Arkansas Times - December 22, 2016 by Arkansas Times

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ARKANSAS TIMES

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DECEMBER 22, 2016

COMMENT

Arkansas’s top grantmakers I enjoyed reading Leslie Newell Peacock’s recent article about Arkansas’s top grantmakers. But our foundation is feeling a bit left out. The Blue & You Foundation for a Healthier Arkansas should appear on your annual list, coming in around No. 12 in your ranking. During 2015, we had assets of $47.3 million and awarded $3.1 million in health-improvement grants to organizations in Arkansas. Our foundation was created in 2001 by Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield to fund health-related programs solely in Arkansas. In our 15 years of grantmaking, the Blue & You Foundation has awarded more than $27 million to 1,036 health programs in Arkansas, in 176 communities and in every county of the state, except one (come on, Prairie County!) Thanks for continuing to recognize and report on the importance of philanthropy in Arkansas. Patrick O’Sullivan Executive Director Blue & You Foundation for a Healthier Arkansas

individual votes. But we are doing that exact thing and that’s just not something I can support. But I am sorry I was disrespectful to my mother. mountain girl

A winner in name only When this indirect election system started in 1789, the person receiving the most electoral votes became president and the runner-up got the vice president’s office. The 1800 election with President

From the web In response to the Dec. 19 Arkansas Blog item “Arkansas electors vote for Trump amid protests”: I don’t remember the exact year, but many years ago my mother was selected to cast a vote for the Arkansas Electoral College. Even back then, I thought it was a concept whose time had come and gone and I begged her to decline the position. She considered it an honor and when I refused to congratulate her, my dad intervened (not good!). I told him I would never support something that took power from the people and gave it to a select few. Hubby and I were having the Electoral College discussion last night and I told him what I did to my mother and that 30 to 40 years later, I still feel the same way. So what if there is a bigger concentration of people in California than Arkansas? That doesn’t make the people who vote in California any less significant, enough to diminish the value of each one of those 4

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

In response to the Dec. 15 nonprofit profile of Arkansas Women’s Outreach: Thank you, David Koon, for bringing attention to the dignity of homeless

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Fact check Whoa! Watch those decimals. In the report of Arkansas’s top grantmakers, the assets of the Walton Family Foundation are listed as $2.6 trillion. In fact, they are approximately $2.6 billion (at book value; about $3.1 billion at fair market value). Mike Watts Little Rock

Adams and Thomas Jefferson showed the problems with the system, so the Constitution was quickly amended so candidates have run specifically for president and vice president. By the way, in 1800 Jefferson became president and Aaron Burr vice president. How did that work out? Can you say “Burr-Hamilton Duel”? Cato

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women in Arkansas and for the information on how to contribute. Great article. I applaud Katy Simmons and Rachel Achor for seeing an overlooked need and doing something about it. Many people may just think of the male gender when they think of the homeless people in Arkansas. There has been an increase in the number of homeless women in Arkansas over the past two years. Women, who unfortunately find themselves a part of Arkansas’s homeless population, have basic, everyday needs, just like women who aren’t homeless. Personal hygiene is very important to improving peoples’ mental and physical health. Thank you, Katy and Rachel, for starting Arkansas Women’s Outreach and for doing something practical to restore the dignity and quality of life to Arkansas’s homeless women. ShineOnLibby In response to the Dec. 8 story, “Arkansas archeologist does his job, is asked to leave”: In this new age of Donald Trump, more of this will be going on until the Section 106 review process is completely removed as a requirement. Marc Henshaw You are hired to do a job. You perform exceedingly well in the job. You are fired from the job for doing so (excellent job performance). What does this say about the folks in charge of said employee? Maxifer This is what happens when a dilettante is made head of an agency requiring actual knowledge. I thought at the start that the director would be a disaster after my disappointing experiences with her as my city councilwoman. Now with the atrocious new headquarters building and yet another example here of failure to follow the most basic steps to preserve knowledge about the city’s past we see that we are getting what we voted for with Governor Hutchinson. All governors are guilty of patronage. But rewarding smart people who know their jobs and foolish people who just want to be in charge of something is quite a different thing. preserverob CORRECTION: The feature on the top grantmaking foundations in the Dec. 15 issue of the Arkansas Times had an error in the order of magnitude by 3, reporting the Walton Family Foundation wealth in the trillions rather than billions. For 2015, the family foundation reported assets of $2.6 billion and grant awards totaling $373 million.

ARKTIMES.COM/RESTAURANTS17

2017

STARTS NOV. 23

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DECEMBER 22, 2016

WEEK THAT WAS

Quote of the Week:

“I’ve never cast a vote I was prouder of.” — Bill Clinton, serving as an elector in New York, after casting a ballot for his wife in Monday’s Electoral College vote. Despite calls in some quarters for a widespread revolt against Donald Trump, all but two of the nation’s 306 electors pledged to Trump did indeed cast their vote for him, making him the official winner of the presidency. The two defectors voted for Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Texas congressman Ron Paul; it would have taken 37 such “faithless electors” to deny Trump victory. To add insult to injury, an unprecedented five out of Hillary Clinton’s pledged 232 electors broke ranks to vote for different candidates (one for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, three for retired Gen. Colin Powell and one for a Native American leader named Faith Spotted Eagle).

Contract chaos Governor Hutchinson said the state on Jan. 1 would take over management of seven juvenile lockup facilities after political maneuvering at the legislature held up review of a critical contract and threatened the possibility of “a government shutdown” (in Hutchinson’s words) when existing contracts for running the facilities expired Dec. 31. Two Arkansas-based nonprofit operators have held the contracts to run the seven lockups for many years. Earlier this year, they cried foul when the state Department of Human Services decided to hand over operations to another provider, an Indiana firm called Youth Opportunity Investments, for significantly more money on an annual basis — $22 million per year, as opposed to the current $13 million. The Arkansas providers convinced a number of legislators to decline to review the new contract with Youth Opportunity Investments, thus leaving the procurement process in limbo. After a legislative panel on Friday again did not review the contract, an exasperated Hutchinson announced late that afternoon that the state itself would manage the centers for at least the next six months while retaining their current 6

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

staff. That means the lockups won’t be left without funding come New Year’s Day, at least.

A tax cut for the rest (finally) The governor detailed his proposal for a $50 million income tax cut targeted toward low-income taxpayers, households making less than $21,000 annually. That income group was the only one left out of the previous $100 million cut pushed by Hutchinson in the last round of tax slashing, in 2015. Aside from basic fairness and decency, it makes pragmatic sense to focus any further tax cuts on the poor, since they’re likely to put an increased household income back into the consumer economy. Nonetheless, some Republican legislators are still unhappy; they want the cut to be bigger. Americans for Prosperity, the anti-tax organization funded by the Koch brothers, complained in a statement that the governor should be focusing on lowering its rate on wealthier residents. Hutchinson also wants to exempt military retiree income from the income tax, paid with effective tax increases for the unemployed and pur-

chasers of mobile homes and candy and soft drinks (see guest column, page 9).

Voter ID again State Rep. Mark Lowery of Maumelle has filed a bill to require a photo ID to vote in Arkansas. There is no evidence of voter identification fraud in Arkansas or elsewhere that necessitates this. The legislature passed an earlier voter ID law that was struck down by the Arkansas Supreme Court in an opinion written by the late Donald Corbin. High irony that Lowery would be back with vote suppression the day after Corbin’s death. The law now allows election officials to request a photo ID — and voters must give a valid address and signature to vote — but they may not be denied a vote or given only a provisional ballot simply for refusal to produce an ID. Why would this law pass muster when the earlier law did not? Three of seven justices said the last law could be struck down simply because it didn’t have the required two-thirds vote for changes in constitutional rules on voter registration. That shouldn’t be a problem with the overwhelming Republican

majority now. Four other members of the court held that the law was unconstitutional on its face because it created new requirements for voting, but none will be on the court next year.

Scrooges U.S. Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton and U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman released a statement protesting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ notification that it might use the former Ouachita Job Corps Center in Royal (Garland County) to house undocumented immigrant children who don’t have adult caretakers. Children spend, on average, 35 days in such sites, until they are released to a relative or other sponsor. They don’t attend school or get out in the local community. “This is irresponsible and against the wishes of Arkansans who were not consulted about this decision. HHS is unable to provide basic information about who may reside at this facility, where these immigrants come from, or how long this shelter will last, and the potential risk to public safety is enormous,” Boozman, Cotton and Westerman said in their statement.

OPINION

No on school tax

he Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce is busy back-room politicking and — again — supporters of democratic public schools should be wary. The chamber is calling in people who matter — I don’t mean me — to sell them on Little Rock Superintendent Michael Poore’s idea to call an election in the staterun school district to extend the current school property tax millage. It will be sold on the familiar library tax election model: This is NOT a tax increase. It’s just a little ol’ refinancing plan. That is, as ever, disingenuous. To raise $160 million more for school construction means adding 14 years of assessment of 12.4 mills in property tax pledged to construction, at a cost of $14 million to $21 million a year. On the high end, that’s more than a quarter-of-a-billion dollars in added taxes. Some construction is needed, particularly a new high school in Southwest Little Rock. But my vote today would be no because we have no guarantee that there will be anything resembling a Little Rock School District in 14 years. Look no farther than the legislature and

State Education Commissioner Johnny Key. They are in thrall of the Walton Family Foundation “school choice” movement. They, their paid lobbyists and sympathizers — including, significantly, the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce — drove the state takeover of the MAX Little Rock School BRANTLEY maxbrantley@arktimes.com District for testscore shortcomings at six of 48 schools (and for their contempt for the majority black school board). Key, who carried Walton legislation while a senator, has made clear that meeting the test score requirement is non-negotiable for the Little Rock School District to once again have its own school board. Meanwhile, Key and the nominal education professionals in his department continue to forgive worse performance by charter schools. Just last week, the Little Rock Preparatory Academy was given a three-year extension despite failure to come close to proficiency in test scores since the privately run school was founded

Dangerous kids

t is a habit one must stop, opening the papers and online journals each morning looking desperately for solace from a whole year’s unrelieved manifestations of hate arising from religious, racial, ethnic or simple cultural differences. Is this what we have become, as your only spawn tells you, or have we always been this way, only now emboldened by the election of a leader who exults in letting go of civil restraints? It is not just the published news, but the daily conversations about slurs and taunts at school or the shopping malls and the epithets and gestures from passing cars that seem to be moved by old bumper stickers, new ones from the last election, or just familiarity. This morning’s news was no different. An off-duty Turkish cop slays the Russian ambassador at an Ankara art exhibit to avenge the deaths of Syrian Muslims from Russian bombs. A man shoots three Muslims at an Islamic worship center in Geneva. A man hijacks a truck and slaughters a dozen Christmas shoppers and injures four dozen more on the streets of Berlin, where the govern-

ment, almost alone in Europe, has been hospitable to refugees from war and famine in the Middle East ERNEST and Africa. GovDUMAS ernments express horror and regret. All of us are either a little angrier or a little sadder. After Jan. 20, the chief executive promises to up the ante. What will he do when an explosive somewhere around the world rips a resort or a tower with his name emblazoned in five-story letters? Drop the big one? It is better to just follow the local news, far from the madding crowd in peaceful Arkansas, where legislators are assembling with no worse designs than to just punish gay, lesbian and transgender people or give businesses license to do it; women who want to end pregnancies; or blacks, immigrants or other poor people who might be getting access to too much medical care. But my attention was called to a statement released yesterday by half of Arkan-

in 2009. Yes, it targets poor black students. Yes, many of its parents seem to like the school. Yes, I’m sure intentions are good. But you could say the same about the “failing” schools, parents and teachers in the Little Rock School District, but they get no forbearance despite better test scores. Little Rock instead gets the lash. Key and the education establishment continue to approve expanded charter operations that take children away from the Little Rock School District absent any showing of superior academic results. The Waltons and the state pay for new charter school buildings in a district with an oversupply of classrooms and they wreck such notably successful schools as Carver Magnet on the East Side, within hailing district of the massively expanded eStem charter school. Legislative malice abounds. A bill will be introduced to allow firing Little Rock teachers without cause. There’s less concern about the uncertified teachers at charter schools. The agenda undoubtedly will include a broadening of school vouchers. Likely to return in some form, too, is the bill beaten in 2015 that would have allowed privatizing of the Little Rock School District. The so-called opportunity school district would have been mostly an opportunity for private charter operators to rake public tax money. It’s been a disaster in

other cities (Memphis and New Orleans, to name two). Georgia voters smelled this bad coffee and defeated it in an election this year. So. Do I want to approve a quarter-billion-dollar tax increase to build shiny new buildings that could be soon taken over by unproven charter school management corporations, at least one of which is known for advancing creationism in its science curriculum in another state? NO! And I can’t see feeling otherwise without a guarantee that 1) the Little Rock School District will be a true public school district with voters in control; 2) that the Southwest high school is the top construction priority, instead of something for kids in the chief Walton lobbyist’s preferred upscale neighborhood; and 3) the state will stop playing favorites in school accountability. I doubt Johnny Key, the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce or, most important, the Walton Family Foundation is prepared to make such a promise. I also know I am not alone in my ill feelings among traditional school tax supporters (diminished though we might be by age, transfer of support to charter and private schools, and a steady dose of LRSD poison in the daily newspaper).

sas’s congressional delegation — Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman and Rep. Bruce Westerman — telling President Obama’s Health and Human Services Department that Arkansas does not want any desperate immigrant children housed in Arkansas, not even for a few days until homes can be found for them. They explained that Arkansans are terrified of brown-skinned kids. They don’t frighten me, but I don’t live around Royal, the rural community west of Hot Springs where the children would be temporarily housed at the old Civilian Conservation Corps camp that was home to unemployed young men during the Great Depression and a Job Corps site for aimless young men in modern times. Since the Labor Department closed the Job Corps program the camp has been vacant. Health and Human Services has talked about using the old Job Corps barracks to house children from Latin America who have crossed the border in search of refuge from the gangs, sexual predation and desperate life in lawless regions of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. When unaccompanied kids get into the United States, they are taken to such shelters until permanent homes are found, usually with relatives. That is usually 35 or fewer days. But Cotton, Boozman and Wester-

man said the government was being irresponsible in telling Arkansans to have the kids only a few miles away, even for a few weeks. “The potential risk to public safety is enormous,” the brave Congress members said. Find a more suitable use for the abandoned wooded facility than desperate children, they said. It had not occurred to me before today that we had become such a fearful people that lonely children, unarmed ones to boot, would be a threat to community harmony. During the last big war, Arkansas housed thousands of Japanese Americans from the West Coast whom the FBI declared to be a fifth column of terrorists, although the governor at the time said they had to be kept behind fences and not allowed to work in Arkansas businesses. CCC camps of restless young men were actually welcomed and very popular in spite of the occasional rogues. But, of course, they were all white. I take heart from the fact that three members of the delegation — Reps. French Hill, Steve Womack and Rick Crawford — did not sign the alarm about Hispanic children in our midst, but perhaps I give them too much credit. Royal is not in their district and perhaps none of their business.

