Saturday, April 30, 2011
The early line
Obligations lie ahead. I'm going to open the Saturday line. Some notes:
* NO CAMERAS IN COURT: Mara Leveritt reports that no cameras, audio or livestreaming will be allowed in circuit court when the West Memphis Three present evidence that their convictions in the 1993 slayings of three West Memphis children should be overturned.
* TOMMY TUBERVILLE IS A BIRTHER: Tommy Tuberville, Harmony Grove and Southern State's gift to major college football coaching, turned up on Sean Hannity's show of all places the other day and opined that President Obama must have something to hide about his country of origin. I kid you not. Twilight Zone post of the day.
* NEVER HIT A CHILD: A coalition working to end corporal punishment in schools — it's ineffective, it's assault, it teaches all the wrong sorts of messages — has written Arkansas officials, including the governor, to object to use of the the paddle at Marshall High School. Statistics indicate, on average, about 4 beatings per school day.
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Higher education Does it matter who leads UA System?
John Brummett summarizes the search for a University of Arkansas System president as, essentially, much ado about a nothing job. From the establishment point of view, he writes, being a farmer and Baptist and not an educator (see Jim Lindsey tool Stanley Reed) is quite good enough.
I’ll leave you with two predictions.One is that your life will not be remotely affected by this hiring, though it will seem to you that it ought to be.
The second is that the new president’s to-do list will be the same every day, consisting of one item only, which will be to get the packets ready for the next board meeting.
If Brummett is right on either of his main themes — that qualifications don't count and that the job is meaningless anyway — I'd draw two conclusions of my own:
1) It's another embarrassment to Arkansas, which is accustomed to that on the educational front.
2) It's a good thing we currently pay the university president less than half what we pay the baseball coach at Fetvul.
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Religion Prayers ended in Van Buren school
I suspect stories like this are far more widespread than we know, given that most Arkansas schools refuse to teach evolution and that some flavors of Christians believe it is their right to cram their religion down the throats of others.
The Times Record reports that a Van Buren teacher prayed over her class, handed out Bible verses and posted verses on the classroom wall.
On April 21, a parent said, her son told her that before the students' annual Benchmark exams the preceding week, Central Middle School teacher Jan Redden prayed "for the Devil to be bound up and not to enter their brains."
It isn't reported whether God lifted up the middle school students' test scores, but parental complaints have stopped the public school prayer exercises.
Van Buren is where a high school principal sent letters to staff members inviting them to join her as "prayer warriors." the story mentions that episode prompted unspecified "personnel" action.
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Mike Huckabee Mike Huckabee: The bucks stop here
Who does Mike Huckabee talk to? Newsmax, the house organ of the unhinged. Which tells you plenty.
It's real simple. He'll run for president if he thinks Barack Obama can be beaten and Huckabee's incremental moves toward a candidacy reflect the growing weakness in the president's poll numbers. But Huckabee loves his money. And he's going to hang onto his Fox paycheck as long as he possibly can. That is all.
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Arkansas Culture and Characters James Taylor at Verizon
I think we got some reviews of James Taylor's appearance at Verizon on the open line last night. Brian Chilson was on hand for photos. Can't help the nostalgia. Taylor is musical madeleines for me, sharp memories of specific times and events. "Fire and Rain" is on the radio for a 3 a.m. drive on St. Charles Blvd. back to a French Quarter apartment after a memorable day of introducing traveling French girls to New Orleans in the summer of 1970. Au revoir, Jacqueline.
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Friday, April 29, 2011
Friday night lights
- Arkansas Department of Emergency Management
- BLACK RIVER FLOODING: At Pocahontas
The readers take over. (Watching "Friday Night Lights?" I got the whole seaon on Netflix and gorged on it in about two sittings. I may rewatch.) Other notes:
* ELIZABETH WARREN: My favorite member of the Obama administration is coming to town May 5 to speak at the Clinton School. She deserves a bigger room and I hope response merits it. The consumer financial protection chief is smart, righteous and tough. Reserve your seats by emailing publicprograms@clintonschool.uasys.edu, or calling 501-683-5239.
* FLOODING: KAIT in Jonesboro continues to cover Northeast Arkansas flooding (photo above) like, well, like the Black River is covering formerly dry land.
