Arkansas Times - March 26, 2015

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NEWS + POLITICS + ENTERTAINMENT + FOOD / MARCH 26, 2015 / ARKTIMES.COM

LITTLE WORDS THE CASE FOR A LITTLE ROCK LGBT PROTECTION ORDINANCE

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MARCH 26, 2015

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MARCH 26, 2015

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COMMENT

A Harvard man Like Tom Cotton, I have served in a war. I have four medals, none terribly important, to show for it. Perhaps he has more.

Like Tom Cotton, I have the distinction of having a degree from Harvard (HBS ’58). Unlike him I cannot claim to be “a Harvard Man.” That distinction goes only to graduates of the college.

I do have a good friend, however, a fellow naval officer, an important Republican (or at least he has been), who is “a Harvard Man.” I hope he will not chastise me for sharing a recent email: “Would it surprise you when I say that your new senator is a despicable piece of shit? It’s too bad that Harvard doesn’t revoke degrees. When I was an undergraduate, there was a common belief that not only can you be expelled but, in really bad cases, you could be expunged.

All record of your existence at the college would be erased. Of course, that would not be possible now, if it ever was.”

To expunge our junior senator would only bolster his bona fides for the Arkansas voters who voted against their selfinterest to elect him. But it would make some of us in the Harvard community feel good.

“Support our troops?” Yes. Support someone who quite obviously joined the Army in order to add to his resume when running for election? No. Since 1636, graduates of Harvard have aimed to advance the cause of freedom and republicanism (small “r”) in America, some liberal, some conservative. Preserve us from one who may destroy the Republic. Arkansas deserves better.

Edward Wooten Little Rock

that what you did was illegal. By now I am sure you have had to read up on the particulars of the Logan Act, which criminalizes the actions of persons who attempt in any way to negotiate or effect the negotiations of the duly authorized president with other nations. In another copy of this letter, I am urging Attorney General Holder and his successor to fully investigate whether you and the 46 other Republican senators can be charged with the crime.

Your action in this matter is beyond arrogant. It is reckless, it undermines this and every future president by showing that this nation is no longer unified when it comes to negotiating agreements and treaties. It should not have required knowledge of the Logan Act for you to know that what you did was inherently wrong and un-American.

I have no hope or expectation that you will retract your actions. I do hope that the other members of Congress come to appreciate your reckless ambition and see it for what it is, so that you are never able to undermine this nation again for the remainder of what I hope is your final term in office. I also hope the Department of Justice will do its job.

Keith Jones Little Rock

Truth and abuse I would like to make a few comments regarding Arkansas Times’ coverage of the Justin Harris adoption story. This kind of story is heartbreaking, complicated and (aside from being high profile) not uncommon. I’ve worked more than 30 years as a therapist with abused children and see several cases each year where many months may go by before those involved begin to get a clear understanding of “what really happened.”

Sometimes things never become clear — typically as a result of little reliable information, too many conflicting stories and too much ambiguity. These cases always bring up strong unpleasant emotions and immediate urges to ease the resulting discomfort by quickly finding out what is “true” and “doing something.”

Simplifying things and quickly throwing in our lot on one side or the other brings some comfort. When we feel we have the truth we can confidently blast away at those on the other side who got it all wrong. Three or 12 months later more “facts” come out and, oops, it turns out we had it all wrong. I’ve been through this process dozens of times with my clinical cases and find myself going through it again as I follow coverage of this Harris

An open letter to Tom Cotton Congratulations on your election to the Senate of the United States of America. You may run for president someday, but I want to point out to you that you are not currently the president.

When you were elected I had no doubt you would embarrass the state of Arkansas, but I had no idea it would be this soon or that your actions would be so injurious to the security, power and prestige of the United States of America.

Your unprecedented correspondence with the leaders of the nation of Iran is the most astonishing thing I have seen a member of Congress do. I am 65 years old and have seen a lot.

Not only are you wrong about your interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, you seem to be ignorant 4

MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

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425 West Capitol Avenue #300 Little Rock, AR 72201 501.375.3200 flake-kelley.com

adoption story.

What I find very pleasing, however, is the quality of journalism in the Arkansas Times. It is wonderful! This depth of coverage with an impartial tone is welcome and rare. The fourth estate at its best.

Kudos to Benjamin Hardy! It is this kind of reporting that can, and I hope will, bring about real change that results in better care for the kids in our state’s child protection system. There is a need for levelheaded policy discussions about the issues raised in these articles and some meaningful change, not just rolling of heads and passing of more knee-jerk laws.

Jim Harper Little Rock

Conservatism throughout history The conservative mentality has a long history of being wrong and having to change its position, at least outwardly, in the face of scientific and social change.

Consider the fact that Earth was once believed to be flat. Conservative church leaders went so far as to force Galileo to recant his findings on the issue or face trial for “heresy.” A conservative church also thought once that mental illness was the work of the devil and disease epidemics were God’s way of punishing wicked people for their sins.

There was once a time when conservatives used the Bible to justify slavery, as well as the oppression of women. In all these instances conservatives have had to admit being wrong and change their stances. One might think a history of getting it wrong would make conservatives more cautious about continuing to apply the same mentality in more recent times, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Today’s conservatives, primarily mainstream Republicans and Tea Party types, are still using the same worn-out arguments to justify their positions on issues like same-sex marriage, abortion, the death penalty, poverty and the “War on Drugs.” If conservatives have been wrong so often in the past, why still hold on to this archaic approach? Is it possible that today’s conservatives may have to change their stances on these hot-button issues? With most of the world, including a majority of Americans whether conservatives will admit it or not, becoming more progressive, they must change with the times. If not they will risk becoming a despised minority within their own country, and the GOP will be added to the list of failed political parties such as Whigs and Federalists.

Richard Hutson Rose Bud

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EYE ON ARKANSAS

WEEK THAT WAS

“Ps 37:12 The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him / Ps. 37:13 But the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming.”

— Rep. Justin Harris (R-West Fork), returning to Twitter. Harris, normally a prolific tweeter, has been absent from social media these past weeks in the wake of revelations published in this paper that he and his wife “rehomed” two adopted daughters with another family, where one was then sexually abused. We’ll decline to speculate about exactly who “the wicked” refers to in this context.

Do as I say, not as I did Last week, the Arkansas House of Representatives passed a bill by Rep. David Meeks (R-Conway) to make it a felony to rehome an adopted child with a non-family member. It passed the chamber easily — and yes, Rep. Justin Harris voted for it.

Hard to watch Still, it’s true that we’ve been doing a lot of teeth gnashing lately while watching the Capitol. We expect the legislature to pass its share of bad policy, but it might be even more painful to watch commonsense bill after commonsense 6

MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

Tweet of the week

THE ‘DOORS’: Carolyne Adkins of southeast Arkansas walks away after viewing V.L. Cox’s art installation “Doors” on the steps of the state Capitol Tuesday, March 24. Adkins turned and said, “I had to go through a door like that before,” referring to the “Colored Only” door in the installation. “When I was 6 years old, my family went to Lake Village State Park and there was a clean nice-looking water fountain that said “White Only” and a dirty algae-covered fountain that said “Colored Only.” Then on the bathrooms, there was a clean well-kept bathroom with a door that said “Whites Only” and a messy bathroom where it didn’t look like they emptied the trash that had a sign that said “Colored Only.” My cousins were visiting and they were crying and asking why it was like that, because they had never seen anything like that before.”

bill fail miserably in committee. Here’s a small sample: Last Wednesday, the House Insurance and Commerce committee shot down an idea from Rep. Greg Leding (D-Fayetteville) to establish minimum habitability standards for rental property; Arkansas is considered to have the worst landlord-tenant law in the United States.

Thursday, House Rules killed a bill

by Rep. Camille Bennett (D-Lonoke) to allow legislators to request an attorney general opinion on a bill’s constitutionality and the cost of defending a legal challenge.

Friday, a committee sank yet another attempt — this time by Rep. Fred Love (D-Little Rock) — to stop celebrating Robert E. Lee on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. No surprise there.

But what about on Monday, when Rep. Warwick Sabin (D-Little Rock) presented a clean energy bill with the support of Arkansas Entergy and the Public Service Commission? The Joint Energy Committee refused to hear witnesses and voted the bill down, then adjourned. On Tuesday, Sabin’s pro-

posal to give low-income working families a tax credit was defeated by the same lawmakers — such as Rep. Charlie Collins (R-Fayetteville) — who ardently champion tax breaks that accrue mostly to the wealthy.

Even good ideas from Republicans failed this session if they made the mistake of being too humane. Rep. Jim Sorvillo (R-Little Rock) attempted to address Arkansas’s puppy mills by better regulating dog breeders; the Farm Bureau, which opposes pretty much any animal cruelty legislation, stopped him in his tracks. A bill from Rep. Josh Miller (R-Heber Springs) that would have given long overdue help to families with developmentally disabled children (via a program called the Community First Choice Option) was voted down as well. Gnash, gnash, gnash.

Keep it public But hey, sometimes bad bills fail, too.

Early last week, hundreds rallied at the Capitol against HB 1733, which would allow privatization of public

school districts deemed “academically distressed.” The bill had the support of Gov. Asa Hutchinson, but it was opposed by education organizations representing superintendents, school boards, teachers and others. While the rally was occurring, news broke that in the face of opposition the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Bruce Cozart (R-Hot Springs), had decided to shelve the legislation for the remainder of the session.

Stay in school suit Meanwhile, the battle for the future of the Little Rock School District entered a new phase last week as witnesses delivered testimony in a preliminary injunction hearing before Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen. The plaintiffs in the case asked the judge to reverse the state’s takeover of the LRSD. On day two of the hearing, while Superintendent Dexter Suggs was on the stand, the Arkansas Supreme Court issued a stay of the proceedings, stopping everything cold. Now everyone will have to wait for the high court to decide whether the lawsuit can continue.

OPINION

Nothing to show for making nice

I

’m at anchor on a ship lying off unwashed public.

Grand Turk Island, and I should They were pointhave known better than to pick up edly uninvited to the digital Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the affairs. particularly given the painfully slow If the goverdownload time on the ship’s satellite nor did it, too, MAX Internet. But I did and began a slow burn. does that mean BRANTLEY It was good to see John Brummett the Speaker and maxbrantley@arktimes.com write about the ethical trampling that’s president pro tem been given newly passed Amendment would jump off the Stephens Building?

94 by legislators who simply cannot (Don’t answer.) and will not give up freebies from the But Brummett firmed up a piece lobby. But the rationale from Speaker of information circulating for weeks, Jeremy Gillam (R-Bald Knob) and Sen- that Gillam will take advantage of the ate President Pro Tem Jonathan Dis- term limits expansion given legislators mang (R-Searcy) on laundering lobby — along with higher pay and free swill money through the Republican Party so by Sen. Jon Woods’ sneaky change of they could have their baronial tributes the “ethics” amendment — to become last week was a bit much.

Speaker for life, or least his life as a legIf the leaders are not much for par- islator. ties, don’t have one. If these parties are He’s a friendly fellow. He’ll even vital for “stretch-run bonding,” as Dis- return my phone calls. Many Repubmang and Gillam told Brummett, it tells licans won’t. me all I need to know about how much But it’s time for the Democrats to the legislature cares to bond with the ask themselves a question: Just what

Stop presses: Clintons ambitious

H

ere are a couple of earthshaking developments: It turns out that Hillary Clinton is obsessed with privacy and that across the years former U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers detected ethical failings in other politicians, even friends like Bill and Hillary Clinton.

With the Clintons, matters that would be of only passing interest with another politician, like a petulant remark, using a personal email server instead of the government’s or a friend’s private criticism, become political convulsions that consume the news cycle for months and often years.

With any other public figure — say, Secretary of State Colin Powell or Jeb Bush — using one’s personal email for private chats as well as for work would be a piffling matter, unwise for the political damage it might inflict in a future campaign, but no scandal. After all, emails are what until a few years ago were office and phone chats that

never made it into the public records where political researchers and historians prowl.

But it was exactly ERNEST what you would DUMAS expect of Hillary Clinton, whose monomania about protecting her privacy and much of her own work in private and public capacities, such as her investments as a young Arkansas mother and her legal billing records on Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan in the 1980s, nearly cost her husband the presidency.

Reporters and political denizens working for Republican opponents have for months been combing archives in Arkansas for some trifle that reporters overlooked in the Clinton tales of the ’90s. A writer for Mother Jones, a leftist journal, who was trying to figure out how Hillary’s two-decade sojourn in Arkansas shaped her development,

exactly has making nice done for them?

Yes, Rep. Joe Jett (D-Success) got to be chair of Revenue and Taxation. But neither he nor any other Democrat gets to pass anything of substance (meaning something that is both worthwhile and marked by a measure of controversy.)

Rep. Warwick Sabin (D-Little Rock) was allowed a vote on a state earned income tax credit bill to give a tiny bit of help to working poor, but it failed on a voice vote. Just like Rep. Clarke Tucker’s (D-Little Rock) campaign finance reform proposal. And protection of landowners from pipeline damage, Sabin’s comically mistreated pro-private-property owner bill. Or any of the other small pieces of good government Democrats put forward on the margins of Arkansas’s slide into Oklahoma.

Do you think making nice with Gillam and Dismang has allowed Democrats to even play good defense? Only where, on House Education and Senate Judiciary, some careful husbanding of Democratic forces produced the only thing that counts in the legislature: votes. A smile and pat on the back aren’t worth much after your pocket has been picked.

Rep. Deborah Ferguson, a Democrat and dentist from West Memphis, spon-

sored a sex ed bill that didn’t mention contraceptives? Democrats stood by as more barriers were put between women and a safe and effective pill that ends pregnancy in the very earliest stages.

Civil rights have been sneered at. Robert E. Lee remains more powerful than Martin Luther King Jr. in 21st century Arkansas. Millionaires got tax breaks while the working poor got not one red cent. Unemployment compensation was reduced and shortened. And on and on.

If being allowed a token vote on help for the most struggling working Arkansans is the best Democrats can get out of throwing in some with somebody who otherwise gives the Republican Party its wish list, really, what’s the point?

To get a free meal through money laundered through the Republican Party of Arkansas? Would the big results really have been any different if Justin Harris or Bob Ballinger had been Speaker?

Oh, and did you see the mention that there may be some little old constitutional amendments after all? The leadership said last week they didn’t think so.

I said then I’d believe it when the session adjourned without any. Beware of Sen. Jon Woods (R-Springdale) bearing gifts. It’s the kind of thing that arises in late-session “bonding.”

poring over the files of Sen. Bumpers in the university archives, found folders of what purported to be an occasional diary, penned not by Bumpers but typed by an office worker, apparently from Bumpers’ dictation or from random thoughts he uttered around the office. The woman who apparently typed them is, like Bumpers, in no condition to remember it.

The story was not cast as a scandal, but as a historical curiosity: The senator who made one of the great orations in Senate history in defense of President Clinton at his impeachment trial had, almost 20 years earlier, privately uttered doubts about the absolute purity of both Clintons’ political strivings. In his own oral history 15 years ago, Bumpers assessed Clinton as one of the 20th century’s great presidents and later predicted the same of Hillary Clinton if she could quell her hawkish instincts.

But in the summer of 1982, right after Clinton had won the Democratic nomination to regain the governor’s office, a Bumpers “diary” entry said the Clintons had ambitions so manic that they would do about anything to get elected and that he knew of ethical breaches by the Clintons in the recent campaign.

Two attributes define Dale Bumpers’

political career: an obsession with ethical behavior and a high-mindedness about campaigning that distinguished him from nearly every successful politician of his time. He refused all gifts, including one that arrived at the governor’s mansion his first week in office, a Rolex watch that a South Arkansas jeweler had sent, the price tag still attached, in the hope Bumpers would reappoint him to the State Police Commission. The watch was returned and he didn’t get the appointment, so the jeweler hired a bumbling hit man to kill the governor.

Bumpers obsessed so much about a potential ethical slipup by one of his 25,000 government employees that he confessed years later that his last day in the governor’s office in 1974 was the happiest of his life because he no longer needed to worry that his three children might read that their daddy had run a corrupt government.

What set Bumpers apart from his colleagues was that he considered it dishonest or weak to take purely political stands. Like the great Irish statesman Edmund Burke, you were obliged to voters to be guided by your conscience, not what might be safe or popular. In an oral history after his CONTINUED ON PAGE 21 www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 2015

7

The loss of skepticism

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ome years ago, I had an interview with a homicide detective that got delayed. I used his office phone to postpone a tennis match.

“Tennis, huh?” he said after I’d hung up. “I wondered.”

“Wondered what?”

“Well, you’ve got an indoors, sitdown job,” he explained. “But you’re always tanned and your hand’s callused. Now I know why.”

Me, I’d have asked. Or simply never noticed. Sgt. Dawson sometimes talked as if ungrammatical sentences were a point of honor. But no critical detail escaped him. I’ve always thought that if more journalists thought like him, we’d be spared much of the nonsense that passes for wisdom, not to mention the embarrassment when treasured tales collapse.

From Ferguson to Charlottesville, it’s happening all the time.

Journalists needn’t be homicide cops, but we should be able to abide by rule one. I think it’s the New Jersey state motto, or was when I grew up there: “Oh yeah, who says?”

Increasingly, however, skepticism is out. The manufacture and dissemination of didactic fables pleasing to the viewing audience is what many journalists do. And that’s becoming almost as true at MSNBC as at Fox News. Particularly in stories involving race and sex, that is to say, a lot of them.

The telltale clues often reside in the homeliest details. For example, how I came to doubt the Murdering Racist Cop version of Michael Brown’s tragic death was right at the start, in his companion Dorian Johnson’s version of how the conflict began.

