Correspondance
Farewell to September, hello to October – and with that our quarterly selection of reader correspondence and the columnist’s replies, edited for brevity, clarity and, in some cases, to meet community standards:
From Little Rock: “I reviewed my [hospital] bill and in addition to the usual outrageous (over)charges and unexplained items, it showed I was seen by three doctors on the morning I was discharged. Three. And a bill from each. I saw no doctors that morning, none. A nurse came in the room and I signed some papers and they wheeled me out to the driveway. Why don’t you report on this?”
Me: I just did. Sorta.
From Van Buren: “You are always giving [Gov. Asa] Hutchinson the benefit of the doubt…(Y)ou don’t seem to want to rip into him the way [a couple other Arkansas columnists] do. Where’s your spine?”
Me: It’s not a question of spine, though some examples of spinelessness might help here. Anyway and rather, the column provides a license I usually choose to not exercise. (I could point to a few exceptions I’ve made but the constant reader already is aware of them.) You see, I’m involved in other journalism venues that make advocacy in this space problematical, inappropriate. Were it not for those forums, and without necessarily referring to Mr. Hutchinson, I would feel unchained and unrestrained. But since you bring it up, I’m not altogether certain what I would do regarding a couple of issues were I in the governor’s place.
From Yellville: “Why don’t you and [some other columnists] give [Mr. Hutchinson] a break? What would you do when half the public is up in arms and the legislature is chock full o’ nuts?
Me: See answer above.
From Mansfield: “Half the Arkansas electors [for the 2020 GOP presidential nominee] were black, including our [Sebastian] county clerk. Another was the Washington County judge. Doesn’t that tell you something about increasing black support for Republicans in Arkansas?” Me: No.
From England: “You’ve bought the Fauci line all the way even when you know it [the novel coronavirus, Covid-19] doesn’t effect that many people, and the ones who get it get over it pretty quick…(I)t’s the flu, all gussied up.”
Me: I was unaware that any ailment could be “gussied up,” though I admit there is much I do not know, and even much about Covid-19 that the doctors, including Fauci, don’t know; it’s a learning process, and medicine’s understanding of the virus changes with time – as does, say, cancer treatment. I know this: A great many of the almost 500,000 Arkansans (some of them my kin) who’ve contracted Covid likely would have a starkly different definition of “pretty quick,” and the survivors of the 7,600 who’ve died of it, well…
From Marianna: “Maybe you’d think different about critical race theory if you bothered to read about it…(Y)ou’d be worried sick about your kids getting that junk poured in their heads.”
Me: I’ve actually read quite a bit about CRT though I can’t recall having written much about it, other than to confess dismay at the panic created by some politicians who obviously don’t understand it, and some who do but pretend not to. As for my kids, they’re grown; my fear for their kids, my grands, is that they won’t be exposed to ideas. (I have other fears for them as well.)
From Mountain View: “You need to stop writing like everybody in this corner of the state votes Republican…A bunch of us went two ways last year.”
Me: You’re right: not everybody, certainly not there in Stone County, where only 78 percent voted for the Republican presidential candidate and just 80 percent for the GOP’s incumbent U.S. Senator.
From Charleston: “Why don’t you drop the ‘objective’ baloney and admit you’re a Democrat?”
Me: Oh, I don’t know.
From Forrest City: “Aren’t you a little tired of carrying water for the #@&* Republicans?”
Me: Oh, I don’t know.
From Calico Rock: “Trout, sometimes they just hide. But at least the weather was good. Come on back.”
Me: Yes, they do. Yes, it was. Yes, I will. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Steve Barnes is a columnist with Editorial Associates in Little Rock.)