Arkansas Times | December 20, 2018

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Can the NRA survive?

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ake no mistake: Advocacy for the expansion of gun rights will remain vibrant in the United States. The suddenly relevant question is whether the National Rifle Association — the nation’s largest and politically potent gun rights group for decades — will be at the head of that movement, thanks to the NRA’s increasingly visible role in the relationship between the Russian government and the 2016 Trump campaign. Russian operative (and American University grad student) Maria Butina’s guilty plea in a Washington courtroom in exchange for full cooperation in Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation suggests that the NRA is suddenly in a very precarious position.

We know several things about the NRA and the 2016 elections. First, the NRA invested heavily in the 2016 Trump campaign. The organization’s overall spending shot up by $100 million in 2016 as compared to the previous year, and $30.3 million of that spending was in support of the Trump campaign. Remarkably, that spending on behalf of one candidate was more than the NRA’s combined spending in all federal races (presidential, Senate and House) during the 2008 and 2012 presidential election cycles. Moreover, we know that some Russian money did come into the NRA coffers during the 2016 election cycle. The question remains whether it was a small amount or a decidedly larger amount that went to the Trump campaign (obviously a big problem for all involved). While the NRA does have to report its overall spending, it does not have to publicly report the sources of those funds. Third, we know that there were numerous meetings between NRA and Russian officials in the lead-up to the 2016 elections. While many photos of these meetings have come to light, little is known about what was said. The relatively leniency of the special prosecutor’s office with Butina suggests it thinks the self-identified Russian gun-rights advocate who made deep inroads with NRA officials could answer some key questions. The biggest question for the future of gun politics in the U.S.: Does the NRA just get a little mud on it because of its involvement in the scheme or is their participation more damning?

The Mueller investigation is not the NRA’s only problem at the moment.

Because of Trump’s support for gun 4

DECEMBER 20, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

JAY BARTH

rights, membership in and contributions to the NRA have dropped precipitously as gun rights advocates have confidence that those rights will be protected by the Trump administration. This represents the natural tides of interest group politics — as the threat to a group recedes because of a big election victory, disengagement by their members follows. When it comes to federal legislation, of course, gun rights advocates are right. No significant change will happen on federal gun laws (excepting the case of bars on bump stocks).

However, as I’ve noted before, the real action on guns at the moment is at the state level in the U.S. For the first time, the NRA is getting beat in many states.

According to an analysis by the advocacy group Giffords reported this week in The New York Times, gun control legislation ticked up significantly across the states while gun freedom legislation fell. The rise of new gun control groups that combine resources and grassroots power (like Moms Demand Action) is one reason for the change in dynamics. These new activists advocated for the need for new gun control legislation in the aftermath of the February 2018 Parkland massacre, for instance. But, the weakened state of the NRA is also part of the story.

Based on past experience, the NRA will find its path back to influence. The Butina branch of the multifaceted Mueller investigation, however, represents a more existential threat to the organization. The investigation is a fascinating one on several fronts. Its implications for gun politics in the United States is one of them.

For nearly seven years, I’ve had the great opportunity to regularly fill this space with a column a couple of times a month. The transition of this publication marks the end of my column writing (although my writing for the Times will likely continue in some form). Those seven years have been a consequential period on the issues about which I’ve written the most: LGBTQ rights, partisan politics in Arkansas, U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence, racial dynamics in Little Rock and, yes, gun politics. Thanks to all who’ve expressed their appreciation for my writing, as well as those who’ve expressed their dissent. And, thanks to the Times for helping me become a better writer more willing to take risks in expressing my views.

Closer to the end

I

s it possible we’re witnessing the beginning of the end of Donald J. Trump’s presidency? The signs and portents are coming so fast that it’s hard to keep score.

Over the weekend, Trump threatened to file a lawsuit against the NBC network because its show “Saturday Night Live” made fun of him again — as it’s lampooned every president since Gerald Ford.

Is the big crybaby cracking? It sure looks that way.

Last week, Trump tried to run a nationally televised bluff past Nancy Pelosi over funding for his vaunted Mexican wall. He vowed to shut down the U.S. government at Christmas if he didn’t get his way. Pelosi called him and raised him. Go ahead and call a vote if you think it’s a winner, she said. Because, see, Pelosi does her homework. Trump’s not the first blowhard she’s encountered during her long political career. Having counted the votes, the likely incoming House Speaker knew the president’s threat was empty bluster.

Congressional Republicans soon began fighting among themselves. So the president folded, characteristically sending Sarah Huckabee Sanders out to announce “at the end of the day, we don’t want to shut down the government.”

Elsewhere, Wired magazine recently compiled a list of ongoing criminal investigations involving the president, his immediate family, the Trump organization, etc.

There are 17 altogether, involving several jurisdictions. They include, of course, the most dangerous and consequential of all: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of the 2016 Trump campaign’s clandestine dealings with the Russian government.

And the deeper Mueller digs, the more Trump looks like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kremlin.

Even Trump’s inaugural committee is being probed. It raised a reported $105 million for the ceremony, much of it from “straw” donors whose real identities are unknown. (Foreign contributions are illegal.) Some $40 million remains unaccounted for. I know whose pockets I’d search.

Seventeen investigations! Think of the legal bills. Even granting that the man rarely, if ever, pays his lawyers, you’ve got to wonder if the time’s not coming for Trump to cut his losses, cop an immunity plea and walk away.

As I write, it’s reported that the president has come to an agreement with the

GENE LYONS

attorney general of New York to shut down the Trump Foundation, which appears never to have been anything but a slush fund and a vehicle for tax fraud. Even what few legitimate charitable donations it made to veterans organizations were presented at staged political events — a violation of laws governing tax-exempt charities.

Some details are downright comical.

Among other absurdities, the Trump charity bought large oil paintings of the great man himself to adorn his golf clubhouses.

According to The Washington Post, the foundation’s largest expenditure was a $264,231 gift to the Central Park Conservancy to restore a fountain outside Trump’s Plaza Hotel — the luxury hostelry he drove into bankruptcy in 1992. A $7 gift to the Boy Scouts of America appears to represent Donald Jr.’s enrollment fees.

How does that grab you? A billionaire claiming a phony tax deduction for his kid’s Boy Scout dues.

But what’s got to have Trump running scared is Mueller’s Russia probe. It’s not merely just that Trump campaign director Paul Manafort, his National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn and his personal lawyer Michael Cohen have pleaded guilty to felony crimes. It’s that the public is gradually catching on. Fully 62 percent of Americans in a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll say they believe that Trump’s been lying about his dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

To anybody who’s read the fine print in Mueller’s legal pleadings, it’s clear things can only get worse for Trump. Here’s how Mueller explains the effect of Michael Cohen’s false testimony to Congress about the president’s secretive Trump Tower Moscow project — the one he lied about repeatedly during the 2016 campaign.

“If the project was completed, the Company could have received hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian sources in licensing fees and other revenues. The fact that Cohen continued to work on the project and discuss it with Individual 1 well into the campaign was material to the … investigations, particularly because it occurred at a time of sustained efforts by the Russian government to interfere with the U.S. presidential election. Similarly, it was material that Cohen, during the campaign, had a substantive telephone call about the project with an assistant to the press secretary for the President of Russia.”

PEARLS ABOUT SWINE

Raw bunch

T

he major Arkansas programs con- terpiece of delicate tinue to get one meaningful op- shooting touch — that BEAU portunity to take their talents to cemented the win.

WILCOX the center of the state each season and Between and the pre-Christmas squaring off between among all that, Arkansas was erratic at the basketball Hogs and a generally inept best. No one aside from Joe could find foe has become tradition. Most years, the a consistent stroke from the perimeter, results are as they were Saturday night at and because Gafford struggled so mightVerizon Arena: slightly out-of-place travel- ily to assert an offensive presence against ing team takes time to get its bearings in a the Roadrunners, who were obscenely multipurpose venue, doesn’t play quite as (and often, illegally) all over Gafford’s crisp coming off final exams, and yet gets shoulders and back in an effort to thwart away with it because the mediocrity of the him, it typically falls to the likes of junior opponent and the bonus of alcohol avail- forward Adrio Bailey to provide some ability to the attendees make for a slightly help. But he, too, was off (a two-point, more spirited and competitive game. foul-addled 13 minutes), so it was all on This year’s designated victim was a lit- bulky freshman Reggie Chaney to protle nondescript 3-6 team from the Univer- vide some help. sity of Texas at San Antonio, which had And Chaney, who hasn’t made scordropped a game to a Division II program ing a priority in his freshman campaign, earlier and naturally had the appearance responded to the award of more floor of a pushover. Steve Henson, a onetime time from UA Coach Mike Anderson.

Lon Kruger assistant and a guy who is UTSA’s shoot-first, shoot-often guard generally well regarded in the coaching tandem of Jhivvan Jackson and Keaton ranks for his knowledge of the game, is Wallace kept the ’Runners close by makin Year Three of a rebuild that appears ing a variety of quick-trigger shots — try to to be taking a step backward, as the hap- imagine how this game might have turned less Roadrunners are now 3-7 after the out if those two had been more accurate Razorbacks were finally able to use last- than the aggregate 12-for-37 from the minute free throw accuracy to extract floor that they posted — Chaney quietly a 79-67 win. That nudged the Hogs to but importantly played his best game of 7-2 in front of a fairly spotty but throaty 2018-19 at a fairly urgent juncture. While Saturday night gathering in North Little Gafford had to slowly immerse himself Rock, and for as disheveled as it was for in the offensive game plan, Chaney tied much of the night, it was also a victory his career best with an efficient (5-for-7 first and foremost. And it came on the on field goals, almost all within a few feet heels of a shocking home loss to West- of the bucket) 11-point night, he was also ern Kentucky the weekend before; so at a shockingly steadying presence on the a bare minimum, the result was at least floor given his youth. passable given its immediate precedent.

Chaney saw 28 minutes of action SatWe can hand the team MVP honors urday night and earned every bit of it by at this point to rangy freshman guard simply being as engaged in the action as Isaiah Joe. For all the worldly skills that he was. He sank all five of his second-half Daniel Gafford possesses — and his num- baskets in the first 10 minutes of action, bers are well up over his freshman year and whereas most such outbursts from a marks — he still evidences an occasional player are noteworthy because they spur detachment from the game. After a half of a big team spurt, in this case Chaney’s play, the sophomore post had all of two points were essential because they either field goal attempts and a single dunk to lifted Arkansas to a lead after San Antohis credit, though he had grabbed a few nio had somehow vaulted back into conboards and spearheaded the Hogs’ transi- tention, or they answered a Roadrunner tion game with some effective outlet pass- score. That production allowed Gafford ing as Arkansas shook off a really flimsy to finally start asserting himself in the start to build a slight halftime lead, 35-28. waning minutes, as Henson’s bench got And Joe was the catalyst. With four thin late thanks to foul-outs. Gafford ultiof his smooth five three-pointers find- mately posted a double-double with a ing their target in the first half, the Fort 13-point, 14-rebound showing. Freshman Smith product seemed very comfortable guard Desi Sills helped offset sophomore in the different confines, likely traceable Mason Jones’ off night with a nine-point to his AAU days in Central Arkansas. At game off the pine, and Arkansas’s decithe end, it was the soft stroke of Joe at sive bench advantage and extremely welthe free throw line — 6-for-6 in the final come free throw proficiency spelled the half-minute to finish off a 21-point mas- difference.

THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

Phoenix

I

f you’re reading a paper copy of this esteemed publication right now, you’re holding something special in your hands: the last weekly print edition of the Arkansas Times, the end of an unbroken chain that goes back and back, week by week, every week, to May 1992, when the Times became what the hep cats call an “alternative newsweekly.” Our famous annual Native’s Guide will be out next week, but as for a true edition of the Times as a weekly, this is it. Don’t fear or celebrate, though, lovers and haters, respectively.

In addition to remaining on the throne in our vast digital castle in cyberspace at arktimes.com, we’ll be back on the racks come February as a new monthly magazine. We think you’re gonna like it. Your Old Pal will be batting cleanup on or near the last page of each issue. Look for us there. While the change means The Observer will be seeing less of you and vice versa, Dear Reader — 12 times a year or thereabouts instead of 52 or thereabouts — we promise there will be no corresponding dip in our passion or intensity, and we hope the same is true on your end. What’s that about absence making the heart grow fonder?

While going monthly is a response to certain financial realities that have affected the whole newspaper industry — no sense beating around the bush about that like an overdrawn suburbanite, given that we’re forthright and uncouth downtowners — a monthly schedule is actually a return to form for us. In ’92, The Observer’s Rich Uncle Alan recognized a soul-sized gap in the local media landscape after the Arkansas Gazette was felled and cannibalized by Lilliputians, at which point he hired several of the Old Gray Lady’s former all-stars and went weekly on newsprint. Before that, though, Arkansas Times had been a glossy monthly magazine. And before that, a free-wheeling, rabble-rousing, superfly publication that debuted in September ’74 as the Union Station Times, printed on pulp paper so chunky it probably could have been used to sand the corner off a freshly cut oak plank, and full of content that likely scandalized quite a few folks.

Yeah, change is scary. But here’s what you’ll learn if you’re lucky to live long enough for the cobwebs to creep in at

your temples: Life is change. As long as you’re changing, as long as you’re willing to change, you’ve stiiiiiiillll got it. The moment you won’t, or can’t, you’re worse than dead.

The Observer worked 15 years on the weekly Times, and we can tell you: We’re looking forward to taking a breath.

