Arkansas Times - March 8, 2018

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COMMENT

Pass Red Flag laws

A s a p a r e n t a n d t e a c h e r, I write to argue against President Tr u m p ’s a s s e r t i o n , i m p l i c i t l y supported by Governor Hutchinson, that arming teachers would improve safety in our schools.

Following the tragedy in Parkland, American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association oppose allowing nonsafety personnel to carry guns in schools. Those organizations, as well as several federal agencies, recognize that the presence of guns in schools increases the risk of shooting accidents.

Further, they acknowledge that arming civilians is an ineffective way to stop a shooter. An FBI review concluded that in a 12-year period, only 1 in 160 incidents ended when a civilian shot the shooter, and that one “civilian” was a former U.S. Marine.

Instead of arming teachers, states can save lives by enacting red flag laws, which address mental health issues before a shooting. Experts agree that mass shooters, like the 19-year-old in Parkland, often display warning signs before committing violent acts.

Red flag laws allow family and law enforcement to seek help removing guns from dangerous situations, and in that way, address the mental health of an individual prior to violent behavior.

Therefore, I write to ask my Arkansas neighbors to call their lawmakers and urge the passing of red flag laws, and vote for candidates who support similar gun safety laws. Also, as a volunteer with my local Moms Demand Action group, I call on my fellow educators to join the movement to keep our students and children safe by texting EDUCATOR to 644-33.

Cathy Jellenik Conway

suggests that all Americans are guaranteed the right to the Blessings of Liberty, and doesn’t that sound poetic.

And yet, despite the poetry involved, we have managed to put 2 million of our fellow citizens under lock and key. (More than 7 million if you count parole and probation).

This seems to suggest that there are things a person can do to cause them to forfeit their constitutional rights.

If a citizen can forfeit that Blessing of Liberty, mentioned in the very first sentence, then it stands to reason that they can also forfeit a right that

isn’t dealt with until way back in the amendments part.

The point is, we can take away the constitutional rights of people who society views as unable to handle the responsibilities that come with those rights. In the interest of the greater good we do it every day.

People who break the laws stand in jeopardy of losing their constitutional rights, but a person can lose their rights for being mentally ill as well. We have hundreds of thousands of these folks in confinement as well. There are, however, many people who are

Blessing of liberty

This Second Amendment to the Constitution has turned out to be a real bugger. It raises as many questions as it answers. For example, does a bunch of overweight white men riding around on four-wheelers and sucking down pills and Pabst Blue Ribbon constitute a well-regulated militia provided they all wear “Duck Dynasty” T-shirts and “Make America Great Again” ball caps?

I have no intentions of tackling the Second or any other amendment.

What I’d like to do instead is to ask all the conservative Americans to quit waving their constitutions for a minute and let’s read them. Not the whole thing, lawdy no, just the first page. In fact, I think the first sentence tells us what we need to know. This sentence 4

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criminally minded and/or mentally ill but not incarcerated — think Ted Nugent eating mushrooms.

Every school shooter who ever was falls into that category — not the Ted Nugent one, but the criminally minded/ mentally ill one. The problem facing us today is to identify these people before they show up at the schoolhouse door with their black rifles and, by all means, take away their guns.

David Rose Hot Springs

Sexism everywhere

In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations and the domino effect of claims of sexual harassment, sexism seems to have left no professional industry untouched. While it is hard to imagine such brutishly atrocious behavior from men in Hollywood and even the White House, we mustn’t forget that the stench of sexism is often much stronger on lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder and reaches every corner of the world.

As the Arkansas Times highlighted, s e x i s m t r u l y i s e v e r y w h e r e .

But in developing countries, it is on a scale that would be unthinkable here in the U.S. Many girls are denied access to education across the globe solely because of their gender. This is sexism to the extreme. Without a basic education, women struggle to find jobs, engage in civil society, become financially independent and are more at risk of poverty.

The Borgen Project is a nonprofit organization working to bring global poverty reduction to the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. One such policy supported by the Borgen Project would help fight sexism everywhere in one of the most basic of ways: by providing girls’ education. I urge Senators Boozman and Cotton to support the Protecting Girls’ Access to Education Act (S.1580), which seeks to provide for the educational needs of women and girls for a minuscule fraction of taxpayer dollars. If the U.S. is committed to fighting sexism everywhere, we must fight it in the most basic way, by providing girls access to education globally.

Sydney Lacey Conway

From the web

In response to “Insurance Department spends thousands on guns, ammo, Tasers and other equipment to apprehend fraud suspects” from March 1:

This largesse is way off the GOP playbook. No way could this be interpreted as smaller, necessary or reduced governance. Kerr is just another hack with no regard for taxpayers. Militarization of a bureaucracy is the dumbest waste of money.

a ticket-punch “combat tour” in one of the much needed jobs in support, like quartermaster, in order to get a bronze star only intended to support his or her subsequent claims of heroic service, such as for political campaigns.

years ago he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, probably because of exposure to Agent Orange. An unnecessary war that’s still killing.

Deadseasquirrel

Gary Souheaver

I have an uncle who joined the Air Force so he at least had some control over going to Vietnam. He was an airplane/jet mechanic in Da Nang.

That also meant cleaning the planes, washing them down, etc. Several

I had a cousin who was killed in Vietnam on April 4, 1968. He was only 22 years old and had only been there three months, after serving in Germany before that. He was the only child of one of my mother’s brothers, who had died when my cousin was a child. This year marks the 50th anniversary of his death. Over the years I have learned

From the web in response to Max Brantley’s March 1 column, “Guns: Call the roll”: “The gun lobby is wrong in thinking law enforcement failures in the Florida massacre are arguments against gun control. They illustrate why we must look harder at the devices that do the mass killing and how they get in hands of people even law officers are reluctant to confront.”

How funny, Max, ignore the people that failed us, and tell us we must become more dependent on them, without doing any reform on the real instigators and causes of these killings.

Proving, still, how folks like you really don’t want to stop shootings, you just want to ban things, and control people that don’t need controlling, and ignoring the people that do need controlling.

Vanessa

more about the war and how LBJ, Nixon and others lied to keep us in an unnecessary war. It is one of many reasons I was against the U.S. going to war in Iraq — another unnecessary war.

We lost too many young Americans in Vietnam and yet did not learn our lesson. We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan after all these years. Yes, we need to honor Vietnam vets, but we should be protesting the futility of the current wars.

NeverVoteRepublican

Steven E In response to the March 4 Arkansas Blog post, “Vietnam. A protest threatened at UA Little Rock. Why not?”: Many of you are likely to disagree, but in my opinion, both at the time and now in the 20/20 hindsight rearview mirror, the U.S. actions in Vietnam were wrong, in so many different ways.

I personally have far more respect for Muhammad Ali and those like him who refused to contribute to that massive mistake than most people seem to show. Some who refused to serve did so because they didn’t want to die for any reason, but some did not want to die for the wrong reasons. Many people who avoided military service probably do not have honest answers to themselves as to why they did what they did. Those who served might have thought that they were keeping the commies from overrunning Kansas, or some such idea not so terribly well considered.

Some wars in which the U.S. has engaged have been necessary, but some have not been necessary or justifiable.

The same can be said for other countries and their people. Serving in such wars should be recognized for the vital and essential contributions to our way of life. However, I have my lowest opinions reserved for people who use

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WEEK THAT WAS

Quote of the week “This is not a g un cont rol commission. It’s not addressing school safety from that standpoint.

This is a school safety commission.

And I’ve said repeatedly that I want to address things that we can agree upon and that are obvious will make a difference. So the debate will continue, I’ve stated my position, that I don’t think further g un control is a solution to school safety.”

— Governor Hutchinson, announcing the creation of the Arkansas School Safety Commission, which will produce two reports, the first due July 1 and the second Nov. 30. The commission will consider mental health, school security plans and how schools partner with local law enforcement.

Work requirement approved The Tr ump administ ration has approved a waiver to federal Medicaid rules that will allow A rka n sa s to i mpose a work requirement on beneficiaries of Arkansas Works, the prog ram providing health insurance to 285,000 low-income Arkansans under the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. Under the new rules, which will take effect this summer, beneficiaries ages 19-49 will be required to prove they either work or attend school for at least 80 hours each month or else meet one of several exemptions, including categories such as a chronic illness, a catastrophic event, enrollment in a drug or alcohol abuse treatment program or caring for a dependent child or incapacitated person.

Students and people receiving unemployment benefits will be exempt.

The federal government has not approved another waiver sought by the state that would lower the income eligibility threshold from 138 percent of the federal poverty level to 100 percent. That change would remove an estimated 63,000 people from the Medicaid rolls. The Trump administration, trying to destroy Obamacare, might be disinclined to award the waiver to Arkansas for fear it would incentivize the 20 states that have not yet joined the program to sign up.

The new work requirement will require beneficiaries to regularly document their status with the 6

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ARKANSAS TIMES

Department of Human Services; those out of compliance for three months will not be eligible to rejoin the program until the following year.

Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University, told the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network that the Arkansas waiver was “fundamentally misguided.”

“Everybody agrees that it would be great to help folks get betterpaying jobs so that they can move onto private health insurance, but there’s really nothing in this proposal that’s likely to make this happen. The federal government is not providing funding for jobtraining ser vices; they ’re not providing funding for child care or transportation or addressing other barriers that folks might have to getting a job or getting a better job.”

Finese to federal prison Ricky Hampton, the rapper known as Finese 2Tymes, who was performing in a downtown club July 1 when shooting that broke out left 25 people wounded, entered a

negotiated guilty plea in federal court this week to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

He’ll be sentenced later. The plea agreement says the sentencing guideline recommendation will be enhanced because he is a previous felon and because the firearm he possessed was capable of holding a large magazine. He’ll get credit in sentencing for taking responsibility.

The agreement also specifies that he must forfeit two pistols. Hampton was arrested in Birmingham, Ala., the day after the Power Ultra Lounge shooting in Little Rock. The charge was related to a shooting at a club in Forrest City.

ADC closes prison units to aid staff shortage The Arkansas Department of Correction has announced the closure of two of its smaller units because of staffing concerns.

The 27 correctional officers at the temporarily closed Cummins Modular Unit in Grady, a 300-bed minimum-security facility for men, and the 25 officers at the Tucker

Reentry Center located in Tucker, a 124-bed minimum-security facility for women, were transferred to larger units with greater needs.

Director Wendy Kelley said in a memo provided to the Board of Corrections that “staff levels have reached a level that requires immediate action” in justifying the decision.

In the memo, Kelley said those units receiving transfers have large gaps in staffing: The Varner Unit in Grady has 97 officer vacancies, the Maximum Security Unit in Tucker has 57 officer vacancies, and the Tucker Unit (sometimes called “Little Tucker” to distinguish itself from the Tucker Max Unit) has 57 vacancies. She added that overall 560 of 2,484 correctional officer positions are vacant.

As the Arkansas Times has reported, the ADC has struggled to retain guards despite a pay bump last summer. Thirty-eight percent of the correctional officers hired by the Arkansas Department of Correction in 2017 left the department. Former guards said the problem was the prison culture, not the pay.

Rich get richer

OPINION

A

rkansas State University heard are receiving the from a paid consultant last highest amount of week about ways to become aid, and what that more efficient — make more money, in ends up doing is other words — and perhaps even serve leaving less aid students better. for those students An Arkansas Democrat-Gazette who are more in MAX BRANTLEY article quoted a consultant on practices need and ultimately maxbrantley@arktimes.com at the main Jonesboro campus: decreases retention “What was notable to us was that the when they cannot consistently afford net tuition revenue — so this was after college.” the sticker price of tuition and the price It’s an old story. The rich get richer. that students ultimately pay once they And the story isn’t unique to ASU. When get on campus — was lowest of the peer you place emphasis on higher achieving set,” the consultant said. “Jonesboro has students the facts dictate that poorer the lowest out-of-state tuition as well, students will disproportionately be left and ultimately discounts its tuition by behind. Also, minority students will about 44 percent to students on campus.” make up a disproportionate percentage The consultants also found that of those left behind.

ASU financial aid favors high-scoring The University of Arkansas grants students who apply first. tuition breaks to high-achieving out-of“What we see in practice is that those state students. Thus the huge percentage students that come from better-off of tired, poor, struggling Texans from families that are more able to pay are the places like Plano and Highland Park in students that have higher test scores and each freshman class. also apply earlier,” he said. “And so they The biggest scandal is the Arkansas

WWJD?

J

esus found something blessed more plentiful — and then they will feel about poor people, even promising better about themselves and become them the kingdom of God, and he proud Americans. was always admonishing his disciples to That has been Hutchinson’s reafeed and tend to them when they were soning and it was sick. He reviled the rich and the un- echoed by Seema charitable.

Verma, President But Jesus didn’t know poor people, Trump’s Medior at least lots of them, like the state care and Medicand federal governments know them. aid administrator, ERNEST Monday, an official of the Trump admin- who flew down to DUMAS istration joined with Governor Hutchin- share the glory of son and his human services chief to the moment with Hutchinson. Before announce that poor people in Arkan- the president tapped her to run the govsas who don’t hold a fairly steady job do ernment health programs, Verma was not deserve the government-subsidized a health-policy consultant who helped medical coverage that now is supplied to Republicans find ways to shrink cover1.5 million Arkansans, a little more than age under the Affordable Care Act. half the people in the state. With WashThere is no evidence that the carrot ington’s blessing, the state will start lop- and stick will work. The world has cenping them off the insurance rolls in June. turies of failing experience with forcing If they can’t meet bureaucratic standards “able-bodied” but reputedly lazy people for self-help, the government considers to find and hold regular jobs. England’s them undeserving of compassion. poor law, enacted in 1601, required comThe officials said they were going to munities to collect taxes and distribtake away health insurance from up to ute aid to the poor but only to those 90,000 people for their own good. If the who were totally impotent to support government withholds medical care, see, themselves. The “able bodied” got no then the lazy poor will be forced to buck help. Deciding who was not able bodup, do what it takes to get a job — maybe ied proved hard — those disabled only move from their lifeless communities by severe physical problems or those to Northwest Arkansas where jobs are with mental incapacities or illnesses?

