NEWS + POLITICS + ENTERTAINMENT + FOOD / NOVEMBER 12, 2015 / ARKTIMES.COM
CORRECTION:
IN LAST WEEK’S PHILANDER SMITH SECTION, WE INADVERTENTLY MISSPELLED ELAINE BROWN’S LAST NAME. THE ARKANSAS TIMES APOLOGIZES FOR THIS ERROR. BLESS THE MIC is a contemporary spin on the traditional President’s Lecture series. These events, held on hundreds of campuses across the country, have been a way to stimulate intellectual discourse. This series seeks to bring in noted scholars, authors, politicians and public intellectuals to share their thoughts not only to the campus community but also to the broader community in which the institution resides. One of the most innovative ways Philander motivates and educates its students is through the Bless The Mic Lecture series. Continuing a 10 year tradition, Bless the Mic has reached out to the students, asked them to attend a Bless the Mic Lecture and to write a small essay on their experience. Four essays from last year’s lecture series have been chosen and published here in Philander Smith College’s Bless the Mic special section. This program endeavors to help students strive in all things, and be truly inspired to achieve the Philander Smith mission which is to “graduate academically accomplished students, who are grounded as advocates for social justice, determined to change the world for the better.”
STUDENT ESSAYS Last year, Philander Smith College decided to get the students more involved in the school’s “Bless the Mic” lecture series. Students were given the opportunity to submit an essay about any of the speakers they saw, and certain essays were to be chosen for publication in the Arkansas Times. Here are the 2014-2015 series student essays:
ELAINE BROWN
ELAINE BROWN
BY BRIGHTON MLAMBO, SENIOR, BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION MAJOR, CHIPINGE, ZIMBABWE In the first ever Bless the Mic interview, Elaine Brown insisted that hating Black boys is a festering sore eating immersed the audience in the happenings of the dark away at the freedom that Black people seek. What most resonated with me was her unequivocal past and juxtaposed them with the realities of the present. Explaining the explosive situation in the wake of declaration that though progress has been made, the civil rights movement and the birth of notions of the struggle persists, and another revolution is Black power, she recalled that nothing was left for her imminent, as witnessed in Ferguson. Elaine was but to walk into the halls of the Black Panther Party memorable in her blunt and poetic utterances, and embrace the revolution. She revealed the deeds which validated the social justice cause, all befitof a racist government sworn to oust Black people and ting our Panther campus.
DORINDA CLARK-COLE
BY DESTINY WRIGHT, JUNIOR , BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION MAJOR, TAYLOR, AR “Is my living in vain? Am I wasting my time? Can the were actual Clark Sisters fans. For her great sermon “Do you know him?” her text clock rewind?” Do these words sound familiar? These are the lyrics to the classic song “Is My Living in Vain?” was Matthew 18:14-18. She had an anointing that set by the Grammy Award-winning Clark Sisters. Dorinda the atmosphere. She is very humble and has a great Clark-Cole made a remarkable presence at the Bless sense of humor. I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture. I the Mic Lecture Series. She sang songs like “Is My Living walked away inspired, empowered, uplifted and an in Vain?” and “Hallelujah,” and the crowd happily sung even bigger Clark Sisters fan. The Clark Sisters’ new along as she challenged the audience to show who album is in stores now!
POOCH HALL
BY LI JIANG, SENIOR, CHEMISTRY MAJOR, CHINA BlessTheMic was inspirational and motivational with Pooch Hall. His message was timeless and to the point: Don’t be afraid to succeed and be happy! What I found most profound was during the Q&A session. The question was,“What is your proudest moment in your career? His reply was“… my 16-year-old daughter.” He explained the daughter is a special needs-child and she has taught Pooch how to appreciate life and enjoy
AMY DUBOIS BARNETT
BY CANDACE PARCHMAN, JUNIOR, BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION MAJOR, FORREST CITY, AR Out of the seven rules, there were two rules that “Everyone fits in … everywhere you go, as long as you are penetrated my metacognition in terms of success. comfortable with yourself, you will always ‘fit in.’ ” The first rule that registered in my mind was rule – Amy Dubois Barnett No. 1: Embrace fear as growth. The second rule was If someone did not know anything about Amy rule No. 3: Realize your value and demand the best! Not only did Barnett’s lecture indulge me, but Dubois Barnett before the Bless the Mic Series, they would have known everything about her after her characteristics that I observed were outstanding! her life-changing lecture! Barnett shared her seven The way she interacted with students was amazing. rules of success and left the hearts of the audience She was very humble and her presence made every empowered and inspired to accomplish their goals. student feel very welcomed!
DORINDA CLARK-COLE
POOCH HALL
Bless The Mic is a free-to-the-public program that needs donors like you to keep it going.
SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
AMY DUBOIS BARNETT
Presenting Lecture $10,000 (One Per Lecture) Lecture Sponsor $5,000- $10,000 (One Per Lecture) Series Sponsor (IN-KIND contribution for goods or services for duration of the series)
FOR MORE DETAILS CONTACT:
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it to the fullest. His daughter reflects pure love to all. Therefore, his outlook and attitude made even more sense. Success and happiness is not just for the sake of self but for those around us. Both are reached by helping others reach the same level of fulfillment. Success is reachable by setting achievable goals and hard work. Straightforward, don’t you agree? I think so, and the caveat to all this is to believe in oneself!
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COMMENT
LRSD can’t become like Detroit Below is a list gleaned from Little Rock School District Superintendent Baker Kurrus’ comments in the state newspaper: •There is a clamor for a middle school in West Little Rock. •Continued exodus of students to private and charter schools will cause our public schools to become like Detroit. •Kurrus enjoys eating lunch with school children unannounced. •Schools can be sold, and the money invested back into the district. •Keeping small neighborhood schools open is expensive. If Kurrus builds a middle school in the west, he adds yet another burden for the poor. Recently, the state paper printed a list of Little Rock School District populations. It shows that white people value schools with around a 30 percent minority. Schools built in the west have that desired percentage. Little Rock schools are unitary so there is no longer judicial oversight. The LRSD can build a school wherever it wants to build it. The problem with white majority schools in the west is that it turns our central and southwest sectors into Detroit. It is like having two children, one suffering appendicitis and the other with no problem. Instead of handling the appendicitis, the parent buys new shoes for the healthy child. To avoid Detroit, we must create good schools for Little Rock’s poor. Kurrus knows first-hand that poor children have significant needs. The best way to meet those needs is to build a school village. A village keeps children with each other and with professionals dedicated to their success for 13 years. Staying together helps children without a strong family life develop character. Good character produces both outstanding academic and social behavior. That fact alone (well-behaved students) makes the village attractive. It gives those children with whom Kurrus enjoys visiting a chance to succeed. Most importantly for Little Rock, a good educational environment breaks the poverty cycle. This author has written much about school villages in the Arkansas Times and the state newspaper. He will gladly visit anybody wanting to discuss the concept. Sadly, an honest evaluation of the idea by the people who can make the vision a reality has not happened. Everything is in place to build the 4
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first village. Kurrus understands that neighborhood schools are too expensive to maintain, and that they can be sold and the money reinvested in the first school village. After that success, others would follow. Does the phrase “It takes a village” ring a bell? Richard Emmel Little Rock
Cotton wrong on Keystone I am sure you will have reported on the rejection of Keystone Pipeline XL so I wish to comment on that subject as it concerns the entire country. Sen. Tom Cotton has claimed that this action would affect Arkansas families and workers. Just to get the facts right: • The Keystone XL construction would go from Canada to Nebraska. • The only Keystone pipeline that would have come anywhere close to Arkansas has already been constructed. • Phase 2, which runs through central Kansas, was completed in 2011. Phase 3a, running through central Oklahoma and eastern Texas, was done in 2014. Cotton has dishonestly put forward
another “fact” that is no fact at all. Joanne Mell San Diego, Calif.
New Times In the early ’80s, when I decided to become a property owner in Arkansas — thus laying the groundwork for becoming a full-time and permanent resident — I subscribed to the Arkansas Times magazine. It was a charming and informative publication that touted the benefits of the Natural State and pointed out and discussed issues important to both the preservation and growth of Arkansas. I really enjoyed it as I was learning about my adopted state. Now it seems to have been transformed into a Democratic propaganda rag devoted solely to the promotion of liberal, left-wing views. You and the rest of your staff seem to be angry with your state, and it seems you think that the state and the nation should be made into a Democratic dictatorship, which bars any conservative views. This, of course, is your right. If you truly believe, as Max Brantley wrote, that Barack Obama “more than lived up to the presidency” —
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what have you been smoking? I challenge you to name and describe one thing he has done that was of benefit to the country. Killing Bin Laden was not his accomplishment. As a point of fact, he came close to canceling the mission. Obama will go down in history as the worst U.S. president. Only Hillary has a chance to exceed his incompetence. I regret that the Arkansas Times is so devoted to the continued decline of the state and the nation. Vance Gordon Mount Ida
From the web In response to last week’s cover story, “In matters of life and death”: Killing people is a horrible throwback to the Dark Ages. It is unbecoming to a modern society, especially one that likes to think of itself as “Christian.” It says Thou Shalt Not Kill. There is no addendum. Peterjkraus In response to last week’s column by Gene Lyons, “Republicans ‘reality’ ”: So would you like to hear Anderson Cooper’s first softball question to perennial press favorite Hillary Clinton during the recent CNN Democratic debate? It was this: “Will you say anything to get elected?” Oh, what Gene “Would I lie to you” Lyons failed to mention, was Anderson read about three of four flip flops of Clinton. I know, when libs do it, it is called evolve, and if Republicans do it, it is a flip flop. So, there is a perception that Clinton does change her mind due to the winds of politics. Clinton’s political philosophy: Some of my friends are for it and some of my friends are against it, I stand with my friends. Runner55K There was no crying or whining from the GOP candidates, just a harsh defense against the media that won’t even begin to tell the tale about the newest set of allegations showing the emails have been a concern. Even Bernie finally said, days too late, that there is a big trust issue with Hillary. Sure, some of the journalists may dig up something on Carson and some medicine he hawked, but nobody wants to discuss Hillary crying poor,
or Hillary fabricating this entire story of being shot at and coming in under sniper fire at Kosovo. How many debates have mentioned that? Soft ball? Thy aren’t even throwing anything real at her. They are coddling their favorite female star. Steven E Runner, apparently we have different definitions for “gotcha.” Where I come from “gotcha” means you’ve exposed or embarrassed or even disgraced someone. A “softball” question is one that is lobbed in. You can see it coming. A “gotcha” comes on high and inside. It’s aimed at your head and it’s not meant to brush you back. It’s meant to put you on your ass. It’s an attempt at intimidation. Hillary stayed in the box and answered the questions. She was not intimidated. The point of Mr. Lyons’ column was to admonish the GOP candidates who complained about the type of questions they were being asked. They should be prepared for anything that’s thrown at them. If they can’t handle it, they don’t belong in the big leagues. Hillary didn’t complain. Tony Galati
Look over there! It’s OBAMA COMING TO TAKE YOUR GUNS! Paying Top Dollar for Legislators Those officers clearly were not aware of the fact that rules are for the other people, not Republican legislators and their family members. Vanessa Ted Bentley is a Tea Partyer. He ran for Sheriff last time in Perry County and he came out with all
sorts of wild allegations about the current sheriff. Thankfully he was not elected. Made for some entertaining reading though in the local newspaper. Patricia Hutchins If proven true, Rep. Bentley needs to resign from office. I hope the feds have a video of her not so veiled threat. Some day I hope we hear that the Bentleys, sober this time for Mr. B., have apologized for their rank stupidly and arrogance in front of a judge. But that
shouldn’t be a “Get out of jail free” card if the mister is guilty of baiting on federal lands. You do the crime, you do the time. Sound Policy If Justin Harris didn’t resign after giving his daughter to a child rapist, do you think Bentley will step down after threatening a state wildlife officer? These people think they’re above the law. AnnaHarrisonTerry
In response to Ernest Dumas’ column from last week, “Deficits don’t matter to Republicans”: So true! For Republican politicians, deficits do not matter when it comes to corporate subsidies, tax cuts for the already wealthy, and sending other people’s kids off to fight a war. The same logic applies to big government when it protects a monopoly, restricts woman’s health options, or a poor person’s privacy. Bow ties are back in style In response to the Oct. 29 cover story “The apple and the tree” on the state child welfare system:
we
The more I read about Arkansas’s so-called “child welfare system,” the more nauseated I become. Doigotta
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In response to the Nov. 3 Arkansas Blog post, “State Rep. Mary Bentley threatens Game and Fish funding in encounter with wildlife officer”: Does the esteemed gentlewoman (R-Uterus) understand that Game & Fish is constitutionally independent? Pygface U768-040249-01_CompCancer_ArkTimesIsland.indd 1
U768-040249-01_CompCancer_ArkTimesIsland
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WEEK THAT WAS
Quote of the Week: “I understand Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi are the three Southern states targeted by the radical, left homosexualists to change our students’ perspective.” — Betty Peters, a member of the Alabama Board of Education, warning of a deadly conspiracy against Southern values that includes the Common Core education standards, the Human Rights Campaign, the Southern Poverty Law Center and God knows what other tentacles of the gay Illuminati.
More staff for Stodola Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola has insisted on the creation of two new staff positions answerable directly to him: A chief of staff who’d be paid $60,000 to $90,000 and an assistant to the mayor who’d be paid $44,000 to $68,000. The mayor already has an administrative assistant (paid $45,600 currently) and can tap other city staff as necessary. But Stodola said the new positions were essential, given the workload of the mayor’s office. Emails requested by the Times show some disagreement among city staff regarding the necessity of the new positions (at least at those compensation levels) given Little Rock’s organizational structure, in which most day-to-day operations are the domain of the city manager, Bruce Moore.
Transit authority seeks sales tax vote The board of Rock Region Metro, formerly the Central Arkansas Transit Authority, has voted to ask the Pulaski County Quorum Court to call a referendum on a quarter-cent sales tax that would provide dedicated funding to the public transportation agency. The tax would be voted on March 1, 2016, at the same time as the primary elections. A quarter-cent is the statutory tax limit for public transportation agencies. Rock Region Director Jarod Varner said it would produce $18 million a year that, in addition to the $12.5 million kicked in by Authority members Little Rock, North Little Rock, Pulaski County, Sherwood and Maumelle every year plus ridership revenues, grants and contracts, would transform the system. The vote was the culmination of the board’s Move Central Arkansas proposal. With tax revenues and city contributions, Rock Region could add buses and routes and decrease wait 6
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times. It would be able to modify its old-fashioned hub-and-spoke systemcreating, for example, a crosstown bus route in North Little Rock so that people who work on one side of the city could commute to their homes on the opposite side without first having to go to the Travel Station in Little Rock. Rock Region also wants to put in Bus Rapid Transit routes for express travelers and community shuttles.
The 2015 Arkansas Poll, by the numbers Every year, researchers at the University of Arkansas (led by political science professor Janine Parry) take the temperature of likely voters in the state. Here are highlights from the 2015 survey:
52% 64%
The secret billionaire Bloomberg News reported last week that it obtained court records showing details of the estate of the late John Walton, who died a decade ago in an accident. (Along with his siblings, John was partial heir to the immense fortune of his father, Sam Walton.) It’s been assumed John passed on the bulk of his riches to his widow, Christy, but the records show that half of John’s estate was given to charitable trusts, and a third to their only child, Lukas Walton. Christy, once estimated to be the richest woman in the U.S. at a net worth of $32 billion, is worth a paltry $5 billion, it turns out. The now-29-year-old Lukas is worth $11 billion.
65% 53% 68% 60%
…say undocumented immigrants should be allowed to become citizens if they learn English and pay back-taxes, as compared to 25 percent who want them all to be deported. …disapprove of the federal health reform law. …would support allowing patients to use medical marijuana, a sharp increase since 2012. … say global warming poses no serious threat in their lifetime. …would support “open carry” gun legislation. …insist same-sex marriages should not be legally recognized.
OPINION
Judges take center stage
S
ure, 19 Republican and Democrats are on the Arkansas presidential primary ballot March 1. And some voters can participate in Republican bloodletting between ultra- and ultraultra-conservative legislative candidates over Obamacare. But the real action will be the nonpartisan judicial races, particularly two contests for the Arkansas Supreme Court. Associate Justice Courtney Goodson will face Circuit Judge Dan Kemp of Mountain View in a race for chief justice. It’s a position that once had administrative authority over the court, but the power has been diminished by rump majority caucuses of the seven-member court. Now-retired Chief Justice Jim Hannah was too nice for his own good. Goodson was Courtney Henry when she got elected to the Court of Appeals on scant law clerk experience. Her Democratically connected in-laws were critical in her reach for a seat on the Supreme Court. Shortly after her election, she shucked her husband. She remarried to a powerful lawyer, John Goodson, who’d gifted her with mounds of expensive purses. She’d later disclose that she and hubby enjoyed a $50,000 Mediterranean cruise on a private Tyson yacht,
courtesy of a wellconnected lawyer friend. Goodson enjoyed business support her first MAX go-round and still BRANTLEY numbers the likes maxbrantley@arktimes.com of Entergy lobbyist Tom Kennedy in her posse. It helps that John Goodson, a UA trustee, is adept at cultivating friends of all sorts, including a number who’ve piled big sums into the campaign treasuries of every elected member of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Goodson is distributing a photo with her Supreme Court colleagues on Facebook. The subliminal message: They support her. An ethics complaint on this will go nowhere, though it fits a pattern. Goodson used endorsement by photo association in her first Supreme Court race, including pictures of a judicial colleague and prominent Democrat who demanded that their photos be removed. Her campaign operatives are also mailing that current Supreme Court photo around, further evidence that its use isn’t as innocent as it appears. Goodson, judging by all the elected
Father knows best (almost)
W
hat Papa Bush hoped to achieve by blaming the catastrophic failures of George W. Bush’s presidency on his advisers, including Vice President Dick Cheney, we can only guess, but you can be sure his purpose was not to harm either political son, the former president or the one whose presidential ambition is becoming more forlorn by the day. My take is that George H.W. Bush was following a noble fatherly instinct in wanting to see a son’s failures cast in a better historical light, ones that would be better understood by acknowledging human frailty. His son’s instincts were to have done things much differently (he had promised to have a humble
foreign policy and to avoid “nation building”) but he was overmatched by the strong personalities he ERNEST assembled around DUMAS him for the job of guiding Western civilization. The elder Bush apparently mentioned only two — Cheney and Bush II’s defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld — in interviews with his biographer, but he implied that there were others, no doubt among them political chief Karl Rove and economic wizard Glenn Hubbard. George H.W. Bush’s misgivings about both the major economic and foreign-
Republicans she’s posing with, has remade herself. Gone are her liberal Democratic in-laws. Up front now are a host of Republican legislators, including people like the anti-gay Republican Sen. Bart Hester, who’s trying to make people believe Kemp, a conservative Church of Christ elder, is some kind of gay activist. Evidence? He met with some lawyers at a house a few blocks from me in Little Rock’s Hillcrest, well known as a neighborhood soft on the queers. Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce money will support Kemp. He’ll have campaign advice from a Republican consulting firm. He offers a record for honesty and consistency, if not a progressive streak. Business supported Goodson once and she went against it on some big tort cases. She went both for and against same-sex marriage in internal court deliberations, before the court finally punted. Speaking of sexual equality: A declared proponent of discrimination against gay people, Circuit Judge Shawn Womack of Mountain Home, wound up with an opponent, Clark Mason of Little Rock, in the final 15 minutes of filing for the other open Supreme Court seat. This being Arkansas, Womack, a former Republican senator, probably is happy for me to quote his record in support of recriminalizing homosexuality, of opposing adoption by gay people and opposing same-sex marriage. Worse than his animus toward gay people, however, is his uncharitable outlook toward injured people. He was a legislative foot soldier
for the chamber of commerce in its campaign to limit — if not eliminate — damage lawsuits and punitive damages. The chamber crowd will spend heavily to put him on the court. Clark Mason is a successful trial lawyer. He took pains to say he’s represented major corporations, too, but his association with an organization that advocates better nursing home care will win him no support from the chamber of commerce or from nursing home magnate Michael Morton, who underwrote so many judicial races in 2014. The odds are strong that secretive dark money groups will pour money into both sides of these races, just as a smear group helped the chamber buy current Justice Robin Wynne’s seat for him in 2014. For example: They’ll likely find a probationer from Dan Kemp’s nearly three decades as a (prosecution friendly) criminal court judge who returned to crime. They’ll find some way to pervert Clark Mason’s representation of those injured by corporate negligence. Shawn Womack’s admission (in a grammatically challenged recusal letter) that he wasn’t qualified to try criminal cases ought to make a good 30-second ad. Courtney Goodson? Dubious ethics? A husband deeply entangled in legal matters? Actually being on the right side of a controversial case (same-sex marriage) but scheming to make sure the decision was never delivered gives both sides ammo. If a couple of million gets spent in anonymously financed ads of dubious fairness, maybe someone will again talk about appointing judges.
