Arkansas Times - August 28, 2014

news + politics + entertainment + FOOD / August 28, 2014 / arktimes.com Kenneth Bell Brad Harvey Annabelle Imber Tuck April Seggebruch & Stan Zylowski Patricia Ashanti Paul Leopoulos Amanda Crumley David Couch Matt Foster David Bailin Jeff Long George West

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August 28, 2014

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August 28, 2014

3

COMMENT

To the Editor: Remembering Howard Baker Howard Baker died in late June. The former Tennessee senator was one of the last moderate conservatives in the Republican Party. He is best remembered as the co-chair of the Senate Watergate Committee (1973-74) who asked about his fellow Republican Richard Nixon: “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” He became known as the “great conciliator” and, as Senate minority leader (1977-81), helped Jimmy Carter get ratification of the extremely important Panama Canal treaties. Majority leader in 1981-85, he retired in 1985 before his party finished its purge of people like him who actually believed in public service.

I wish he were equally remembered for helping us get through the last two years of the Reagan administration, which had virtually collapsed during the Iran-Contra affair (a scandal that appeared to be more constitutionally serious than Watergate).

He gave up a possible bid for the presidency to become Reagan’s White House Chief of State and restored order out of criminality and incompetence. He never wrote a tell-all about the mess he inherited and never took personal credit for his actions. He always gave the clueless, but appreciative, Reagan credit for everything.

Because I lived in eastern Arkansas in 1972 and 1978 when Baker was campaigning for re-election to the Senate, much of my television news came from stations in Memphis. I recall a TV ad in which he told a group of senior citizens that as long as he was in Congress they would never have to worry about losing their Social Security or Medicare benefits. Can you imagine any Republican saying that today? It would be a political kiss of death.

In stark contrast to Howard Baker, who led a loyal opposition, Eric Cantor rose to power as the House Republican majority leader using strictly extreme partisanship.

Since 2010, he worked tirelessly to prevent the House of Representatives from ever taking constructive action on anything that might solve any of our numerous problems: high unemployment, low wages, our deteriorating infrastructure, domestic violence, et al. Although extremely influential, he was practically anonymous. A few years ago, he was the answer to a clue on TV’s “Jeopardy.” The contestants on that show are always knowledgeable people, but not one of the three knew who Cantor was.

Ironically, Cantor was considered to be the Tea Party’s heir apparent to the inept John Boehner as Speaker of the House.

But Cantor had the same flaw as Boehner — as perceived by the Fox/Tea Party wing.

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August 28, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

They each have had moments when they remembered that they really should help govern rather than sabotage the country — like when the debt ceiling needs to be raised to allow the U.S. to pay its debts and prevent our becoming a failed, deadbeat nation. So Cantor wasn’t quite extreme enough and a little-known Tea Party challenger primaried him this summer and defeated him.

Shortly after his defeat, I was vacationing in Colorado at Valley View Hot Springs, near the one-street town of Villa Grove.

Whenever I’m out there, I always drive into town for breakfast at its iconic trade store.

There is one table in the cafe section that

is always occupied by loud coffee-drinking locals who discuss the current news together. One morning Cantor’s defeat was the major topic, but their dilemma was that none of them could figure out why he was so important. They were all guessing wrong until I finally had enough and blurted out from two tables over that he was the Republican House majority leader.

Poor Cantor — he was hardly known by anyone outside Washington right up to his political end. But it’s not his professional end. He not only quickly resigned his leadership position but, as of Aug. 18, his district seat as well. He’s going to make

Let us find your underground utilities before you do.

millions on Wall Street, officially working for those whom he’s been effectively working for all along.

In a dictatorship, there is only one way to do things. The four-year Republican majority in the House has been wasting time scheming to privatize or end the social safety net, voting repeatedly to repeal the newly acquired health insurance for 8 million Americans, trying to eliminate all abortion options for women, attacking Hillary Clinton, and shutting down the government. Therefore, little time has remained to deal with much of anything else. Meanwhile, the Republicans in the Senate, while a minority, use the filibuster rule to require a 60 percent vote to move anything along, so nothing’s being done there, either. It’s their way or no way.

In a democracy, all the people are supposed to have a voice. But if one of two major parties, like the Fox/Republican-Tea Party, decides to become the Party of No ­— as it did after Obama’s 2008 election — then we no longer have a democracy. Politics is the art of compromise, and compromise is the only way that democracy works. The former GOP has been taken over by Kamikazes, anarchists and sociopaths who work solely for themselves and their wealthy donors, like the Koch brothers. Our former democracy has been replaced with a plutocracy.

For our democratic-republic to ever work again, we need a loyal opposition, not saboteurs. Sadly, we aren’t going to see any more Howard Bakers anytime soon.

I’m reminded of what one of those guys at the Villa Grove Trade Store said: “The Republican Party won’t be able to properly function again until it gets rid of the Tea Party, like a bad case of diarrhea.”

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It’s unquestioned that law enforcement agencies across the fruited plains have been and continue to be armed with weapons formerly reserved for the military. Why and to what ultimate purpose is anybody’s guess.

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“He got exactly what he deserved.”

“He had cause for shooting this boy.

Seems like they overlooked the fact that he robbed a convenience store.”

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August 28, 2014

5

EYE ON ARKANSAS

week that was

The Fayetteville City Council voted 6-2 to approve a historic civil rights ordinance that includes LGBT people in its umbrella of employment, housing and accommodation protections. But not before 10 hours of discussion, including two turns at the mic from Rep. Randy Alexander (R-Springdale). Alexander explained that gay marriage was “not about equal rights.” Exasperated at the council’s failure to understand the simple truths that Alexander had tried to impart, Alexander chose to tell what he called a “short story — something in my experience.” The story was not short. It was a rambling account of an episode when Alexander was director of housing at a university. It was a sad story that Alexander told for laughs, CHILLS: Little Rock City Manager Bruce Moore (left) and Police Chief Kenton Buckner (right) of a mentally ill student who had an episode in which taking part in the ALS Ice Bucket challenge. he thought he was a dog, and was arrested crawling on all fours and barking in the frozen goods aisle at a grocery store. The student was suspended from the university for one year. Alexander joked that it up, and it’s not based on fact. And I have trouble going was harsh because “that’s seven years in a dog’s life.”

The District 35 campaign for state representative along with that kind of thing … I’m just hoping that “The point is this young man may have sincerely (the district includes the Heights and West Little Rock) this wasn’t too big a slap in the face. I just pray that it doesn’t get blown out of proportion, and they realize perceived himself to be a canine,” Alexander said. between Democrat Clarke Tucker and Republican Stacy what the concerns were and forgive us for not follow“I’m not questioning at all that some folks in this com- Hurst took a turn for the bizarre this week. Tucker held ing through.” munity might genuinely perceive themselves to be a a press conference to lash out at Hurst for issuing Freedifferent gender.” dom of Information requests via the state Republican Harrison Mayor Jeff Crockett, after a planned Sister Get it? Transgender people are just like people Party regarding Tucker’s 4-year-old son and public preCities visit by people from Ghana was scrubbed because who think they’re dogs! Some folks in Alexander’s school enrollment. “My opponent in this campaign for some Harrison leaders feared the Ebola virus. No Ebola community genuinely perceive him to be a horse’s state representative has come after my 4-year-old son virus has been reported in Ghana, though it is on the conass. He was voted out of office earlier this year. and my family in a way that is completely unaccepttinent of Africa, where other countries have experienced able in a political campaign,” Tucker said. Hurst said the disease. It is another embarrassment for a city long she had nothing to apologize for and the FOI requests held up to unflattering attention for its ill treatment in were prompted by “rumors” she had heard “in social years past of black people.

The Pryor campaign got national attention last circles and cocktail party conversations.” week for a commercial that actually takes credit for his vote for Obamacare. Appearing with his father, the popular former governor and senator, David The latest news from the two-headed turtle beat: Pryor, Mark Pryor looks into the camera and says: Mark Darr, who resigned as lieuA two-headed snapping turtle was born last week in “I helped pass a law that prevents insurance com- tenant governor earlier this year amid Amagon (Jackson County), according to a report from the Jonesboro Sun. The NEA Turtle Farm will likely panies from canceling your policy if you get sick or controversy over his abuse of state deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.” and campaign expenses accounts, sell the turtle to a collector. The animal is still unnamed.

And what might that law be? Pryor doesn’t name it, still hasn’t repaid more than $10,000 of course, since Obamacare (or the Affordable Care in improper expenses he charged to Act) remains very unpopular in Arkansas. But in a the state. Attorney General Dustin state that has seen its percentage of uninsured citi- McDaniel stated in a letter to the Legislative Audit 10 percent or more: Annual increase in health zens cut nearly in half, and where 200,000 people Committee chair that his office “stands ready to enforce insurance premiums for consumers buying coverage on their own before Obamacare. have gained coverage through the state’s private this law and we are prepared to move forward in a lawoption version of Medicaid expansion, Pryor is suit against Mr. Darr to recover these funds.”

Darr is currently on the sales staff at Crain Hyundai finally willing to talk about what the law does even 2 percent: Increase in premiums for 2015 approved if he prefers not to say the dreaded name. Mean- in Springdale. Hopefully for the state of Arkansas he’ll by the Insurance Department for Blue Cross Blue while, Tom Cotton, Pryor’s opponent for Senate, get on a Hyundai hot streak.

Shield for their plans on the Obamacare Marketplace. still says “Obamacare” every chance he gets, but when asked what would happen to those 200,000 2.2 percent: Total projected DECLINE in premiArkansans if the law went away? Cotton won’t say. ums, on net, for 2015 for all insurance companies on the Obamacare Marketplace in Arkansas.

“It’s hysteria in my book. It’s hysteria that’s built

He said, she said

The law that dare not speak its name

Deadbeat Darr

Oh, snap!

Health care, by the numbers

Quote of the week

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ARKANSAS TIMES

brian chilson

Dog day afternoon

OPINION

Political lowlights (lifes?)

News you read first, or exclusively, in the last few days on our Arkansas Blog:

D

EADBEAT: Mark Darr left office as lieutenant governor Feb. 1 owing the state more than $10,000 for bogus expense claims. After a dun from Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, he allegedly said he’d pay up soon. Some state employees have been prosecuted for taking taxpayer money to which they weren’t entitled.

Maybe Asa Hutchinson or Tim Griffin, in their Republican campaign rounds, could stop by Crain Hyundai in Springdale and ask salesman Darr for a check to Arkansas taxpayers. I wouldn’t suggest buying a used car from him.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME: Gov. Mike Beebe made his last appointment to the state Board of Education this week. He named Kim Davis, a development officer for the Northwest Arkansas Council, to a seat held by Brenda Gullett. Gullett was a defender of conventional public schools and some-

times skeptical of the lobbyists and lawyers for the Waltons and others in the Billionaire Boys Club who push charter max brantley schools, vouchers, maxbrantley@arktimes.com virtual schools and unlimited school district transfers. Davis, 43, is qualified. He holds multiple education degrees, is a former teacher and is credited with a successful anti-dropout program. He also works for a business development group supported by Walmart and Sam’s Club. His wife works for Sam’s Club.

REPUBLICAN HURST TARGETS 4-YEAR-OLD: City Director Stacy Hurst, a Republican candidate for state House, papered the Little Rock School District with FOI requests to find out about — wait for it — the pre-K school

Bombing our friends U.S., Islam and the circle of death.

B

arack Obama, the first president who seemed to have learned the historical lessons of the Middle East, is finding that there is a corollary to George Santayana’s famous adage, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Remembering the awful lessons, the president now knows, will not save you from repeating them.

Last week, the president ordered bombing raids on Sunni insurgents who had captured large swaths of northern Iraq from the Shiite government that we had installed 12 years ago, and over the weekend he ordered surveillance flights over the insurgents’ bases across the border in Syria, where the United States and its allies have for three years given moral, financial and some armed assistance to rebels seeking to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

Soon the bombing in Syria will inevitably begin, but the target will not be the one that American hawks like John McCain once wanted, Assad, but the most potent of the rebel groups that we have been fortifying, the jihadists known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Thus, again, do we face the intolerable

dilemma of which of two groups, both with scruples and objectives that we abhor, to help, either by our actions or inaction.

ERNEST DUMAS Again, the president will open the door to war on some scale in another Islamic country but, unlike all his predecessors dating back more than half a century, Obama knows that any victories should not be celebrated like George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln, because we will soon enough reap the terrible consequences.

There is a circularity to the West’s history in the world of Islam, which is riven by religious, ethnic and tribal grievances that are as fresh as they were in the seventh century. The friends you aid today you will be bombing tomorrow, or vice versa.

There is a mess over there, from Tunisia to the Black Sea, but in Washington it’s all about blame. Sen. McCain said there was more turmoil than he had seen in his lifetime and he blamed all on Obama’s lack of leadership.

To see the folly of the remark, you need take only one year of McCain’s life, 1973, when he

assignment of Ellis Tucker, 4, son of her Democratic opponent, Clarke Tucker.

WTF? I still haven’t figured it out. Tucker’s child didn’t draw a preschool seat in the original lottery. Hurst seems to have been motivated by “cocktail party” gossip that Tucker tried to pull strings. He didn’t. Oppo research on a 4-year-old?

Cry the beloved democracy.

MR. BIGSHOT: Rogers City Attorney Ben Lipscomb is under investigation for allegedly claiming he was an undercover cop to get VIP access to a Miranda Lambert concert at the Walmart AMP. This provided an opportunity to remember bullying by Lipscomb in 2010 in service to another bully, then-mayor and now Congressman Steve Womack. Stephen Coger, a UA student then and later a Fulbright scholar, wrote the mayor about his tough police policy on immigrants, which discouraged reports of domestic abuse by people fearing deportation.

Wrote Womack in response: “Stephen, frankly, your email is offensive to me. It is offensive to me as a mayor, a veteran, a taxpayer, and a law-abiding CITIZEN of the United States. … If you seriously disagree with my position, you

should move to Rogers, run for mayor, and try that BS on the rank-and-file citizens of this city.”

Typical Womack. And butt-kisser Lipscomb couldn’t resist a gratuitous letter of his own in response to Coger’s polite request for consideration of family issues. Lipscomb wrote: “How dare you be so presumptuous as to offer YOUR legal services to MY clients, Mayor Womack and the City of Rogers? [Coger had not done so.] I consider your offer of legal services to my client to be indicative of questionable ethics, not to mention colossal affrontary[sic] and poor grace.”

Speaking of poor grace: Lipscomb also sent this comment to Col. Womack on the matter: “Boo yah!!”

Funny. That was my reaction when I’d heard they sent the long arm of the law after an officious city bureaucrat who attempted to get special favors by virtue of his public position. Lipscomb, I’m also reminded, is famous for once being forced to wave his white underwear on a stick to attract air searchers after he got marooned on a duck hunt.

Boo yah!!!

was freed from a Vietnam prison near the end of a war that cost more than a million casualties, 210,000 of them American.

As McCain came home, the United States resupplied Israel in the Yom Kippur War, in which Arab states tried to recapture Israeli-occupied Arab territories. The Arabs retaliated with an oil embargo against the U.S. and some of its allies, the shock that has reverberated in the U.S. economy and its politics for 40 years. The little war nearly led to a nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, which armed the Arabs.

But memories should go back further, to 1953 when the British persuaded President Eisenhower to have the CIA overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh, the first elected prime minister of Iran, who had nationalized the oil industry and was about to nationalize British banks, and install Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Through years of the shah’s brutal police state, Iranians never forgot. When he was chased from the country in 1979 and the United States took him in, Iranians paid us back by holding 52 Americans at the U.S. embassy hostage for 444 days and ending the presidency of Jimmy Carter.

When the Sunni dictator in Iraq, Saddam Hussein, decided to take advantage of Iran’s turmoil by invading the Shiite republic, President Reagan subtly helped the Iraqi dictator in the eight-year war with financial and military aid, including chemical weapons, which contributed to some

200,000 Iranian casualties. The Iranians seem not to have forgotten.

When the crazy Saddam, thinking he still enjoyed the tacit blessing of his American friends Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and needing cash to repay $80 billion in U.S. loans, invaded oil-rich Kuwait in 1990, President George H.W. Bush rallied allies and chased him out of the little country and over the next eight years we made him destroy all his chemical and nerve weapons.

Still not content, Bush II invaded Iraq in 2002, captured Saddam, let him be hung, and installed a Shiite government, to the glee of Iran for a change. Now we are insisting that the Shiite Iraqi rulers quit tormenting Sunnis and let them share freedom’s fruits, as a way of stalling the Sunni civil war that is scorching Iraq and Syria, both run by Shiite regimes.

Talk about circularity. When the Russians moved into Afghanistan to prop up the puppet Marxist government, President Reagan initiated Operation Cyclone, a CIA program to arm and finance the Mujahideen, the Sunni fighters who eventually drove the Russians out and toppled the communists. In the struggle among the Mujahideen and tribal factions that followed, the extremist Taliban emerged as the rulers. They governed efficiently, if ruthlessly, and President Bush rewarded them in 2001 with a Continued on page 61 www.arktimes.com

August 28, 2014

7

Second District key for Dems

V

oters in the 2nd Congressional District exhausted by the 2014 election season should get ready: They are target No. 1 for the stretch run of the campaign.

The 2nd District (and particularly Pulaski County) represents for Arkansas Democrats not just an opportunity to break the historic GOP unanimity in Arkansas’s U.S. House delegation, but also the key to the party’s statewide fortunes in 2014.

Many were surprised by the essential dead heat in the race to replace retiring Republican Congressman Tim Griffin shown in last month’s Talk Business & Politics/ Hendrix College survey. Little Rock banker French Hill, the GOP nominee, led former North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Henry Hays by 44 to 43 percent, making it the only one of the state’s four congressional districts competitive at this point in the 2014 cycle.

Hays’ long history of electoral success in Pulaski County made him a strong recruit for the race, but Democrats were initially subdued in their hopes by Hill’s strength in the May Republican primary. Ideologically, in contrast to his more conservative challengers, Hill represented a candidate perceived as more difficult to marginalize.

Geographically, Hill’s history of civic leadership in Little Rock made him a candidate

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August 28, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

who could make some inroads into the county that historically supplies a healthy majority ofthe2ndDistrict’svote (55 percent in 2012).

Despite that, the jay barth poll showed that Hays entered the fall campaign in a virtual tie.

First, while Hill is performing more solidly than most Republicans would in Pulaski County, Hays still leads there and is exceeding expectations in the counties that donut the urban core. As North Little Rock mayor, Hays received more than two decades of regular, mostly positive press within the district’s sole media market. Second, the 2nd District is now the part of Arkansas most receptive to Democratic candidates.

Both U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mike Ross led in the district while trailing elsewhere in the state.

The poll was complete before Hays or Hill had begun their general election advertising. To date, Hays’ media has been outstanding. A focus on cutting bureaucracy and economic development sounds like a yawner of a media campaign. But, Hays’ media team has found a way to make that message snappy (an ad emphasizing the

reduction of nice offices for North Little Rock city services is one of the few this campaign cycle in any race to break through a cluttered media atmosphere) and the goofy yet earnest boosterism that Hays developed as mayor continues to pay dividends for him in telling the city’s story.

While the Hill media campaign helpfully personalized the Little Rock banker during the primary campaign, his campaign has arguably begun to over-rely on those solid ads.

Hill has also made the only major misstep of the campaign to date. Asked about the proposal to increase the state’s minimum wage last month, Hill went so far as to question the entire concept, saying, “the idea of a minimum wage restricts the economy.”

Democrats have begun attacking Hill on the comment; more importantly, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committtee (DCCC) has reserved $625,000 of ad time in the Little Rock media market for the final two weeks before Election Day. While the Hays campaign will try to stay positive with ads like those seen to date, the DCCC will likely go negative with attacks on the banker Hill’s critique of the minimum wage front and center. The key questions: Can the Hill campaign find ways to personalize their candidate that has emotional impact and can they find a way to attack Hays that goes beyond a rote anti-Pelosi script?

While the 2nd District race is more interesting than many thought it might be, it is the race’s underlying turnout dynamics that has important statewide implications. Arkansas’s Democrats now know that they must eke out marginal wins in the 1st and 4th Congressional Districts and make inroads into the 3rd Congressional District. But, the party’s key is running up the score in Central Arkansas’s 2nd District. In the most concentrated parts of the district (the urban portions of Pulaski County), the field campaign recently chronicled by The Atlantic’s Molly Ball has the most promise to work efficiently.

If Pulaski County nears 60 percent of the 2nd District vote, the field campaign will have worked, Pat Hays will be on his way to Congress, and Mark Pryor and Mike Ross will also likely have eked out victories. (Because it’s home to districts that may determine control of the state House of Representatives, a successful 2nd District Democratic field operation also would impact that key component of Election 2014). If Pulaski represents a more typical 55 percent of the 2nd District vote, the plans for getting Democrats over the hump statewide become considerably more challenging.

Short story: If you’ve thought campaign 2014 has been intense to date, you haven’t seen anything yet.

conger AR TIMES 2014.pdf

Racial bias in police shootings

O

nce again, an African-American male has been killed in Ferguson, Mo., by a white police officer. The killing of Michael Brown, who was unarmed, and attempting to get away from a police officer, is just another casualty in a long line of such tragedies. Brown’s killing has raised many questions. But the real question, which everyone seems to avoid, is why do white police officers shoot and/or kill so many unarmed African-American males? When is the last time that a white police officer killed an unarmed white male in the United States?

Unfortunately, there will be other police killings of unarmed African-American males. Race is the primary reason why so many white officers kill unarmed African-American males. To a white officer, and so many white Americans, the African-American male is the enemy who must be eliminated. White officers who shoot and kill African-American males get tremendous support. When George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., the white community contributed over $100,000 toward his defense. In the few days after the killing of Michael Brown, the white community had already contributed nearly $177,000 toward the defense of Darren Wilson (as of Aug. 21).

In essence, those who have contributed financially to the defense of Wilson, despite the overwhelming evidence that the shooting was not justified, are giving their seal of approval to the killing of yet another unarmed African-American male.

The following represents just a few examples of unarmed African-American males who have been killed by white officers and/or citizens: • Kimani Gray, 16: Shot seven times and killed by New York police. Police say he was armed; his family says he was not.

• Kendrec McDade, 19: Killed in Pasadena, Calif., while holding a cell phone.

Police said that an officer thought McDade had a gun. One was never found. Pasadena paid his parents $1 million.

• Timothy Russell and Melissa Williams: Killed by white Cleveland police officers, who fired 137 rounds fired into Russell’s car. No guns or bullet casings were found in their car; the chase began because a police officer thought he heard a gunshot.

• Amadou Diallo, 22: Killed by New York police officers, who fired 41 rounds, with 19 hitting Diallo, after Diallo pulled his wallet from his pocket to show police.

• Patrick Dorismond, 26: Killed by an

•

undercover officer. The officer claimed Dorismond grabbed his gun and shot AUSTIN himself.

Porter JR. Ousmane Zongo, 43: Killed by New York police in 2003. The police officer was convicted of negligent homicide, but served no time. Family settled for $3 million.

Timothy Stansbury Jr., 19: Killed by a Brooklyn officer who claimed that Stansbury startled him. A grand jury ruled that the shooting was an accident.

Sean Bell, 23: Killed in Queens on his wedding day. Officers shot 50 rounds into a car with four occupants, including Bell, who was shot at least 19 times.

Family settled wrongful death suit for $7 million.

Orlando Barlow, 28: Was on his knees at the time he was shot and killed by Las Vegas Police Officer Brian Hartman. The officer was 50 feet away.

After the shooting, the white officers, including Hartman, purchased T-shirts with “BDRT” that some said stood for “Baby Daddy Removal Team.”

Aaron Campbell, 25. Shot to death in Portland, Ore.; witnesses say that at the time Campbell was shot, he was backing up to the officers, with his hands locked behind his head. A grand jury cleared the officer. The family settled for $1.2 million.

Victor Steen, 17: Was riding his bicycle in Pensacola, Fla., when an officer tried to stop him. The officer tased Victor, then ran him over. A Florida judge ruled that no crime had been committed.

Steven Eugene Washington, 27: Killed by a Los Angeles police officer, who contended that Washington, who was autistic, was acting suspiciously.

Alonzo Ashley, 29: Died from being tased after he’d thrown a trash can at a police officer at the Denver Zoo. Wendell Allen, 20: Killed in New Orleans by a police officer. The officer was sentenced to four years for manslaughter.

Ronald Madison, 40, and James Brissette, 17: Killed on the Danziger Bridge in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by members of the New Orleans Police Department, one of whom was black.

Madison, mentally disabled, was shot in the back.

Travares McGill, 16: Killed in Sanford, Fla. (whereTrayvonMartinwaskilled),bytwo white security officers. Shot in the back.

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Christian Faith and Modern Science Sunday Morning Lecture Series at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral

The public is invited to a 12-week lecture series on Christian Faith and Modern Science. The lectures begin with a question, “Is it reasonable to believe in God?” Additional lectures will cover topics from religion, Darwin, and the Cosmos, to fundamentalism, liberalism, and near-death experiences.

Where: Trinity Episcopal Cathedral 17th and Spring Streets one block east of 17th and Broadway in Little Rock When: Beginning Sunday, September 7 10:15 a.m.- 11 a.m. (brunch will be available) Who: Lectures will be given by the Rev. Dr. Christoph Keller, III Interim Dean and Rector of the Cathedral

Rev. Dr. Christoph Keller, III

TriniTy Episcopal caThEdral TrinityLittleRock.org • 501-372-0294

Continued on page 61 www.arktimes.com

August 28, 2014

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August 28, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

f Arkansas wants to convince a state and country full of doubters that it’s pecking slowly back from beneath the weight of the rest of the SEC, a rare gift avails itself right at the start: a meaningful opener in late August, on the road, against a fashionable and traditional darling that just happens to have been in the Hogs’ position merely a year ago.

Auburn’s 3-9 record in 2012 belied the talent on the roster; its 12-2 mark last fall masked some lingering issues on the defensive side of the ball. What Arkansas wants to exploit Saturday on what presumably will be a scorching late summer afternoon is a possible lack of conditioning there. Auburn’s near-championship season was filled with games where receivers beat a maligned secondary repeatedly and the run defense, though bolstered by Ellis Johnson’s hiring as coordinator, still didn’t quite measure up to the standard of a title-winner.

Then there’s the Auburn offense, which, for all its Malzahnian greatness, still has numerous holes to fill. Tre Mason’s gone, and perhaps more critically, linchpin guard Greg Robinson is, too, both toiling with the St. Louis Rams. Whether Jeremy Johnson can ably fill in for benched quarterback Nick Marshall from the start of this contest is the headline-grabber, but the arguably greater unknown is whether someone like Corey Grant or Cameron Artis-Payne has the chops to be an every-down grinder like Mason was last fall. How Arkansas must address this is by rendering both backs uncertain early — stripping the ball away or administering a couple of vicious hits in the backfield would stem whatever momentum young offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee hopes to build in the hurry-up nohuddle system.

New Razorback defensive coordinator Robb Smith has preached assignment football since his arrival, and this will be a vigorous test of the Hogs’ absorption of the Rutgers expatriate’s philosophy. What he saw in reviewing the garish tale of the tape from a season ago is that every level of the Razorbacks’ defensive unit had skill, but not the discipline that comes with experience.

The defensive line lost Chris Smith, Robert Thomas and Byran Jones, but on balance, the unit should be stronger with young linebackers like Brooks Ellis and Martrell Spaight gaining seasoning and the secondary getting late-season boosts from the likes of Jared Collins and Alan Turner. Bottom line? It’s not a daunting group on paper, but the feeling is that perceptible improvement here coupled with a much more efficient and mistake-free offense will get the

Hogs well on track to resurgence.

That all starts with the degree of maturation to be seen at quarBEAU terback. There WILCOX are Brandon Allen skeptics on the one hand, and on the other there are outright Brandon Allen detractors. It was phenomenally unfair to expect the Fayetteville product to be a gunslinger last year, particularly after the preseason robbed him of some anticipated help at receiver, but he was tormented by inaccuracy and bad timing most of the way after he sustained a shoulder injury in the Southern Mississippi win. He’s been quietly composed and relatively sharp this summer, but the doubt as to his long-term efficacy remains.

