Letters to the editor

‘Bathroom Bill’ problem

Dear editor:

Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison got it half right when he said the “Bathroom Bill” addresses a problem that doesn’t exist. Actually, this law will create a bigger problem — and it has nothing to do with community economics. It could create chaos in all public restrooms.

Men who decide to become women — and vise versa — do so because they are not comfortable with the sex they were born with. So they go through major surgeries and hormonal treatments to become the person they want to be. Men don’t become women because they want to mess with little girls in the bathroom.

The problem this law will create is this: Let’s say your daughter is in a public ladies room and a person who looks like a man walks in. Now this man was born female — says so on his birth certificate. Is that going to make your little girl feel more comfortable?

And how are they going to enforce this law? Will we all be required to carry our birth certificates with us and show them to a bathroom monitor?

It may be trite, but it’s true. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

Bud Kenny Hot Springs

Eight quotes to ponder

Dear editor:

I was not actually there to hear these statements, but they are quoted by the

“crooked press:”

1. If you tell a lie big enough and often enough, it will be believed.

2. Don’t compare yourself to others. If you do, you are insulting yourself.

3. It is lucky for leaders that the people don’t think.

4. It is not truth that matters, but victory.

5. Great liars are also great magicians.

6. I don’t see why man should not be just as cruel as nature.

7. The winner will never be asked if he told the truth.

8. “I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think for themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it ‘truthful hyperbole.’ It’s an innocent form of exaggeration, and a very effective form of promotion.”

The first seven are attributed to Adolf Hitler, and number eight is quoted from a book written by our Number One.

C.G. Smith Hot Springs

Make media credible again

Dear editor:

In the early 1900s, William Randolph Hearst created the largest newspaper business in the world. By the 1920s, one out of four Americans was reading a Hearst newspaper. If you ran for president, you better talk to Mr. Hearst, because he controlled the editorials and political news in his papers and had a huge influence on voters.

Today, many major media outlets continue to believe that a U.S. president should ask for the media’s endorsement. In return, the president is expected to accept reporters and pundits inaccurate reports and speculation without calling them out.

The bias of organizations like The Associated Press, The New York Times, CNN and others who have attacked conservative presidents for many years has largely gone unchallenged. Presidents fumed privately about the press. But rarely challenged the media in public, for fear of retaliation … until now.

Now there’s a new reality. Yet the media have not shifted their thinking. Media corporations continue to destroy their own credibility by mixing journalism with opinion. Continuing to allow reporters to report without researching the facts, checking sources and adding opinions to the news is self destructive. Is the report factual or just opinion? It makes a difference. Here’s some “breaking news:” The voters no longer look to the main stream media to influence their decision on who should be the president.

Our new president is justifiably questioning the media’s impartiality. He challenges them and asks them to be fair. They respond by openly portraying opinions as “news.” He responds by using changing technology to speak directly to the citizens.

The Sentinel-Record has a great set of “Core Values” (see Page 2A). Mr. Hussman says, “Impartiality means reporting, editing, and delivering the news honestly, fairly, objectively, and without personal opinion or bias. … Impartiality is the greatest source of credibility.”

Our country needs a credible Fourth Estate. It would be great if Mr. Hussman could get all news media outlets to adopt and practice his Core Values.

John Gallagher Hot Springs Village

Suggested rewrite

Dear editor:

I would like to submit an abbreviated rewrite of Larry Bauer’s latest letter:

Have you ever heard so much whining and crying in your life from a U.S. president? The elite Mr. Trump normally gets his way. A few times lately he has not. This has resulted in him having temper tantrums befitting a spoiled child.

I know there are folks out there who think this behavior is great with some chanting “This is who he is.” What, acting like a child? I believe every time the adults, the people with common sense, see this idiocy and this behavior, the president loses more and more support — and he should.

Mr. Trump, you lost the popular vote, you make up alternate facts, you bully people who disagree with you and you still tell us how great and wonderful you are. There has never been a president in my lifetime that acted like that. I guess that is what happens when you have always had things given to you and never actually had to work for a living like most of us Americans.

I, for one, am hoping you keep acting like the self-centered, out-of-touch bully you are. Each and every day more and more people in the U.S. and around the world are seeing you for what you really are. If you are acting like a crybaby now, we can hardly wait to see what happens as your opposition grows daily. Perhaps you can call on your buddy Putin for some advice.

Gary Vogt Hot Springs Village

Votes tell values

Dear editor:

Our state newspaper prints a summary of congressional bills and items every Sunday with a list of how our Senate and congressional representatives chose to vote on each one. It should be required reading for anyone who wants to put forth an opinion or stay up to date on Washington. Outside of the fact that our two senators and four congressmen pretty much vote along party lines 95 percent of the time, it’s worth looking at.

Here are a couple from this week: Our national security-minded Sen. Tom Cotton voted against a measure (in other words to rescind or nullify a prior piece of legislation that had become law) that simply required the Social Security Administration to notify the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System when someone with a mental impairment was attempting to purchase a weapon. In other words, Cotton, who supports immigration restrictions and bans (which I don’t totally disagree with), is OK with a mentally ill person, as long as they’re a U.S. citizen, getting a firearm with ease.

Then there’s our local congressman, Bruce Westerman, with a pair of interesting votes. In one, he, like Cotton, voted to nullify or rescind a previous law involving Title X from providing some funds to Planned Parenthood. When you hear Planned Parenthood in a Republican quote, you are guaranteed to hear “abortion” in the same sentence, even though the organization receives zero federal funding for abortions. Even if they did, Republicans, who love to cut and slash social programs like unemployment benefits, welfare, food stamps, etc. (which I ironically agree with as well), never have the guts to address the fact that most of the recipients of those programs are the ones who could most use Planned Parenthood to stop the cycle of poverty that simply puts more people (the children they never should have had) into those programs in the next generation.

Finally, Westerman, a self-proclaimed advocate of wilderness, ecology and wildlife, hailing from The Natural State, voted to again nullify/ rescind a law that did prohibit the “shooting of grizzlies from aircraft, using steel traps on brown and black bears, and gassing wolves, including cubs in their dens.” What a sportsman and avid outdoor lover. The law that was nullified covered 77 million acres and 16 federal wildlife refuges.

I’m embarrassed to admit that, on at least one occasion, I voted for both Cotton and Westerman. The 2018 midterms can’t come soon enough.

Anthony Lloyd Hot Springs