Arkansas Times - January 19, 2017 by Arkansas Times

JANUARY 19, 2017 / ARKTIMES.COM

BY BENJAMIN HARDY

Why the passage of Issue 6 trumped every Arkansas news story in 2016 (including Trump himself).

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COMMENT

Taking on trainers As our legislators return to work this week, they will take up House Bill 1040, preventing athletic trainers from practicing in nonclinical settings and severely restricting what they can do to provide assistance to students. As someone who has worked in college athletics for the better part of the last 15 years, I have seen up close the fine work that our certified athletic trainers do to keep our student athletes healthy. However, State Rep. Joe Farrer (R-Austin) apparently does not see the value in the services provided by my colleagues in the athletic training profession. Perhaps, as a physical therapist, he stands to have a personal financial gain due to these restrictions, as the treatment of certain spine injuries and postsurgery rehabilitation — treatments that ATCs are licensed to conduct — would be reserved for off-site physical therapists under this legislation. In a Dec. 20 story on KARK-TV, Channel 4, Farrer was quoted as saying “some local physical therapists and I have had some issues with some of the athletic trainers in our area. We need to clear up some of these issues.” Perhaps Farrer would like to clear up his conflict of interest in introducing this insidious legislation — if conflicts of interest even bother us anymore. But that is unlikely, as he was apparently “too busy” to discuss this legislation with KFSM-TV, Channel 5, in Fort Smith earlier this week. Certified athletic trainers not only help students heal from injuries, they help prevent injuries, and in some cases, they save lives. Would the same interventions by athletic trainers that saved the life of a college student athlete in Arkansas be illegal because of Farrer’s issues? Just a few short days ago, the Mississippi State University basketball team’s bus was just 200 yards away from a car that flipped in a single-car accident. Riders on the bus pulled the driver from her car, and she was then evaluated by the team’s athletic trainer. Would that evaluation be illegal in Arkansas because of Farrer’s issues? The needs of our students are greater than any issues causing Farrer any personal consternation, and frankly, his complete lack of sound judgment in introducing this terrible 4

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bill gives me full confidence to say that I trust the talented and competent certified athletic trainers in the state of Arkansas far more than a politician with an axe to grind. This bill currently sits with the Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee in the House. I implore the members of that committee not to let Farrer’s issues take precedence over the wellbeing of Arkansas students. Kill this atrocious legislation immediately. Paul T. Smith

Russellville

The fallacy of deterrence Last week’s article “The 91st Arkansas General Assembly: It’s going to be a beast” was, overall, an excellent summary of significant legislation we may expect this year. However, I wish to correct one statement from the article regarding guns on college campuses. In rev iew ing circumsta nces related to the mass shooting at

Umpqua Community College in Oregon (2015), the article incorrectly stated that UCC banned guns in violation of Oregon state law. In fact, individuals (including students) with concealed handgun permits were allowed to carry their weapons on the UCC campus and in classrooms. This fact was reported by Politifact in November 2015 when a Florida state senator declared UCC was a gun-free zone). UCC was anything but a gun-free zone. It was known at the time of the shooting that many students had concealed handgun licenses and were carrying concealed handguns on campus. At least one of those students spoke to news media immediately following the shooting. We are told that permitting concealed handguns on college campuses will deter mass shooters. UCC proves the fallacy of the “deterrence” argument. Knowing there were armed civilians on the UCC campus, the shooter attacked anyway. Perhaps he was hoping for a firefight that would create additional casualties? We may never know, or we may learn more when the final report of the shooting is released later this year. Stephen Boss Arkansans Against Guns On Campus Fayetteville

From the web In response to “The 91st Arkansas General Assembly: It’s going to be a beast”: 2017 will be the first year where we really find out exactly how heartless some of our elected legislators can actually be. We had better buckle up, because we’re in for a long, bumpy ride here in Darkansas! RYD Thank you to the Arkansas Times for organizing this important information. Thank you Rep. Greg Leding for providing the public with a plan of action. There are still a few legislators with common sense and decent morals. I know their names. I really believe we need to hire an exorcist for the Arkansas State Legislature. They are being socially harmful, irresponsible, unreasonable, irrational, counterproductive, discriminatory, overreaching and they are hurting the state economically by driving away

business and tourists. Why do they hate the people of Arkansas? Because we get in the way of the Arkansas Legislature’s true God: power and greed. The political machines have offered them a lot of easy money to go down in the history books as unpatriotic traitors to their state and their country. ShineonLibby In response to Ernest Dumas’ Jan. 12 column, “Glass houses”: The USA has meddled in the attempts of people in numerous other countries to govern themselves. That other countries and governments, and corporations spanning all the above, might use psy-ops to influence our governance should be understood. However, we should hold our leaders accountable for making false, perhaps dishonest, perhaps misinformed (lying or just dumb) statements to us, and we should try to educate an electorate capable of recognizing and responding to such challenges. These are likely to be the nature of future invasions of our borders. The redcoats are coming, via the internet and similar mechanisms, not so much by the boats and planes of yesteryear. I felt much better having a president who demonstrated the capacity to comprehend, understand and work in the nuanced gray areas of modern challenges than I feel looking forward to having a simpleminded bully thumping his chest and not really thinking about anything in particular. deadseasquirrel

experience has been that anyone who contends there isn’t hateful and twofaced racism from border to border in this state has lived a sheltered life. Regarding the book, I don’t understand the empathy for the racist views. Call it as you see it, if you’re gonna write about it. Rick Fahr I’ve seen Mr. Vance interviewed once about his alleged “memoir.” It took even the likes of me about three minutes to determine that he is a complete and utter fraud; he’s had about as “hardscrabble” a life as Ivanka Trump and, since she’s at least nominally in business, she probably works a lot harder. Of course, you may want to buy this big pile of crap for investment purposes; I hear that a copy of Clifford Irving’s bio of Howard Hughes commands a high price on eBay these days. Joe Quimby My problem with the haters is that they have pretty much destroyed the concept of “common good,” and are against anything that would improve the common good because it would

help people they don’t approve of. Doesn’t matter why they don’t approve, they’re just against helping those “others” even if it would also help them. And “others” is most easily defined by race. Because it’s so easy. Vance at least acknowledges that he doesn’t understand why more people don’t escape the same way he has, which, in my mind, makes him a whole lot less smart than what he thinks he is. Vanessa On the issue of hate: Many ignored voters felt “hated” by the press and Clintonites — constantly referred to as “uneducated” — as if formal schooling is the only definition of “educated” — and constantly lumped together as racists, xenophobia-ites, etc., and totally ignored by the Democrats. Vladimir Putin didn’t stop Clinton from going to Wisconsin. The selfrighteousness of the press was truly ridiculous and still is. Liberal used to mean caring for all the people — whatever happened to that concept? Hubris. Investigator of both sides

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In response to Gene Lyons’ Jan. 12 column, “Hillbillies”: I mostly agree with Gene; however, he failed to point out that, in the introduction to the book, J.D. Vance stated that he was a conservative in his political views and was not pretending to present an academic and unbiased viewpoint of his subjects. This book was too personal for that. This explains his tendency to assign some blame to the “hillbillies” for their own predicament. However, that does not diminish his explanation of the failure of government, or why the people are the way they are. plainjim Because I put my name on what I write, I have avoided many discussions on race in Arkansas. Perhaps I need to find a pen name, because my arktimes.com JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

BRIAN CHILSON

EYE ON ARKANSAS

IN THE MIST OF IT ALL: A recent fog blankets the Interstate 430 Bridge as seen from the Two Rivers Park Bridge.

WEEK THAT WAS

Quote of the Week

“Yes, the hour is dark. Evil comes forth in the guise of good. It is a time of doubletalk, when men in high places have a high blood pressure of deceptive rhetoric and an anemia of concrete performance. We cry out against welfare handouts to the poor, but generously approve an oil depletion allowance to make the rich richer. … The crowning achievement in hypocrisy must go to those staunch Republicans and Democrats of the Midwest and West who were given land by our government when they came here as immigrants from Europe. They were given education through the land grant colleges. They were provided with agricultural agents to keep them abreast of farming trends, they were granted low-interest loans to aid in the mechanization of their farms. … And these are the same people that now say to black people, whose ancestors were brought to this country in chains and who were emancipated in 1863 without being given land to cultivate or bread to eat, that they must pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. What they truly advocate is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. I wish that I could say that this is just a passing phase in the cycles of our nation’s life … but I suspect that we are now experiencing the coming to the surface of a tripleprong sickness that has been lurking 6

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within our body politic from its very beginning. That is the sickness of racism, excessive materialism and militarism.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Chicago, August 1967.

Racism: Blackface OK in Blevins Ted Bonner, the Blevins School Board member who for Halloween wore minstrel-style blackface and carried a sign saying “Blak Lives Matters,” was given an “Outstanding Board Member” award for completing a routine training program. In November, images of Bonner’s costume drew outrage on social media, but he resisted calls to resign; now, some in the community are rallying behind him. His supporters attended last week’s school board meeting wearing “I Stand With Ted Bonner” T-shirts as he received his recognition.

Materialism: Pork spending, literally The recent federal bribery plea agreement of former Rep. Micah Neal, a Springdale Republican, has increased scrutiny of the shadowy world that is the Arkansas legislature’s General Improvement Fund. The money is supposed to be used for economic development purposes, but with state lawmakers directing the allocation of “their” GIF grants and little oversight over

its actual expenditure, the potential for abuse is huge. Some GIF spending serves a real public benefit — but other grants are questionable, to put it mildly. Among the interesting tidbits to emerge last week: successful grant applications, made by Northwest Arkansas behavioral health services agency executive Rusty Cranford, who is thought to have connections with Neal, that purported to buy turkeys, hams and presents for needy families during the holidays. Republican and Democratic legislators made distributions from their GIF allotment to fulfill the grants, to the tune of about $20,000 in Northwest Arkansas and another $40,000 in Central Arkansas. Assuming the meals reached their intended recipients — whoever they might be — how exactly do Christmas hams promote economic development?

Militarism: Subsidizing guns State Sen. Bart Hester (R-Cave Springs) filed legislation last week that would exempt guns and ammunition from sales taxes for a weekend each September. He styles the proposed tax holiday a “Second Amendment Appreciation” weekend. It’s a goofy, pandering gimmick, but many legislators will no doubt vote for it anyway. In Arkansas — which has one of the highest firearm ownership rates in the nation — fealty must be paid to gun culture at all times.

More power for House Speaker

The Arkansas House approved a rules change that gives total power to the Speaker of the House to appoint committee members in the future. The new rules also allow legislators to raise campaign contributions during the fiscal session of the legislature, held in election years. That item drew almost no attention in an extended debate. Speaker Jeremy Gillam (R-Judsonia) initiated the changes. He said the campaign contribution rule would align the House with the Senate and the ability of others in government to raise money while governing. Gillam noted he’d not be running for the House again and won’t be speaker the first time the committee appointment rule takes effect. He said he didn’t think the change would make the speaker more powerful. He said it wasn’t a “power trip.” He said it was just an administrative function. The rule change follows Democratic efforts to pack select committees by using the old caucus selection system, based on seniority. Republicans were furious when Democrats nailed down a majority of Revenue and Taxation Committee seats (lost when Rep. Joe Jett switched from being a Democrat to a Republican) and vowed rules changes to prevent it from happening again.

OPINION

Pork and more

ome notes on disparate topics before I take a vacation break: PORK BARREL: The scandal grows over spending of General Improvement Fund surplus that state legislators have washed through regional planning agencies to avoid constitutional questions. Key players in the orgy of GIF spending were former Sen. Jon Woods and Rep. Micah Neal, the latter of whom has pleaded guilty to taking kickbacks Crime or no crime, the program has been used to pay for things like football team warmups, fireworks in Benton, turkeys and hams for the needy in Central and Northwest Arkansas and even $40,000 shipped by Northwest Arkansas legislators to somebody in Benton promising to use it for “ozone therapy.” The Berryville mayor said he got $25,000 for a parks maintenance building only after he went along with Sen. Woods on $200,000 for Ecclesia College, part of more than $600,000 in constitutionally dubious support of that religious institution, incorporated as a church. Taxpayers also paid to send some people from Shiloh

Christian School to a leadership conference. The governor and some legislators want to end MAX the GIF. Pulaski BRANTLEY maxbrantley@arktimes.com County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza could have permanently done so in a lawsuit now on appeal, but unaccountably decided local spending dictated by legislators – even for stuff like fireworks and turkeys – amounted to economic development and thus was a legal use of state money. One opportunistic new legislator says he’ll come up with a bill to outlaw the GIF. No bill is needed. Just don’t do it again. FAIR TAXES: Little Rock joined with other cities this week in encouraging Arkansans in Congress to get behind legislation that would require collection of a sales tax on internet sales. Outfits like Amazon aren’t required to collect a sales tax if the company has no physical presence in the state. Customers are supposed to voluntarily report their purchases and

Trumpeting

hen President-elect Trump announced he would, in a few days, force Congress to enact comprehensive health insurance for everyone, poor or rich, that would provide better and cheaper care than they’ve ever gotten, you had to wonder whether this guy is a miracle worker or a fool. A third posit is that he is just another politician, a supplicant who makes promises that he doesn’t expect to deliver. But most Americans, admirers and enemies alike of the old billionaire TV idol, don’t count Trump as just another politician. Even at their lowest, politicians are clinical pragmatists. Pragmatists don’t promise to instantly reshape global relationships, end Middle Eastern terrorism, make government efficient, get the economy roaring so everyone has a great job with a good income, build a giant wall across the continent at no cost to taxpayers and either co-opt the country’s enemies into friendship or smash them. And, now, fulfill the dream of presidents since Theodore Roosevelt to deliver great medical care, as a right, to every American. So it’s time to examine the first two options, although inaugural week is not the best time frame. Health insur-

ance is the perfect model for the study because Trump promised to get it done in the first days of the new ERNEST Republican govDUMAS ernment. In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump returned to his seminal policy stand, universal health insurance, although this time he said it would not be a single-payer system like Medicare but, like Obamacare, an expansion of the private insurance market. During the campaign, he said Obamacare would be repealed, but he stumbled around on its replacement by mentioning some empty Republican ideas like peddling insurance across state lines. Republican leaders have talked about just assuring “access” to insurance and care, not seeing that people had a way to pay for it. No, Trump said, his secret plan sees to it that the poorest person can pay for it and that the policies will provide wider coverage with much lower premiums, deductibles and copays, the chief complaint about Obamacare. “We’re going to have insurance for

remit a “use” tax to the state. Most don’t. Little Rock’s own congressman, U.S. Rep. French Hill, and Sen. Tom Cotton have been among those reluctant to support the legislation. They say it looks like a tax increase. It isn’t. It’s just a way to collect a tax that’s not being enforced and provide a level playing field for Arkansas merchants. But there is another way. Louisiana this year joined other states in passing a law that requires internet retailers to give notice to customers of their purchases and taxes owed. The burdensome requirement has prompted many of them to begin assessing and collecting the tax voluntarily. Rolf Wilkin, the president of the Arkansas Restaurant Association, is pressing Arkansas legislators to follow that model here. AND SPEAKING OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS: I’ll have more to say before March 17 on the proposal by the Little Rock School “Board” (Education Commissioner Johnny Key, because the district is in state receivership) to refinance existing construction tax mills and add 14 years of payments of more than a halfbillion dollars in taxes to pay for school construction. Through a little-known law quirk, the new taxes would also provide a

significant subsidy to operations. Raise money for operations by borrowing money? Conservative Republicans normally would object to this shell game. They also would normally object to a special school election. Why didn’t Key hold the election in November when more could have voted as was ordered in the Pulaski County School District? Is there a Key plan to eventually privatize the district in buildings rehabbed by taxpayers with no voice? Are there plans to build new high school space in West Little Rock? Residents of the district have asked for a meeting with Key to get some answers. CORRECTION: I’ve been inaccurate in the past on some comments about the millage vote, which will commit taxpayers to 14 more years of taxes, though not raise the millage rate. Relying on inaccurate figures, I’d forecast an eight-digit ($10 million) loss in operating money annually if the bond refinancing is approved. It will actually be in seven figures, from $4 to $6.4 million, depending on the amount of bonds sold. The 12.4 construction mills currently produce about $40 million a year, with $26 million going to operating expenses, not debt, on account of the rise in property value since the millages were approved.

everybody,” he said. Alluding to the prevailing Republican philosophy, he added: “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.” Under Trumpcare, people “can expect to have great health care … in a much simplified form — much less expensive and much better.” Obamacare has insured 20 million more Americans, leaving only 9 percent of U.S. citizens uninsured. Trumpcare would pick up that 9 percent. But that is a mathematical and fiscal impossibility unless it does one of two things. Either the government subsidizes private insurance coverage with hundreds of billions of dollars, which Obamacare would achieve with the same remedy, or it imposes by law draconian price ceilings on doctors, hospitals, drugs and insurers. Talk about government strangling the free market. You couldn’t get that done even with an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress. And if the Republicans are dedicated to one principle, it is to slash, not raise, domestic spending. But Trump said Congress will be no barrier and its leaders are on board with his plan. It will pass within days, maybe even the same hour that the Affordable Care Act is repealed, he said. He has insisted, as have many congressional

Republicans, that the current law will not be repealed until a good replacement that covers those 20 million is pretty well in place. That brings us to the second explanation, which is that Donald Trump is clueless about how government works. He provided ample evidence on almost every issue that has arisen. He never evinced any knowledge of the Affordable Care Act, except that the plans had high premiums, deductibles or copays. Except to hire a cagey tax lawyer to evade income taxes for most of his life and pleading with Congress once to restore the tax break for developers that Ronald Reagan took away in 1986, Trump never had a direct involvement in government at any level, which was part of his appeal. We are about to see the downside of that naivete and we will be fortunate if it is not calamitous. The likeliest scenario is that Congress will repeal Obamacare, some of it like the individual mandate and taxes on millionaires to occur immediately, which will undermine the market and send it crashing in 2018, so the millions deprived of insurance coverage can blame the black man and not Congress and the president that did not produce the coverage he promised. For the moment, let’s pray for the miracle-man outcome.