What Pearls expects here is that Allen benefits from Auburn having an already susceptible secondary being further depleted with Jonathan Mincy’s suspension. A few early throws to the boundary and across the middle to two gifted tight ends will do wonders, and frankly the offensive line’s overall girth seems to augur better pass protection ahead. The backfield’s skill is already well established but Allen needs to utilize the Collins-Williams-Marshall trio in the passing game far more prominently: Those three tallied all of 18 combined catches in 2013, a number that frankly should triple this fall with Jim Chaney clearly wanting to play more to his strengths.

Recall that Auburn was shaky in September last year before getting fully untracked. Those Tigers were trying to throw the yoke of a bad 2012 and had a little difficulty getting solid footing. In what ended up being their lone conference loss against LSU, the Bayou Bengals shot out to a 21-0 first-half lead and deprived Malzahn of that rhythm he so covets. Auburn ended up logging 437 total yards in the loss, and narrowing the final margin to a respectable 35-21, but it was a game that LSU clearly dominated from start to finish with — you guessed it — power on the ground and wise, conservative usage of the passing game.

If Arkansas can reflect that balance and poise, reverse the good fortune that smiled on Auburn constantly a year ago, and withstand what promises to be god-awful heat, it’s not going to go the oddsmakers’ way at all. Bret Bielema has repeatedly stated that a very different and emboldened team is about to take the field in 2014, and there is no better way to validate that braggadocio than on the Plains Saturday afternoon.

THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

Greyhound

Aging well

T

he Observer’s father developed a dairy allergy toward the end of his high school years, the product of a bona fide milkoholism Yours Truly duly inherited. Our affection for the 2 percent runs as deep as the wellspring of chocolate syrup we’ve preserved in The Observatory’s refrigerator door for so many-odd years. You might then sympathize with our frustration (and our nausea) when, one recent night, we pulled out the gallon jug and encountered a mostly liquid solution. Hard to believe that stomach-turning goop is the stuff delicious cheese is made from.

Motivated equally by curiosity and a desire for closure, The Observer dialed up Kent Walker, a local artisan cheesemaker, to solicit a tour of his operation and to better understand the process by which the nectar of our bones solidifies into cheddar, gouda and brie.

Walker, 29, runs a humble — though profitable — enterprise, tucked inside a Razorback Air Filter warehouse out on Pepper Avenue east of the Clinton Presidential Library. He started cheesing three years ago after watching a few of his buddies launch home-brewing operations. “It’s complementary,” he said. Business has only expanded in those three years, having blossomed from the kitchen of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on Center Street into the facility Yours Truly toured last week.

Three rooms comprise the establishment — a production kitchen, an office (which doubles as both a bedroom and a carpentry shop) and a cheese cave.

The kitchen includes a 500-gallon vat, which holds the milk that Walker curdles into cheese by adding healthy bacteria and an enzyme called rennet, extracted from calf stomachs. “Cooked” cheeses, like Parmesan and cheddar, are heated at temperatures higher than the body temperature of the animal that supplied the milk, which makes them harder and more acidic. Likewise, “uncooked” cheeses, such as gouda, are heated at temperatures below that of the original animal, leaving them softer and runnier. Similar to red versus white in the wine community, cooked versus uncooked marks a dividing line among queso connoisseurs.

Once the curds have hardened and some of the whey — the liquid element of milk — has drained from the vat, the curds are cut, cooked some more, formed into wheels in a plastic mold — excuse the pun — salted and pressed on Walker’s handmade double-piston, water-weighted cheese press.

Then into the cave they go.

Folks, you cannot appreciate the cool and quiet solemnity of a well-stocked cheese cave until you’ve wandered in one yourself. We found it nothing less than a veritable treasure trove of mold-encrusted gems. Were it not a functional refrigerator and faintly dank, Yours Truly might have found it a fine place to sit for a while. Beautifully named wheels — Montasio, Ophelia, Blue — line the racks of the cave for years, flipped once daily to ensure that an even coat of rind and (nontoxic) mold develops around their exteriors. Months-old 20-pound hunks of a prototype goldenorange Parmesan fill what Walker calls the “Research-and-Development” rack in the back of the cave. Walker said the pilot Parm wheels will have to age for another couple of years before they’re released to public tongues. The taste is in the time, and time can be the trickiest element to manage around a cheese enterprise.

Making a full batch of cheese takes up to eight hours, so Walker keeps a cot behind his desk in case he needs a few minutes of shut-eye during the occasional nighttime cycle. (As an aside, late-night cheese batches have made Walker an occasional 4 a.m. Midtown Billiards burger-goer, the type of late-working folk for whom David Koon and Benji Hardy advocated in their cover story two weeks ago.)

“Recently, we got frozen goat milk in the morning, which had thawed by that evening, and we had cow milk coming in at 6 a.m. the next morning,” Walker said.

“So we couldn’t wait until the day after to do the goat milk since it wouldn’t be fresh, so we had to make it that night.”

The Observer found it a little funny the way freshness means everything to the man who spoils milk for money. But, as we discovered, it really isn’t that simple.

“We let it spoil with style,” Walker said. If only we could say the same of our own.

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August 28, 2014

11

Arkansas Reporter

the

i n s ide r

The National Bar Association, a network of African-American lawyers and judges, will seek records of police brutality in 25 cities, including Little Rock. The open records request is described as part of an effort to end police misconduct and brutality that leads to the death of unarmed people.

The records requests will be filed beginning Sept. 1 in cities identified as having “an alleged history of police misconduct and brutality cases.” The information sought includes the number of people killed, racially profiled, wrongfully arrested or injured while pursued or in police custody.

In addition to Little Rock, the cities are Birmingham, Ala.; Phoenix; Los Angeles; San Jose, Calif.; Washington; Jacksonville, Fla.; Miami; Atlanta; Chicago; Louisville, Ky.; Baltimore; Detroit; Kansas City, Mo.; St. Louis; Charlotte, N.C.; Las Vegas; New York City; Cleveland; Memphis; Philadelphia; Dallas; Houston; San Antonio, and Milwaukee.

Additionally, according to an association release, the group will “… send a ‘Preservation of Evidence’ notice to all necessary entities requesting that they preserve all police officers’ raw notes of statements, observations and data collected from the scene of an incident. This request will also require information on the officer specifically involved and all responding officers, as well as the officers’ detail logs from the crime scene, and video and photographic evidence related to any alleged and/or proven misconduct by current or former employees.”

The association will release its findings and submit them to the Justice Department. It will ask investigations of cities identified with problems.

An immediate obstacle in Little Rock will be the police department’s historic refusal to release internal review documents related to brutality cases that did not result in a suspension or firing. The department has periodically been accused of disproportionate racial brutality, including a series of federal complaints over deaths in custody.

The ACLU also recently issued a report on racially disproportionate “hyper-aggressive” policing in Little Rock, as measured by use of SWAT and other tactics.

12

August 28, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

brian chilson

LRPD targeted for records on police misconduct

GRANITE MOUNTAIN SURVIVOR: Sgt. Willie Davis chose a different path than other family members.

‘We’re not talking, we’re shooting’ Homicide Diary: Sgt. Willie Davis As told to David Koon

Sgt. Willie Davis has been with the Little Rock Police Department for 23 years, and works with the Little Rock chapter of the national Our Kids (OK) Program, which recruits at-risk African-American boys in the sixth grade and follows them through high school, providing mentorship and support. Every spring, he presents a program called “Before the Casket,” which brings family members of homicide victims to speak to an audience of young people about how a trigger can never be unpulled. David

Koon spoke to him at the Willie L. Hinton Center on 12th Street, not far from where he lives in the Central High neighborhood.

I

’m from Granite Mountain. The projects. I saw a lot of death.

My mother stayed on her knees praying many nights for us, man — for me and my brothers. I had a strong, God-fearing mother, who instilled in us the value of “treat people how you want to be treated.”

She kept us in church, even though

I didn’t want to be a lot of the time. And, you know, out of the four of us, one of us has been in and out of prison.

One of us is in prison now.

I think those things coupled with my choice of not wanting to be incarcerated, not wanting to disappoint my mom, wanting to do something different from what my daddy showed me, made the difference. I thank my daddy every day, because he showed me what I didn’t want to be. I think those things, coupled together, assisted me.

I had a life-changing experience in high school. I came to know Christ as my lord and savior. My mother hated me when I was younger, and Continued on page 52

THE

BIG PICTURE

?

Ask the Times

?

Q: Where have all the fireflies gone? I don’t see them around like I used to.

A:

Ashley Dowling is big into little things.

He’s an expert, in fact, one of the few in his specialty in North America, and he does his work at the University of Arkansas.

We didn’t know that when we called him to ask if the lightning bug population has declined. All we knew was that he was an entomologist, and, unlike most of the insect guys at the UA, he wasn’t into agricultural pests.

Dowling’s expertise is in mites, the most diverse of all arachnids, little creatures that he says play “a very important role in the ecosystem.” They decompose leaves, their aquatic larvae may keep insect populations under control, and they are water-quality indicators because of their sensitivity to nitrogen.

Dowling doesn’t focus entirely on mites. He and his students have been looking into arthropod (crustaceans, insects, arachnids) biology of the Ozarks, the Arkansas River Valley and the Ouachitas.

The Ozark Highlands have a “unique sort of geological history,” Dowling said. They are among the oldest features of North America, rising up “as a big dome more than a billion years ago.” The area’s plant and animal populations are wildly diverse — nearly as diverse as the Smokies’ and other mountain systems’ — and little studied.

“What we think is that during glacial times, the Interior Highlands [the Ozarks] stayed a stable landscape,” Dowling said. It has kept its head above water for eons — maybe around 300 million years or so — promoting a longtime home for flora and fauna, a stable temperate forest system. There are 110 species in Arkansas’s portion of the Interior Highlands that occur nowhere else. “Every time we collect, we tend to find new things,” Dowling said, in the

never-logged glades and diverse Ozark canyons, “amazing plant and animal communities.”

Back to mites. As arachnids, mites can’t fly, so they hitch rides on other animals, including bugs and birds and mammals. If you’ve ever looked too closely into a bird’s nest, you’ll know there can be thousands of them, living in the nest, not because you can see them, but because they’ll jump onto your face looking for a blood meal. The smallest mites — those that fit 12 to the period at the end of this sentence, or smaller than 70 microns — are plant feeders. Dowling says he and his students have also found mites that are the world’s fastest animals for body size, and are a little miffed that someone else has published a paper identifying a slower mite as the fastest. They hope to remedy the scoop with their own published paper.

Dowling said half of his students are focusing on arthopod biodiversity projects and the other half on mite-focused projects, the latter with a National Science Foundation grant worth $720,000. He’d like to see the UA hire other biologists whose focus is on arthropods. “We’re very crop-centric here,” he said.

But the question was about fireflies. There are more than 100 species of fireflies in the United States, Dowling said; there may be four or five species flying around at one time in a yard. There are fireflies that blink synchronously in the Smokies. There are female fireflies that lure in males by imitating their mating blinks only to devour the unsuspecting suitor. Dowling said he is aware of concerns about firefly populations, but “all arthropods go through periods of population booms and busts so there are always some years where you see lots of them and some where you don’t see much at all.”

LISTEN UP

Tune in to the Times’ “Week In Review” podcast each Friday.

Available on iTunes & arktimes.com

insider, cont.

10-year anniversaries coming Politico notes that emails are circulating to potential participants in a big wingding at the Clinton Presidential Library to celebrate the institution’s 10th anniversary. The date is said to be Nov. 14, 10 days after the midterm election. Naturally, Politico notes Hillary Clinton will be advancing toward a presidential candidacy decision. (She is, isn’t she?) The library celebration is going to be more than a one-day affair. A citywide celebration — 10 days to mark 10 years — is in the works.

It’s sure to be quite a party.

Maybe almost on a par with the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the Arkansas Blog just a few weeks before. Our coverage of the rain-soaked library opening and the rush of celebrities to town for the event indeed propelled some of the early growth in our readership.

Unfortunately, various iterations of the “back end” of our web portal have lost the original blog postings to the ether of the digital graveyard.

We can’t even reconstruct now the precise date of the first post. Or remember what it was. But we’d be remiss in not crediting state Rep. Warwick Sabin, then an associate editor of the Times and now running an innovation hub, with driving the startup. Something in the range of 50,000 posts later, we’re still cranking.

Dems ramp up field operation Molly Ball has written in The Atlantic about the massive operation by the Democratic Party to turn out the vote in November to save U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor’s seat and perhaps propel some more Democrats to victory elsewhere.

Ball writes of the effort mentioned to the Times recently by Pryor staffers — 40 field offices with paid workers and hundreds of volunteers canvassing and a database loaded with important info, all geared at encouraging Democratically inclined voters. It’s no accident that the article focuses on Pine Bluff, the African-American majority community with traditional Democratic leanings. A good turnout in that community is viewed as vital to Democratic success, from Pryor through gubernatorial candidate Mike Ross and on through critical state legislative races. www.arktimes.com

August 28, 2014

13

Carl Danley

VISIONARIES 2014 25 Arkansans making an impact in science, arts, social justice.

By Clayton Gentry, Benjamin Hardy, Jim Harris, David Koon, Lindsey Mill ar, Leslie Newell Peacock, David Ramsey and Will Stephenson

I

t’s time again for our annual Visionaries issue, a celebration of Arkansans with ideas of transformative power.

This year’s class is filled with people who are devoted to enriching life here, from theater to the natural environment to education. They’ve created political action committees (Amanda Crumley, director of the Southern Progress Fund), helped musicians reach an audience outside Arkansas (Jeff Matika of Green Day), worked to give the children of immigrants access to higher education (Rosa Velázquez of United We Dream). Joseph Jones is the founding director of Philander Smith College’s Social Justice Institute. David Bailin is an artist of the highest caliber whose drawings make us think.

Andrea Zekis lobbies for the rights of transgender people. All 25 are people with clear intent on what they want to achieve in life, and their visions help create our realities.

14

August 28, 2014 | ARKANSAS TIMES

Patricia ASHANTI

Nonprofit founder fights poverty in the Delta with adult education.

D

elta Circles, founded by Patricia Ashanti in 2009, is a small nonprofit in Helena with a big mission: fighting poverty in the Delta by helping people help themselves.

“We’ve got a lot of challenges here, but there’s a lot of hope that things are going to change and get better,” Ashanti said.

With funding and support from the Arkansas Community Foundation and the Clinton School of Public Service, Delta Circles runs classes — one called “Getting Ahead” and another called “Financial Literacy” — to help people develop skills to tackle problems they may face as they try to lift themselves out of poverty. “They decide where they want to go, and we start to help them create those pathways,” Ashanti said.

“In some cases it could be trying to get into college. In other cases it could be trying to locate jobs, start their own business, buy their own home.”

Delta Circles educates people on what Ashanti calls the “hidden rules” of the workforce and the middle class, and connects folks to resources for job training, education and entrepreneurship. It also gives people in the community, going through the same struggle, a forum to share their experiences and knowledge. “We allow the individuals that are affected by poverty the most to be a part of the solution,” Ashanti said.

“We recognize and respect the leadership ability that they already have and they’re already using in their lives.”

Ashanti, a Helena native with a background in accounting, was inspired by the work of Dr. Ruby Payne, an expert in generational poverty best known for her book “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” and accompanying workshops.

“The information just hit a chord with me,” Ashanti said. “It brought the whole conversation of poverty to the individual level. Previously I had been

looking at it on a community level. I saw that I wanted to work with individuals and families. With the struggles I have had in my life financially, I knew that with the information I was learning myself, others could benefit from that same information.”

The workshops are free and open to anyone in the community; facilitators are typically previous graduates of the classes. The “Getting Ahead” class meets once a week for 12 weeks and the sixmonth “Financial Literacy” class meets once a month. Delta Circles typically offers four classes over the course of a year. The program has had 160 graduates since 2009.

In addition to the classes, Delta Circles helped create a task force, partnering with the state Department of Workforce, Phillips Community College and Southern Bancorp, to help place people in jobs and ensure that they had the skills to succeed. Southern Bancorp was also a partner in the “Financial Literacy” class, offering graduates an individual development account — if people attend all six classes and save $600 over that time period, Southern Bancorp matches that by $2,000, funds that can be used for education, the purchase of a home, or starting or developing a business.

Delta Circles is also hosting literacy programs and is developing a program to send literacy tutors to help employees on the job.

“We’re working with individuals who are interested in moving forward in their lives,” Ashanti said. “People who are ready to make changes. We’re not trying to convince anybody that they need to try and get off food stamps or whatever. They have to make that decision for themselves. But if they have dreams and they have things they want, then our job is to support them. We are seeing a change in people’s lives. They start to dream again.” DR

David Bailin

Artist’s fine hand finds humor in human plight.

Kenneth Bell Music video director

O

ne night in late 2012, Kenneth Bell went to a house party in Lonoke and nobody came. His cousin was throwing it, and the local rapper Pluto Maxx was all set to perform, but without an audience, they figured, why bother?

Instead, Maxx turned to Bell, who’d brought his camera, and suggested they make a music video. “It’s not how I planned it,” Bell said. “It’s just how it happened.”

Little Rock’s hip-hop scene has experienced an influx of new energy in the last couple of years, particularly with the emergence of young artists like Kari Faux and Young Gods of America, and Bell, 25, is one of its most important forces, having directed music videos for most of the members of this younger generation, plus veterans like Big Piph and Pepperboy. “I’m always in the middle of working on multiple videos,” Bell said. “All the time. It’s pretty much

where my time goes.”

Though his parents are originally from Forrest City, Bell grew up outside the state and moved frequently because of his father’s position in the Army. He studied film at Towson University, just outside Baltimore, and then moved to Conway, where his dad had taken a job teaching R.O.T.C. After shooting the clip for Maxx at his cousin’s party, Bell began meeting other artists through the Little Rock-based “Good Vibes” rap showcases. He became a contributor to the nowdefunct rap blog Natural State of Mind, and took on as many assignments as he was offered.

“It’s different with every person and every song,” Bell said of his process, and the diversity and vibrancy of his catalogue bears this out. Filming rap videos, he notes, can come with its

“official version” of the inspiration for the “Dreams” series is that “dreams come from the result of dealing with the routine,” the daydreams that arise during repetitive or automatic actions, like driving. Which leads us to his work in the 56th annual Delta Exhibition, in which he won the Grand Award for his work “Slippage.” (It’s his fourth Grand Award.) “Slippage” is a terrifically composed scene, a suburban street lined by trees and homes on a titled horizon — drawn in charcoal, oil, coffee and pastel on paper — in which a man, in a suit, lies on his back under what might be a boulder. The road ends in a swath of white, much like the pillar of cloud that appeared to lead the Israelites from Egypt. Bailin draws and revises and draws some more until the purpose of the work has been achieved and the marks suit him. “Once you get the hook,” he said, “it’s playtime,” and his abstract blobs of orange and green and red dance over the drawing and down the street.

Bailin, who says his studio “has never been my friend,” is working on the next outgrowth of “Dreams,” about memory and senility. Appropriately, perhaps, he keeps wiping off what he’s drawn. “If it was smooth sailing, I’d be making wallpaper,” Bailin said. LNP

own set of challenges, too. Most recently, there was the time he was loading up his car in the parking lot under the I-30 exit ramp after a shoot downtown, and

found himself (and the rapper Pepperboy) surrounded by five police officers demanding their IDs and vehicle registration. “They said they’d been watching us for a while and we were acting suspiciously,” Bell said, “but we’d only just walked up.”

Bell cites his work with Big Piph, for whom he’s been working as a videographer, and Kari Faux, whose most recent Bell-directed video was premiered by Complex magazine, as his proudest achievements, but it’s the sheer volume of it all that confirms his status as one of the major visual stylists of the music scene. When I asked one rapper about Bell and his work recently, he nodded, sighed and said, “He’s the truth.”

“It’s in a place right now where it could go anywhere,” Bell said of the city’s rap scene. “We’re in a situation where we could really build a huge following here, while also making Little Rock known to an audience outside of Arkansas. We could create some mass appeal for the state. We just have to keep doing what we’re doing.” WS

brian chilson

brian chilson

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avid Bailin describes his work as Kafkaesque, cites critic Harold Bloom on his website and believes the humor in his work can be compared to that of deadpan comedian Buster Keaton. Yet, he says Arkansas created who he is as an artist and he can’t imagine living anywhere else. Bailin, who moved to Arkansas in 1986 with his wife, Amy Stewart, a lawyer, is a cerebral artist whose drawings are narrative works that reflect an evolution of his ideas in archetypical form. As a younger man, there was his larger-than-life Minyan series of 10 exquisitely drawn charcoals of images from the Holocaust overlain by symbols of Kabbalah, as if the symbols of Jewish mysticism could provide a healing blessing on the dead and living. That led to his Midrash series, his interpretations of Biblical stories in larger-than-lifesized charcoals, peopled by men in slacks and belts, women in shirtwaist dresses and purses, Yahweh wearing a tie. That was followed by what he calls the “cubicle” series, scenes of drab offices and desperate or sometimes pointless activity, and after that his “Dreams and Disasters” series. Sitting in the Townsend Wolfe Gallery at the Arkansas Arts Center, Bailin says the

www.arktimes.com | August 28, 2014

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David Couch

Doing the people’s work politicians can’t stomach.

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August 28, 2014 | ARKANSAS TIMES

part of trying to change his state for the better.

“It’s really the purest form of democracy,” he said. “We have a representative form of government, but the people can take issues and circulate petition themselves and get a measure on the ballot to let the voters

Amanda Crumley

PAC cofounder sees hope for Democrats in Arkansas.

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ittle Rock lawyer David Couch makes an excellent point about why the petitions and ballot initiatives he’s fought for since the 1990s are important: Though 49 percent of the voters in the state turned out in 2012 to vote for medical marijuana, go up to the state Capitol while the legislature is in session and try to find one elected official there who will say, on camera and without reservations, that medical marijuana should be legal in Arkansas.

Just try.

Couch got into petitioning in the early 1990s, when the law firm he worked for was hired to make a push for a ballot measure allowing casinos in the state.

From there, he was hooked on petition drives, especially those that make an end run around politics to put thirdrail issues on the ballot so the voters can decide what’s best for themselves. Since then, he’s been involved in such campaigns as those to take tax off food, the failed Regnat Populus petition drive in 2012 that would have asked voters to curtail gifts to and lobbying of elected officials in the state, and the 2012 medical marijuana initiative, which came within two percentage points of passage. Currently, he’s involved in the drive to put a measure raising the state minimum wage on the ballot, and another to allow voters to decide whether to let alcohol be sold all over the state. Looking ahead, he’s gearing up to help get ethics and medical marijuana measures back on the 2016 ballot. In every instance except the original casino petition drive that got him interested, he said, he’s worked on the measures for free, just to be a

decide.” Even in the cases in which the petition drives or eventual ballot measures fail, he said, they can start a conversation and raise awareness, which can eventually lead to the bettering of the state.

Nearly every attempt to get on the ballot involves some amount of nail biting as ballot titles are considered and the petitions come in. Couch said the work is always “a twist and a turn.”

It’s worthwhile, though, especially in today’s political reality, where every decision a politician makes is potential ammo for his future opponents.

“Most of the petition work is something that’s popular yet controversial,” Couch said. “The politicians don’t have the guts to do it themselves.” DK

rom 1992 to 2012, Arkansas went from being the state that gave the country President Bill Clinton to the state that gave the country U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton. Sen. Mark Pryor is the last Democrat standing in a congressional delegation that was once mostly blue.

Both chambers of the state legislature were taken by the GOP in 2012, and Barack Obama is about as well liked in Arkansas as Bashar al-Assad.

Arkansas Republicans tend to see their current dominance as permanent and destined, a consummation of an historical inevitability. Amanda Crumley sees it as a call to arms.

“I don’t believe the reddening of the South or of Arkansas is a foregone conclusion, but it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy if Democrats don’t spend time and money here,” she said. “The Koch brothers dropped $3 million into our state, because they saw that Arkansas media markets are inexpensive and they could easily dominate the airwaves, stifle the debate on issues and drown out Democrats’ message. … Democrats can level the playing field and counterbalance the Koch machine if we make the same kind of investments in the South that we make in presidential battleground states — in developing smart data and analytics, continually communicating with and registering voters and building strong voter turnout.”

Crumley is executive director of the Southern Progress Fund, a multistate PAC that she founded with Arkansas politico George Shelton and former Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove. Their mission is to combat Republicans in down-ballot races across the South. This election cycle, Crumley is concentrating on her home state of Arkansas (she’s from England, in Lonoke County).

While big donors and media lavish

attention on the Cotton-Pryor matchup, Crumley has her eyes set on state-level races for several reasons: because Democrats need to build a strong bench of future talent, because the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity pours money into state races, and, perhaps most importantly, because state politics is increasingly where big policy decisions are being made.

“The gridlock in Washington has forced policy fights down to the state level,” Crumley explained. “Issues like women’s health, marriage equality, voting rights were once all federal issues.

Now those fights are being waged in state houses, not in Congress. That makes state legislative and statewide elections for offices like attorney general even more important, yet those are the elections in the South that are traditionally underfunded.”

Crumley has lived and breathed politics since she was a student at the University of Arkansas in the early ’90s working for the Clinton campaign.

After victory in November 1992, the 21-year-old Crumley headed to Washington and spent four breathless years working in the White House under George Stephanopoulos. She bounced around the country from campaign to campaign in the years that followed, eventually settling in Los Angeles in 2004. But after watching Republicans sweep into Southern state legislatures in recent cycles — and the acquiescence of national Democrats, who often dismiss the region as a lost cause — she decided to return home.

“My family is here, my roots are here, and I felt I could make a difference,” she said. “Reports of the demise of Arkansas Democrats have been greatly exaggerated, and I think this election season will prove that.” BH

Their TheatreSquared bring new plays to Arkansas stage.

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ew are the places in Arkansas where people can attend professional theater. Where they do exist, it’s because people appreciate good playwriting and good acting. And then more people come to appreciate the theater. That’s something Robert Ford and his wife, Amy Herzberg, counted on when they started TheatreSquared in 2005 in Fayetteville.

Ford is a Renaissance guy: an author, flutist, playwright and artistic director of TheatreSquared. He is quick to say that his wife, an actor and director, is the true visionary and that there are numerous people and grantmakers who made TheatreSquared what it is. (Ford and Herzberg also teach at the University of Arkansas.)

with a grant from the Department of Arkansas Heritage, which was looking for a project to celebrate Arkansas culture and history. The festival, which now includes readings at The Rep in Little Rock as well as Fayetteville, has just completed its sixth season, one that included the first fully staged play. Once working with a budget of only $100,000, the theater has now “broken the milliondollar mark,” Ford said, and is breaking records in audience size as well. TheatreSquared has staged four of Ford’s own plays, including the well-received “My Father’s War” in 2008, a play based on Amy Herzberg’s father’s experiences as a Jew fighting in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, and in which

TheatreSquared is a stage where new plays get an audience, sometimes premiering regional works headed to bigger stages. It’s the sponsor of the Arkansas New Play Festival, the 2011 winner of one of only 10 National Theatre Company Grants for new companies doing outstanding play development, and has commissioned new work with grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its success was predicted, Ford said, by Herzberg, who a decade ago told him that Fayetteville could sustain a professional theater with equity actors and they should put one together.

The 175-seat TheatreSquared (originally planned for a space off the square but located instead in the Nadine Baum Studio of the Walton Arts Center) staged its first play in May 2006, and originated the Arkansas New Play Festival in 2009

Herzberg played the role of her father.

A review in the Times called the performances “heartfelt,” leaving the audience with “a real sense of the haplessness of war.” The play has been read in New York, translated into Italian for a production there, and staged in Germany.

