Arkansas Times - December 4, 2014

NEWS + POLITICS + ENTERTAINMENT + FOOD / DECEMBER 4, 2014 / ARKTIMES.COM

PHILANTHROPY 2014 WHAT YOUR DOLLARS CAN DO

Teach a man to read. Help a disabled kid enjoy life.

Repair a river. Help the homeless. Provide legal aid to people like Emeka Onyekwelu. And more.

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DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

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DECEMBER 4, 2014

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COMMENT

Don’t slight Pinnacle

no matter how far “West Little Rock’s sprawl” increases, Pinnacle Mountain State Park will remain.

Gillian Hannah Rossi Pinnacle Mountain State Park interpreter Little Rock

sas ranked No. 48 of the 50 states having citizens living in poverty. Depending on your definition of what it means to be poor, those percentages may be lower or higher. However, the truth of the matter is Arkansas needs to do something to combat this very serious problem.

There are many negative attitudes towards people who need some form of government assistance to help them make ends meet. I’m sure many Arkansans hold these same opinions. Some feel as though people shouldn’t receive handouts and need to work like everyone else. Yet what about those who do work but whose job

I enjoyed and appreciated your article on the new trail guide for Petit Jean State Park (“Rediscover Petit Jean,” Nov. 20). It was great that you got the chance to meet Dr. Matt Moran and go on such an informative guided hike. His knowledge of the ecological diversity of the trails is fascinating.

I do not know why you felt the need According to the 2013 U.S. Census to insult and basically bash Pinnacle Bureau, 19.7 percent of Arkansans live Mountain State Park in your seemin poverty. 28.6 percent of those impoverished people were Arkansas children. ingly unrelated introduction. It sounds Comparable to the United States, Arkanlike you have hiked in only one small area of the park (on a busy Saturday, at that), and are unaware that Pinnacle Mountain State Park is much more than solely the mountain that gives it its namesake. Several other trails are spread throughout the park, containing extremely diverse ecosystems. One can find bottomland hardwoods, swamps, mixed hardwood pine forests, upland hardwood forests and glades, all within the park’s 2,351 acres. With two rivers running through the park, and several areas left untouched by the public, Pinnacle is home to a thriving, healthy Each winter, many water customers are inconvenienced amount of wildlife and plant species. by frozen pipes, resulting in extesive plumbing repairs and These include wild turkeys, whitetail water damage. The following tips will help minimize your deer, bald eagles, coyotes, bobcats, sevchance of having frozen pipes or resulting damage from eral amphibian species, every species of frozen pipes: snake in Arkansas and a wide variety of birds. Please note that the list I just Protect your outside faucets gave is in no way exhaustive. I also did Disconnect water hoses and insulate faucets to not include the park’s trees and plant prevent freezing. populations. I would be quite thrilled Winterize your sprinkler system to find any of the aforementioned speDrain your sprinkler system and remove or cies in a “grand city park.” insulate your backflow device (RPZ).

I encourage you to explore the rest of the park, besides the mountain itself.

Locate your shutoff valve Yes, the mountain is packed on the Know how to turn your water off using your weekends and has probably suffered shutoff valve or at your meter in case of an some ecological damage from all of emergency. the foot traffic. Any state park During thewithin Lawn and Garden Season! bike riding distance of Arkansas’s largLeave a faucet running overnight est metropolis would suffer the same Running a thin stream of water will reduce your consequences. Luckily, the rest of the chance ofsupply pipesinfreezing when temperatures Although we are fortunate to have an abundant water the park seems to be a well-kept secret, reach the low teens. metropolitan area,perhaps, customers are encouraged to be good stewards and could still be considered, of ourNo water by practicing efficientNever outdoorthaw waterause. frozen pipe with an open flame a small bit wild. parksources in Arkansas Use a hairdryer or heat tape to thaw the pipe can boast being “remotely wild,” I’m Customers are asked to alter timing of outdoor watering patterns to slowly in order to avoid damaging the pipe. afraid. Not even the revered Petit Jean. avoid the peak time of day demand during the hot summer months The park’s “stubby anthill” is still just 221 East Capital Ave and toas avoid operating sprinkler systems as awe-inspiring other mountains P.O. Box 1789 5:30ita.m. and 7:30 a.m. in Arkansas;between the fact that is the most Little Rock, AR 72203 used makes no difference. Perhaps you have become jaded more due to about the factthe thatSprinkler Customer Service: Learn this mountain isn’t “just an hour further 501.372.5161 Smart Program at carkw.com, down the road.” uaex.edu, or by calling No two areas in Arkansas are the Emergencies: 501.377.1239 same — that501.340.6650 is the beauty of our Natural State. I beg you to do a little bit more research on areas that you decide to pubYou Likeus on carkw.com carkw.com Facebook Tube licly dismiss. Thankfully for everyone,

Pro Circles

save your money • save our water

Make Your Home a No-Freeze Zone!

