Letters

Paris pullout support

Last week the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette printed its third attempt at rationalizing the Trump administration's pullout of the Paris Climate Accord. I find it much more than ironic that your editor would champion such an abdication of responsibility in view of your long-standing position that "We the People" should rule.

In case you haven't read the latest surveys, almost 70 percent of registered voters believe we should participate. So why would you believe it acceptable to substitute your wisdom for that of we the people? Do you know something the rest of us don't, or is it just blind support of the Republican Party (the Trump administration) regardless of the will of the people?

I'm betting it's the latter.

JERRY W. BRADSHAW

North Little Rock

What's the kerfuffle?

This letter is directed to Paul Greenberg, Brenda Looper, American journalists, and to all Arkansans who are concerned with vocabulary in today's politically volatile climate.

To you folks I present two words.

The first is "covfefe." Remember that uproar of two weeks ago? President Trump's tweet about "constant negative press covfefe" produced a convulsive splash of commotion, disturbance, fuss, bother, and general hoo-hah.

Though I am not of the same political persuasion as the president, I think we really need to cut him some slack on this issue: He tweeted a really appropriate word, and he is not the first person to use a bizarre phonetic system to spell out a word that he had never seen written down anywhere. He must have heard someone from the South (Jefferson Sessions, perhaps?) say what sounded like "kuhv-FUHF-fuh" (the president didn't hear the final "l" sound--kuh-FUF-fuhl). If you speak Arkansan, you know that the president used "kerfuffle" perfectly--even though his spelling may have been a wee bit inventive.

The second word goes out to all American journalists: Heaven itself has delivered unto you a president who can redeem a powerful English language word that has long languished in unwarranted underuse: Are any of you sick of the past seven months of presidential "trumpery"?

DAVID G. LARSON

Conway

Trust in government

On CBS News the other day, I watched them talk about Putin and how he lies about interfering in the U.S. elections. It seems our own news outlets twist and turn the truth about things to fit their own agenda rather than report just facts. Then on top of that we have to be naïve if we think the United States government doesn't do the same thing.

Our senator from Utah cannot even get the truth from the White House, so how can we be so smug as to think more highly of ourselves than others? Look how our government spies on its own people. We know about that.

I don't trust our government one whit.

HARRY HOHENSTEIN

Searcy

Words we'd forgotten

I saw it splayed across the TV screen during a Phyllis Speer Cooking on the Wild Side show: "Polk Salad." I suppose some citified youngster that made up that graphic would also "buy a pig in a polk." An even more correct term would be "poke sallet."

Some other words we may have forgotten or never knew.

Grandma: Not just a name for the mother of a parent but also the lowest gear on a stick-shift vehicle as in "Put 'er in grandma, Billy Bob, iffen ye wants to git up this hill."

Nobby: Stylish, elegant or noble. A nobby person would not defame grandma by naming a gear after her.

Hoop Snake: A mythical varmint that supposedly could form itself into a hoop and chase frightened humans by rolling downhill. No reports of it ever rolling uphill.

Hat Pin: A long sharp pin that could keep a lady's hat from flying away, or put out the eye of a human varmint.

Hogleg: Not an appendage of a farm animal, but a large-caliber revolver. As the outlaw Josey Wales might have snarled (in the movie of the same name) to a trio of northern pursuers, "Y'all going to draw them hoglegs or just stand there and whistle Dixie?" just prior to dispatching them with his own hogleg. Might have said, that is, if the screenwriter had been familiar with the term.

Black Draught: A strong laxative tea which was, along with castor oil, used to punish defenseless children.

Source: (Mostly) W.R. Runyan's 1,001 Words And Phrases (You Never Knew You Didn't Know) with some liberties taken in the definitions by yours truly.

JOHN McPHERSON

Searcy

Sold soul for pittance

It seems U.S. Republicon Sen. John Boozman sold us out and sold his soul for $149,930. I guess that's not considered a bad haul for a no-name senator from a backwater state. But a Judas he is, nonetheless. He sold out our and his grandchildren's future for the paltry sum of less than $150,000. That money will be spent in a heartbeat, but the damage done from his call to exit the Paris Climate Accord will reverberate for generations to come.

For a party so concerned with unborn babies, it appears Republicons show callous disregard about the children already on the earth. With leadership from senators like John Boozman, contaminated water, filthy air and a planet stripped bare for profit is our future.

Heck of a job, John Boozman. You are doing well for your overlords and masters, the Koch brothers, et al. But to you, I say if you value money over the life of our planet and all of us who live on it, you are a pathetic specimen of a man.

SHERI HANSON

Eureka Springs

Editorial on 06/14/2017

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