Perhaps the most widely known commission of the theater is “Sundown Town”

by Kevin Cohea, a play about racism that featured bluegrass music by 3 Penny Acre; the NEA funded its commission.

“Our vision for the theater is to do work that is pretty fresh … doing new work is very much a part of who we are.

We fill a nice niche here,” one that complements the Walton Arts Center’s big Broadway shows, Ford said. “It’s a perfect marriage between what we do and a region that’s hungry for this. I’m incredibly grateful to the community.” LNP

MatT Foster

Brewer pushes Arkansas beer culture forward.

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att Foster has a vision for Arkansas beer independence. Today, commercial and home brewers across the state mostly use ingredients grown outside the state. But as the locally grown foods movement builds momentum, Foster sees an opportunity to pair it with Arkansas’s growing love for craft beer. Last fall, the co-owner of Little Rock’s Flyway Brewery launched the Arkansas Native Beer Project, an effort to brew beer made with ingredients grown and processed entirely in Arkansas.

Most beer is made using four t hing s: ba rley, hops, water and yeast. Foster and other local brewers have long used Cascade and Nugget hops grown at Dunbar Community Garden. Last October, Foster connected with Jason Kelley, an agronomist with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service who specializes in wheat and feed grains, and an assortment of local farmers to test-grow several varieties of barley, a crop that hasn’t been grown in Arkansas since the rise of the automobile.

The experiment appeared to be on its way to success last winter, despite some harsh weather, but the week it needed to be harvested torrential rains came through the state, and the barley germinated on the vine. The Native Beer Project lost 80 percent of its first crop.

Foster is undeterred. A farmer in Wynne has agreed to grow hops and barley for him, and Kelley is growing some wheat that’s especially suited for brewing. With it, he plans to make what’s called a smash beer, which uses a single barley malt and single hop. “We want to find out what these grains taste like,” he said.

Meanwhile, Grant Chandler, a research technician at UAMS, has been working to isolate wild yeast strains by taking yeast samples from apricots, pears and strawberries at Dunbar Garden. Foster hopes to

use Chandler’s yeast to make what’s known as a wild ale.

Foster is invested in the success of the Arkansas Native Beer Project, but it decidedly comes second to growing Flyway, the brewery he launched last fall after home brewing for nearly a dozen years. From last November until this spring, he operated out of a commercial kitchen in Quapaw Towers, brewing enough to supply local restaurants, mainly South on Main, where his Migrate Ale became that restaurant’s unofficial house brew.

People request it nearly every day, said bar manager David Burnette.

For much of the summer, he’s taken a break from brewing to work on expansion. He and Jess McMullen, a longtime friend and business partner who recently moved his family from North Carolina to Little Rock, are poised to open a mid-sized brewery the likes of which doesn’t currently exist in Little Rock.

Once in operation, it will be capable of producing 45,000 gallons of beer a year. (By comparison, that’s more than three times the capacity of Vino’s or Stone’s Throw.) They’ll hand-bottle 22-ounce bottles to distribute to area liquor stores, and they hope to soon occupy 100 taps around Central Arkansas. How soon? Soon is as specific as Foster and McMullen are willing to go before they sign a lease.

Flyway will debut with four beers: Early Bird IPA, Free Range Brown Ale, Migrate Pale Ale and Shadowhands Stout. “We’re trying to make fantastic representatives of those styles,” Foster said. The brewers have tested and refined the recipes for years. “We’ve been working on them for a long time,” McMullen said.

The reception for Flyway’s beer has already been positive. “I get emails, calls on a daily basis,” Foster said.

“Everything from people wanting to volunteer, to people wanting to have an event. And a lot of restaurants wanting to carry our beer.” LM brian chilson

Robert Ford and amy Herzberg

www.arktimes.com | August 28, 2014

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Brad Harvey

Entrepreneur creates ‘cool’ smart-kid camp.

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Kelly Cooper, Arkansas Children’s Hospital

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Charlotte Hobbs

Research in birth defects helps Arkansas mothers avoid risk factors.

Jill Cross

ince he ran a tutoring company during his undergraduate years at Texas Tech, self-acclaimed math nerd Brad Harvey has always loved education. The trick to educate, he said, is to make it cool.

That realization came to him at what might be, in the eyes of any sporting 12-year-old, the antithesis of a schoolroom: Springdale’s Balls N Strikes batting cage.

“Man, if you love baseball, this place is awesome,” Harvey said. “But where’s the batting cage for nerds? Where is the place where nerds can get better at what they love?”

Aside from school tutoring programs, he couldn’t find it, and Harvey will be the first one to tell you he’s not interested in founding another school, building classrooms or hiring teachers.

Harvey, who has worked in management at various mobile media companies and Tyson Foods, founded Nerdies, a day camp in Fayetteville for kids “who think smart is cool.” He raised about $20,000 through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to cover startup costs, aided by support from people he calls ONs — Original Nerds — who’ve told him they wished they’d had a Nerdies in their golden days.

“Part of our goal at Nerdies is to create passion,” Harvey said. “If you can talk my ear off about something, to the point that I get bored, then you’re a nerd in that area. Secondly, because it is Nerdies, we’re generally taking what are historically marginalized kids and giving them a cool place to call their own.”

Nerdies opened its doors on June 9, and by the end of the summer, over 300 kids had attended at least one weeklong session. The camp hosted, among many others, a session on “Mods for Minecraft,” several on robotics, one on hacking and two on drone-building. Harvey recently invested in a state-of-the-art gaming studio, complete with bright orange walls, flat-screen televisions and rows of plush gaming chairs, which he plans to rent out for birthday parties and the like. After all, he said, Nerdies isn’t a school.

“I really purposefully seek non-teachers,” Harvey said. “I’m really seeking and trying to find passionate people who do it and live it every day. For instance, my daughter is a musician. I know Benjamin del Shreve, a huge local artist, an NWA Music Hall of Famer. From an artist’s standpoint, I don’t even care what he teaches her, just as long as she can spend a week writing songs and being creative with him. That’s more important to me than, ‘Hey, this is a G chord.’ ” But following a low summer turn-

out of the more artistic types, Harvey diagnosed his company with a marketing problem. Many of the creative minds who’d love to attend a photography session, he realized, might not feel comfortable branding themselves under the “Nerdies” banner. So, in August, he launched Arties, a sister camp of Nerdies, to attract those kids who feel an inclination toward more right-brained pursuits like standup comedy, filmmaking and creative writing.

“The big deal is that we’ve just gotta go do,” Harvey said. “The learning is secondary to the doing. If we’re going to build this, write this, shoot this, the learning has to occur. But we’re very much outcome-focused. … By the time they’re 18 and they’re applying for jobs, they can say, ‘I’ve already shot 12 films.’ ” Because a summer session at Nerdies costs $425 (Arties is $325), Harvey and his wife, Mandy, founded the Foundation for Nerd Advancement to raise money to provide access to kids who otherwise couldn’t afford camp. Nerds from all backgrounds welcome the access to the cutting-edge technology and the expert guidance that Nerdies can offer, Harvey said.

“We had a kid who came bouncing through the door at 7:30,” Harvey said. “His mom was visibly tired, and she said, ‘Apparently my son says you should open at 7. He went outside and started my car this morning.’ What kid wants to get up at 6 a.m. to go learn?”

Nerdies do. CG Harvey’s photo was taken by Jill Cross, age 11, who attended a Nerdies photography session this summer.

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hree out of every 100 babies are born with a birth defect. Dr. Charlotte Hobbs of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences knows that statistic from a lifetime of nationally recognized research into the causes of congenital disorders. It also bears for her a certain existential relevance. Hobbs’ own mother was born with a potentially fatal birth defect — gastroschisis, a condition in which the baby’s abdominal wall fails to develop properly, causing a portion of the child’s intestines to extrude from her body.

“This was in 1928,” she said. “My mom was born at home and the doctor came out of the room that my grandmother delivered her in and he was shaking his head, saying, ‘I don’t think the baby’s going to make it.’ But he had just read an article the week before about gastroschisis in some medical journal. Even though he was a GP, he redid the abdominal wall, got the intestines back in, sutured it all together, and for probably 6 to 8 weeks they didn’t know whether Mom would make it or not. But they kept doing what they could, and she did make it.”

“There’s no question that it was research, or at least sharing scientific information from one physician to another, that resulted in saving her life,” Hobbs said.

Today, Hobbs is the director of the Arkansas Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention, where she analyzes data resulting from a national 15-year study of birth defects that concluded in 2012. Hobbs was the principal investigator for the Arkansas site and is also heading a follow-up study that’s just begun to identify participant

mothers. The goal of both studies: to better identify the complex causes and risk factors underlying birth defects, both environmental and genetic.

The Arkansas center, Hobbs said, is “kind of at the forefront in terms of the genomics,” though she’s quick to add the work is done in collaboration with major research institutions, including Stanford University, Columbia University and MD Anderson Cancer Center, as well as similar state research centers.

Some factors affecting the risk of birth defects are well known to science. Taking certain medications, such as the acne drug Acutane, greatly increases the probability that an expectant mother will bear a child with a congenital disorder, while consuming proper doses of folic acid, a B vitamin, decreases it. Hobbs’ work is contributing to that vital body of knowledge. Among the findings so far to emerge from the recently completed study: Mothers diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes or those who are obese have a significantly increased risk of giving birth to children with various defects.

That’s an especially important public health message for Arkansas, which is home to counties with some of the highest diabetes rates in the country.

About half of all birth defects in the United States are congenital heart deformities, Hobbs said. Cleft lips and palettes are also frequent, as are neural tube defects such as spina bifida. And gastroschisis, the disorder that almost killed Hobbs’ mother as an infant, has actually increased somewhat in recent years. Scientists aren’t yet sure why, however — and so the investigation continues. BH

www.arktimes.com | August 28, 2014

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ASMSA is your opportunity to be

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Y

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts congratulates this year’s class of Arkansas Visionaries whose ideas and initiatives are changing the state for the better.

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ASMSA brings together juniors and seniors from across Arkansas who are dreamers, thinkers and doers to live in a community

of peers at the state's premier public high school. While here, they engage in courses designed to challenge their minds as they earn a year of college credit. We are excited to have tomorrow's visionaries on our campus today.

Be a researcher. Be an artist. Be a scholar.

ASMSA will help you become extraordinary.

Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts

Digital Learning • Residential Experience • Enrichment Programs

Discover who you can become at asmsa.org.

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August 28, 2014 | ARKANSAS TIMES

#ASMSA

Kendra Johnson

Human Rights Campaign state director works to close civil rights gap.

brian chilson

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hough it’s a Southern state that’s backward in many ways, Arkansas doesn’t have to bring up the rear in civil rights. That’s the feeling of Little Rock native Kendra Johnson, who is working to help dissolve the idea that the South — even the rural South — can’t be tolerant and inclusive of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.

In July, Johnson was introduced as the new state director of HRC Arkansas, a third of the Human Rights Campaign’s three-pronged “Project One America” campaign, which will install permanent staff and offices in Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi, with a goal of bringing LGBT equality to the Bible Belt.

A graduate of Mount St. Mary Academy, Johnson went on to Spelman College, then left the states for Brazil, living there for 14 years while working in the nonprofit sector and as a teacher,

translator and journalist. She returned to Little Rock eight years ago to be closer to family and to get her master’s degree in public administration at UALR. Since coming back home, she’s worked for several nonprofits, including Heifer International and the LGBT advocacy group Southerners on New Ground. Working for change, she said, is a passion.

“I’ve really been a lifelong volunteer and a lifelong activist,” Johnson said.

Her goal at HRC Arkansas, she said, is to help the state reach a place where people are judged solely by their character. That means changing hearts and minds, and building bridges of understanding. “I think there are some progressive partners that we have — straight allies,” she said. “There are a lot of people who are just supportive of having a loving environment for people

to grow up in.”

Johnson said HRC Arkansas will be working to extend legal and workplace protections for LGBT people across the state, but will also reach out to those who might have reservations about extending gay rights, including some religious leaders. By showing those with doubts on the issue that gay people in the state are decent, hardworking Arkansans who just want to be happy and provide for their families, she believes, the stereotype will be broken. That has to start one-on-one, Johnson said.

“Right now, really, there’s a part of the United States that enjoys full civil liberties, and there’s a part of the U.S. that has second-class citizenship,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense that, if you’re a productive member of society, you should be denied basic human rights.” DK

Joseph jones

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oseph Jones has a uniquely challenging job. As the founding director of Philander Smith College’s Social Justice Institute, he’s charged with developing a new identity for the nearly 150-year-old school, and making sure it is maintained.

Established under the leadership of former president Walter Kimbrough in 2007, Philander Smith’s mission of graduating students “who are advocates for social justice, determined to intentionally change the world for the better” expanded in 2010 when the Kresge Foundation awarded the school a $1.2 million grant to develop a center for social justice.

Kimbrough tapped Jones, a bright, young Philander Smith alumnus, then working as a professor of political science at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., to head the new initiative. Jones told Kimbrough “no” three times. He’d just finished post-doctoral research at Harvard for a book he was writing on W.E.B. DuBois for Temple University Press. He wrote opinion columns for a local pub. He was making a name for himself in Charlotte and at Johnson C. Smith. But ultimately, Jones said, the opportunity to create something from the ground up that could transform his alma mater was too good to pass up.

Jones realized right away that the school shouldn’t roll out the new institute immediately.

“When I got here the same question kept coming up, ‘What is social justice?’ We needed to take some time to have that conversation.” It began with a basic definition: “Social justice is people improving other people’s lives,” Jones said. From there, he talked about marginalization and oppression on the basis of race, economic status, sexuality, environment and more. That big-tent approach was intentional from the outset.

“We wanted to keep it as broad as possible because

we were trying to make clear connections to the curriculum. I can go to a mathematician and a businessperson and a biology professor and say, ‘This is how social justice looks in your discipline.’ We try to empower and train professors to teach it in their classrooms. But curriculum belongs to the faculty.

We can’t tell them to teach social justice.”

After three years of making the case for social justice, Jones estimates his office has gotten buy-in from two-thirds of the faculty. Meanwhile, every freshman is required to take a social justice seminar class.

In the coming years, all classes taught in students’ first year will have service learning components: Jones’ office will help pair classes with nonprofits whose work provides both a practical application of the curriculum. The experience will show students ways to improve other people’s lives.

Jones said he expected it would take two to three years for the Social Justice Initiative to grow into the Social Justice Institute. Along the way, he didn’t expect to see Kimbrough leave (“I told him he was making the biggest mistake of his life. I said, ‘I would’ve made you look so good,” Jones said, laughing), nor did he expect to see his successor, Johnny Moore, come and go so quickly. Finalists to be the next president should be announced in the coming weeks.

In the near future, look for the initiative to officially

brian chilson

Helping bring social justice to Philander Smith.

transform into an institute and become more visible.

In the fall, it will release a report titled “The State of Black Arkansas,” modeled on the Urban League’s “The State of Black America.” In February, Philander Smith will host an annual social justice conference for students from all over the country. A social justice radio show produced by the institute for Sirius radio is in the works. The institute will also continue Archival Justice, a project that’s already begun.

“Philander’s contribution to Arkansas’s history hasn’t, at least from my estimation, been told in a way that explains the deep impact it’s had in the state,” Jones said. He hopes to correct that through research.

“This is about giving voice to those who have been written out or excluded from history.”

Somewhere along the way, Jones also plans to finish that book on DuBois he was working on before he took the job at Philander Smith. “I made a promise to my wife. It will be done this year. All I need is a week.” LM www.arktimes.com | August 28, 2014

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Paul Leopoulos

Envisions better schools in memory of daughter.

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August 28, 2014 | ARKANSAS TIMES

he start of something very good — a foundation that awards scholarships to student artists, performers, designers and writers, and promotes arts-infused education — was something very bad. Thea Leopoulos was 17 when she was killed in a car accident in Little Rock in May 2001. Her father, Paul Leopoulos, said he woke up the day after his daughter’s death and despaired that “no one would say her name” again, that “she would cease to exist.” Leopoulos and his wife decided the next day to start the Thea Foundation.

It gave him purpose, he said, to create something in her name. Thea’s foundation has taken the key that made her excel in school — a confidence-building art class — and given it to students across Arkansas.

“I don’t see myself as a visionary,” Leopoulos said, “as much as following where things lead me.”

The foundation’s first scholarship awards, to seniors at North Little Rock High School, totaled $1,000. “One thing lead to another,” Leopoulos said, and the foundation began to increase its scholarship categories.

Today, the foundation awards $80,000 to 30 graduating seniors from all over Arkansas, dollars matched (or sometimes exceeded) by 20 state colleges. Thea will announce in September a capital campaign to raise $2 million to endow its scholarship program; the foundation has already raised $1.23 million in pledges.

Other projects brought to fruition

by Leopoulos: Thea’s A+ program that uses all manner of art forms to teach academic subjects. Its system to provide art supplies to schools. Its Thea Paves the Way sidewalk art chalk event at the Clinton Presidential Center. Its exhibition program for young professionals, The Art Department. A collaboration with other arts institutions to offer arts instruction in schools.

“The cosmos puts this thing in front of you,” Leopoulos said, and you act on it. “I’m an early adopter kind of person,” he added, “and that can get you real in trouble.”

One of those early adopted programs was A+. Leopoulos learned about the teaching system on a visit to Hugh Goodwin Elementary School in El Dorado, where the Windgate Foundation had funded an A+ pilot program. Leopoulos was there to deliver art (from the Art Across Arkansas program, since defunct); when he got there, the principal grabbed him and showed him around so he could see what A+ was doing for the school. Leopoulos saw kids engrossed in their studies. Student scores had shot up exponentially after Hugh Goodwin’s teachers embraced A+.

“I ran out of the building and I called Linda and I said this is it!”

That was 2007. Since then, the Thea Foundation’s A+ network has taken two steps forward, one step backward — the program requires serious teacher and principal buy-in — but now appears to be taking hold. In 2013, there were 12 A+ schools. Today, there are 17, including a program that will start in September at the Division of Youth Services’ Arkansas Consolidated High School in Alexander.

The Walton Foundation just awarded a grant to the foundation of $572,915 over the next three years to help with costs of A+ training and the creation of a virtual “learning network” for A+ staff, principals and teachers.

The foundation’s newest project, Arts Reconstruction, run by the Leopouloses’ son Nick, will partner with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, the Arkansas Arts Center and Trike Theatre in Bentonville to offer arts classes in school. Unlike A+, this is a program purely to promote the appreciation of the arts, and it’s started off with violin classes at four schools. The foundation and symphony provide the instruction and the violins free the first year, with schools picking up a portion of the costs in ensuing years.

It takes a lot of pluck to start so many programs, and “it costs some money,” Leopoulos said, putting his head down on the table for emphasis.

But, he said, “If you want something done, goddam it, go do it. And if some people want to help, great, but I’m not waiting.” LNP

brian chilson brian chilson

JEREMY LEWNO

Bicycle advocate sees Little Rock going beyond River Trail.

DARLENE LEWIS

Selflessly finding jobs for felons.

W

hile lots of people talk about crime and recidivism in Little Rock, it’s hard to find those who can point to hard facts and figures to show they’re actually doing something about it. One of those few, however, is Darlene Lewis of Lewis-Burnett Employment Finders. An agency that specializes in finding employment for former felons, helping them provide for themselves and their families without falling back into crime, LewisBurnett doesn’t charge for its services because, Lewis said, she doesn’t want to take money out of the pockets of those who have none. They see around 100 people a week, most of them recently former felons.

The roots of the agency started back in 1987, when Lewis became alarmed at the number of young people in her community who had no idea how to get a job, putting them on the fast track to prison.

In her spare time, Lewis started sitting down at her kitchen table with friends and family, helping fill out applications and making calls to see who was hiring.

Through word-of-mouth, others heard she was willing to help. Soon, she was seeing dozens of people a week, many of them with felony records that barred them from most employment.

Lewis-Burnett was officially founded in 1999, and since then the agency has helped thousands of people a year find work. In addition to employment ser-

vices, the agency teaches GED classes, computer courses, “dress for success” classes, interview skills and more, all for free. Lewis said the work they do is mostly funded out of her pocket, with help from occasional grants and donations.

“People tell me all the time: ‘Why don’t you just charge people for finding them a job?’ ” she said. “If I did, I’d be no better than any of the other agencies.

These individuals are struggling to get on their feet.”

Housed at the city-owned Willie L. Hinton Center on 12th Street, LewisBurnett Employment Finders is in the process of being evicted because Lewis, with very little money coming in, can’t afford to pay the $389 monthly rent.

She’s been told she has to be out by Sept.

1. Though what the agency does is surely worth $389 a month to the city just in terms of helping fight recidivism, Lewis said that if the eviction goes through, she’ll try to find other space and work on to find jobs for those without hope. Hers is often the second face a newly released prisoner sees, after his parole officer.

“The parole officer sends them over to us, and then we’re going to do everything in our power to find them a job so they don’t go back down that road,” Lewis said. “Whatever it takes to help them, that’s what I’m going to do. I believe in setting people up for success, not failure.” DK

J

eremy Lewno, owner of the bike-tour and rental business Bobby’s Bike Hike, grew up taking trips with his father’s bus tour company across the country.

His father, Lewno said, believed in connecting the state of Arkansas to the rest of the country, and vice versa.

“He’d tell them, ‘The thing is you’re a piece of Arkansas, and we’re not just going out there to explore the rest of the country. We’re going out there to bring people back to our state. … So I want you guys to talk proud that you’re from Arkansas, talk about how beautiful it is to the people you meet on these travels.’ So he would engage the folks to be ambassadors to the state. I was inspired by that.”

Now Lewno himself has aspirations to interconnect different regions within his hometown of Little Rock. When he became the city’s bike-pedestrian coordinator at the beginning of 2013, Little Rock had just passed a sales tax to repave existing roads around town. With a bike master plan developed in 2011 that had grown “a little bit dusty,” Lewno saw a chance to implement bike infrastructure at no additional cost to the public.

“It’s the lowest hanging fruit,” Lewno said. “You’re just slapping paint on.

“We’re also trying to connect everyone to the River Trail. We don’t want people to have to drive their bikes. We’re going to connect every-

thing at some point so you can ride your bike to the zoo. It’s not, ‘Oh, do I go for a bike ride on this beautiful day or do I take my kids to the zoo?’

No, you bike your kids to the zoo.”

Lewno estimates that within the next two years, the city will see a host of new bike lanes to add to the ones already installed under his guidance.

Backed by Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas, he hopes to oversee a route connecting Daisy Bates to existing lanes on 12th Street, effectively implementing an “east-west corridor,” joining UALR, Arkansas Baptist College and Philander Smith along with Central High and Dunbar Middle School.

Lewno’s business, Bobby’s Bike Hike, named for his late father, has operations in both Chicago and Little Rock. In Little Rock, Bobby’s offers a historic neighborhoods tour, which takes bikers to the Quapaw Quarter, MacArthur Park Historic District, Central High, the state Capitol and back along the river trail. Bobby’s also offers a pork and bourbon tour and a “Tyke Hike” for families. Lewno said that more than anything, in the face of an obesity epidemic, rising gas prices and a “renaissance of people interested in their own history,” he wants to use Bobby’s Bike Hike and his role with the city to “engage the community” and “get people healthy.”

“I really do believe in biking and active transportation as the future of all good things,” he said. CG www.arktimes.com | August 28, 2014

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brian chilson

Jeff Long

UA athletic director remaking the business of the Hogs.

F

rank Broyles had the prescience to move Arkansas into the Southeastern Conference well before the Hogs’ old league, the Southwest Conference, collapsed upon itself in the mid-1990s. But it has been Jeff Long who had the foresight to monetize that move in ways Broyles didn’t touch before his run as UA athletic director ended on Dec. 31, 2007.

Long, 54, who came to Arkansas from the University of Pittsburgh to become the UA’s fourth athletic director in 62 years, isn’t without his detractors over his boosting of Razorback coffers and restocking of the athletic department’s personnel. Many point to 2011 as the point where longtime midlevel donors began to be turned off with required donations to the Razorback Foundation to secure choice football tickets and game parking for some fans by as much as 200 percent. Long and his staff have continued to preach that even after the donation price hike, Arkansas fans still were enjoying seeing the Hogs at a bargain compared with the SEC powerhouse programs such as Alabama, LSU and Georgia.

And, he will add in responding to Hog followers via social media — Long is a regular Twitter user

with the average fan — the additional dollars will bring Arkansas’s ancillary athletic facilities up to date with the rest of the SEC: a student athlete study center and a basketball “performance” center (a practice facility for men and women) appear to be foremost in Long’s priorities, and eventually Reynolds Razorback Stadium may require more skyboxes and expansion at its north end to bring in more revenue to support both men’s and women’s athletics. Long brought both departments together when he arrived, something Broyles avoided doing.

Thanks to Broyles’ move to steer the Hogs to the SEC, Long can look at anticipated payouts of $20 million or more each year from the new SEC Network on cable TV — at least that is the forecast from the financial gurus.

Media has always been a Long focal point: One of Long’s immediate moves upon getting the job in 2008 was to sign over media rights to what is now under the IMG Sports Management umbrella, bringing in more millions.

Meanwhile, the UA sports department has created its own news site while limiting basic media coverage at football practices from commercial newspapers and TV, all supposedly under edict from Long to bolster the web traffic to the new-andimproved arkansasrazorbacks. com.

Nearly all of the employees who manned the Broyles Ath-

letic Complex or the Razorback Foundation offices before Long arrived are gone. Interestingly, some of Long’s choice hires from elsewhere have moved out of athletics to other financial departments on the UA campus, away from Long’s purview.

Those who were familiar with Long’s four-year stay at Pitt, where he changed the traditional logo and the uniforms while finding new ways to separate the fans from their dollars with seating changes in football and basketball, could see the UA changes coming. He put his stamp on the athletic image of Pitt, which didn’t have a tremendous national brand to begin with. At Arkansas, some of his moves have been met with resistance from longtime fans and the old guard of former Hogs, while outside the borders he’s been lauded with such honors as Athletic Director of the Year in 2013 by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (in part because of his handling of the Bobby Petrino scandal and subsequent firing). His reputation for integrity in NCAA matters and his dealing with the Petrino incident led to his appointment by the leadership of the Football Bowl Subdivision universities as the chairman of the first-ever College Football Playoff selection committee, which will choose the top four teams to compete for a national title this season. JH

JEFF MATIKA

At Green Day break, guitarist sheds light on local talent.

J

eff Matika moved to Little Rock in 1991. “I kind of thought this was going to be a stepping stone,” he said recently. “I’d come here for a couple of years and figure out where I wanted to go.” He fell into the music scene, playing shows and hanging out at Vino’s until he got a job there, which he kept for 10 years. He toured the country in beloved local bands like Ashtray Babyhead and the Magic Cropdusters, before settling down in the 2000s with an IT job. “I had decided, I’m going to play music forever,” he said, “but as a casual thing.” Then he got a call from Green Day. His old friend Jason White, a Little Rock native, had been playing with the band for a decade, and when they decided they needed a touring guitarist, Matika’s name came up. He was flown out to Los Angeles and spent a panic-stricken night practicing Green Day songs in a hotel room. His tryout lasted two weeks. “I figured the worst that could happen was I’d get a cool vacation out of this,” Matika said. A few months later he was playing the season finale of “Saturday Night Live,” sharing a cramped backstage with Tom Hanks and Will Ferrell.

“For me, the big stages are almost not real,” he says of his time with the band. “It’s just so ridiculous. To play stadiums in Europe, with thousands of people, it’s just kind of a blur. Somebody may be looking at me every once in a while, but the chances of me making eye contact with anyone are slim.”

It’s a long way from Vino’s, but Matika found himself missing his hometown venue. Now that Green Day is on break for at least the remainder of the year, he’s taken over Vino’s booking and hopes to revive some of the ’90s spirit of the place. He remembers it as a linchpin of the local music community, a space where young bands who “didn’t really have their stuff together” could develop, and though he’s aware that “times have changed,” he wants to do his part.

