Check out what's happening in the NewQuestCity Forums for Arkansas .

Highway Department floats new Broadway Bridge proposal
05/15/2012

The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department floated a surprise new proposal today for replacement of the Broadway Bridge. It would, in short, preserve the old bridge while building a new bridge along the west side. The old bridge then could be converted to a pedestrian/bike path. The plan would avoid the problem of closing the bridge for construction for up to two years. There might be a brief period of closure ? say three weeks or so ? to transition from an old bridge to the new one for auto traffic.

Two highway commissioners met with Mayors Mark Stodola and Pat Hays and County Judge Buddy Villines and members of local planning agencies.

Concerns were identified about the discordant appearance of two stylistically different bridges, one, the new one, six feet higher than the other. "Butt ugly," is how one participant described the concept to me. The cities also were concerned about their costs to maintain the old bridge, which would pass into their ownership. Cost estimates are somewhat flexible on the new, surprise plan. It would curve into Broadway on the Little Rock side. The construction would interfere at least temporarily with parking for the Dickey-Stephens baseball park in North Little Rock.

The mayors of Little Rock and North Little Rock had been pushing, instead of a 24-month closing, to build a new bridge at Chester Street and then convert the old Broadway Bridge to a pedestrian link. The Highway Department said that idea was too cumbersome to accomplish without endangering federal money currently obligated to the replacement project. Highway officials said they thought they could get this new project underway in time to still qualify for the federal money. Some money allocated for demolition of the existing bridge could be used for rehab of that bridge for other uses, it was noted. That could be $3 million in savings.

Local officials were surprised by the proposal. They'll have to do some study before forming a firm reaction and had a number of questions at today's meeting. There were no renderings of the project to consider today, but some drawings of the route were shown and I hope to have some to show before long.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Occupy Little Rock delays legal action
05/15/2012

Occupy Little Rock, which had said yesterday it would sue today to block its eviction from its six-month protest site at 4th and Ferry, has put off action for 24 hours and delayed a news conference that had been scheduled for 5 p.m. today.

It says negotiations are continuing with the city on an alternate protest site. The city has said it wants the current site for parking during Riverfest and the summer tourist season. Said a release:

Occupy Little Rock believes that a good deal with the city is still attainable and hopes for a push back of a few days concerning the May 16th 7:00 am eviction from the current protest site.

A private, nonprofit has signaled a willingness for Occupy LR to use some vacant property it owns in central Little Rock. That would be a win for the city and Occupy. But I'm guessing city zoning rules will be a factor in that relocation, too.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Beebe bounces head of Veterans Affairs
05/15/2012

The Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs, mired in a mess over overcharges to veterans in the residential facility it operates in Little Rock, will have new leadership. Just in:

Governor Mike Beebe announced Monday that Department of Veterans Affairs Director Dave Fletcher has submitted a letter stating his intention to retire, effective immediately. Fletcher met with Beebe Monday and both agreed that it was time to take leadership of the agency in a new direction.

"Dave Fletcher stepped up five-and-a-half years ago when I asked him to take the helm at Veterans Affairs, and I thank him for his service and his dedication to our men and women in uniform," Governor Beebe said. "However, it's become evident that new leadership will be best positioned to re-examine practices and policies and to determine how best to manage the department?s finances."

Beebe plans to name a new director very soon, likely in the next few days.

I like how they slipped this news release out amid the boomlet of media attention to newly minted lobbyist Mike Ross.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Living Treasure: Jim Larkin
05/15/2012

Hot Springs pottery Jim Larkin, who with his wife, Barbara, has owned Fox Pass pottery for 40 years, has been named the 2012 Arkansas Living Treasure by the Arkansas Arts Council.

The Arts Council and the Department of Arkansas Heritage will host a free, public reception for Larkin at 5:30 p.m. May 22 at the Hale Bathhouse, 341 Central Ave. in Hot Springs.

The award recognizes an Arkansas artisan for his career, preservation of his traditional craft and efforts educating others. Larkin, 65, has participated in the Arkansas Arts Council's Arts in Education program, taught ceramics at the National Park Community College, taught at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Science and Arts and has given classes around Arkansas.

From a news release (read in its entirety on the jump):

"I've always been a maker," he said. "You know how people sometimes say that their most influential book is the Bible? As a kid, mine was W. Ben Hunt's 'Big Book of Indian Crafts.' "

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Mike Ross not running for governor in 2014; to lobby instead
05/15/2012

U.S. Rep. Mike Ross won't be running for governor in 2014. This decision had been going around and I think Durango reported it pretty reliably in our comments thread over the weekend.