According to the slight young man with the dreadlocks who was everywhere on TV after his friend’s killing, Officer Darren Wilson reached through his driver’s side window, grabbed Brown by the throat, and pulled him into the patrol car as Brown struggled to escape.

With one arm. From a seated position.

Never mind why would he do that? It’s a physical impossibility.

Even if Michael Brown hadn’t been a 6-foot-4, 293-pound manmountain.

So right out GENE of the box, I LYONS don’t trust Dorian Johnson, or Witness 101, as the recently released Department of Justice report called him.

But let Jonathan Capehart take it from there. Capehart is an AfricanAmerican columnist at the Washington Post who bought into the Murdering Racist Cop narrative big time. Until he read the DOJ report.

There he learned that “just about everything said to the media by Witness 101 … was not supported by the [forensic] evidence and other witness statements.”

Capehart adds that “Witness 101 ‘made multiple statements to the media immediately following the incident that spawned the popular narrative that Wilson shot Brown execution-style as he held up his hands in surrender.’ In one of those interviews, Johnson told MSNBC that Brown was shot in the back by Wilson … And, like that, ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ became the mantra of a movement. But it was wrong, built on a lie.”

Strong words, but necessary.

Possibly Johnson came to believe the tale he told. But none of it was real. Thousands of angry protestors from sea to shining sea have spent months chanting an intoxicating slogan based upon sheer make-believe.

Do I need to tell you that Capehart has been denounced in Salon and elsewhere as a racial sellout and worse?

Me, I’m thinking maybe comedian Chris Rock could do a routine about a black parent having The Talk with his teenage son about white cops.

“The first thing,” Rock might say, “is don’t punch them in the face.”

I suspect a black audience would roar with laughter, for all kinds of complicated reasons. Coming from me, maybe not so much.

But it gets worse. The DOJ report tells about Witness 128, who “told Brown’s mother that Wilson shot CONTINUED ON PAGE 39

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MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

Election reform endangered

L

ost in a U.S. Supreme Court term that will determine the future of Obamacare and marriage equality is a case that may well destroy the last best hope for combating partisan gerrymandering across the United States. The ruling in an Arizona case could reach beyond undermining an important effort to fight corrosive partisanship in Congress, threatening numerous election reforms across the country, including in Arkansas.

Across recent decades, the introduction of sophisticated mapping software has made possible aggressive partisan gerrymandering in congressional districts across the country. (The proposed “Fayetteville Finger� during the 2011 legislative debate over redistricting Arkansas’s districts created outrage, but was actually pretty mild stuff in the world of partisan gerrymandering.) The Supreme Court’s unwillingness to enter the “partisan thicket� of district line-drawing means that members of Congress almost all come from districts where the partisan outcome is preordained; the fact that these legislators are more likely to be threatened in a primary than in a general election pushes incumbents toward partisan purity that enhances polarization, leaving many Americans feeling disaffected and disempowered.

Citizens around the country — particularly in states with the outlet of direct democracy — have begun fighting back with the creation of independent redistricting commissions that take the drawing of district lines out of the hands of elected officials and generally create much more competitive general elections. Early this month, however, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging Arizona’s 15-year-old independent commission as a violation of the Constitution’s Elections Clause, which states that “the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.� (District linedrawing has historically been seen as a component of the “manner� of elections.)

The Commission’s attorneys argue — and the federal Court of Appeals agreed — that the term “legislature� in the Elections Clause should be read to include ballot initiatives passed by the voters.

However, the Arizona legislature faced a friendlier audience at a Supreme Court hearing that often centered on competing

dictionary definitions of “legislature.� The Court’s conservative majority appears ready to strike JAY down the Arizona BARTH reform measure; if that happens, it would almost assuredly doom a similar voter-initiated provision in the neighboring state of California and also threaten commissions in four other states. Moreover, it would stymie efforts underway across the country to turn the tide on hyperpolarization and to steer the national political conversation away from the partisan margins and toward the more pragmatic middle.

Any win for the legislature in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission would be problematic, but if the Supreme Court constructs a broad ruling in striking down the measure, the Arizona case could set the stage for an array of federal court challenges to state election laws that have been activated by a vote of the people — either through the petition process or through referendum. Many of these measures are those that have modernized American elections, moving us away from a time when balloting shenanigans and fraudulent vote counts were common.

Because, as a direct democracy state, Arkansas does a good deal of policymaking at the ballot box, the state’s election laws would be particularly susceptible to such challenges. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, at least five Arkansas election provisions could be threatened by a ruling that strikes down voter-adopted election provisions on broad grounds. Most important is the 1948 constitutional amendment that enacted Arkansas’s voter registration laws. It was this amendment that was the basis for the Arkansas Supreme Court’s decision last year striking down the General Assembly-enacted Voter ID law. Also at risk would be a 2002 constitutional amendment that created the right to a secret ballot in the state and a 50-year-old provision allowing the state’s counties to move away from the paper ballot. So, not only would the promise of a less polarized political future be washed away if Arkansas could not create an independent districting body in the future, decades of hard work in protecting the right to vote in Arkansas could be at risk.

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MARCH 26, 2015

9

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MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

The blueprint

W

hen the final seconds of an unusually dynamic and impassioned college basketball game ticked away, and a season of restorative value for Arkansas’s long-beleaguered program ended, the moment for reflection that a turbulent schedule had delayed finally came.

For all the flaws, the Hogs were a 27-win team and held the loss column restrained to a single digit. The team composed itself on the road, blistered some quality opposition and got Bud Walton Arena enthused again after so many dormant years. Two seniors, Rashad Madden and Alandise Harris, at once contributed and yet reminded us all that their departures won’t render volatile the so-called nucleus of the team. Anton Beard was enigmatic, then electric, then essentially spent — he followed the usual pathway that a heavily credentialed freshman point guard would — and at the tail end reminded us that his floor game and smarts compensate well for a yet-unstable offensive game. The bench was a mess at times, but offseason drills for the likes of Moses Kingsley and Anthlon Bell will get them both equipped to assume different, more consistent roles in the fall.

North Carolina was, let there be no notion to the contrary, the superior team.

When the Heels finished off Arkansas 87-78 in a test of tempo and attrition, they did it by outclassing the Hogs at their own alleged methodology.

The Hogs were harassed into turnovers all evening, and it generated fastbreak chances for UNC that looked more like a season-long highlight bank than a single game flurry of them. Marcus Paige’s savvy and seasoning at the point meant much to the Heels, who have spent most of the past four months all over the map but are doing what wellassembled programs do at this occasion.

Once spring hit, the off-kilter Carolina was gone and the Final Four dark horse was in its stead. Give credit where it justly belongs, and honor UNC Coach Roy Williams for again getting talent and pointing it properly at the center spot on the bracket.

UNC and Arkansas jockeyed for Sweet 16 quasi-immortality for a good half-hour.

Neither team looked unwound from a first-round scare and both emerged thoroughly charged about reinventing themselves. Wofford and Harvard had forced the tempo and played the darling role to a hilt. Carolina was a scrambled batch of errors in the waning stages of a twopoint win over the Crimson. And Arkan-

sas had to dispatch the Terriers by simply just learning on the fly to play left-handed; in short, the Hogs BEAU were left to battle WILCOX without Bobby Portis, mired in a late funk that had folks second-guessing his motivation and worried that delusions of professional dollars were dragging his game southward.

To be fair, Portis has had so much heaped upon him that the social media cries about his softening scouting profile obfuscated a brilliant season full of self-sacrifice, leadership and maturation. This was a case where the shots in November and December were roughly the same, even as the results weren’t, and UNC saw that his skittish performance against undersized Wofford was something easily capitalized upon.

Even as Mike Anderson’s gameplan was developed to empower Portis, he was still out of his usual comfort zone and the shots were astray. His suspect free throw shooting against Wofford demonstrated that he really had lost his way.

But Portis remains the absolutely critical centerpiece of any 2015-16 designs to proceed past this point, because he remains young and indelibly gifted. If his body and mind take a huge leap, he’s a Wooden Award favorite next fall, after being a flawed but deserving finalist this season.

And if Michael Qualls does more to refine himself — ballhandling, shot selection and on-ball defensive discipline — he again returns with Portis to form the top duo in the conference.

Without any peer, frankly. The decision now rests in the hands of self-interested scouts who believe that they can upsell the NBA potential of both young men to unsupported levels.

The problem with both is that they’ve thrived on the other. Where would either stand as a potential draftee without the other sharing the scoring load or amping up his game while the other struggled? Next fall presents an opportunity for them to play a bit more independently, mentor to more youth with the likes of Ted Kapita and Jimmy Whitt entering, and grow from a belated but appreciable franchise rebirth.

Arkansas basketball is a puzzle lacking pieces and seemingly sitting on a fragile precipice as it is reassembled.

The 2014-15 season was, though, for all its myriad frustrations, a welcome recovery of the blueprint.

Road WaRRioR?

Maundy Thursday | April 2 6 PM | Sanctuary

THE OBSERVER

Good Friday | April 3 Noon & 6 PM | Sanctuary

NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

Steak

T

he Observer has been attempting to teach Junior how to cook recently.

Yours Truly comes from a long line of dudes who cook, juggling the spatula and an unfiltered Camel, frowning something edible into existence from a stack of cans, jars and the occasional splash from a nearby Budweiser. Pa cooked on occasion, God bless him. We still get a hankering from time to time for what he called Shit on a Shingle: dry white toast slathered with a heavy, grease-slicked stew full of ground sausage and veggies — a dish he learned how to make in the Army from a mess cook who grew up on one of the Gullah Sea Islands off the South Carolina coast, accent thick as his gravy. The Observer has attempted the dish from time to time but can’t quite get it right.

Must have been the cigarette ashes and love, which the original chef is no longer around to provide.

This weekend, class was in session for Junior on the topic of steak. The ability to cook a proper steak is one of the cornerstones of mancooking. The first step, of course, is the meat. Gotta go thick, which means expensive. The Observer picked out a porterhouse as wide as the family Bible and more expensive than our first date with spouse; two full pounds of lovely, redblooded American Angus, wrapped in white paper by a proper butcher, who blessed our efforts by making the sign of a fork with his scrubbed pale fingers as we walked away from the meat counter.

You’ve gotta let your meat come to room temperature, son. Stop that snickering over the word “meat” and get the cast-iron skillet out from under the cabinet, the seasoned one, iron black with the mellow glow of old grease. Into the oven the skillet goes for a preheat, hot as your oven will do for a full 20 minutes, hotter than the hinges of hell: 450 degrees good, 500 better. But don’t you worry. Iron can take it. Iron is the stuff Detroit motor blocks are made of. Harpoons. Folsom Prison bars. Railroad spikes.

The last 10 minutes the skillet is heating up, let’s get the steak ready. Not too soon, or the salt will suck the moisture out.

We want moisture. Moisture is good. Pour

Easter Egg Hunt | April 4

some oil into your clean hand, then rub it on your meat. Stop that snickering. Not too much. Just a sheen. We want Elizabeth Taylor, emerging from the ocean in the moonlight. OK: Scarlett Johansson.

Now the salt and pepper. Sea salt. Crystals big as tears. Black pepper, fresh ground, the precious spice 3,000 miles from home to find its destiny here. Use plenty of salt and more pepper, my son. Use more than you dare. We want a lovely crust.

And now the skillet is ready, hot enough to peel the skin from you at a touch. Hot enough to require the use of the BIG oven mitt. But don’t hesitate. Pull it from the oven like a sword from a stone, unafraid and kingly. Drop it onto a roaring burner. Now, marry steak to hot pan.

The lovely hiss as flesh meets iron. The crackle. The smoke. Go fan the smoke detector with a rag. On second thought, take out the battery. Get the tongs ready.

The big ones. Two minutes. No more, no less. Two minutes only. The longest two minutes of your life. Flip! More sizzle.

More smoke. See the sweet brown crust?

See the shining juices? Two minutes more on this side. No more, no less.

Flip again. Now: into the oven, still in the pan. This part is more art than science, but two minutes each side is ballpark for a thick steak at medium rare. Keep the door shut, tongs and mitt at the ready.

Consider the universe. Give thanks for the cow. Ding. Open the door. Flip. Drop on a single, perfect pat of butter. Back in the oven. Close the door. Two more minutes. Consider your place in the universe.

Consider the rain becoming grass, the grass becoming cow, the cow becoming meat for the sustenance of our bodies, our bodies becoming the grass again. Amen.

Drink from a beer, quickly. Ding.

Take the pan out of the oven. Check with a thermometer if you worry about microbes and such. Meat, meet plate.

Pre-warmed plate. Preferably a plate from a sunken steamship, dredged up from the bottom of the ocean. Cover with a blanket of foil. Let your steak rest — as the Lord rested — for five minutes.

Consider the dust. Gather ye knife and fork. Gather ye napkin and steak sauce, though The Old Man prefers none.

Now: Feast.

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www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 2015

11

Arkansas Reporter

THE

IN S IDE R

Muskie Harris, the former Arkansas Razorback football player who operates a group home at 20th and Broadway for men with first-time alcohol and substance abuse arrests, is again seeking a conditional use permit for the home from the Capitol Zoning District Commission. His application will be heard by the Mansion Area Advisory Committee on April 9 and by the commission on April 16.

Both the committee and commission denied the permit in February 2014.

Harris and business partner Lancet Lamb sued the CZDC in April 2014, saying the commission had violated the U.S. Fair Housing Act. That suit is still pending in circuit court; Judge Tim Fox has asked Harris to file a brief by April 7.

Harris incorporated the Muskie Harris Rehabilitation Service in 2013 to operate the group home and opened it in October 2013, a month before seeking a conditional use permit from the commission. The CZDC staff recommended at that time that the conditional use permit be granted as long as the house met state and city zoning laws, was kept in good condition, that none of its residents had been convicted on drug or alcohol charges and there was no drug use in the house.

The house has 12 beds and 40 men have lived there in the past year, Harris said Tuesday. He said the residents are part of a program that allows first-time offenders arrested on alcohol or substance abuse to complete recovery programs to get probation or the charges against them dismissed.

The commission rejected the application, saying the use of the house, designed by Charles Thompson and constructed circa 1895, as a group home did not meet “urban design goals” of the Mansion Area Master Plan.

There was strong, vocal opposition at meetings of the Mansion Area Advisory Committee and the Downtown Neighborhood Association when the house was first occupied in 2013, but Boyd Maher, executive director of the CZDC, said the only feedback received lately has come from a neighbor.

Federal law considers persons with drug or substance abuse problems to be disabled, which allows them to live in group homes so long as they meet zoning rules.

That law would seem to apply to the house.

Harris said the men are referred to the house from 90-day recovery centers such as Serenity House, Recovery Centers

12

MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

Another try for downtown group home

VACANT FOR A YEAR: But house at 1217 W. Third will be fixed up by neighbor.

Capital area houses safe Neighbor to renovate Third Street manse; cottages get demolition reprieve.

BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

A

n imposing 110-year-old house at 1217 W. Third St., between Pulaski and Cross, that was damaged in a December 2013 fire and has been vacant and deteriorating since will be rescued by a neighbor who didn’t want to see it torn down.

The neoclassical Homard House was built in 1905 by Isaac J. Homard, an engineer with the Iron Mountain Railroad, according to a history provided by the Capitol Zoning District Commission staff. The Homard family sold the house to Andrew Hanks around 1940, and the house has been in the Hanks family since. The third owner is Carol Worley, a lawyer with Worley, Wood and Parish. Worley lives at Third and Pulaski, roughly cater-cornered to the Homard House, in a large Victorian

that had fallen into disrepair and had been used as a crack house before she bought and renovated it.

The city of Little Rock’s code enforcement division had declared the house unsafe and asked the CZDC to find it “demolished by neglect” after unsuccessful attempts to get the owners to make repairs. (The owners were apparently in a dispute with their insurance company.) While agreeing the building was being demolished by neglect, the CZDC staff noted that fire damage was limited to small sections of the structure and the commission’s Design Review Committee expressed hope at a meeting Feb. 26 that the building could be rehabilitated. A finding that a building is being demolished by neglect is the first step toward seeking an injunc-

tion to compel owners to make repairs, CZDC head Boyd Maher said.

On Monday, Worley indicated she would apply to get the nearly 3,000-square-foot home placed on the National Register of Historic Places, which can provide tax credits for restoration. She said she plans to renovate it for offices. The second story of the two-story back porch, which burned, would be replaced with a conference room with a view of the state Capitol, she said.

Worley has rehabilitated a Historic Register structure already: the portion of the 1920 Jung/Kordsmeier building that includes Piro Brick Oven and Barroom on the first floor and her law offices on the second floor, at 1318 S. Main St., next door to Midtown Billiards. The building was in terrible shape when she bought it, she said: The roof had collapsed in back and all the windows, wiring and plumbing needed replacing. The top floor was apartments and the bottom floor had been occupied by bars La’Changes and Pleazures; originally it was the Rose City Bakery and later was the original home of Community Bakery. Piro did the finish-out on the first floor.

The Homard/Hanks house has not been updated since the 1950s, Worley believes. She’ll have to replace the roof, but hopes the majority of the home’s original architectural elements inside can be saved.

Maher said the CZDC decided to defer action on the demolition by neglect finding until April 16 after learning of Worley’s plans.

Also at the February meeting, the CZDC voted unanimously (9-0) to deny a request by the Arkansas Rural Endowment Fund to demolish two houses at 320 and 318 S. Pulaski St. built at the turn of the 20th century. Maher said the homes, on one of the few blocks near the Union Station and the Capitol that retain the original character of what was a large working-class neighborhood, could and should be rehabilitated. It was the position of the staff that “demolitions can serve to reinforce negative stereotypes about downtown Little Rock and to undermine the Capitol Area’s long-term efforts to revitalize as one of Arkansas’s premier neighborhoods.”