He’s also started a booking agency, The Poison Shop, through which he hopes he can encourage artists “willing and able to work” to think broader than the local scene. So far, he’s working with Bonnie Montgomery, Kevin Kerby, Peckerwolf and Whale Fire, though he knows there are plenty more out there ready for the road. “People need to hear these bands,” he said. “They need to get out of Little Rock occasionally and take it to the masses.”

When he’s on vacation from his role as part of the biggest rock band in the world, he’s committed to giving back to the Little Rock scene. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take to get a foothold on this and get things going again,” he said, “but I’ve got time.” WS www.arktimes.com | August 28, 2014

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April Seggebruch and Stan Zylowski

S

tan Zylowski and April Seggebruch were students in the master’s in business administration program at the University of Arkansas Walton School of Business when they came up with the idea for a new business: an app to track employees.

Zylowski had worked for vendors selling products in Walmart and Sam’s, and he knew that companies operating in retail stores had a problem: They were losing millions of dollars in inefficiency and fraud because they didn’t have a system in place to manage remote employees.

“These companies have people all over the United States, and their job is to represent the brand by doing work in the store — like build a display, return products, check in stocks, place an order,” Zylowski said.

“On a given day, you might have 70 or 80 people working inside a Walmart, for example. All of that stuff was reported via scout’s honor. There was no real way to ensure that people were where they were supposed to be, doing what they were supposed to be doing.”

Zylowski and Seggebruch came up with a solution: Movista (originally called Merchant View), founded in Bentonville in 2010. “Our job is to take companies and help them mobilize their workforces, particularly through smart devices,” Zylowski said. “Everything a worker needs is on a single application on their smart device.”

What began as a startup with just the two of them in an office suite has grown to a company with 25 employees and revenues in the multimillions.

Companies tailor Movista’s app to their needs, with options for task management, data flows, mapping, document sharing, scheduling, payroll, communications and more. One big advantage for companies is that it allows managers to simply identify where the workers are and track their progress. “First of all, it is their time clock,” he said. “It delivers their schedule to them. If you want to really boil it down, it’s ‘where do I want you to be, what do I want you to be doing, when do I want you to do it? ’ “Twenty percent of the time — that was the presumed industry standard — [workers] who said they went to the store didn’t go to the store at all. What we saw was an opportunity to apply technology to address a big problem in business.”

Movista started with a focus on retail, but Zylowski and Seggebruch expect their concept to be applicable to other businesses, too. “If you think

Startup founders battle retail inefficiency, build community. about the problems we’re describing in retail, they’re really no different than if you’re talking about trying to manage pharmaceutical reps or oil field auditors or financial auditors or anybody else,” Zylowski said. “You’ve got people running around, you don’t know where they are or what the heck they’re doing — you need to be able to harness all that.”

As the company has grown, Bentonville has been booming, too; Zylowski called it a “city on fire” in a recent interview. Zylowski and Seggebruch say that Bentonville was a natural home for

said. “The [Walmart] AMP in Rogers, the flourishing of downtown Bentonville, it’s huge for us because that really supports our efforts to recruit talent into the state.”

Zylowski and Seggebruch have taken an active role in fostering business and cultural growth in the region, sitting on boards of the Bentonville Chamber of Commerce, the Rogers public library and Trike, a children’s theater in Bentonville.

They have also supported a number of businesses, restaurants and com-

have helped Bentonville grow, and that growth will help build the sort of community that will allow Movista to attract and retain startup talent.

“You can’t put your blinders on and expect the rest of the folks around you to do all the heavy lifting,” Seggebruch said. “We participate to the benefit of the community and to the benefit of Movista, because as that tide rises, it lifts the Movista ship.”

As companies like Movista succeed and new startups emerge, while cultural and culinary options keep

Movista given the connection to retail, but it was a risk. “Northwest Arkansas four years ago — it was known for supply chain, for logistics, but for tech — never,” Seggebruch said.

The city’s growth is good news for Movista. “All of the social development and leisure activities around Northwest Arkansas really help us,” Seggebruch

mercial and real estate development in downtown Bentonville, including playing a significant role in backing and developing the concept for the highly successful restaurant Tusk and Trotter.

It’s a symbiotic relationship between town and company: Zylowski and Seggebruch’s activities

popping up, Zylowski and Seggebruch hope that the various things happening in the “city on fire” will feed on each other.

“It’s a shared vision of creating our own Silicon Valley, our own Austin,” Seggebruch said. “Not to replicate what they’ve done, but really to own our Northwest Arkansas culture.” DR www.arktimes.com | August 28, 2014

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Annabelle Imber Tuck

Former Supreme Court Justice fights for access to justice.

I

n 2011, a year after Mark Thiedeman returned to Little Rock from New York, he screened a short film called “A Christian Boy” at the Little Rock Film Festival. He describes the short as “nearly silent and totally controversial,” which seems right, since the plot summary uses the phrases “evangelical radio program” and “sexual awakening” in the same sentence. Accordingly, he expected the worst. The response surprised him. Not only were audiences supportive, they wanted to help.

This has been the pattern of Thiedeman’s career ever since. Each year, he makes another ambitious and uncompromising film about the South that revels in the region’s hypocrisies and complexities; and, rather than rejection or confusion, he finds his work increasingly celebrated and embraced. He finds new fans, fundraisers, volunteer crew members. Today, after a widely acclaimed full-length feature (“Last Summer”) and this year’s award-winning short, “Sacred Hearts, Holy Souls,” Thiedeman, 32, is probably the most promising representative of a local film scene that hardly exists, not that he sees this as a problem.

“At one point I thought of leaving Little Rock and heading back to New York, but I very quickly changed my mind,” he said recently, “because I realized that there’s a level of generosity and support that people have for me and for my work that I don’t think I would find anywhere else.”

Originally from New Orleans, Thiedeman came to Little Rock in middle school, and graduated from Catholic High, which more than anything else left him lonely and bored. “I spent a lot of time alone,” he said, “and the best way I could think of to occupy myself was to watch movies.” After Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves” convinced him he should be a filmmaker, he enrolled in New York University. “It was a very expensive experience,” he said of his time in film school, though he allowed that it gave him the opportunity to study with personal heroes like Kelly Reichardt (“Meek’s Cutoff”) and become immersed in the retrospectives and independent theaters that have always distinguished the city’s film culture.

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August 28, 2014 | ARKANSAS TIMES

Thiedeman’s films, visually arresting dramas about adolescence, sexuality and Southern identity, are deliberately impressionistic, steeped in the art-house traditions of the 1960s and `70s. “I think that in some ways I feel more of a kinship with Russian filmmakers than I do with American ones,” he said. “A lot of Russian films deal with a kind of spiritual conflict that I think is very familiar to me as a Southerner.”

His latest effort, “Sacred Hearts, Holy Souls,” won the Charles B. Pierce Award for Best Film Made in Arkansas at this spring’s Little Rock Film Festival, though Thiedeman describes it as primarily an experiment. Alternating between color and black-and-white, the film is a nuanced portrait of a friendship between two outsiders at a Catholic boarding school. He wanted, he says, “to make a movie that people would actually really enjoy, which isn’t typically my first goal as a filmmaker.”

Thiedeman is currently in pre-production for his second feature, which he isn’t ready to talk about in much detail.

In his spare time, he’s part of the collective behind Splice Microcinema, the biweekly film screening series held at the design space Few. Thiedeman frequently introduces the films, which are as diverse and as challenging as the selection he had access to in New York. The goal, he says, is “to turn cinema back into an event.” WS

and organized statewide fundraising effort for legal aid organizations.

The Commission has also been active in organizing and recruiting private attorneys to represent clients pro bono or what they call “low bono” (the lawyer volunteers to work for a reduced rate that the client can afford).

Tuck and the Commission are also advocating new approaches beyond traditional full legal representation.

“We can’t continue doing the same thing,” Tuck said. “Thinking outside the box is the only way we’re going

brian chilson

MARK THIEDEMAN

Making films about sex, religion and the South.

“I

f people can’t get access to the courts and feel like they’re getting a fair shake, that to me is the end of our judicial system,” said Annabelle Imber Tuck, a former Arkansas Supreme Court justice — the first woman to be elected to the state Supreme Court — and current chair of the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission. “This is so basic. Our country is at a place where people are not sure the legal system is on their side — there’s a court system set up only for people who can afford it.”

The Access to Justice Commission was created by the state Supreme Court in 2003 and given one directive: “To provide equal access to justice in civil cases for all Arkansans.”

In a criminal matter, defendants are legally entitled to a public defender if they can’t afford an attorney, but no such guarantee exists for lowincome people in civil matters, including potentially life-altering problems, such as legal issues related to domestic violence, child custody or housing foreclosures. Two legal aid organizations provide legal services for Arkansans who make less than 125 percent of the federal poverty level (that’s around $15,000 for an individual or $30,000 for a family of four), and they serviced around 15,000 clients last year, but because of limited capacity, they had to turn away another 15,000. On top of that are thousands more of the working poor who make a little too much to qualify for legal aid but not enough to be able to afford an attorney. That’s the puzzle the commission, of which Tuck has been a member since 2005, is trying to solve.

One big push has been a focused

to be able to make the courts accessible to people and make the courts actually mean something to people.”

One project has been a website (which can be found at arlegalservices.org) that serves as a hub for legal resources, not just for legal aid and pro bono attorneys, but also for the general public. One program, which operates a bit like TurboTax, guides people step by step on how to complete the forms they need for a simple legal action, as well as instructions on what to do.

This program recognizes the

reality that more and more people are representing themselves. Tuck acknowledges that it would be better if people were able to hire a lawyer, but given the costs, that simply isn’t a realistic option for many Arkansans, about half of whom make less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. “You’re basically asking people to take food out of their children’s mouths, or be homeless, to pay for a lawyer,” she said. “That’s not going to happen.”

The other innovation the Commission is promoting is “unbundling.”

The basic idea is that private attorneys would offer limited services for the more complicated aspects of the case or court appearances rather than full representation. Clients would take on the less complicated parts of the case, representing themselves, perhaps by consulting arlegalservices. org. The goal is to make this piecemeal representation profitable for private attorneys via higher volume, but more affordable for clients who are willing to take on some of the work themselves. “It’s a new economic model,” Tuck said. “The private bar will get access to more clients” and, rather than paying for an online service like LegalZoom that may have inaccurate information, lower-income Arkansans will be able to get legal help they can afford.

Tuck calls it a three-legged stool: 1) Full representation via legal aid, pro bono and “low bono” attorneys for the most complicated cases; 2) helping people with the tools they need to represent themselves on simple cases and 3) encouraging private attorneys to use the “unbundled” model for cases somewhere in between. The more success they have developing the latter two, the more resources legal aid will be able to devote to the clients who need the most help.

“We should be able to have an organized and effective way to make our courts accessible to our citizens,” Tuck said. “That’s where my passion is. If we don’t do this, then there will be a real disconnect between regular folks out there in America, such that the court system will only be a court system for hire. It will not be a court system available to every citizen. As the third branch of government, we have an obligation, so that courts will remain independent and viable in this country.

Why would people want to invest in a justice system that is not there for them?” DR

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John Van Brahana

Geologist works to protect Buffalo River watershed.

brian chilson

W

Rosa Velázquez

DREAMer works to empower Arkansas immigrants.

I

n 2012, Rosa Velázquez traveled from her home in De Queen to Washington, D.C., to speak to the Obama administration about a proposed change in immigration policy that would eventually grow into the memorandum known as DACA, or “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.” DACA, which was officially authored by the White House a few months after that meeting, directs U.S. immigration agencies to exercise prosecutorial discretion in deporting individuals who are illegally residing in the U.S. but originally came here as young children. It’s since become a blessing for some 580,000 young people who have lived in the U.S. for as long as they can remember — and a dirty word to many conservative activists who say such acts of compassion fuel more illegal immigration.

Although Velázquez and others in her group, a delegation from a

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August 28, 2014 | ARKANSAS TIMES

national organization called United We Dream, were invited to the table by administration officials, the meeting had to take place in a nearby church rather than inside the White House. That’s because Velázquez and several other activists couldn’t pass a White House security clearance: They didn’t have governmentissued identification. They were, and are, undocumented.

“I have been in the U.S. for the past 26 years,” says Velázquez, who was brought to Southwest Arkansas by her mother when she was 5 years old. She quickly learned English as a child, and by the time she was a senior in high school she knew what she wanted to do with her life: go to college and become an English teacher herself.

She won a scholarship to Ouachita Baptist University. Then she discovered her status rendered her ineligible.

“It was not until I had my scholarship taken away that I knew what it really meant to not have a green card,” Velázquez recounted. “And since then, I’ve had difficulty going back to college and finishing a degree.

So that’s why I’m still working for immigration reform, because I go back to that day and I see kids who are in that situation now.”

Velázquez is the co-founder of Arkansas Coalition for DREAM, one of several Arkansas groups that successfully pressured on Sen. Mark Pryor to support a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2013.

(It has since stalled in the House.)

Arkansas Coalition for DREAM also holds workshops to help eligible immigrants apply for DACA. “We have 12,000 people that could qualify for DACA in the state of Arkansas, but only 3,000 have applied. We still have a large pool of students that haven’t been able to be reached,” she said. But the undocumented immigrants are only one part of the picture: There are many

hen Dr. John Van Brahana, a recently retired University of Arkansas geology professor, heard about the details of C&H Hog Farm, the first (and so far only) facility in the state to get a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) permit, he was alarmed.

C&H is located in Mt. Judea near Big Creek, one of the largest tributaries of the Buffalo National River. Critics believe that the waste produced by the facility’s 6,500 hogs poses an unacceptable risk to the Buffalo River watershed, as well as odor and health concerns for the Mt. Judea area.

Brahana is an expert in the unique karst geology of the Ozarks, with its irregular limestone formations. Karst areas are porous; it’s extremely unpredictable where the water that so easily soaks in will reappear.

Brahana wrote a letter to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality in June 2013: “I know of no active karst consultant who recommends that a CAFO be sited on karstified limestone, particularly upgradient from so sensitive a natural resource

tens of thousands more immigrants in Arkansas who are U.S. citizens, or legal residents who could one day become citizens.

“There are 100,000 Asian and Latino voters in the state of Arkansas that could potentially turn out to vote,” she said. “We’re going to be focusing a lot on civic engagement [this year]. We’re doing door-to-door voter registration. We’re going to help the people who are legal permanent residents qualify to become citizens through the workshops that we have; then we’ll come knock on their doors and get them registered to vote.

“I think numbers are important, but at the end of the day when you’re able to change a life by providing that service, and six months later they have their license or their Social Security number?

That’s life changing. I get messages at 11 p.m. saying, ‘I got my certificate, I’m a citizen’ or ‘I got my social.’ I don’t have words for stuff like that.” BH

follow up with future testing to try to monitor whether the hog farm is leading to pollution in the area.

The state legislature last year approved funding for pollution testing and monitoring on the farm, work that will be done by water and soil experts at the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.

Brahana expressed great respect for the UA testing and the scientists involved but said that their directive — focusing on nutrient management and monitoring the soil and surface streams — was insufficient given the terrain.

This has been Brahana’s concern from the beginning, starting with the permit itself. “They didn’t look at ground water, and they didn’t look at karst,” he said.

“The groundwater moves as quickly as water in a stream — except that exact location of pathways is very difficult to predict. The high velocity of the water in conduits is capable of transporting sediment, organic matter, fecal waste and dissolved solids from the CAFO.” With funding from conservation groups and private donors, Brahana plans to continue the work that he believes ADEQ should have done in the first place, and to communicate with state officials about his findings.

“I am grievously concerned,” he said.

“These are special places and they justify being a little careful about how we treat the land and the water.” DR

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Enrich your family with another culture. Now you can host a high school exchange student (girl or boy) from France, Germany, Scandinavia, Spain, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Italy or other countries. Single parents, as well as couples Victoria from Australia, 17 yrs. with or without children, Enjoys spending time with her family and younger siblings. may host. Contact us ASAP Victoria plays volleyball and for more information or to is excited to learn new sports select your student. while in America.

Giorgio from Italy, 16 yrs.

Loves to play baseball and spend time with his dogs.

Giorgio also plays the guitar, and his dream is to join a drama club at his American high school.

Karen at 1-800-473-0696 (Toll Free) host.asse.com or email info@asse.com

Founded in 1976 ASSE International Student Exchange Program is a Public Benefit, Non-Profit Organization.

For privacy reasons, photos above are not photos of actual students

A Well Deserved Recognition

Congratulations Darlene lewis, Executive Director of lewis Burnett Employment Finders Our MissiOn:

To advocate for children left behind by incarceration or loss of a parent for any reason and to provide mentoring, services and supports for the children, their caregivers, and incarcerated parents, with the goal of strengthening and empowering the family unit.

Yash Mori

as the Buffalo National River, with its direct-contact use by canoeists, fishermen, and swimmers.” His letter was ignored.

Concerned about the environmental risks from the more than 2 million gallons of hog crap and wastewater that the facility will generate, Brahana began volunteering his time to do water testing and monitoring in the Mt. Judea area. His work has focused on two areas: attempting to determine water pathways below the surface, and testing water for pollution.

Brahana injects a non-oxic dye into the groundwater; the dye acts as a sort of fingerprint that allows Brahana to determine how quickly the water is moving and where it’s going. The dyes “are moving through rapidly and they are not being attenuated in any way,” he said. “If it was contaminants instead of dye, if contaminants get to this level in the rock that’s immediately below the soil, then we’ve got some problems.” This mapping will also help establish where to focus future water sampling efforts.

Brahana has also done water testing for people in the Mt. Judea area. About 40 property owners have invited Brahana to test their water for nutrients and bacteria (Brahana offered to do the testing for C&H but the farm declined).

The goal of this initial testing has been to establish a baseline; Brahana will

Find out more about our programs or to become a volunteer online at www.arkansasvoices.org or call 501-366-3647 www.arktimes.com | August 28, 2014

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10 YEARS OF

STREET TEAM 2013-14

CELEBRATING OUR

10

th season in 2014-2015

Bless The Mic is a contemporary spin on the traditional President’s Lecture Series. These events, held on hundreds of campuses across the country, have been a way to stimulate intellectual discourse.

Even today, these series seek to bring in noted scholars, authors, politicians and public intellectuals to expose not only the campus community to their ideas and concepts, but the broader community in which the institution resides.

One of the most innovative ways Philander motivates and educates its students is through the Bless The Mic lecture series. To commemorate our 10th season of Bless The Mic we at Philander Smith College in Little Rock had our students watch the last 10 years of the series and had them write about their take‑ aways.

Bless The Mic is a free‑to‑the‑public program that needs donors like you to keep it going.

Street Team: Freshmen volunteers who are responsible for all aspects of the Bless The Mic program.

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES > Presenting Lecture $10,000 + (One Per Lecture) > Lecture Sponsor $5,000-$10,000 (One Per Lecture) > Series Sponsors (In-Kind Contribution For Goods Or Services For Duration Of The Series) Proud Sponsors of Bless The Mic:

For more details contact:

Kevin Hamilton, Vice President of Student Affairs & Dean of Students 501.370.5295 khamilton@philander.edu 2

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10 Y E A R S O F B LE S S TH E M I C

Season 1 April 11, 2006

Karrine Steffans

Author, Confessions of a Video Vixen Feminism — a word meant to revolutionize the way women were treated. Feminism — a belief meant to establish women’s rights politically, socially and economically, allowing them the privileges to jobs, fair wages, and education. However, according to Karrine Steffans, although these rights have been achieved, women have also given up the rights to their own empowerment. In her Bless the Mic forum, an astute Steffans explained how the image women, especially African-American women, portray to the world through hip­‑hop culture allows for the slandering and disparagement of females. Women do not know their worth in society anymore, causing a slippery slope effect of disrespect. It is misplaced for us to blame society and media about the deprecating manner in which women are being represented. It is our responsibility to alter the images that are now being universally circulated. Only we can undo what has been done.

Sabrina Rankine Class of 2014 Nassau, Bahamas

September 22, 2005

Dr. Michael Eric Dyson

Avalon Foundation and University of Pennsylvania professor

November 11, 2005

October 18, 2005

Professor Kimberle Crenshaw

Dr. Thomas Shapiro

Professor of Law, UCLA and Columbia Law Schools

Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy at Brandeis University

January 26, 2006

Ann Coulter

New York Times bestselling author

February 7, 2006

March 27, 2006

Jeff Johnson

Roslyn Brock

February 7, 2007

March 27, 2007

Host, BET’s “The Jeff Johnson Chronicles.”

Vice Chairman, NAACP

Season 2

September 15, 2006

Dr. Cornel West Professor of Religion, Princeton University

April11, 2007

Ward Connerly

Author, Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences

November 6, 2006

October 17, 2006

Joan Morgan

A.J. Calloway

Author, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost

Host, educator, speaker, entrepreneur

January 16, 2007

Jonathan Kozol

Author, The Shame of the Nation

Dr. Na’im Akbar

Afrocentric psychologist and scholar

MC Lyte

Pioneering hip-hop artist

“With every lecture, the students come in hungry for ways to carry out the mission of Philander Smith College and leave full of new innovations and survival techniques.”

— Jasmine Rucker

Class of 2015

Season 3

September 18, 2007

Ambassador Andrew Young Civil rights icon

November 7, 2007

October 11, 2007

Juan Williams

Award-winning journalist and author

Free

Former co-host, BET’s “106 & Park”

January 17, 2008

Rev. Al Sharpton Civil rights activist

February 4, 2008

Judge Glenda Hatchett

“Judge Hatchett Show”

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3

March 26, 2008

Dr. Tracy Sharpley-Whiting Author, Director at Vanderbilt University

10 Y E A R S O F B LE S S TH E M I C

Season 4

September 16, 2008

James Carville Political consultant

October 15, 2008

Dr. William Jelani Cobb

Author, Associate Professor at Spelman

November 10, 2008

Roland Martin

Award-winning journalist Bless The Mic is one of Philander’s most popular initiatives to bring examples of success stories to not only the students of Philander Smith College, but the members of the Little Rock area and surrounding communities. In November 2008, Roland Martin graced the stage of the M. L. Harris Auditorium with an incredible list of accomplishments. The well–educated speaker had a noteworthy conversation to bring to his audience of over 600 people: He opened by speaking of the prevailing news at that time — the new AfricanAmerican president-elect, Barack Obama.

The indirect advice given by Martin was to “start from the beginning.” He then proceeded to do just that. Stemming from this monumental election, Martin’s speech centered on educating the audience about the less attractive, but extremely vital portion of American history – true black history.

Jazmine James Class of 2015 Cedar Hill, Texas

February 4, 2009

Kirk Franklin

Award-winning gospel artist The past choices of older generations cause major effects on future endeavors of our generation. This is the message that I received during this lecture.

The remarkable Kirk Franklin used the analogy of a relay race and how the first runner’s decisions affect the whole team, so if there is a mistake made the whole team is handicapped. He went on to say the coach always puts their fastest runner last just in case of any mistakes made earlier in the race.

This analogy was broken down to say that even though our parents or their parents before them made some selfish or unexplainable choices, that does not mean it is the end of the race. We can make the right decisions, put in the extra work and change the outcome of the future generation.

Though it will not be easy and will seem very unfair, it can be done.

Tiarra Harris Class of 2017 St. Louis, Missouri

January 21, 2009

Dr. Julia Hare

Executive Director, The Black Think Tank

March 25, 2009

Susan L. Taylor Editor Emerita, Essence Magazine

April 11, 2009

Dr. Charles Murray Author

Season 5

September 21, 2009

JANUARY 20, 2010

Michael Steele

Michelle Singletary

Chairman, Republican National Committee Bless the Mic season five opened with an address from Michael Steele, the 64th chairman of the Republican National Committee. Without much prior knowledge on Mr. Steele, I listened to his lecture with a bit of uncertainty, not expecting to gain much from his lecture because of our opposing political viewpoints.

What I received, however, was much more than I expected.

“You are a reflection of the America of yesterday, with all the struggles and successes that defined her, but you are also a vision of the America of tomorrow, on whom the dreams and hopes of your generation and future generations will come to rely.” Michael Steele spoke these words that immediately resonated with me. As a student at Philander Smith College, I am fully aware of the historical impact my institution had in Little Rock; however, I constantly wondered what legacy “little old me” could possibly leave in comparison to the historymaking giants who came before me. When Mr. Steele spoke these words, though, I finally realized my legacy is already being left, because I am a continuation of the legacy of those before me. I also realized that my work here is not done. Now, as a graduate of Philander Smith College who is determined to change the world for the better, I understand that it is up to me and my generation to continue working to ensure that the ideals of our country are fully realized. This Bless the Mic lecture allowed me to see that life is greater than me, and that I must use everything I’ve gained to continue to advocate for justice so that the future will be much sweeter than the past.

Davné McCleary Class of 2014 Rochester, New York

October 20, 2009

Dr. Robert Michael Franklin President, Morehouse College, author 4

November 10, 2009

Tim Wise

Anti-racism activist, author

Washington Post Financial Columnist, Author Singletary, among many other things, is a columnist, author, wife and mother. She expressed during the lecture that she was raised by her grandmother, “Big Mama,” who was her main influence on learning how to save and stay out of debt. “Big Mama” led through example by taking her $13,000 salary; paying all of her bills in a timely fashion, raising her five grandchildren and saving enough money for retirement in order to live comfortably.

Singletary showed a PowerPoint presentation and told stories of life in the household as visuals of the “Five S.T.E.P.S” to becoming financially stable. The beginning step is to “saving automatically.” Save any money that one has. Some use things like piggy banks or savings accounts, but the ultimate goal is to deposit into saving every time the chance arises. By doing this, one will ensure that there is something available for emergency pop-ups. The middle step is to “eliminate all debt.” Mrs. Singletary followed this step with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. She says, “A man in debt is so far a slave.”

Singletary ended the lecture with a challenge to the audience to do the “financial fast.” It is a way to get in the mood of spending less and saving more. Personally, I am going to challenge myself to do the fast. I have student loans that need to be paid back, so I want to be proactive and save now. Mrs. Singletary has helped me distinguish between wants and needs, and she has also defined “Five S.T.E.P.S” on how to get started. I am very elated that I had the pleasure of seeing this wonderful woman of wealth and knowledge Bless the Mic. Destiny Wright Class of 2017 Taylor, Arkansas

March 16, 2010

Iyanla Vanzant Motivational speaker

August 28, 2014 — Advertising Supplement for Philander Smith College

March 25, 2010

Dr. Tricia Rose Professor, Brown University, author

April 21, 2010

Sapphire Author

10 Y E A R S O F B LE S S TH E M I C

Season 6

October 21, 2010

September 23, 2010

Dr. Michael Eric Dyson

Author, Georgetown University professor, cultural critic Dr. Michael Eric Dyson enlightened the Bless The Mic audience with eloquent pedagogy on seizing the opportunity to be vocal about the concealed controversy African Americans face throughout the white society. He utilized a quote from Nasir “Nas” Jones’ hip-hop song, which states “all I need is one mic.” He emphasized that “seizing the force of amplification to inform the world” about the culture and controversy we face as African Americans through a microphone is essential. He noted famous role models who “engage in oral expression and literary crafting of idea and culture” to support the black community, such as Mary McLeod Bethune, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis and President Barack Obama. He concludes with the request that younger people should be episteMIC (not epistemic), which is the character to “amplify of truth through a microphone to put forth knowledge claims” which will “redeem, love and save” the world.

CeDale M. Smith Class of 2015 St. Louis, Missouri

October 13, 2010 NeNe Leakes

“The Real Housewives of Atlanta” I remember the moment that NeNe Leakes sashayed onto the stage. Although I was sitting in the balcony, her famously tall stature was hard to miss, especially since she had accented it in skyhigh heels that made it seem like she could lift her hand up and touch the rafters. But after she took her seat and the screams of excitement died down from the crowd, I could only help but think, “What could NeNe possibly say to me that was of value?” She quickly answered my question in only a way that she could — boldly, honestly and with a saucy sense of humor. NeNe shared her story of surviving domestic violence with her first college boyfriend, who gave her material possessions but didn’t give her love and respect. She shared tips on not only how to recognize abuse, but on how to love yourself more than your man. NeNe’s story sticks with me till this day, and I thank her for sharing her story.

