Lyons going downhill

It’s a shame to see Gene Lyons’ op-eds go downhill with each week. First, his attempts to establish his “minority” bona fides by referring to his Irish ancestry — rather a dubious stretch of logic at best. If he was trying to negate or downplay the reality of white privilege, he failed.

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And now his two simplistic op-eds. In essence: socialism=bad, capitalism=good, Bernie Sanders=hippie, Hillary Clinton=savior of the world. Rather reminiscent of the sheep in “Animal Farm.” His screeds are becoming as partisan, reductionist and shallow as those of his Republican counterpart, Bradley Gitz.

Brad Bailey

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Fayetteville

From the web

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In response to John Kirk’s Feb. 4 cover story, “Arkansas and the ‘black power’ movement”:

What a thrilling story. Thank you, John Kirk, for teaching me so much about this aspect of the ongoing struggle for equality for African Americans in Arkansas. And thank you for all you do to enlighten us, and remind us that the struggle for civil rights for all is nothing near over.

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Rita Sklar

In response to the Feb. 4 A&E feature “How Little Rock’s Rachel Burks started a successful hip-hop label in Cameroon”:

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New Bell Music is a great success. Rachel and Jovi have given their all to Cameroon. What I know is, in the future, whether distant or near, New Bell will be known as the Cameroonian record label of the century. Prior to taking center stage, everyone in Cameroon knew only of JPS, based in France, and Boss Playa, also based in France, but today, there is no one who remembers those labels because New Bell is the new thing, completely and totally Cameroonian. Every other label in Cameroon is no doubt rated far behind New Bell Music and what is clear is, between New Bell Music and Cameroon, [the relationship] is a story of true love and of musical romance. Best wishes for the future!

Humphrey K. Gold

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In response to the Arkansas Blog post, “Clinton, Cruz lead in new Talk Business/Hendrix College poll”:

If asked, I would have predicted these results. Of course dumb Arkansas voters would go for the meanest Republican of the bunch. And the dumbest Arkansas voters on the other side will remember the Clinton name or vote for the female or never want to vote for a socialist even though there’s a big difference between a socialist and a democratic socialist. But really there’s only about 123 thinking adults in this state who know the difference. I need to say that I’m not implying you’re a dumb voter for supporting Hillary. I’d never say that.

We should all go vote, but none of us should expect happy results when the voting is done in Arkansas. Maybe 20 years from now, but not now. Over here on the left side of the state our little secret liberal group on Facebook is evenly divided between Hillary supporters and Bernie supporters. Most in this group are behaving in an adult fashion, but some are saying if their candidate isn’t the nominee they won’t vote in the presidential election in November. I’m telling them they have no right to call themselves Democrats if they think that way.

Not that it would have probably made any difference, I threw my vote away on Ralph Nader in 2000, and I’ll regret it the rest of my life. If the next president is a Republican, and if we don’t take back the Senate, it’s Game Over anyway. This is a super important election and I really, really care because of my children.

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I do think that if Trump starts giving speeches about how much he hates black people, Arkansas voters will jump ship from Cruz to Trump in a heartbeat. Watch for that to happen in the near future if Cruz comes in ahead of Trump in New Hampshire.

DeathbyInches

In response to the Arkansas Blog post, “Social entrepreneur writes about racism and lack of high-speed Internet in Dumas”:

I live 12 miles from the state’s flagship university and my Internet speeds are only marginally better than dialup. Just like with health care, Rx and cell phones, the U.S. pays exorbitantly more and receives less than the rest of the developed world. Keyword “developed” assumes we’re still a part of that fraternity.

JB

In my area, the only alternative to dial-up is a satellite connection. For those who have it, many are less than satisfied. Apparently it’s not nearly as fast as promised. Also, they cite lockouts for supposed over-usage — downloading an antivirus program the apparent culprit! — and more-than-occasional lack of service due to weather.

Back to dial-up: I don’t try to download even short clips now, something I could do in a few minutes with my first Internet connection maybe 20 years ago. I grumbled then, but if I could do that now, I’d probably fall to my knees and praise … something.

Doigotta

More problems that can be solved with bus tickets.

Gylippus

That could be any small town in Arkansas for both the slow or non-existent Internet speed, especially when school is out, and attitude of the locals.

Gylippus is apparently satisfied that our state’s claim to fame is that we aren’t Mississippi. I would think any taxpayer in this state would want the entire economic level of the state to rise, with more college graduates who actually can find jobs here that pay sufficient to support them and their family so the taxpayers aren’t. We know the biggest company in the world is another user of “business socialism,” in their case to have the taxpayer be their benefits department, and obviously they break the jobs down to such small segments that you don’t have to think to do them and [are] thus easy to replace if you don’t “behave.”

Diogotta, thanks for the comments about satellite TV. I get the mailers from DISH, but I know that you lose the TV picture every time it rains, even south of us or even if a rain-laden cloud floats by. I figured that also happened on their Internet service.

couldn’t be better

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