policy directions of his son have long been known, but here in the midst of Jeb Bush’s campaign for president he publicly articulates them for the first time. Dad’s account of his son’s misdirections follow a popular narrative that was formulated by former advisers of the younger Bush, among them Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and counterterrorism czar Richard A. Clarke, who later wrote about the unusual sway that Cheney and a few others had over Bush, mainly in his first term. But the problem with Papa’s version is that it makes George W. look weak. Whatever history’s verdict, whether it is helped or hurt by the father’s ruminations, it doesn’t look so good now. The swaggering Bush of “Mission Accomplished” was a puppet? Say it ain’t so, W! And Bush II said it was not so, that he never caved to Cheney or anyone else. It is established beyond doubt that the invasion of Iraq was an objective from day one of the Bush presidency, if not in Bush’s mind then in the minds of a big
contingent of advisers. Papa Bush made it sound like Cheney, who had been his own secretary of defense, was a thoughtful man who must have been radicalized by the horrors of 9/11, which accounted for his decision to push George W. into the invasion of Iraq over the phony issue of weapons of mass destruction. But that’s not how and why the obsession with conquering Iraq started. Remember that Cheney, after heading Bush’s vetting team, made himself the vice presidential nominee. Cheney required 11 potential candidates to fill out long, intrusive questionnaires and submit boxloads of documents, including years of tax returns, medical records and speeches. He told Bush that none of them met the test and that he would take the job. But he never submitted the same questionnaire or documents. When Cheney was nominated, a troubled history teacher sent me the manifesto of the Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative think tank started by writer William CONTINUED ON PAGE 37 www.arktimes.com
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Forget Carson
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t the expense of spoiling all the fun, let’s get real about Dr. Ben Carson’s presidential campaign. Every four years, rural Iowa Republicans fall raptly in love with a bible-brandishing savior who vows to purge the nation of sin. In 2008 it was Mike Huckabee, in 2012 Rick Santorum. Mr. Establishment, Mitt Romney, finished second both times. In the general election, Iowa voters supported President Obama. Soon after the New Hampshire primary, the holy candidate fades fast. Huckabee finished a weak third in New Hampshire, Santorum fourth with 9.5 percent of the vote. And that was basically the end of God’s self-anointed candidates. Particularly in view of increasing evidence that key elements of Dr. Carson’s inspiring personal biography are imaginary or worse, there’s no reason to think that he will fare any better than will Huckabee or Santorum. A bit like Bernie Sanders supporters, Carson fans have been slow to grasp that their party’s presidential nominee will need the votes of millions of “blue state” Republicans historically resistant to religious zealotry. Indeed, New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait makes a persuasive case that, quite like Huckabee, Carson isn’t actually running for president. Rather, his campaign is a for-profit organization. “Conservative politics are so closely intermingled with a lucrative entertainment complex,” Chait writes, “that it is frequently impossible to distinguish between a political project … and a money-making venture. Declaring yourself a presidential candidate gives you access to millions of dollars’ worth of free media attention that can build a valuable brand.” The fact that Carson’s campaign evidently plows a reported 69 percent of its donations into further fundraising may be a clue. Real political campaigns spend the bulk of their cash building an organization and advertising. Carson invests his loot in pyramid-like directmail and phone-spamming operations. Freed of the time-consuming necessity of being president, Carson will be able to hire more ghost-writers, give inspirational speeches and peddle fundamentalist Christian DVDs to a rapt audience of millions. With any luck, he can market himself as a martyr to liberal media bias. Even the books currently being dis-
sected by reporters at the Wall Street Journal and Politico aren’t standard campaign biogGENE raphies. They’re LYONS basically miracle fables, contemporary versions of John Bunyan’s 17th century classic “Pilgrim’s Progress,” mingling an allegory of divine salvation with the material rewards of the “American Dream.” Now you’d think that Carson’s actual life story, rising from the Detroit streets to become a world-renowned pediatric brain surgeon, would be enough to warrant admiration. Mere reality, however, won’t suffice to cover the miraculous narrative of sin and salvation evangelical Christians have come to expect. Thus, Carson can’t simply have been raised a poor kid in a rundown ghetto, he has to have been a violent thug touched by God. Similarly, Carson can’t just be a bright, hard-working scholarship student. He has to have been victimized by a professorial hoax and rewarded as the most honest student at Yale. That this screwball tale from his 1990 book “Gifted Hands” appears to have been inspired by a prank pulled by the college humor magazine makes it no more believable. Only that the roots of Carson’s magical thinking evidently lie deep in his past. It would be interesting to know if friends and professional associates ever heard these whoppers previous to his book’s publication. Because brain scientists tend to be a skeptical lot. He did leave medicine somewhat early. That said, it’s hardly unknown to encounter a physician, much less a neurosurgeon, with a God-complex. The experience of holding life and death in one’s hands may have something to do with it. The Guardian newspaper has published a photo layout of Carson’s home — essentially a museum exhibit celebrating his greatness — that suggests an ego gone mad. The man may actually believe, as he said recently on “Meet the Press,” that his candidacy represents a big threat to “the secular progressive movement in this country … because they can look at the polling data and they can see that I’m the candidate who’s most likely to be able to beat Hillary Clinton.” Call me Mr. Worldly Wiseman, after the character in “Pilgrim’s Progress” CONTINUED ON PAGE 36
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ARKANSAS TIMES
Black baseball greats From Arkansas to Montana. BY EVIN DEMIREL
T
he Kansas City Royals are atop the baseball world after winning their first World Series in 30 years. They carry on a style and tradition that tracks back to the all-black Kansas City Monarchs of the 1920s through 1960s. The old Monarchs and these Royals eschewed heavy home run hitting for aggressive base stealing. For decades, Kansas City was at the center of a segregated black baseball world, stretching thousands of miles, from the Midwest through the South out to the West Coast and as far north as the Plains states. That’s how a group of Texans who called themselves “Black Spiders” ended up in northern Iowa during the Great Depression, and it helps explain why a pipeline of talent formed between Arkadelphia and, of all places, Butte, Mont. This Rocky Mountain boomtown, which in 1920 had a metro area population on par with Little Rock’s, had attracted hordes of copper, gold and silver miners from all over the U.S. and places like Mexico, China and Syria. Some, like baseball lover Frank Yamer, came to make the guys’ lives just a little less rough. Yamer owned an African-American nightclub that sponsored a local all-black baseball team. They called themselves the Butte Colored Giants, played within all-white leagues and, thanks to a connection to Southwest Arkansas, usually won. The trickle started in the late 1910s with the McKinleys — three Arkadelphia brothers — and their brother-inlaw, Girlie Fenter. It escalated with another Arkadelphian, “Stack” Spearman and two local league championships, and by the time the mid-1930s rolled around there was a full-fledged flood. At least 16 Arkadelphians bounded into a car at one point or another to motor the more than 1,700 miles to Butte to play for the Colored Giants, according to research by Arkansas baseball historian Caleb Hardwick. Three Spearman brothers made the trek. Their family was an extraordinarily athletic one, producing six
brothers who played pro baseball at various levels. It’s uncertain what kind of day jobs these Arkansans had — they likely worked in the service industry, Hardwick says — but on the field they were often the main attractions. Especially after another city league championship and entry into the eight-team Montana State League as the only black squad. Most barnstorming black teams of this era had more talent than the local teams they played, so almost all black teams who played against white teams used comedy as insurance against racial confrontation. “Teams were ordered not to win by too much, and ebullient pre-game entertainments were frequent,” Donn Rogosin wrote in “Invisible Men: Life in Baseball’s Negro Leagues.” These could take several forms, including “shadow ball” in which players tossed, fielded, pitched and hit an imaginary baseball to each other. It appears the Colored Giants were no exception here. One 1935 report in the newspaper Montanomal says the Giants are “not only expert ball players but offer comedy attractions too.” While Colored Giants’ membership in an all-white league was a rare achievement regardless of region of the country, traveling black teams did often play white teams in the Midwest and West. While these arrangements weren’t often recorded in Jim Crow-era Arkansas, a writer for the AfricanAmerican Indianapolis Recorder does note an unspecified “colored Arkansas team” played 36 games across Northeast Arkansas in the summer of 1932. Opponents included “white teams of Piggott, Proctor, Holiday, Monette and Jonesboro. The team is lavish in its praise of the treatmetn [sic] given it in these communities, since it is to be remembered that not a Negro lives in one of these communities except Jonesboro.” After the controversial ending of a pivotal late-season game in 1936, the Colored Giants withdrew from the CONTINUED ON PAGE 36 www.arktimes.com
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
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hree seasons ago, my hideous mug got splashed around ESPN a bit. My postmortem of the infamous Louisiana-Monroe loss was headlined “Worst Loss Ever” and my smirking visage was right below it. And when the Hogs “played” Alabama and Rutgers thereafter, getting drubbed in due course, the montage of area headlines about that gridiron version of the Hindenburg was made part of the broadcast. I received no royalties, only snotty text messages from alleged friends about how I needed a haircut. We’ll get back to this. This week, I guess it’s time to go full circle, because Arkansas improbably turned years of ill fortune on its ear in one glorious afternoon in by-damned Oxford. I don’t know if the literal converse of the prior headline — “Best Win Ever” — would be on point, because the program does have a pretty proud history of momentous wins to go along with its ledger of unfathomable, soulcrushing collapses. Be that as it may, how can you argue that a 53-52 overtime thriller against a hated, ranked rival in its backyard could be characterized much differently? All elements of that manner of superlative victory were indisputably there, beginning with the requisite miracle. Picture the Sean Bean meme here emblazoned with this text: “One Does Not Simply Defeat the Rebels by the Conventional.” It applied full bore as nightfall descended on Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. The Hogs got pushed off their heels in the opening frame of overtime, similar to how the extra frames against Auburn commenced, but didn’t exactly soldier forward in response. A penalty, sack and incompletions left them with the fourth-and-25 situation that no playbook employs. Brandon Allen, orchestrating the offense at some sort of mythic level, got great protection from a three-man rush and fired across the field to Hunter Henry, who predictably was both open and well short of the sticks. When Henry’s legs got wrapped by a Rebel defender, he was heady, flicking the ball well behind him and skyward before slumping to the turf. Then Dan Skipper alertly extended the tallest frame in college football to tip it slightly. And that’s when the best possible man on the field to scoop it up did just that. Alex Collins fielded it cleanly off the bounce, curled upfield behind a wall
of blockers, and meandered all the way inside the 10. Collins was so caught up in the moment BEAU himself that he WILCOX vainly attempted a lateral to Dominique Reed but failed in that endeavor; nevertheless, Reed was able to flop onto the loose ball to secure it. Was this bewildering play the birth of redemption for Clint Stoerner’s fumble in Knoxville after 17 years of gestation? Hard to figure the cosmic elements out at this juncture, but know this: Just as the late Brandon Burlsworth’s and Stoerner’s feet had to imperfectly collide to trigger the ultimate travesty of this fan’s lifetime, Henry’s wherewithal, Skipper’s fingertips and Collins’ alertness all had to mesh precisely. And they did. But Tennessee had work yet to do after that turnover back in 1998, and Arkansas emerged still having first-and-goal and a seven-point deficit to address. That’s when the cameras got a shot at Allen, in the throes of a Jordanesque zone that no Hog quarterback heretofore has realized, flashing a slight grin through his facemask. And both that loose and relaxed approach and that facemask came into play again immediately. Allen launched a strike to Drew Morgan for his school-record sixth touchdown pass two plays later, and with the Razorback defense reeling from missed tackles all day, Bret Bielema knew he couldn’t chance another marathon affair. He went for two, the correct call in that circumstance given the house money he had just pocketed, and Allen got wrapped up trying to roll right and find a target. Game over? Nope. Marquis Haynes yanked Allen down by that facemask. And, given the benefit of an extra yard-and-ahalf toward the plane of the end zone, Bielema sent Allen back out there one more time to win the game, and the senior delivered. Allen hesitated with Morgan coming in motion, then assertively bolted right and vaulted into the end zone. 53-52. Final. Henry exhorted the healthy Hog fan contingent in the stands, Allen remained on his back taking it all in with trainers at the ready in case he was dinged up, and Bielema got a real “erotic” win that made the Texas Bowl victory seem proCONTINUED ON PAGE 37
ARKANSAS TIMES
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THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE
The cars
T
he Observer sold a car this week: the 2001 Dodge Grand Caravan we bought off our friend Leslie Peacock an age ago, maybe an age and a half by now. It was a good set of wheels for us, eventually filled from front to back with The Observer’s flotsam and jetsam, never failing to start other than when the battery died of old age, one corner of the bumper smushed in a week after we got it, the body fairly jacked already with everything from smudges to scrapes to what I suspect were several very vigorous keyings, likely owing to Leslie’s penchant for running anti-Bush bumper stickers when The Decider was in office and those dumb enough to have voted for him were still feeling fairly froggy about their choices. White as a refrigerator, interior fair, body OK, radiator leaky. The van served The Observer well, though, so we were sad to see it go, as we are all our jalopies. Buying a used car is not like buying a new car, which Yours Truly never has. Dear ol’ Pa told us young of the horrors of depreciation; how the moment you drive your spankin’ new barge off the lot, you’re as upside down as Australia, a big price to pay for new car smell and a zeroed odometer. So we buy used. There’s something nice about buying a car from someone else. Long after you’ve moved in, stained the seats, spilled gunk on the carpets and dinged the paint, you’ll keep finding little hints of them all over: toy soldiers in the air vents, grocery lists under the seats, family photos tucked into the owner’s manual. We spend a lot of these American lives in cars, for good or ill, and it’s inevitable that something gets left behind. That can be good or bad. When we were looking for the car that eventually turned out to be the blue Honda CRV named Abilene, we looked at an SUV down in Benton on a lot that seemed like a price too good to be true until we test-drove it. It was only then that we found that whoever had owned it had not only put 60,000 miles on it in two years, but had apparently smoked cigars like Fidel Castro the whole time, stinking the rig up so thoroughly that The Observer — notoriously weeniefied in the lung department — coughed and wheezed for hours afterward. It was a hell
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of a deal, but we’re fairly sure we’d either be dead by now if we’d taken it. Either that, or we would have had to learn to pilot an automobile with our head out the window, like the world’s smartest Golden Retriever. The Observer loves cars, and has loved our own cars in particular since the first one, a 1963 Chevrolet we barrel rolled into a stand of pin oaks way back in the Year of Our Lord 1991. It is always bittersweet for us to part with one, whether the car is heading off to live in a new driveway or being hauled away to be crushed and melted. Our cars really become members of our families. One ferried yours truly to two proms and a high school graduation. Another hauled our terrified tail to a wedding to a lovely young woman long ago in El Dorado. Another plowed through Iowa blizzards that looked like the apocalypse to an Arkansas boy. Another, a Crown Victoria putting along at 20 miles an hour, carried the itty-bittiest version of Junior home from the hospital. That same Crown Vick managed to save the life of Junior’s father a little over a year later through sheer robustness, when it was T-boned by a yahoo who missed the brake pedal while rushing a stop sign, the blow so hard that it knocked the centers out of the car’s aluminum wheels and pushed it careening into oncoming traffic, where it was hit again in the same side by a Mitsubishi Eclipse buzzing along at 55 miles an hour. Bunged up and groaning, The Observer emerged from the smoldering wreckage with only a bum neck we’ll carry to the grave, even though the car was so thoroughly demolished that when we went to collect Junior’s Christmas presents from the trunk at the impound yard the next day, the attendant who pried open the lid with a crowbar for us said: “Did you know the folks drivin’ this car? I heard they died.” Cars, folks. Cars. They’re not just hunks of metal or means of conveyance to The Observer, and we bet they’re not that way for a lot of you. So we may have gotten a little misty as we pulled our plates off Leslie’s van, accepted folding cash, and watched as another retiree of our 25-year-deep fleet of Mobile Observatories motored away into the dark. Such attachment to a good and faithful horse, we believe, is not a sin.