Instead, he'll be a lobbyist for the Southwest Power Pool, the energy distribution agency based in Little Rock that's in a huge battle to keep from losing Entergy's business to another power wheeling agency. Does Ross carry much stick? We'll see.

It's all about family, he says in a post on his Facebook page. He'll still be making a few trips to D.C., I'd guess.

It's also about the fact that he'd get his butt waxed in a Democratic primary race in 2014, not having been much of a Democrat. Not being a Democrat might have served him well in the general election, but he'd have never reached it. Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has some inroads with traditional Democratic constituencies. I still think there's a strong chance Bill Halter will give it a try. (Indeed hr later issued a statement through a spokesman saying he 'd consider it.) And there might be others, including Highway Commissioner John Burkhalter who indicated strong interest to me the other day in a chance meeting at the airport. (And I promptly forgot about it.) A horde of Republicans will run, of course.

The Ross statement:

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Fiscal distress and charter schools at state Board of Education
05/15/2012

The state Board of Education today declared two school districts — Alpena and Drew Central — were in fiscal distress. They must correct their situations or face state takeover.

The state Board also gave approval to a new location for an expanded KIPP charter school in Blytheville. As the department blog notes, KIPP had started construction without board approval, but being KIPP pretty much means never having to say you're sorry. Well, OK. Scott Shirey, executive director of KIPP, did apologize after being called down and said the school should have waited but he got his way.

More telling was this:

Richard Atwill, superintendent of the Blytheville district, said KIPP has already built the school even though at this point it is a request. Additionally, he said KIPP is already advertising for the 4th grade. He said several kids have left KIPP and returned to the Blytheville district and that most of them were behind in learning.

Scott Shirey, executive director of KIPP, said the Blytheville school hasn?t been around that long so it takes a while for kids to know the rigor required at KIPP before they enroll.

He inadvertently lays bare the dirty secret of successful charter schools. Give me schools prepared to be rigorous and empowered to drive off students unprepared to learn and I'll show you a successful school. Show me a school that must accept the leavings of the KIPP schools no matter how poorly they perform or attend or how little their parents care and I'll show you a school that a KIPP faculty, for all its innovation and energy, will have a hard time reaching. This is why the KIPPs and e-Stems of the world won't take up the challenge of taking over a failing school and trying to work their supposed magic on a student population they not only inherit but MUST continue to try to teach. No "out-counseling" allowed.

Dig into the testing and you find, over and over, that the charters haven't demonstrated much when comparing similar student populations — poor against poor, for example. Sad to say, the Billionaire Boys Club has so demonized teachers and public schools that a growing segment of the population thinks if you attach "charter" to a school's name, it must be good. It's not that simple.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Steve Womack: The Scowling One still hasn?t gotten the memo that an educated America is a strong America
05/15/2012

Congressman Steve Womack, In his ongoing efforts to be seen as the perpetual ?good soldier? of the Grand Old Army of the Potomac, has taken up up the battle against America?s college students, opining that the government should not be responsible for funding education after a confrontation with Northwest Arkansas resident Kelly Eubanks, who has had the temerity to pay close attention to Womack?s voting record (something most media outlets up here don?t do), and she told The Scowling One, ?The Pell Grant is important to me because it is one of many ways I pay for college. Without it, though, I wouldn?t be able to attend.?

Womack?s response? Other than asking some of his aides to remove her from the microphone - would he have done that to a Tea Party member? - he said that that he ?paid? for his education by joining the National Guard.

For more on the story:

http://www.campusprogress.org/articles/representative_lashes_out_at_constituent_over_pell_grant_funding/

Yes, I believe that members of the military have a right to an education, but there is an issue which TSO is ignoring. At a time when the rest of the world is, quite frankly, kicking our butts, maybe the federal government does, indeed, have a role to play in funding education in this country.

An educated America is a strong America. An uneducated America is . . Well, aside from politicians like Steve Womack, who benefits from folks not being terribly well-educated?

Well, certain industries, I suppose, who would benefit from a work force which doesn?t know an awful lot about an awful lot, and the our competitors around the world, of course.

******

Following the example of Kelly Eubanks

It would be a nice fantasy to imagine that media outlets in Northwest Arkansas might drop their sycophantic attitudes towards The Scowling One, and actually pay attention to how he votes, but that ain?t gonna happen.

