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Poll: Economy Still Bush’s Fault
01/19/2012

A new poll found that three years into the Barack Obama Presidency, a majority of Americans still believe President George W. Bush is to blame for economic problems in the United States.

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Obama Rejects Keystone
01/19/2012

President Barack Obama on Wednesday said that he would not bow to Congressional pressure as he announced that he was rejecting a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate the Keystone XL pipeline, the massive project that would have connected Canadian oil sands with refineries in Texas.

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Shuttle Exhibit Breaks Ground In Florida
01/19/2012

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Officials in Florida said groundbreaking has begun on a $100 million exhibit to hold the retired shuttle Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Visitor Complex officials said the 65,000-square-

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Cape Canaveral Set For First 2012 Launch
01/19/2012

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Forecasters at Cape Canaveral in Florida say weather conditions look good for the first launch of 2012, set for late Thursday. A Delta IV rocket carrying a next-generation military communications satellite is

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Scanners Could Reveal Concealed Weapons
01/19/2012

NEW YORK, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- New York City police say they are testing a new way to find concealed guns by using radiation scanners that can detect people carrying firearms. NYPD Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the new technology can reveal a fir

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China To Demand Bloggers’ True Identities
01/19/2012

BEIJING, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- China says it is expanding a program requiring people to disclose their real identities to authorities before posting comments on popular blogging services. Wang Chen, the government's top Internet regulator, said Wednesd

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Study: Texting Doesn’t Relieve Stress
01/19/2012

MADISON, Wis., Jan. 18 (UPI) -- A person who is stressed and sends a text message rather than picking up the phone or seeking comfort in person doesn't get satisfaction, a U.S. study says. Anthropologist Leslie Seltzer of the University of Wiscons

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EU imposing more sanctions on Syria
01/19/2012

DAMASCUS, Syria, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Amid calls for tough measures against Syria over its crackdown on protesters, the European Union said it is planning further sanctions against the country. EU spokesman Michael Mann said Wednesday the EU plans furthe...

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Sean Michel plays Stickyz
01/18/2012

Plus the Rally for Reproductive Justice.

THURSDAY 1/19

Gospel blues rocker Sean Michel plays Stickyz with Noah James and Annalisa Nutt, all-ages, 8 p.m., $6 for 21-and-older, $8 for 20 and younger. David Kimbrough Jr. and Lucious Spiller (see also: Saturday To-Dos) play White Water Tavern, 10 p.m., $7. Party band extraordinaire Tragikly White plays at West End Smokehouse and Tavern, 10 p.m., $5.

FRIDAY 1/20

For a night of electro pop, Dylan & The Zoo Crew headline at Triniti Nightclub, midnight, $10. Over at Vino's, you can check out the next wave of up-and-coming local bands, with The Tricks, Swampbird and Ezra Lbs, 8 p.m., $8. Velvet Kente — the standard-bearers for soulful, intense rock — play White Water Tavern, 10 p.m., $7. At ZaZa's Conway location, psych-blues duo Tyrannosaurus Chicken plays a free show, 9 p.m. The band also plays White Water Tavern Saturday night. Get a taste of what's to come at this year's Wakarusa with the Waka Winter Classic, an 18-and-older show at Stickyz, with Culpepper Mountain Band, Ben Franks & The Bible Belt Boys, Chillyrose, Starroy and War Chief, 9 p.m. Reproductive Justice and Human Rights is an interactive workshop featuring Loretta Ross of SisterSong, Philander Smith College, 7 p.m. The Harlem Globetrotters bounce into Verizon Arena, 7 p.m., $22-$109. Down in Hot Springs, Maxine's hosts Pearl Street Riot and Central Arkansas's finest purveyors of psyche-garage-country mania, The Frontier Circus, 8 p.m., $5. Also in Spa City, you can catch a screening of the documentary "The Natural State of America," about Carroll Electric's use of toxic herbicides. Includes a Q&A with the filmmakers, Central Theatre, 7 p.m., $5.

SATURDAY 1/21

There will be a Rally for Reproductive Justice at the State Capitol, 1 p.m. Butterfly with Irie Soul bring some New Orleans sounds to The Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7. Singer/songwriter, road warrior and acoustic guitar shredder Eric Sommer returns to Midtown, 12:30 a.m., $5. Attn: ladies, The Chippendales Cuff 'N' Collar Tour is at Discovery Nightclub, 9 p.m., $22.50 adv., $25 door. Also at Discovery are DJs Brandon Peck, Ewell and Andy Sadler and performers Dominique Whitney and Zia D'Yor. Up in Mountain Home, Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives play the Arkansas State University campus, 7 p.m., $20-$30. T. Jay with Livesosa, DJ J$outh, Reverse and The Real Deal are all at Vino's, 9 p.m., $8. The Diamond Dames Burly-Q Revue hosts dancers from Memphis and Hot Springs with local comedian Amy Pannell serving as emcee at Juanita's, 18-and-older, 9:30 p.m., $10.

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The Chamber of Commerce tax
01/18/2012

Thanks to citizen watchdog Barry Haas, we learned last week that the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce is working to increase its hidden tax on Little Rock residents. by Max Brantley

Thanks to citizen watchdog Barry Haas, we learned last week that the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce is working to increase its hidden tax on Little Rock residents.

It wasn't mentioned in daily newspaper coverage of the Central Arkansas Water Commission meeting, but Haas reported the water utility's CEO, Graham Rich, had proposed a 100 percent increase in the subsidy that CAW sends to the Chamber each year — from $25,000 to $50,000.

The chamber works on economic development and Rich reasoned that those efforts increase business for the water utility, though proof is in short supply. The city of Little Rock sends out the same message when it gives the chamber $200,000 each year.

I first wrote about the chamber shakedown of taxpayer- and ratepayer-funded agencies in 2009. Support has been edging up in the form of membership fees and direct contributions. The city has held firm at $200,000. But the Wastewater Utility has moved up to $25,000 a year. The Little Rock Port Authority gives $15,000. UALR gives $7,500. UAMS gives $7,000. The Little Rock National Airport gives almost $1,000 in membership fee and has underwritten special events. The Central Arkansas Library System also pays a membership fee, but makes no direct subsidy. Pulaski County government, thanks to resistance from County Judge Buddy Villines, is still not a contributor.

A quarter-of-a-million a year in public money is not chump change. Some of it is paid from foundations (UAMS and UALR), to avoid serious state constitutional questions about public payments to a private corporation, at least in those two instances. But it doesn't cure the lack of transparency in funding decisions made outside public view. The chamber, apart from pro forma reports on its activities, also refuses to specify how the public money is spent.

The chamber has conceded that public money subsidizes staff pay, including that of CEO Jay Chessir. You may remember he was the secret manager of the city sales tax campaign that will produce $22 million for a technology park created by a law written by the chamber and to be administered by a chamber-controlled board. He was the face of the chamber when it brought in a lawyer to fight disclosure of city tax campaign expenditures. He's an official of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose politics are so repugnant that local chambers try to distance themselves from direct association.

The chamber gets this hidden tax without a bidding process for its supposed economic development services. It spends the money without accountability. It pays people who lobby the legislature and Congress on issues — working conditions, environmental regulation, health care, taxation — on which there are sharp divisions of public opinion.

Graham Rich has explaining to do, first for his conflict of interest as a board member of the Little Rock Chamber. His devotion to the chamber is also more evidence of the water utility's retreat from give-no-quarter defense of the Lake Maumelle watershed since the retirement of Jim Harvey. Rich has worked to accommodate corporate interests by working out deals with watershed landowners and developers.

Coincidentally, one of the chamber's most influential members is Deltic Timber, the biggest single land owner in the watershed. Its lobbyist — whose other clients include the anti-regulation Koch Industries interests — has helped the forces that have watered down proposed land use rules for the watershed and may yet defeat them altogether.