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Putin and Trump

ere’s a thought exercise: What do you suppose would happen if Russian strongman Vladimir Putin decided to clarify remarks he reportedly made about Donald Trump during the election campaign? “I never said Trump was ‘brilliant,’ ” he might say. “That was a poor translation. I said he was ‘colorful,’ which nobody denies. Unfortunately, he is also an ignorant buffoon with no greater understanding of international relations than the average Moscow prostitute, of which he has known many.” Would Trump confine himself to mocking Putin’s short stature and barechested TV appearances on his Twitter account? Or would the United States and Russia go to war footing overnight? Fortunately, we can all relax. Everybody understands that Trump lives so deep in Putin’s pocket that no such exchange seems possible. When it comes to foreign affairs, the only constant in our new president’s pronouncements is that he has never yet said anything — not one single thing — that the Russian dictator would find objectionable. It’s really remarkable. On everything from the invasion of Crimea to the obsolescence of NATO and the breakup of the European Union, Trump’s remarks may as well have been crafted in the Kremlin. Trump’s Secretary of State designee had a medal pinned on his chest by Putin himself; his national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, had a paid gig on the Russia Today TV network and has dined publicly with the Russian leader. Weakening NATO, the military alliance that has brought stability and prosperity to the west since 1945, is the No. 1 priority of Putin’s foreign policy, exposing Eastern Europe to the tender mercies of the Russian army. One needn’t yearn for a new Cold War to realize what a terrible thing that would be. As for the European Union, here are some relevant numbers: In 2016, total U.S. trade with the EU was roughly $650 billion. It’s our most important economic partnership by far. Total trade with Russia totaled $20 billion. Economically speaking, the EU is more than 30 times more valuable to the United States than is Russia. Any questions? Russia occupies a vast landmass and has a formidable military, but its economy is smaller than Italy’s. So anyway, here’s what it’s come to: In the course of defending Trump from scurrilous accusations in Buzzfeed, Putin also praised the beauty and skill of Moscow prostitutes, who he proclaimed “the

best in the world.” Back in 2013 when the president-elect visited Moscow for the Miss Universe GENE pageant, Putin aliLYONS bied, “He wasn’t a politician, we didn’t even know about his political ambitions. Do they think that our special services are hunting for every U.S. billionaire?” Actually, Vladimir, yes, they do. Even Trump knows that. During his recent press conference, he said he warned friends to behave themselves, “Because you don’t want to see yourself on television. Cameras all over the place.” In Moscow, they even have a word for it: “kompromat,” a combination of the Russian words for “compromising” and “information.” Luring public figures into proverbial “honey traps” or manufacturing scandal against troublesome individuals is a common practice of authoritarian regimes everywhere — but nowhere more than in Russia. It’s well known that Putin got his big break in politics when, as a young intelligence officer, he affirmed that a murky videotape of a man cavorting with hookers was indeed a foe of Boris Yeltsin’s. Today, sleazy videos of public figures are a regular feature on Russian TV. The sheer coarseness of political dialogue can be hard to believe. I got a small taste of it last summer after unmasking a pair of Russian trolls that I called “Boris” and “Natasha” after the cartoon characters: all scatology, sexual insults and veiled threats clearly based upon internet misinformation. Some foreign journalists have had kiddie porn installed on their computers. That said, apart from one lurid detail I won’t repeat, none of the naughty bits in the dodgy Trump dossier struck me as shocking. Trump has long boasted to radio shock jock Howard Stern and others about barging into beauty contestants’ dressing rooms, copping feels, etc. He’s also on record about the supposedly loose morals of Russian women. That said, whatever Putin has on Trump, I doubt it’s sexual — everybody’s favorite distraction. The real purpose of kompromat isn’t necessarily blackmail, but the promotion of discord, cynicism and widespread disbelief in such “liberal” values as the distinction between truth and make-believe. And when people come to believe that everybody’s crooked and nobody can be believed, the strongman always wins.

A heart in this house

ince Election Day, I have been at a loss as to how to direct my energy. I am spinning in circles. Do I call Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman to beg them not to repeal the Affordable Care Act so my friends and family members don’t lose insurance coverage? Is my time better spent emailing state legislators to express my concern about taking control away from our colleges and universities by mandating guns on campus? Do I try to get answers from my senator and representative as to why they directed taxpayer money out of their own district to a religious institution? Is attending a march on a Saturday the best use of my time? Should we all show up on a weekday instead when our legislators can see our might and resolve in person? I sense this same helplessness and confusion from many of my friends. As of now, I choose to let my brothers and sisters in so-called “blue” states push back against our president-elect and his hootenanny of fear and incompetence. I choose to focus my attention here at home in Arkansas. We are less than two weeks into the 91st General Assembly and too many legislators see this as a time to push an extreme agenda, one that causes many of us to question the hearts and morals of those legislators. “Is there a heart in this house?” This is the question posed by Rev. Dr. William Barber II as he concluded his speech to the Democratic National Convention in July. “Is there a heart in America? Is there somebody that has a heart for the poor, and a heart for the vulnerable?” I ask the same about the Arkansas General Assembly. Is there a heart in the house for those Arkansans who need our help and support? Is there a heart for families like mine who are able to remain in their homes because of unemployment benefits (they kept us afloat when my husband was laid off during my first pregnancy)? Is there a heart for the addicts who need treatment instead of incarceration? Is there a heart for our children and teachers in our public schools? Or is there only room in their hearts for Ecclesia College and school choice and tax-free weekends for guns? Tweeting out Bible verses and attending prayer breakfasts and moving heaven and earth to try to get a Ten Commandments monument on the state Capitol

grounds are not actions that allow us to see into our legislators’ hearts. Votes on bills do. We watch as AUTUMN some of our legisTOLBERT lators work to prevent food stamp recipients from enjoying the same food as everyone else. The same legislators receive a healthy per diem of our tax dollars to spend as they wish while those on food stamps struggle. We wait for the inevitable “bathroom bill” that proposes to fix a problem that doesn’t exist by putting members of the LGBTQ community in real danger and jeopardizes our tourism and convention economy. We watch as those who claim to be pro-life ignore the evidence that policies such as affordable birth control, paid parental leave and comprehensive sex education reduce abortions. There are bright spots from both parties. Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson (R-Little Rock), in a move that furthers the important process of decriminalizing poverty, filed a bill to end the practice of suspending driver’s licenses for failing to pay as ordered. Rep. Clarke Tucker (D-Little Rock) has again put forth a family leave bill that helps our public servants. Let’s not forget Governor Hutchinson’s support of continuing the Arkansas Works Medicaid expansion that saves lives and jobs by providing needed preventative care and keeps open our rural hospitals. These are policies that reflect the morals and values that should be in our hearts. These are policies that will help our state and our citizens. I think this is how we move forward. We take cues from Rev. Barber and the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina, where activists peacefully protest actions by the state legislature each Monday. Those of us who believe in moral policies such as criminal justice reform and equal rights and health care for all should use those as our North Star. We call out and stand up to those legislators, regardless of party, when they promote injustice and inequality. And we celebrate those, regardless of party, when their hearts are open to helping all Arkansans. And we do as Rev. Barber instructed: “Stand up. Vote together. Organize together.” Regardless of party.

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arktimes.com JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

PEARLS ABOUT SWINE

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JANUARY 19, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

he minute you take a shine to an Arkansas Razorback team is almost assuredly the same minute you have your sanity tested. Basketballers have taken over for the mercurial gridiron team in this regard. After a mostly enjoyable and encouraging dozen games of nonconference action, the hardcourt Hogs have been a bewildering sort in SEC play, frustratingly starting 2-3 against a challenging, but not necessarily impossible array of teams. Losing to Kentucky at Rupp Arena was expected, though going down by 26 points after a competitive first half was a real source of disappointment. Dropping a home game right after Christmas to a ranked but nonetheless flawed Florida team was thoroughly dissatisfying. The real trough happened at Bud Walton Arena a week ago Tuesday night when a rather unheralded but certainly well-coached Mississippi State team sauntered in and dispatched the Hogs 84-78 in front of what constitutes a decent midweek crowd these days (official attendance was a healthy 15,111). Ben Howland was arguably given too short a leash at UCLA after he failed to capitalize further on his early successes there, so the Bulldogs ended up landing a pretty nice gem when they pulled him out of a brief unemployment back in 2015. Howland’s first team went 14-17; this squad is already up to a dozen wins. You can see why Howland’s brand of basketball has caught on in Starkville — he’s always favored the long, athletic player who might be a little less than polished. Quinndary Weatherspoon is that sort of player, and he tormented the Hogs to the tune of 25 points and dead-solid threepoint accuracy, which, naturally, Arkansas’s late-reacting defense did nothing to disrupt. If there is anything remotely consistent about the program these days, it’s that someone like Weatherspoon always seems to get into a shooting rhythm against the Razorbacks’ backcourt defenders. Against Kentucky, De’Aaron Fox was electric and largely unchecked going to the basket. Weatherspoon had a cushion from long range most of the night and took full and regular advantage of it. Arkansas bounced back somewhat on Saturday against hapless Missouri, at least doing what the football team could not a few weeks ago: casting aside a Mizzou program a long way off from its prior zenith. The 92-73 victory was needed tonic for the team and the beleaguered

coaching staff, and even considering the Tigers’ terrible record and depth, it was reassuring to see BEAU the Hogs restore WILCOX their approach to balance. Five players went for double figures, and two more registered eight points, with the bench putting up 38 points among four players. Again, a win is nice to have, in any circumstance. But even that box score from the Mizzou rout reveals a problem: Both teams had 14 turnovers. The Hogs were unusually proficient and smart from threepoint distance (10 of 23), which isn’t always the case, but they still fouled a ton (25 of those). So a team built around a philosophy — arguably a bygone one at this point — of pressuring a team into all kinds of errors isn’t really doing much of that, and worse yet, the Hogs are creating cheap opportunities for their opponent at the free-throw line. Both the Bulldogs and Tigers outshot the Hogs substantially from the stripe. This is where the itch that Mike Anderson was supposed to scratch is flaring up, time after time. Arkansas just isn’t very good defensively, and hasn’t been for a good stretch, and that is rather inexcusable when Moses Kingsley is on the court much of the time. The Hogs seem completely ill-equipped to deal with the opposing team’s frequent spurts. In the Kentucky game, a three-point Hog deficit at halftime zoomed to well over 20 in seemingly no time. You may say, “But Kentucky!” Well, the Bulldogs also fended off every Hog rally with guys who aren’t of the caliber that man the court in Lexington. This week’s slate is Texas A&M away from home, which by the time you read this will have gone stellar or sour. At least the program’s longstanding road woes are being relieved somewhat, and A&M is subpar this year. The weekend home game against LSU will be more interesting regardless of the Aggie outcome, however, because this Tiger team is off to a rocky start and looks more vulnerable than Mississippi State probably did, in hindsight. A 2-0 week would put Arkansas up to 15-4, 4-3 with another dicey patch ahead, and that probably keeps the Hogs in line for a lower seeding in the NCAA Tournament. But if it ends up being a split or a not-unfathomable 0-fer, then the team has hit a dangerous state of collapse.

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NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

The Arts Center’s artists rocked the MacArthur Park facility built by Arkansas’s Rockefellers and made it as wild a place to create and enjoy art as any campus in the world — until the rare night Jeannette Rockefeller wandered in and saw what all those crazy hippies were up FROM MY VIEWPOINT as an to. Maybe it was the night the theater stuinhabitant of today’s Age of Simulation, dents fired off smokebombs and black-lit I look back with wonder at an era the gift shop. Very energetic and visually of innovative synergy in Arkansas, entertaining. She was not amused. especially in Little Rock. Despite Townsend’s best efforts, The Greasy Greens were in the Art it was never the same after that night, Farm; the Clintons and coincided with were in the Govthe end of my love ernor’s Mansion affair with Little Rock. Back to (when they weren’t Eureka Springs. sneaking out to parBye-bye, Arkansas ticipate in a Greens gig); the students at Times. LRU were energized Each year the Arts Center hosts by the civil rights its “Delta Exhibistruggle and the Vietnam war; Arkansas tion,” which judges Times (nee Union the year’s best Station Times) was work by Arkansas in its infancy; and and regional artists. Townsend Wolfe was The chosen pieces running the Arkansas are displayed in a WOLFE IN THE 1970S: At an Arkansas Times photo shoot with Arts Center, where grand fashion in the Danny Morris (left) and Betsy Bell. some of the state’s Arts Center’s beautimost creative, and fully lit main gallery. raucous, conspired to celebrate the As good as these shows are, some of us psychedelic revolution while gasoline yearned to also see the pieces rejected was 40 cents a gallon. Cheap thrills by the jury and find out what our peers around the state were making. abounded. The photograph of Townsend accomDuring a break in the Times’ photo panying this Observer was a reject shoot, I asked Townsend how about from an Arkansas Times cover shoot. It staging a salon de refuse´ prior to the affords a tidy way of viewing the vortex official opening of the Delta. “Throw it all up on the walls for just one day.” of cultural forces that drove the arts during the second half of the last century He declined by objecting that the in Little Rock. pieces deserved formal display, and if The guy with the beard is Eureka all the pieces were included they’d be Springs School of Art Artist in Residence jammed in frame-to-frame, denying the art the space it deserved. Danny Morris and the model is Betsy Bell I asked him how he displayed art in (nee Allee) of the Greens, where she sang his home. His reply: “Frame-to-frame.” like an angel as Morris played bass like the devil. When the Greens weren’t in A man of gentle contradictions, eleNew Orleans, Eureka Springs or trying gance and good humor, he was the right to play their way into being the first hip- “indispensable, irresponsible” man for the pie show band featured in Art in America, right job at the right time. His enduring they lived and worked at the Art Farm in contribution to Arkansas’s culture of the Little Rock, a commercial ad agency that visual and performing arts continues to provided a lot of affordable graphics to inspire me through the work my friends the Times, like the front cover that came began at the Arkansas Arts Center. Thanks, Townsend. out of this shoot.

eve tciv c i t u d u o r d p o r e R Rep

ernon Tucker, musician and former Arkansas Times writer, asked for The Observer space this week to remember Townsend Wolfe. Why not? What follows is memory of early days at the Arts Center.