A few years in, speaking to our old pal Mr. Photographer, Yours Truly likened turning out a paper week in and week out to going up to the roof every Wednesday and beginning the process of assembling a full-sized replica of the Wright Flyer from scratch, our little team steam-bending the ash frame and stretching the canvas, carving the propellers with draw knives and bolting them on, pouring in the gas and watching the little homebuilt engines cough to life before finally pushing the contraption off the roof, hearts full of hope, and watching as the spindly thing sputters and climbs to disappear over the horizon.

At that point, we would all turn to each other, hammers and wrenches in hand, and say: “What’s next?” and begin building another one. The Observer, of course, wasn’t there for all of it, but it was like that, every week, since May 1992. You, Dear Reader, were lucky to have never witnessed it. There were fights and tears, even on the days when we got everything right. We honestly have no idea how folks at the daily papers do it without going bare-assed insane. Some of them don’t, in our experience.

So now, The Observer and our compadres stride boldly into the future for this outfit we love and this profession we love and this city we love, Arkansas Times to be reborn by Valentine’s Day as something new but still us, still that plucky bunch of raconteurs that started way back in 1974, though many of the faces around the coffee pot in the morning are different these days. We’ve done that Phoenix act before, so it don’t scare us none. Hopefully you’ll be there with us when we emerge anew, and keep on proudly telling our advertisers you saw it in the Arkansas Times.

As for this chapter of our story, though, The Observer will end it the way we were taught by the eldest of old-timers way back in the day, and simply say: -30arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018

5

EYE ON ARKANSAS

WEEK THAT WAS

Quote of the week

“ The r u l i n g i s a big w i n f or Arkansans. Without the individual mandate in place, Obamacare cannot be upheld and is unconstitutional.

Now, it is t ime for Cong ress to increase options, lower costs and protect t hose wit h pre-existing conditions.” — Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, in response to a ruling by a conservative federal j u d g e i n Te x a s t h a t f o u n d t h e Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.

Rutledge was among the Republican state attorneys general who f iled the lawsuit. Legal scholars give the ruling little chance of standing as it continues through the appeals process, but if it does, millions with pre - e x i st in g c on dit ion s w ill b e denied health insurance, hundreds of thousands of Arkansans will likely be left insured and Arkansas’s budget will be wrecked.

LRSD targeted

The State Board of Education was scheduled to meet at 10 a.m.

Thursday, Dec. 20, in special session to complete business on suggestions to alter the operation of the Little Rock and Pine Bluff school districts.

Despite no notice of such plans on its agenda, the board was set to vote Dec. 13 to immediately waive t he Teacher Fa ir Dismissa l Act, which provides basic due-process rights for teachers, for all teachers in the Pine Bluff and Little Rock districts, both of which are under state control for supposed academic deficiencies. Objections to action t hat had n’t been a n nou nced i n adv a nce , i nclud i n g f rom s ome board members, prompted a delay.

The t h in k ing on educat ion reg ulators’ pa r t is t hat t he fa ir dism issa l law is a n obst acle to the speedy firing of poor teachers,

6

DECEMBER 20, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

though scant evidence of that has been offered. Poor teachers, in turn, are being blamed as the primary c u lpr it for low s t udent s core s , despite the state being in control for almost four years now.

The specia l meet i ng took on heightened sig nif icance because of boa rd member Dia ne Zook ’s scripted rip of the school district.

She wa nts to wa ive t he fa ir dismissal law for administrators as well as teachers. She has also t a r g et e d H a l l H ig h S cho ol for

reconstit ution (f iring all school staff ), plans to request financial and special education audits from the state, and wants administrative reorganization.

More cuts

Almost 17,000 Arkansans have lost their health insurance because of the state’s experimental work requirement for certain low-income adult Medica id benef icia r ies, accord i ng to a mont h ly rep or t released by the state Department of Human Services this week. The state terminated coverage for another 4,655 Medicaid beneficiaries due to noncompliance with the state’s work rule this month, adding to the 12,277 who were cut off and locked out of Medicaid from September to November. Those people were enrollees in the Arkansas Works prog ram, the state’s approach to Med ica id ex pa n sion . A rka n sa s Works provides low-income adults with marketplace insurance plans through private carriers such as Blue Cross or Ambetter, but their premiums and other costs are paid

by Medicaid.

Medical marijuana updates

The state Medica l Ma rijua na Commission rescheduled a meeting set for this week on the grading of applications for dispensaries to Jan. 9.

A new member, Benton Police Capt. Kevin Phillips, was appointed t h i s we ek by S en ate P re sident Jonathan Dismang to succeed Dr. Carlos Roman on the commission.

An appointment also will be made t o s ucce e d Ja me s M i l ler, who resigned his seat with two years remaining on the five-member body.

His replacement hasn’t been named.

Vo t e r s a p p r o v e d m e d i c a l m a r ij u a n a i n No v e m b e r 2 016 .

Enabling legislation was passed in 2017. The commission has awarded five permits for cultivation facilities and will award up to 32 dispensary permits. They can’t operate until a state-grown supply is available.

Of f icia ls have foreca st a spring start to the availability of medical marijuana for accredited patients holding permission from doctors for use of the drug in a range of medical circumstances.

Newspaper transformation

F

OPINION

MAX BRANTLEY

orty-six years ago this week I visited weekly print edition maxbrantley@arktimes.com Little Rock in hopes of getting a job at of the Arkansas Times, the Arkansas Gazette. Then-Manag- which will revert to a glossy monthly foring Editor Robert Douglas was friendly, but mat next month. I’ll continue to cover the said (with good reason) that I was a little news on a daily basis through the Arkansas green. Perhaps, he said, I could try the Pine Blog at arktimes.com, a website we plan Bluff Commercial to get a little seasoning. to expand.

Fate stepped in. My faculty adviser in Our move is a product of the changing grad school wrote a letter of recommenda- newspaper business. Google, Facebook, tion to Gazette City Editor Bill Shelton. He Amazon and the like have disrupted newscalled me with a job offer. And here I am. paper publishing. Circulation and advertisI loved being a newspaper reporter. I ing have dropped precipitously. The future covered cops, schools and Kiwanis Club appears to be digital, though profits for that speakers. Then I became an editor on the remain elusive for most in the business. city desk, from which I helped fight and We’ve been more successful than many lose the great newspaper war. In the last in attracting paying customers for digital year of the battle, during the 1990 guber- access to the Times, in part because local natorial campaign, I became an accidental news sells. I also provide the news with columnist, a job I’d never contemplated, a dose of opinion, as anyone who reads it because of a staff departure. knows. There’s no hidden agenda.

About a year later, the war was over and So, if no more birdcages will be lined I went to work for the monthly Arkansas with paper carrying my words next year, Times, which converted to a weekly publi- I hope to continue to scatter some pixels cation with me as a weekly columnist. And around. There’s so much to write about. here I am, writing my last column for the Just last week:

ACA will stand

I

f you are worried about your health care — and that ought to be nearly everyone — pay no attention to the triumphant tweet of President Trump last Friday or the hurrah the same day from Leslie Rutledge, the Arkansas attorney general, after the most political judge in America declared the whole Affordable Care Act null and void.

Listen instead to the plaintive statement issued by the White House later the same day: Don’t worry because it’s really not going to happen for a long time, if ever. Trump’s health department followed up by assuring people that every part of Obamacare is going to continue just as it is.

See, saner people in the administration and the Republican Party had sent the judge a subtle message: Give us the political victory we’ve wanted and failed to achieve for eight years, but don’t actually throw us in that briar patch.

If the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a Republican court, upholds the ruling, in another year to 18 months it may go to the Supreme Court and few legal authorities believe it would have much chance of success there, particularly in a

presidential election year. Every member of the Supreme Court, including the two Trump justices, is ERNEST on record opposDUMAS ing the judge’s idea that the court can substitute its notion of severability in an act of Congress for that of Congress itself.

Rutledge and the other 19 or so Republican attorneys general sent Judge Reed O’Connor memos supporting the Republican suit to eliminate every vestige of the Affordable Care Act and asked him to issue a mandate ending all the law’s functions immediately, as O’Connor has done every other time Republicans have asked him to strike down Obama-era laws, most recently in suits against the anti-discrimination provisions of the ACA and federal protections for transgender children in the public schools.

Why the ambivalence of Republicans, who are largely mute now after running against the ACA for years?

Here’s a clue. If O’Connor had actu-

*Diane Zook, a state Board of Educa- with its coverage of pre-existing condition member from Izard County, laid out a tions and its requirements for extended breathtaking plan for administrative control family coverage, nondiscrimination against of the Little Rock School District. Appar- women in premiums, required coverage of ently Education Commissioner Johnny Key, birth control, mental health and preventaalready intent on a pro-charter, anti-teach- tive medicine. In November, she won 60 ers-union assault on the district he controls, percent approval of voters who knew, or hasn’t been tough enough. I hope no mem- should have known, that Rutledge was ber of the business community steps up to waging this fight to end health insurance endorse Zook (aunt of a $230,000-a-year coverage, and maybe even the lives, of many lobbyist for Walton charter school interests) Arkansans. as they did in endorsing state removal of the *We already knew the Hutchinson then-black-majority school board. If they administration wanted to cut health insurdo, the Little Rock City Board should end ance coverage, home health care and transits $300,000 annual corporate welfare pay- portation for the ailing poor. Savings will ment to the local chamber of commerce and help pay for a tax cut for millionaires. Now send it up to Izard County instead. we also know, thanks to Democrat-Gazette *If the balance of local school power is reporting, that the nursing home industry, to shift to Izard County, perhaps the state protected from similar cost-cutting by the could expand that planned Interstate 30 state Medicaid reimbursement scheme, had concrete gulch through downtown all the an early hand in drafting the rules that will way to Melbourne. Speaking of which: drive disabled people out of their homes Expect more in days ahead about how the for lack of personal assistance and into the state highway department has buried a arms of more expensive nursing homes. cheaper alternative to replacing the I-30 You can see I still have plenty to river bridge that would improve the lives gripe about. If you’ve only been a print of people in the city, but, sorry, perhaps reader, take a look at arktimes.com and not shave a few seconds off white-flight consider a subscription for unlimited suburban commute time. access. Our future — which means pres*Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rut- ervation of a point of view in short supledge proclaimed victory in the first round ply in the dying news industry in Arkanof a lawsuit to kill the Affordable Care Act, sas — depends on it.

ally issued the mandate that Rutledge and others had asked for, this would be the situation today: Seventeen million Americans (more than 300,000 of your Arkansas neighbors) who got medical insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges or expanded Medicaid would have lost it this past Sunday. Another 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions who won back or saved their coverage in employer or other insurance markets owing to the mandate in the ACA would have lost that protection or faced its loss sometime. Millions of young people who have stayed on their parents’ policies until the age of 26 would lose it. Women would go back to paying higher premiums than men. Insurance companies could again place annual or lifetime caps on coverage, and Obamacare’s caps on the out-of-pocket expenses you have to pay would go away. Insurance plans would no longer have to cover treatment for mental illness. Medicare patients would again have to pay for preventive services, which are covered under the ACA. This year, Republicans agreed that all those provisions are desirable and that they will get around some day to restoring the protections in a new law.

But most Americans finally figured out

that those protections are the Affordable Care Act. If Trump and his party were for those things, why haven’t they passed or even introduced a law providing for at least a few of them while they controlled Congress?

Rutledge had said that by joining the challenge to the ACA she was protecting the state and federal governments from bankruptcy. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial page, which understands no more about the law than Rutledge does, continues the same argument — that the law is running up the federal debt and threatening the state’s solvency.

The facts are that the ACA has trimmed the federal deficit by scores of billions of dollars every year and has been projected to do so far into the future. Far from undermining its solvency, the act has been a bonanza for the Arkansas treasury, pumping billions of dollars into the Arkansas economy since 2014 and hundreds of millions into the state treasury in the form of insurance premium taxes and ancillary taxes.

Arkansas, which alone among surrounding states quickly took the government up on Medicaid expansion, is the only one not to suffer the closing of community hospitals since 2013.

Follow Arkansas Blog on Twitter: @ArkansasBlog

arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018

7

It’s the

Best and Worst

2018

Our annual salute to weird, worrisome, wonderful Arkansas.

BY DAVID KOON

C

hristmas is almost here, and that means it’s time once again to open the Arkansas Times’ annual regift of highly questionable taste and quality: The Best and Worst issue, our yearly salute to all the news items you tried like hell to forget. Yeah, with Donald Trump in office, it might seem like 2018 lasted a nice, round 29 months or so. But

Best win Little Rock native and 6-foot-10-inch basketball standout Kalin Bennett was heralded as a trailblazer in December after it was revealed he will reportedly be the first student athlete with autism to be recruited by an NCAA Division I school. Though several schools tried to scoop up the phenom, he ultimately decided on Kent State.

Best breath of fresh air Entergy Arkansas announced in November that after reaching a settlement with the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, it will close the state’s two largest coal-fired power plants by 2030.

Best draining the swamp In September, former Sen. Jon Woods (R-Springdale) was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution after being convicted in May on 15 8

DECEMBER 20, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JENNIFER PERREN

we can assure you that, based on the little hashmarks we’ve scratched into the wall of our dank and windowless cell here at AT HQ, it was only 365 days, just like every other year. That said, our cup did truly runneth over in 2018, and we were taking notes! So read on, if you dare, for tales of Baphomet barnstorming, the burning hole of Midway, pit bull purloining and disguise,

counts related to a bribery scheme in which Woods and several co-conspirators directed taxpayer funds to two nonprofits in exchange for kickbacks.

The sentence could keep Woods behind bars until he’s just shy of 60 years old.

and how Twitter came to be Rapert-free for 12 blessed hours. It’s all here, served up with a heaping dose of love. So, Merry Christmas to you, and the happiest of New Years, Dear Reader. And above all: Unless it’s saving a litter of puppies from a burning building or something, don’t do anything that’ll land you in Best and Worst 2019.

