Friday, January 27, 2012
Friday night line begins with horseplay
The line is open. That photo? It's the cover of the latest Farm Bureau magazine. Not black prison inmates toiling in a field next to a headline about watermelon recipes. We presume the cover shot goes with the photo contest winners, not the wild game recipes.
Also:
Hold up on that baby lotion. Johnson and Johnson has ordered a recall of Aveeno Baby Calming Comfort Lotion because of possible "excess bacteria," which makes you wonder what bacteria isn't excessive.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (0)
Sound familiar?
Texas on my mind today, I guess: The New York Times reports that Texas has been paying $400,000 a month for Gov. Rick Perry's security while he traveled around the country campaigning.
Aside from President Obama, Mr. Perry — the only sitting governor in the 2012 race — has the largest security contingent, and apparently the only one on the Republican side financed by taxpayers.Weeks before he officially announced his presidential bid, Mr. Perry said it was appropriate for the Texas Department of Public Safety to pay for his security and called any criticism of his government-provided protection a “diversion.” He also said that Texans would benefit from his travels. “I’m going to be promoting Texas,” Mr. Perry said in July, as he began to traverse the country. “I’m going to be traveling to places where the Texas story needs to be told, and we will tell it.”
Takes you back, doesn't it? Read here about the erstwhile Arkansan who liked to travel on the state's dime.
Posted by Leslie Newell Peacock on | Permalink | Comments (3)
Media Fun with headlines
AR Dem-Gaz, paraphrasing Bloomberg News headline: "U.S. economy grew less than forecast in fourth quarter"
Washington Post: "U.S. GDP grew at fastest pace in 1.5 years in fourth quarter 2011"
Posted by Leslie Newell Peacock on | Permalink | Comments (7)
Arkansas Culture and Characters Treasurer Shoffner, VISA team up to teach finance
That headline is not a joke.
* Arkansas Treasurer Martha Shoffner — whose campaign finance reports were a disaster just for starters and who's raised a number of questions about her handling of state investments.
* VISA — a credit card company. Tens of thousands of Arkansas families owe perilous or ruined finances to the predatory effects of credit cards. It's also worth mentioning the credit card companies' purchase of Congress to make sure, whatever else happened, ruined families would have to go through hell to discharge plastic card debt in bankruptcy.
The gimmick is described as an "NFL themed educational video game and classroom curriculum" known as Financial Football.
Shoffner and VISA will be joined by an NFL quarterback Christian Ponder for the media event next week. Perhaps Shoffner will answer some questions about her campaign and personal finances that she's been reluctant to field. Maybe VISA also can tell us how much the outfit spent to lobby Congress on bankruptcy "reform." I presume someone in the Education Department gave Shoffner the go-ahead to roll out this new offering, rich next week in VISA and NFL branding into public schools? Right?
Call me cynical. As much as kids can use sound financial training, the key players here sound too much like Newt Gingrich coming to town to promote a course on successful marriage.
UPDATE: VISA is unhappy with my lumping them in with interest rates, consumer debt and all the rest. It's the banks that do that; credit card companies merely extract a fee from merchants for use of their cards. It is but a network, they insist. To blame them for financial problems is like blaming FedEx for the quality of goods the delivery company delivers, a spokesman told me. The financial game is just good corporate citizenship to encourage better habits among kids, a spokesman says. Even if I were to grant the innocence of credit card companies in personal financial disasters (I don't), there's still an old saying that applies. Lie down with dogs ....
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (5)
Environment $4 million for a clean Maumelle
The U.S. Forest Service announced today it approved a $4 million grant to Central Arkansas Water for the Maumelle Water Excellence Project. The dollars are for land acquisition and will pay back a portion of the $12 million CAW spent to purchase the 915-acre Winrock Grass Farms, once held by Jay DeHaven. The state of Arkansas also kicked in $4 million toward the purchase.
CAW purchased the land, which includes four miles along the Big Maumelle, to protect the water quality in the feeder to the city's water supply, Lake Maumelle.
CAW can't protect our drinking water with this acquisition only. The Quorum Court needs to quit pussyfooting around and pass land use rules for the lake, rules that protect the water and not the financial interests of a few looking to develop the land.
Posted by Leslie Newell Peacock on | Permalink | Comments (1)
Politics Texans snub Jerry Jones, Perry too
Polling on such the issues most dear to Texans — issues as politics and sports — found some Texas-sized disdain for Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones. Public Policy Polling's "Odds and Ends" says only 14 percent of Texans polled rating him favorably, and 48 percent unfavorably. "I'm pretty sure that -34 spread represents the worst poll numbers we've ever found for someone in Texas," PPP director Tom Jensen's news release said.
Not sure that it matters, since Jones isn't running for anything. Gov. Rick Perry, however, won't be happy with the poll: It shows that 64 percent of Texans would vote for someone other than Perry in the next gubernatorial election. From a news release on the poll:
“Texans’ esteem for Rick Perry has dropped considerably in the aftermath of his
disastrous presidential bid,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.
“He’s got some work to do if he plans on running for office again in Texas.”
Posted by Leslie Newell Peacock on | Permalink | Comments (5)
Arkansas Politics UPDATE Dabbs served, Webb dishes
- Brian Chilson
- Gary Hollis at last night's Bryant City Council meeting
Bryant's city council meeting was nothing short of a circus (with sideshows) last night. Throughout the 3 hour (plus? I don't know, I left three hours in) meeting, the room remained at standing-room capacity. Initially the overflow spilled out the door, but after Pastor Perry Black emphasized how much Family Church does not want a new road to cut through its property and Mayor "Republican" Jill Dabbs said she would work with the church, the crowd thinned out by about 200. And yet, people still lined the walls and crouched in aisles.
The most tense moments came when Interim City Attorney (and Republican party head) Doyle Webb attempted to discredit Nga Mahfouz, former City Attorney, fired by Dabbs earlier this month, and Gary Hollis, longtime Financial Director also fired by Dabbs and reinstated by the Council at the last general meeting. Second runner up — when Mayor Dabbs was served papers notifying her of a lawsuit, filed by former HR Director Shayne King for wrongful discharge and slander.
Webb stated that he could not find files in the attorney's office for particular cases. He also asked the Council's permission to bring a suit against Christopher Barnes, the IT vendor wanted by the county prosecutor for stealing roughly $50,000 from the city. "This breach of contract occurred in 2010, and your attorney took no action," he said. The city attorney cannot file suit without the permission of the council.
Posted by Cheree Franco on | Permalink | Comments (21)
Taxes Local road money: The rest of the story
Reminder of a better idea not mentioned in today's news coverage: The proposal to make the gas severance tax fair would provide money for city and county needs on a permanent basis without taxing the necessities of life and put most of the cost of building roads on out-of-state consumers of the gas forever severed from Arkansas.
You won't find highway officials touting THAT solution for local road funding. It would be permanent, not temporary. It wouldn't hurt the neediest the most. It would extract some payment from an industry destroying roads faster than we can fix them. It makes too much sense for the Arkansas legislature, dominated by gas lobbyists. The people? That's another question.
(Kind of surprised Sheffield Nelson wasn't outside the committee room passing out numbers of the significant city and county aid mandated under the severance tax proposal — the reason the Arkansas Municipal League is working to put the issue on the ballot and the reason it has resisted extortionate arm-twisting by legislators to drop its support for the proposal.)
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (4)
Environment SWEPCO deal produces more 'green' spending
The Sierra Club continues to tout fringe benefits from its deal to settle the fight against SWEPCO's coal-burning power plant in Hempstead County. Here, it's expenditure in Arkansas on manufacturing for wind energy components.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (4)
Human rights Racial stereotyping continues in U.S.
A post-racial America? Not quite.
A national poll at the University of Arkansas shows that the Obama presidency hasn't improved attitudes. Opinion stigmatizing black and Latino people remains strong. UA Political Scientist Pearl Ford Dowe did the analysis.
Dowe’s analysis of data collected in the poll reveals “a relevant and stark racial divide” in both perceptions of American society and in support for public policies. The data show whites “seem to remain less supportive of policies designed to improve equality, particularly in comparison to African Americans and Latinos,” a reality reflected in the day-to-day experiences reported by African Americans across the country. Of the national sample, 81 percent of African Americans in the South and 80.3 percent of African Americans from elsewhere in the country reported experiencing discrimination in their day to day life.One aspect of the racial divide is reflected in the widely divergent views of the amount of attention being paid to racial issues in this country. Nationally, 47.2 percent of African Americans and 40.7 percent of Latinos believe that too little attention is being paid to race. In contrast, 56 percent of whites, both Southern and non-Southern, felt too much attention was being paid to race.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (30)
Arkansas Culture and Characters English competency for legislators?
Serious business. Give a court, rather than voters, the ability to decide whether someone was competent to be an elected representative? Official competency is a slippery slope. Should literacy be required, in addition to Arizona's English competency? Basic computation skills? In a gentler vein, this brings to mind columnist Richard Allin and cartoonist George Fisher's Southern Legislative Dictionary and Allin's mythical lawmakers from Wad and Gudge, Ark.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (24)
Education Imagine: A school without football or basketball. How about prayer?
Would an Arkansas school district eliminate all athletics to preserve the school district? A small Texas district, amazingly enough, has made that call. And residents seem supportive.
What about religion in school? I suspect the reaction in Arkansas would be similar to what a Rhode Island high school girl has experienced (link corrected) for going to court to challenge a prayer posted on the wall in her high school.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (4)
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Ex-Marvell cop pleads in 'Delta Blues'
Report follows on a guilty plea by a former Marvell cop in "Operation Delta Blues," the big drug/public corruption probe:
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (1)
Outta here
Yo, over to you.
Yo-yo: Huff Post says Romney's back on top in Florida. Also:
* MEAN GIRLS: Bentonville cops arrest three teen girls in cyber bullying case. 40/29 reports
* BRYANT FOAM FEST: Twitter indicates the Bryant City Council is discussing the great beer bust — the consumption of beer in the VIP room at the Bryant Family Fest last summer, with Mayor Jill "Republican" Dabbs in attendance. Public serving and consumption of alcohol in a city park in the dry county runs afoul of several laws. if you want to be picky about such things. It isn't the crime of the century, really. But somebody apparebntly put up the argument tonight that beer had to be served as part of a contract with musical entertainers. Please. This sounds like the sort of legal reasoning by which the mayor gave herself and her pal, City Clerk Heather "Republican" Kizer an illegal pay raise to start their tenure in office. An illegal contract is unenforceable. A musician can't enforce a contract provision requiring violation of alcohol laws any more than he could require the mayor to rob a bank to pay him.
* ONLY MONEY CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES: A legislative committee voted today to restore 20 firefighting jobs lost in the cutbacks at the Forestry Commission. Thanks to Sen. Johnny Key, a rare adult in the GOP delegation, for backing the addition. Still lacking: A way to pay for the firefighters. Republicans like Justin Harris and Nate Bell are moaning as if the apocalypse is near from rampaging fires about to incinerate their communities. But pay for the protection? You bet they won't vote for a tax to pay for it. They'll let the Democrats do that and then use the votes as election fodder, as Rep. Jon Woods did in a debate yesterday with Sen. Bill Priitchard, a responsible Republican who, for example, recognized that you couldn't meet the Supreme Court mandate on school funding without increasing taxes to pay for it. Now Woods is decrying Pritchard as a tax and spender. Maybe he should get in his time machine and look at the butterfly effect on state schools had Pritchard not done the responsible thing.
Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said today it was unclear how legislators intended to pay for the positions if not through a tax increase.
Loaves and fishes, maybe.
Posted by Leslie Newell Peacock on | Permalink | Comments (50)
Arkansas Lottery Not to worry, lottery office says
You may have read in the daily paper this morning that the lottery ticket being fought over in Circuit Court in Searcy was cast away because a scanner read the $1 million winner as a loser.
Now comes the Arkansas Lottery's interim director to say the scanners "are performing like clockwork." According to Julie Baldridge, "The ticket in question was scanned at the original retailer and at several other scanners in various locations, and each time it scanned properly." I called Baldridge to see why the testimony at trial was at odds with the lottery's findings, but wasn't able to reach her.
The case, being heard by Circuit Judge Thomas Hughes, hasn't wrapped up. Lawyers did not complete arguing their case today, and it will be continued to another time, the court clerk said.
Baldridge's letter is on the jump.
Posted by Leslie Newell Peacock on | Permalink | Comments (2)
Event Calendar
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Re: Fun with headlines
Even headline writers get dishonest marching orders. Anything to make Obama look bad. Twits.
- on January 27, 2012
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Re: Sound familiar?
News flash for Rick Perry: Every time the word "Texas" rolled from your lips, eyes…
- on January 27, 2012
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Re: UPDATE Dabbs served, Webb dishes
comeonreally, Wut?
- on January 27, 2012
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Johnson & Johnson recalls baby lotion from stores
January 27, 2012Johnson & Johnson is recalling baby lotion that may have excess bacteria from stores in nine states. fox16.com /more/ -
Super Saturday event gives Arkansans free help with taxes
January 27, 2012We are just over a week away from the Super Bowl and a pre Super Bowl event-- Super Saturday. fox16.com /more/
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