Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Arkansas Culture and Characters UCA combines philosophy/pornography
Interesting article on Huffington Post about an honors college class taught by Jacob Held, an assistant professor of philosophy and religion at UCA, on philosophy and pornography. Don't snigger. It's serious stuff about civil rights, sexual violence, exploitation, women in media and more.
Tom: So you actually taught a college course on porn? Could you find a classroom big enough?Jake: Yes. And yes. Honestly, going through the process of offering the course reinforced why this topic needs to be explored more openly. For example, I had to interview all potential students and get them to sign a waiver before they could be admitted to the course. I had several meetings about content, books, and so forth. And the interesting thing is, it was all because of the sexual nature of the content. I've taught on torture and war, but no question was ever raised about student exposure to violence. So the care with which I had to approach this course illustrates the oddity of our discordant treatments of violence and sex, where the former is allowed in the curriculum to an almost unlimited degree, but the latter is nearly taboo, even though both are arguably obscene in the strict sense of the word.
Good a place as any to start tonight's open line.
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Police shooting video released
UPDATE: KAIT in Jonesboro is first up with videos from the investigation of the West Memphis police shootings. There are about 17 minutes of video in two clips. One compiles about 12 minutes of video from two police cars and includes the beginning of the shooting at about the 11-minute mark. The other is from Walmart surveillance cameras and shows a shootout with the first arriving patrol car and then the smash of the suspect's vehicle by a Game and Fish officer in a pickup.
From earlier:
Prosecuting Attorney Mike Walden has released information regarding the West Memphis shooting in late May that left two police officers dead. Jerry and Joseph Kane opened fire on West Memphis police after the officers had stopped their van on Interstate 40. The father and son were later killed at a shoot-out in a Walmart parking lot.
"I don’t have FBI materials yet, or crime lab materials yet," Walden says. "From our standpoint it’s still an ongoing investigation. I know there’s a lot of interest in it. Basically what I’ve got it is a disk with a portion of the Arkansas State Police file that includes their case summaries and witness statements. I’ve got the dashboard camera [from the traffic stop] and a Walmart security video. I’m going to release those to the media at 1:30."
UPDATE: At the release, Walden said he didn't anticipate any charges against police in the deadly shootout, but he said he would continue the investigation on use of police force.
Beforehand, Walden said, "I’ve seen reports that say something about 'new information.' I don’t know that there’s a lot of new information that’s going to be there. The most dramatic thing is the dashboard camera, obviously."
More to come later. The dashboard video is said to show the younger Kane exiting his vehicle with a semi-automatic rifle blazing.
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Mike Huckabee Huckabee: The next Oprah?
The Murdoch machine is going to test Mike Huckabee's Fox News show, or a version of it, for syndication with showing in some markets with Fox-owned stations. Successful syndication could mean even bigger bucks for Huck.
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Arkansas Politics Wooldridge loses lobby post UPDATE
- Tim Wooldridge
But two good sources say Wooldridge has been sacked as the $150,000 lobbyist for the group of public universities. The group will be evaluating whether it needs a full-time lobbyist, office and staff in the future, for one thing. Wooldridge's record is short of achievements.
But Wooldridge earned few friends in the higher education community with remarks during his unsuccessful race for 1st District Congress, particularly a video interview he gave to the Family Council in which he said he opposed legal protection in the workplace for homosexuals. He said if people "chose" to be gay, they should not be legally protected from discrimination. Many of the colleges that pay Wooldridge's salary have written anti-discrimination policies on sexual orientation.
UPDATE: Rankin still won't return my calls, but I have received a release from him through an aide at Southern Arkansas University that confirms Wooldridge is gone from the AAPU.
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Politics ACLU warns travelers about Arizona
The Arkansas ACLU has issued a warning to people considering travel to Arizona. It says that Arizona officers are already enforcing mandated checks of papers required by a new anti-immigrant law to take effect late in July.