Nobody wants that.

word on whether Trump is considering tigators say later came back to the it, but we’re gonna call that a long shot. restaurant with family members and broke a window, was treated at a local Worst failure to read the hospital for burns to his face. The employee handbook employee was fired.

Federal agents arrested a special events coordinator for Pulaski County Best true love Best activist judge Youth Services in November, allegIn August, investigators arrested During Woods’ sentencing, U.S. Dis- ing he visited online child-porn chat- Maxine Feldstein, 30, of Fayettetrict Judge Timothy Brooks told Woods rooms, distributed child pornography ville, saying she helped her boyfriend, he hoped a stiff sentence would act as and smoked meth during work hours Nicholas Lowe, 23, escape from the a “general deterrent” for other officials while sitting in his office at the county Washington County Jail by allegwho might seek to steal from the public, administration building. edly forging documents from Vensaying Woods saw elected office as a tura County in California ordering way to put money in his own pocket. “I Second worst failure to read Lowe’s immediate release. Deputies find that grotesque,” Brooks said. That the employee handbook said they took a phone call by Feldmakes several of us, Your Honor.

Police said that in August, a North stein and the paperwork she later Little Rock McDonald’s restaurant emailed as legit, and released Lowe Best Art of the Deal employee threw hot grease on a cus- soon after.

In November, Woods was one of 79 tomer waiting at the drive-through federal prison inmates who wrote to window during an argument that Best history repeating itself President Trump, proposing to help started when the employee told the At the time of his release from the build Trump’s promised big, beeyoutee- indecisive customer that he needed Washington County Jail, Lowe was ful wall on the U.S.-Mexico border in to make up his mind and quit wasting being held on charges of false imperexchange for lessened sentences. No her time. The customer, who inves- sonation.

Worst history repeating itself

Best miracle

In June, it was revealed that one of the sites the Trump administration was considering for a concentration camp for immigrant children was in Kelso (Desha County), less than a five-minute drive from the site of the notorious internment camp at Rohwer, where over 8,000 Japanese-Americans were confined behind barbed wire by the U.S. government during World War II. The site was not selected.

Authorities in Ouachita County called it a miracle in August after a 1-year old and a 3-year-old were found with minor injuries near the wreckage of a Chevrolet Impala lodged in a ravine near Camden, in which the children had survived undiscovered for days after a car crash that killed their mother. Eventually, the older child escaped from the wreck and was able to make his way 300 yards to the road, where he was spotted

by a motorist. Though covered in cuts and scratches, the two children were expected to fully recover.

Best The Kids Are Alright Thousands of students across the state participated in the one-day National School Walkout over gun violence a month after a shooting that killed 15 students and two adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Benjamin Craig Matthews, 39, of Mountain Home was arrested on election day after investigators said they traced to Matthews’ personal cell phone over 40 threatening phone calls to CNN headquarters in Atlanta, including death threats to CNN anchor Don Lemon, a frequent target of President Trump’s Twitter ire.

Best There She Was

Authorities were baffled when an 8-foot geyser of flame erupted from a basketball-sized hole in the ground in the tiny Baxter County town of Midway in September and burned for 45 minutes, with locals suggesting everything from a meteorite to the Devil himself was to blame. The real reason turned out to be much more mundane: Testing revealed in December that the hole had likely been filled with paint thinner and set ablaze as a prank.

In October, Democratic candidate for Secretary of State Susan Inman said she was in “sheer disbelief” after learning the day before early voting for the Nov. 6 general election that her name had been left off the ballot in Garland County. The election rolled on, however, with Inman being defeated in the race.

Best whuppin’

One spot of good news on Election Day was that National Rifle Association Best teaching the teachers darling Rep. Charlie Collins (R-FayetteAfter three students at Green- ville), who pushed through the state’s brier High School in Faulkner County odious “Guns on Campus” law over the received corporal punishment for objections of officials at pretty much participating in the walkout, Jeru- every college and university in the state, salem J. Greer, the mother of one of got beat like a drum by Moms Demand the students, noted on social media Action-sponsored “gun sense” Demothat, when given the option between crat Denise Garner, who bested Collins a paddling and detention for walking by over 11 percentage points. out of class, the kids chose paddling.

Greer added: “This generation is not Worst pilot playing around.”

Zemarcuis Devon Scott, 18, was arrested in July after investigators Worst raffle said he jumped a fence at the TexarThe raffle of an AR-15 rifle to benefit kana Regional Airport and attempted a graduation party for the Batesville to steal a twin-engine commercial jet.

High School Class of 2018 was scrapped Scott allegedly told investigators after in February after critics noted the rifle being pulled from the cockpit at gunwas the same model that had been used point that he thought flying a plane conto massacre 17 people at the Florida sisted solely of pushing random buttons high school the week before. and pulling levers.

Worst caller

Best flaming hole

Worst omission

Donna Axum Whitworth, an El Dorado native and former Miss Arkansas, who at age 22 went on to become the first Arkansas contestant to win the 1964 Miss America crown, passed away on Nov. 4. She was 76.

Best defensive use of meat A security guard at a Little Rock grocery store foiled a theft and likely saved himself serious injury in October after police say he whacked a knifewielding shoplifter upside the head with a large slab of meat the alleged thief had dropped while trying to flee.

The woman dropped the knife and kept running.

Worst reason for trying to steal a twin-engine commercial jet Police said Scott told investigators the reason he tried to steal the jet was because he wanted to attend a rap concert in another state.

Worst prediction Democrats and Republicans alike condemned an October radio ad fielded by out-of-state PAC Black Americans for the President’s Agenda that featured two women saying that if Republican 2nd District U.S. Rep. French Hill wasn’t reelected, “white Democrats will be lynching black folk again” and Democrats will “take us back to bad old days of race verdicts, life sentences and lynchings when a white girl screams rape.”

Worst theft After an October incident in which intruders broke into the Humane Society of the Delta in Helena-West Helena, leading to the injury of several dogs, a spokesperson for the shelter said there was no surveillance footage of the incident because their security cameras had been stolen long before. arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018

9

Best footloose In July, the Fort Smith Board of Directors unanimously voted to repeal a decades-old ban on dancing on Sundays, with the board reportedly playing a clip of Kenny Loggins’ song “Footloose” before the vote.

Worst attempt at a protest In October, online activists pointed out that the Union County Sheriff’s Office had been forcing all arrested suspects to wear a Nike T-shirt in their mugshots, an apparent comment on Nike’s decision to feature former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick — who has angered conservatives and President Trump by taking a knee during the National Anthem to protest police shootings of African Americans — in advertisements. Within an hour of the post going viral, the sheriff’s office removed all mugshots from its website.

Best shooting yourself in the foot In November, Arkansas native Cody Wilson — a libertarian who led the team that successfully created the world’s first 3D printable firearm and who has repeatedly sparred with the government over his plans to post blueprints for printable guns and gun parts on the internet — was arrested in Taiwan after investigators said he allegedly had sex with an underage girl in Texas.

Worst stampede During August’s annual “Salt Bowl” football showdown between Benton and Bryant high schools at War Memorial Stadium, both teams and over 38,000 fans suddenly hauled ass for the exits after someone mistook a loud noise in the stands for gunfire. Luckily, there were only minor injuries.

Best tribute A Dermott man was arrested in May after leading police on a high-speed chase while at the wheel of a Ford Mustang with the number 3 painted on the door, an apparent homage to the late NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt.

Worst goal In June, Stephen Koch, 25, of Scranton in Logan County was found guilty of several charges and sentenced to 50 years in prison after he admitted to a judge that he had sought out and had sex with HIV-infected people with the goal of contracting the virus so he could 10

DECEMBER 20, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

Worst cowardly intentionally infect others without their knowledge.

Worst communication skills

In January, members of Ozark Indivisible, an anti-Trump group based in Northwest Arkansas, reported that the office of U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton had started issuing “cease and desist” letters to

White Hall resident Patricia Hill, 69, allegedly admitted to police that she shot and killed her husband in July because he purchased porn through the couple’s satellite TV system.

their displeasure over his votes to attack the Affordable Care Act,

Best arrest

the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program

Three teenage girls were arrested in Conway in July after police say they posted video to Snapchat showing them repeatedly terrorizing a 1-year-old girl with a stun gun, with the three girls laughing uproariously as the child screamed and cried in fear as they loudly zapped the device close to her body.

Worst waste of good whiskey A June crash between two semi trucks on Interstate 40 near Galloway in Pulaski County left thousands of airline-sized bottles of Fireball whiskey spilled all over the interstate.

Worst tick The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in June that a Benton County dog was found to be carrying the state’s first-known example of the Longhorned Tick, an invasive East Asian parasite that is a known carrier of multiple bacterial and viral diseases, including thrombocytopenia syndrome, which is often fatal.

constituents who visited, wrote to or called his office to express

and his other anti-progressive actions, with the letters warning that if the constituents kept expressing their First Amendment rights and stuff, they would be reported to police. in the U.S. only a handful of times and never in Arkansas. The bird had somehow strayed over 6,000 miles from its normal breeding grounds before getting a beak full of hot steel for its trouble.

Worst lesson Plentiful outrage erupted in May after video surfaced online of a teacher encouraging preschoolers at Forrest City’s Teach N Tend Day Care Center to pelt a 4-year-old classmate with rocks, allegedly to “teach him a lesson” about throwing pebbles.

Best resignation

Less than one day after being appointed to the board of the Country Music Association Foundation, former Worst dasvidanya Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee resigned Ornithologists confirmed in May that under pressure from fans and leading a goose killed by hunters near Monti- music industry figures, who noted his cello in January was a Russian Tundra homophobic and divisive rhetoric in Bean Goose, a bird that has been spotted the past.

Best conviction Jacob Scott Goodwin, 23, of Ward was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Virginia jury in May for participating in the gang beating of a black man during the August 2017 “Unite the Right” neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville.

Best citizen crimestoppers Against all odds, online activists dedicated to unmasking those who participated in violent actions in Charlottesville tracked down and identified Goodwin through videos that showed only a few of his tattoos and general build.

Worst best A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released in April found that Arkansans are the hardest-slamming binge drinkers in the nation, with our hardcore boozers consuming a liver-quivering 8.3 drinks

per binge and a record 841 binge drinks every year. Mississippi was No. 2, with 831.8 binge drinks per year.

Best reason to take the stairs A woman was awarded $3 million by a Pulaski County Jury in December over a 2013 incident in which her right big toe was ripped off by a malfunctioning escalator at Little Rock’s Park Plaza Mall.

Worst shithole senator U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton continued his slouch toward the shithole of history in January by contradicting Senate colleagues from both parties who said President Trump referred to immigrants from Africa and Haiti as residents of “shithole countries” during an Oval Office meeting, saying on TV’s “Face the Nation” program that Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who was in the room at the time and called Trump’s comments vile and hateful, “has a history of misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings.”

Cotton later said that he heard Trump to say “shithouse.”

Worst fucking disgrace

Islamic Relations called for Rapert’s censure by the state legislature, and former Arkansas U.S. House candidate Chintan Desai called Rapert “a fucking disgrace” on Twitter.

Best blocking the blocker Rapert, who is the subject of a lawsuit filed in October over his practice of blocking pretty much any critic who disagrees with his bloviations on social media, took to Facebook in early December to complain that he, himself, had been temporarily blocked from Twitter after the company found that one of his posts about Muslims violated their rules.

Best birthday Searcy firefighter Lt. Cody Larque gave 1-year-old Evan Don Scott a heck of a first birthday present after the boy’s mother rushed the child — who had turned 1 that day — to a local fire station because he was choking on a marker cap. As captured by an intense surveillance video, Larque was able to dislodge the obstruction by repeatedly striking Evan on the back, saving his life.

stands, Arkansas State Police troop- Best meeting of two fanciful, ers arrested Lamar High School coach wholly imaginary characters Kevin Kyzer, 51, and charged him In January, Republican gubernatorial with driving while intoxicated while primary challenger Jan Morgan, famous at the wheel of a school bus carrying for declaring her Hot Springs gun range a nine high school basketball players “Muslim Free Zone,” appeared in the tiny to a tournament. town of Fouke, where she accepted a hug from a person dressed as the Fouke MonWorst ‘education’ ster and said the FBI has informed her In April, the State Board of Edu- she’s on ISIS’ “hit list.” Morgan went on cation — following a law passed by to lose the Republican gubernatorial prithe state legislature — approved new mary to incumbent Governor Hutchinrules for the state’s 19,500 home- son by a wide margin. schooled students that rescinded a requirement that parents must Best surprise inform the state of their proposed A 17-year-old who police say was home-school teaching curriculum in the process of robbing a Little Rock and teaching schedule. Coupled with Subway restaurant at gunpoint got a a 2015 law that ended state testing heck of a surprise in January when a to prove home-schooled students uniformed Little Rock police officer have reached proficiency in subject walked out of the restaurant’s restroom. areas, the rules change effectively The officer arrested the alleged thief allows home-schooling parents to after a short foot chase. teach their children nothing at all if they so choose.

Best historian smackdown Tom Dillard, the retired head of special collections at the University of Arkansas in Fay-

Worst authority figure

On Nov. 30, Sen. Jason Rapert On Dec. 29, 2017, after (R-Conway) shared a link on Facebook last year’s “Best and listing the record number of success- Worst” issue ful Muslim candidates in the recent h i t t h e election, commenting, “Do you want them ruling everything in America?”

