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Arkansas Blog

Hourly news and comment

Rock Candy

The guide to Arkansas entertainment

Eat Arkansas

For food lovers

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On art in Arkansas

Street Jazz

A view from Northwest Arkansas

Eat Arkansas

Going international at the Chenal Kroger

Tired of the tiny parking lot at the Hillcrest Kroger and with a few hours to kill while shopping for groceries, I decided to drive out to the revamped mega-Kroger at 16105 Chenal Parkway recently, just to see if bigger really is better.

Hot Spring's Fat Bottomed cupcakes...

Hot Springs does cupcakes at Fat Bottomed Girl's.

Peter Brave hikes for charity again

For the second year in a row, Brave New Restaurant chef/owner Peter Brave will embark on a 223-mile solo hike through the Ouachita Trail to raise money for Potluck Food Rescue.

Eye Candy

AAC in '13: Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Van Dyck

From Kenwood House, London.

Don Ross at UALR tonight

Photographer to speak.

Coming Sunday: Judith Duff

Ceramic artist works in the Japanese Shino tradition.

Dining Review

The two Dave's

February 15, 2012
The two Dave's
Dinner is jazzier at lunchtime favorite. /more/

Dining Search

A&E Feature

Showcase continues

February 15, 2012
Showcase continues
War Chief wins round three. /more/

To-Do List

Hill Harper to UALR

February 15, 2012
Hill Harper to UALR
Also: Self Defence Sistem at White Water, Little Rock Horror Festival at Market Street, Rodney Block and 607 at Twelve, Samantha Crain and Broncho at White Water, Scott Kelly and Eugene Robinson at Downtown Music, Supersuckers at Juanita's and Yelawolf at Revolution. /more/

Columnists

Max Brantley

Praise for power brokers

A fascinating city government drama played out over more than three hours of the Little Rock City Board of Directors meeting last week. /more/

Ernest Dumas

Rapert's folly: Idiocy from the ledge

Tough times require harebrained solutions, one of which is national suicide. That is the unspoken motto of what James Marshall Crotty of the conservative magazine Forbes calls the blockhead wing of the Republican Party. /more/

Graham Gordy

Arkansas's great failures

Arkansas has long been a nucleus for both industry and innovators. Despite our modest population, we have produced some of the most renowned businesses, brands, and entrepreneurs the world now knows. /more/

Bob Lancaster

The big ol' good 'un looms

I still think the big crash is coming, probably this year. Not because of the Mayan calendar, but because we slimed our epoch with stupidity until it couldn't bear up under the weight of it and the shame of it and the embarrassment. /more/

Gene Lyons

The contraceptive kerfuffle

For the record, the priest who married my wife and me in 1967 advised us that we could in good faith practice birth control. He reasoned that as Pope Paul VI was then preparing an encyclical regarding faith and sexuality, young Catholics could reasonably assume that church dogma regarding contraception would soon change to reflect contemporary realities: specifically that a couple intending to bring children into their marriage might legitimately seek to do so in their own time. /more/

Pearls About Swine

Young talent

February 15, 2012
By and large, this column since its genesis has centered on the Razorbacks, plural. I depart from that this week because the mercurial Hog basketballers have a guy who warrants a little more attention. /more/

Media

Comcast eyes digital divide

February 1, 2012
Comcast eyes digital divide
Last August, Comcast introduced Internet Essentials, a program Comcast executive vice president David L. Cohen said would "help level the playing field for low-income families." /more/

Blog Roll

Arkansas Blog

Hourly news and comment

Rock Candy

The guide to Arkansas entertainment

Eat Arkansas

For food lovers

Eye Candy

On art in Arkansas

Street Jazz

A view from Northwest Arkansas

Arkansas Blog

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - 19:50:40

Huckabee: For contraception mandate before he opposed it

Interesting LA Times story:

Mike "We Are All Catholics Today" Huckabee, when he was Arkansas governor, apparently signed a health insurance mandate law in 2005 that included contraception in preventive care. He was among many Republicans in many states who did the same.

Oops. In Arkansas, that law had two Republican co-sponsors. More checking will be required. But I hope Sen. Missy Irvin and the ALEC squad is on the lookout for these apostates.