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DECEMBER 22, 2016

Intro to ANNN

he Arkansas Times was founded on $200 and a conviction that investigative reporting had the power to transform Arkansas for the better. We’ve stayed true to that mission for more than four decades, while also expanding our place in the community — as a source for breaking news and analysis online, a cultural compendium, a general interest guide to Arkansas life and a political refuge for progressives in an ever-reddening state. But the internet has upended traditional publishing models, which has affected not just the Arkansas Times, but news media everywhere. The leadership at the Times has proven time and time again to be adaptable, and we remain confident in our longterm future. But, with the exception of major outlets like the New York Times and NPR, most newsrooms, including the Times, cannot devote sufficient resources to do sustained reporting on complicated issues. That’s why, as a side project to my work as editor of the Times, I’ve founded the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network. ANNN is an independent, nonpartisan news project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans. With funding from grants and donations, it will hire writers, editors, fact-checkers, photographers, videographers and audio producers on a contract basis to cover a story or topic. Their reporting will then be distributed for free among statewide partners — likely including radio, TV, newspapers and websites — which will publish all, or localized parts, of it. Impact will be ANNN’s chief measure of success. We will only pursue stories that have the potential to bring about change. Since it will exist outside the bounds of a news product that has to maintain a regular publication cycle, ANNN contract employees will be able to proceed methodically, affording each project a rare depth of reporting and rigor in editing and fact-checking. The Times has employed a similar model in recent years, often with the help of a nonprofit partner. After the 2013 Mayflower oil spill, we joined with the environmental nonprofit InsideClimate News to raise almost $36,000 through crowdfunding and a grant. The team of reporters hired with that money, including Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth McGowan, filed more than a dozen major stories that ran in the Times and on InsideClimate News’ website. In 2015, the Times reported on the

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

“rehoming” of two young girls adopted by state Rep. Justin Harris with another family, where LINDSEY one of the chilMILLAR dren was abused. lindseymillar@arktimes.com In the wake of that story, the Times raised about $23,000 through crowdfunding and a grant to further investigate the state’s child welfare system. That money allowed us to hire Kathryn Joyce, an award-winning reporter based in New York City, who has twice traveled to Arkansas for extended periods. So far, she’s written five in-depth articles for the Times in a special series titled “Children in Crisis.” ANNN will launch with coverage of the 91st Arkansas General Assembly, with a special focus on education and tax issues. Legislation has already been filed, or is promised, that would greatly expand school vouchers, make it easier to fire teachers and administrators and allow private management corporations to take over certain school districts, including the Little Rock School District. The legislature will consider whether K-12 education, the largest share of the state’s budget, is adequately funded as required by the state Constitution. Increased funding for pre-K and moving higher education funding from enrollment-based to performancedriven also will be debated. All of these discussions will be steered by, and sometimes inform, the debate over how large a tax cut the state budget can afford (a cut of some size is seen as given). Ibby Caputo, of Newton County, will provide ANNN’s coverage from the state Capitol. Her journalism, essays and photography have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Cape Cod Times, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, theAtlantic.com and elsewhere. ANNN is a registered nonprofit in the state of Arkansas that, in its startup year, will operate under the fiscal sponsorship of the Fred Darragh Foundation. Local editors and I will volunteer our time to manage ANNN until funds become available to support a full-time editor-in-chief. To make a tax deductible donation to ANNN, visit arknews.org or make out a check to the Fred Darragh Foundation and mail it to the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, P.O. Box 250746, Little Rock, 72225-0746.

Help all veterans

elping veterans is a politically and morally safe goal for legislators at the Capitol, and bills intended specifically for that population come up repeatedly. Unfortunately, veteran-specific bills often miss the mark on helping the most sympathetic military families by focusing on retirement income. Only a fraction of veterans receives a pension, since most military members aren’t career soldiers and thus aren’t eligible. While veterans tend to do better financially than their civilian counterparts, about 8 percent still live in poverty in Arkansas, 361 are homeless and 19,300 depend on SNAP food assistance. Those struggling veterans generally are not the families of career soldiers who retire with pensions. State Rep. Scott Baltz (D-Pocahontas) wants to partially exempt retirement income from the state income tax for all veterans, and Governor Hutchinson recently indicated a plan to completely exempt military pensions from state income tax. The idea to make Arkansas more “veteran friendly” is a noble cause. However, Baltz estimates that his plan would benefit only about 24,000 retired veterans, fewer than a quarter of the retirement-aged veterans in Arkansas. Of the nearly 250,000 total veterans in Arkansas, about 90 percent would not benefit from this discount. Baltz’ bill would help some veterans, but not younger veterans starting new careers and those with families. Those currently working minimumwage jobs would get nothing. Thousands of the lowest-income veterans with retirement income lower than the $6,000 that is already tax exempt would get nothing. Many of the veterans who would not benefit from this bill are women and minority groups. Women are less likely to serve, but when they do, they experience poverty at much higher rates than male veterans. Disabled and nonwhite veterans also tend to live in poverty at higher rates than the general population of veterans. Many of these working veterans would not benefit from tax exemptions on retirement income right now, and are unlikely to end up with the big pensions that see substantial savings from a retirement tax discount later on. With this type of retirement income exemption, a veteran who returns from a tour of duty and takes a low-wage service

industry job to support his or her family would get no immediate benefit, while a retired Army ELEANOR engineer with a WHEELER pension would get the maximum benefit. Bills like this also intend to make Arkansas a more attractive place for veterans to retire. However, Arkansas is already gaining veterans. Our total veteran population increased between the years 2000 and 2015, while some neighboring states (Missouri and Louisiana) had decreasing veteran populations. We also have a higher percentage of retirement-aged veterans than our neighboring “no income tax” state, Texas. If your idea is to help veterans on paper or for political expediency, this is your bill. But if your idea is to help veterans that need help, there are better ways — like a state Earned Income Tax Credit. The first strategic difference between an EITC and a veteran retirement income exemption is that the EITC is targeted toward working families based on family structure and need. For every dollar you earn, your credit increases, until it plateaus and eventually tapers off as you move into a middle-class income range. The distinction is that it helps working families now and changes lives long-term. There are decades of evidence that EITCs have the ability to reward work, strengthen the middle class and reduce child poverty. The second major difference between a state EITC and a veteran retirement exemption is that the EITC also helps students, health care workers, construction workers and any low-income working family in Arkansas, regardless of military status. The families helped by this program just happen to include 32,000 of the most financially vulnerable veteran and military families. Giving veterans a break on their retirement income might be politically popular, but it misses the heart of the problem: making sure those who made sacrifices for our country don’t have to raise their children in poverty. Eleanor Wheeler is a senior policy analyst for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.

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arktimes.com

DECEMBER 22, 2016

PEARLS ABOUT SWINE

Joy in downing Longhorns

dmit it: You still get a charge out of watching an Arkansas Razorback team putting away anything in burnt orange, don’t you? Texas can be titans of the gridiron or also-rans on the hardwood and it doesn’t matter. There could be standing room only at the yard bearing Darrell Royal’s name or a paltry gathering at the Toyota Center and it doesn’t matter. On Saturday, the latter two, less-than-sexy circumstances were in place, and Arkansas played a sloppy, weirdly uneven game, and still won. And how’s this for a rich and unicorn-rare wrinkle: The Hogs won this game with rebounding competency (!) and free-throw prowess (!!) and next to nothing else. The Hogs were terrible from the perimeter, and Moses Kingsley had a positively horrid first half. They couldn’t even manage to turn the Longhorns over like they had anticipated doing, what with Texas having very little backcourt experience to speak of and almost no discernible depth. But in the end, what mattered was that Arkansas — yes, that program that has logged all of four NCAA tourney victories over the past 20 seasons — just simply wanted it more and looked like a contending brand of team doing it. You can, it seems, be 9-1 in late December and fly totally under the national radar. Arkansas missed a big chance by bombing its only true road game, losing by 14 to a decent but utterly flawed Minnesota team, so there’s probably no question that being 10-0 would put the team into the rankings. The wins don’t jump off the page on first glance, but the Hogs have knocked off some rather high-quality mid-major teams and done this without really looking all that cohesive, and with Kingsley generally faltering in his bid to make good on preseason Southeastern Conference Player of the Year acclaim. He’s not all that assertive offensively in these early stages, and that tentativeness nearly cost Arkansas dearly on Saturday in Houston. His scoreless first half, contrasted with lanky freshman counterpart Jarrett Allen’s productive and active opening frame, was essentially the sole cause for the Hogs falling behind and dragging a five-point ankle weight of a deficit into the locker room. Kingsley had two or three key 10

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

offensive series after halftime to possibly get his swagger back, but mostly he reestablished conBEAU trol of the game WILCOX at the other basket. The Longhorns slash a lot under Shaka Smart, very much akin to what the second-year coach’s best Virginia Commonwealth teams did, and yet Kingsley stayed anchored in the paint and thwarted numerous opportunities. The Hogs accordingly built ninepoint leads twice in the second half, but both times watched — and I do mean watched, because the complacency was evident — those leads shrink quickly and dangerously. The oddball occurrence was that the Razorbacks fended off anything resembling collapse by canning free throws at a record clip. The 29-of-31 showing was even more remarkable when you considered that the Hogs’ other shots were clanging away at a fevered rate, and that Dusty Hannahs was responsible for one of those misses (Trey Thompson had the other). Daryl Macon’s season-best 23 points was utterly modest from a floor perspective (4 of 12 field goals), but the transfer coolly nailed all 14 of his foul shots. Jaylen Barford, Arlando Cook and Kingsley added an aggregate 10 of 10. And it seemed like all of those 29 points were consequential, particularly because the Horns were only 19 of 32 on their tries. In a game where Texas flipped the proverbial script by attacking at both ends, Smart’s team paid the ultimate price for its aggression at both ends. Arkansas cashed in time after time on those precious one-pointers, and even with the talented Tevin Mack and freshman Andrew Jones combining for 37 points by scoring in all manner of ways, the Longhorns’ four free-throw misses in the last five minutes spelled the eventual outcome. Mike Anderson walked off the court visibility relieved, and with a sense of achievement. This has been a program with such well-documented struggles outside of the home arena that it no longer merits much analysis. And here was a game against a onetime rival, in its de facto backyard, where very little went right offensively.

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THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

Dear Santa

ll I want for Christmas is a wooden boat with a sail. A cozy cabin cruiser with saucer-sized portholes and a hotplate for heating up the grog and a little spoked wheel for The Cap’n to grimly lash himself to when it comes up a blow. Nothing so big as to warrant a carved naked lady on the prow — not so big that I wind up haunting pirate bars looking for scalawags to join my crew, with the aim of knocking over ski boaters on Ouachita or DeGray for their Igloo coolers full of Bud Light and soggy sandwiches, but nice sized, enough to have some legroom at least. A boat, anchored way up a shady inlet, far from responsibility and the cell phones I solemnly ordered dropped overboard as we cast off, seems like a hell of a good place to be right now. All I want for Christmas is for somebody to invent an assault rifle that shoots neon pink bolts of pure love, those models to be mixed in randomly with all the ones that sling plain old lead when they’re crated and shipped to the darkest heart of America. That way, maybe the next time some nut in his camo busts into an elementary school or mall or church or gay bar with a head full of skittering spiders that pass for thoughts, the result might be, for once, the opposite of a massacre. The people talking to the reporters outside afterward can say, “I seen the whole thing! It was BEAUTIFUL!” CNN’s crawl can read “12 hospitalized with uncontrollable giggles after mass shooting” instead of the nightmare residue that happens when projectiles meet flesh. The policemen whose bulletproof vests proved useless against a barrage of love can smile and shake their heads, sharing donuts and coffee with the dozens of blushing victims of the unprovoked act of senseless kindness, and the shooter, before they slap the cuffs on him and cart him off, can say: “You know, it wasn’t my intention, but I think I really helped some people here today.” All I want for Christmas is a president who is smart enough to know how to spell “unprecedented,” or at least smart enough to know how to run spell check. We live in an age of miracles, after all, where no one, not even the simplest and most addled bil-

lionaire, need ever misspell anything again. All I want for Christmas is for everybody to quit being so damn tribal about everything, giving each other holy hell on Facebook and Twitter over which sports team full of gazillionaires is best, Republican vs. Democrat, Ford vs. Chevy, Velveeta vs. cheddar or Baptist vs. Methodist. As if any of that is going to make a damn bit of difference a hundred years from now, when our great-great-grandkids thumb past our faded photo in whatever the digital equivalent is to the shoebox full of snaps you keep under the bed. Well, maybe the Republican vs. Democrat thing will matter, what with Greenland melting and the silos in the Dakotas still full of nukes. But unless you’ve got $20 million in your checking account so you can buy an hour of focused attention from some D.C. suit, there’s not a damn thing you can do about politics beyond a single vote anyway. So why call your neighbor an idiot about it? All I REALLY want for Christmas is for you — yes, you, that person who is feeling a little or a lot afraid and vulnerable right now, in this age when chaos seems to haunt the land — to know that I’m with you, no matter what you drive or who you love or what your politics are; that even though I don’t know you, I love you in the same, selfless way that people who barely knew me loved me once. I want you to know that though the world can be a dark and lonely place — a frightening place, a dangerous place, a place that can put your soul in peril — if you are ever in trouble, and I am there, I will do all I can to help until I can do no more. All you have to do is ask, and we will bear it together, whatever it is. How will you know me in a crowd, even though you might not know my name or face or gender? I will tell you how: Look for my strength, brother or sister, as I will look for yours. Look for the glimmer of my courage when the die is cast, as I will look for yours. Look for the one who sees you, as I will look for the one who sees me. Watch for me in that moment, my friend. Though you might feel alone, look for me and know: We are many. And together, there is nothing we cannot do.

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In step with America’s State Parks’ “First Day Hikes” health initiative, state parks around Arkansas will host guided hikes on January 1. It’s a great way to get outside, connect with nature, and start the new year on the right foot. Visit ArkansasStateParks.com for a participating state park close to home.