*****

Put a camera on this man!

Every time The Scowling One makes a public appearance, someone should be there with a camera, so that they can record incidents like the above, and either put them on public access television or YouTube.

Or hell, both.

****

Quote of the Day

Silence, if deliberate, is artificial and irritating; but silence that is unconscious gives human companionship without human boredom. - Stephen Leacock

sdrake@cox.net

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

LULAC objects to Little Rock School Board rezoning
05/15/2012

The League of United Latin American Citizens has appealed the new Little Rock School District school board zones to the Pulaski County Election Commission, a three-member group comprising two Democrats and one Republican.

UPDATE: However, the Election Commission says that the Little Rock and North Little Rock school districts are exempted by state law from review of zone boundaries by the county election commission and so it will not be considering new zones in either district.

LULAC, in a message from Terry Trevino-Richard, said the boundaries adopted by a racially divided School Board last week (the black majority favored the new map) didn't follow a rational reasoning but seemed designed primarily to address the personal desires of school board members, particularly Michael Nellums, whose boundary proposal was adopted. LULAC called the map an "arbitrary and covert attempt to minimize the represenation of Latino students and parents." It suggests it might take legal action if the new map is put in place.

LULAC had favored a plan that concentrated more of the district's growing Latino population in a single school board zone. The plan approved divided that population between two zones. It's unlikely a map could currently be drawn with majority Latino population, much less majority Latino voters, but a solid voting group could be influential in school board races, where turnout is often quite small.

Trevino-Richard's letter to county election officials follows. He told me later that he was talking with LULAC officials about the possibility of legal action, but no firm decision had been made.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Review: Dierks Bentley
05/15/2012

A couple of recent No. 1 hits go a long way toward illustrating Dierks Bentley?s range and versatility as both a singer and a songwriter. He showcased them both Saturday night when he brought his Country & Cold Cans Tour to Verizon Arena in North Little Rock.

Bentley shines on fast-paced songs about partying and drinking, and they?ve long made up a large part of his signature energetic, hard-driving shows. The latest, ?Am I the Only One,? is the handsome, curly haired singer at his best as he asks in that slightly gravelly, mostly traditional country voice ?is there anybody out there wants to have a cold beer, kick it ?til the morning light.? It?s good-times country, fun and a bit rowdy, which may also serve as an apt description of the Vanderbilt graduate who?s been a staple on the country charts for almost 10 years now.

On the other end of the spectrum ? and near the end of his spirited performance before 3,432 fans ? Bentley is thoughtful, reflective and appreciative on ?Home,? his tribute to America and the American spirit. It?s patriotic, to be sure, but it hits the spot without going overboard.

Bentley is a co-writer on both of those hits, which are on his latest album, ?Home.? They?re great additions to what over the years has become a nice discography for the country star who is no stranger to Central Arkansas. He?s performed here a number of times before and was scheduled to play the Riverfest Amphitheater before inclement weather caused the move to what he termed ?big, fancy Verizon Arena.? It?s his style to make any venue feel a bit intimate, so he added ?if it?s all right with you, we?ll just pretend we?re at the Electric Cowboy.?

Inside or outside, large arena or small club, it doesn?t really matter. Bentley?s shows are just plain fun and that was the case Saturday night. Other crowd-pleasers included ?Lot of Leavin? Left to Do,? ?Every Mile a Memory,? ?How Am I Doin? ? and, of course, the ?little white tank top song? ? ?What Was I Thinkin? ? ? which he used in an encore to close out the evening.

The Cadillac Black opened the show with a six-song set that mixed a little country with a lot of Southern rock on listenable numbers like ?Tennessee Mojo,? ?Get Your Buzz On? and ?Down to the River.? Next up was The Eli Young Band, a group of guys who got together as students at the University of North Texas 11 years ago. If the band keeps delivering hits like the terrific ?Crazy Girl? ? named Song of the Year by the Academy of Country Music earlier this year ? it just may be headlining the next time it?s in town. Lead singer Mike Eli and the guys blend rock and country and found plenty of love from the crowd on engaging songs like ?Always the Love Songs,? ?Guinevere? and ?When It Rains.?