In response, the Council on American-

Worst shithole representative

U.S. Rep. Steve Womack attempted to out-asshole U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton after the news about Trump’s “shithole countries” remark, saying the countries Trump called shitholes are behind the times and “depraved” before adding that what America really should be doing is attempting to appeal to immigrants from European countries (read: white people)

who can “actually fit into [American] society as we know it.” arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018

11

Best resistance

etteville, turned his weekly history column in the Arkansas DemocratGazette to more recent concerns in February, writing that Department of Arkansas Heritage Director Stacy Hurst, a political patronage hire who Dillard noted “has absolutely no expertise or background in history,” has fostered a “toxic culture” at Heritage, as seen in a series of high-profile resignations at the agency.

In April, an underground

group of LGBTQ students at the notoriously homophobic Harding University in Searcy published and distributed a 16-page chap-

Worst Breaking Dumb

book called “HU Queer

The FBI and soldiers from the Arkansas National Guard’s Weapons of Mass Destruction 61st Civil Support team descended on a Little Rock home in moonsuits in February after a man called police to report he was experiencing heart palpitations, blurred vision and diarrhea, which he feared was a result of poisoning himself while making ricin, a deadly toxic substance. He had been inspired to make ricin by an episode of the TV show “Breaking Bad.” He survived and was indicted on federal charges in March.

Press 2.0,” which features poetry, prose and testimonials by gay students living on the campus where being LGBTQ is considered immoral.

Worst criminal A thief actually managed to get away less than empty handed in March when, after pepper spraying a clerk while attempting to flee with almost $500 in clothing from the Tommy Hilfiger store at the Outlets of Little Rock, police say she managed to drop all the clothes and her identification.

Worst ‘joke’ Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee got roasted on Twitter in April after he shared a “joke” in which Huckabee said that during a recent colonoscopy he was put to sleep with the same drug that killed Michael Jackson, with Huck ending with the punchline, “When I woke up, I MOON-walked right out of the hospital.” Like a lot of Huckabee’s jokes, there’s so much tone-deaf anticomedy to unpack there that it’s hard to know where to start, but Twitter users let him have it nonetheless.

Best backout In April, after years of bad national press related to a “phantom pilot” throwing terrified tame turkeys from a Cessna, killing some of them, during the annual Yellville Turkey Trot Festival, the Yellville Chamber of Commerce said it would no longer spon12

DECEMBER 20, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

sor the festival, which some feared would be the end of the 72-year-old event.

Best stipulation Later the same month, the MidMarion County Rotary Club said it would become the new sponsor of the Yellville Turkey Trot Festival, but only if no more turkeys were flung from airplanes. The “phantom pilot” appears to have gotten the message, because in October, the festival went on as planned, with fun, food and frolic for all but without — to the sure consternation of cruel jackasses everywhere — the barbaric “turkey drop” tradition.

Best lucky A Van Buren officer shot at close range by a suspect in August was spared serious injury after investigators said the bullet was deflected by a steel, pen-sized handcuff key in his shirt pocket.

Best miss In May, a pedestrian narrowly missed serious injury when a huge chunk of the concrete facade of a building at 319 W. Second St. in Little Rock came loose and tumbled to the sidewalk seven stories below.

Worst stash

Best maximum

Craig Whittington, 44, of Hot Springs was arrested at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in May after, police say, a nurse smelled marijuana coming from a patient’s room and responding officers allegedly found 10 pounds of weed on Whittington’s person.

In February, disgraced former Cross County District Judge Joseph Boeckmann Jr., 72, of Wynne, who was convicted in federal court in 2017 on wire fraud and witness tampering charges relating to what investigators say was a practice of taking suggestive photographs of young men he sentenced to community service and using his position on the bench to procure defendants in his court as sexual and sadomasochistic partners, was sentenced by federal Judge Kristine Baker to five years in federal prison and fined $50,000, the maximum sentence on all counts.

Best ‘Looks Exactly Like You’d Expect’ Craig Whittington:

Best power to the people In May, the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered Attorney General Leslie Rutledge to either approve a citizen-led ballot initiative on raising the state’s minimum wage or present a more acceptable version. Rutledge, who had previously refused 70 out of 70 ballot initiatives she’d considered since 2016, always claiming they were too unclear to put before voters, but not offering suggestions on how to improve the language, approved not only the initiative to raise the minimum wage but three other ballot initiatives within days.

The proposal to raise the minimum wage went on to prevail in November.

Best Saline County In June, the Saline County Sheriff’s Office arrested a man near the loading dock of a hardware store in the tiny town of Avilla who was wearing pants with the crotch ripped out and a “leather belt with chains and other adornments that were wrapped around his genitalia” while slathered head to toe in personal lubricant. Police said the man, who also reportedly had a backpack full of pornography, told responding officers he’d come to the store, which was closed at the time, “because I’m dumb.”

Best coincidence Shamon West, 21, was arrested in June after police say he attempted to pay his waitress at a Pine Bluff restaurant with the waitress’ own credit card, which had been stolen two days before during a car break-in. After arresting West, police recovered a driver’s license, more credit cards and a Social Security card belonging to the waitress when they searched him.

Worst closing In February, Little Rock’s Bennett’s Military Supply announced it was closing after being in business in the city since 1870 — over 148 years.

Worst logic When asked by a reporter in August why posters donated by the American Atheists society shouldn’t be hung in classrooms alongside “In God We Trust” placards allowed by a recent law approved by the state legislature, Rep. Jim Dotson (R-Bentonville) said that hanging the atheist posters would be a violation of the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.

Worst report card The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, released in June, reported that Arkansas teens in grades 9-12 scored first in the nation in several troubling categories, including: percentage who had been physically forced to have intercourse, percentage who had been forced to participate in sexual activity in the past year (including kissing, fondling and intercourse), percentage who had been bullied at school, percentage who had suffered a concussion while playing sports in the past year, percentage who had seriously considered committing suicide in the

Best Baphomet

past year, percentage who had driven while drinking in the past month and percentage who are considered obese.

In August, over 100 members of the Satanic Temple showed

Best telling it like it is

up for a “Rally for the First Amendment” at the Arkansas

In a Q&A session published by the website Quora in June, Little Rock Nine member Melba Pattillo Beals said the attitudes that tormented her and other members of the Nine in the 1950s persist in Little Rock, telling the interviewer: “That behavior still lies beneath the surface. It appears in the desire to create charter schools. It appears in all of the reversals of fair housing, fair jobs, protection for our water and air. It isn’t just about Central High alone. That torment affected the quality of education in Little Rock forever. It set a tone and established that separate can never be equal, and yet still Little Rock insists on separate and unequal.

Little Rock has never resolved the decision of Brown v. Topeka [Board of Education] and has never taken it seriously. Until they do, they must relive the lessons of the ’50s.”

State Capitol, an event that included an appearance by the 7-and-a-half-foot bronze statue of the goat-headed demi-god Baphomet, which the Satanic Temple hopes to install permanently on the Capitol grounds if its federal lawsuit challenging the state’s Ten Commandments monument prevails.

Worst electorate Rep. Michael “Mickey” Gates (R-Hot Springs) was arrested in June on charges he’d failed to pay state income tax for at least six years, but went on to win re-election in November in a landslide, garnering over 65 percent of the vote.

Worst ‘teaching moment’ In June, police said that Little Rock resident Shay Stevens, 46, retrieved a handgun and shot her 18-year-old son in the abdomen during a heated argument that started when he told her he wanted to buy a handgun.

Best sign-off In July, it was announced that perma-tanned KATV, Ch. 11, weatherman Ned Perme would retire after over 30 years as the station’s chief meteorologist.

Worst erection A new version of the Ten Commandments Monument was installed on the state Capitol grounds April 26, a little less than a year after a mentally ill driver ran over and destroyed the previous version in his Dodge Dart a day after it was first installed. Now it’s on to the federal courts, which will hopefully knock the new one down all permanent like.

Worst algae that clearly has nothing to do with building a massive hog farm in the watershed of the Buffalo National River In July, the National Park Service sent out a warning that the Buffalo National River was experiencing a record bloom of slimy, blue-green algae, saying that visitors should avoid the algae because it produces cyanotoxins that can make people and pets sick. arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018

13

Worst living up to stereotypes

Worst pass

Three carnival workers were arrested in August after police say they murdered a Kansas couple, drove the bodies to Arkansas and buried them in a shallow grave in the Ozark National Forest.

Jessie Lorene Goline, a 26-yearold art teacher at Marked Tree High School, was sentenced to only five years probation after being convicted in March of having sex with three of her students, including one who was under the age of 18, leading critics online to speculate whether the sentence would have been the same if Goline had been a man.

Best evidence Police in Little Rock arrested Dalvin Pettus, 25, in August on charges that he’d shot five bullets into his neighbor’s house. Their evidence: a series of text messages police said Pettus sent to his neighbor an hour before the shooting in which Pettus said he planned to shoot up the house.

Best reason to hit somebody with a wrench Charles Eedo Green of Sherwood was arrested at the Little Rock Air Force Base on a sweltering day in late August after police say he whacked an airman in the head with a wrench because the man stood in front of the room’s only air conditioning vent and refused to move.

Best pocket After the tractor Eldon Cooper was driving slipped off a muddy levee and into a waterfilled drainage ditch near Mountain Home in March, the Baxter County farmer survived for hours until help arrived by breathing from a small pocket of air trapped in the corner of the tractor’s cab, authorities said. Other than being wet and cold, Cooper reportedly escaped the harrowing event without serious injury.

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DECEMBER 20, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

Worst weapon In September, police say Kortvion Hall, 19, successfully robbed an Arvest Bank branch inside a Little Rock Walmart store wielding a fire extinguisher.

Best hiding the loot As police officers closed in on Hall in the Walmart parking lot after the bank robbery, investigators say Hall tried unsuccessfully to swallow the cash he had stolen.

Worst defense In April, police arrested a 27-yearold Little Rock man after an incident in which investigators say the man, while attempting to evade arrest,

poured an acid-based drain cleaner called “Liquid Fire” into his mouth and spat it at officers. The chemical — which reportedly burned through the officers’ uniforms in seconds, leaving burned and blistered skin — also severely burned the man’s mouth, lips and throat, requiring a hospital stay.

He was arrested, anyway.

Worst overweight Officials with the Arkansas Department of Transportation hustled to the tiny North Arkansas town of Beaver in October to inspect the historic and unique one-lane suspension bridge there after video circulated online of a 35-ton tour bus crossing the bridge, which has a clearly posted limit of 10 tons, causing the span to visibly sag several feet under the bus’ weight. The bridge was given a clean bill of health.

Worst ’costume’ There was a flurry of outrage online in November after someone posted photos from a Halloween costume contest at Fort Smith’s The Lil’ Dude Tavern. The winner: a patron in a full Ku Klux Klan robe and hood.

Worst accidental Investigators said that after his arrest in November, 72-year-old Louie James Rogers of Stone County admitted to police that he might have “accidentally” raped a developmentally disabled woman at his Mountain View home.

Best firework Residents of Perryville in Perry County were shocked in early November when a fireball caused by a large meteorite entering the atmosphere briefly turned night into day over the town, as captured on several surveillance videos.

Best out of touch In a move that will surely come as a shock to the nation’s formerly homeless millionaire truck driver demographic, Rep. Stephen Meeks (R-Greenbrier) apologized a day after a Nov. 19 Twitter post in which he said “being poor in America is a personal choice” before adding: “A homeless man can go to school, get a job driving a truck making $70k per year and in 20 years become a millionaire.”

Johnny Byron Hall, 32, of Malvern was arrested in April on charges of indecent exposure after police say he was openly masturbating in the emergency room of a hospital in Sherwood that is part of CHI St. Vincent Infirmary.

Worst curtains Central Arkansas’s close-knit community of theater lovers was shocked in late April when the Arkansas Repertory Theatre announced it would suspend operations immediately, citing a “perfect financial storm” of declining charitable giving and ticket sales.

Worst threat Hot Springs police arrested Steven Brian Cole, 40, in June after investigators said he had repeatedly abused his elderly mother and stepfather, including telling his mother he would “eat her face off” and threatening the couple that he would kill them and “make one of us eat the other.”

Best creepy The mugshot of Steven Bryan Cole.

After a huge public outcry and flurry of more than $500,000 in donations — matched by the Windgate Charitable Foundation of Siloam Springs — The Rep’s board of directors announced the show will go on, reopening in January 2019 with a slate of new shows.

Bob Dorough, a member of the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame who taught millions of American kids history, mathematics, language skills, civics and more through his lyrics, music and narration for the popular “Schoolhouse Rock” series of cartoon shorts that aired on ABC from 19731985, died April 25 at the age of 94.

Best apology The franchise owner of a Garland County IHOP restaurant publicly apologized to Hot Springs mother Alexis Bancroft in May after Bancroft wrote on Facebook about an incident in which the restaurant’s manager would not allow Bancroft’s 3-year-old son William, who was born without arms, to sit on the table and eat with his feet while dining there with his family.

PICTURE

Play at home, then flee the scene in a taxi.

1) Local law enforcement agencies recently announced their participation in “Operation Porch Pirate.” What is “Operation Porch Pirate”?

A) An attempt to break up a vicious lawn chair theft ring.

B) A response to a recent resurgence of the ol’ “flaming paper sack full of dog shit on the stoop” prank in Greater Little Rock.

C) A group of pirates who go door to door, demanding grog.

D) A joint effort by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Postal Service and the Little Rock Police Department to arrest and prosecute those who steal packages from front porches.

A) It features a realistic drawing of a railroad tunnel entrance, and seven Hillcrestians have already attempted to drive through it.

B) It’s an advertisement for Peckers, a new West Little Rock Hooters spinoff.

C) Failed Little Rock mayoral candidate Glen Schwarz has climbed the billboard and vowed not to come down until the city implements his genius-level idea for rollercoaster-based public transit.