Registered historic

THE

BIG

Five properties have been added to the 2,551 Arkansas structures whose significance has earned them a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program recently announced the following successful nominations:

PICTURE

1

2

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INSIDER, CONT. of Arkansas and Hoover House. They are required to work, attend Narcotics or Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and pay rent, which includes meals. Harris is a liaison to the courts, acting on behalf of the recovery centers.

Beyond rehoming: crowdfunding an investigative project

5

4

3

1. The Shady Grove Delmar Church and School near Delmar in Carroll County, circa 1880.

The unaltered building is “an excellent example of a one-room vernacular church and school building,” according to the National Register nomination. Note the decorative hexagonal bell tower, something not commonly found on what was a common building type in the late 19th century.

2. St. Mary’s Church at Paragould in Greene County, 1935.

This Romanesque Revival structure is one of only two buildings in Arkansas designed by famed

designer and architect Charles Eames.

3. The Hope Girl Scout Little House at Hope in Hempstead County, circa 1938.

This log cabin was built by Works Progress Administration employees.

“The use of this New Deal-era program to construct this wonderfully designed building with its craftsmanship goes to show how a community can pull together during a time of need and help shape the lives of both the men that helped construct the ‘Little House’ and the morals and lessons learned through the Girl Scout Program,” the nomination said.

4. The Ozone School at Ozone in Johnson County, 1942.

This cut-stone building, constructed through the Works Progress Administration, served both as a school and community center.

5. Boundary increase to the Fishback Neighborhood Historic District at Fort Smith in Sebastian County.

The Fishback Neighborhood Historic District is “one of the largest intact collections of contiguous early- tomid-20th century dwellings in Fort Smith,” the nomination said. The majority of the buildings have not been altered.

The Arkansas Times has launched a crowdfunding campaign (arktimes.com/ beyondrehoming) to support a largescale investigative project into Arkansas’s child welfare system. We’re raising money through ioby.org, a platform that supports do-good projects. Donations are tax deductible.

We’ve seen a massive response to Benjamin Hardy’s reporting on rehoming and state Rep. Justin Harris (R-West Fork). His two recent stories have attracted considerably more readers online than anything we’ve ever published. Dozens of national outlets have followed his reporting. We’ve heard from readers all over the country.

And for good reason: Much of what he’s uncovered is shocking and outrageous.

The Harris story isn’t finished. There is more to report. We’ll cover those aspects of it in the days and weeks to come. But we want to quickly move beyond Harris to investigate broader questions about the state’s child welfare system that the stories raised. Our reporting has exposed us to dozens upon dozens of sources who have stories and access to share. What they’ve told us has convinced us of the need to continue what is looking like a massive investigative project.

We think there are more important stories to tell. We have a plan for moving forward. We are poised to effect change.

What we lack is the necessary staff to proceed. To get the second Harris story to press in time, Benji Hardy worked 36 straight hours. Other editors worked 70-hour weeks. That’s not sustainable. Our entire staff of three reporters and three editors is what a daily newspaper might throw at a project like this. We know we won’t ever have resources like that, but we think, with a slightly larger budget, we’ll be able to devote sufficient staff to this project to continue uncovering misdoings and inspiring policy change.

We’re looking to hire some folks to help us. If you were moved by our rehoming reporting, we hope you’ll consider supporting further efforts. And, if you’re interested in contributing to the project, as a reporter or intern, send a resume to Times editor Lindsey Millar at lindseymillar@arktimes. com. www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 2015

13

Civil rights FOR ALL The Little Rock Board of Directors will soon consider an ordinance to extend protections to our LGBT neighbors. Why it matters.

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE: Adrian Jones of Little Rock.

14

MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

BY DAVID KOON

BRIAN CHILSON

I

t is not enough to simply say we want a better world.

Eventually, a person, a community, a city has to step up and be the change. That time is approaching for Little Rock.

This city, like a lot of cities in the South, is a blue island in the middle of a sea of Republican red. If you need any proof of this, look at the anti-LGBT bills that have issued from the Arkansas General Assembly in the past few weeks. Many of our Republican legislators seem perfectly willing to pummel their own state on the national stage if it serves their personal prejudices and gets their names in the headlines. In the process, they’re telling inclusive corporations and progressive Americans, gay and straight, to stay far away from Arkansas, the land of beautiful scenery and ugly views. For the LGBT folks who already live here, meanwhile, these pieces of legislation serve as a warning that’s about as subtle as a burning cross: Your kind is not welcome. You may have been born and raised here, but we are going to make sure that you feel like a pariah.

Passed in February and allowed to become Act 137 without Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s signature, Senate Bill 202 by Sen. Bart Hester (R-Cave City), the “Intrastate Commerce Improvement Act,” forbids local governments from extending new protections to any group not protected under state law. While the law studiously avoids any mention of gays or lesbians in its language in order to avoid constitutional hangups, with the wording duplicitously claiming the aim is to assist the business community by homogenizing nondiscrimination laws between cities, SB 202 is actually a surgical strike against local governments that would follow Fayetteville and Eureka Springs in expanding their laws to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity — the five words included in most LGBT nondiscrimination ordinances.

Fayetteville added LGBT protections to its civil rights ordinance last August, but the measure was repealed in December after a wellfinanced repeal effort. On Feb. 9, as SB 202 was cruising to passage, the Eureka Springs board of aldermen held an emergency meeting and quickly passed an LGBT protection ordinance there. A public vote on

whether to keep that ordinance is scheduled for May 12.

In spite of Act 137, the Fayetteville repeal and the brewing holy war between the religious right and others over the Eureka ordinance, in coming weeks Little Rock City Director Kathy Webb plans to propose a city ordinance that would help protect LGBT citizens in Little Rock from discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations. While Webb is keeping the language of that proposed ordinance close to the vest at this writing (she said she has been looking at ordinances passed by Houston and San Antonio as models), the Arkansas Times believes any move in that direction would inevitably be a good thing for Little Rock, both practically and philosophically — both as a message to the rest of the nation that the city is welcoming to all, and as a symbol that we as a community are fundamentally opposed to those who would seek to legislate hate. Passing and keeping such ordinances in place may also eventually be the keystone of any court challenge to Act 137.

When it comes to making the case for an LGBT protection ordinance for Little Rock, it would be easy to drag out the soapbox. The better case, however — the more persuasive case, especially to those who may still be on the fence — is made by buttressing that argument by telling the stories of our neighbors who have suffered discrimination. Some of those stories appear below. By talking about the ugliness of the past, we can show why this ordinance is the best hope for the future.

This is why an LGBT protection ordinance is a good thing for Little Rock:

1) Because it puts us on the right side of history.

Stop reading this right now, get online and find the old, gray pictures of the 1957 crisis at Little Rock Central High School. Look past the flattops and crinoline skirts and see the people, who look just like you and me.

Look at the scowling faces. The lips contorted. The brows pinched. Look at photographer Will Counts’ famous picture of Hazel Bryan trailing steps behind 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford as Eckford left the school after

being turned away, Bryan caught mid-shout, mid-taunt, mid-torment, teeth bared as if to bite the world.

Now ask yourself: Where does Little Rock want to be — where do I want to be — when the next generation looks back on discrimination against gay people?

Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen, speaking while wearing his other hat as pastor of New Millennium Church in Little Rock, said he believes the struggle for LGBT rights is comparable to the struggle for AfricanAmerican rights that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other laws. “Now, as was the case then,” Griffen said, “the people working hardest to maintain inequality claim they are not motivated by bigotry, but by religious views and concerns about public safety. Those claims are as hollow today as they were 50 years ago.”

America, for all its historical faults, bends toward inclusivity. It may take a while, but we always get there eventually. The other thing that’s true is this: The cold light of

ple 30 to 49 years old believed that same-sex marriage should be legal, a full 78 percent of Americans in the 18-to-29 age bracket believed the same thing — a jump of 37 percentage points for that age bracket since Gallup started asking questions about same-sex marriage in 1996.

Meanwhile, a poll conducted for the Human Rights Campaign released in July 2013 found that 61 percent of Arkansans under the age of 30 support marriage equality, while 63 percent of those under 30 said they would support legislation to keep a person from being fired because of that person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. For young people born in the Bible Belt, many of them raised in Baptist churches and at the knee of those for whom homophobia was a default setting, those are huge numbers, not to mention a hint that we are likely headed toward a future where public displays of bigotry against LGBT folks will be met with as much disdain and disgust as public displays of bigotry against racial minorities are today.

“Now, as was the case then, the people working hardest to maintain inequality claim they are not motivated by bigotry, but by religious views and concerns about public safety. Those claims are as hollow today as they were 50 years ago.”

—­­Wendell Griffen history is never kind to those who stand in the way of making us a more welcoming people, no matter what the motive.

While the haters can gloat over their victories for now, LGBT equality is coming, even to Arkansas, and not only from the courts. While support for same-sex marriage isn’t everything, it’s probably a good indicator of societal attitudes toward the acceptance of LGBT people in general. And among young Americans, the idea of gay marriage as a moral evil that should be fought fang and claw in the statehouse has been met with a deafening “meh” in recent years. A 2014 Gallup poll found that while 54 percent of peo-

2) Because it’s just good business.

While SB 202 was ostensibly pushed through to make Arkansas more attractive to business, the truth is that Arkansas is setting itself up as a place most major corporations wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole, no matter how low the Republican legislature pushes our tax rates in coming years. An HRC survey of the Fortune 500 found that 89 percent expressly prohibit employee discrimination based on sexual orientation, with 66 percent extending protections to transgender employees. www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 2015

15

Meanwhile, Arkansas-based retail giant Walmart — which partnered with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce as far back as 2006, and which announced in August 2013 that it was extending health benefits to cover domestic partners of U.S. employees — took the rare step of issuing a statement publically criticizing Arkansas House Bill 1228, the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” by Rep. Bob Ballinger (R-Hindsville), a so-called “conscience protection” bill, which would make it legal to discriminate based on one’s personal religious bugaboos (up to and including, as noted in a letter in opposition to HB 1228 released by the Presbytery of Arkansas, allowing doctors or nurses to refuse to provide emergency medical care for gays and lesbians on religious grounds).

While HB 1228 wouldn’t change how it does business, Walmart said in a statement, “We feel this legislation is also counter to our core, basic belief of respect for the individual and sends the wrong message about Arkansas, as well as the diverse environment which exists in the state.”

The 9,000-pound gorilla of Ben-

tonville has spoken. But is the legislature listening? Signs point to maybe. HB 1228 failed to get an endorsement from the Senate Judiciary Committee — one of the few legislative committees that include enough Democrats to block legislation from advancing — when it was presented on Feb. 25. But the bill is still kicking. With the addition of an amendment, it was sent back to the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 16.

City Director Webb said that she was thrilled to see the Walmart statement, which she called “huge” for the case against the legislature’s efforts to discriminate against LGBT citizens.

“Every time Walmart makes a statement, it’s very important to other businesses in Arkansas,” she said. “It’s important to the Chambers of Commerce, it’s important to the average person who may not have given this much thought, or who may have been on the other side. When we see Walmart come out against it, maybe it makes that average person think.”

Webb noted that Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, a Tea Party darling,

BEHIND THE CURTAIN SERIES

vetoed a similar “conscience protection” bill in that state at the urging of business leaders, who said it would make Arizona appear unwelcoming to diverse corporations. While we’ll never know how many companies have or will nix Arkansas because of our ongoing aversion to LGBT rights and bills like SB 202 and HB 1228, Webb has already seen the impact of Arkansas’s unwelcoming climate herself.

“When I was in the legislature, UAMS was in my district,” Webb said. “I got a call from a doctor there, and he was trying to recruit a talented researcher to come to Arkansas. Because we didn’t offer partner benefits — and then the researcher found out some other things, that we didn’t have protections — they weren’t interested in coming. There are people, and not just members of the LGBT community, people who are allies, who want to live in a progressive, open, welcoming environment. They want to raise their kids in that kind of an environment. The overwhelming majority of the Fortune 500 companies have seen this.

That’s why they have these policies [protecting LGBT employees]. So these are anti-business measures from my point of view.”

Multiply that researcher’s reaction times a thousand, and you see why an Apple, a Google, a Honda or just about any other major corporation you can name is going to be very reluctant to ask members of their diverse and inclusive workforce to move to Arkansas in order to set up shop anytime soon. Little Rock, however, can make the state’s loss our gain by rolling out the welcome mat via the passage of an LGBT protection ordinance that’s virtually guaranteed to make national news.

“I think it’s important to send a message about Little Rock,” Webb said, “that Little Rock is an open and welcoming community and is ready to do business in the 21st century.

We understand that the workforce out there is a diverse workforce, and we want to keep and attract the best and the brightest, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

I think Arkansas is not doing such a good job with that.”

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After putting out a social media call for stories of LGBT discrimination on social media, I wound up talking to almost a dozen LGBT folks with stories that simply make you want to sit and shake your head.

For some of those people, still stuck in situations where they might lose their jobs and livelihoods if they came out to their co-workers, or who are not out to their families because of religious beliefs, their tales can’t be told in a public forum.

There were, however, a few that can be shared, if anonymously.

One was from a medical doctor, who we’ll call Doctor A, who works as a specialist in Little Rock. Dr. A said that in his 15-plus years in practice, he’s had other physicians stop referring patients to him after learning he was gay. “They’ve subsequently told partners in practice that I can no longer see patients of theirs because of my ‘personal issues,’ which they don’t believe in,” he said. “Their personal beliefs became the deciding factor in whether I can care for patients or not.”

Patients have refused to see him after learning that he was gay, he said. Others have tried to proselytize to him during their appointments in order to save him from hellfire. In another instance, he entered a shared operating theater, scrubbed up and ready to operate on a patient, only to find that someone had written “I AM GAY” in black marker on the front of the surgical gown that had been laid out for him.

Because he had only a short window of time in which to operate, he had to go with it.

“The procedure was under a local anesthetic, so the patient was awake during that whole scenario,” he said.

“I had to control myself because I was about to operate on a patient.

I couldn’t let that overcome me. … I think someone was trying to make me embarrassed, and I think someone was trying to make a point.”

The state, Dr. A, could recruit “tremendous” physicians, but often loses out because of anti-LGBT legislation and attitudes. An LGBT protection ordinance, he said, might help send a positive message about Little Rock. “I think it would show that if you came to Little Rock, that within this city, there is something different. ... It’s a step in the right direction. Any way we can move forward is a positive step.”

Another story came from a

While Arkansas is full of LGBT people whose childhoods include a horror show of rejection and bullying, Adrian’s story is included here because of what he said about Arkansas: Although he loves the state where he was born, the climate for LGBT people here means he will likely leave the state after college and never come back. woman we’ll call K, who also works in the medical field. Before getting her current job, she had worked part time as a musician at a local church.

After coming out as a lesbian to her family, K said, one of her family members, moved by their Christian views, immediately called her employer. “I think the best way to explain my family member’s logic is: If you think you’re saving someone from hell, it’s OK for ethics to go out the window.”

The next day, she was called in for a meeting with the pastor. “I went over and we met — him, another guy and me,” she said. “They sort of did that thing like, ‘Hey, everybody messes up, and it’s OK if you’re struggling right now’ … an intervention sort of thing. I said, ‘Well, this isn’t changing. This is me.’ ” After asking her a few more times whether her sexuality might change, K was fired. It says something about her that the first thing she thought of in that moment was the church.

“I said, ‘You guys are going to be in a pickle for [Sunday]. Here’s the numbers for two other people.’ ” While an LGBT protection ordinance might not have helped in the issue with her previous employer — most protection ordinances include an exemption for houses of worship to avoid First Amendment issues — she said it’s a good idea for the city.

“I know that for myself and others in the gay community, it would be such a relief,” she said, “Just the emotional benefit of seeing that some people are saying, ‘We’re on your side.’ That would be great for the community.”

Another person who shared her story is V, a woman who works as a manager for a small Central Arkansas company owned by a person she called “a staunch, right-wing fundamentalist Christian Republican.” She said she can never be out at work, or even give a hint about her sexuality, because she knows she’ll be fired. That forces her to edit every conversation, especially anything about her partner. She can never let her co-workers fully into her life, she said. That keeps her from forming the kind of close office relationships that most heterosexual people take for granted.

“I cannot discuss my family life at work,” she said. “I hear everyone else talking about theirs, but I know better than to open my mouth. If I do, I might not be fired for that, but it wouldn’t be long in coming. It’s very worrisome. It’s very stressful.”

V said that anti-LGBT bills like SB 202 send the same message to LGBT people that “sundown laws” sent to African Americans in the age of Jim Crow: We don’t want you here. “I’ve worked since I was 14 years old,” she said. “I pay my taxes. I vote. And they’re going to use tax dollars that I paid in, that I earned and contributed, to pass laws to discriminate against me? ...

It’s not like you’re going to make fewer of us. We’re not going to quit coming. It’s not going to stop happening. It’s not a preventative measure. And if it’s not that, it can be presumed that the only reason for this type of lawmaking is to punish us for being different.”

On the other hand, V said, an

LGBT protection ordinance for Little Rock would say that the city is more evolved in our thinking than the rest of the state. “It’ll show we’re more welcoming of anything that’s going to better our state,” she said. “It will promote our economy.

It’ll promote tourism. It’ll promote the idea that everyone is welcome here. It’s the difference between open arms and a slammed door in the face.”

