Opinion

June 9, 1994 Swimmers at the Corning municipal pool are shown enjoying the combination of warm weather and cool water, last Sunday, 140 swimmers participated in the afternoon session. .

For your reading enjoyment, we continue to publish Rambling Vines by the late Marylea Vines as she recalls events and names of Corning folks from many years ago. We are currently in the year 1990 Democratic elections used to be held in July and August before air conditioning and I loved them.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a time dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of mental health and wellness in Americans’ lives and celebrating recovery from mental illness. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 23% of Arkansans reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders from March to April of this year, which is 2 percentage points higher than the national average.

I, like most men or women my age, and from the country as I am, can be called a foody. We grew up on farms, worked hard long hours, and came home “hungry as a field hand.” You can ask anyone that knew her, my mom, Bertha Florence Smith Murley set a table almost every time with at least two meat choices, no less than half a dozen vegetables, home-made biscuits and/or cornbread, milk, iced tea or coffee to drink. If you came to her house in the middle of the night, she would pull her robe on and say, “You all sit down, and I will fix you something to eat.” Oh yeah, she would always have cake or a couple of pies or some fruit or jams or jellies for dessert, and yeah, ice cream for the pies. No one ever went hungry at Mom’s house. I have been aware of much of the dangers of eating for a considerable amount of time. This morning, I came across this article and I thought it so well written I wanted to share with you, at least as much as I can. Experts are finding cardiometabolic risk signs in kids as young as three. The ultra-processed food your kids eat now may be putting them at greater risk for the aforementioned condition. It is best described as heart attack, stroke, and diabetes. A study of 1,400 schools across seven cities found that children who ate the most ultra-processed foods showed risks for greater body mass systolic blood pressure, and waist to height ratio. Now, the interesting part is that the ultra-processed foods mentioned contain ingredients that you won’t find in the ordinary kitchen and are of the class to make the final product of the food more palatable or more appealing. Those ingredients are found in sodas, chips, packaged soups, chicken nuggets, and ice cream to just name a few. These can also include preservatives against mold and bacteria, artificial coloring and emulsifiers to stop separation, plus added salt, sugar or fats to make food more appealing. One study demonstrated that eating three servings of this food per day was like

LITTLE ROCK – Limiting children’s access to social media is still a priority for Arkansas policy makers. Last week the governor sent a letter to the governors of all 50 states, and to all Arkansas legislators, urging them to continue working for meaningful restrictions on children’s use of social media platforms.

Graduation season is such a happy time! Whether you are finishing preschool or your Ph.D., fifth grade or your fifth year in college, high school or law school, families gather with great excitement to celebrate your hard work and pump you up for the next chapter in your journey. Even if you just barely made it, friends are still happy because you made it.

LITTLE ROCK – The Division of Children and Family Services will try to recruit more foster families among health care professionals, educators and businesses. Officials of the Division were joined by the governor at an announcement to mark the first day of National Foster Care Month.

Wars have been recorded since writing began. Even before writing, pictures were drawn and left of great battles, mostly in what we call the Middle East at this time in history.

On Thursday, the House adjourned the 2024 Fiscal Session Sine Die. In this Fiscal Session, the General Assembly passed a $6.3 billion budget with limited spending growth.