More photos after the jump.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Mitt Romney: Not %92fully thawed'
05/15/2012

Now that Mitt Romney is the certain Republican nominee, even the Republicans who detested him in the primaries ? and they were in the majority of cumulative not-Romney votes ? say it is simply unfair to repeat unflattering anecdotes about high school days. But if you must, the multiple eyewitnesses who stand by their story of the forced haircut of a lonely prep school classmate? They are to be ignored. You are supposed to believe instead those who were NOT there who say they can't believe Mitt Romney could ever be so insensitive.

I'm willing to forget a youthful conformist-rage haircut ? though I don't believe he's being truthful when he says he doesn't remember it. But James Wolcott has encapsulated the Romney that has had such a hard time inspiring Republicans, never mind Democrats.

The incident of hair assault revealed this week that led colleague Bruce Handy to dub Romney "the Demon Barber of Cranbrook" shows the mark of a bully, part of a pattern that goes from strapping his dog to a car roof to "I like to fire people." But I think that Romney as bully misses something larger about the political, public man: He's a coward. He's never gone against the grain, stood up for an underdog or advanced an unpopular cause before it became popular, risked a single gleaming hair off his head, shown any backbone apart from the determination to win, tapped into anything larger than himself, risen to the moment. His selfishness is such that you think conservatives would appreciate him more, since that's their driving ethos. He may have to show some of that old nasty Cranbrook spirit if he truly wants to win their love.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Chef competition in Hot Springs
05/15/2012

This Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. the Hot Springs Convention Center will host an American Culinary Federation-sanctioned competition. Chefs from restaurants in Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee and students from Pulaski Tech and Ozarka College culinary programs will compete, "Iron-Chef" style, for $8,000 in scholarships and prizes. Contestants will be given 15 minutes to prep and 60 minutes to cook a duck, using any method they wish. They'll have 10 minutes to plate four servings and another 15 minutes to clean up, completely. Student contestants include Bree Robinson, Parinya Kaewjuntawee, Patrick Kelley and Kevin Mueller. Other contestants include Robert Hall, Executive Chef at Winrock International, Miles McMath, Executive Chef at St. Jude in Memphis, Ernest Dickson, Sous Chef at St. Jude, Coby Smith, Executive Chef at Chenal Foxridge and Cynthia Malik, lead instructor at Pulaski Tech.

The judges will be Patrick Mitchell, Executive Chef at Ben E. Keith Foods, Texas; Robert Meitzer, Executive Chef at Red Rocks Country Club in Colorado; and Larry Matson, culinary director at The International Culinary School at the Art Institute of Dallas.

The competition is free to the public.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

UAMS, UALR leaders raise neighborhood concerns on Tech Park
05/15/2012

I've been at work rounding up internal communications from the various taxpayer-supported agencies that have been working to deliver, at significant public expense, a rental office building to entice technology businesses to Little Rock.

The growing unease in neighborhoods targeted by businessman Dickson Flake's hand-picked consultant for the project ? generally territory between UAMS and UALR in Oak Forest and nearby neighborhoods ? has reached two of the public partners on the project ? the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and UALR.

Makes sense. The three sites targeted for the Little Rock Technology Park are heavily residential, low-income neighborhoods with a significant minority population. Too date, the business community-controlled board of the Tech Authority hasn't expressed a great deal of empathy for residents' resistance to being uprooted from long-time homes. Condemnation proceeds, experience proves, aren't nearly sufficient to replace homesteads and uprooted neighborhoods.

The issue has become increasingly sensitive for the two college campuses, each of which has two representatives on the Authority board. UAMS depends heavily on government-financed business from low-income people for its revenue stream and many of its 11,000 or so workers live nearby. UALR has committed not only to a broad effort to revitalize the neighborhood in which it sits, but has taken pride in vigorous work on community racial attitudes and ethnic minority issues. It is not exactly being a good neighbor or racially sensitive to bulldoze hundreds of houses in a minority neighborhood to build an office building with acres of grounds to insulate it from any neighborhood that remains. Particularly when $22 million from a regressive sales tax opposed by voters in those neighborhoods is going to pay the front-end cost.

UAMS Chancellor Dan Rahn and UALR Chancellor Joel Anderson have heard the neighbors. They've asked for time on the May 16 Technology Park Authority Board meeting to talk about neighborhood concerns. They still wholeheartedly support the tech park, they said, but they've heard the concerns of neighbors who fear a negative impact, particularly lack of fair compensation for loss of homes. Said their letter in part:

"We hope to be able to work with you to develop a plan to not only better communicate about the site selection and park development with residents of the three areas under consideration, but to include them in the process."