Scholarship Lottery, rigged by the this is as it should be. They give no efforts of state Sen. Jimmy Hickey thought that “merit” might be more (R-Texarkana) a few years ago to further about the good fortune of birth — racial benefit the already advantaged. A high- and economic privilege and a family stakes ACT test — and no longer grades background unmarked by generations — is the standard for lottery scholarships. of discrimination.

The amount of money given to firstMany experts will tell you that grades year students was also reduced. Oh, sure, are a better indication of college success the money can go up later, depending than test scores. Tests measure teston academic performance, but poverty taking ability. tends to be a huge factor in early college Lottery scholarship programs in dropouts. most states have become middle-class I did an analysis of the new rules a entitlement programs. Legislators like it. little over a year ago. Applications The middle class — far more influential dropped 10 percent among whites and than the poor — likes it. It could be 40 percent among blacks. Actual awards worse. On top of a system already tilted showed similar declines — 8 percent to higher incomes, Georgia now gives among whites, 36 percent among blacks. a total free ride to ACT scores of 26 or The family income for winners rose higher. from $78,000 to $84,000 — with black Lifting college completion rates is winners averaging $42,000 in family not about providing more money to kids income and white winners averaging who were going to college anyway. It’s $94,000. about helping those who need help most.

There’s been some tinkering since, Don’t bother telling the legislature. They particularly to help community college think poor people don’t deserve health students, but the ASU study serves to care or scholarship assistance. They illustrate the favoritism enjoyed by should earn it. But corporations and sixbetter-situated students. figure chamber of commerce executives?

Many legislators, of course, think They DESERVE tax dollar handouts.

And what if there were no jobs to be had that they could do?

We have sharper bureaucrats now.

The Department of Human Services has come up with a raft of rules defining who is worthy of the state’s humanity. To keep insurance, a poor woman must get on her computer and make a detailed electronic report to DHS every two months, including proof of 80 hours of “work activity” every month or that she has other conditions that would exempt her, like pregnancy or disabilities that make it impossible to work. No jobs you can do is not an excuse. If you miss the threshold a couple of months, your coverage is canceled and you can’t get it again until the next year, even if you land a good job.

Bureaucratic hurdles, a hassle for the most industrious people, will be enormous. They have driven tens of thousands off the rolls the past two years.

You have not encountered a bureaucracy until you deal with the Department of Human Services.

This is not a philosophical issue over biblical and moral teachings but a political one. Unless Hutchinson demonstrates sufficient inhumanity, a legislature controlled by his party will halt the whole Medicaid program he calls Arkansas Works by withholding the appropriation of state and federal funds. The sudden loss of the program would not only throw 300,000 people into a crisis,

but threaten the financial stability of the state government by withdrawing hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the state treasury and the economy. A sizable minority of Republican legislators wants that to happen. They believe the undeserving poor are cashing in everywhere — Medicaid programs, food stamps, subsidized housing, nutrition programs for the elderly, temporary welfare assistance — and stopping Arkansas Works will be one victory.

The legislature held up voting on the Human Services appropriation until Hutchinson could get the Trump administration to give him the work waiver to Obamacare. We will see this week whether he reached the meanness threshold.

Hutchinson had linked the work waiver to an even harsher measure.

He asked Washington to allow Arkansas to end Medicaid for 60,000 people with incomes higher than the poverty line (about $12,000 a year), but Verma brought Hutchinson no such good news.

Obamacare makes people up to 138 percent of poverty eligible for coverage.

He may yet get that waiver, too, although it seems to be even a clearer violation of the law than the work waiver.

Waivers are not supposed to be granted if they violate the major purposes of the law, which are to bring health coverage to more Americans, not fewer. What would Jesus do?

Follow Arkansas Blog on Twitter: @ArkansasBlog

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ny day now, somebody’s go- her, and passengers would gladly make ing to get busted for taking an way — except, of course, for that peeemotional support cow on an vish neurotic with the snarling Peekaairplane. I’ve got a pretty good idea poo in 29A. who that somebody’s going to be. Not Jennifer does her own artificial a full-grown mama cow, mind you. But insemination, while husband Bryan a bottle-calf a few months old and need- lends moral suping regular feeding. Maybe 300 to 400 port. Then she pounds. A gentle, tractable beast — less marks her caldangerous than some of the yappy little endar for nine mutts silly people’s therapists persuade months and seven airlines to allow onboard. days hence, and I came by this insight after the Great begins to stalk her GENE Cypress Creek Farm Cow Rebellion. See, pregnant heifers LYONS my plan had been to submit all eight Big around the pasture Girls to artificial insemination on the with binoculars as same day, greatly simplifying the breed- their due dates get close. The woman ing/calving process. To accomplish this is a loving fanatic: relentless and highly goal, their estrus cycles needed to be skilled. Comes premature labor or a synchronized. This involved herding breech birth, she knows exactly what everybody through a squeeze chute one- to do. So, yeah, she’s often got a bottle by-one, administering hormone shots calf to feed in spring — if not her own, along with certain other indignities they then one she’s adopted for a neighbor. mightily resented.

But no, I’m confident she wouldn’t Came breeding day, all my cows were actually take a cow on an airplane, any definitely cycling. There was lots of more than I’d take one, nor even a dog milling about, mooing and amorous or cat — if for no other reason than the humping. “Riding,” it’s called. With the animals themselves absolutely hate A.I. man hiding discreetly in the barn, I it. Service dogs are one thing. There’s took a bucket of feed and went to lure nothing more admirable nor deserving the herd into the corral. of consideration than a seeing-eye dog, Alas, herd boss Stella had evidently or similarly trained support animal. spotted the Big Branch Breeding Services But only highly trained working dogs. truck and figured what was up. For the No other kinds of animal need apply. Cats, first time in our five-year relationship, for example, hate to travel. My beloved she rebelled. She and the herd stood near orange tabby Albert hid in the box springs the gate eyeing me suspiciously, as if to of our bed for three days after we moved. say, “No, we’re not going in there. You My Great Pyrenees Jesse appears can keep that feed bucket. We ain’t that to think he’s the King Boss Dog of the damn hungry. Do you think we’re stupid?” world. In his limited experience, he is.

Then Stella pivoted and led them He fears neither man nor beast. I’ve all back across the big pasture into the seen him pitch into two coyotes and woods. There would be no breeding send them limping; he once leaped on that day. Time and money wasted. The a cow that charged my wife, repulsing man from Big Branch suggested maybe the attack. (We’d accidentally come too I needed to take his A.I. course, greatly near her calf.) But comes a thundersimplifying things, but also requiring storm, and Jesse crawls into Diane’s lap the insertion of one’s arm into a cow’s for reassurance, all 120 pounds of him. nether regions clear up to the shoulder. Jet engines would torture him.

It’s messy, and done wrong can result in Birds? Hamsters? Please. Domesserious injury. Cows themselves prefer tic animals simply don’t belong on airbulls, as tiresome as bulls can be. planes. Too much can go wrong. That I mentioned that a friend had com- “emotional support” dog that recently pleted the course. He asked who. bit a 3-year-old child on a Southwest “The most attractive 40-year-old flight? A nervous wreck, and probably mother in Faulkner County,” I said. unaccustomed to children.

“Oh yeah, Jennifer,” he answered.

Sure you can find some crank with a Yeah, Jennifer. One of the originals: Ph.D. to certify that you require Boris or a woman of such charm and determina- Fifi to remain calm, but it’s simply rubtion that if she ever did feel the need to bish and you know it. Selfish, too. You’re transport a calf via Southwest Airlines, putting your own neurotic needs above the cabin attendants would sterilize and your pets’ wellbeing. Grow up and leave warm the two-quart feeding bottles for them at home.

Outsiders

M

ost years around this time, lower than in other states, and only 10 political scientists come states nationally now have a smaller together at the Arkansas percentage of women in their state Political Science Association’s annual legislative bodies than does Arkansas meeting for a session in which we (at 18.5 percent). provide our analysis of where Arkansas Based on the politics has just been (if a general filing patterns election has just happened) or where it’s for 2018, that going (if we’re at the start of an election percentage is year). Last week, we all lamented that about to increase.

Arkansas’s politics are less distinctive Almost all of JAY than at any point in the state’s history t h e women BARTH and agreed there is a stable Republican already in office statewide majority for the foreseeable — Republicans and Democrats alike — future. We also were in consensus that are running for re-election and, with a combination of demographic shifts in rare exceptions, will be returned. But, an Arkansas with more metropolitan they’ll be joined by others. Two dozen voters and a reaction against President other Democratic women who are not Trump’s leadership in those areas incumbents are running for state and creates a dynamic where Democrats are federal office and a handful of new on their way to some renewed success Republicans are also seeking office. in 2018. While a statewide “wave” is not This did not happen accidentally. For coming, more localized ripples driven several years, Women Lead Arkansas by turnout patterns in those areas that has led nonpartisan trainings for women favor Democrats should be expected. interested in engaging in state and local Of course, even if voters are prepared politics; a number of those women to do so, electoral success only occurs if have taken the plunge this year. More a party has “products,” i.e. candidates, recently a PAC was created to help fund for those voters to “purchase.” As our progressive women Democrats (what session occurred a day after filing it calls “Dameocrats”) in state races. for office ended for 2018, it was clear In the aftermath of Trump’s victory, that Arkansas’s Democrats had done however, women concerned about the decidedly better in fielding candidates president and his policies have been in 2018 than in recent cycles. It was particularly inspired to run in Arkansas also clear that traditional political and around the nation. With the rise outsiders represent the bulk of those of the #metoo moment, the energy for candidates. When a party that has female participation in elective office been disempowered begins to rebuild, has grown. There is little doubt now it creates new opportunities for those that 2018 will be another “year of the from groups that have historically not woman” in politics, likely the most had a place at the table where policy consequential to date. decisions are made. That is certainly In Arkansas, some of these women the case with the field of candidates are facing male candidates in primaries running for federal and state office as who are also outsiders whose election Democrats in 2018. would make history. Maumelle House Leading the pack in this cycle candidate Joshua Price, who faces are significant numbers of women Monica Ball, notes that he would be the candidates. Although women voters first Asian American elected to the state gained access to the ballot box relatively legislature. In Fayetteville, progressive early in the state (starting in 1917 in attorney Nicole Clowney’s opponent — the primary elections that then really Fayetteville City Council Member Mark mattered), for most of the state’s history Kinion — would be the first openly gay women have been the consummate man to serve in state office. outsiders, with only a sprinkling of Other outsiders pepper the list of women in elective office in the state for Democratic candidates. From those much of the 20th century. After term of South Asian origin (like 1st District limits hit the state legislature, there was congressional candidate Chintan Desai) a brief moment when the percentage to organized labor activists (like state of women in elective office compared AFL-CIO president Alan Hughes, who’s well to other Southern states (a low running for a Hot Springs area House bar to be sure). While the total number seat) the slate of Democratic candiof women has grown a bit in recent dates looks different from those of the years, that growth has been much past.

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9

PEARLS ABOUT SWINE

The good and bad

A

SAVE THE DATE

MARCH 10

TO SEE ‘SOUL OF A NATION: ART IN THE AGE OF BLACK POWER’ AT CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

In the 1960s, America was consumed by the civil rights and black power movements, turbulent times that inspired African-America artists to speak out through their art forms. Now, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art brings from London’s Tate Modern this exhibition of paintings, murals, photographs, fabric art and sculpture by such artists as Romare Bearden, Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, Sam Gilliam, Alma Thomas, Barkley L. Hendricks, Benny Andrews. In all, “Soul of a Nation” features work by 60 of America’s greatest AfricanAmerican artists.

Art expert Garbo Hearne of Hearne Fine Art, who’s exhibited works by many of these artists in her Little Rock gallery, will lead the tour.

Cost includes coffee, pastries, mimosas, wine, box lunches provided

by Boulevard Bread and dinner in Bentonville.

We will depart at 9am.

Round-trip bus transportation provided by Arkansas Destinations.

Admission to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is free.

Round-trip bus transportation provided by Arkansas Destinations.

MORE INFO & TICKETS AVAILABLE AT

CENTALARKANSASTICKETS.COM

Admission to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is free.

10

Like our Bus Trips page for details, updates and other perks! facebook.com/arktimesbustrips MARCH 8, 2018 ARKANSAS TIMES

rkansas enters the Southeastern Fast forward a score minus a year, Conference Tournament in, of all and Arkansas threw out a similarly uninodd locales, St. Louis this week, spired and undisciplined performance and they arrive there with what we’ll in its regular-season finale to finish two call the Baskin-Robbins resume. After games over .500 in league play, just as 31 games, the flavors have mostly been the 1998-99 bunch did (thanks to the sweet, but there are a handful of ’em addition of Mizzou that you wouldn’t want to sample again. and Texas A&M, the Last week, as per usual in a 10-8 reg- Hogs finished 10-8 ular-season run through the league, the in SEC play this year, Hogs basically gave us both the delecta- and went 9-7 back in ble and the detestable within a few days the aforementioned of each other. First, there was the rous- season). The Hogs BEAU ing 91-82 win over Top 15 conference got pummeled on WILCOX co-champ Auburn on Tuesday night at the boards and shot Bud Walton Arena, which was at its old- a pedestrian 5- for-15 from three, with school, rollicking best for Senior Night. Daryl Macon conspicuously accountDaniel Gafford was a one-man wrecking ing for none of the makes and only two crew with seven dunks and seven blocks attempts, but the real story was again at en route to a 21-point performance that the foul line. These Tigers canned 27 of may have very well signaled his exit 33 shots, far outpacing the Hogs’ 12-forfrom Fayetteville after a single, dynamic 15 output, and that obviously spelled the season on the Hill. difference in a 10-point final.

