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Teen charged in killings now in adult jail
12/22/2011

AKRON, Ohio, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- A teenager facing trial as an adult in Ohio on murder charges is now being held in a grownup jail, authorities say. Brogan Rafferty, 16, was transferred from Noble County to the Summit County Jail, the Akron Beacon Jour...

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Holder vows justice for Pan Am 103 victims
12/22/2011

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- Attorney General Eric Holder marked the 23rd anniversary of the Pan Am 103 bombing Wednesday by reaffirming the U.S. commitment to justice for the victims. The downing killed all 243 passengers and 16 crew members, and 11...

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Countrywide Financial to pay $335 million
12/22/2011

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- Countrywide Financial Corp. will pay $335 million to home mortgage borrowers to settle discrimination allegations, the U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday. Justice officials called it the largest residential fair lendi...

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Mich. city trying to sell off its property
12/22/2011

PONTIAC, Mich., Dec. 21 (UPI) -- A public hearing in Pontiac, Mich., on selling most of the suburban Detroit city's real estate attracted only four people -- three officials and a reporter. The hearing Tuesday covered everything from city hall and ...

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Ex-Air Force instructor faces sex charges
12/22/2011

LACKLAND, Texas, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- A former training instructor at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas has been accused of rape and aggravated sexual assault allegedly involving recruits. Staff Sgt. Luis A. Walker, who could face life in prison, appeared...

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Occupy protesters denounce indictments
12/22/2011

HOUSTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- Occupy Houston protesters called the indictment of seven of them on felony charges an unjust effort to suppress free speech through "fear and intimidation." The seven Occupy protesters were indicted Tuesday by a Harris Count...

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Payroll Tax Extension May Be Dead
12/22/2011

The pressure mounted on Wednesday to approve the Senate-passed payroll tax measure to temporarily extend a payroll tax holiday, with several GOP Senators and President Barack Obama pushing the issue.

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Sign up for the Showcase
12/21/2011

As the Dec. 31 deadline approaches, your trusty Times staff will continue to beat the old showcase drum.

As the Dec. 31 deadline approaches, your trusty Times staff will continue to beat the old showcase drum. So here we go: You still have time to enter the 2012 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase! That's right, if your band has been playing for 17 years or 17 minutes, you can toss your hat in the ring for a shot at glory and approbation and a drink named after you or your band and a spot performing on one of the big stages at Riverfest and a spot playing at the Arkansas State Fair and more great prizes that we don't quite have finalized yet, but which will, no doubt, be worth your time.

You can go to arktimes.com/showcase12 and upload your band info and tunes (we'll need four). That's probably the easiest way to enter. You can also fill out one of the handy entry forms that have been running in the Times print edition the last few weeks, clip it and send it to us with a CD.

The first film has been selected for the Little Rock Horror Picture Show, the gore-and-scares sister fest to the Little Rock Film Festival scheduled for February. It's the Australian horror feature "The Tunnel."

The low-budget 2011 horror film, directed by Carlos Ledesma, follows a faux-documentary crew as they descend into abandoned subway tunnels under Sydney, Australia, to find out what's been killing transients there. Damn the luck, they find the culprit, with murderous consequences. The trailer (seen on Rock Candy) looks pretty damn scary.

The films selected for the Little Rock Horror Picture Show will screen Feb. 17-19 at Market Street Cinema. We'll have more details in coming weeks.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers will play Verizon Arena April 21. This, we feel fairly certain, is the band's first concert in Arkansas. We'll report on ticket information when we get it.

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Sex and Salander
12/21/2011

David Fincher's 'Dragon Tattoo' adaptation titillates. by Cheree Franco

David Fincher's interpretation of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" — the first in Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy — is gorgeous, haunting, compelling and, for those of us who saw the Swedish version released in this country two years ago, redundant. The Hollywood adaptation would have greater impact if the Swedish film had not been so well-received. There is little variation in scenes, even down to the manner in which certain flashbacks are staged. Niels Arden Oplev managed to do with $13 million what Fincher did with $100 million. So Larsson's novel seeded a great Swedish movie. And now, it has seeded a great American movie.

The secretive character of Lisbeth Salander required an actress without loads of Hollywood baggage, and Rooney Mara is spectacular in the breakout role. She owns nearly every scene in which she appears — and not only because, half the time, she's flashing skin. The film is a 158-minute detective story, slowly unfurled against the draconian beauty of rural Sweden and intercut with flashy bits of sex, violence and chase. The result is a Hollywood thriller, stretched into an impressionistic blur.

As the film opens, Swedish investigative journalist Michael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) has narrowly escaped prison after losing a libel case. Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), the patriarch of a fading industrial family, invites Blomkvist to live on his family's private island and take a shot at solving the 40-year-old murder of Harriet Vanger, his teen-age grandniece. Blomkvist retreats to a monastic cabin on the frozen, inaccessible island and busies himself unraveling a web of Old Testament lore, sexual perversion, misogyny and deep rooted anti-Semitism.

When Blomkvist asks for a research assistant, the misanthropic Lisbeth Salander joins him in the cabin. She's a 23-year-old waif and computer savant with antisocial tendencies and a photographic memory. Her violent retaliation against a childhood trauma led the state to claim her as a ward.

Salander already knows everything about Blomkvist, because she was hired by Vanger to perform his background check. In the process of illegally pilfering his hard-drive, she develops an understated obsession with the journalist. This bit of "girl moons over boy" convention lends Salander a displaced aura of sentimentality. Otherwise, she quickly becomes a graphic-novel-style heroine — fiercely loyal, adhering to her own moral code and displaying disconcerting physical strength when necessary.

While sequestered in the cabin, Salander pragmatically offers herself to Blomkvist. This initiates an Ayn Randian series of sexual encounters — lukewarm, bearing vaguely recognizable traces of emotion. She's in control, she's a bit cheeky, she's more into it than he is. In one instance, Blomkvist is so distracted that he tries to discuss work while Salander straddles him.

Sex in many (often unsavory) varieties supplies the psychological backbone of the film. In one scene, Salander is anally raped by her guardian. With heavy piercings, bleached eyebrows and spiky hair, she resembles a hip urban clothing model. She's a pixie punk, a projection rather than a reality, an easy object of lust.

There's an element of titillation, familiarity and voyeurism as she writhes, chained to a bed, while her underwear is ripped off and her bare ass flashed on-screen. It's a pornographic trope, a Hollywood depiction of an anti-Hollywood moment. The scene unleashes its full horror only after her paunchy, middle-aged guardian becomes an unavoidable part of the act. And there's nothing enticing or sexy afterward, as Salander limps home. Later, she offers her own version of restitution, echoing and even surpassing her rapist's brutality. But because the subject of the act is not a hot, twenty-something female, the scene lacks the conflict or gratuitousness of the one in which she is victim.

All of this sex weaves through an engaging storyline, couched in symbolic sets, darting edits and smooth cinematography. Photos zip across Salander's laptop, lightening quick and laser sharp, mirroring the workings of her fingers and her mind. And many scenes involving Harriet's brother, Martin Vanger, take place in his mid-century Swedish home — a marvel of economic luxury and clean lines, with interiors that radiate a warm orange or cool white. It's a metaphor for Martin himself — calculatedly showy, impenetrable and methodical.

More than the serial killer plot mystique, Lisbeth Salander and, to a lesser degree, Mikael Blomkvist propel "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." By the end of the film, Salander is an incongruous character, switching her allegiance to the protection of women to the protection of one man. Maybe the certain sequels will contain surprises, even for those familiar with the Swedish films.

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The secret
12/21/2011

It's Christmas this week — can't you hear all the little kiddies yelling "AT LAST!" all over town? — and this time of year always gets The Observer thinking about Christmases past.

It's Christmas this week — can't you hear all the little kiddies yelling "AT LAST!" all over town? — and this time of year always gets The Observer thinking about Christmases past. No, we're not talking about that bit of underdone potato — more gravy than grave — that assailed old Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' most ghostly of Xmas tales, but it feels like that sometimes. The older we get, the more we feel like we've been whisked away into the past around Dec. 15 and are held hostage there until after New Years Day — as if every colored light plants our feet ever more firmly with one in history, one in the present, and a toe edging toward the still-percolating future. As much as we'd rather be publicly flogged than hear Barry Manilow sing "Silver Bells" one more time, though, we can't bring our self to be one of those Bah, Humbuggers when it comes to Christmas. We do still love it so.