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ALSO SPONSORED BY ALSO SPONSORED BY

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THE

‘The university of choice’ A Q&A with new UALR Chancellor Andrew Rogerson. BY DAVID KOON

niversity of Arkansas at Little Rock Chancellor Andrew Rogerson took the reins of the university on Sept. 1, succeeding Joel Anderson, who had held the job for 13 years. A native of Scotland, Rogerson holds a Ph.D. in protozoan ecology, and was previously the provost and vice president of academic affairs at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Calif. Sonoma State is part of the University of California system. He had previously worked in administrative posts at universities in England, Canada and the U.S., including Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va.; The South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City, S.D.; and California State University, Fresno. Rogerson comes to UALR at a time of change for the university, with steadily rising tuitions in the University of Arkansas system and fluctuating enrollment at UALR. He also inherits a controversial project going up on the south side of the campus: the eStem Public Charter Schools’ new high school. Critics say it will pull still more students from the already beleaguered Little Rock School District. The project, which will gut and renovate UALR’s Larson Hall and occupy part of nearby Ross Hall, is scheduled for completion by the 2017-18 school year. The Walton Family Foundation, which plans to invest over $250 million to construct new charter schools around the nation in coming years, is financing the construction of the eStem High School with an $11.4 million noninterest loan that must be repaid in 20 years. Encouraging the redevelopment of the areas around the UALR campus through the University District Partnership was a stated priority of former Chancellor Joel Ander12

JANUARY 19, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

son. Will it remain a priority on your watch? I think that’s consistent with the mission of a metropolitan and urban university. I think the role of this kind of university, which we are proud to be in the coalition of metropolitan and urban universities — CMUU — it really is two missions, if you like, that coexist. One is economic development, which is to produce a more educated workforce for the city. The second part is to revitalize neighborhood connections and make the university a real driver of change. So you see the role of a university like the University of Arkansas at Monticello or the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville as different from the role of a university like UALR? Absolutely. I think we’re a very unique entity here. We are the only university in Arkansas that’s in a city. The distinction you often make with a metropolitan university is that it’s not just geographically in the city, it’s of the city. In other words, it really is an integral part of changing the face of the city. I firmly believe that unless you’ve got something like 60 percent of your population with some form of higher education, you’re not going to be a sustainable, vibrant city of the future. That’s a number that’s been bandied around in other areas. The city of Louisville is a good example of that. They’ve really realized that they need to get the level of education up in the city. They’re calling their project “55 degrees.” Instead of calling it 60 percent of the population, they’ve put a number on it —that they need 55,000 more degrees in that city to make it vibrant and viable. That’s what we can

BIG MAN ON CAMPUS: UALR Chancellor Andrew Rogerson.

do, which makes us very different. Students going to Fayetteville are often not coming to reside in Little Rock. So we’re it. We can really make a difference in this city. Which is why we’ve been reaching out, which is something you’ve probably seen in other press, about really to try and reach local high schools and show that there’s a population of students there whose parents have probably never seen a pathway to their local university because of cost. Of course, if someone applies themselves and actually goes to their local university and applies for all the federal aid and state aid that’s available to them, then you can actually cover the cost of your tuition, then we can get scholarship money to help, or work study, etc. It’s a new population, I think, and it’s addressing that huge area in education, which is affordability and accessibility. These are the two words out there dominating higher education across America. We’re really tackling that head on.

In May, the UA system approved a 3.5 percent increase in tuition and fees, which will bring the annual undergraduate tuition and mandatory fees for an undergrad attending UALR to $8,633 per year in 2017-18. Is tuition too high at this point? I don’t believe it is. Any level of tuition is too high as far as I’m concerned. I’m coming from the California system where we had the master plan of the 1960s, where literally education was free. That has been eroded away. We still have this strangeness that we’re not allowed in California to call it tuition; you still have to call it a fee. But that fee has been creeping up and there is now tuition in California as there is across America. I think the level we’ve reached here is still manageable. It’s regrettable, but it’s manageable, because the state hasn’t disinvested in education as much as some states. You can look around at some problem systems: Colorado, Arizona, Louisiana. We still have fairly

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stable state funding, which is allowing us to keep the cost down. Remember, students who are financially disadvantaged can apply for things they’re eligible for and really can cover that, or most of that, cost, particularly if you live at home, which is one of the biggest costs of education these days. That’s why we’re pushing for that segment. We’re not going to be a university that only caters to local students, but it certainly could be a population we can bring in here and help the city in that regard. I think it’s also fair to point out that UA-Little Rock gives out a lot of scholarship money. Last year we gave out $17 million in scholarships. We’re very generous, and we also give out a lot of work-study. So we’re very aware of the need to make education affordable. Some see UALR’s partnership with eStem Charter School as the college helping the chief competitor of the Little Rock School District at the expense of the district. Do you

believe eStem’s planned expansion on the UALR campus — which will draw hundreds of students out of the LRSD — will harm the district? Is that a concern? Let me answer this by pointing out that I inherited eStem. It had nothing to do with me. But as I reflect on it, it’s a good thing. Remember, it is by lottery, so it’s a fair system that’s going to give equal opportunity to all students in Little Rock and the region. I think it’s a good thing that it’s got a STEM focus, because what this country needs more than anything is more science, technology, engineering, mathematics students. I think the fact that we have, come the fall of ’17, 450 high school students on this campus taking courses here is going to steer many of them into a degree at this university. I think the big picture is we’re going to have more students staying in this region, being educated in the STEM fields. I think ultimately that’s going to be a bigger benefit than any concerns about the dilution of the public school system. Are you personally a supporter of charter schools? I like the idea of free choice for any kind of education that seems to work for the particular family involved. In that sense, charter schools are OK with me. The terms of UALR’s contract with eStem and the Walton Family Foundation set the lease with the charter school at $1 per year for the property they’ll occupy on campus. Meanwhile, UALR is allowing eStem to use a significant amount of real property, including 15,000 square feet of space in Ross Hall, a building currently in use by the college as classrooms and offices. Why is it in UALR’s interest to give such a large amount of space to another entity, especially given that critics say charter school expansion will hurt the LRSD? I’m actually not that clear on how much space we’re giving away, but I can say that one thing we have on this campus is a lot of classroom space. As I understand it, the small amount of space we’re giving away for the expansion — because most of the construction is going to be new — that small amount

of classroom space wasn’t needed by the university. That’s even with a campus plan that’s hoping we’ll grow to at least 15,000 students. Has UALR received any funding or other resources or support, formally or informally, from the Walton Family Foundation since the eStem deal was struck? I don’t know for sure. I think not. Remember, that was money to fund eStem, which is in some ways independent of the university. This is a campus that still teaches music, arts, English. Are those disciplines still important in the 21st century? Absolutely. Let’s step back from it and go, what does an undergraduate degree hope to give a student? If you do a psychology degree, the chances of becoming a psychologist are probably 1 percent. So most undergraduates, if they don’t go on to graduate school to specialize, are going to be going out into the workforce. So if we give them the skill set regardless of the discipline, they’re going to be ready for the workforce. You might want to think about it as: A major is just a way of giving someone a database in which to analyze and drill down into and work with. The nature of that database is somewhat irrelevant in terms of the subject area. We have to be giving our students those critical thinking skills and those collaborative skills to make them team players. That can come regardless of what discipline they’re in. So I do firmly believe in a more liberal education for the undergraduates. I don’t think the nature of your undergraduate degree determines what you’re going to be in life. I don’t think if you get a degree in history that you’re going to have to find a job to be a historian. I think it gives you the right skill sets to find employment in many different areas. I would also hope that in the course of giving students a signature experience, which is making them sort of analyze the subject area, that they’re then going to be energized about that subject, and then they’ll consider: I want to go to graduate school. Yes, we do want to pay attention to computer scientists and biologists who can go

on in those areas. But I don’t have any problem pushing all our other liberal degree subject areas. This city needs as many artists and philosophers as they do computer scientists. If you want to be a vibrant city, you need to have a range. Governor Hutchinson has proposed a change in the higher education funding model that rewards “performance” in terms of how well a college does in meeting goals such as percentage of incoming students who actually graduate, etc. How do you think this change will affect UALR? It’s a very complicated formula at the moment that’s still being refined. Of course, it’s based on metrics such as time to graduation, but it also has metrics in there about how many underserved students are you serving, how many transfer students are you managing to graduate and so on. So it’s a complicated formula in many ways. The versions I’ve seen don’t disadvantage the university in any way. The funding is going to be sort of similar. But what it really does do, and I think this is a good thing about it, is that it really makes us sit up and say, we have to do business differently. Of course that is what we should be doing anyway. We need to get more students out instead of worrying about how many students we’re bringing in, which is what performance-based funding is all about. So we’re going to be looking at the number of students we’re actually graduating. I think the formula is still evolving. It perhaps will evolve even after it’s rolled out, but it’s not going to be a huge impact on us. It does give us two years to start looking at how we do business. I think that’s a good thing. Really, it’s not about how many students you enroll. It’s about how many you graduate. For a longer version of this interview, with topics including the proposed closing of Franklin Elementary, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ proposal to make college tuition very low-cost or free, and Rogerson’s views on “campus carry” of concealed firearms, visit the online version of this article at arktimes.com/ rogersonq&a arktimes.com JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

The legalization of medical marijuana was Arkansas’s most significant news of 2016. BY BENJAMIN HARDY

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very January, this newspaper selects an Arkansan of the Year — a resident of the state who has had an unmatched impact

on Arkansas and its people. But as 2016 smoldered

its way to a close, we realized the most interesting player in the Natural State these last 12 months was a member of the vegetable kingdom. In approving Issue 6, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment, voters made Arkansas the first of two states in the South to legalize the therapeutic use of weed (a distinction it shares with Florida, which passed its own measure on Election Day). That’s why we’re naming Cannabis sativa our first — and, OK, probably our only — Plant of the Year. We know what you’re thinking: This is denial at work. Surely the most important event of the wretched year-thatwas could only be the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Given that Trump beat Hillary Clinton by a 27 percentage point margin in Arkansas, and given the election left the Democratic Party of Arkansas in tatters, and given that the state’s demographics — predominately white, disproportionately poor, lacking a college education — are the bedrock of the coalition that handed Trump his national victory, surely the Arkansan of the Year could only be the Trump Voter. Right? The thing is, Trump’s win here surprised exactly no one, given the state’s recent electoral trends. Even back in October, when polls showed the Republican tanking nationally (cue bitter laughter) and the Clinton campaign was

salivating over the prospect of competing in places like Georgia and Arizona, Hillary’s chances of carrying her husband’s home state were still considered to be nil. Donald Trump always had Arkansas in the bag. In contrast, the outcome of Issue 6 remained in doubt until the ballots were counted. Polls had showed the measure stood a decent shot at passage, and the surprisingly narrow defeat of a similar proposal in 2012 gave marijuana advocates hope that 2016 would be their year. But Issue 6 also faced two challenges the 2012 measure did not: a rival initiative in the form of Issue 7, the Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act, and a concerted effort to defeat both ballot measures on the part of Governor Hutchinson (who was director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration under President George W. Bush)

and a bevy of powerful interest groups. And therein lies the real reason why medical marijuana legalization is the biggest Arkansas story of 2016. The same electorate that handed smashing victories to the Republican Party in November disregarded the united front against cannabis presented by the GOP, social conservatives, the business establishment, law enforcement groups and even one of the state’s leading progressive policy shops, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. The well-funded opposition by the Farm Bureau and Chamber of Commerce went unheeded and the Family Council’s warnings of moral decay fell on deaf ears. Many backers of Issue 7 who voted early supported it but not Issue 6, only to see the Arkansas Supreme Court unexpectedly disqualify Issue 7 from the ballot on Oct. 27 due to technical deficiencies in the signature gathering process. Some feared the split vote and acrimony between the two camps would spell doom for Issue 6, but this was not the case. As for Hutchinson, his PR campaign to defeat Issue 6 was about as effective as, well, his attempt to derail Trump in Arkansas’s Republican primary. On Feb. 27, three days before that contest, the governor told voters, “It is up to Arkansas to stop the Donald Trump show. The next generation of conservatives cannot allow Donald Trump to take everything we stand for and throw it away.” Hutchinson, along with most of the state’s leading Republicans, urged the rank-and-file to nominate Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for the presidency. On March 1, Rubio won two of Arkansas’s 75 counties; Trump took 57 (the rest went to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz). Eight months later, in the general election, out of the 67 counties that supported Trump, 32 of them — almost half — also supported Issue 6. In many places, the Trump Voter was the Weed Voter as well.

Nor was Arkansas alone. Along with Florida, which Trump also captured, dead-red North Dakota legalized medical marijuana on Nov. 8. To be clear, such measures could never have passed without Democrats and independents, who remain more likely than Republicans to support decriminalization. (Of the eight Arkansas counties that broke for Clinton, only one voted against Issue 6, and Connor Eldridge, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, backed the proposal.) But if the rise of Trump signals the eclipse of the party of Ronald Reagan — who once declared marijuana “probably the most dangerous drug in America” — then the median Republican voter’s shifting attitude toward pot is a potent symbol of that change. Perhaps it’s not too surprising that many of the same folks who extended a middle finger to “the establishment” by embracing a philandering, aging playboy as presidential material also ignored the chorus of establishment and conservative voices opposing marijuana — especially in Arkansas, whose electorate shades a bit more libertarian than other Southern states. In any case, the fact that Arkansans endorsed both medical cannabis and Donald Trump over the strenuous objections of Republican leaders indicates an underlying weakness in the position of Hutchinson and his party: Even as the GOP finds itself in total control of the state, its base is restive, fickle and evolving in directions still unknown. A month after the election, as required by the amendment, Hutchinson and Republican legislative leaders duly appointed five citizens to a newly created Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission, which is tasked with licensing dispensaries and cultivation facilities. The governor told reporters that although implementing Issue 6 “was a position I hoped I would never be in,” he was dedicated to rolling out arktimes.com JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

CONTINUED the new law “fairly and responsibly.” He added that federal action could change things: “What we are doing in terms of implementing the people’s will in medical marijuana, it remains a violation of federal law. It remains to be seen as to what the Trump administration will do in this regard. ... But until we get a change of policy from Washington, we proceed on with the will of the people.” Now, with medical marijuana the law of the land, Arkansas is scrambling to meet the strict deadlines established by the amendment. Along with the Medical Marijuana Commission, two other state agencies are tasked with making rules to govern the new industry: the Department of Health and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division. By March 9, the three entities must have regulations in place concerning the licensing of businesses, the registration of patients, the testing and packaging of marijuana products and much more — a jigsaw puzzle of new rules that must add up to a coherent whole. By June, the commission is required to begin accepting license applications for dispensaries and cultivators. However, a bill by state Rep. Doug House (R-North Little Rock) could push those timelines back by 60 days (perhaps not a bad thing, given the complexity of the task at hand). Although language in the amendment ensures the General Assembly can’t undo the legalization of medical marijuana itself, it can modify other parts of the law — for good or ill — if it can muster a two-thirds supermajority. David Couch, the Little Rock lawyer behind Issue 6, said he’s not concerned about legislative meddling. “The Republican leadership has kept me informed of potential bills and the bills that they have filed,” he told the Times. “They’ve asked for my input or comments — not that I have any big stick or anything like that — but they’ve kept me advised of things they’re going to do. When I hear crazy rumors, I’ll talk to some of them, and they’ll be like: ‘We heard that rumor and it’s nothing but 16

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a rumor.’ ” Still, marijuana advocates are keeping a close eye on the Capitol.