At times the atmosphere, opponent, Hog fans have every right to comand timing of the game recalled the plain about the referees, but the fact 1998-99 squad’s rousing beatdown of is, these massive foul disparities do a second-ranked, 25-1 Tiger team that not occur in a vacuum. Mike Anderhad stormed out of the lower rungs of son, one might observe, stays generthe SEC thanks to a suspicious influx of ally composed and tries to coach his JUCO talent, namely Chris Porter. That team through these variables; another, was another Senior Night showdown for more jaded individual like myself might a Razorback squad that had muddled say that Anderson’s complete lack of through conference play but was rid- backbone with respect to the officials ing high after an impressive win over is becoming tiresome. Would it kill him Kentucky a few days earlier. This Hog to get a T here and there when things go team echoed that bunch with a strong off the rails, at worst to show his team start to both halves, with many pos- he’s cognizant of the perceived inequity sessions punctuated by big dunks and on the floor or at best to get his squad splashdowns from three-point range. An fired up for the final minutes of a winelectric crowd surely didn’t hurt, and nable game? that nine-point final margin didn’t do We’ll hearken back to that 31 flavors justice to the sort of thumping that the theme and note that Arkansas won 21 Hogs doled out. games and finished above .500 in a very Of course, there was another game difficult conference, scoring some nice after that, a road trip to close things out. victories over ranked opponents while And much like that team from 19 years also notching three conference victoago did, this bunch of Razorbacks hit a ries away from home. That’s the savory sour flavor away from the comforts of stuff that makes you think there’s posthome. In 1998-99, Nolan Richardson’s season hope beyond the first weekend last genuinely competitive Razorback in the NCAA Tournament for these team went down to Tuscaloosa to close guys, and we again have to regrettaout the regular season and promptly bly note that only three of the current gave a listless effort in an 84-79 loss Razorback players were so much as signified by two ugly stats: a 36 percent infants the last time the Hogs darkened field goal shooting effort and a whop- the doors of the second weekend of the ping 26 fouls, many of which were of the tourney. Anderson was brought here nitpicky variety, per the archives. That seven years ago to end that drought led to the Tide shooting 32 free throws and it has not yet occurred, but Arkanand sinking 26, which was a meaningful sas is just mercurial enough to put that advantage considering that the Hogs hit skein to rest if it wants to, or it might 21 of 27 tries and … lost by exactly that well have already won its last game of five-point disparity.

2017-18 on Senior Night.

ARKANSAS TIMES

SHOP LOCAL

THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

Unmentionables

T

he things we’re all probably better takes over, though, because it’s become off not mentioning in service of painfully clear that those two emptyour collective sanity is growing headed ninnies don’t know their asses by the day and hour here in Trumpistan. from a sixer of Schlitz. Maybe even the Sometimes minute by minute. Like a Trumpies can agree with Yours Truly clear majority of Americans now, The on that one. Baby steps back to a funcObserver lives in a perpetual low simmer tional America. Remember back when of apprehension, fingernails gnawed we all could agree that silver-spoon New to ragged pink quicks, awaiting the York snobs are usually a-holes? Ah, the next calamity or shotgun crotchblast good ol’ days! of gaslit cruelty while actively wishThe Observer, Spouse and Junior ing we could hurry up and get to the were just talking about all this the other series finale of this reality shitshow. day. Not the slow slide to oligarchy, This week, it was President Trump’s because what can three little Americans former henchman Sam Nunberg making lacking the big bucks to buy a U.S. senaa whirlwind media tour/pub crawl/cry tor do about that? Just the uncertainty for help on any news outlet that would of it all. How and when and where this commiserate with him (Nunberg, verb: Trump thing is all going to end. Where to lose one’s cool in public; to flip out. it’s all going to go from here. How terExample: “Bob nunberged at work today rifying it is to live through what you so hard his co-workers were worried he know will be monumental history somewas going to come back and shoot up the day, endlessly dissected and parsed and joint!”) What’s next, we wonder? The pinned down to corkboard, dry and dead, president and half the amoral lizards by future historians. How terrible it will in his employ chain-ganged from the be for America if Trump winds up with South Portico to a waiting fuzzwagon? A Nixon on the shortlist of shame, and Trumpian dynasty that lasts 400 years? how even worse it will be for America Tanks grinding up Pennsylvania Avenue if he doesn’t. when the outcome of Election 2020 is We agreed that there is no outcome declared FAKE NEWS! and Current that doesn’t end badly, though some Occupant refuses to vacate the prem- outcomes are clearly worse than others. ises? Imperial-Power-Couple-for-Life There are only degrees of bad now. How Javanka seizes control from Mad King many years of this precious new cenSneer and goes full-on “1984”? Heav- tury — a century so crucial for the colily armed MAGAtes swarming out of lective survival of our species — will be the hills to bring Godless urbanites like wasted on infighting in the dying glow of Yours Truly the Good News?

Trumpism, with people around the globe All those outcomes, we’re sad to wondering just when, exactly, an elecsay, seem completely and terrifyingly toral majority of those crazy Americans plausible at this point in the American are going to elect someone even worse Experiment, this country now a Schro- than Trump? Somebody just as devious, dinger’s Cat of horrible potentialities, divisive, proudly ignorant and egotistical. simultaneously realized and unrealized Only smart this time, intelligence being inside the poisoned black box of the the Ingredient X that always divides the future. Tomorrow’s history is rushing bragging clowns from the true monsters around us now like a flooded river, the who inevitably try to crack their world murky water full of floating houses and in two to see if what’s inside is sweet. spinning chifforobes, men on horseback All that is in the future now, though. and infants in baskets, the unstoppable There’s no fast-forward button on this current sweeping us all along to some machine. All we can do is tread water inevitable conclusion that will, by itself, and cling to each other. For now, the take decades to heal, and then only to a water is sweeping us along, leaving us to puckered scar. We do hope that what’s wonder what snag will rise up to catch next is not the scenario where Javanka us around the next bend.

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UPCOMING EVENTS MAR

Weekend Theater Inherit the Wind

MAR

The Studio Theatre Hand to God

8-10

8-11 15-18

54th Annual Quapaw Quarter Spring Tour of Homes Preview Party

MAR

9

Opera On The Rocks Junior League of Little Rock Ballroom

MAR

9

Arkansas Times Bus Trips Soul of a Nation Bus Tour

MAR

10

Four Quarter Bar Green Jello @ Four Quarter Bar

MAR

16 MAR

Four Quarter Bar 2nd Annual ALS Benefit Speakeasy Party

APR

Four Quarter Bar Agent Orange w/ The Atom Age

29 1

5th & Main Lions Uptown Downtown Market & Bazaar

APR

7

CentralArkansasTickets.com 12

MARCH 8, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

Safe schools

A

truth all teachers know: If you of them all. want to see the secrets and Arming schoolteachers is a terrishortcomings of any community, ble plan, and not only because they’ve just take a peek inside its classrooms. already got too much to do. Evidence You’ll find poverty, lack of education, tells us it would be wholly ineffective. substance abuse, unstable families and The FBI looked at 160 shootings from socioeconomic segregation. Children 2000 to 2013 and have no choice but to bear the brunt of found that zero social ills, making schools the easiest of them were places to spot and measure our failings. stopped by a conWe are lucky to have teachers on cealed carry perthe front lines to address these prob- mit holder who AUSTIN lems each day before the final bell. I was not trained BAILEY have loads of teachers in my life, so I military, a secuGuest Columnist get to see their workaday heroics up rity guard or a law close. A friend who noticed that some enforcement officer. At the same time, of her high school students routinely putting guns in classrooms increases came to school hungry turned a storage the chances of those guns being stocloset into a takeout soup kitchen, with len, fired inadvertently or brandished snacks for class time and to-go packs inappropriately, such as when a fight to get students through the weekends breaks out in the hallway or a student if cupboards at home were bare. An threatens a teacher. angel guidance counselor at Jefferson Just as it is with the gun debate in Elementary makes sure Santa loads up general, the loudest and most fear-monevery single kid in school with the req- gering reactions to the school shooting uisite new winter coat and shoes, and in Florida are getting the most buy-in preposterous piles of toys and books. from politicians who feast on the NRA’s My mom, a retired English teacher who generous campaign cash in exchange moonlighted as a coach and bus driver, for laws that allow gun sales to conroutinely packed students into our two- tinue unchecked. Arkansas already has door Chevrolet Chevette for rides home laws on the books allowing teachers to when their parents weren’t able or will- pack heat in class, and school personnel ing to take on carpooling duties. in 13 districts already do so, Governor But is there a limit to the aboves and Hutchinson reported last week while beyonds we expect of our teachers? Is announcing a new commission to study there a bright red line that, should we school security. But don’t expect any pass it, our teachers will walk right out real solutions. “I don’t think further gun to their Chevrolet Chevettes, drive away control is a solution for school safety,” and never return? I worry there is, and Hutchinson said, indicating he is unwillI worry close to it, even as we ask and ing to fix the shoddy laws that allow expect them to literally die for our kids. bad people to buy guns with impunity.

It’s been four years since teachers That’s a shame, because evidence-based in the Little Rock School District saw a measures like universal background raise. Last week, when state Education checks and red flag laws that allow Commissioner Johnny Key left teachers law enforcement to temporarily keep worrying and wondering if he’d come guns from people displaying threatenthrough with their promised bonuses in ing behavior are proven solutions that time for spring break, teachers took it could save an untold number of lives. personally. More than money, the issue By refusing to even consider these fixes, was one of being discounted, put on the Hutchinson indicates he’d rather hunback burner. They had negotiated in ker down and react to mass shootings good faith, and still for a while it looked than do what needs to be done to stop like what was promised to them might them from happening in the first place. not come through.

Worried parents are contemplating What can teachers buy with that homeschooling should we opt to turn $1,000 bonus? It’s just enough to buy our public schools into armed fortresses. a glock for each hip, although I hope Keeping public schools healthy and they don’t. In the centrifuge of bad thriving appears not to be a priority. ideas swirling since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Austin Bailey is the Little Rock group Parkland, Fla., many of our leaders leader for Moms Demand Action for Gun have plucked out the very worst idea Sense in America.

CANNABIZ

Growers and $$

S

ome, but not all, of the five compa n ies t he st ate ha s scored as eligible for cannabis cultivation in Arkansas included in their applications estimates of job hires and financial impact. Companies estimate hires between 25 and 60; two estimate payrolls will exceed $1 million.

Beau Whitney, senior economist at New Frontier Data, which gathers information on the cannabis industry nationwide, said that cultivators typically hire between five and 10 fulltime employees and 10-20 part time, with payrolls of around $500,000.

While his figure is half the payroll estimates of Arkansas cultivators, Whitney said the wages have a X2 multiplier effect, and that “really provides a million dollars of economic benefit to the community.”

Part-timers would do trimming and “beautification”: They “trim the excess of leaves away from the flower.” Those jobs typically go to local residents with agricultural experience.

The economic impact can spread far beyond basic cultivation, Whitney said. In the early stages, facilities usually focus on extracting just the flower, which contains the highest concentration of cannabinoids. But as the market develops, things will change. Some patients will want edibles or extracted oils from different parts of the cannabis plant. That will require more technicians and machinists to do that work, meaning new jobs.

“Just think of it like tomatoes.

Tomatoes — you’ve got ketchup, canned tomatoes, stewed tomatoes,” Whitney said. “There are all sorts of different products … the same thing applies. … As you get more and more sophisticated in your product offering, there are more and more employment options.”

But what about profit? Whitney said regulation and the need for security can eat into profits, and drive up the cost to consumers.

“I think the thing that we see, which is common throughout all the states that we analyze, is that from a policy perspective it’s tough to find the sweet spot between policies that support public safety and policies that support economic development,” Whitney said. “If one tips too far … those costs of compliance can be rather significant.

… Those costs are passed on to the medical patients. … If there’s too much of a compliance overhead with this, it could have an impact on the number of jobs that are created … because the money is going to compliance rather than towards wages.”

Cannabis cultivation is “not necessarily all that profitable,” Whitney said. Related industries — greenhouse manufacturers and security companies — are springing up, but Whitney’s firm has not yet collected enough data on them to gauge their success. “We see that a lot of the investment is going into those consulting services,” Whitney said, “and the nonplant touching side.”

Natural State Wellness Enterprises, which plans to open a plant in Pine Bluff, is looking to be producing medical cannabis in six to nine months; Delta Medical Cannabis Co. Inc. of Newport owners say they hope to be in business by the end of the year.

Storm Nolan, whose company, River Valley Cultivation, came in sixth in the tallies by the Medical Marijuana Commission and was not offered a permit, said completing a facility from the ground up in six months would be “pretty darn aggressive.” In addition to construction — which will require the laying of water and electricity lines to county-located facilities — cultivators will have to wait on inspections.

Nolan said there is “consensus” that it costs between $5 million and $7 million to get in the growing business.

He is more bullish on the industry than Whitney: As to profitability, Nolan said cultivators could make $20 million a year after ramping up. He added, however, “that’s just a spitball estimate” because of unknown product demand. He said the industry needs to “make a lot of progress” to get Arkansas’s patient counts up to 30,000. It is now at 4,100, but Nolan said that didn’t necessarily predict failure, given that it will be months before dispensaries are open and medical marijuana is on the market.

“The biggest hurdle [to patient count] is education and doctors not recommending” medical cannabis, he added.

Dispensaries should make less than cultivators, Nolan said, because of tax law; they can’t take tax breaks on a business selling what the federal government considers illegal. arktimes.com MARCH 8, 2018

13

Arkansas Reporter

THE

Gang was up against Norwegian firm Snohetta (designer of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), international firm Shigeru Ban (Aspen Museum of Art), Thomas Phifer and Partners of New York (Corning Museum of Glass) and allied works of Portland (Clyfford Still Museum) — was “very fierce. But then, after that, we had other architects calling me and saying, ‘Good luck with that.’ ” Still, the project is one Studio Gang is “very excited about. It might be one of our best projects,” Gang said. The firm’s resume includes the Aqua Tower in Chicago, the University of Chicago’s North Residential Commons and Tour Montparnasse in Paris, among others.

Gang clicked through the images to a view of the new Arts Center’s south entrance from above, showing the pleated spine “blossoming” over a glass-walled restaurant and a landscaped entrance where broken fountains, parking lots and dead grass are now. There was a hush in the audience. “I know,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

The Arts Center had several goals A VIEW FROM NINTH STREET: The Arts Center’s new face will no longer be a loading dock, but a plaza leading to 1937 doors. for Studio Gang: It wanted more connection to MacArthur Park, with a welcoming “identity” to the development the Arts Center today, “even though it’s spreading south from the River Market a building in a park, it’s really a building District. It needed more art storage and in a parking lot.” improved and integrated heating, coolThat will change, thanks to Studio ing and mechanical systems.

Gang’s decision to uncover the 1937 That’s what it got. façade and extend into the park on the Studio Gang’s concept shows a new north with a plaza and the south with entry at the original — the 1937 entrance a glass-walled restaurant. Thanks to facing Ninth Street — with a plaza and It’s four years off, but worth the wait. designs by SCAPE landscape architects, fountain featuring Henry Moore’s “Large landform alterations will create a pres- Standing Figure Knife Edge,” now at

BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK ence for the Arts Center on its approach, Louisiana and Fifth streets. (Mayor Mark even before one gets to the door.

Stodola earlier confirmed that the city he gods have smiled on the Arkan- with clerestory windows along the facilGang and SCAPE founder Kate Orff had worked out the move.) Outdoor sas Art Center. Its original struc- ity’s north-south axis, extending out into — both McArthur fellows, TED Talk giv- sculpture gardens and a tree-lined walkture, the Museum of Fine Arts, MacArthur Park on both ends. A sen- ers, Harvard School of Design graduates way will follow the crescent driveway; got a commanding two-story Art Deco sible floor plan reveals and expands the — made a day of presentations Tuesday, parking will be along the west side of the entrance thanks to WPA artists and fed- museum school, brings the theater into Feb. 27, to the AAC’s board of directors, building in alleys of bald cypress. eral grants. In the 1960s, the Arts Cen- the 21st century, adds a “cultural liv- the AAC Foundation, city agencies and Gang’s design allows visitors to see all ter got Winthrop and Jeannette Rocke- ing room” with a view of the city, and finally to the public, which arrived for the way from north to south, through a feller. In 2000, it opened its newest wing, makes a connection to the park it occu- the evening talk in droves and filled both sky-lit passage with tall ceilings, wooden thanks to Townsend Wolfe’s successful pies. No longer will the loading dock the theater and lecture hall. columns and spacious entry points to wheedling from donors like Jackson T. be the primary view of the Arts Center Looking up at the projection of an the theater and museum school. It adds Stephens. from Ninth Street. No longer will the aerial view of today’s Arts Center, with a second floor over the northwest quadNow it’s got two geniuses, of the Arts Center show the north its backside its numerous levels and building phases rant, atop the atrium and the Wolfe and MacArthur Fellowship variety, to make and hide its southern entrance with its and jagged outline, Gang told Tuesday’s Jeannette Rockefeller galleries. It moves a whole of its nine construction stages recessed entry. audience that the project is probably one the loading dock to today’s west entrance, and glommed-on architectural scheme.

Architect Jeanne Gang of the Chicago of the most intimidating projects she’s providing direct entry into what will They see a smoothed-out floorplan with firm Studio Gang told a crowd gathered taken on “because, look at that.” She said be storage and conservation areas. The an organic whoosh of pleated roofing in the Children’s Theatre last week that the competition to get the job — Studio move means artwork will no longer have

The new Arts Center T

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MARCH 8, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

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to be schlepped from the Wolfe gallery on the west, through the Arts Center’s public spaces, and to its current storage area on the east.

There will also be a library and research center in the northwest ground floor quadrant, something the Arts Center attempted in 2000 just off the Jack Stephens gallery but was unable to make work.

The galleries, to be on the new second floor, will open into a glass-walled public area overlooking the Ninth Street entrance — the “cultural living room,” with places to gather, hear talks, work on laptops, drink coffee.

The Children’s Theatre will get technical upgrades and new seating and its rehearsal space, behind the stage, will get natural light, with glass walls replacing concrete blocks.

The museum school, in the southwest quadrant, will grow by 25 percent and feature room for student lockers and a courtyard. The restaurant, which will extend into the park behind transparent walls, will create a space unlike any other in Little Rock, Gang said.

In all, the design includes 127,000 square feet of renovated or new spaces.

Landscape architect designer Orff said she took inspiration from Little Rock’s interface with Delta lowlands and Ouachita uplands and its riparian setting for a design that would create a home for the Arts Center. The landscaping will borrow from the textures of the “mineral landscape,” and use water runoff from the creases in the clerestory “spine” to feed native grasses and perennials. Orff envisions pathways through meadowlike plantings along the crescent drive off Ninth, and landscaping that allows programming to “spill out,” but be connected to the building.

At the close of the public program, the Arts Center handed out small champagne bottles to mark the expected opening of the new building, in 2022.

Construction costs, originally at $46 million, grew to $70 million when the Arts Center and its foundation realized the lower figure would not provide the pizzazz Little Rock expects to see in the facility, which will receive an estimated $35 million from a bond issue financed by the city tourism tax receipts. The foundation is raising money for furnishings and an endowment but has not gone public with its capital campaign goal.

THE

Inconsequential News Quiz:

BIG Double Jeopardy!

PICTURE

Edition

Play at home while not making recipes from “Breaking Bad.” 1) A business in operation in Arkansas for more than 150 years has announced it will soon close its doors for good. What’s the biz?

A) Krazy Ken’s Kustom Klan Robes in Harrison.

B) Dank’s Discount Meth Emporium in Rose City.

C) Bennett’s Military Supply, long a staple on Little Rock’s Main Street.

D) Pine Bluff’s Bronto Haunch BBQ .

2) FBI agents and soldiers from the Arkansas National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction 61st Civil Support Team recently responded to a house in Little Rock after a man called police to report that he was experiencing diarrhea, blurred vision and heart trouble. What, according to investigators, was the issue?

A) He ate 19 McRib sandwiches in 30 minutes.

B) He watched Fox News for five hours straight.

C) He feared he’d poisoned himself while making batch of homemade ricin, a deadly toxin — fatal in quantities as small as one-millionth of a gram — which the man allegedly said he’d gotten interested in making after watching an episode of the TV show “Breaking Bad.” D) His heart was completely shattered by the season finale of “The Bachelor.”

3) According to an agent who testified in the above case, which of the following safety precautions were taken?

A) Before he could be treated at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, the man’s clothes had to be removed in a sealed room by three workers in head-to-toe protective gear.

B) Every investigator who entered the man’s house had to wear a similar protective moonsuit.

C) Before the man’s search history could be examined, his computer had to be wrapped in plastic and shipped to D.C. for decontamination.

D) All of the above.

4) On March 2, the TV gameshow “Jeopardy!” had an Arkansas connection. What was the connection?

A) The final Jeopardy answer was: “Situated just south of Missouri, experts say this state has a distinct chance of being walled off and abandoned as a lost cause in the next 10 to 15 years.”

B) The final Jeopardy answer was: “Echoing a rock band with eight platinum albums, the teams of the Arkansas School for the Deaf are named for this animal.” Which is, of course, a reference to the ASD Leopards and the 1980’s “hair metal” band Def Leppard.

B) Sarah Huckabee Sanders was a contestant on a special “Celebrity Co-Conspirators” edition of the show.

C) The Video Daily Double was a short clip of a frowning, shirtless Governor Hutchinson eating a whole chocolate pie with his bare hands.

5) Recently, a 30-year-old man was sentenced to jail time and a fine related to something he did at a Hot Springs gym in 2017. What, according to investigators, did he do?

A) Excessive gruntery.

B) Not wiping his greasy stank off the stationary bike when he was done.

C) Attempted to record with his cell phone a video of a naked woman as she was leaving a tanning bed.

D) Failure to spot, bro.

Answers: C, C, D, A, C

LISTEN UP

arktimes.com MARCH 8, 2018

15

Growers come to light BRIAN CHILSON

Four counties, five companies, lots of jobs in the cannabis business.

ARKANSAS TIMES STAFF

A NEW CROP FOR COTTON PLANT: The dying Delta town hopes Bold Team, LLC’s cannabis cultivation will restore life to the community.

F

ifteen months after Arkansas voters passed an amendment to legalize medical marijuana in Arkansas, the first permits to begin its cultivation have been issued, to five companies. The five competed with 95 applicants

to get the OK from the state Medical Marijuana Commission, which

the state can’t be sued, Nolan said he believed “they haven’t thrown a wrench” into challenges based on administrative process.

Here’s a profile of the new cannabis cultivation permit holders. Extra points were awarded for women and minority ownership and location in areas of low employment.

announced last Tuesday which companies had the top scores.

Bold Team, LLC, Cotton Plant, Woodruff County

The identities of the owners had been withheld from the five commissioners, who reviewed and scored the applications individually. Alcohol Beverage Control administrators then calculated the scores and provided the results to the commission. The commissioners were given a scoring rubric that allowed a maximum of 10 points for owner qualifications; 50 points for ability to run a facility within applicable laws; 20 points for operating plans; 10 points for financial stability; 2.5 points for affiliation with persons with medical, osteopathic or pharmacy degrees; 5 points for economic impact and diversity; and 2.5 points for community benefit.

The applications were heavily redacted, so that while the names of the owners are public, their business plans, including what strains of cannabis they will grow and equipment they’ll use, and financial backing are still unknown.

The companies had seven days

“It is tantamount to a history-making event for this town,” Cotton Plant Mayor Willard C. Ryland said of the medical marijuana cultivation facility coming to his tiny Woodruff County town. “I wake up and have to kind of pinch myself as well. Is this real?” he said.

Cotton Plant has not fared well in recent years. The population dropped from 960 in 2000 to 649 in 2010. The only school closed in 2014. There’s been no full-time police force since 2016. The only retail in town is a convenience store, and the town’s water and sewage systems have problems. Twenty-six percent of residents live at or below the federal poverty level.

Ryland, a Cotton Plant native who is retired from 35 years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, lives on a farm that’s been in his family for a century. “When I was a kid — and that’s been a few years ago — I can remember anywhere from eight to 10 grocery stores along Main Street, and

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ARKANSAS TIMES

within receipt of a letter notifying them of the state’s intent to award them a license to pay a licensing fee of $100,000 and a $500,000 performance bond. Scott Hardin, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance and Administration, said three of the companies — Natural State Medicinals Cultivation, Bold Team LLC and Delta Medical Cannabis Co. — had paid the licensing fees and bonds by Tuesday afternoon.

While state law would allow eight cultivation sites, the commission — made up of Dr. Ronda Henry-Tillman, James Miller, Dr. J. Carlos Roman, Dr. Stephen J. Carroll and Travis Story — decided to limit the licenses to five. The company holding the sixth spot was River Valley Relief Cultivation of Fort Smith. Asked if the company might consider litigation, Storm Nolan, an owner in the company, said, “That’s something we would discuss.” While a recent controversial state Supreme Court ruling has said

then there were some side streets that had some small convenience stores. I can remember four to five gas stations in this town. Banks. We had two banks.

That was one — Planter’s Bank,” he said, pointing out of his Main Street office to barren white tile on a street corner, no walls surrounding it.

Ryland hopes his town’s fortunes will change as Bold Team LLC, the secondhighest scorer in the competition for permits (444 out of 500), develops a patch of swampy land described as “a part of the unplanted Cotton Plant Industrial Park.” Adjacent to the plot are an estimated 250,000 tires, stacked inside and outside of an abandoned building. There was supposed to be a factory to heat and decompose them, but the state Department of Environmental Quality denied the permit. The business kept taking tires anyway.

“And you know what that means.

Collecting tires, $10, $15 dollars a tire.

That became the business,” Ryland said. The company used Cotton Plant like an unregulated dumpsite. Cotton Plant and the ADEQ are working now to clean it up.

“That has happened over and over and over again. People in this community have been given these promises of opportunities and possible hope. But hope has never been generated until now,” Ryland said.

Bold Team LLC has tried to prove to Cotton Plant that it’s different. The company has promised 1 percent of

BRIAN CHILSON

gross sales to the town. It’s already 12 skilled, and 11 unskilled positions,” board and to my mayor, and I asked LaFrance (10.07 percent), neurologist bought the city a $5,000 freezer for a according to the application. The them if we could aggressively go after Dr. Kelli D. Schlesinger (10.07 percent), local food pantry. company says it “plans to hire locally, this. Pine Bluff gets a black eye in gastroenterologist (and husband of The Times was unable to reach any creating well-paying jobs for local the media. [Officials have] been very Susan Williams) Dr. Alonzo Williams owners by press time. Bold Team CEO people and directly improving the lives progressive toward this. …. They were (8.45 percent), Kathryne Deane Peck Danny W. Brown, who owns 24 percent of many City residents.” really forward thinking.”

(7.51 percent); Donna Mae Mooney of the company, also owns Willy D’s Even if locals don’t get jobs at the McMahon said he could not yet (7.51 percent), Stephen LaFrance (5.66 Piano Bar in Little Rock, a commercial facility, Ryland said he expects it to comment on the incentives offered the percent), neurologist (and husband of real estate company and a title company spark other jobs. He’s been trying to companies, but they did not include tax Kelly Schlesinger), Dr. Scott Schlesinger and serves as president of Altitude recruit stores like Dollar General and breaks.

(5.66 percent), businessman and Trampoline Parks, according to his restaurants.

McMahon said that running water Arkansas Cannabis Industry board LinkedIn account; COO Mark Drennan “This is a turning point for Cotton and electricity to NSM’s plant, located member Robert DeBin (4.4 percent), (24.5 percent) owns a construction Plant,” he said. in the county about halfway between veterinarian Dr. Clifton Bolen Peck IV company in Beebe; medical director Redfield and White Hall, “is going to (4.23 percent), urologist (and husband Kyndall Lercher (25.5 percent) is a Natural State Medicinals, be a very big issue,” but not a problem. of Donna Mooney) Dr. Keith Mooney registered nurse at the University Jefferson County The plant will be located on 12.42 (4.23 percent) and Fox 16 news anchor of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; acres at the intersection on Interstate Donna Terrell (1.41 percent). and human resources director Misty Natural State Medicinals, which 530 and Gravel Pit Road, exit 27 off Courtwright noted his 28 years in Drennan (25.5 percent) is a real estate had the highest score among the five the interstate. Dr. Joseph Courtwright, retail pharmacy and his position as CEO agent.

MJ Freeway Business Solutions, a cannabis consulting firm specializing in software in Colorado, was brought on board to “support facility buildout and business development.” Alex Stanish, who has been managing “a 300light marijuana cultivation facility in Colorado,” according to Bold Team’s application, will be the director of cultivation. Aki Smith, the director of processing, has “held various positions involving processing of medical marijuana” and is a recent graduate of Penn State.

Director of Security will be Barry Flannery, a longtime Little Rock Police Department detective. In his application, he describes his career: “Sixteen years of the DS’s detective career have been spent working as a Narcotics Detective and a Narcotics Interdiction Detective, where he has worked with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to seize over $7,000,000 of illicit currency, 6,000 lbs. of marijuana, and several hundred pounds of various other unlawful substances.”

The team also includes Cayne Orman (of Orman and Drennan Roofing), who will be director of inventory and quality control. He’s likely the Cotton Plant connection. His ancestors lived in the town — a grandfather is buried in the cemetery, Ryland said. Robert Lercher COTTON PLANT MAYOR RYLAND: Calls development of cultivation facility a “turning point.” of Beebe will be director of customer relations.

The new medical marijuana facility companies (486 out of 500), is one of a pharmacist and former CEO of and president of USA Drug as evidence offers several spots for potential help for two cultivation companies that will pharmaceutical company USA Drug, and of expertise in the handling of regulated Cotton Plant. It will allow the town to operate in Pine Bluff. “It was not an 12 other investors, including Stephen substances. USA Drug, which was hire additional police officers to have accident,” Jefferson County Economic LaFrance Jr., the son of the founder headquartered in Pine Bluff and was the a full force. And looking at Bold Team’s Development Director Caleb McMahon of USA Drug, and four doctors, own largest privately held pharmacy chain in projections, there should be some added said, that the county landed Natural Natural State Medicinals, incorporated the U.S., was sold to Walgreens in 2012. jobs.

State Medicinals and the other cultivator, as NSMC-OPCO LLC. “When we sold our corporate “The Company has allocated 25 Natural State Wellness: “It was a lot of Courtwright has 15.72 percent headquarters in Pine Bluff, seeing full-time employees upon launch of hard work.” ownership. Other owners are Susan D. the loss of jobs was excruciating,” the the facility, including 2 [executive], “In November 2016, I went to my Williams (15.02 percent), Wendy Perdue application states. “It will be very arktimes.com MARCH 8, 2018

17

BRIAN CHILSON

rewarding to bring them back.” cultivation facility as a family business Azzariti, is a veteran of the Iraq War of Prayer; former police officer Brad Key staffers with ties to Arkansas that will employ Naomi Trulove- who made news as the first person to Handley; Carroll County Sheriff Randy include Terrence Fitch, CEO of Super Wilson, IT supervisor and compliance legally purchase marijuana in Colorado, Mayfield; and Berryville Mayor Tim Farm LLC of Denver and a previous manager; excavation company owner for his post-traumatic stress disorder.

McKinney. resident of Arkansas, who will be general Matt Trulove, director of operations; The Truloves say they will fashion Osage Creek owners issued a manager; Lance Huey, the former U.S. Martial Arts Hall of Fame member their output to meet market demands statement saying they were excited sheriff of Grant County and director Robert Trulove, security supervisor; — which, based on the 1 to 2 percent to have been chosen, would start of security for the Arkansas Lottery and Jessica Trulove, extraction patient base in other states would be production “as quickly as prudently Commission, director of security; and technician. They have brought on as between 20,000 and 40,000 in Arkansas possible,” but would not provide former U.S. attorney Bud Cummins, a advisers Harrison pharmacist Patricia — and no more. interviews or comments. third-party compliance officer. Frank Blaylock; Dr. Hunter Young, a professor Osage Creek will make donations to McKinney, however, said the Groves, owner of Benson Creek Produce Truloves expect to employ 20-25 people and a plant geneticist, will serve on the with an annual payroll of over $1 million, company’s advisory board. and that the facility would provide a The company will also employ at least “five-figure tax figure for our schools.”

28 people in addition to an unknown The mayor described the Truloves number of extraction employees and as “good, quality people” who would security officers, according to the start production “as soon as humanly application. possible.” The city must run a water A summary in the application says line to the plant, but McKinney said the plant will be built “from the ground that would involve a distance of only up” and owners will seek a LEED 1,500 feet and could be accomplished environmental certification for it. in 30 days or so. No sewer line will be NSM will use a procedure called provided. “schwazzing” to process plants — a McKinney said he wanted to manual defoliation process “similar to assure Carroll County residents that pinching back your tomato plants,” the “everything is going to be all right.” application says. The process increases McKinney said he wanted to remain “key medical compounds” and will mean “low key” about the business, having more jobs “for local Arkansans.” spent 52 days “in a gated community” The application also says that himself for possession of marijuana and because of “higher rates of epilepsy” driving while intoxicated. That was in in Jefferson County, “NSM has chosen 2009. He’s been re-elected twice since to allocate resources to ensure that and is in his 28th year as mayor. several of the strains produced and manufactured products will specifically Natural State Wellness be for epileptic patients” in the county.

Enterprises, Pine Bluff, NSM will use a portion of its profits Jefferson County to “enable efforts of the Little Rock Police Foundation and Yoga Warriors Not to be confused with the previously Fighting Colon Cancer.” The latter is mentioned Natural State Medicinals, a nonprofit founded by Terrell, whose which will also be located in Jefferson daughter died of colon cancer. Terrell County, Natural State Wellness is owned announced her affiliation with NSM on by 27 shareholders. That list includes the air after the permit was awarded. some well-known Arkansas names, including former Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel; his father, Osage Creek Cultivation LLC, Bobby McDaniel; Henry Wilkins V, the Carroll County son of Jefferson County Judge Henry Osage Creek had the fourth highest “Hank” Wilkins IV; and former state score (432.5 out of 500). Its facility, legislator and former White County owned by Mary and Jay Trulove, will Republican lawmaker Marvin Parks. be on family land southwest of Berryville According to documents filed with their and east of Osage Creek. Mary Trulove, DELTA MEDICAL PRESIDENT DON PARKER: “We are proceeding with all applications, the majority shareholder CEO, holds 60 percent ownership, Jay deliberate haste.” in Natural State Wellness is William Trulove, COO, 40 percent.

Young, who owns 34 percent of the “The good Lord has given us this company. Three doctors, Dr. Thomas plant we call marijuana for a reason of medicine and epidemiology at Johns the Carroll County Historical Society Stank, Dr. Ladd Scriber and Dr. Bruce — a purpose. We must open our minds Hopkins and a graduate of the University and the Freedom Seekers Ministry, a Sanderson, are partners in the venture and hearts to use this gift in a safe of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, as an faith-based substance abuse treatment and “will serve in an advisory role,” and responsible way,” the Truloves’ advisory board member; and Harrison program. according to the application, which application says. chiropractors Dr. Shaun Kahn and Dr. The company offered letters also says Natural State Wellness will The Truloves own a cattle and crop Anna Kahn. Their cultivation manager, of reference from the Rev. Larry have 51 percent minority ownership farm on 750 acres and Jay Trulove Jeremy Harwood, has worked in the Montgomery, pastor emeritus of and 99.1 percent ownership by Arkansas has worked as a pilot with Southwest marijuana industry in Colorado and Towering Oaks Church; the Rev. David residents. Natural State Wellness Airlines for 47 years. They describe the Nevada; and their extractor, Sean Killingsworth of the Forerunner House submitted nearly identical applications 18

MARCH 8, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

County location, Calhoun said both counties had shown great interest in the facility. The Natural State Wellness application for Jefferson County included letters of support from a long list of local civic and business leaders, including Simmons First National Bank chairman and CEO George A. Makris Jr., the pastors of several prominent Pine Bluff churches, Pine Bluff City Council

to go with its application for a facility in Jefferson County, the city will only be getting one: Delta Medical Cannabis Co. Inc. Delta scored fifth out of the cultivation applications submitted (Natural State Wellness’ two applications had equal scores), with a final score of 432.5 out of a possible 500.

Partners in Delta Medical Cannabis include Doug Falls, who owns and

BRIAN CHILSON

for facilities in Jefferson and Jackson counties, with both scoring 438 points out of a potential 500. Because the state’s medical cannabis law says that the same parties may not have financial interest in two cultivation facilities, Natural State Wellness was forced to choose. Jefferson County’s economic development director said Monday that the company would locate in Pine Bluff.

According to satellite photos included in its application, Natural State Wellness’s facility will be built on 10 acres near U.S. Highway 63, just across the highway from The Pines Mall.

“The proposed facility will provide more than 60 new jobs, a nearly $1,000,000 annual labor investment, and nearly $10,000,000 in capital expenditures to local businesses,” the Natural State Wellness application says, “which will help us not only serve medical cannabis patients, but also those less fortunate who reside in the community.”

To help construct, establish and staff the cultivation center, Harvest, a Tempe, Ariz., cannabis growing and dispensing company established in 2012 by Harvest CEO Steve White, will make up the “operating team.” Harvest now holds 39 cannabis-related licenses in five states, according to documents included in the Natural State Wellness applications.

Natural State Wellness partner Bart Calhoun, a Jonesboro-based lawyer who owns a 3 percent stake in the business, according to application documents, said that while he can’t recall the exact details of how he and his co-owners settled on Harvest, he believes it was Dustin McDaniel who suggested them to the group. Attempts to reach McDaniel were unsuccessful at press time. “We did research on them,” Calhoun said, “and they’ve been really successful in not only attaining licenses in other states but doing really well producing, cultivating and dispensing marijuana. … We had a few different people that we were working to partner up with, and they were by far the most impressive.”

Calhoun said the facility will be a new, ground-up construction. “We’ve got plans and everything laid out,” he said, “so once we get past the license fees and bonding stage — which will not be an issue at all for us — we’ll start looking at implementing those blueprints and starting construction.” Calhoun said that construction time depends on a lot of factors, including the weather, “but six- to nine-month timeframe is probably what we’re looking at.”

Reached by phone before Natural State Wellness settled on the Jefferson

DUSTIN MCDANIEL: A well-known name behind Natural State Wellness Enterprises.

members and Jefferson County Sheriff Gerald Robinson.

Delta Medical Cannabis Co. Inc., Newport, Jackson County Though Newport in Jackson County had a shot at landing two of the state’s five initial medical cannabis cultivation facilities, with Monday’s decision by Natural State Wellness Enterprises

operates Trinity Lighting Co., a $30 million Jonesboro-based maker of lamps; car dealer and apartment complex owner Ray Osment; Jonesboro lawyer Donald L. Parker II; Dr. John D. McKee; lawyer Lynn Parker; and registered nurse Amy Fulkerson. Falls will serve as CEO, Osment as COO and Parker as president and chief legal counsel.

According to an economic impact analysis compiled by the Newport

Economic Development Commission, which was included as supplemental material in the Delta Medical Cannabis Co. application, the project will directly create 30 jobs in Newport, with an average wage of $19.91 per hour — around $41,400 per year. The average wage in Jackson County is $32,182 per year. The direct local financial impact of the facility will be around $1.2 million per year in increased payroll alone, with a $65,383 bump to local tax rolls.

Indirect local impact, according to the analysis, will be 47 jobs created within 24 months of the facility’s completion, with an average pay of $17.92 per hour.

The report estimates that in total, the facility could create over 200 jobs at the facility and in ancillary companies like delivery services and security firms, with a local financial impact of $5.8 million in salaries and $205,000 in tax revenue.

Jon Chadwell, director of the Newport Economic Development Commission, said the city is excited about Delta Medical Cannabis as “a new corporate citizen” in Newport. That said, Chadwell stressed that because the Newport Economic Development Commission is publicly funded, they offered no financial incentives to any of the 10 firms that filed applications for cannabis cultivation operations in the Newport area, including Delta Medical Cannabis.

“We know there are people in the community who might be morally opposed to the process,” Chadwell said. “So we didn’t feel it was fair to take money that they were spending at the stores to support economic development of something that they were strongly morally opposed to.” Chadwell said there was also the issue of marijuana still being illegal at the federal level.