She has lived in other states, V said, but she always comes home to Arkansas. Lately though, she said, being gay in Arkansas hurts. “It’s not that it just makes me angry or frustrated,” she said. “It actually hurts that there are people out there who want to punish me, or hate me, and they don’t even know who I am. I’m someone’s mother, and I’m someone’s daughter, and I’m someone’s grandchild, and I’m someone’s neighbor, and I’m someone’s friend.

I’m a person, too, and I have feelings just like everyone else.”

4) Because we owe it to the future.

Other than a mop of purple hair that makes him look like a character from a Japanese cartoon, Adrian Jones of Little Rock appears to be a pretty typical 17-year-old. He’s got a pet hedgehog. He likes to read. He likes to bake. He’s off to college next year, where he hopes to get a degree in early childhood education. But when he was 13, the same year he came out — first as gay and then as transgender (he was born biologically female) — Adrian Jones was bullied at school to the point that he tried to kill himself. He hasn’t attended regular school since. When we spoke to him in February, he was preparing for the last test for his GED. “My classmates were just angry and they lashed out,” Adrian said.

“Physically, verbally, emotionally, sexually. Just aggression. It’s a lack of education and awareness. Obvious there are always going to be people who choose to be ignorant. But from what I can tell, it was just a lack of understanding.”

While Arkansas is full of LGBT people whose childhoods include a horror show of rejection and bullying, Adrian’s story is included here because of what he said about Arkansas: Although he loves the state where he was born, the climate for

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LGBT people here means he will likely leave the state after college and never come back.

“I want to have kids,” Adrian said.

“I want to have a family. But this isn’t a place where I can see myself building a life. I’m torn between wanting to stay here and see things change and wanting that to happen and just wanting to get the hell out. I think I’m going to go to college in state and then I’m not sure what happens after that.”

Adrian said that while he’s not necessarily surprised that members of the Republican-controlled legislature put forth bills like SB 202 and HB 1228, it’s hard to understand the mindset of people who would try to legalize discrimination.

“You know they believe everything they’re saying,” he said. “These are the kind of people who are choosing to be ignorant — especially with HB 1228, which is insane. You can legally deny kids an education if they’re gay and you don’t want to teach them?”

Tim Jones, Adrian’s father, agrees.

He says that while it’s always been easy to see changes to the law as abstractions that don’t touch his dayto-day life, the anti-LGBT legislation this session feels like an intensely personal attack on someone he loves.

“Overall, I just see that kind of thing as a colossal exercise in selfishness,” Tim said. “In essence, it’s the lack of acceptance of other peoples’ essential humanity based on who they are. It’s making something that’s not about me, about me. It’s absolutely not about me. I don’t think that my opinions or philosophies or dearly-held beliefs are sufficient in and of themselves to deny someone else’s basic humanity.”

Adrian said that if the Little Rock Board of Directors can pass protections for LGBT citizens, it would mean a lot to young Little Rock residents like him.

“It would mean there’s hope, for one. It would be nice to have the reassurance that I can’t be fired from my job for being queer, or kicked out of my home for being queer. … I don’t want my existence to be threatened for things I can’t control.”

Tim, meanwhile, called an LGBT protection ordinance “a fundamental goodness.”

“It’s us saying that in spite of all the ugliness in our society, people believe in something bigger than themselves.”

Asked what he would say to members of the board who might be on

the fence about LGBT rights, Adrian said he’d ask them to consider why they ran for their seat in the first place — what they want from that position, and whether they’re really interested in helping the city and the community. “If so,” he said, “they might want to try helping all of the city, and all of the community.”

5) Because our neighbors are worth protecting, and worth fighting for.

As I heard a friend say the other day: If heaven is going to be full of people like Sen. Bart Hester, Sen. Jason Rapert, Rep. Bob Ballinger and other Arkansas politicians who have used part of their time this legislative session to fight for legalized homophobia, please push the down button for me.

Meanwhile, a lot of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Arkansans I’ve met over the past 13 years as a reporter are the bravest people I’ve ever known, many of them waging a daily war against a world that tells them that in order to be “normal” they have to be just like everybody else.

No matter whether you’re gay or straight, those people are worth defending. And if we want this to be a community where our children’s children will want to grow up, we need those people to stay. Right now, I guarantee you that many of them are considering packing the U-Haul for places where people don’t pass laws against who they are. An LGBT protection ordinance for Little Rock could keep at least some of them here.

Rita and Pam Jernigan are fixtures in the Little Rock LGBT community. Together for the past seven years, they’re plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit that recently saw Judge Kristine Baker strike down the state’s same-sex marriage ban (a ruling that’s on hold right now, pending appeal).

Rita and Pam have a lesbian daughter, Cory, who lives in Washington State. Talking to them, you can hear how much Cory’s life there speaks to their souls.

“She fled to Seattle,” Rita said, “and whenever she sees any of this [Arkansas anti-gay legislation] come across the news media, she’s shaking her head.

She’s like, ‘I thought I loved Arkansas.

Now, I’m thinking I can never return.’

That’s upsetting. Of course, in Seattle, it’s free and liberal, and everyone is

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An HRC survey of the Fortune 500 found that 89 percent expressly prohibit employee discrimination based on sexual orientation, with 66 percent extending protections to transgender employees. celebrated, not just tolerated.”

Pam agrees. She said that she’s glad Cory didn’t have to live in a place where she must deal with institutionalized discrimination. “These young people who are just starting to make their way in the world want to live somewhere that they don’t have to fight for years to get their rights.

They just want to start. Life’s hard

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enough when you’re a young adult trying to establish your life. The last thing they want to do is stay here and fight and claw their way to the rights they should have had from the get-go.”

Even though she’s in the fight in Arkansas for the long haul, even Kathy Webb feels the tug of more tolerant places. She says that while she hopes they’ll stay, she cannot blame www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 2015

19

young people who think there’s no future for LGBT people in Arkansas.

On a recent trip to Chicago, she was walking down the street when she saw an insurance agency billboard featuring two obviously gay men working on their house together. A little further along was a Starbucks with a rainbow banner inside. “I

snapped a couple of pictures and sent them to a couple of my friends here, one who was fired from her job a year and a half ago,” she said.

“I told them, ‘This is the street I’m on right now.’ “ An LGBT protection ordinance for Little Rock, Webb believes, could stop at least some of the gay and

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FIGHTING FOR LITTLE ROCK: City Director Kathy Webb, shown with Mayor Mark Stodola, believes a city LGBT protection ordinance would benefit the city in many ways by sending the right message.

progressive-minded brain drain to more tolerant states by sending a message that LGBT people are valued here, helping young people see the state as a home worth fighting for instead of a place to abandon.

Making a stand in the city of Little Rock, Webb believes, could encourage LGBT people and their allies to rise up all over the state.

“We’ve got to encourage those people,” she said. “Every time one person steps out, it can encourage another person to step out. Somebody might think: That’s not doing very much. But there is a ripple effect. If that person gives somebody else the courage to do it, and

then that person gives somebody else the courage to do it, it becomes huge.”

Before we parted, I asked Webb the question that had been on my mind since I first heard she was putting forward an ordinance to help protect Little Rock’s LGBT community: Had she ever been the victim of discrimination in employment or housing? It shocked me a bit when she teared up.

“Yes,” she said, and her voice quavered. “It was a long time ago, and it was not here. But I lost a job and the place I lived. ... I remember it vividly.

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retirement he expressed sorrow that he had once acceded to his friend Sen. Jim Sasser of Tennessee, who nearly dragged him down the aisle one day to change his vote against a pointless guncontrol resolution that Republicans had introduced to set up liberal Democrats.

Sasser told him if he didn’t change his vote to aye he would be beaten in the next election, but Bumpers remained deeply chagrined about changing his vote.

But about those criticisms of the Clintons: It is true that in his 13 political campaigns Bumpers never publicly criticized an opponent. His father told him that anyone who ran for public office deserved respect. But in private he was always free with his judgments about fellow politicians, friends and opponents alike, whom he usually found to be too political, too crass, or ignorant. At lunch one day in 1985 he told Arkansas’s most powerful businessman that he was “senile,” which nearly got him a wellfinanced opponent. The diary pages carried criticisms of several of his close colleagues and of President Reagan, whom he always thought was in the early stages of dementia.

The remark that got so much

attention and that will be repeated many times the next 18 months (the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorialized twice in the three days after it was reported that even the great Dale Bumpers said the Clintons had no character) was that he knew of ethical breaches by the Clintons in the 1982 campaign.

I think I know what he was talking about. Clinton had savaged his Democratic runoff opponent, honest Joe Purcell, for refusing to sign a petition for a massive Constitutional amendment to elect the state’s utility regulators and to enshrine tough utility rate rules in the Constitution.

Clinton said he had not decided how he would vote on the amendment but that he, but not Purcell, thought the people should be allowed to decide. It was not commonly known outside the Clinton circle that Bill and Hillary had helped write the amendment. Clinton endorsed it a couple of weeks before the election, but the Arkansas Supreme Court tossed it off the ballot.

Dale Bumpers was offended by the Clintons’ petty guile that summer, but it is safe to say that not a few politicians have done worse.

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Arts Entertainment AND

Jake Hinkson’s Arkansas noir Crime fiction writer from the Ozarks finds an audience abroad.

BY MATT BAKER

V

an Buren County native Jake Hinkson is probably better known as a writer overseas than he is in Arkansas. At the end of the month he’ll attend the Quais du Polar literary festival in Lyon, France, for the launch of the translated version of his first novel “Hell on Church Street.” In Australia, where his novella “Saint Homicide” was published, he’s attracted the attention of fiction fans down under. But this isn’t all that surprising, because his brand of fiction is crime noir. Crime writers often find their most loyal followers in the unlikeliest of places, often continents away.

Born in Little Rock and reared in the Ozarks, Hinkson majored in English and creative writing at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, studying under David Jauss. He worked at Lorenzen & Co. Booksellers, where he’d bump into Charles Portis, Dee Brown and Kevin Brockmeier, then left the state for North Carolina where he earned his master’s in fine arts at UNC-Wilmington under the watchful eyes of Clyde Edgerton and John Jeremiah Sullivan.

All four of Hinkson’s novels are set in Arkansas, and a newly released short story collection “The Deepening Shade” features many characters kicking around Arkansas a stone’s throw away from tragedy. Despite his scattered international readership and the fact that he’s lived a large part of his life outside the state, Hinkson is unquestionably an Arkansas writer. If there was such a thing as a state literary baton, he’d have it and nobody would be able to catch him. He can’t help his Natural State pedigree, and it shows. The Arkansas depicted in his novels is free of stereotypes and caricatures.

Instead, he builds his characters and stories around the mythology of this unclassifiable state. His Arkansas abounds with the most unique, eccentric, hilarious

and unforgettable characters you’ll ever meet, as well as a smattering of unhinged lone wolves who linger undetected JAKE HINKSON in rural gas station eateries.

“Hell on Church Street,” his first novel, remarkably renders an improbable situation in its first few pages: After the narrator savagely beats a man in Mississippi and flees to Sallisaw, Okla., he attempts to rob someone, who he deems an easy target because of his obese gait and defeated gaze, and then takes off driving with a gun to the fat man’s head; but the fat man, Geoffrey Webb, has absolutely nothing to lose in this life so he refuses the narrator’s demands to pull over and begins to bargain with his kidnapper about what’s going to happen next. Webb turns the tables on the narrator, pitching him on an idea, with payment, that simply requires that the narrator listen to his dreadful life story on the drive to Arkansas. Webb fully believes he’s going to hell. What did he do to deserve hell? For starters, he got involved in the preaching profession because he realized religion was the world’s greatest moneymaking scheme. “It hit me like divine inspiration,” he says. “Religion is the greatest graft ever invented because no one ever loses money claiming to speak for the invisible man in the sky. People already believe in him. They already accept they owe him money, and they think they’ll burn in hell if they don’t pay him. If you can’t make money in the religion business, you need to give up.” We learn, too, that while working as a youth pastor in Little Rock, he fell in love, so to speak,

BOOK NOIR: Arkansas crime-fiction writer Jake Hinkson’s first novel, “Hell on Church Street.”

and consummated a relationship with the senior pastor’s underage daughter. This single act, and the resulting collapse of his life, tested the limits of what a human being is capable of when pushed into survival mode — a kind of self-preservation and delusion that is instinctive to all humans no matter how horrific their deeds.

In noir fiction, the brute facts of the world are as black and white as the cinematic origins of the word itself. Right and wrong is decided by power, violence

and chance. There’s no middling morality that gets in the way of selfish human action. Reading Hinkson is very much like watching a wildlife documentary in which the brutality of bad luck unfolds in a split second, and there’s nothing right or wrong about it.

In his second novel “The Posthumous Man,” Elliot Stilling narrates, beginning with waking up in a Little Rock hospital after attempting to kill himself — a failed suicide. Upon leaving the hospital, he meets a girl and is quickly absorbed into CONTINUED ON PAGE 29

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A&E NEWS THE ARKANSAS TIMES FILM SERIES will welcome “Electrick Children” writer-director Rebecca Thomas when it screens her film Thursday, April 16, at the Ron Robinson Theater. Her 2012 debut feature follows a fundamentalist Mormon teenager who comes to believe she’s been impregnated by listening to a cassette tape, her first experience with rock music, and runs away to Las Vegas looking for answers. The New York Times called it “a playful urban fable, about the collision of country and city mice that suggests a variation of ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ “ and “neither comedy nor drama nor satire but a surreal melange infused with magical realism.”

The film, which opened at the Berlin International Film Festival and SXSW, stars Julia Garner, Rory Culkin, Liam Aiken and Billy Zane. Thomas, who like her protagonist grew up Mormon in Las Vegas, made the film while a student at Columbia University, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in 2012.

The movie starts at 7 p.m. and Thomas will give a Q&A afterward. The series is co-sponsored by the Little Rock Film Festival.

Looking ahead in the Arkansas Times Film Series, we’ll be showing the Levon Helm-narrated NASA epic “The Right Stuff” in May, Alfred Hitchcock’s spythriller masterpiece “North by Northwest” in June and cult-favorite documentary “Hands on a Hard Body” in July.

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ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY’S Department of English and Philosophy has announced the schedule for its 21st annual Delta Symposium Wednesday through Saturday, April 8-11. Lectures, presentations and performances will explore Delta history and culture, with a particular focus on blues and other regional music. This year’s event, themed “The South Goes to the Movies,” will include a Delta Film Festival (screenings of “A Face in the Crowd,” Elia Kazan’s “Baby Doll,” a documentary on the Carter Family and more), as well as scholarship focusing on Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, gospel and rockabilly, Creek and Seminole songs, Louis Jordan, Sonny Burgess and other topics.

FOLK MUSICIAN JOHN MCCUTCHEON will give a free concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday in ASU’s Riceland Hall and the symposium will host a Roots Music Festival starting at noon Saturday featuring Black Oak Arkansas, plus Little Rock’s Lucious Spiller and Jessie Charles Hammock. The schedule is at altweb.astate. edu/blues. www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 2015

23

THE TO-DO

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Mitski Miyawaki lives in Brooklyn and is a very talented songwriter, producer and performer who records under her first name. On her album “LUSH,” there were these delicate, private songs that worked like noise-canceling headphones — listening to them made you feel underwater or stuck in your own head. Her

next album was called “Retired from Sad, New Career in Business,” and made use of more sophisticated instrumental arrangements: cellos and trumpets and all of it a little discordant and loopy and breakable.

The underlying emotional temperature was self-lacerating and uncomfortable, but mostly inscrutable. Her latest is “Bury Me at Makeout Creek,” and it’s full-on noise pop (apparently at least partly a

concession to the realities of touring), but with more attention paid to dynamics than the genre usually affords. “It’s about being stuck, being impatient,” she told The Fader, “being bored to death, being angry with what you’ve been given, and being young and soft and defiant inside and not knowing what to do with that.” Recommended for fans of Bjork and punk rock.

“I like to tell people that Skillet is biggest-selling band that you’ve never heard of,” Skillet singer John Cooper told the Huffington Post not long ago. Cooper plays in Skillet with his wife, Korey.

They live in Kenosha, Wis. Their last album went platinum. They’re a Christian band. They’ve toured with Nickelback, and now they’re headlining Winter Jam 2015, which is a huge touring festival of Christian artists. Skillet is the biggest among them.

Let’s not dwell on their music. It’s sort of heavy.

I think they have a violinist. It reminds me of an older guy who lived in my neighborhood growing up, who had a chinstrap beard and an Incubus tattoo and wore bowling shirts and drove an old two-door Dodge Avenger covered in bumper stickers. I think his name was Doug.

“We’ve not been critical darlings,” Cooper also said. He thinks it might be because of their faith, though I tend to doubt it.

Glenn Beck has featured them on his website, TheBlaze, and said they had a “life-changing message.”

Also on the Winter Jam bill are Jeremy Camp and Francesca Battistelli.

THURSDAY 3/26

BLACK MILK

9 p.m. Stickyz. $12.

Imagine being a high school student in mid-’90s Detroit who likes messing around with old records.

And there’s Slum Village in your own town, a rap group making trippy origami collages out of Iron Butterfly and George Duke and The Fatback 24

MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

Band and Barney Kessel, whoever that is. J Dilla, who was Slum Village’s in-house beat-maker until he died in 2006, was the Ornette Coleman of rap production, and Black Milk is likely sick of being compared to him, though he acknowledges that it was something to see, and that Dilla is No. 1 on his list.