Its warning and advisory on rights and suggestions for behavior if stopped by Arizona cops. Remember, racial profiling is illegal.
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Filming the spill
Six students from Mountain Pine High School recently returned from a trip to the Gulf Coast to film the effects of the BP oil spill. The students are participants in the school's EAST program (Environmental and Spatial Technology). The group, accompanied by Audubon Arkansas' education director Mary Smith, filmed wildlife clean-up efforts in the region and talked to the people of the Gulf Coast to see how the spill has affected their lives. The students, who have done projects with Audubon before, including a film about the Purple Martin, hope to edit a documentary out of 12 hours of raw footage.
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Little Rock Government City attorney in spotlight UPDATE
Mayor Mark Stodola has called a special meetingt tonight of the Little Rock City Board of Directors for appointments to city boards and to have personnel reviews of City Attorney Tom Carpenter and City Manager Bruce Moore.
Carpenter barely survived a withering session last year. This year? We'll just have to wait and see.
UPDATE: Stodola is unhappy with Carpenter. (Most recently, he was irked when Carpenter called him out of order on a parliamentary point at a Board meeting.) However, he cannot remove Carpenter. It takes six votes of the City Board to do that. Carpenter is viewed by some on the board as a useful check to Stodola. (Think NLR, where the city attorney is just a tool for the mayor's wishes.) How hard Stodola pushes tonight might be the key issue.
The talk tonight also could turn to Stodola's relationship with the city manager, said to be uneasy. Why? Stodola is exercising administrative power within City Hall, critics believe, powers that are not a part of the "strong mayor" model adopted by voters.
UPDATE II: After a lengthy closed session, the city board announced that Carpenter and Moore had satisfactory reviews but no pay raises. Suffice it to say that isn't the whole story. Suffice it to say election year politics were at work.
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Arkansas Politics Lincoln's election outlook grim
Nate Silver has done a post-primary analysis of U.S. Senate races and concludes things are slightly better for the Democrats. He thinks Republicans "will need a lot of luck" to take over the Senate.
However, U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln will need divine intervention. Silver rates her chance at winning as, essentially, zero.
... it's not hard to see why she's in trouble. She's way behind, her approval ratings are terrible, the polling is robust, the GOP nominated a competent challenger, Arkansas is a red state, and the numbers in races with incumbents tend to be less amenable to dramatic last-minute comebacks than those with two newbies. If Democrats spend much money on her, they are potentially costing themselves a win somewhere like Missouri or North Carolina, or a hold in an Illinois or a Washington.
He said he would take 300-1 odds on Lincoln, however.
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Arkansas Politics Green Party certified for ballot UPDATE
Secretary of State Charlie Daniels says the Green Party has submitted sufficient signatures to qualify as a party for the November ballot.
The Green Party continues to sue for automatic ballot access based on past performances.
UPDATE: The nominating convention will be July 24 in Little Rock.
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Environment Memphis finally lands Bass Pro?
After many years in the works, Memphis may close a deal today that will put a Bass Pro Shops in the old Pyramid arena.
If so, does this lessen the already slim chances of a Bass Pro Shops about 140 miles to the west, smack in the wetlands of Dark Hollow in North Little Rock? I'm sure Boss Hays would say otherwise, despite the meritorious environmental lawsuit pending over the wetlands disaster this would cause. Despite evidence elsewhere that giveaways for sporting good stores don't seem to produce the economic bonanzas anticipated. Despite a severe limitation in the tax increment finance law by which Boss Hays had originally hoped to plunder local schools for corporate welfare payments. Despite the absence of the many millions necessary to make a useful highway connection to the site. Despite concerns about the new problems the development would add to an already nightmarish traffic situation at I-40 and the Jacksonville freeway.
Please note when Boss Hays talks about the trickle-down effects of pouring public money into such projects: North Little Rock has gotten a publicly financed arena and baseball park in the last decade, plus a trolley system. It has set up TIF districts wherever possible. It enticed a Walmart over from Sherwood. It has done everything possible, with some handsome results, to redevelop downtown. Population gain over the last decade: Zero. Tax revenues? Declining.