“From a community perspective, it’s basically jobs, payroll and then the charitable contribution they give back to the community,” Chadwell said.

“We realize there are a lot of ancillary businesses that will come to our area because of this. There’s going to be transportation needs, security needs, things like that that will grow out of these industries. They may be new businesses or it may be some of our local businesses will be able to grow to meet those needs. We saw that as an impact and a benefit.”

Delta Medical Cannabis President Parker said that the company will construct an all-new, “state of the art” facility at 7301 Victory Blvd., near the ASU-Newport campus. The company CONTINUED ON PAGE 30 arktimes.com MARCH 8, 2018

19

Arts Entertainment AND

Five on the floor

For the 2018 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase finalists Friday, March 9.

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

T

his Friday, we gather in the name of local music to ring in the 26th year of the Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase, inaugurated in 1993 by the now-defunct Spectrum Weekly and handed over to the Arkansas Times in 1997. Past winners have included Ho-Hum, Ashtray Babyhead, Big Cats, Runaway Planet, The Salty Dogs, Hannah Blaylock and Eden’s Edge, 607, Velvet Kente, Brother Andy & His Big Damn Mouth, Tyrannosaurus Chicken, Holy Shakes, Ghost Bones, The Uh Huhs, Dazz & Brie and something called Grandpa’s Goodtime Fandango that, without evidence to the contrary, we’ll all just have to trust was an actual band and not a fledgling brand of instant lemonade mix.

We hope the 2018 showcase turned some local listeners on to music they might not have heard otherwise; DeFrance fans marveling at Mortalus’ shredding, the Sabine Valley crowd marveling at the ominous onslaught of Crankbait’s demon guitars, all of us marveling at the sheer amount of loud that All the Way Korean makes with drum, bass and vocals. Our judges — Robert Locke, vocalist for the Los Angelesbased band Fa r m i k o s , and also

Pavilion, a live spot at Musicfest El Dorado, a live spot at a reinvented Riverfest, a live spot at Low Key Arts’ Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival in Hot Springs, a Thursday Night Live performance at Griffin Restaurant in El Dorado, eight hours of artist development at The Hive Studio, a PRS SE 245 Standard 22 Electric Guitar from Sunrise Guitars and more.

Here’s a snapshot of the five bands and their answers to these questions: Help us understand where you come from, musically, by answering this, what three songs would you put on a playlist alongside one of your own? Name something nonmusical that would pair well with your band’s sound — a book, a movie, a city, a piece of art, cocktail, a garment, an animal, a pizza topping, etc.

co-owner and founder of Shindig Music, an online guide to music entertainment for Arkansas and the Mid-South; Sarah RECOGNIZER (Mike Mullins, Woolf, dedicated local music fan and Michael Mullens, J. Flatte, Steven Cook): creator of Follow the Woolf; Dazzmin Crunchy Foo Fighters-y rock for guitar (Dazz) Murry, multi-instrumentalist pedal nerds. and songwriter in Dazz & Brie and Check out: The video for “License The Emotionalz and master of the to Kill” on YouTube. hard crouch; and Brie Boyce, the “Brie” On a playlist with: “Temporarily vocal powerhouse half of Dazz & Brie, Blind” by Built To Spill, “Room A last year’s showcase champions — have Thousand Years Wide” by Soundgarden, narrowed the contenders down to five COUCH JACKETS (Brennan Leeds, “Toska” by Minus The Bear. bands: four that won their respective Ben Eslick, Hunter Law, Harry Glaeser): Pairs well with: A Mandelbrot set. rounds and one runner-up “wild card,” Songs in multiple movements; theremin, the top scorer in the pool of remaining ballpark organ and tinkly celeste sounds THE RIOS (Hayden Harrington, semifinalists. Joined by guest judge from the synth over funky stoner licks.

Brandon “Bear” Alanis, Brian Batterton, Bob Tarren, chief marketing officer for Check out: The video for “Rocket William Glover): The soundtrack to a Murphy Arts District and El Dorado Quaffle” on YouTube.

“Dance Dance Revolution” tournament Festivals & Events and shepherded by On a playlist with: “Unknown Mortal thrown by Gorillaz and James Jamerson emcee Traci Berry, the finalists will Orchestra” by Jello and Juggernauts, and the Funk Brothers. battle it out starting at 8 p.m. Friday, “STRFKR” by Kahlil Gibran, “Chamber Check out: The video for “What I March 9, at Rev Room. of Reflection” by Mac Demarco.

Need” on YouTube.

The winner’s prizes: cold hard cash, Pairs well with: Neon green water On a playlist with: The majority of an in-studio showcase at Capitol View guns and “Spy Kids 3-D.” our sound is influenced by the Motown Studio, a live spot at Patio on Park Hill records. I believe some of the best 2018, a live spot at the Arkansas JAMIE LOU & THE HULLABALOO recordings to exist rooted from that State Fair (Jamie Connolly, Garrett Brolund, Matt place. But besides that, “I Like It” by Bud Light White, Tim Pelton, Anthony Oswalt): DeBarge, “1999” by Prince and “I Wish Crescendoing, expansive I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” rock with a by Nina Simone.

Pairs well with: Somebody called it “furniture music.” So we will go with that.

BATTLE OF THE BANDS: Couch Jackets, Jamie Lou & The Hullabaloo, Recognizer, The Rios and Sabine Valley duke it out at the Rev Room on Friday night to determine the winner of the 2018 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase.

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ARKANSAS TIMES

frontwoman who summons “a lilting Judy Garland to full-on Joplin-esque wild child within the same song.”

Check out: The unplugged version of the band with the fireside “High Road” on YouTube.

On a playlist with: “Wooden Ships”

by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; “High and Dry” by Radiohead; “Muzzle of Bees”

by Wilco.

Pairs well with: Pineapple.

SABINE VALLEY (Mayra Valezquez, Oliver Powell, Favi Alba, Will Caig): Liz Phair aggro from a surprisingly young quartet with a live wire of a frontwoman whose energy occupies every square foot of the stage.

Check out: “The Temple” on YouTube (audio only).

On a playlist with: “Crockpot” by Slothrust, “The View from the Afternoon”

by Artic Monkeys and “Breed” by Nirvana.

Pairs well with: Colors. Each song has a different color.

ROCK CANDY Check out the Times’ A&E blog arktimes.com

Find great events and buy tickets at CentralArkansasTickets.com

A&E NEWS TWENTY-THREE YEAR OLD vocalist and Little Rock native Levelle Davison — stage name

“Davison” — advanced to the second of five rounds of competition on NBC’s “The Voice” last week with a sultry, downtempo version of The Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody.” Over the course of the show’s 14th season, the pool of competing artists will be narrowed to 12 performers. Follow Davison’s progress at nbc. com/the-voice.

THE INTERNATIONAL SENSATION THAT’S ABBA-SOLUTELY FABULOUS!

“EARLY BIRD” TICKETS for RiverFest, in Riverfront Park May 25-27, are on sale at riverfestarkansas.com, $35-$45 through March 31.

“In addition to a weekend of music,” a press release said, “RiverFest will be filled with fam-

ALREADY EXTENDED TO APRIL 15 – BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW!

ily friendly entertainment … carnival attractions with adult and kiddie rides … fair food and refreshments, vendors and family friendly activities, including meeting Disney characters.”

A music lineup has not yet been announced.

IN CONCERT ANNOUNCEMENTS, Metallica is scheduled for a date at Verizon Arena on Jan. 20, 2019; Big Boi makes a landing at the Rev Room on May 18; comedian Hannibal Buress

appears at the Rev Room on March 26; and Slayer performs at the Walmart AMP in Rogers with special guests Lamb of God, Anthrax,

LITTLE ROCK NATIVE Kristin Lewis, a Vienna-

MAMMA MIA!

based operatic soprano who began her studies at the University of Central Arkansas, hosts a concert for the 15 finalists in the Kristin Lewis Foundation’s 2018 vocal scholarship audition, 3 p.m. Sunday, March 11, at UA Pulaski Technical College’s Center for Humanities and Arts. The concert is free and open to the public.

THE OXFORD AMERICAN magazine’s 100th issue, on newsstands March 20, commemorates the history of the publication and follows a February announcement that it has been included

music and lyrics by BENNY ANDERSSON and BJÖRN ULVAEUS some songs with STIG ANDERSON | additional material by MARTIN KOCH book by CATHERINE JOHNSON | directed by JOHN MILLER-STEPHANY

among the nominees for the National Magazine Award nomination for General Excellence — an award the OA won in 2016. For a full table of contents, visit oxfordamerican.org/magazine.

ARKANSAS REPERTORY THEATRE MARCH 14 — APRIL 15 | THEREP.ORG | (501) 378-0405

ARCHITECTURE AND HISTORY NERDS, take

note: the Quapaw Quarter Association previews its annual spring tour of homes with a party in the Moxy Warehouse at 1504 Jones St.

PRESENTING SPONSOR

SPONSORS

at 5:30 p.m. Friday, March 9. Tickets are $35.

The tour takes place May 12-13 and features six

An Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association

homes in the Central High School Neighborhood on Schiller, Summit and Battery streets.

Visit quapaw.com for details.

For suitability suggestions, visit the content information section of our website or call the Box Office.

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arktimes.com MARCH 8, 2018

Sarah Daniels (Sophie) and Zane Phillips (Sky) in The Rep’s production of Mamma Mia!. Photo by John David PIttman.

Testament and Napalm Death on Aug. 13.

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LIST

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE AND LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

JEFF SCOFIELD

THE

THURSDAY 3/8

‘STRINGS ATTACHED’ 7 p.m. Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. $29.

‘STRINGS ATTACHED’: Vieuxchamp, Bach, Schoenberg and Vivaldi are on the bill at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral for Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s Intimate Neighborhood Concerts series.

Evidently, there are folks out there who find Belgian composer Henri Vieuxtemps’ melodies tacky and saccharine.

Fortunately, those people are probably off somewhere sniffing cult wines and polishing their monocles, and they aren’t in charge of programming the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s Intimate Neighborhood Concert Series. So, this yearning elegy for viola and piano gets a performance from ASO principal violist Katherine Reynolds in a cathedral space that’s acoustically fit to bring out the drama in every crunchy dissonance and suspension.

In one such place, the viola reaches across two octaves in a single phrase. In another, a cadenza about halfway through lands on the tonic note, giving the listener a sense of finality for about a millisecond before the piano objects with an aching, pleading G flat to launch the next section. It’s romantic music at its romantic-est, and it shares a bill with Adam Schoenberg’s floaty, translucent “Slo-Mo,” the second movement from the composer’s 2015 “Motio” for string quartet; Bach’s “Brandenberg Concerto No. 6 in B-flat Major”; and Vivaldi’s “Concerto for Three Violins in F Major.”

Student and military tickets are $10. SS

THROUGH 3/17

‘FOLLIES’

tempered with pathos and rosecolored retrospection. In 1971, two former showgirls, accompanied by If Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” the men they married and by ghosts doesn’t ring a bell, ask anyone you of their younger selves, attend a know who’s ever participated in a reunion with their former castmates heated argument about the merits in the theater they once strutted and demerits of “La La Land.” They’ll around in glitter, heels and ostrich likely know a thing or two about plumes, now dilapidated and slated this pseudo-pastiche to American for demolition. It’s about the ways theater between the World Wars. Or, we disappoint and delude ourselves, at the very least, they’ll know about and its terrifically difficult score, its composer and lyricist Stephen like many of Sondheim’s, has been Sondheim, who’s responsible for a the subject of infatuation from hefty (and often dark) chunk of the theater types for decades — no American musical theater canon: doubt the reason why this audition “Into the Woods,” “A Little Night call attracted some MVPs of local Music,” “Sweeney Todd,” “A Funny theater: Judy Trice, Kathryn Pryor, Thing Happened on the Way to the Claire Rhodes, Karen Clark, Jay Forum.” Here, Sondheim’s adoring Clark, Jessica Mylonas, Duane love letter to vaudeville glamor is Jackson, Bob Bidewell and more. SS 7 p.m. Argenta Community Theater. $30-$40.

FRIDAY 3/9

2ND FRIDAY ART NIGHT

5-8 p.m., downtown venues. Free.

March is the time to celebrate Women’s History Month, and the Historic Arkansas Museum does that with a show of artwork by largely unsung female Arkansas artists, “#5WomenArtists.” They are Jamie Goza Fox (1887-1979), Essie Ann Treat Ward (1902-1981, the “Grandma Moses of the Ozarks”), Elsie May Ford (19011977), Natalie Smith Henry (1907-1992, who did post office murals during the Depression) and Neppie Lee Conner (1917-2006, who taught art at the University of Arkansas). Charlotte Taylor and Matt Stone will perform. Also on

the 2nd Friday trolley route: The Cox Creative Center, which features figurative paintings by Henderson State University art professor Kathy Strause in a show called “New Rules”; the Butler Center, which opens the 48th annual “Mid-Southern Watercolorists Exhibition,” a juried show, with music

by Dave Williams and Friends; and the Old State House Museum, where you can catch some jazz by the Michael Carenbauer Trio. Also: Visit the studios of Larry Crane, Mike Gaines and Michael Dare at the Pyramid Building, and check out Bella Vita, McLeod Fine Art and the group pop-up show in The Rep’s black box theater. LNP

THURSDAY 3/8

WHISKEY MYERS

8:30 p.m. Rev Room. $20.