The Observer was a quick study in our youth, so The Great Secret of Christmas Eve was self-revealed to us a bit quicker than some of our peers. That said, we had at least seven good years there — and, to be honest, two more where we were HOPING it was true — where Christmas morning was all about the magic, wondering at tiny reindeer on the roof, what Santa thought of our cookies, and how exactly he squeezed himself through the keyhole.

Our dear old dad, who had grown up dirt poor in College Station, loved the holidays. He was a very early riser, a trait he picked up in Army boot camp and never shed himself of. At 3 a.m. on Christmas morning, it was always him that shook The Observer and his brothers awake, telling us that Christmas morning was here — that Santa had came and went in the twinkling of an eye and a puff of chimney soot, leaving good things behind.

Back then, our favorite feeling in the world was waking up on Christmas morning and heading downstairs to see the goodies stacked around the tree. Ma had bought us all knitted stockings some years before — stretchy jobs, each a good two feet long even before the stuff went in. Those stockings were always the best part for The Observer, even better than the wrapped presents: the colorful stockings, too heavy to hang, lying on the hearth as lumpy as a cartoon snake that had eaten its weight in apples and oranges and candy.

Our own son is 12 now, and figured the whole business out long ago, maybe even quicker than his Old Man. He's smart like that. That said, his mother and father will still be creeping around the house after he's gone off to dance with sugarplums on Christmas Eve, the two old elves sneaking goodies out of hiding places and stashing them in the living room, filling the stocking to overflowing. Is it wrong to keep something like that a part of Christmas, even after magic has given way to understanding? If so, we don't want to be right. We never, ever want to be right about that one.

The Observer has been a father awhile now (we'd even consider our self an old hand at it) and we can tell you from experience what our dad obviously knew: The joy of waking up to find presents on Christmas morning is nothing compared to the joy of waking up somebody else to find theirs.

Happy holidays, everybody. The Observer sends all the blessings in the world your way.

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Peaceful protest
12/21/2011

Occupy Little Rock protestors march on the State Capitol building Saturday in Little Rock. by Brian Chilson

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Lalah Hathaway to Cajun's Wharf
12/21/2011

And The Body at White Water Tavern, Lucero at Revolution, The Evelyns at Pizza D, Fair to Midland at Downtown, The Big Cats at White Water Tavern and Christmas with Pamela at Porter's. by Robert Bell and Gerard Matthews

WEDNESDAY 12/21

THE BODY

10 p.m. White Water Tavern.

Ah, The Body. These two Little Rock natives have come a long way since the days when they were just a couple of guys wearing burlap sacks on their heads and screaming about pain and scaring peoples' parents at art-installation performances and whatnot. Chip King and Lee Buford got started way back yonder, like 1999 or so, in Fayetteville. Hundred Years War, King's previous band, had just split up, and so he and Buford started a new one. They'd set up and practice after-hours at their friend's music venue/record store/porn shop. I think maybe one of them even lived in the place for a while. There were couches there, naturally. Anyway, before too long, they up and moved to the East Coast, eventually settling down in the Providence/Warwick area in scenic Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (that's the state's full official name — look it up if you don't believe me). And now, well heck, here we are like 12 years later and these guys have put out a couple-three killer albums and a slew of singles, and they get all kinds of critical acclaim from such pillars of establishment credibility as NPR and The New York Times, and they go on tour with women's choirs and it's like, they're "The Body — Critically Respected Avant-Garde Doom Metal Band." But if ever there were two guys who would never let all that stuff go to their heads, and who would still just be normal dudes and all, it's Chip and Lee. Also playing is R.I.O.T.S., a newer band that will make you remember that you do love hardcore after all, and that all those terrible scream-y bands with their guyliner and dumb haircuts and 129-syllable band names can't change that. Recommended pre-show warm-up listening: Void side of the Faith/Void LP and the first MDC album. —RB

WEDNESDAY 12/21

LALAH HATHAWAY

7 p.m. Cajun's Wharf. $25-$50.

We'll just get this out of the way at the outset: Lalah Hathaway is the daughter of the legendary soul singer Donny Hathaway. But this isn't yet another case of the child of a renowned musician trading on her father's name. Lalah Hathaway is a trained singer and pianist (Berklee School of Music) whose 20-plus year career has included several critically lauded albums. She's a versatile artist with a smoky, sultry singing voice that's unmistakably hers. Hathaway's latest disc, "Where it all Begins," mixes propulsive, synth-heavy pop-R&B with more classically styled soul numbers, smoldering ballads and dance-floor burners. You'd better believe this show is a good bet for date night. — RB

WEDNESDAY 12/21

LUCERO

8:30 p.m. Revolution. $26.

Little Rock native Ben Nichols leads Lucero back to the natural state for this show to benefit CARTI. The band recently finished recording its forthcoming album "Women and Work" at Ardent Studios in Memphis. The new record will be available March 13, with Lucero set to embark on a nationwide tour in support of the release starting in late February. No official Little Rock dates have been announced (although the band will play back-to-back nights in Fayetteville Feb. 24 and 25), so unless you plan on venturing to venues afar, be sure to get yourself to the Rev Room Wednesday night for some goodtime tunes. Expect to hear cuts from the new record, which, from what we've heard, is a more-than-formidable follow-up to 2009's "1372 Overton Park," which found the Memphis rockers in full-on Memphis soul mode. The new tunes are straight up rock 'n' roll (remember The Faces?) and will please the diehards while welcoming those new to the band. Memphis songstress Amy Lavere opens. — GM

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THURSDAY 12/22

THE EVELYNS

10 p.m. Pizza D'Action. $3.

A few months back, a buddy recommended we go see The Evelyns at The Afterthought. He was hyped on this song they'd just put up on their Bandcamp and upon listening to it, it was an understandable reaction. "What to Say" is 2 minutes and 11 seconds of woozy pop, a perfect little gem that lends itself to playing over and over and over. Anyways, the show was really great, but there was this total chief in the audience, and apparently his delicate widdle eardwums were being inconvenienced by the rock 'n' roll. He thought he'd be clever and slip the band a note that said something like, "You'd be twice as good at half the volume." This didn't go over well with the band, understandably, but Mr. Designer Jeans and Faux-hawk was nowhere to be found after their set, and thus they were unable to offer a rejoinder to his unsolicited and wrong advice. So go see The Evelyns, but for the love of Jeebus, don't tell them to turn it down. The opening band is Color Club, a synth-heavy haze-wave trio formerly of Fayetteville, presently of Little Rock. — RB

THURSDAY 12/22

FAIR TO MIDLAND

7:15 p.m. Downtown Music Hall. $11 adv., $13 d.o.s.

Sometimes you encounter something that many people seem to dig but that, for whatever reason, you simply cannot comprehend in any way. This is the case for me with the Dallas band Fair to Midland. I can't even make a value judgment about this band because I'm so thoroughly dumbfounded by every single thing about them. Among the things about Fair to Midland that I do not understand: first, the name — a pun on the term "fair to middling." Whether this band is amazing or awful I cannot say, even — no, scratch that — especially after listening to several of their songs. But whichever it is, it is nowhere near the middle of the quality spectrum. This band is playing either the most incredible, mind-blowing, game-changing shit ever, or the worst, most incalculably terrible songs ever even imagined. And I absolutely cannot tell which one it is, though I'm leaning slightly toward the former after checking out the "Violitionist Sessions" EP on Bandcamp. If I had to guess, I'd say they were just being cheeky with their name choice, and that they're actually well aware that their bewildering and potent synthesis of Rush, Tool, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Van der Graaf Generator, Tim Buckley, System of a Down, Bob Dylan circa the Rolling Thunder Revue and probably like 47 other bands is in no way typical or "middling." This seems like the most likely scenario. Also, the band's song "Dance of the Manatee" is another thing that really, really confuses me, but I'm running out of room here. Opening acts are Dead Letter Circus and Mainland Divide. — RB

FRIDAY 12/23

THE BIG CATS

6 p.m., 9 p.m. White Water Tavern. $10.