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Arkansas Reporter
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IN S IDE R
Retired justice confirms account of Supreme Court vote on same-sex marriage case A new interview has been added to the growing collection of Arkansas Supreme Court oral histories: Ernest Dumas’ interview with recently retired Justice Donald Corbin. It’s a newsmaker. Corbin confirms, as the Arkansas Times’ Max Brantley has written, that the Supreme Court voted 5-2 to overturn the same-sex marriage bans on both state and federal grounds and favored 6-1 overturning the bans on federal grounds alone. But the opinion was never issued before Corbin retired. As Brantley has written in detail from anonymous sources, Associate Justice Courtney Goodson controlled the handling of the appeal of Circuit Judge Chris Piazza’s ruling striking down the ban. She drew the majority opinion by rotation among those on the prevailing side (to strike down the ban), but never released the opinion. Court personnel changed Jan. 1, 2015, and the case was delayed by internal disputes because new Justice Rhonda Wood demanded to have a vote on the case. Finally, no decision was issued. Instead, the case was dismissed after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated bans on same-sex marriage. Our sources have also said Goodson had an opinion ready to uphold same-sex marriage bans, had the U.S. Supreme Court allowed them. In the interview, Corbin said he considered holding legislators, including Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway), in contempt of court for making an ex parte communication to the court objecting to Piazza’s ruling. He said Chief Justice Jim Hannah and Justice Paul Danielson talked him out of it. He confirms, as Brantley has reported, that four members of the court essentially voted to override his routine decision on the Thursday after Piazza’s ruling to give a shortened three-day window for the state and plaintiffs to file briefs on the attorney general’s request for a stay of Piazza’s order. The four, led by Justice Karen Baker, moved the deadline up to noon the next day, a move that caught Corbin and Hannah by surprise at a conference in Kentucky. The court then stayed Piazza on that Friday, which brought an abrupt end to a flood of marriages of same-sex couples, mainly in Eureka Springs and Little Rock. Had Corbin’s initial order stood, the order couldn’t have been issued until the following week. Corbin essentially confirms Dumas’ recounting that Goodson controlled the opinion process. Says Corbin: “See, that’s not supposed to be known, but somebody’s told it.” On the merits of the case, Corbin said it 12
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ARKANSAS TIMES
AND THEY’RE OFF
The 2016 election slate includes strong Democrats, but Arkansas will remain red for the foreseeable future. BY BENJAMIN HARDY
T
o recap: Arkansas, once a one-party Democratic state with a few pockets of red, has now fully transformed to a one-party Republican state with the occasional spot of blue. That was the lesson of the 2014 election, in which voters gave Republicans full control over the state legislature, the governorship, all other constitutional offices and the federal congressional delegation. The point was reinforced last week with the release of the 2015 Arkansas Poll, conducted annually by researchers at the University of Arkansas. Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson enjoys a 63 percent approval rating among very likely voters. Half of those same voters said they would cast their ballots for the Republican presidential candidate if the 2016 election were held today, as compared to 31 percent who’d vote Democratic. As Bill Clinton put it during a speech in April, “Based on recent events, I don’t know if I could win again down there.” That being said, although next year’s ballot won’t contain the makings of a Democratic renaissance, the slate for 2016 still includes a good deal of drama. Thanks to an unusually early primary date, Monday was the filing deadline for Arkansas candidates wishing to compete in 2016. Here are the races to watch next year:
Arkansas Supreme Court
When former Chief Justice Jim Hannah exited the court this fall for health reasons, Associate Justice Courtney Goodson announced her bid for the highest judgeship in the state. Though judicial elections are nonpartisan, the politically savvy Goodson has cultivated contacts first among wellconnected Democrats and now (considering Arkansas’s electoral realignment) with top Republicans. Her husband, John Goodson, is a wealthy class-action attorney, lobbyist and University of Arkansas trustee
who has raised campaign funds for others on the Supreme Court. She’ll face Mountain View Circuit Judge Dan Kemp, who declared his entry to the race late last week. The retirement of Associate Justice Paul Danielson opens another seat on the Supreme Court, which Circuit Judge Shawn Womack of Mountain Home hopes to occupy. As a state senator, Womack memorably sponsored legis- lation attempting to make it illegal for gay
people to adopt. He also championed tort reform, which may be why business groups including the PAC of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce recently held a fundraiser for his race. Womack attracted an opponent only minutes before Monday’s filing deadline in Clark Mason, a Little Rock trial attorney. With a history of working with a nursing home patients’ advocacy group, Mason’s record presents a stark contrast to Womack’s.
Federal races
Republican John Boozman, the state’s senior U.S. senator, is such a low-profile figure that a June poll found four in 10 Arkansans had no clear opinion on his performance, despite the fact he’s been in Congress since 2001. Democratic hopeful Conner Eldridge, a former U.S. attorney for Arkansas’s Western District, hopes he can turn that indifference to his favor. Eldridge, 37, is running as a centrist — he’s anti-abortion, for example — and has connections to donors with deep pockets. Still, his chances are slim, by fact of affiliation with the party of Obama. Boozman also has a long-shot primary challenger in Curtis Coleman, a tea party-affiliated businessman who criticizes Boozman for voting to raise the
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INSIDER, CONT. federal debt ceiling. U.S. Rep. French Hill of Little Rock is the only one of Arkansas’s four Republican congressmen to draw a Democratic opponent: Dianne Curry, a former member of the Little Rock School Board. Another Republican, Brock Olree of Searcy, has also filed. Hill is the overwhelming favorite.
Legislative races
GOP dominance of the statehouse won’t be threatened in 2016: Out of 100 races in the House of Representatives, 52 will not include a Democratic candidate (22 have no Republican candidate, while 26 House races feature both an R and a D). There are 17 state Senate seats up for election this cycle, 10 of which lack a Democrat. The Democratic Party controls only about a third of either chamber, currently. However, every seat counts: The size of the minority party matters a great deal when it comes to the makeup of committees, which is where the real nuts and bolts of legislation are accomplished. (What follows is not a comprehensive list of races.) Democrats are mounting credible challenges to a number of Republican incumbents. In House District 39, which includes a portion of North Little Rock and Maumelle, Republican Rep. Mark Lowery is being challenged by Democrat Bill Rahn, an attorney and owner of Snap Fitness of Central Arkansas. Lowery, a UCA professor, attracted unwanted attention earlier this year when his name turned up among hacked user data from Ashley Madison, the website for arranging extramarital affairs. Rep. Mike Holcomb of Pine Bluff switched parties to join the GOP in August and he’ll now face Democrat Dorothy Hall of Sheridan. Hall, a farmer and retired Cooperative Extension Service admin-
istrator, narrowly lost to Holcomb in the 2014 Democratic primary. Democrat Susan Inman, a former state elections commissioner, takes on freshman Rep. Jim Sorvillo in West Little Rock’s House District 32. GOP Rep. Mary Bentley of Perryville is being challenged by Lesa Wolfe Crowell of Dardanelle, a parole officer and Army veteran. In Arkadelphia, hard-right Rep. Richard Womack is being challenged by Richard Bright, a Democratic JP. But Democrats may be hardpressed to simply keep the seats they hold currently, especially in rural districts. In Lonoke, freshman Democratic Rep. Camille Bennett is being challenged by Republican JP Roger Lynch; Bennett in 2015 emerged as a leading voice in the fight against HB 1228, the bill protecting discrimination against LGBT individuals. Sen. David Burnett, the conservative Osceola Democrat who broke party ranks to vote for allowing HB 1228 out of committee this spring, nonetheless faces a race against Republican Rep. Dave Wallace of Leachville, a firstterm representative seeking to move to the Senate. A number of other longtime Democrats also face Republican opponents next year. As Republican hegemony matures, primary challenges within the GOP will inevitably increase, and some of 2016’s most interesting races pit R against R. In North Little Rock, Republican Sen. Jane English is being targeted by Republican Rep.
Donnie Copeland, a race that will likely center on the private option. When English flipped her vote to a “yes” in the 2014 fiscal session, it kept the Medicaid expansion alive; Copeland is a staunch private option foe. Democrat Joe Woodson is also in that race. Rep. Jana Della Rosa of Rog- e r s , an iconoclastic freshman Republican whose push for ethics reforms in 2015 upset some within her party, has two primary challengers: Jana Starr and Randy Alexander, a former state representative and tea party favorite. And in Springdale, the surprise decision of Sen. Jon Woods to forego re-election at the last minute has sparked a contest between Rep. Lance Eads (who currently represents a House district in Springdale) and Sharon Lloyd, a JP favored by the conservative activist group Conduit for Action. A few other open seats have also drawn interesting matchups. Donnie Copeland’s decision to run for the Senate frees up North Little Rock’s House District 38. Republican Carlton Wing will face one of two Democrats vying in the primary, Victoria Leigh and Kent Walker. Arkansas has a notable deficit of Latino elected officials; Springdale’s Irvin Camacho, running as a Democrat in House District 89, could change that. He’ll be challenged by the winner of the Republican primary, either Charles Gaines and Jeff Williams. House District 81, which includes West Fork, is up for grabs after Republican Rep. Justin Harris decided against seeking a fourth term. Two Republican candidates have filed, Bruce Coleman and Derek Goodlin, and so has Susan McGaughey, a Democrat.
was clear on the federal precedents that the bans had to fall. But Corbin said he believed the Arkansas Constitution’s declaration of rights also should be addressed. He doesn’t dispute Dumas’ account that the vote was 5-2 to overturn the ban. (We’ve reported Justice Jo Hart and Karen Baker were dissenters, Baker on the state constitutional question.) Says Corbin: “I think the initial vote on whether to write on the state Constitution was maybe five-two. It was a six-one vote on the U.S. “ The transcript continues: “Corbin: Well, we had another vote and the vote changed then to a five-two vote to affirm on both state and federal [constitutional grounds.] The time factor there was really crowding because of the Thanksgiving holidays and the break and a two-week break in December and then I was gone. [His term ended Dec. 31, 2014.] I tried to encourage them to conference over the Christmas holidays. I had an opinion ready and I didn’t think it was right for us to take a two-week vacation or a one-week vacation and not get that case out. “Dumas: But, at any rate, they didn’t get the case out. “Corbin: We didn’t get it out. “Dumas: Justice [Josephine] Hart never wrote the dissenting opinion, so the case didn’t come out. [Other accounts were that Justice Baker voted to affirm Piazza on grounds that the law violated the U.S. Constitution but not on the ground that it violated fundamental law in the Arkansas Constitution.] “Corbin: No dissent was ever written.” Corbin said he and Justice Paul Danielson both had opinions ready. But, as we’ve reported, Goodson wouldn’t release her opinion until Justice Jo Hart filed her dissent. Corbin also mentioned Rhonda Wood, who joined the court in January and whose desire to sit on the case instead of Special Justice Robert McCorkindale further delayed a court ruling. “Corbin: Yeah, it was so easy. I did it, you know … My law clerks … The briefs were … I think I heard that [Justice] Wood said that the briefs were poorly done, or something. That’s not true. They were well-written briefs. “Dumas: The same briefs were written probably in about 40 states and for all the [U.S.] courts of appeal. “Corbin: Yeah, yeah. And, of course, I had the benefit of all these decisions in all these other state courts that had ruled on it and some federal circuits. I think the Fifth Circuit wrote a real good opinion. I would have drawn from all of those. It was a tough political issue, but legally it was a cakewalk. Anybody who knows anything about the law or had any training whatsoever as a constitutional lawyer would know that.” www.arktimes.com
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
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Thumbing down on that I-30 ride Ten-lane plan invigorates opposition, ideas for better way. BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK
T CROSSING THE RIVER: The collector-distributor lanes that will be the exits into Little Rock and North Little Rock downtowns are show in color. The intersection at Second Street in Little Rock shown here is being reworked and will change.
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ARKANSAS TIMES
he Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department may have done more than any green movement to drive home the idea that Little Rock needs to get serious about what it will look like in 20 years. Does the city want to build on downtown’s comeback with a plan for more livable, vibrant, progressive development and fewer parking lots than shops, businesses, homes and parks, the reverse of today’s land use? Does it want to slow expensive suburban expansion that harms the heart of the city? Can we afford the never-ending expanded road building that highway expansion begets? It’s not a new idea, that a 21st century Little Rock should include less reliance on the air-dirtying cars and create a more people- and business-friendly city landscape with public transportation, including light rail, bike and walkway connections in both commercial and residential areas, and the attendant cleaner air, healthier lifestyle and connected community. It was not the intent of the AHTD to rev up such discussion, but it did, by applying 20th century highwaythink to mid-21st century highway design. Laboring away in what some have described as an echo chamber, the AHTD’s Connecting Arkansas Program (CAP) to improve highways, with the promise of almost $2 billion from a 10-year half-cent statewide sales tax levied since 2012, unveiled in April its 30 Crossing proposal to turn the highway into a 10-lane river of concrete through downtown North Little Rock and Little Rock. CAP’s rollout of its plans has energized architects, urban planners, downtown residents and activists to advocate for a different schematic, one that does not include creating a 335-footwide underpass that makes the division between East Little Rock and downtown even wider, or that, in the year
2040, would allow cars to whip through Little Rock, eight lanes apart, even at rush hours. After a public meeting Oct. 22 at which CAP explained its designs, a call for a “timeout” on the project was issued by the Downtown Little Rock Partnership, the nonprofit organization created to promote business, economic development and cultural initiatives in the downtown area. StudioMAIN, the community-focused design collective that’s played a role in the revitalization of the South Main district, has sketched up alternative proposals. Democratic state Rep. Warwick Sabin, who represents a portion of downtown, issued a statement saying the plan “creates more problems than it solves, and it would reverse all of the recent progress we have been making toward building a more vibrant, efficient, and unified city.” The highway department declined to call a moratorium on the project, but extended a comment period by a month to Dec. 6 and asked to present the project to the City Board of Directors. Here is one way to picture the difference the proposed 10 lanes will make on the Little Rock side of the I-30 bridge. Walk from the east side of the bridge on President Clinton Avenue as it leads to the Clinton President Center and stop at the fourth tree on the left. Look toward the river. The rolling slopes of the Clinton Center lawn will be under the bridge and its collector-distributor (C/D) lanes. The width of the bridge narrows south of the C/D lanes to 165 feet, 50 feet wider than the current expanse, according to AHTD spokesman Danny Straessle. The widening itself, as unappealing as it is, is not the only point of contention. The project is devoid of public transportation accommodation, except for a plan to let buses drive on the shoulder during periods of heavy traffic. The cost-benefit ratio of the project has been challenged. The leaders of the CAP
project — manager Jerry Holder, an engineer with Garver Engineers, which contracted with the AHTD to do initial studies, and AHTD Director Scott Bennett — have been tone deaf, described as less than responsive to professional and lay advisers who, during the year-long planning and environmental linkages (PEL) study of ways to improve the I-30 corridor, advocated for considerations of public transit and fewer lanes; they’ve shed all but AHTD-conceived ideas for the project. The design has been criticized for not taking into account technological changes, including on society, as more people telecommute, and on cars, engineered for automatic safety. In the public comment period after the City Board meeting Nov. 3, downtown resident Carol Worley expressed frustration with the highway engineers’ position that much of the new design is for safety reasons. “We have cars that brake on their own,” Worley told the City Board. “Cars will be driving themselves.” Most important, perhaps, is that, according to the Central Arkansas planning agency Metroplan, ripples from the I-30 project impact will require billions of dollars in highway investment that the public cannot afford.
way Administration (FHWA) wants the AHTD to restore an alternative eight-lane plan, which the state highway department originally rejected. 30 Crossing also requires a finding of no significant impact (a FONSI) from its NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) review, which has begun. But before that happens, Metroplan
strained by realistic estimates of funds. Its board essentially has veto power over the 30 Crossing project. For any expansion of I-30, the AHTD must persuade the board to revise its policy that highways should be no more than six lanes. Members of Metroplan’s Regional Planning Advisory Council, which
has work to do. The federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Pulaski, Faulkner, Saline and Lonoke counties, Metroplan is required by the federal government to create short- and long-range transportation studies con-
is to advise the board on whether to either amend policy or grant the highway department a waiver for 30 Crossing, were given a primer on Nov. 4 by Metroplan Director McKenzie and Metroplan’s Central Arkansas Regional Transportation Study (CARTS) Direc-
Is building a 10-lane corridor at a cost of $100 million a mile inevitable? Is it possible to stop the highway department juggernaut? Interstate 630, which divides the north part of Little Rock from the south through what was once the city’s most vibrant African-American business and entertainment district, was held up for 16 years by litigation and community pressure. The first mile was completed in 1969. The seven-and-a-half-mile freeway wasn’t fully built until 1985 and its construction has been linked to entrenched segregation, with struggling black neighborhoods south and affluent white neighborhoods north. Highway engineers insist they are amenable to change and they will find a design that suits most of the concerns of downtown Little Rock, though they note there is no way to make everyone happy. But it’s not just up to them. Most of us don’t know what makes our cars run; we let others work under the hood. So what will make 30 Crossing run? Before the AHTD can enter the design-build phase of the project, it must earn approval from both federal and local authorities. The Federal High-
STUDIOMAIN
Under the hood
BOULEVARD IDEA: Proposed by architects with design and engineering collaborative studioMAIN.
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tor Casey Covington on what impact widening the highway would have on Central Arkansas. McKenzie cited studies showing that reducing highway congestion has a couple of immediate benefits: Travel delays and vehicle operating costs go down. However, those benefits have impacts down the line — like seeing people and jobs move to the suburbs. Covington presented his data showing that the improvements on 6.7 miles of I-30 only create bottlenecks elsewhere, and that for the Central Arkansas highway system to work at the same level of service as 30 Crossing, without bottlenecks, it will cost $3 billion to $4 billion. Since that money will not be available, bottlenecks outside the corridor are inevitable, Covington said.
This is where Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola comes in. If history is any example, the board could heed a request from him not to allow the amendment to allow the widening. The mayor of Sherwood exerted similar pressure when the highway department was working on the North Belt Freeway that would have completed the bypass system around Little Rock. (That and other factors mean the North Belt is dead.) The Coalition of Greater Little Rock Neighborhoods is demanding that Stodola heed opponents of the proposal. In a letter to the mayor, signed by coalition president Kathy Wells, the association described Stodola’s role as “pivotal,” and said that it “intends to make such a strong case against the current proposal that you will agree, and vote No, when the Metroplan Board takes up a state request for a waiver of its six-lane limit for highways, so 10 lanes could be built.” Stodola’s position, the letter says, “will guide board action.” Expect some of that pressure to come at a Nov. 16 hearing at the Clinton Center by the AHTD. There, the public will be able to address the engineers, which it wasn’t able to do at the City Board meeting. The hearing will run 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the Great Hall.
BRIAN CHILSON
Bump in the road
PROGRAM DIRECTOR HOLDER: Promises to work with city to get the Cantrell Interchange right.
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If the RPAC decides to advise the board to change its policy (a part of its long-range plan, Imagine Central Arkansas, which can be found on Metroplan’s website), a public comment period of 15 to 30 days must be set and then the board of Metroplan — composed of the mayors, county judges, the head of public transit company Rock Region Metro and a representative from the highway department — must vote on the change. If the amendment is agreed upon, Metroplan must amend another federally mandated plan: the Transportation Improvement Plan, which it writes every three years. The TIP sets forth all transportation projects to be undertaken within the next four years. Changes to the TIP also require a public comment period, which may either be separate from or at the same time as the comment period for a plan amendment. Only after Metroplan amends the TIP and its policy can the AHTD proceed with the I-30 widening project.
