Opinion
Times Editorial : Drying up
Listen, we could sit here and talk all day long about the multitudinous ways government crosses the line by attempting to interfere with individual rights as citizens. Having said that, doing what reasonably can be done to restrict a young student’s access to soft drinks at school does not qualify as worrisome or unconstitutional. Act 1220 of 2003, which was signed into law by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, was a noble effort aimed at battling childhood obesity. One requirement demands school districts remove vending machines from elementary schools, shut them down during certain periods of the day at other schools and “reduce school dependence on profits from the sale of foods of minimal nutritional value.” Make no mistake about it: Arkansas’ ongoing efforts to promote healthy food and drinks is the type of forward-thinking, progressive measure Arkansas isn’t readily known for. Huckabee’s push to make tomorrow’s adults fit and healthy is one of the key accomplishments of his decade in office. - Wednesday, July 23, 2008
TABLE FOR ONE : Just you look
Grady Jim Robinson GradyJim@aol.com
It appears that both Barack Obama and the Bush administration are flip-flopping. “Appears” may be the key word here. Actually, it’s the rigid stay-the-courseand-never-admit-you’re-wrong Republicans who invented the flip-flop card. To a conservative thinker even informed change is flipflopping. That’s the way they think. If George Will changed his helmet hair William Kristol would scream “flip-flopper !” They nailed John Kerry with that tag in 2004 and the voting public fell for it. Now they are trying to stamp that same tag on Obama, assuming the flip-flopper tag is a detriment. - Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Guest Commentary : In marriage debate, divorce church from state
BY CHARLES C. HAYNES First Amendment Center
Suddenly this summer, the reality of same-sex couples lining up to get married in California has led some religious leaders to rethink their government role. - Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Troubling News
State Department workers who snooped on presidential candidates’ passport records lost their jobs, but they apparently weren’t alone in indulging their curiosity. - Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Times Editorial : Sticker crazy
Last week, John McCain proposed a $5,000 tax credit to Americans willing to purchase a zero carbon emission car. On Sunday, former Vice President Al Gore (you know, the guy who won the presidency but, well, never mind... ) was on “Meet the Press” to discuss all his ideas for saving the planet. Maybe it’s just us, but we can recall a time when most readers/viewers could have cared less about such things. Today, observers can’t seem to get enough. What changed? - Tuesday, July 22, 2008
JUST A THOUGHT : Dead? Or dying?
Scott Shackelford scotts@nwarktimes.com
Jeannine Wagar is suffering from a broken heart. - Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Letters to the editor
Greenland survives the storm As the city clerk for Greenland I would like to take a moment to share a few words of praise and appreciation. The last few months were very grim, and for me, I can honestly say I was unsure of the city of Greenland’s future and if there was even going to be one. The worries of losing our school was overwhelming to so many who live here, and I was really unsure of the outcome — but what I have witnessed in the last few weeks to me was heartwarming. - Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Times Editorial : Just do it
According to Dr. Paul Halverson, director of the Arkansas Department of Health, the leading cause of death of people between the ages of 1 and 44 in Arkansas is injury. Add that realization to Arkansas being home to the highest rates of motor vehicle accidents in the country, and that children’s deaths from motor vehicle accidents in Arkansas tend to double the national average. - Monday, July 21, 2008
ROOTS & WINGS : The Christian biblical political agenda
Lowell Grisham lgrisham@arkansasusa.com
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, ... all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” (Matthew 25:31) Is there a Christian political agenda? - Monday, July 21, 2008
Letters to the editor
Friends, family make the difference I rented the movie “Stop-Loss” the other night. The movie’s main story is about a soldier who is involuntary retained by the Army under “Stop-Loss.” Beyond the main story, however, is the story of this soldier’s father and mother and his best friend’s girlfriend who has been waiting to get married for five years. Their story is my story. - Monday, July 21, 2008
The biggest tragedy
Few believed Afghanistan would become peaceful overnight. But even fewer imagined the negative trend we have recently witnessed. The increasing number of civilian deaths is a serious reminder of the high price paid by the Afghan people for the conflict between President Hamid Karzai’s government and international forces on one side and the Taliban-inspired rebels and their allies on the other. - Monday, July 21, 2008
Letters to the editor
Why Coody deserves a third term - Sunday, July 20, 2008
Times Editorial : Dead ends
Don’t you just hate it when you’re already late and trying to find the way to someone’s house, or merely escape from a neighborhood, and embark down a seemingly ordinary path that turns out to be a dead end? (They’re also known as cul-de-sacs to people in the know.) We realize that it only takes a couple seconds to wheel the car around, go back in the direction from whence you came, and try your hand again. But having to do so is highly annoying. - Sunday, July 20, 2008
WHAT GIVES : A knock on the door
Greg Harton gregh@nwarktimes.com
My first “real job” as a teenager came along a bit unexpectedly. - Sunday, July 20, 2008
THE BROADER VIEW : Presidential comparisons Are they valid?