You know, it just wouldn't quite feel like a Little Rock holiday season without some Big Cats shows. The band, whose members are spread out on both coasts and in Arkansas, has been getting back together around Christmas for so long that it feels like a tradition. This year, the Cats are back, but with some new recorded tunes, to boot. "The Ancient Art of Leaving: High & Low" dropped last week on CD and digital formats, but it's only the first of two albums the band recorded this year. The other album will be out in March, and in May, Max Recordings — lead Cat Burt Taggart's record label — will release a 3-LP set with all 25 songs. Opening up for the first show are lo-fi pop-punk newcomers Crooked Roots, while the second features a set from local singer-songwriter fave Mandy McBryde. — RB

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FRIDAY 12/23

CHRISTMAS WITH PAMELA

7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Porter's Jazz Cafe. $10.

Normally, you see Pamela Smith in the early a.m., on KATV's Good Morning Arkansas program. But here's a chance to see Smith in a nightclub setting, singing popular Christmas favorites such as "This Christmas," "Santa Baby" and "Joyful Joyful." The show is a benefit for Women and Children First, a nonprofit support group for victims of domestic violence. In addition to the cover, Smith is encouraging everyone to bring donations for WCF, including toiletries, such as hand soap, tissue, diapers, wipes and paper towels, as well as batteries, pillows and bedding, blankets and family-friendly DVDs for the shelter. Light hors d'oeuvres will be served. — RB

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Reese joins 'Devils Knot'
12/21/2011

Fresh off starring in Jeff Nichols' Arkansas-set film "Mud," Reese Witherspoon is tied to another Arkansas-connected role.

Fresh off starring in Jeff Nichols' Arkansas-set film "Mud," Reese Witherspoon is tied to another Arkansas-connected role. According to Variety, the actress will star in the film version of Mara Leveritt's "Devil's Knot" about the West Memphis Three case. She'll play Pam Hobbs, mother of one of the three children slain in West Memphis in 1992.

In other WM3 news, The Nashville Scene reports that "West of Memphis," the new documentary feature about the West Memphis Three case, will play at Nashville's Belcourt Theater on Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. The showing is part of the Sundance Film Festival's "Sundance USA" series, which will preview selections from this year's Sundance Festival at nine theaters across the U.S. Tickets for the Belcourt show are on sale now.

"West of Memphis" is being produced by Damien Echols and Lorri Davis, with help from Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, the brains behind the "Lord of the Rings" films. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Amy Berg is in the director chair. Jackson and Walsh quietly bankrolled the effort to free the West Memphis Three for years, with Echols traveling to New Zealand for a visit soon after his release.

While "West of Memphis" hasn't reached theaters, it's already the source of controversy, with a public and messy dispute between Berg and "Paradise Lost" directors Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger over access to key figures in the case.

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Official secrets
12/21/2011

The state Ethics Commission last week voted 4-0 to dismiss my complaint that the Committee for Little Rock's Future, which spent more than $200,000 in support of Little Rock's recent sales tax proposal, hadn't adequately reported how it spent the money. by Max Brantley

The state Ethics Commission last week voted 4-0 to dismiss my complaint that the Committee for Little Rock's Future, which spent more than $200,000 in support of Little Rock's recent sales tax proposal, hadn't adequately reported how it spent the money.

It was disappointing because the Commission had earlier vote 4-0 to find probable cause that I was correct.

The Committee hired a lawyer, Kevin Crass of the Friday Firm, to appeal. Crass persuaded the Ethics Commission that state law didn't specifically guard against a scheme the committee employed to keeps its expenditures secret.

State law requires committees formed to support or oppose ballot measures to disclose every check of $100 or more. The Committee for Little Rock's Future, apart from a checking account fee, only wrote checks to the Markham Group, a political consulting group. The Markham Group spent the money on mailing, ads, campaign workers and other things, but didn't report them publicly.

Disclosure of the handful of checks to Markham was enough, Crass said, though Ethics Commission rules attempt to guard against arrangements to defeat disclosure. For example, disclosure of a payment to a credit card isn't enough. They underlying charges must be listed.

The Markham Group, Crass took great pains to argue, is a professional organization. No doubt. But it is, for practical purposes, a straw man, the same as any intermediary would be in laundering money so that expenditures need not be disclosed. Under the ruling last week, if a committee writes a single $1 million check to an intermediary disbursing agent to avoid disclosure of subsequent expenditures, it's legal.

I took away a moral victory. Graham Sloan, director of the Ethics Commission, readily acknowledged I'd identified a loophole in the law. The Ethics Commission favors more disclosure of expenditures, too. Paul Dumas, who acted as chair of the commission, said "it's clear public disclosure is down the tubes the way this statute is written." He said, as Sloan did, that he'd favor a legislative solution for more accountability.

That can't happen until 2013. Meanwhile, most ballot question committees will continue to be secretive, as they have been for years. And it won't be easy to change the law.

Neither Robert McLarty, head of the Markham Group, nor Jay Chessir of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, would offer even lip service to the general concept of more disclosure.

What's Chessir got to do with it? Glad you asked. He's more evidence of the clandestine nature of political campaigns. His name appears nowhere on the Committee for Little Rock Future's paper work. Yet he was called by lawyer Crass to defend the committee's filing procedure. Though records don't reflect it, the chamber stage-managed the entire campaign, from money raising, to figurehead leaders to implementation. As Ethics Commission counsel Rita Looney noted, in calling my complaint "meritorious," the Markham Group spent money as instructed and in behalf of those who hired them. McLarty also said secrecy was important to protect "proprietary" campaign strategy. This is laughable. That same information is disclosed routinely by committees for political candidates, as opposed to ballot issues, and sometimes it's disclosed voluntarily by ballot committees.

The Ethics Commission, given a chance to broadly construe law, narrowly construed it in a way that promotes secrecy. It was legally defensible. But mark this now: when the ethics regulators try to fix the law, the Chamber of Commerce, its hired cutouts and the moneyed interests will argue for continued secrecy. And as I learned again last week, money talks.

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Year in Review, Part One
12/21/2011

by Tom Tomorrow

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Best and Worst 2011
12/21/2011

The 2011 Express is soon to wheeze into the station, so it's time once again for our annual Best and Worst issue, the Arkansas Times' roundup of all the news that was fit to print (and some that probably wasn't) in the Sovereign Asylum of Arkansas this year. by David Koon

The 2011 Express is soon to wheeze into the station, so it's time once again for our annual Best and Worst issue, the Arkansas Times' roundup of all the news that was fit to print (and some that probably wasn't) in the Sovereign Asylum of Arkansas this year. On the menu this go-round: dying blackbirds, tax breaks on rubber pants, justice from above (twice), home circumcision and coach Bobby Petrino's sideline meltdown in the wake of the loss to LSU. It was a full year, folks. As my dear old Dad used to say: Thank the Lord we made it, and thank Him twice that it's almost over.

Best signs of the impending Apocalypse

On the night of New Year's Eve, Beebe residents heard the pitter-patter of carcasses on their rooftops as over 5,000 blackbirds mysteriously dropped dead mid-flight and fell to earth. This was followed soon after by a spontaneous die-off of over 60,000 drum fish on the Arkansas River. Tinfoil hat sales skyrocketed as conspiracy theorists scrambled to pin the smitings on everything from aliens to double-secret testing at the Pine Bluff Arsenal.

Best yodel

In January, Miss Arkansas Alyse Eady came in first runner-up for the Miss America crown, which we believe to be a blatant, unmitigated theft after watching her talent: ventriloquist yodeling, featuring Eady and two wooden-headed friends belting out fellow Arkansan Patsy Montana's "I Want To Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart." Her spunk got Eady and her dummies a guest spot on David Letterman a week later.

Worst blockage

The Harps grocery store up in Mountain Home caused a nationwide furor back in January after a manager blocked the covers of Us Weekly magazine showing the singer Elton John and his new baby with an obscene material placard — a rectangle of gray plastic imprinted with "Family Shield. To protect young Harps shoppers." A customer snapped a photo of the blocked magazine and uploaded it to Twitter. After being deluged with angry e-mails and calls, Harps had the shield taken down.