Marian McPherson Class of 2012 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

November 11, 2010

Anya Kamenetz

Leslie Sanchez

January 18, 2011

February 8, 2011

Author, Generation Debt

Dr. Steve Perry

Principal, Capitol Prep Magnet School

March 17, 2011

Jacque Reid

Media personality

Political analyst and author,

Dr. Ian Smith

Diet/Fitness expert, “Celebrity Fit Club”; founder, The 50 Million Pound Challenge

April 18, 2011

Kandi Burruss

Singer and songwriter; member, “The Real Housewives of Atlanta”

Season 7

January 19, 2012

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry

Professor, Tulane Univ, MSNBC contributor, author Philander Smith College invites published artists, Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry is an African-American female, writer, professor, television host and political commentator with a focus on African-American politics. She is the author of “Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America.” Boy, did she Bless The Mic at Philander Smith College! The students were left in awe as they listened to her lecture, giving the insights on politics. The students most remember her for saying, “Servant leaders take the blame and share the credit … Politicians use strategies they believe will work. Seldom have they proven their solutions have worked.” These very words opened the eyes of not only political science majors, but students in other departments as well. With every lecture, the students come in hungry for ways to carry out the mission of Philander Smith College and leave full of new innovations and survival techniques.

Jasmine Rucker Class of 2015 Forrest City, Arkansas

Febuary 7, 2012

Tina Campbell

Mary Mary vocal artist In the seventh season of Bless The Mic the “Sisters” were put on the forefront. Tina Campbell, one half of the gospel duo Mary Mary, began her lecture by saying, “You never know what God is preparing you for, so that you can impact the world.” She spoke on her journey from a child singing in the Sunshine Band (a Children’s Choir) to her current role in the gospel music world.

The beats are what catches people’s ear but the words pierce their hearts. She encouraged the audience to learn the ways to present the message because gospel music has a history of being a force of strength and inspiration for people. Tina Campbell also reflected on some of her songs and their meaning. With attempts to demise church stereotypes, she said something I took special interest in which was, “Church is where imperfect people go to meet a perfect God and be changed.” She let it be known that you don’t have to look a certain way to “Go Get Your Blessings.”

Dionna Sykes Class of 2014 St. Louis, Missouri

September 20, 2011

Omarosa

Reality star, author and entrepreneur

October 20, 2011

October 11, 2011

Phaedra EllisLamkins

CEO, Green For All

November 8, 2011

Cheryl “Salt” James Michelle Salt-N-Pepa Alexander

Professor, Ohio State University, author

March 22, 2012

Mary Matalin

Conservative strategist

www.philander.edu Advertising Supplement for Philander Smith College — August 28, 2014

5

May 2, 2012

Tavis Smiley

Journalist, activist and commentator

10 Y E A R S O F B LE S S TH E M I C

Season 8

October 15, 2012

Donna Brazile

Political strategist, professor, author, columnist and television political commentator I had the pleasure of enjoying Donna Brazile’s lecture. Donna Brazile was an African-American political figure for the Democratic Party. From her lecture, I came to an odd realization: Throughout her lecture, she kept turning everything into something humorous. I felt like that was something important. I saw that even with high stature you can still be relatable and relaxed, that being professional does not have to make you dull or uninteresting. Another thing I learned from her lecture was about philanthropy, the desire to promote the welfare of others. Philanthropy is very important to our society; for example, the concept of philanthropy was used to build the new student center at Philander Smith College.

Jasmine DeHart Class of 2017 St. Louis, Missouri

“Bless The Mic is a lecture series like no other.

It goes beyond the traditional lectures put on by other colleges and universities. Here at Philander Smith College, Bless The Mic is used as a tool to enhance the mind of young college students and communicate with the hip‑hop generation, which includes those who have studied areas that are of importance to this group. These lectures also serve as an opportunity to hopefully expose the institution to a segment of the community that may have never interacted with the institution,” thus carrying out the college’s mission to “graduate academically accomplished students who are grounded as advocates for social justice, determined to intentionally change the world for the better.”

Philander Smith College invites published artists such as Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry to expose, but not limit, the students to a variety of AfricanAmerican individuals who are in rare positions or, as mentioned early on, never would have collided with such an environment.”

— Jasmine Rucker

Class of 2015

September 20, 2012

David Gergen

CNN Senior Political Analyst

January 10, 2013

J. R. Martinez

Author, actor, military vet speaker and “Dancing with the Stars” winner.

November 13, 2012

Eugene Robinson Pulitzer Prize‑winning columnist and MSNBC political commentator

February 12, 2013

The Three Doctors Authors, The Pact, The Bond and We Beat The Streets

March 21, 2013

Toure

Author, NBC contributor

Season 9

September 19, 2013

Charles S. Dutton October 17, 2013

January 9, 2014

Daymond John

Judy Smith

Founder of FUBU, entrepreneur and marketing expert There are many things that can be said about the rigorous performance Daymond John delivered this past Bless The Mic season. His story is a testimony to anyone who is willing to work hard in order to achieve their lifetime goals, and during a time that wasn’t the most hospitable to the culture and background that he came from. His precise, bullet-point planning to success is not only a key to a prosperous life, but it stands as a pinnacle, and an absolutely outstanding way to set goals for one’s life and execute the right moves to make those goals come to pass. Daymond’s story of humble beginnings is enough to invigorate and encourage anyone who is willing and ready to have a successful life. Daymond’s story was one of both struggle and triumph; however, it’s necessary to take risks for success.

Levie McGee Class of 2017 Los Angeles, California

Author, crisis management expert, attorney The experiences of the illustrious Judy Smith act as the scaffolding for the creators of the hit drama series “Scandal.” The auditorium was packed, and as I set my gaze on the woman perched on the stage, I instantly knew that I was in the presence of a legend — this opportunity was made possible by the Bless The Mic lecture series. She spoke with a sweet voice, but her serenely cheerful yet penetrating eyes gave a glimpse into the mind of a strong, confident woman who’s not afraid to say she’s on top of her game. Becoming a world-renowned crisis expert all started while working day shifts to pay her way through law school at night. The words power, persistence and preparation constantly ticked through her head like a metronome.

With the latter two being self-explanatory, she stated there is POWER in being you, and that is sufficient. You must never lose yourself in order to attain your goals.

Kai Carey Class of 2014 Nassau, Bahamas 6

August 28, 2014 — Advertising Supplement for Philander Smith College

Actor, inspirational speaker

February 13, 2014

Mayda Del Valle Award‑winning poet

November 14, 2013

Bryant Huddleston

“Access Hollywood” producer

March 20, 2014

Paula White

Teacher, evangelist and author

10 Y E A R S O F B LE S S TH E M I C

CHOPPED & SCREWED

Season 10 August 21, 2014

Dr. Walter Kimbrough

Kimbrough has been recognized for his research and writings on HBCUs and African‑American men in college.

In October of 2004, at the age of 37, he was named the 12th president of Philander Smith College. In 2012 he became the seventh president of Dillard University in New Orleans.

In February of 2013 he was named to NBC News/The Griot.com’s 100 African Americans making history today, joining another impressive group including Kerry Washington, Ambassador Susan Rice, Kendrick Lamar, Mellody Hobson, and Robert Griffin III.

September 16, 2014

Jasmine Guy

Performer, director, writer and choreographer Jasmine Guy became a national sensation playing iconic southern belle “Whiteley Gilbert” on “The Cosby Show” spin‑off “A Different World,” for which she won six consecutive NAACP Awards.

Her other television roles include the mini-series “Queen” with Halle Berry, “The Vampire Diaries,” Anne Rice’s “Feast of All Saints,” “The Boy Who Painted Christ Black” with Wesley Snipes, “NYPD Blue,” “Melrose Place,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “The Parkers,” “Touched by an Angel,” and Showtime’s hit series “Dead Like Me” with Mandy Patinkin. On the big screen, Guy’s first film work was in Spike Lee’s ‘School Daze.” She costarred with Eddie Murphy in “Harlem Nights” and also starred in several independent films including “Kalsh,” “Guinevere,” “Diamond Men” and “The Heart Specialist” with Zoe Saldana.

“What do you do when you’ve planned your lecture series, but a great opportunity falls in your lap? How do you show old lectures to students that missed the actual event? You create “Chopped and Screwed” which allows us to bring in speakers as events happen.

October 2010

Common

Hip‑hop artist Common, a rapper and actor, spoke at Philander Smith College during the Bless The Mic lecture series. He left us with three important concepts: find your path, believe in your path, and live it. It is only then that you can achieve greatness. I was able to glean so much from those words. Common expressed that finding your path is not easy, but everything happens for a reason.

That belief is contagious, and you have to believe in yourself first. Finally, while you live it, everything will not go your way, but you have to turn obstacles into possibles.

He inspired us all to love ourselves, keep our thoughts positive, and remember the beginnings of life start with God and family. Common wanted us all to remember that greatness is in you, and God is always with you.

Nichelle Stephens Class of 2014 California

October 2009

October 9, 2014

Gabrielle Union

Prentice Powell

James Logan High School alumnus and spoken word artist, Powell is one of two poets that appeared on two episodes of “Verses & Flow” season one, and was brought back for season two. Powell uses poetry to speak on issues of race, social justice and fatherhood, often challenging stereotypes of black men. Powell was named the Best Poet by the East Bay Express in 2010, as well as 2007 Spoken Word Artist of the Year at the Black Music Awards.

november 6, 2014

Talib Kweli

Talib Kweli is a rapper from Brooklyn. His gain in popularity started when he rapped with Mos Def in a group called Black Star in the late 90’s. Kweli has been in the rap game for more than 20 years, with songs like “Black Girl Pain,” “Broken Glass,” and “Brown Skin Lady.” He released an album in early 2014 called “Grativitas.”

Television and film actress Listening to Gabrielle Union speak taught me a few things that could help me and others in the future: First, to always be yourself no matter what anyone thinks or how they feel about you. Second, in order to do something with yourself, you have to know what you love. You can’t enjoy life if you are not doing something you love. Third, don’t be a victim all your life — become a survivor. Take a stand against whatever is harming or holding you back. Fourth, you can determine who you want to be in life. If you don’t like who you were yesterday, then change it.

Jovonte Mitchell Class of 2017 Dallas, Texas

January 22, 2015

Pooch Hall

Actor Pooch Hall didn’t get started with The Game; he began in commercials and then made his debut in the film “Lift” (2001). He played Derrick, a shoplifter. Pooch was in several movies, including the hit film “Black Cloud” (2004) written and directed by Rick Schroder. His latest acting role is playing Ty’ree Bailey in the new miniseries based on the book “Miracle’s Boys” (2005).

OCTOBER 2007

MARCH 2008

David Banner Felicia Pride Hip‑Hop artist

Author

September 2008

Chuck D

Hip­‑Hop icon

October 2008

Fonzworth Bentley MTV host

February 11, 2015

Elaine Brown

Elaine Brown is an American prison activist, writer, singer, and former Black Panther Party chairman; she is the only woman to have held that position. As a Panther, Brown also ran twice for a position on the City Council of Oakland.

Since the 1970s she has been active in prison and education reform and juvenile justice.

march 2009

November 2009

Sandy “Pepa” Denton

Columbus Short

February 2012

AUGUST 2013

Hip‑Hop Artist

Film actor

April 16, 2015

Amy Dubios Barnett

Amy DuBois Barnett is an award-winning print and online media executive, writer and motivator. She is the author of an empowering advice book for women, Get Yours! How To Have Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More. Her vision has shaped the pages of Harper’s Bazaar, Essence, Teen People, Honey magazine and Ebony — the oldest and largest black magazine in the country where she was editor-in-chief until 2014.

Darrin DeWitt Na’im Lynn Comedian Henson Actor

www.philander.edu Advertising Supplement for Philander Smith College — August 28, 2014

7

APRIL 2011

Tyrese

Actor, singer and author

OCTOBER 2011

Don Lemon CNN anchor

WHO WE ARE Historically Black College. Small. Private. United Methodist Church affiliated. Progressive.

WHERE WE ARE Little Rock, Arkansas. Situated on 25 quaint acres. In the heart of the state’s economic, cultural and governmental centers.

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Congratulations Arkansas Visionaries!

Thanks for making Arkansas a better place to live.

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George West Teacher encourages students to give voice to discrimination.

42

August 28, 2014 | ARKANSAS TIMES

brian chilson

I

n 2005, George West, a civics and economics teacher at Little Rock Central High, hosted in his classroom a group of Japanese-American visitors who, once held at the World War II Japanese internment camps at Rohwer and Jerome, had returned to Arkansas to take part in a memorial event sponsored by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. The visitors told stories to West’s students, who were encouraged to take notes and ask questions. West himself videotaped it.

After that conversation, West, who loves journal prompts, asked the students to scribble something they remembered their guests sharing, whether a story or a simple truism. Then he added part B — “Why do you think that story sticks in your mind?” — and part C —“Why do you think this story would be important for others to know?”

“There wasn’t this usual inhibition about putting thoughts into words on a piece of paper with pencil in hand,” West said. “I understood then that that was the prompt that unlocked the reactions and the responses the students were having to this story that a person had shared with them.”

So West, alongside fellow civics teachers Cynthia Nunnley and Keith Richardson, developed lesson plans calling on all of their ninth grade students to go home over Thanksgiving break and interview their relatives or older family friends about their experiences with discrimination, whether as a member of a movement or as an isolated individual.

The stories flowed in — not just those from the Central High crisis or

even just the African-American Civil Rights Movement, but stories from the Tiananmen Square protests, stories of

life under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, stories of marrying outside a strict Indian caste system, stories of sexual

assault in the workplace. Under the guidance of West, Nunnley and Richardson, a small team of particularly driven students assembled to read the hundreds of essays that were pouring in and collectively answer part C of the original journal prompt for each one. Out of hundreds, they published the 60 “most important” essays in a book called “Beyond Central, Toward Acceptance.” A little over two years later, a new wave of students read a new wave of essays and published a new anthology, “Mapping the Road to Change: Insights on Perception, Prejudice and Acceptance.” The team also created a website, lrchmemory.org.

In making presentations to various conferences around the state and the nation, Memory Project team members such as Central seniors Ginny Greer, Sally Goldman and junior Eric Peters have developed a storytelling method called the Griot Project, named for the tradition of wandering storytellers and oral poets in West Africa. The method demands that members of the Memory Project team commit to memory a story that resonates with them and then retell the story in a way that “gives voice” to the person who originally told it.

For its emphasis on recording lessons from the past, West said, the Memory Project represents not only the opportunity to ask questions about history, but also stories that weren’t so commonly told 60 years ago, such as those of the LGBT community or those of Mexican and Central American immigrants.

“It’s not one person’s vision,” West said. “And if it were, it would just peter out. Actually it’s every person’s. The project becomes a way to envision not just the events of the past, but current issues of present-day life in Little Rock and America.” CG

Sherece WestScantlebury Nonprofit director moves the needle.

brian chilson

N

Life is full of transformative moments.

Join us for one of our special events in September!*

ext to the Walton Family Foundation and the Walton Charitable Support Foundation, Little Rock’s Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation is the big dog among Arkansas nonprofits, a funder that’s both large enough to get the attention — and dollars — of massive national foundations and sufficiently engaged in Arkansas to have its stamp on much of the state’s nonprofit infrastructure. Last year, the foundation gave $3.2 million in grants to 77 groups working in Arkansas. Since it was founded 40 years ago, it’s supported hundreds of Arkansas nonprofits and granted more than $140 million.

“I don’t know if people realize the important role nonprofits play in civil society in the state,” Sherece West-Scantlebury, president and CEO of the Rockefeller Foundation, said recently, while her two little dogs, Peaches and Herb, scurried around her feet in the foundation’s River Market district office. “We need to keep it a Continued on page 44

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43

flourishing, strong sector, so it can provide the kinds of support and services needed to kids and families throughout the state, especially in our rural communities.”

When West-Scantlebury was hired to head the foundation in 2007, the board asked her to develop a strategic plan for the coming years. She came up with Moving the Needle, an ambitious set of goals for making Arkansas a better place. The plan calls for taking steps to increase prosperity (the glass half-full version of reducing poverty), increasing educational attainment, strengthening communities (especially those that have

been marginalized) and building nonprofit infrastructure.

The way the WRF gets things done, of course, is by providing resources. But it’s far from a passive partner, West-Scantlebury said. “We’re a transformational foundation, not transactional. We don’t just write checks. With our goals, we’re very intentional.”

One of the WRF’s initiatives, “Why Arkansas?”, asks and answers why the state is a place where outside do-gooders can find a high return on investment (chief among the reasons is our relatively small population). Such a campaign seems

hardly necessary considering Arkansas’s low rank among all sorts of educational, health and wealth categories compared to other states. But urban areas typically attract the attention of national funders and the federal government first, WestScantlebury said.

As the foundation’s 40th anniversary in December nears, look for it to be more vocal about the good works its grantees are doing in the state. West-Scantlebury said the foundation will spread the good word, so that people say things like, “ ‘Wow, there are some great things happening in Eudora or Luxora or other parts of the state.’ ” LM

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ROBIN WHITE

Central High Site superintendent seeks dialogue about race and reconciliation.

F

or Robin White, “dialogue” is everything. When she came to Little Rock in 2008 to become superintendent of the National Park Service’s Central High School historic site, she brought with her plans to make the site into a world heritage center, where groups from around the globe could engage in productive conversation.

“People are uncomfortable with talking about race, OK?” White said. “But I think there can be no reconciliation until we go to the root of the problem, until we really address our disparities, our differences. Why is my dark skin a sin? What made me so different?

Or why is it painful for you to look at me? Why do you hate me? Those things we need to talk about and our fears of things that are differ-

ent, of people that are different, because it boils down to our lack of knowledge and fear.”

Next summer, White and the historic site will host the 2015 Social Justice Conference, “My America: Moving Beyond the Color Line: Civil War to Civil Rights,” to address some of these questions. White has invited speakers to discuss, among other topics, Arkansas’s history in the context of the Civil War and Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears and Japanese internment in World War II. She hopes it will lead to wider discussion, debate and dialogue.

“This is our history,” White said.

“The thing is, this is not black history.

This is America’s history. That’s why I said this is my America, my America. What does America think of me?

I love who I am. I love my country.

Does my country love me?”

During White’s tenure as superintendent, the historic site has sponsored programs like the Central High Memory Project, organized by another Times’ Visionary, George West; an annual poetry slam at the Mosaic Templars Center, and the Youth Leadership Academy, a service-learning club that involved a group of high school students in education about the historic site and in engagement with the community around Central High. White sees more room for expansion of educational programs.

“What we really need to do is have a summer program for the youth here,” White said. “Or we should have an after-school tutoring program. We could also open the doors

and have a language-learning program. We could do that.”

As a young woman, White herself attended school in the North, but her “rearing was on plantations, whether in New Orleans, South Carolina or Mississippi.”

“I was married to the South. But I also knew, bearing witness to the things that were happening, that I was going to have to make a difference, and this is it, coming into this agency. Whether it’s working with gangs, whether it’s working with Native American tribes or the Latino community, everywhere I go I’m part of the universe, and my job is to make a difference. I don’t look at myself as an agent of change. I look at myself as part of the problem, and I have to become part of the solution.” CG www.arktimes.com | August 28, 2014

45

Hey, do this!

a u g - S e p FuN! t

aug 27-Sept 24

Food, Music, Entertainment and everything else that’s

oxford aMerican and landerS fiaT of BenTon preSenT local live aT SouTh on Main. all ShoWS are free and Begin aT 7:30 p.M. 8/27 Finger Food 9/3 The Tritones 9/10 Chris Michaels & The Cranks 9/17 Big John Miller Band 9/24 John Burnette Band Enjoy half-price dessert jars sponsored by Landers FIAT of Benton.

aug 26

uAlr hosts receptions from 5-7 p.m. on Aug. 26 (regular gallery hours are 9 a.m - 5 p.m., Mon-Fri.)to in the Galleries i, ii and iii in the Fine Arts Building. in Gallery i is piraneSi and perSpecTiveS of roMe through October 5; Gallery ii features Teaching a canary To Sing, sculptural installation by Catherine siri nugent, through sept. 28; and in Gallery iii is SMall WorkS on paper through sept. 26. As part of the gallery’s fall schedule are lectures on Piranesi and Perspectives from rome; all are free and open to the public. Guest speakers include: Dr. heather hyde Minor, Associate Professor, university of illinois at urbana-Champaign on sunday, sept. 7 at 3 p.m at the stella Boyle Concert hall; Dr. Carol C. Mattusch, Professor emerita George Mason university, on Thursday, sept. 25 at 10:50 a.m. in Fine Arts room 161; and Dr. richard s. Mason, lecturer, university of Maryland - Baltimore County, on Thursday, sept. 25 at 6 p.m. at the stella Boyle smith Concert hall. For more info, visit www.ualr.edu.

aug 29-30

The Six BridgeS regaTTa returns to the ArkAnsAs river for

the first time in 76 years. On Friday, August 29, from noon-6 p.m., the river is open for practice and registration. A pasta dinner for participants, family members and friends will take place at the river Market pavilions from 6-9 p.m. On saturday, August 30, a hot air balloon launch kicks things off at 7 a.m. at which time the course opens. The first race begins at 8:30 a.m. There will be events on the Junction Bridge beginning at 3 p.m. The presentation of the Governor’s Cup is at 5:30 p.m. Festivities continue into the night with a free trolley crawl in the river Market and Argenta districts.

Sept 2-OCt 4

eric church

performs live at verizOn ArenA at 7 p.m. with special guests Dwight yoakam and Brothers Osborne.

Tickets are $37.50-$77 and available online at www.ticketmaster.com.

Deana Carter

Two of country’s biggest stars – STeve

azar and deana carTer

46 August august28, 28,2014 2014| ARKANSAS TIMES ARKANSAS TIMES 46

Sept 1-30

l & l BeCk GAllery presents 14 holeS of golf. The exhibit will run through the month of september. enter to win “7th hole – Pebble Beach Golf links,” which will be included in the exhibit and is the giclée giveaway for the month. The drawing will be held on sept. 18 at 7 p.m. l & l Beck Gallery is located at 5705 kavanaugh Boulevard in little rock.

it’s opening night of the ArkAnsAs rePerTOry TheATre’s MeMphiS, a musical based on DJ Dewey Phillips, one of the first white DJs to play black music in the ‘50s.

To celebrate the new production, the rep hosts several special events upstairs in Foster’s lounge. On saturday, sept. 13, stick around post-show for a fun after-party. On Thursday, sept. 18, enjoy pre-show drinks from 6-7 p.m. for Girls night Out with little rock boutique Beehive. On Friday, sept. 19, Christopher keys Cash plays live from Foster’s from 6-7 p.m.

On Monday, sept. 22, the rep presents velvet kente Arkestra: The Journey at 7 p.m. On Wednesday, sept. 24, reps from O’Fallon Brewery will be on hand serving premium beer tastings. For tickets, show times and more information, visit www.therep.org.

Sept 12

– share the stage at reynOlDs PerFOrMAnCe hAll on the uCA campus in Conway. The show starts at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are $27-$45 and available online at www.uca.edu/publicappearances.

A. C. vines ArkAnsAs 4-h CenTer hosts the reThinking everyThing conference, August 30-sept. 2, and retreat, sept. 3-7. The event is led by a community of re-thinkers who challenge conventional views of education, work and parenting for a selfdesigned life. share in the dialogue, and find inspiration in a place that fosters transformation. registration includes access to both events. you may also drop in for the day. To sign up, visit www.rethinkingeverything.com.

Sept 5

Murry’s Dinner PlAyhOuse presents rough croSSing, a romantic comedy by Tom stoppard.

Aboard a passenger liner en route to new york, two playwrights struggle to finish their musical hit while they maneuver around a jealous composer.

For tickets and show times, visit www.murrysdp.com.

Sept 25

aug 30-Sept 2, Sept 3-7

Budweiser reminds you to designate a driver this Labor Day weekend.

Steve Azar

Sept 13

The first annual liTTle rock Bacon feST will take place at the ArkAnsAs sTATe FAirGrOunDs from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. with live music, vendors, kid’s zone, cooking contests, a beer garden, bacon eating contest and more. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 day of the event. Be a viP Taster Judge for $30. For more info, visit www.arkansasstatefair.com.

September 25

Sept 16-17

The Torn kite Theatre Company presents

conSidered guilTy: a neW play BaSed on The STorieS of franz kafka

By JoSh Sigal and John Mooney at 7 p.m. at The studio Theatre, 320 W. 7th street in downtown little rock. Tickets are $15 and available at the door.

FOsTer’s BAr in the Arkansas repertory Theatre is hosting an o’fallon Beer TaSTing before the 7:00 show Memphis a Musical. Come by around 5:30 and chill before the performance begins! Great music deserves great beer! n Come to the lr zOO for zoo BreW, 6 p.m. - 9 p.m. sample craft beers. live music and Food Trucks will also be present. $25 per person must be 21yrs or older to attend.

Sept 19-21

Take a road trip to MOunTAin vieW, ArkAnsAs, for the 13th annual off The BeaTen paTh STudio Tour. On this free, self-guided driving tour, more than 30 artists welcome you into their private working studios. Pick up a free copy of the “Guide to the Artists’ studios” at the Arkansas Craft Gallery at 104 e. Main street in downtown Mountain view. For more information, visit www. offthebeatenpathstudiotour.com.

Sept 26-OCt 5

COnWAy hosts its arTfeST

2014: arT everyWhere

with participating venues, including uCA and hendrix campuses, located all across town.

Arkansas Times will publish the schedule in our sept. 25 issue.

Sept 27

The COunTry CluB OF liTTle rOCk challenges you to ace for The cure, a women’s doubles tennis tournament benefitting the Arkansas affiliate of the susan G. komen race for the Cure. There is $60 entry fee. To register, go to www.aceforthecure.com or call Paula Juels at 501-944-1887.

ANDREA ZEKIS

Advocate for transgender rights fights for community.

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After a trip to the national LGBT conference Creating Change, Zekis was asked to lobby Arkansas politicians during the National Center for Transgender Equality’s Transgender Lobby Day on Capitol Hill. She decided to not only stop living “stealth,” but to become an

outspoken activist for trans equality in Arkansas.

She formed the Arkansas Transgender Equality Coalition in February. The group has since held town hall meetings all over the state, and has put together one of Arkansas’s first surveys of how transgender people view their access to health care. Zekis has also worked with other advocates to organize an online list of trans-friendly service providers in the state, including doctors, therapists and support groups. The list is available at artranscoalition.org “Part of what I was hoping with a statewide organization was to say, ‘If you live in Little Rock or Fayetteville, that’s great, but you don’t have to live there to have access to education and resources and to find a community,’ ” she said. “There are transpeople who drive two or three hours to Little Rock from Hope or Mena just to see a doctor, and that’s a burden.”

While the number of transgender Arkansans has been estimated at over 9,000, Zekis said that figure may be low.

Getting a more accurate picture of the trans community, she said, is one of the coalition’s short-term goals. They’ll be holding another town hall in Fort Smith in September, and the group took 14 transgender Arkansans to D.C. for Transgender Lobby Day this year, where they met with Arkansas’s representatives from both parties.

As the Transgender Equality Coalition comes together, Zekis said, it’s important to her that the group is a collaborative effort, with “a table that’s big enough for everyone who wants to be at that table,” including transpeople, parents, spouses, family, friends and allies both gay and straight. Zekis said she feels like she’s helping to make her adopted home a better place.

“I love my life now,” she said. “I love Arkansas, and I will defend Arkansas when I go and talk to other folks outside of the state. ... Arkansas has always been a place that had a little bit of everything. There’s a place for everyone in this state. Everyone is able to find their place here.” DK

Foto por Brian

B

efore Andrea Zekis made the decision to transition into living as a woman in July 2009, a friend told her that she should be prepared to lose something: a home, a job, or family.