It is one thing for corporate interests to work against clean air and water and other public and human benefits. It is another thing to make utility ratepayers and city taxpayers help pay for it.

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Orval and Nolan get a visit
01/18/2012

by Tommy Durham

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Other Arkies of the Year
01/18/2012

Bobby Petrino, Jeff Nichols, Alyse Eady and more also stood out in 2011.

Our staff's annual list of other Arkansans who stood out in 2011:

Bobby Petrino. The Razorback coach managed to top last season, by leading the football Razorbacks to an 11-win season and a final no. 5 ranking, better than the football Hogs have finished in years. His salty language, caught memorably by CBS camera crews during the LSU game, earned him the excellent nickname BMFP (Bobby MFin' Petrino). He and his wife donated a quarter of a million dollars to the Arkansas Children's Hospital.

Jeff Nichols. The Little Rock native's second film, "Take Shelter," won two prizes at the prestigious Cannes film festival and was nominated for five Independent Spirit Awards. He also wrapped up the biggest film shoot in Arkansas history with "Mud," starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew McConaughey.

Speaker Robert S. Moore Jr. The amiable speaker deserves credit for keeping a House of Representatives that was sharply divided along party lines functioning reasonably productively rather than breaking down completely.

Alyse Eady. The Fort Smith native was robbed at the 2011 Miss America Pageant, where she finished first runner-up, after performing the greatest talent the pageant has ever seen — a yodeling, ventriloquist rendition of "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart."

Sheffield Nelson. He proposed a voter initiative campaign to raise the state's pitifully low gas severance tax to 7 percent. Look for it, we hope, on the 2012 general election ballot.

Gov. Mike Beebe. He deserves credit for nothing special. Just for maintaining an "all is reasonably well" condition that probably won't outlast his administration, considering how Arkansas politics are going.

Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola. He campaigned long, hard and successfully for a 1 cent increase in Little Rock's sales tax, a jump that will raise half a billion dollars over 10 years. Now, city agencies must deliver. Meanwhile, Stodola injected himself in the fight to make something of Main Street. He lost an effort to push Pulaski Tech to Main with a new culinary school. The verdict is still out on his opposition to a Main Street clinic to serve veterans.

Christian Rudder. Match.com bought OkCupid.com, a dating website co-founded by Rudder, for $50 million in cash. Rudder continues working at OkCupid.com, where he runs OkCupid's research blog, OkTrends. Which means he uses charts and graphs, to statistically argue that, for instance, gay people aren't interested in straights and women are more sexual in their 30s. The Central High graduate also continues to play guitar in the popular indie rock band Bishop Allen.

Arkansas Supreme Court. Notably, the court handed down a unanimous decision ruling that Act 1 — the Arkansas Adoption and Foster Care Act that prohibited individuals who cohabitated with a sexual partner outside of marriage from adopting or serving as a foster parent — was a violation of privacy rights under the Arkansas Constitution.

Secretary of State Mark Martin. He undermined the FOI law at every turn — so much so that an executive assistant resigned in protest. He helped himself to $70,000 from the Arkansas Board of Apportionment's budget to buy a car and hire Republican consultants without approval from fellow board members Gov. Mike Beebe and Attorney General Dustin McDaniel. And his office frivolously spent $54,000 on a contract with the Soderquist Center at John Brown University, which lists its mission as "Equipping people with the transforming power of ethical leadership." The expense included a retreat for top staffers at the Greystone Estate in Rogers and an "on-site visit" in Little Rock to interview staff members with questions like, "What is the Secretary of State's office best known for?"

Rep. Linda Tyler. As chair of the Public Health Committee, the Conway Democrat quietly shepherded the defeat of 10 radical anti-abortion bills during the general session. Now she'll seek the state Senate seat vacated by term-limited Gilbert Baker.

The Occupier. Little Rock's assembly inspired by the Occupy Wall Street Movement persisted through the beginning of winter at a parking lot camp next to Interstate 30 to shine a light on economic injustice. It even mustered a statewide rally of sympathizers.

The West Memphis Three. Given that our fine state kept Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin in prison for 18 years, and came close to putting one of them to death, after they were convicted in trials that even a kangaroo would be embarrassed to call a Kangaroo Court, they and their tireless advocates — Capi Peck, Blake Hendrix, Brent Peterson, Mara Leveritt, Jeff Rosenzweig, Patrick Benca and others too numerous to name — deserve recognition. Courage works. Perseverance works. Hope works. On Aug. 19, we saw the proof and promise of all three.

Mara Leveritt. Her dogged, years-long investigation into the West Memphis murders, published both on her website and in her book "Devil's Knot," helped bring the case to national attention. Now she has a movie deal in the works.

Peyton Hillis. Thanks to fan support, the Conway native and Cleveland Browns running back earned the cover of Madden NFL '12, the most enduringly popular sports video game on the market. Too bad an injury-laden season followed, yet again adding credence to the dreaded (and frequently cited) Madden Curse.

Geese in Burns Park. Chased severely but not given over to death.

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The Romdroids
01/18/2012

by Tom Tomorrow

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A dream and a voice
01/18/2012

The holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was Monday, with downtown Little Rock and the Birds**t Lot where we dock the Mobile Observatory every morning a ghost town.

The holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was Monday, with downtown Little Rock and the Birds**t Lot where we dock the Mobile Observatory every morning a ghost town.

The Observer, like a lot of Americans, has long been an admirer of King, one man who changed a whole country (and maybe even the world) for the better just by the force of his will, the power of his words and the resolve of his mind. On the cluttered Wall of Fame and Shame beside our desk, among the complaint e-mails and the thank you cards, The Observer keeps a portrait of Dr. King. It's actually a ragged and torn church fan, the stick ripped out and discarded, the paper worried and creased almost to the point of disintegration, as if some poor sinner folded and unfolded it a thousand times while the preacher bore down on him or her with the Wrath of Judgment. We found it in the back pew of a church down in East Little Rock some years back while visiting a service there for a story — the first and last time in a good 15 years that we've darkened the door of a church on Sunday. We didn't figure anybody would miss it, and besides, we've got a lot more use for "A Letter from Birmingham Jail" than we ever had for any of the sermons we dozed through as a kid, in our best shoes and slicked-down hair.

For several years now, Dr. King has hovered over our telephone. "Courage," he says. "Faith and courage." As we tell anybody who comments on our portrait of the Good Doctor while visiting our desk: It's MLK Day 24/7/365 up here, friends.

The Observer didn't feel too hot last weekend. Sitting on the couch wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, hostage to a stomach bug, we logged onto YouTube, looking for a sweet tune to brighten sickly spirits. What happened next — well, we've all been there: the "copyright infringement screen of death." We're all seeing a lot more of it these days, it seems.

Only after five attempts did The Observer finally wave the white flag at the YouTube angels, surrendering to the message of the Corporate Gods who own them.

Intending to avoid the inevitable brain aneurysm, The Observer had just opted for the "Can you feel the good vibes radiating?" playlist on our Kindle when the loud "Breaking News Alert" chime interrupted the momentary escape. Pausing, first, to take another swig of Emergen-C and to pop a few gummy vitamins, The Observer was relieved to see that President Obama had just pledged his administration would not support the current forms of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) currently being debated in Congress.

The Observer had initially become familiar with these bills thanks to posts by friends and advocacy groups on Facebook. After some research, it became clear that both pieces of legislation have the potential to change the Internet as we know it. While PIPA would afford the government and corporations the ability to take legal action against any site deemed an "enabler" of copyright infringement, SOPA simply lays the groundwork for a "black list" of sites, with the added bonus of legal authority to block any and all financial support to those sites. Not surprisingly, SOPA and PIPA are opposed by Google, Facebook and Reddit. Less surprising? They enjoy the support of Time Warner, Comcast, Disney, and the Motion Picture Association of America.