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arktimes.com

DECEMBER 22, 2016

Arkansas Reporter

THE

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

colorful and at times contentious public comment meeting unfolded last week before a subcommittee of the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission over the proposed Ten Commandments monument, culminating with Tony Leraris, an architect who serves on the three-person subcommittee determining a location for the monument, exasperatedly telling a speaker that the legislation as passed in 2015 makes the monument a done deal. That led some in attendance to ask whether they had wasted their time and effort in coming to speak to the subcommittee. Those who spoke in opposition to the monument included several longtime figures in the fight to preserve the separation of church and state in Arkansas, including Rita Sklar, the executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, who spoke three times; lawyer Anne Orsi; and lawyer Gerry Schulze, who asked the committee to stop the installation of the monument and thus avoid giving him “lots of money” in fees when the inevitable federal lawsuit is decided and the monument is taken down. The most colorful comments, however, came from rank-and-file Arkansans, including Robert Walker, who identified himself as a retired state employee who works sometimes as a dog sitter. Walker told the committee that as a member of the Arkansas Army National Guard for 23 years, he was one of those deployed to Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. Working as a medic, Walker said, he was assigned for weeks to an ambulance driven by young woman, who he called his “battle buddy.” In the course of their deployment, Walker said, he learned that not only had she served in Iraq, she was a Wiccan. “She deployed to Iraq,” Walker said. “She took a weapon and operated there. She served you, she served me, she protected us from our enemies. She was a Wiccan. Now the people in the legislature have decided to mark the state Capitol in a way that I find offensive. It is repulsive, it is offensive, it is slapping her in the face. She served you and me as a combat veteran.” Toni Rose, who identified herself as with the group America Speaks, spoke in favor of the monument, saying that America is a nation based on Judeo-Christian values. “You can’t deny the fact that

THE ACLU WILL SUE: The group’s executive director, Rita Sklar, promised.

Lawsuits and logic Members of the public made the case against the proposed Ten Commandments monument on state Capitol Grounds. BY DAVID KOON

Muhammad was not in the room with the Founding Fathers when they were trying to decide how to create the core values that would guide our nation,” Rose said. “They did not read the Koran as direction for the Constitution of the United States of America. I believe the Ten Commandments are as much a historical document to the United States of America as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.” Local musician and Arkansas Times contributor Jeremy Brasher began his statement by asking the subcommittee: “Do you want a Baphomet statue? Because that’s how you get a Baphomet statue,” referring to a competing proposal by the Satanic Temple to install a huge statue

of the goat-headed god if the Ten Commandments monument moves forward. Brasher said he has lived less than a half-mile from the Capitol for almost 25 years. He said that Little Rock is racially, economically, politically, culturally and religiously mixed, and erecting the monument would show preference for one religion over another. When he talks to friends about the monument, Brasher said, they often ask why legislators who support the statue don’t build it in their own districts. “Go build it where your base is!” Brasher said. “Go build it where the people who financed this statue live. Go build it on some private ground in Enola, or Conway, Pickles Gap, or Hindsville or Goshen

or wherever. Better yet, build it at your church and keep it there, where religious laws should be — at church.” Brasher went on to say that the part of the law that claims the erection of the monument should not imply that Arkansas prefers one religion over another is “ridiculously disingenuous.” “That’s like me putting up a sign that says ‘I’m the best!’ ” Brasher said, “and then me saying, ‘Look, just because I put up a sign that says “I’m the best” and I won’t let you put up a sign saying, “You’re the best,” doesn’t mean you aren’t the best, too!’ ” The sponsor of the religious display, Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway), also spoke, telling the subcommittee that their decision is not whether or not the monument should be installed. It’s about finding an aesthetically pleasing place on the Capitol grounds. Rapert said that much of the opposition he’d heard to the monument was “attempt to inject fear and intimidate the commission.” He then quoted from a SCOTUS decision upholding a longestablished Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capital grounds, in which Chief Justice William Rehnquist pointed out the numerous depictions of Moses, biblical figures and the Ten Commandments in the Supreme Court building and in Washington.

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As comments wore on, a speaker who identified himself as Jim Linsley rose to ask the commission what they see as their responsibility, saying: “I hope you’ll listen to what is logical, what’s reasonable, and what will benefit all of the taxpayers.” As Linsley left the lectern, a clearly exasperated Leraris, called him back, then asked: “Did you not hear what the Senator [Rapert] said about our job? The three of us were appointed to this commission to find a location. We did not vote for this, we did not vote against it. It was done in a prior session, it was signed by the governor. The three of us, plus six others, are on a committee to place this on the Capitol grounds. That is our job. So to sit here and say you need to deny this, you need to deny that, that’s not my job.” Asked what the goal of the public comment was if there was no chance of changing the outcome, Leraris answered, “Because it is in the laws to have this public discussion, and we’re obligated to show up and listen.” When asked, “To what end?” Leraris replied, “I don’t know.” “We are one of nine votes [on the full committee],” Leraris said. “We were appointed on this subcommittee for this purpose. This is our fourth trip down there, this is the public hearing. The granite statue has been proposed to us. We know exactly what it’s going to look like, we know exactly where it’s to be placed on the map, [decided] the last time. So we were asked to come down here for a public hearing. I think we’re giving you the time you all are due.” After more back and forth between Leraris and the speaker, subcommittee member Melonaie Gullnick spoke up to say that it’s incorrect that the hearing was “celebratory,” saying that offering an opportunity for public comment is in Arkansas state law. “Everyone’s comments mean something to us, but we can’t change the law at this point,” Gullnick said. At that, Schulze came again to the microphone, and reminded the subcommittee that they’d taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. “That is your obligation,” Schultze said. “If you are being asked to perform an act that violates the Constitution of the State of Arkansas or the Constitution of the United States of America, your oath requires you to refuse to take that act.”

THE

BIG PICTURE

What you read As we look back on 2016, we turn to our web analytics to see the Arkansas Times’ and Arkansas Blog’s most read stories of the year. Here are the headlines: Our coverage of Yellville’s annual “Turkey drop,” where Mountain View pharmacist Dana Woods drops live turkeys from an airplane, went viral.

1. Leslie Rutledge gets torched in national spotlight

2. Terrified turkeys to fall from the sky again 3. Donald Trump backs out of pledge, open to thirdparty run

4. The ballad of Fred and Yoko 5. McCain vows permanent gridlock on Supreme Court

6. John Walker and another lawyer arrested after filming police 7. Woman insulted by Fayetteville alderman responds — eloquently — on Facebook 8. Arkansas Supreme Court kills amendments on casinos, tort reform and approves medical marijuana amendment 9. ACLU investigating Mills High showing of “Passion of the Christ,” teacher’s classroom rant about ‘liberalism’ after complaints 10. Asa to LR: Drop dead 11. Former Sen. Dale Bumpers dies at 90 12. Tom Cotton: Today’s worst person in the world 13. Possible principal resignation at Parkview, then news of coaching shakeup 14. Arkansas legislator tied to fatal bus crash in Louisiana 15. Catholic High substitute teacher turns herself in on sexual assault warrant 16. Sen. Hester threatens game of “hard chicken” to “crash” funding for ARKids, the elderly in nursing homes and the disabled 17. John Walker rejects city apology for arrest during filming of police 18. Rutledge defends the slut- and fat-shaming Donald Trump. Blames Hillary. 19. Lawmakers consider delivering blow to school funding

A Fayetteville restaurant worker whose gender was questioned by Fayetteville Alderman John La Tour, a Tea Party conservative who was a strident opponent of the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance, penned a Facebook response that went viral. An Arkansas Blog item about Cotton blocking the nomination of Cassandra Butts to be ambassador to the Bahamas. Butts later died. She had waited more than 830 days to be confirmed.

The teacher, Greg Hendrix, was later fired.

Max Brantley’s column in the wake of the firing of Baker Kurrus as Little Rock School District superintendent by Hutchinson’s education director, Johnny Key.

Dr. Dexter Booth, principal of Parkview, told faculty he intended to resign. A source told the Times his unhappiness was related to William Hardiman, the school’s football coach, who was later fired and charged with sexual assault in a relationship with a former student. Booth did not resign. A company owned by Sen.-elect Dave Wallace (R-Leachville) rounded up a group of workers, apparently undocumented aliens, for flood relief work in Louisiana, including one with a poor driving record who was at the wheel in a fatal bus crash on Interstate 10. Two were killed, including a local fire chief, and 41 injured in the crash.

Erica Suskie, a former Catholic High teacher, later entered a negotiated plea to a reduced charge in a case of sexual contact with a high school student and received a probationary sentence.

Hester was threatening to block the appropriation for the Department of Human Services’ division of Medical Services to prevent the continuation of Medicaid expansion in Arkansas. He ultimately relented.

22. Leslie Rutledge, the absent attorney general

25. There Leslie Rutledge goes again; now she faults Hillary for Bill’s infidelity 20 years ago

21. New California law would restrict their government travel to Arkansas

24. The wizard of Wilson

20. Arrest warrant issued for Judge Wade Naramore after his son dies of heat in the back seat of Naramore’s car.

23. Little Rock police to drop charges against Walker, apologize

Will Stephenson’s profile of Fred Arnold, one of the world’s foremost Beatles collectors, who died homeless on the streets of Little Rock.

A compromise proposal later emerged, though it fell short of what legislative researchers recommended to achieve the constitutionally required adequate education.

Naramore was later acquitted of negligent homicide in the hot car death of his young son.

California now has a law that prohibits state agencies and the state legislature from requiring any of its employees to travel to a state that discriminates against LGBT people.

David Koon’s cover story on Wilson (Mississippi County) and Gaylon Lawrence, the businessman who bought most of the commercial property in the Delta town and all of the surrounding farmland in 2010.

arktimes.com

DECEMBER 22, 2016

Best and worst 2016

BY DAVID KOON | ILLUSTRATIONS BY JUNE PHAM

onestly, it’s hard to imagine a bigger dumpster fire of a year, short of the one in which a giant asteroid careens out of the dark like a drunken prom king in his mom’s Hyundai and smashes the Earth to smithereens. Prince died, for chrissakes! Bowie, too. Alan Rickman. Muhammad Ali. Merle Haggard. Harper Lee. Leonard Cohen, Gene Wilder and John Glenn. Nancy Reagan died, too, if you see that as a tragedy. Fidel Castro, ditto. Glenn Frey, ditto. A lot of people died, OK? Just like any other year, only this year was the turd sun-

dae that wound up topped with a poison orange cherry on Nov. 8. Somewhere, years in the future, the time traveler who screwed up our timeline to the point we elected a sociopathic game show host with the temperament of a particularly shitty 3-year-old is getting a royal chewing out by the head honcho of the Chrono Cops. Let’s hope his supervisor can go back and unscrew this dim bulb, before the whole planet trips down the stairs. Anyway, even though 2016 seems to be The Year of the Unexpected, we’ve been

doing Best and Worst for too long to turn it into just The Worst and Worst, so what follows is a nice mix of the two. From plummeting turkeys to Waffle House hairdos to #broadwaybridgestrong, from politicians stumping to lead the wrong Fayetteville to sympathy for the poor devils caught up in Sherwood’s version of Dante’s “Inferno,” this one has a little bit of everything. Hold on to your shorts, though. Something tells us next year’s Best and Worst, if we all survive long enough to write or read it, is going to be a doozy.

Best actual event that sounds like the setup for a joke

Worst scattered, smothered, covered, chunked and hairy

Worst trend

In January, a video went viral that featured two employees of the Waffle House in Forrest City washing their hair in the kitchen of the restaurant, in full view of the dining room, with one of the women dunking her dreadlocks in a pot filled with steaming hot water only a few feet from the grill. The two employees were reportedly fired.

Second worst Waffle House-related news In September, police announced that a Waffle House restaurant near the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport was robbed twice in a single 24-hour period by two different gunmen.

Worst use of accounting unrelated to Wall Street

During a July 14 tornado warning in Pulaski County, former President Bill Clinton, former President George W. Bush and former British

Shortly after the photo of the student dressed in blackface at UCA came to light, another Halloween party photo went viral of Blevins (Hempstead County) School Board Member Ted Bonner in blackface, wearing a straw hat and holding a sign that said “Blak Lives Matter.” After calls for his resignation by the NAACP and others, Bonner told KATV, Channel 7, “Everybody dresses in a costume. I didn’t know there was no such a thing as blackface. If I step down, I’m just getting what these people want. I mean, I’m standing up for my rights as a United States citizen.”

Best champion of the First Amendment

The NAACP showed up in force at the December school board Animal cruelty charges were meeting in Blevins, with someone filed in February against a Georeventually calling the local sherfor an event at the Clinton Presidential Center, gia man after a video emerged of iff’s office in the hopes of having him beating a live deer with a large those there to criticize Bonner all sought shelter in the basement of Little accounting textbook in the backremoved, but Hempstead County seat of a car. The man told authoriSheriff James Singleton told those Rock Central High School. ties that he and three friends were calling for NAACP members to get driving near Stuttgart when they the bum’s rush, “It’s their First struck the deer. The three put the Amendment rights. They have deer in the backseat, apparently those rights. There’s really noththinking it was dead. Soon after, ing we can do unless somebody’s the animal regained consciousness, at which Worst “We’re gonna party like it’s causing a disturbance. There’s been no distur1899” time the man attempted to beat it to death bance. People have acted responsibly. That’s it.” with the book. The University of Central Arkansas chapter of Sigma Tau Gamma fraternity was suspended Worst ‘looner’ Worst dinner companions by the national organization in October after In February, a teacher at Warren High In a trailer released in February for a docphotos surfaced on social media of a white School was fired after parents complained umentary about him, University of Arkansas member of the frat attending a Halloween they’d seen him on a cable TV program disfootball coach Bret Bielema said of the lengths party in blackface, apparently in an attempt cussing the fact that he was a “looner,” someto dress as Bill Cosby. The student was later one who derives sexual pleasure from touchhe’s gone to recruit players, “I’ve had to have ing latex balloons. dinner with a parrot, I’ve had dinner with a expelled from the school, with UCA Presimonkey. … He didn’t sit with us at dinner, but dent Tom Courtway calling the photo “highly he was bouncing around.” offensive and repulsive.”