UPDATE: Richard H. Mays, the environmental lawyer in Heber Springs, who successfully challenged the inadequate environmental assessment for the Dark Hollow development, says that suit is now over. The 8th Circuit dismissed an appeal of federal Judge Bill Wilson's ruling. The Corps of Engineers could perform a full environmental assessment, on both wetlands damage and traffic issues, but Mays said it would be expensive and he didn't think the Corps would be likely to undertake it nor the private developers be likely to do it. The case will be difficult to make, he said, and the economy further argues against moving forward, particularly with NLR's money woes and an absence of state or federal money. He thinks the project won't be built.
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Human rights LR deseg lawyer dies
Interesting obit in today's New York Times about a storied civil rights lawyer, William Taylor. He's featured for the span of his career, but it includes a legal footnote of great interest here:
He helped fight some of the difficult civil rights battles that followed the Supreme Court order in 1954 that schools be desegregated.One assignment was writing much of the brief that persuaded the court to order the continued desegregation of schools in Little Rock, Ark., in an extraordinary summer session in 1958. The local school board had decided to suspend desegregation because of heated resistance the previous year.
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Arkansas Politics State sound fiscally, Weiss says
Richard Weiss, state Finance and Administration director, tells Stephens Media the state is in a "good spot" as the fiscal year ends today.
Good is, yes, a relative term after cuts in the budget, unrealized revenue expectations, an administration-directed freeze of most university pay (which only mirrored freezes for most state employees), deferred maintenance at prisons to allow admission of a few more inmates from the long list qualified for a prison cell.
The big question is whether the upturn in revenue will ever arrive, or, alternately, what's the next bruising impact if it does not?
RELATED: At top of NY Times today is story saying that betting on private spending for a recovery — rather than some Keynesian government spending — is a risky bet.
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Education Arkansas report on education mixed
A new report from the Southern Regional Education Board credits Arkansas for doing a good job at getting kids in pre-K programs, but notes our continued low college completion rate. The report has other pluses and minuses:
Plus — some narrowing of the gap between black and white test scores.
Minus — some evidence that state benchmark tests are scored too easily in some cases, judging by scores in comparable subjects on national tests.
Here's a link to the full Arkansas report.
Key Arkansas findings, according to SREB:
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Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Politics Do I hear a second, Tim?
Tim Griffin's main man, the man who would be speaker, Republican John Boehner, the man who in an interview in Pittsburgh diminished the financial crisis and said President Obama had overreacted against BP, has another swell idea:
Raise the retirement age to 70 for Social Security benefits. Index benefits. Means test.
Rationally speaking, an argument can be made for this. Politically? Tim Griffin, Republican nominee for 2nd District Congress, you want to elect a House speaker who'll make the guys on garbage trucks keep humping until 70? You want all of us who've paid in every year to be denied benefits if we've managed to save a bit more? You want to reduce COLAs?
Tim, yes, let's have this discussion on Boehner v. Pelosi.
PS — Some good comments below. I'm, first of all, with those who favor taking the income cap off Social Security contributions. That would go a long way toward a solution. We might need some incremental increases, in time, in full retirement age, but scalable as it is now. Means test? As Polecat has observed, that should be a non-starter. It will kill Social Security and the Republicans know it, that's why they favor it.
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Tuesday topics
The line is open.
BREAKING NEWS: Faulkner Circuit Judge David Clark gets into a scrape with a parks department employee in Conway over a "derogatory hand gesture."
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Event Calendar
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Re: Judge orders new trial in $1 million dollar lottery ticket dispute
Rule 59 of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure allows a trial court, after entry…
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Re: Riverfest eve open line
I think we should all chip in and buy Max a ticket to the Saline…
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Re: Riverfest eve open line
No one in modern print history has a worse track record than Bill Kristol. He's…
- on May 24, 2012
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