In many ways, the technology of today has rapidly become the technology of The Observer's generation — not because we invented it, but because we built upon the technology we inherited. Yet, for all the ways these innovations have empowered us to have more control over the lives we lead, there are those who aim not only to stifle this technological progress, but to force us all two steps back into technological history — into a world robbed of the open Internet we took apart and reassembled into something more powerful than any government or corporation: a global voice.

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For the love of the game
01/18/2012

Video gaming with soul at Little Rock's Game Ever. by David Koon

If you're old enough, you probably remember the old-school video game arcade — though maybe with a mixture of love and revulsion. Sure, the old arcades were dark, about 107 degrees year round, smelled like feet and fried wiring and usually had carpet stickier than the stuff they use to glue the heat-resistant tiles on the space shuttle. But for a certain kind of kid — the geeky, the awkward, the easily bored — a handful of quarters and a room crammed with cabinet games like Donkey Kong and Centipede could be something approaching heaven: a place where those who didn't socialize well had a chance to be around others who shared their interests and, for a moment, show their stuff.

The rise of home-gaming consoles like the Nintendo, Xbox and Playstation signed the death warrant for most of the old arcades. Within a decade, gaming went from an activity that required being around others to something that one did alone, or with — at most — one or two friends.

In Little Rock, however, there's one person who remembers the Golden Age of the arcade: Noel Franks. His gaming parlor, Game Ever, which opened last March on Bowman Curve, is a chic and fun place where kids can compete and socialize while playing the latest video games and generally spending time getting to know others. With an encyclopedic knowledge of gaming history and a Willy Wonka-level enthusiasm, Franks is single-handedly trying to bring the social aspect back to the medium he loves.

At 32, Franks' love of gaming is in his blood. As a kid, the Tucson native's family couldn't afford a game system, so he played at friends' houses, "spectated" at the local arcade and slowly saved up enough money from odd jobs to buy his first Nintendo at age 11. He's been hooked ever since.

"The way I see video games is as the most important communication medium since film," he said. "Humans have never produced anything quite like it. It's essentially a dream — through code and human magic — made into something tangible."

When Franks was 13, his father got a job with a company making inroads into emerging markets in Russia. While living in Moscow — an American kid in a strange land — Franks made friends in the arcades and immersed himself in the burgeoning video game culture there, playing games imported from Europe and the Pacific Rim, many of which never made it to the U.S.

At 16, work brought his family to Little Rock. He graduated from Central High School, and later Hendrix College, then kicked around in low-level jobs before moving to San Francisco, where he landed a job with gaming software provider Havok.

Havok was the dream job that wasn't. "It should have been ideal," he said, "but when you have somebody who is so hardcore raw about his love for this stuff, and it butts up against business models, it can get a little sticky."

Franks and his wife moved back to Little Rock, where he first created a sort of mobile arcade called Little Rock Multitap, lugging 46-inch TVs into community centers so people could play cooperatively. He found a silent partner investor who believed in the idea and started Game Ever in 2011. He never even considered locating in another city.

"For people my age [in Little Rock], it's 'I'm talented, I'm skilled, I'm well-educated, guess I have to leave,' " Franks said. "No, dude. Invest in your home ... I've traveled a lot and I freaking love it here. I don't think we view Little Rock as the capital that it is. We don't think like a capital, and my goal is to be part of a Capital Movement. Frankly, we're an awesome place to live."

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Game Ever is already a quantum leap beyond the old arcade in terms of design. Clean, modern, lit by plenty of windows and the walls hung with quirky posters saluting the history of video gaming, the place manages to look both classy and friendly at once. Except for the comfortable, wrap-around chairs, Franks designed and built all the furniture at Game Ever himself, including the tables and stands which hold individual flat-screen TVs at Game Ever's 53 game-play stations. He and two friends spent weeks sanding a quarter-inch of carpet glue off the concrete floors with diamond-grit pads before sealing it themselves.

There are always around a dozen games available for play at Game Ever, from the latest Xbox 360 sports and shooter titles, to old-school games on lovingly-maintained vintage consoles like the original Nintendo and Sega Genesis — which haven't been made since the late 1990s. At least two new titles rotate in every week. All the games either have multiple controllers, or are linked by a network so players can compete directly with others in the room. Games available are rated from E-for-Everyone to M-for-Mature. Keeping kids in mind, Franks sweats a lot over which M-rated games will play at Game Ever, making sure the language isn't too rough, and not scheduling those which feature realistic, human-vs.-human violence such as "Call of Duty: Black Ops" (human-vs.-alien games like "Halo: Reach" or human-vs.-zombie fighters like "Left 4 Dead" are often on the menu, however). For those not interested in video games, there's a full-sized ping-pong table in the back room, a competition-quality foosball table out front and a stack of board games by the counter. He's considering figuring out a way to "fold in" more mature shooters and games with saltier language and situations for adult gamers, possibly by building a separate space upstairs.

"I approach this from a very social perspective," he said. "You'll notice this place is great for one and more players. You can be a single player and sit down at any game, and it will be awesome. I make sure that's the case. But we have games that excel at multi-player. It's because I fell in love with video games on the couch. I fell in love with video games as a social pastime."

Given how good the place looks and what it must have cost to build it, the most surprising thing about Game Ever might be how cheap it is to play there — a nod to Franks' own Nintendo-coveting past. Prices are $2 for one hour, $3 for two hours, or $10 for an all-day pass. Game Ever does birthday parties as well: $50 to rent the room, plus $10 per kid for all day and parents play free.

"I'm not here to get rich," he said. "That's not my goal. My goal is to have the coolest place in town, period, and to make sure that it's safe and affordable. I have very simple ambitions."

Parents are welcome to stay and play, but can also drop off their children for a few hours at Game Ever, which has a 15-camera security system and strict protocols in place regarding patron safety. Everyone who buys time to play is photographed, with their photo placed in a file at the constantly manned front desk, along with two forms of contact information in case of trouble. There's also a lounge for parents who are nervous about leaving their kid alone. Though there's no official lower limit on the age of those who can play there without parental supervision, it's generally very teen- and tween-friendly. Not surprisingly, it's usually fairly packed on Friday and Saturday nights.

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"We had a couple drop their kid off and when they came back, they were really decked out," Franks said. "I was like, 'Hey, hey! Looking sharp!' They said: 'We went on a date! First time in, like, 10 years!' To me, that was a special moment. They seized what I'm doing here."

With his business taking off and a newborn daughter, Franks is loving life and his role as head Geek Monk of his temple of gaming. His goal, he said, is to be a benefit to the community, and introduce others to the joy he knew as a kid with a controller in his hand.

"I see this place as part living museum, part day spa, part community center. It's all that. It's a really special thing for me to be a part of," he said. "Little Rock, I'm very proud and honored to say, has embraced this place. We very rarely have people who come once. We're a very return-friendly kind of place. We develop friendships here."

Game Ever

400 N. Bowman Road

501-217-3837

www.videogamingtogether.com

Hours

3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tue.-Thu., 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. Fri., noon to 10 p.m. Sat., noon to 6 p.m. Sun. Closed Monday.

Price

$2 for one hour, $3 for two hours, $10 all day.

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Gangsters
01/18/2012

Last month, the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives refused to disapprove a Republican congressman's comparison of Democrats to Joseph Goebbels.

Last month, the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives refused to disapprove a Republican congressman's comparison of Democrats to Joseph Goebbels. Arkansas's three Republican representatives — Rick Crawford, Tim Griffin and Steve Womack — aided and abetted their trash-talking colleague from New York, much as getaway drivers aid stickup men. They would have supported him if he'd compared Democrats to Satan.