The background, as I've mentioned here before, is that the federal EEOC said in 2000 that all employers with more than 15 workers must cover contraceptives for women if they offer health plans that cover preventive services and prescription drugs. Many states, including Arkansas, passed mandates into law. Republicans supported the legislation, in states such as Iowa, Arizona and, in 2001, New York, where George Pataki signed the legislation.

Four years later, the Arkansas law easily cleared that state's Legislature, with help from Republican lawmakers, including two GOP cosponsors. Huckabee signed it in April 2005.

He defended the law in a statement. "Religious employers are not required to comply with this policy," he said. "My position is, and always has been, that religious entities shouldn't be forced to pay for contraception."

But like the original federal regulation proposed by Obama, the Arkansas law did not exempt church-affiliated hospitals and universities. It exempts only "religious employers" that are nonprofit organizations whose primary mission is "the inculcation of religious values," and primarily employ people who share the same religion, a standard few Catholic hospitals meet.

The new Obama regulation makes no requirements of even religious affiliates. It requires health insurance companies to pay for preventive care.

PS — We inquired of a St. Vincent Infirmary spokesman recently whether their health coverage provided for contraception. She said it did not. Sounds like we need to re-check.

 

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - 16:25:46

The line is open

Day kind of petered out. Maybe you can fire it up. A closing thought:

* SNAKE OIL FOR SALE/RAPERT'S FOLLY: As pressure build for an idiotic campaign to let 26 state legislatures control the federal budget (meaning crackpot assemblies in Dixie, Alaska and such), I think it's worth mentioning again Ernest Dumas' column explaining what a bad idea this is.

* SOUTH CAROLINA — WORST STATE IN THE U.S.: With time on their hands, South Carolina legislators are working to pass a law to ban use of foreign laws in South Carolina courts. Nobody has yet even suggested such a thing, the sponsors readily admit, but you can't be too careful. (Where's Jason Rapert when we need him; maybe after he's done with Rapert's Folly to let him and Nate Bell run the federal budget.) I bring it up only because I was interested to learn South Carolina still has some liberals willing to be identified publicly and that they have a sense of humor:

Liberal groups, including the S.C. Progressive Network, say the proposal is a waste of legislative time.

"I'm much more concerned with laws being imposed by aliens from the Planet Oz," said Brett Bursey, the group's director. "A stealth-alien invasion of the minds of our legislators is the most plausible explanation for their obsession with fixing things that aren't broken."

* UPDATE: REPUBLICAN BUDGET CUTS: Republicans (Rep. Burris/Sen. Lamoureux) say they want $21 million in cuts in a $4.7 billion state budget, spread among 11 agencies, but not education or Medicaid. Small potatoes, but a big change in the order of things for a legislative minority to seek to usurp executive budgetary recommendations. I'd like to see the full, specific list and what Republicans have scheduled for the chopping block. They can't pass this without Beebe administration/Democratic backing; unless they threaten to shut down the session to get their way. Rep. Burris has said that is not his intent. We'll see.

* HUCK'S STINGER IS OUT: Mike Huckabee campaigned for Beth Anne Rankin, his former staffer, in the 4th District today. He had a ready comment on the Club for Growth's opponent of Republican opponent Tom Cotton. He said the endorsement would probably help Rankin, because the group had little by way of local connections. He called then "Washington insiders and big money people" interested in protecting "their world," not the world 4th District voters live in. Backatcha, Steve.

 

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - 14:18:18

A reverse 'climategate' stings Heartland Institute

Rich stuff. The Heartland Institute is another of those Koch/oil/assorted billionaire-funded "think tanks" that have popped up like mushrooms in a cow patty to push the corporate agenda. It has been stung.

Leaked documents suggest Heartland has been paying for disinformation to counter climate change findings by reputable scientists.

Heartland has gone bonkers. It says it's a victim of theft! Misinformation! Inconvenient unplanned release of facts! It is talking prosecution! Civil lawsuits! Defamation!

While claiming a document on its purported climate change-denial strategy is a fraud, Heartland concedes the general accuracy of others. It does complain they were stolen and might have been "altered."

Heartland has planted some of its propaganda in local publications. You can imagine how hard they'd be working to stifle circulation of similar documents if they'd come from the global warming side of the debate. Not.

 

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Mind over meat

Testing my mettle against the gutsy items at my favorite taqueria.