In a video detailing the making of “Mud,” Whiskey Myers’ latest, lead singer Cody Cannon and sound 22

MARCH 8, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

engineer Dave Cobb talk influences — Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd — and about how their quintet doesn’t record in the mornings, “because you can’t do rock and roll in the mornings. That’s stupid.” It’s keg-party country, with

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anthemic, crowd-pleaser choruses like the one on the album’s title track, which either describes a broken economy’s ruin or the flash-floodravaged roads Whiskey Myers drove on to get to this gig: “Daddy owed the

banker man / So we was drowning before the flood / That river washed us all away / And left us right here in the mud.” Muscadine Bloodline opens the show. SS

IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 3/8 Psych-rock heavy hitters Dead Meadow join Adam Faucett & the Tall Grass and Canaan for a show at the White Water Tavern, 8 p.m., $12.

Crystal C. Mercer performs for Poetry Night at Guillermo’s Coffee, Tea & Roastery, 6:30 p.m. Terror Pigeon, Ginsu Wives, Spirit Cuntz and Pissing Comets share a bill at E.J.’s Eats & Drinks, 9 p.m., $5. Activist, philanthropist, author and perfecter of the “skyhook shot” Kareem AbdulJabbar gives a free lecture at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, 7 p.m.

A.J. Marlin hosts a Comedy Bowl at The Joint Theater & Coffeehouse, 8 p.m., $10. High Waisted puts its sunny surf up on stage at Maxine’s in Hot Springs with Cold Front and Bull, 9 p.m., free. Comedian and former cartoonist Steve “Mudflap” McGrew goes for laughs at The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 10 p.m.

Fri.-Sat., $10-$15.

FRIDAY 3/9 A TRIBUTE TO ELLA: Actor and concert artist Capathia Jenkins is one of three vocalists to join the ASO this weekend in tribute to the “First Lady of Song.”

SATURDAY 3/10-SUNDAY 3/11

‘A TRIBUTE TO ELLA’

7:30 p.m. Sat., 3 p.m. Sun. Robinson Center Performance Hall. $15-$65.

FRIDAY 3/9

OPERA IN THE ROCK: TO THE NINES

6:30 p.m. Junior League of Little Rock Ballroom. $75.

This gala fundraiser for Little Rock’s opera company has a killer lineup of voices: the pure, nimble soprano of Kara Claybrook; the rich, velvety mezzo-sopranos of Nisheedah Golden and Satia Spencer; and the rich, warm baritone of Ronald Jensen-McDaniel. Come for the familiar arias — selections from “Porgy and Bess” and “Carmen ” — and stay for a preview of Opera in the Rock’s upcoming production of William Grant Still’s “Troubled Island,” an underperformed opera in three acts with a libretto by poet Langston Hughes. Still was a composer who graduated from M.W. Gibbs High School in Little Rock and went on to be called the “Dean of African-American composers.” SS

ZORAN ORLIC

Ella Fitzgerald would be 100 years old this year. The jazz singer’s influence is hard to overstate, as is the exceptionality of how she ever got there to begin with, having gone from the overcrowded Colored Orphan Asylum to being homeless to being told she was too disheveled and plain to be under the stage lights. Nevertheless, she basically reinvented vocal improvisation after the style of horns, and she did it with such facility and creativity that it’s nearly impossible for modern jazz singers to either imitate her or avoid imitating her. Here, a trio of seasoned Broadway singers — Capathia Jenkins, Aisha de Haas and Nikki Renee Daniels — pays tribute to Fitzgerald’s legacy in a concert with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. SS

LOW AT LOW KEY: Duluth, Minn., trio Low play an intimate concert at Low Key Arts in Hot Springs Saturday night.

SATURDAY 3/10

LOW

8 p.m. Low Key Arts. $20.

Depending on whether it was Jeff Tweedy or Steve Albini or someone else at the board, Low’s sound has ranged from slow burn to brooding pop to candlelight reverie.

That’s bound to happen when you’ve been at it for nearly 25 years — over a decade of those at Sub Pop Records. Low has become known for compelling live performances, many delivered with the audience sitting on the floor for maximum absorption. And, any name similarities aside, the intimate warehouse vibe at Low Key Arts in Hot Springs (118 Arbor St.) is an ideal environment to soak up the band’s strange harmonies, isolated bass lines and musical solidarity. SS

Club Sway hosts “an evening of burlesque, booze and bad behavior” for a Cabaret night, 9 p.m. Polyester Robot — members of Dirtfoot, Jamie Lou & the Hullabaloo and Opal Agafia & The Sweet Nothings — takes the stage at Four Quarter Bar, 10 p.m., $7. Hibernia Irish tavern hosts a comedy bill with the Shamrock Showcase, 8 p.m. The Dublin Guitar Quartet performs new classical works at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, 8 p.m., $10. Goldy Locks takes the stage at West End Smokehouse, 10 p.m., $7. Buh Jones kicks off the weekend with a happy hour set at Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m., free, followed by Canvas, 9 p.m., $5.

Northwest Arkansas-based combo Dana Louise & The Glorious Birds land at White Water, 9 p.m., $7. Bad Cop, The Merrows and Warm Trickle share a rock show at Maxine’s, 9 p.m., $7. The Cody Martin Band performs at Kings Live Music in Conway, with an opening set from Heath Sanders, 8:30 p.m., $5. The John Calvin Brewer Band performs at Oaklawn Racing & Gaming’s Silks Bar & Grill, 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat.; The Pink Piano Show is in the casino’s Pops Lounge, 5 p.m. Fri.-Sat.

SATURDAY 3/10 Country radio star Miranda Lambert plays Verizon Arena on her “Livin’ Like Hippies” tour, 7 p.m., $43-$78.

Songwriter Mark Currey plays a set at Core Public House, 7 p.m., and stick around Argenta for The Salty Dogs, who prove their twangy mettle on the cozy stage at Four Quarter Bar, 10:30 p.m., $7. J-Rod, Dee Dee Jones, Danny B, and Crissy CONTINUED ON PAGE 25

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THE

TO-DO

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BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE AND LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

FIGHT THE POWER: Handwritten Public Enemy lyrics and Stevie Wonder’s sunglasses are among the artifacts at the Clinton Presidential Center’s next temporary exhibit, “Louder than Words: Rock, Power and Politics.”

SATURDAY 3/10

THE CREEK ROCKS

8:30 p.m. Kings Live Music, Conway. $5.

MONDAY 3/12-SUNDAY 8/5

‘LOUDER THAN WORDS: ROCK, POWER AND POLITICS’

9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Sun., Clinton Center.

Politics and rock music have been intertwined since before we called it rock music, and the connections between the two realms delineate (and often, poke at) political divisions. See, for example, the end of Poulenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites,” or Ethel Smyth’s 1910 suffragette song “The March of the Women.” Or, the list of rockers who have called out Trump for using their music to campaign: Michael Stipe, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones. The Clinton Presidential Center, in curatorial collaboration with the Newseum and the Rock & Roll Hall of

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ARKANSAS TIMES

Fame, opens its newest temporary exhibit, “Louder Than Words: Rock, Power and Politics,” featuring “handwritten lyrics, stage costumes and instruments that have never been publicly displayed,” the press release said. “Music has provided the soundtrack for many of the important transitions in our country’s history,” President Bill Clinton said in that same release. “From the civil rights era to anti-war movements to the fight for women’s equality and LGBTQ rights, singers and songwriters have rallied us together in common cause and inspired us to move our country forward.”

The exhibit, he said, “will take you on a six-decade journey that explores the power of music to challenge assumptions and affect social and political change.” SS

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For fans of Almeda “Granny” Riddle or Jimmy Driftwood, do yourself a favor and give The Creek Rocks half-album, half-musicology project “Wolf Hunter” a spin. The collection draws traditional Ozark tunes from two folklorists: John Quincy Wolf of Batesville, where The Creek Rocks’ Cindy Woolf was raised; and Max Hunter of Springfield, Mo., where Mark Bilyeu (formerly of Big Smith, now of The Creek Rocks)

grew up. The two are 15 years into their musical partnership and five years into their marital one, and the crystalline sounds on “Wolf Hunter” are as immaculate a mission statement as I can imagine for the duo — and as euphoric as I imagine songs can possibly be when their subject matter ranges mainly from marmots to muskrats. For a primer, cue up “Groundhog,” an Appalachian traditional that, in this particular key, showcases Woolf’s pitch-perfect delivery and bone-chilling holler. The Going Jessies open the show. SS

TUESDAY 3/13

AVGUSTE ANTONOV

7 p.m. St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, NLR. Free.

It’s not that often a concert pianist counts “Administrator for Lords of Clan Tribe” or “Moderator for 24-HR Gaming” among his accomplishments, or that Billy Joel’s “Fantasies and Delusions” makes an appearance on the list of possibilities for concert programming. Avguste Antonov, a Belgian-born pianist who performs and lectures in the United

States these days and beats people at online chess in his spare time, does both. Even cooler, Antonov doesn’t stick to crowd-pleasing classics like Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” or Chopin’s “Minute Waltz” — the “Freebirds” of solo piano repertoire. He’s a champion of living composers like Carter Pann, Raina Murnak, Matthew Lewis, Till Meyn and others, and he gives a free concert at St. Luke’s this week as part of the church’s “Festival of the Senses” concert series. SS

IN BRIEF, CONT.

AN ARKANSAS LOVE STORY, WITH NINJAS: El Dorado native Qui Nguyen’s “Vietgone” goes up at TheaterSquared in Fayetteville.

WEDNESDAY 3/14SUNDAY 4/8

‘VIETGONE’

7:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun. Studio Theater, Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville. $17-$47.

“An Arkansas love story. With ninjas.” That’s the tagline that accompanies this production of “Vietgone,” Qui Nguyen’s tale of how his parents — two of the 50,000-plus refugees that were relocated to Fort Chaffee after the fall of Saigon in 1975 — met and fell in love. The story was, Nguyen told NPR, difficult to extract: “Anybody coming from a tumultuous situation like the Holocaust, Vietnam or Syria — they often don’t want to talk about it,” Nguyen said. “So the first thing I did was get my dad drunk a whole lot, and that kinda freed up the chops a little bit. But what really got them talking ... is that Asian parents really hate the idea of their kids being dumb. So I pretended to be dumb and say things like, ‘Oh the Vietnam War was a war between Vietnam and France, right?’ And they’re like, ‘No, that’s wrong! Why you so stupid?’…

And they told me not to put it in, but I did, because I’m an asshole.” “Vietgone” is Nguyen’s mostly-true origin story, complete with 292 bars of hip-hop and rap, stoner sex and — in keeping with the playwright’s penchant for mashing up drama with a comic book aesthetic — a vivid 1,700-square-foot, hand-painted set by designer Chika Shimizu. Kholoud Sawaf, a native of Syria who’s working with TheaterSquared to develop an adaptation of “Romeo & Juliet” set in contemporary Damascus, Sawaf’s hometown, directs. SS

P. perform at South on Main for “Thoroughbred: The Black Derby Brunch,” $15-$35, see Eventbrite for tickets. Little Bandit joins Elise Davis for a bill at South on Main, 9 p.m., $10. Discovery Nightclub’s drag show goes for a comic book theme with “Superheroes vs. Villains,” with performances from Dominique Sanchez, Taylor Madison Monroe, Abs Hart, Victoria Rios, Chloe Jacobs, and Cassandra Rae, 9 p.m. Steve Boyster plays the happy hour set at Cajun’s, 5:30 p.m., free, and later, the Shannon Boshears Band takes the stage, 9 p.m., $5. The B-Flats play a show at Hibernia Irish Tavern, 8 p.m. Living Hour, Look Vibrant and Polly’s Pockets share a bill at The Cavern in Russellville, 9 p.m., $3-$5 suggested donation. Break and Enter, MisManage and Good Monday share an allages heavy bill at The Sonic Temple, 8 p.m., $5. The Irie Lions put reggae sounds on the stage at Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9:30 p.m., $6.

Charlotte Taylor performs a solo set at Cregeen’s Irish pub in Argenta, 8 p.m., free. Haywood King performs at Gigi’s Soul Cafe & Lounge, 8 p.m., $15-$20. Better Than Ezra vocalist and guitarist Kevin Griffin plays a set at Rev Room, 8:30 p.m., $25. Space Dingus, Escape Tones and Elephantom share a bill at Maxine’s, 9 p.m., $5.

OPERA ON THE ROCKS IX Friday, March 9th, 6:30 p.m.

Junior League of Little Rock Ballroom FOOD & DRINK

Genral Admission $75 Table of 8 $525

SILENT AUCTION

Tickets & Info

www.oitr.org

OPERA FAVORITES

870-219-4635

www.centralarkansastickets.com Proceeds from the event benefit Opera In The Rock which is a 501(c)(3) organization whose goal is to produce main stage professional opera in Central Arkansas.

SUNDAY 3/11 Alabama-based Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires bring the blue collar gospel to White Water Tavern with an early show, 7 p.m. The Muses perform Irish and English ballads at Garvan Woodland Gardens, 3 p.m., $35. Michigan rock band Pop Evil gets loud at Rev Room, with Palaye Royale and Black Map, 7:30 p.m., $20-$25. Winter Jam 2018 features Christian artists Skillet, Kari Jobe and Building 429, 6 p.m., $15 at the door.

Stone’s Throw Brewing holds a Vinyl Brunch with Arkansas Record & CD Exchange, 11 a.m.

YOU’LL HAVE THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE

MONDAY 3/12 The Chris Parker Trio, jazz vocalist and educator Dr. I.J. Routen and Mused perform for Eclectica ’18, a fundraiser for the LRSD Artistry in the Rock Scholarship Fund, 7 p.m., $15$25. Bloomberg News Senior Editor John Hechinger gives a talk on fraternity culture at the Clinton School of Public Service, “True Gentlemen: The Broken Pledge of America’s Fraternities,” 7 p.m., free.

WEDNESDAY 3/14 South on Main hosts a Songwriter’s Round with Nick Brumley, Mark Edgar Stuart and Jed Zimmerman, 8 p.m., $10.