That’s a long shadow, though, and Black Milk, the producer born Curtis Cross, deserves better than to be stuck in it. Probably best known for his work with fellow Detroit eccentric Danny Brown, the great Pharoahe Monch and Slum Village’s Elzhi (plus a one-off with Jack White), Black Milk has created a universe

of his own over the course of about six albums, the most recent being “If There’s a Hell Below,” which features Bun B and Pete Rock. Now more into Flying Lotus than DJ Premier, he’s taken his sampling habits in a notably expansive, psychotropic direction, embracing a maximalist wall of sound.

IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 3/26

FRIDAY 3/27

FRIDAY 3/27-SUNDAY 3/29

YOUNG BUCK

DISCOVER THE DINOSAURS

9 p.m. IV Corners. $20.

Young Buck was never a particularly memorable rapper, but he has had a long and admirable career, an accomplishment that itself demands a degree of respect. Also there is his loyalty. He has been nothing if not loyal. Songs you might know

by Young Buck: “Shorty Wanna Ride”? “Let Me In”? The former had a mysterious, Moroccan-sounding beat by Lil Jon, a little winding snake-charmer of a riff. It was on his second album, “Straight Outta Cashville” (He’s from Nashville). Buck was on Cash Money Records for years, not that he has much to show for it. He left with Juvenile — they never got the attention they needed, the resources. They formed a group called UTP that also featured Wacko and Skip and Soulja Slim, who was later shot and killed at his mother’s house in New Orleans the night before Thanksgiving 2003. Buck himself was shot several times at his own home in Nashville in 2000. It was a break-in. He got a blood transfusion. He joined G-Unit, a rap group forged by 50 Cent, who grew up with his grandparents and eight uncles and aunts in a house in Queens. Here Buck found the family that he needed.

They made group mixtapes and supported each other and insulted each other’s rivals. 50 bought Mike Tyson’s old mansion in Connecticut and gave his friends their own rooms. He read Architectural Digest and divided the house into three sections, including a nightclub. Later he dismissed Buck for “inconsistent behavior.” I can’t imagine how that made Buck feel. Things got worse for him after that. The public bankruptcy hearings. The lawyers even wanted his name.

Called it an “asset.” Wasn’t much of an asset anymore. But that was then. G-Unit reunited last year, even Buck. This is as it should be. He has been nothing if not loyal.

Statehouse Convention Center. $16$22.

One way to get a sense of the kidfriendly touring exhibit “Discover the Dinosaurs,” which features animatronic recreations of species who lived between roughly 231.4 and 65 million years ago, is to read the Yelp reviews. Alex G, a 13-yearold who used to want to be a paleontologist, more or less loved it. “However,” he wrote, “the Mastodons are very small and not actual size at all. And there is no Saber Tooth Cat, which was disappointing.” Helen C called it a “load of crapola.”

Deez N, who I suspect is using a pseudonym, wrote, “The purveyors of that show really put the ‘mess’ in the Mesozoic Era.” Aroz, out in San Bernardino, claimed to have “seen better dinosaurs in coloring books,” and Jose, from La Puente, advised, “You’re better off taking the little ones to Chuck E. Cheese’s.” Others were even less forgiving. “Worst possible use of time and money,” Ivan M. wrote, a little hyperbolically. Still, it has its fans. Shane, who must not have noticed the tenor of the other reviews, asked, “Who doesn’t like 15 ft. tall flesh-eating reptiles?” Who indeed, Shane? Who indeed?

Comedian Ben Creed is at the Loony Bin at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, $7 (and 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, $10). Jacksonville, Fla., punk band Head Creeps is at Vino’s at 8 p.m., $5. Psych-rockers and 2015 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase finalists Open Fields come to the The Joint with Emma Branch, 9 p.m., $5. Spero, the band fronted by local songwriter Correne Spero, plays at White Water Tavern with Marvin Berry, made up of music scene mainstays Andy Warr, Will Boyd, Chris Michaels and Dave Hoffpauir.

FRIDAY 3/27 Colette Honorable, who heads the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, gives a lecture titled “The Clean Power Plan and the Evolving Power Grid” at the Clinton Presidential Center at 12:30 p.m. Local improv troupe The Main Thing presents its new comedy production “I Love You But You’re Sitting On My Cat” at The Joint in Argenta, 8 p.m., $22. Darlington, the long-running Dallas indie rock band formerly known as The Darlingtons, plays at Vino’s at 9 p.m., $5. Stiff Necked Fools, a reggaeinflected jam band from Shreveport, returns to the Afterthought at 9 p.m.

William Clark Green is at Stickyz with Ross Cooper, 9 p.m., $10.

SATURDAY 3/28

CLIMAX COMMUNITY: Darsombra is at White Water Tavern at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday with Auto-Dreamer and Mainland Divide, $6.

WEDNESDAY 4/1

DARSOMBRA

9:30 p.m. White Water Tavern. $6.

Together, Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton operate what they often call a “transcendental audio/visual rock duo.”

They call it Darsombra. Like David Byrne and Baltimore Club and Panda Bear and Wham City and John Barth and Edgar Allen Poe, they are from Baltimore. Have you ever mixed oils in a little glass tray over a slide projector?

Have you ever seen 16mm films overlap?

Are you afraid of dying? Do you frequent sweat lodges? Have you ventured into

the Amazon seeking the secrets of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine, which the Amerindian cultures collect to brew yagé, or ayahuasca? Darsombra are of the cosmic sort. They think big picture.

They think in terms of inner space. The brain is a screen, etc. Like hosts of an acid party in 1970s East Berlin, all of us with our beards and hand drums, they will bring their audio and visuals to the White Water Tavern Wednesday night.

Also performing will be Little Rock’s Auto-Dreamer and Mainland Divide, who seem like kindred spirits, brothers in the prism of the eternal now.

The annual conference on “Caddo Indian Cultural Traditions in the 21st Century” is at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia starting at 1:30 p.m., featuring traditional Caddo dances, lectures and meetings. Wes Anderson’s stop-motion epic “Fantastic Mr. Fox” screens at the Ron Robinson Theater at 2 p.m., $5. M.J. Rose, author of “The Witch of Painted Sorrows,” speaks via Skype at the Main Library at 3:30 p.m.

Atlanta-based blue-eyed-soul group The Shadowboxers are at Stickyz with Flight Machine, 9 p.m., $6. Little Rock metal group Red Devil Lies is at Juanita’s with Redefined Reflection and Minerva, 9 p.m., $8. Fayetteville Reggae group The Irie Lions is at Revolution with Memphis’ Chinese Connection Dub Embassy, 9 p.m., $7. The great Bonnie Montgomery is at White Water Tavern with Robert Banta, 9:30 p.m.

SUNDAY 3/29 The Diamond State Rodeo Association, the Arkansas branch of the International Gay Rodeo Association, will screen the documentary “Queens and Cowboys: A Straight Year on the Gay Rodeo” at Satchmo’s Bar and Grill, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., $5. Andy Frasco and the UN play at Stickyz, 7:30 p.m., $8. www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 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.

THURSDAY, MARCH 26

MUSIC

Black Milk, Nat Turner. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $10 adv., $12 day of. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz. com.

Head Creeps. Vino’s, 8 p.m., $5. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.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.

Kevin Black. Another Round Pub, 7 p.m. 12111 W. Markham. 501-313-2612. www.anotherroundpub.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Mitski, The P-47s. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $5. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www. juanitas.com.

Open Fields, Emma Branch. The Joint, 9 p.m., $5. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.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.

RockUsaurus. Senor Tequila, 7-9 p.m. 10300 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-224-5505.

Spero, Marvin Berry. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-370-7013. www.capitalbarandgrill.com.

Tragikly White (headliner), Josh Green (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf. com.

COMEDY

Ben Creed. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m., $7. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www. loonybincomedy.com.

EVENTS

Science After Dark: “Dinosaurs and the Science of Paleontology.” Museum of Discovery, 6 p.m., $5. 500 Clinton Ave. 396-7050, 1-800-880-6475. www.amod.org.

FRIDAY, MARCH 27

MUSIC

All In Fridays. Club Elevations. 7200 Colonel Glenn Road. 501-562-3317.

Club Nights at 1620 Savoy. Dance night, with DJs, drink specials and bar menu, until 2 a.m.

1620 Savoy, 10 p.m. 1620 Market St. 501-2211620. www.1620savoy.com.

Darlington. Vino’s, 9 p.m., $5. 923 W. 7th St. 50126

MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

CALLING ALL CREEPS: Jacksonville, Fla., punk band Head Creeps comes to Vino’s at 8 p.m. Thursday, $5.

375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

Katmandu (headliner), Richie Johnson (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf. com.

Kavanaugh. Another Round Pub, 8:30 p.m. 12111 W. Markham. 501-313-2612. www.anotherroundpub.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Route 66. Agora Conference and Special Event Center, 6:30 p.m., $5. 705 E. Siebenmorgan, Conway.

Stiff Necked Fools. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 9 p.m. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www. afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

Suite 1911, Rodney Block and The Real Music Lovers. Revolution, 10 p.m., $10. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www.rumbarevolution.com/new.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-370-7013. www.capitalbarandgrill.com.

William Clark Green, Ross Cooper. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $10. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

Winter Jam 2015. Featuring Skillet, Jeremy Camp, Francesca Battistelli and more. Verizon Arena, 7 p.m., $10. 1 Alltel Arena Way, NLR. 501975-9001. verizonarena.com.

Young Buck. IV Corners, 9 p.m. 824 W Capitol Ave.

COMEDY

Ben Creed. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., $10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

“I Love You But You’re Sitting On My Cat.” An original production by The Main Thing. The Joint, 8 p.m., $22. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

DANCE

Ballroom Dancing. Free lessons begin at 7 p.m.

Bess Chisum Stephens Community Center, 8-11 p.m., $7-$13. 12th & Cleveland streets. 501-2217568. www.blsdance.org.

Contra Dance. Park Hill Presbyterian Church, first and third Friday of every month, 7:30 p.m.; Fourth Friday of every month, 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

Discover the Dinosaurs. A family-friendly interactive exhibit featuring “up to 40 moving and replica museum quality dinosaurs.” Statehouse Convention Center, March 27-29, $16-$22. 7 Statehouse Plaza.

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 244-9690 or search “DYSC” on Facebook. LGBTQ/SGL Youth and Young Adult Group, 6:30 p.m. 800 Scott St.

LECTURES

“The Clean Power Plan and the Evolving Power Grid.” A presentation by Colette Honorable, Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Clinton Presidential Center, 12:30 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 370-8000. www. clintonpresidentialcenter.org.

SATURDAY, MARCH 28

MUSIC

Blackbird Revue, Woodson Lateral, Justin McGoldrick. Vino’s, 9 p.m., $5. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

Bonnie Montgomery, Robert Banta. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-3758400. www.whitewatertavern.com.

Club Nights at 1620 Savoy. See March 27.

The Irie Lions, Chinese Connection Dub Embassy. Revolution, 9 p.m., $7. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www.rumbarevolution.com/new.

Josh Green, Trey Johnson Band. Another Round Pub, 6 p.m. 12111 W. Markham. 501313-2612. www.anotherroundpub.com.

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 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.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.

Raising Grey (headliner), Gregg Madden (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m.

2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com.

Red Devil Lies, Redefined Reflection, Minerva.

Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $8. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com.

The Shadowboxers, Flight Machine. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $6. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-370-7013. www.capitalbarandgrill.com.

Velvet Dogs. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 9 p.m.

2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

COMEDY

Ben Creed. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., $10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-2285555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

“I Love You But You’re Sitting On My Cat.” An original production by The Main Thing. The Joint, 8 p.m., $22. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

EVENTS

“Caddo Indian Cultural Traditions in the 21st Century.” Annual conference featuring traditional Caddo dances, lectures and meetings.

Henderson State University, 1:30 p.m. 1100 Henderson St., Arkadelphia. www.hsu.edu.

Discover the Dinosaurs. See March 27.

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.

FILM

“Fantastic Mr. Fox.” Ron Robinson Theater, 2 p.m., $5. 1 Pulaski Way. 501-320-5703. www.cals. lib.ar.us/ron-robinson-theater.aspx.

BOOKS

M.J. Rose. A Skype appearance by the author of “The Witch of Painted Sorrows.” Main Library, 3:30 p.m. 100 S. Rock St. www.cals.lib.ar.us.

SUNDAY, MARCH 29

MUSIC

Andy Frasco and The UN. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 7:30 p.m., $8. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Stolas, Motion In Color, Lame Johnny, Harvester, Move Orchestra. Juanita’s, 7 p.m., $8. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com.

EVENTS

Discover the Dinosaurs. See March 27.

Pedalpalooza. River Market Pavilions, 11 a.m., free. 400 President Clinton Ave. 375-2552. www. rivermarket.info.

FILM

“Queens and Cowboys: A Straight Year on the Gay Rodeo.” Presented by the Diamond State Rodeo Association. Satchemo’s Bar and Grill. 1900 W. 3rd St. 501-725-4657. https://www. satchemosbarandgrill.weebly.com.

upscale

downtown All American Food & Great Place to Watch Your Favorite Event

day–Saturday

Piano Bar Tues

e Bar

Martini & Win

Of Wine - 335 Selections s - 35 By The Glas rld Wo e Th s ros m Ac - Fine Spirits Fro m Every - Scotch List Fro and Region Of Scotl Bourbons - 6 Single-Barrel

MONDAY, MARCH 30

MUSIC

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. 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. Richie Johnson. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf. com.

In The River Market District 501.324.2999

sonnywilliamssteakroom.com Free Valet Parking

#

TUESDAY, MARCH 31

MUSIC

Buckcherry, AEGES, The Revolutioners.

Juanita’s, 8 p.m., $23. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com.

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.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-372-4782. 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

Stand-Up Tuesday. Hosted by Adam Hogg. The Joint, 8 p.m., $5. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

DANCE

“Latin Night.” Juanita’s, 7:30 p.m., $7. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.littlerocksalsa.com.

Tweet shop LOCAL ARKANSAS TIMES www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 2015

27

AFTER DARK, CONT. Tickets available at www.juanitas.com

EVENTS

Trivia Bowl. Flying Saucer, 8:30 p.m. 323 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-8032. www.beerknurd. com/stores/littlerock.

ARTS

FILM

THEATER

“Phantom From 10,000 Leagues.” Vino’s, 7:30 p.m., free. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www. vinosbrewpub.com.

LECTURES

Amir Dossal. A presentation by the founder and chairman of the Global Partnerships Forum.

Sturgis Hall, 6 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1

MUSIC

Acoustic Open Mic. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-6631196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

Brian and Nick. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m. 2400 Cantrell Road. 501-375-5351. www.cajunswharf.com.

Darsombra, Auto-Dreamer, Mainland Divide. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $6.

2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com.

Drageoke with Chi Chi Valdez. Sway. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582.

Jazz in the Park: Rodney Block and The Real Music Lovers. River Market Pavilions, 6 p.m., free. 400 President Clinton Ave. 3752552. www.rivermarket.info.

Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-3242999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Open Mic Nite with Deuce. Thirst n’ Howl, 7:30 p.m., free. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com.

R.J. Mischo and His Red Hot Blues Band.

South on Main, 7:30 p.m., free. 1304 Main St. 501-244-9660. southonmain.com.

Roy Hale. Another Round Pub, 6:30 p.m.

12111 W. Markham. 501-313-2612. www. anotherroundpub.com.

Supersuckers. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8:30 p.m., $10 adv., $14 day of. 107 River Market Ave. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz. com.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-370-7013. www.capitalbarandgrill.com.

COMEDY

The Joint Venture. Improv comedy group.

The Joint, 8 p.m., $7. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

JR Brow. The Loony Bin, April 1-4, 7:30 p.m.; April 3-4, 10 p.m., $7-$10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

DANCE

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.

POETRY

Wednesday Night Poetry. 21-and-older show.

Maxine’s, 7 p.m., free. 700 Central Ave., Hot 28

MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

Springs. 501-321-0909. maxineslive.com/ shows.html.

Dr. Seuss’ “The Cat in the Hat.” Arkansas Arts Center, through March 29: Fri., 7 p.m.; Sat., Sun., 2 p.m., $12.50. 501 E. 9th St. 501372-4000. www.arkarts.com.

“Last Summer at Bluefish Cove.” The Weekend Theater, through March 28: Fri., Sat., 7:30 p.m., $16. 1001 W. 7th St. 501-3743761. www.weekendtheater.org.

“Mary Poppins.” Arkansas Repertory Theatre, through April 4: Fri., Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; Wed., Thu., Sun., 7 p.m.; Sat., 2 p.m., $35.

601 Main St. 501-378-0405. www.therep.org.

NEW GALLERY EXHIBITS, EVENTS GALLERY 221, Pyramid Place, Second and Center streets: “Internationally Artified,” works from private collections; “Sean Lecrone,” paintings, both open April 2, receptions 5-8 p.m. April 9. 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. gallery221@ gmail.com.

GALLERY 26, 2601 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Nancy Dunaway, Katherine Strause, recent works, through May 9. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 6648996.

HEARNE FINE ART, 1001 Wright Ave.: “Faces in Certain Places: An Exhibition of Fine Art Quilts,” quilts by Bisa Butler, through May 2, reception 5:30 p.m. March 27, talk by the artist 2 p.m. March 28. 372-6822.

L&L BECK ART GALLERY, 5705 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “Potpourri,”paintings by Louis Beck, through March; “Spring Flowers,” April exhibition, drawing for free giclee 7 p.m. April 16.

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: “Pragmatism + Design + Practice,” work by graphic design professor Kevin Cates, Gallery II, April 1-29; “UALR Student Competitive Show,” Delita Martin juror, through April 19, Gallery I. 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Sat., 2-5 p.m. Sun. 569-3182.