Holder, the CAP manager, who is also director of transportation at Garver Engineers, told the City Board at last week’s meeting that the AHTD did not want “to cram the project” down the public’s throat. Why would he have to make such a statement? Because the AHTD just woke up to the fact that 10 lanes weren’t going down well with many in the public. Perhaps the first public sign of discontent was the revelation that the plan called for doing away with the River Rail trolley route east of I-30. A “single point urban interchange” — also known as a SPUI and, to the layperson’s eye, indistinguishable from a four-way intersection with a stoplight — that would replace the Second, Third and Fourth street passages under the interstate to create access to I-30 couldn’t accommodate River Rail traffic, designers said. That meant the dismantling of a sevenyear-old rail route installed with some $10 million in federal transit funds and an end to plans to extend the rail further east. It also meant the state would have to pay back the federal government the estimated $10 million and that the fed-
eral government would laugh at future requests from Little Rock for rail funds. The AHTD defended the plan at first, saying the main east side trolley destination, the Clinton Presidential Center, didn’t much care about the River Rail, because the number of tourists it brought was so low. Christopher East, a member of CAP’s Stakeholder Advisory Group meant to advise planning on the interstate, said he learned of the decision to cut off the River Rail trolley at a meeting in October. He said he was surprised, and so was Jimmy Moses, the downtown developer and member of the board of directors of Rock Region Metro (formerly Central Arkansas Transit), at the news. Despite questions from supposed advisers about the wisdom of the move, East said, Holder cut off discussion, saying the committee should move on. At that point, Moses and East got up and left the meeting. When Jarod Varner, director of Rock Region Metro, learned of the decision, he said that it “flies in the face of the will of the community. … I think they [the highway department] will hear about it.” Hear about it they did. Like a flashing red light, the decision signaled just how the highway people felt about public transportation and downtown connectivity. Planners have now backed off killing the River Rail, and Varner said he is “pleased they’ve listened to vocal advocates for the street car.” AHTD Design Build Director Ben Browning said the plan now envisions leaving Third Street intact rather than merging it with Second Street into what McKenzie called “Second and a Half Street” and moving the SPUI to Second Street. The SPUI is for southbound I-30 traffic headed east under the underpass and traffic wishing to get on I-30 northbound from the street. Next in the headlights: The CAP plan, apparently created at the behest of city officials, to direct traffic exiting Interstate 30 to downtown Little Rock down a three-lane Second Street, where it would make a right at State to access La Harpe. That meant that a) Cumberland would be closed from Markham to Third, b) there would be no parking on Second Street, c) the River Rail tracks on Second would have to be shifted at a cost of $3 million, d) Chester Street would be one-way south from LaHarpe, and e) traffic from LaHarpe to I-30 would be directed down Fourth Street to Cumberland to Third. Why? To alleviate the traffic at the four-way
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intersection at the entrance to the River Market district: Markham, La Harpe, Cumberland and President Clinton. It’s a nightmare intersection for pedestrians, though light delays to halt traffic have helped somewhat.
METROPLAN’S MCKENZIE: Consider impacts across Central Arkansas, he asks the regional planning council.
Stephens Inc., Little Rock’s 10-ton gorilla, and other businesses said nothing doing. David Knight, Stephens’ general counsel, told the City Board at its Nov. 3 meeting that making Second Street a thruway might solve the problems at the River Market intersection, but it would create new ones along Second for Stephens. To the uproar, CAP director Holder said he was just now learning “River Market 101.” Why didn’t the highway department start with River Market 101? Or work more closely with Metroplan and its Imagine Central Arkansas 20-year plan? Or dust off the city’s “Downtown Frame-
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work for the Future” (a master planning document updated in 2009)? Or talk to the creative thinkers at studioMAIN about cars and people in 2040? Because it builds highways. The C/D tendrils replace the circular exit ramps that exist at Second Street now. Highway engineers say the city could build some kind of park there if the highway department chooses to give up its right-of-way. However, should the highway department decide to give up the right-of-way, the previous owners of that land or their heirs would have first right of refusal. The land could be developed however those heirs wish, should it come to that. Highway engineers maintain that removing the exit loops will open up a view of the Clinton Center. With the C/D lanes on the east side of I-30 in the way, however, that’s hard to figure.
Thinking CAP While the highway department was busy on the southwest side of town drawing up plans to speed traffic through Little Rock, the architects of the studioMAIN collaborative were at work downtown coming up with better ideas. (And they weren’t getting paid for it.) “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a huge difference in your community,” said Adam Day, an architect with AMR Architects and member of studioMAIN. Day has spent nights and weekends coming up with ideas to alleviate traffic on I-30 in ways that don’t further degrade the east side. Among his proposals: 12 lanes — but not in Interstate
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30. He envisions balancing traffic load instead by building two new bridges to accommodate new four-lane corridors — from I-440 to the U.S. Hwy. 67/I-40 interchange via Bond in Little Rock and Buckeye in North Little Rock and from I-40 to I-630 via Pike Avenue north of the river and along the Baring Cross railroad bridge and over the tracks south of the river. The I-30 bridge would be replaced with a new four-lane bridge split by rail line. The 12 lanes would reduce traffic on the I-30 bridge by a third. An East Little Rock rail stop would serve new development in the area. The highway department rejects light rail out of hand because of its cost, but that has not prevented Day for planning for its eventual construction. The rail line may be a dream, but the development is not: Cromwell Architects Engineers and Moses Tucker Real Estate have announced plans for a mixed-use development at Sixth and Shall streets, a project Cromwell CEO Charley Penix said would be “the new River Market and Main Street.” At the City Board meeting, architect Tom Fennell said the highway engineers had said nothing about ways to reduce traffic itself, to reduce the demand to keep making highways bigger and bigger. Instead, traffic engineers and urban planners alike say making highways bigger only increases traffic, a phenomenon called “induced demand.” “They started with a 10-lane plan and you are getting a 10-lane plan,” Fennell said, obliquely referring to the eightlane alternative. (The AHTD has not completed preliminary engineering work on the eight-lane alternative, engineer Browning said, explaining its
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LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK
STUDYING AT STUDIOMAIN: Architects Jennifer Herron (left), Christopher East and Adam Day discuss concepts for 30 Crossing.
absence in most of the debate.) “Other cities have plans to reduce the use of cars,” and the bike is gaining as a favored mode of transportation, Fennell said, citing as examples Indianapolis, Seattle and San Francisco. Indeed, some cities are tearing down highways. Seattle is replacing its Alaskan Way Viaduct with a smaller,
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underground four-lane and building a park and paths to reconnect neighborhoods where the highway once stood. San Francisco tore down a double-decker state highway downtown and replaced it with a public space, new transit routes; the view of the bay was restored. It also removed another highway damaged in an earthquake
and replaced it with a boulevard; as a result of both moves, property values have increased. There is a move in Dallas to tear down the highway through Deep Ellum. In St. Louis, the National Park Service is pushing to replace I-70 with an at-grade boulevard. The Denver City Council is pushing the Colorado Highway Department to sink I-70 below grade as it moves through the northeast part of town. “The highway department is going to do what the highway department is going to do,” Fennell said. “Our City Board needs to be more visionary. Our environment will not tolerate” increased vehicular traffic. Jennifer Herron, an architect with Herron Horton Architects and a member of studioMAIN, says the city needs to take a more “aggressive” stand toward urban planning. The city’s planning department is concerned with zoning rather than future urban design, and its zoning code “tends to fully separate residential and commercial uses, to move buildings further apart and farther from streets and sidewalks (if we even have sidewalks), to force lowdensity development limiting building height and lot coverage, and to require the creation of oversize parking facilities… . You can’t make people drive less by giving them incentives to drive more.” Herron was a member of the Visioning committee put together by CAP. It only met twice, and Herron said suggestions to keep the “fabric of the city” from being ripped further by incorporating public transit, pedestrian and biking amenities were met with warn-
ings that they had to remember funding limits. When Holder described to the City Board the work of the Visioning committee as making decisions on “what the concrete should look like,” Herron was incensed.
Big D: The bad comparison CAP manager Holder, who once worked at the North Texas Tollway Authority, has repeatedly claimed that downtown Dallas was dying until the Texas Department of Transportation expanded the interstates there. What Holder hasn’t said is that Dallas’ DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit), created in 1983, has had light rail since 1996 and has added HOV lanes (high occupancy vehicle) to I-30 and other interstates. That there is a move to tear down I-345, which now divides Deep Ellum from downtown. That the city built Klyde Warren Park, a 5.2-acre “deck park” over the Woodall Rodgers Freeway to reconnect divided Dallas neighborhoods. George Wittenberg, a Little Rock architect who once headed up the defunct Donaghey Project for Urban Studies and Design, proposed such a park over I-630 several years ago, to reconnect neighborhoods north and south of the notoriously divisive highway, blamed for increased segregation in Little Rock. A Dallas urban planner, who is a native of Little Rock and who also has been collaborating with Cromwell architect East and other members of studioMAIN, has also come up with ideas for new highway design in Little Rock. One would include a “trenched” design that would sink I-30 below grade (as I-630 was as part of a long-running battle over that highway) and reconnect the city with a park like Klyde Warren. Or, replace the freeway with parallel boulevards, change the name of I-440 to I-30 and direct through traffic, which the highway department says accounts for 80 percent of the traffic through Little Rock anyway. (See studioMAIN drawing.) “These are very big ideas, but it is important for the AHTD and all parties involved to think about the biggest ideas possible before agreeing upon the best solution,” the planner, who asked to remain unidentified, said. “I see this freeway topic as a great opportunity for Little Rock and North Little Rock, but only if done with consensus.” At the City Board meeting at the Clinton Center, Holder said he was going to
cloister himself with Dallas road engineers for a week before Thanksgiving to come up with a remedy to the River Market intersection traffic that would satisfy city opponents to blocking Cumberland access to La Harpe and opponents to directing all traffic into downtown from I-30 along Second Street. After he and Director Bennett wrapped up their two-hour presentation, the board entertained three-minute comments from the public. First up was Rebecca Engstrom, a downtown resident, who said she “strongly opposed” the notion of turning Fourth and Second Street into three lanes. “My other concern I have is using Dallas planners. Dallas is a disaster.” To that, the audience erupted in applause, and Mayor Stodola had to ask the crowd to hold off until the end of the public comment period. He was largely unsuccessful in getting his way.
Financing The portion of the project to be financed by the sales tax is $450 million, the CAP funds. The whole project is estimated today to cost $650 million. Of that, $90 million will come from a federal program for bridge repairs that the AHTD receives yearly, $22.7 million will come in interstate reconstruction funds, and the remainder will be financed. AHTD Director Scott Bennett told the Little Rock City Board at a special meeting Nov. 3 at the Clinton Presidential Center that the agency will ask to pay project contractors over time, with future federal highway receipts and grants. There are 19 highway projects to be financed by the $1.8 billion that CAP anticipates taxes will generate. The I-30 corridor project, called 30 Crossing, will eat up a third of that money — it’s the biggest public works project in the state’s history. The AHTD originally included in its available funds $200 million in TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant money. In the application, the AHTD wrote, “Total cost of this Project is $650,000,000 — larger than the annual federal construction budget of AHTD. The dollar amount and large scope of this project makes funding difficult. AHTD is requesting $200,000,000 in TIGER funds. The balance of funding will come from CAP funds, and $22 million from AHTD’s Interstate Rehabilitation Program (IRP). Unless full TIGER funding is received, many items in the
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‘PIVOTAL’:Mayor Mark Stodola, shown here questioning the AHTD at the Nov. 3 meeting, can influence Metroplan’s vote on the 30 Crossing project.
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project scope will have to be removed.” At the Nov. 3 City Board meeting, however, Bennett cavalierly said the department never expected to win the whole amount, but hoped for $10 million. As it turned out, it won nothing. Bennett was not asked, and did not volunteer, just what would be cut from the project, but it’s likely to be the amenities that the AHTD told City Director Kathy Webb would “stitch back” neighborhoods.
Impacts Holder and Bennett explained to the City Board the “needs” of the 30 Crossing corridor: To ease congestion, increase safety and improve functionality. Their speed profiles, using projected growth data for 2041 estimated by Metroplan, show how the 10-lane design allows Interstate 30 to meet the highway standard of “level of service” D: a level at which cars flow spaced at 160 feet, or about eight car lengths, during rush hours. The speed profiles show that northbound cars would be able to drive between 60 and 70 miles an hour between U.S. 67 and the I-30 and I-40 merge. South of that merger, traffic on I-30 could move at between 50 to 60 miles per hour all the way to the I-630 exit. At the 7:30 a.m. to 8:15 rush hour, traffic would slow to between 20 and 40 miles per hour at the I-30/I-530 interchange. There would be no bottlenecks over the course of the 6.7 miles for north traffic at that time. People have raised several issues with this goal. A member of the Regional Planning Advisory Committee of Metroplan asked if that meant that between 2020, when the highway is supposed to be complete, and 2041 that I-30 would 22
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be a veritable speedway. More importantly, Metroplan’s staff notes that the 30 Crossing speed profiles can’t be achieved without other highway widenings, which highway engineers say is correct: The models assume that I-30 has been widened to 8 lanes from the south terminal to 65th Street and that I-630 is widened to 8 lanes from I-30 to Louisiana. No funds have been set aside for those widenings. Without those widenings, and changes to the entire Central Arkansas highway system, Metroplan’s Covington says, the overall speed benefit to drivers in the whole system will be one-half mile per hour. The AHTD says if the widening does not go forward, there will be an estimated 729 crashes in the project area in 2040. If it does, there will be only 528. That’s a difference of 201 wrecks, 25 years from now. Bennett also told the City Board that for every highway dollar invested there is a return of $3.50, which is “not a return one can get anywhere else.” But the MoveArkansas blog and others have raised questions about the validity of the project’s cost-benefit analysis, which counts, for example, faster drive times as a benefit. But faster drive times could encourage migration from Little Rock to suburbs, which some would consider an economic detriment. And if you can drive faster, will you drive farther? Is there a pollution factor there? MoveArkansas blogger Tim McKuin, who refers to 30 Crossing as “modern day urban renewal,” asked the City Board to “consider the possibility that the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department is wrong … about what we need. … It’s never too late to reject a bad idea.”
Elements of 30 Crossing THE CONNECTING ARKANSAS Program’s plan for I-30, a project it calls 30 Crossing, would alter the freeway from its North Terminal Interchange at U.S. Hwy. 67-167 to the South Terminal Interchange, where I-30 splits from I-530 to Pine Bluff. Some key points: The 10 lanes. I-30 becomes 10 lanes south of its interchange with U.S. 67/167 in North Little Rock. It becomes six lanes again at I-630 and nine lanes south of I-630 to the I-530 split (the South Terminal Interchange). The “Cantrell Interchange.” This confusingly named segment of freeway, on the Little Rock side of I-30 at Second Street, has the most problematic design and has engendered much controversy in Little Rock. In a nutshell, if you are southbound on I-30 headed for Little Rock, you’ve got to get into “collector-distributor” lanes — separated by barricades from the interior six lanes of I-30 as it crosses the Arkansas River — that begin just past the Broadway Street exit in North Little Rock. There are three C/D lanes at that point. The lane on the far right crosses the river and empties into Second Street. The middle lane flies over to Sixth Street. The lane on the left allows drivers who got into the C/D system from Broadway to enter the main I-30 lanes. Should you miss the C/D lane exit, you will not be able to exit into downtown Little Rock from I-30. “It’s going to take a little while to get used to,” AHTD Design Build Project Director Ben Browning said. “Signage will be critical.” Northbound drivers in Little Rock headed for North Little Rock must also merge into a C/D lane that starts in Little Rock just past the Second Street exit. Because the lanes are barricaded from the six inner lanes, the highway
department and the supportive Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce have made the Orwellian statement that the freeway is not actually 10 lanes at this section. Six are middle. Four are collector-distributor. See? The design of this portion of the project is in flux, since it envisioned making Second Street west and Fourth Street east state highways that would carry through traffic to and from Cantrell, a plan no one likes. More on the Cantrell Interchange later. Though the AHTD hopes to get through this process quickly and begin construction in a couple of years, a couple of things could slow that down: Metroplan and lawsuits. A safer route from U.S. 67 to I-30. Today, if you are coming from, say, McCain Mall and want to go to Little Rock, you have move to the left lanes on U.S. 67 because the right lane goes east to Memphis. Then, where I-30 and I-40 westbound merge, drivers have to cross two lanes of I-40 traffic to access I-30 south and proceed to Little Rock. The 30 Crossing fixes this mess for folks headed to Little Rock: If you’re in the right lane on U.S. 67, you’ll have a straight shot to I-30 via a flyover over I-40. However, if you are coming south on U.S. 67 and want to take I-40 to Maumelle and points west, you’ll have to do what I-30-bound traffic does now — cross left (east) over two lanes to get to I-40 (west). A concession to NLR. The AHTD conceded to demands from citizens of North Little Rock that the Curtis Sykes Street off ramp, once removed because it was too short to be safe, be restored, to maintain the honor to Sykes. Belinda Burney, Sykes’ daughter and a leader in the Dark Hollow
community, worked with 30 Crossing engineers to redesign the ramp and preserve the exit and is so wellversed in the highway plans north of the river that she, rather than AHTD personnel, was busy explaining the complicated maps to interested persons at the public meeting CAP held at the Friendly Chapel Church of the Nazarene in October. This has made for good highway department-public relations north of the river. Burney is not entirely satisfied with one part of the 30 Crossing design: A ramp from Curtis Sykes back to I-30 has been done away with for safety reasons. That means if you live just east of I-30 in North Little Rock and want to get to I-40 westbound, you’ve got three circuitous options, all of which take about the same time, according to AHTD Design Build Project Director Browning: You can drive west to North Little Rock’s Main Street and then north to I-30; or take Locust Street north to an access road to North Hills Boulevard overpass and loop around; or head south to a new Texas turnaround on Broadway and get back on I-30, moving to the left lane that accesses I-40. Other exit changes. There will be no Ninth Street exit. Today’s standards for highways require longer exit ramps, to meet the safety needs of “bigger and faster cars,” Browning said. The only exits to downtown Little Rock will be at Second and Sixth. Entering I-630: There will be three lanes rather than the current two from I-30 to get to I-630 and two lanes rather than the current one from I-630 to I-30. Traffic southbound on I-630 to I-30 will get a second lane as well. The northbound ramp from Roose-velt Road to I-30 will expand to two lanes. — by Leslie Newell Peacock www.arktimes.com
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Arts Entertainment AND
Songs in the key of life Review: Stevie Wonder live at Verizon Arena. BY WILL STEPHENSON
3: ‘Village Ghetto Land’ Thursday night we drove across the river to see Wonder play his 1976 album “Songs in the Key of Life” at Verizon Arena. There were exactly 7,856 of us. It was supposed to rain. We waited in line and were warned not to take photos: “Security will find you and you will be escorted out of the venue.” Inside, the arena was a crowded bazaar of photoops, limited-edition merch booths, funnel cakes, hot dogs and huge black GMC pickups, presumably in case we were looking to purchase a new truck while we were there. We bought $10 beers and found our seats in the vast, bright stadium. The stage was shrouded in blue
light, overrun by Wonder’s enormous touring apparatus. A team of blackshirted security guards with headsets patrolled the edges. There was a sense of raw, nervous anticipation that seemed almost dangerous — I once saw George W. Bush speak to a convention of Boy Scouts; we waited hours for him to show up; this was like that. The audi-
“Hello, Little Rock,” he said. “Hello, Arkansas.” Gesturing toward his escort, he said, “The blind have always got to have the fine,” and the crowd laughed. He coughed, cleared his throat and said, “Give me an F.” The string section — there was a small orchestra to his right consisting of about 20 musicians
NELSON CHENAULT
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rack 1: ‘Love’s in Need of Love Today’ There’s a video on YouTube of Stevie Wonder performing live at the Apollo Theater in 1963, a concert hosted by Motown to showcase its talent roster. Marvin Gaye has just performed, and Wonder is introduced as “Little Stevie Wonder.” He is all of 12 years old, a small blind child led out to the center of the stage by an older man in a suit. The host calls him a “genius of our time.” He’s handed a set of bongos and immediately begins shouting and hand-drumming at a skill-level that seems incongruously funny given his size. “This is a song called, uh … ‘Fingertips!’ he says. “I want you to clap your hands, come on. Everybody. Clap your hands, stomp your feet, jump up and down, do anything you want to do. Yeah. YEAH!” Then the band starts up. The man who led him onstage returns to replace the bongos with a harmonica the size of a brick. Wonder stands up and gets his bearings, and begins to shred. A blind 12-year-old onstage in Harlem in front of thousands, his confidence is alien and unsettling. He seems like he’s been doing this for a lifetime. That was a half-century ago.