MARCH 17-18 Welcomed By

ROBINSON PERFORMANCE HALL

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Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’

PURPLE MILKSHAKES ARE coming to North Little Rock, the president of The Purple Cow has announced. The Cow, which has been serving up milkshakes, malts, salads and hamburgers in Little Rock since 1989, will open a new restaurant in North Little Rock, at 4201 Warden Road, in the Dillard’s Department Store parking lot. There are adult beverages on the menu as well: beer on tap, a first for the Cow, and a signature cocktail to be unveiled when the restaurant opens in the fall.

Purple Cow locations include the original on Cantrell, one on Chenal Parkway, one in Conway in the Hendrix Village and one on Higden Ferry Road in Hot Springs. Purple Cow President Ken Vaughn said the deal to open in North Little Rock was made with Dillard’s, which has also agreed to lease part of its lot to Tacos 4 Life, also opening in fall.

THERE WILL BE food, fun and workspace up thar in The Holler, Bentonville’s Ropeswing Hospitality Group has announced. Tenants in The Holler, a 10,000-square-foot building that will open this summer at the south end of the 8th Street Market, include Brightwater: A Center for the Study of Food, Bike Rack Brewery, Markham & Fitz Chocolate Makers and Yeyo’s Mexican Grill. The Holler will also include workspaces with high-speed internet, coffee shops and three in-ground shuffleboard courts, Northwest Arkansas’s answer to curling. Rob Apple, founder of Ropeswing, which also operates Pressroom, The Preacher’s Son and Undercroft, said in a press release this week, “We hope our guests will use this space to camp out and work, meet friends, start a business or join us for live music.” The company also operates the event space Record at 104 SW A St. in Bentonville.

KAT ROBINSON, A FORMER Eat Arkansas blogger for the Arkansas Times, puts pie on the table in a new AETN production: “Make Room for Pie: A Delicious Slice of The Natural State,” premiering at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 8. Robinson highlights The Skillet Restaurant in Mountain View, Big John’s/Tacker’s Shake Shack in Marion, Lindsey’s Hospitality House in North Little Rock, Miss Anna’s and Ed Walker’s Drive-In in Fort Smith, Sweet Treats Sandwich and Pie Shop in Lamar and other eateries. In the studio with Robinson for the premiere will be Patti Stobaugh of PattiCakes Bakery, Sharon Woodson of Honey Pies and Charlotte Bowls of Charlotte’s Eats & Sweets.

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ARKANSAS TIMES

BOWLED OVER: The mala beef shank casserole offered up tender meat, tofu and vegetables.

Sushi to the rescue Rolls are a bright spot at A.W. Lin’s

A

.W. Lin’s has been around long enough, going on six years, to become an institution in The Promenade at Chenal. It has an interesting atmosphere, somewhat of a mix between chain and local, having sprung from a group of Nashville, Tenn., restaurants in which the owners used to have a stake before moving to Little Rock. It’s spacious, almost cavernous, and dimly lit. The attempted mood is fine dining, but with casual touches (the big-screen TV above the bar and big-box-store decor) that suggest a

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calculation toward mass appeal.

The menu, described as modern Chinese, sushi and Thai cuisine, boasts something for everyone, including a variety of small plates, bigger casseroles and familiar classics, like Mongolian beef and lo mein.

Encouraged by our waiter’s bragging on the sushi chef, we decided to start there. The “Tuna Lover Roll,” spicy tuna and “crunchy” (bread crumbs), topped with white tuna, red tuna and albacore, was light and delightful ($12). The spicy tuna inside was exactly that. The heat creeps up on

your tongue ever so slightly after the bite is long gone. A light sprinkling of tiny, crispy fried onions made for a nice touch of texture and the “chef’s special sauce” — an orangey-brown drizzle — added umami.

We had less luck with the “Beijing Style Duck Lotus Buns” ($6). We had been warned by our server that this dish was not his personal favorite: not enough duck, he said. He was right about that, although it wouldn’t have been our primary complaint.

The steamed buns were pillowy and tasteless, dotted on one side as if from a package. We could have done with less of that, maybe by half. Inside, the duck was a bit overdone. The green onions and cucumber, along with a touch of hoisin sauce, were tasty enough but could hardly lift the weight they’d been given to carry.

For the main course, the pork spare ribs with garlic sauce ($15) offered little in the way of redemp-

BELLY UP

Check out the Times’ food blog, Eat Arkansas arktimes.com

A.W. Lin’s Asian Cuisine tion. We expected a small rack of The Promenade at Chenal braised spare ribs, maybe with a crispy, spicy, oven-finished crust. 17717 Chenal Parkway 821-5398 Instead we were very surprised to awlins.com see only a plateful of battered, fried and bony chunks. The ribs had been Quick bite cut into bits — bone, fat and all — and deep fried. “Difficult to eat” is under- The sushi never let us down and the chef is flexible. Try the Snow Mountain stating it. Every bite was a guess, the Roll ($12). It’s a roll filled with tempura fried batter having rendered meat shrimp and topped off with shredded and fat indistinguishable. The only snow crab meat. We requested an addition of avocado and cucumber, way to tell the difference was by which they happily arranged. It’s a touch. The edible pieces we were hearty roll, with plenty of flavor. able to pinch off were quite tasty, but left us with greasy fingers.

Hours The mala beef shank casserole 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sunday through ($15) was listed as a chef’s special, Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. and special it was. It packed the most f lavor of any dish we tried.

Other info Beef shank, tofu and vegetables Full bar. Credit cards accepted. were cooked in a small casserole until everything was tender. The mala sauce is an absolute vision. It was rich and brown and carried a deep, spicy f lavor that lingered on We were itching to like A. W. Lin’s, the tongue. The presentation of the given all we’d heard about the resdish was great, too, contained as it taurant over the years and the occawas in its own little pot and topped sional picture we’d see pop up on off with a hearty sprinkle of fresh social media. Our meal had its bright cilantro. However, as far as we could spots — the mala sauce and sushi tell, the dish lacked the advertised chief among them — but ultimately tofu and the only vegetables we could we left deflated. It has been reported taste or see were a few carrots. The elsewhere that a new location is on meat, though tender, was fatty and the way and a menu change is afoot. probably could have done with a lon- We’re hoping the former will bring ger cook to render some of it away. renewed focus to the latter.

serving better than bar food all night long

March

9 - Polyester Robot 10 - The Salty Dogs 14 - Ellen Cherry / Andrew Grimm (7pm - free show) 16 - GREEN JELLO 17 - Cajun St.Patty’s Day w/ Dikki Du and the Zydeco Krewe 23 - Red Oak Ruse Open until 2am every night!

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TV REVIEW

A

fictionalized account of the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” trial, which resulted in John T. Scopes conviction for teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to a high school science class contrary to a Tennessee state law.

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BEST PICTURE: Director Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” was named “Best Picture” and scored wins for its production design, directing and musical score.

The year of the merman An Oscars postmortem.

BY SAM EIFLING`

T

he Oscars this year exemplified the adage about compromise as an arrangement in which all parties walk away disappointed. The big winner was “The Shape of Water,” a fine movie with a fine cast made by director Guillermo del Toro, whose freaky arty weirdness inched right up to the line of the Academy’s idea of palatable without quite stepping over it. Not many were clamoring for “The Shape of Water” as Best Picture when they walked out of the theater; even in the weeks leading up to the awards, the general consensus seemed to be that the kinkily sweet Cold War fairy tale about a mute woman hooking up with an Amazon merman was almost a sure thing on the collective basis of its 13 (!!) nominations, more so than on its overall merits.

But whaddya gonna do in a year

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ARKANSAS TIMES

when nothing in the real world seemed very real anymore? What a year it was for middlebrow escapism that provided respite from the steady drumbeat of Washington news — a collection of headlines and Trump tweets that, together, sounded like Tom Clancy by way of the Farrelly brothers, one MikePence-accidentally-drinks-piss-at-Mara-Lago chyron away from evolving into actual, literal farce. Except there was so much cruelty in the machinations as well: Congress and the president attacking health insurance for the poor and environmental regulations and anyone agitating for civil rights and workers and anyone who doesn’t fuel up private jets on the regular. One of the quiet, genius strokes of Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” another Best Picture nominee that won in the sound categories, was its iconoclastic choice to show virtually no Nazis in a World War II film. (And yet, I don’t believe anyone in

8:12 a.m. Friday, Kollective Coffee and Tea

TWO WHEELS. ZERO CARES. America would say 2017 was a slow year Up and the Trump-forced reckoning for seeing Nazis represented on screen.) that we’re all fighting through — the Could be that “The Post” was too most important movie of last year, on-the-nose, putting Tom Hanks and even if it fell shy of Best Picture — was Meryl Streep and Steven Spielberg undoubtedly “Get Out.” In a mostly against the forces of U.S. governmen- dull Oscars year, and on a mostly tepid tal secrecy, and that “Lady Bird” was Oscars broadcast, Jordan Peele’s win for just too low-stakes, ultimately; both Best Original Screenplay was the only Best Picture nominees were shut out jump-off-the-couch-and-clap moment entirely. “Three Billboards Outside Ebb- of the night. He’s the first black screening, Missouri” was perhaps the best- writer to win that award. acted of the darlings. Sam Rockwell and Appropriately, Peele thanked people Frances McDormand both won for a who bought tickets to see the $4.5 milmovie that otherwise seemed to rankle lion flick that grossed a preposterous people as being tone-deaf on race and $255 million worldwide: “I love you for sort of generically Middle American. shouting out at the theater, for shoutThe seeming wild card to me was “Call ing out at the screen.” This is the film Me By Your Name,” which I saw at a people haven’t stopped talking about midnight showing the night before the since it came out early last year, not least awards, hoping to be struck through the because it gets better on repeat viewheart by a story about a teenager fall- ings. The script was a Rube Goldberg ing in love with Armie Hammer, who machine, full of trips and switches and looks like his genes were selected by a tiny callbacks and allegory and actual focus group. It was beautiful and sen- jokes. Oh, and it delivered a scathing sual and had Sufjan Steven’s “Mystery critique of race relations in America of Love,” also nominated, as pithy an in a way no one ever had. More peoemotional distillation of the film as you ple loved it than “The Shape of Water,” could hope to hear. and despite the cross-species sexual But “Call Me By Your Name,” too, themes of the eventual winner, “Get Out” felt too low-stakes; one critique I heard freaked out way more people. Peele’s was that a movie about taboo gay love in film should’ve won, but at least he, the the ’80s didn’t need to go quite so well screenwriter, did. The Oscars do still for the characters involved. The film get it wrong — just less so than usual. that in the era of #MeToo and Time’s It’s a start.

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COVER STORY, CONT.

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has the option to buy 11 acres there, experience in cannabis cultivation in Parker said, but will likely only need other states where medical marijuana is 4-5 acres, where it will build a secured legal. He was coy when asked one of the structure of between 22,000 and 30,000 biggest questions currently hovering square feet, “designed for expansion if over the Arkansas cannabis industry: needed.”

How his firm will import cannabis “We hope to close on the property seeds or immature plants to the state in the next 30 to 45 days,” Parker said. to get cultivation started, when it is “I would optimistically say we’ll be against federal law to move any amount breaking ground shortly thereafter. of marijuana through a state where We hope to be fully operational by the cannabis is still illegal — as it is in every end of this year. Sometime in the fourth state that borders Arkansas. quarter and hopefully by the end of “That’s proprietary information,” the year, we’ll have product available Parker said with a laugh. “It’s like that to sell to dispensaries, assuming that crystal ball. I also have a magic wand.” the dispensary licenses are issued and Delta Medical will donate 10 percent there’s somebody to sell it to.” Parker of its annual profits to charitable causes, said that his “crystal ball” on that with 70 percent of those funds dedicated information was a little cloudy, however, to launching and maintaining the noting that members of the Medical Northeast Arkansas Learning Initiative, Marijuana Commission said last week that will, according to the company’s that it would require “several months” application, “provide opportunities for to score the dispensary locations. Parker low-income children to attend quality said that waiting for dispensaries to be early-childhood education programs” built won’t slow his firm down much in by providing scholarships to “quality the short term, but it might have some preschool” programs for 3- to 5-yearimpact on their pace long term. olds, providing mentors to parents who “We are proceeding with all participate in the program, and making deliberate haste right now,” he said. grants in participating preschools.

“We’re going to operate under the The program is modeled on a similar assumption now that as soon as we can program in Minnesota, and will operate get our building built and approved” only in Jackson County for the first there will be places to sell the Delta five years. After that initial period, the Medicinal Cannabis crop. program will expand to other counties Like every other cultivator approved in Northeast Arkansas. Delta Medical by the Medical Marijuana Commission, has also pledged to work with all Delta Medical Cannabis will grow rehab facilities within a 75-mile radius indoors under carefully controlled of Newport, and to provide training, lighting, nutrient and watering speakers, presentations, literature and conditions. Parker said Delta will be financial support to groups that work bringing in three consultants with deep to fight addiction in the area.

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You won’t believe how soft this tanned, Arkansas buffalo hide is. Very durable, perfect for either a rug or even a bedspread. A friend has one in her ultra modern downtown tower condo. We have ours in our log cabin. It works in a surprising variety of home or office environments. $1,400 Buy Direct From the Farmer!

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SPECIAL THANKS TO:

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2018 ARKANSAS TIMES RESTAURANT READERS CHOICE AWARD WINNERS AND FINALISTS

FOR SPONSORING OUR AWARDS PARTY.

READERS

CHOICE

A ARDS 2018 HOSTED AND FOOD PREPARED AND SERVED BY:

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Culinar y A rt s and Hos pitalit y Man agement Institute

Winners and Finalists announced in the March 15 issue