BIRTH OF AN INDUSTRY

Meanwhile, the work of the Medical Marijuana Commission has attracted intense public interest, with standing room only at each of the six meetings the panel has held since its creation just over a month ago. The five commissioners, some of whom are medical professionals with no past experience in state government, have faced a steep learning curve while under the spotlight. As it develops rules for licensing the large cultivation facilities that will grow most of the marijuana in Arkansas and the dispensaries that will sell it to patients, the commission is shaping a market that does not yet exist but which everyone expects to be highly lucrative. A trade publication of the national pot industry, Marijuana Business Daily, estimated after the election that Arkansas dispensary sales could total $30 million to $60 million within a few years. The commission has determined it will initially license five cultivation facilities in the state (the amendment requires four to eight) with steep financial barriers to entry. To be in the running, an applicant must show $1 million in assets or a $1 million surety bond, plus another $500,000 in cash; the application fee alone will be $15,000, half of which will be returned if the application was unsuccessful. If successful, the applicant will pay an annual license fee of $100,000. The five cultivator licenses will be awarded on a merit-based system according to a rubric that has yet to be finalized by the commission. Commissioner Travis Story, a Fayetteville attorney, pushed for an even steeper license fee on growers — he proposed $185,000 — saying the high sums were justified by the business’s “incredible economic potential.” He encountered some pushback from Dr. Carlos Roman, an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist from Lit-

tle Rock who’s argued for the need to make the new industry as accessible to new entrepreneurs as possible. Roman said he felt a fee of that magnitude could “price people out” and benefit the existing, unregulated black market. “If we fee this thing to death ... we can screw this up,” he said. After the Jan. 3 meeting at which the cultivator fees were established, Story told the Arkansas Times that it was necessary for growers to be “well-capitalized” partly to combat the black market. “We don’t know what demand’s going to be, so we don’t know how long they have to sustain themselves before they can make a profit,” he said. “We’re not saying they have to use all that cash; we’re just saying they have to have the availability to keep going, because the last thing the commission or the state wants is one of these to fail … [and] decide they’re going to have to go a different route to finance this, whether that be through the backdoor [or] finding investors that are less than reputable.” Story also noted that a large amount of cash on hand is necessary for growing operations because the federal prohibition on marijuana prevents those in the marijuana business from accessing credit through banks. Couch said he’s been pleased with the commission’s work so far and has found most of the appointees to be “more open and progressive than I would have ever anticipated.” He said the cultivator fees are not unreasonable. “I always kind of look at New Mexico as my guideline, because it’s about the same size as Arkansas. They’ve got a little over 2 million people, we’ve got close to 3 [million], but if you look at all the economic indicators, we’re always 45, they’re 46. We’re 42, they’re 41. … They limit their plants in their nonprofit dispensaries, and it costs $90,000 to grow 450 plants. They have 20 cultivation facilities or something like that. So I don’t think $100,000 is an unreasonable fee. $250,000 would have been too much.” On Jan. 10, the commissioners agreed by a 4-1 vote to initially certify

32 medical marijuana dispensaries across Arkansas — significantly more than the minimum of 20 required by the amendment, which allows up to 40. (The dissenting vote was Story’s, who said he preferred that the state begin by authorizing a smaller number.) However, the panel also instituted a licensing fee structure that will make it more difficult for dispensaries themselves to cultivate marijuana. The amendment allows for individual dispensaries to grow up to 50 “mature plants” at any one time, along with seedlings. That’s a quantity far smaller than the thousands of plants that a cultivation facility would presumably be producing, but it could allow dispensaries some degree of autonomy from the big cultivators. However, though the commission will impose a relatively modest initial license fee of $2,500 on dispensaries that don’t cultivate marijuana, the fee grows tenfold for those that do — to $25,000. A grower-dispensary would also be subject to an annual license renewal fee of $32,500, as compared to $10,000 for a store-only dispensary. Both will be subject to the same $7,500 initial application fee, half of which will be refundable for unsuccessful applications. In creating a two-tiered system for dispensaries, the commission was following the lead of the Alcoholic Beverage Control, which is hurrying to create rules of its own. State Department of Finance and Administration attorney Joel DiPippa told the commission at the Jan. 10 meeting that the ABC decided to ask dispensaries “if they want regulatorily to make the election” to cultivate. (The ABC is a part of the finance department.) Cultivation requires its own set of rules distinct from retail sales, DiPippa explained, including details such as security requirements and product testing; therefore, dispensaries that want to

grow pot will have to meet some of the same the regulations placed on large cultivation facilities. ABC’s logic is that a store-only dispensary that simply sells marijuana — but doesn’t grow it — shouldn’t be asked to face the same regulatory burden as a growerdispensary. But some medical marijuana activists feel the commission’s decision will benefit the big cultivators, ultimately at the expense of patients. Supporters of Issue 7 warned last year that Issue 6 would create “a monopoly” by concentrating economic power in the hands of a few growers (Issue 7 envisioned a model in which nonprofit dispensaries themselves produced the bulk of the state’s cannabis, with some patients also growing their own). Jennifer Lewis, who was an Issue 7 organizer, told the Arkansas Times after the Jan. 10 meeting that “$2,500 on a dispensary ... is reasonable, [but] I think $25,000 on cultivating 50 plants is completely crazy, and a great way to make all these dispensaries go out of business. “What’s going to happen is that all of these dispensaries that choose to cultivate aren’t going to make their money back and are going to have to stop cultivating,” she continued. “These 50 plants are supposed to be giving the little guy, the small business owner, a leg up — and serving patients in the community. Now, all of these dispensaries are going to have to go to these big cultivation centers to get their product. It’s going to be the Big Five, and they’re going to be like freaking Walmart or Tyson.”

THE PRICE OF POT

Melissa Fults, the sponsor of Issue 7, worries that the commission’s hefty fees for grower-dispensaries could undermine the marijuana program. “I don’t think they’re doing it purposefully,” she said. “But if [dispensaries]

grow their own, that allows them to keep costs down low. If they’re selling it at a lower price, the cultivation centers will be forced to keep their prices down. My biggest fear at this point is that they are going to price themselves so high that the black market is going to run rampant, because nobody is going to be able to afford it. … You can get medical grade right now on the streets between $250-$300 an ounce. By the time dispensaries get it — with even a small mark-up — it’ll throw the prices up … [to] between $400 and $500 an ounce.” Fults said she’s asking the legislature to double the amount of plants that dispensaries are allowed grow, to 100. There’s also rumors of legislation cooking that would do just the opposite: prohibit dispensaries from growing plants altogether. Nate Bradley, the executive director of the California Cannabis Industry Association, said Fults’ concern is legitimate. “The issue is that when you put caps on the number of licenses for anything, you do create price issues,” Bradley said. “What you’ll see in Arkansas with only five cultivation sites is that prices will go through the roof.” Bradley said he’s seen similar effects in other markets, including in California. “I remember in San Francisco — the dispensaries there, they used to call them the San Francisco cartel, because you couldn’t get a new dispensary open to save your life. All the dispensaries had it on lock, had a price agreement. It was known that everyone sold the stuff for $50 eighths [eighth of an ounce]. One dispensary finally fought through all the red tape, was able to open up, came into the market at a third of everybody else, and it forced everybody to drop their prices. … In Washington, D.C., cannabis was going for upwards $500 to $900 an ounce, because they had very limited cultivation sites and restrictions on the dispensaries as well. So that’s what you typically see in other states that just cap the amounts [of licenses] — the prices tend to be higher. “If you’re on Social Security and have

cancer, then that’s going to make it pretty hard for you, if you’ve got to spend $900 a month to get medicine,” Bradley said. “And cancer patients might go through a couple ounces a month. Some people can afford that, but most people can’t.” Still, not everyone thinks lower marijuana prices are a good idea. Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at New York University and consultant on drug policy, notes that cheaper, more potent weed has caused “the price of a stoned hour” to collapse in places like Washington state, which hired Kleiman to help set up its commercial marijuana economy after voters there approved full legalization in 2012. “The price of an ounce hasn’t changed much in 25 years, but the value of a dollar has gone down some, and the THC content of the pot has gone up by maybe a factor of four,” he told the Times. “[There are] discount outlets in Seattle offering 18 percent THC weed for $95 an ounce. Now if you’ll pardon my French, that is dirt fuckin’ cheap. I did the arithmetic. That works out to about 15 cents a stoned hour.” While such developments may be good for the cancer patient suffering from pain and nausea, Kleiman argues that it’s not great for society as a whole. “There are people who are going to get cannabis or cannabinoids prescribed as medicine, and that’s fine. But a very large fraction of people in the places where it’s relatively easy to get medical marijuana have been using marijuana a long time before they had any diagnosis. You’re basically taking a big chunk of the illicit drug market and putting it through the medical system,” he said. Nonetheless, Kleiman supports the full decriminalization of marijuana: “My view is that prohibition is broken. Give up, legalize the stuff, do it in a way that’s sufficiently restrictive, so you don’t get a big increase in consumption.” As for why increased consumption is a problem, Kleiman sees the answer as self-evident. “The main risk of selling cannabis is that people get habituated to cannabis and find themselves with

a drug problem. In 1992, of the people surveyed who said, ‘Yes, I used sometime in the last month,’ 9 percent said they used 25 days or more in the last month. That same number — heavy users as a fraction of all users — is now 40 percent. … Eight million people in the surveys say ‘Daily or near daily use.’ I don’t want that number going up. About half of them meet criteria for substance abuse disorder. They say it’s taking a lot of time in their lives, interfering with other responsibilities, causing conflict with people they care about, and that they’ve tried to cut back and failed. Now, maybe with a more careful diagnostic screen rather than just a survey, maybe some of those people turn out not to have much of a problem, but still — that’s a lot of people being stoned all the time.” Ironically, although the public widely saw Issue 7 as more permissive than the marijuana amendment that ultimately passed, its production and distribution model — nonprofit dispensaries, a grow-your-own provision — is somewhat closer to what Kleiman believes states should adopt when legalizing medical cannabis. Establishing for-profit dispensaries, he argues, “makes it convenient, makes it available, and creates an industry that’s out there searching for customers. … It seems like the big difference between big medical marijuana and small medical marijuana is stores.” (As for cultivation facilities, Kleiman said, Arkansas should set its fees high: “These are licenses to print money you’re talking about; the taxpayers ought to get it.”) To some, Kleiman’s concerns will sound like moralizing. But as more red states like Arkansas legalize medical cannabis, as the commercial market continues to grow, and as the failed U.S. war on pot slowly winds down, they’ll only grow more relevant. “This is the weird thing about this country,” Kleiman said. “We’ve had complete prohibition for almost 80 years. And now we’re going to swing all the way to full, uncontrolled legalization at low taxes. We’re allergic to moderation.” arktimes.com JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

PROFILE OF A PLANT What science does and doesn’t tell us about the health benefits of cannabis.

annabis sativa is a member of the family Cannabaceae — which also includes hops and the common hackberry tree — but longstanding disagreement exists over whether the genus includes more than one species or merely different varietals. (Though some maintain Cannabis indica is a separate species, most scientists now classify indica as a subspecies of Cannabis sativa.) Taxonomy aside, cannabis has been used by humans for millennia — for the versatile fibers of its stalks (hemp), the nutritional value of its seeds, and, of course, the chemical compounds found in its female flowers and leaves. There are dozens of distinct cannabinoid molecules, two of which are especially significant. Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the primary agent responsible for getting you high. Cannabidiol, or CBD, is not psychoactive but nonetheless affects the brain in powerful ways. CBD appears to be effective in treating some forms of epilepsy, and the anecdotal evidence for its benefits is strong enough that many states resistant to legalizing medicinal cannabis allow very limited use of low-THC/high-CBD products (Oklahoma, Texas and Mississippi are among them). But psychoactive THC has its therapeutic applications as well. On Jan. 12, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine released a landmark review of the scientific literature on the health impacts of marijuana use, examining the abstracts from over 10,000 studies published since 1999. Any such report comes with the qualification that research into human consumption of marijuana has been crippled by the substance’s ongoing federal prohibition. That means the scientific data is limited, despite the fact that the drug is one of the most widely consumed in the world. “Unlike other controlled substances such as alcohol or tobacco, no accepted standards for safe use or appropriate dose are available to help guide individuals as they make choices regarding the issues of if, when, where, and how to use cannabis safely and, in regard to therapeutic uses, effectively,” the report’s overview states.

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The National Academies report found “conclusive or substantial evidence” that cannabis or its derivatives are effective for treating chronic pain in adults, for relieving muscle spasms in individuals suffering from multiple sclerosis and for alleviating chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in cancer patients. The report found “moderate evidence” the drug can help with sleep disorders and “limited evidence” it could benefit patients with post traumatic stress disorder, Tourette syndrome, social anxiety disorders and more. However, it found limited evidence against the effectiveness of cannabis for treating glaucoma or dementia, and no evidence in either direction for its effectiveness regarding a number of other medical issues, including cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and treating addiction to more pernicious substances like opioids. On the other side of the public health ledger, the researchers found “substantial evidence” that smoking marijuana regularly “is associated with more frequent chronic bronchitis episodes and worse respiratory symptoms,” though they found evidence that it is not associated with an increased incidence of lung cancer or head and neck cancers. Evidence regarding a link with other cancers was inconclusive. The report also found substantial evidence that cannabis use was correlated with increased vehicular accidents, lower infant birth rates and the development of schizophrenia or other psychoses. It found limited evidence for a correlation with other harmful effects, from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to various mental health problems. To thousands of patients in Arkansas and elsewhere who say cannabis has helped them overcome or cope with a host of disorders, the National Academies report may sound frustratingly limited in scope. But science moves slowly by design (and even more so when federal law stands in its way), and the report’s conclusions regarding the benefits of marijuana in reducing chronic pain, nausea and muscle spasms are monumental.

Honorable mentions for 2016 Arkansan of the Year, with plenty of solid contenders for the crown.

REP. NATE BELL (R-MENA)

He may be a right-winger who seldom agrees with us socially or politically, but credit where credit is due: He called Trump early as a racist, misogynistic, vulgar fool and kept saying so right through the election, long after most other anti-Trump conservatives lost their spines and bent with the prevailing wind. At last, a cause we can fight for together: proving Trump to be an emperor sans clothing.

U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE BRIAN MILLER

From his federal bench in Little Rock, Miller threw the book at crooked former Faulkner County Circuit Judge Mike Maggio back in March, giving the admitted bribe-taker the maximum 10-year stint after telling him: “A dirty judge is far more harmful to society than a dope dealer.” No objection, Your Honor.

THE BROADWAY BRIDGE

Props to the 93-year-old span over the Arkansas River in Little Rock, which missed its cue to spectacularly plunge into the drink following a series of controlled explosions back in October. Four hours and much head-scratching later, the defiant bridge finally came down after workers hooked on with two towboats and gave her a mighty yank. #broadwaybridgestrong

SAVVY SHIELDS

Yeah, no matter how much the organizers want to convince you that the Miss America competition is about scholarships, it’s really a beauty pageant. Still, when an Arkansas native goes from Miss Arkansas to “There She Is …” for the first time since 1982, it must be noted. You did us all proud, Ms. Shields.

JOHN SCHENCK AND ROBERT LOYD

The binary stars of Conway’s famous Pink House, the married couple died almost exactly one year apart — Robert on Dec. 30, 2015, John on Dec. 29, 2016 — after devoting decades of their lives to the crusade for LGBT rights in Arkansas, including taking in several LGBT kids abandoned by their families. Two lions, now at rest.

MONICA WALTERS

Despite being very pregnant, Walters rushed through flames to save several of her neighbors during a June blaze, sparked by fireworks, at the Silver City Courts housing project in North Little Rock. Walters was later honored by the North Little Rock City Council for her heroism, and rightly so.

SEN. DALE BUMPERS

Will this state ever see another politician who casts a longer shadow than former governor and U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers, who died on Jan. 1, 2016, after a lifetime of service to the state? Unlikely, though his career shows that anything is possible in Arkansas.

KEVIN DELANEY

Director of visitor experience for Little Rock’s Museum of Discovery, Delaney has done much to dispel the idea that Arkansas is the land education forgot, repeatedly appearing on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” to demonstrate gee-whiz experiments that get viewers excited about science. Now he’s got his own show, “Street Science,” on the Science Channel. Careful you don’t burn your beard off, dude.

GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON

The guv has defied expectations, particularly in his support for continu-

ing Obamacare, even if he had selfish reasons to do so. Big props as well for publicly saying Arkansas has better things to worry about than which public restroom transgender people use to go pee-pee, and that the joint holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee should be severed.

BAKER KURRUS

DAVID PRYOR

The former senator ultimately failed in his noble effort to fight a huge stadium expansion at the University of Arkansas’s Reynolds Razorback Stadium, but the message was sent: If we’re spending millions on skyboxes instead of classrooms, then Arkansas’s higher education priorities are severely out of whack.

KAREN HOPPER

Coming in as superintendent after the state takeover of the Little Rock School District, Kurrus won over critics and was on his way to rebuilding confidence in the LRSD before getting fired in April for speaking up bravely against the damage charter schools have wrought on public schools.

The former Republican representative from Mountain Home inspired a groundbreaking state audit that uncovered vast corruption in the General Improvement Fund pork barrel spending by state legislators. That investigation has produced one criminal guilty plea with more charges expected.

REP. JOHN WALKER

MIKE WILSON

His cancer in remission at age 79, Walker continued as a lion for equal rights in the legislature and his law practice, fighting the Little Rock business establishment on behalf of the public good. Back in September, he proved his dedication to civil rights is more than bold talk when he and an associate were hauled off in cuffs for sticking up for their right to film Little Rock cops during a traffic stop. Surely a troublemaking role model for us all in coming years.

NATE POWELL

In November, Powell became the first cartoonist to win a National Book Award, for the “March” trilogy, a series of graphic novels about U.S. Rep. John Lewis’ work to free the South from segregation. Trump’s recent petty swipe at Lewis on Twitter sent “March” sales through the roof, and Powell has vowed to donate his spike in royalties to progressive causes.

KATHY WEBB

Her legislative career over, she worked to fight hunger, build a coalition to speak up for all sectors of the community in the age of Trump, and also promised to be a needed progressive voice on the Little Rock City Board, where she’s now vice mayor.