VINTAGE KEY MASTER: The incomparable Stevie Wonder rocked at Verizon.
ence hummed at about the decibel level of an airport tarmac. You know Verizon Arena is big, but it still manages to surprise: Some days there are monster trucks here; tonight there was a concert. The lights fell and we could see a shadowy mass of musicians taking their places on stage. We were all watching the grand piano in the center, waiting to see if Wonder was there yet. He wasn’t. A spotlight found him stepping out of the wings on the arm of one of his six backup singers. We stood and howled. He wore a sparkling black kimono-style suit and aviator shades. He looked bald, but for a patch of long braids coming out of the back of his scalp. He looked a little like himself, and a little a character from the movie “Battlefield Earth.”
— played a perfect F. As if to get it out of the way at the top of show, Wonder sang, boldly, I was born in Little Rock, the opening line from “I Was Made To Love Her.” When the cheering eventually died down, he admitted, “I wasn’t born in Little Rock.” 5: ‘Sir Duke’ The first thing you notice at a Stevie Wonder concert in 2015 is that his voice is as fluid and potent as ever. It’s better than it should be, really, better than is even necessary — we would have been satisfied with far less. He sings as confidently and as powerfully as he ever has, which is an inexplicable physiological feat at 65 years old. The next thing you notice is that the
band — the scale of the whole production — is just too impossibly large and unwieldy to replicate the speed and immediacy and comfortable tautness of the record. The feel is more Broadway musical than Apollo Theater; there is no wild spontaneity, no unscripted solos or accidents. There are too many musicians and the room is too enormous for them to swing or play funk in a way that’s loose and weird and truly surprising. It’s not that kind of concert. In addition to the string section and the backup singers, there were four percussionists, two keyboardists, two guitarists, a bassist and a six-man horn section — at least in the beginning, this resulted in a kind of lumbering quality; they made chord changes about as cleanly as a semi-truck slamming on brakes. (This was probably also an effect of the room’s acoustics, which, again, are as accustomed to monster truck rallies as they are concerts.) Going to see “Songs in the Key of Life” played live decades after its release is, in this sense, a little like going to see the cast of “The Godfather” re-enact the movie onstage: It’s undoubtedly cool, it reminds you of the real thing, and you get a buzz off the proximity to celebrity, but you can’t help but miss the production value, the direction, the lighting, the movie. The benefits of the experience are real and even profound, but they’re categorically different. Also, though: None of us cared. Somewhere around “Sir Duke,” it occurred to me that this was the biggest concert I’d ever attended. Maybe not in terms of audience numbers — though it’d certainly be close — but in terms of the global familiarity and world-historical importance of the performer. Wonder’s peers were Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross; Michael Jackson was a protege. There’s hardly anyone else left at his level, no other Motown titans who sustained his degree of cultural relevance. Gaye and Jackson and James Brown and Curtis Mayfield are all gone, and Stevie WonCONTINUED ON PAGE 32
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ARKANSAS TIMES
ROCK CANDY Check out the Times’ A&E blog arktimes.com
A&E NEWS BRITISH FOLK-POP BAND Mumford & Sons will be stopping at Verizon Arena on its “Arrow Through the Heartland” Tour, the venue announced this week. The show will be April 7, 2016, and Blake Mills will be the opener. Tickets go on sale Friday, Nov. 13, at 10 a.m.
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HOPE Has A New Home GENTLE: Low will be in Hot Springs in February.
HOT SPRINGS ARTS ORGANIZATION Low Key Arts announced this week that the seminal indie rock band (and slowcore pioneer) Low will come to the city on Feb. 11, 2016. Tickets go on sale Friday (for more info, contact solleder@lowkeyarts.org). THE TRAILER FOR “GOD’S NOT Dead 2,” the Little Rock-filmed sequel to “God’s Not Dead” (and inevitable prequel to “No, Seriously: God’s Very Much Alive and Well, I Assure You”) is out now on YouTube. The film is sure to make a gazillion dollars from the righteous looking to feed their martyr fantasies, and features plentiful Arkansas stuff in the background to make you go “Hey, it’s that place!” and a church bus full of B-listers to make you go “Hey, it’s that guy!” As seen in the trailer, the plot revolves around a public school teacher (Melissa Joan Hart) running afoul of the Godless Liberals after she answers a student’s question about Jesus Christ in her classroom. At the mention of Christ, a dour coven of ACLU attorneys materializes in a puff of brimstone, vowing, for some reason, to prove that God is dead. This leads to plentiful courtroom drama (actual line from the trailer: “I ACCEPT the charge [of contempt of court], because I have nothing but contempt for these proceedings!” He’s gonna put the SYSTEM on trial, man!). The role of ACLU of Arkansas Executive Director Rita Sklar will apparently be played by a former “Robocop” henchman. If you can stand a blast of overly earnest Christian Rock-theme songsterizing, give it a watch at our culture blog, Rock Candy.
H O P E
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There’s a new home for hope and healing in Central Arkansas, where advanced treatment and compassionate care join hands to create one of the largest facilities in the South completely devoted to fighting cancer. Designed with patients and their caregivers in mind, the new CARTI Cancer Center offers the most state-of-the-art technology, easy access to clinics, and beautiful views to make the path to healing that much easier. Because the way you view your cancer treatment can be tremendously improved by the view from your cancer treatment.
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NOVEMBER 12, 2015
25
THE TO-DO
LIST
BY WILL STEPHENSON
FRIDAY 11/13
SHOOTER JENNINGS
8:30 p.m. Revolution. $20.
Shooter Jennings is maybe the only musician ever to both collaborate with Billy Ray Cyrus and play the Warped Tour. He portrayed his own father, Waylon, in a movie, and once made a record narrated by Stephen King, which was released in the form of a USB flash drive shaped like a tarot card. His taste in band names is so awful as to seem intentionally so, like performance art: KilRaven, Stargunn, Hiero-
phant, The Triple Crown. His relationship to country music is as complex and embattled as you’d expect from a guy who spent formative early childhood years in a crib aboard a tour bus frequented by Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. He isn’t entirely invested in the whole enterprise: He’s publically feuded with Luke Bryan, and has recorded an EP in tribute to disco pioneer Giorgio Moroder. It all seems very complicated, and I mean that in a good way.
SATURDAY 11/14
ARKANSAS TIMES WHOLE HOG ROAST 6:30 p.m. Argenta Farmers Market. $15 adv., $20 day of.
MIAMI VICE: The re-released 1988 cult classic "Miami Connection" screens at the Ron Robinson Theater, 8 p.m., $5.
THURSDAY 11/12
‘MIAMI CONNECTION’
8 p.m. Ron Robinson Theater. $5.
I have never been to Miami, but I’ve been imagining it my whole life. What it comes down to is a web of colors and sounds, plasticity and kitsch: “Scarface,” palm trees and pink stucco, “Miami Vice,” blue neon, 2 Live Crew, coral reefs, Carl Hiaasen and George McCrae’s “Rock Your Baby,” cocaine, avocado, Art Basel, Rick Ross. The best Miami films are gauzy, indistinct, dream-like — there is always something gauche about them, something that’s too much. They say Miami is drowning now, at the front lines of implacable climate change. They say it’s coming back in style, too, which seems only right. “Miami Connection” was an independent film released in 1988, a vanity project designed to feature the talents of its star, Y.K. Kim, 26
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
ARKANSAS TIMES
martial arts entrepreneur and author of the self-help book “Winning Is a Choice.” It has been called the “most hilariously terrible film made in the ’80s,” but this, to me, seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of its goals, and of Miami itself, which is a prism of poor taste: It refracts the lowbrow and the lowest common denominator into a beam of pure white light, a shimmering, debauched uncanny valley. What do you need to know about this movie? That it stars a motorcycle gang of ninjas? That the heroes are a Taekwondo-trained synth-rock band called Dragon Sound? That it stems from a coke deal gone sour? Do you need to know that it marks a kind of dumb guttural utterance from the crass and clumsy bottom of America? What do you want to hear? Tell me what to say, and I’ll say it.
The Arkansas Times Whole Hog Roast is a huge community feast and block party of the sort that modern civilization rarely bothers with anymore, all of us having been atomized and isolated into smaller and smaller social units to the degree that we hardly even speak, preferring to bond by texting each other photos of our pets from behind the barricaded doors of our apartments. This isn’t like that at all; this is the
opposite of that. This is a bacchanalian festival of a much older, wilder vintage. Professional chefs and amateur teams alike will pitch tents, roll up their sleeves, and get to work. They’ll bring their pigs, dig pits and shovel charcoal and set up china boxes and grills and two-tiered smokers, and they’ll reach deep into their top-secret family recipe books for the strongest possible dry rub or seasoning or potato salad or baked beans or whatever — this is a competition, don’t forget. Buy advance tickets at arktimes.com/hog15.
SATURDAY 11/14
BROOKS WHEELAN 7 p.m. Juanita’s. $15.
Brooks Wheelan is a standup comedian from Iowa who was a cast member on “Saturday Night Live” during the 2013-2014 season. He did impressions of Rand Paul, Jared Leto, Kid Rock and Matthew McConaughey, delivering skewed public service announcements on Weekend Update. And then he was dropped from the show, for whatever reason — it’s a tran-
sitional period, maybe; that happens sometimes, and the cast member rarely knows why (see Michaela Watkins’s pretty tragic recent interview on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast). Wheelen announced his situation in a tweet: “FIRED FROM NEW YORK IT’S SATURDAY NIGHT!” He’s followed his stint with a new album and stand-up tour, performing on “Conan” and “Late Night with Seth Myers,” and filming a Comedy Central special.
IN BRIEF
THURSDAY 11/12
SATURDAY 11/14
PETER CASE, LOVE GHOST
9 p.m. White Water Tavern. $15.
Peter Case dropped out of high school at 15 and washed up in San Francisco. That was the early 1970s. He started a band called The Nerves that made lean, modular power pop that had one foot in the early ’60s and the other in the emergent punk scene, the all-American simplicity of Jan & Dean warped by nightlife and poverty. You’d maybe know their song “Hanging on the Telephone,” a great song, an earworm even — a song that
sounds more pitifully, thrillingly desperate than its teenaged subject matter would suggest. (Blondie covered it; its version was good but not as coiled and intense.) When The Nerves couldn’t last, Case started another band, The Plimsouls, who had a small hit called “A Million Miles Away,” the video for which is a kind of perfect New Wave time capsule. All of that is prologue, though, to Case’s contemporary legacy as a folk singersongwriter. He plays Americana, but as is befitting a former member of The Nerves,
it’s a brand of Americana in which modernity and banality always manage to seep through. Sharing a bill with Case is Love Ghost, the solo project of Little Rock’s Jason Weinheimer, who in addition to producing and overseeing a pretty stunning catalog of local records at his studio, Fellowship Hall Sound, also happens to be a formidable songwriter and compelling front man. The band’s long-awaited LP “Skies Are Grey,” will be released this weekend as well. Hear it at loveghost. bandcamp.com.
The Old State House Museum hosts a free Brown Bag Lunch lecture on Clara McDiarmid, the Little Rock lawyer and suffragist, noon. Don Doyle, a history professor at the University of South Carolina, gives a talk at the Clinton School for Public Service’s Sturgis Hall, “The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the Civil War,” 6 p.m. Comedian Alex Ortiz is at the Loony Bin at 7:30 p.m., $7 (and at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, $10). Mary Tucker performs at The Joint at 8 p.m., $10. Little Rock garage punk band Bombay Harambee plays at the White Water Tavern with Whale Fire and Monster Furniture, 9:30 p.m., $5.
FRIDAY 11/13 Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet speaks at the Clinton School’s Sturgis Hall at 12:30 p.m. Vino’s hosts the first night of the metal showcase Fall Fest II, featuring Madman Morgan, Solid Giant, Napalm Christ, Jungle Juice and more, 6 p.m., $12-$24. The original 1933 “King Kong” screens at the Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., $5. Jayke Orvis plays at Maxine’s in Hot Springs with Gary Lindsay and My Graveyard Jaw. Rodney Block & The Love Supreme play at South on Main with Funkanites, 9 p.m., $15. Local R&B singer Sean Fresh plays at Stickyz, 9:30 p.m., $10.
SATURDAY 11/14 KING COTTON: Sven Beckert, author of "Empire of Cotton: A Global History," speaks at the Clinton School for Public Service's Sturgis Hall at 6 p.m. Wednesday, free.
WEDNESDAY 11/18
SVEN BECKERT: ‘EMPIRE OF COTTON’
6 p.m. Sturgis Hall, Clinton School for Public Service.
A Harvard professor who has written books on voting rights, the 19th century bourgeoisie and the history and mechanics of global capitalism, Sven Beckert’s new book is “Empire of Cotton: A Global History.” It’s a
story about American mythology, slavery, political economy, the Industrial Revolution and war — the story of our country through the lens of a plant. The book, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, originally published in December and reprinted in a new edition this month, has been called “momentous and brilliant” (Newsday), “rich and diverse” (Washington Post), “important” and “masterly”
and “eminently readable” and “an astonishing achievement” (New York Times). “We are about to embark on a journey through five thousand years of human history,” Beckert writes in the introduction, explaining his project as the investigation of “a vast mystery.” And to the extent that there is a mystery, it isn’t a modest one: The question, as he phrases it, is, “Where does the modern world originate?”
is a handful of brief, halting punk songs about failing to communicate, failing to pay attention, failing to stay put. It’s music that makes you want to take up smoking, or quit your job. It’s about boredom but it isn’t boring. It’s about poses and posturing, but it’s modest
and fun. Now the band has collected these songs into an EP, which is available at Arkansas Record-CD Exchange and will be released officially at their show Wednesday at Pizza D’Action. Also on the bill is Goat Pope, a new project from members of Pallbearer.
WEDNESDAY 11/18
THE UH HUHS
9 p.m. Pizza D’Action.
Little Rock’s The Uh Huhs make brash and energetic garage pop, as taut and physical as you might expect from a band whose name is a grunted affirmation. The only proof of their existence
Alt-rock band Shinedown plays at Verizon Arena with Breaking Benjamin, 7 p.m., $51.50-$57. Engine plays at Maxine’s with The Ex Optimists and A Sundae Drive. John Neal Rock N Roll plays at the Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7. Vegas-based one-man band That 1 Guy performs at Stickyz, 9:30 p.m., $15.
MONDAY 11/16 University of Washington historian Margaret O’Mara gives a talk called “Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections That Shaped the Twentieth Century” at the Clinton School’s Sturgis Hall, 6 p.m. Pop-punk band Plain White T’s play at Juanita’s with Matt McAndrew, 8 p.m., $17.
TUESDAY 11/17 The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra Chamber Music program “Merry Pranks” is at the Clinton Presidential Center, 7 p.m., $23. Joey Kneiser and Kelly Smith of Glossary play at White Water, 9:30 p.m. www.arktimes.com
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
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AFTER DARK All events are in the Greater Little Rock area unless otherwise noted. To place an event in the Arkansas Times calendar, please email the listing and all pertinent information, including date, time, location, price and contact information, to calendar@arktimes.com.
MUSIC
All In Fridays. Club Elevations. 7200 Colonel Glenn Road. 501-562-3317. Cosmocean. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 9 p.m., $7. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www. afterthoughtbistroandbar.com. Crowbar, Shawn James. The Lightbulb Club, 9 p.m. 21 N. Block Ave., Fayetteville. 479-444-6100. Fall Fest II: Madman Morgan, Solid Giant, Napalm Christ, Jungle Juice. Vino’s, 6 p.m., $12-$24. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com. Jayke Orvis, Gary Lindsay, My Graveyard Jaw. Maxine’s. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. www. maxinespub.com. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. Rodney Block & The Love Supreme, Funkanites. South on Main, 9 p.m., $15. 1304 Main St. 501244-9660. southonmain.com. Route 66. Agora Conference and Special Event Center, 6:30 p.m., $5. 705 E. Siebenmorgan, Conway. Sean Fresh. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9:30 p.m., $10. 107 River Market Ave. 501-3727707. www.stickyz.com. Shannon Boshears (headliner), Richie Johnson (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com. Shooter Jennings. Revolution, 8:30 p.m., $20. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www. rumbarevolution.com/new. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 8 p.m., free. 111 W. Markham St. 501-370-7013. www. capitalbarandgrill.com/. Upscale Friday. IV Corners, 7 p.m. 824 W. Capitol Ave.
THURSDAY, NOV. 12
MUSIC
Bombay Harambee, Whale Fire, Monster Furniture. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $5. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com. Hoodoo Blues Review. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 9 p.m., $7. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com. “Inferno.” DJs play pop, electro, house and more, plus drink specials and $1 cover before 11 p.m. Sway, 9 p.m. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. Karaoke. Zack’s Place, 8 p.m., free. 1400 S. University Ave. 501-664-6444. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. Mary Tucker. The Joint, 8 p.m., $10. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com. Mister Lucky (headliner), Brian Ramsey (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com. Open Jam. Thirst n’ Howl, 8 p.m. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com. Open jam with The Port Arthur Band. Parrot Beach Cafe, 9 p.m. 9611 MacArthur Drive, NLR. 771-2994. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 8 p.m., free. 111 W. Markham St. 501-370-7013. www. capitalbarandgrill.com/.
COMEDY
Alex Ortiz. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m, $7. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www. loonybincomedy.com.
COMEDY
LOVE SUPREME: Little Rock’s Rodney Block & The Love Supreme play at South on Main with Funkanites at 9 p.m. Friday, $15.
“Lou Tells a Bog One.” An original production by The Main Thing. The Joint, 8 p.m., $22. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com. Alex Ortiz. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.; $10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.
CUSTOM SUITS & ACCESSORIES FULL SERVICE TAILORING FREE TAILORING ON IN-HOUSE PURCHASES PICK UP & DELIVERY AVAILABLE
Ballroom dancing. Free lessons begin at 7 p.m. Bess Chisum Stephens Community Center, 8-11 p.m., $7-$13. 12th and Cleveland streets. 501221-7568. www.blsdance.org. Contra Dance. Park Hill Presbyterian Church, 7:30 p.m., $5. 3520 JFK Blvd., NLR. arkansascountrydance.org. “Salsa Night.” Begins with a one-hour salsa lesson. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $8. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.littlerocksalsa.com.
