Apropos the 90th anniversary (August 18) of ratification of the 19th Amendment, an interesting op-ed article in the NYT says that states in the South were dead-end holdouts on voting rights for women, too:

“Thirty-six of the 48 states then needed to ratify it. Western states did so promptly, and in the North only Vermont and Connecticut delayed. But the segregated South saw in the 19th Amendment a grave threat: the removal of the most comprehensive principle for depriving an entire class of Americans of full citizenship rights. The logic of women’s disenfranchisement helped legitimize relegating blacks to second-class citizenship.

“Female voters would also pose practical difficulties, described bluntly by a Mississippi man: “We are not afraid to maul a black man over the head if he dares to vote, but we can’t treat women, even black women, that way. No, we’ll allow no woman suffrage.
. . .
“In 1923 Delaware ratified belatedly to join the rest of the country, but the Southern states waited decades: Maryland in 1941, Virginia in 1952, Alabama in 1953. Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina came along from 1969 to 1971, years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had passed. Mississippi brought up the rear, not condoning the right of women to vote until 1984.

“Today the country is again divided over how far the rights of citizenship extend. In the controversy over same-sex marriage, the prospect of constitutional protection calls up truculence from one part of the country, approval from another. How remarkable, then, that a parallel conflict — one that similarly exposes the fears and anxieties that the expansion of democracy unleashes — is now largely lost to memory.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/opinion/…

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Apropos the 90th anniversary (August 18) of ratification of the 19th Amendment, an interesting op-ed article in the NYT says that states in the South were dead-end holdouts on voting rights for women, too:

“Thirty-six of the 48 states then needed to ratify it. Western states did so promptly, and in the North only Vermont and Connecticut delayed. But the segregated South saw in the 19th Amendment a grave threat: the removal of the most comprehensive principle for depriving an entire class of Americans of full citizenship rights. The logic of women’s disenfranchisement helped legitimize relegating blacks to second-class citizenship.

“Female voters would also pose practical difficulties, described bluntly by a Mississippi man: “We are not afraid to maul a black man over the head if he dares to vote, but we can’t treat women, even black women, that way. No, we’ll allow no woman suffrage.
. . .
“In 1923 Delaware ratified belatedly to join the rest of the country, but the Southern states waited decades: Maryland in 1941, Virginia in 1952, Alabama in 1953. Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina came along from 1969 to 1971, years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had passed. Mississippi brought up the rear, not condoning the right of women to vote until 1984.

“Today the country is again divided over how far the rights of citizenship extend. In the controversy over same-sex marriage, the prospect of constitutional protection calls up truculence from one part of the country, approval from another. How remarkable, then, that a parallel conflict — one that similarly exposes the fears and anxieties that the expansion of democracy unleashes — is now largely lost to memory.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/opinion/…

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Do you think it's possible that Arizona could take the "dumbest state" title from South Carolina?

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I cannot wait until the WM3 benefit concert on Saturday night. Besides Eddie Vedder and Natalie Maines unplugged, I read in Rock Candy last night that Patti Smith and Johnny Depp are expected to be there... pleasing my wife immeasurably.

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Wal-Mart has asked the Supreme Court to rule that more than a million female employees are too many for a class action suit:

"Nine years after the suit was filed, the central issue before the Supreme Court will not be whether any discrimination occurred, but whether more than a million people can even make this joint claim through a class-action lawsuit, as opposed to filing claims individually or in smaller groups."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/business…

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How our esteemed editor missed this one bit of irrational judicial behavior is beyond me. Perhaps he got it in and I missed it.

Seems Washington County Circuit Judge Mark Lindsay thought it sufficient that emails be returned in the lawsuit over emails to former Rback, Mitch Mustain.

How do you "return emails", to satisfy some point of law?", an old friend asked me.

Attorneys for ADG didn't like Lindsay's ruling either:

"The newspaper’s attorneys, Philip Anderson and Andrew King, have cited the First Amendment and the state’s reporter shield law in objecting to the order to return the e-mails. The newspaper also said it is not a party to the original lawsuit and that the court didn’t have jurisdiction in the matter."

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2010/au…

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Lindsay's order was issued some time ago, and was thoroughly discussed in the media. It, of course, should be all moot now since Eddie Christian, Jr., the person the judge found in contempt, is deceased. That entire lawsuit was not one of the legal profession's proudest moments.

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Thanks, Cammack, for a previously unacknowledged kind word in a thread the other night.

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Johnny Brown takes the SLY award this week:

"STAMPS — The Lafayette County School District has dropped the idea suggested by a school board member of adding a Bible history course to its social studies curriculum.

Board member Johnny Brown suggested the class at the board's June meeting. He said that, in the course he envisioned, the Bible would not be used as a religious text but as a means of understanding current events.

According to Brown, the 40-day flood of the Old Testament parallels modern natural disasters and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah demonstrates that homosexuality has been an issue for thousands of years.

"Never was I was trying to promote religion, but I was trying to promote the historical study of the Bible and make a comparison with things that are happening today," he said."

Nay, nothing about religion in any of that, attributing climate-weather phenomenon to invisible beings...sexuality related the the fall of empire cities...nothing religious about that at all. Next will be a biology course on talking snakes.

http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2010/aug/25/…

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That was a nice skip and hop plainjim. Now answer the query: How does one "return an email?"

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I don't know, Rick. When I read this week's editorial in the AR Times (an excellent one, in my view), I have to think that we're in the running for the nation's dumbest state. What we put up with as a state, when it comes to the civic attitudes of our wealthiest families, is astonishing--letting them take and take and permitting them to give nothing back, while exploiting our labor in the process.

I know that the extremely rich behave this way around the world and in other states. But it seems more egregious in our state--the taking and not giving back.