Hoyt Purvis email@nwarktimes.com
We like to compare presidential candidates to those who have previously served as the nation’s chief executive. - Sunday, July 20, 2008
Times Editorial : Fight, fight, fight
Mayor Coody touts the city’s trail system as one of his top accomplishments during his first two terms in office. As he develops his campaign in his quest for a third term, it seems to us that he needs to go beyond the rhetorical flourishes about the expansion of our beautiful trails system and advocate a funding increase for this important resource. Since his administration is now in the early stages of developing next year’s budget, this would be a good time to speak up. - Saturday, July 19, 2008
MODERN TIMES : The sustainability revolution
Art Hobson ahobson@uark.edu
“Our leaders were instructed to be men of vision and to make every decision on behalf of the seventh generation to come; to have compassion and love for those generations yet unborn. We were instructed to give thanks for all that sustains us.” Thus spoke the Native American Faithkeeper, Chief Oren Lyons, in his address to the 1992 United Nations opening of “The Year of the Indigenous Peoples.” The classic definition of “sustainable development” was coined in 1983 as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” But Chief Lyons’ formulation, passed down since at least the time of the American Revolution when an Iroquois chief spoke of the seventh generation in similar terms, strikes me as a more passionate and precise statement of this concept. It asks us to have compassion and love for our children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children — the generation that will be born around 2130. - Saturday, July 19, 2008
Letters to the editor
God and ignorance The July 12, 2008 letter by Anne Britton falsely accuses Art Hobson of not having an open mind about creationism being taught in the public school classroom. Mr. Hobson is correct that creationism, intelligent design and any other religious beliefs are not science. Unlike the Christian religion, science is not authoritarian. The writings of an ancient book, as Mr. Hobson correctly pointed out in a previous column, or the beliefs of a former eminent scientist are irrelevant if subsequent information shows they are wrong. Science is self-correcting and subject to change with more accurate information. There would be no point to science inquiring into natural phenomena, if, when unable to answer a question, an explanation were given that the phenomena was all the result of the work of some supernatural deity. Science is not science when supernaturalism is added. - Saturday, July 19, 2008
Guest Commentary : A disastrous budget process
BY LEE H. HAMILTON
Congress has slipped into uncharted and dangerous waters this summer. According to the rule books, this should be a time when the federal budget gets scrutinized and pieced together by a broad array of congressional committees and members on the floor. The last time Congress actually played by these rules for all of its spending bills was 14 years ago. This year, it’s barely even trying. - Friday, July 18, 2008
Times Editorial : What a bright idea!
The War Powers Act of 1973 has been ignored into oblivion and needs to be replaced — or so say two former secretaries of state, both of whom believe the country’s legislative and executive branches must develop an improved sense of trust and consultation before America again entertains the idea of entering into war. - Friday, July 18, 2008
Guest Commentary : For better or worse, wild wild Web being fenced in
BY GENE POLICINSKI First Amendment Center
At some point in history, America’s Wild West became the Less-Wild West — with the rule of law taking over from the justice of the six-shooter, with codified norms of society replacing the often-unbridled ethics of frontier life. - Friday, July 18, 2008
Guest Editorials : Stop passing the buck
In February, two Miller County Jail inmates got out through a hole in the roof. Then in April, three inmates used a hacksaw to escape from the jail. - Thursday, July 17, 2008
HATCHET : No ‘I’m Loving It’ Jokes Please
Lucas Roebuck lucas@roebuckcompany.com
Iget all sorts of e-mail from a wide spectrum of conservative and religious advocacy groups telling me of the latest outrage in the American culture war. Usually, most of these messages end up on the lethal end of my delete key for two reasons. First, even though I am sympathetic to the causes of many of these groups, I am weary of the intentional omissions, out-of-context quotes, and other appeals to ignorance that activist groups of all political strips often rely on. - Thursday, July 17, 2008
Guest Commentary : Billions for war, peanuts for disaster
BY SAUL LANDAU Minuteman Media
The richest country in the world should do something to help people,” a woman resident of New Orleans told me in mid June. “Bush and them spend more money in one week in Iraq than it would take to fix up all our homes.” Two plus years after Katrina, only 133,966 out of almost 200,000 households in Orleans Parish could receive mail and only 40 percent of pubic schools had reopened. She shook her head. “Just look at this place.” Everyone remembers the August 2005 TV images of the 9th Ward, showing people floating in rising waters, others waiting helplessly in the streets. No response from government agencies. Dead bodies festered in the summer sun. - Thursday, July 17, 2008
A health care crisis
While politicians have been debating endlessly over the best ways to reform the American health care system, the plight of American patients has rapidly worsened. A new national survey found that an alarming 20 percent of the population, some 59 million people in all, either delayed or did without needed medical care last year, a huge increase from the 36 million people who delayed or did not seek care in 2003. - Thursday, July 17, 2008
Times Editorial : Greenland survives
In the end, the Arkansas Board of Education decided to give the Greenland School District a new lease on life rather than close its doors forever and push a forced annexation on a neighboring school district. As the good news crept out of Little Rock on Monday, thousands across Northwest Arkansas breathed a sigh of relief. So did we. - Wednesday, July 16, 2008
TABLE FOR ONE : Quarterbacks
Grady Jim Robinson GradyJim@aol.com
Apparently Brett Favre, the retired Green Bay legend, got wind of Mayor Dan Coody’s dramatic announcement seeking a third term as mayor and decided to come out of retirement for another season with the Packers. - Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Letters to the editor
Simply the best Thank you Mayor Dan for deciding to run again! Before you opponents and critics can say it, I want to say that you have not been the perfect mayor throughout your two previous terms. However, I think that you have done a great job for Fayetteville as a whole, and clearly you are the best “horse” in this race. - Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Maybe next time
Sparse. That’s probably the best description regarding the attendance of a Fayetteville Board of Education round-table meeting held July 8 at the Woodland Junior High School cafeteria. Scheduled for the second Tuesday of each month, the discussion was the first of a series of six planned meetings designed to allow the public to interact with board members and learn about issues facing the district. - Wednesday, July 16, 2008