Prime Minister Tony Blair, who were in town

Best holding on loosely In the dog days of July, Bobby Capps, keyboardist for the Southern rock band 38 Special, in Hot Springs for a gig at Magic Springs theme park, sprang into action when he looked out the window of his hotel and saw an elderly woman having a seizure near the pool. According to a post on the band’s Facebook page, Capps rushed outside and jumped a fence to reach the fallen woman before moving her to a chair and running inside to call 911. The woman was transported to a hospital for treatment, and EMTs who arrived on the scene said Capps probably saved her life. arktimes.com

DECEMBER 22, 2016

Worst grasp of U.S. history since 1890 (and the separation of church and state) Parents of students at Wilbur Mills University Studies High School in Pulaski County complained to the administration in April after a coach/teacher at the school showed the gory, R-rated film “The Passion of the Christ” during the “U.S. History Since 1890” course, apparently as a teaching unit, complete with handout questions quizzing students on what they thought the film had to say about God’s love for them and Christ’s sacrifice for their salvation. Best student An anonymous student in the history class was brave enough to record the Mills coach’s rant the day after he was told of the complaints, with the audio — later forwarded to the ACLU of Arkansas — capturing the teacher going off on his class about liberalism, singling out those who complained as having ruined classmates’ “right to peacefully assemble,” and expressing disbelief that blacks would vote for Democrats, adding, “all they do is convince y’all that whoever the Republican nominee is is going to take away food stamps and all this stuff, put you in chains and send you back to Africa.” After the audio recording surfaced, the teacher was recommended for termination by the Pulaski County Special School District and later fired.

his tax returns. “Where do you get your evidence?” Schieffer asked. “On what do you base the statement you’ve made, which is absolutely wrong?” Rutledge replied that she’d been out “traveling Arkansas” and “traveling across the country.” “So you’re just going around asking people?” Schieffer asked incredulously. “You have no other evidence than that?”

defendants and the Arkansas Times, some of the violators had been hounded for a decade or more over bounced checks written for as little as $20, their debt to the court spiraling into the thousands and violators repeatedly jailed when they didn’t appear for mandatory court dates or couldn’t pay.

Worst middle finger to democracy

One of those caught on Sherwood’s hamster wheel of debt is John Bowman, a blind man who told Arkansas Times for a September cover story that he has fled Pulaski County and gone into hiding at a friend’s home because owes the court $4,200 in fines and fees stemming from what he said was a stolen check forged to make a $23 purchase at a liquor store in 2010. Bowman said he decided to go into hiding because his disabilities prevent him from regularly making his court dates, he had no hope of ever paying off his fines, and because he had repeatedly been picked up by Little Rock police and transported to Sherwood on warrants related to his hot check charges, after which he was processed and then released into the unfamiliar city, usually with no way home.

The Arkansas Supreme Court decided to toss Issue 7 — the Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act — off the ballot three days after early voting started in October, thus disenfranchising thousands who had already voted for the measure.

Worst tradition

Second worst middle finger to democracy

As usual, there was a huge outcry on social media in October in opposition to the annual “turkey drop” at Yellville’s Turkey Trot festival, in which terrified turkeys are dropped over the city from a low-flying airplane. The cruel show went defiantly on, however, with at least one of the 10 turkeys dropped this year plummeting to its death in a dry creek bed with nary a wing flap.

The Arkansas Secretary of State’s office in July sent out highly inaccurate lists flagging thousands of eligible voters for removal from the voting rolls because the voters were listed as felons. It’s unknown, even now, how many Arkansans were unable to vote because their names had been culled from voting registries based on faulty information. The office said it was a “mistake.”

Worst travelin’ Arkansas

Worst trapped

Acting as a surrogate for Donald Trump on a CBS News panel analyzing the September presidential debate, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge was absolutely wrecked by co-panelist and veteran newsman Bob Schieffer after she asserted that “no one other than those in the media and those on the left” had been asking for candidate Trump to release

In August, the ACLU of Arkansas, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the international firm of Morrison and Foerster filed a civil suit over the prosecution of hot checks in Sherwood District Court, which the suit said had put hot check offenders into a debtors’ prison. According to the lawsuit and later conversations between hot check

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

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Best example

Best retreat After months of turmoil and division, the Fort Smith School Board voted in June to replace Southside High School’s Rebel mascot in the 2016-2017 school year and to ban the playing of “Dixie” at sporting events.

Best indoctrination After a key pro-Rebel vote on the school board announced he had grown tired of the controversy and would vote for the removal

Best putting on the dog In October, a former administrative assistant to the Garland County judge was arrested for allegedly racking up $346,000 in personal expenses on a county credit card over a four-year period, with an affidavit filed in the case saying that her alleged purchases included a tuxedo for her dog.

of the mascot, Fort Smith lawyer Joey McCutchen wrote on Facebook that he was suspending his fierce fight in support of the mascot, and then quoted far-right former U.S. Rep. Allen West of Florida: “Our children are not being taught or instructed using critical thinking skills; they are being indoctrinated.” If it is indoctrination to teach schoolchildren not to glorify traitors who fought a bloody civil war for the purpose of keeping millions of Americans in cradle-to-grave slavery, then we need more of it.

Worst weasel In April, State Education Secretary Johnny Key fired Little Rock School District Superintendent Baker Kurrus, who had been brought in to lead the district following a state takeover in May, after Kurrus presented data about the negative effects of charter schools on the Little Rock district. Instead of Key owning up to the widespread belief that Kurrus was being replaced because he committed

blasphemy against Republican dogma that charter schools are the way and the light, Key said the LRSD needed “strong, disciplined” leadership, which even some of Kurrus’ former critics had said he was providing.

Worst Teflon Don On Donald Trump’s visit to Little Rock in February, his only stop in the state during the campaign, Agent Orange showed up two hours late, blatantly lied about maxing out the capacity of Barton Coliseum even though the fact the coliseum was only partially full was immediately apparent to anyone who wanted to look around during his speech, and apparently forgot what state he was in, given that he told the crowd that Alabama “has a hell of a football team.” Nonetheless, Trump won Arkansas in the GOP primary, and carried the state in November by almost 27 percentage points.

Worst wasting In February, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission announced that an elk shot near the Buffalo National River the previous October had tested positive for the state’s first confirmed case of chronic wasting disease, a brain disorder that can cause fatal neurological degeneration in deer, elk and moose, and makes their meat potentially unsafe to eat by humans.

Best coming clean In February, a 20-year-old Little Rock man who had initially told police he was shot in the legs during a drive-by shooting, confessed that, in reality, he was accidentally shot by a friend as the other young man prepared to take his turn in a game of Russian roulette, which the pair was playing with a .357 magnum revolver.

Worst segregation The ACLU of Arkansas stepped in to object after Maumelle High School in February held arktimes.com

DECEMBER 22, 2016

Second best blind justice a student assembly on gang violence, but only asked black students to attend.

Worst grasp of the word ‘desegregation’ According to the Pulaski County Special School District, which oversees Maumelle High School, the gang violence assembly was held as part of “the district’s court-ordered desegregation efforts.” Credit where credit is due: The district disciplined the administrator responsible for the assembly and quickly apologized.

In November, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that former Stone County Jail Administrator Randel Branscum, 56, had been sentenced to a year in federal prison after arranging the beating of an inmate at the jail by other prisoners.

Best disgraced In October, former District Judge Joseph Boeckmann, 70, of Wynne, who had stepped down from the bench in May following the announcement of a judicial conduct investigation, was indicted on 21 federal counts, including wire fraud, bribery and witness tampering, in connection with allegations that Boeckmann gave light sentences and cash payments to offenders who came before his bench in exchange for voyeuristic photos and sexual and sadomasochistic favors.

Best change of heart

Best hero

In April, an unsigned editorial from the historically right-leaning editorial page of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette advocated for the first time for the abolition of the death penalty in Arkansas.

Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission Deputy Executive Director Emily White, whose dogged, monthslong investigation into the Boeckmann case put an end to what Boeckmann’s alleged victims say was decades of the powerful former judge and prosecutor preying on vulnerable defendants.

Worst artifact A man who thought he’d found a Civil War-era cannonball while doing excavation work near Danville in April was shocked to learn from a Hot Springs museum that the item he had in the back of his pickup truck was actually a Civil War-era landmine, potentially primed to explode. A bomb squad later X-rayed the device, learned it still contained explosives and destroyed it safely at a local landfill.

Best ‘safe’ After learning from the museum that the artifact might potentially detonate, the man drove the landmine back to his house before calling the bomb squad. No worries, though. During the drive, he told the Hot Springs Sentinel-Record, “I had a seat belt around it the whole time.”

Best argument for not letting teachers take the whole summer off A Benton elementary school teacher and her husband were arrested in Hot Springs in June after, police said, she told a security guard she would “fuck him up” after being thrown out of a strip club there, with the couple then allegedly getting in their car and doing a tire-smoking “donut” in the parking lot while the husband simultaneously fired a shotgun in the air from the driver’s side window before speeding away. The two were apprehended a short time later.

Best filming In September, Little Rock police officers arrested state Rep. John Walker, a 79-year-old civil rights lawyer, as Walker attempted to video record a traffic stop near downtown with his 18

a 107-year-old man who was holed up inside with a gun and shot him to death.

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

cell phone. As seen on a video released before the arrest, two officers who approached Walker as he calmly filmed from a nearby corner escalated the situation by arguing with him, with one calling Walker a “race baiter” and saying he was “out here trying to provoke police officers,” while the other asked Walker if he would be filming had the driver been “a young white male.” After Walker and colleague Omavi Shukur, 29, crossed the street to a sidewalk closer to the traffic stop to continue filming, they were arrested. The charges against Walker and Shukur soon were dropped, with the city issuing a formal apology to Walker, which he promptly rejected.

Best evidence that the author’s mother (and likely yours, too, if you grew up in Arkansas) should be in the state pen In June, a 70-year-old Hot Springs grandmother was arrested for allegedly cutting a switch from a backyard bush and using it to whoop her 12-year-old granddaughter, causing what investigators said were visible whelps on the girl’s arm. The grandmother, who reportedly told investigators she used the switch on the girl for “talking back,” was charged with one count of second-degree domestic battery. The charges were later dropped.

Best rescinding In July, the Pine Bluff City Council unanimously voted to rescind the medals of valor awarded to members of the Pine Bluff Police Department SWAT team for a September 2013 incident in which they stormed the bedroom of

Worst poopocalypse In August, a Facebook post by Little Rock resident Jesse Newton — in which he detailed the horrors wrought to his home after a semiautonomous Roomba vacuum robot ran over a pile of dog shit in the middle of the night while his family was asleep — went viral, and was shared over 360,000 times.

Best advice “If the unthinkable does happen, and your Roomba runs over dog poop, stop it immediately and do not let it continue the cleaning cycle. Because if that happens, it will spread the dog poop over every conceivable surface within its reach, resulting in a home that closely resembles a Jackson Pollock poop painting. It will be on your floorboards. It will be on your furniture legs. It will be on your carpets. It will be on your rugs. It will be on your kids’ toy boxes. If it’s near the floor, it will have poop on it ...”

Best reason to consider bringing back public drawing and quartering In August, police in Hot Springs arrested a woman and her boyfriend on multiple charges after allegedly finding a 4-year-old girl covered in bruises and tied to a bed with zip strips, with police saying that when officers asked the little girl what her name was, she replied “Idiot.”

Worst irony In August, Central Arkansas champion for the homeless Aaron Reddin said in a Facebook post that the Compassion Center, a shelter in Lit-

Knowing our clients personally is what we do.

Worst repeat offender In June, a man arrested after he was found naked on a sidewalk in Jonesboro stripped naked while on a trip to the restroom during his court appearance and then dashed through the courtroom, reportedly while shouting “Court is back in session!” tle Rock, had allegedly evicted a man because he wouldn’t stop crying.

Worst bridgepocalypse On Sept. 28, the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department closed Little Rock’s Broadway Bridge, a major artery for traffic across the Arkansas River, for six months so it could be demolished and replaced.

Best ‘There She Is’ In September, 21-year-old University of Arkansas student Savvy Shields won the crown of Miss America 2017.

Worst truth is more horrible than fiction In October, a man who had been an avid fan of AMC’s zombie horror show “The Walking Dead” was put on trial in Jonesboro for the July 2015 murder of his 90-year-old neighbor, with the jury hearing a taped confession in which the man allegedly told police he was preparing for the zombie apocalypse and the woman was the “closest thing” he could find to one of the living dead.

Best anticlimax In October, hundreds of Little Rockians turned out for the scheduled explosive demolition of the Broadway Bridge, only to watch as a series of controlled blasts failed to cut the 93-year-old span, leaving it still standing but too weakened for engineers to safely climb aboard and set new charges for a doover. Four hours later, workers finally

managed, on the seventh try, to coax the old girl into the river using two large towboats and a long length of cable.

Best Twitter In the short time the bridge stood defiant, someone started a Twitter feed in the voice of the bridge, with tweets including a short clip from “Jaws” containing the famous phrase “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Best blind justice In March, U.S. District Judge Brian Miller sentenced former Faulkner County Circuit Judge Mike Maggio, who had earlier pleaded guilty to taking a bribe to reduce the award in a 2013 nursing home negligence case, to the maximum 10-year penalty, with Miller saying: “I put drug dealers in prison for five, 10, 20 years for standing on a corner selling crack cocaine. … A dirty judge is far more harmful to society than a dope dealer.” Maggio has filed an appeal in the case.

Worst rootin’ tootin’ In March, Pulaski County Sheriff Doc Holladay defended his decision to spend $26,000 in taxpayer funds to outfit deputies with Resistol and Stetson cowboy hats, with Holladay noting that other law enforcement agencies in Central Arkansas have hats and his deputies wanted hats of their own.

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Worst dope In December, a girls volleyball coach at Westside High School in Jonesboro resigned after it came to light she had encouraged members of her team to mix a highly caffeinated powder sold under the brand name “C4” into their water bottles before games. The product, which was labeled for use by adults only, reportedly left players feeling shaky, hyper and jittery. arktimes.com

DECEMBER 22, 2016

Arts Entertainment AND

here’s no lack of theories about why Little Rock is a greenhouse for inventive music or why references to the city pop up in celebrated lyrics long after the author who penned them has moved elsewhere. If you asked local musicians why music is one of the city’s chief cultural assets, you’d likely get many different answers: Rent is comparatively cheap enough to allow for time and space to practice and create. Little Rock is a perfect Goldilocks — medium-sized, big enough to foster a scene, but small enough not to be oversaturated. It’s eclectic enough that we don’t feel beholden to a “Little Rock sound.” Whatever it is, the creative pool is broad and deep enough to make a list like the one that follows possible — difficult to narrow, even. This 2016 roundup is in no particular order, is by no means exhaustive and is not necessarily limited to current residents (especially since 2016 was a big one for inspired expats like Kari Faux and Jason White). It is a handful of absolute gems unearthed this year, worthy of a spin and some admiration.

12 MORE FOR THE ROAD Don’t-miss albums from 2016. BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

Flint captivated by a bombshell taxidermist. There’s “Bloom,” a benevolent bestowal of good vibes that Flint wrote for his sister, 12 years his junior: “The galaxy in your eyes/Your hair is wavy as streams/I hope that you see the world/Hope it’s as kind as can be.” He’s a bona fide crooner, but never saccharine, always in service to the song’s vibe, and I’ve been listening to this on repeat for weeks.