EVENTS
DANCE
#ArkiePubTrivia. Stone’s Throw Brewing, 6:30 p.m. 402 E. 9th St. 501-244-9154. CORE Performance Company: “Gaman.” Children’s Library and Learning Center, 4:30 p.m., free. 4800 W 10th St. www.cals.lib.ar.us.
FILM
“Miami Connection.” Ron Robinson Theater, 8 p.m., $5. 1 Pulaski Way. 501-320-5703. www.cals. lib.ar.us/ron-robinson-theater.aspx.
417 PRESIDENT CLINTON AVE LITTLE ROCK, 501.244.9670
LECTURES
Brown Bag Lunch Lecture: “Clara McDiarmid, Little Rock lawyer and suffragist.” Old State House Museum, noon 300 W. Markham St. 501324-9685. www.oldstatehouse.com. “The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the Civil War.” A talk by Don Doyle, a professor of history at the University of South Carolina. Sturgis Hall, 6 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys. edu.
FRIDAY, NOV. 13 28
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
ARKANSAS TIMES
EVENTS
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Fantastic Friday. Literary and music event, refreshments included. For reservations, call 479-968-2452 or email artscenter@centurytel. net. River Valley Arts Center, Every third Friday, 7 p.m., $10 suggested donation. 1001 E. B St., Russellville. 479-968-2452. www.arvartscenter.org. LGBTQ/SGL weekly meeting. Diverse Youth for Social Change is a group for LGBTQ/SGL and straight ally youth and young adults age 14 to 23. For more information, call 501-2449690 or search “DYSC” on Facebook. LGBTQ/ SGL Youth and Young Adult Group, 6:30 p.m.
800 Scott St.
FILM
“King Kong” (1933). Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., $5. 1 Pulaski Way. 501-320-5703. www.cals. lib.ar.us/ron-robinson-theater.aspx.
LECTURES
Arkansas’s First Civil Discourse Forum. Junior League of Little Rock, 11:30 a.m. 401 S. Scott St. 501-375-5557. www.jllr.org/. Carrie Hessler-Radelet, Peace Corps Director. Sturgis Hall, 12:30 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu.
SATURDAY, NOV. 14
MUSIC
Engine, The Ex Optimists, A Sundae Drive. Maxine’s. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. www. maxinespub.com. Fall Fest II: Drown, Die Young, Terminal Nation, I Was Afraid, Lifer. Vino’s, 6:30 p.m., $12-$24. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com. John Neal Rock N Roll. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 9 p.m., $7. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com. Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub.com. Karaoke. Casa Mexicana, 7 p.m. 7111 JFK Blvd., NLR. 501-835-7876. Zack’s Place, 8 p.m., free. 1400 S. University Ave. 501-664-6444. Karaoke with Kevin & Cara. All ages, on the restaurant side. Revolution, 9 p.m.-12:45 a.m., free. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www.rumbarevolution.com/new. K.I.S.S. Saturdays. Featuring DJ Silky Slim. Dress code enforced. Sway, 10 p.m. 412 Louisiana. 501-492-9802. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. Peter Case, Love Ghost. White Water Tavern, 9 p.m., $15. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www. whitewatertavern.com. Pickin’ Porch. Bring your instrument. All ages welcome. Faulkner County Library, 9:30 a.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org. Shinedown, Breaking Benjamin. Verizon Arena, 7 p.m., $51.50-$57. 1 Alltel Arena Way, NLR. 501975-9001. verizonarena.com. Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 8 p.m., free. 111 W. Markham St. 501-370-7013. www. capitalbarandgrill.com/. That 1 Guy. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9:30 p.m., $15. 107 River Market Ave. 501-3727707. www.stickyz.com. The Woodpeckers (headliner), Alex Summerlin (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com.
COMEDY
Brooks Wheelan. Juanita’s, 7 p.m., $15. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www. juanitas.com. “Lou Tells a Bog One.” An original production by The Main Thing. The Joint, 8 p.m., $22. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com. Alex Ortiz. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., $10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.
EVENTS
Arkansas Times Whole Hog Roast. Argenta Farmers Market, 6:30 p.m., $15 adv., $20 day of. 6th and Main St., NLR. 501-831-7881. www. argentaartsdistrict.org/argenta-farmers-market/. Fall Craft Show and Used Book Sale. Grace Lutheran Church, 9 a.m. 5124 Hillcrest Ave. 501663-3631. Falun Gong meditation. Allsopp Park, 9 a.m., free. Cantrell and Cedar Hill roads. Hillcrest Farmers Market. Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, 7 a.m.-2 p.m. 2200 Kavanaugh Blvd. Historic Neighborhoods Tour. Bike tour of historic neighborhoods includes bike, guide, helmets and maps. Bobby’s Bike Hike, 9 a.m., $8-$28. 400 President Clinton Ave. 501-613-7001. Pork & Bourbon Tour. Bike tour includes bicycle, guide, helmets and maps. Bobby’s Bike Hike, 11:30 a.m., $35-$45. 400 President Clinton Ave. 501-613-7001.
SUNDAY, NOV. 15
MUSIC
Irish Traditional Music Session. Hibernia Irish Tavern, 2:30 p.m. 9700 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-246-4340. www.hiberniairishtavern.com. Karaoke. Shorty Small’s, 6-9 p.m. 1475 Hogan Lane, Conway. 501-764-0604. www.shortysmalls.com. Karaoke with DJ Sara. Hardrider Bar & Grill, 7 p.m., free. 6613 John Harden Drive, Cabot. 501-982-1939. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.
EVENT
Artist for Recovery. A secular recovery group for people with addictions. Quapaw Quarter United Methodist Church, 10 a.m. 1601 S. Louisiana.
MONDAY, NOV. 16
MUSIC
Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. Monday Night Jazz. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., $5. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com. Open Mic. The Lobby Bar. Studio Theatre, 8 p.m. 320 W. 7th St.
Plain White T’s, Matt McAndrew. Juanita’s, 8 p.m., $17. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-3721228. www.juanitas.com. Richie Johnson. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf. com.
LECTURE
Margaret O’Mara: “Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections that Shaped the Twentieth Century.” Sturgis Hall, 6 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu.
TUESDAY, NOV. 17
MUSIC
Arkansas Symphony Orchestra: Merry Pranks. Clinton Presidential Center, 7 p.m., $23. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 370-8000. www.clintonpresidentialcenter.org. Jeff Ling. Khalil’s Pub, 6 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub.com. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. Joey Kneiser & Kelly Smith (Glossary). White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-3758400. www.whitewatertavern.com. Karaoke Tuesday. Prost, 8 p.m., free. 322 President Clinton Blvd. 501-244-9550. willydspianobar.com/prost-2. Karaoke Tuesdays. On the patio. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 7:30 p.m., free. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. Music Jam. Hosted by Elliott Griffen and Joseph Fuller. The Joint, 8-11 p.m., free. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com. Tuesday Jam Session with Carl Mouton. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.
COMEDY
EVENT
Trivia Bowl. Flying Saucer, 8:30 p.m. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-8032. www.beerknurd. com/stores/littlerock.
LECTURE
Interior Designer Bunny Williams. Sturgis Hall, noon 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu.
Stand-Up Tuesday. Hosted by Adam Hogg. The Joint, 8 p.m., $5. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 18
DANCE
Acoustic Open Mic. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com. Amaranthe, Butcher Babies, Lullwater. Juanita’s, 8 p.m., $18. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-3721228. www.juanitas.com. Brian and Nick. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf. com. Dana Louise & Adams Collins. South on Main, 7:30 p.m., free. 1304 Main St. 501-244-9660. southonmain.com. Drageoke with Chi Chi Valdez. Sway. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com. Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub.com. Karaoke. MUSE Ultra Lounge, 8:30 p.m., free. 2611 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-6398. Kill Matilda. The Lightbulb Club, 9 p.m. 21 N. Block Ave., Fayetteville. 479-444-6100. Lifer, North, Dying Whale, Balloon Assembly. Vino’s. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vin-
“Latin Night.” Juanita’s, 7:30 p.m., $7. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.littlerocksalsa.com.
MUSIC
www.arktimes.com
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
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AFTER DARK, CONT. osbrewpub.com. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 President Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com. Open Mic Nite with Deuce. Thirst n’ Howl, 7:30 p.m., free. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com. The Uh Huhs (record release), Goat Pope. Pizza D’Action, 9 p.m. 2919 W. Markham St. 501666-5403.
COMEDY
James Johann. The Loony Bin, Nov. 18-21, 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 20-21, 10 p.m., $7-$10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www. loonybincomedy.com. The Joint Venture. Improv comedy group. The Joint, 8 p.m., $7. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.
DANCE
From the pioneering collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Our America T H E L AT I N O P R E S E N C E I N A M E R I C A N A R T
Nuestra América L A P R ES E N C I A L AT I N A E N E L A R T E ES TA D O U N I D E N S E
Little Rock Bop Club. Beginning dance lessons for ages 10 and older. Singles welcome. Bess Chisum Stephens Community Center, 7 p.m., $4 for members, $7 for guests. 12th and Cleveland streets. 501-350-4712. www.littlerockbopclub. “Way of the Warrior.” MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, 6:30 p.m., free. 503 E. 9th St. 376-4602. www.arkmilitaryheritage.com.
EVENT
CARTI’s 2015 Festival of Trees. Statehouse Convention Center, Nov. 18-21. 7 Statehouse Plaza.
LECTURES
October 16, 2015 – January 17, 2016 Free Admission Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Generous support for the exhibition has been provided by Altria Group, the Honorable Aida M. Alvarez, Judah Best, The James F. Dicke Family Endowment, Sheila Duignan and Mike Wilkins, Tania and Tom Evans, Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino, The Michael A. and the Honorable Marilyn Logsdon Mennello Endowment, Henry R. Muñoz III, Wells Fargo and Zions Bank. Additional significant support was provided by The Latino Initiatives Pool, administered
Little Rock Actor’s Co-op: Bob Hupp. Main Library, 6:30 p.m., free. 100 S. Rock St. www. cals.lib.ar.us. Sven Beckert: “Empire of Cotton: A Global History.” Sturgis Hall, 6 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys. edu.
POETRY
Wednesday Night Poetry. 21-and-older show. Maxine’s, 7 p.m., free. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-321-0909. maxineslive.com/shows. html.
ARTS
by the Smithsonian Latino Center. Support for “Treasures to Go,” the museum’s
THEATER
“God’s Man in Texas.” The Weekend Theater, through Nov. 22: Fri., Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m., $16. 1001 W. 7th St. 501-374-3761. www. weekendtheater.org. “Pippin.” Walton Arts Center, 7 p.m.; through Nov. 14, 8 p.m.; through Nov. 15, 2 p.m.; Sun., Nov. 15, 7 p.m., $36-$72.50. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600.
NEW GALLERY EXHIBITS, EVENTS ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “47th Collectors Show and Sale,” Nov. 13-Jan. 3; “Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art,” 93 works by 72 artists from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, through Jan. 17, screening of episode 4 of “Latino Americans: 500 Years of History,” Episode 5: Prejudice and Pride (1965-1980), 2 p.m. Nov. 12; “Life and Light: Photographic Travels through Latin America with Bryan Clifton,” through Feb. 14. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000. ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER MUSEUM SCHOOL SALE, Hall of Industry, State Fairgrounds: Pottery, jewelry, fused glass, paintings, woodwork, photography, drawings and pastels by Arts Center Museum School faculty and students, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Nov. 14, member preview 6-9 p.m. Nov. 13. 372-4000. ARKANSAS CAPITAL CORP., 200 River Market Ave., Suite 400: “Longevity,” paintings by Emily Wood, printmaking by Melissa Gill, photographs by Joli Livaudais and sculpture by Sandra Sell, reception 5-8 p.m. Nov. 13, 2nd Friday Art Night, show through Jan. 1. 374-9247. ART GROUP GALLERY, Pleasant Ridge Town Center: “Holiday Show,” work by Ellen Hobgood, Sharon Perme and Debby Hinson, 5-8 p.m. Nov. 12. 590-5934. BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: “Earth Work: Photographs by Gary Cawood”; “Arkansas Pastel Society National Exhibition,” opening receptions 5-8 p.m. Nov. 13, 2nd Friday Art Night, shows through Feb. 27; “Photographic Arts: African American Studio Photography,” from the Joshua and Mary Swift Collection, “Gene Hatfield: Outside the
traveling exhibition program, comes from The C.F. Foundation, Atlanta. Our America is sponsored in Arkansas by (at time of printing):
Kristin Lewis
Donna and Mack McLarty
Opera Gala
The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston
supporting the
Consulate of Mexico in Little Rock
Kristin Lewis Foundation Vocal Scholarship Fund
Alan DuBois Contemporary Craft Fund
featuring
International opera star and Arkansas native
501 East Ninth Street, Little Rock arkansasartscenter.org Above: Rafael Soriano, Un Lugar Distante (A Distant Place), 1972, oil on canvas, 29 3/4 x 39 5/8 inches, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Milagros Soriano, © 1972, Rafael Soriano
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NOVEMBER 12, 2015
ARKANSAS TIMES
soprano
Kristin Lewis Sunday, Nov 22, 4 p.m. Wildwood Park for the Arts Tickets at wildwoodpark.org | 501.821.7275
joined by
Metropolitan Opera bass-baritone
Kevin Short
Lines,” through Dec. 26. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.Sat. 320-5790. COX CREATIVE CENTER, 120 River Market Blvd. “Art Connection: Imagination Uncrated,” reception 5-8 p.m. Nov. 13, 2nd Friday Art Night, show through December. 918-3093. DRAWL, 5208 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “The Flatlander,” depictions of the Delta by Norwood Creech, opening reception 6-8 p.m. Nov. 12. 240-7446. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM GALLERIES, 200 E. Third St.: Works by Neal Harrington and David Carpenter, opening reception 5-8 p.m. Nov. 13, 2nd Friday Art Night; “Layers,” photographs by Kat Wilson, through Dec. 6; “Growing Up … In Words and Images,” paintings by Joe Barry Carroll, through Jan. 3; “Art. Function. Craft: The Life and Work of Arkansas Living Treasures,” works by 14 craftsmen honored by Arkansas Arts Council; “Suggin Territory: The Marvelous World of Folklorist Josephine Graham,” through Nov. 29. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9351. GALLERY 221, Second and Center streets: Annual gallery artists group show; “Fall into Art Show and Sale,” reception 5-8 p.m. Nov. 13, 2nd Friday Art Night. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 801-0211. LAMAN LIBRARY, 2801 Orange St.: “Infamy: December 1941,” through Dec. 7. 758-1720. LAMAN LIBRARY ARGENTA BRANCH, 420 Main St: Arkansas Art Educators Association show, through Nov. 25, receptions 5-8 p.m. Nov. 13, 5-8 p.m. Nov. 20. 665-0030. LOUIE’S UNIQUE FRAMING AND GALLERY, 1509 Mart Drive: “A Walk in Two Worlds,” paintings by Kitty Harvill, reception 6-8 p.m. Nov. 12. 907-6240. MATT MCLEOD FINE ART GALLERY, 108 W. Sixth St.: Grand opening 5-8 p.m. Nov. 12, with work by McLeod, J.O. Buckley, Taimur Cleary, Kathy Strause, Alice Andrews, Max Gore, James Hayes, Harry Loucks and Angela Davis Johnson. 725-8508. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: “Trying to Fit In: My Search for a Positive Social Identity through Tintypes and Victorian Imagery,” by Nathaniel Roe, Nov. 14-22, Gallery II; “Marianela de la Hoz: SpeculumSpeculari,” Fine Arts Center, through Dec. 8. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Sat., 2-5 p.m. Sun. 569-8977.
BENTONVILLE CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, One Museum Way: “Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic,” more than 100 paintings by Bierstadt, Church, Cole, Heade, O’Keeffe and others, from the Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada, through Jan. 18, lecture by Ivo Mesquita, 7-8 p.m. Nov. 13; “ ‘Picturing the Americas’ International Symposium,” 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Nov. 14; “Alfred H. Maurer: Art on the Edge,” 65 works spanning the artist’s career from the Addison Gallery of Phillips Academy, through Jan. 4; American masterworks spanning four centuries in the permanent collection. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon., Thu.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed., Fri.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat.-Sun., closed Tue. 479-418-5700. FORT SMITH REGIONAL ART MUSEUM, 1601 Rogers Ave.: “The Artist Revealed: Artist Portraits and Self-Portraits,” works by Milton Avery, Leonard Baskin, Edward Steichen, Norman Rockwell, Anders Zorn and Chuck Close, from the Syracuse University Art Galleries, reception 5-7 p.m. Nov. 12 (free to members, $5 to nonmembers), show through Dec. 20; “Patrick Angus: Paintings and Works on Paper,” through Dec. 6. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 479-784-2787.
NEW MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS, EVENTS ESSE PURSE MUSEUM & STORE, 1510 S. Main St.: “Oh, What Fun! A Very Vintage Holiday,” decorations and ornaments from antiques to mid-century modern, Nov. 17-Jan. 3; “What’s Inside: A History of Women and Handbags, 1900-1999,” vintage purses and other women’s accessories. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Sun., $8-$10. 916-9022. OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM, 300 W. Markham: “Lost + Found: Saving Downtowns in Arkansas,” photographs of eight projects completed or renovated by Cromwell Architects Engineers, reception 5-8 p.m. Nov. 13, 2nd Friday Art Night, “Different Strokes,” the history of bicycling and places cycling in Arkansas, featuring artifacts, historical pictures and video, through February 2016. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9685..