This is a step beyond what's been offered so far. You'll remember when retired UALR dean Mary Good, chair of the Authority board, said they'd do a neighborhood impact statement AFTER the site had been selected. Flake was resistant to a resident's call for studying demographics of the area, preferring to conserve public tax money for the office palace he and the Regional Chamber of Commerce hope to build. Good has also to date not wanted to talk about alternatives to the three sites identified by a consultant chosen by Flake (not in an open public RFP process).

Here's the Rahn/Anderson letter.

Another idea for the chancellors. How about some sensitivity to accountability? How about putting a pure public agency ? not a private agency merely financed by tax dollars, the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce ? in charge of the public records and agenda of this publicly financed project?

SPEAKING OF LACK OF ACCOUTABILITY: Arkansas Children's Hospital, a key player in the "synergies" envisioned in this project, tells me it is not covered by the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act and will not supply any internal information about its support for the publicly financed Little Rock Technology Park, except confirming its five-year commitment to pay $25,000 a year into the kitty. I think they're wrong.

Children's Hospital is the beneficiary of a Pulaski County property tax millage. It is directly supported by this public money. Moreover, without the state's enormous contributions in Medicaid and other support through agreements with UAMS, it could not exist at all. The institution's wonderful work with sick children does not give it a free pass from accountability.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Faith in jobs
05/15/2012

This just in from Judge/Rev. Wendell Griffen:

ARKANSAS INTERFAITH ALLIANCE

PRESS ADVISORY

WHO: Dr. James Forbes, Pastor Emeritus of Riverside Church in New York City and Professor Emeritus at Union Theological Seminary

WHERE: New Millennium Baptist Church, 21 Lakeshore Drive, Little Rock, AR

WHEN: Wednesday, May 16th at 7 p.m.

WHAT: The Arkansas Interfaith Alliance is hosting a FAITH ADVOCATES FOR JOBS NATIONAL KICKOFF event. This national campaign showing the faith community?s concern about unemployment and the loss of jobs in the United States began in Washington D.C. in January. Little Rock is one of five cities over this year that will launch this campaign to call on the faith community to offer hope to those who are unemployed through direct ministries and through public policy. Dr. Forbes and the Rev. Dr. Paul Sherry (formerly the President of the United Church of Christ) will speak during the event.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Dollar stores come to Vermont
05/15/2012

Interesting feature in the New York Times. In Vermont, where zoning laws have discouraged big box retailers such as Walmart, dollar stores have slid in under radar and proliferated, to the dismay of some who want Vermont to continue to look like Vermont. The result is a plan for a Dollar General with wooden clapboard siding and a cupola to pass muster in one small town.

In Arkansas, the fight isn't over wooden siding at Dollar General stores but whether they should be allowed to add beer sales. Building aesthetics are not on the list of concerns.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Occupy Little Rock to contest eviction UPDATE
05/15/2012

Occupy Little Rock, scheduled for eviction from its 4th and Ferry camp by the city of Little Rock at 7 a.m. Wednesday, isn't ready to give up.

Spokesman Greg Deckelman said the group will file suit Monday for an injunction to stop the eviction. The suit will contend the city has acted arbitrarily and will proceed unconstitutionally if it moves ahead with the forced closure of the camp as promised Wednesday morning.

Occupy LR will have a news conference about its actions at 5 p.m. Monday at City Hall and also plans to ask to be heard Tuesday night by the City Board. It has been negotiating for several weeks with City Manager Bruce Moore about an alternative camping spot. The city contends it needs the parking lot the group has been using for auxiliary parking for Riverfest on Memorial Day weekend.

UPDATE: Occupy LR announced Monday afternoon that it would delay action and the news conference for 24 hours to continue to work with the city in hopes of finding a new protest site.

Occupy Little Rock has been working on obtaining permission to use private property as a new location for its base of protest and has made progress on a site. But it said it can't complete arrangements by Wednesday morning.

Police barricades around the existing camp have come down and much of the tent city has already been dismantled. Police are prepared to arrest Occupy members who refuse to leave Wednesday morning. Arrests are expected, though my understanding is that the expectation is that they will be done peacefully without resistance, perhaps even with coffee and doughnuts for the police. A symbolic arrest of an LR Nine of occupiers was discussed at one point.

