Orval OK

One of my coworkers recently showed me the Orval comic about racial references on Fox News. She found it offensive. She is African-American and thought you used “poor taste” in portraying Fox News. I’m a well-educated man and I tried to show her that you were merely criticizing Fox and Mike Huckabee, not criticizing African-Americans.

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I got in a debate with her about it so I figured I would let you know that I enjoyed the comic and think that my co-worker is ignorant.

She obviously has never watched a political debate in her life. She says she is voting for Obama because “It’s the black man’s turn.” That is her only reasoning. She blames President Bush solely for the rise in gas prices

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I think a problem with race relations today is a lack of understanding. You were not being racist, the characters in your cartoon were. And the purpose was satire. If I’m wrong let me know and I’ll apologize to my co-worker.

Chris Brissey

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Maumelle

 

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As political cartoons are wont to do, the Orval strip from June 19 wound up in my inbox, along with a generous, if somewhat frustrated, response from the Arkansas Times about the ambiguity of satire.

This is just a note to thank you for publishing Orval. I agree that the bent of the author seems obvious, and that the strip itself is an indictment of the Fox (I like to pronounce that as Faux) News Network and Mike Huckabee.

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I do hope that you have not been bombarded with accusations of racism, but if you have, I thank you for weathering them and being brave enough to publish this strip, particularly in Arkansas.

Franzie Moore

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From the Internet

New attitude needed

Thank you for the Leslie Newell Peacock article about potential recycling opportunities in the River Market. One statement, about “any money to be made,” irks me. Since when does a benefit to the environment — to posterity — have to make money?

We need to change our attitude. We have to be able to have benefits we pay for. We can’t create more land for landfills.

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Larry Golden

Mountain Home

Fond memories

I imagine Bob Lancaster as been inundated with letters about John Noah’s in Pine Bluff, but add another one to the pile.

My own memory of the place involves that massive lumber mill, or whatever it was, just to the west a bit. That thing was as mysterious as a spaceport in one of my Andre Norton sci-fi novels. It was the biggest whatever-it-was I’d ever seen. Monticello had nothing to match it.

I’ve always been impressed with the Muleriders as a mascot, but coming as I do from Monticello where the local institution of higher learning’s mascot was a boll weevil, I was able to remain excessively elitist about Monticello. My dad thought it was the finest town around so I naturally believed that as well. I mean, he left Locust Bayou to live there. End of discussion. We only drove Chevys so Chevys were the best. Obviously.

The clincher was where we went to church. We believed we were the only folks going to heaven. That’s purty elitist.

Well, as the years have gone by, it has come to my attention that Dermott, McGehee, Hamburg and all the rest think highly about their towns as well. There’s no accounting for taste. So these last seven years have been a breath of fresh air for us true elitist folks. Once again we were God’s chosen looking down on the rest of the Evil Empire.

I just don’t know what we’ll do if Obama gets in. I mean, he talks to anybody.

Bob, keep on a-writin’. When’s we gonna git back to the dawgpeter gnats? That’s VERY elitist.

Daniel Coston

Fayetteville

Nervous breakdown

Your condemnation of capital punishment was (and is) of course completely undermined by your support of legalized abortion which is merely capital punishment of the completely innocent without benefit of trial, appeal or even indictment. If anyone seriously doubts that this entire country is on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown, he need only casually peruse the Arkansas Times.

J. Fred Hart Jr.

Little Rock

McCain: more of same

I can’t believe that the same people who voted for George Bush are now thinking of voting for John McCain. Our country is in a war that should never have been fought, while ignoring the people who did attack this country. McCain is still fighting the Vietnam war in his mind. He talks of winning the war in Iraq, didn’t he get the memo that George Bush accomplished that mission some time back? Iraq is under occupation by the United States, so how can McCain keep saying, “We won’t come home until there is victory in Iraq”? I thought you declared war on a country, not a group of people. It seems this administration looks upon all people in the Middle East who disagree with the U.S. as terrorists. 

Sandra West

Monticello

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