It turned out that, among other things, she lost part of her old life. Originally from Illinois, Zekis moved to Arkansas in 2005, and worked three years for a local TV station before following her childhood dream and taking a job as a mapmaker for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, where she’s been for five years. Soon after getting the job with the Highway Department, she made the decision to transition. The next time she visited friends at her old job, she said, she was turned away. “I was no longer welcome in the newsroom,” she said. “They thought that I was going to be a distraction.”

DO: PATRICIA GUARDA SAR : IO ER ANIVER DADO PRIM ICIA GUARRTE PATR IO MUE AR SUAN : RS DEER DO IVE ARDA PRICIM GU IA 5 O PAG.MUER PATR SARI SUANIVERTE DEER PRIM PAG.5 UERTE DE SU M PAG.5

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47

Arts Entertainment and

The river race returns Six Bridges Regatta restores rowing tradition.

By Leslie Newell Peacock

brian chilson

L

ROW: ABC River Rats practicing for the Six Bridges Regatta.

48

August 28, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

awrence Finn describes rowing as a beautiful choreography of arms and oars pulling in concert to move slender boats down a waterway. Today, those rowers are men and women in waterproof synthetics, rather than all male crews in striped wool, as were the members of Little Rock’s first rowing club, the Boathouse.

It was 1882 when the Boathouse, a private affair at the foot of Main Street, launched its first race, and 1936 when it launched its last, deepsixing the tradition of a Labor Day regatta on the Arkansas River. The Boathouse burned down — for a second time — in 1938 and there was little interest in rebuilding.

Now, 78 years later, the Arkansas Boathouse Club will bring back the tradition 21st century-style with the Six Bridges Regatta on Saturday, Aug. 30.

The Boathouse has swapped shores, from Little Rock to North Little Rock, and the boats in the regatta will no longer be named for debutantes as they were in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Other things are different too: Competitors may or may not indulge in moonshine two months before the races, though their antecedents had a rule not to, and not to smoke, either.

But the ABC expects the enthusiasm of the early days of river rac-

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

a&E news ing will repeat itself as crews from Wichita, Houston, Dallas, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Northwest and Central Arkansas and — and St. Louis, it’s hoped — compete in the club’s inaugural Labor Day races. The U.S. Rowing Federation-sanctioned event will include 5K head races in four categories — youth, collegiate, open and masters — that will start upriver near the Burns Park bluffs, where buoys and anchored pontoon boats will designate the starting line, and conclude at the Junction Bridge. (Boats will launch from the Boathouse dock between the Main Street and Junction bridges and row upriver to the starting point.) The club expects there will be five or six hours of racing, starting at 8:30 a.m., with 75 competitors from eight to 10 different clubs in about 30 different boats, including crew boats with a coxswain and sculling boats.

The races are time trials (“much like the Tour de France,” Finn explained) in which the boats race against the clock, not each other.

For those on land, there will be food trucks, hot-air balloon rides and a beer and wine garden under the Junction Bridge in North Little Rock, as well as the sight of boats headed down the Arkansas.

“It’s such an amazing resource for rowing,” Finn said. “Whenever we bring outside coaches they are amazed at the resource that we have and we recognized how underutilized it is.”

Finn, who is competing in a scull with ABC member Ellen Sullivan, said a great way to watch the race would be from a bike, on the North Little Rock portion of the River Trail. “Just nip in at the Burns Park cliff and follow the boats.” The Broadway, Main Street and Junction bridges will offer good views as well.

Formed in 2006, the Arkansas Boathouse Club has 25 active members and maybe twice that

many nonrowing members. Club members launch from the clubhouse on Riverfront Drive — a former North Little Rock maintenance building — and also row on Lake Maumelle.

Though there is “a level of fitness that’s required” to row, Finn said it’s the ability to be mindful of balance, stroke counting and the movements of others in the boat that are crucial. “It’s incredibly technical, akin to skiing on water or snow. When you’re fighting the mountain or the water, you’re expelling energy but losing the gracefulness that is the hard and soul of the sports.

When you become comfortable with the technique … it’s not an arm-pulling workout. … The choreography is exhilarating,” Finn said. His partner, Sullivan, he said is a “much stronger” rower than he.

The last race of the day is hoped to restore what was a tradition of the old Boathouse: a sprint race between a Little Rock crew and a St. Louis crew.

St. Louis whopped Little Rock in its first competition here, in sixoar barges, in 1923. Finn said an invitation from Gov. Mike Beebe to Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon to send a crew to compete for the Governor’s Cup hasn’t been answered; but then, Nixon has been busy lately.

Though the Arkansas River’s reputation is that it can be dangerous, Finn said, “I haven’t seen the Loch Ness monster yet.”

Use of the river — which Finn reminded a reporter is free — can “animate and change perspective” on the resource.

The regatta has gotten support from Little Rock, North Little Rock, state Parks and Tourism and individuals like Mike Coulson of Coulson Oil, who with his wife, Beth, is a member. So far, no slot machine is required to keep the lights on, unlike its predecessor in the 1930s. Finn said the boat club is already signing up teams for next year.

A documentary about country music legend Glen Campbell will kick off the 23rd annual Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival at the Arlington Hotel and Spa, running Oct. 10-19. “Glen Campbell … I’ll Be Me,” produced by James Keach and Trevor Albert, showcases Campbell’s life and Goodbye Tour, his last after his 2011 Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

The film features interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Bill Clinton, The Edge, Paul McCartney, Jay Leno, Vince Gill, Steve Martin and Taylor Swift, according to a press release.

The release also says Keach and Albert, along with members of Campbell’s family — his wife, Kim, and children Ashley, Cal and Shannon — will answer questions after the screening. The bands Billstown and the Drew Henderson Band, both of which include Campbell family members, will play the after-party.

The film schedule will be released later in the fall. Reserve a pass at hsdfi.org.

The Oxford American will turn to the crowd-funding platform Kickstarter this September to help fund its 16th annual music issue, slated for release Dec. 1. Music from the Lone Star State headlines this year’s magazine, titled “The Music of Texas,” and funds from the campaign will help pay for the issue’s associated compact-disc mixtape.

South on Main will provide a space for the OA’s “Kick-start the Kickstarter” party at 5:30 p.m.

Tuesday, Sept. 2, which will feature singer-songwriter and native Texan Mark Currey.

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liFe aFter beth (Digital) R | 2:15 4:30 7:15 9:30 teenage mutant ninja turtleS (Digital) aS above, So below Pg13 | 2:00 4:20 7:00 9:20 (Digital) R | 2:15 4:30 7:15 9:30 guardianS oF the galaxy (Digital) boyhood (Digital) Pg13 | 1:45 4:20 6:45 9:15 R | 1:45 4:45 7:45 the identiCal Pg let’S be CoPS (Digital) StaRtS R | 2:00 4:20 7:00 9:20 FRiDaY 9/5

Friday, august 29 Doors open At 8pM show stArts At 9pM tickets on sale At Juanitas.com

614 President Clinton • Little Rock

501-372-1228

Cool Chris, of Little Rock’s Young Gods of America collective, recently released a mixtape, “Leftover Gram$,” the follow-up to his April release, “Trap Conversations.”

Local beat-makers BLACK PARTY, Mach Soul and iamNAWF all show up, and Chris mostly takes a mellow, vibe-over-substance approach, letting the production take the front seat. Download it at arktimes.com/ leftover.

www.arktimes.com

August 28, 2014

49

Celebrate Arkansas Artisans! Beautiful handmade quality products by Arkansas artists!

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ARKANSAS TIMES

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arkansas times

brian chilson

TO THE BEAT: Calle Soul

AUTHENTIC: Dancing, music and home-cooked food highlight festival.

Latino Food and Music Fest returns Find authentic food and music in Argenta Sept. 13.

By Clayton Gentry

E

l Latino and the Arkansas Times will host the second annual “Latino Food and Music Festival” Saturday, Sept. 13, from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Argenta Farmers Market Plaza. The event will feature a variety of Latino foods and music all sharing one commonality: authenticity.

Mariachi Viva Jalisco will play from 6 to 8 p.m. and Calle Soul from 8 to 10 p.m. Founded by Cuban percussionist Fernando Sanchez and Colombian percussionist Fernando Valencia, the Fayetteville-based Calle Soul plays a range of Latin music — salsa, the AfroCuban-influenced timba and Latin jazz — and won the 2012 Northwest Arkansas Music Award. The band is a mix of “classically trained artists and some who learned on the streets,” according to the band’s website — hence the name: “Calle” means “street” in Spanish.

Food vendors will sell mostly homecooked food all night. They include eight families representing five countries — Karla Contreras from El Salvador, Graciela and Guillermo Bruza-

tori and Blanca and Jose Luis Bea from Argentina, Luis Campos from Venezuela, Luisa Gaudet from Colombia, and the Mexican taco truck Loncheria Mexicana Alicia, as well as Mexican family-owned restaurants El Jarocho and Lupita’s. Budweiser is also a sponsor; there will be beer and sangria available for purchase. An open area below the stage will allow for all the salsa, tango and cha-cha-cha you can muster, and MC Al “Papa Rap” Lopez will make an appearance as well.

Though the festival coincides with the week of Mexican Independence Day, Sept. 16, gringos made up half of last year’s 600-person turnout, Latinos the other half. Organizer Luis Garciarossi expects about 800 people this year.

The event benefits the Argenta Arts District and is presented by Edwards Food Giant. To purchase tickets, $15 in advance, visit.arktimes.com/latinofood. For more information, email event organizer Luis Garciarossi at luis@arktimes.com or call the Times at 501-375-2985.

Being tHe BeSt is something we work toward every day.

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51

‘We’re not talking, we’re shooting’, cont. she should have, because I was a knucklehead. That’s why I believe these young boys are salvageable. I don’t think we can get all of them, but I believe anybody can change. I will always believe that.

“Before the Casket” was inspired by a young man in the neighborhood who was murdered right down the street here: Decree Thomas. Seven years ago. I read an article in the newspaper where a young lady was saying he’d been out there on the street at the wee hours of the night.

She said it like it was a common thing.

So I went ahead and approached his parents, grandparents and his mother about the OK Program. When I was telling his mother about the program, her response was: “You mean to tell me you have a program like this and my son is dead?” That bothered me.

I didn’t have an answer for her. So I started the “Before the Casket” presentation, so that community members can see the impact that homicides have.

The thought behind it is a threefold meaning of “Before the Casket.” What was the victim’s life

like before the casket? What kind of person was he or she? Second thing was, what does a family member — a mother, father, sister or brother — feel like standing before the casket? And lastly, what will we do, as individuals, before we’re in the casket? What difference will you try to make in your community, in your home, in society to curb this cycle of violence we see in the black community?

I get three family members a year to get up and talk about it — to relive that moment in time when time

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ARKANSAS TIMES

stopped, when they got the call about their loved one being murdered. It’s emotional. Powerful. I want people to see the hurt and pain on these mothers’ faces. I’m saying mothers, because that’s who shows up to do this. These mothers appeal to these young boys.

They’ll get up and say, “My son was a dope dealer and that’s why he’s dead.

My son was selling weed.” They’ll just be real with them. They’re not trying to cover anything up.

I usually have a singer who sings a song, and then we have a viewing.

At the end of everything, you walk by the casket. I put a mirror inside of the casket. While they’re looking at it, my statement to them is, “The person who can make a difference in the community, who can change the cycle of violence, is the person you see in the casket.” The idea is to get them to do something. To make them curtail the violence we see.

This violence we’re talking about?

It starts up here [points to his head].

I told a young man the other day, “The gun is already cocked up here.

You pull the trigger with your hand, but it’s cocked up here.”

So we’ve got to change their minds.

You’ll get killed now for looking at someone the wrong way. Sadly, right now, we’re operating like animals in our communities. We have one unique thing over the animals: our ability to communicate with our mouths. We can say, “Excuse me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” Animals don’t do that. They lash out. We can say something, “I’m sorry.” We can talk, man! And right now, we’re not talking, we’re shooting.

When I talk about the issues of homicide and incarceration, particularly as it relates to the African-American community, I always think about the family orientation. I think that’s where things start. Your family life, the home you come up in, that’s your first introduction to society, from that perspective. That’s our first opportunity to get our name, our heritage, our beliefs. A lot of things start there.

When you see what we call the cycle of violence in a 26-year-old person, he didn’t just start killing or being violent at 20. If this is something he’s come up in, you see he knows no other way. That’s not how it is with all the black families I see. But in a lot of them, there’s a disconnect. There’s no male role models in the house. There’s no

brian chilson

‘We’re not talking, we’re shooting’, cont.

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING: Davis hopes the LRPD will improve communication with communities.

parental involvement. So, what do they do? It’s easy. You listen to rap music. That’s your motivation.

That’s your encouragement. The local drug dealer will take care of you if your daddy won’t. They’re gravitating to that. Maybe he’s got a friend he’s close to, and that friend has a dad who is a drug dealer. He’s showing him all the money his dad is making. He wants to try it, because his mother is barely making the bills.

It’s attractive.

But they don’t understand the end result. It’s usually jail, death or something violent.

I’ve never said this publicly, but two of the homicide suspects this year turned themselves in to me. It was because of relationships. That’s something we need to do differently in the police department. Our relationship with the community is going to have to change. I’m not talking about becoming best friends and hugging and loving on one another. I mean the relationship needs to be better so they can communicate with us. Kind of like community policing was back in the ’90s when I was out there. It

meant something. You became the peoples’ police.

The one that happened on Battery Street where the brother killed his brother? [Police say Tristan Lewis killed his brother, Freddie Hinton Jr., at 1622 Battery St. on March 12.]

His mother called me crying. I knew him. She said, “Sgt. Davis, can he turn himself in to you?”

He sat there in my living room for 45 minutes, telling me the whole story. I told him he didn’t have to tell me nothing. But he wanted to appeal to me, because he knows how I look at it. I told him, “I’m so angry at you right now. You’re totally what I’m against. You took one of our brothers, man! You can’t do that.” He was just bawling. Last time I saw him, he was little. I used to cut his hair. He’d ride his bicycle over here to get his haircut.

He was a little ol’ scrawny boy.

I’ll tell you, I cried. I hugged him.

It was mangled, man. I told him, “You’re wrong. You’ve committed a crime, and you’ve got to suffer the consequences of that.” It wasn’t even about him and his brother. It was about him and some other guys, and the brother was trying to get him to

stop what he was doing. And they got into it. Can you imagine that?

I said, “Man, what do you think is going to happen when you’ve got a gun in your hand? What were you thinking about?” He said, “I didn’t mean it.” You’ve got a gun! What are you going to do with it? It’s just a mindset.

That’s what “Before the Casket” will show you, it’s about the impact.

It’s not just, “I’ll shoot you, and it’s just about you.” It’s not just about one person. That person has people who love him. People from his job, his next-door neighbors, his aunts, his uncles, his grandpas, nieces and nephews. That’s a whole lot of people you hurt when you shoot somebody.

That’s a lot of people who hurt. They don’t even know you, and they’re mad at you because you took away their loved one. That’s the impact.

When somebody presents to me what they call a “bad kid,” I always say this, “How did he get that way?”

Think about a newborn baby. Have you ever seen a baby born with a gun in his hand? Ever seen a newborn baby sagging? What about disrespecting his parents? Disrespecting authority?

No. So what happened? He was a pretty baby. We come to the hospital and hug and kiss the babies because of how pretty they are. They start crawling. They go to church. So how does he go from a baby to a 15-year-old gang member? How’s that happen? Because we allowed it to happen. Right before our eyes, man.

That concerns me. We’ve got to take responsibility as grown folks. A lot of people don’t want to hear that, but it’s true. The first agency of socialization is the family.

I had some friends come over, and they had a little boy. He couldn’t have been more than 3 years old. I was dressed just like this [in slacks and a polo shirt]. I didn’t have my gun on or anything. She says to her son, “You know who that is? That’s the police!”

Three-year-old kid, you know what he says? “I’m going to jail!”

Where’d he get that from? A 3-yearold kid looks me in the eye and tells me he’s going to jail? They laughed.

But I didn’t think it was funny.

I call bad behavior “attentiongetting stuff.” You see a kid walking down the street or in a classroom acting a fool, somebody might say, “He’s bad. There’s no help for him.”

I see a kid that’s saying, “Sgt. Davis!

I’m over here! I need your help! I

don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to act!” That’s the totally different lens I’m looking through, but they call me crazy for dealing with him? [laughs] Let me ask you this question, who is going to get mad at me for loving them? What kid you know who is going to hear “I love you” and get mad about it?

What you gonna do, fight me because I love you? It’s not going to happen.

Can you stop a bullet with love? You can stop a person you love from shooting one. You can influence that. Yeah.

Is my program changing things for the better? That’s a really hard question. When I see young boys walking across the stages to graduate, to me, that’s success. When I see a young man who comes in my program with a 1.5 grade point average, and in the second quarter he has a 2.0, to me that’s success. When I have a mom that comes and tells me that she’s so proud of the improvement she sees in her son, and doesn’t know what she’d do without the OK Program, that’s success. This work that I do is hard work, but it’s good work. It’s rewarding work. To see these young men mature from year to year and develop into respectful young men who can speak and who know how to mediate conflict, who understand the value of telling someone “I love you” and really meaning it? To me, that’s success, to see these young men changing before my eyes.

It’s not about just talking. I’m not interested in sitting around a table. No black-on-black crime task force. No roundtable discussion.

That’s over with. We only do that when stuff happens. How about some preventive stuff, like the OK Program? Why is it that we have meetings where we talk about youth, and no youth are in here?

That’s puzzling. We’re good at being smart people with letters behind our names, telling kids, “Here’s what we’re going to do for you!” But we never ask him, “What can we do for you?” Why do we do that?

Give him a hug. Tell him you love him. Speak to him. I know how I look to you, but talk to me. I’m not saying that’s the sole answer to it, because it’s not. But at least we’re doing something. We can’t sit on our hands and criticize the people who are doing something when we could be doing something. A lot of us need to get our mirrors and look into them. www.arktimes.com

August 28, 2014

53

THE TO-DO

LIST

By Clayton Gentry, David Koon, Lindsey Millar and Will Stephenson

FRIDAY 8/29

BEN KWELLER

9:30 p.m. Stickyz. $15.

Singer-songwriter-type piano melodies and grungy ’90s rock seem like odd bedfellows, but both styles appear on Ben Kweller’s resume. The San Francisco native grew up in Emory and Greenville, Texas, where he met drummer John Kent and, barely a teenager, formed the band Radish. Songs like “Little Pink Stars” from the late ’90s recall a Nirvana aesthetic – the music video features shots of backlit jellyfish pulsating over a shot of Kweller with middle-parted Cobain-esque blond hair. Since 1999, when he moved to New York with his girlfriend, now wife, Liz Smith, Kweller’s

been an “independent” act, as he wrote on the About Me section of his website: “People have called me an ‘indie-rocker’, ‘anti-folkie’, a ‘rock star’, ‘balladeer’, ‘crazy sum-bitch’, ‘pop rocker’, an ‘alt rocker’, etc ... i’m not sure about all these things. independent yes! crazy yes! i do write a lot of songs though. they’re all very different. they’re all the same. i dunno.” This writer has little easier time than Kweller himself pinning down the sounds of his solo albums in words: The singer-songwriter vibe seems more evident, with more singing and less screaming, than that of the shadowy music videos of his adolescence. The show is open to those 18 and older. CG

FRIDAY 8/29

BEN NICHOLS

7 p.m. Ron Robinson Theater. $20.

DESERVES WIDER AUDIENCE: Singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell plays South on Main Thursday, Aug. 28.

Hey, look, the Ron Robinson Theater is hosting an event that’s open to the public! Since the Times first wondered in July why the Central Arkansas Library System’s stateof-the art theater had gone largely dark and were told something like, “Hold on, we’re coming,” there’ve been fewer events open to the public than before. That’s too bad because

the theater is really, really nice! If you haven’t checked it out, no better time than Friday, when Little Rock’s most beloved rock export, Ben Nichols, plays a rare solo show.

Nichols, of course, leads Lucero, barroom rock kings of Memphis.

He’s been doing that for 16 years now, long enough for parents to indoctrinate their children in Nichols’ lyrical prowess and gritty vocals and bring them along to this solo show as teens. LM

THURSDAY 8/28

ANAIS MITCHELL

7:30 p.m. South on Main. $10

If you need evidence that Satan is alive and well and still signing contacts for immortal souls in exchange for fame, just give a listen to some of the stuff on the Billboard Hot 100 these days. You don’t have to be hipper-than-thou to say that the world is full of people getting rich making shitty music, most of it so formulaic it ought to be labeled “Preprocessed Entertainment Product.” Luckily, there are still good musicians out there, and most of them aren’t playing for $67.85 plus fees. Anais Mitchell is one of those singer-songwriters whose tunes are so good that it’s a little hard to believe she’s not sitting somewhere on a couch stuffed with 54

August 28, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

hundred-dollar bills, being fanned and fed grapes by Sony executives.

Her folksy delivery and acoustic guitar work may be sweet as peach preserves, putting one in mind of Gillian Welch, but her Dylanesque lyrics hit like a spike maul, driving home ideas and rhymes so lovely they’d probably be welcome in any poetry anthology. Take these from her beautiful “Young Man in America,” for instance: “I come out like a cannonball/come of age of alcohol/ raven in a field of rye/with a black and roving eye/black and roving eye/ raving, ravenous/what you got, it’s not enough/young man in America.” That’s some good stuff right there, and no deal with Ol’ Splitfoot required. DK

SATURDAY 8/30

BIG SMO 9 p.m. Juanita’s, $10

Big Smo! Big Smo! I’m confused!

Like me, Big Smo is a dude from Tennessee born in the late 1970s who enjoyed Johnny Cash and Biz Markie growing up. Well,54 now I’m 35 (Big Smo is 39). And maybe when I was half the age I am now, the idea of a country rapper would have been kind of thrilling (don’t even get me started on the parallels between Hank Jr. and Tupac).

But here today, the existence of Big Smo just makes me feel adrift in this century. He’s on a reality show, I guess? He calls his style “hick hop.” His first album

was called “Kuntry Kitchen.” Of course. He has a song with Darius Rucker. Of course. Have you ever been at an outdoor concert with bad music standing next to a sweaty, swaggering drunk guy with no shirt on? And he is not so much dancing as screaming?

And he is so committed to his own good time that he seems almost wistful? But, no, that’s not right, it seems like he wants to fight?

But then instead of fighting anyone, he gets sick and vomits? Big Smo makes music best played at the very moment that the sweaty, swaggering, screaming, wistful, shirtless drunk guy upchucks. Cry, the beloved kuntry. DR

in brief

THURSDAY 8/28

TUESDAY 9/2

LITTLE ROCK TOUCHDOWN CLUB PRESENTS MARK MAY 11 a.m. Embassy Suites

“SHOORAH! SHOORAH!”: Betty Wright is coming to town with the Kinfolks Soul Food Festival, Saturday, Aug. 30. Maybe best to eat before, though.

SATURDAY 8/30

THE KINFOLKS SOUL FOOD FESTIVAL

3 p.m. First Security Amphitheater. $45 to $65

We do love some soul food. That said, if the comments about the touring Kinfolks Soul Food Festival from other cities are any measure, you might ought to stop at Sims Barbecue or Lassis Inn on your way to the show. On the upside: Entertainment at the Little Rock Kinfolks stop will be provided by a host of great stars, including Betty Wright, Mint Condition, Lyfe Jennings, Kelly Price and Chante Moore. On the downside, there’s the comments on a story about the Kinfolks stop in Kansas City by the K.C. alt-

weekly The Pitch, posted by people who said they went to the show there on Aug. 23. Included are commenters who said they attended talking about $15 for a fivepiece wing dinner (which the commenter decried as “some bullshit”), toasty hot beer and sodas, over an hour between acts, a ban on umbrellas in the oppressive heat, and small cups of ice (to cool the hot drinks) going for $2. Also, this epic takedown from someone posting as “Jeezy”: “My cuz and I pull up, paid, go in. No music was bumpin. Da chitlins were all gone. No Ribs. Didn’t even catch any mutton. Ain’t never not doing that not again.” We’d call that a resounding thumbs down. Your mileage may vary from Mr. Jeezy’s, however. DK

ESPN football analyst and former NFL offensive lineman Mark May will make his second appearance at the Touchdown Club after kicking off the speaker series in 2012.

May is a College Football Hall of Famer who won the Outland Trophy at Pittsburgh and went on to play for three teams in the NFL. This year’s series includes former Razorbacks superstar Shane Andrews, Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long and NFL Hall of Famers Mike Singletary and Michael Irvin. Hey, remember when Irvin said that after being inducted to the Hall of Fame, he went home and made love to his wife still wearing his commemorative Hall of Fame jacket? “I kept the blazer on because I wanted to perform like a Hall of Famer on the field and off,” he said. I miss Michael Irvin. Also on the list is Raghib “Rocket” Ismail, the coolest college football player of the last 30 years. For more information on the speaker series, visit lrtouchdown.com. DR

WEDNESDAY 9/3

SONNY BURGESS AND THE LEGENDARY PACERS. 7:30 p.m. Stickyz. $10

Back in the 1950s, there was a time when a rock ’n’ roll band could cut a record and literally have a hit record by the following week, riding the wave of popularity as DJ’s in little AM stations all over the country spun their still-warm 45s all the way to glory. Sam Phillips’ Sun Records in Memphis minted their share of superstars

just like that, of course: Elvis, Johnny and Jerry Lee. Not as well known, however, was Sonny Burgess, an early Sun star of equal talent who somehow missed the rocket-ride to fame enjoyed by his better-known stablemates. Born in Newport in 1929, Burgess and his band cut their first single on the Sun label in 1956, “We Wanna Boogie,” with their signature hit “Red Headed Woman” on the flipside.

Chock full of so-hot-it-oughta-be-criminal goodness, with plentiful brass joining the

guitar/bass/drums trinity of early rock ’n’ roll to create a wholly unique sound, Burgess and the Legendary Pacers may not have reached the lofty firmament inhabited by The King, The Killer and The Man in Black, but their music still makes you want to dance. Though rock has been declared dead a dozen times since 1956, it always comes back. Burgess and the Legendary Pacers, meanwhile, are still out there bringing folks a drink from the original spring. Best take a sip while you can. DK

When Shinyribs, Gourds’ front man Kevin Russell’s side project, comes to town “it’s a hip-shaking, belly-laughing, soul-singing, song-slinging, down-home house party,” Russell promises on his website. He’ll be at White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $10. Revolution hosts a handful of Central Arkansas’s finest bass players, including Ivan Yarbrough, Joe Vick, Eugene Whitmore and Lucious Spiller, at the Bass Players’ Ball, 8:30 p.m., $10 adv. Southern rockers Thomas Wynn and the Believers come to Juanita’s, 8:30 p.m., $5. The Fayetteville Roots Festival, which runs through Monday at multiple stages, sounds awesome: It features Lucinda Williams, The Secret Sisters, Jay Farrar and more; too bad it’s sold out. Ho-Hum’s Rod Bryan performs on a bill alongside KC Turner and Thunderegg at Vino’s, 9 p.m., $5.

FRIDAY 8/29 The Canehill Engagement, a fantastic local act made up of veteran Little Rock musicians Jeremy Brasher, Jay Calhoun, Kevin Kerby, Brian Rodgers and Burt Taggart, celebrates the release of its debut EP at White Water Tavern, 10 p.m. Big Piph headlines the Little Rock Marriott’s Rooftop Party, with DJs Poolboy, Tre Day, Special K and more, 7 p.m.

Classic rock staple Foreigner shares the bill with The Uncrowned Kings at the Walmart AMP in Rogers, 7:30 p.m., $43.50-$53.50. Rodney Block and Demarcus Pettus collaborate on “The Last Action Heroes” mixtape release, Studio Theatre, 9:30 p.m., $10.