If I know the authoritarian bent of the city directors who've been irked for weeks by the protest camp by the freeway, this will irk them even further. Expect some stern lectures from them about these agitators if given a chance at Tuesday's board meeting. Too bad. These directors could learn something from the determined, mannerly and well-informed activism that has marked the Occupy LR action from the start of its action in October. The most disgruntled board members ? and Occupy has some supporters on the board, by the way ? remind me of nothing so much as the sort of teenagers who got so offended by long hair in the 1960s that they gathered accomplices to forcibly cut the hair of those who dared to present an appearance that didn't conform to the norm. You'd think history would teach you can tear down tents and arrest dirty hippies and cut hair, but you can't eradicate speech or ideas, not even with guns.

Occupy LR has been meeting with attorneys and, as in other endeavors, doesn't enter the next phase of protest unprepared.

PS ? Funny. Bill Keller of NY Times is writing here about Chinese dissidents. But ...

Dissidents are difficult. They moralize. They don?t compromise. They don?t know when to shut up. They don?t see the Big Picture. All the qualities that made them dissidents in the first place can make them irritants ...

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

The Joint opens in Argenta
05/15/2012

The Joint, a new coffeehouse and comedy club in Argenta, has finally announced its grand opening. We've been talking about The Joint since January, and now there are actual dates ? the coffee shop will be ready for business at 7 a.m. sharp on May 14. In the comedy venue, the first performance is scheduled for June 2. The debut performance will be "Little Rock & a Hard Place," an original two-act play about a man who dies in a car wreck and is banished at the Pearly Gates, sent back to Little Rock, where he died, to help the city and earn his wings. The Joint is owned and operated by Vicky and Steve Farrell, a veteran comedy team, who's work has been featured on Saturday Night Live and NPR's All Things Considered.

In addition to coffee and wifi, the cafe will serve sandwiches, craft beers and wine, and the live venue will feature a full slate of entertainment. Wednesday nights will be improv, Thursdays will be music, Fridays and Saturdays will be the comedy plays. "Little Rock & a Hard Place" runs all summer. In the fall it will be replaced by "Electile Dsyfunction," about the upcoming election.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Happy Mother%92s Day
05/15/2012

Everybody went out to eat, I guess. Slow day.

Call this the open line.

Mother's Day tributes elsewhere sent me to the family archives, terribly depleted by the devastating fire that forced my mother from her Louisiana home to Arkansas in 1995 for the last four years of her life. I'd give anything for the meticulous scrapbooks lost in the fire, particularly those from her war years when she met my dad during their Army service in India in World War II. Her photos of her troop ship en route to the Suez Canal, snake charmers, the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort and the swirl of Delhi street life infused me with wanderlust long ago. If all goes to plan, I hope to take a tiny bit of her to India later this year to scatter in the place that meant so much to her.

Near the end of her days, in a stay in a Little Rock hospital, medication had lifted her spirits some, if not her mental clarity. Being rolled off for a test of some sort, she took a kind attending physician for her commanding officer, boarding troops for Calcutta. And I, she thought, was Waddy, my dad, come to wave goodbye.

That handsome lad is me at five months. She held me up for a long time, until I got to return the favor.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

The crush of college debt
05/15/2012

The New York Times today undertakes a major look at the enormous increase in college loan debt.

No reason to think the theme isn't applicable to college students here.

94 percent of college graduates nationwide borrowed money to complete their education, against 45 percent in 1993.

Average debt $23,000. Only 38 percent are making payments.

The extraordinary debt load is compared with the mortgage crisis, though a mass default isn't yet predicted. However ... Those loans are hard to pay off waiting tables, as many graduates interviewed in the article are learning to their despair.

State and federal spending for education, adjusted for inflation, is at a 25-year low. State and local support of students has dropped by 24 percent since 2001 while tuition at state schools has increased by 72 percent. See Arkansas where tuition increases shouldn't take long to eat up the (declining) value of the vaunted lottery scholarships. (State support continues to trend down here, with higher ed spending by the state dropping from 16.8 percent of total budget in 2009 to 15.9 percent in 2011, according to a national collegiate group.)

The decline in state spending on higher education has not been saved but spent on, among others, exponential increases in prison costs. Which is ironic, or something. Said the article:

The new financial reality for colleges has left administrators scrambling to maintain academic quality and all-important rankings with diminished state resources. That puts an even higher premium on attracting top-tier students ? the rankings depend on them ? and playing down the burdens of college debt.