Worst closing

Citing fear for the safety of his customers and employees, the owner of Jim's Razorback Pizza on Stagecoach Road in Little Rock closed down in January after the place was robbed seven times in five years — including twice when the joint was full of customers. Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas told reporters that in his 30-plus years on the force, it was the first time he could remember a business shutting down solely because of crime.

Worst Confederate

The mayor of Marshall decided to honor the birthday of Gen. Robert E. Lee in January by flying the Confederate flag over city hall through the long MLK Day weekend, including on the holiday devoted to King.

Best vote

A week after the mayor's dubious decision, the Marshall City Council convened an emergency session and voted that henceforth only the Arkansas flag and Old Glory can be flown on city property.

Worst stiff

In February, a taxidermy shop in Romance that specializes in freeze-drying dead pets so they can keep their owners company forever announced they were in talks to get their own reality TV show on Animal Planet. "American Stuffers" debuts Jan. 5.

Worst cold

Snowlocaust, Snomageddon, Snowpocalypse — whatever you called it, the snow storm that blanketed the state from border to border in early February was bad, especially in the Northwest corner of the state, which saw snow totals of up to two feet and a real, non-wind-chill-assisted temperature of 20 degrees below zero in some areas. Brrrrrrr.

Best evidence that teachers might need a raise

A math teacher at Little Rock's McClellan High was put on administrative leave in February after the district learned she was one of those swept up in a 2010 prostitution sting. The teacher said she had been working as an escort to help make ends meet after falling on hard times.

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Worst motive

Down in Union County in March, a man was booked on a charge of first-degree battery after he stabbed his uncle multiple times during an argument over a pig.

Worst collision

In March, a smash-em-up on Broadway near downtown Little Rock sent an SUV careening into the wall surrounding Mount Holly Cemetery, one of the city's oldest and most storied burial grounds. The ensuing crash wasn't enough to wake the dead, but it did do thousands of dollars worth of damage to the wall and an iron fence.

Worst ignoring ignoramus

The oldest bridge still in use in Arkansas — the 130-foot, circa 1891 Solgohachia Bridge over Point Remove Creek just outside of Morrilton — was pulled off its foundations in April after a gas drilling company truck driver ignored weight-limit warning signs and tried to cross in a rig weighing nine tons.

Worst heist

In April, two men entered a convenience store in Little Rock, asked for a box of condoms, then put a $50 bill on the counter as if they were about to pay. When the clerk opened the register, the robbers pulled pistols, grabbed the cash and fled. Left behind on the counter: The $50 bill and the condoms. The take from the register was apparently light enough that the crooks came close to going into the red on the transaction, though felony charges were thrown in for free.

Worst heist (runner up)

In September, a trio of gunmen burst into a Little Rock church and relieved the members of a Sunday School class of their wallets, cell phones and jewelry at gunpoint.

Best spousal charity

In May, Anna Johnson, a 24-year-old hairdresser from Conway, won the annual Toad Suck Daze "Stuck on a Truck" contest by keeping at least one hand on a red Ford F-150 for a record 5 days, 15 hours and 52 minutes. In her entry form for the contest, Johnson said she entered because she didn't think her husband believed she could do it. She also said she planned to give him the truck.

Worst debate

In the Garland County Jail in May, two inmates reportedly got in a fistfight because of a disagreement over which was worse: the prison system in Arkansas or the prison system in Louisiana.

Worst hit and run

It came to light in May that freshman state Rep. Mark Biviano of Searcy was accused in a hit-and-run accident in Little Rock back in April. According to the other driver involved, Biviano's truck hit her Toyota as he pulled away from the Capital Hotel. She said the lawmaker suggested they move their cars out of the roadway, then sped off. Finding him was fairly easy, given Biviano's State House of Representatives license plate, but the case was closed without charges.

Best conspiracy

Biviano, a Republican swept in on a Tea Party platform in 2010, told his hometown paper the story was part of a Democratic vendetta to discredit him.

Best Craigslist

In May, on the Fayetteville Craigslist page, a poster offered $6,000 to any taxidermist who'd help fulfill his wife's wish "to be stuffed so she can still watch over me [and] the grand kids after she goes." We're hoping it was a joke, but given that this is Arkansas, it probably wasn't.

Worst dumb

In May, Hot Springs Mayor Ruth Carney — the titular head of a town which exists solely because of tourism — commented on a friend's Facebook photo of a sniper by saying: "You know how I hate tourism and all, so I was seeing if [snipers] could maybe eliminate some of the tourists."

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Worst Father's Day gift

That would be: a stabbin'. On Father's Day, police said, a Little Rock 18-year-old attacked his father with a knife after Dad tried to break up a fight between two of his sons that started over cigarettes. Dad was punched in the face, then later stabbed. When his son came at him with the knife again, police said, Dad clouted the younger man with a boat paddle. Be happy with that tie you got, pal. Could have been a lot worse.

Best drag

In June, a hip-hop clothing store on Col. Glenn Road was held up by a trio of crooks, who the clerk identified for police as "three black homosexual males." In the midst of the robbery, the clerk managed to wrestle away a gun and shoot one of them before they fled. Later, after a suspect turned up at a local hospital with a wounded accomplice, police discovered the three desperadoes were actually desperadettes — women, dressed as men.

Worst news for summer

Yarnell's Ice Cream of Searcy abruptly announced in late June that it would close after 78 years in business. The owners cited the ongoing bad economy, high ingredient costs, and a softening (no pun intended) market for ice cream. The assets were bought late in the year by a Chicago company that promised to re-open the plant.

Worst tragedy

On June 10, a Fayetteville driver who police said found himself disoriented due to low blood sugar ran a red light and hit a Honda Accord, killing the passenger in the car. The passenger in the car turned out to be his wife, who was out searching for him with her son after a call from her husband saying he was feeling dizzy and needed help.

Worst old-timey

In July, the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration announced the details of Arkansas's August sales tax holiday, providing a short list of examples of clothing items that would be exempt. Among the garments listed by the DFA: "beach capes and coats," bathing caps, girdles, overshoes, garters and garter belts, and "rubber pants." What? No bustles and pantaloons?

Worst slight

In July, attorneys filed suit in federal court on behalf of a black graduate of McGehee High School in Desha County. The reason? Even though she had the highest GPA in her class and was originally told she'd been named valedictorian, school officials later backpedaled and told her she'd be named "co-valedictorian" with a white student. Though the school's student body is nearly 50 percent African-American, there hasn't been a black valedictorian at McGehee High since Reagan was president.

Best name

The slighted student's name from the above item was Kymberly Wimberly, which we figure ought to be worth at least 3/10ths of a point on her G.P.A.

Best Gobi Desert impersonation

On Aug. 3, downtown Little Rock hit a real, non-heat-indexed temperature of 114 degrees, vaporizing the old all-time record of 112 in a cloud of steam and misery.

Worst streak

Less than a week after the Little Rock's skyline nearly wilted in the heat, a cold front finally swept through the state, ending Fort Smith's record 36-day unbroken run of 100+ degree temperatures.

Best spider-attack-fueled crash

A garbage truck managed to hit a glass-enclosed skywalk in downtown Little Rock in August, causing thousands of dollars in damage. The driver told police that during his last trash bin pickup before the crash, a spider had come into the cab and scared him. He was so flustered by the eight-legged hitchhiker that he failed to remember to lower the truck's raised lifting arms before driving away, with the arms and steel dumpster striking the skywalk a few minutes later.

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Best release

On Aug. 19, Jessie Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols — A.K.A. The West Memphis Three, who supporters say were wrongfully convicted in the 1993 murders of three 8-year-olds — walked out of jail free men after prosecutors agreed to a deal which had the three plead guilty in exchange for their immediate release. By then, Echols, Misskelley and Baldwin had been incarcerated for 6,648 days, with Echols spending much of that time in solitary confinement.

Best friend

Jason Baldwin originally nixed signing off on the plea deal — an all-three-or-none proposition — because it would force him to plead guilty, but changed his mind after he was told of Echols' failing health. When Baldwin gave up his dream of jury-confirmed innocence for his friend, he had reportedly only spoken to Echols once in 18 years: When he whispered a few words through the tray slot of Echols' cell door while part of a cleaning crew brought in to mop the floor on Death Row.

Best winged justice

In August, a Craighead County man who went up in a friend's light airplane to shoot some aerial photos of his house was surprised to see a pair of burglars down below had broken in and were loading his worldly possessions onto a trailer. He called police, then had the pilot follow the men as they sped away, directing the earth-bound cops to their location. Two men from Jonesboro were arrested.

Best winged justice (runner up)

In September, a Fort Smith resident told police that Charlie, his pet Macaw — a large breed of colorful parrot — attacked two robbers who came into his apartment and beat him while trying to steal prescription drugs. The man said Charlie bit them repeatedly with his powerful beak, and managed to take a chunk out of one man's arm before the thieves fled empty handed.

Best alternate reality

On the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Hot Springs Mayor Ruth Carney — yes, the same Mayor Carney who joked about having snipers thin the tourist herd back in May — told her local paper there never would have been a 9/11 if her sons had been on the planes that crashed into the Twin Towers.

Worst terror

In September, a man armed with an assault rifle went on a shooting spree at the Crawford County Courthouse in Van Buren. Though the man apparently began firing randomly after being told the judge who had presided over his divorce decree was out sick, only two people were slightly injured before police shot the gunman down on the courthouse lawn.

Best evidence of the hand of God at work

Though the shooter's assault rifle was later test-fired successfully by investigators, during the rampage at the courthouse the weapon jammed and misfired up to 25 times, undoubtedly saving lives and giving police precious minutes to respond.

Worst overkill

White County Medical Center in Searcy announced in September that they would no longer consider smokers for employment, and would use random nicotine screening to make sure employees don't use tobacco anywhere, even in their own home on their day off. While already-employed puffers were grandfathered in, officials said, anyone hired after Oct. 1 who tests positive for nicotine will be immediately fired.

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Worst grief

In the early morning hours of Oct. 6, employees of the new Apple Store in west Little Rock who had come to the store to hang a mourning wreath in memory of company founder Steve Jobs found the front door shattered and a gang of burglars inside. The thieves fled, but managed to get away with tens of thousands of dollars worth of Apple laptops, iPads and iPhones.

Best Too Much Information

The obituary for Chan Holcombe, a resident of Fort Smith who died Oct. 13 at age 72, proudly noted that he was an Air Force veteran, an avid fisherman, and had been circumcised with his dad's pocketknife.

Worst cave to special interests

In October, the Lovely County Citizen newspaper reported that the Holiday Island Elks Club Auxiliary planned to add biscuits and gravy to the menu at their annual Pancake Breakfast, due to the previous years' complaints that the Pancake Breakfast served only pancakes.

Worst sore loser

After watching his Razorbacks get demolished 41-17 by the LSU Tigers on November 25, coach Bobby Petrino was caught by TV cameras pointing across the field at LSU coach Les Miles and shouting what even an amateur lip-reader would suspect was an obscenity. To add insult to asshattery, during the post-game coaches' handshake, Petrino managed only a token grasp with Miles before huffily turning his back and walking away. UA Athletic Director Jeff Long later said he complained to the SEC because CBS replayed Petrino's cursing.

Best superhero origin story

When a defendant fled his courtroom on December 5, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims hopped off the bench in his robe and gave chase through the gallery, out the door and down the hallway. His Honor reportedly managed to deliver several applications of judicial discipline upside the guy's head with his gavel before bailiffs were able to subdue the suspect.

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All they want
12/21/2011

No child uncoerced ever said "All I want for Christmas is my two front teefe." Waste a rare and precious Christmas wish by asking for an unessential body part that'll inevitably be arriving soon anyway? Not likely. Kids aren't stupid. Songwriters, though ... by Bob Lancaster

No child uncoerced ever said "All I want for Christmas is my two front teefe." Waste a rare and precious Christmas wish by asking for an unessential body part that'll inevitably be arriving soon anyway? Not likely. Kids aren't stupid. Songwriters, though ...

I remember my Uncle Carney's Christmas wish one year was for a mule to help him — about 50/50, I would guess — with the garden plowing. He didn't get it, because Aunt Kate couldn't find one for less than $8, her limit, and she wasn't sympathetic to the request anyway. Unk earned the Santa Claus money as a sawmill boiler operator, but Auntie was the comptroller and unhainted by the Ghosts of Past, Present or Future. He got his mule the following spring but only because an old man who lived up the road from us died and his wife wasn't able to harvest sawbriers in the quantities that their mule required for subsistence. She might near gave the old thing away. In other words, got about what it was worth.

"All I want for Christmas is to win the Iowa caucuses," Michelle Bachmann told Santa Claus last week. Think she really meant to put that "all" in there? If so, it's a modest enough request. Bro. Pat Robertson stormed Iowa one time, only to be obliged to slink back to his role as beg-a-thonery's Big Giant Head. Pretty much the same fate befell last time's Iowa GOP caucus champeen, subsequently reduced to having to sign on with either Rupert Murdoch or Vince McMahon, and choosing the more outlandish of the two.

The congressional GOP letter to Santa Claus this year demanded he lay off distributing Christmas gifts free to poor and hopeful children, as those children are coming to consider such gifts entitlements. Can't have that.

Alvin finally got the hula hoop, leastwise Dave said he did. Ralphie got the Red Ryder, and sure enough might near shot his own eye out first thing.

Napoleon Bonaparte's most devout Christmas wish was that somebody would hurry up and invent Preparation H. Mark Twain wanted some Viagra almost as bad. Just didn't know what to call it.

Prince Charles said one Christmas all he wanted was to be prestidigitated into one of his girlfriend's tampons. In a way, yeah, wish was granted.

I have it from some of the oldest residents of the Pine Knot Nursing Home that there was a time when not a single child's Christmas gift list included a telephone. You believe that?

Lonnie Avey said, "I might've asked for some other stuff along there, but I wadn't really paying attention."

Curly Roberts wanted Christmas every day, long as he could be only on the getting end.

A Lash Larue bullwhip was at the top of the Ol' Moi list one year but enthusiasm for it waned rather quickly as I never got where I could snap the ash off a lit cigarette in somebody's mouth and they were loath for some reason to give me permission for retries.

It was someone from Hades, Miss., as I recall, who wanted the diamond as big as the Ritz.

Woe to the likes of Rep. Harris and Sen. Key for first-degree offenses against the Real Reason for the Season. For shameful ventures that chug along on equal parts piousness and gall. Birthday Boy himself spoke the warning: You've had your reward. Be somebody else's turn up yonder.

It was never conclusively determined which member of a recent State Capitol clan asked Santa for a family-size hogshead of Velveeta.

There was the Christmas I decided to test the odd theorem that it's more blessed to give than to receive. Clutching my 50-cent piece "earned" by having completed some routine chore — churning, perhaps — I surveyed the Christmas wares at Hendon's 5-and-10 Cent Store and finally settled on buying my mother a tablespoon. Not silver; not even stainless; I'd guess tin; Uri Geller could've bent it double with just a sidelong glance. But had it gift-wrapped, and felt self-abnegating and proud. She acted thrilled at the opening, and it might not've been all acting. My first choice had been a roll of quilting cotton but of course that was out of my range.

One of Uncle Earl's requests, socks for his rooster.

All the dick Cheney wants is that war with Iran that Santa has denied him lo these many Christmases. Expect him, if denied again, to tell Santa to go f-word himself. You and the reindeer you rode in with.

One Christmas I asked Rhoney Rubow what he wanted and he said an old Rex Jelly bucket filled to the brim with Dr. Tichenor's Antiseptic. Said if he got it he'd tie it to his living-room light-bulb cord, punch a tiny hole in the bottom, and lie under it the whole 12 Days of Christmas lapping up the drip.

One of the Magi, according to the Gospel of Judas: "Aw, it was just some old second-hand myrrh lying around the castle."

Bennie Mac, our town bootlegger, was always happy when Santa agreed to replenish his fruit-jar stock. He'd take pints but most of his delivery was in quarts.

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Pizza D'Action shrugs off crash
12/21/2011

Despite having a car crash through its dining room last Thursday morning, Pizza D'Action remains open for business. By the time you read this, there likely won't be any sign of the crash.

Despite having a car crash through its dining room last Thursday morning, Pizza D'Action remains open for business. By the time you read this, there likely won't be any sign of the crash.

Little Rock Police Department spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings said a witness saw a white Toyota Camry slam into the building around 5:20 a.m. Thursday — the driver apparently having missed the curve coming onto Markham off Kavanaugh. After the dust settled, the driver threw it into reverse, backed out of the restaurant, and drove away. An investigation is ongoing, though Hastings said they do have a good description of the car and a partial license plate.

The restaurant boarded up the hole, cleaned up a bit, and reopened the same day.

Pizza D'Action is open from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Monday through Friday, noon to 1 a.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. until midnight on Sunday. The phone number is 666-5403.

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The Newt and us
12/21/2011

The story line in the Republican presidential sweepstakes is that, unlike the ephemeral pack leaders who preceded him, Newt Gingrich has staying power because people already know all his warts and transgressions and have either accepted or forgiven them. by Ernest Dumas

The story line in the Republican presidential sweepstakes is that, unlike the ephemeral pack leaders who preceded him, Newt Gingrich has staying power because people already know all his warts and transgressions and have either accepted or forgiven them.

Don't bet on it. Everywhere but in the South, which has a fabled history of accepting and forgiving philanderers, rascals and highbinders if they are colorful enough, Gingrich is apt to fall harder than the rest.

With the help of his opponents and the media, Newt now is coming back to them slowly.

It is coming back to us here in Arkansas, where for a dozen years our men in Washington had a close but not always proud association with the former House minority whip and speaker.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette helped bring it back a little by politely interviewing three Republican congressmen from the state who served with him, Tommy Robinson, Tim Hutchinson and Jay Dickey. Hutchinson and Dickey were around for Gingrich's epochal collisions with President Clinton over the budget and the shutdown of the federal government in 1995-96 and Clinton's impeachment, which Gingrich helped engineer. They spoke politely of Gingrich although Hutchinson and Dickey are against him because they say he isn't a conservative.

But Robinson was sore that people made so much of Gingrich's foolishness with women: the serial adulteries, his $500,000 line of credit at Tiffany jewelers and his and his wife Callista's recent Mediterranean cruise.

"He's not running for sainthood," Robinson said.

You might expect Robinson, who runs a liquor store at Brinkley, to be mad at Gingrich. Remember that Robinson and the rest of the Arkansas House delegation were big check-kiters at the House bank. Robinson, it would turn out, wrote 996 hot checks in 39 months, which made him No. 1 in the Congress. Gingrich wrote them, too, including a $9,463 hot check to the IRS to pay his taxes in 1990.

But Gingrich saw that since the Democrats had a 100-vote majority in the House and more overdrafts the issue would hurt them more than Republicans. So he pushed to have all the overdrafts made public and investigated by a special counsel. That's when Robinson's incredible total became public.

Gingrich was right politically. He survived his own check-kiting scandal back home by 980 votes, but 77 other House members, mostly Democrats, bit the dust. The GOP took control in 1995 and made Gingrich speaker.

He quickly feuded with Clinton over funding Medicare, education and pollution abatement. He got the House to shut the government down in the late fall and winter of 1995-96. Gingrich figured that since that they had convinced people that the federal government was bad, voters would rejoice at its shutdown. He didn't reckon on their wrath and he sought a reconciliation with Clinton to end the crisis and save Republicans.

Gingrich had made it worse by complaining that the wily Arkansan had ignored him on an Air Force One flight to Israel for the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin and that he had been told to exit from the rear of the plane. That snub, he explained to reporters, was "part of why you ended up with us sending down a tougher continuing resolution" and closing the government. Even Republican colleagues were aghast at the childish petulance.

That may be why Jay Dickey, the former Pine Bluff congressman, was so uncharitable. When Dickey refused to go along with Gingrich on his surrender to Clinton on ending the government shutdown, Gingrich paid him back by not showing up for his scheduled speech at Dickey's fundraiser. People felt sorry for their humiliated congressman and re-elected him.

Then there was all the other ethics stuff, which finally drove Gingrich out of government. Faced with 84 ethics charges against him, the House Ethics Committee — half Republicans and half Democrats — voted 6 to 1 in 1997 to recommend sanctions by the House. The House voted 395-28 to censure and fine him for ethical wrongdoing, principally a shady book deal, claiming tax-exempt status for a college course he ran for political purposes and lies about them.

One of our own figured in that, too. Gingrich's chief defense lawyer was Ed Bethune, the former congressman from Searcy and Little Rock. Bethune had been a tough former prosecutor, but he couldn't beat the rap for the speaker in the Ethics Committee. The next day, Bethune, Gingrich, the present speaker, John Boehner, and several others were on a conference call plotting an attack in the House on the Ethics Committee's charges in clear violation of Gingrich's and Bethune's agreement with the Ethics Committee. A vacationing couple happened to pick up the phone signals on their police radio, taped the conversation and handed it to a Democratic congressmen, who shared it with reporters.

Everything headed downhill pell mell. Facing a massive revolt in his own party, Gingrich resigned his congressional job and his leadership of the Republicans after their defeat in 1998, explaining that he was not willing "to preside over people who are cannibals."

Cannibals! The memories are why Republican stalwarts everywhere — outside the forgiving South, of course — are not going to let Newt be in charge of their fate again.

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Razorback basketball apathy
12/21/2011

I have a friend who has uttered this mantra, or some semblance thereof, for years: If the Hogs are winning on the football field, then no one will care about the basketball team. by Beau Wilcox

I have a friend who has uttered this mantra, or some semblance thereof, for years: If the Hogs are winning on the football field, then no one will care about the basketball team. That is a rough, lightly embellished paraphrase of a harsh reality. Razorback sports of all manner take an obvious backseat to the gridiron goings-on, and that's why it is disheartening to see Mike Anderson's first Hog team playing so many early games in an echo chamber. Bud Walton Arena has long ceded its standing as one of the true collegiate hell-dens because the quality of play inside has been substandard for years, and this well-documented apathy, as much as anything else, led to Stan Heath and John Pelphrey being removed.

Despite audacious vows of message board cretins to return to the stands in droves when Anderson was hired, the unappealing schedule and the inescapable pull of the forthcoming Cotton Bowl have muted attendance. There's a tendency to panic about this apparent disinterest, but it is likely that once the curtains have finally closed on the football team's season, the lure of SEC games will correlate to bigger numbers in the stands. Nonetheless, there's a fair chance that more people will see non-conference baseball at Baum Stadium in chilly weather than will see similar action at Bud Walton. The most rabid Razorback supporters in Northwest Arkansas are showing up, and that's about it. 

After nipping a Southeastern Louisiana team filled with transfers on Saturday, Anderson's squad was a rather pedestrian 6-3 (mid-week tilts against Eastern Kentucky and Louisiana Tech may enable the Hogs to push their record to 8-3 by the time this issue has been disseminated). There were known issues going into this season, namely a paucity of depth and a troubling lack of height. When Marshawn Powell wrecked his knee after two games, those wounds were exacerbated. This team wasn't well-equipped to threaten the balance of power in the SEC in any circumstance, but the loss of the versatile Powell added injury to insult. If you watched this team during its losses (Houston, UConn, Oklahoma), your morbid curiosity probably was satisfied. Because Rotnei Clarke mercifully ended his Razorback career early by tucking tail prior to his final year, Arkansas again finds itself lacking a shooting threat, but the guard play has generally been very good anyway. BJ Young is the Hogs' most complete freshman backcourt player in years, and sophomores Rickey Scott and Mardracus Wade are maturing and flourishing as expected in Anderson's system. As the season wears on, Hunter Mickelson and Devonta Abron must nibble away the minutes being granted to Michael Sanchez and Marvell Waithe; Mickelson is wondrously gifted but seems overly tentative at this point, and Abron simply needs polish because he has already demonstrated more of a post presence than the aforementioned seniors. The hallmark of an Anderson squad is feverish work on the defensive end, and even in defeat there have been spurts where the opponent was unbalanced and annoyed. Consistency has escaped these Hogs; dogged effort has not. 

