Arkansas Times

Smart Talk, Nov. 15

Arkansas may have a proposed state lottery on the ballot next year so it’s not too early to consider some of the issues other states have encountered. Such as Ping-Pong balls.

• by Arkansas Times Staff and Fritz Brantley

The Week That Was, Nov. 15

SHEFFIELD NELSON. The former Arkla Gas CEO, in an op-ed in the Democrat-Gazette, made a persuasive case for increasing the severance tax on natural gas by petition in 2008. He also ridiculed gas company announcements tempering optimism about Fayetteville

• by Arkansas Times Staff and Fritz Brantley

Letters to the Editor, Nov. 15

I really enjoy your publication, even though there is often a serious disconnect between your liberal-populist themes and the gaudy advertising that clearly is aimed at the upper middle class. We used to call that limousine liberalism.

• by Arkansas Times Staff and Fritz Brantley

Bailing out the jail

The eternal problem of government, it’s said, is that everybody wants services and nobody wants to pay for them. Nowhere does that hold more true than in the case of the Pulaski County Jail.

• by Doug Smith and Fritz Brantley

The Observer, Nov. 15

The Observer is a sucker for a sale and sentimental to boot, so we weren’t about to miss the great Ray Winder Field sell-athon held at the now-closed ballpark last week. No telling what treasures they’d unearth from the bowels of the clubhouse, we thought

• by Arkansas Times Staff and Fritz Brantley

The Insider, Nov. 15

Phil Wyrick, a former state legislator from Mabelvale who switched to the Republican Party for a run against U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder and later served as Livestock and Poultry Commission director under Gov. Mike Huckabee, may have one more political race in h

• by Arkansas Times Staff and Fritz Brantley

If he hollers

The obituary page last week reported the death of a Cabot man by saying he’d gone fishing with Jesus. Another man was said to have lost his battle with cancer at the same time he won his war against Satan.

• by Bob Lancaster and Max Brantley

Sticking it to the middle class

Mike Huckabee is right about his party. Republicans should not be the party of fatcats by settling big tax cuts on the rich while the poor wait for someone else’s wealth to splash onto them, as Huckabee described the philosophy in one of his books.

• by Ernest Dumas and Fritz Brantley

Words, Nov. 15

“Judge Billy Roy snuck back to his chambers while an angry crowd booed his verdict and threatened to burn the courthouse.”

• by Doug Smith and Fritz Brantley

How much is too much?

The Beebe administration’s triumphant landing of a windmill blade plant at the Little Rock Port called to mind former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker’s triumphant announcement of a Southwest Airlines call center at the Little Rock Airport, long gone.

• by Max Brantley and Fritz Brantley

The line between tacky and crooked

Mike Huckabee’s most vigorous and able nemesis in Arkansas is the unabashedly liberal and uncommonly activist editor of the weekly free tabloid in Little Rock.

• by John Brummett and Fritz Brantley

Editorials, Nov. 15

It’s hard to believe now, but early in George W. Bush’s first presidential campaign, some on the Religious Right suspected that he was not really one of them, though he claimed to be. They noted that he was an Ivy Leaguer, and the son of a man who’d once

• by Arkansas Times Staff and Fritz Brantley

Honky-tonk pop

There’s a constant and compelling tension between Kelly Willis' beautifully effortless singing and the catchy pop songs that largely make up her records.

• by Jason Weinheimer and Fritz Brantley

Music Reviews, Nov. 15

The only truly democratic musical genre — heck, art form of any sort — may be live dance music. The will of the group dominates; in the end, the only measure of a DJ is how well he can manipulate the masses. Intellectual appreciation is merely a bonus whe

• by Arkansas Times Staff and Fritz Brantley

Televisionist, Nov. 15

Maybe you’ve heard: There’s a little row going on right now between the folks who write TV and those who broadcast it. The Writer’s Guild of America is on strike. The beef sits largely on “new media,” chiefly TV content on the Internet. The writers want a

• by Fritz Brantley

The To-Do List, Nov. 15

Vital information, for your busy week.

• by Arkansas Times Staff and Fritz Brantley

Better than Fargo

Thank God for filmmakers like the Coen Brothers. While the vast majority of films coming out of Hollywood these days are DOA — formulaic, simultaneously wooden and flabby, burdened by the suggestions of every junior studio executive who ever spent 15 minu

• by Arkansas Times Staff and Fritz Brantley

In Brief, Nov. 15

Things you can do, during your busy week.

• by Arkansas Times Staff and Fritz Brantley

Seriously, go buy a coat

It’s a balmy 70 degrees or so as I write this, a mere 10 days before even the most restrained of retailers give it up and officially kick off the holiday shopping season. Makes it difficult to get me in the spirit, hard as the down coats in the window of

• by Jennifer Barnett Reed and Fritz Brantley

Thank God For Mississippi?

That was embarrassing. Last Saturday’s trouncing probably rang the death knell for Houston Nutt’s tenure at Arkansas, but that didn’t make the game any easier to watch. I haven’t spent so much time with my face in the couch cushions since Borat’s nude wre

• by Derek Jenkins

What's Cooking, Nov. 15

Cregeen’s general manager Khalil Moussa said the Irish restaurant and pub will start developing new locations in Little Rock and Jacksonville in the next three to four months. Moussa called the property agreements “pretty much a done deal,” but because co

• by Arkansas Times Staff and Fritz Brantley

Having been again …

In ancient times, a newcomer to Little Rock from a refinery town in Southwest Louisiana was beyond thrilled to discover T.G.I. Friday’s and Bennigan’s.

• by Arkansas Times Staff and Fritz Brantley

Editorial Cartoon, Nov. 15

• by Mike Gauldin

Orval, Nov. 15

• by Tommy Durham

This Modern World, Nov. 15

• by Tom Tomorrow