A worrisome weasel
Dear editor:
Alas, one of our very own village people is beset with a worrisome weasel affectation affliction. Maladies like his once festered only along the squishy backwater fringes where free-range bigots roamed, and where Bible-thumping grifters peddled get-rich schemes and fevered fantasies about the end of the world.
Most of the rest of us were routinely inoculated against the contagion of obsessive weasel affectation affliction (OWAA, pronounced oh-wah-ah). It only took a few quaint progressive notions to keep the disease quarantined -- education, science, reason, and an odd little commandment to love thy neighbor like thyself. But it was all bitter medicine for bitter regressives with deranged visions of socialists dancing in their heads.
And then, a clarion call to arms. A black man moved into the White House, and the cancer of OWAA suddenly metastasized into a white-hot plague of spittle-flying fury and name-calling.
Remember John Birchers? Bob Dylan sang their virtues in "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues." Seems these same John Birchers believed Eisenhower was a commie. Some still do. Ironic, n'est pas? that their tangerine President is probably a Russian asset.
Trump has reptilian instincts for fomenting OWAA. He divides our American house against itself, breeding fear and loathing against fast-changing cultural landscapes. A divided house cannot stand, but it can sure as hell pay for that big, beautiful wall Mexico was supposed to pay for.
Where else, but behind such impossible walls, can crouching racists dream of a white-power America from sea to shining sea?
America is getting poorer. America is getting sicker. America is getting left behind. How's that unregulated capitalism thing working out for most of you? Want to make America great again? Maybe it's time to try some good old-fashioned democratic socialism after all.
John Ragland
Hot Springs
A different generation
Dear editor:
I would like to comment on the great letter sent in by Dennis Brown recently. His views on police shootings recently were on the money contrary to the current opinions of the national media and protesters. Obviously, he and I were raised in a different generation where we were taught to show respect to all adults, police, firemen and others in authority. That includes doing as you are told, like it or not ... sometimes having to bite your lip to do so.
Technology, the internet and social media provide too much info, too fast for individuals to process properly. With the onslaught of information and parents both working or just not caring to properly raise their children they are growing up without a sense of direction, without virtues to live by or respect for others. Common sense seems to be nonexistent.
I won't get into the liberal educational system that has "devolved."
C.O. Stover
Hot Springs
Newspapers' decline
Dear editor:
I disagree with The Washington Post version of why newspapers are declining. I do agree we are headed toward a doom-and-gloom future. I remember the 2016 election when media sources became weaponized by a political party against other candidate(s). In my opinion, this marked the end of public trust in media including newspapers.
How shall we save ourselves from doom and gloom? I have a concept called Adam Brown's Liberty Bell act, which could help restore balance and trust in the fourth estate. I cannot describe this concept due to space constraints. The purpose of this letter is to generate an open dialogue of cooperation.
Conclusively, I believe The Washington Post should admit fault in assisting the destruction of our Republic by abusing our constitutional safeguards. Instead of doom and gloom, we should work toward a boom of liberty and a room full of freedom or we can keep silent and do nothing as our Republic continues declining into oblivion.
Michael P. Lucas
Hot Springs
Editorial on 03/18/2019