Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers:
Texarkana Gazette, Oct. 27, 2015
No more bacon?
Sometimes you just have to make tough choices.
And for meat-lovers the time is now.
This week, the World Health Organization’s International Agency of Research on Cancer announced a direct link between processed meat products and cancer, particularly colon cancer.
That means hot dogs, bologna, cold cuts, sausage and other smoked or cured meats are now lumped together with tobacco and asbestos as carcinogens - which means they don’t just contribute to cancer, but actually cause the disease.
It gets worse. Bacon is on the list as well.
Yes, bacon.
The WHO experts also say we should cut down on red meat - steaks, chops and the like - though the organization did not claim such cuts actually cause cancer.
Researchers said the risk for moderate consumers of processed meat was small, but the chance of developing cancer increases along with consumption.
Naturally, the meat industry isn’t too happy with the announcement and we suspect many consumers won’t be either. By the same token, vegans and animal rights advocates will trumpet this research far and wide, hoping to persuade more folks to swear off eating meat.
Good luck with that. Especially getting people to give up bacon.
As science progresses, so does our knowledge of various foods and their effects on our health. That means some old ideas about what’s good and bad for you have been turned upside down.
That doesn’t mean you should ignore studies like this. But there is no reason to consider them gospel, either.
What to eat - or not eat - is a personal choice. But, as in many things, we suspect the best course is simply moderation - even when it comes to bacon.
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Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Oct. 25, 2015
Change for change’s sake
Could it have been the political ghost of Wendi Cheatham haunting the Oct. 8 meeting of the Executive Committee of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee? Maybe it’s just the approach of Halloween that has us imagining apparitions of the past, but the former Bentonville School Board member’s pursuit of a state government she represented was more persistent than Michael Myers’ stalking of Jamie Lee Curtis. And that lasted through four “Halloween” films over a quarter century.
The pursuit was so persistent it apparently survived beyond attorney Tim Hutchinson’s representation of Cheatham, a one-time president of the school board who, despite a lack of evidence, persisted in her concerns that the district and its superintendent, Michael Poore, might be spending money voters approved for a new high school on district operational costs. More on Hutchinson’s most recent involvement later.
Cheatham became a board voice for those who don’t trust Superintendent Michael Poore, some of whom are still skeptical he ever intends to open a second high school and believe he’s spending tax dollars raised for that high school on other district operations, a claim he’s steadfastly denied. Meanwhile, construction continues on what will be the district’s second high school when it opens in 2016.
The school district, like all others, undergoes an audit ever year. The school board has a choice as to whether to rely on the state auditors or to hire an independent auditing firm. Bentonville, like many of the state’s larger government entities, for years has chosen the latter option. Their auditors have returned giving the district a clean bill of health on its financial management practices and procedures.
Early this year, Cheatham utilized Hutchinson’s services to contact state Sen. Bart Hester of Cave Springs, hoping he would request a state audit of the Bentonville School District. In doing so, Cheatham was fulfilling what she believed to be her duty in scrutinizing district finances, but the audit request blindsided her fellow school board member and led to conflict, primarily with board President Travis Riggs.
Hester ultimately decided against requesting a state audit. He said Department of Education Officials and state auditors had met with Cheatham and, with awareness of her concerns, decided there was no reason for any additional review of Bentonville finances. At one point, Poore even asked the state education commissioner to evaluate the district’s finances. “This is a very fiscally sound school district,” Tom Kimbrell told the school board in January 2014.
Lacking any indication of a problem and with Cheatham’s resignation from the board, the issue faded. At least it seemed to have faded. Then, on Oct. 8 in Little Rock, a state senator from Benton asked the Executive Committee of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee to examine the use of tax dollars collected for the high school and whether the money was being spent appropriately. That state senator’s name? Jeremy Hutchinson.
No, it’s not coincidence. Jeremy Hutchinson is Tim Hutchinson’s brother. Tim Hutchinson said he no longer represented Cheatham, but pressed the issue with his brother because he was surprised to learn how many school districts do not undergo the state audits.
“Nobody is saying these schools are doing anything illegal,” Hutchinson said. “Complying with state regulations is not an easy task. That’s why you have compliance audits. So I think it’s a very good practice at least once a decade or once every five years the state goes around and makes sure districts are in fact complying.”
The committee declined to target Bentonville, but supported moves to encourage school districts to undergo state audits more regularly.
Oddly, Cheatham’s unsupported concerns about Bentonville’s financial management has now led to a reasonable proposal among state officials. Requiring districts to occasionally undergo a state government audit isn’t overly burdensome, although one of the reasons private audits are permissible and frequently used by larger districts is the limited resources of the Legislative Audit. By allowing larger districts to pay for their own audits, it helps the state to devote its audit resources to smaller cities, counties and school districts that don’t always have the resources to hire independent auditors.
The evidence indicates Bentonville Public Schools’ financial condition to be strong with no nefarious activities going on. It’s implausible that private auditors are going to risk ruining their reputations or that a superintendent will be able to maintain an extensive conspiracy of school district officials to accomplish what some seem to fear.
But it was good to hear Jeremy Hutchinson confirm that nobody believes anything illegal is going on and those involved in the issue are only interested in modifying state audit procedures and adding more to the plate of state auditors.
If that solves some perceived shortcoming of state government, so be it. Apparently, fixing what’s not broken has its supporters.
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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Oct. 27, 2015
Unquestionable Hillary
There were enough smoking guns left lying around that congressional hearing room last week when Hillary Clinton testified about Benghazi (again) to leave it filled with a noxious haze. And a lot of unanswered, even unasked, questions. But innocent reader might never know it from the way a tame press reported Our Lady of Benghazi’s evasions. Instead, news accounts were full of how calm, cool and collected she’d been under fire. That is, brazen.
What did our former secretary of state and still slick customer really believe had happened when our ambassador and three of his aides were murdered on her watch? Check out her email to Miss Chelsea on the night of the massacre. Here is what she told her daughter: “Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an al-Qaida-like group: The Ambassador, whom I handpicked and a young communications officer on temporary duty w(ith) a wife and two young children. Very hard day and I fear more of the same tomorrow.”
Indeed there was more of the same bad news the next day. Yet in public Mrs. Clinton stuck with her official cover story about the attack’s having been part of a popular protest against a video about The Prophet Mohammed, a protest that had just got out of hand. Yet the State Department’s summary of her conversation the next day with Egypt’s prime minister had her telling him, “We know that that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack - not a protest.” Which is nothing like the version poor Susan Rice, our ambassador to the United Nations at the time, was told to peddle to all the television networks, which she dutifully did, like the faithful pawn she was.
Talk about sheer clintonesque nerve: Mrs. Clinton also assured the bereaved father of one of the murdered Americans that she would see to it that the producer of the video would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for inciting a (non-existent) mob.
This is what the country has to look forward to under the next Clinton Administration - an absence of character, not to say simple decency, as deep as the Grand Canyon. It all sounds shamelessly familiar.
Ah, well, this wouldn’t be the first time Americans chose a president of dubious repute. (See Nixon, Richard Milhous.) But this time no one can say the country hasn’t been more than amply warned, though not by its sleepy watchdog of a press.
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