The few high-level talents on this team are completely green, and the contributions of the elder statesmen are so marginal that this squad sort of represents a pauper's Fab Five. This will not be an NCAA tournament team in all likelihood, but its nucleus for 2012-13 will be stronger as a byproduct. It is likely that with Powell, Clarke and Aaron Ross, who committed to Arkansas during the Bush administration but somehow failed to qualify academically in 2011, this could have been a 20- to 25-win squad with decent postseason prospects; the return of a motivated Powell next year along with a few signees could bring the Razorbacks to the cusp of competing for an SEC title.

Because of the aforesaid attendance shortfalls, these next few weeks represent a critical juncture. The lower expectations for this team would seem to allow for some margin for error: if Arkansas plays hard, which seems assured with Anderson at the helm, then fans will forgive a smattering of losses in the process. But that doesn't resolve the apathy problem. Will anybody get excited about next year if this year's team wins only 14-16 games? Doubtful.

If Anderson is indeed going to be able to recapture the spirit of this program, his charges must swing some miracles, play over their collective heads for a stretch and at least give the team a chance to host an NIT game. For all the miserable moments of recent times, there were signs that sentient beings would still populate the cavern if the mood is right. Arkansas's early burst in Pelphrey's second year — nonconference wins over Oklahoma and Texas — gave the building renewed vigor for a couple of weeks before the bottom fell out for that season and, in retrospect, for Pelphrey's Razorback career. Anderson cannot afford such a freefall: he must keep the ardent fans there for more than, say, three hours on a given Wednesday night.

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Downtown Tech
12/21/2011

The Pulaski Tech Board of Trustees Tuesday decided they couldn't afford to locate a new facility for its culinary and hospitality school downtown. But some talk immediately emerged of another potential Pulaski Tech project

The Pulaski Tech Board of Trustees Tuesday decided they couldn't afford to locate a new facility for its culinary and hospitality school downtown.

But some talk immediately emerged of another potential Pulaski Tech project. It's mostly out in the ozone right now, but it goes something like this:

Pulaski Tech and UALR could join forces on a downtown facility geared at providing college courses to downtown workers. A secretary, for example, could schedule a lunch hour three days a week to get college credit — toward a degree, toward a new degree, toward current job skills.

Talk about this is serious. It includes some private interests with the wherewithall to make things happen. Just scribble it down for the future.

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Power struggle
12/21/2011

Carroll County co-op board bad actor, lawsuit says. by Cheree Franco

Carroll County Electric Cooperative Corporation has been plagued by recent controversy — an unflattering documentary, a serious of member-initiated lawsuits and recently, on Dec. 5, a formal complaint lodged with the Arkansas Public Service Commission against the cooperative's latest bylaw change.

On Oct. 27, Carroll Electric amended its bylaws to include an arbitration clause forbidding any member of the cooperative to "participate in a class action or putative class action against the Cooperative." The timing was suspicious. Just three months earlier, cooperative members Gordon Watkins and Dane Schumacher filed a class action suit against the co-op, alleging that the utility's bylaws and herbicide program are illegal and that the utility has denied members access to records, including financial records about member-owned funds.

According to their attorney, William Ikard of Austin, Texas, the bylaws amendment is unenforceable under the doctrine of unconscionability — meaning that one party is subject to oppressive terms, with no recourse or means of negotiation. "A member may not even know she was named in a putative suit. All Carroll Electric members are named in this suit, so they would all be in violation of the bylaws," Ikard said. The amendment "is ridiculous," he said, and "inappropriate for a member-owned, democratic co-op."

Because Arkansas law mandates utility monopolies, anyone with a business or residence in Carroll Electric's service area — portions of Benton, Newton, Madison and Carroll counties — has no choice but to join the co-op.

Watkins and Schumacher, organic farmers and members since 1973 and 1998, respectively, were alarmed by the lack of information surrounding the utility's use of herbicides.

In May 2008, members were notified by the Carroll Electric board that crews would be coming on property to control brush growing under power lines. "The first notification we received didn't even have the word 'herbicide' in it," Watkins said. Notification was staggered, so that many members learned of the program mere days before the crews were scheduled for their neighborhood.

A couple of weeks later, the federal Environmental Protection Agency sent Carroll Electric instructions to send out new notices identifying the "applicators" crews would use as herbicides. The associated controversy spawned an award-winning documentary, "The Natural State of America," featuring Arkansas naturalist Kent Bonar.

Though there was an "opt-out" process, Watkins found it confusing and unreliable. "I needed no-spray assurance in writing to keep my organic certification. Carroll Electric couldn't supply it," he said. Some members opted out, but their property was sprayed anyway.

After they were thwarted in their attempts to obtain a copy of the vegetation management plan, which was implemented without the permission of the member-owners, Watkins and Schumacher became suspicious of the utility's financial behavior.

"Members couldn't attend board meetings, couldn't see the minutes, couldn't speak at the annual meeting, couldn't bring cameras to the meeting," said Watkins.

Carroll Electric formed in 1937 under New Deal legislation, drafted to provide rural communities with electricity. Its 88,117 members pool funds to finance infrastructure. Anything left after operating costs is to be returned to members as a capital credit.

Since 1973, Watkins has only received three checks from Carroll Electric. The largest was for a couple hundred dollars, even though he has about $6,900 on reserve. According to Nancy Plagge, director of communications for Carroll Electric, funds awarded in 2010 were for credits accumulated in 1983 because of the 25-year distribution cycle. In 2012, members will receive checks for credits accumulated in 1985.

Perhaps in reaction to a class action lawsuit filed by member Joe Capps in Benton County District Court in 2009 for a portion of the more than $170 million in capital owed to Carroll Electric members, the board changed the bylaws in January 2011, removing the language about when members would be notified about their funds. Prior to that, bylaws specified that patrons were to be notified of their reserve funds "within reasonable time after the close of the fiscal year."

Other financial discrepancies are mentioned in Watkins and Schumacher's suit. According to Plagge, the nine board members receive a $550 per diem per monthly meeting. But tax forms show that in 2007, an emeritus board member was granted $12,000, and in 2009, a former board member also received $12,000. In 2007, fees paid to board members totaled $289,707, which comes to $2,700 per meeting for a nine-member board.

The Times' inspection of the cooperative's 2010 tax returns found that board members received on average $1,826 per meeting.

Watkins and Schumacher did eventually receive a copy of the vegetation management plan, 10 months after they initially filed the request. They were also allowed to view truncated minutes from board meetings, but they had to go through Carroll Electric's lawyer. "So we decided that we would elect someone to the board who might truly represent our interests," Schumacher said.

Marci Brewer, a joint accountholder with Schumacher, decided to run. She needed 690 member signatures, including at least 250 from her district. By March 2011, she collected 1,300 signatures, but Carroll Electric disqualified Brewster's petition, alleging only 242 signatures came from her district. Plagge said that signatures by anyone other than the account holder didn't count.

One of the disqualified signatures belonged to Brewster's 85-year-old neighbor — a member for decades. Her signature was disqualified because the account was still in the name of her deceased husband.

October's bylaw changes also included a new ballot nomination requirement for potential new board members. All nominees must first be approved by a board-appointed official, who then submits qualified nominees to the nominating committee. Only candidates who don't make it through this committee are allowed to submit a nomination by petition.

"This change was just to streamline the process," said Plagge, who maintains that Carroll Electric has one purpose: to provide reliable, cheap electricity to its members. The cooperative accomplishes this goal. Carroll offers residential electricity at eight cents per kilowatt per hour. The state average is 9.54 cents.

Schumacher, Watkins and the dozen members who have filed public comments on the PSC docket in support of the class action case represent less than 0.1 percent of Carroll Electric's total membership. But to Schumacher, that's just more reason to fight. "Most members don't understand the terms of the co-op or their rights, and they may not have Internet access to help navigate the maze. They may not even understand what herbicides mean," she said. "Carroll Electric operates like a for-profit corporation with an appointed, rather than elected, board."