Many students, the article says, don't have a firm understanding of the cost of college or the debt they'll incur. Colleges don't do much to educate them, not wanting to discourage enrollment. This is particularly true of the for-profit schools, where default rates are highest.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Money talks. Tom Cotton leads 4th District poll
05/15/2012

Roby Brock's Talk Business polling shows Tom Cotton with a 51-33 lead over Beth Anne Rankin in the 4th District primary race for the Republican nomination. His media campaign, powered by a huge money advantage, appears to be paying off.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Turn out the lights
05/15/2012

The week's about over. The line is open. Closing out:

* INDUSTRY SHILLS AT PLAY: The Conway Chamber of Commerce, chief shilling operation for the gas exploration industry in Arkansas, is touting a shill-financed study of the wondrous benefits of gas drilling in Arkansas in terms of jobs and cash flow and calamity that would follow a severance tax increase. Talk Business reports. It was performed by the same Texas outfit that produced the widely discredited report on the job impact of the Keystone pipeline,. The direct job estimates, thus, should be consumed with salt. The dollar benfits, at a minimum, include all those royalties and gas sales paid to absentee owners, of little benefit in Arkansas. (Might be helping Aubrey McClendon some. I know you want to help out Aubrey.) Remember this: If severance taxes are so damaging, why didn't everbody give up on other gas-producing states for Arkansas and its giveaway low tax rates exclusively? Also remember: This study's overestimated job loss presumes a slightly higher, at best, tax rate here will cause every single job to disappear. Nuts.

* PULASKI SCHOOL Q&A: Supporters of the ousted unions in the Pulaski County School District have started a website for questions and answers about the ongoing turmoil.

* RAZORBACK FOOTBALL PLAYERS ARRESTED: Three charged for stealing from dorm rooms ? Marquel Wade, Maudrecus Humphrey and Andrew Peterson.

* BETTER ETHICS NOW: The group announced Friday to work for an ethics reform initiative hopes to have a website up with contact information in the next 24 hours or so. I'll post it when I have it.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Solidarity with women is a working class issue
05/15/2012

However muted its present appearance may be, sexual dominion obtains nevertheless as perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power. - Kate Millet, Sexual Politics?

As the Men with Bad Haircuts continue their their unabated onslaught against the women of this country, it has occurred to many that standing up for the rights of women is very much a working class issue.

We live in a time when Americans are pitted against fellow Americans, when one just has to pick up the daily paper and read letters from folks jeering at union workers, public employees or the poor. It is as though our political life has become like a reality show, with all of the shallowness attached to it.

One by one, segments of society are picked off for ridicule and broken off. Racial and religious minorities have always felt the sting of this particular game. Women, long the target of unfair employment practices, have become a special target of late.

It approaches almost open contempt at times.

Stephen Colbert said ?I?m half woman, on my mother?s side,? and that holds true for all of us, even the Men with Bad Haircuts. Yet so many of us seem willing to sit on the sidelines and watch passively as the rights of working class women are stripped away in this country.

Consider this:

the attacks on Planned Parenthood might be considered a class warfare issue, in that PP serves women (and men, as well) of modest means. While the ultra-sound bills affect all women, the defunding of organizations which help members of the working class, or at the poverty level is an attack on the most economically defenseless in this country.

Women have long been punished for for simply being women, as though their very sexuality itself were some sort of sin to be punished, and now those who have always been afraid of the sexuality of women are out in full force, claiming that they are somehow ?empowering? them, by forcing them into humiliating medical procedures. In Oklahoma, the legislature is concerned that ?girls? are not ?tricked? into having an abortion.

The ultra-sound procedures are government?s way of sexually humiliating women who insist on their legal rights to a medical procedure. It is cruel, vicious and unnecessary. But it serves the purpose of men who don?t have much use for these women.

In Georgia, Republican state representative Terry England said this about a bill which would make it illegal to have an abortion after 20 weeks, even if the woman is known to be carrying a stillborn fetus, or or the baby is not expected to not make it to delivery.

?Life gives us many experiences . . . I?ve had the experience of delivering calves, dead and alive. Delivering pigs, dead or alive. It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it.?

Calves.

Pigs.

It just breaks his heart.

The news networks are like Magpies, attracted to bright shiny objects for a short time, and then abandoning them for another. How long has it been since since we have heard anyone talk about income disparity since it was brought up several weeks ago?

The working class are all too aware of it, even if the shallow talking heads at the cable channels have moved on.

Even the issue about mothers who stay at home centered around the wife of a billionaire. Not too many factory-working mothers made it onto the nightly news.