Ben Dickey, ‘Sexy Birds & Salt Water Classics’

Black Party, ‘Mango’ From Malik Flint, the expat who’s informed Kari Faux’s distinct sound (who features on the boudoir-bound “Show Me”), “Mango” was announced via Childish Gambino’s Twitter account last month. It was an 11th-hour entry for Best Makeout Album of the Year, and probably took that category with room to spare. There’s “Best View,” whose unflinchingly romantic lyrics were written by Flint’s father as part of a songwriting class, and which Flint’s video producer Ibra Ake rendered surreally with a video depicting 20

DECEMBER 15, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

Berry, R.I.O.T.S., American Princes), Ryan Hitt (Amasa Hines), Jonathan Dodson (Adam Faucett and The Tall Grass, Brother Andy and His Big Damn Mouth), Alisyn Reid (A Rowdy Faith) and more. Perhaps because of multiinstrumentalist Mitch Vanhoose’s production, the album’s not immediately comparable to any of the myriad other projects in which the band members are involved (over a dozen, collectively).

A gorgeous mix of metallic 12-string sounds and aquatic effects, Dickey (formerly of Shake Ray Turbine and Blood Feathers) channels George Harrison or T. Rex with his sweetly reticent vocals and unusual chord progressions to match. See “Down the Shore,” accompanied by an Ethan Hawke-directed video starring his daughter with Uma Thurman, Maya Thurman-Hawke. It’s an album to get lost in, one that couldn’t have been born of anything but a slow simmer in Dickey’s mind, decorated with haunting accents like the backward vocals at end of “Strathmere, New Jersey.”

607, ‘Traptized’ 607’s 43rd album (yep) does not flinch: “Didn’t mean shit when the church buried my auntie and nobody paid; can’t dig up a grave/Pastor was milkin’ my grandma for years, don’t

come in my face, bitch you better pray.” Sometimes paced a half-heartbeat swifter than the ear can process, this album requires repeat listening, even with references to familiar melodies like “Return of the Mack.” No matter, though — it’s a genuinely divine feeling to listen to a song once and come away with an impression of it that’s altered the second and third times you cue it up (see “Wash My Hands”).

California, ‘California’ If post-Pinkerton Weezer and Green Day are anywhere on your playlists, this one’s for you. It was released in April, with just enough time to stabilize itself as a reliable windows-down summer jam, and it’s clean, bare-bones pop from Jason White (Pinhead Gunpowder, Green Day), Adam Pfahler (Jawbreaker) and Dustin Clark (Soophie Nun Squad), with a sweet little cameo from That Dog’s Rachel Haden.

Hard Pass, ‘The Axe Forgets’ This is some dreamy stuff, straightforward love songs made for singing into a hairbrush in front of the mirror when no one’s home. Isaac Alexander puts his inimitable stamp on the keyboard work, and Chad Conder’s tenor is colorful and sincere; were it not for the fact that he plays drums for one of the most powerful vocalists in town, it’d be criminal that he doesn’t sing lead all the time. The album’s credits include Jordan Trotter (formerly of Grand Serenade), Will Boyd (Marvin

Phillip Rex Huddleston, ‘White Nights’ original soundtrack Given his experience as a visual artist with a penchant for realism, it shouldn’t have been all that surprising that Huddleston would so aptly sculpt a soundtrack to accompany the glittery nightclub images against which it’s set; the environs for Mark Thiedeman’s cinematic reinvention of a Dostoevsky short story. Especially lovely is the final track, “The Lutheran Church of St. Peter and St. Paul,” a tiny meditative denouement to counterpoint all that Dostoevsky disco.

Big Piph, ‘I Am Not Them: The Legacy Project’ Epiphany Morrow released a labyrinth of stories in the form of an album this year, and then went and tore the puppet strings off the thing, making it a “living album,” complete with a time-release set of videos and content available on a free app for Android and iPhone. In Bijoux’s words, he pulled a “Beyonce,” although when I asked to quote her on that, she was quick to clarify: “Sure. Although I think the Legacy Project is beyond Bey. She shocked the CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

ROCK CANDY

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

A&E NEWS IN THE WORDS of Frank Loesser, “Maybe it’s much too early in the game, ah, but I thought I’d ask you just the same: What are you doing New Year’s Eve?” If you’re still in NYE limbo, here are a handful of places to ring in the year 2017: THE ARKANSAS NEW Year’s Eve Ball-Dropping Celebration at Robinson Center Music Hall features a fireworks display, food vendors and music from Bijoux, Randall Shreve and the Devilles, Trey O’Dell and more, 6 p.m., tickets at travs.com. The Flux Family presents Chrono Flux, a New Year’s Eve Bash featuring electronic and dub music from Yuni Wa, Tactical Nuke and more, Arkansas Circus Arts, 1101 Cumberland St., BYOB, 6 p.m., $10. Four Quarter Bar celebrates NYE with Brown Soul Shoes, 10 p.m., $15$25. The Empress of Little Rock hosts “A Downton Abbey New Year’s Eve,” a black-tie dinner and wine party, 8 p.m., $250 a couple without a stay at the inn, $200-$225 with an inn reservation, 374-7966 for tickets. The Main Thing hosts a New Year’s Eve Bash at The Joint, complete with a two-act comedy “A Fertle Holiday,” a catered meal, champagne and live music from the comedy troupe, 8:30 p.m., $55, call 372-0205 for tickets. The Little Rock Marriott celebrates with music from the Zac Dunlap Band and comedy from Matthew Broussard in the Grand Ballroom, 9 p.m., $56-$65. The MarcheseHendricks Project, DJ Bubba and DJ CJ are the soundtrack for NYE at Next Level Events, 8 p.m., $35-$40. Stone’s Throw and Loblolly Creamery have the pregame covered, with a Beer Cocktail Bar, noon, Stone’s Throw Brewing. TruPoet hosts an album release party for NYE at The House of Art in Argenta, BYOB, 10 p.m., $10-$15. The Big Dam Horns take the stage for NYE at Cajun’s Wharf, 7 p.m. Flying Saucer hosts a New Year’s Eve Bash with music from The Crumbs, 8 p.m., $10-$40. TC’s Midtown Grill in Conway celebrates with music from Third Degree, 9 p.m. South on Main’s New Year’s Eve Dance Party features music from Amasa Hines and snacks devised by Joshua Asante and Chef Matt Bell (who’ll spin records after the concert), 10 p.m., $30, buy wristbands at 4 p.m. day of show or reserve a table by calling 244-9660.

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DECEMBER 15, 2016

THE

TO-DO

LIST

BY STEPHEN KOCH, LINDSEY MILLAR, LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK AND STEPHANIE SMITTLE

SEASON FINALE: Goon des Garcons (Brandon Burris) hosts the final show in his Fireroom series at the Rev Room Thursday, featuring Young Gods of America, Tan the Terrible, Hector $lash, Solo Jaxon and more, Dec. 22, 8 p.m., $10.

THURSDAY 12/22

YOUNG GODS OF AMERICA 8 p.m. Rev Room. $10.

The last time I saw Young Gods of America, the rap collective’s performance began well before their set started. Swift and wordless, they stacked tables and chairs to clear room in front of the stage, letting everyone know that something was about to happen. Then, despite having zero musical instruments on stage, they occupied every square foot of the space they’d cleared, merging Yuni Wa and Fresco Grey’s crisp, spacey production with a punk rock sensibility and send-

ing a small but devout group of fans into a tiny frenzy. #Squadgoals. Even more impressive was the fact that the backup choir shouting along with the words reached critical mass at all, considering that a good deal of YGOA’s fans were absent that night, since it wasn’t an allages show. Goon des Garcon (Brandon Burris) created the Fireroom series, of which this is the final show for the year, as a way to showcase artists in and around the group’s collaborative circles. “I loved hosting and organizing all the Fireroom Studios shows of 2016,” Burris told us.

“We started the live shows ourselves from the ground up with the help of a couple downtown venues and really built a space for the youth of Arkansas to come and see cool things going on in their city and get to interact with kids like them that are trying to change the climate and culture of what is ‘Arkansas.’ ” If that sounds like something straight from the mouths of an early Towncraft-era pioneer, there’s a reason for that. Like that early DIY scene in ’90s Little Rock, Burris’ work owns its bravado and angst, celebrating the fact that a bunch of self-taught kids

from Little Rock have created a sound — maybe even a movement — equipped with little more than their own raw creativity and a lot of time on their hands, something Burris hints at in the acronym “L.A.W.W.D.” (“Look at What We Did”): “All my life I wanted things I couldn’t have, ass I couldn’t grab. … Appreciate what you have ’cause it could all go up so fast.” This show features Tan the Terrible, Hector $lash, Solo Jaxon, Lo Thraxx, Pearl Gang, MVK LXUI$, Lil Kiri, Tsukiyomi & Youth, Pega$us, Chizzy Danko, Dez Frio & C-Wil and Keshawn & XP. SS

David Slade later minated in Brookexpressed some lyn and toured extensively for misgivings about much-lauded that in a 2015 albums on Max interview with Recordings and the Times. “On the one hand, Yep Roc Records, that’s awesome: eventually disI love you, Little solving after the Rock, and I’m so loss of bassist grateful for your Luke Hunsicker to brain cansupport. On the RETURN OF THE PRINCES: American Princes reunite for a couple of rare shows Thursday, Dec. other hand: I cer, whose death 22 at Lost Forty Brewing, 7 p.m. and Friday, Dec. apologize tre- 23 at White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m. Magnet Magamendously to zine’s Matthew anyone who wanted to see the show but Fritch noted with the following recolleccouldn’t. It was our mistake, and we’ll tion: “I cannot recall interviewing a band fix it, moving forward. We just didn’t with a more natural sense of friendship and joy than American Princes. It’s as if anticipate the goodness.” The band ger-

they arrived from Little Rock, Ark., as an idealized version of a touring rock band, with no expectations of the road other than van trouble, convenience-store food, stale beer and 45 minutes each night of playing music with friends in front of strangers.” None of those trappings are likely at this Princes show, though, which commemorates the second anniversary of Lost 40 Brewing, co-owned by earlyera Princes bassist John Beachboard. (If you miss them there, catch them Friday night, Dec. 23, at the White Water Tavern, which Slade said “has always been our home. ... White Water is a part of us, and vice versa.” And there’s a mural memorializing St. Luke Hunsicker on the wall to prove it. 9:30 p.m., $10, tickets at last Chance Records.) SS

THURSDAY 12/22

AMERICAN PRINCES

7 p.m. Lost Forty Brewing. $5 suggested donation.

The last time American Princes played was two years ago (and only once in five years before that). As Arkansas Times editor Lindsey Millar wrote in 2014, “ ‘Holyshitholyshitholyshit!’ is a representative sample” of the reception to the news that American Princes will be putting aside things like children and careers in law to play a rock ’n’ roll concert. “One fan, in sharing details of the event on Facebook, expressed reluctance to spread the word since it would make it harder for him to get into the show,” Millar reported. That fan was right, as it turned out, as a lot of folks were turned away at the door. Guitarist 22

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

IN BRIEF Editor’s note: Because we will publish a special issue without calendar content next week our events coverage covers the next two weeks.

THURSDAY 12/22

ARKANSAS RAZORBACKS VS. SAM HOUSTON STATE BEARKATS

7 p.m. Verizon Arena. $25.

Hope abounds in Razorbackland for the prospects of the Arkansas basketball team as it finishes its instate nonconference schedule with its annual holiday trip to North Little Rock. Of course, Razorback fans know too well where early-

season hope usually gets them, so maybe cautious optimism is more in order. In any case, before Tuesday’s home game against North Dakota State, which happened after we went to press and which surely the Hogs won, the team had won nine of its first 10 games for only the second time since it joined the SEC. The team is led by the preseason conference player of the year, 6-foot-10-inch-tall senior

Moses Kingsley, who’s had an OK start to the season, but is due to erupt, and perhaps the most stable backcourt trio, in Dusty Hannahs, Daryl Macon and Jaylen Barford, the Hogs have had in recent memory. As Macon (Parkview) and Hannahs (Pulaski Academy) are both Little Rock products, look for them to be eager to show out for the home crowd. LM

MONDAY-SUNDAY 12/23-1/1

KWANZAA

Various venues, times.

MATRUSHKA MAGIC: Vaganova Academy graduates Andrey Batalov and Tatiana Nazarkhevich star in Moscow Ballet’s “Great Russian Nutcracker” at Robinson Center Thursday, Dec. 22, 7 p.m. $28-$68.

THURSDAY 12/22

GREAT RUSSIAN NUTCRACKER

7 p.m. Robinson Center. $28$68.

Tchaikovsky/Petipa/Ivanov’s “The Nutcracker” might just be the last bastion of public adoration in the otherwise gravely imperiled world of ballet. It’s the answer that would rank tops on “Family Feud” if the host turned to a participant and asked her to name a ballet. Despite the ballet’s being a household name now, it was something of a flop when it premiered as part of a double bill with the debut of Tchaikovsky’s opera “Iolanta.” Tchaikovsky was recruited for the composition after the tremendous success of his previous collaboration with choreographer Marius Petipa for “The Sleeping Beauty,” a task to which he eventually warmed. In fact, he ended up being so proud of the music for “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” (or, as most of us know it, the “Music-1” setting on the NES version of Tetris) that he

wanted it to be performed in public as quickly as possible so nobody would steal his idea to use the distinctive celesta, a sort of metallophonic miniature piano that’s come to be associated with the sound of a music box. The Moscow Ballet’s performance is one in a string of dates that will no doubt polish the lavish production to an even brighter shine, featuring principal dancer and balletmaster Andrei Batalov and principal ballerina Tatiana Nazarkhevich. And, if the guy who did the art direction for “The Royal Tenenbaums” designs your set, you’re probably bound for beauty. Carl Sprague, whose film design credits include “Twelve Years a Slave” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” created the backdrops of Moscow’s St. Basil’s Cathedral and, as the company states on its website, a “Magical Snow Forest with sparkling snowflakes that melt away in Act II to reveal Moscow Ballet’s signature ‘Land of Peace and Harmony.’ ” SS

The seven-day pan-African holiday of Kwanzaa, a celebration of family, community and culture, marks its 50th anniversary this year. Kwanzaa, which has its roots in ancient African traditions, was founded in the United States by Dr. Maulana Karengo. The California State University professor saw the holiday as way to bring dignity to and revitalize African-American traditional culture. Little Rock’s Kwanzaa events begin with the celebration of Umoja (unity in Swahili) at noon Monday at Pyramid Art, Books & Custom Framing at 1001 Wright Ave.; and continue with the celebrations of Kujichgulia (selfdetermination) at noon Tuesday at the West Central Community Center, 4521 John Barrow Road; Ujima (collective work and responsibility) at noon Wednesday at the Better Community Development Inc. office, 3604 W. 12th St.; Ujamaa (cooperative economics) at noon Thursday at Harambee Market, 2104 N. Main St., NLR; Nia (purpose) at noon Friday at the Josephine Pankey Center, 13700 Cantrell Road; Kuumba (creativity) at noon Saturday at the House of Art, 108 E. Fourth St., NLR; and Imani (faith), a feast at 2 p.m. at Simply Najiyyah’s Fishboat, 1717 Wright Ave. Ojima Robinson is the official drummer; Dorcas House was selected as beneficiary of the event’s annual donation of books. For more information, call Garbo Hearne at 372-5824 or contact her at pyramidbks.net. LNP

Local news anchor Craig O’Neill gives a reading of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. for Grinchfest, complete with a costume competition for guests dressed as residents of Whoville, a holiday photo booth, crafts and green ice cream from Purple Cow, Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library. Club Level holds an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party to benefit Toys for Tots, 8 p.m., $10, $5 with donation of toy, jacket, blanket or clothes. Adam Faucett & The Tall Grass take the stage at the White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. Mike Smith headlines at The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. Thu.; $8, 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Fri., $12. The Ben Miller Band, supercharged with the talents of Tyrannosaurus Chicken, casts its stomp trance on the audience at George’s Majestic Lounge, 8 p.m., $12. Walton Arts Center’s Baum Walker Hall, Fayetteville, hosts a onenight performance of “The Hip-Hop Nutcracker,” 7 p.m., $22. Charlotte Taylor and her band Gypsy Rain play a show at Cajun’s Wharf, 9 p.m., $5.