The Republicans have stopped being a political party, in the way that term has historically been used in America. They're a gang now, unbound by the rules of common courtesy and contemptuous of those who still follow them, concerned only with personal and political advantage. Womack has taken to publicly belittling his own constituents. He'll be putting out contracts on them before long.

This degeneration has occurred over a number of years, influenced by a number of degenerates, but nobody sped it along more than Newt Gingrich. In 1989, Representative Gingrich said of congressional Democrats, "These people are sick. They are so consumed by their own power, by a Mussolini-like ego, that their willingness to run over normal human beings and to destroy honest institutions is unending." A year later, Gingrich's political action committee sent out a memo that included words Republican candidates were to use on Democrats: "Traitors, corrupt, intolerant, cheat, anti-flag, anti-family, anti-child, anti-jobs."

Gingrich eventually resigned his seat after he was caught violating House ethics rules — and you have work hard to violate those — but now he's back, seeking the Republican presidential nomination. He probably won't get it, dogged as he is by personal scandal of the sort that's hard to overlook when there are candidates without it. But he'll still be Mr. (Modern) Republican. Mitt Romney has a ways to sink before he can challenge for that title.

(But he's trying. Now he's boasting of making a road trip with his dog strapped to the roof of the car. That's pretty Newtonian, although Newt probably puts his wives up there.)

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Alice Walton is our Arkansan of the Year
01/18/2012

For bringing Crystal Bridges to her native state. by Doug Smith

Sam Walton said that his only daughter was the most like him of his children. Her recent activity lends credence to that judgment. Like her father, Alice Walton has assured that she'll be long remembered, and in her own right. She's no longer just "a Wal-Mart heiress." There are lots of heiresses around. Alice Walton is an art patron and philanthropist of spectacular dimension, a benefactor of her native state in unprecedented fashion. And for that, she is, too, the Arkansas Times' Arkansan of the Year.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened Nov. 11 at Bentonville, near the headquarters of Wal-Mart, the giant retail chain founded by Sam Walton. The reviews that appeared afterward, in the most prestigious journals, were, for the most part, glowing:

The New York Times — "By just about any measure, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art ... is off to a running start. The dream-come-true of Alice Walton, an heir to the Walmart fortune, it is characterized by people both inside and outside the museum as a work in progress, with plenty of room for improvement. But there it stands, a big, serious, confident, new installation with more than 50,000 square feet of gallery space and a collection worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a region almost devoid of art museums.

"Much more than just a demonstration of what money can buy or an attempt to burnish a rich family's name, Crystal Bridges is poised to make a genuine cultural contribution, and possibly to become a place of pilgrimage for art lovers from around the world."

The Economist — "The Ozarks are America's least appreciated mountain range. Lacking the majesty of the Rockies, the breadth of the Appalachians or the mournful grandeur of the Cascades, there they sit, somewhere in the middle of the country, south of the Midwest, north of the South, east of the mountainous West. They have long drawn fishermen and hikers; until now, however, art fanciers have had little reason to visit.

"That changes with the opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art ... With 120 acres of forests and gardens and long hiking trails connecting it with downtown Bentonville, Crystal Bridges is not just in but also of the Ozarks. Its patron, Alice Walton, is the scion of the Ozarks' first family: her father, Sam Walton, opened a discount store called Wal-Mart in nearby Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962. Today Walmart (which officially went hyphenless in 2008) is America's largest private employer. The Walton Family Foundation gave the museum a $1.2 billion endowment and Ms. Walton and the museum have been on something of a buying spree for several years.

"The museum is not simply Ms. Walton's own private collection. ... Ms. Walton has long spoken of wanting to bring art to a region that has little of it, and in that ambition she has without question succeeded." (The headline in The Economist, an influential newsweekly based in London, referred to the museum as "a hinterland beauty" and "a rural gem.")

The verdict was not unanimous though. Walmart and the Walton family have their detractors, inside and outside their home state. One of the harshest critics was Jeffrey Goldberg, a columnist writing for Bloomberg.com:

"Crystal Bridges, in many ways, is an aesthetic success. It's also a moral tragedy, very much like the corporation that provided [Alice] Walton with the money to build a billion-dollar art museum during a terrifying recession. The museum is a compelling symbol of the chasm between the richest Americans and everyone else. ... I'm not begrudging Alice Walton her inherited wealth. What I am begrudging are her priorities. Walton has the influence to help Wal-Mart workers, especially women, earn more money and gain access to affordable health care. But her response so far to the needs of the people whose sweat pays for her paintings is a simple one: Let them eat art."

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A group that seeks improved working conditions for Walmart employees took issue over "the fact that Walton has spent millions of dollars on a museum while her family's organization, Walmart, recently raised health care premiums and has capped salaries for many of its employees." Responding to such criticism, Abigail R. Esman wrote for forbes.com that "Ms. Walton has done everything absolutely right. She has done for little Bentonville what one would want every one of her socio-economic comrades to do: used her wealth to create job opportunities, enhance education, and support the arts (at a time when Washington is cutting back)."

We'd like to have heard Alice Walton's own response, but she seldom submits to interviews, and, through a spokesman, she turned down the Times' request as she has many others.

It's not uncommon in America for very rich people who've been ruthless in business dealings, indifferent at best to the suffering of their employees, to become huge supporters of art and education in their later years. Fricks, Mellons, Carnegies, Rockefellers — they were not nice guys necessarily, but gifts have merit independent of the giver, and America would be worse without the contributions to culture that such men have made.

The Times asked a couple of Arkansas historians to assess the impact of Alice. Is this museum big doings or what? Tom W. Dillard, who is also the head of special collections for the University of Arkansas Libraries in Fayetteville, wrote:

"I don't know of anyone who has ever made such a large and meaningful gift to the people of Arkansas (and the nation, too). I guess the argument could be made that [the late] Don Reynolds, through his foundation, has contributed mightily to non-profits throughout the state — but his gifts, even when taken together, do not have the dramatic impact that Crystal Bridges has. One might say that Mrs. Jeanette Rockefeller, before and during her time as first lady, broke the arts ground by helping transform the Arkansas Arts Center into a real arts museum — and creating the Arkansas Arts Mobile. I can recall as a child going to see the Arkansas Art Mobile when it visited rural Montgomery County deep in the Ouachita Mountains. But Crystal Bridges is a gift of a whole different order.

"The northern states are full of arts centers and museums endowed by 19th century Robber Barons. I don't think the Waltons are robber barons, but if they are, they're OUR ROBBER BARONS. After serving as a 'colony' for more than a century during which our natural resources and labor were shipped north, it is about time that Arkansas received some payback. ... A museum cannot transform Arkansas, but it can, and I believe will, have a positive impact on the way Arkansans view their state — and, hopefully, themselves."

Dr. Sondra Gordy, a professor at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, also recalled the Rockefeller gifts to the Arts Center, and the support of the arts and education that came from Lily Peter of Marvell. "But Crystal Bridges tops anything that was done in the past," she said.

"All of us who teach Arkansas history know the state was saddled by an image that outsiders gave us. But how can people come to beautiful Northwest Arkansas, and see that magnificent gallery, and go away thinking we're a backwater place. ... The Rockefellers campaigned to eradicate hookworm. I'm for any of the rich who are willing to share their wealth, even if I may not approve of the way they made their money. People have looked at the South for years and said we need something like this [Crystal Bridges]. I'm happy to get it anyway we can get it."

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A newspaper reporter recalls the thrill of discovering the public library, as a young boy in Fort Smith, Arkansas. A Carnegie library, it was. Did Andrew Carnegie say "Let them eat books?" Did the king of steel, the scourge of steelworkers, believe that he was buying his way into heaven? The boy would have thought the questions irrelevant even if he'd known who Carnegie was. Many years and thousands of books later, he's still never declined to read one because it came from a Carnegie library.

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On trolls and flame wars
01/18/2012

The thorny world of online comments. by Lindsey Millar

On Monday, KARK 4 News posted this question on its Facebook wall: "One of our fans raised a question about Robert E. Lee Day ... Are there any Lee Day activities where you are?" Even if the station hadn't omitted Martin Luther King Jr. Day (the federal holiday that coincides with the state holiday in honor of Robert E. Lee), similar posts on other local TV Facebook pages suggest an inevitable conclusion: a long, often incomprehensible string filled with racial intolerance, if not obvious racism, and ad hominem attacks. A sample post from the KARK thread: "What African American people fail to realize, is their forefathers were sold by their tribes in Africa because of the laws they broke there. And they were brought here. The south will always and has always been fair."

Welcome to the downside of what we in the media call community engagement. Most online news outlets seem to agree that it's essential. John Paton, CEO of Digital First, a newspaper management company that controls the second largest newspaper chain in the country, envisions reader comment and input representing a third of his papers' content (with old fashioned local news and aggregation making up the rest of the pie, respectively). But effectively maintaining and managing that reader interaction remains a difficult proposition.

"I think comments raise the level of debate if they help expand the conversation to people who didn't get a voice in the article," said Conan Gallaty, director of Arkansas Online, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's website. "I think that's a good thing. The difficulty is that it gets too tangential, people start getting off topic, insults get thrown and the topic gets heated."

To manage comments, Arkansas Online requires users to register with their subscriber name. Users are allowed to pick other screen names, but one click on the user's screen name reveals the subscriber name. So generally, it's not hard for other users to find a real name behind a comment. Gallaty said the paper has received hate mail for that policy, but said, "We do believe in people standing behind their statements."

Likewise, late last year KTHV integrated its website into Facebook. Online producer Lindsey Tugman said it keeps users more honest. "They can't hide behind user names. It also makes the commenting more mature." The station also maintains a Facebook page that's been "liked" by more than 62,000 that includes links to news stories, breaking news and discussion questions. Tugman is one of four online news producers who monitor comment sections from morning until at least after the 10 p.m. newscast.

Todd Gill, one of the co-founders of the online-only site Fayetteville Flyer, said his site, like the Arkansas Times, allows commenting from users writing under aliases. When the Flyer has a big story live, Gill said he wakes up in the middle of the night to monitor comments.

Rob Heverling, news director for KARK, said he and several others in the newsroom monitor comments on the station's website and Facebook page. But unless someone is personal attacking someone else or using a lot of profanity, he said the station rarely deletes posts. "We like people to be able to express their point of view," he said.

Heverling's position closely mirrors a web ideal: a diverse, democratic free exchange of ideas is worth the attendant incivility. At the same time, in the news world there's a contradictory metaphor, according to Arkansas Online's Gallaty. "The expression you hear most often is an untended garden, which starts off beautiful, but if left untended can grow too many weeds and choke off what you're really trying to do."

Arkansas Online offers detailed guidelines in its terms of use policy online for commenters while reserving the right to pull any comment any time and for any reason. When commenters get out of line, the Arkansas Online web team takes them off the thread and explains to them what they've done wrong. If users persist, their accounts might be suspended. Gill's policy at the Fayetteville Flyer is more cut and dried: no profanity, no name-calling and no switching aliases more than once in 24 hours. When users ignore the rules, their comments are removed and replaced with a note explaining that a comment had been removed. "I think that's better than simply deleting. People see that someone is looking and paying attention and that there are rules you have to follow," he said.

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Grady's abides
01/18/2012

Thanks to a successful formula.

In one of the most fickle industries, Grady's Pizza and Subs marked 30 years in business in 2011. It's spent all this time in a nondescript strip center on a nondescript section of 12th Street between Mississippi and University. Whether it has thrived or merely survived across those three decades is hard to know from a distance, but the fact is Grady's has outlived almost all the competitors who were around in 1981. So it's clearly doing things right.

It makes good business sense to stick with a successful formula, and Grady's is fairly straightforward: The menu has remained consistent — with some additions — with an unwavering commitment to popular items. Prices are reasonable. Many things are made in-house, even some of the breads.

Among items purchased from food-service companies there is a commitment to quality ingredients (a friend in the business says the cheese Grady's uses on its pizza is higher-quality and about 40 percent more expensive than what almost all other pizza places use).

Service is friendly and casual, as is the ambiance. And the beer is cold.

Based on the size of a weekday, holiday-season lunch crowd — mostly working-class with some white-collar folks mixed in — the formula continues to work.

So many among the group of friends recruited for our visit wanted the Grady's Grinder that we drew straws, and the competition to see who would get to eat pizza was equally intense. So we spared another straw-drawing exercise and ordered a large pie for the table. Turns out those two tried-and-true Grady's stalwarts exceeded their lofty reputations and were proclaimed "best-in-meal."

The grinder ($7.25 for a whole and $6 for a half, a no-brainer choice) — is a meat-lover's dream with multiple slices of ham, salami, turkey and roast beef, all top-quality and accented simply with lettuce, tomato, mayo and mustard. While there are four bread choices, go for the homemade onion roll, which is soft, tasty and not over-the-top oniony.

Grady's pizza strategy is to be all things to all people, and it works. You can go as traditional as you want, or as avant garde. Don't want the traditional red sauce? Try alfredo ... or a garlic and olive oil glaze ... or (believe it or not) a salsa/sour cream base ... or even a ranch or bleu cheese or buffalo sauce base (as is offered on the Buffalo Chicken pizza). Regular crust bores you? Upgrade to multi-grain for $1.15 or go gluten-free for an extra 85 cents (11-inch only). Choose a predefined combination of ingredients or mix and match between 10 meats, 13 veggies and two fruits.

Traditionalists (keep your pineapple, dried cranberries and baked chicken breast the hell away from our pizza!), we opted for the 16-inch North St. Louis Special ($18.95), and absolutely loved it. It matches chunks of sweetish, fennel-rich Italian sausage with green olives, green peppers and strings of fabulous purple onion, topped with the "Steve's favorite" blend of cheeses, which adds cheddar to mozzarella. You can go all-mozzarella at Grady's, but if you haven't tried Steve's blend, you owe it to yourself to give it a whirl. This pizza features that hard-to-achieve combination of crisp, thin crust with ample ingredients. It is one of the best in town.

An unexpected delight was the soup of the day, which was chicken and dumplings, more like a hearty main course than a soup. We got it with the half-sandwich for $7.30, quite the deal. It was as good as we've had — rich and thick with plenty of shredded chicken and small, firm dumplings.

Everything at Grady's is decent, but not everything soars. The Italian cheese bread appetizer ($7.95 with marinara) was touted, but we found it boring, like a small, not-quite-crisp, cheese pizza with the sauce on the side. It was helped by a healthy dose of garlic. The chicken salad (like all sandwiches, it's priced the same as the grinder) is homemade, but it was too finely chopped for our liking, had too much pickle and, unless our taste buds were off that day, featured Miracle Whip instead of mayonnaise.

The muffaletta on the same fabulous onion roll had plenty of meat but was a bit short on olive salad. Its consumer pronounced the Italian sandwich a good choice, and an interesting one — ham, turkey and pepperoni topped with bell pepper, onion, lettuce, tomato and Italian dressing on a base of pizza sauce. The spaghetti with meat sauce ($9.25 with Italian toast and soup or salad) was solid but not spectacular.

A group of guys in full holiday-season gluttonous mode, it's not surprising we didn't get around to any of the 10 salads, many of them meal-sized. But we've heard good things about them from quantity and quality perspectives. There are also wraps, chili, Frito pie and calzones — plenty of choices to satisfy all manners of taste and appetite for 30 years ... and counting.

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2012 Showcase schedule
01/18/2012

Plus new ownership at downtown clubs.

OK, after a bit of shuffling around and substitution, here's the schedule for this year's Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase, which kicks off a week from Thursday at Stickyz, starting at 9 p.m. Stay tuned for more band info and songs in the coming weeks in the Times and on Rock Candy. Jan. 26: Shining Rae, The Holy Shakes, The Coasts, Vore. Feb. 2: JD Parker & The Tin Strings, Lindsey Kate Band, Don't Stop Please, Holy Angell. Feb. 9: Wes Patterson, Tsar Bomba, War Chief, Se7en Sharp. Feb. 16: Wooden Toys, Swampbird, Joey Farr & The Fuggins Wheat Band, Quadkiller. Feb. 24: Trasspassers, Laundry for the Apocalypse, Ben Franks & the Bible Belt Boys, Jab Jab Sucker Punch.

Film buff website Ioncinema.com lists Little Rock native Jeff Nichols' next film as its 13th most anticipated feature of 2012. Says Eric Lavallee: "For film snobs such as myself, you'd need a really valid reason to want to see a film with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew McConaughey toplining. Arkansas born Jeff Nichols is that reason."

Back in 2009, Discovery night club owner Norman Jones told the Times that, "anything I've got is for sale to the right person at the right price." It looks like the right person was Phillip Patten, owner of the North Little Rock bar Sidetracks, who purchased 610 Center and Pulse/Off Center from Jones in the fall. No word on the price, but manager Todd Chambers detailed some of the things that have changed and some that will stay the same. 610 Center is now officially SixTen Center Street Bar, and Pulse is Miss Kitty's/Saloon. Sidetracks is now known as Trax. Chambers said Miss Kitty's has a "rustic country decor going on. It'a a work in progress." He added that the club would be opening up to live bands. "We're also going to do karaoke starting this year and some other theatrical acts. And it's still going to be a dance and socializing bar, too," he said. Miss Kitty's and Saloon — both under the same roof at 307 W. 7th St. — will also be rented out for private events and fundraisers. All of the bars will remain gay friendly and gay-owned and operated, but open to all, Chambers said.

As for whether he might be considering the sale of Discovery, Jones chuckled and quipped, "Like I said before ..."

"Ann Richards' Texas," the new bio-doc about the feisty and proudly Democratic Texas governor defeated for re-election by a weekend brushcutter named George W. Bush, will get a pre-release sneak peek at the Athena Film Festival in New York City on Feb. 10. The film was co-directed by former Little Rock Film Festival executive director Jack Lofton, and executive-produced by Little Rock Zoo spokesperson Susan Altrui and El Dorado's Margy Merkle Niel. Niel, Altrui, and co-directors Lofton and Keith Patterson will participate in a panel discussion about the film immediately after the screening. Altrui says the film — the first full-length documentary about Richards, who served one term as Texas governor from 1991 to 1995 and died in 2006 — is almost complete as of this writing. Featured in the film are interviews with Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, Nancy Pelosi, Bill Clinton, Michael Dukakis, Paul Begala, Richards' daughter and Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, former Texas Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and others. The Athena Film Festival — sponsored by the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College — runs this year from Feb. 9 -12, and spotlights films about women.

Wakarusa last week made its second round of lineup announcements. Some of the headliners announced include Primus, Umphrey's McGee (two sets), Girl Talk, Fitz & The Tantrums, Big Gigantic, The Del McCoury Band, Quixotic (two sets), Tea Leaf Green, Gary Clark Jr., Iration, Blitzen Trapper, Emmitt-Nershi Band (two sets) and VibeSquaD (two sets).

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All too obvious
01/18/2012

I'm so tired of these peckerwood know-it-alls who know it all and are ready to tell you all about it. It's all so obvious to them. by Bob Lancaster

[Start with big agitated sigh.]

I'm so tired of these peckerwood know-it-alls who know it all and are ready to tell you all about it. It's all so obvious to them.

So obvious that you wonder if you shouldn't suppress any midnight doubts you might have about it — any questions that dart up furtively and unobviously from the shadows.

Here are a few such questions that have occurred to me just lately.

How come we have more purported job creators than we have purported jobs they purportedly created? When did wombs become common property, for mainly a bunch of old dicks to decide the fate of the fruit that groweth therein? When was it decided that those who merely hanker for breathable air and drinkable water qualify as environmental wackos? When did exceptionalism become a given, the proper response to inquiries about it, however innocuous, being if you don't like it here in the best country there is or ever was then get the hell out? When did a religion founded by an uncompromising turner of the other cheek become one whose theme song is the martial air onward Christian soldiers marching as to war? When and by what manner of torturing logic did it become "the politics of envy" to suggest that the really really rich folks pay a fair share?

And a few more, for good measure.

What's the difference between the venture capitalist and the vulture capitalist except that one has become your opponent and the other your role model? What's the difference between "European-style" socialism and plain old anywhere-else socialism? Which are the one percenters, which the 99 percenters, and where do the 56 percenters come in?

Answers to those and similar queries come easy to the peckerwood. Because they all relate back to the plan. Ah yes, there's a plan. They know it well. They lean often on its everlasting arms. It's been in place, unamended, steadfast, oracular, since the first bite of the original apple. It's what makes the obvious obvious to those who "get" it, and what so confounds those who don't, or won't.

The plan's obviousness is such that the true truths it reveals are self-evident, while the less holdable truths are left beside the highway trying to hitch a ride. Marse Tom enumerated the plan's self-evident true truths, and I'll give you an example of the other kind if you'll give me a little time.

[Wall clock booms off the seconds. Distant ominous train whistle blows. Forsaken Tex Ritter rhymes prison with his'n. ]

OK, I've got one: Even if there is a plan, wouldn't free will immediately undermine it? A million last-second decisions with every boom of that wall clock, and just one of them incorrectly anticipated and the plan's walls take a Jericho tumble. They crash and burn like a Newt Gingrich comeback. They crumble to ruins as Huckabee's new beachfront mansion is doomed to, built in knowing stiffnecked violation of Matthew 7:26. A plan with so great an element of the capricious in it just couldn't be. It would die aborning.

They say if you pluck a flower you trouble a star. I'm not sure I believe that, but I find it considerably more plausible than the notion that the bewildering jitter of human contemporaneity might be taking place under the strict governance of a plan instantaneously conceived and put into effect  in 6006 B.C.

How could you keep a plan up and running with a George W. Bush as president? A minimum requirement would be a gram of predestination; maybe a ton of predestination. You'd have to cheat, in other words. And we all know that the one Great Planner, when it comes to monkeying with the Creation, does not cheat.

He does well enough to keep the plan one jump ahead of all the dithering that all our notorious ditherers daily do. A half jump ahead of all us ordinary ditherers' dithering. [Do I walk to school, or carry my lunch?] Just to last that long, the plan would've already had to do some tall anticipating and incorporating. It obviously anticipated and incorporated the Holocaust. And the 40 megs of dead souls one-way trudging the gulag. And the Long March. The Trail of Tears. And so on.

Once World War III has come and gone, it will become clear that the plan had anticipated it too. It anticipates the Rapture, and gets the date right, though at this time, because the plan doesn't honor FOI requests, we're denied access. It anticipated and incorporated Darwin looking into the eyes of a chimp or a baboon or a gorilla and seeing himself looking back at himself. It anticipated and incorporated you and me having to cope with that same shaving-mirror awkwardness, although probably not Rick Santorum. It anticipated and incorporated an entire political party with a one-word vocabulary — the one word being no.

All so glibly obvious to the know-it-all, who sleeps like a baby every night.

