A good senior center
I read Karen Martin's Sunday column and was so pleased with her support of seniors in Little Rock. We are sad that our city does not consider us worthwhile enough to help us keep a good senior center in which to work out and socialize.
I have been attending Carelink off 12th Street for a few years. When I joined, it was a bustling place with swim and land fitness classes. It was run by the Centers next door. Then Carelink bought it and started cutting classes and activities. Now, it is only open on Mondays and Wednesdays 9 to 1. They still provide lunches. I attend UAMS Fitness and Carelink every week.
I would love to have a facility like the Hays Center over here to keep us young in body and mind. It would be heavily attended.
Thank you, Karen, for your kind words.
ANDREA ROSSI MEURER
Little Rock
Double-dipping IRS
After doing my taxes, I am furious. I started paying into Social Security in 1957, and now IRS is taxing me for drawing it. We always called this double-dipping. It's my money, I earned it and invested it, and now am being taxed to use it!
BILL PICH
Hazen
Appropriate measures
I read the letter from Mark Bernthal in Thursday's paper. He thinks the response to the coronavirus pandemic is overblown and the disease will just run its course if only we use common sense. He thinks it won't ever be as bad as H1N1, which infected 50 million and killed 10,000 by December 2009.
Using those figures, the H1N1 fatality rate was 0.02 percent. Fatality rate for coronavirus (covid-19) is estimated to be around 1 percent with a functioning health-care system. That is 50 times worse than H1N1. In Wuhan, the initial fatality rate was around 14 percent, partly because a rapid surge in cases overwhelmed the system. That is why drastic measures are appropriate.
JEFFREY BARBER
Little Rock
Baby boom to come
The current covid-19 prevention conditions are favorable for large numbers of births in December 2020 and the months to follow. The increased home confinement, job and school closures, reduced travel, lack of social interaction, reduction of sports to attend and view, closure of gyms and spas, reduced supply and availability of contraceptives, and boredom are likely to contribute to increased pregnancies and births.
The biological clocks are ticking for there to be a surge of babies popping out like popcorn in the microwave. Although many of those older confined adults are beyond the reproductive years, the younger members of society who think they are invincible will likely make up the sexual and reproductive difference. This may go down in history as the generation explosion greater than that of the soldiers' return from World War II.
Earth has 7.6 billion people, 5 billion more than can be sustained at the European standard of living. If 7.6 billion people were to stand on each other's shoulders, it would make 34 columns of people from Earth to the moon. Each person needs natural resources and a healthy environment to live. Scientists estimate that the yearly supply of natural resources was used up by August in 2019. The human pyramid scheme does not seem to concern politicians and leaders because exponential reproduction beyond sustainability creates more supply-side economic demands and stimulates the economy.
We can hope that those sexually active will use reproductive constraints during this crisis. Most likely, many will not be able to afford more children in an economic downturn and increased debt.
JERRY DAVIS
Hot Springs
Relax, act like adults
On average we have, in this country, 450 auto deaths a week, 1,350 drug overdose deaths a week, 3,268 accidental deaths a week and 765 gun deaths a week, for a total of approximately 5,800 deaths a week in these four categories. At this writing, since last Friday (one week), we've had 109 deaths in the U.S. due to the coronavirus.
I don't know about you, but seems to me we are overreacting in spades. We're printing another $1 trillion (so far) to "combat" the virus. Why don't we just relax, look at China where it's fizzling out with only about 3,250 deaths total, and behave in a more adult fashion?
REG EDWARDS
Compton
Greed to be punished
It is understood that many schoolchildren depend on school meals for their only food supply, and that there are many adults who are being financially affected very badly by the virus. On the other hand, there are the hoarders, wiping the shelves and meat counters clean as though they fear that the virus is going to end their ability to sickeningly gorge themselves. They are the swine that spoil the land, far worse than those raised on hog farms. They are a disgusting blight on our nation, on humanity itself, and there is a consequence that they will face for their lust to satisfy themselves at the expense of others less fortunate.
As the Bible tells us, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap." They may not go hungry now or ever in the sense of bodily nourishment, but their self-gratifying, me-first greed will come back on them in some way they least expect; whether with illness, family troubles, at their jobs, in their travels, or maybe not until they step into eternity, but as surely as the night follows day, the wrath of God is going to fall on them with a vengeance.
JACK MAYBERRY
Sheridan
Editorial on 03/20/2020