Monday, January 9, 2012
The morning roundup
Posted by Max Brantley on Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 9:14 PM
Odds and ends around Arkansas this morning:
* THE BRYANT FOLLIES: Bryant Mayor Jill "Republican" Dabbs called in TV stations — not all print media that I can tell — and held forth for about an hour Monday about how she's a victim of obstructionist council members. She's made mistakes, she concedes, but has quickly corrected them. She also revealed that she has a plan to buy a fleet of Tahoes for the cops even though the Council shot down her plan to raise the alcohol tax to pay for them. Petitions to recall the mayor circulate regardless.
* LOTTERY SCHOLARSHIP TWEAKING: Legislators are talking about changing lottery scholarship rules. Idea include encouraging lower scoring high school grads to try community colleges first and to have scholarship awards be graduated, with lowest amounts to freshmen. I'd guess these rule changes would add to the built-in favoritism for rewards to middle class and higher kids.
* DO YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT VETERANS? Today's THV had a good followup on the VA proposal to move an expanded day service center for vets to a former car dealership at Tenth and Main. More details on the important services planned for people that politicians like to honor when they're overseas. Mayor Mark Stodola and U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin haven't been so welcoming to them here at home. They've taken up some neighbors' complaints about the center. which serves homeless vets with a broad range of services. I received a comment last night from someone who once worked in the neighborhood of the existing center, at 2nd and Ringo:
We never had any trouble from them. Listen, I am a hardass about this "homeless" stuff. Most of them are mean and dangerous. But those vet people operated that center like professionals. I remember one couple who had a little daughter. They lived in their compact car. They would drive to the vet center to do laundry and get meals.
The mayor is hot-boxing the VA to force them to give up on the Main Street location and Congressman Griffin is harrumphing about it, too. I don't believe the mayor's suggestion that the city's long-promised day center for the homeless has the space to accommodate the VA's expansive services. I continue to believe that center, out near Granite Mountain, is in a terrible, remote location, particularly for this project.
Comments (11)
Showing 1-11 of 11
I am absolutely appalled by Stodola's and Griffin's behavior concerning the vet center, Shame on them!
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Stodola’s and Griffin’s responses are very much in character. The voters should get rid of both of them --- but they won’t.
The Scholarship Lottery is on the brink of a nightmare scenario with more legislative meddling and the pending selection (methinks) of a good ol' boy as director. Oh well, at least we'll still have the luck of the Powerball and MegaMillions draws as retirement options.
How exactly does encouraging lower scoring kids consider community college first or implementing a graduated payment system favor middle and higher kids? I think there is wisdom in these ideas. If a kid has been average or slightly below in high school, why give him or her a scholarship at a 4-year institution right off the bat? Why not a scholarship to one of the state's over abundant 2-year or community colleges to allow the student to acclimate to college? Damn, does there have to be an ulterior motive in everything to you, Max?
Not exactly on topic, but too good to miss. Life magazine reprints their 1948 photo essay, "A Country Doctor".
http://www.life.com/hdgallery/23295/image/…
h/t to mistermix at BJ
Anyone expecting those who championed or said nothing about troops deployed in needless wars and oppression over the last forty plus years should not be surprised this same kind of person has no difficulty ignoring and belittling citizen veteran human pawns at home. It's bipartisan.
You either serve the 1 percent or you are dead to them. We need to stop asking our brethren to brutally police the world... that's how one first identifies a real supporter of troops!
Oh sure, dumbing down the lottery minimums is a great idea! NOT! If anything the standards should be raised since the lottery proceeds are producing fewer scholarships than projected. Let's reward those who make the effort instead of those skating through. Let's keep our "best and brightest" in the state because we already have enough of the "worst and ignorant." Arkansas needs to be raising the bar, not lowering it. Otherwise we'll never get past our past, nor prepare ourselves for the future. College is NOT for everyone. It never has been, and as much as we'd like everyone to have a college education, some, no matter what we do, never will have one.
Yea? I was a founding Board Member for the Metro Disabilities Coalition in Louisville. We met in the Paralyzed Vets headquarters and the Mayor was wanting photo ops that showed his benevolent political side. The group was not ready for his representative was pushing for that presence. He would talk about inclusion but feel threatened if one wanted to have a discussion. In my mind, to diminish a design based upon the character of the citizen and his structural expression as a result of finance for a war machine seems to me to be an act of in security. Stephens did not wish to meet when the opportunity was knocking on his door because I think of the term social. But if one thinks about it, to be the lone man in the fault can be an poor position to sit on. One day the vault will close on Warren and he will have to reconcile the last act. As someone once said, "it is what you do with poverty". And one shouldn't working to create impoverishing conditions out of ignorance.! Does this make sense? ( I still wish to showcase the nature of the "Ark" along with another and perhaps the States but I need a little bit of assistance with realizing an expression for and of life.
Thanks Max for the reporting.
One hundred years in 10 minutes, "No wonder you're tired".
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/
Max, Max, Max. Consider Bryant's poor police chief. It's much easier for some of us to slide into and out of a Tahoe than some low to the ground car. Damn the cost. It's only taxpayer money.
A chart at TPM that Republicans don't want you to see: how the debt limit fight last summer hurt the economy and delayed the recovery.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01…
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