FRIDAY 12/23 Afrodesia Studio of Performing Arts hosts The Season: A Fly Soliloquy, featuring poetry and spoken word performances from Oya Orisha, Gensu Lung’aho, Meyonsha Riddles, Price The Poet (Donald Ray Price), xVallejox (Vallejo Lee), Futa (Futa Svgp Holloway), Olanzo Carver, Southwest Boaz and Fiyah Burnz (BruckShot Da Barbarian), 9700 N. Rodney Parham Road, 9 p.m., $5-$10. Resident drag artist Symone curates the show at Club Sway for “Symone Says,” 9 p.m. Fire & Brimstone plays a free set at Tavern Sports Bar and Grill, 7:30 p.m. Power Ultra Lounge hosts Jingle Mingle Cocktail Party with music from DJ Swift and DJ Nick Hud, 9 p.m., $10, cocktail attire required. The Foul Play Cabaret burlesque troupe tantalizes at Maxine’s in Hot Springs, 9 p.m. Mixtape master M. Bolez spins his mixes at Smoke & Barrel in Fayetteville, 10 p.m., free. Mountain View-born guitar duo Two Dudes play a free show at The Main Cheese, 6 p.m. At Oaklawn, the Christine DeMeo Band rings in the holiday at Silk’s Bar and Grill, 10 p.m., and Susan Erwin sings at Pop’s Lounge, 6 p.m. Texarkana brings its honky-tonk sound to Markham Street Grill & Pub, 8:30 p.m., free. Lightwire Theatre brings “A Very Electric Christmas” to Walton Arts Center’s Baum Walker Hall, Fayetteville, 7 p.m., $10-$20. Big Shane Thornton plays at TC’s Midtown Grill in Conway, 9 p.m. The Josh Parks Band performs at Thirst N’ Howl, 8 p.m. Se7en Social Lounge hosts an Alumni Christmas Jam featuring Dr. Feel Good and benefiting children at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, 8 p.m., $10. The Rev Room hosts a “Winter Bassland” with bass-heavy electronic dance music and snow machines, 7 p.m., $5-$10.

SATURDAY 12/24 Stone’s Throw hosts Christmas Eve karaoke with its new brew, Off the Wal-Nut Milk Stout, 6 p.m.

WEDNESDAY 12/28 Self-described “girl gang” Dazz & Brie brings tunes from the new release “Can’t Afford California” to South on Main with Rah Howard, 8:30 p.m., $10. Christine DeMeo plays a free show at the Tavern Sports Bar & Grill, 7:30 p.m. Comedian Kris-

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arktimes.com

DECEMBER 22, 2016

THE

TO-DO

LIST

BY STEPHEN KOCH, LINDSEY MILLAR, BY STEPHANIE LESLIE NEWELL SMITTLE PEACOCK AND STEPHANIE SMITTLE

FRIDAY 12/23

FESTIVUS AT THE FIREHOUSE

5 p.m. Firehouse Hostel & Museum.

On Dec. 18, 1997, an episode of “Seinfeld” called “The Strike” showed Jerry, George and Elaine at the coffee shop, George reluctantly explaining the reason for the greeting card he’d just received from his father, who “hated all the commercial and religious aspects of Christmas, so he made up his own holiday.” And so, for anybody anywhere who

ever tried to slip a reference to a Soup Nazi or a Big Salad into conversation, there was a new set of parodying “Festivus” customs with which to poke fun at Christmas mania. The staff at the Firehouse Hostel & Museum are throwing a real-life version of Festivus at their new Craftsman-style lodge in the MacArthur Park Historic District just south of the Arkansas Arts Center. For starters, they already had the requisite unadorned “Festivus Pole” since the building’s rede-

FRIDAY 12/23

THURSDAY 12/29

REELS & WHEELS: ‘THE POLAR EXPRESS’

8:30 p.m., Rev Room, $12-$15.

6:30 p.m. Hot Springs Memorial Airport, 525 Airport Road. Free.

The drive-in movie theater’s mostly a memory now, a relic synonymous with conical bras and Viceroy cigarettes and gelatinmold desserts. Arkansas was once home to over 50 of them, including the 70 Drive-In, the Sunset DriveIn and Wheatley Drive-In in Hot Springs, but only three remain in the state: the Kenda in Marshall, the Stone in Mountain View and the 112 Drive-In just north of Fayetteville. Visit Hot Springs is reviving the custom in Spa City — for one night, anyway. “Polar Express,” Robert Zemeckis’ 2004 animated adaptation of a children’s story by Chris Van Allsburg, will be broadcast on an inflatable 32-by-24 1/2foot movie screen on the grass in front of the Hot Springs Airport, with the voices of Tom Hanks (who does five roles in the film) and the rest of the cast broadcast on the FM radio dial from the city’s solarpowered community radio station, KUHS, 97.9. Cars can enter as early as 6 p.m. to find a spot. SS 24

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

AMERICAN AQUARIUM

Together for a decade, alt-country stalwarts American Aquarium have become an institution, as chronicled in songs like “Losing Side of Twenty-Five.” Fans know they are from Raleigh, N.C., but the quintet’s

sign incorporates the old fire poles into the mix. The museum provides the Festivus meal mainstays: “a Festivus dinner (meatloaf and spaghetti will be served per the tradition, as well as a baconwrapped ham,”) as they say on their event page. They encourage attendees to bring a side dish. They’ve planned Seinfeld-inspired practices such as the “ ‘Airing of Grievances,’ which occurs during the meal with each person telling all the ways that they have been

been playing Little Rock for enough years that casual adherents to the scene could be forgiven for thinking AA’s local. In fact, the group’s album output since ’09 has been on Little Rock’s Last Chance Records. “Burn. Flicker. Die.” (2012) — an album “about not making it,” according to leader B.J. Barham

disappointed over the past year (typically begins with the phrase ‘I got a lotta problems with you people, and you’re going to hear about it!’)” and the “Feats of Strength,” involving “wrestling the head of the household to the floor. (In our case, we’ll do arm wrestling).” And, if you’re at your wit’s end with visiting family members, book a night — the reviews since the hostel’s grand opening have been consistently glowing. SS

— on Last Chance Records was to be the band’s swan song, but instead made them more popular. Strangetowne of Amarillo, Texas, opens. SS

SATURDAY 12/31

NOON YEAR’S EVE

9 a.m. Mid-America Science Museum. Adults $10, children 3-12, $8.

NOONTIME TOAST: Hot Springs’ Mid-America Science Museum rings in the New Year with sparkling cider and educational activities for Noon Year’s Eve, Saturday Dec. 31, 9 a.m., $8-$10.

New Year’s Eve is one of the few holidays for adults only, but Mid-America Science Museum in Hot Springs has found a way to bring young folks into the mix, add some science and still maintain the revelry. The science museum’s Noon Year’s Eve, held at the other 12 o’ clock that day, features makeand-take light-up party hats and noisemakers and a complimentary noontime toast … of sparkling cider, of course. The countdown to 12 culminates with the awesome-to-any-demographic lighting up of the “world’s most powerful conical Tesla coil.” It then leaves parents and guardians with plenty of time to prepare for their midnight bacchanals and ringingsin. But will the grownups’ stupid parties have the world’s most powerful conical Tesla coil? No, they will not. Those parties will not have the world’s most powerful conical Tesla coil. SK

IN BRIEF tin Key riffs on her upbringing as the daughter of a Church of Christ minister with a series of shows at The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. Thu., $8; 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., $12-$26. The Joint holds its weekly improv comedy show, The Joint Venture, 8 p.m., $8.

THURSDAY 12/29

PO:

Job/Order #: 291696 QC: cs

PM:

FRIDAY 12/30

Brand: Stella Artois Item #: PSA2016008

MUST INITIAL FOR APPROVAL

Songwriters Jack Ferrara and Tiffany Lee share a bill at South on Main, 10 p.m., $10. Mojo Depot closes out the year at the White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. The UALR Trojans women’s basketball team plays the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns at the Jack Stephens Center, 6:30 p.m. The Joint Theater and Coffeehouse in Argenta will screen “Dark Side of the Rainbow” and serve craft beer specials, 7-10 p.m.

AM:

Closing Date: 12.16.16

Pub: Arkansas Times

Will Downing headlines “Sophisticated Sounds of Soul” at the Robinson Center, featuring Najee and Genine Perez, 8 p.m., $50-$60. The Rev Room hosts a burlesque and drag show, Shimmy and Shake for Standing Rock, to benefit the Dakota Pipeline protestors, 8:30 p.m., $12. Fayetteville duo Rozenbridge offers cello and guitar covers at Maxine’s, Hot Springs, 9 p.m. High Rise gives a show at JJ’s Grill in Conway, 8:30 p.m. White Mansions and Sad Palomino share a bill at Smoke and Barrel, Fayetteville, 10 p.m., free. Over at Oaklawn, Moxie plays Silk’s Bar and Grill, 10 p.m., free, and Susan Erwin plays the happy hour set at Pop’s Lounge, 5 p.m. TC’s Midtown Grill in Conway serves up beloved burgers to the tunes of Malicious Groove, 9 p.m. Stingray Boots, featuring two members of American Lions, plays at The Main Cheese, 8 p.m. George’s Majestic Lounge in Fayetteville celebrates its 90th birthday with a bash featuring The Cate Brothers, Mountain Sprout, The Squarshers, Irie Lions, Henry + the Invisibles and more, 6 p.m.

AD: CW:

5:30 p.m. Dogtown Sound. Donations.

Dogtown Sound, the independent music shop in Little Rock’s Park Hill District, turns a year old on the first day of the New Year, and owners Adrian Bozeman, Jason Tedford and Andy Warr are throwing a party to celebrate. They’ll have everything from Arkansocks to Arkansas-made birdhouse dulcimers for sale, as well as a wall lined with standout guitars, offerings they hope to grow in the upcoming year. “I hope people dig our little store and continue to support it through the new year, and hopefully we’ll do a little more, get a little bigger and have more to offer the local music community,” Tedford told us. As a toast to that promise — and a chance to utilize the “micro-venue” part of the business — the shop will become one of a handful of places to catch some live music on New Year’s Day … once you brush the prior evening’s cobwebs off. Following an afternoon open mic session, resident peacenik Brian Nahlen brings acoustic tunes from his Dec. 8 release “Cicada Moon,” inspired by — as he told KUAR’s “Arts and Letters” — “the idea that humans got their sense of rhythm and synchronization from the world of insect sounds that have surrounded our species over the millions of years we’ve evolved.” Then, a solo set from Mandy McBryde, something that’s been entirely too hard to come by since her honeyed alto voice became one-third of The Wildflowers. Adam Faucett follows, no doubt filling every square foot of a shotgun space with his powerful bellow — and probably ensuring at least a dozen people get a little weepy before the first 24 hours of the year have even passed. Finally, Peckerwolf — Bozeman’s selfdescribed “precious metal” outfit — swaddles the newborn year in primal howls from Ryker Horn on tunes like “Love Your Baby” (“I wanna love your baby/I wanna love her so”) and “Cave City Swimsuit.” The show is all ages; expect the owners to shake the donations jar around, as Bozeman told us, for the artists performing. SS

QC:

PECKERWOLF, ADAM FAUCETT, MANDY MCBRYDE, BRIAN NAHLEN

Live: 1.875" x5.25"

SUNDAY 1/1

Trim: 2.125" x 5.5" Bleed: none

CD:

DOGTOWN RESOLUTIONS: Brian Nahlen, Mandy McBryde (above), Adam Faucett and Peckerwolf play New Year’s Day at Dogtown Sound’s 1st anniversary celebration, 5:30 p.m.

SATURDAY 12/31 The UALR Trojans women’s basketball team plays the University of Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks at the Jack Stephens Center, 1 p.m., followed by a faceoff from the corresponding men’s basketball teams, 3 p.m. See A&E news (page 21) for a New Year’s Eve roundup.

SUNDAY 1/1 The Rev Room features Jeff D. McMillon IV, Ronel Williams, Kinfoke Clique, Olanzo Carver, Trey Baggett, Gensu Lung’aho, Meyonsha, Young Mill, Mixed Theory and 540 for Indie Music Night, 8 p.m. Jazz brunch at Skinny J’s in Argenta features music from saxophonist Michael Eubanks, 10 a.m.

MONDAY 1/2 Public Domain plays a post-revelry set at Smoke and Barrel, Fayetteville, 10 p.m., free. The UALR Trojans men’s basketball team plays the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin Cajuns at the Jack Stephens Center, 7 p.m. Folk duo Still on the Hill plays a free show at the Faulkner County Library in Conway, 2 p.m.

TUESDAY 1/3 The Ron Robinson Theater screens “The Lovers and the Despot,” the true story of a kidnapped couple who spent eight years making films in North Korea, 6 p.m., $5.