* VAN HORN HOMERS: UA baseball coach Dave Van Horn got a rollover of his five-year contract, which includes additional compensation for athletic and academic performance. Here are the specifics on the incentives..
Comparison desired? Van Horn makes more than $560,000 and should move up over $600,000 in two years. The president of UA System currently makes under $300,000.
* THIRD TERM FOR BEEBE?: Bobby Tullis, the former state legislator from Mineral Springs, has an idea. He wants to change the Arkansas Constitution so Mike Beebe could run for a third term, but then revert back to a two-term limit. Since it's Friday night and all, I just thought I'd mention it for fun. Write him at legaltender2000@yahoo.com if you want to join his so far one-man parade.
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Police beat Trooper strikes plea bargain in fatal crash
- www.kait8.com
- ACCIDENT SCENE: In Manila
Rhew entered a no contest plea to a Class A misdemeanor, negligent homicide. Sentencing was suspended for a year, which means no penalty was imposed. He could appear a year from now and, as a first offender, have his record expunged.
The deal was signed Thursday by Judge Cindy Thyer. Rhew did not have to appear before the judge.
Rhew had been charged with felony manslaughter in the death of Vickie Lynn Freemyer, 52, of Blytheville. She was killed when Rhew's car collided with hers on state Highway 77 in Manila in 2009. Freemyer, a school teacher, had stopped at a Sonic en route to visit her father in a hospital. She'd stopped, or perhaps only slowed at the highway intersection and was proceeding at less than 10 miles an hour according to her vehicle's recording device, when she was slammed by Rhew's cruiser. Police reports say he was responding to a report of a man with an outstanding felony warrant at a driver's license center at Osceola, some 25 miles away. Why Rhew had to respond, rather than an Osceola policeman or local sheriff's deputy who would have been closer, is unclear.
Bobby Coleman of Blytheville, who represents Freemyer’s four daughters, said prosecutors informed the family after the order was signed, which Prosecutor Feland disputes. Coleman said the family didn’t approve of the deal. “They are disappointed a jury wasn’t given the opportunity to make a decision,” Coleman said. Feland again disputed that. He said he'd spoken continuously with family members about hoping to achieve a negligent homicide plea from the defendant. He said an adult daughter with whom he'd spoken throughout the process had told him last night she understood the decision, after he'd given her a detailed explanation.
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Week in Review Podcast Podcast: Max sings
Download here.
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Abortion Republicans: Politics over cervical cancer
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels will sign a bill stripping federal money from Planned Parenthood in Indiana.
One of the first casualties: About 500 pap tests a week for poor women.
This is known as pro-life.
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Taxes High taxes don't send wealthy fleeing
This is another one of those articles of faith that no amount of factual refutation will dispel. But new studies show "high" state tax rates don't drive away wealthy residents. Oh, there are the occasional greedheads who'll flee to Florida or Texas from Arkansas for a time to shelter some windfall profit-taking on capital gains, though after the state tax is deducted from federal obligations it's only about a 3 percent lick
But ...
"Taxes [have] essentially no impact on causing people to leave a state," says Jeff Thompson, of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.In a study tracking 18 years of migration between states in New England, Thompson found that people mostly move for job-related reasons. They go where the jobs are, regardless of whether it's low-tax New Hampshire or higher-tax Maine.
"If you're living in a state and your tax bill goes up by a thousand or two thousand dollars," he says, "that ... pales in comparison to what it would cost you to actually move. And it might not be worth it to have to be farther away from your job, farther away from your friends."
And Thompson says the stickiness of where you live is just as strong for those with higher incomes. In fact, they often have bigger houses, and businesses they can't move, and more ties to a community.
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Health Care Another adverse finding for State Hospital
The Disability Rights Center of Arkansas sends word of another adverse finding by federal regulators against the Arkansas State Hospital. The shortcomings are in recordkeeping, treatment and staffing. The state must submit a corrective plan by May 9.
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Arkansas Media Guarding the House videotapes
Roby Brock and his partners have produced a report on the House policy on use of the trove of new video and audio recordings compiled under the House of Representatives laudable and wholly wonderful expansion of broadcast of committee and chamber proceedings.
The House has adopted a rule that this material cannot be used for political, partisan, campaign or commercial purposes.
