Of legal technicalities
In his column, "No time to shut up," Philip Martin wrote, "extreme actions of a fresh administration that gained power through what could fairly be styled a legal technicality." You are correct, Mr. Martin, and that "legal technicality" is called the Constitution of the United States.
I believe this is, in large part, what divides the nation today. There are those who regard the Constitution as a "legal technicality" if it inhibits your power to tell your inferiors in intelligence, education, and morals how to live their lives. However, you will torture and twist the words of the Constitution and wield it like a weapon to advance your particular agenda, e.g., the "right" of a man to use the women's bathroom, or abortion on demand. Others view the Constitution as the foundation upon which our republic rests and fear that any erosion or other tampering puts the entire structure of our nation at risk.
RANDY JOHNSON
Alexander
Mitigate food deserts
Throughout Arkansas, there are numerous "food deserts," or places with limited access to nutritious food, especially in the lower-income areas. Accordingly, these locations do not have access to transportation to obtain healthier food.
Three potential solutions to this problem are working with local farmers to implement a community garden, bringing in mobile farmers markets that will accept the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and educating people on how to reach their recommended nutrition on a budget.
The accessibility of nutritious food in lower socioeconomic areas is not what it should be, warranting the need for an ample solution. Community gardens alone run the risk of not being maintained by residents. Likewise, mobile markets can become costly when supporting large numbers of people for extended periods of time. One must reach out to organizations and churches that are willing to volunteer their time to run the markets. Though mobile markets can only come through towns once or twice a week, community gardens can make up for the gaps.
After these two solutions are implemented, people's lack of knowledge of how to utilize healthy foods is still a problem. In response to this facet of the issue, the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance has a team of individuals who are trained in teaching people how to make the most of the food they have. So, with all three of these solutions working in tandem, one could see how access to nutritious food in lower-socioeconomic status communities would increase.
KATLEE FREASIER
Alexander
Humanity cheapened
Re "Turing's Law": Alan Turing was by all accounts a brilliant, patriotic and complicated young man. Like all of us, he was some combination of good and evil, and his humanity is cheapened by the editorialist's characterization of him as someone simply "following his natural instincts."
In life, Turing was abused by the legal and medical professions. What a shame that now his memory is trivialized by journalism.
ALLAN STANFORD
Bryant
Editorial on 02/07/2017