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Law taking a licking
01/18/2012

"Tim Errity, now 23, said he was riding in a car with his cousin, Tom Foolaree, when Foolaree asked him if he was ready to 'hit a lick' — slang for committing a robbery." by Doug Smith

"Tim Errity, now 23, said he was riding in a car with his cousin, Tom Foolaree, when Foolaree asked him if he was ready to 'hit a lick' — slang for committing a robbery."

Having hit a few licks in my day — not many; I tire easily — I'm chagrined to learn that hit a lick has acquired a negative connotation. A couple of on-line slang dictionaries agree that to hit a lick is to rob someone. Another says that to hit a lick is to "Get a lot of money very quickly." Most of the ways to accomplish that end are illegal.

In a less larcenous age, to hit a lick was to do some work, if only for a brief period of time, usually on a specific project. The saying was derived from one meaning of the noun lick, "a brief, brisk burst of activity or energy." The person who hadn't hit a lick on the job before him was looked down on: "That lazy oaf hasn't hit a lick on the stopped-up toilet."

That hit a lick has acquired a new meaning may suggest that more people are robbing than working nowadays. It seems that way in Little Rock sometimes.

Ask not what your country can do for you, go step on those bugs:

"In Indochina, and in Thailand itself, America usually found it was on the side of the bad guys. Complex nations were grotesquely simplified for the voters back home and the boys sent to fight abroad. President Kennedy deliberately mispronounced Laos as 'Lay-os,' lest Americans think he wanted to go war with a small bug."

Wither traditional media?

"Google then sells ads to run alongside the list of stolen content, generating billions of dollars, while newspapers, publishing companies, the music industry, film studios, and other traditional media companies whither."

Try tightening your bandwidth:

"Al Ameaux is being named Deputy Content Editor, overseeing Federal/Politics/Economics, and the Investigative Team. This will give us more management bandwidth ... " More chiefs, that is. Not so many Indians.

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Correcting the Democrat-Gazette on the 1957 crisis
01/18/2012

Billy Roy Wilson, a mule farmer in Bigelow and part-time federal judge, sent us a copy of a letter he'd sent to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette concerning its persistent misstatement of a key legal event in the 1957 school crisis. Since we've written about it before — and have a copy of the ruling in which a federal judge's words clearly contradict those in D-G boilerplate recitation — we thought we'd share it.

Correcting the record

Billy Roy Wilson, a mule farmer in Bigelow and part-time federal judge, sent us a copy of a letter he'd sent to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette concerning its persistent misstatement of a key legal event in the 1957 school crisis. Since we've written about it before — and have a copy of the ruling in which a federal judge's words clearly contradict those in D-G boilerplate recitation — we thought we'd share it.

I enjoyed Kristin Netterstrom's article regarding the repeal of the Little Rock Board's pro-Faubus resolution. There was, however, one error. [Netterstrom] stated that Governor Faubus removed the National Guard from Central High on the order of a federal judge. There was no such order.

In fact, the federal judge's order directed that the governor not use the troops to block black students who were attempting to enter Central High School — which the governor had been doing. This same order specifically noted that the judge was not ordering the governor to remove the troops, and that they could remain to maintain peace.

The afternoon after the order was entered Governor Faubus called a press conference and asserted, falsely, that he had been ordered by the judge to remove the troops.

I showed a copy of the order to the governor (in the mid-'80s). He read it, and, with his famous grin, handed it back to me saying, "Perhaps I was misinformed." Although he knew that the judge had not ordered him to remove the troops, he continued to make this claim until his death.

Likewise, writers for the Democrat have continued to adopt Governor Faubus' false claim. I have written the publisher, editors, and reporters, bringing their attention to this error — to no avail.

I propose a deal. If the Democrat can provide me with a federal court order which directed the governor to remove the troops from Central High — during that fateful September of 1957 — I will eat a bale of alfalfa hay at the corner of Capitol and Main at high noon. If the order cannot be produced the Democrat should provide me a corked bottle of Laphroaig Scotch.

How about this proposed deal?

Billy R. Wilson

Bigelow

On the VA clinic uproar

It appears that some folks in Little Rock's South Main neighborhood may be scraping off those "support our troops" decals. I refer of course to the uproar over plans to locate a VA clinic in the area. By press time, officials may have resolved the issue, but it deserves attention nonetheless.

For me personally, the furor resonates on three levels. As a long-time supporter of the Quapaw Quarter and current resident, I have friends who express concern about the federal government's proposal to locate an outpatient clinic for veterans on South Main. It is altogether fitting and proper that they do so.

Investing in older neighborhoods requires moxie. Original members of the old Broadway Neighborhood Association speak of late night calls from banks threatening to call their mortgages when they protested a "block busting" proposal by a prominent Little Rock businessman. Today it means investing in property that has no protective covenants not knowing where the next gang activity epicenter may be. It is a far cry from buying a home in a gated subdivision. It is also a hell of a lot more fun.

It is understandable that property owners in older neighborhoods wish that, just once, a halfway house or rehab center would choose to locate on Chenal Parkway.

On a more personal level, as a veteran I shudder when opinions float around that my brothers and sisters pose a threat to the public health, safety and welfare. It causes a "1960s flashback" but not (necessarily) of the drug-related type. I remember when the San Francisco Airport would not process the baggage of service personnel with that of normal travelers. We had to descend three flights of stairs and retrieve our sea bags from a fenced enclosure so we didn't offend the full-paying customers. I also remember a personnel officer from an East Coast U.S. Navy ship explaining to me why he was assigning me to a particularly demeaning job. "We want to put you Vietnam boys in your place."

On a professional level, as an urban planner, I must say that the whole affair represents a tempest in a teapot. Geez, there are countless other uses for the property in question that would represent a far greater threat to the health, welfare, and safety of the civilized world. Consider, for example, a Tea Party headquarters.

From a "Hubble Viewpoint," we might gain a final thought. The modern world is complicated. There are issues about which reasonable people may, perhaps even should, disagree. I do wish that my mayor had used a more mature word than "idiotic" in describing a proposal that would serve American veterans. But the fact remains that governing a large city is a complicated issue. And politics is a messy but necessary function of a democracy. No matter now seductive it may sound when one says all we need to do is cut taxes or eliminate government entirely, we ultimately have to agree with Ernest Hemingway: "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

Jim vonTungeln

Little Rock

Numbers off

Some of the numbers in "When College Doesn't Pay for Itself" don't seem to make sense.

A student is described as having a principal balance on her student loan of $6,748; a monthly payment of "several hundred dollars;" and "roughly 70 percent" of that payment representing interest. Assuming a monthly payment of just $200 (and "several hundred" would seem to imply a much larger payment), $140 of that payment would be interest. That would indicate an interest rate of nearly 25%.

Surely that's not correct, is it?

Mike Watts

Little Rock

Editor: No, it's not. Originally this story mistankenly stated that the student's payments are 70 percent interest with 30 percent applied to her principal. In reality, 30 percent of each of her payments is interest and 70 percent is applied to her principal.

Submit letters to the Editor via e-mail. The address is arktimes@arktimes.com.

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'Laramie Project' a catalyst for dialogue
01/18/2012

"The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later," now playing at The Weekend Theater, is an addendum to the original Laramie Project. by Cheree Franco

"The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later," now playing at The Weekend Theater, is an addendum to the original Laramie Project. In 1998 Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old, openly gay University of Wyoming student was robbed, tied to a fence post and beaten to death by a couple of acquaintances. Afterwards, members of New York's Tectonic Theater Project interviewed Laramie community members and university professors, as well as Matthew Shepard's friends, family and the men who murdered Shepard. Those interviews were compiled in a script and performed by a small cast, often with nothing but a quick intro, accent change or prop to distinguish among characters. This updated show follows the same structure, but the script is based on interviews occurring a decade after the crime.

It's an interesting premise — art based on journalism, per se, that isn't burdened by journalism principles of non-bias and accurate presentation. You hear the words of those closest to the crime, but you can't read their body language, expressions and intonations. Instead, you see an actor's interpretation of those words, which brings an entirely different insight.

