W O RDS
Quotes and allusions A heavy smoker, perhaps: “Forty-two-year-old Cal Amadee of Bare Ridge was found unresponsive this morning in his cell. He was being held in a single medical cell due to flue like symptoms.”
400 N Bowman Rd #34 Salon Karizma, The Root Cafe, Arch St. Tire, Colonial Wine and Spirits, The Arkansas Times, Arkansas Arts Center, Stageworks and all of the volunteers/artists who made the event possible!
“Little Rock officers escort Al Kyda to the downtown police station Thursday after he was arrested after a manhunt in west Little Rock. According to police, officers had fired on Kyda, who was suspected in a burglary, but he alluded them until he was found under a deck in the Woodlands Edge neighborhood in west Little Rock a few hours after shots were fired.” Instead of all that alluding, he should have been trying to get away. Like encyclopedias and telephone directories, Bartlett’s “Familiar Quotations” is nearing extinction, apparently. When I looked for a Bartlett’s in the office the other day, not only could I not find one, I had trouble finding somebody who knew what it was. Nobody’s writing odes to Bartlett’s these days, as Winston Churchill did in a 1930 memoir (“Roving Commission: My Early Life”): “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable
work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. DOUG They also make SMITH dougsmith@arktimes.com you anxious to read the authors and look for more.” Churchill’s greatest days were still ahead of him 1930. He wound up one of the most-quoted authors in Bartlett’s, and the editors always made sure the one about Bartlett’s itself was in there. Quotations about Churchill are there too. John Kennedy said of him, “He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” I guess Wikipedia has a Churchill entry, but I’m not sure you can do him justice that way. “Elvis Dumerville has spurred the Denver Broncos for Baltimore, agreeing to a five-year deal, Ravens General Manager Ozzie Newsome announced Sunday. … Dumerville had 63 ½ sacks in seven seasons in Denver.” A (Dallas?) cowboy might use spurs on a bronco, but I believe the writer here intended to say that Dumerville had spurned the Broncos to go to the Ravens. Quoth the Ravens, “Evermore.”
WEEK THAT WAS
It was a good week for… VOTE SUPPRESSION. The Arkansas House voted 52-45 to override Gov. Mike Beebe’s veto of a bill that requires voters to present a photo ID. Despite Republican claims of widespread voter fraud, there’s little evidence of fraud generally and no evidence of in-person voter impersonation, the only fraud the measure will prevent. There is, however, plenty of evidence demonstrating that voter ID measures depress voter turnout. The vote was party line, except for Rep. Fred Love (D-Little Rock), who later said he mistakenly voted for the override. The bill becomes law Jan. 1, 2014, provided there are funds to pay for its implementation. A lawsuit challenging the law’s constitutionality is likely. EXPANSION. House Speaker Rep. Davy Carter, of Cabot, and Senate Pro Tem Michael Lamoureux, of Russellville, were the first state Republicans to publicly endorse the “private option” health care expansion plan for Arkansas. Meanwhile, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has given official confirmation of the federal government’s commitment to moving forward on Arkansas’s expansion plan, something Republicans have long said would be crucial to receive before 10
APRIL 4, 2013
ARKANSAS TIMES
legislation moved forward. INCHING TOWARDS THE GOVERNOR’S RACE. Mike Ross, the former congressman recently turned lobbyist-inwaiting for the Southwest Power Pool, has resigned from his government affairs job to pursue “public service.” Ross offers no further comment, but it’s an indicator that he’s likely to run for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2014.
It was a bad week for… MAYFLOWER. An ExxonMobil pipeline ruptured in a Mayflower neighborhood on Friday, spilling thousands of barrels of crude oil into the surrounding areas. Authorities evacuated nearly two dozen homes. At press time, there was no indication when residents would be allowed to return or when the cleanup would be complete. WOMEN. When is it not a bad week for women as long as this General Assembly is in session? The latest affront: Republicans in a Senate Committee killed Sen. Joyce Elliott’s resolution to ratify the federal Equal Rights Amendment. Former Republican legislator Dan Greenberg said, during testimony, “equality in all circumstances is not always the best policy.”