It was a good week for …
FILM LOVERS. The Little Rock Film Festival drew huge crowds and screened enjoyable movies big and small. If there was any complaint, it was the success of the event. Some who stood in line for long periods couldn’t make it into screenings of some offerings.
DESPERATION. Last-minute election pleas, mostly in the form of over-sized mailbox stuffers, grew ever more shrill. Do people really read these expensive things?
The ECONOMY. State revenue was up slightly in May, including in important sales tax and wage withholding categories. Sign of a turnaround? Everyone hopes so.
It was a bad week for …
GRANT COUNTY. The election commission there reduced polling places from 40 to TWO for the runoff, even with three statewide races on the ballot. It was a huge burden and disincentive to voting for many in the county.
MAYOR MARK STODOLA. Out for a Friday night dinner in the River Market neighborhood, he left his keys in his 1993 Ford Explorer and came outside to find it stolen.
JIM KEET. Surely, at this time, the Republican nominee for governor could have found somebody less embarrassing than Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to come to town to help him raise money. Barbour is infamous as an apologist for BP and defender of the Gulf drilling industry.
The STATE LOTTERY. Because of employee grumbles, the Lottery Commission will undertake a study of personnel issues. The complaints have been marked by a noticeable lack of transparency about the lottery’s internal workings, contrary to what has been solemnly promised.