D) It’s a billboard for a gun show featuring the image of a gigantic assault rifle that happens to be pointed across the street toward Mount St. Mary Academy, a Catholic high school for girls.

Best disguise

Best educator

BIG

The LAST weekly edition

2) A billboard at the intersection of North Van Buren Street and Kavanaugh Boulevard in Hillcrest has some folks up in arms.

What’s the issue?

Best second act

Dasia Jackson, 22, of North Little Rock was arrested in April after police say she broke into an animal shelter and liberated her pit bull terrier, La La, which had been seized from her the previous week and scheduled to be euthanized under the city’s ban on the breed. When found, police said La La had been dyed completely black, with Jackson’s hands and forearms also dyed black up to the elbows.

THE

Worst what could have been Glen Schwarz was eliminated as a candidate for Little Rock mayor in November after running on a platform that included building a roller coaster-based mass transit system and installing dozens of wire Faraday cages to act as emergency shelters during lightning storms.

Best election Though Schwarz’s Cinderella story ended on election day, Frank Scott Jr., 35, went on to win a December run-off election, besting opponent Baker Kurrus to become Little Rock’s first popularly elected African-American mayor.

Worst tie In December, once all the votes were in for a hotly contested alderman’s race in Hoxie (Lawrence County) between challenger Cliff Farmer and incumbent Becky Linebaugh, it was discovered that the results were a tie, 223 to 223. Farmer revealed he’d neglected to vote for himself because he didn’t return from an Election Day business trip before the polls closed. The race was settled by a roll of the dice, and Farmer lost.

3) Last week, a woman robbed an Arvest Bank branch on Broadway in Little Rock. What, according to police, was weird about the robbery?

A) When the dye pack exploded, she snorted the dye.

B) All she demanded was the bowl full of lollipops.

C) She forced the tellers to hand over the loot by playing audio from one of Donald Trump’s word-salad rally speeches until they complied.

D) After holding up the bank, she made her getaway in the backseat of a taxicab.

4) The ACLU of Arkansas recently filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Arkansas Times, challenging a state law that it believes is unconstitutional. What’s the issue?

A) It mandates that Arkansas Times Senior Editor Max Brantley submit to thrice-monthly peltings with rotten tomatoes on the lawn of the Saline County Courthouse.

B) It requires the staff of Arkansas Times to select one of its own every spring for ritual witch-dunking to ensure a bountiful harvest.

C) It authorizes the immediate construction of a seamless, 30-foot-high concrete “border protection wall” around the Arkansas Times newsroom.

D) It forces state contractors, including the Times, to either sign a pledge not to boycott Israel or reduce their fees by at least 20 percent, which is effectively a tax on free speech.

5) Speaking of the Arkansas Times newspaper, there’s something different about this issue. What is it?

A) If you scratch the photo of columnist Jay Barth, you’ll get a whiff of his heady, rugged mansmell.

B) It’s set in an all-new font called Standard Umstead.

C) It’s not that weed you just smoked … the photos are moving.

D) It’s the last regular weekly print edition before the Arkansas Times transitions to a monthly magazine format in February.

Answers: D, D, D, D, D

Worst ‘emergency’

Inconsequential News Quiz:

arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018

15

Support ANNN Slow the school waiver train I ’ve been a reporter at the Arkansas Times for over four years. Since 2017, I’ve also been a frequent contributor to the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, a separate but related entity. I believe ANNN represents the future of in-depth public interest journalism in our state.

Two years ago, ANNN was founded

by Arkansas Times Editor Lindsey Millar.

It’s a nonprofit, which means it’s able to receive funding from grantmakers and individual donors. All ANNN stories are provided free of charge to some 20 media outlets in cities and towns throughout Arkansas, helping to sustain small newspapers and reaching an audience that rivals those of the largest media in the state.

In the past year alone, our small organization has made an impact with major stories on political corruption, health care, juvenile justice and more. So far, we’ve managed to do this with almost no administrative overhead: The money raised by ANNN all has gone directly to pay writers and editors like myself.

(Lindsey, who remains the full-time editorial director of the Times, has worked without pay to build the organization from scratch.)

Until Dec. 31, every dollar ANNN receives in donations will be matched one-to-one by NewsMatch, a national campaign to grow nonprofit newsrooms.

I want to thank all ANNN donors thus far and encourage anyone who values our work to give before the end of 2018.

My reporting this year has focused on Medicaid, especially Arkansas’s first-inthe-nation work requirement that has caused over 17,000 low-income Arkansans to lose their insurance. Thanks to ANNN’s resources, I’ve been able to dive deep into the details of the state’s complex reporting policy. Even more importantly, I’ve been able to tell the stories of real people who have gone without medical care or much-needed prescriptions.

This wasn’t easy. Finding, cultivating and fact-checking my sources required an investment of time and energy that would have been impossible without ANNN. My colleague David Ramsey, meanwhile, has done monumental reporting this year on a massive public corruption scandal in the Arkansas legislature.

Ramsey, who was named to The Washington Post’s 2015 list of best state political reporters, interviewed dozens of current and former lawmakers, lobbyists, state officials and others implicated in multiple alleged bribery and embezzlement schemes described by the FBI. He 16

DECEMBER 20, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

and other ANNN reporters pored over thousands of pages of court documents in more than a dozen BENJAMIN HARDY cases.

Guest Columnist This is precisely the sort of topic ANNN was designed to tackle. Ramsey’s investigative work offered the public a clear and coherent view of just who did what and why it mattered. His reporting revealed that an executive at Preferred Family Healthcare, a Medicaid provider at the center of the scandal, remained in place despite the company’s assurances that it had cleaned house. In apparent response to our reporting, PFH put the executive on leave. He’s since pleaded guilty to concealing knowledge of a felony.

Arkansas is lucky to have a statewide daily newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which is locally owned and has retained excellent reporters. However, its newsroom and its print circulation are both shrinking. The Associated Press has reduced its Arkansas bureau, and Gatehouse Media has closed a number of papers throughout the state.

That’s why I’m proud to be a part of an organization trying to chart a path forward for rigorous journalism in Arkansas. Here’s what Chris Wessel, the editor of The Jonesboro Sun, has said about ANNN: “We try to use Arkansas Nonprofit News Network in-depth reporting whenever we can. It gives our readers a deeper understanding of issues that affect their lives and their pocketbooks.

We need to make sure this kind of journalism continues because no one else is watching or holding our statewide elected officials accountable. With the newspaper economy suffering, it’s also important because it doesn’t cost our newspaper anything to use the service.

We appreciate the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network and are hopeful it continues to grow.”

Readers, too, have responded. Since our NewsMatch funds drive began last month, we’ve received donations from about 100 local donors. As an ANNN reporter, I’m grateful for this level of support. As an Arkansan, I can’t wait to see what ANNN is able to accomplish in 2019 and beyond.

Benjamin Hardy is a reporter and editor and a 2018 fellow with the Association of Health Care Journalists

T

he State Board of Education’s teria are required controversial plan to waive the to be used, and no GINNY BLANKENSHIP Teacher Fair Dismissal Act in the evidence of effecGuest Columnist Little Rock School District (and now oth- tiveness must be ers under state takeover) has received a reported. lot of attention in recent weeks. But few Some waivers may make sense for cerpeople are aware of a broader threat to tain schools, such as not requiring dropeducational standards, accountability and out recovery schools to offer gifted and transparency for every public school in talented services. Some state laws may be the state: waivers under Act 1240 of 2015. obsolete and need to be repealed, rather These Act 1240 waivers are not to than waived. But what standards, shown be confused with the actions the board by research to be in the best interests of may take under Act 930 for schools in students’ learning and well-being, should academic distress; or waivers routinely be non-negotiable? Dyslexia laws? Antigranted to all charter schools and Schools bullying policies? Having a school nurse? of Innovation; or all kinds of other waiv- Otherwise, why do we have standards ers the state may grant regarding teacher at all? licensure, school consolation, etc.

Perhaps most concerning is that parAct 1240 was passed in 2015 with the ents have no idea what services, policies intent of leveling the playing field for tra- or standards their child’s school may no ditional public schools by allowing them longer have to follow. The department’s to apply for the same waivers given to Coalition on Family and Community open-enrollment charter schools in their Engagement has completed a yearlong communities. Once approved, districts’ process to design ways to involve more waivers remain valid as long as the char- people in public schools and decisionter holds those same waivers, with no making, and this seems like an important renewal process or results required. place to start.

To some legislators, allowing tradiHere are the big picture questions: tional public schools to seek the same What is our vision for public education waivers as charters seemed only fair. For in Arkansas, and is this the best way to example, rural communities face much get there? Are we doing right by chilmore difficulty recruiting teachers who dren and families, or just what is most are certified — something charter schools expedient? These are difficult decisions don’t have to do. with huge implications that deserve But, good intentions sometimes have more study and public deliberation. bad unintended (or unknown) conse- For that reason, I recommend the state quences. Because the Arkansas Vir- create a task force to make recommendatual Academy operates in every district tions on how to move forward and a panel statewide, every public school district to thoroughly vet individual waiver applican apply for the dozens of waivers they cations and monitor their impact, much have as well. Under Act 1240, many pub- like the charter authorization panel. It lic schools no longer have to hire guid- should include perspectives of parents or ance counselors, teach fine arts, have a caregivers, students, teachers and others library, or follow many other standards who are directly affected by these laws. and policies — including the Teacher Fair This working group also should collaboDismissal Act. rate with members of the House and SenNow everyone wants in on the waiver ate education committees, so these issues game. As of December 2018, the State may be more thoughtfully considered on Board has granted a total of 3,819 waiv- the legislative side. ers to nearly all of the state’s 235 school In the meantime, you can find out what districts under Act 1240. waivers schools have under Act 1240 by The State Board of Education has full visiting the Arkansas Department of Eduauthority to “grant, in whole or in part, cation’s myschoolinfo.arkansas.gov webor deny, in whole or in part” all waiv- site. If you haven’t been paying attention, ers under Act 1240. But it is increasingly it’s a good time to start. unclear what the State Board’s rationale is for making decisions on who gets what Ginny Blankenship, Ed.D., is education waivers, or how we know what is working policy director at Arkansas Advocates for or not working. No research-based cri- Children and Families.

11200 W. Markham 501-223-3120 www.colonialwineshop.com facebook.com/colonialwines

SUPPORT INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM Help the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network continue to do the sort of in-depth investigative reporting that other media in Arkansas can’t afford to do. ANNN only pursues stories that have a potential to bring about change on topics that matter to Arkansans, like health care and public corruption.

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17

Arts Entertainment AND

MAKING A MINT

Springdale’s Shire Post specializes in fantasy coins.

BY MOLLY MITCHELL PHOTOGRAPHY BY NOVO STUDIO SHINY NEW PENNY: Tom Maringer holds up a freshly struck Shire Penny.

W

ith their powers combined, Tom Maringer and family summon tokens from fantasy worlds into the realm of reality with their business, Shire Post Mint, traditionally crafted coins.

Bill the pony, the oft-overlooked but steadfast member of the Fellowship of the Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic novel “The Lord of the Rings,” joined Frodo Baggins and friends when they bought him for 12 silver pennies before setting out on their adventure. This deep cut of Tolkien

trivia is the only reference to coins in the entire series, but it planted a seed that eventually bloomed into the Springdale business that crafts coins from beloved fantasy works, such as “The Lord of the Rings” and “A Song of Ice and Fire,” using traditional engraving and pressing techniques.

Helen Maringer, CEO of Shire Post Mint and Tom Maringer’s daughter, said her father’s lifelong interests of coin collecting, metalworking and fantasy fiction collided in a chance encounter with an antique coin press.

The 12 pennies from Tolkien had

This feature comes from our sister publication Arkansas Made, on newsstands soon and at arkansas-made.com.

18

DECEMBER 20, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

been rolling around in his head for years. They sparked his curiosity — what would a penny from the Shire look and feel like? What would it say? By the time he came across the coin press for sale, he was already an accomplished knife and sword craftsman. Here was an opportunity to answer his long-dormant questions by making his own Shire penny.

After several failed attempts, Tom Maringer successfully wrought his Shire penny. “It said ‘The Shire’ in English and it had a little tree,” Helen Maringer said. Tom Maringer’s Shire penny is still framed in the Shire Post Mint office today. His vision hadn’t extended beyond bringing this figment of his youthful imagination to life, but the plot thickened when he posted his creation online and the penny caught the eye of George R.R. Martin, creator and author of “A Song

of Ice and Fire,” the source material for HBO’s runaway hit show “Game of Thrones.”

Martin was so impressed with the coin that he wanted Tom Maringer to bring coins from “A Song of Ice and Fire” to life. He granted the license to the Maringers, and Shire Post Mint was born. Key to the fledgling mint’s survival was Martin’s loyalty when confronted by HBO on the licensing rights. In an interview with John Picacio recorded at the World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, Calif., in 2018, Martin recalled the kerfuffle over the licensing rights.

“That almost killed the TV deal,” he said. Despite the pressure from HBO, Martin stuck to Shire Post Mint and other subsidiary rights holders. “I’m really honored that we can work with some really amazing authors who are just amazing as people,” Helen Maringer said.

The magic of coins from Shire Post Mint comes from the duel forces of genuine love of the subject matter and the use of traditional techniques that give each coin an authentic character. Deep historical knowledge combined with careful consideration of how each design might have actually been made in the fantasy world of its origin lend verisimilitude to the coins of Shire Post Mint. The world-building of the fantasy creators is respected and carried through the whole process, from design to press to a tumbling process intended to give the coins a worn look, as though they had been stealthily pilfered straight from a dragon’s ancient hoard.

A&E NEWS

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

DIE HARD: A Shire Penny die is ready to strike a copper blank with 40 tons of pressure.

