Arkansas Blog

So, DBI can now thump his chest and point to pride to Fort Baptist for landing the business. Perhaps this dog food business can help beat the drums for I-49 efforts over here in eastern Oklahoma, er, western Arkansas. By the way, where is DBI?

My little dog might like to try some of those items. I'm glad to see that some of them will be made in Arkansas. It's difficult to find Arkansas-made brands, and I'd prefer to keep my little dog's dollars at home. But will they buy gluten and that kind of processed stuff from China? It's pritnear (if not plumb) impossible to buy anything that was NOT made in China.

So how about this page of Arkansas artists? -- genuine items made-in-Arkansas, even some made in my neighborhood. NO TAX DOLLARS were promised to these artists to lure them into my neighborhood or yours.

http://www.arkansasarts.com/programs/registry/

Do you have a friend or relative who's a Living Treasure? We have "Living Treasures" living among us throughout this state. Here's a page to find nomination forms for the 2008 Arkansas Living Treasure award.

http://www.arkansasarts.com/news/news.asp?ID=116

Here I am Cato! I'm suffering from a reoccurring case of the Bush Blues lately. And let me proudly say, Fort Baptist, once the second largest furniture manufacturing town in America, once the home to giants Whirlpool and Rheem, is proud to be the new home to a dog food making company!

As Fort Baptist, along with the rest of America continues to trade silk purses for sow's ears, after we're gone some Chinese historian will record that in America's last days there was a town on a river in a small state who continued to churn and churn as the tides of NAFTA washed over our heads. No quitters, we! If we can't build your dining room suit any more, we will gut your chickens. If we can't heat and cool your house any more, we will feed non-poison bags of food to your dog. When there is nothing left to do we'll still do something to look busy!

Long neglected by Little Rock, now squashed by NWA, Fort Baptist will continue to hold our conservative Republican values as we have since the Civil War and fight to keep organized gambling the width of one parking lot out of the left side of our beloved State of Arkansas. Amen

Anyone know how that stuff tastes?
I think hubby and I have become one of those old couples I used to feel sorry for. You know the ones, tottering down the grocery aisles picking up this and that, then putting it back when they realize how much it costs.
I've choked on four buck a gallon milk for months. A cucumber nearly a buck? And no,we're not going to buy a cardboard tomato to go with it. I don't care if it's a dime -- and it's not! Hubby's Jimmy Dean sausage -- $3.49 and he eats it like a wolfhound? (Yes, Connie's mom. I confess. After you went to work, we did share that sausage with Jock that summer morning in 1952.)
I've been known to sniff the cat's food from time to time. But tuna and egg doesn't smell as good as it sounds. I wonder if canned dog food smells any better. I'll have to buy some and see. If we don't like it, I suppose Maximillian can have a treat, a step up from his dry ration.
But what are WE going to have for supper?

What on earth is a "Greenfield location?" Is this economic development-speak for something?

mag - since I'm bored, I looked it up (Greenfield location). I think he means greenfield investment, which Reuters defined as "investment in a start-up project, usually for a major capital investment such as a production plant, a refinery or a port. The investment starts with a bare site in a green field." Most authorities define it to be such an investment in a developing country (I'll let DBI address any possible slights to Fort Baptist under that definition).

Other possibilities -- a little town on I-70 just east of Indianapolis where we used to stop and eat when traveling -- a Bob Evans and a Shoney's (but it closed); if you want fancier food, you'll have to check with Max. If I am not mistaken, I believe it is located in what is (or was?) the Congressional district of Dan Burton, the really obnoxious republican representative who was always criticizing Clinton and then turned out to have an illegitimate son.

But I suspect the guy meant the first definition, and that'll teach you to ask a question on a night when I am bored.

Greenfield means undeveloped and never before developed land. Virgin, if you will. Brownfield means redevelopment of a formerly used site that may well have some problems like contamination left from a former industrial use. Think abandoned factories and steel mills. Brown means blighted, and the kind of property where properly used Tax Increment Financing (TIF) can bring back the unused property to a higher and better use, and create infill development in places where infrastructure is already in place and paid for. Greenfield development implies urban sprawl and the public funding of extending infrastructure as well as using up land that was green space or agricultural land.

Green bad. Brown good. For development. If you're not a developer.

The City of Fayetteville using TIF for brownfield development, i.e., replacing the dilapidated downtown block where the Mountain Inn once rotted with a new hotel (if that ever happens) serves the public good. The shiny new hotel should attract private investment in an area that was not formerly (and is not yet) considered desirable. The City of Rogers trying to use TIF to build new shopping centers and office parks in what are now pastures and forests along the interstate is greenfield development, i.e., those pastures are not blighted urban areas, and serves up public money for private interests.