Rock Candy

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - 11:44:00

Wednesday To-Do: Hill Harper

Hill Harper image

HILL HARPER
7 p.m. UALR Donaghey Student Center. Free.

Hill Harper wears many hats: actor, author, scholar (Brown University, Harvard University and Harvard Law School), activist, speaker, entrepreneur, mentor. The Iowa native is probably best known for his portrayal of Dr. Sheldon Hawkes on the CBS procedural crime drama "CSI: NY," though his books — including "The Conversation: How Men and Women Can Build Loving, Trusting Relationships" and his latest, "The Wealth Cure: Putting Money in Its Place" — have earned Harper acclaim as well. He's currently on a speaking tour, "The HBCU Empower Me Tour" representing the Manifest Your Destiny Foundation, the nonprofit he founded to help young people succeed.

 

Monday, February 13, 2012 - 16:04:00

Billy Bob's next film: a drive with Angelina?

billy_bob_thornton.jpg

Billy Bob Thornton, whose new film "Jayne Mansfield's Car" with Robert Duvall, Kevin Bacon and John Hurt, is now on the festival circuit, has another promising project in the works: a road movie called "And Then We Drove."

Variety reports the film will be penned by Thornton and writing partner Tom Epperson, with filming in L.A., the American South and the desert southwest on a budget of under $20 million. It's a road movie about a man who picks up a female hitchhiker and their subsequent adventures. Producer Alexander Rodnyansky said that the film will be based at least in part on Thornton's relationship with Angelina Jolie.

Thornton is also currently seeking a distribution deal for his 2011 bio-documentary on Willie Nelson, "The King of Luck."

 

Monday, February 13, 2012 - 14:12:21

NPR streaming Pallbearer's 'Sorrow and Extinction'

Pallbearers album Sorrow and Extinction is out Feb. 21 on Profound Lore.
  • Pallbearer's album "Sorrow and Extinction" is out Feb. 21 on Profound Lore.

Hell yes! NPR is streaming Pallbearer's forthcoming "Sorrow and Extinction" right over here. The metal world is buzzing super hard right now about this album, and it's easy to hear why: timeless, crushing riffs, a killer rhythm section, complex and beautifully dark melodies and the best doom metal vocals this side of Ozzy.

The Little Rock band plays Juanita's Feb. 24 with Loss and Black Orchid.

After you've listened to "Sorrow and Extinction" 50 times or so, be sure to check out the band's demo.

 

More Rock Candy

Cover Story

The best restaurants in Arkansas

February 15, 2012
The best restaurants in Arkansas
That rumbling sound? That'd be your stomach. Even if you've just eaten. After 31 years of running this poll, we can attest: It is impossible to read the list of restaurants Arkansas Times readers have selected as the best in the state and look at pictures of food at those restaurants and not feel hungry. /more/

Event Calendar

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February

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The Insider

Behind severance tax opposition

February 15, 2012
Opposition to a ballot initiative to increase Arkansas's low severance tax on natural gas is cranking up. /more/

Arkansas Reporter

Finding ex-cons jobs

February 15, 2012
Finding ex-cons jobs
That's non-profit Lewis-Burnett's specialty. /more/

Editorials

Too devious by half

February 15, 2012
In the '50s, Arkansas state officials sought ways to oppress black schoolchildren without being caught breaking the law. Today, they look for ways to ravage religious freedom without being caught breaking the law. The option of simply doing what's right seems not to have crossed their minds in either instance. /more/

Slideshows

  • The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department has released preliminary design ideas for a replacement for the Broadway Bridge. Among other details, the Highway Department said its initial commitment of $45 million for the bridge will be increased to $58 million, based on preliminary engineering studies. Twin-tied arch and cable-stayed designs (the latter of which won favor in an unofficial bridge design contest that Metroplan sponsored) were also considered, but deemed more expensive or more time-consuming to build than the designs below.

More »

Fox16 Local News and Weather

  • Huckabee talks politics, taxes in NLR

    February 15, 2012
    Former Governor Mike Huckabee says he is happy with the field of GOP candidates for president and says they need to be focused on winning the White House, not about... fox16.com /more/
  • Idol mom dreams of Hollywood

    February 15, 2012
    Idol hopeful Lauren Gray has made it to Hollywood - and if she wins, her mom's coming too. fox16.com /more/
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