Bumpy road ahead
Dear editor:
As an Amazon driver, I get to travel a lot of the streets here in Hot Springs. I know it's been around six months since we passed the extension of a tax specifically designed to do road improvement and paving.
Can anyone tell me what's been done? I haven't seen any. In fact, the roads are in worse condition. Several companies from out of state have been digging lines for some type of cable and left the streets a bumpy patchwork quilt of depressions, potholes, and cutouts. Do their contracts contain any sort of clause pertaining to them compensating city road crews for having to repair the mess they leave behind?
On Central Avenue, from the intersection of Belding past Trivista, all the way to Golf Links, it is like off-roading. Terrible bumps and potholes. I know city officials will tell you that's a highway under state purview, but isn't it their job to pressure ArDOT to put that on their schedule?
In short, I suspect now that voters were conned into extending said tax, and our city leaders and board really didn't have a plan or clue moving forward. They just wanted the funds to keep flowing.
We've never had the best or the brightest running this city. Yet they continue to fool us taxpayers with their promises. What does that say about us?
R.B. Keener
Hot Springs
Blessings upon blessings
Dear editor:
Abilities Unlimited is so very wonderfully surprised and honored to receive The Sentinel-Record Reader's Choice Award for the Best Non-Profit Organization of 2022. In May, we thanked the community for voting us the Organization of the Year through the Chamber of Commerce and needless to say we are again blessed beyond measure to be acknowledged in another extremely meaningful way -- thank you Hot Springs and The Sentinel-Record!
AUI doesn't take lightly our mission to serve others or the community support we have received for the past 61 years. We are grateful for and blessed by the opportunity to serve such wonderful individuals in a community so rich with a magnitude of resources and support. I have believed for a long time that the favor of God is on our organization so we are most grateful to Him. Every day at AUI is a unique and great day!
Aside from the fact that I am a two-time employee of AUI and love working with and beside the best folks, I have always been a supporter of AUI from the first moment I toured the organization upon moving to Hot Springs in 1985. It has been said of AUI "This is the best-kept secret in Hot Springs" and "Very impressive" by those who visit us and "To know you is to love you" and "What's not to love" by the developmentally disabled adults we serve, their families, special needs students in six school districts that we also serve and volunteers. We are family!
Again, we are humbled, blessed, grateful and honored by your nominations, votes and the awards. If you would like to know more about AUI please schedule a visit or give us a call at 501-767-8400 and tell your friends, family and neighbors to check us out too in person, at http://www.abilitiesunlimitedhotsprings.com or on Facebook.
Lynn Brooks Hargis
AUI program coordinator
No, it's not OK
Dear editor:
Wildlife continues to be killed to appease the livestock/agricultural industry; countless animals are killed by the very agencies designed to protect them; wildlife killing contests continue; and hunting on national refuges is allowed.
None of this has anything to do with conservation or science. It is about greed and privatization of our public lands.
Montana FWP has released their newest kill bills designed to wipe out even more wolves. This is a keystone species and states are driving them to extinction.
None of this is OK. People talk about saving our wildlife and lands for future generations. Something needs to happen now before it's gone within a few years.
Mary Shabbott
Hot Springs
An honest opinion
Dear editor:
Abortion should be put away into the museum for medieval torture practices. I agree a woman's body is her body as well as her responsibility to take care of her body.
The Hollywood elites can start a national fund to make sure all women have birth control access as well as the morning after pill. Pregnancy prevention is a responsibility. It is 2022 and abortion is no longer needed in light of advanced medical technology.
Also, it is morally evil for children to be born that will never be fully loved and fully taken care of. Every day when you read the newspaper's crime section, you see and read the devastation of broken children.
Enough is enough, as we are facing perilous times. Russia and China are laughing over our tribal warfare and division. Russia and China don't care about our problems and our woke pandemic. They see history is ripe for the taking and they will surely seize it as America is burning to the ground over trivial matters. Wake up people, we are running out of time. God have mercy.
Michael P. Lucas
Hot Springs
The downhill slide
Dear editor:
One of the Court's arguments in overturning Roe v. Wade was that abortion was not in the Constitution, but neither are corporations, yet the Court managed to make a far-fetched stretch to use the Constitution to get corporations personhood.
There is also nothing in the Constitution granting justices lifetime appointments, nor the need to impeach to get rid of one, just that they may "serve during times of good behavior."
The Constitution also states that they shall "operate under such rules as set by Congress," but they have taken on the role of the first branch of government, the Legislative branch. This came about in 1803 with the Marbury v. Madison decision and the people were so outraged that they didn't try to create or repeal legislation again until 1856 with Dredd Scott, which President Lincoln ignored and said it only applied to poor Mr. Scott but that it would not stretch further, so they didn't again until at least the 1970s when Lewis Powell (The Powell memo) was appointed by Nixon to the Court and we saw the beginning of the legalization of political bribery and the corruption of the Supreme Court.
Their 2010 decision, Citizens United, was the Coup d'état that granted corporations personhood and the rest is history and a downhill slide for democracy.
Judith Zitko
Hot Springs Village
'We the people'
Dear editor:
"We the people" is the start of the Preamble to our Constitution. Our nation was set up by our founders, to be supported and monitored by its people. They are to participate and help carry out the vision of promoting the general welfare, and liberty and justice for all.
On Jan. 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan said, "The government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Reagan committed himself and his administration to the idea that "the government" was separate. He threw aside the government and Constitution he had sworn to preserve and protect. From day one, Ronald Reagan violated his oath of office as the Republicans that followed.
We have Republicans that put Party first and nation last. Reagan started the destruction of this nation and democracy with his philosophy to use the government to get all you can, but don't give anything back. For 42 years, the Republicans have followed this, shoveling money to the rich with incentives and tax breaks by eliminating tax deductions for the middle class and increasing the national debt. They have opposed the civil rights, voter rights acts, human rights, Medicare, Equal Rights Amendment, clean air, and clean water acts, and the Endangered Species Act, to mention a few. People under 40 years old have never seen a functioning government or a Republican Party that used to work for the best for the country. They used to help with legislation that benefited the whole country and not just selfish and self-serving. For 40 years, the Republicans have thrown out their oath of office, morals, ethics, and have continued the self-serving, put party above country, get all you can, help the rich, and to heck with the rest.
"We the people" must purge those with this mentality. We need to return civics to our schools and foster the next generations with the desire for public service, and the knowledge of how they are supposed to help. They need to know that our government is supposed to be for all the people. Everyone must be involved with selfless purpose, and not self-serving interests. The problem is identified, and the solutions realistically will never be implemented any more than we will ever achieve "liberty and justice for all." This is because we have "me the people" and the "give it to me now" generations, rather than a "we the people" generation. But our nation and democracy are at risk, and we must keep trying.
Jerry Davis
Hot Springs