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The former Jacksonville legislator continued his one-man fight against the General Improvement Fund slop trough in court, filing an illegal exaction lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court last February.

CHIEF JUSTICE DAN KEMP

He won a heated race against Courtney Goodson to become chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court and opened the year by declaring he was going to retake administrative control of the court, which had been usurped by a clique of justices in previous years. Will it work? Answer unclear; ask again later.

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RACIAL POLITICS

Republicans expanded their domination of political offices in Arkansas, including pushing Democratic representation in the state legislature back to a bare and trembling toehold. There are apparently no limits to what you can achieve in Arkansas by being not the party of Barack Obama.

JEFF HENDERSON

The 27-year-old long-jumper, a graduate of Sylvan Hills High School, struck gold at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 13 with a leap of 8.38 meters (27.49 feet).

4801 Fairway Avenue • North Little Rock, AR 72116 • (501) 758-1300 4656 Highway 7 North Suite M • Hot Springs Village, AR 71909 • (501) 984-5575 harrisandrenshawpt.com arktimes.com JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

A primer on the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment.

WHO CAN GET A PRESCRIPTION?

Well, technically, no one. Doctors can’t prescribe marijuana as they prescribe other drugs, because the substance is still considered to have “no accepted medical use” by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, despite ample scientific evidence to the contrary. Instead, a doctor will sign a document certifying that a patient “has a qualifying medical condition and the potential benefits of the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the health risks for the qualifying patient,” as stated in the amendment. The Department of Health will then issue a “registry identification card” to the patient, permitting him or her to obtain cannabis from a dispensary. The card, which is valid for one year, will cost a fee that is yet to be determined. The amendment specifically lists 12 qualifying medical conditions: cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Tourette’s syndrome, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), severe arthritis, fibromyalgia and Alzheimer’s disease. However, it also includes any “chronic or debilitating disease or medical condition or its treatment” that results in one of the following symptoms: “cachexia or wasting syndrome; peripheral neuropathy; intractable pain, which is pain that has not responded to ordinary medications, treatment, or surgical measures for more than six months; severe nausea; seizures, including without limitation those characteristic of epilepsy; or severe and persistent muscle 20

JANUARY 19, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

spasms, including without limitation those characteristic of multiple sclerosis.” The state Department of Health can also add other conditions to the list, and the public may petition it to do so.

just as they can do for alcohol. It’s quite likely some of the state’s more socially conservative communities will vote themselves “dry” — which will further limit access. The amendment also allows cities and counties to enact “reasonable zoning regulations” to apply to dispensaries, “provided that these zoning regulations are the same as those for a licensed retail pharmacy.”

WHERE WILL MEDICAL MARIJUANA BE AVAILABLE?

The Medical Marijuana Commission will initially distribute 32 dispensary licenses in Arkansas. As of the date of this article’s publication, the commission was still considering how best to geographically distribute those 32 initial licenses so as to minimize coverage gaps. It will likely subdivide the state into several areas (by congressional districts, perhaps) and give out a certain number of licenses within each subdivision. The amendment specifies that no county can contain more than four dispensaries and says the businesses cannot be located within 1,500 feet of a school, church or daycare, but other details about their placement are left up to the commission — and to local governments. The citizens of a city or county may prohibit dispensaries and cultivation facilities from operating within their borders by means of a local election,

WHAT IF I DON’T LIVE NEAR A DISPENSARY AND I’M TOO SICK TO TRAVEL? The amendment allows for a “designated caregiver” to obtain a registry identification card from the Department of Health, thus allowing the caregiver to purchase marijuana for a qualified patient and deliver it.

WHO’S GOING TO BE GROWING ALL THIS POT? The Medical Marijuana Commission will initially award five cultivation facility licenses statewide, and these growers will presumably supply the bulk of the marijuana distributed in

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the state. Issue 6 also allows for dispensaries to cultivate up to “50 mature marijuana plants at any one time plus seedlings.” However, the commission plans to charge much higher licensing fees to dispensaries that choose to cultivate marijuana, which seems likely to discourage small-scale cultivation and benefit the five big growers. The amendment does not allow patients or caregivers to grow their own marijuana.

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST AND WHAT SORTS OF PRODUCTS WILL BE AVAILABLE? This is to be determined — by supply, demand and regulation. Price is a concern for patient advocates, who say licensing fees on dispensaries and growers may drive up costs and make the drug prohibitively expensive for low-income patients. Neither private insurance nor Medicaid will pay for cannabis, and the amendment does not contain price controls or financial assistance for the poor. (It’s possible dispensaries could choose to offer marijuana at discounted rates to lowincome patients, as has happened in some other states.) The Department of Health will require marijuana to be labeled with its strain, its producer and its concentration of THC and CBD, among other information. Aside from the plant itself, it is not yet clear exactly what other products — such as extracts or concentrates — state regulators will allow to be sold in Arkansas. In states like Colorado, edibles are a big part of the medical (and recreational) marijuana CONTINUED ON PAGE 29

The Man Who Changed the Course of Arkansas History

In 1953, Winthrop Rockefeller came to

see his ideas become reality as he influenced

Arkansas and planted the seed for radical change.

integration, minimum wage, prison reform and

He fell in love with the landscape and people,

more. Today, organizations like the Winthrop

and invested himself wholly in Arkansasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Rockefeller Foundation, Winthrop Rockefeller

future. Governor Rockefeller used his name

Institute, Winrock International and the UALR

and his wealth to encourage conversations

Center for Arkansas History and Culture keep

on the toughest issues facing Arkansas. After

his memory alive. Here is the story of the man,

becoming governor in 1967, he was able to

his vision and his far-reaching legacy. SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

overnor Rockefeller

more than $150 million in grants

truly made a difference in Arkansas.

Starting with his inauguration

in 1967, he helped carry out integration in Arkansas’s schools, raised teacher pay, integrated the Arkansas State Police, enacted Arkansas’s first minimum wage and tackled sweeping prison reforms—all just a fraction of what he ultimately achieved in two terms as governor. In his inaugu-

and program-related investments Winthrop Rockefeller and Orval Faubus shaking hands, 1955.

Governor Rockefeller’s legacy to improve the lives of all Arkansans in three inter-related areas: education; economic development; and

over the life of the Foundation. Governor Rockefeller envisioned a thriving and prosperous Arkansas that benefits all Arkansans. His vision united Arkansans across racial, political and

Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation

geographic lines around the big idea that “There is no place for poverty in Arkansas.” With that as a goal, the Foundation invests for the long term in efforts that promise

ration speech he stated, “Without

economic, racial and social justice.

sustained and positive impact

the faith and confidence of the

The Winthrop Rockefeller Foun-

for Arkansas. And like Governor

people, government can accom-

dation carries the governor’s leg-

Rockefeller, it champions policies,

plish nothing.” He dedicated much

acy through strategic grant mak-

programs and organizations that

of his time as governor to build

ing, partnerships and advocacy

increase prosperity in our state.

that faith and confidence.

that help close the economic and

With faith, confidence and vision,

For more than 40 years since

educational gaps that leave too

the Foundation believes the needle

his death, the Winthrop Rocke-

many Arkansas families in per-

will move from poverty to pros-

feller Foundation has continued

sistent poverty. It has awarded

perity for all Arkansans.

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY UALR CENTER FOR ARKANSAS HISTORY AND CULTURE, WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER COLLECTION, EXCEPT WHERE NOTED.

JANUARY 19, 2017

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES

Assorted elephants from the memorabilia in the Winthrop Rockefeller Collection.

An Open Book The Winthrop Rockefeller Collection

tored carefully in acid-free housings, neatly organized and documented among more than 2,000 boxes of the Winthrop Rockefeller Collection, is the 1967 address, program booklets and photographs related to the inauguration of Arkansas’s first republican governor since Reconstruction. Winthrop Rockefeller was an enormous force for change in the state, and the materials he created before, during and after his 1966 inauguration are preserved and available for use at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s (UALR) Center for Arkansas History and Culture (CAHC). His archival collection includes papers, photographs, audio and video recordings, and memorabilia from each period in his life from 1912 until his death in 1973. The collection chronicles his activities before he arrived in Arkansas in 1953, and then as a public figure and governor from 1953 to 1970. Also included are files from his arts promoter and social activist wife, Jeannette Edris Rockefeller, whom he

1967 commemorative inaugural coin.

married in 1956. The materials detail Governor Rockefeller’s successes, ranging from educational improvements and prison reform to the passage of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act and increased visibility for civil rights issues in the state. Materials have proven useful to

Winthrop and Jeanette Rockefeller.

historians, students and many others since they were donated to the university in 1980. For instance, the BBC World Service produced a program on Governor Rockefeller’s partnership with the famed Arkansas singer Johnny Cash that brought attention to Arkansas’s prison conditions and the need for reform. Another visible example is scholar John Ward’s biography, “The Arkansas Rockefeller,” which is best summarized by one reviewer as “a portrait of a man who lived his life openly, whose every success and every failure was a matter of public record for the two million citizens of his adopted state.” The Center itself has created a virtual exhibit to highlight the collection and Governor Rockefeller’s legacy. The exhibit aims to feature Rockefeller’s major contributions to the state and encourage further use of the collection. Visit CAHC’s website to access the virtual exhibit or to search the catalog to find materials in the collection itself. The research room is open from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday at 401 President Clinton Avenue. For additional directions or to contact the Center for more information about the Rockefeller Collection, visit ualr.edu/cahc.

1967 inauguration program.

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

ifty years ago this month, Winthrop Rockefeller was inaugurated as the first Republican governor of Arkansas in 93 years. His two terms in office (he was re-elected in 1968) had a transformational impact on the state that is still very much evident today. Governor Rockefeller’s governorship capped an extraordinary life story that brought one of the richest men in the nation to one of its poorest states. Born May 1, 1912, Winthrop was the fifth child of John D. Rockefeller Jr., the sole male heir to the Standard Oil fortune, and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the daughter of influential Republican politician Nelson W. Aldrich. Winthrop’s siblings were older sister Abigail, and older brothers John D. III, Nelson (who served as governor of New York and as vice president under Gerald Ford), Laurance and younger brother, David. Winthrop attended Lincoln School in New York, which was part of the Teachers College of Columbia University. Lincoln pioneered progressive new educational ideas that focused on experiential learning. Although Winthrop enjoyed Lincoln, his parents felt that it was not equipping him adequately in his academic studies. He transferred to Loomis School in Windsor, Connecticut, a more traditional scholarly boarding school, in the eleventh grade. In his first semester, Winthrop flunked all his classes and faced an uphill struggle to get into university. He did eventually get accepted to Yale in the fall of 1931, but still struggling academically he quit in the spring semester of 1934 to pursue a career in the oil industry. Winthrop entered the oil industry on the ground floor, working the oil fields of Texas and Louisiana as a roustabout and roughneck from 1934 to 1937. For the next few years he pursued various interests, briefly working as a management trainee at Chase Bank in New York in 1937; playing a major role in the Greater New York Fund charitable campaign in the first six months of 1938; and becoming a founding member of Air Youth Corps, Inc., an organization dedicated to youths interested in all things aeronautical, in 1939. In early 1939, he went back into the oil industry, working in Socony-Vacuum’s (now part of Exxonmobil) foreign trade department. World events intervened in the next phase of Winthrop’s life. With war breaking out in Europe, in July 1940 he enrolled at Plattsburg Businessmen’s Training Camp in upstate New York. Plattsburg, as it had done in World War I, provided volunteer pre-enlistment training for private citizens. On Jan. 22, 4 JANUARY 19, 2017

The Life of Winthrop Rockefeller Fifty years ago, the inauguration of Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller contributed to a legacy of transformation in Arkansas. BY JOHN A. KIRK

Abby and John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s children, circa 1917. From left: David, Winthrop, John, Abigail, Laurance and Nelson.

Winthrop Rockefeller portrait in Army uniform, circa 1941-1945.

1941, Winthrop enlisted in the U.S. Army, becoming the only one of his siblings to see active service on the front lines. It was the beginning of a peripatetic six-year tour of duty that initially took

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES

Winthrop Rockefeller and Barbara Sears Rockefeller wedding ceremony, Feb. 14, 1948.

him from postings coast-to-coast in the United States before traveling overseas to Honolulu, Hawaii, in April 1944, having risen to the rank of major. Winthrop was involved in three cam-

paigns in the Pacific, in Guam and Leyte in 1944, and in Okinawa in 1945. On his way to Okinawa in April 1945, a Japanese kamikaze pilot attacked his ship the USS Henrico, resulting in a significant number of deaths and injuries, leaving Winthrop as the only surviving officer on board. He suffered flash burns on his face and hands, and was sent back to Guam for a short period of treatment and recuperation, returning to Okinawa in May 1945. A few months later he was back in the hospital again with his second attack of infectious hepatitis of the war. While in his hospital bed, Japan surrendered, bringing an end to hostilities. Since it was clear that Winthrop would need an extended period of recovery, he was shipped back to the United States for convalescence. He ended up in the Rockefeller Institute Hospital in New York for a number of months. Even before getting out of the hospital, Winthrop was planning his next project. Since it was clear that on his doctor’s advice he would not be fit for a return to active duty anytime soon, Winthrop suggested to the War Department that he work on a study to make policy recommendations about the resettlement of returning veterans. After being released from the hospital, he travelled extensively to complete his “Report on Veterans Adjustment” in July 1946. Soon after delivering the report, he was discharged from the army as a lieutenant colonel and started work again at Socony-Vacuum where he travelled overseas in Europe and the Middle East. When he was not working, Winthrop was out enjoying the nightlife of New York’s “café society.” He enjoyed socializing on the party circuit and after six years of military service he was more than ready to live a carefree life for a while. Earning the title “the most eligible bachelor in America” in the national press (all his brothers were married by then), Winthrop was featured in the society pages on a regular basis and romantically linked with a long string of starlets. One of these was Barbara Sears, better known through her nickname of “Bobo.” Born Jievute Paulekiute to Lithuanian immigrant parents, Bobo grew up in Noblestown, Pennsylvania and in Chicago in modest circumstances. She caught a break in 1933 by being named “Miss Lithuania” at the Century of Progress exhibition in Chicago, and then launched a modeling and minor acting career. On a theater tour production of Erskien Caldwell’s “Tobacco Road,” she met and married prominent Boston socialite Richard Sears. The couple were estranged and headed for divorce

when Bobo met Winthrop in New York in 1947. As the clock struck midnight on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1948, Winthrop and Bobo were married in Palm Beach, Florida. The press hailed it a “Cinderella wedding” and the couple received a good deal of attention, capturing the public imagination. Seven months later, on Sept. 17, Winthrop’s only biological son, Winthrop “Win” Paul Rockefeller, was born. Win Paul would later also find his home in Arkansas, and follow his father into political office there as lieutenant governor from 1996 to 2006. Winthrop and Bobo’s marriage was short-lived. Barely a year after the birth of Win Paul the couple separated. A contentious and protracted divorce followed. Much of it was covered in painful detail by the popular press. The divorce caused a great deal of trauma and disruption in Winthrop’s life. He spent extended stays in Venezuela working for Socony-Vacuum to escape unwelcome publicity. In 1951, he left the oil industry to join the International Basic Economy Corporation (IBEC), a company set up by his brother Nelson to focus on private investment in economies in developing countries. Winthrop served as chair of IBEC’s Housing Corporation, which developed a mechanized, poured-inplace concrete building process that by 1954 had created 9,000 new housing units in Puerto Rico. With a continuing focus on his private life in the press, in June 1953 Winthrop decided to move from New York and relocate to a new life in Arkansas. Army friend and Little Rock insurance man Frank Newell had boasted about the beauty of his native state to Winthrop for many years. Winthrop visited Newell and became enthralled, too. The press claimed that it would only be a temporary stay and that Winthrop was moving simply to take advantage of Arkansas’s more liberal divorce laws. Yet Winthrop spent the remaining twenty years of his life based in the state, founding a homestead that he named Winrock Farm atop Petit Jean Mountain, 60 miles northwest of Little Rock. He and Bobo were divorced in Reno, Nevada in August 1954. Winthrop remarried in June 1956 to Jeannette Edris, daughter of a prominent Seattle family, who lived with him at Winrock along with her son Bruce and daughter Anne, both from a previous marriage. Winthrop’s unlikely move to Arkansas paired one of the richest men in the country with one of its poorest states. He looked to put his wealth and experience gained from his New York years to

good effect in his newly adopted home. Winthrop engaged extensively in philanthropic endeavors and launched a number of social experiments. One of the first was an effort to create a model school system in Morrilton. This was hindered by the local population’s insistence on maintaining segregated schools and an aversion to paying higher taxes

and to stem the flow of people. He knew that Winthrop, with national connections and business acumen, was exactly the person to lead the campaign. Winthrop was happy to help. He ran a tremendously successful operation that increased his popularity and profile in the state, bringing 600 new plants and more than 90,000 new jobs to Arkansas.

development. It drove a wedge between the two former allies. These tensions grew further when Winthrop met the residency requirements for governor in 1960, after living seven years in the state. Rumors abounded that a political challenge was in the cards. Winthrop did nothing to dispel them. Indeed, he added fuel to the fire by holding a “Party for Two

Winthrop Rockefeller at the closing of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, April 7, 1968.

for better education. Winthrop helped to establish a clinic in Perry County, a pioneering effort in providing rural healthcare. He championed the arts through the building of the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, and taking art to the people through the creation of an Artmobile, a “gallery on wheels.” Not long after relocating to Arkansas, Winthrop was called into service by Gov. Orval E. Faubus. In 1955, Faubus declared a state of emergency. Arkansas was hemorrhaging population at an alarming rate. Still wedded to its dwindling cotton economy, people were leaving for expanding industrial jobs elsewhere. Faubus set up the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission (AIDC) to lure industry to Arkansas

However, Faubus soon discovered he had unwittingly created a political rival. From a staunch Republican Party family, Winthrop found himself in what political scientist V.O. Key labeled in 1949 the “purest one-party” Democratic Party stronghold in the South. Winthrop was initially happy to work along nonpartisan lines, but there were some things he was not willing to tolerate. When Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent the desegregation of Central High School in September 1957, it offended Winthrop’s long-standing commitment to racial equality, which included serving as a trustee of the civil rights organization the National Urban League since 1940, and threatened to undo all of his good work in economic

Parties” at Winrock in an effort to revive the largely moribund Republican Party in the state. Governor Rockefeller provided the funding and leadership to resuscitate the Republican Party in Arkansas. After resigning as chair of the AIDC in early 1964, Winthrop ran against Faubus for the governorship later that year. Faubus was the record-breaking five-term Democratic Party incumbent and the Republican Party was still cranking back into life through rusty gears. Winthrop knew he had little chance of victory and was beaten handily by Faubus. But Winthrop received far more votes in the election than any other Arkansas republican candidate had in many years. Without skipping a beat, he kept on running for office with his eye on 1966.