7 P.M. THURSDAY, NOV 19
We’re Showing “Most Likely to Succeed” With an appearance by executive producer Ted Dintersmith
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5 to 8 PM
523 S. Louisiana (Lafayette Building) Little Rock, AR Thurs & Fri 11 - 5:30 & Sat 10 - 3 www.bellavitajewelry.net
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NOVEMBER 12, 2015
31
MOVIE REVIEW
‘Spectre’ shaken, not stirring
that all part of the puzzlebox as well? You better believe it. Don’t get me wrong: “Spectre” is not a terrible movie. The opening five minutes — a glorious tracking shot that follows Bond through the Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City, up Daniel Craig stars again as Bitter and Haunted an elevator, into a sumptuous room with a lovely woman, out the winBond. dow, down the parapet eight stories above the street and finally to a snipBY DAVID KOON er’s nest where he manages to demolish a neighboring building with a ince 1962’s “Dr. No,” we tiny rifle he calmly assembles on have seen Ian Fleming’s the way — is a triumph, and worJames Bond reincarnated thy of the best of Bond. The rest of the film, though, feels like it’s as all kinds of Bonds. He’s altrying so hard to evoke the past ways Sexy Bond, of course. But glory of the franchise that it forwe’ve also had Cheesy Bond and Misogynistic Bond, Cartoonish gets that the franchise has to have Bond and Campy Bond, Blocka future. While “Skyfall” poked buster Bond and I Forgot That fun at the idea of Bond relying Guy Played Bond Bond. At preson marvelous toys (“It’s the latest ent, we are in the era of Daniel thing,” Bond quips to the baddie after calling in the cavalry. “It’s Craig, which — under the hand called a radio.”), they’re all back of director Sam Mendes — has ushered in the age of Bitter and in “Spectre,” from the exploding Haunted Bond, a man who still wristwatch to the bulletproof car likes his martinis and statuesque with flamethrower exhaust and beauties, but who downs both ejector seat. Want a campy, 1970s with a hint of sorrow over all the Bond henchman who looks like directions he has steered himself God got tired of sculpting him with his License to Kill, and all out of barbed wire and gradethe dead folks he’s been forced B oak and called it Beer Thirty? He’s there. Even Waltz, as good to sacrifice on the altar of Queen and country. as he is, looks like he’s bored Though people have mixed BOND, JAMES BOND: This time, with a hint of sorrow. with his character, a fairly onefeelings about 2012’s “Skyfall” dimensional Eurotrash baddie (a friend said the ending was a bit too behest of his dead former boss — does who lives in a lair in the middle of a “Home Alone” for him) I loved that flick his “North by Northwest”-style globe giant meteor crater, has a fluffy white from beginning to end, finding it to be a hopping from exotic locale to exotic cat to stroke, and wears a selection lovely rumination on the way the past locale in pursuit of a mysterious crimiof collarless tunics from Evil Genius Warehouse’s “Bruise Palette” colleccan dictate your future, and the value of nal enterprise called Spectre (last menexperience and wisdom over youthful tioned in 1971’s “Diamonds are Forever”) tion. By the time he straps Bond to enthusiasm and newfangled gadgets. that may be responsible for most of the a chair and starts using tiny, robotic The best thing about “Skyfall,” though, pain and suffering in the world, includdrills to manipulate his brain, you half was the lovely sense of finally getting ing a good bit of Bond’s own. As the expect him to start a monologue about the tiniest of glimpses under Bond’s very Spectre puzzle box is unlocked, Bond Sharks with Frickin’ Lasers on their tortured bonnet, rather than just another meets up with (and beds, of course) heads, like Dr. Evil in “Austin Powcomic book romp after the indestrucDr. Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), ers: International Man of Mystery.” tible superhero. the daughter of an old and dying That last there should have told Sam Mendes something: Once an element I had high hopes, then, for “Spectre,” enemy. Together, they globe trot and look good in evening clothes, slowly the 24th film in the series, which brings of your franchise has been so thorback Craig and Mendes for another bite working their way up the ladder of oughly used up as to be deserving of parody, it should be off limits, even if at the apple. To my dismay, however, it evildoers and amoralites to the Socioyou want to make it new again. seems Mendes has succumbed this gopath Who Rules Them All (Christoph Again, “Spectre” is not a bad film. round to that most futuristic and boring Waltz, in typically fine form). As this unfolds, Bonds is struggling with tutof modern ideas: nostalgiaitis, which The action is explosive, the locales has turned everything from architectutting from the bean counters and the are typically fantastic, and there are ture to Detroit muscle cars to films into impending shutdown of MI6, under lovely hints again at Bond’s shattered hollow and half-assed pastiches of the the Cheneyesque notion that drones heart. I just wish the film put as much past, invoking just enough of The Good and total, worldwide surveillance of energy into the plot as it did into makOl’ Days to make you realize that we are the unsuspecting populace can do ing us think: “Hey! That looks just no longer in them. more than a hundred dudes in bullike …” Worth a look if you’re a Bond In “Spectre,” Bond — working outor action fan. Wait for it to make it to letproof cars will ever be able to do in Netflix otherwise. side his sanctioned jurisdiction at the the field with their Walther PPKs. Is
S
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ARKANSAS TIMES
SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE, CONT. der is still here, singing as well as he ever has. Which made it all the stranger when, at one point, my girlfriend asked me his name — his real name — and I realized I didn’t know it. 8: ‘Pastime Paradise’ My other favorite Stevie Wonder video on YouTube is a medley he performed on “The David Frost Show” in the early ’70s. He’d recently become enamored with the talk box, a vocal effects device that redirects the sound of an instrument into a singer’s mouth through a long tube, and then into the microphone. The resulting sound is robotic and unusual, similar to a vocoder; Peter Frampton might have been its most famous proponent. The video begins with a shapeless groove, Wonder playing his organ with a plastic tube hanging out of the side of his mouth, bizarrely. He shifts into a short riff for the show’s host: David Frost, he warbles, and we love you. And then he shifts again, into the Burt Bacharach/Hal David song “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” which had recently been a hit for The Carpenters (Kermit the Frog would later revive it with equal success.) The one that begins, “Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near?” It’s not even Wonder singing exactly: The pitch comes from his organ, the tone from the talk box. Rendered this way it’s a kind of dystopian love song, an electronic, extra-terrestrial ballad. It’s gorgeous and haunting. You can tell Wonder is proud of the new device, too, that he can’t wait to show it off. It’s one of the things I like most about him — that he never treated soul music reverently, never fetishized authenticity or rawness. He embraced technology and genre-fusion eagerly, and it’s why he made interesting music for as long as he did. The talk box made an appearance Thursday night, but Wonder wasn’t the one playing it; one of his guitarists did the honors instead. Maybe he’s worried about his health — I’ve heard the talk box tube is bad for your teeth. But it seems more likely that he’s just moved on. At one point, toward the end of the show, he brought out a new instrument, one he’s only mastered recently. It was a small rectangle with 24 strings. I looked it up later and learned it’s called a harpejji, and was only invented in 2007. I like that Wonder is still excited by new
instruments. He’s not too complacent to practice. He doesn’t mind starting all over at the beginning. On the harpejji, by himself, he played “My Cherie Amour” and then Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready,” while the crowd held their phones up like cigarette lighters. I noticed cops patrolling the aisles, maybe to make sure nobody got nostalgic and reached for an actual lighter. It was the highlight of the show. 11: ‘Isn’t She Lovely’ Wonder’s stage patter could for the most part be divided into two categories. There were the pronunciation jokes — jokes which were not exactly jokes, just him repeating the same word twice with subtly different pronunciations and then bursting out laughing: “You can sing,” he said, for instance, “and you can sang.” [Eruption of laughter.] And then there were the vague, New Age, inspirational koans. “It’s not about talking about love,” he said at one point. “It’s about being it.” The show lasted nearly four hours, but Wonder took frequent singing breaks, probably to give his voice a rest. He gave each of his backup singers and most of the individual musicians extended solos; took a substantial intermission; twice brought out a guest harmonica virtuoso; himself played a rousing rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” on harmonica; and led long, meandering instrumental digressions. Hyperactive lighting rigs sprayed the audience with purple and orange and green light, at times making the stage look like the spaceship in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” This felt a little patronizing, like over-
11/19 Thursday 7:30 pm LUCY LOCKETT CABE FESTIVAL THEATRE
used exclamation points. As has become typical for arena pop shows, there were two large screens we could watch for close-ups on the performers we couldn’t see particularly well from our vantage point, Wonder included. This is always frustrating, because if you’re watching a screen you may as well be at home, but they’re hard to ignore, given that they do genuinely give you a more intimate view of the action. Strangely, many of the audience members taking camera-phone photos gave up on targeting the stage itself (the iPhone zoom being still pretty primitive) and started taking photos of the screens instead. Which gives you what exactly? Somewhere a graduate student is writing a thesis on this stuff. 15: ‘If it’s Magic’ It did rain after all. You could hear it toward the end of Wonder’s set, during the breaks between songs: thudding sheets of rain that wouldn’t let up for the next several hours. We would eventually have to walk out into this, running across three parking lots to reach the car we left in front of a nearby bank. We’d be drenched, our socks and shoes soaking wet. But Wonder kept playing until late, finishing the album along with a handful of extras. For instance, toward the end of the night, he told us that the next day was his friend Whoopi Goldberg’s birthday, and asked if we could please do him a favor. He asked if we could all sing “Happy Birthday” to Whoopi Goldberg. And so we did — because after all, this was not so much to ask.
“…four classical musicians performing with the energy of young rock stars…” – Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
In Concert
BROOKLYN RIDER with the
ORPHEUM THEATRE • SATURDAY, JANUARY 23 (MEMPHIS)
ORPHEUM THEATRE • SATURDAY, JANUARY 23 (MEMPHIS)
Tickets on sale Friday, November 13 at 10 am at Ticketmaster.com All Ticketmaster outlets • Orpheum Theatre Box Office Charge by phone: 800-745-3000 : ANOTHER BEAVER PRODUCTION :
presents…
Muriel Anderson Thursday November 19 7:30 p.m. The Joint 301 Main Street North Little Rock
GENERAL ADMISSION $30 STUDENTS FREE WITH I.D. ORDER TICKETS ONLINE AT WILDWOODPARK.ORG OR CALL 501- 821-7275
(ONLY AREA APPEARANCE)
Tickets $20
One of the world’s foremost fingerstyle guitarists and harp-guitarists, Muriel is the first woman to win the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship.
Available at the door or online at www.argentaartsacousticmusic.com 20919 Denny Rd, Little Rock 501.821.7275 wildwoodpark.org
Sponsored by…
www.arktimes.com
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
33
Dining
Information in our restaurant capsules reflects the opinions of the newspaper staff and its reviewers. The newspaper accepts no advertising or other considerations in exchange for reviews, which are conducted anonymously. We invite the opinions of readers who think we are in error.
B Breakfast L Lunch D Dinner $ Inexpensive (under $8/person) $$ Moderate ($8-$20/person) $$$ Expensive (over $20/person) CC Accepts credit cards
WHAT’S COOKIN’ Flyway Brewing doesn’t yet have an opening date scheduled for its space at 314 Maple St. in North Little Rock, but it plans to brew its first batch of beer this week. “We’re kind of at the mercy of our beer,” co-owner Jess McMullen told the Times. “When we brew a batch of beer we like, we’ll open.” Look for Flyway to be open initially from 4 p.m. until 9 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays and noon until 9 p.m. Fridays through Sundays. Though he wasn’t ready to give any details, McMullen said the brewery’s tap room will serve food, though perhaps not immediately. Beer is the focus, he said.
DINING CAPSULES
AMERICAN
BEST IMPRESSIONS The menu combines Asian, Italian and French sensibilities in soups, salads and meaty fare. A departure from the tearoom of yore. 501 E. Ninth St. Beer and wine, All CC. $$. 501-907-5946. L Tue.-Sun., BR Sat.-Sun. SHARKS FISH & CHICKEN This Southwest Little Rock restaurant specializes in seafood, frog legs and catfish, all served with the traditional fixings. 8722 Colonel Glenn Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-562-2330. LD daily. SO RESTAURANT BAR Call it a French brasserie with a sleek, but not fussy American finish. The wine selection is broad and choice. Free valet parking. Use it and save yourself a headache. 3610 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-1464. LD Mon.-Sat., D Sun. STICKYZ ROCK ‘N’ ROLL CHICKEN SHACK Fingers any way you can imagine, plus sandwiches and burgers, and a fun setting for music and happy hour gatherings. 107 River Market Ave. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-7707. LD daily. SWEET LOVE BAKES Full service bakery with ready-made and custom order cakes, cookies and cupcakes. Plenty of in-store seating. 8210 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. (501) 613-7780. BL Tue.-Sat. TEXAS ROADHOUSE Following in the lines of those loud, peanuts-on-the-table steak joints, but the steaks are better here than we’ve had at similar stops. Good burgers, too. 3601 Warden Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-771-4230. D daily, L Sat.-Sun. 2620 S. Shackleford Rd. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-224-2427. D Mon.-Fri., LD Sat.-Sun. TOWN PUMP A dependable burger, good wings, great fries, other bar food, plate lunches, full bar. 1321 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-663-9802. LD daily. TRIO’S Fresh, creative and satisfying lunches; even better at night, when the chefs take flight. Best array of fresh desserts in town. 8201 Cantrell Road Suite 100. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-221-3330. LD Mon.-Sat., BR Sun. WHOLE FOODS MARKET Get barbecue, beer — at a bar or in growlers to go — pizza, sandwiches, salads and more at the upscale grocery 34
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
ARKANSAS TIMES
La Terraza Rum and Lounge 3000 Kavanaugh Blvd. 251-8261
QUICK BITE Any place that has “rum” in its name should back that up, and La Terraza does — with a broad selection of top-shelf rums and also the best mojito we’ve tasted, primarily because it’s not too sweet. HOURS 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday (kitchen open until 10:30 p.m.); 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Sunday. OTHER INFO Credit cards accepted, full bar.
Reina Pepiada Arapes at La Terraza
La Terraza terrific New Hillcrest Venzuelan restaurant is on the right track.
T
he story behind La Terraza Rum and Lounge is almost as compelling as what’s served there. The new Venezuelan restaurant is owned by chef Carlos Valdivieso and Ana Lara, a husband-wife team who owned a restaurant in Caracas and now anchor the kitchen at La Terraza. Ana is beginning to learn some restaurant-oriented English. Carlos, not so much. But no worries, because the front of the house is run by Armando Bolanos, Ana’s son, and his wife, Sarah. Armando came to Little Rock as a high school exchange student and never left. He met Sarah, a Little Rock native, here, and his mother and stepfather followed to try their hand as Little Rock restaurateurs — and to be closer to their 2-yearold granddaughter and their second grandchild, who is a few months from being born. Most Little Rock diners are familiar with the space in which La Terraza opened Oct. 17, the former Acadia in the heart of Hillcrest. Heaters and a stash of blankets are designed to keep the fabulous, multilevel deck in operation during colder months, and the smallish dining room has been brightened by colorful, textured, paint-splattered art. The large wraparound bar and all the tables were packed at 7 p.m. on a recent Friday, the first really jam-packed night, our friendly waitress told us. The staff
was stretched thin and seemed a tad frantic, but service remained good, and our food was not delayed. We started with beef tenderloin carpaccio ($13), rare, razor-thin beef topped with almost equally thin white mushroom medallions, shredded Parmesan and a basil aioli that was lightly applied. We loved it … but not as much as we loved the amazing French onion soup ($9). The sheen of the broth promised it would be rich and indeed it was, with its inclusion of cream, not the norm. The onions were really sweet, and we were glad there wasn’t the usual thick cheese blanket. But cheese still played into the soup, primarily atop two squares of toasted baguettes that floated on top. This soup proves the menu is eclectic, with not everything screaming “Venezuela!” — the Fettucine a la Rotonda ($20), for example. It was a bit thicker than usual and cooked perfectly al dente. The menu says it’s finished tableside in a wheel of Parmesan, but ours came from the kitchen already finished. Shards of bacon, Parmesan and butter, not cream, provide the bulk of the flavor, and a large pool of butter remained in the bottom of our otherwise empty bowl. We were told Pabellon ($16), a shredded beef, is the national dish of Venezuela, so we felt compelled to try it. The beef looks like pulled pork, and while
it was decent, it was not that distinctive. But we adored the sides — plantain, sliced thin, cooked soft and very sweet, with black beans and rice. Black beans are often boring, but not these. We were told the dish starts with a variety of herbs and other vegetables that are cooked with the beans, and the result tasted more like black bean soup. We returned the next day for lunch, and 16 hours after our first visit the place was almost empty — probably just as well, as Sarah and Armando still seemed a bit shell-shocked after La Terraza’s crazy Friday night. Both were very gracious to this solo diner — Armando even shared a sample of the best mojito we’ve ever tasted. We were back primarily to try the arepas ($8), a thin, cornmeal-based bread that is sliced and filled like a sandwich, a Venezuelan staple. La Terraza makes the bread — like everything, actually — from scratch, and diners can choose pork, beef, chicken or turkey and Manchego as fillings. We opted for the thin-sliced, succulent pernil (pork) and loved it; the cornbread was light, crisp and flavorful, and those fabulous plantain slices and black beans accompanied. We hadn’t had time for dessert the night before and were glad we came back for the Quesillo ($5), three cubes of dense, smooth custard that in texture straddled the custard/cheesecake line. Drizzled with caramel, it was sweet and tasty. La Terraza seems on the right track — benefiting from a dynamic, helpful staff supporting an experienced Venezuelan husband-wife team that is cranking out excellent food in a setting familiar to loyal Hillcresters.
BELLY UP Check out the Times’ food blog, Eat Arkansas
LET LAMBRECHT’S TOFFEES BE YOUR SIGNATURE GIFT FOR THE HOLIDAYS. FIND THEM HERE!
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DINING CAPSULES, CONT. chain. 501 Bowman Road. Beer and wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-312-2326. BLD daily. WILLY D’S DUELING PIANO BAR Willy D’s serves up a decent dinner of pastas and salads as a lead-in to its nightly sing-along piano show. Go when you’re in a good mood. 322 President Clinton Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-244-9550. D Tue.-Sat. YANCEY’S CAFETERIA Soul food served with a Southern attitude. 1523 Martin Luther King Ave. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-372-9292. LD Tue.-Sat. ZACK’S PLACE Expertly prepared home cooking and huge, smoky burgers. 1400 S. University Ave. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-6646444. LD Mon.-Sat. ZIN URBAN WINE & BEER BAR This is the kind of sophisticated place you would expect to find in a bar on the ground floor of the Tuf-Nut lofts downtown. It’s cosmopolitan yet comfortable, a relaxed place to enjoy fine wines and beers while noshing on superb meats, cheeses and amazing goat cheese-stuffed figs. 300 River Market Ave. Beer and wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-246-4876. D daily.
ASIAN
BANGKOK THAI CUISINE Get all the staple Thai dishes at this River Market vendor. The red and green curries and the noodle soup stand out, in particular. 400 President Clinton Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-374-5105. L Mon.-Sat. CHI’S CHINESE CUISINE No longer owned by Chi’s founder Lulu Chi, this Chinese mainstay still offers a broad menu that spans the Chinese provinces and offers a few twists on the usual local offerings. 5110 W. Markham St. Beer, All CC. $-$$. 501-604-7777. LD Mon.-Sat. SUSHI CAFE Impressive, upscale sushi menu with other delectable house specialties like tuna tataki, fried soft shell crab, Kobe beef and, believe it or not, the Tokyo cowboy burger. 5823 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-9888. L Mon.-Sat. D daily. VEGGI DELI A small cafe in the back of the massive Indian and Mediterranean supermarket Asian Groceries, where vegetarian chat (South Indian street food) is the specialty. Let no one complain about our woeful lack of vegetarian restaurants before trying the food here. 9112 N. Rodney Parham. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-221-9977. LD Tue.-Sun. (closed at 7:30 p.m.).
BARBECUE
CHATZ CAFE ‘Cue and catfish joint that does heavy catering business. Try the slow-smoked, meaty ribs. 8801 Colonel Glenn Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-562-4949. LD Mon.-Sat. CORKY’S RIBS & BBQ The pulled pork is extremely tender and juicy, and the sauce is sweet and tangy without a hint of heat. Maybe the best dry ribs in the area. 12005 Westhaven Drive. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-954-7427. LD daily. 2947 Lakewood Village Drive. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-753-3737. LD daily, B Sat.-Sun. PIT STOP BAR AND GRILL A working-man’s bar and grill, with barbecue, burgers, breakfast and bologna sandwiches. 5506 Baseline Road. Full
bar, No CC. $$. 501-562-9635. LD daily.