FORT SMITH REGIONAL ART MUSEUM, 1601 Rogers Ave.: “Dawn Holder: Several Collections of Commemorative Plates,” mixed media by Dawn Holder, April 2-July 19, reception 5-7 p.m. April 2 (free to members, $5 to nonmembers); “The Orlanda Series,” printmaking by Anne Reichardt, through May 24. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 479-784-2787.

CALL FOR ARTISTS The Fort Smith Regional Art Museum is accepting entries for a show themed “Man versus Machine: The Art of Expression and the Wired World” to run July 31-Nov. 1. Deadline is July 1. Submissions should be sent to FS RAM, 1601 Rogers Ave., Fort Smith 72901.

Call 479-784-2787.

The Arkansas Arts Council is accepting applications for its 2015 Individual Artist Fellowships program. Up to nine fellowships worth $4,000 each will be awarded in screenplay writing, choreography and sculpture or installation art. Deadline to apply is April 17. Applications are available at www. arkansasarts.org or call 324-9766.

MOVIE REVIEW

JAKE HINKSON’S ARKANSAS NOIR, CONT.

‘IT FOLLOWS’: Maika Monroe stars.

Sex and death ‘It Follows’ delivers scares.

BY SAM EIFLING

Y

ou think laughs are cheap? Try scares. The best horror flicks are the cheapest (as are the worst, just to be fair) in part because simple things are the scariest. Heights. Bees. The open ocean.

The dark. Scary, all, and free, abundant.

Death, perhaps the scariest of all, is free to anyone who waits. Horror movies are like Chinese food. Too expensive, and you know it’s going to be a letdown.

“It Follows,” an indie darling of the film festival circuit last year, is dirty-cheap and ghost-story-by-campfire scary, crafted in a throwback mold reminiscent of the trashiest slasher flicks of the mid-’70s. Difference is, director David Robert Mitchell (“The Myth of the American Sleepover”) has made something oddly sleek, affecting, contemplative and just flat-out creepy as hell. It will not sound particularly scary in the telling, but here goes: There’s a group of teenagers in suburban Detroit. One, Jay (the tomboyish, sultry Maika Monroe), goes on a date with a dude who shags her in the backseat of his muscle car and then reveals something unnerving: He has passed something onto her, a sort of curse, whereby a supernatural stalker will find her and kill her, appearing perhaps as a stranger or as someone she knows, but always walking in her direction.

She can divert it by having sex with another person, pass it along — yet once the thing has killed that person, it will come for her.

You could almost literally not have a simpler setup for a horror movie: Something bad is coming toward you at walking speed. So why is “It Follows” so unnerving? For one, we learn early on that when the thing reaches you, truly gawdawful things happen. For another, the relentlessness stirs suspense: Almost anything gets scarier as you see it coming. At a deeper level, though, “It Follows” practically begs you to impose meaning on its mechanism. The languid, late-summer feel of the film

suggests the fade of adolescence into adulthood, and sex as a gateway into that transformation is a natural. Is the walker in fact the unavoidable onset of age (and, concomitantly, death)? Is it as simple as a fatal sexually transmitted disease come to life? Frankly, the metaphor matters less than the fact that it’ll make you very dead, in very ugly ways.

Adults are oddly absent here, and aside from some police and perfunctory school figures, this is a world of children on the cusp of adulthood. When Jay starts freaking out about ever-advancing strangers no one else can see, her crew sticks by her and takes her seriously: her sister (Lili Sepe), her friend Yara (Olivia Luccardi) and her puppy-dog smitten childhood friend Paul (Keir Gilchrist). He gamely offers to do what he can to divert the curse, which of course would mean consummating the first kiss Jay and he shared as kids — Paul makes it clear that he would take that one for the team. The across-the-street neighbor dude, Greg (Daniel Zovatto), also offers to step into that breach, all of which gives “It Follows” a strange inner political intrigue. In the same moment, it depicts savvy teenagers who are making reasonable choices (to its credit, it does not include any “what the hell is she doing?” moments) and yet clearly illustrates the idiot-fog that sex brings to the teenaged male mind. Yes, sex with Jay will lead to your horrible, fear-soaked death. But on the other hand, you did get to have sex with Jay. Part of what makes “It Follows” such dark fun is the lizard brain is in full effect.

Run. Hide. Try to sleep. Stay aware. Then, run some more. It’s campy enough to stay light on its feet, scary enough that any laughter you find will turn soon enough into cringing. It’s a simple premise executed almost flawlessly, to great effect — the best sort of horror movie, packed with the stuff money so rarely buys.

ROLLIN’ THEM OUT: Native Arkansans Jake Hinkson has found a large following in farflung places with the crime novels “The Deepening Shade” and “The Posthumous Man.”

her life. When she questions the seriousness of his interest in her, he explains his existential plight: “I killed myself yesterday, Felicia. I ended my life. And then, somehow, I woke up this morning in a new life. This one here with you. So I don’t know what else to do. Either I live this life or kill myself again.” Thus, he becomes entangled in an elaborate robbery that, maybe predictably, turns twisted in more ways than one.

Crime novels often begin abruptly, with a character unwittingly dropped into the middle of a fictional universe where personal volition is irrelevant and only survival matters, much like a medieval gladiatorial spectacle. Life presents largely random episodes — not coherent narratives full of causation and significance — and characters must do the best they can with what they’re dealt and with whatever else might be missing. Perhaps one of the most famous examples is James M. Cain’s often quoted first line from “The Postman Always Rings Twice”: “They threw me off the hay truck about noon.”

Like the narrator in “The Posthumous Man” who is disappointed to find himself alive, the protagonist of Hinkson’s third novel, an ex-corrections officer who is released from prison, is anxious about how her fateful dice will roll, extinguishing any joy you’d expect she’d feel upon gaining her freedom.

She immediately finds herself accepting a mysterious job opportunity, to find a missing young woman, but soon the story and players involved expand to encompass some of the most powerful and corrupt leaders in Arkansas.

“Saint Homicide,” a novella, crashes us headfirst into the psychology of Daniel, a convicted murderer, and throws huge helpings of religious conviction

— a frequent Hinkson theme — into the ontological and theological mix. We follow along as he obsesses over God’s will and as this preoccupation finally dictates the climatic choice he makes.

Hinkson lives in Chicago, where he and his wife arrived after leaving behind the academic life in New Jersey. Nowadays, he focuses exclusively on his writing.

In addition to the upcoming French translations of “Hell on Church Street” and “The Posthumous Man,” he has an essay collection, “The Blind Alley: Exploring Film Noir’s Forgotten Corners,” scheduled for release this spring, and another novel forthcoming later in the year. He also writes about film for publications such as the Los Angles Review of Books, Mental Floss, Mystery Scene and Noir City. He cites Carson McCullers and Flannery O’Connor as major influences, as well as Jim Thompson, best known for his disturbing novel “The Killer Inside Me,” and perhaps the reigning master of the first-person psychopath.

I asked Hinkson recently why he wrote crime fiction, and he responded, “I was attracted to crime novels because of my interest in the religious notions of transgression and ruin, of sin and consequence. I don’t write about criminals. I write about sinners. So, for me, noir didn’t seem like a genre. It just seemed like the best way of exploring the things that interested me.”

Jim Thompson is credited with saying that there is only one plot: Things are not what they seem. This precisely sums up the world of Jake Hinkson’s fiction. He offers characters we are well acquainted with, then slowly sands down the layers of exterior gloss, exposing the unseen frailties in all of us.

After all, a lot of us are just an unlucky roll away from losing. www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 2015

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Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’ ON TUESDAY, MARCH 31, SIX CHEFS will compete in the eighth annual Diamond Chef Arkansas preliminary event, to be held at Pulaski Technical College’s Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute (CAHMI). The event is a benefit for the Pulaski Technical School Foundation.

Chefs competing in the preliminary are Billy Ginocchio, culinary instructor at CAHMI; Payne Harding, executive chef at Cache; Elliot Jones, executive chef at YaYa’s Euro Bistro; Angela Nardi, executive chef at Superior Bath House Brewery & Distillery; Justin Patterson, executive chef at Southern Gourmasian; and Jason Knapp, executive chef at The Green Leaf Grill.

The winner will battle 2014 Diamond Chef champion Chef Marc Guizol of the Capital Bar and Grill at the final event, slated for June 2 at the Statehouse Convention Center.

Admission to the preliminary event, which runs from 2 p.m. until 8 p.m. at Pulaski Tech’s CAHMI at 13000 Interstate 30, is free and open to the public.

There’ll be hors d’oeuvres and beverages from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. Tickets to the final are $200 and also benefit the college’s Foundation.

DINING CAPSULES

AMERICAN

1515 CAFE This bustling, business-suit filled breakfast and lunch spot, just across from the state Capitol, features old-fashioned, buffetstyle home cookin’ for a song. Inexpensive lunch entrées, too. 1515 W 7th St. No alcohol. $-$$. 501-376-1434. L Wed.-Fri., D Mon-Sat. 4 SQUARE CAFE AND GIFTS Vegetarian salads, soups, wraps and paninis and a broad selection of smoothies in an Arkansas products gift shop.

405 President Clinton Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-244-2622. BLD Mon.-Sat., L Sun. ANOTHER ROUND PUB Tasty pub grub. 12111 West Markham. Full bar, CC. $-$$. 501-313-2612.

D Mon.-Thu., LD Fri.-Sun. APPLE SPICE JUNCTION A chain sandwich and salad spot with sit-down lunch space and a vibrant box lunch catering business. With a wide range of options and quick service. Order online via applespice.com. 2000 S. University Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-663-7008. L Mon.-Fri. (10 a.m.-3 p.m.).

ARKANSAS BURGER CO. Good burgers, fries and shakes, plus salads and other entrees. Try the cheese dip. 7410 Cantrell Road. Beer and wine, CC. $-$$. 501-663-0600. LD Tue.-Sat. BELLWOOD DINER Traditional breakfasts and plate lunch specials are the norm at this lostin-time hole in the wall. 3815 MacArthur Drive.

NLR. No alcohol, No CC. $. 501-753-1012. BL Mon.-Fri. THE BLIND PIG Tasty bar food, including Zweigle’s brand hot dogs. 6015 Chenonceau 30

MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

H.A.M.CETTA: Pancetta, smoked chiles, farm eggs, pecorino, arugula, olive oil at Piro.

Pleasing Piro South Main pizza joint hits most of the right notes.

R

estaurants with ambitious menus always split us right down the middle. On the one hand, we admire any chef who wants to try and shake Little Rock out of the catfish and chicken-fried-steak mindset that still governs the local palate; we’ve also been burned too many times by joints that have read the latest big-name cookbooks and decided that they can bring that bigcity food down here and make it work.

So when we first looked at the menus provided by Piro Brick Oven and Barroom, we were excited and nervous all at once to see if the place could really do all it said it could.

We first tried the Farmer Salad ($10), a mix of fresh greens, pancetta and a poached egg that our server happily allowed us to split for a $1.50 up charge — and although we are generally against dish-splitting fees, this particular buck-and-a-half scored us a second poached egg, which we thought was fair. The eggs in question were poached perfectly, with a firm exterior that gave way to a creamy yolk that spilled out all over the bacon and greens. The pancetta was thick-

cut and flavorful. The only downfall to the whole dish was a distinct lack of salt in the dressing and on the egg, and although our server was generous with the freshly ground pepper, there was nary a salt shaker to be found.

The result was a salad that must only rise to the level of “almost,” because the elements here just needed a slight nudge to become excellent.

This theme would play out again with our second appetizer, the Bone Marrow ($12). The bones themselves were roasted to perfection, and we were happily hollowing out the luscious insides onto crisp, chewy crostini in no time. Again, small elements kept this dish from transcending “good” into “great,” namely the lack of a dish of coarse salt, an important element that enhances both taste and texture of bone marrow. The second downfall of the bone marrow dish was a bruised gremolata — the classic Italian condiment made of garlic, lemon zest and parsley — that looked more muddled than chopped. Still, these are small things that can be easily fixed; the cooking was on point.

The arrival of our Prosciutto Pizza

INVITING STOREFRONT: Piro Brick and Oven Barroom.

Piro Brick Oven and Barroom 1318 S Main St. 501-374-7476 pirolr.com

QUICK BITE Piro has embraced the latest trend in Little Rock dining: It offers an excellent selection of draft beers and wines on tap.

The restaurant is sporting local brews along with some of the best regional and national brands available in Arkansas, and wine lovers will love the freshness that wine from a tap provides.

HOURS 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. Friday through Saturday, 11 a.m. until 3 p.m.

Sunday.

OTHER INFO Full bar, all major credit cards accepted.

($16) set everything right. Piro tops its pizzas heavier than any Neapolitan-style pizza joint we’ve ever been to, which means this pie was loaded with high-quality prosciutto and fresh arugula, all resting on a bed of flavorful, chewy mozzarella. Fans of a lot of toppings will love this pizza; fans who prefer their Neapolitan-style pizzas to focus more on the crust might find the whole thing a little fussy and overwhelming. We thought the pizza was fantastic, but the thin crust can’t quite hold up to the heavy onslaught of toppings. This might be a case where less becomes more, especially with a rich topping like prosciutto. Still, this was not only a pizza worth trying, it

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

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

DINING CAPSULES, CONT. was a pizza worth trying again on a return trip.

Dessert was a tasty tiramisu ($7), and while we felt the price tag was just a touch too high for what we got, the creamy texture, heavy coffee flavor and chocolate sauce garnish were a tasty way to end our meal. Piro also offers Loblolly Ice Cream, a temptation at any time, but we were so full by the end of the tiramisu that we decided we’d come back and try a scoop on another day.

As a matter of fact, there is an entire section of sandwiches that we’re itching to return and try, from a portabello mushroom on foccacia ($9) to a fried mortadella sandwich ($12) that features a fried egg and black truffle, a triumvirate of ingredients so alluring we almost skipped the pizza for the sandwich.

The rest of the pizza menu looks equally tantalizing, with outlandishsounding pizzas like Gorgonzola and fingerling potato ($15) as well as more traditional offerings like a Margherita ($13). It is this balance of the familiar with the novel that really gives Piro an edge over its competitors, because with a menu like this, return trips are required in order to put the place through its paces.

The Piro space itself is quite attractive, making excellent use of a long and relatively narrow building. A bar down the left-hand side is lined with beer and wine taps, and bench seating runs the length of the opposite wall. Normally we’re not fans of a long bench on one side of the table with chairs across, but the tables at Piro were spaced well enough so as to not make dinner feel like a crowded ride on the bus. There has clearly been some thought put into the way the dining room looks, and we settled in easily.

Piro is the new kid in town, and while the restaurant is obviously feeling its way forward, there seems to be real skill in the kitchen. A few small tweaks to the seasoning and the way things are dressed and prepped could really vault this restaurant into the heady heights of the Little Rock elite — it isn’t far from that now. Pizza is a crowded market in our fair city, but having seen how Piro does it, we don’t think it’ll have any problem making its mark on the scene.

Blvd. Full bar, CC. $-$$. 501-868-8194. D Wed-Fri., LD Sat. BONEFISH GRILL A half-dozen or more types of fresh fish filets are offered daily at this upscale chain. 11525 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$$.

501-228-0356. D Mon.-Fri., LD Sat-Sun. BONEHEADS GRILLED FISH AND PIRI PIRI CHICKEN Fast-casual chain specializing in grilled fish, roasted chicken and an African pepper sauce. 17711 Chenal Parkway. Beer and wine, CC. $-$$. 501-821-1300. LD daily.

BRAVE NEW RESTAURANT Chef/owner Peter Brave was doing “farm to table” before most of us knew the term. His focus is on fresh, highquality ingredients prepared elegantly but simply. Ordering the fish special is never a bad

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DED R FA O R E S TA U R A N T

1619 Rebsamen Rd. 501-663-9734

choice. His chocolate crème brulee sets the pace. 2300 Cottondale Lane. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-2677. LD Mon.-Sat. BRAY GOURMET DELI AND CATERING Turkey spreads in four flavors — original, jalapeno, Cajun and dill — and the homemade pimiento cheese are the signature items at Chris Bray’s delicatessen, which serves sandwiches, wraps, soups, stuffed potatoes and salads, and sells the turkey spreads to go. 323 Center St. Suite 150. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$.

501-353-1045. BL Mon.-Fri. BUFFALO WILD WINGS A sports bar on steroids with numerous humongous TVs and a menu full of thirst-inducing items. The wings, which can be slathered with one of 14 sauces,

GREAT STEAK AND SEAFOOD

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New Orleans Style!

LITTLE ROCK’S MOST AWARD WINNING RESTAURANT

THE EVERYDAY SOMMELIER Your friendly neighborhood wine shop. #theeverydaysommelier

JOSEPH DROUHIN “CLOS DES MOUCHES” BEAUNE 1ER CRU ROUGE 2009 REG $109.99 - SPECIAL $82.99 “This one’s for all of you burgundy hounds, it’s an extremely rare treat to offer at this great price.” – O’Looney “93 points” – Robert Parker

Rahling Road @ Chenal Parkway 501.821.4669 • olooneys@aristotle.net • www.olooneys.com

are the starring attraction and will undoubtedly have fans. 14800 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-868-5279. LD daily.

BUTCHER & PUBLIC Sandwich and butcher shop featuring meats from animals locally raised and butchered/processed/transformed

by Travis McConnell. 521 Main Street. NLR. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. 501-410-7783. L Mon.-Fri.

BY THE GLASS A broad but not ridiculously large wine list is studded with interesting, diverse selections, and prices are uniformly reasonable. The food focus is on high-end items that pair well with wine — olives, hummus, cheese, bread, and some meats and sausages.

Happy hour daily from 4-6 p.m. 5713 Kavanaugh Blvd. Beer and wine, All CC. $$. 501-663-9463.

