmers have less erosion, use fewer chemicals and are less likely to genetically modify their crops.
If you want to discourage food corporations, support our country's farmers, and eat healthier food--shop at your farmers market or your grocery store that sells local food.
PEG COFFEY
Fayetteville
Just let Trump govern
Lordy, Lordy, would the Democrat-Gazette print fake news? Naw! But yes, I think it did. In Tuesday's political cartoon, Donald Trump is depicted as some idiot laying on the deck of ship with no one at the helm, heading for Mar-a-Lago. How unfair can you be?
The facts are that President Trump is hosting China President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago this week. I cannot think of a more important meeting taking place. There are so many issues with China that need to be discussed: North Korea, the man-made islands in the South China Sea, the trade deficit with China, and many more.
Leave the guy alone and let him govern.
RUSS BAILEY
Little Rock
Owe so much to them
Let us give credit where credit is due. Hillary Clinton snatched defeat from the jaws of victory because white Democratic voters--college-educated women in five Rust Belt states--voted for Jill Stein of the Green Party. This voting bloc of white college-educated women voters had voted for Obama in the 2008 primary, and for Sanders in the 2016 primary.
Never have so many owed so much to so few!
To the white college-educated women Democratic voters of five Rust Belt states: America recognizes your role in the presidential elections of the year of 2016. Indeed, you are the actual "deplorables" of Hillary Clinton.
JOHN ROACH
Yellville
Positive and uplifting
Thank you, Bob Robinson, for the existential retreat found in the story about the new Buffalo River Trail extension. The positive and uplifting story about the trail, its origins, the work of volunteers, and the river itself, was a much-needed antidote to news dominated lately by political infighting, executions, and violent crime.
While some may believe it was a higher power (the SEC) that intervened to keep guns out of our sports arenas, "Hiker's Paradise" brought home where the higher power really works.
BRIAN SITES
Little Rock
Similar punishment
From the letters I read in the letters section, it looks like more people are against the execution of those that are to be executed in Arkansas than are for it. I don't believe that is true.
So many quote from the Bible about the Ten Commandments. Having read the Bible through, there are times God commands some to be killed. I think it is strange when people say it doesn't cause less killing. It certainly stops the one executed from killing again. Recently I read about a prisoner that was beaten and died in prison. So whether a person is kept in prison or let go, there is still an opportunity to kill.
My uncle was killed years ago, and the killer went to jail for three years. I know that it is a hard thing to have your family member be executed and not be able to communicate with them any longer, but how sad is it that a family member is killed and no longer with his family? Some of these men have lived 12 years or longer, and those that have had their family killed have lived 12 years or longer without their loved one, no love from them, no communication from them, no seeing them, and have lived with grief.
It is as if those who are against execution are saying killing someone that has killed serves no purpose. The purpose is punishment for killing, allowing a family to have closure that their family member died and the killer was punished in like manner. Some were killed in a violent manner, and then those on death row want to say their being killed is cruel.
RUTH CARNEAL
Calico Rock
Listen to constituents
I wanted to bring attention to the overwhelming power of the gun lobby in the Arkansas Legislature and why that is problematic to the overall role of what government should be.
In the government that the United States uses, the members of Congress are expected to listen to their constituents on the laws that are to be voted on and deliberated. Recently in Arkansas, I believe we have seen an epic failure of what the people want. This is in the form of the guns-on-campus law. Being a freshman in high school, I am greatly concerned because of how it allows people to carry guns on campus, but that is not why I write. I write because of what I saw happen at the state Capitol.
I watched a House Judiciary Committee meeting. The main thing on the agenda was the guns-on-campus bill. I watched as a campus police officer and the presidents of Arkansas colleges said to vote against this bill. These are people who would be affected by the passage of the bill. Then there was a vote called. The bill passed.
I realized that there is no more listening to constituents. It's only listening to the gun lobby. The gun lobby gives money to people who vote for guns. If people want to get re-elected, they vote for the gun bills.
We have the power. We have to use it. We have to stand up to the gun lobby.
BEN COGBILL
Little Rock
Big liars in our midst
Will the real liar in the Trump administration please stand up?
Oh my gosh! They all stood up. They were finally honest and didn't mean to be.
BOB MASSERY
Little Rock
Editorial on 04/07/2017