Can they do that? A very interesting legal question. It's hard to believe that, if the House really clamps down on use of the material, that it can withstand the test. Although remember that the legislature exempts itself from the Freedom of Information Act in many respects.
There's legal and there's right. Seems simple to me. The public paid for these invaluable records of public proceedings. They should be made available to all on an equal basis and they may be used just about however the recipient intends. I think there might be some room to prevent strict commercial use — resale of the tapes produced for and by the public.
Lawyers?
UPDATE: I've posted a video used against Mike Huckabee by political opponents in the 2008 presidential race. I think it encapsulates why House members fear use of the video in political campaigns. Huckabee's recitation of all the tax increases he supports is powerful TV imagery.
Bill Stovall, former House speaker and now staff, claims credit for the language. He said the interest was in preventing use of publicly financed material for private or commercial use. I get that. Problem is that declaring political speech as "profiting" is a reach, in my view. Stovall contends Texas has operated this way for years. And another caller says the Arkansas rule mirrors congressional rules against use of film shot on the floor in partisan outside uses. Stovall said the policy will be reviewed and if there's agreement that there are constitutional problems, it will be rescinded. I said it would be easy to have a House rule by which members agreed not to use the material in their campaigns. True, Stovall said, but it wouldn't be "fair" to let opponents use the material if incumbents cannot. I'm not sure I see it that way, given incumbents' many advantages, including retention of excess campaign money. They are free to use the words they speak. Why not the images of them speaking the words?
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Higher education Arkansas Idol: Choosing a UA president
I told you earlier this week that the Arkansas Farm Bureau had mounted a political lobbying campaign to install farm manager and Jim Lindsey tool Stanley Reed as president of the University of Arkansas System. The Farm Bureau road show has been evident in every public meeting held this week on the UA president job search.
Today Reed, who doesn't talk to me, was quoted in the Democrat-Gazette as saying that he was interested in the job. No s*** Sherlock. I've been reporting this for weeks. Indeed, if the farm/Lindsey lobby had had its way, he'd have been secretly ratified as the new president without prior announcement or public job search.
Openness is better, no matter the candidate. Reed owes the university community and the public his thoughts on the reactionary positions the Farm Bureau took under his leadership on any number of issues, from taxation to discrimination against homosexuals. Its long-standing fight of animal cruelty legislation merits discussion. So, too, does Reed's support in his hometown of a segregation academy. But before all that, the public needs an open board discussion on whether service on the University board, farm management and Arkansas residency is all that is required for heading a highly complex and huge educational institution that might benefit more from someone with academic management credentials.
To hear the Farm Bureau tell it, we are playing Arkansas Idol. I have half a mind to set up one of those 900 voting numbers to get people to text message their votes for UA president. The Farm Bureau has the dough to stuff the digital ballot box and make me a nifty profit.
Dr. Carl Johnson, current UA board chairman, has put some of the secret lobbying on public display with his series of public forums. It isn't a pretty sight. Nor has the University of Arkansas's abuse of the Freedom of Information Act been a pretty sight. I've only learned this week — through the Democrat-Gazette's (unacknowledged) followup of my original reporting — that I wasn't provided all board communications about the secret job search conducted over the last several months. Full disclosure would have also included a flirtation with former U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder and a Texas college administrator and disclosure of talk of a $600,000 contract for a University of Missouri chancellor avidly pursued by the board. It also included further demonstration of abuse of the public meetings law in round-robin two-member Board meetings on the job search. The UA counsel thinks this is legal. I can't find another lawyer who does. The University also thinks it is legal to redact information about meetings with Walmart executives from FOI requests. This is a continuation of a practice I contested unsuccessfully once at the lower court level. A judge bought, erroneously I think, that the UA is at a competitive disadvantage if it's required to talk about secret agreements it has reached with Waltons and related on university contributions. The competitive disadvantage clause is meant to apply to private businesses, not public institutions. Leon Holmes, who is now a federal judge and who is an accomplished press lawyer, shared my view on this at the time of the circuit court decision, I'm happy to say. The Times had been beggared by legal expenses run up by UA delays in the case and we couldn't afford the appeal then. This protection of the rich by the UA may yet be ripe for another, fuller challenge.
I am happy to say new documents I've received include a letter from UA trustee David Pryor. You can find his letter at the bottom of this compilation of a variety of communications about the job search. In a letter to John Ed Anthony, then heading the search, he reports "increased frustration" with the process. He said the process should be "opened up."