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

In a surprise development, Faubus decided not to run for governor again in 1966, leaving the democratic field wide open. The democrats nominated former Arkansas Supreme Court justice James D. Johnson. Johnson was a leading segregationist and former head of the White Citizen’s Council in Arkansas, which had led opposition to school desegregation in the state. In an unlikely match-up, Winthrop, the New York Yankee from a family background of wealth and privilege, took on the selfstyled “Justice” Jim Johnson, the homegrown good-old-boy segregationist from Crossett. The voters chose Winthrop, but only narrowly. On white votes alone, Winthrop lost the election. Black votes carried the day for him, boosted by civil rights activism and voter registration campaigns in the 1960s. Winning the election was one thing; governing was another. The Arkansas General Assembly contained only three fellow republicans out of a total of 135 seats. Winthrop battled valiantly to get his progressive agenda for reform passed, albeit with mixed success. Hostility to raising taxes to support the state’s infrastructure stymied many of his ambitions to build a better Arkansas. He did use the office to improve race relations by employing more black state employees and appointing more blacks to state boards, many of which were desegregated for the first time. After the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, Winthrop was the only southern governor to hold a public memorial service in King’s honor. He tried to reform the state’s archaic criminal justice and penal system, and, notably, in his last act in office, he commuted the sentences of all men on death row to life in prison in an act driven by his own personal opposition to the death penalty. Arkansas did not execute anyone else for more than twenty years. Finally, he campaigned with some success for more transparency in state government. Winthrop was re-elected to office in 1968, but lost to political newcomer, democrat Dale Bumpers, two years later in 1970. Bumpers offered what Arkansas voters still truly hankered for: a Winthrop Rockefeller in Democratic Party clothing. As testimony to Winthrop’s impact in the state, the Democratic Party had gone through a profound transformation during his time in office, and would no longer put forward an oldguard segregationist candidate. Although Dale Bumpers took office in 1971, Winthrop’s influence was still palpable in state politics, not least since Bumpers’ legislative program borrowed heavily 6

JANUARY 19, 2017

from his republican predecessor. Sadly, Winthrop lived a tragically short life after leaving office. He and Jeannette divorced in 1971, due in part to the strains his time in office had placed on their marriage. In September 1972, he was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer and died in Palm Springs, California, seeking to escape the Arkansas winter, on Feb. 22, 1973. Winthrop Rockefeller’s legacy lived on. Dale Bumpers was the first of a new breed of progressive southern Democrats in Arkansas to gain political office. He was followed by a number of others, including Bill Clinton, who used the governor’s office as a springboard to the presidency of the United States in 1992. Ironically, Winthrop’s progressive republicanism paved the way for the success of progressive democrats in the state. The Republican Party faded once more, to be resurrected in later years as a force that would revive the conservatism of the pre-Winthrop Rockefeller Arkansas Democratic Party. Today, Winthrop Rockefeller’s legacy lives on most tangibly in the number of organizations that bear his name in the state. Winrock International focuses on overseas development, echoing Winthrop’s earlier efforts with IBEC. The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation focuses on issues of education and social justice, twin concerns that formed central threads throughout Winthrop’s life. The Winthrop Rockefeller Institute, part of the University of Arkansas System, is located at Winthrop’s beloved Petit Jean Mountain property, which, much as it did when he was alive, still forms a hub for conferences and meetings to formulate innovative and dynamic solutions to a range of contemporary problems. A Winthrop Rockefeller archive collection at UALR’s Center for Arkansas History and Culture documents the former governor’s life through written materials, film, audiotapes, photographs, and memorabilia. Fifty years after his inauguration, Winthrop Rockefeller still maintains a significant imprint and influence on life in Arkansas. John A. Kirk is the George W. Donaghey Distinguished Professor of History and director of the Joel E. Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He is currently working on the first full-length biography of Winthrop Rockefeller. This article is adapted from a grant report written for the Rockefeller Archive Center in Sleepy Hollow, New York, which provided funding for Kirk’s research there in July 2016.

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES

Winthrop Rockefeller standing in front of WR sign at Winrock.

Farm-to-Internationa l Leader Winrock International began as a humble farm atop Petit Jean Mountain and has grown into a leading organization in international development.

inrock International is a $100 million-a-year international economic development organization with 1,000 employees in more than 40 countries. It grew from parallel dreams and a shared vision. It also grew from the land—a 927-acre tract atop Petit Jean Mountain in Arkansas, where Winthrop Rockefeller, grandson of

Standard Oil’s John D. Rockefeller, established Winrock Farms in 1953. He brought in a herd of hardy Santa Gertrudis cattle from Texas and created a model farm and livestock center to demonstrate state-of-the-art agricultural methods. Economic development was a hallmark of Governor Rockefeller’s two terms as governor of Arkansas, and

PHOTO, CRAIG DUGALL; PHOTO STUDIO, HEIDRICH BLESSING

Winthrop Rockefeller visiting school in Puerto Rico for IBEC, 1950.

Winrock International headquarters in Little Rock

after his death in 1973, trustees of his estate created the Winrock International Livestock Research and Training Center to further his wish that the farm be “venturesome and innovative,” and provide tools to help people help themselves. While Winthrop was focusing on livestock research and rural development, his brother John D. Rockefeller III was concentrating on Asia’s burgeoning population and its food shortages; creating the Agricultural Development Council (ADC) and the International Agricultural Development Service (IADS), organizations that would later merge to form Winrock International. The ADC was a unique organization begun in 1954 with a focus on developing the most talented agricultural specialists in Asia. Ultimately responsible for training multiple generations

of Asian academics—many of whom went on to assume significant agricultural roles across Asia in the decades to come—the ADC and Winrock names are revered across Asia. IADS was an international economic development organization that worked to build up agricultural research programs in developing countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia in the 1970s and 1980s, a tradition that Winrock International continues to this day. In 1985, the three organizations merged to create a new Winrock International with a strongly expanded international presence. Experts fanned out across the state, nation and globe, pairing international reach with a passion for local capacity-building. This approach proved a winning combination, as Winrock quickly became a leader in U.S. and international development.

Winrock pioneered such projects as the acclaimed Farmer-to-Farmer program, which sends American volunteer agricultural experts to provide technical assistance to farmers around the world, and (with early board member Norman Borlaug, known as the father of the Green Revolution) helped to establish the World Food Prize, which since 1987, has recognized people who have advanced the quality and availability of food in the world. Winrock’s American Carbon Registry became the nation’s first voluntary carbon-offset program, and its senior scientist Dr. Sandra Brown, a carbon accounting pioneer, was honored for her contribution to work that was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Current Winrock projects include the Sustaining Forests and Biodiversity Project in Cambodia, which was just

awarded the highest honor the government gives to foreigners, and USAID’s Value Chains for Rural Development, which has launched specialty coffees grown by small farmers in Myanmar into the world specialty market. Winrock maintains offices in Little Rock; Arlington, Virginia; Manila, Philippines; and Nairobi, Kenya. And with more than 120 projects in 46 countries, the organization truly has a global presence—improving food security in Ghana and protecting wetlands in Bangladesh. Yet, domestic initiatives such as the Innovation Hub, a collaborative makers’ space, and the Wallace Center with its support of locally produced food and food hubs, demonstrate its continuing commitment to a strong U.S. portfolio. Decades of growth have not changed the Winrock mission; they have only increased its reach.

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

Left: Aerial view of Winthrop and Jeannette Rockefeller’s home on Petit Jean Mountain.

DERO SANFORD

Below: Today, the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute campus consists of 188 acres that was once part of the home and cattle farm of Gov. Rockefeller.

Never Stop Asking the Big Questions The Winthrop Rockefeller Institute keeps the conversation going in a picturesque setting.

stablished in 2005, the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute is the former home and working farm of Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller, who first came to Arkansas in 1953 and transformed the state’s politics, economy and the way we think about ourselves. Governor Rockefeller used his name and his wealth to bring people together on Petit Jean Mountain 8

JANUARY 19, 2017

for summit-style meetings to find solutions to the toughest issues facing Arkansas—an approach that was so successful he used it more than 200 times, bringing together people who were thoughtfully concerned about Arkansas’s future. The Institute serves to honor Governor Rockefeller’s belief in the power of collaboration by making sure those conversations continue

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS TIMES

to happen, and that we never stop asking the big questions about our future. The Institute takes two approaches to this goal. First, by convening important programs, often working with fellow organizations within the University of Arkansas System, to help drive discovery, dialogue and resolution for some of Arkansas’s most important topics and issues. Programs engage primarily in five foundational areas: agriculture, arts and humanities, civic engagement, economic development and health. Programs utilize a wide range of models from ongoing initiatives such as Healthy Active Arkansas and Uncommon Communities, and academic conferences such as the Nanotechnology for Health Care

Conference. Programs often engage leaders in government, academia, policy and culture to consider a brighter future for our state. Second, the pastoral campus is located on a portion of Governor Rockefeller’s original home and cattle farm. New structures have been erected and historic ones have been renovated to create a premier conference and retreat center. Meeting space can be booked for use by outside groups, and the tranquil, scenic setting, along with Governor Rockefeller’s “productive energy” that still permeates the campus, makes it an ideal place for strategic meetings and retreats.

A primer on the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment.

cont.

business, but critics worry those products appeal to kids. On the other hand, it’s in the interest of patients to provide a drug delivery mechanism that doesn’t require smoking the stuff.

CAN A QUALIFIED PATIENT LIVE OUT OF STATE? Draft regulations being prepared by the Department of Health require a valid Arkansas driver’s license to obtain a registration card. However, the amendment does allow for reciprocity with other jurisdictions that allow medical marijuana. An out-ofstate patient with his or her state’s equivalent of a registry identification card can patronize an Arkansas dispensary, provided his or her condition qualifies under the Arkansas law.

IF I’M A QUALIFIED PATIENT, CAN I LOSE MY JOB OR BE EVICTED FOR MARIJUANA CONSUMPTION? No. But there are always gray areas. The amendment prohibits employers, landlords, schools, professional licensing boards and others from discriminating against individuals based on their status as a qualifying patient. However, some jobs — such as those involving heavy machinery — come

with their own rules regarding the use of medications that could affect the operator’s mental state. Chris Burks, a labor lawyer in Little Rock, said that it should be an “easy fix” for employers to amend their policies to accommodate medical marijuana in the workplace because prescription drugs are already covered. “Most places will want to revise their employee handbooks … but most handbooks need a little work, not a lot,” Burks said. As for rental property, the amendment does allow a landlord to forbid a qualifying patient to smoke marijuana on the premises, as long as the patient is not prohibited from ingesting it by other means.

ments handle arrests. At the state level, Bill Sadler, a spokesman for the Arkansas State Police, said the agency is waiting for clarity from the legislature. “It would not be prudent to start making policies with respect to how this law would be enforced — with respect to any traffic stops, individuals who may exhibit signs of being impaired by marijuana, what documents would be necessary [for a patient to have in the vehicle] — until we have the facts from the General Assembly,” Sadler said. “These are issues that have got to be cleared up, and we believe that before the end of the session, we’ll have a pretty good idea.”

WILL PEOPLE STILL BE ARRESTED FOR POSSESSING OR SELLING WEED?

HOW DO I GET INTO THE DISPENSARY OR CULTIVATION BUSINESS?

Yes, sadly. Possession and distribution of cannabis outside the strictures of the amendment remain illegal, and the many Arkansans whose records have been blemished by a criminal marijuana offense will get no relief from this change in law. That being said, local law enforcement policies regarding small-scale marijuana possession vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and it remains to be seen whether the new medical marijuana law will change how local police and sheriff depart-

Becoming a cultivator isn’t easy. An applicant must prove he has $1 million in assets, $500,000 in cash and pay an application fee of $15,000. The annual licensing fee is $100,000. The five cultivation licenses will be awarded on a merit-based system according to a rubric that has yet to be finalized by the Medical Marijuana Commission. (See accompanying main story for more details.) Dispensaries are somewhat more doable. For those dispensaries that plan

to grow plants, the initial license fee is $25,000; for stores that merely sell the product, it’s $2,500. The application fee for both types of dispensary is $7,500. Licenses will be awarded by a lottery system, though applicants must meet minimum requirements before being considered. Both types of businesses come with in-state residency requirements and a long list of other minimum qualifications.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE TAXES AND FEES ASSOCIATED WITH MARIJUANA? State sales tax generated by marijuana is allocated for specific purposes under the amendment. Ten percent will pay for the operations of the Department of Health and ABC (regulating a new industry takes additional staff, which costs money) and the Medical Marijuana Commission. Ten percent goes toward workforce training programs at the Department of Career Education, 50 percent will support vocational and technical colleges, and the final 30 percent goes into state general revenue. Licensing and other fees collected by the commission, the Department of Health and ABC will also fund the regulators’ operations. arktimes.com JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

Arts Entertainment AND

I t l t o L L t o N t m m T e I p f d I T C w I

SONGS FROM THE PORCH, SONGS FROM THE PAST: Amy Garland, Mandy McBryde and Bonnie Montgomery (left to right) are The Wildflower Revue, celebrating the release of an eponymous debut album at the historic Dreamland Ballroom at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 21.