But Plagge said the bylaw changes are in the interest of all members. "Since we're a co-op, when you sue us, you're suing yourself. You pass the costs of the litigation along to all the co-op members. We can't allow members to continue to use up our capital this way."

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In response to 'Global warming is real'
12/21/2011

The only thing more worthless, false and wrong than global warming is this article. Why do liberals always believe the evidence for global warming but as soon as one of their leftist scientist claims it's a hoax, they are the crazy ones not to be believed?

On the web

In response to Gene Lyons' column (available weekly at arktimes.com) "Global warming is real" (Dec. 14):

The only thing more worthless, false and wrong than global warming is this article. Why do liberals always believe the evidence for global warming but as soon as one of their leftist scientist claims it's a hoax, they are the crazy ones not to be believed? Bill Gray is a fine example of this. Liberals were the first to believe his hurricane reports until he recognized his own work as being useless. Weathermen can't even predict things week to week and yet a liberal is dumb enough to think that we can predict something 500 years into the future. While you're predicting the weather, why not give everyone some stock tips, health advice or something actually worth something? Heck, lets pull a "Back to the Future 2" and ask liberal researchers to predict who will win the next 500 Super Bowls.

This is nothing more than a way to tax and control people. Make up a fabrication in the sky and scare people into thinking they are going to die a slow painful death. This article mentions heat as a sign of global warming. How many famines over time have there been? And on the other hand, how many floods and time of rain have we had over the years including this past one? It's the weather! It changes from season to season and from year to year. Some years are hotter than others and some are colder. Do people not remember the mid-'80s when there wasn't a single snow day for several years? And then there were some.

Liberalism is nothing more than scare tactics wrapped up in a big ol' wad of tax increases. Trust in me, say the liberal snakes to the taxpayer. Trust us with your money while we feast on the fatted calf. The global warming effort will fade away and fail just as all liberal ideas do. Soon, there will be another thing to be fearful of. Another hoax to brainwash the people with. Another reason to rely on the government and do nothing until the sun fries them like an egg. Articles like this are soulless and wrong. That's all there is to it.

Finally, since liberals could care less about the national deficit and generations that will come after them to pay for it, why should they care about the future of the planet? You guys won't even be around. All the researchers wasting their time with lies about this will have been gone for years. Eat, drink and be merry, liberal. For the government tells you so.

B Rock Sucks

I have just about given up arguing the facts to global warming skeptics. My question for them now, is "Who is going to foot the bill for damage caused by the rise in ocean levels?" We have already spent a million dollars to move a coastal village in Alaska further inland. There is surely more of that to come.

Theoutlier

In response to the post "Tom Courtway named UCA president" on the Arkansas Blog:

Let me see if I understand this correctly. Courtway was legal counsel during the last two presidential implosions and either (a) looked the other way while shenanigans were occurring, or (b) didn't know enough to get in that information loop and put a stop to it, and now he's the most qualified person to lead a troubled institution?

Past performance is the best predictor of future performance, and the good old boy board of trustees got them another good old boy who will go along to get along. What a sad joke. The inbreeding continues.

DrRingDing

Don't know Mr. Courtway, did not attend UCA, but in order to be above suspicion, an outsider would be the logical next step after TWO past presidents being either convicted or investigated.

Not Mr. Courtway's fault but Lu Hardin and his little Napoleon complex of giving all kinds of tuition and housing favors to "connected" non-deserving students taints any local applicant.

Citizen1

The last president WAS an outsider.

Courtway has stepped in twice now and cleaned up the messes left by his two predecessors. My impression is that he is a humble man, not demanding the kind of salary and perks of others in similar position. He appears to be highly competent and apparently enjoys the enthusiastic support of the faculty, students and administration.

Of course, we could initiate the kind of "nationwide search" that generated Allen Meadors. Personally, I think I'll stick with Courtway.

santhony

I think this is a good appointment. Everything I have read and heard about him is good. The best indication that he will be good for the school is his lack of demands for taking the job. The Board should have been suspicious of anyone who came in with the demands that Allen Meadors had. Both of my kids went to school there and so I have a real interest in seeing the school get over the past two presidents — Hardin and Meadors.

plainjim

UCA couldn't have asked for a better president than Tom Courtway. He taught one of my master's of accounting courses. He has a strong knowledge of financial background, and he knows how and when to research if he is not 100 percent certain on his answers. He is a great person with outstanding character. Cheers to Courtway for this accomplishment.

FormerUCA

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At war with the Newt
12/21/2011

He's more to be censured than pitied. by Doug Smith

He's more to be censured than pitied:

"In the end, after being censored for ethics violations by the House and the kind of frenetic managerial incompetence Gingrich was known for, even Republicans had had enough." Newt Gingrich wasn't actually censored by the House of Representatives, though the temptation must have been great. He was censured – "reprimanded; reproached in a harsh or vehement manner."

Of a performing musician who also holds a regular job, a columnist wrote, "Three-night working weekends can be a bit tiring for someone who's also keeping banker's hours Monday through Friday, but Bowman said he enjoys it."

Stephen Koch writes, "Banker's hours, as I've always understood the term, would seem to lend itself well to working at other times of day — not that many bankers would need the extra cash."

I believe the columnist used banker's hours to mean "regular hours, 9 to 5." But as Koch notes, banker's hours refers to a short work day, a sweet deal for those who get it. The expression goes back to the old pre-computer days when banks were open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. five days a week.

Barbara Jacquish of Fayetteville writes, "A CNN memo an-nouncing the layoffs of photojournalists includes the statement 'Consumer and pro-sumer technologies are simpler and more accessible.' Have you ever seen this word? I can only guess at its meaning."

I couldn't even do that. It's not in standard dictionaries, even the on-line Merriam Webster. I found it in Wikipedia, that not-always-reliable source: "Prosumer is a portmanteau formed by contracting either the word professional or less often, producer with the word consumer. For example, a prosumer grade digital camera is a 'cross' between consumer grade and professional grade. ... [Prosumer] also can be used to differentiate the traditional passive consumer with an active consumer role more involved in the process, such as activity in the design or customization of the end product."

This sounds like it's heading in the vicinity of proactive. I don't want to go there.

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Pulaski Tech's cooking
12/21/2011

The Pulaski Tech Board of Trustees has voted to build a new facility for its growing culinary and hotel management curriculum on its South Campus on Interstate 30 near the Saline County line.

The Pulaski Tech Board of Trustees has voted to build a new facility for its growing culinary and hotel management curriculum on its South Campus on Interstate 30 near the Saline County line.

The decision was a disappointment to a downtown coalition led by Mayor Mark Stodola that urged Tech to build the school on what is now a parking lot at Sixth and Main Streets.

A revitalized downtown is important. An architecturally striking culinary school with a restaurant and hundreds of students coming and going would have been welcome on Main Street.

But the Tech board couldn't overlook money. The school has grown from next-to-nothing to almost 12,000 students with a dogged attention to both costs and student fees. Students — many working, many single parents, all making sacrifices — appreciate it and enroll by the droves.

The Tech Board wasn't sufficiently assured that the costs for a comparable building downtown wouldn't greatly exceed the $15 million it raised through a bond issue (supported by tuition) to pay for a new culinary school. Downtown backers promised to get additional help, but state law doesn't allow construction on promises, only on money in hand. Construction must start soon. The Tech Board had concerns, too, about security downtown and the ease of adding related facilities, such as a child care center.

Downtown didn't really enter the picture until November, months after planning for the South campus facility had begun. That was a late start.

Mayor Mark Stodola needs to get past understandable disappointment. Given a chance last week to say he'd endorse a coming Pulaski Tech request for a property tax increase — no matter the final decision on the culinary school — Stodola declined to do so.

It wasn't so long ago that the mayor was dining at a fancy Parisian restaurant on a publicly financed junket. He defended his expenditure as necessary to stay in good graces with the French-owned plane manufacturer, Dassault, that's a major employer at the Little Rock National Airport. One of the mayor's main selling points then: The steady stream of students trained for important jobs at the Dassault plant by — who else? — Pulaski Tech.

Dynamic Pulaski Tech will present future expansion possibilities along with its existing vital programs. It needs, not retaliation, but appreciation, including a property tax and a fair-minded mayor who doesn't take the culinary school setback personally.

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