WEDNESDAY 1/4 The Ron Robinson Theater screens the tale of Laura Albert’s literary persona, “Author: The J.T. Leroy Story,” 6 p.m., $5

North Little Rock 501-945-8010 Russellville 479-890-2550 Little Rock 501-455-8500 Conway 501-329-5010

laspalmasarkansas.com www.facebook.com/laspalmasarkansas

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arktimes.com

DECEMBER 22, 2016

MOVIE REVIEW

When Jerry met Jimmy

will forever etch them into the state’s lore. Jones grew up in North Little Rock, helping his parents out at their grocery store, enamored with the success and style of Broyles, who comes off here as a gracious and forwardthinking leader, focused solely on ‘Before They Were Cowboys’ is no showdown. getting the best out of his players as men. Johnson grew up in Port Arthur, Texas, where his folks worked in the BY SAM EIFLING oil refining industry. Native Arkansans, SPN’s next Arkansas-centric the team was poised perhaps for what they told him he’d have to attend the UA if they were ever going to watch sports doc, “Before They Were would’ve been an unprecedented third his games. So fated were two of the Cowboys,” purports to delve straight Super Bowl win. Jones hired into the strange kismet between Jerry one of their old Arkansas assistant brightest stars and most determined athletes on that ’64 national champion Jones and Jimmy Johnson. The earcoaches-made-good, Barry Switzer, team. (Ken Hatfield, maybe the best ly-’60s teammates at the University of to replace Johnson. In the doc, Jones natural athlete on Arkansas later bethat squad, also came world-beaters as the owner gets into this film.) About the only and coach, respecthing they shared tively, of two Dalother than a love las Cowboys Suof the Hogs: the per Bowl titles in first two letters of the early ’90s. It’s their last names, so hard to believe they were assigned that Johnson, he to room together of the immaculate on road trips. comb-over and the Johnson’s now pumpkin cheeks, a National Footis 73 years old. It’s ball League talkeasier to believe ing head for Fox, that Jones, with and Jones has periwinkle eyes continued to run set back in a nest the Cowboys for of wrinkles, has 20 years of medihit 74. There’s an GLORY DAYS: Corey Frost’s sports documentary for ESPN’s SEC Network hones in on the history around -- and between -- the once-unstoppable duo Jerry Jones and ocrity (until this obv iou s home Jimmy Johnson. year, maybe?) state appeal to since Switzer took picturing them as Johnson’s former toys and won the relates Switzer’s first words upon skinny-bordering-on-scrawny teenarriving in Dallas: “Where’s Jimmy? Super Bowl in 1996. Both Jimmy and agers hitting the field in Fayetteville, … I want to sit you two knotheads down Jerry absorbed just a bit too much not realizing that as seniors they’d Dallas from the ’80s on, and as such, and ask how you two could screw this lead the Hogs to their only national they both command a round of eyetitle. Add in some live sit-downs with up.” We don’t find out from the film: In rolling at the very mentions of their still-living legends, including Frank names. But “Before They Were Cowhis rumbling Arklatex accent, narraBroyles (who turns 92 on Dec. 26), and boys” will endear you to both of ’em you have yourself a wistful 50 minutes tor and country singer Trace Adkins says, “We all know what followed.” enough that you’ll overlook the lack of of recalling perhaps the finest moment true insight. There are perils involved So this is definitely a doc for the chilin the history of Razorbacks athletics. in ESPN’s making docs under the SEC dren of the ’80s, or even of the ’50s, But it’s a bummer that we don’t who remember enough coverage of banner while the contracts with the get a whole lot else from the docuthose ’90s Cowboys teams to forgive conference are so lucrative; namely, mentary. The run time doesn’t allow filmmaker Corey Frost for eliding all we get glossy versions of stories that for the depth of storytelling that mention of hookers and/or blow from would’ve been more compelling with would’ve helped carry it more conthis yearbook tour of Arkansas’s glory even a hint of adversarial editorial sistently through that 1964 title team viewpoint. days. Maybe that’s not the point of the to Jones’ hiring of Johnson to coach the Cowboys — a bold decision at the doc, after all, but it would perhaps go Still, you’re going to love watching some distance toward explaining how the Hogs beat Nebraska in the 1965 time, given that it required firing Cotton Bowl. Some things never get you could have apparently full coopTom Landry, then the only coach the old. franchise had ever employed. Someeration from both Jones and Johnson thing happened to sour the relation- — both offer extensive original interviews — without ever getting them ship between the former teammates, “Before We Were Cowboys” premieres at 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 28, on the even as the (how ’bout them) Cowboys into the same frame, or getting much SEC Network. of an explanation of what went wrong. racked up those two Super Bowl rings What they did get right, however, such that Jones fired Johnson when

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

ALSO IN THE ARTS

All events are in the Greater Little Rock area unless otherwise noted. To suggest an event in the Arkansas Times calendar, please email the listing and all pertinent information, including date, time, location, price and contact information, to calendar@arktimes.com.

THEATER “Sorry, Wrong Chimney.” A Christmas comedy from Murry’s Dinner Playhouse. 6 p.m. dinner, 7:30 p.m. curtain Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. dinner, 12:45 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. curtain Sun., through Dec. 31. $15-$36. 6323 Colonel Glenn Road. 501562-3131. murrysdp.com. “A Fertle Holiday,” The Main Thing’s holiday production. 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., through Jan. 14. $22. 301 Main St., NLR. 501-3720210. thejointargenta.com “Great Expectations.” TheaterSquared’s production of the Charles Dickens classic. 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Fri., 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sat., 2 p.m. Sun., through Jan.1. $10-$45. 505 W. Spring St., Fayetteville. 479-4435600. theatre2.org. “A Christmas Story.” Arkansas Repertory Theater’s production of the Turner Entertainment film. 7 p.m. Tue.-Sun., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun., through Dec. 25. 501-378-0405. $25-$50. 601 Main St. therep.org.

VISUAL ARTS, HISTORY EXHIBITS MAJOR VENUES ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “Collectors Show and Sale,” through Jan. 8; “Little Dreams in Glass and Metal: Enameling in America, 1920 to Present,” 121 artworks by 90 artists, and “Glass Fantasies,” retrospective of work by Thom Hall with 40 enamels, both through December. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000. ARTS AND SCIENCE CENTER FOR SOUTHEAST ARKANSAS, 701 S. Main St., Pine Bluff: “Exploring the Frontier: Arkansas 1540-1840,” Arkansas Discovery Network hands-on exhibition; “Heritage Detectives: Discovering Arkansas’ Hidden Heritage.” 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 1-4 p.m. Sat. 870-536-3375. BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: “Once Was Lost,” photographs by Richard Leo Johnson, through March 18; Studio Art Quilts Associates show, through December; “Fired Up: Arkansas WoodFired Ceramics,” work by Stephen Driver, Jim and Barbara Larkin, Fletcher Larkin, Beth Lambert, Logan Hunter and Hannah May, through Jan. 28. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.Sat. 320-5790. CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSEUM VISITOR CENTER, Bates and Park: Exhibits on the 1957 desegregation of Central and the civil rights movement. 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. daily. 374-1957. CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CENTER: “Ladies and Gentlemen … the Beatles!” Records, photographs, tour artifacts, videos, instruments, recording booth for singalong with Ringo Starr, from the GRAMMY Museum at L.A. LIVE, through April 2. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10

adults, $8 seniors, retired military and college students, $6 youth 6-17, free to active military and children under 6. CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, One Museum Way, Bentonville: “The Art of American Dance,” 90 works spanning the years 1830 to now, through Jan. 16; “Shaking Hands and Kissing Babies,” campaign advertising artifacts, through Jan. 9; American masterworks spanning four centuries in the permanent collection. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon., Thu.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed., Fri.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat.Sun., closed Tue. 479-418-5700. ESSE PURSE MUSEUM & STORE, 1510 S. Main St.: “A Walk in Her Shoes,” women’s footwear from the beginning of the 20th century, through Jan. 15; “What’s Inside: A Century of Women and Handbags,” permanent exhibit. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sun. $10, $8 for students, seniors and military. 916-9022. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM, 200 E. 3rd St.: “Eclectic Color: Diverse Colors for a Diverse World,” portraits by Rex Deloney, through March 5; Kimberly Kwee, multimedia drawings, and David Scott Smith, ceramics, through Feb. 5; “Tiny Treasures: Miniatures from the Permanent Collection,” through Jan. 9; “Hugo and Gayne Preller’s House of Light,” historic photographs, through Jan. 3; ticketed tours of renovated and replicated 19th century structures from original city, guided Monday and Tuesday on the hour, self-guided Wednesday through Sunday, $2.50 adults, $1 under 18, free to 65 and over. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9351. MacARTHUR MUSEUM OF ARKANSAS MILITARY HISTORY, 503 E. 9th St. (MacArthur Park): “Waging Modern Warfare”; “Gen. Wesley Clark”; “Vietnam, America’s Conflict”; “Undaunted Courage, Proven Loyalty: Japanese American Soldiers in World War II. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-4 p.m. Sun. 376-4602. MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER, 9th and Broadway: “Treasured Memories: My Life, My Story,” debut of new works in museum’s 2016 Creativity collection by Barbara Higgins Bond, Danny Campbell, LaToya Hobbs, Delita Martin, Aj Smith, Scinthya Edwards and Deloney, through December; permanent exhibits on AfricanAmerican entrepreneurship in Arkansas. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 683-3593. OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM, 300 W. Markham St.: “True Faith, True Light: The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley,” musical instruments, through 2017; “We Make Our Own Choices: Staff Favorites from the Old State House Museum Collection,” through December; “First Families: Mingling of Politics and Culture” permanent exhibit including first ladies’ gowns. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9685. MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY, 500 President Clinton Ave.: “Wiggle Worms,” science program for pre-K children 10 -10:30 a.m. every Tue. Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 ages 13 and older, $8 ages 1-12, free to members and children under 1. 396-7050. REGIONAL ART MUSEUM, 1601 Rogers Ave., Fort Smith: “Pulled, Pressed and Screened: Important American Prints,” through Jan. 5. 479-784-2787.

TOLTEC MOUNDS STATE PARK, U.S. Hwy. 165, England: Major prehistoric Indian site with visitors’ center and museum. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun., closed Mon. $3 for adults, $2 for ages 6-12. 9619442. LITTLE ROCK AREA GALLERIES ARGENTA GALLERY, 413 N. Main St. Art in all media by gallery members Sue Henley, Dee Schulten, Suzanne Brugner, Ed Pennebaker and others. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.Fri., 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat. 258-8991. BARRY THOMAS FINE ART AND STUDIOS, 711A Main St., NLR: Works by impressionist artist Thomas. CANTRELL GALLERY, 8206 Cantrell Road: David Mudrinich, “Connecting with the Land,” paintings, through Dec. 24. 2241335. CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 509 Scott St.: “The Fourth of July and Other Things,” paintings by Diana L. Shearon, through December. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 9 a.m.noon Fri., all day Sun. 375-2342. CHROMA GALLERY, 5707 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Work by Robert Reep and other Arkansas artists. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. 664-0880. COX CREATIVE CENTER, 120 River Market Ave.: “Art from the Row,” paintings, drawings, sculpture and models by men on Arkansas’s Death Row. 918-3093. DRAWL GALLERY, 5208 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Southern contemporary art. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 240-7446. GALLERY 221, 2nd and Center Sts.: Work by William McNamara, Tyler Arnold, Amy Edgington, EMILE, Kimberly Kwee, Greg Lahti, Mary Ann Stafford, Cedric Watson, C.B. Williams, Gino Hollander, Siri Hollander and jewelry by Rae Ann Bayless. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 801-0211. GALLERY 360, 900 S. Rodney Parham Road: “Deviant,” Shane Baskins, M. Crenshaw, House of Avalon, Mark Monroe, Myriam Saavedra and Michael Shaeffer, through Jan. 7. GREG THOMPSON FINE ART, 429 Main St., NLR: “William Dunlap, Landscape and Variable: Recent Works,” through Feb. 11. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 664-2787. HEARNE FINE ART, 1001 Wright Ave.: “Landscapes Unmasked,” oils and watercolors, through December; “Two Fronts,” multimedia drawings by Alfred Conteh; “AfriCOBRA Now,” through December. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat. 372-6822. HOUSE OF ART, 108 E. 4th St., NLR: “Pieces of Life,” work by Leron McAdoo, through Dec.16. L&L BECK ART GALLERY, 5705 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “Religious Art,” paintings by Louis Beck, through December, free giclee giveaway 7 p.m. Dec. 15. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.Sat. 660-4006. LAMAN LIBRARY, 2801 Orange St., NLR: “Dia de los Muertos,” work by members of the Latino Art Project, through Jan. 6. 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri.Sat. 758-1720. LAMAN LIBRARY ARGENTA BRANCH, 420 Main St., NLR: “Women to Watch,” Arkansas Committee of the National Women

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DECEMBER 22, 2016

Dining

WHAT’S COOKIN’

SOUTH ON MAIN is there for New Year’s Eve revelers this year — and not just on New Year’s Eve. The morning after, South on Main will serve its New Year’s Day Hangover Brunch from noon to 5 p.m. No, that’s not brunch time. It’s more like blunch. But you won’t feel like breakfast any earlier after Amateur Night (as seasoned drinkers refer to the eve), will you? Bacon, biscuits, eggs Benedict, maybe a little gravy, should set you right. Not sure about smoked trout after a night of boozing, but it’s on the SOM brunch menu. So is the Corpse Reviver, a blend of gin, Curacao, lemon, cocchi di Americano and Herbsaint. IF YOU’RE IN Bentonville on the last day of 2016, chef Matthew McClure has whomped up a five-course holiday menu for The Hive at 21c Museum Hotel. Here goes: The meal begins with dry aged beef Carpaccio and sweetbreads with roasted shallots, followed by a sunchoke soup with Madras yogurt and mint. Main course offerings are lobster campanelle, grilled veal chop and Black Angus beef ribeye (or wagyu ribeye, if you prefer) with whipped potatoes and beech mushrooms. Desserts include sweet potato custard and chocolate opera cake. The table d’hote menu ranges from $52 to $69. There will be two seatings: 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Reserve at 479-286-6576. The morning-after brunch is a la carte, featuring chicken and biscuits, cider braised pork shoulder, grits, potatoes and caramel apple French toast with the beverage of your choice, including those sans alcohol. AND NOW, A New Year’s Eve meal for the rest of us: Dairy Queen is opening a DQ Grill and Chill restaurant at 1550 Country Club Road in Sherwood on Dec. 31, and to celebrate will give to the first 100 folks to order a DQ cake a free mini blizzard treat every week for a year. That’s 52 free mini blizzard treats. 28

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

OUR GO-TO: The Turkey Burger never fails us.