As a member of the working class, I cringe whenever I hear comments by others (especially by members of the working class) which demean women. I think that we all need to realize that all of our interests our tied in together, and that an attack (or even a crude remark) upon one really is aimed at all of us.

This is how they win.

******

Quote of the Day

Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world. - Voltaire

sdrake@cox.net

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Even (some) Republicans get the equality message
05/15/2012

Still I wait by the phone for a call-back from U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin's office on where he stands on marriage equality ? or even civil unions with other legal protections for couples of the same sex, if not the "M" word.

Maybe, just maybe, Griffin's reluctance to immediately beat the old anti-gay drum is because he's privy to Republican insider polling and advice reported here by Andrew Sullivan. (And who wouldn't be privy to inside Republican strategy but Karl Rove's former camp follower?) It says the Republican Party risks marginalizing itself over time if it continues harsh anti-gay rhetoric.

This sentence alone from the memo is striking:

As people who promote personal responsibilities, family values, commitment and stability and emphasize freedom and limited government we have to recognize that freedom means freedom for everyone.

Shazam!

Lots of interesting comment in the memo, along with this strategic advice:

Recommendation: A statement reflecting recent developments on this issue along the following lines:

?People who believe in equality under the law as a fundamental principle, as I do, will agree that this principle extends to gay and lesbian couples; gay and lesbian couples should not face discrimination and their relationship should be protected under the law. People who disagree on the fundamental nature of marriage can agree, at the same time, that gays and lesbians should receive essential rights and protections such as hospital visitation, adoption rights, and health and death benefits."

Problem is, the base of the Republican Party ? Jerry Cox's army of fundamentalists, let's call them in Arkansas ? doesn't want protection for gay people. They WANT to discriminate against them in work, life, on the school yard and otherwise. Thus they fight legislation even to protect children from bullying as an "infringement" on their religious freedom to persecute the different and the weak.

Nonetheless: I'm in the book Rep. Griffin. You do represent the most populous county in Arkansas, one of only two that, as long ago as 2008, wouldn't be stampeded by religious bigots into voting to prevent gay people from adopting children. One whose legislative delegation includes a lesbian. Even in 2004, before the opinion shift began and Arkansas was voting 3-1 to amend its constitution to ban gay marriage (and also approving it, if by about 10 points less, in Pulaski), the precinct in which Rep. Griffin votes, at the Heights Fire Station, was voting DOWN the amendment 392-285. Just saying, congressman. Don't you think it's time to get on board the Freedom Train with your neighbors?

Griffin's Heights neighbor Herb Rule, Democratic candidate for Griffin's seat, minced no words yesterday. Herb Rule, I might add, was front and center before the City Board advocating for homeless and other veterans while Tim Griffin was working against their interests and trying to torpedo a move to better quarters for a clinic serving them. Herb Rule also has supported Planned Parenthood and isn't one bit ashamed of supporting family planning, health screenings and other services for women. You won't find Tim Griffin on the women's health services train either. But if you have some weapon systems to sell the U.S. government, I bet you'd get a callback. He's on board with that spending, at the expense of the poor and hungry.

PS ? Mitt Romney at Liberty University today threw some Falwellian meat on marriage to the crowd. The advice mentioned above didn't take in that setting.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

---

Crude Oil Prices Drop Under $99
05/07/2012

NEW YORK, (UPI) — The price of crude oil in New York plunged Friday to less than $99 per barrel after a U.S. Labor Department report indicated the economic recovery had stalled. The U.S. economy added 115,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate dropped from 8.2 percent to 8.1 percent. But the lower rate [...]

---

Brewing Byproducts Used To Feed Cattle
05/07/2012

BOULDER, Colo., (UPI) — Barley byproducts from Colorado’s booming craft-brewing industry are increasingly being used to supplement corn fed to cattle, officials say. Stephen Koontz, an agricultural economist at Colorado State University, said beer brewers and livestock feeders alike benefit, The Denver Post reported. “The distiller or brewer has a lot of byproduct,” Koontz said. [...]

---

Unemployment At 8.1 Percent & If This Is Recovery, Where Are The Jobs?
05/07/2012

No matter how the unemployment figures are spun, a lot of people still are out of work, some 12.3 million. The U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released the April unemployment statistics Friday, showing they ticked down a notch to 8.1 percent — better than March’s 8.2 percent and much better than April 2011 [...]

---