“Another really early coin for ‘Game of Thrones’ was the Torrhen Stark penny, and it’s engraved in the same way that Viking pennies were,” Helen Maringer said. “So you have a bar and you have a circle, and you just make the design out of those two elements. It looks really authentic and it feels really different. And some of them are struck in a way where the edge is scalloped. You’re used to coins feeling smooth along the edge and even having that flat rim, but we don’t strike coins in a way that creates that because it’s not how it used to be done.”

In addition to working closely with the creators of their licensed coins’ origins, Helen Maringer places high value on input from fans. “Our best designs — our best-selling things — have been suggestions from customers. We love every piece of info we can get,” she said. One top request was a coin featuring an ancient Icelandic symbol called the Vegvísir, a talisman against getting lost. “We did this really nice incuse [stamped] THE MINTING MARINGERS: (From left) Tom Maringer, Peggy Maringer, Woody Maringer and Helen Maringer, with minter Chris Kelsey.

design,” she said. “Instead of going out of the metal, the design goes into the metal so it gets really dark and it wears really nicely. There’s this phrase; it’s in Icelandic and then transcribed in runes, so even if you know runes you have to know Icelandic also to read it. But it says, ‘I do not stop when I am tired, I stop when I am done.’ People have been asking for it for a long time.”

Enthusiasts were also eager to see Shire Post Mint create a memento mori coin. Helen and company obliged and added their own spin to the classic idea. “Memento mori is this ancient and medieval philos-

ophy about not being connected to your earthly possessions and your body. It’s Latin for ‘remember that you have to die.’ So we added a flip side, ‘remember that you have to live,’ memento vivere.” The memento mori coin is more complicated than most of their other coins because of its octagonal shape and complex design elements, so it’s a little pricier than other single coins. But Helen says the extra effort is worth it. “There’s a lot of work that goes into that one, but dang, it looks good. I think people feel the value of it.”

The thought and care that goes into the craftsmanship of each coin CONTINUED ON PAGE 31

A group of Central Arkansas musicians is raising funds to rehabilitate the storied, 30-year-old stage at Vino’s Brewpub, the pizzeria and brewery that’s doubled as a longtime home for independent local music in Little Rock. “The current stage they have can barely support the weight of the equipment and bands that play on it,” organizer Cory Fisher said in an email. “The wiring is rough, the lights are cheap and in poor shape, etc. Even a lot of the staff has acknowledged these issues but their hands are tied as there are just limited resources that they have access to to help build things up.”

Fisher said the fundraising goal is $1,600. “That should cover building a new stage and all materials (screws, wood, glue, sealants, hinges, stairs, electric drop chords, etc.) plus allow a bit of wiggle room should our team run into something unexpected.”

The benefit concert, which will feature sets from Terminal Nation, My Hands to War, Go For Gold and Colour Design, is set for Friday, Jan. 25; suggested donation is $10.

The Arkansas Cinema Society will screen a sneak preview of “On the Basis of Sex,” a film about the life of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, starring Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer and Justin Theroux. The film will screen at 5 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 29, at CALS Ron Robinson Theater. The ACS will host a panel discussion and after-party after the film. Admission is free, but reserve a seat at arkansascinemasociety.org.

As shortlists of predicted Oscar nominees begin to take shape, Variety named Arkansas native Ben Dickey’s performance in “Blaze” — a film about Malvern native/legend Blaze Foley — on its list of “pleas for consideration.” Dickey, a former member of Little Rock-based band Shake Ray Turbine, won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Achievement in Acting at the 2018 Sundance Awards.

Concert announcements for 2019 continue to roll in: The Rev Room will host a show from The Descendents on March 9; the Oxford American hosts Joan Shelley on Feb. 28; VenuWorks presents Judas Priest and Uriah Heep at the First Security Amphitheater on June 1; Weird Al Yankovic lands at Verizon Arena (which will, by then, be renamed Simmons Arena to reflect a $10.5 million bank sponsorship) on Sept. 1; KISS performs at Verizon/Simmons Arena on Sept. 5; and comedian Mike Epps performs at Verizon Arena on April 26.

The Arkansas Arts Center is accepting entries for its 2019 “Delta Exhibition,” to run May 3 through June 30.

Deadline is Feb. 13.

Follow Rock Candy on Twitter: @RockCandies

arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018

19

THE

TO-DO

LIST

BY REBEKAH HALL, STEPHANIE SMITTLE AND LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

THURSDAY 12/20

WILDFLOWER REVUE: HARD CANDY CHRISTMAS 8 p.m. South on Main. $10-$15.

The Wildflower Revue will bring its crooning melodies and Southern-gothic glamour to the South on Main stage for its “Hard Candy Christmas” show. Powerhouse singers Amy Garland Angel, Cindy Woolf and Mandy McBryde are a vocal force to be reckoned with, and they’ll be singing holiday tunes in their signature “heavenly hillbilly” way. The band’s 2017 self-titled album is a masterful exploration of both the individual talents of each singer and the trio’s ability to merge its voices to create sweeping, gutting harmonies. Those same voices will sail through festive favorites in celebration of the season. Just five days before Christmas, the show should be a welcome distraction from the stress that accompanies the joy of the holiday. Tickets are $10 in advance at southonmain. com/events and $15 at the door. RH

FRIDAY 12/21 ARKANSAS SON-IN-LAW: Jimbo Mathus & The Dirty Crooks take to the stage at White Water Tavern Thursday night.

THURSDAY 12/20

JIMBO MATHUS AND THE DIRTY CROOKS 8:30 p.m. White Water Tavern. $10.

Jimbo Mathus may be Mississippi-born, but the wild man and multiinstrumentalist calls himself “the Arkansas son-in-law” for good reason.

He cut his teeth on the mandolin, playing “Fox on the Run” on the picking porches and gazebos of Stone County, and honed his bizarro take on his craft with Arkansas gurus like Jim Dickinson and Greg Spradlin between stints with the gypsy jazz outfit he fronted in the mid-’90s (and again this year for a reunion tour of sorts), Squirrel Nut Zippers. Watching him play the entirety of 2013’s “White Buffalo” that same year at the White Water Tavern was nothing short of rapturous; I still remember him ripping into “In the Garden” — putting a wicked spin on a title I’d long associated with a church hymn — and I remember his impossibly wide, all-seeing eyes during a charged rendition of “Tennessee Walker Mare” as he sang “Word came down from back East/Tell y’all that it wasn’t no joke/Four riders and a bloodhound/About the time that the levee broke.” The man’s a Mississippi mystic who’s bundled up some of the weirder bits of Delta and hillbilly culture and spit them back out in song, and Thursday night will, no doubt, be living proof of that. SS

ARGENTA ART WALK

5-8 p.m. Downtown North Little Rock.

The pre-Christmas after-hours gallery stroll in Argenta is slimmed down a bit this month, but still offers some shopping opportunities for the art lover: Greg Thompson Fine Art, 429 Main St., is knocking 15 percent off artwork prices at its “Holiday Show and Sale,” which continues through December. The Argenta Branch of Laman Library, 420 Main St., hosts a new show, work by Meikel S. Church and Susan Bowers, as well as live music by Ben Brenner.

Impressionist Barry Thomas will wield paintbrushes while visitors check out his landscapes at Barry Thomas Fine Art and Studio, 711 Main St. The Latino Art Project provides a cerveza y arte experience with its show “Myths and Legends” at Core Public House, 411 N. Main St. At 8 p.m., two performances vie for your attention: At the Joint Theater and Coffee Shop, 301 Main St., “A Fertle Holiday” plays ($24, tickets at jointargenta.com), and Haunted Argenta will present “The Spirits of Christmas,” a spooky sort of holiday performance that includes illusions and mentalism, at the Elks Lodge at 8 p.m. ($20, tickets at hauntedargenta.com/tickets.) LNP

FRIDAY 12/21

GENINE LATRICE PEREZ

10 p.m. South on Main.

If holiday music we must have, please let it come from singers like Genine LaTrice Perez, who joins musicians Cheryl CandySoul Humphrey, Dee Davis, Ivan Yarbrough, Eric Ware, Vette Preyer and Sam Carroll for this funkified soul-jazz concert at South on Main. Perez is a polished finesser of phrases, capable of taking melodies you’d placed permanently on your Naughty List and recategorizing them as Nice, and she’s a confident bandleader to boot — completely at home on the stage and at devoted service to the song. Call 501-2449660 for table reservations. SS

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DECEMBER 20, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

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FOR ART WALKERS: Mark Blaney’s “The Beekeeper’s Cat” and other works are on sale at discounted prices at Greg Thompson Fine Art for the after-hours Argenta Art Walk on Friday.

IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 12/20

DON’T TALK OVER ME: Family band Witchsister joins Czarus and Playing With Karma at Maxine’s this weekend.

FRIDAY 12/21

FRIDAY 12/21

CZARUS, WITCHSISTER, PLAYING WITH KARMA

9 p.m. Maxine’s, Hot Springs.

In case you missed the memo, people from other states talk about the Arkansas metal/heavy music scene like it’s Valhalla, and shows like this are why that is. Behold Witchsister, the thrashing family band of self-ascribed banshees from Fayetteville who got sick enough of musical mansplaining to form their own quartet about five years ago and have been banging out dark, shapeshifting rockers like “Don’t Talk Over Me” and “Cat Called” ever since. The band is joined by Malvern-based quartet Playing with Karma and by Czarus, a Bismarck trio with loads of crunch, wail and shifts in tempo. SS

SATURDAY 12/22-SUNDAY 12/23

WEDNESDAY 12/26

‘FINDING NEVERLAND’

JOHN WILLIS: RADIOHEAD TRIBUTE SHOW

2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sat.-Sun. Robinson Performance Hall. $33-$80.

Both the young and the young at heart can follow the second star to the right and head straight on ’til morning this weekend when “Finding Neverland” comes to the Robinson Performance Hall for four performances. The Broadway musical, based on both the Academy Award-winning movie of the same name and the play “The Man Who Was Peter Pan” by Allan Knee, follows “Peter Pan” author J.M. Barrie’s relationship with the family that inspired the story about a boy who refuses to grow up. Mia Walker directs the touring musical with Camden Loeser as associate choreographer and book by Olivier Award-nominee James Graham.

The titles preceding much of the production credits — scenic design by Tony Award-winner Scott Pask and lighting design by Tony Award-winner Kenneth Posner to name a couple — indicate a crew with plenty of laurels on which to rest.

Audience members can also look forward to animal direction and training by William Berloni, the Tony Award honoree of William Berloni Theatrical Animals (“Annie,” “Legally Blonde”). Tickets are available at the Robinson Performance Hall Box Office, by phone at 501-244-8800 or 800-892-ARTS and online at ticketmaster.com. RH

FRIDAY 12/21

WINTER SOULSTICE

9 p.m. White Water Tavern. $7.

Two of Little Rock’s most revered playlist makers — Baldego and Joshua Asante — are spinning tunes for the seventh “Winter Soulstice,” a soul music dance party that aligns each year with the astronomically certified longest night of the year. Midwinter cosmos phenomenon + the lucky number seven + Baldego and Asante = supremely high chances of enlightenment and elation. SS

Swamp Donkey and Charlotte Taylor share a blues-infused bill at The Big Chill, 8 p.m. Comedian Valarie Storm sets up shop at The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Fri., 10 p.m. Fri., 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Sat., $8-$12. The Clyde Pound Trio kicks off its standing jazz set at the Ohio Club in Hot Springs, 7 p.m. Baggo, Connect 4 and Giant Jenga are on the schedule for “Reindeer Games” at Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 6 p.m., free. Over at Cajun’s Wharf, Jocko kicks off the superextended weekend, 5:30 p.m., free, or go after dinner and catch Jet 420, 9 p.m., $5. Good Foot soundtracks the Lagunitas/Rebel Kettle Tacky Sweater Party at Four Quarter Bar, 10 p.m., $7.

The Central Arkansas Library System screens “Gremlins” at the Ron Robinson Theater as part of its “Not Quite Holiday Film Fest,” 6:30 p.m., $5.

8 p.m. South on Main. $12-$15.

John Willis, a Little Rock musician and musical theater director, will bring his Radiohead tribute show back to the South on Main stage, along with the same talented musicians that played the tribute band’s packed-house show in April. The band, originally formed by Willis, is made up of John Burnette and Jordan Crain on guitar and vocals, Will Boyd of American Princes on bass, synth and vocals, with Mike Motley of Collin vs. Adam on the drums and Willis on lead vocals and keys. The last show in Willis’ December sessions at South on Main, this high energy set will travel through Radiohead’s extensive 25-year-plus catalog of music, and audience members can expect to hear their favorite songs doing justice to the English rock band — hopefully a keening rendition of “Creep” will sneak into the mix. Tickets can be purchased in advance at southonmain.com/ events for $12 or at the door for $15, but tickets don’t guarantee you a seat, so call 501-244-9660 to reserve a table. RH

Clear Channel Metroplex hosts “Subz Zero,” a bass-heavy dance party with snow, a light show and sets from Steez, PineappleBeatz and more, 8 p.m., $5-$10. The “Downtown Divas of Little Rock,” Lola Colucci, Envy S. Hart and Tionne Ciabocchi, work the runway at Club Sway, 9 p.m. Conway County electric blues up-and-comers The Akeem Kemp Band turn up the volume at Stickyz, 9 p.m. Brick Fields rattles the rafters at Pizza D’Action, with Bill Bohannon, 8 p.m. Rock Candy takes the stage at Cajun’s, 9 p.m., $5, or go to happy hour and hear Chris DeClerk, 5:30 p.m., free. Greasy Tree takes its electric blues rock set to Kings Live Music in Conway, with an opening set from Edward Briggler, 8:30 p.m., $5. Bluesboy Jag and the Juke Joint Zombies play a set at Markham Street Grill and Pub, 8:30 p.m., free. The Muddlestuds take the stage at TC’s Midtown Grill, 9 p.m. The John Calvin Brewer Band performs at Oaklawn Racing & Gaming’s Silks Bar & Grill, 10:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat.

