[Editor’s Note: OK, so there’s a

N ow

that our joke of a police chief has resigned (or was he _red) can we PLEASE get someone who is quali_ed to run a police department and run it FAIR? The WMPD was once a great group of professionals who were good at what they did now it is a laughingstock. [Editor’s Note: If you see the front page of today’s paper, you’ll see that there seem to be steps being made to restore order after what has been a pretty tumultuous year for the West Memphis Police Department. No new chief yet, but the rest of the upper echelon of the WMPD has some pretty major changes] I just saw the picture of the Marion Patriot volleyball team in the December 22 issue of The Times. I was very disappointed to see two of the players standing without their hand over their heart. Maybe I’m old school, but I couldn’t help thinking of how disrespectful that was and wondering why their coach didn’t intervene.

lot to unpack here. First, you are correct, “old school” or not, when the National Anthem is played, U.S. Code says that it is proper to stand, face the _ag, and place your right hand over your heart. However, most sporting events simply instruct attendees to “please stand for our National Anthem” these days. Second, there were two girls standing but not placing their hands over their hearts. You might or might not have even given it a second thought, except those two players were both Black and that has been a whole thing for a couple of years now. I can’t and won’t pretend to know if that was what was happening in that photo or not. Third, as someone who has covered sporting events, I usually tried to grab a quick pic of the National Anthem playing, just because it makes a nice photo and might come in handy for a photo spread. Many times, I quickly snapped the photo and then put my camera down so that I, too, could observe the playing of the National Anthem with all its due reverence, and often, the players simply hadn’t had a chance to get into “hand over heart” positioning. A few years ago, someone snapped a photo of the Obamas in such a situation where Barack had already put his hand over his heart but Michelle had not and someone used this photo to besmirch the First Lady (for whatever reason). The timing on photos can be used to portray a number of things inaccurately, like a picture one time that showed Prince Harry giving someone “the nger” when in reality, it was just the angle. Maybe that’s what happened here. Maybe it wasn’t, but either way, it’s probably not necessary

It’s sad that businesses take advantage of customers and are allowed to get away with it. The gas station by the welcome center price was 40 cents a gallon higher than the one on hwy 77. There is no excuse for this other than just to cheat the Christmas travelers. [Editor’s Note: Yep, that’s one of my pet peeves. I know the argument is that the gas stations along the major highways are “convenience” stores, so you’re paying a higher price for the “convenience” of not having to get too far off the highway to get gas, so you’re saving time instead of money, but yeah, it’s a racket. That’s also why they charge $2.50 for a bottle of water or $5 for a small bottle of Tylenol or whatever. It drives me bananas. I will, in fact, drive from my house past four different gas stations to get to the one that has the lower gas price, even if it’s not in the direction I’m ultimately going just to save a dollar or two when lling up]