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Saturday, September 30, 2006 - 17:11:51
Tonight and tomorrow
First thing's first. Here's another open line. Second thing, here's something to do in the continuing great weather tomorrow.
La Casa, the health network, is holding its annual Latin America Fiesta from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday at the River Market Amphitheater. There's food, music, crafts and more of the culture of the growing Latino community. Groups from Mexico and Peru will perform.
Dogtownius
Greet another blog to our lineup of community bloggers -- Dogtownius. As the name implies, it's about North Little Rock, written by a resident of the city who uses the once-hated nickname lovingly for his scrappy hometown. You should know Dogtownius as a frequent Arkansas Blog contributor.Big Dam Bridge
Mayors Dailey and Hays pedal across the new bridge over the Arkansas River, which opened today to a bike ride, foot race and many gawkers.
Editing watch
An El Dorado reader notes differences in handling wire copy on an important passage in the story about the resignation of Rep. Mark Foley. He takes both the Democrat-Gazette and the El Dorado News-Times. The D-G editing has the effect of reducing questions about Republican response to indications of impropriety with pages. There are more questions to come, particularly about a Florida newspaper's decision to sit on the story for months and about the Republican who indicated Foley's denials were investigation enough for him. (What would he say? "Yep, you caught me.") Here are the passages, you decide -- spin or just one of those edting things:
D-G VERSION
Campaign aides had previously acknowledged that the Republican congressman e-mailed the former Capitol page five times, but had said there was nothing inappropriate about the exchange. The page was 16 at the time of the e-mail correspondence.The page was sponsored by Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who said Friday that when he learned of the e-mail exchanges 10 to 11 months ago, he called the teen’s parents. Alexander added, “We also notified the House leadership that there might be a potential problem.”House Speaker Dennis Hastert said he had asked the chairman of the House’s page board, Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., to investigate the page system. “We want to make sure that all our pages are safe and the page system is safe,” Hastert said.
Campaign aides had previously acknowledged that the Republican congressman emailed the former Capitol page fi ve times, but had said there was nothing inappropri- ate about the exchange. The page was 16 at the time of the e-mail correspondence.Rep. Rodney Alexander, RLa., who sponsored the page from his district, told reporters that he learned of the emails from a reporter some months ago and passed on the information to Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Republican campaign organization.Alexander said he did not pursue the matter further because "his parents said they didn’t want me to do anything."Carl Forti, a spokesman for the GOP campaign organization, said Reynolds learned from Alexander that the parents did not want to pursue the matter. Forti said, however, that the matter did go before the House Page Board — the three lawmakers and two House offi cials who oversee the pages. It was unclear what the offi cials did.The board currently is headed by Rep. John Shimkus, RIll., who did not respond to requests for an interview.House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Friday he had asked Shimkus to investigate the page system. "We want to make sure that all our pages are safe and the page system is safe," Hastert said.
Meanwhile, another reader remembers Rep. Foley's comments on Bill Clinton's dalliance with a grown woman:
"It's vile," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach. "It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."
Crime IS an issue
Barbara Graves doesn't appear to get it. That's the only conclusion that can be drawn after reading the Democrat-Gazette's account of mayoral candidates' response to Mark Stodola's new TV ads, which emphasize his experience as a prosecutor and in shutting down drug houses, still a real and present danger in many neighborhoods, if not in serene West Little Rock.
Jesse Mason has already cut right to the quick of the issue. We need more cops. Bill Walker talks crime fighting, too, but reaches out to the black and liberal base with a "holistic" approach calling for intervention and prevention and treatment, too.
And what did Barbara Graves say? The D-G quotes her as saying:
"Does Little Rock want an enforcer or do they want a leader? All the candidates have different experiences.
"Is he running for mayor, which is policies and procedures? Or is he running for sheriff or prosecutor or police chief or assistant police chief? What's he running for?"
Wrong answer. "Policies and procedures"? What is Graves running for? Head bureaucrat.?
We are looking precisely for leadership in a mayor, hampered though the job is by structural deficiencies in our form of government. The city board and mayor are in the vanguard of dealing with crime by support of police, contribution to solutions of the county jail crisis and use of other money for targeting core causes of crime. There are indeed ways for a city to go aggressively after drug houses. More police CAN have an impact on crime rates. A robust mayor can set an agenda and focus the whole city government on it. Policies and procedures? That focus suggests, unavoidably, a continuation of a ceremonial mayor's position, a ribbon-cutter for whatever the powers that be deem vital to their interests, be it a new megamall or water supply-side development.
Crime is an issue. A candidate for mayor needs a thoughtful and preferably specific response to questions about it, not an airy dismissal of a candidate who knows what's on the public's mind.
PS -- In response to some comments: Crime is not the only issue by any means. But I'd argue THE issue in this race is a demonstration by whoever is elected that he/she gets the issues paramount to the city and its voters and can demonstrate the understanding and force of personality to lead the board to solutions. A pro at policies and procedures, however useful, is not what's required.
And the attendance was ...
Yes, he's praised Mike Beebe effusively. Yes, A$a would tear down his praiseworthy school initiatives. But, Gov. Mike Huckabee insists, he really, really, really supports A$a for governor. The Democrat-Gazette drew these remarks from The Huckster in an interview yesterday. Read it free by copying and pasting the link below:
http://www.nwanews.com/story.php?paper=adg§ion=News&storyid=168192
We wonder what the majority Democratic legislature thinks about Huckabee's comments in the article taking credit for all the programs it passed. They were just followers to his leadership, The Huckster suggests. He jumped in front of their parade is more like it.
But never mind that. We need more info from loyal opposition reader Citizen Journal. The D-G article said 50 people were on hand for a fund-raiser at which The Huckster appeared for A$a. Were there more than two fund-raisers yesterday? Or was this the gunapalooza reputedly attended by hordes of "sportsmen"? Could be a few (hundred thousand) hunters are voting for Mike, ya think?
Brutality R Us
The New York Times examines the Deep South's continued preference for whipping school children, a practice that apparently causes some discomfort for newly settled suburbanites from places with more enlightened child-rearing policies.
As you may know, Arkansas is a leader in the field of pounding on kids, known euphemistically as corporal punishment.
Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama account for 70 percent of the kids whipped in the country each year. Judging by our dropout rates, our standardized test scores and our rate of violent crime, it apparently has done wonders. Contrasting views:
“I believe we have reached the point in our social evolution where this is no longer acceptable, just as we reached a point in the last half of the 19th century where husbands using corporal punishment on their wives was no longer acceptable,” said Murray Straus, a director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire.
Among adherents of the practice is James C. Dobson, the child psychologist who founded Focus on the Family and is widely regarded as one of the nation’s most influential evangelical leaders.
DuBose Ravenel, a North Carolina pediatrician who is the in-house expert on the subject for Mr. Dobson’s group, said, “I believe the whole country would be better off if corporal punishment was allowed in schools by parents who wish it.”