SATURDAY 12/22 Or shares a bill with Adam Faucett & The Tall Grass at White Water, 9 p.m.

Mary Heather & The Sinners kick off the dance party at Cajun’s, 9 p.m., $5., or go to aperitivo hour and catch vocalist/saxophonist Pamela K. Ward, 5:30 p.m. TC’s Midtown Grill hosts a show from the Luke Williams Band, 9 p.m.

Synrg fuses R&B, gospel and reggae influences for “Home for the Holidays 2” at the Rev Room, 9 p.m., $15-$20. Red Oak Ruse takes the stage at Kings Live Music, with an opening set from Taylor Nealey, 8:30 p.m., $5. Griffin & Friends take the stage at Hibernia Irish Tavern, 7:30 p.m.

Follow Rock Candy on Twitter: @RockCandies

arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018

21

Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’

Finally, Little Rock has the Seafood Burger, the creation of retired Green Bay Packer linebacker K.D. Williams, thanks to the opening of Williams’ The Capital’s Seafood House, 1706 W. Third St., across from the state Capitol.

Williams, who played for Henderson State University, is bringing to Little Rock the seafood specialties he serves at his Tampa, Fla., restaurant, K&D Crustaceans. The Capital’s Seafood House officially opened its doors Monday; the menu includes lobster tails from Maine, crab and shrimp from Louisiana, pasta, po’boys and more. The Seafood Burger is a combination of lobster, crab and shrimp and is $17 (it comes with fries). General manager Tonya Dyson also talked up the lobster roll ($15). The full menu is supposed to go up this week at thecapitalseafoodhouse.com.

Hours are 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday and noon to 6 p.m.

Sunday.

The Heights Corner Market is stepping into the caffeine gap that will be created when the Starbucks on Kavanaugh Boulevard closes with Walter’s Coffee and Speakeasy, in the storefront on the north side of the market. Walter’s will have a split personality: by day it will br a coffee shop, by night a bar. It also serves as a lounge for folks headed to The Heights Corner Market’s restaurant, the Green Room, in the intimate space off the grocery store to the south. Walter’s hours — tentatively; it only opened Saturday — are 6:30-11:30 a.m. Monday through Saturday for coffee; 4:30-9 p.m.

Tuesday through Saturday for drinks.

The Green Room is open 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5:30-9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and for brunch from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday.

If you wait until Christmas Eve Eve to do your shopping — that’s you, gentlemen — here’s a way to make it painless: Check out the “Holiday Brunch and Browse Pop Up” event at Lost Forty Brewing Dec. 23. The Lost Forty Dry Goods Apparel Shop will be selling vintage T-shirts, pullover and zip hoodies, glassware, socks and the ever-popular knit beanies celebrating the remote and unspoiled 40 forested acres the brewery is named after. There will be mini brew’mosas for shoppers, who also can buy specialty beers from the Bottle Shop. Bring in a new or gently used and clean sleeping bag for The Van and get a $10 Lost Forty gift card; five or more canned goods for the Arkansas Foodbank gets you a $5 gift card. Prizes will be given on the hour. Shopping is 9 a.m.-3 p.m.; brewhouse tours and beer tasting will be at noon and 1 p.m.

22

DECEMBER 20, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

MIXED MEDIA: Sriracha, honey, slaw and fried chicken: a great composition.

Watercolor in the Park pleases the palate Arts Center eatery is tasteful, tasty.

W

e don’t know if you’d call it a stigma, but we sometimes don’t expect much from a restaurant set within a business or establishment whose main purpose is not to serve food. We’re talking about the restaurant at the golf course, the snack bar at the courthouse, the deli in the hospital or the coffeehouse at the co-work space. Rarely does one of these operations serve any but golfers, or clerks, or visitors, or the odd millennial. Watercolor in the Park, the new restaurant at the Arkansas Arts Center, is taking a valiant crack at being its own destination.

It’s the latest creation of Jim Keet and partners, which has been feeding Central Arkansas for years with Taziki’s restaurants and, more recently,

Follow Eat Arkansas on Twitter: @EatArkansas

Petit & Keet. Fans of those establishments will find a couple of familiar items on Watercolor’s menu. Keet worked the room on a recent weekday lunch, schmoozing patrons who nibbled on appetizers or listened intently while their soup cooled.

Keet said he and his team got the restaurant going, from designing the space to working out the menu, in about 60 days. Given how seamlessly everything ran and the quality of the food, it seems like it should have taken more time than that. The setting is beautiful. The restaurant is surrounded on almost every side by floor-to-ceiling-windows. A high, vaulted ceiling and recessed lighting give the feel of a gallery space.

Walls without windows are decorated with watercolors. Servers walk with

purpose.

For starters, you could do worse than the Hummus Trio ($8). Our assortment included black bean, roasted red pepper and plain ol’ hummus. You’d expect the owners of Taziki’s to make a pretty good hummus and you’d be right. All three were light and zippy with lemon juice. Pita bread, sprinkled with salt and pepper, was served lightly toasted and warm.

It was more than enough for two of us.

If we had to attach an adjective to it, we’d call the menu new Southern.

There’s a daily selection of soup, a couple of salads, sandwiches, some heavier main courses and two dessert options (Hellas Bakery Baklava and Chocolate Spoon Cake). The sandwiches appealed, and met our expectations.

BELLY UP

The family of Mr. Harold Banks Sr. would like to take this time to send a Heartfelt Thank you to each and every one of our family members and friends who supported us during our time of loss. We appreciate every phone call, text, prayer, hug and act of kindness that was shown to us by so many! The out pouring of love and emotion was truly a testament to his life and legacy

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

Watercolor in the Park

(in the Arkansas Arts Center) 501 E. Ninth St. 396-0390

Quick bite

The Honey Sriracha Fried Chicken sandwich ($10) came off a little more sweet than spicy, but it’s darn good.

The King’s Hawaiian roll made for a buttery yet substantial bun. Some slaw provided a needed break from the richness of honey and batter. This was a simple sandwich, but one that will likely become a favorite.

The Wagyu Corned Beef on Pumpernickel ($12) was one of the best corned beef sandwiches we’ve ever had. It was dressed with Swiss cheese and a lemon and black pepper aioli.

The star was the tender and rich beef; the aioli dressing provided a nice bit of acidity. The bread, which came buttered and toasted, was no afterthought either.

We had fries with both sandwiches.

There’s not much to say about them other than they’re pretty great. They were cut in the kitchen, nicely salted and solid.

Don’t let the elegant setting fool

Try the PK Wedge ($9) if you’re in the mood for something fresh. It’s hard to get excited about iceberg lettuce, but the wedge salad was a hit. The lettuce was fresh and crisp and the bacon and blue cheese provide a good bit of salt and earthiness. The green goddess dressing, a creamy blend of green onions and fresh herbs, was used sparingly but shone through.

Hours

10 a.m. to 11 a.m. for coffee and quiche and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch Tuesday through Saturday, brunch 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays.

Other info

Beer and wine served, credit cards accepted.

you. The portions on everything were very generous, leaving us too full for dessert.

The menu here is concise, full of well conceived and executed dishes.

The atmosphere is great. The service is friendly and prompt. We think Watercolor in the Park might pull off the difficult trick of becoming a destination all its own. We might even take a detour to see art next time we dine.

ONCE AGAIN THANK YOU ALL AND PLEASE CONTINUE TO KEEP US IN YOUR PRAYERS! Rhonda, Krystal and Harold Banks Jr.

serving betterthan bar foodallnight long December 21 - Charlotte Taylor 22 - Lagunitas and Rebel Kettle’s - Ugly Sweater Party feat.Good Foot 23 - Chris DeClerk (free - 8pm) 28 - Cherry Red w/ The Brian Nahlen Band 29 - Kadela 31 - NYEw/ OpalAgafiaandthe Sweet Nothings

January

11 - Amoramora // The Ice Man Special 18 - Red Oak Ruse 19 - Electric Rag Band 25 - Clusterpluck Check-out the bands at Fourquarterbar.com Open until 2am every night!

415 Main St North Little Rock • (501) 313-4704 • fourquarterbar.com

NOW TWO CONVENIENT LOCATIONS

LITTLE ROCK • NORTH LITTLE ROCK 175ML GLENFIDDICH 12YR $65.99 $58.99 175ML CHIVAS REGAL 12YR $74.99 $59.99 175ML ABSOLUT VODKA $31.99 $27.99 175ML SMIRNOFF VODKA $18.99 $15.99 175ML JOHN JAMESON $43.99 $38.99 175ML CAPTAIN MORGAN RUM $24.99 $20.99 175ML BACARDI RUM $24.99 $20.99 175ML BOMBAY SAPPHIRE $37.99 $33.99 175ML KAHLÚA COFFEE LIQUEUR $32.99 $28.99 750ML DON JULIO TEQUILA BLANCO $45.99 $39.99 750ML MOET WHITE STAR $62.99 $49.99 750ML KORBEL EXTRA DRY, BRUT $13.99 $11.99 750ML MEOMI PINOT NOIR $21.99 $16.99 750ML SANTA MARGHERITA PINOT GRIGIO $21.99 $17.99 12PK HEINEKEN, CORONA $15.99 $13.99 MASTERPIECE: The Wagyu Corned Beef on Pumpernickel, tender and rich.

WINE SALE! 20% OFF UNTIL 1/2/19 ALL CRAFT BEER 10% OFF EVERY DAY!

• WE GLADLY MATCH ANY LOCAL ADS

HURRY IN! THIS SALE EXPIRES DECEMBER 26, 2018

MIX AND MATCH 6PK CRAFT BEERS AT OUR BROADWAY LOCATION. COME SEE US!

LITTLE ROCK: 10TH & MAIN • 501.374.0410 NORTH LITTLE ROCK: 860 EAST BROADWAY • 501.374.2405 HOURS: LR • 8AM-10PM MON-THUR, UNTIL MIDNIGHT FRI SAT 8AM-12AM FRI-SAT • NLR • MON-SAT 8AM-12PM arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018

23

MOVIE REVIEW

DEC

South on Main The Wildflower Revue presents a Hard Candy Christmas

DEC

Old Chicago - Conway Winter Brewers Dinner

20 20 DEC

26

South on Main Radiohead Tribute Show with John Willis

DEC

South on Main Sean Fresh with Bijoux, Davison Davison, and Ashley Evans

DEC

Four Quarter Bar NYE w/ Opal Agafia and the Sweet Nothings//Red Oak Ruse

10-13 17-20

JAN

The Studio Theatre Lend Me a Tenor

JAN

25

South on Main Amy Lavere & Will Sexton

JAN

Chenal Country Club INSPIRE Wedding Show Little Rock Presented by Tanarah Luxe Floral

FEB

iHeartMedia Metroplex Little Rock Bollywood Nights 2019

FEB

Record INSPIRE Wedding Show NWA Presented by Tanarah Luxe Floral

MAR

St. James United Methodist Church Arkansas Chamber Singers Spring Concert: Haydn’s Creation Mass

28 31

27 16 24 14

Go to CentralArkansasTickets.com to purchase these tickets and more!

LOCAL TICKETS, ONE PLACE DECEMBER 20, 2018

‘Into the Spider-Verse’ is a hallucinogenic web of pulpy styles.

BY SAM EIFLING

Arkansas Times local ticketing site! If you’re a non-profit, freestanding venue or business selling tickets thru eventbrite or another national seller – call us 501.492.3994 – we’re local, independent and offer a marketing package!

24

More is more

ARKANSAS TIMES

T

he first thing you’ll notice about the new “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is how much of everything they jammed in. The soundtrack is extra as hell, full of trap tracks by the likes of Lil Wayne and Blackway & Black Caviar. The Spideys are rampant: You’re going to get a solid half-dozen; a hard count might qualify as a spoiler. Visually, the movie is somewhere between Renaissance fresco and kaleidoscopic acid trip. It’s not a Marvel movie per se — merely “in association with” Marvel, because Sony shares the rights to Spidey — and it operates independently of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which, of course, now lives in Disney’s portfolio. None of that really matters except to say this is why “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” rests so far outside of anything you’ve seen in the history of superhero flicks or animated movies.

After the first official trailer dropped last summer, Bob Persichetti, one of the three (!) directors on the

movie (along with Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman), told the Verge: “We looked at how comic books are made, going all the way back to silkscreening and printing-press ideas. …

[Y]ou can do it on a super-small scale, but how do you make a whole movie look like that?”

The answer apparently is, in part, algorithms. Pretty vague, sure — it’s a bit like Michelangelo saying he merely removed all the marble that wasn’t part of his final vision. An army of coders and visual effects artists working furiously on new graphics engines has replaced “divine inspiration” as the most assured way to bang out a visual masterpiece. The collision of styles, including street art and anime and pulpy comics and psychedelic fractals, puts this in a rare category of cinematic leaps forward alongside the likes of “Mary Poppins” and “The Matrix.” It makes Pixar films seem staid billion-dollar baby stuff. The whole thing arrives as a lived hallu-

mnjeoasdfghrjkl!.=O The Wildflower Revue presents a

Hard Candy Christmas

OLD MARVEL PROPERTY, NEW LOOK: A graphics-engine-fueled reimagination of the Spiderman story makes Pixar films seem staid.

cination; it’s the cinematic version of the “mind-blown” emoji.