Said Pryor: "Full transparency would serve us well. ... Also I am very concerned that the current 'search process' could ultimately cause our board to violate the Freedom of Information law." Indeed. That this January letter to Anthony wasn't produce when the UA complied with my initial request gives you a little idea of how they roll. (The UA argues I didn't phrase my request broadly enough to capture all these documents.)
On the jumps: Links to more from the UA document dump on the presidential search.
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Little Rock Schools LR schools to McDaniel: Stick it
Well, OK, a report filed yesterday on the Little Rock School District's spending of state desegregation settlement money doesn't come to a verbatim conclusion quite so vivid as my headline, but it's the functional equivalent.
As I wrote previously, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel wasted $250,000 of taxpayer money on a nakedly political effort to demonize Pulaski County school districts in the name of advancing his political career. He's joined a long band of politicians who think fighting desegregation in Pulaski County is good politics. He hired an accounting firm to demonstrate the three districts hadn't properly accounted for spending of court-ordered desegregation money. It was a straw man report. The districts aren't REQUIRED to report expenditures in the manner McDaniel outlined. Much of the money is specifically given as an incentive for operating programs required by the desegregation plan. Much of it pays for teacher expenses, magnet schools and transportation.
Here's school attorney Chris Heller's report to the district in response. He explains that McDaniel is merely try to build a case, under whatever pretext, to end state desegregation aid the schools. A huge legal argument remains — and it should be in Pulaski districts' favor — on the state's continuing commitment to magnet schools and transfer programs. He identifies how the state money is spent categorically and he gives McDaniel chapter and verse of how the district spends far more than it receives from the state on specific desegregation activities. Heller noted that the district's spending had been reviewed by legislative committees in 2007 and 2008 and nothing remiss had been found.
Said Heller in summary: It's about litigation, not accountability; Little Rock can account for the money it spends; it spends more than the state provides on deseg programs. I believe North Little Rock and Pulaski districts have already essentially made the same arguments. But McDaniel has scored his political points and, undoubtedly will continue to score them. Massive resistance has never stopped being a guiding principle for many Arkansas politicians since 1957. See the state support of desegregation-harming charter schools in Pulaski County for another recent case in point.
SPEAKING OF LITTLE ROCK SCHOOLS: The School Board last night dropped a Memphis contender from a list of finalists for the superintendent's job and added former deputy superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh, apparently restoring the list of three finalists recommended by the search firm. Three board members didn't want to add Hattabaugh to the list, a problematic start for anyone hoping for a consensus pick. Though Hattabaugh was a part of the ill-fated Roy Brooks era, I've had a great number of people who've sung his praises and I, for one, would like to hear what he has to say in public interviews. He's been in a No. 2 job at a big and well-thought-of school district in Charlotte, N.C. Irving Hamer, the Memphis dropout, had given me pause, not the least for a hop-scotching job record and many points of past controversy.
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Arkansas Politics Rick Crawford grilled on Medicare, tax votes
Well, well. Republican U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford brought a claque to clap down tough questioners to a town hall meeting yesterday in Jonesboro, but the questioners got through and the Blue Arkansas blog was on hand with video to record a most uncomfortable session for Crawford.
His defense of his vote to end Medicare as guaranteed single-payer health coverage and his vote to cut taxes on the rich was lacking. He doesn't think too quickly on his feet. Blue Arkansas reports that he tucked tail and left early. He said at one point that he wouldn't vote to raise the debt ceiling. But he also said he wouldn't allow U.S. obligations to go into default. Which side are you on Rick Crawford? Personally, we know he's willing to take the bankrupt route, but the state of an entire economy didn't rest on his decision to skip on his bills.
May a new brand of Tea Party emerge to hold people like Crawford accountable in 2012.
I've posted just one of several video clips, but I'd recommend checking the Blue Arkansas link for commentary on the event.
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Event Calendar
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Re: Little Rock can do better than ditches
simply embarrassing.
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Riverfest eve open line UPDATE
I have to disagree with you Durango. They weren't pathetic papers. They were quintessential local…
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Surgeon general strikes deal on disturbance charges
“Conviction or no conviction, Thompson has paid a heavy price in publicity alone.”
Undeniably…- on May 24, 2012
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