SATURDAY 8/30 Blues legend Robert Cray comes to The Auditorium in Eureka Springs, 8 p.m., $55-$75. Louisiana metal act Broken by the Burden shares a bill at Vino’s with Arkansas favorites Iron Tongue, Sea Hag and Cosmivore, 9 p.m., $7. Local blues and soul act Charlotte Taylor and Gypsy Rain play the Afterthought, 9 p.m. Arkansas magicians put on the Arkansas Masters of Illusion Magic Show at the Studio Theatre, 7:30 p.m., $10, free for children 12 and under.

Singer-songwriter extraordinaire Adam Faucett plays Bear’s Den Pizza at UCA, 10 p.m., free. Country star Kathy Mattea performs as part of a tribute to Grandpa Jones at the Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View, 7 p.m., $20.

SUNDAY 8/31 Three 6 Mafia affiliate and Memphis legend Project Pat comes to Elevations, 9 p.m. Meanwhile, Vino’s hosts The Order of Elijah, Deadspell, The Awareness Affliction and Lucid, 8:30 p.m., $8.

www.arktimes.com

August 28, 2014

55

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.

Ave. 501-683-5239. www.clintonschool. uasys.edu.

Sports

Big Piph. The Rooftop Party, with DJs Poolboy, Tre Day, Special K and more.

Little Rock Marriott, 7 p.m. 3 Statehouse Plaza. 501-906-4000. lrrooftopparty.eventbrite.com.

THURSDAY, Aug. 28

SATURDAY, Aug. 30

Music

Anais Mitchell. South on Main, 7:30 p.m., $10. 1304 Main St. 501-244-9660. southonmain.com.

Anna Jordan-William and Christine DeMeo. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8:30 p.m. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com.

The Bass Players’ Ball 2014. Featuring Ivan Yarbrough, Joe Vick, Eugene Whitmore, Lucious Spiller and more. Revolution, 8:30 p.m., $10 adv., $15 day of. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com.

Fayetteville Roots Festival. Featuring Lucinda Williams, Jay Farrar, The Wood Brothers, The Secret Sisters, Anais Mitchell, Ben Kweller, Water Liars and more. Fayetteville Square, -Sept. 1, SOLD OUT. Downtown, Fayetteville.

“Inferno.” DJs play pop, electro, house and more, plus drink specials and $1 cover before 11 p.m. Sway, 9 p.m. 412 Louisiana.

501-907-2582.

Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com.

Karaoke. Zack’s Place, 8 p.m., free. 1400 S. University Ave. 501-664-6444.

Krush Thursdays with DJ Kavaleer. Club Climax, free before 11 p.m. 824 W. Capitol.

501-554-3437.

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

Michael Eubanks. Newk’s Express Cafe, 6:30 p.m. 4317 Warden Road, NLR. 501753-8559. newks.com.

Open Jam. Thirst n’ Howl, 8 p.m. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirstn-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. 501-2245505. www.senor-tequila.com.

Rod Bryan, KC Turner, Thunderegg. Vino’s, 9 p.m., $5. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

Shinyribs. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $10. 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. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG.

Events

CANstruction 2014. A design competition and charity benefiting the Arkansas Foodbank. Statehouse Convention Center, through Sept. 5. 7 Statehouse Plaza.

Geocaching. The Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center, 8:30 a.m. 602 56

August 28, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

Music

FOLLOW ‘EM DOWN: To Juanita’s, where Gin Blossoms, one of the ‘90s more memorable pop rock acts, 8 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 30, $30. Riverboat Crime opens.

President Clinton Ave. 501-907-0636. www. centralarkansasnaturecenter.com.

FRIDAY, Aug. 29

Music

Ben Kweller. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9:30 p.m., $15. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

Ben Nichols. Arkansas Sounds concert series Ron Robinson Theater, 7 p.m., $20.

1 Pulaski Way. 501-320-5703. www.cals.lib. ar.us/ron-robinson-theater.aspx.

The Canehill Engagement EP Release Show. White Water Tavern, 10 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com.

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. 501-221-1620. www.1620savoy. com.

Doyle Dykes, Ramona Jones. A Tribute to Grandpa Jones. Ozark Folk Center State Park, $12. 1032 Park Ave., Mountain View.

Fayetteville Roots Festival. See Aug. 28.

Foreigner, The Uncrowned Kings. Walmart AMP, 7:30 p.m., $43.50-$53.50. 5079 W. Northgate Road, Rogers. 479-443-5600. www.arkansasmusicpavilion.com.

The Gin Blossoms. All ages. TBA supporting act. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $30 adv., $35 dos.

614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com.

The Last Actions Heroes Mixtape Release.

A collaboration between Rodney Block and Demarcus Pettus. Studio Theatre, 9:30 p.m., $10. 320 W. 7th St. Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue. and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

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

Siversa. 18+ Opening Act: Move Orchestra / The Found / Chasing Pictures Revolution,

9 p.m., $7. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501823-0090. revroom.com.

System Avenue, Wreckless Endeavour, Fortune ‘N Flames. Vino’s, 9 p.m., $5.

923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG.

Dance

“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

CANstruction 2014. A design competition and charity benefiting the Arkansas Foodbank. Statehouse Convention Center, through Sept. 5. 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. 479968-2452. www.arvartscenter.org.

Geocaching. The Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center, 8:30 a.m. 602 President Clinton Ave. 501-907-0636. www. centralarkansasnaturecenter.com.

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. Mya’s Madams Drag Show. 21+ Maxine’s, 9 p.m., $7. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. www.maxinespub.com.

Lectures

Dorian Jano. Clinton School of Public Service, 12 p.m. 1200 President Clinton

Adam Faucett. Bear’s Den Pizza, 10 p.m., free. 235 Farris Road, Conway. 501-3285556. www.bearsdenpizza.com.

Big Smo. with Shari Bales Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $10. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-3721228. www.juanitas.com.

Brick Fields & The Chosen Ones. White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com.

Broken by the Burden, Cosmivore, Iron Tongue, Seahag. Vino’s, 9 p.m., $7. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

Charlotte Taylor and Gypsy Rain.

Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 9 p.m. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com.

Club Nights at 1620 Savoy. See Aug. 29.

Fayetteville Roots Festival. See Aug. 28.

Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www. khalilspub.com.

Karaoke. Casa Mexicana, 7 p.m. 6929 JFK Blvd., NLR. 501-835-7876. Zack’s Place, 8 p.m., free. 1400 S. University Ave. 501664-6444.

Karaoke with Kevin & Cara. All-ages, on the restaurant side. Revolution, 9 p.m.12:45 a.m., free. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. revroom.com.

Kathy Mattea, Ramona Jones. A Tribute to Grandpa Jones. Ozark Folk Center State Park, $20. 1032 Park Ave., Mountain View.

Kinfolks Soul Food Festival. R&B musicians Betty Wright, Mint Condition, Chante Moore, Lyfe Jennings and Kelly Price, soul food vendors, hosted by Broadway Joe of Power 92 and Sonta Jean of KOKY. Gates open at 3 p.m. First Security Amphitheater, 5 p.m. a.m., $35, $45, $65. 400 President Clinton Ave. www.ilovesoulfood.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. 501-3724782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Motherfolk, Phil Ajjarapu, Alex Culbreth.

21+ Maxine’s, 9 p.m., $5. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. www.maxinespub.com.

Pickin’ Porch. Bring your instrument. All ages welcome. Faulkner County Library, 9:30 a.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-3277482. www.fcl.org.

Robert Cray. The Auditorium, 8 p.m., $55$75. 36 Main St., Eureka Springs.

Singer/Songwriters Showcase. Parrot Beach Cafe, 2-7 p.m., free. 9611 MacArthur Drive, NLR. 771-2994.

Ted Ludwig Trio. Capital Bar and Grill, 9 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel.com/CBG.

Dance

Little Rock West Coast Dance Club. Dance lessons. Singles welcome. Ernie Biggs, 7 p.m., $2. 307 Clinton Ave. 501-247-5240. www.arstreetswing.com.

Events

4 the Youth Day & 4K. Health awareness event sponsored by the 4 the Youth Project, including entertainment, physical fitness activities, bullying awareness, food and nutrition information, obesity awareness, 4K. Register at 501-960-4723 Clinton Presidential Park, 9 a.m. p.m., $20 for 4K. 1200 President Clinton Ave., NLR. 5013744242. 4theyouthproject.org/4theyouthday.

40th Annual Little Rock Farmers’ Market.

River Market Pavilions, through Oct. 25: 7 a.m. 400 President Clinton Ave. 375-2552. www.rivermarket.info.

Argenta Farmers Market. Argenta Farmers Market, 7 a.m. 6th and Main St., NLR. 501831-7881. www.argentaartsdistrict.org/ argenta-farmers-market/.

Arkansas Masters of Illusion Magic Show.

Illusions, juggling, comedy. The Studio Theatre, 7:30 p.m., $10 adults, free for children 12 and under. 320 W. 7th St. 501613-1318.

CANstruction 2014. A design competition and charity benefiting the Arkansas Foodbank. Statehouse Convention Center, through Sept. 5. 7 Statehouse Plaza.

Falun Gong meditation. Allsopp Park, 9 a.m., free. Cantrell & Cedar Hill Roads.

Geocaching. The Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center, 8:30 a.m. 602 President Clinton Ave. 501-907-0636. www. centralarkansasnaturecenter.com.

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.

Six Bridges Regatta. The Arkansas Boathouse Club revives a tradition from the early 20th century: A Labor Day regatta on the river, with competitors from several cities. Beer and wine garden under the Junction Bridge by ABC club headquarters, hot-air balloon rides, vendors. The head racing starts 5 kilometers upstream from the Junction Bridge. North Little Rock Riverfront, 8:30 a.m. 100 Riverfront Drive, NLR. www.arboathouse.org/component/ content/article/50-6-bridges-regatta.html.

Film

Filmmaker’s Corner Film Festival. Free films, including “Dawn” by Ya’ke Smith.

Reserve ticket at mosaictemplars.com.

Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, 5:30 p.m. 501 W. 9th St. 501-351-0452. filmmakerscornerfestival.com.

SUNDAY, AUG. 31

Music

Fayetteville Roots Festival. See Aug. 28.

Karaoke. Shorty Small’s, 6-9 p.m. 1475 Hogan Lane, Conway. 501-764-0604. www. shortysmalls.com.

Karaoke with DJ Sara. Hardrider Bar & Grill, 7 p.m., free. 6613 John Harden Drive, Cabot. 501-982-1939 ‎.

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

Michael Eubanks. Lone Star Steakhouse and Saloon, 7 p.m. 10901 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-227-8898. www.lonestarsteakhouse.com.

The Order of Elijah, Deadspell, The Awareness Affliction, Lucid. Vino’s, 8:30 p.m., $8. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www. vinosbrewpub.com.

Project Pat. Club Elevations, 9 p.m. 7200 Colonel Glenn Road. 501-562-3317.

Prozak. 18+ Revolution, 8:30 p.m., $10 adv., $13 dos. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501823-0090. revroom.com.

The Stardust Big Band. Arlington Hotel, 3 p.m., $8. 239 Central Ave., Hot Springs.

501-623-7771.

Events

Bernice Garden Farmer’s Market. Bernice Garden, 10 a.m. 1401 S. Main St. www. thebernicegarden.org.

CANstruction 2014. A design competition and charity benefiting the Arkansas Foodbank. Statehouse Convention Center, through Sept. 5. 7 Statehouse Plaza.

Geocaching. The Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center, 8:30 a.m. 602 President Clinton Ave. 501-907-0636. www. centralarkansasnaturecenter.com.

“Live from the Back Room.” Spoken word event. Vino’s, 7 p.m. 923 W. 7th St. 501375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

MONDAY, SEPT. 1

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LIVE MUSIC BEFORE & AFTER THE SHOW Music At 7, Show At 8 TUE, SEPT 16 • WED, SEPT 17 The Studio Theater 320 W. 7th Street, Little Rock Tickets Available At Box Office $15 Adult/$12 Students, Military, Seniors 65+

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NEW PATIO HAPPY HOUR WED-SAT 4 PM

Music

Fayetteville Roots Festival. See Aug. 28.

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

Monday Night Jazz. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., $5. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd.

501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com.

Richie Johnson. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m.

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

Events

CANstruction 2014. A design competition and charity benefiting the Arkansas Foodbank. Statehouse Convention Center, through Sept. 5. 7 Statehouse Plaza.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

Music

Brian and Nick. Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 p.m.

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

Byrne & Kelly. Doors open at 6:45 p.m. for VIP and 7:15 p.m. for general admission.

A Chicago style Speakeasy & Dueling Piano Bar. This is THE premier place to party in Little Rock. “Dueling Pianos” runs seven days a week. Dance & Club music upstairs on Wed, Fri & Sat. Drink specials and more!

All American Food & Great Place to Watch Your Favorite Event

Do it BIGG!

Best Late Night Spot

Open 7 Days A Week • 8pm-2am Shows Start at 8:30pm

Located in the Heart of the River Market District 307 President Clinton Avenue 501.372.4782 www.erniebiggs.com

Rockin’ Mondays! $2 Off all Rock Town products after 6pm

ROCK TOWN WHISKEY NOW ON TAP! OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK | 11AM - LATE % -!2+(!- s ,)44,% 2/#+ !2

(501) 324-2449

bigwhiskeyslittlerock.com www.arktimes.com

August 28, 2014

57

of the

Arkansas Times A N E X H I B I T AT H I S TO R I C A R K A N S A S M U S E U M

SEPT. 12 THROUGH DEC E M B E R From a spunky monthly launched with $200 in capital assets to one of the earliest alternative w e e k l i e s, t h e A r k a n s a s Ti m e s h a s b e e n T H E e s sential voice on politics and culture since 1974.

Take a look back at the last 40 years of Arkansas history through the often-irreverent lens of the Times in a collection of archival covers, photos, art and memorabilia.

Come To The Opening Reception On Second Friday Art Night, 5-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12 Music by, acoustic guitar duo, Finger Food: featuring Steve Davison and Micky Rigby.

www.arktimes.com 58

August 28, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

movie review

GRAPHIC: “Sin City” sequel sizzles with action and gore but falls flat when mouths open.

Dead dialogue ‘Sin City’ 2 looks good, but its darkness grows dull.

By Sam Eifling

T

here it is, on the marquee. “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.” A sequel, in the summer. Who woulda saw that coming?

It’s dark, this movie. Not just because it’s all filmed to look like Frank Miller’s graphic novels. All white lines against black background.

Occasionally color will sneak in — explosive red lips, emerald eyes, a blue dress, a gold eye. Mostly it’s blacker than the smoke off a burning tire.

The dialogue, too. It has this hardboiled edge. All clipped sentences and

pulp-noir similes. But those don’t always work, like balky free WiFi. See, like that.

Most of the backstory comes to us through these pruned sentences.

Sometimes that’s in two people talking. Usually it’s with a character’s thoughts. Not all that much gets explained. Everyone seems bummed out. No wonder. Sin City is a dingy desert city where the blood sprays in white fountains out of severed heads and Uzi wounds. It’s not even so cheery as kill-or-be-killed. Usually it’s kill-and-then-get-killed-anyway.

Mickey Rourke is back as a bruiser named Marv. He has a sweet spot for breaking bad guys’ bones and for a dancer, Nancy. She’s Jessica Alba and a sight to behold for the lowlifes at Kadie’s Club Pecos. Card game in the back of that bar gets a cocky sharp played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt crossways with a ruthless politician (Powers Boothe) who doesn’t take well to losing.

And then there’s poor Josh Brolin as Dwight, a P.I. who’s wrapped around the titular brunette. Eva Green was born in Paris, and she plays Ava in the style of a vampy doll on vacation in the French Riviera.

Directors Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez don’t leave you guessing why she is considered a dame to kill for. Like the similes, her shirts don’t always work, either.

The cast is good. Real good. The cinematography is indelible. But the writing limps. Miller falls so hard

for the old-style noir dialogue that all his characters seem to be speaking from the same mind. They aren’t distinct. They punch and drink and shoot and get pummeled and barter medical attention for the shoes off their feet. You could swap one in for the next. The good guys are good with a thick bad stripe. The bad guys are bad with an extra coat of bad, just for bad measure. And there you have it.

At a certain point a film has to do more than just over-saturate the screen with bullets and broads to be interesting. Where’s the sense of risk? The sense of joy? For all its bravado “A Dame to Kill For” plays its hand fairly straight. Pack enough malice and atrocity into a film and before long it all runs together in a stream of severed heads and rippedout eyeballs and roadside suicides and arrows to the neck. Dark doesn’t have to be this dreary. www.arktimes.com

August 28, 2014

59

Thursday, September 11,11, 2014 Thursday, September 2014 6:00pm - 8:00pm 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Arkansas Governor’s Mansion Arkansas Governor’s Mansion Center Street 1800 1800 Center Street Little Rock, Arkansas Little Rock, Arkansas

Landers fiat 6th Annual

Landers fiat 6th Shine a Light onAnnual Literacy Shine Join a Honorary Light on Literacy Chair First Lady Ginger Beebe for a night of glittering entertainment,

Join Honorary Chair First Lady Ginger Beebe benefiting Literacy Action of Central Arkansas. for Tickets a nightare of $50 glittering entertainment, each and can be purchased at benefiting Literacy Action of Central www.literacylittlerock.org or by calling Arkansas.

501-372-7323.

Tickets are $50 each and can be purchased at Sponsors www.literacylittlerock.org or by calling 501-372-7323.

Sponsors LEGACY TERMITE & PEST CONTROL, INC.

QUATTLEBAUM, GROOMS, TULL & BURROW PLLC

Pat & Mary Bell

Media Sponsor LEGACY TERMITE & PEST CONTROL, INC.

60

August 28, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

QUATTLEBAUM, GROOMS, TULL & BURROW PLLC

Pat & Mary Bell

DUMAS, COnt. grant for shutting down the opium trade, shortly before invading and overthrowing them for refusing to capture and surrender Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda operatives who were hiding on the western border.

That war, which we are supposed to exit for good in December, has cost us 2,300 dead, 20,000 wounded and, eventually some $6 trillion, counting the medical care of the physically and mentally wounded.

With the best of intentions, America encouraged the Arab Spring uprisings against authoritarian governments from

Tunisia to the Persian Gulf, but we have reaped the whirlwind. We were critical to the overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi in Libya and were repaid with the murder of the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi by revolutionaries. Now the country plunges into chaos with an end that no one can imagine.

In Iraq and elsewhere, we now know that our engagement was folly, but does our investment give us moral ownership and an obligation to try to fix things even if we now know we can’t? Santayana didn’t have an answer.

CIGARETTES © SFNTC 3 2014

porter, COnt. • Remarley Graham, 18: Killed by Officer Richard Haste in the Bronx, New York.

Graham was killed in his grandmother’s house as he was trying to flush some marijuana down the toilet.

• Oscar Grant, 22: Shot and killed by transit police in Oakland, Calif. Grant was lying face down, with several police officers on his back, when Officer Johannes Mehserle pulled out his weapon and killed Grant; the officer claimed he thought Grant was reaching for his taser.

• Eric Gardner, 43: The father of five was killed by Staten Island police officers who put him in a chokehold and suffocated him.

• Jonathan Ferrell, 24: Former Florida A&M football player shot 10 times by a Mecklenburg, N.C., officer who suspected he’d attempted a break-in called in to 911.

• DeAunta Terrell Farrow, 12: Killed by West Memphis Police Officer Erik Sammis. DeAunta had a toy gun.

• Donald Rickard and his passenger, Kelly Allen: Killed during a car chase by West Memphis Police officers. Officers were sued civilly for causing the deaths of

Rickard and Allen.

• Eugene Ellis, 67: Killed by off-duty Little Rock Police Officers Donna Lesher and Tabitha McGrillis at his home. Ellis was armed with a walking cane.

• Henry Lee Jones Jr., 20: Shot in the back by a North Little Rock police officer who claimed that Jones had a weapon. Jones had only a cell phone. Jones was paralyzed and later died from his injuries.

Again, why do mostly unarmed African-American males get killed by the police? If race is not the predominant factor, then what is? When it comes to African-American males, the practice seems to be: Shoot first, and ask questions later. An investigation in 2007 by ColorLines and the Chicago Reporter of shootings in 10 major American cities found that shootings of African Americans were disproportionally high. In essence, it appears that whites are given the benefit of the doubt before a shot is fired.

Had the above named individuals been white, most if not all would be alive today.

For more information on our organic growing programs,

Austin Porter is a lawyer in private practice.

after dark, cont.

Juanita’s, 8 p.m., $35 adv., $55 VIP Meet and Greet. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com.

visit www.sfntc.com

free. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www.stickyz.com.

Live music. No cover charge Sun.-Tue.

Gil Franklin & Friends. Holiday Inn, North

and Thu. Ernie Biggs. 307 Clinton Ave.

Little Rock, first Tuesday, Wednesday of Jeff Ling. Khalil’s Pub, 6 p.m. 110 S.

501-372-4782. littlerock.erniebiggs.com.

Music Jam. Hosted by Elliott Griffen and Joseph Fuller. The Joint, 8-11 p.m., free.

Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.

301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205.

every month. 120 W. Pershing Blvd., NLR.

khalilspub.com.

Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak

thejointinlittlerock.com.

Tuesday Jam Session with Carl Mouton.

Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave.

Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., free.

501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteak-

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

room.com.

Karaoke Tuesday. Prost, 8 p.m., free. 322 President Clinton Blvd. 501-244-9550.

Karaoke Tuesdays. On the patio. Stickyz

afterthoughtbar.com.

Stand-Up Tuesday. Hosted by Adam Hogg.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 7:30 p.m.,

The Joint, 8 p.m., $5. 301 Main St. No. 102,

Comedy

www.arktimes.com

Arkansas Times 08-28-14.indd 1

August 28, 2014

61

7/22/14 8:41 AM

Dining What’s cookin’ The Little Rock Marriott has changed the look, menu and name of its restaurant, replacing Pancetta with Heritage Grille Steak and Fin. The dining area now includes a bar — moved from the lobby (where a new bar is in place) — and a larger menu. On the fin (or shellfish) side are wild-caught shrimp cocktails, lobster cocktail, a raw bar, calamari specials, shrimp and grits, little neck clams, tuna tartare tacos, salmon and other fishes. On the steak side, find Black Angus filets, ribeyes, porterhouse and New York strip steaks, pork chops and lamb. Oysters from Cape Cod, fresh Maine lobster and fresh red fish are on the menu right now. Chef is Michael Mayer, who also presided over Pancetta. Heritage Grille Steak and Fin opened Aug. 14; lunch is 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Friday, noon to 2 p.m. on the weekends. Dinner is 5:30-10 p.m. daily. The lounge is open until midnight.

The 4th annual “Cheese Dip Championship” for the best creators of Arkansas’s favorite food is on the calendar: Set aside 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 25 to devote a day to dip chips while blindfolded judges pronounce the winners in both professional and amateur categories. Regular folks, too, can cast votes for their favorite cheesy competitors in the People’s Choice Award category. The event, a benefit for Harmony Health Clinic, will be at the Bernice Garden at Daisy Bates and Main in the SoMa neighborhood and will spill, like hot cheese on your tie, onto Main Street. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 day of.

dining capsules

Little Rock/ North Little Rock

American

1620 SAVOY Fine dining in a swank space. The scallops are especially nice. 1620 Market St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-221-1620. D Mon.-Sat. ADAMS CATFISH & CATERING Catering company with carry-out restaurant in Little Rock and carry-out trailers in Russellville and Perryville. 215 N. Cross St. All CC. $-$$. 501-3744265. LD Tue.-Fri. ALL ABOARD RESTAURANT & GRILL Burgers, catfish, chicken tenders and such in this trainthemed restaurant, where an elaborately engineered mini-locomotive delivers patrons’ meals.

6813 Cantrell Road. No alcohol. 501-975-7401.

LD daily.

ALLEY OOPS The restaurant at Creekwood Plaza (near the Kanis-Bowman intersection) is a neighborhood feedbag for major medical institutions with the likes of plate lunches, burgers 62

August 28, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

of mozzarella. We loved our House Special (cut into squares), which includes pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, onions and bell pepper ($7.25 for an 8-inch to $17.50 for a 16-inch).

STICK TO YOUR RIBS: Tommy’s excels.

VERY SPECIAL: Pizza loaded with meats, cheeses and more at Tommy’s.

Viva Tommy’s Famous!

Mountain View pizzeria lives up to its rep.

W

alking into Tommy’s Famous in Mountain View is like walking into an Arkansas Times shrine. This publication first reviewed Tommy’s in 1994, and given the quality of the food (and perhaps the dearth of high-level area competition), the restaurant ever since has been a consistent winner in the Times’ Readers Choice poll.

The framed certificates touting Tommy’s poll successes are ubiquitous on the walls in the small, funky-in-a-cool-way restaurant, and there are issues of the Times strewn almost everywhere, some current, some a bit older. Clearly this is a Times-friendly establishment, but no one was any the wiser the Times was back for another review.

The good news is that Tommy’s remains top-notch in almost every way — still very award worthy.

However, do know that Tommy’s doesn’t have something for everyone: Don’t hope for a salad (and therefore no ranch dressing for our companion, who likes to dip her pizza crust in it).

There are no appetizers. And since Stone

Tommy’s Famous 205 Famous Place Mountain View 870-269-3278 tommysfamous.com

QUICK BITE

The pizza at Tommy’s Famous is really good. So is the smoky barbecue. Those who can’t decide can even get barbecue on their pizza. We didn’t try it, but it’s bound to be tasty.

HOURS

3 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily.

OTHER INFO

No alcohol. CCs (but you can’t put tips on cards).

County is a dry county, there are no alcoholic beverages, though Tommy’s does tout its bounteous selection of non-alcoholic beers. (The large O’Doul’s neon didn’t tempt us much.)

But what Tommy’s does serve is universally strong: The pizza features a hand-pressed crust of medium thickness, with a liberally applied rich tomato sauce, high-quality meats and veggies the cooks don’t skimp on, and a nice, thick blanket

The menu lists only four ingredient combos for calzones ($7.50), but you can order any selection of them you want for a small add-on fee. Like Tommy’s pizza, the calzones are ingredient-and-cheese rich. And the crisp crust has a garlicky, herby kick.

Barbecue is the unexpected bonus at this pizza place. But it’s definitely what you smell when you walk in the joint.

And it’s really good, too. Or at least the baby back ribs are. Lean, smoky and tender, they come seven to a halforder ($9.40) and are served with a vinegary, thin-ish sauce that has a bit of a kick. We also enjoyed the smoky beans and moist corn muffin. The slaw was chopped too finely and nothing special. We didn’t try the pork plate or sandwich.

The table-advertised caramel fudge pecan cake ($4.95) isn’t homemade, but it’s large, rich, a bit gooey and addictive.

We tried to leave some; we couldn’t.

Another big plus is that Tommy’s is just a cool spot. We loved the tunes — Bob Dylan and Todd Snider, Delbert McClinton and old Fleetwood Mac, Tom Waits.

The non-Times memorabilia on the walls is compelling, too — a Clinton for Governor poster and signed photos from such noted celebrities as magician Lance Burton (Wikipedia says he’s a big deal; who knew?).

Tommy’s Famous is a family-owned restaurant that opened in 1991. We never knew Tommy Miller, but he apparently was a larger-than-life character. He died May 6, and just inside the door is a tribute area with pictures and a book where customers can record their condolences and memories.

His family carries on. And very well.

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.

and homemade desserts. Remarkable chess pie. 11900 Kanis Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$.

501-221-9400. LD Mon.-Sat. ASHER DAIRY BAR An old-line dairy bar that serves up made-to-order burgers, foot-long “Royal” hotdogs and old-fashioned shakes and malts. 7105 Colonel Glenn Road. No alcohol, No CC, CC. $-$$. 501-562-1085. BLD Mon.-Sat., D Fri.-Sat. ATHLETIC CLUB What could be mundane fare gets delightful twists and embellishments here.