Alan Douglas, who plays, among other characters, a priest and a Republican congressman, gives an unmistakably queer performance. Throughout the play, his gestures are feminine, his accent affected — he hits all the gay cliches. It implicates the underlying theoretical queerness of many institutions. Queer simply means a deviation from the politically/socially defined norm. Catholic priests are asexual, pledging their allegiance in body and mind to God alone. They are the ultimate patriarchal figures, yet they are emasculated, and their lifestyle is unconventional. Bipartisan politics represent a deviation, either right or left of center. One of Shephard's killers is Mormon. Mormonism, with its acceptance of polytheism, its concept of blood atonement, and its mandated missionary journey, is a deviation from social norms. Were "The Laramie Project" a filmed documentary, the priest might not come across as effeminate and the congressman might not come across as a southern dandy, because possibly, that's not who these people are. Having these real folks portrayed as characters highlights the cycles of queerness we all exist in, every day. Understanding that queerness — our personal queerness, which may not be based on sex or gender — is crucial to restructuring deep-rooted thought patterns that lead to contempt and ultimately, hate crimes.

In "The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later," Laramie comes across as a backwoods, low-income town, with an agriculture university serving as a liberal bastion and a haven for alternative lifestyles (at least among faculty). It's a recognizable place, as a town where many of us might have lived or worked. Town opinion is mixed, but people of all shades are weary of being defined by this single incident. Sometimes Shepard's murder is understood as something less shameful and more empathetic than a hate crime — a drug related robbery gone bad. Surprisingly, the cops come off as more progressive than local and national media.

"The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later" is an excellent catalyst for discussion and further research. Afterwards, you'll want to know more about Matthew Shepard and Laramie, Wyoming. You'll want to know more about civil rights, hate crimes, LGBT politics and queer theory. The changing characters were a bit confusing, and some actors were better than others, but overall, The Weekend Theater manages an engaging performance. Thus far, it also promises to be a popular performance. Saturday's performance was sold out, and the crowds was diverse — a range of ages, attire and (displayed) sexual preference.

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Who killed Jim Sjodin?
01/18/2012

One year later, no leads in Stifft Station murder. by David Koon

Jim Sjodin's silver Nissan still sits where he left it in front of the empty house at 107 S. Valentine in the Stifft Station neighborhood, hunkered down on tires that have gone a bit spongy in the year since he died. The car is cluttered. There's an umbrella on the front seat and another in the back; yellowed copies of old newspapers in the floorboards; a blue plastic basket from Walmart; a straw hat in the back window that's beginning to bleach from the sun. There was nobody to claim his belongings after his death, so the car sits right where Sjodin parked it.

On Sunday, Jan. 23, 2011, someone — a person or persons — came into Sjodin's home just south of Markham, beat him unconscious with a heavy object in a back room, then set the house on fire. Firefighters and police responded just before 7 p.m., but Sjodin was already dead from head injuries and smoke inhalation. Today, plywood covers the back windows of the house, the siding blackened with soot and the eaves hanging where firefighters pulled down the wood in search of stray embers.

With his full, white beard and part-time job as choir director and organist at Highland Valley United Methodist Church, the 65-year-old Sjodin might be the last person you'd expect to wind up at the center of a mysterious, unsolved homicide. An Oklahoma native who never married and apparently had no living family — an accomplished tenor, voice and piano teacher and long-time vegetarian — Sjodin was described as friendly by his neighbors, often waving to them and swapping plant cuttings. Police say they have no suspects as of this writing, though they believe the murderer was likely someone who knew Sjodin.

Because no family members stepped forward after Sjodin's death, members of Highland Valley UMC and other churches paid for the burial and his headstone. A former student from Christ the King Catholic Church donated the plot in Roselawn Cemetery.

Betty Morgan, the music director at Highland Valley UMC, said Sjodin served as the church's part-time piano and organ accompanist for a year before he was killed, and was well liked. She noted that when the church held his memorial service, the choir loft was filled with his former students.

Morgan said that Sjodin didn't talk much with her about what he did in his off-hours. The week Sjodin was murdered, he'd been filling in for Morgan while she recovered from cornea surgery.

"I don't know any dealings he had with people outside of the church, so I don't know if there would be anybody who would be angry with him," Morgan said. "I can't imagine it. Jim was just such a great guy. The children loved being around him. He was just so effervescent in his personality."

Rev. Daniel Kirkpatrick, now pastor at First United Methodist Church in Dewitt, was the pastor at Highland Valley when Sjodin was killed. He said Sjodin was the most talented musician he's worked with in 29 years as a pastor and a man he remembered as a "gentle soul who had a marvelous sense of humor," who was very open and accepting of people. After the murder, Kirkpatrick said, the congregation spent several months working with local shelters trying to find homes for Sjodin's three dogs, which Kirkpatrick said were "his family." Kirkpatrick has no idea who would want to hurt Sjodin.

"He was an old bachelor, never married, but I wouldn't call him a loner," Kirkpatrick said. "He was a pretty social fellow, taking his laptop and going down to the River Market pavilion." Kirkpatrick said that because Sjodin was covering for Betty Morgan that week, the Sunday of his death was the first time the full range of his talents had been on display for the congregation, with Sjodin leading the handbell choir, youth choir, children's choir and adult choir that day. Kirkpatrick and Morgan said that Sjodin finished a choir rehearsal at around 5 p.m., on Jan. 23, then headed home. He was apparently killed soon after arriving there.

The Arkansas Times spoke with several of Sjodin's neighbors, none of whom wanted to be identified for this story. Many of them said there were frequent visitors at Sjodin's house at all hours of the day and night. "We'd hear them knocking on the door, and sometimes they'd go in and sometimes they wouldn't," one neighbor said. "I've come home before to see them sitting on his porch, waiting for him. It was kind of scary to get out of the car when they were just sitting there."

A spokesman for the Little Rock Fire Department said that because the criminal investigation is ongoing, he couldn't release details about how the fire in Sjodin's home was started. LRPD spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings said that detectives are looking for ways to generate new information in the case.

"I heard them talking about it the other day back in homicide," Hastings said, "and they were saying they had kind of run out of leads on it."

Hastings said that there was no sign of forced entry and police don't know of anything that had been taken from Sjodin's home by the killer. While a search of the house turned up no evidence of illegal activity there, detectives heard the stories about frequent visitors from Sjodin's neighbors, along with speculation about what might have brought them there.

"That's what we've been told, but we have not determined what that activity is, and that's the problem," he said. "Of course, the folks who are coming up there and visiting him are not going to tell you, and the neighbors, that's what they know: 'There's been a bunch of strange-looking people around there.' But we can't pinpoint who those people are or what they are doing."

Hastings said most homicides in Little Rock are over either drugs or ongoing issues within an existing personal relationship. Truly random murders, such as when a person is killed during a robbery or burglary, are relatively rare. Knowing that, police can often develop a good idea of who committed the murder within a few hours after it happened. In those cases where a suspect doesn't immediately arise, however, Hastings points out that there's a short investigative window before a case can go cold.

"If you don't solve it, really, within the first 30 days, your stuff goes pretty cold," Hastings said. "It's difficult after that. We've solved cases that are years old, but usually we find out a piece of information. I tell people it's like a jigsaw puzzle. ... It may be months, it may be years before that last piece falls in. When it does, we can make that arrest."

Police are still searching for that elusive puzzle piece in the murder of Jim Sjodin.

"If we had a guy out here robbing businesses and shooting people, that one would be fairly easy to solve," Hastings said. "But when you have a relationship with two people, where we're not involved in it and we've received no calls, and suddenly it reaches the point where one of them kills the other one, that's difficult."

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