EUROPEAN / ETHNIC
CAFE BOSSA NOVA A South American approach to sandwiches, salads and desserts, all quite good, as well as an array of refreshing South American teas and coffees. 2701 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-614-6682. LD Tue.-Sat., BR Sun. DUGAN’S PUB Serves up Irish fare like fish and chips and corned beef and cabbage alongside classic bar food. The chicken fingers and burgers stand out. Irish breakfast all day. 401 E. 3rd St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-244-0542. LD daily. THE TERRACE MEDITERRANEAN KITCHEN A broad selection of Mediterranean delights that includes a very affordable collection of starters, salads, sandwiches, burgers, chicken and fish at lunch and a more upscale dining experience with top-notch table service at dinner. 2200 Rodney Parham Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-217-9393. LD Mon.-Fri., D Sat. YA YA’S EURO BISTRO The first eatery to open in the Promenade at Chenal is a date-night affair, translating comfort food into beautiful cuisine. Best bet is lunch, where you can explore the menu through soup, salad or half a sandwich. 17711 Chenal Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-821-1144. LD daily, BR Sun.
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323 Cross St. Little Rock Ph 501.375.2257
ITALIAN
BRAVO! CUCINA ITALIANA This upscale Italian chain offers delicious and sometimes inventive dishes. 17815 Chenal Pkwy. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-821-2485. LD daily. BR Sun. BRUNO’S LITTLE ITALY Traditional Italian antipastos, appetizers, entrees and desserts. Extensive, delicious menu from Little Rock standby. 310 Main St. Full bar, CC. $$-$$$. 501-372-7866. D Tue.-Sat. GRAFFITI’S The casually chic and ever-popular Italian-flavored bistro avoids the rut with daily specials and careful menu tinkering. 7811 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-2249079. D Mon.-Sat. PIZZA D’ACTION Some of the best pizza in town, a marriage of thin, crispy crust with a hefty ingredient load. Also, good appetizers and salads, pasta, sandwiches and killer plate lunches. 2919 W. Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-666-5403. LD daily. RISTORANTE CAPEO This excellent, authentic Italian restaurant was the trailblazer in the now-hot Argenta neighborhood of downtown North Little Rock, the Isaac brothers opening it in 2003. It remains a popular destination for classic Northern Italian favorites and features an outstanding wine list and cellar. 425 Main St. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-376-3463. D Mon.-Sat. SHOTGUN DAN’S PIZZA Hearty pizza and sandwiches with a decent salad bar. Multiple locations, at 4020 E. Broadway, NLR, 945-0606; 4203 E. Kiehl Ave., Sherwood, 835-0606, and 10923 W. Markham St. Beer, CC. $-$$. 501-2249519. LD Mon.-Sat., D Sun. VINO’S Great rock ‘n’ roll club also is a fantastic pizzeria with huge calzones and always improving home-brewed beers. 923 W. 7th St. Beer and wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-375-8466. LD
RAISE THE BAR! Your friendly neighborhood wine shop. #theeverydaysommelier
SIGNATORY SELECTIONS - IMPERIAL DISTILLERY - VINTAGE 1995 ELSEWHERE - (NOT AVAILABLE) SPECIAL- $64.99 Signatory is an independent bottler of rare Single Malts. They select their casks from the highest-quality scotch distilled throughout Scotland. The result is a collection of tastes that represent the country’s best and most distinct flavors. We’ve acquired what is called single, single, single. Single Malt, Single Batch, Single Barrel. It doesn’t get more exclusive than that. The Imperial is old (20yrs) and delicious. Limited availability.
BEST LIQUOR STORE
Rahling Road @ Chenal Parkway • 501.821.4669 • olooneys@aristotle.net • www.olooneys.com www.arktimes.com
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
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DINING CAPSULES, CONT. daily. ZAZA Here’s where you get wood-fired pizza with gorgeous blistered crusts and a light topping of choice and tempting ingredients, great gelato in a multitude of flavors, call-yourown ingredient salads and other treats. 5600 Kavanaugh Blvd. Beer and wine, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-661-9292. LD daily. 1050 Ellis Ave. Conway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-336-9292. LD daily.
LATINO
CANTINA LAREDO This is gourmet Mexican food, a step up from what you’d expect from a real cantina, from the modern minimal decor to the well-prepared entrees. We can vouch for the enchilada Veracruz and the carne asada y huevos, both with tasty sauces and high quality ingredients perfectly cooked. 207 N. University. Full bar, All CC. $$$. 501-280-0407. LD daily, BR Sun. CHUY’S Good Tex-Mex. We’re especially fond of the enchiladas, and always appreciate restaurants that make their own tortillas. 16001 Chenal Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-821-2489. LD daily. JUANITA’S Menu includes a variety of combination entree choices — enchiladas, tacos, flautas, shrimp burritos and such — plus creative salads and other dishes. And of course the “Blue Mesa” cheese dip. 614 President Clinton Ave. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-372-1228. LD Tue.-Sat. LA SALSA MEXICAN & PERUVIAN CUISINE Mexican and Peruvian dishes, beer and margaritas. 3824 John F. Kennedy Blvd. NLR. Full bar, All CC. 501-753-1101. LD daily. LOCAL LIME Tasty gourmet Mex from the folks
who brought you Big Orange and ZaZa. 17815 Chenal Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-4482226. LD daily. LUPITA’S ORIGINAL MEXICAN FOOD Mexican, American food and bar specializing in Margaritas. 7710 Cantrell Road. Full bar. PONCHITO’S MEXICAN GRILL Mexican food and drinks, plus karaoke on the patio 6-9 p.m. Thursdays with DJ Greg, happy hour on beers weekdays. 10901 N. Rodney Parham Road. Full bar, Beer. 501-246-5282. ROSALINDA RESTAURANT HONDURENO A Honduran cafe that specializes in pollo con frito tajada (fried chicken and fried plaintains). With breakfast, too. 3700 JFK Blvd. NLR. No alcohol, No CC. $-$$. 501-771-5559. BLD daily. SENOR TEQUILA Typical cheap Mexcian dishes with great service. Good margaritas. 10300 N. Rodney Parham Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-224-5505. LD daily. 9847 Maumelle Blvd. NLR. 501-758-4432. TACOS GUANAJUATO Pork, beef, adobado, chicharron and cabeza tacos and tortas at this mobile truck. 6920 Geyer Springs Road. No alcohol, No CC. $. LD Wed.-Mon. TAMALITTLE RESTAURANT Authentic Mexican food, including pastes, flour-based small empanada-like pastries stuffed with a variety of Mexican ingredients, and other traditional dishes. 102 Markham Park Drive. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-217-9085. BLD Mon.-Fri., LD Sat. TAQUERIA EL PALENQUE Solid authentic Mexican food. Try the al pastor burrito. 9501 N. Rodney Parham Road. Beer, CC. $-$$. 501-312-0045. Serving BLD Tue.-Sun.
LYONS, CONT. who tries to steer Christian down the wrong road, but it says here that Democrats could never get so lucky. The negative TV ads practically write themselves. Imagine a clip of Carson during a GOP debate indignantly denying a business relationship with Mannatech, the hinky diet supplement company, followed by another of him bragging that the company basically bought him an endowed chair at
Johns Hopkins. Actually, it’s mildly alarming living in a country where a crank like Carson commands any attention at all. Now me, I’d no more visit a physician who claimed that Satan inspired Darwin’s Theory of Evolution than I’d climb into an airline piloted by somebody who denied Newton’s Theory of Gravity. President of the United States? Not a chance.
DEMIREL, CONT. state league and played much of the late 1930s as an independent squad. The end of the run came in 1940. Many of the former players scattered to the winds, a few stayed in Butte, a few returned home. One of those Arkansans, Pine Bluff native Arthur Ellis, wound up in El Dorado and there managed his own baseball squad called the Black Lions. It’s practically certain he taught his players what he’d learned in Montana about entertaining a crowd. One particularly apt pupil, Reese “Goose” Tatum, ended up taking those lessons to a level never seen before or since. In
the mid-20th century, Tatum became one of the world’s most famous athletes as the headliner for the Harlem Globetrotters. Journalist Evin Demirel is starting an oral history project focusing on Arkansan minorities in sports. Go to BestOfArkansasSports.com for more. The column is sponsored by the New Design School, offering certificategranting seminars and workshops in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and web design in downtown Fayetteville. Now enrolling for the spring term beginning Jan. 11. NewDesignSchool.org.
AN EVENING WITH
TERRANCE MCNALLY
Join us for an intimate event with one of America’s most celebrated playwrights at the President’s House on the UCA campus. Wine and appetizers will be served. Tickets are $100 each. All proceeds benefit Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre’s tenth season! TICKETS ARE LIMITED— RESERVE YOURS TODAY! 501-269-9428 or mrmarotte@arkshakes.com arkshakes.com
Terrence McNally is one of American theatre’s most important playwrights— winner of Tony Awards for Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime.
DECEMBER 3, 2015 5:30–7PM
Shop shop LOCAL ARKANSAS TIMES
36
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
ARKANSAS TIMES
PEARLS ABOUT SWINE, CONT. foundly asexual. It was controlled but perfect pandemonium, all for a team, a coach and especially a quarterback that richly deserved it. Allen’s 442 passing yards and six scores, plus the winning two-point run, only tells a fraction of the story of the greatest single-game effort by a Hog quarterback ever. Statistically it was award-worthy stuff; aesthetically, though, it took on a different dimension altogether. The senior is not only playing his best football ever, but he’s doing it with the kind of assertiveness and self-worth that seemed unimaginable even a season ago. No passes are in peril or so inaccurate as to warrant in-home cursing anymore. The young man has taken a once-
deflated team and demanded that it not quit on him, and that team has responded in kind. There were a lot of all-stars in north Mississippi on Nov. 7, 2015, but none shone brighter than No. 10 in white. ’Twas a thing of beauty, folks. Now a 5-4, 3-2 team looks capable of doing anything at all, no matter how great or how small. And LSU is fresh off getting rocked off its center by Alabama, a bit vulnerable now. And the Hogs get to finish with two in Fayetteville for what had better be an appreciative sellout crowd both weekends. And best of all, I picked this joyous occasion for a new, smirk-free Glamour Shot. All is right with this cardinal-andwhite world.
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ARKANSAS SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED CHRISTMAS TREE SALE!
DUMAS, CONT. Kristol to criticize Bill Clintonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foreign policy and to â&#x20AC;&#x153;promote American global leadership.â&#x20AC;? The United States was to magnify its position as the pre-eminent world power by taking over one of the oil-rich oligarchies of the Middle East, preferably Iraq, and turning it into a democratic ally. The other nations would fall under our domination. Cheney was a signatory of the manifesto. So was Rumsfeld. (For what it is worth, so was Jeb Bush.) Ten of the 25 signers took major jobs on Bushâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s national security staff or the State or Defense departments. From the day Bush took office until Sept. 11, the security agencies sent the president more than 40 daily briefings warning of Osama bin Ladenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intentions to launch a major terror attack inside the United States. Cheney and others argued that bin Laden was no threat and that it was a smokescreen organized by Saddam Hussein to divert Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention from him. When the 9/11 commission sought copies of the briefings in 2002, Bush and Cheney eventually agreed to release only one, the famous Aug. 6 briefing a month before the attacks headlined â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bin Laden Plans Attack On U.S.â&#x20AC;? Bushâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, testified that it was simply a historical report on Osama bin Ladenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s activities, not really a warning. CIA agents told reporters off the record that it was an effort to make it clear to Bush that Cheney was wrong and that Saddam was not orchestrating the intelligence reports of bin Ladenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plans to attack America, perhaps through commercial airplanes. No one in Congress has ever demanded to see the other briefings, even secretly, as might happen today if Hillary Clin-
ton had been in office. Those who saw some of the briefings said they were urgent and more specific than the Aug. 6 report. Clarke, the presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s terrorism czar, said Cheney and Bush were certain on Sept. 11 that Iraq was behind the attacks and that, though it was soon proven that it was not, the planning for the invasion began in earnest that day. The elder Bush made only veiled references to his sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s catastrophic economic record, in which he must suspect that Cheney played a role. When Ronald Reagan in 1980 promised to cut taxes dramatically and vastly increase military spending while protecting Social Security and the safety net and also balancing the budget, George H.W. Bush called it â&#x20AC;&#x153;voodoo economics.â&#x20AC;? Though Reagan put him on the team, Bush knew that it was still voodoo economics. As president in 1991 he raised taxes to help put the nation on the road to a balanced budget again. When George W. Bush made Reaganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pitch for big tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations and bigger defense budgets in 2001, 2002 and again in 2003, daddy must have mourned again. This time, Cheney did play a role, according to Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neillâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book. When Cheney and Hubbard proposed another$50 round tax$90 cutsfor in Two for of One, 2003, Bush said he thought they had (Gratuity Not Included) already taken care of their friends in Tickets the business community butAvailable Cheney at the restaurant and Hubbard corrected him. When or by calling Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neill approached Cheney,501-313-5645 expressing concern that another $640 billion of tax cuts over 10 years would magnify the mushrooming deficits, Cheney rebuked him. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Reagan proved deficits donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We won the midterms. This is our due.â&#x20AC;?
Frasier furs and Virginia pines are all fresh at the Arkansas school for the blind and visually impaired Christmas tree sale. All proceeds directly benefit the students of the school for the blind and visually impaired. November 27 sales begin and continue until all trees are gone. 2600 WEST MARKHAM ST.
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& ARKANSASâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SOURCE FOR NEWS, POLITICS AND ENTERTAINMENT
N ia s a m r u o N g ia s n a r m e r h u southern go sout & Beer Dinner eer Dinner
B
uthern gourmasiaN soTuesday Bee17r Dinner NOV. 6 :30 p.m.
at the southern gourmasian
219 W. Capitol
$50 for One, $90 for Two (Gratuity Not Included)
Tickets Available at the restaurant or by calling 501-313-5645
Tuesday
sept. 29 :
6 30 p.m.
at the southern gourmasian
219 W. Capitol www.arktimes.com
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
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• Data Recovery & troubleshooting • Hardware & software installations • Computer upgrades • Organize and backup all your documents, photos, music, movies and email on all your devices with iCloud.
ARKANSAS TIMES MARKETPLACE sip LOCAL ARKANSAS TIMES
ACXIOM CORP. – CONWAY, AR PRINCIPAL SOLUTION ARCHITECT (#JR001670) Apply online w/ job code above www.acxiom.com EEO/AA/W/M/Disability/Vet
Follow @MovingtoMac on Twitter and Like Moving to Mac Facebook for news and deals. Call Cindy Greene Satisfaction Always Guaranteed
MOVING TO MAC
www.movingtomac.com
cindy@movingtomac.com • 501-681-5855
HIRING MAUMELLE ENTRY LEVEL POLICE OFFICERS The CITY OF MAUMELLE is hiring entry level Police Officers. The first step in joining this Team is to take and pass the Civil Service examination. The next scheduled examination is Saturday, November 21, 2015.
QUALIFICATIONS FOR TAKING THE EXAM ARE: 1. Be a United States Citizen 2. Be the age of 21 on date of the exam (Police Exam) 3. Be able to pass a background check, a drug test, and/or physical examination 4. Possess a high school diploma or equivalent 5. Possess a valid Arkansas driver’s license
November 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 2015 7:30 pm Friday and Saturday 2:30 pm Sunday $16 Adults; $12 Students & Seniors
DIRECTED BY ALLISON PACE For more information contact us at 501.374.3761 or www.weekendtheater.org
1001 W. 7th St., LR, AR 72201 On the corner of 7th and Chester, across from Vino’s.
Support for TWT is provided, in part, by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the DAH, and the NEA.
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ARKANSAS TIMES
Beginning salary is $30,334.00 per year; the City offers an excellent employee benefit package which includes employee paid health and dental insurance, life and AD&D insurance, generous retirement program and many more benefits. The application process will begin immediately. For additional information visit www.maumelle.org. “EOE – Minority, Women, and disabled individuals are encouraged to apply.” This ad is available from the Title VI Coordinator in large print, on audio, and in Braille at (501) 851-2784, ext. 233 or at vernon@maumelle.org.
drivers Please be aWare, it’s arkansas state laW: Use of bicycles or animals
Every person riding a bicycle or an animal, or driving any animal drawing a vehicle upon a highway, shall have all the rights and all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle, except those provisions of this act which by their nature can have no applicability.
overtaking a bicycle
The driver of a motor vehicle overtaking a bicycle proceeding in the same direction on a roadway shall exercise due care and pass to the left at a safe distance of not less than three feet (3’) and shall not again drive to the right side of the roadway until safely clear of the overtaken bicycle.
yoUr cycling friends thank yoU! http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/ Go to “Arkansas Code,” search “bicycle”
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COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, (AACF) is looking for a new communications director. AACF is a non-profit advocacy organization whose mission is to promote better public policy to improve the lives of children and families and help them realize their full potential. We are seeking a communications director to lead our communication strategies, media relations, social media, website, and publication design. Experience with InDesign preferred. Requirements include a bachelor’s degree in communications or related field, and at least five years of related experience. Competitive salary and benefits. Send cover letter, resume, and references to cneal@aradvocates.org. The complete job description can be found at: www.aradvocates.org
Fo N od OV se E M r v BE ed R at 14 6: ! 30
ANNOUNCING THE
2015
ARKANSAS TIMES WHOLE HOG ROAST benefiting
Argenta Arts District
SATURDAY, NOV. 14
RAIN OR SHINE Argenta Farmers Market Events Grounds , 5 until 9 PM
Tickets $15/$20 Day of
TICKETS: ARKTIMES.COM/HOG15 MUSIC
TICKETS
BIG STILL RIVER BROWN SOUL SHOES CURRENT ROAST COMPETITORS
ARKTIMES.COM/HOG15
PROFESSIONAL TEAMS
AMATEUR TEAMS:
Arkansas Ale House The Little Rock Country Club Midtown Billiards SO Restaurant-Bar Simply the Best Catering (Brian Kearns, Winner in 2013)
Kermit’s X Smokin’ ButZ Smoke City Limits Apple Bottom BBQ Argenta Boosters Buford’s Dogtown Billy Bob’s Smokers Smokin’ Butts Pop Smoke BBQ Tuesdays
DOORS OPEN AT 5:00. FOOD IS SERVED AT 6:30!
BEER & WINE GARDEN Gated festival area selling beer & wine ($5 each).
ON PLEASE
· JOIN IN! · JOIN IN! · JOIN IN! · JOIN IN! ·
• Ticket holders will cast all the votes via “Tokens” • Three tokens will be provided to all ticket holders, additional tokens are available for sale • Three Winners will be chosen: PEOPLE’s CHOICE FOR Best Professional Team, Best Amateur Team and the Best Amateur “No Butts About It” Team.
WE ARE STILL ACCEPTING:
AMATEUR AND PROFESSIONAL TEAMS To enter, contact Phyllis Britton phyllis@arktimes.com or Donna Hardcastle dhardcastle@argentadc.org www.arktimes.com
NOVEMBER 12, 2015
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