Flowers in the winter A Q&A with The Wildflower Revue. BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

here’s power in good recordkeeping. Amy Garland, Mandy McBryde and Bonnie Montgomery have been keeping a logbook for years — a cache of memories, shared and solitary. Those vignettes make up the eponymous debut album from the self-described “peace-lovin’ outlaw trio” The Wildflower Revue. The collection of 10 original songs and three cover tunes was conceived on back porches and on the banks of the 30

JANUARY 19, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

Little Red River and recorded at Poynter Recording over the spring and summer of 2016. I talked with Garland, McBryde and Montgomery individually ahead of the album release, to be celebrated with a concert at the Dreamland Ballroom on Saturday, Jan. 21, benefiting Friends of Dreamland. Those conversations are merged and condensed here. There’s a lot of music history inform-

ing the album, and you all have specifically mentioned influences like Patsy Cline, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams and the Dixie Chicks. Are there others that inspire you more collectively, as an ensemble? Montgomery: Well, the trio — Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt — was the inspiration for this whole group, and their song “Wildflowers.” So we love the vibe of their record, especially the one with the paper cutout dolls — have you seen this? They have paper dolls for Emmylou, Linda and Dolly, and you can dress ’em. It’s the cutest vinyl insert I’ve ever seen in my life, and the music is just heavenly. And the choice of the songs that they put on their album really inspired us. So that was the whole sort of, gestalt of the album. McBryde: We just sort of formed organically because we all were friends and we loved singing together, but that

trio was immediately who we thought of. And then it went to, “I wonder who’s who,” and Bonnie was like, “I’m the Linda Ronstadt, that’s all I know.” Garland: Bonnie’s Linda, obviously. Dolly and Emmylou are musical heroes for me, both of them. For a long time I thought, “Well, maybe I’m the Emmylou.” Then I saw this Dan Rather interview where he interviewed both of them separately, and Emmylou was so … introspective. And tempered in her responses. And I was like, “Nope. I’m the Dolly.” So, by way of this friendship, your three-part harmonies came together on the porch, and then you sang together for the soundtrack to “Valley Inn.” Montgomery: Yeah. So, we started just goofing off, and I wanted it to be a peace advocacy anti-war group in parCONTINUED ON PAGE 38

T s L B e P t P J 3 o 2 w p s C

A T d o h w a 8 t a $ e s c E W S p a i S H

ROCK CANDY

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

A&E NEWS IN THE WAKE OF President-elect Trump’s tweet characterizing revered civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) as “all talk, talk, talk — no action or results,” sales of “March,” the graphic novel trilogy Lewis co-wrote with Andrew Aydin and Little Rock native Nate Powell, swiftly rose to No. 1 on Amazon, and thereafter sold out. Lewis, Aydin and Powell received a National Book Award in November for the third volume of the series, which documents Lewis’ struggle during the civil rights movement. Powell, profiled in an Arkansas Times cover story two weeks ago, posted early on Martin Luther King Jr. Day via his Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts, pledging to “weaponize” his royalties from the dramatic spike in sales, “cutting deep checks to Planned Parenthood of KY/ IN, Dream Defenders, National Center for Transgender Equality, Southern Poverty Law Center, American Association of People with Disabilities, and Council on AmericanIslamic Relations.”

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THE SEMIFINALISTS FOR the 2017 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase are: Brae Leni & The Evergreen Groove Machine; The Brian Nahlen Band; The Martyrs; Recognizer; Spirit Cuntz; DeFrance; Mortalus; Youth Pastor; Solo Jaxon; Dazz & Brie; John Macateer & The Gentlemen Firesnakes; The Inner Party; Age of Man; Rah Howard; November Juliet; and CosmOcean. Bands will perform 30 minutes of original material at Stickyz in one of four semifinal shows (Jan. 26, Feb. 2, Feb. 9 and Feb. 16), and weekly winners will compete in the finals on March 10 for a prize package worth over $2,500. Look for a schedule on our entertainment blog, Rock Candy. ARKANSAS TIMES MARKS the passing of Townsend Wolfe (1935-2017), the longtime director of the Arkansas Arts Center. Wolfe’s obituary notes the growth of the AAC under his direction into a “renowned institution with an international reputation. Annual attendance at exhibits mushroomed from 80,000 to 343,000. The Art Center’s collection of works soared in value to $35 million and the Foundation endowment grew to $21 million. ... It was his mission to expose every Arkansan to art, but especially the state’s young people.” Notably, Wolfe curated the 20th Century American Sculptor Exhibition at the First Ladies’ Garden at the White House in 1995, received the Creative Spirit Award from the Pratt Institute for his promotion of works by African-American artists, and, with the help of his wife, Brooks, installed a permanent exhibit at Arkansas State University’s Donald W. Reynolds Health and Science Building.

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arktimes.com JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

THE

TO-DO

LIST

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

THURSDAY 1/19

WORDS AND CURDS

Pockets of poetry can be hard to come by in Little Rock. There are spoken word open-mic sessions every Friday (8 p.m.) at the House of Art in the Argenta District and the Rocktown Slam sessions. In 2016, Kent Walker Artisan Cheese launched its “Words and Curds”

series, featuring a handful of writers on the third Thursday of each month. Two members of Little Rock Central High School’s Writeous Poetry Club — Lux and Q-Squared (Chauncey Williams), who hosts the Writeous Radio Hour on KWCP-LP FM, 98.9, a student-driven community radio station — perform at this installment of the series. You’ll hear from Cobris, a self-described “banker by

THURSDAY 1/19

HAYDN BY CANDLELIGHT

MICHAEL CHAPDELAINE

6:30 p.m. Kent Walker Artisan Cheese. Free.

7:30 p.m. The Joint. $25.

7 p.m. Trinity Episcopal Church. $10$25.

If the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra only did works that required the full breadth of its payroll, the musicians and the audiences alike would be missing out on a whole treasure trove of works for smaller ensembles. It’s those pieces that inspire the ASO’s Intimate Neighborhood concert series. A spot like Trinity Episcopal, an English Gothic cruciform filled with soaring wooden beams, stained glass and pointed arches, is a perfectly solemn hall for chamber music, and for this program it will be candlelit. Alan Hovhaness’ dark, mysterious “Celestial Fantasy” opens the program. It’s a meditation on a single theme, and the fruit of Hovhaness’ Armenian heritage — and probably inspired by his travels to Sovietcontrolled Armenia as part of the many fellowships the composer earned after bailing on his studies at the Tanglewood Music Center and buddying up with Hermon di Giovanno, the Greek painter and mystic. (And hey, Hovanhess famously burned or otherwise destroyed a lot of his own works, so we’re lucky to have this ditty around.) The “Fantasy” is followed by Wagner’s sublime “Wesendonck Lieder,” five songs for a female voice that Wagner wrote when he was working on the opera “Tristan und Isolde.” The Eastman-trained Maria Fasciano sings the Lieder, and nobody will give a whit that the songs — most often performed by mezzo-sopranos — are being sung instead by someone with a leviathan high C in her possession, because the richness of Fasciano’s middle range rivals that of most mezzos anyway. Haydn’s “Symphony No. 43,” the so-called “Mercury” symphony for double reeds, horns and strings, will end the concert. SS 32

JANUARY 19, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

There is one person who’s won first prize in two of the top competitions in classical and fingerstyle guitar: the National Fingerpicking Champion title and the Guitar Foundation of America International Classical Guitar Competition. He’s the next featured artist in the Argenta Arts Acoustic Music Series at

day and poet by night” and past winner of the annual Rocktown Slam competition, as well as Karen Hayes, who calls herself “a poet and a problem.” Hayes is an alumna of the Dairy Hollow Writers Colony, and she’s the one you may have seen at the Argenta ArtWalk, crafting spontaneous rhymes on her 1971 Olivetti manual typewriter. Finally, there’s a performance from Leron Charles McA-

doo, known to some as Ron MC, “the Hip Hoptimist,” who’s been teaching in Little Rock schools since 1994. Plus, the shop has expanded its space in the last few months, so you’ll have a nice view of the giant cheese wheels aging on shelves in the “cave.” SS

The Joint, and one you should catch if you’re a person who has ever saved a guitar tutorial in your YouTube’s “Watch Later” folder. Michael Chapdelaine has the distinction of having studied under Andrés Segovia, the virtuoso Spanish maestro who’s considered the chief pioneer of modern classical guitar. (Before Segovia, classical guitarists used catgut strings instead of nylon, and picked primarily with their

fingernails; Segovia changed both of those traditions irrevocably.) These days, Chapdelaine teaches guitar at the University of New Mexico, gives master classes around the world, enjoys the immense popularity of his transcription for Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” and, one hopes, inspires upand-coming guitarists to dig into the classical canon with albums like his 2004 release, “Bach Is Cool.” SS

THURSDAY 1/19-SATURDAY 2/18

‘THE NERD’

7:30 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 12:45 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. Sun. Murry’s Dinner Playhouse. $15-$37.

MURRY’S TURNS 50: Michael Klucher plays Rick Steadman, the titular nerd in the Murry’s Dinner Playhouse production of Larry Shue’s two-act farce, playing through Feb. 18.

Murry’s turns 50 this year, and celebrates that anniversary with a play about a birthday: Larry Shue’s two-act comedy “The Nerd.” The titular nerd here is a list of social no-no’s embodied: the death of the party, the tambourine player willing to practice in the presence of other humans, the imposing houseguest. He saved the life of our straight-man protagonist (Willum Cubbert, played here by James Mainard O’Connell) in Vietnam and he’s back to cash in on all that good will. It’s broad farce, a favored milieu for dinner theaters everywhere, and exactly the kind of snappy dialogue Murry’s can polish to a finish, particularly with nearly 40 performances scheduled. A buffet dinner from Chef Larry Shields precedes each performance, to be served at 6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Sun. The company puts on a few matinee performances, too, on the first, second and third Wednesday of each production; in this case, Jan. 18, Jan, 25 and Feb. 1, with an 11 a.m. dinner and a 12:45 curtain time. SS

IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 1/19

GET GONE: Shreveport quartet Seratones makes a landing at Stickyz Thursday night, with an opening set from Bad Match, 9 p.m., $10-$12.

BRIAN NAHLEN AND NICK DEVLIN play the happy hour set at Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m., free. Frankie Paul brings his stand-up to the Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., $8-$12. Adrian + Meredith join Andy Warr and Mandy McBryde at the White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. The Blackfoot Gypsies, a blues rock duo-turnedquartet, play a show at Maxine’s, 9 p.m. The fourth annual Ozark Mountain Music Festival commences and runs through Jan. 22 in Eureka Springs, featuring Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, details and tickets at ozarkmountainmusicfestival.com. Jessica Seven, 3 Miles from Providence, Mortalus and Vent play an all-ages birthday show for Stevie “Zeroknight” McCord at the Rev Room, 8:30 p.m., $5. Fossil Youth, Caving, Everyone Leaves and The Latter Half share a bill at Vino’s, 8:30 p.m., $7. It’s Trojans-on-Trojans as UALR’s women’s basketball team plays Troy University at the Jack Stephens Center, 6:30 p.m. The gallery at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s Fine Arts Center opens the show “True Neutral Human,” sculpture by Rhode Island School of Design professor Taylor Baldwin, with a gallery reception, 3:30 p.m., followed by a talk by the artist at the Hillside Auditorium at 5:30 p.m. A reception for the juried photography exhibition “Bayou Bartholomew: In Focus” at the Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas is set for 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

FRIDAY 1/20 THURSDAY 1/19

SERATONES

9 p.m. Stickyz. $10-$12.

Exactly two years before this concert, the Shreveport quartet Seratones posted the video for “Kingdom Come” on YouTube, stating name and business at the song’s opening to meet the qualifications of NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest. Somehow,

frontwoman A.J. Haynes’ thereminesque moved into the category of “undeniable,” spooky scat and the band’s nimble under- as evidenced in her commanding perpinning didn’t score them a win, but they formance last May at the White Water got invited to play a Tiny Desk Concert, Tavern (does that dive bar in the band’s anyway. Since then, they’ve linked up video for “Sun” look familiar, Capitol with Fat Possum Records and become View denizens?). As long as we’re talkterrifically tight. What’s more, Haynes’ ing about lead singers with swagger: Bad steamy swagger as a frontwoman has Match opens the show. SS

FRIDAY 1/20

‘THE TAMING’

7 p.m. 21c Museum Hotel. $5 suggested donation.

In a message and “special Inauguration Day offer,” playwright Lauren Gunderson wrote, “The communal embrace of theatre was always an ancient way of processing politics, society, and great change. I believe it still is.” In that spirit, she and her publisher Playscripts waived the rights to “any theatre company, group, or band of ragtag persons who want to stage a reading of ‘The Taming’ on Inauguration Day 2017. ... In a theatre, in a house, on a

street. It’s on us.” One such company, ArkansasStaged, is doing exactly that at Bentonville’s 21C Museum Hotel; it’s a benefit for Planned Parenthood. University of Arkansas theater instructor Jenny McKnight directs a cast and musical ensemble of women in the selfdescribed “all-female political farce,” set against the backdrop of the Miss America pageant in which Miss Georgia has enlisted a right-wing Southern senator and a left-wing blogger to help her rewrite the U.S. Constitution. The performance lasts about 90 minutes. If you can’t make it to Northwest Arkan-

sas, but like the idea of staging your own living room reading of “The Taming,” search for the play on playscripts.com and follow Gunderson’s instructions: “Place an order for the rights and select an “offline” form of payment: check or purchase order. Email info@playscripts. com and tell them that your reading is a part of the Inauguration Day project and you will not be charged. Gather, read, laugh, rage, post pics.” Over 40 companies or “bands of ragtag persons” across the U.S. have signed on to the project and listed their reading on the play’s Tumblr page. SS

CUBOID HOSTS A post-inauguration “End of the World” EDM party with ZTwist, Doug Kramer, Syca Bass at the Rev Room, 9 p.m., $10. Big Papa Binns spins the blues at the Tavern Sports Bar & Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. Tragikly White performs all night at Stickyz, 9:30 p.m., $10. Hawtmess, Spirit Cuntz and Couch Jackets share a bill at Vino’s, 9 p.m., $5. Third Degree performs at Cajun’s Wharf, 9 p.m., $5. Dirtfoot brings its stomp folk to King’s Live Music in Conway with Two Dudes, 8:30 p.m., $5. Splendid Chaos plays at West End Smokehouse through Jan. 21, 10 p.m., $7. The John Calvin Brewer Band caps off the weekend races through Jan. 21, 10 p.m., Silk’s Bar & Grill in Hot Springs, free. Rhiannon presents “That’s So Rave’n,” an electronic dance party at Club Sway, 9 p.m. The Clinton Presidential Center hosts workshops in ecology, coding, science and the arts for Girl Fest, 6 p.m. party with an optional overnight stay, event 9:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, $20-$30.

SATURDAY 1/21 REGGAE QUINTET CHINESE Connection Dub Embassy makes a stop at King’s Live Music in Conway with an opening set from Jamie Patrick, 8:30 p.m., $5. Evan Felker (of Turnpike Troubadours) and Rhett Miller (of the Old 97’s) share a bill at George’s Majestic Lounge in Fayetteville, 9

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arktimes.com JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

THE

TO-DO

LIST

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

FRIDAY 1/20

THE LATINO ART PROJECT 6-9 p.m. Core Public House.

The Latino Art Project, whose members have exhibited sometimes extraordinary work in North Little Rock venues for the past couple of years, will this Friday open “Eye of the Beholder” at Core (411 Main St.). Artists Luis Ati-

lano, Luis Saldana, Martin Flores, Carla Ramos, Susana Casillas, Matt Teravest, Toni Arnone, Hannah Hinojosa, Becky Botos, Chris James and Vickie HendrixSiebenmorgen will show work in a variety of mediums. The reception will be 6-9 p.m. Verbal art joins the visual art at 8:30 p.m. when the poetry duo Half Sestina 811 performs. LNP

FROM MEMORY: Laura Raborn’s painting is part of her exhibition “Island Dreams and Memories” opening Friday at the Argenta branch of the Laman Library.

JAMES CODY RIGGAN

FRIDAY 1/20

A DAY OF PASSAGE: The Velvet Kente Arkestra plays “Winter Soulstice V: A Benefit for Lucie’s Place,” following a silent auction and preceding a set from DJ Baldego, 10 p.m. Friday, Jan. 20, White Water Tavern. $10.

FRIDAY 1/20

WINTER SOULSTICE V

10 p.m. White Water Tavern. $10 suggested donation.

If you’re bummed about having missed Joshua Asante with Amasa Hines at the White Water last Friday, and if “soulful songs of protest” sound like the balm you’ll need to soothe your aching whatevers after a day that began with Trump’s swearing-in ceremony, this is where you’ll need to be after dark on Inauguration Day. (Actual solar dark, that is — not the darkness that consumed your hopes and dreams earlier that day, as Toby Keith sang the words “You’ll be sorry that you messed with The U.S. of A, we’ll put a boot in your ass; it’s the American way” with unblinking sincerity.) If you can make it earlier in the evening, a silent auction upstairs begins at 7 p.m. and features goods from Miranda Young-Rice, Brit34

JANUARY 19, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

tany Hallmark, Jennifer Steck, Joshua Asante, Cheyenne Matthews, Raduno, The Fold and more. Proceeds from the auction boost the evening’s contribution to Lucie’s Place, a nonprofit providing homeless LGBT youth in Central Arkansas with health and counseling services, housing, and basic items like toiletries, “go phones” and bus passes. The auction ends at 10 p.m. sharp, followed by a performance from the Velvet Kente Arkestra, an outsized version of the funk-forward ensemble that claimed the title at 2009’s Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase. If you’ve got energy to expend afterward, there’s a set from DJ Baldego (known to some as Seth Baldy, the host of Wednesday night’s “Heartbreakers & Rumpshakers” on KABF-FM, 88.3). A solstice is a day of passage, and chances are you’ll remember where you were on this one. Make it count. SS Follow us on Instagram: ArkTimes

ARGENTA ARTWALK

5-8 p.m. Downtown NLR venues.