D Mon.-Sat. CAFE BRUNELLE Coffee shop and cafe serving sweets, tasty sandwiches and Loblolly ice cream.

17819 Chenal Parkway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$.

501-448-2687. BLD daily.

CAFE@HEIFER Serving fresh pastries, omelets, soups, salads, sandwiches and pizzas. Located inside Heifer Village. 1 World Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-907-8801. BL Mon.-Fri. CAPITAL BAR AND GRILL Big hearty sandwiches, daily lunch specials and fine evening dining all rolled up into one at this landing spot downtown. Surprisingly inexpensive with a great bar staff and a good selection of unique desserts. 111 Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-370-7013. LD daily.

CAPITOL BISTRO Serving breakfast and lunch items, including quiche, sandwiches, coffees and the like. 1401 W. Capitol Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-371-9575. BL Mon.-Fri. CATCH BAR AND GRILL Fish, shrimp, chicken and burgers, live music, drinks, flat screens TVs, pool tables and V.I.P room. 1407 John Barrow Road. Full bar. 501-224-1615.

CATERING TO YOU Painstakingly prepared entrees and great appetizers in this gourmetto-go location, attached to a gift shop. Caters everything from family dinners to weddings and large corporate events. 8121 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-614-9030. Serving meals to go: LD Mon.-Sat. CIAO BACI The focus is on fine dining in this casually elegant Hillcrest bungalow, though excellent tapas are out of this world. The treeshaded, light-strung deck is a popular destination. 605 N. Beechwood St. Full bar, All CC. $$$.

501-603-0238. D Mon.-Sat. CRAZEE’S COOL CAFE Good burgers, daily plate specials and bar food amid pool tables and TVs. 7626 Cantrell Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-221-9696. LD Mon.-Sat. CUPCAKE FACTORY About a dozen cupcake varieties daily, plus pies, whole or by-the-slice, cake balls, brownies and other dessert bars.

18104 Kanis Road. No alcohol, All CC. 501-8219913. L Mon.-Fri. CUPCAKES ON KAVANAUGH Gourmet cupcakes and coffee, indoor seating. 5625 Kavanaugh Blvd. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$.

501-664-2253. LD Mon.-Sat. DEMPSEY BAKERY Bakery with sit down area, serving coffee and specializing in gluten-, nutand soy-free baked goods. 323 Cross St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-375-2257. Serving BL Tue.-Sat. www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 2015

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Each Wednesday night, the Oxford American presents Local Live at South on Main. The FREE concert series welcomes top local and regional music talent to the South on Main stage. All shows start at 7:30 p.m.

APRIL 1 – R. J. MISCHO & HIS RED HOT BLUES BAND APRIL 2 – BENNIE WALLACE QUARTET APRIL 8 – CUTTY RYE APRIL 11 – BAD MATCH WITH GUESTS THE COASTS APRIL 15 – SEAN FRESH APRIL 22 – DAVID ROSEN SEPTET

Hey, do this!

Food, Music, Entertainment and everything else that’s

APRIL 2

THE MULLIGAN BROTHERS of Mobile, Ala., bring their unique blend of folk and Americana to Wildwood Park for the LIVE! at Wildwood concert series. The show starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20.

VIP seats are $50. For an extra $8/ person, dinner is provided by Gus’s Fried Chicken and will be served at 6 p.m. For more info, visit www. wildwoodpark.org.

APRIL APRIL 4

Korto Momolu

DESIGNERS CHOICE FASHION PREVIEW presents, “The World of Fashion” featuring collections by Korto Momolu, Anthony Lemon, Audrey Funk, Brandi Tate and more. Tickets are $40 for general admission and $65 for VIP, which includes a VIP reception at 6:30 p.m. with wine, drinks, heavy hors d’oeuvres, a personal meet and greet with host and designers, VIP seating and a swag bag. At 7 p.m., doors open for general admission, and at 7:30 p.m., it’s showtime. Purchase tickets online at www.dcfplr2015.eventbrite.com. n BOSWELL MOUROT FINE ART presents THREE ARCHITECTS, JOHN ALLISON, HANS FEYERABEND & ERIC MAURUS from 6-9 p.m., open to the public.

5815 Kavanaugh, 501.664.0030. www.boswellmourot.com

FUN!

APRIL 10

Superstar comedian KEVIN HART performs at 8 p.m. at VERIZON ARENA on his What Now? Tour. Tickets are $35.50-$99.50 and available through Ticketmaster online at www. ticketmaster.com. n Legendary country music singer VINCE GILL plays live at CHOCTAW CASINO in Durant, Okla.

Tickets are $40-$65. Doors open at 7 p.m. Showtime is 8 p.m. For more info, visit www.choctawcasino.com.

Kevin Hart

APRIL 11

Ride the ARKANSAS TIMES BLUES BUS to the JUKE JOINT FESTIVAL in Clarksdale, Miss. The price is $125 per person and includes round-trip bus transportation, live blues performances en route, adult beverages on board, lunch at a local restaurant in the Delta and admission to all events. The bus leaves Little Rock at 9 a.m. from the parking deck at 2nd and Main and returns late in the evening. Reserve your seat by calling 501-375-2985 or by emailing Kelly Lyles at kellylyles@ arktimes.com. n Country crooner JASON ALDEAN performs at VERIZON ARENA in North Little Rock. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

Show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $45.50-$77 and available through Ticketmaster online at www.ticketmaster.com.

APRIL 17-19 Tim Sparks

APRIL 16

Bella Vita Jewelry hosts a SPRING STUDIO SHOW from 5-7 p.m. at the shop located at 523 S. Louisiana St., Suite 175, in Little Rock. Inspired by a recent trip to Italy, designer Brandy Thomason McNair will showcase new mosaics, florals and more. n ARGENTA ARTS ACOUSTIC MUSIC SERIES presents TIM SPARKS on April 16 at The Joint in Argenta. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $20.

Tickets can be purchased at www. argentaartsacousticmusic.com or at the door (if seats are available).

The Argenta Arts Acoustic Music series features nationally renowned acoustic musicians on the third Thursday of each month except December. The website features information about the upcoming artists.

APRIL 24-26

Ballet Arkansas presents WHO CARES?, featuring the music of George Gershwin and choreography by George Balanchine, at the ARKANSAS REPERTORY THEATRE. Tickets are $30$35. For tickets and showtimes, visit www. therep.org.

APRIL 19

MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

The Arkansas Repertory Theatre presents MARY POPPINS. Showtimes are Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings at 7:00 p.m. with Friday and Saturday evening shows at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday matinee performances at 2:00 p.m. After the show on April 11, stick around for an after party with members from the cast at 10:30 p.m. in Foster’s Lounge. For a complete list of special events and for ticket information, visit www.therep.org.

APRIL 14

RIVERDALE 10, the only cinema in Arkansas that serves beer and wine invites you to attend THE WIZARD OF OZ, this month’s Classic Movie Series Feature Film at Riverdale 10 on Cantrell Road in Little Rock. The movie begins at 7 p.m.

Admission is only $5.

APRIL 14-MAY 16

MURRY’S DINNER PLAYHOUSE presents THE RAINMAKER, a hopeful tale of one family’s worries over a paralyzing drought, and a rainmaker who uses a little magic to bring rain and love. For showtimes and tickets, visit www. murrysdp.com.

With their hit PBS special now airing across the US and a Billboard Top 10 album “You Should Dream,” The TEXAS TENORS are becoming America’s favorite new act. Catch them live at UCA’s REYNOLDS PERFORMANCE HALL at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are $30-$40 and available online at www. uca.edu/publicapperances. n JUANITA’S presents RALPH STANLEY. Supporting acts include Rodge Arnold, Sioux City Kid, The Cons of Formant and Kassi Moe. Sponsored by Arkansas Times, showtime begins at 8 p.m., 614 President Clinton Ave. www. juanitas.com for more information

Fleetwood Mac

Vince Gill

KEVIN COSTNER & MODERN WEST play CHOCTAW CASINO in Pocola, Okla.

Tickets are $49.90-$90 and available through Ticketmaster online at www. ticketmaster.com.

APRIL 19, 20 AND 23

THE REP presents ARTWORKSXXVII, the annual art auction with work by Central Arkansas’s most notable artists. Proceeds from donated art sold at the auction benefit the Rep’s general operating fund.

Tickets are $50. The silent auction starts at 6:30 p.m. with music, drinks and light bites. The live art auction at 7:30 p.m. For tickets and more info, visit www.therep.org.

THE ANNUAL STUDENT COMPETITIVE is now on display at UALR GALLERY I. Works representing all studio disciplines being taught at UALR are being considered, including drawing and design, painting, printmaking, graphic design and illustration, photography, textiles, metals, furniture design, sculpture and ceramics. Upcoming exhibits include a show by Kevin Cates, UALR Graphic Design Professor, April 1-29 in Gallery II and the BFA Group Exhibition, April 27-May 8 in Gallery I. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and Sunday 2-5 p.m.

Ralph Stanley

RIVER CITY MEN’S CHORUS presents its spring performances at TRINITY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH located at 1101 North Mississippi in Little Rock. Show times are 3 p.m. on Sunday and 7 p.m. on Monday and Thursday.

Shows are free and open to the public. All are welcome. For more information, visit www. rivercitymenschorus.com.

APRIL 25

APRIL 15

THROUGH APRIL 19

APRIL 18

The show goes on as FLEETWOOD MAC plays VERIZON ARENA in North Little Rock on a rescheduled date; the band was previously set to perform on March 11 and postponed due to illness. All tickets will be honored. Doors open at 7 p.m. Show starts at 8 p.m.

For more info, visit www. verizonarena.com.

Celebrity Attractions presents the Tony Award winning MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET live at the MAUMELLE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER. The musical is set on December 4, 1956 when a twist of fate brought Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley together at Sun Studios in Memphis in what became known as one of the greatest jam sessions in rock ‘n roll history. Tickets go on sale April 2 through Ticketmaster at www.ticketmaster.com. For more information, visit www.celebrityattractions.com.

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THROUGH APRIL 12

APRIL 26

APRIL 23

Legendary Grammy Award winning songwriter MARC COHN (“Walking in Memphis”) performs at the CABE FESTIVAL THEATER as part of Wildwood Park’s LIVE! at Wildwood concert series.

Reserved seats are $35.

VIP seats are $75. For tickets and more info, visit www.wildwoodpark.org.

THE 4TH ANNUAL ETSY FEST will take place from 11 a.m.-7 p.m. in Hillcrest on Kavanaugh Blvd. from Walnut to Palm with dozens of local artists selling one-ofa-kind handmade wares plus live music and food vendors.

APRIL 30

APRIL 23-26

Prestigious award-winners, Grammy nominees, filmmakers, journalists and artists are among the presenters at the 12TH ANNUAL ARKANSAS LITERARY FESTIVAL, a weekend of panels, workshops and parties in downtown Little Rock. Festival authors and local writers unite to read from their works at the open mic style Pub or Perish on Saturday, April 26 at 7 p.m. at STICKYZ.

The annual SUPPER AND SOUL benefitting Arkansas Baptist College will be held on Thursday, April 30 at the CLEAR CHANNEL METROPLEX in Little Rock. The reception and silent auction begins at 6 p.m. Dinner is at 7 p.m. followed by live entertainment by Con-Funk-Shun at 8 p.m. Tickets are $250. For tickets, call Devae Lucas at 501420-1206.

WEATHERING THE STORM S

pring is here, and in Arkansas it also means the beginning of a potentially deadly tornado season. As we’ve seen over the years, tornadoes can hit anywhere at any time, causing damage to homes, businesses and schools and even devastating loss of life. When it comes to tornadoes, the best defense is being prepared. In this special Arkansas Times section, we’ll give you some handy information on what to do before, during and after a tornado to help minimize damage and injury. We’ll have tips from the government agencies such as FEMA and experts here at home. Tornado season is coming – are you ready?

RESOURCES

Where to go and who to call for information before and after a tornado

AMERICAN RED CROSS redcross.org 1-800-RED-CROSS ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT adem.arkansas.gov 501-683-7000 FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY – EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS ready.gov 1-800-621-FEMA C&F FLOORING AND RUG GALLERY candfcarpet.com 501-399-9909 METRO DISASTER SPECIALISTS metrodisaster.com 501-758-2845 TORNADO SHELTER SYSTEMS tornadosheltersystems.com 501-941-1005

TIPS ON SELECTING THE RIGHT STORM SHELTER OR SAFE ROOM

A

s we’ve seen from numerous tornadoes that hit Arkansas, the average building, although built to code, is not built to withstand the massive force exerted by winds from a tornado. For decades, people have relied on tornado shelters and safe rooms to protect them from storms. If you’re in the market to build a new shelter or safe room, Tornado Shelter Systems, a local company that specializes in tornado protection systems, has a few tips to keep in mind:

■ Buy from a reputable company.

One good indicator of reliability is to look up the company’s rating with the Better Business Bureau.

■ There are two types of shelters:

above ground and below ground.

Have a survey done of your site so you and the company you work with can determine the best type of shelter for your site.

■ Evaluate the size and covering of the vent holes. Make sure the holes are well protected from being covered by mud and debris, which can block air going into the shelter and create a life-threatening situation.

■ Determine if cell phones and radios can receive signals in the shelter.

■ If there is a person with disabilities who will use the shelter, make sure the doors can accommodate wheelchairs or scooters.

■ If you plan on using the safe

room for protection against a home invasion, make sure the room does not have removable panels.

■ Be sure to buy your shelter early in the season – the time of greatest demand is after a tornado hits.

■ Find out how the shelter is made. Tornado Shelter Systems’ shelters are made with full cage construction, which means even the corners are made with quarterinch, 2-by-2 inch steel tubing. Also, the outside skin corners are bent, not welded, which adds strength.

■ When you purchase a shelter, you may be eligible for a $1,000 grant from the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, so ask the shelter company about the details.

SIGN UP FOR SMART911 It can save your life

S

mart911 is a free service that can help first responders better assist you or other members of your household in case of an emergency, including a natural disaster like a tornado. All you have to do is go to smart911.com and complete your safety profile. Once it’s complete, if you ever place a 911 call from a phone confirmed with the account, the 911 call center receiving the call will have access to your profile if you participate in the program. Your privacy is secured, and only 911 operators in jurisdictions that participate in Smart911 will have access to your information when you call.

The Arkansas Department of Emergency Management (ADEM) subscribes to Smart911’s advanced Emergency Management system. Because of this you can make information within your profile available to ADEM in the event of an emergency, which allows them to search for individuals in need based on criteria in their profile. An example of this would be individuals relying on electricity for medical needs or those who need assistance evacuating in a natural disaster.

Participating helps ADEM better prepare for and respond to emergencies.

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MARCH 26, 2015 MARCH 26, 2015

33 33

TORNADO PREPAREDNESS CHECKLIST

U

se this checklist from the Arkansas Departme n t o f E m e rg e n c y Management to make sure you have everything you need in place to be prepared for a tornado. Advance planning and quick response are the keys to surviving a tornado or severe weather.

BEFORE A TORNADO ■ Designate an area in the home as a shelter, and practice having everyone in the family go there in response to a tornado threat.

■ Flashlight and extra batteries ■ Portable, battery-operated radio and extra batteries ■ First aid kit and manual ■ Emergency nonperishable food and water (enough for three days, with one gallon per person per day of water) ■ Non-electric can opener ■ Essential medicines ■ Cash and credit cards ■ Sturdy shoes, clothing ■ Develop an emergency communications plan -- In case family members get separated from one another during a tornado (a real possibility during

the day when adults are at work and children are in school), have a plan for getting back together.

■ Ask an out-of-state relative or friend to serve as the family contact. After a disaster, it’s often easier to call long distance than locally.

■ Make sure everyone in the family knows the name, address and phone number of the contact person.

DURING A TORNADO ■ IF YOU ARE IN A STRUCTURE (e.g. residence, small building, school, nursing home, hospital, factory, shopping center, high-rise building): Go at once to the basement, storm cellar or the lowest level of the building If there is no basement, go to an inner hallway or smaller inner room withoutwindows,such as a bathroom or closet.

Get away from windows.

Go to the center of the

RESPECT THE STORMS BUT DON’T BE AFRAID ANY MORE.

When the storm hits, or the intruder comes, what gives you peace of mind? The smart way is inside a solid steel saferoom by MightySAFE. Capable of withstanding even the worst F5 tornado, the MightySAFE is brought to your home as one reinforced steel unit, and securely fastened to your slab in as little as one hour.

Questions? Call (501) 941-1005 or visit www.tornadosheltersystems.com

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room. Stay away from corners, as they tend to attract debris.

Get under a sturdy piece of furniture such as a work bench or heavy table or desk and hold on to it.

Avoid places with wide-span roofs such as auditoriums, cafeterias, large hallways, or shopping malls.

Use your arms to protect your head and neck ■ IF YOU ARE IN A MOBILE HOME: When a tornado warning is issued,

take shelter in a building with a strong foundation. Or, if one is not available, lie in a ditch or low-lying area a safe distance away from the mobile home.

■ IF YOU ARE OUTDOORS: If possible get inside a sturdy building with a concrete foundation.

If shelter is not available, or there is no time to get indoors, lie in a ditch or low-lying area or crouch near a strong building.

Be aware of the potential for flooding.

■ IF YOU ARE IN A CAR: NEVER TRY TO OUTRUN A TORNADO IN YOUR CAR OR TRUCK! Get out of the car and take shelter in a nearby building.

If there is no time to get indoors, get out of the car and lie in a ditch or low-lying area away from the vehicle.

Again, be aware of the potential for flooding.

