Arkansas Life

Letters to the Editor

Katie.bridges@arkansasonline.com

REASONS NOT TO LOVE ARKANSAS

As a newcomer to the State, I was interested in your March 2013 “50 Reasons To Love Arkansas.”  It turned out to be more whimsical than informative. Some “reasons,” however, are in fact a turn off. The Editor should be sensitive to the fact that not all Arkansas Life readers are the mindless cheerleaders Tyson, Walmart, hunters, religious grifters, and other special interests would like Arkansas to be. This said, let me address each objectionable reason, not for publication but for your edification:

14. Because there’s a town that runs on turkeys.

Ozark, Arkansas, takes pride in proclaiming that its largest employer, Butterball LLC, processes (i.e., “butchers”) 45,000 turkeys every single day – read that number again – and many more around Thanksgiving. Even if every one of its 450 employees worked in the slaughterhouse, which they don’t, this would amount to 100 birds per person. Do people capable of such bloodletting make their town endearing? To who?

15. ... and another that drops them from the sky.

Yellville’s annual “Turkey Trot” features live turkeys – i.e., flightless birds capable of feeling terror and pain – tossed from aircraft by pilots who should have their licenses revoked or better yet, be tossed themselves from the plane.  Those who sanction wanton cruelty are no better than the perpetrators, and Yellville, well ... one would have to venture into the rainforests of Papua New Guiney to find such primitive, albeit more sensitive, people.

18. Because more than 40 million waterfowl descend on Eastern Arkansas each and every year.

Without probing the accuracy of your numbers, the fact is that the “welcoming” committee shoots down 1.1 million ducks and geese each and every year, according to the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, which of course knows nothing of unreported kills by hunters and poachers.  Double the number? Arkansas kills by far more Mallards, for instance, than any other state in the nation. Nonhunters find the annual carnage of waterfowl and all other “game” animals anything but loveable.

22. Because we have possibly, definitely, maybe extinct birds.

This is Alice-in-Wonderland weird. But if it is meant to amuse, there is nothing funny about extinction. Especially not in a state where hunting is a cult, camouflage paisley is the state flag, and hunting season sounds like a bad day in Damascus.

No, you cannot have “maybe extinct birds” ... but the last survivors of any species would do well to stay away from Arkansas.

25. Because only here can the ultimate company town can [sic] turn itself into a cultural mecca.

Let’s be clear that there is absolutely no culture in Mecca, and in that sense your oxymoron may suitably describe Bentonville and Springdale.

Crystal Bridges, is a nice museum, but hardly sufficient to atone for the sacrifice of quality, good taste, and Made-in-USA at the altar of Walmart’s corporate profit. This self-styled all-American company first opened the floodgates of cheap Chinese trash that passes for merchandise on which America now depends. By the way, Bentonville is no longer “the Walmart capital of the world,” Beijing is.

Springdale – call it Tysondale if you will – couldn’t pretend to be anything but the dump Tyson has made of it even if Tyson money could build a museum to house every art masterpiece and antiquity and the pyramids themselves! Springdale would remain a “basurero” – Spanish for dump.

With the billions of sentient animals Tyson kills for profit, the company is also killing the surrounding land and rivers and the American way of life of the original residents. Blithely ignoring vestigial US immigration laws, the butcher-turned-rich Tysons have bought respectability (as have the Waltons) with grants, edifices, and the pretense of being model corporate citizens. And the people of Arkansas wonder why, oh why, their state is the second poorest in the nation.

50.  Because we’re [sic] fighting the war on poverty one goat, cow, chicken and duck at a time.

Heifer International is an outrage; it defies description, but “graft passing for charity” comes close.  So you the “sucka” donate de prescribed amount to buy a chicken or a cow, according to your means. With that money, Heifer will purchase said animal and put it in the hands of a needy family in Chad or some such other forsaken place. People dirt poor, ignorant, and hungry will fail to see the long-term potential of egg or milk production, so they’ll butcher the creature on arrival. Hunger sated, they will be as poor as before. Or, assuming that the family can see the long-term potential of the gift received ... how will they obtain feed or water for the animal when they go hungry and thirsty themselves. How will they prevent it from being stolen or “confiscated” by the goons who, in every Third World nation are responsible for the endemic poverty that works to their advantage?

One positive aspect of this scenario is that Heifer pockets the money and no animal need be abused, starved, and hacked to death.  The peoples we pity abroad cannot be helped by outside charities even if they were real; the evil they suffer comes from within: Their own government, guerrillas, chieftains, and a multitude of poachers of their own people. Not unlike Heifer International and thousands of other purported charities who thrive on the misery of other nations ... one goat, cow, chicken and duck at a time.

Arkansas Life is clearly not a platform for serious issues but a pom-pom waving showcase for the state. It has its rightful place. It is the job of the editor, however, to sense when delicate matters are best not dealt with lightly.