The maximalist display dovetails with a maximalist plot. It’s SpiderMan’s New York; he’s a star and has been for years. In Brooklyn, a gangly teenager named Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is making the transition to a fancy prep school away from his doting parents, a black cop (Brian Tyree Henry) and a Latina nurse (Luna Lauren Velez). Miles is an earnest kid with an artist’s touch, leaving sticker tags around the neighborhood and knocking out a full-blown mural in an abandoned subway chamber with the help of his mischievous uncle (Mahershala Ali). There, he’s bitten by a radioactive spider, and by chance finds his way to a vast underground supercollider where Spider-Man is fighting off a plot by the bank-vault-door-shaped Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) to mash up a bunch of different dimensions. In the course of said fight, Green Goblin dunks Spider-Man into the supercollider’s beam, and somehow peels a bunch of different Spideys from different dimensions (slash, different comics) into the present.

Chiefly, it brings in alternatedimension Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), a paunchy, older version of the famous superhero alter-ego — Spidey

as a superhero who doesn’t stay fit or try all that hard, because he knows everything will shake out just fine in the end. He puts Miles under his uninterested wing, while also trying to get himself and the other Spideys back home, and to thwart the Kingpin, who does a bit of actual killing in this movie, to say nothing of perhaps destroying Brooklyn with his sci-fi shenanigans.

Along the way, too, there are heaps of jokes. One-liners, wisecracks, throwaway visual gags, you name it. Scarcely a minute passes without something to laugh at, something to make your eyes bug.

Phil Lord shares a writing credit on the film; he and Christopher Miller have become perhaps the most formidable pair in animated films: Their “Lego Movie” was funny and visually groundbreaking in ways that simply do not come along more than once a year or so, if that. “Spider-Verse” succeeded in breathing new life into a property that had been constantly sequel-ized and rebooted until every subsequent run-through (with the exception of 2017’s “Homecoming”) started to feel like reheated leftovers.

Now the algorithms have given us something else entirely, something that leads us into uncharted alternate dimensions.

THUR, DEC 20, 8:00PM

We’ll be a little more than just fine and dandy with this Hard Candy Christmas with the Wildflower Revue! Concert begins at 8 pm. Purchase advance tickets for $10 or pay $15 at the door.

mnjeoasdfghrjkl!.=O

Radiohead Tribute Show with John Willis WED, DEC 26, 8PM

For the final show in his December Sessions, John Willis is bringing his incredible Radiohead tribute show back to the South on Main stage. Concert starts at 8 pm. Purchase advance tickets for $12 or pay $15 at the door. Tickets do not guarantee you a seat. Please call (501) 244-9660 to reserve a table.

mnjeoasdfghrjkl!.=O 1304 MAIN STREET LITTLE ROCK, AR 72202 501-244-9660

GET TICKETS AT CENTRALARKANSASTICKETS.COM arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018

25

ARKANSASpresents TIMES the 2019 NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY GUIDE Break out the bubbly! It’s time to celebrate as we ring in 2019 with a bang. From private and elegant locations for dinner to super big parties to dancing and live music, there’s something for everyone this New Year’s Eve. And after you’ve partied to your heart’s content, start the New Year right with a Bloody Mary and delicious brunch at these great locations. Check out all the happenings at these Central Arkansas hot spots as we present a special end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 party guide.

26 26

DECEMBER 20, 2018 ARKANSAS TIMES DECEMBER 20, 2018 ARKANSAS TIMES

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

RINGING IN 2019 Pinnacle Mountain State Park

ENJOY

A HIKE

ON NEW YEAR’S DAY

ARKANSAS STATE PARKS

www.arkansasstateparks.com Guided hikes on New Year’s Day are part of an annual First Day Hikes initiative in the state parks in all 50 states. Begin the New Year rejuvenating and connecting with the outdoors! Contact your favorite Arkansas State Park for a schedule!

In step with America’s State Parks’ “First Day Hikes” health initiative, state parks around Arkansas will host guided hikes on January 1. It’s a great way to get outside, connect with nature, and start the new year on the right foot. Visit ArkansasStateParks.com for a participating state park close to home.

#FirstDayHikes

ArkansasStateParks.com

For reservations, call 877-879-2741

#ARStateParks

THE ARLINGTON RESORT HOTEL & SPA

239 Central Ave., Hot Springs 623-7771 arlingtonhotel.com The Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa offers three ways to ring in your New Year with the Gala Dinner Dance in the Crystal Ballroom $185.00 guests at this party can also visit the Festival Party at no additional charge. Black tie optional. Dinner Served at 7:30 p.m. and The Stardust Big Band plays from 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.; Festival Party in the Conference Center 8:30 p.m.-1:00 a.m. $45.00 per person Tragikly White will play from 9:00 p.m.-1:00 a.m., party favors and champagne toast. At midnight, a Black-eyed Pea Reception will commence in the Magnolia Room for guests of both parties. There is a New Year’s Eve Celebration Buffet in the Venetian Dining Room Adults $39.00 and children $19.00. On New Year’s Day, start the New Year right with the breakfast buffet at 7 a.m. or relax with a Bloody Mary, or your favorite beverage after 8:00 a.m. in the lobby.

NYE with Opal Agafia

and the Sweet Nothings

Red Oak Ruse Dec 31 • 8PM

Come celebrate the New Year with the one and only Opal Agafia and the Sweet Nothings!! Red Oak Ruse to open the show.

Champagne Toast at midnight and full kitchen service until 1:30am.

Get Tickets Today!

centralarkansastickets.com

Open until 2am every night!

415 Main St North Little Rock • (501) 313-4704 • fourquarterbar.com The Venetian Dining Room at Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa. ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT www.arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018 27 arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018 27

RINGING IN 2019

CACHE RESTAURANT

425 President Clinton Avenue 501.850.0265 Cache Restaurant hosts a Night Under the Stars. Chef Payne Harding has carefully planned an exquisite, four course dinner with two available seatings. A complimentary ticket to Cache’s party is included with each dinner purchase. The party includes a D.J., live music, dancing, hors d’oeuvres and a champagne toast at midnight! Please call for your reservation at 501.850.0265.

EDWARDS FOOD GIANT 7507 Cantrell Rd. 614.3477 Other locations statewide edwardsfoodgiant.com Celebrate the holidays AND get ready for the New Year with fabulously festive gift baskets from Edwards!

GO TO CENTRALARKANSASTICKETS.COM FOR TICKETS AND MORE!

LOCAL TICKETS, ONE PLACE BEST LATE-NIGHT SPOT 28 28

DECEMBER 20, 2018 ARKANSAS TIMES DECEMBER 20, 2018 ARKANSAS TIMES

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

RINGING IN 2019 COLONIAL WINES AND SPIRITS

11200 W Markham St. 223.3120 colonialwineshop.com With this recipe from Colonial Wines & Spirits, you can enjoy a New Year’s Midnight Kiss… with or without a partner!

You’ll need ½ oz of Hennessy Cognac, 1 teaspoon of Grand Marnier, Chandon Brut Sparkling Wine, and a lemon twist for garnish. Pour the Hennessy and Grand Marnier into a champagne flute, top with Chandon Sparkling Wine, garnish with a lemon twist, and toast the new year!

FOUR QUARTER BAR

415 Main Street, North Little Rock 501.313.4704 Come ring in the New Year with Opal Agafia and the Sweet Nothings!! A champagne toast at midnight is included in the price of admission. We will have drink specials and the delicious four quarter bar kitchen will be serving food until 1:30 a.m. Start the New Year out right!!!

Pre-sale tickets $15 at centralarkansastickets.com NYE Night $20 at door if not sold out.

JOIN US FOR

a Night Under the Stars!

Executive Chef, Payne Harding, has carefully planned an exquisite, 4-course menu. After dinner, the party kicks off here at Cache with music, dancing, hors d’oeuvrs and a champagne toast at midnight!

Two dinner seatings available: 5:30pm and 8:00pm Dinner and Party: $150 per guest Party without dinner: $75 per guest

Call Cache at 501-313-9469 for tickets!

Ticket purchases must be made through Cache Restaurant for reservation purposes

More info at www.cachelittlerock.com/events#ANightUndertheStars

CacheRestaurant | 425 President Clinton Ave. Little Rock | 501-850-0265 | cachelittlerock.com

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT www.arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018 29 arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018 29

RINGING IN 2019

WAREHOUSE LIQUOR QUOR

MIDTOWN BILLIARDS

1316 S Main Street, Little Rock 372.9990 Ring in the New Year at Midtown Billiards, your historic late night bar!

Champagne toast at midnight with the Champagne of Beers: Miller High Life or Champagne. Ed Bowman will begin cranking out the tunes at 2 a.m. Cover is $10 per person and $15 for couples. Party to the wee hours this New Year’s Eve!

1007 Main St. 374.0410 Glenfiddich 12 Year (175 ml), regularly $65.99, is on sale le for $58.99 and Moet & Chandon ndon White Star (750 ml), reguularly $62.99, is only $49.99 99 at Warehouse Liquor.

NEW YEAR’S EVE EVENTS SPARKLE AT THE ARLINGTON From check-in to lights out, you will never run out of fun!

NEW YEAR’S EVE BUFFET

VENETIAN DINING ROOM • Dec. 31, 5:30 pm - 9:30 pm

GALA DINNER DANCE

IN THE CRYSTAL BALLROOM • Doors open at 7:30 pm

FESTIVAL PARTY

IN THE CONFERENCE CENTER • 8:30 pm - 1:00 am

Special New Year’s Eve Packages Available For more information call 800.643.1502 or email info@arlingtonhotel.com • visit www.ArlingtonHotel.com 30 30

DECEMBER 20, 2018 ARKANSAS TIMES DECEMBER 20, 2018 ARKANSAS TIMES

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

A&E, CONT. undoubtedly stems in part from the deeply personal nature of a family business. After the HBO release of “Game of Thrones,” the business skyrocketed, growing until it employed most of the Maringer family.

Of course, working with family brings unique challenges as well.

“You are so connected to this that when you fail, it’s a really big emotional blow. That’s definitely been hard for me to wrestle with,” Helen Maringer said. “Because of how much this company has changed all of our lives. It definitely changed my life. You know, George R.R. Martin allowing my dad to make ‘A Game of Thrones’ coins back in 2003 helped me go to college. So, I feel like I have a huge personal stake in helping this business succeed. Figuring out how to take the failures well in a family business is difficult, but doable.”

But with more and more creators approaching Shire Post Mint to make tokens based on their work, and big retailers like Barnes & Noble starting to carry its products, the future is looking bright as a silver Shire penny for this coining operation. Shire Post Mint launched a Kickstarter fundraising campaign Oct. 2, 2018, for

“Pre-Conquest Coins of Westeros,” a set of coins based on the ancient history of George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” world. Depending on how much backers contributed, they were rewarded with perks ranging from a single coin to the whole set of 11 coins framed with a map of Westeros signed by George R.R. Martin himself. The campaign reached its goal in just four hours, raising more than $43,000 from 347 backers.

“Being able to know that the work I’m doing — it’s not going to some CEO who has no stake in my life, or some company who’s just going to spend it all on corporate bonuses or weird retreats — it’s going to my family,” Helen Maringer said. “And the work that I do in promoting the company — it’s sharing this thing that my family has created. And I think that’s really beautiful. That we can all work together and share all of our talents with the world.”

Coins come in a variety of metals; single coin prices range from $1.50 (the 5p nickel gaming coin) to $100 (the silver strobe spinning top, for example). Coins are sold in multiples as well. Orders may be made online at shirepost.com.

ARKANSAS TIMES MARKETPLACE TO ADVERTISE IN THIS SECTION, CALL LUIS AT 501.492.3974 OR EMAIL LUIS@ARKTIMES.COM

BOARD VACANCY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS CENTRAL ARKANSAS WATER The Board of Commissioners, Central Arkansas Water (CAW), is seeking letters of interest and resumés from Little Rock residents interested in serving on the Board. CAW is the largest public water supplier in the state of Arkansas and serves the Greater Little Rock-North Little Rock area. The water commissioners have full and complete authority to manage, operate, improve, extend and maintain the water works and distribution system and have full and complete charge of the water plan.

The governing board consists of seven members who serve seven-year terms. The Board appointee for the existing vacancy will fulfill a term beginning February 14, 2019. In accordance with Ark. Code Ann. § 25-20-301, the Board must consist of four residents of Little Rock and three residents of North Little Rock. The current vacancy is for a Little Rock representative.

CAW is committed to diversity and inclusiveness in all areas of our operations and on the CAW Board of Commissioners. All interested Little Rock residents are encouraged to apply and should submit a letter of interest and resumé by 12:00 p.m. (noon) Friday, December 28, 2018.

Resumés will be accepted until filled. Submit to:

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS CENTRAL ARKANSAS WATER C/O Glenda Bunch, Director of Human Resources P. O. Box 1789 Little Rock, AR 72203 Telephone: 501-377-1348 Fax: 501-377-7051 humanresources@carkw.com

arktimes.com DECEMBER 20, 2018

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2019 MUSICIANS SHOWCASE

THIS COULD BE YOU!

To Enter:

Send streaming Facebook, ReverbNation, Bandcamp or Soundcloud links to showcase@arktimes.com and include the following: 1. Band Name 2. Hometown 3. Date Band was Formed 4. Age Range of Members (All ages welcome) 5. Contact Person 6. Phone 7. Email All musical styles are welcome.

Acts must be able to perform minium of 30 minutes of original material with live instrumentation.

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DECEMBER 20, 2018

ARKANSAS TIMES

Submission Deadline:

January 1st, 2019 PREVIOUS WINNERS INCLUDE: DAZZ & BRIE JAMIE LOU & THE HULLABALOO HO-HUM THE UH HUHS TYRANNOSAURUS CHICKEN AND SO MANY MORE!!!