AFTER A TORNADO ■ Remain calm and patient. Put your plan into action.

MORE “WEATHERING THE STORM” ON PAGE 38

AFTER THE STORM What to do if your property is damaged ■ Check for injuries.

■ Give first aid and get help for seriously injured people.

■ Listen to your battery-powered radio for news and instructions.

■ CHECK FOR DAMAGE Use flashlights. Don’t light matches or use electrical switches if you suspect damage.

Smell for gas leaks, starting at the water heater. If you smell gas or suspect a leak, turn off the main gas valve, open windows, and get everyone outside quickly.

Shut off any other damaged utilities. (A professional must turn gas back on.)

Clean up spilled medicines, cleaners andflammableliquidsimmediately.

■ Confine or secure your pets.

■ Call your family contact—don’t use the phone again unless it is an emergency.

■ Check on your neighbors, especially elderly or disabled persons.

■ Make sure you have an adequate water supply in case service is cut off.

■ Stay away from downed power lines.

E

ven if the tornado doesn’t make a direct hit, property in surrounding areas can sustain significant damage, and the process to repair or replace structures can be costly and involve a lot of paperwork. Unfortunately, there are also unscrupulous individuals who prey on people’s misfortune, so it’s important to deal with a reputable, knowledgeable company to make sure your property is restored in a safe and economical way.

One company you can count on is Metro Disaster Specialists. They’ve been in the business of restoring homes and businesses due to natural disasters, flooding and fires for more than 30 years, and can make sure you get back to normal life as soon as possible. Metro Disaster Specialists’ employees are certified in a variety of fields related to the company’s mission and the firm has completed more than 16,000 restoration jobs in their history. They’re a full-service company that can handle everything from storing your personal property to remediating mold to restoring furniture.

As pioneers in the disaster recovery business, Metro Disaster Specialists

advises people to take an inventory of their possessions. Having this information will make the recovery process a lot easier, as well as helping to speed up the insurance claim process. So take an inventory of your possessions. Walk around your house and make a list of

all your possessions and upload it to a cloud storage system like Dropbox or Google Drive, so you can access it from anywhere. If writing down a list is too time-consuming, make a video inventory you can upload to the cloud. Once the immediate danger has passed, you will have an accurate guide to check against to determine what’s missing, damaged beyond repair or what can be restored.

GET THE WATER OUT

Carol Auger, owner of C&F Flooring and Rug Gallery, says that the floors in your home will take a beating during a natural disaster because of water damage, either because of flooding from broken plumbing or rain blown in from roof or window damage.

“Water is not a friend to hardwoods, laminate, carpet or vinyl,” Auger says.

“Tile and natural stone sometimes fare better, though it all depends on the extent of the damage.”

Once you determine your home is salvageable, the first step is to remove as much of the water as possible and have a flooring professional assess the damage, Auger says. Then you can make a plan on repair or replacement.

“Having been through a house fire that was a complete loss, I understand how devastating this can be,” she says. “Keep in mind that the process and investment of getting your floors back in optimal condition or replacing them is an important step in the future and value of your entire home.”

TAKE CARE OF YOUR PETS ■ Bring outdoor pets inside ■ Include pet supplies in your emergency kit, such as water, food, treats, litter and litter box or puppy pads, and a crate or carrier.

■ Make sure your pet is wearing a collar with an identification tag. To increase your chances of finding your pet if they get lost, have them microchipped.

■ Train your pets to enter the tornado shelter or safe room or practice getting them in there.

■ Know how to secure your pets quickly and safely.

■ Know where your pets’ favorite hid-

ing places are and how you can remove them safely.

■ If you have to evacuate, take your pets and supplies with you, even if you think it may only be for a couple of hours.

■ If your home is damaged, keep dogs on a leash and cats in their carrier. Do not allow them to roam loose because they may get disoriented and become lost.

■ Try to get your pets back into their normal routine as soon as you can, and be patient with any behavior problems that occur. If you need extra help, consult your vet or a trainer.

SECONDS SAVE LIVES! BE SMART ABOUT SAFETY No one plans to call 9-1-1, but now you can plan ahead.

C&F Flooring and Rug Gallery 2206 Cantrell Rd (in front of Cajun's Wharf) 3P[[SL 9VJR (9 ࠮ ࠮ ^^^ JHUKMJHYWL[ JVT

Before an emergency, give 9-1-1 and emergency responders valuable information that will only be available when you call 9-1-1.

CREATE YOUR FAMILY’S SAFETY PROFILE NOW.

SIGN UP TODAY

It’s free, private and secure. www.Smart911.com ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT www.arktimes.com www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 2015 MARCH 26, 2015

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stylesheet

by

APRIL EDITION N

Book lovers

unite!

Join Box Turtle and local author, C. Frazier Jones, during the Hillcrest First Thursday event on April 2 from 5-8 p.m. A Hillcrest resident, Jones will be at the store to sign copies of her book, Things We Thought We Saw in the Water.

Copies of the book are available at Box Turtle and also on Amazon.

BOX TURTLE 2616 Kavanaugh Blvd., 661.1167 shopboxturtle.

In

full bloom

Florals aren’t just for the ladies and the folks at Culture Clothing can help get the look just right! Jump into spring with pops of pastels like this short-sleeve shirt from Seven Diamonds. Paired with a cut-off chino from RVCA, Nixon white gator belt and electric sunnies, it’s the perfect outfit for chilling on a patio, grilling or a night on the town.

CULTURE CLOTHING 11220 N. Rodney Parham Rd., Ste. 3, 246.5466 shopcultureclothing.com

SAT APR

04

Presents Featured Designers

Anthony Lemon, Audrey Funk, Brandi Tate, Mariya Wright, Remi Hodges, Shelia Scott, Stephanie Thomas, Teiraney J. Ousley, & Korto Momolu

VIP Red Carpet Reception 6:30pm Doors open for General Admission 7:00pm Show begins at 7:30pm

General Admission | $40

Purchase your tickets today at Jeante, Uncle T’s, Butlers Furniture Depot or online at www.dcfplr2015.eventbrite.com. dchoicefashion 36 36

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dchoicefashion

ARKANSAS TIMES ARKANSAS TIMES

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CASUALLY DRESSING THE BEST DRESSED MEN IN LITTLE ROCK 14810 Cantrell Road, SUITE 120 Little Rock, AR 72223 (501) 367-8280 • Shopthelabel.biz

5709 KAVANAUGH BOULEVARD LITTLE ROCK, AR 72207 WWW.SHOPEMBERFASHION.COM 501.225.3220

Spring Show

Edgy

Chic

Decked out

Leather cuffs are still a big trend and are a chic way to add some edge to spring wardrobes. Recycled from vintage belts, these leather cuffs by local artist Lael Foster are sure to impress. Embrace a relaxed and stylish look at Ember Boutique where you can always find the best handmade jewelry in Little Rock. Join them during Third Thursday in the Heights for after-hours shopping!

EMBER 5709 Kavanaugh Blvd., 225.3220 shopemberfashion.com

Pampered skin =

decor

Style your body, style your patio at The Label!

Warmer weather means outdoor socializing and this patio set by Heavy Metal Hawgs is the perfect way to show your love for the Razorbacks. Locally made in Jonesboro, the set includes two chairs.

Other fantastic Razorback décor is also available.

Shop the Cantrell location until their big move to Pleasant Ridge in May. THE LABEL 4810 Cantrell Rd., Ste. 120, 367.8280 facebook.com/thelabellittlerock

healthy skin

Friday, April 3rd • 10-6 At

M-F 10-6 • SAT 10-5 2616 KAVANAUGH BLVD. LITTLE ROCK 501.661.1167 | WWW.SHOPBOXTURTLE.COM

RVCA | NIXON | HIPPYTREE | VOLCOM | AG IRON&RESIN | WESC | DIESEL | SCOTCH&SODA

With warmer weather (and fewer clothes!), the best accessory one can have is great skin, so now’s the time to pamper yourself in a full range of bath and body care. Created using the finest natural ingredients and aromatherapy concepts, PRE’ de PROVENCE products are meticulously made in Provence from the purest vegetable oils, rich shea butter and other natural ingredients. The Southern Fox has a full range of the product line to help get your skin its best. Find other unique items like the latest in spring fashion, accessories, jewelry, homemade jams and more.

THE SOUTHERN FOX 304 Main St., NLR, Inside Galaxy Furniture 375.DESK (3375)

ride Ride LOCAL ARKANSAS TIMES

NEW SPRING ARRIVALS! PROVISIONS FOR THE CULTURED GENTLEMAN

304 MAIN ST. (INSIDE GALAXY FURNITURE) • 375-DESK (3375)

11220 N Rodney Parham Rd. Suite 3 501.246.5466 shopcultureclothing.com ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT www.arktimes.com www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 2015 MARCH 26, 2015

37 37

STYLE TALK

FULL NAME: Jamie Richardson, owner, Ember Boutique Lexy Baden, model

Where are you from? Jonesboro What is your occupation? Owner of Ember Boutique Single or Married? Married with one son and a daughter on the way!

Favorite color for spring? I’m experimenting with soft neutrals this spring: dove grey, blush, sandy taupe.

Ember’s newest clothing line you’re most excited about?

Karina Manarin. She’s a textile artist from Arizona who uses a natural hand-dyed process to create one-of-a-kind handmade pieces.

Hottest item this spring? A beachfriendly, flowy maxi dress.

A clothing faux pas that isn’t true?

Your shoes and handbag have to be a perfect match.

The best part about having a shop in Little Rock? We have so many loyal and laid-back customers with a genuine love and curiosity for fashion. They make this job fun!

Favorite park in Little Rock? Two Rivers Favorite restaurant in Little Rock? The Pantry Favorite restaurant not in Little Rock? The Shed in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Name one necessary extravagance. Massages!

Other than Ember, where is your favorite place to shop?

(Clothes, shoes, gifts) I love needsupply.com, and I always buy gifts at Haus Werk.

Exciting things to come at Ember? I’m focusing on buying from small American design studios and independent artists this year. By supporting these entrepreneurs who are committed to their vision, Ember is providing conscious products that benefit everyone involved, from designer to consumer! Look for sustainable, organic and/or handmade goods on our floor.

Favorite local artist? Michelle Rhodes, Myrrh Handmade Jewelry.

Favorite season for clothes?

Spring! I’m always ready for that sense of renewal.

Favorite Neighborhood? The Heights!

Favorite Cocktail? I love the Sidecar at Big Orange Favorite Vacation Spot? Santa Fe – it’s an incredible blend of Spanish, Native American and New Age influences.

Favorite form of social media?

Professionally: Facebook and Instagram. Personally, I try to stay unplugged.

Where did the name Ember come from? Ember, to me, is an image of the glowing human spirit.

hearsay ➥ POUT, located in the Pleasant Ridge Town center, will host a special Murad skin care event from noon to 4 p.m. April 9. Those who book an appointment for the event will receive a custom, in-depth skin analysis and a customized skin care routine from a Pout staff member and a Murad educator. There will also be a free gift with purchase. Call 501-224-8222 to schedule your appointment. ➥ DANDELION, the herb, spice and tea shop of your culinary and natural health dreams, is now open until 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. ➥ WHITE GOAT recently announced its new Bridal Club, which offers special perks for brides-to-be who register at the store. There’s also a wedding specialist available at the Conway store to help you make selections from White Goat’s collection of furniture, art and décor items. ➥ DESIGNERS CHOICE FASHION PREVIEW presents “The World of Fashion” beginning at 7 p.m. April 4 at the Metroplex Event Center. Hosts for the event are actor Morris Chestnut and Fox 16 news anchor Donna Terrell, and the show will feature designers Anthony Lemon, Audrey Funk, Brandi Tate, Mariya Wright, Remi Hodges, Shelia Scott, Stephanie Thomas, Teiraney J. Ousley, and Korto Momolu. General admission tickets are $40; VIP tickets are $75 and include admission to the VIP reception. Proceeds will benefit the Timmons Arts Foundation.

Purchase tickets at Jeante, Uncle T’s, Butlers Furniture Depot or online at www.dcfplr2015.eventbrite.com. ➥ The third annual PEDAL-PALOOZA BICYCLE SWAP MEET is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 29 at the River Market Pavilions. The event will host vendors and bicycling enthusiasts ready to sell, buy or swap bikes, and you can also donate an old bike to Recycle Bikes for Kids, a nonprofit that refurbishes bikes for kids in need. ➥ In the market for a farm table? How about a custom table built to your specifications? OLIVER’S ANTIQUES in Jacksonville is the place to go. Call 501-982-0064 for more information.

MORE “WEATHERING THE STORM”

WITHSTANDING THE STORM Make sure the doors on your shelter won’t fail

T

ornado season looms near, and your family’s safety is your first concern. Having a proper tornado shelter can give you peace of mind in knowing that when violent weather threatens, you are prepared.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has comprehensive guides for construction of tornado shelters, both for residential and community applications, and one of the most important components of an effective shelter is the door. A door that has been designed to withstand the extreme wind and debris impact that tornadoes produce is crucial to the safety of the shelter’s occupants.

Texas Tech University has pioneered wind research and has developed testing criteria for tornado shelter components, including doors. Their test facility in Lubbock, Texas, has conducted pressure and impact testing on Securall StormSafe doors to determine 38 38

MARCH 26, 2015 MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES ARKANSAS TIMES

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

their ability to withstand these extreme forces. Using a Securall StormSafe door as part of the construction design in your home, small business, or community safe room will provide the protection you need in the event of a tornado.

Contractors and homeowners who are constructing a tornado shelter must be vigilant and insist that the door they choose has been approved as a tested shelter component by Texas Tech University’s National Wind Institute. The use of anything less could have disastrous results.

Tragically, one death in Mayflower occurred when the storm door on a home’s above ground residential shelter was impacted by storm debris – and failed. From outward appearances, the door appeared to meet FEMA’s recommended design. Upon further examination at Texas Tech University, the door was revealed to be far

below the minimum FEMA 320 design guidelines. It was an 18-gauge steel door with a honeycomb core and it included a 16-gauge frame. Although this is considered to be a heavy duty door in commercial construction, it is not sufficient protection from extreme weather events.

Securall StormSafe doors are 12-gauge door panels reinforced with 12-gauge stiffeners and are hung on 12-gauge frames. The frames are designed to be firmly anchored in the wall at 13 locations. The door’s hardware is another crucial element in its ability to withstand a tornado. Heavy-duty, grade 1, windstormrated hardware is an important design element of any safe room door.

In addition to doors, Securall also manufactures pre-assembled, above ground steel tornado shelters for residential and community safe rooms at their factory in La Porte, Ind.

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Young female boxer that is one year old, very sweet, neutered, all shots up to date. She was adopted from the animal shelter but the new owner ended up being allergic to her. This sweet baby needs a forever home!

Please call 501-992-7334

Directed

by Lana Hallmark “Eight Women Sharing Love & Laughter”

March 13, 14, 20, 21, 27, and 28, 2015 Presents Fridays & Saturdays 7:30pm • $16 Adults / $12 Students & Seniors 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.

March 27, 28, 2015

The CITY OF MAUMELLE announces Civil Service examination for the position of entry level Police Officer will be given on Saturday, May 2, 2015.

QUALIFICATIONS FOR TAKING THE EXAM ARE:

7:30pm Fridays & Saturdays

Support for The Weekend Theater is provided, in part, by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, and National Endowment for the Arts.

$20 Adults • $16 Students & Seniors For more information contact us at 501.374.3761 or www.weekendtheater.org

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

Directed by Lana Hallmark March 13, 14, 20, 21, 27, and 28, 2015

1001 W. 7th St., LR, AR 72201 On the corner of 7th and Chester, across from Vino’s.

MAUMELLE CIVIL SERVICE ENTRY LEVEL POLICE EXAM

Fridays & Saturdays 7:30pm • $16 Adults / $12 Students & Seniors 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.

Support for The Weekend Theater is provided, in part, by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, and National Endowment for the Arts.

C U S T O M F U R N I T U R E tommy@tommyfarrell.com ■ 501.375.7225 LYONS, CONT.

Brown at point blank range while his hands were up, and that even after Brown fell to his death, Wilson stood over Brown and fired several more times.”

Confronted by DOJ investigators who said none of that matched the forensic evidence, Witness 128 admitted he might have “hallucinated.” Actually, it’s not clear he saw anything.

Several witnesses who did see poor, doomed Michael Brown assault

Darren Wilson, struggle to take his gun, and then make a final crazed charge, testified they feared “retaliation from the community” if it became known they’d contradicted the legend of Brown’s martyrdom.

It was ever thus, my fellow IrishAmerican friend Bob Somerby and I agreed recently. Bob, who has written a series of incisive posts on his Daily Howler website, compared the atmosphere in Ferguson to Belfast during “The Troubles.” I was think-

ing Dublin, 1916.

On MSNBC, the new party line is that the DOJ report on Michael Brown’s death shows the difficulty of prosecuting civil rights cases beyond a reasonable doubt. But the report actually concluded that Officer Wilson acted entirely in selfdefense: “[I]t was not unreasonable for Wilson to fire on Brown until he stopped moving forward and was clearly subdued.”

Nothing but a crying shame.

Beginning salary is $30,334.00 per year; the City offers an excellent employee benefit package.

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.

www.arktimes.com

MARCH 26, 2015

39

... call the specialists.

before after J.A. Fair School - Little Rock Licensed General Contractors Specializing in all types of Disaster Restoration including Contents.

fire | smoke | water | storm | environmental Emergency Response Hotlines

501.758.2845

40

MARCH 26, 2015

ARKANSAS TIMES

Toll Free 1-855-METRO-79 www.MetroDisaster.com