Meet us @ The Corner Downtown diner shines with new menu.

t’s been almost two years since the self-described “modern diner” @ The Corner opened just below the offices of the Arkansas Times at the corner of Markham and Scott streets. Since we’re often chained to our desk, trying to decipher the latest outrage from the Arkansas legislature, and often too lazy to pack a lunch, we’ve happily given the diner a lot of takeout business during that time. We’re big fans. But with the introduction of a new menu, we decided to dine in several times over the last couple of weeks and man, oh, man is @ The Corner hitting its stride. Breakfast may not be cheap — two of us paid $28 — but you won’t leave hungry, either. In fact, depending on what you order, you might be left with enough to make the next day’s breakfast. But quantity isn’t why you would eat at @ The Corner. It would be, in our case, Follow Eat Arkansas on Twitter: @EatArkansas

that the cheese grits served with the Up & @ ’Em plate ($11) were more like a fluffy cheese grits souffle, light and rich at the same time. The toast, whole grain and buttered, was delicious — and who says that about toast? It’s called birdseed bread by Arkansas Fresh Bakery, which supplies it to @ The Corner (along with its Cocoa Rouge chocolates, which you can pick up at @ The Corner for lastminute Christmas stocking stuffers). The substantial breakfast menu also includes the Wafflewich ($10), a fluffy leviathan of a sandwich: a folded egg topped with melted cheddar cheese and a meat of your choosing, ensconced between warm, golden, maple-infused waffle quarters. Rather than bacon or sausage, we went with the beef bacon. The what? We, too, didn’t know such a thing existed until virtually the moment we spoke its name to our server, but it

was the right choice for a sandwich of this stature — fatty, smoky and more substantial than pig belly. Our Wafflewich came accompanied by a small army of perfectly cooked hash browns (they’re closer to what some call “country fried potatoes” than their shredded Waffle House kin), which meant leftovers were a foregone conclusion. In a nod to Canadian-born Kamiya Merrick, who owns @ The Corner with sisters-in-law Helen Grace and Leila King, the menu also includes The Canuck ($10), which is authentic Canadian bacon (more like pork roast than what you get on your pizza), cheddar, arugula and maple butter topped with an egg on Arkansas Fresh ciabatta, along with hash browns. Find also omelettes, pancakes (and pennycakes for the kids), breakfast burritos, the “energy bowl” (egg whites, turkey, goat cheese, sweet potatoes, Craisins and pepitas), oatmeal, a breakfast parfait, bottomless coffee and more. At lunch, the Turkey Burger ($11.50) has long been our go-to; there’s not a better one in town. That’s still the case, even though it’s been overhauled and no longer comes on a thick brioche bun. That’s been substituted with ciabatta, which might make burger purists balk (but why are burger purists eating tur-

BELLY UP

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

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MAGIC MADE: A Canadian roadside staple, poutine, is available @ the restaurant.

key?), and instead of lettuce and aioli, now you get a big smear of creamy goat cheese, some delightful red pepper jelly and dijonnaise on top of a juicy and flavorful turkey patty. The Canuck ($9.50) returns on the lunch menu; this time with arugula, caramelized onions and honey mustard on ciabatta. It favorably recalls a variation on a porchetta sandwich and will be part of our regular rotation going forward. Ditto for the new house-cured pastrami sandwich ($10), which comes piled high with meat, sauerkraut, pickles and cheddar cheese.

@ The Corner 201 E. Markham St. 400-8458 thecornerlr.com

QUICK BITE The diner does a brisk weekend brunch business on Saturday and Sunday. Also, don’t forget to pop in when you need a sweet treat. There are regularly homemade cupcakes and cakes on offer. HOURS 7 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. OTHER INFO Credit cards accepted, beer available.

Our colleague also had only praise for the sweet potato sandwich ($9), a veggie version of the Canuck, with roasted sweet potato instead of Canadian bacon. It’s too bad @ The Corner is not open at night, especially late at night, because Big Daddy’s Fried Bologna ($9) is the ultimate decadent gut buster you crave after an evening of indulgence. The bologna is about 3/4-inch thick, fried brown and served on heavily buttered and toasted white bread. The Corner Poutine ($5 or $10) is in a similar category. Among the uninitiated, it may inspire some skepticism if described in cold, denotative terms: Take a plate of rough-cut fries, piping hot, and top with cheese curds and brown gravy. But like so many comfort foods, the magic of this Québécois roadside staple has to be experienced to be appreciated. @ The Corner’s poutine is superlative, layered in a fantastically rich, hearty, homemade gravy that binds the fries and melts the cheese. A staple of @ The Corner’s menu, the poutine comes in two serving sizes; the large is ample enough to stand on its own for lunch, though it’s probably best not to do so every day unless you’re regularly cross-cutting spruces in the Canadian taiga.

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DECEMBER 22, 2016

12 MORE FOR THE ROAD, CONT.

A beer & bourbon tasting to benefit UALR Public Radio — featuring entertainment from The Rodney Block Collective

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Downtown’s Best Little Secret 610 Center Street | (501) 374-4678 610center.com 30

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

world with a digital drop, but she didn’t incorporate an app (probably cuz she didn’t go to Stanford). And Piph’s not a millionaire with a millionaire spouse.” The accompanying app might seem like a gimmick, if the album itself weren’t brimming with depth and ingenuity. Particularly notable: the finesse with which he uses multiple “voices” opining on the same situation to illustrate the ambiguity of relationships; background vocals from powerhouses like Sarah Stricklin, Joshua Asante, Young Red and Dee Dee Jones and Bijoux; and abounding literary and historical references.

Bombay Harambee, ‘Goldmine’ Twelve tracks of fuzz, frenzied alliteration and double-take inducing wordplay, Bombay Harambee’s latest is one I’ve kept on hand, in the car and in the headphones. Don’t miss the anomaly, “Enjambement,” a brief but lovely piano-driven respite from the amped ennui that dominates the rest of the album.

your thinking cap because there’s a lot of garbage on there/And, don’t get down/ Don’t let it get you down/You’ll figure it out because we need you to.”

Mömandpöp, ‘mömandpöp’ Recorded by Jason Weinheimer at Fellowship Recording Hall, this ’60s-inspired children’s album from spousal songwriting duo Virginia Ralph and Bobby Matthews has been in the works for a while and got an official release this year. It’s the aural incarnation of the show Matthews and Ralph put on at Arkansas schools — evidently delighting children to the point of joyborn tears — and it’s laden with character voices, dictums like “80 is the new 60” (“Old People Are Cool”) and warnings about the perils of not wearing socks.

QNote & Philly Moo, ‘I Am Trap Jazz’ Peppered with sound bites from Quincy Jones and fat, isolated beats, Phillip Mouton and Quincy Watson — two members of TP and The Feel — have blended Moo’s improvised sax riffs, doubled-up harmonies and ruminations with rainy-night-in-the-city keys and methodical production, creating something the duo calls “trap jazz,” an ultra-chill sequence of poetic fragments that stays home from the party and has a glass of pinot noir and a charcuterie platter by the fire instead.

Dangerous Idiots, ‘Live at the Legendary White Water Tavern’ This shouldn’t be considered a substitute for being in the room when Dangerous Idiots hurl hard truths into the crowd via three or four solidly played chords, but the sound is engineered carefully enough to be a suitable stopgap. What’s more, frontman Aaron Sarlo’s lyrics cut closer to the bone than ever, as on “He Who Has the Information Is the Leader:” “It’s just a lack of information/There is no need to think the moon is the sun/Just waddle over to the Internet, but put on

Kari Faux, ‘Lost en Los Angeles’ Along with collaborator and friend Malik Flint (Black Party), Faux’s made the move from Little Rock to L.A., garnering a boost from Childish Gambino’s remix of her song “No Small Talk.” Faux made waves with uber-stylized pieces like “Supplier,” featured on the HBO series “High Maintenance,” and “Lost en Los Angeles” is an uber-boss bundle of sarcasm and swagger. Also, don’t miss: Elise Davis’ “The Token,” Chris Maxwell’s “Arkansas Summer,” Iron Tongue’s “Witches,” Casual Pleasures’ “Heaven 7,” the 1st EP from CosmOcean, Pallbearer’s three-song EP “Fear and Fury,” The Body’s “No One Deserves Happiness,” Mainland Divide’s “Province of the Mind,” Minor Arcs’ “EP01,” any one of the five or 10 albums Yuni Wa put out this year (but, start with “Frequency Control”), Tsar Bomba’s “Strange Attractor,” Opal Agafia and the Sweet Nothings’ “One Down, Forever to Go,” Country Florist’s “CF-3” and Sad Daddy’s “Fresh Catch.”

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MOVING TO MAC ARKANSAS GRASS FED LAMB

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ARKANSAS GRASS FED LAMB ARKANSAS GRASS FED LAMB

We offer first quality one-year-old lamb raised on our farm in North Pulaski County. Our meat is free of steroids or any other chemicals. The only time we use antibiotics is if the animal has been injured which is extremely rare. All meat is USDA inspected. You can pick up your meat at our farm off Hwy 107 in North Pulaski County (about 25 miles north of downtown Little Rock) or we can meet you in downtown Little Rock weekdays. All meat is aged and then frozen. We offer first quality one-year-old lamb raised on our farm

PRICE LIST

in North Pulaski County. Our meat is free of steroids or any other chemicals. The only time we use antibiotics is if the animal has been injured which is extremely rare. All meat is USDA inspected.

You can pick up your meat at our farm off Hwy 107 in North WeROAST offer first quality one-year-old lamb raised on our farm RIB NECKBONES Pulaski County (about 25 miles north of downtown Little Rock) or we can meet you in downtown Little Rock weekdays. in North ismeatfree of steroids or any contains aboutPulaski eight ribs County. Our meat (for stew or soup) $5 lb All is aged and then frozen. (lamb $17 lb. TESTICLES lb otherchops) chemicals. The only time we use $10 antibiotics is if the PRICE LIST: LEG OF LAMB has been injured which isHEARTS, LIVERS, KIDNEYS , $5 lb meat is RIB ROAST TESTICLES animal extremely rare. All (about 4 to 5 lbs) $12 lb. HEARTS, LIVERS, KIDNEYS, TANNED SHEEPSKINS , USDA inspected. SHOULDER LEG OF LAMB $100-$150 TANNED SHEEPSKINS, $100-$150 (bone in,offer cook this slow, like a pot roast. (Our sheepskins are on tanned a We first quality one-year-old lamb raised ourin farm Youfalls canoffpick up$11 your farm SHOULDERoff Hwy 107 in North Meat the bone). lb. meat at our Quaker Town, Pa. tannery that has in North Pulaski County. Our meat is free of steroids or any Pulaski (about 25 miles north of in downtown BONELESS LOINCounty $8 lb specialized sheep-skins forLittle generations.) other chemicals. The only time we use antibiotics is if the BONELESS LOIN Rock) or$20we Little Rock weekdays. TENDERLOIN lb can meet you in downtown animal has been injured which is extremely rare. All meat is TENDERLOIN LAMB All BRATWURST meat is aged and then frozen. LAMB BRATWURST USDA LINK SAUSAGEinspected. LINK SAUSAGE India (one-lb package) $10 lb You can pick up your meat at our farm off Hwy 107 in North NECKBONES Blue PRICE 12407 Davis Ranch Rd.LIST: | Cabot, AR 72023 Pulaski County (about 25 miles north of downtown Little 12407 Davis Ranch Rd. | Cabot, AR 72023 Call Kaytee Wright 501-607-3100 Call Kaytee Wright 501-607-3100 Rock) or we can meet youalan@arktimes.com in downtown Little Rock weekdays. RIB ROAST TESTICLES $10 lb alan@arktimes.com All meatabout is aged andribs then frozen. contains eight contains about eight ribs (lamb chops) $17 lb.

$10 lb

$5 lb

(about 4 to 5 lbs) $12 lb.

(bone in, cook this slow, like a pot roast. Meat falls off the bone). $11 lb.

(Our sheepskins are tanned in a Quaker Town, Pa. tannery that has specialized in sheepskins for generations.)

$8 lb

$20 lb

(one-lb package) $10 lb

(for stew or soup) $5 lb

(lamb chops) $17 lb.

LEG OF LAMB

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HEARTS, LIVERS, KIDNEYS, $5 lb

PRICE LIST:

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PASTURED OLD BREED PORK Our hogs are a cross between Large Black and Berkshire, old 19th century breeds. They are raised on our pasture and forage in the forest that adjoins our fields. They are never confined like industrial hogs. We do not use any kind of routine antibiotics. Our hogs live ARKANSAS GRASS were FED LAMB like they meant to. PRICE LIST FRESH RAW HAM $7 lb.

PORK LOIN $8 lb

HAM BREAKFAST STEAKS $7 lb

BREAKFAST SAUSAGE $9 lb

PORK BRATWURST $10 One pound package

You can pick up your meat at our farm off Hwy 107 in North Pulaski County (about 25 miles north of downtown Little Rock) or we can meet you in downtown Little Rock weekdays. All meat is aged and then frozen.

PORK STEAKS $10 lb PRICE LIST: RIB ROAST TESTICLES contains about eight ribs (lamb chops) $17 lb.

$10 lb

WHOLE LEG OF LAMBPORK BUTTS TANNED SHEEPSKINS, $10 lb SHOULDER (about 4 to 5 lbs) $12 lb.

(bone in, cook this slow, like a pot roast. Meat falls off the bone). $11 lb.

HEARTS, LIVERS, KIDNEYS, $5 lb

$100-$150

(Our sheepskins are tanned in a Quaker Town, Pa. tannery that has specialized in sheepskins for generations.)

PORK TENDERLOIN BONELESS LOIN $12 lb TENDERLOIN $8 lb

$20 lb

LAMB BRATWURST LINK SAUSAGE

(one-lb package) $10 lb

NECKBONES

(for stew or soup) $5 lb

SPARE RIBS $9 lb BABYBACK RIBS $12 lb

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12407 Davis Ranch Rd. | Cabot, AR 72023 Call Kaytee Wright 501-607-3100 alan@arktimes.com

12407 Davis Ranch Rd. | Cabot, AR 72023 Call Kaytee Wright 501-607-3100 alan@arktimes.com arktimes.com

DECEMBER 22, 2016

2017 DON’T BLINK, MY FRIEND

M I N DS N B LOW

Submission deadline:

December 31, 2016 acts must be able to perform minimum of 30 minutes of original material with

LIVE INSTRUMENTATION.

Semi-finalists announced on

January 9th 32

DECEMBER 22, 2016

ARKANSAS TIMES

ROX

AND EMBR ACE THE FEAR .

HEARTS N BRO K E

TO ENTER, send streaming Facebook, ReverbNation, Bandcamp or Soundcloud links to showcase@arktimes.com and include the following:

1. Band Name 2. Hometown 3. Date Band Was Formed 4. Age Range of Members (All ages welcome) 5. Contact Person 6. Phone 7. Email all musical styles are welcome.