11301 Financial Centre Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-312-9000. LD daily.

B-SIDE The little breakfast place in the former party room of Lilly’s DimSum Then Some turns tradition on its ear, offering French toast wrapped in bacon on a stick, a must-have dish called “biscuit mountain” and beignets with lemon curd. 11121 Rodney Parham Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-716-2700. B-BR Sat.-Sun. BAR LOUIE Mammoth portions of very decent bar/bistro fare with an amazingly varied menu that should satisfy every taste. Some excellent drink deals abound, too. 11525 Cantrell Road, Suite 924. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-228-0444.

LD daily.

BIG WHISKEY’S AMERICAN BAR AND GRILL A modern grill pub in the River Market District with all the bells and whistles - 30 flat-screen TVs, whiskey on tap, plus boneless wings, burgers, steaks, soups and salads. 225 E Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-324-2449. LD daily.

BOBBY’S COUNTRY COOKIN’ One of the better plate lunch spots in the area, with some of the best fried chicken and pot roast around, a changing daily casserole and wonderful homemade pies.

301 N. Shackleford Road, Suite E1. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-224-9500. L Mon.-Fri. BOGIE’S BAR AND GRILL The former Bennigan’s retains a similar theme: a menu filled with burgers, salads and giant desserts, plus a few steak, fish and chicken main courses. There are big-screen TVs for sports fans and lots to drink, more reason to return than the food. 120 W. Pershing Blvd. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-812-0019. D daily.

BOOKENDS CAFE A great spot to enjoy lunch with friends or a casual cup of coffee and a favorite book. Serving coffee and pastries early and sandwiches, soups and salads available after 11 a.m.

Cox Creative Center. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$.

501- 918-3091. BL Mon.-Sat. THE BOX Cheeseburgers and French fries are greasy and wonderful and not like their fast-food cousins. 1023 W. Seventh St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-8735. L Mon.-Fri. BUFFALO GRILL A great crispy-off-the-griddle cheeseburger and hand-cut fries star at this familyfriendly stop. 1611 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, CC. $$. 501-296-9535. LD daily.

CAFE 201 The hotel restaurant in the Crowne Plaza serves up a nice lunch buffet. 201 S. Shackleford Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-223-3000. BLD Mon.-Sat., BR Sun. CATFISH CITY AND BBQ GRILL Basic fried fish and sides, including green tomato pickles, and now with tasty ribs and sandwiches in beef, pork and sausage. 1817 S. University Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-663-7224. LD Tue.-Sat. CHEERS IN THE HEIGHTS Good burgers and sandwiches, vegetarian offerings and salads at lunch, and fish specials and good steaks in the

BELLY UP

B Breakfast L Lunch D Dinner $ Inexpensive (under $8/person) $$ Moderate ($8-$20/person) $$$ Expensive (over $20/person) CC Accepts credit cards

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

evening. 2010 N. Van Buren. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-5937. LD Mon.-Sat. 1901 Club Manor Drive. Maumelle. Full bar, All CC. 501-8516200. LD daily, BR Sun. CHICKEN KING Arguably Central Arkansas’s best wings. 5213 W 65th St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$.

501-562-5573. LD Mon.-Sat. CHICKEN WANG & CAFE Regular, barbecue, spicy, lemon, garlic pepper, honey mustard and Buffalo wings. Open late. 8320 Colonel Glenn Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-562-1303. LD Mon.-Sat. COLD STONE CREAMERY This national chain takes a base flavor (everything from Sweet Cream to Chocolate Cake Batter) and adds your choice of ingredients or a combination of ingredients

it calls a Creation. Cold Stone also serves up a variety of ice cream cakes and cupcakes. 12800 Chenal Parkway. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-2257000. LD daily.

CRACKER BARREL OLD COUNTRY STORE Chain-style home-cooking with plenty of variety, consistency and portions. Multiple locations statewide. 3101 Springhill Dr. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. (501) 945-9373. BLD daily.

DAVE AND RAY’S DOWNTOWN DINER Breakfast buffet daily featuring biscuits and gravy, home fries, sausage and made-to-order omelets. Lunch buffet with four choices of meats and eight veggies. 824 W. Capitol Ave. No alcohol. $. 501-372-8816. BL Mon.-Fri. DAVID’S BURGERS Serious hamburgers, steak

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salads, homemade custard. 101 S. Bowman Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-227-8333.

LD Mon.-Sat. 1100 Highway 65 N. Conway. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. (501) 327-3333 4000 McCain Blvd. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-353-0387.

LD Mon.-Sat. E’S BISTRO Despite the name, think tearoom rather than bistro -- there’s no wine, for one thing, and there is tea. But there’s nothing tearoomy about the portions here. Try the heaping grilled salmon BLT on a buttery croissant. 3812 JFK Boulevard. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-7716900. L Tue.-Sun., D Thu.-Sat. FLIGHT DECK A not-your-typical daily lunch special highlights this spot, which also features inventive sandwiches, salads and a popular burger.

Central Flying Service at Adams Field. Beer and wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-975-9315. BL Mon.-Sat. HILLCREST ARTISAN MEATS A fancy charcuterie and butcher shop with excellent daily soup and sandwich specials. Limited seating is available.

2807 Kavanaugh Blvd. Suite B. No alcohol, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-671-6328. L Mon.-Sat. THE HOP DINER The downtown incarnation of the old dairy bar, with excellent burgers, onion rings, shakes, daily specials and breakfast. 201 E. Markham. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-244-0975.

JASON’S DELI A huge selection of sandwiches (wraps, subs, po’ boys and pitas), salads and spuds, as well as red beans and rice and chicken pot pie.

Plus a large selection of heart healthy and light dishes. 301 N. Shackleford Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-954-8700. BLD daily.

JIMMY JOHN’S GOURMET SANDWICHES Illinois-based sandwich chain that doesn’t skimp on what’s between the buns. 4120 E. McCain Blvd.

NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-945-9500. LD daily. 700 South Broadway St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-372-1600. LD daily.

KITCHEN EXPRESS Delicious “meat and three” restaurant offering big servings of homemade soul food. Maybe Little Rock’s best fried chicken.

4600 Asher Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-6663500. BLD Mon.-Sat., LD Sun. LASSIS INN One of the state’s oldest restaurants still in the same location and one of the best for catfish and buffalo fish. 518 E 27th St. Beer and wine, All CC. $$. 501-372-8714. LD Tue.-Sat. MADDIE’S PLACE Owner/chef Brian Deloney has built quite a thriving business with a pretty simple formula – making almost everything from scratch and matching hefty portions with reasonable prices in a fun, upbeat atmosphere.

Maddie’s offers a stellar selection of draft beers and a larger, better wine list than you might expect.

1615 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$.

501-660-4040. LD Tue.-Sat. MARIE’S MILFORD TRACK II Healthy and tasty are the key words at this deli/grill, featuring hot entrees, soups, sandwiches, salads and killer desserts. 9813 W Markham St. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. 501-225-4500. BL Mon.-Sat. MASON’S DELI AND GRILL Heaven for those who believe everything is better with sauerkraut on top. The Bavarian Reuben, a traditional Reuben made with Boar’s Head corned beef, spicy mustard, sauerkraut, Muenster cheese and marble rye, is among the best we’ve had in town. 400 Clinton Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-376-3354. LD Mon.-Sat. www.arktimes.com

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SIC E SALSA MU IV L • !

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Traditional Latin dance music fused with the exiting sounds of American jazz, Salsa, Bachata, Merengue, and Cha Cha Cha

MARIACHI VIVA JALISCO ALSO PERFORMING

SATURDAY, SEPT. 13, 2014 • 6-10 pm

To purchase tickets, go to: arktimes.com/latinofood

Argenta Farmers Market Plaza - 520 Main St, NLR $15 General Admission • $20 at the Door FREE FOR KIDS 12 AND UNDER!

FOOD, SOFT DRINKS, BEER AND AVAILABLE FOR SALE. NO COOLERS PLEASE.

SPONSORED BY: ARKANSAS'S SOURCE FOR NEWS, POLITICS & ENTERTAINMENT

THE 2013 LATIN FOOD AND MUSIC FESTIVAL

Or for more information contact Arkansas Times at 501-375-2985 Print your tickets and present at the door.

PRESENTED BY: EL LATINO AND ARKANSAS TIMES AND BENEFITING THE ARGENTA ARTS DISTRICT Enjoy a night of delicious Latin food, wonderful atmosphere, and even better company.

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August 28, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

MUSIC

,

NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock. com.

Dance

“Latin Night.” Revolution, 7:30 p.m., $5 regular, $7 under 21. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www.littlerocksalsa. com.

Events

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 & Cleveland streets. 501350-4712. www.littlerockbopclub.

Events

CANstruction 2014. A design competition and charity benefiting the Arkansas Foodbank. Statehouse Convention Center, through Sept. 5. 7 Statehouse Plaza.

Geocaching. The Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center, 8:30 a.m. 602 President Clinton Ave. 501-907-0636. www. centralarkansasnaturecenter.com.

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

CANstruction 2014. A design competition and charity benefiting the Arkansas Foodbank. Statehouse Convention Center, through Sept. 5. 7 Statehouse Plaza.

Geocaching. The W itt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center, 8:30 a.m.

602 President Clinton Ave. 501-907-0636. www.centralarkansasnaturecenter.com.

Film

Wednesday Night Poetry. 21-and-older show. Maxine’s, 7 p.m., free. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-321-0909. maxineslive.com/shows.html.

Vino’s Brewpub Cinema presents: The Phantom Planet. Starring: Dean Fredericks, Coleen Gray, Anthony Dexter A real enjoyable and very underrated little sci-fi B opus about an astronaut who’s stranded on an invisible planetoid. There, he finds a race of miniature people menaced by a fleet of marauding, alien monster. A wonderful stock sci-fi music score.

Great fun throughout. Vino’s, 7:30 p.m., Free. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www. vinosbrewpub.com.

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 3

Music

Acoustic Open Mic. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd.

501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbar.com.

The Cordovas featuring Joe Firstman. with Alpha Rae Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $8 adv., $10 dos. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501372-1228. www.juanitas.com.

Gil Franklin & Friends. Holiday Inn, North Little Rock, first Tuesday, Wednesday of every month. 120 W. Pershing Blvd., NLR. Jim Dickerson. Sonny Williams’ Steak Room, 7 p.m. 500 President Clinton Ave. 501-324-2999. www.sonnywilliamssteakroom.com.

Karaoke at Khalil’s. Khalil’s Pub, 7 p.m.

110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub.com.

Karaoke. MUSE Ultra Lounge, 8:30 p.m., free. 2611 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-6398.

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

Rodney Block. Riverfront Park, 6 p.m., Free. 400 President Clinton Avenue.

Sonny Burgess & The Legendary Pacers.

Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 7:30 p.m., $10. 107 Commerce St. 501-3727707. www.stickyz.com.

Te d L u d w i g Tr i o . C a p i t a l B a r a n d Grill, 7:30 p.m., free. 111 Markham St. 501-374-7474. www.capitalhotel. com/CBG.

Comedy

The Joint Venture. Improv comedy group.

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

Poetry

Books

Marvin Schwarz. A lecture by the author of “We Wanna Boogie,” about Sonny Burgess and the Legendary Pacers. Main Library, 12 p.m., free. 100 S. Rock St. www. cals.lib.ar.us.

NEW ART EXHIBITS L&L BECK ART GALLERY, 5705 Kavanaugh Blvd.: “14 Holes of Golf,” paintings by Louis Beck, giclee giveaway 7 p.m. Sept.

18, show through September. 660-4006.

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: “Piranesi and Perspectives of Rome,” Gallery I, through Oct. 5; “Teaching a Canary to Sing,” sculptural installation by Catherine Siri Nugent, through Sept. 28; “Small Works on Paper,” Gallery III, through Sept. 26.

Reception 5-7 p.m. Aug. 27. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Sat., 2-5 p.m. Sun. 569-8977.

Eureka Springs EUREKA FINE ART GALLERY, 63 N. Main St.: Paintings by Carol Dickie, guest artist for September, reception 6-9 p.m. Sept.

13. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.

Fayetteville BOTTLE ROCKET GALLERY, 1495 Finger Road: Ceramics by Ginny Sims, Aug. 30-Sept. 30, reception 7 p.m. Aug. 30 with food by Tusk and Trotter, drink by Pink House Alchemy. 479-466-3823.

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS, Fine Arts Center: Talk by ceramicist Ginny Sims, 5:30 p.m. Aug. 28.

Jonesboro A R K A N S A S STATE U N IVERSIT Y : “Legacy: Evan Lindquist,” etchings by the professor emeritus and Arkansas’s artist laureate; “Selections: From the Delta National Small Prints Exhibition,” Aug. 28-Oct. 1, gallery talk 5:30 p.m.

Sept. 5, Bradbury Gallery. 870-972-2567.

Russellville THE FRAME SHOP AND GALLERY, 311 W. C St.: Dog portraiture by Beth Whitlow, Aug. 30-Sept. 26, reception 7 p.m. Aug. 30. 479-445-3525. www.arktimes.com

August 28, 2014

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hearsay

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August 28, 2014

AUGUST 28, 2014

The Inaugural Six Bridges

Regatta

T

brian chilson

➥ L&L Beck Gallery’s September exhibit will be “14 Holes of Golf.” The giclee giveaway will be “7th Hole – Pebble Beach Golf Links.” The exhibit will run through the month of September, and the giclee drawing will be at 7 p.m. Sept. 18. ➥ Want a fun cardio and ab workout that doesn’t require hours in the gym? Studio One Dance in North Little Rock is now offering belly dancing classes for beginners as part of its regular schedule. We’re pretty uncoordinated here at Hearsay, but we tried the belly dancing workshop Studio One hosted last spring and it was a blast — you won’t feel judged or out of your depth. The instructor, Giselle, breaks down all the moves and the music will keep you going. Before you know it, the hour is up and you’re drenched in sweat.

The classes are at 6:30 p.m. Thursdays. For more information, visit www.studio1dancenlr. org or call 501-833-6000. ➥ All of Ozark Outdoor Supply’s summer apparel is 50 percent off. ➥ Don’t forget to check out Cantrell Gallery’s exhibit of Arkansas cartoonist John Deering’s latest works titled, “Arkansas Traveler,” which runs through Oct. 18. ➥ Students at Central Arkansas Christian, Pulaski Academy and Episcopal Collegiate can show their school pride with custom hair bows and other spirit items soon to be in stock at Whippersnappers Little Rock. Call 501-246-4944 for more information or to reserve yours. ➥ Join Hourglass Cosmetics artistry executive Michelle Torres to discover enticing eye looks using the new 1.5MM mechanical gel eye liner, an exceptionally thin, remarkably soft and waterproof gel liner in pencil form, at Barbara/Jean. The event is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 28. ➥ Silhouette artist Tim Arnold will be at The Toggery Sept.

4-6. To schedule an appointment at the Heights location for Sept. 4, call 501-663-8662.To schedule an appointment at the Pleasant Ridge Town Center location for Sept. 5 -6, call 501-224-8492.

ROW: ABC River Rats practicing for the Six Bridges Regatta.

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO ARKANSAS TIMES

his Labor Day weekend marks a historic occasion for Arkansas: the first regatta on the Arkansas River since 1938.

The Inaugural Six Bridges Regatta, set for Saturday (Aug. 30), signals the return of a tradition first started in the 1880s. Rowing clubs from across the region will be in Central Arkansas to compete in the national 5K timed race.

The river will be the scene of U.S. Rowing registered races throughout the day in juniors, collegiate and masters categories.

The aim of the event is not only to bring back a tradition, but to shine a spotlight on the sport and its future in Arkansas. “We really want to percolate and spark interest in rowing by giving people a demonstration of the beauty of this sport,” said Lawrence Finn, who serves as co-director of the Six Bridges Regatta.

The regatta, which is being produced by the Arkansas Boathouse Club, has an impressive background as a popular cultural event in the state.

First held in 1882, [by the Little Rock Boathouse Club, which had a storied history on the river from 1882-1945], the annual Labor Day event attracted rowing clubs from across the Mid-South due to the premier rowing conditions found on the river. The regatta quickly earned a reputation as a must-attend social event due to a vibrant celebratory atmosphere that included debutante balls. One memorable ongoing duel, which officials are hoping to revive, involved the Little Rock Boathouse Club and the St. Louis Rowing Club in a competitive sprint race, with the winner taking reign of a coveted win-

ners cup.

To revive the regatta has been a pledge of the Arkansas Boathouse Club committee since the club, whose headquarters are located on the north shore of the River Trail, was formed in 2005 with the goal of reigniting the rowing scene in Arkansas.

“We wanted to have this annual regatta because it does draw attention to the sport,” said Lynette Watts, a founding member of the club and co-director of the event. “One of our hopes from the beginning was to get rowing reestablished in such a way that we could encourage the start-up of more clubs around Arkansas because there is so much water in the state.” The sport is already showing signs of rebirth statewide with the recent formation of a Northwest Arkansas rowing group and a brand-new club forming in Russellville. And with the exposure fostered from the event, the Arkansas Boathouse Club (which offers classes on rowing) is hoping to eventually secure and support a full-time coach for the boathouse.

Serving as the Six Bridges Regatta route is the Arkansas River, terrain well suited for sculling and rowing. “Why the river is such good water is because it is basically a lake between the two dams,” Watts said.

When the club brought in a U.S. Rowing official to scope out the river, they were told it was ideal for both rowing and races because there was seven miles of straight flat water to row on.

“There are very few rivers in the U.S. that have that long a stretch of straight river,” said Watts. “Usually in a regatta

you might have one or two bends in a course and that just makes it a bit more challenging. Here the boats will really be able to race all out without worrying about where they have to turn.”

Spectators can view the races from the finish line at the Junction Bridge and from both sides of the river. Cyclists can also use the River Trail to follow the races taking place.

“It’s a 5K so there are 3 miles of River Trail that complement the river,” Finn said.

“So you can stop and watch the race and then enjoy different places along the way.”

Finn said the regatta serves as a festive backdrop for people out enjoying the Labor Day weekend. Along with rowing, there will be local food trucks and a beer and wine garden at the base of the Junction Bridge in North Little Rock. Tethered hot-air balloon rides will be available ,and at night the River Rail Streetcar will offer free rides to bars and restaurants on both sides of the river.

Watts said rowing is a beautiful sport to watch, likening it to an elegant dance on the water. The event is also a chance to get a glimpse of an Olympic sport many may not have yet been exposed to. “When we first started up the club there were quite a few people who had never seen a rowing shell and had no idea what the sport looked like,” she

said. “This regatta will be that introduction or reintroduction to the sport for Arkansas.”

The plan is to hold the regatta annually and eventually draw in clubs from across the nation to the competition. “Over the last few years the sport has sort of migrated from the two edges of the U.S,” Watts said. “It used to be a West Coast, East Coast sport and it is slowly coming to the Central U.S. The Head of the Hooch in Chattanooga is one of the largest regattas around. And Oklahoma City has become the masters rowing hub of the U.S. They hold Olympic trials there. Little Rock is really right smack dab between these cities, and we are hoping that position will help attract [rowing] clubs to the regatta.”

The timing of the event is also beneficial, falling early on the national and regional head race calendar. “We would like to see the Six Bridges Regatta become the warmup of the [racing] season,” Finn said, “where folks can come and enjoy Labor Day weekend, a relaxed fun atmosphere, and good competition.”

For more details on the Six Bridges Regatta, visit www.6br.org or the Arkansas Boathouse Club website at arboathouse.org or their Facebook page at facebook.com/sixbridgesregatta.

Things to do during and after the regatta

Planners have lots of fun things for regatta spectators, including:

M

usic and drinks on the Junction Bridge. The bridge serves as the race finish line, so it’s

a great spot to see the action. Rob Moore’s

Mojo Depot band will play from 1 to 4 p.m. You can also get some cool beverages on the bridge and then walk down to the park to get food from local restaurants and vendors.

Feel free to bring your own chairs and coolers. You can also watch the race from parts of the River Trail if you don’t want to go all the way into downtown.

An informal pub crawl on both sides of the river. Bars and restaurants in downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock will be offering drink specials and other deals after the regatta.

The list of participating locations includes Big Whiskey’s, Ernie Biggs, Gus’s Fried Chicken (River Market location), Dugan’s Pub, the Flying Saucer, the Rev Room, Cregeen’s Irish Pub, Reno’s Argenta Cafe, The Joint and Crush Wine Bar.

Many thanks to all our generous sponsors.

An Arkansas River Tradition

PRE SENTI NG SPONSOR

PA RT N E R S

BENEFACTORS

PAT R O N S

City of

Little Roc k

(1882 – 1936) reestablished 2014 FRI ENDS

McGeorge Construction

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO ARKANSAS TIMES

Whole Hog Cafe

August 28, 2014

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Rethink everything

M

any holistic and alternative healers espouse the idea of taking on a cleanse with the change of seasons, and while doing a fast or some other physical feat may not be your thing, you may be interested in taking steps to change your family life as fall approaches. The Rethinking Everything (RE) conference and retreat scheduled for Aug. 30-Sept. 2 (conference) and Sept.

3-7 (retreat) at the C.A. Vines 4-H Center in Ferndale may be just what you’re looking for.

RE is a diverse community of rethinkers from around the globe who challenge conventional views of education, work, parenting and life. Their guiding beliefs are “children are capable of absorbing and using knowledge from our complex world. There is no need for arbitrary structures in parenting or education, such as the use of coercion, rewards or other behavior modification techniques as motivation.

“With freedom, respect and nurturing support, children will display a powerful

drive to self-direct their own learning, the result being children who direct their own education and, most importantly, their own futures.”

There is also a special pre-conference event scheduled for 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Aug. 29 at Reynolds Auditorium at the 4-H Center. The speaker will be Dr. Shefali Tsabary, a child psychologist and author of “The Conscious Parent — Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children.” Some of her recent talks and appearances include “Oprah’s LifeClass” and “Super Soul Sunday” as well as Wisdom 2.0, TEDx SF and the Dalai Lama Center. Tickets for the event are $40 per person.

The cost for the entire conference is $150 for ages 7 to adult, excluding grandparents; for children 2-6 and grandparents the cost is $100, and the fees also cover entrance to the retreat. For those who want to participate in the retreat only, the cost is $40. For more information and to register for any of the events, visit www.rethinkingeverything.com.

H

Other Labor Day

Delights

If Labor Day weekend finds you close to home and entertaining guests, then head to Colonial Wines and Spirits to stock up the bar – they have the best selection in town for liquors, wine and beer. If you need some ideas for libations, then Colonial’s Clark Trim has you covered:

The easy way to cross the river during The Six Bridges Regatta.

Labor Day Cocktail Ideas Just as Memorial Day marks the unofficial beginning of summer, we at Colonial find that Labor Day suggests summer’s end.

When I think of cocktails to mark the occasion, I want to incorporate some of the local grown Arkansas produce only available during summer and mix it up with some of my favorite spirits. Use your imagination and create some of your own signature cocktails.

Arkansas Watermelon Margarita

Makes 4 servings Preparation – About 10 minutes At the Stove – About 5 minutes Cooling Time – About 20 minutes (speed this up by using an ice bath) Ingredients • 1/2 cup white sugar • 1/2 cup water Continued on page 70 68

August 28, 2014

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SHOP ‘N’ SIP First thursday each month

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• 3 strips orange zest • 2 cups cubed seeded watermelon • 3/4 cup white tequila El Mayor recommended • 1/4 cup lime juice • salt or sugar for rimming glasses (optional) • 1 lime, cut into wedges • 2 cups crushed ice, or as needed Directions 1. In a small saucepan, bring 1/2 cup sugar, water and orange zest to boil. Stir constantly. Reduce heat to simmer until sugar is completely dissolved, approximately 3 minutes. Remove this “simple syrup” from heat and cool completely. Speed the cooling process by placing saucepan with simple syrup into an ice bath or make the simple syrup ahead of time and refrigerate.

2. Blend watermelon until pureed.

3. Stir watermelon puree into a large pitcher with simple syrup, tequila and lime juice.

4. Place a small amount of salt or sugar into a saucer. Rub edge of margarita glasses with a lime wedge to moisten. Lightly dip the rim of the glass into the saucer to rim the glass; tap off excess salt or sugar.

5. Fill rimmed glasses with crushed ice; pour margarita mixture into glasses and garnish with lime wedges.

Fresh Arkansas Peach Sangria Preparation – 10 minutes

• 1-1/2 cups white wine (Montinore Pinot Gris recommended) • 1-1/2 cups lemon-lime flavored soda • 1/2 cup peach schnapps (Peachtree recommended) • 1/2 cup pineapple juice • 4 cups ice cubes, or as needed • 4 slices fresh local peaches • 12 red seedless grapes • 12 green seedless grapes Directions 1. Place peach slices, red and green grapes on a tray and freeze (do these in advance) 2. Mix wine, lemon-lime soda, peach schnapps and pineapple juice in a cocktail shaker. Add ice and stir until wine mixture is chilled.

3. Place frozen peach, red grapes and green grapes in a martini glass; strain wine mixture into martini glass.

There’s no need to visit multiple stores to prepare for an outdoor party if you’re close to an Edward’s Food Giant store.

Frances Flower Shop, Inc. In downtown Little Rock two blocks from the State Capitol.

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nown as “The Meat People,” the stores (with locations in Tanglewood, downtown, Levy ßOtter Creek and on Baseline) proudly offer certified Angus Choice beef, a rating that has more standards than prime beef.

With the exception of regular ground beef, all of the cuts at Edward’s Food Giant are certified Angus Choice. The staff at Edward’s cut the meat onsite and offers bone-in ribeyes. There’s also Sanderson Farms chicken, Swift all-natural pork and a variety of seafood.

The Tanglewood location might be best known for its sausages made inhouse. Four or five varieties are offered every day, with selections varying.

Options include a spicy Italian, sweet Italian, bratwurst, chorizo, chicken with cheese and peppers, jalapeno pork and Polish sausages.

While you’re picking up your meat and vegetables, you can also get charcoal, spices, rubs, marinades, side dishes, paper goods and anything else you might need.

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They are approx. 8 weeks old. Two Tabbys and a Calico left. The black one has been adopted!

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Welspun pipes, inc. position: NDT Engineer Responsibilities: Perform/oversee NDT testing activities, including Coil UT, RTR/IUT, Seam UT, and MUT, Digital Radiography, and rework Xray/MUT-pipe end. Troubleshoot automatic testing machines. Operate all NDT stations without supervision. Calibrate NDT equipment and maintain records.

Review NDT station reports and prepare/submit final report of NDT activities. Monitor defects as discovered through testing and take appropriate corrective actions. Ensure that all NDT testing is conducted per standards, customer requirements, and company procedures. Prepare work instructions and procedures as needed. Train operators as necessary. education, experience, and special requirements: Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Science or related field, plus 5 years of related experience. Must be NDT Level II certified in UT and RT and be able to read and interpret API 5L and ASME codes and customer specifications To apply, mail resume to: Welspun Pipes, Inc., ATTN: Scott Carnes, 9301 Frazier Pike, Little Rock, Arkansas 72206.

PART-TIME ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families is accepting resumes for a part-time (25 to 30 hours a week) Administrative Assistant. Requires general office skills and proficiency in Microsoft Office programs and database programs. 5+ years of experience required.

Salary commensurate with experience.

Send cover letter, resume, and references to cneal@aradvocates.org or 1400 West Markham St., Ste. 306, Little Rock, AR 72201.

AACF is an equal opportunity employer.

ENTRY LEVEL POLICE & FIRE EXAMINATIONS City of Maumelle The City of Maumelle, AR will be testing Saturday, October 18, 2014 for Entry Level Police & Fire Examination and will be accepting applications through 5 p.m., October 7, 2014.

NOTE: No applications will be accepted after October 7, 2014.

NOTE: A City of Maumelle Employment Application must be completed.

A job description and an application may be found at the City of Maumelle website (www.maumelle.org) Human Resources Department webpage. Completed applications should be mailed to: City of Maumelle – Human Resources Department – 550 Edgewood Drive, Suite 590 – Maumelle, Arkansas 72113.

For questions, you may contact the Human Resources office at (501) 851-2784, ext. 242 between the hours of 7AM and 5PM Monday-Friday 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) 8512785, ext. 233 or at vernon@maumelle.org.

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August 28, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES