Friday, July 03, 2009 - 17:52:38
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... with your open line comments. And easy on the fireworks, please. Friday Night Lights is on my mnd. I"ve been re-watching the series on DVD. Good stuff. Thanks to Scott Miller for a weekend-appropriate photo of his flag-bedecked Argenta home. In other news:
WATER MAIN: A reader reported while I snoozed that a water main had broken near Cantrell and University. It was a whopper. Central Arkansas Water news release on the jump. Some discolored water will result.
CRIME WATCH: Also from a reader I hear reliably that the LRPD has nabbed two purse snatchers who robbed elderly women, including a nun, in Kroger parking lots in Hillcrest and the Heights last week. Familiar thugs, apparently.
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Friday, July 03, 2009 - 16:19:30
Arrests made of people suspected to have connection to the missing former Waldron mayor. He has not been found, however..
Friday, July 03, 2009 - 15:19:47
The New York Times says:
Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska announced Thursday that she would step down by the end of the month and not seek a second term as governor, allowing her to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2012.
She'll step down July 25. Some cable talkers think this weird speech could be the end of her national ambitions and are quoting "sources" as saying that's her intention, to leave politics. Even some Republicans said the sports-metaphor-laden, disjointed talk was "bizarre." But I wouldn't be so sure this is disqualifying, certainly not with the zombie wing of Republican Party. And she did an awful lot of talk about serving larger purposes. She was savaged, however, in a recent Vanity Fair profile ("It came from Wasilla") and the talk today certainly didn't showcase a national prime-timer.
I prefer to say let the campaign begin -- Huck v. Palin in 2012. Just don't look for them on the same ticket. Not enough air in that room.
UPDATE: Uh oh, add meanness to cute white women to the conservatives' victimhood litany (you know Christian white males are the most discriminated against class in America.) Huck plays the victim card, too, to burnish his zombie love should she actually be exiting the stage:
Mike Huckabee, who might be/have been a 2012 contender against Palin, said that “what she’s showing is what a lot of us loved about her: Her spunk.” He said that her supporters wouldn’t punish her decision: “They’re going to feel like she was, in essence, hounded from the opportunity to serve.”
UPDATE II: I don't have a clue what's on her mind. But MSNBC is running the full speech. It's the only way to appreciate what occurred today. She's a wackjob. Whatever her intentions, she's proved she's not fit to be president. Get the bugler. Blow "Taps." Stick a fork in Caribou Barbie. As a political force, she's done.
Friday, July 03, 2009 - 11:45:08
Interesting article here about a Republican candidate for governor in Iowa, Bob Vander Plaats. He was chairman of Mike Huckabee's Iowa presidential primary campaign. Vander Plaats has apparently decided gay marriage is his big ticket, after a couple of losing bids for statewide office.
When the Iowa Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage earlier this year, Vander Plaats asked [Gov. Chet] Culver to issue an executive order to ''put a stay on the court's opinion until the Legislature acts.''
Culver's advisers said the governor has no power to do that. Vander Plaats disagrees.
''I've got constitutional lawyers that back me up,'' he said.
When asked to identify them, he named former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and Herb Titus, a Virginia attorney. He did not name any Iowans.
The only lawyer in that group is a religious nut.
Friday, July 03, 2009 - 06:30:39
Want a holiday downer? Try Paul Krugman. He says the government simply must pump more money into stimulating the economy. And he sounds a warning about devastated state budgets that may, before too long, hit home in Arkansas. Until now, we've been doing better than most, but revenue took a sharp tumble in June and, modest as the forecast for state tax flow is this year, it may not be modest enough.
All of this is depressingly familiar to anyone who has studied economic policy in the 1930s. Once again a Democratic president has pushed through job-creation policies that will mitigate the slump but aren’t aggressive enough to produce a full recovery. Once again much of the stimulus at the federal level is being undone by budget retrenchment at the state and local level.
So have we failed to learn from history, and are we, therefore, doomed to repeat it? Not necessarily — but it’s up to the president and his economic team to ensure that things are different this time. President Obama and his officials need to ramp up their efforts, starting with a plan to make the stimulus bigger.
Friday, July 03, 2009 - 06:02:18
Well here's one I didn't see in the morning Democrat-Gazette:
The ashes of Socks, the "First Cat" of both the Arkansas Governor's Mansion during the Clinton years and then the White House, were scattered at the Mansion in March. A brief ceremony included First Lady Ginger Beebe's reading of a poem she wrote for the occasion.
Thursday, July 02, 2009 - 17:24:42
With an open line. And perhaps a PBR or a 97-cent quart of Miller High Life, since
Natty Bo isn't available in LR.
Thursday, July 02, 2009 - 17:02:29
David Goins of Fox 16 lands an interview with the mother of the fourth teen, Antonio Terry, 16, (pictured in police mug shot) arrested for killing a Southwest Little Rock man in a home intrusion burglary. It was a crime striking in its coldness based on reporting so far. Broad daylight. Little to steal. Violent punks with nothing better to do than kick a door down and kill the 67-year-old man inside because he didn't have much to give the robbers.
Goins interview doesn't dispel the coldness. His mother, who was at her son's court appearance said he didn't look at her and didn't appear to show remorse.
Katie Pierce, Terry's mom, says she's horrified her son is involved and did everything she could to try to keep from ending up in jail.
"He started getting tattoos, getting tatted up, and the streets just stole him from me,” Pierce says.
Terry and three others are charged with breaking into the home of Maurice Clark, 67, on Tuesday, robbing and killing him. Terry denies shooting the homeowner, but his co-defendants say he did.
"He didn't have to be out there robbing anybody at all, trying to rob anyone, because we gave him everything,” Pierce says. “Everything you can ask for as a kid."
Pierce says her only son started acting out four years ago when he was 12, stealing even from her. He had been in the Division of Youth Services in Alexander three times, getting out most recently last May. Pierce wanted him to stay longer or be put in drug rehab, anywhere but out on the streets.
"We tried everything,” Pierce says. “I tried grounding him, taking phones from him, making him stay inside. It just got to the point where it was going to be his way or no way."
Thursday, July 02, 2009 - 16:05:56
Just the other day, UA Chancellor David Gearhart said he wanted to make public art a priority on the Fayetteville campus.
Voila! UA announced today a new piece of public art for the campus -- a hog sculpture. It was donated by a son of the late architect Paul Young Jr. in honor of poultry magnate Don Tyson, and stands before the John W. Tyson Poultry Science Building.
It was dedicated today. I hope, for delicacy's sake, lunch wasn't a rack of Tyson spare ribs. Some pig.
Continue Reading »
Thursday, July 02, 2009 - 14:55:39
Conservative columnist Michael Barone has prompted a number of web comments today about his suggestion that Mike Huckabee could be the Republicans Jesse Jackson. Huck could, Barone writes, leverage his appeal to evangelical and other base Republican voters perhaps all the way to the nomination thanks to Iowa's early influence and the Republican winner-take-all primary system. But would he most likely wind up like Jackson, with a significant constituency that can't give him better than a second or third place finish for the nomination?
Here's where number cruncher Nate Silver at 538.com comes in. Silver notes that in 2008 Huckabee did not dominate among evangelical Republican voters and did very poorly among non-evangelicals. His problem might be, Silver suggests, that he has too much crossover appeal to conservative Democrats with some of his populist views, something that could hurt him in the primary. Silver concludes that the best bet for Huck is to "stay in hibernation" in 2012.
Thursday, July 02, 2009 - 14:42:18
This is a TV ad for an example of one of the hotter things on the web of late, information services. Call a new text service, KGB, with a text message question -- the score of the 1947 Cotton Bowl, quantum physics, the highest paid lottery staff in America, etc. -- and you'll get an answer texted back from an on-line expert for 99 cents. just dial kgbkgb (542542)
Anyway, I give them the plug because the ad answers a question about weird college mascots by invoking the University of Arkansas at Monticello's proud Boll Weevil.
Thursday, July 02, 2009 - 13:22:23
Those pesky Internet tubes.
Take Audra Sigler Shay, a Fort Smith native and former UA student who now lives in New Orleans and who is running this month to be elected national chairman of the Young Republicans.
She has a busy Facebook page. As this screenshot shows, (click on image to expand it) she opened a comment thread recently by saying, "OK I think Wal-Mart just signed a death warrant in my eyes." This is a reference to Wal-Mart's joining with a union and a liberal think tank in endorsing mandatory employee health insurance. Sounds like a YR. As do many of her Facebook friends. For example, Eric Piker responded [all sic]:
.... obama is the new terrorist ... muslim is on there side ... need to take this country back from all these mad coons ... and illegals
Responded Audra Shay
You tell em Eric! lol
It's possible that Shay, who was born in 1971, didn't know that Piker wasn't talking about Gillett dinner fare (explanation for out-of-state readers: it's a fabled raccoon supper in a small Arkansas town) in his use of the word coon.
The good news is that several others on Shay's page called down the use of the language, as did a Republican who sent the screenshot of the page to me. A Republican blog has picked up the thread. It said criticism of Obama is one thing, but "using racist words and seemngly to applaud such words is just plain wrong."
Arkansas YR leadership has endorsed Shay. To be generous, she seems, at a minimum, clueless.
UPDATE: A spokesman for Shay has provided her statement on the matter. It's on the jump. She says it's a "desperate" effort by opponents to derail her certain victory.
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Thursday, July 02, 2009 - 12:49:56
Sage blogging advice, which I sometimes don't follow, is to resist the temptation to "feed the trolls." There's not much percentage, or satisfaction, in fighting back at those who can fire at you anonymously in Internet forums. The temptation is great when facts are in dispute.
Anyway, readers here know that UCA trustee Rush Harding (pictured), the Little Rock investments executive, mixes it up frequently on blogs.
He's back at it again in a rip-roaring exchange of comments on the Log Cabin Democrat's story about former UCA president Lu Hardin's new job in Florida.
Harding has been refreshingly open about mistakes made during the Hardin affair. And apologetic. But he understandably bridles at accusations from one commenter who suggested criminal wrongdoing and called on Harding to resign from the board.
In the exchanges you'll find at the link, Harding offers at one point to resign from the Board if one critic will debate him on UCA issues. He also volunteers to whip the commenter's "a**" if he doesn't want to resolve things in a gentlemanly fashion. He talks at length about UCA issues and demonstrates, if nothing else, a nearly wondrous devotion to his alma mater, whatever flaws you might see in him. (I am operating on the presumption that comments signed by Harding are from Harding. But I know he made all those on our blog in recent weeks and his comments are nothing but reflections of many things he's told me personally.)
Recommended reading.
UPDATE: Rush has contributed to our thread, too.
Thursday, July 02, 2009 - 11:58:17
Gerard Matthews will have a full report later, but it sounds like the legislature's lottery oversight committee signed off on Director Ernie Passailaigue's budget and pay proposals. Sen. Johnny Key had some sharp questioning of some flaws in details and the sole "no" vote.
The big pay for top assistants drew little objection. I note Capsearch Twitter posts that quote House Speaker Robbie Wills thusly:
* Wills says he wants Arkansans to understand why lottery staff earns handsome salaries: big bucks for education.
* Wills uses football analogy and says Arkansasans pay football coaches (and assistants) a lot and understand what they pay for.
Some thoughts. 1) At the highest level, paying big bucks for experienced workers who can hit the ground running has some justification. It has no justification for people who answer phones and do the dozens of jobs for which specific lottery experience is not a requirement, or much of one. 2) It is simply wrong to link state government pay to revenue production. 3) Some people, believe it or not Speaker Wills, DON'T understand football staff pay Or six-figure pay for lottery functionaries. It is a blood insult to thousands of state employees who do more important work to suggest lottery employees deserve more money simply because it's easy to get people to gamble.
BY THE WAY: Ernie P. was heard to comment about "negative" media. That will all go away when the scholarship money rolls in, he says.
Continue Reading »
Thursday, July 02, 2009 - 10:00:02
I predict by the end of the day the Washington Post will be falling all over itself to correct this monumental screwup, which has virtually every media website and blog on fire.
Times are tough for newspapers, yes. But tough enough to set up a series of sponsored dinners at the publisher's house where lobbyists pay $25,000 for access to off-the-record "salons" with government big shots and the newspaper's own editorial staff?
Wow.
But, on the other hand. What would you pay to have dinner with me? Wait. Don't answer that question.
UPDATE: The explaining and clarifying has begun. Promotion "not properly vetted." Newsroom will not participate. Questions still about whether Obama administration had agreed to be marquee lures for lobbyists.
UPDATE II: Fuhgeddaboudit. Salons cancelled. Post has the scoop, naturally.
UPDATE III: Bidding for dinner with me has topped $3 on the Arkansas Times Facebook page. There's been one request for dinner with me and state Lottery Director Ernie P. I've set the price for that at $375,000.99. 99 cents for me and ...
Thursday, July 02, 2009 - 09:43:38
Even allowing for a one-time accounting oddity, state revenue was way down in June compared with both the same month a year ago and the forecast.
Gross state revenue in June was down 8.2 percent below last year and 5.7 percent below forecast. Net -- amount remaining after mandatory transfers off the top to certain state funds -- was down 11.4 percent year-to-year and 4.5 percent below forecast.
State Finance and Administration Director Richard Weiss isn't ready to panic. He notes: 1) the state met its overall forecast for the year, which ended June 30; 2) the monthly forecast for June had not been adjusted downward to reflect evidence months ago that it was overly optimistic; 3) forecasts for the new year, which began July 1, are much more modest -- growth of less than 1 percent for the year.
Weiss said weak sales taxes and income taxes "are a concern," but merely relfect the national reality. He said economists still believe at least modest improvement in the national economy will occur by the end of the year.
Fingers crossed. The budget contains no reserve or cushion should the economy not meet expectations.
Thursday, July 02, 2009 - 08:19:27
The U.S. unemployment rate hit 9.5 percent in June, a 26-year high.
Thursday, July 02, 2009 - 06:39:34
Brummett's review of the hearing on prison operations -- and the further evidence that the board that oversees prisons doesn't do much but ratify whatever management says -- suggests that an independent assessment of the system might be in order. By that, he means outside experts, not just legislators.
Sounds good to me. What doesn't sound so good is Gov. Beebe's instant "full confidence" statement about powerful prison boss Larry Norris. Norris might well have reacted appropriately to recent scandalous misdeeds in the prisons. But maybe what we need is a little more anticipation of problems so as to require a little less vigorous reaction. I don't know. My brainstorm is that it is possible there are better ways to run a prison system. It is also possible that there are not. It would be nice to have a neutral, qualified assessment. It might even produce a supporting argument for more of the money that prison officials always say is lacking
Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 17:34:15
Judge Andree Roaf, who'd served by appointment to the Arkansas Supreme Court (the first black woman to be a justice) and then served a decade as a judge on the Arkanas Court of Appeals, died today after losing consciousness in her Little Rock office. She was 68 and the cause of her death wasn't immediately known. She had been serving as director of the federal court office that monitors the Pulaski County desegregation case.
Her biography here.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 16:28:03
It's on.
Rock Candy reminds that it's Movies in the Park tonight, "When Harry Met Sally."
Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 15:24:20
A desperation pass by Circuit Judge Willard Proctor. He's filed a motion with the state Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission objecting to its sending its recommendation for his removal to the state Supreme Court. He contends the commission had failed in having the panel that recommended his removal initially serve him in writing, not personally, but by a commission employee. Here's his complaint to set the whole shebang aside.
Try that with John Roberts sometime, bub.
If only Proctor had been so particular about the operation of his own court.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 14:17:33
The state Lottery Commission is meeting. Powerball is on the agenda. Gerard Matthews will report before long.
But Twitterers say Lottery Director Ernie P. says
1) He'll want two lottery pros from his former home in South Carolina for his $225,000 top assistant jobs.
2) Keno (and other "monitor" games) are indeed legal. We never said otherwise, just said it was poorly advertised and a cheesy invitation to mini-casinos all over Ark.. But he said it's a very low priority -- 2 on a 100-point scale v. 99 for starting Powerball. Still a little too much emphasis for my taste.
3) Arkies will get most jobs and they'll be a diverse lot. (Pretty amazing how they've already filled a bunch of jobs, according to what a caller told me.) Note from Gerard: Passailaigue has only hired one person so far, his assistant Julie Baldridge. The jobs disappeared from the Lottery Commission website this morning due to a technical glitch. Job posting are back on the lottery's site and the state's governnment jobs website.
4) Confusion about a housing allowance for Ernie was his fault. And he didn't take it, remember.
5) He's all about the scholarships. (A Twittering Rep. Duncan Baird wonders how many scholarships you can buy with $450,000 in salaries.)
UPDATE: As expected Powerball was approved by Commission (as was his job plan). Yee haw. Papa needs a new roof.
Read more from Gerard Matthews on the jump.
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Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 13:35:54
Channel 4 reports Fayetteville police have cleared two officers who fired nine shots Saturday trying to stop a man from stabbing his former girlfriend. One shot hit the pregnant woman in the head; none hit the attacker. She died of stab wounds and the gunshot wound.
Police say the internal investigation revealed the officers did not use deadly force until they realized Anderson was armed with a knife. They say "while it was unfortunate a bullet from an officers' service weapons struck Ms. Ulmer, it was determined they had no other options in their attempts to stop Mr. Anderson's assault."
Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 12:54:46
Yes, it's true. Without advertising this blog most likely wouldn't exist. So we thank all the paying customers who surround us and, naturally, we encourage you to think kindly of them.
Today, we add a new feature to the advertising lineup.
I hope you've noticed a new small "button," or promotional box, on our website (currently just on the main home page, www.arktimes.com) that says "Arkanas Times coupons."
Click it and you'll be taken to pages of valuable coupons from local businesses. If one of them sounds good to you, you merely "clip" it, or print it for use at the business of your choice. We hope you'll find it useful. $10 off a dinner for two, a 15 percent wine discount, 25 percent off drycleaning, free grill accessories with a grill purchase, $2 off dinnner theater tickets, to name a few -- they sound useful to me. But I am, of course, biased.
On the jump, you'll find a news release about the partnership that has started this new service. In short, it localizes a growing national Internet coupon business. Check it out.
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Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 10:41:25
Another of the Arkansas Blog's wise readers calls attention to a New York Times article today on how even health insurance isn't a safety net. Most of those (75 per cent) pushed into bankruptcy by health care debts had health insurance, the article notes. In short, coverage can be so poor (no matter how expensive), that a medical crisis is still impoverishing.
There is, naturally,a local angle and not just in those Arkansans crushed by the cost of health care, insured or not. As our reader points out, U.S. Sens. Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln endorsed bankruptcy "reform" legislation in 2005 that makes it hard to discharge such debts. He writes:
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Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 08:58:45
The University of Arkansas (at Fayetteville) has a new logo. You can get an explanation and a look at the old one, with the name over the Old Main image, right here.
(Note: When I originally linked it, the "letterhead" of the page included the old logo, with the name superimposed on an Old Main image, in the upper lefthand corner. The new logo has since replaced it. Sorry, dottore. Here it is.)
Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 08:28:49
-- Fast Company
A thanks to Roby Brock at Talk Business for a link to an interesting article in Fast Company magazine on Julie Roehm, the hotshot blonde ad woman who was brought in to rev up Wal-Mart marketing to bring Target-style glitz to the discounter. Instead, she abruptly departed not long after her hiring in what became a scandalous, acrimonious split.
She's trapped in Bentonville it turns out, anchored by an $850,000 house she can't sell in NWA's cratered real estate market. A taste of the update on her life:
It's been two-and-a-half years, and no matter how many plastic fuchsia flowers Roehm and her husband, Mike, jam into the grass by the pool, they still can't offload their $850,000 ball and chain. In 2006, after Wal-Mart fired Roehm at least in part for accepting a Nobu 57 sushi dinner from Draftfcb, the ad agency she'd recently awarded the retailer's $580 million account, she filed a $1.5 million breach of contract lawsuit against the House of Sam, prompting a litigious spiral of soap-operatic proportions: Wal-Mart countersued Roehm for having an affair with a subordinate. Roehm countersued CEO Scott for buying discounted yachts and a diamond ring from a Wal-Mart partner. And the partner sued Roehm for defamation. An image of Roehm's face slapped on a Wal-Mart ad went viral online ("If you come to Wal-Mart," the spoof read, "please don't fuck your coworkers... . Because our legal team will fuck you back for every penny you've got... . Guaranteed") and bloggers ordained her a "ho" and "slut." All of the parties involved eventually dropped their suits, but Roehm, once the face of innovative advertising for Ford and Chrysler, emerged as the Hester Prynne of Bentonville.
It's an interesting story, full of spice about Roehm and some of her past provocative ad campaigns (supermodels playing football in their panties for Dodge Durango) and an acerbic take on life in a Wal-Mart company town with her husband Mike.
They are used to spending low-key nights at home. Their friends in Bentonville (a dry county where, Roehm says, "the second question people ask you when they meet you is 'What church do you belong to?' And trust me, there's a wrong answer")
Wal-Mart's influence apparently isn't absolute in Arkansas. Roehm reportedly has landed some consulting work for Little Rock-based Acxiom. Here's some more on the Roehm's-eye view of Bentonville:
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Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 08:23:22
Gov. Mike Beebe rolls out his new Game and Fish Commissioner Emon Mahony at 11 a.m. this morning at the Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Natural Center. (A caller tells me that he's the second Mahony on the commission. His late brother Mike served by appointment of Gov. Dale Bumpers in the 1970s.)
In answer to a reader question: The eight-member commission has overseen the agency for 64 years, since the passage of Amendment 35. Of the 82 commissioners named during that time, one has been a woman (Pat Peacock of Stuttgart completed an unexpired term in 1994-95) and one was two were black, Tommy Sproles, appointed to a full term by Gov. Bill Clinton in 1983 and then his successor, also appointed by Clinton, Dr. James E. Moore.
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Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 06:06:06
For a slow morning Jason Tolbert has coverage (link corrected) and other links to: State Rep. Dawn Creekmore (DINO, newly arrived in Bauxite with her carpetbag in hand) announcing for state Senate. Republican Rep. Dan Greenberg is already in. Coach Dwight Fite might get in, but will shuck his former Democratic costume for Republican or independent status if he does. Lurking also is former state Rep. Jeremy Hutchinson. And perhaps many more.
UPDATE: Democrats will have a choice in this race. Todd Witham, a Benton native and former Marine who now lives in western Little Rock, also has announced his candidacy to succeed Democratic Sen. Shane Broadway in the seat. His opening announcement isn't revealing, but he'd have to be terrible to be worse than Creekmore.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - 05:42:47
In Arkansas, it's continuing discord related to the M.L. King Commission, a long-simmering stew that includes an unwieldy, feuding board and various accountability issues.
Outgoing members of the commission -- now officially abolished and reconstituted by the 2009 legislature -- have fired a salvo at continuing director DuShun Scarborough for his failure to respond to financial questions. Gov. Mike Beebe is standing by him and Scarborough puts the criticism down to sour grapes of ousted commissioners. The questions for the King commission leader are reprinted on the jump.
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