And then I read the good articles Snapback has linked here, and remember how we've behaved as a state re: issues like women's rights, and how intent we are on replicating that pattern re: gay rights today, and I have to wonder about our stupidity. About the way we keep shooting ourselves in the foot all the time as a state, letting ourselves be diverted by issues like race, women's rights, gay rights--you name it--while our pockets are being picked.

And it looks like we're now ready to head like meek lambs to the slaughter in the coming election--heading right where that tiny percentage of wealthiest families in the state want to take us as a state. We don't seem very bright these days, in my view.

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eLwood, I don't know. Maybe you hit "Reply," send them back, and then delete. Maybe you just delete. that entire case did not not produce judicial rulings that will go into law school textbooks. The most disturbing thing is that we saw raw, unrefined boosterism at its worst.

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I am reminded by some posts above that Arkansas is the ONLY state on ANY continent where I've ever dwelled in which I heard, from "wealthy" friends, far more than once, always from males though one presumes their wives agree, "I wanted to be a big fish in a small pond."

ONLY in Arkansas, Razorbabies.

When one considers ALL that statement implies and reveals about the speaker, one may but accidentally spill one's libation upon said personage, apologize profusely for Mars crossing one's Moon, then seek the nearest bar for replenishment.

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"Money talks and bullshit walks" is an old adage, Norma. A variation on that is "that money talks and people listen." It is the latter that the people of whom you speak hope is true. They want to control. I don't think, though, that this is limited to Arkansas, although we are a "small pond." I've never heard wealthy persons say that, but then I don't have any wealthy friends.

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There's your problem, Plain.

One of my favorite remarks during my tenure in The Rock, after a Chenalian had conducted a tour of his lovely home accompanied by a running verbal inventory of everything's price, including the Escalades he trades in every two years so he doesn't have to deal with rotating tires and oil changes and all that "maintenance stuff": "It costs me $75,000 a year just to wake up."

One never hears that sort of thing on Beekman Place or Chalon Road.

Good breeding, Plain.

Like everything else worthwhile, it takes lots of practice.

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werent the emails already in the papers, somewhere or another? Does His Honor want everyone to make sure we aren't behind on taking them to the recycling center and might still have papers quoting the Mitch Emails? You want us to mail those or FedEx them?? Of course, it's gonna be COD.

Maybe someone just decided it was a good time, what with the beginning of college football season just around the corner, to get Mustain's name into the papers and blogs and whatnots.

People are crazy, and it's a full moon. that may be the best explanation.

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You are welcome, TAP.


Oh, and STJ......YOU LOSE!

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I am so tired of the stupidity I see and hear every day. My hometown tried to pass a tax that would have been a real boost to our economic development, but our economic development director opposed it. The teabaggers got active because they oppose everything good.
I'd leave this town in a heartbeat but I can't leave my grandbabies behind. It depresses me, though.
I think the whole country has gone batshit nuts.
Thanks for letting me rant.

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Home care workers--the folks who provide essential care and services to more than 13 million seniors and people with disabilities every day--are legally excluded from federal minimum wage and overtime protections.

While the Senate "recognizes" these workers, more than 1.5 million home care workers are currently living at near-poverty level earning a median income of $17,000 a year. Most of these workers, who both love their work and are good at their work, must have two and three jobs to just make ends meet. Many of these workers need food stamps to put food on their tables. All this ultimately hurts the consumer, who often finds it difficult to find and retain high quality home care services.

http://www.seiu.org/2010/08/i-recognize-yo…
----------------------------------------------------------
Instead we sent losers to Congress like Boozman and Lincoln who pump billions of dollars into Big Oil and big, corporate farms, let our essential care personnel go begging. Tell me again what insanity is?

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Before enjoying your next shrimp cocktail you might consider reading THIS.

Pull quotes?

"For months, US media reports distorted and lied about its severity, running cover for BP and the Obama administration, now practically avoiding the crisis altogether as it worsens."

And . . .

"US media reported what BP and government said, that most of the oil was dissolved. But in fact, it will remain a lethal cocktail combined with dispersants, killing wildlife and poisoning anyone eating it, assuring a coming epidemic of cancers and other diseases."

http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-sit…

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HOW dumb, you query? Here's your nation of know-nothings. From today's NYT.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/…

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Here's a little follow-up commentary for you NormaB: It concerns the "Borderers" a group who flocked here in hordes during the 18th Century and have strongly infected national policy ever since. T'baggers are representative of Borderers.

"Drink, Pray, Fight, Fuck

How the Scots Irish Screwed Up America"

By Joe Bageant

snip-
In understanding how such ominous political ideations manifested themselves in this country, it helps to look back 450 years to a group of Celtic cattle thieves killing one another in the mud along Hadrian's Wall -- the Borderers. Fanatically religious and war loving, these Scottish Protestants made their way first to Ireland as the "Ulster Scots," then to American shores during the early 18th century. Known to most Americans as the Scots Irish or Scotch Irish, the Borderers brought cultural values that govern (some would say screw up) the political emotions of millions of Americans to this day.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2005/01/drin…

(worth a read to understanding current Ark culture of a lack of it. Add to the Borderers influence those 18th Century prison colonies along what is now the coast of Georgia. Upon escaping thousands of them settled the Ozarks and multiplied all over the Ozarks in Missouri, Ark Okla and Illinois; with them came a hatred of authority and a love of lawlessness. Hence the hillbilly image a person who wouldn't go out of the house without their gun and later, a sacred devotion to the 2nd amendment.)

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Go easy there, eLwood. My mother's maiden name was McLaurin. She said her family were Scotch Irish, and she described my high school principal, whose name was Mahoney, as "black Irish." But thanks; I've often wondered where my attitude came from.

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