The third Friday of the month puts North Little Rock’s downtown gallery scene in gear with the Argenta ArtWalk after-hours event up and down Main Street (and a little off to the side). “Island Dreams and Memories,” Little Rock artist Laura Raborn’s exploration of scenes remembered and revisited, opens at the Argenta branch of the Laman Library (420 Main St.); the show features both paintings and mixed media. An exhibition by

noted Southern artist William Dunlap, “Landscape and Variable: Recent Works,” continues at Greg Thompson Fine Art at (429 Main St.); note that Dunlap will give a talk at the gallery at 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4. At Mugs Cafe (515 Main St.), “Nature Inside and Out,” an exhibition of printmaking by Daniella Napolitano and Carmen Alexandria that touches on the intersection between our exterior and interior worlds, opens. Other venues include the Southern Women’s Artisans Guild (606 N. Olive St.) and Argenta Gallery (413 Main St.). LNP

SATURDAY 1/21

WOMEN’S MARCH ON ARKANSAS

11 a.m. Arkansas State Capitol. Free.

As a show of solidarity with the Women’s March on Washington and the affiliated sisters marches around the world — over 370 of them, 55 of them outside the U.S. — Arkansans will march for the mission they cite on the event’s Facebook page: “In the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore.” The march, it’s hoped, “will send a bold message to our new administration on their first day in office, and to the world,

that women’s rights are human rights.” This sister march begins with a 10 a.m. check-in and sign-making station at the corner of Pulaski and Capitol, followed by an 11 a.m. march to the steps of the Capitol, where a rally will take place. At 1 p.m., an information expo at the Willie L. Hinton Community Center (3805 W. 12th St.) highlights ways to communicate with your legislators and to stay involved. March organizers encourage participants to wear purple, and participants who cannot march can be dropped off at the southeast corner of the Capitol steps or at the southwest corner of Capitol and Woodlane, where there will be volunteers on hand to assist. SS

IN BRIEF

SATURDAY 1/21

‘ARKANSAS ARTISTS OF SPECTRUM’ RECEPTION

6 p.m., Boswell Mourot Fine Art.

Art Basel’s prestigious art fairs in Basel, Switzerland; Hong Kong; and Miami Beach draw hundreds AT BOSWELL MOUROT: Anais Dasse’s “Kids are Terrible People, of gallery owners. Too” and other works by Arkansas artists who showed work during Miami’s Art Basel Week are in a show opening with a reception Boswell Mourot Saturday at the Heights gallery. Fine Art, located here and in Miami, no doubt attracted some pretty powerful players in the art lithographs; Jeff Horton, a Little Rock world when it took part in the Specarchitect and geometric abstract trum Art Fair of Art Basel Art Week painter; Dennis McCann, whose hardin Miami the first week of Decemedge pastels have appeared in more ber. Now, Boswell Mourot is exhibitDelta exhibitions than you can count on both hands; Keith Runkle, painter ing works by the Arkansas artists of Spectrum: Anais Dasse, whose work of fabulist allegories; and Kyle Boswell, “Kids Are Terrible People Too” was who when not running the gallery is a terrific glass artist who combines texfeatured in the 2016 Delta Exhibition; tiles with his vessels. The gallery is at Delita Martin, who has decamped to 5815 Kavanaugh Blvd. The show runs Texas but is widely admired in Arkanthrough Feb. 4. LNP sas for her monumental mixed-media

p.m., $20. The UALR Trojans men’s basketball team faces off against the South Alabama Jaguars for Greek Night at the Jack Stephens Center, 6 p.m. Club Sway continues its #glitterrock version of RuPaul’s Drag Race with the Fresh Fish contest, 9 p.m. Katie J faces off against DeFrance in the Discovery Music Competition, 9 p.m., $10. Maxine’s in Hot Springs welcomes back the Foul Play Cabaret featuring Gianna St. Grace, 9 p.m., $10-$15. Young Gods of America return to the White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. Comedian and actor Mike Epps performs at the Robinson Center Performance Hall, 8 p.m., $50-$70. Trumpeter and vocalist Byron Stripling pays tribute to Louis Armstrong in a concert with the South Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, 7:30 p.m., El Dorado Municipal Auditorium, $40-$55. Corey Smith brings “I Love Everyone” and other country anthems to the Rev Room with Hailey Whitters, 8:30 p.m., $20-$23. Vino’s hosts a metal show from The Weeping Gate, All Is At An End, Awaiting Ezkaton and Murkryth, 9 p.m., $7. Crisis plays at Cajun’s, 9 p.m., $5. Gallery 26 opens a show of new work by Brian Madden and Marty Smith with a reception featuring music by Kevin Kerby, 7-10 p.m.

MONDAY 1/23 ACCLAIMED BLUEGRASS QUINTET Monroe Crossing visits Paragould as part of “Bluegrass Mondays” broadcast on KASU-FM, 91.9, at the Collins Theater, 7 p.m., $5. The Film Society of Little Rock presents “Monday Night Shorts” at The Joint, 7:30 p.m., $8. Kat Robinson, author of “Arkansas Pie,” will share stories and recipes at Hillcrest Hall, 6:30 p.m., free.

TUESDAY 1/24 SUNDAY 1/22

INSIDE OUT POETRY READING

7 p.m. Vino’s. $10-$15.

Unless you have an immediate or familial connection to someone who’s incarcerated, it’s easy to forget the thousands of people — 18,965 Arkansans, according to the 2015 numbers from the Arkansas Department of Correction — locked away from the public eye. For this reading, Decarcerate, a self-described “grassroots community group focused on reducing the prison population in Arkansas through smart legislation and community action,” brings the voices of incarcerated poets into the public sphere. From 115 pages of submissions collected from prisons around the state, Decarcerate selected 29 poems to be read aloud by local writers. They’ll donate proceeds for the event to fund “Pipeline,” a featurelength documentary about the “cradle to prison” pipeline in Arkansas, which has

the most rapidly growing prison population in the country. Arkansas. As stated on the film’s website, “Pipeline” explores “how racial disparities and inequitable policies have funneled Black and Latino children into prisons at largely disproportionate rates through punitive criminal and juvenile justice systems, lack of health care, elevated rates of poverty, and inadequate education.” Decarcerate’s fundraiser, “Pipeline” Director Zachary Crow says, “was kind of a marriage of a lot of things I care about.” “Pipeline” is slated to begin filming in February, he says, and the team is “closing in on the funds to get through the research process” — tax-deductible, thanks to a partnership with the Janus Institute for Justice. Once there’s footage to show, Crow’s crew will fine-tune the film’s production budget with the hopes of incorporating animation elements into the film and a score from local musicians. SS

RIVERDALE 10 CINEMA and Diamond Bear Brewery screen Mel Brooks’ 1987 parody “Spaceballs,” 7 p.m., $8.50. Hot Springs’ Landrest and Conway quartet Couch Jackets come to the White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. Food and culture blogger Rex Nelson gives a noontime talk based on his collection of essays, “Southern Fried: Going Whole Hog in a State of Wonder,” at the Clinton School of Public Service’s Sturgis Hall, followed by a book-signing. Later in Sturgis Hall, Rock Region Metro hosts a town hall meeting, 5:30 p.m.

WEDNESDAY 1/25 DENVER COMEDIAN SAM Tallent makes a last-minute appearance at Vino’s with Yung News God, 8 p.m., $5. South Mississippi songwriter Chelsea Lovitt brings her deep alto and her sardonic Nashville-brewed folk to the White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. Jersey Hotcomic, also known as “The Haitian Sensation” makes a stop at the Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m., $8. Travis Bowman plays a free show at the Tavern Sports Bar & Grill, 7:30 p.m. Follow Rock Candy on Twitter: @RockCandies

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arktimes.com JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

MOVIE REVIEW

Spouse and symbol Larrain’s ‘Jackie’ an uneven story of the public and the private. BY GUY LANCASTER

here is a small room at the Vatican, next to the Sistine Chapel, dubbed the “Room of Tears,” where a newly chosen pope goes to prepare himself for his public presentation. The nickname of the room reportedly comes from the emotional state of many a new pope, and one can well understand — the transformation from a person into a symbol, from a free man into a figurehead constrained by weight of the past and the expectations of the worldwide faithful. Who but a sociopath would not shed a tear at such a moment? The pope, of course, is a monarch, invested with the symbolic value that we Americans historically withheld from our leaders, at least until the assassination of John F. Kennedy, when one man was transformed from a president with a mediocre record into the representative of a Camelot lost to us forever. Pablo Larrain’s “Jackie” explores

‘I DON’T SMOKE’: A widowed Jacqueline Kennedy (Natalie Portman) grapples with grief under the microscope in Pablo Larrain’s “Jackie.”

this transformation through the figure of Jacqueline Kennedy (Natalie Portman), and opens with her being interviewed by Theodore H. White (Billy Crudup) for Life magazine on Nov. 29, 1963, less than a week after her husband’s death. Right off the bat, she makes it clear to her interviewer that she will have an active role in shaping his narrative, that she gets to control the story (telling him “I don’t smoke” as she stubs out yet another cigarette). The movie thus progresses through flashback, following Jacqueline shortly after the assassination and on through the funeral arrangements, with Portman depicting a woman obsessed with elevating her husband’s legacy. She even models her husband’s funeral after Abraham Lincoln’s funeral pro-

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ARKANSAS TIMES

cession to differentiate him from the likes of James Garfield and William McKinley, other presidents cut down in office. T.H. White gets the story, but there is another interviewer in this movie, one Father Richard McSorley (John Hurt), an Irish priest brought in by the staff to talk to Jacqueline. “God does not want a story. God wants the truth,” he tells her, and so he gets it — the story of the frustrated wife aware of her husband’s dalliances, a woman who believes that she could have been happier in any other situation, as a shopkeeper or a stenographer, married to an ugly and unassuming husband. In a similar vein, Robert Kennedy (Peter Sarsgaard) laments that his brother’s truncated term in office only accom-

plished solving a Cuban crisis that he caused in the first place. If this theme of story vs. truth, the necessity of myth, never quite gels, it’s because “Jackie” is a searing portrait of personal grief in a situation, but one in which emotions cannot always be indulged. While she lost a husband, the entire world was thrown into chaos with JFK’s murder, and it’s hard for Jacqueline to get her bearings when the whole world remains spinning. When we finally flash back to the assassination, we see her husband being shot, Secret Service agent Clint Hill (David Caves) jumping on top of the car as it races off, and then the long car ride at top speed to the hospital. No one comforts her as she cradles the broken head of her husband because her husband is the president and there are “bigger” things to think about, and her attempts to grieve and to plan the funeral continually collide against political necessity. Portman’s Jacqueline is a woman torn between raw pain and the dictates of her station, and her performance is perfectly uneven. If the movie at times feels like it’s trying to explore two different themes simultaneously, maybe the answer lies in the irony of the mythmaking enterprise. Robbed of a real connection to humanity in this crisis, Jacqueline Kennedy transformed her husband into a symbol of human aspiration. Say what you will about her legacy (and that of first ladies in general), but she actually gave her husband what the priests and preachers have long promised everyone — life after death.

arktimes.com JANUARY 19, 2017, 2016

FLOWERS IN THE WINTER, CONT. ticular, with protest songs. We sort of veered away from that specific message, although I’d like to get back to that with my own solo stuff, or anybody I ever work with again. We started out doing “This Land is Your Land,” “If I Had a Hammer,” “Turn, Turn, Turn.” Maybe someday we’ll do our protest album. Then, we got asked to sing a gospel song for the soundtrack, and then to open for Billy Joe Shaver. Very exhilarating.

MICHEL LEIDERMANN Moderator

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It’s lovely, and the bit about the neighbors coming to take down the Christmas tree sort of wrecked me. McBryde: Mm-hmm. And you know, when I’ve performed that song, that’s the part that I’ve wondered about — whether it’s too esoteric to be relatable for the listener, because that’s another thing the children said after the disaster: “And the neighbors came over and they just took all our Christmas decorations down for us, ’cause we just couldn’t even do it.” I didn’t find it esoteric. When you’ve lost someone, everyone wants to help, and accepting that help can be emotional in itself. It’s, like, a weird and unexpected part of grieving. McBryde: Right. It’s just a really difficult thing to accept help, and just … to take down your damn Christmas decorations.

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Some of the songs that resonated most with me were the darker ones, and I especially loved “West Franklin.” Would you talk a little bit about it? McBryde: Sure. And thank you. I wrote that song having watched a documentary on coal mining and there was a story that really stood out to me, and hit close to home, because I lost my father around Christmastime when I was 19. They were interviewing these children of this coal miner — and at this point, the children were probably in their 80s — they were telling this story about Christmas Eve. They were in a pageant that night, and their dad just said, “I don’t wanna go [to work], but we need the money so bad.” So during that pageant there was a horrible mining accident and they lost their father. I just really … I just wanted to tell their story.

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So you all have three covers on the album: Johnny Cash’s “Bad News,” Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” and Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.” How’d you decide? Garland: Well, there’s a whole story with that. We had a weeklong songwriter retreat where we went to the cabin, and [producers] Kim [Swink] and Chris [Spencer] flew in from New York to be with

the three of us, and we spent a week just workin’ on the songs and talkin’ about the album. I started goin’ through my lyric books, and I’d pulled this one book out and opened it up and there was a note to myself from March 1997, and it says: “AMY” — AMY, in all caps with exclamation points — “ ‘Songs to Do: “Psycho Killer” ’ … and then “Concrete Jungle” by Bob Marley — maybe we’ll save that for the next record. Then the next one was “Heart of Glass” by Blondie. I mean, we were debating and we’d made these Spotify playlists so we could listen and decide, and they saw those and just said, “Oh, my God. Yeah.” Bonnie, would you talk some about “Seventeen,” which you sing lead on? There’s something in there about the crystallized immortality of people who die young, like a lot of heroes, and symbolized by the references to the springtime. Montgomery: Well, it’s really personal, because it’s a story that I lived. I just wrote it this last year. I was 16 and growing up in White County. It’s so personal that I had trouble letting it go —letting it fly as a song on the album. But I feel like we took good care of it, especially with the swells of the fiddle and the banjo and the water and the weather and the time of year and everything. It was a story that I’d lived, but I told the story from the view of the person who’s passed away. He drowned in the river, and so I decided to commemorate his life by telling this story from his perspective that day, instead of mine. That was sort of an interesting way to remove myself from my own feelings of the event, looking down on the situation from above. I wanna ask you about “Don’t Call It Country,” and the sort of subgenres to classic country it’s presumably directed toward. Do you think country music is in a state of crisis, or are those offshoots part of its growth? McBryde: Well, that’s kind of the beautiful irony of that song. Amy and I wrote it a few years back sitting in her backyard, and we absolutely wrote it with the intention of making a statement about the country songs that were on the “pop” side of country, and then it ended up being a total pop country song. So there you go. You three have made your faces and personalities very much a part of your aesthetic, so I was a little surprised to see a young superhero on the cover. Garland: Well, that’s my son, Eli. And he is a costume wearer, and he and Chris, our producer, just formed this bond, while we were working out there.

SEPTEMBER 11-27, 2015 I mean, they have nicknames for each other. They LOVE each other. And there was this meth lab that blew up out there on Panther Mountain. We’d see it every time we’d drive out. There’s a burned-up houseboat and another burned-up car that’s turned upside down. It’s got clothes hangin’ out the back end of it, out of the trunk; it’s insane. Chris just thought it’d be an awesome idea to get Eli in one of his costumes and stand out there in the middle of it, and Eli said yes, so Kim and Bart [Angel, Amy’s husband and drummer for The Wildflower Revue] went and asked

the neighbors if we could take pictures over there. The wildflowers are kind of wrapping around his leg with their little tendrils, like he’s come to save the day. He’s here in this burnt-up heap o’ mess, and the wildflowers are still growin.’

The Wildflower Revue’s album release concert takes place at the Dreamland Ballroom, 800 W. Ninth St., at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 21. For tickets, visit the group’s Facebook page or search eventbrite.com for “Wildflower Revue.”

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