Tips for Being Prepared Before Winter Weather Starts

avoid the Peak!

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DECEMBER 4, 2014 ARKANSAS TIMES CAW Ark Times Avoid The Peak Ad.indd 1

7/24/12 10:25:38 AM

doesn’t pay enough to cover food or bills?

The public has this perception that the majority of people receiving welfare benefits are deviants that are working the system. If citizens have a problem with how the government manages welfare benefits, why don’t those individuals who criticize government solutions lend their own personal helping hand?

Circles USA is a national program with the goal of helping families out of poverty.

It does so by bringing low-income people and middle-class community members together. The way the program operates is one Circle leader, a low-income individual, is matched with allies, middle-income members, who meet once a month. During these meetings the leader creates a plan to obtain the economic, professional and social resources to move out of poverty.

The allies form a support group to aid the leader to achieve these goals. Some Circles programs offer classes that the leader can take to learn about budgeting, planning and setting goals. Circle programs offer training for communities and encourages them to tailor their programs to the needs of citizens in their specific communities.

There are some criticisms of the Circles program. New sites are cautioned that some participants take four or five years to move out of poverty. There is a maximum of 25 participants at a time, so there aren’t a large number of people being helped at once. Circles has a “slow and steady wins the race” mentality. According to a Stanford Social Innovation Review, 64 percent of participants finish the program and their income was increased by an average of 28 percent while participating. This promising data is the reason why Circles advocates say small numbers of participants and adequate time lead to success.

I believe that Circles could be utilized very well in Arkansas. Personal relationships crossing class lines can only help in the fight against poverty. Learning about finances and networking with leaders of communities may be the tools needed for people to move away from being financially underprivileged. We all know the Chinese proverb, “Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.”

Kolby Harper Gurdon

Correction In last week’s Comment, we mistakenly transcribed a letter from Kavion Wang, owner of Fantastic China. Instead of “Everything that comes from our kitchen is French and homemade” the letter should have read, ““Everything that comes from our kitchen is fresh and homemade.”

2015 ARKANSAS TIMES

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EYE ON ARKANSAS

WEEK THAT WAS

Quote of the week: “Accordingly, this Court finds that the Jernigans and Austins have adequately described their asserted right to marry. Directed by Supreme Court and Eighth Circuit precedents, this Court concludes that the right to marry is a fundamental right.”

— Federal Judge Kristine Baker last Tuesday in a written opinion striking down Arkansas’s ban on same-sex marriage. Rita and Pam Jernigan and Becca and Tara Austin were plaintiffs. Baker stayed her ruling pending the state’s likely appeal to the 8th Circuit, so gay couples are still unable to wed in Arkansas for the time being.

Split over civil rights Normally, Northwest Arkansas legislators and the University of Arkansas administration are fairly cozy with one another, so what would provoke 18 conservative state lawmakers into writing a letter to Chancellor David Gearhart expressing their “disappointment”?

Rights for LGBT people, that’s what.

Gearhart attracted legislators’ ire by speaking out against a resolution from the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce opposing the civil rights ordinance passed by that city’s government (see column, opposite page). Behind the letter was a veiled threat from legislators: We control the purse strings, so the university should perhaps watch its mouth.

Having it both ways A Democratic-leaning watchdog group called the American Democracy Legal Fund filed complaints with the IRS and the Federal Election Commission about Mike Huckabee, who’s built a new career as a popular Fox News commentator. The problem is that Huckabee is widely believed to be mulling a 2016 presidential run, though he won’t say so outright. If he is indeed throwing his hat in the ring, he’ll have to give up his lucrative talk show on Fox. Instead, Huckabee has created an advocacy nonprofit called America Takes Action, which is hiring experienced political operatives in much the same way as a fledgling campaign might do. The complaint to the IRS says the nonprofit is an overtly political tool for the former Arkansas governor to “formally organize money and staff in preparation for his candidacy.”

By the numbers $6.5 billion — The amount by which 6

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

BOTTOMS UP: Pelicans diving for lunch on Lake Conway. Photo by Jon Nichols from the Eye On Arkansas Flickr page.

national retail sales dropped from Black Friday weekend 2013 to 2014, an 11 percent decline. Online sales also declined by a similar amount over the postThanksgiving weekend last year. It’s unclear whether that’s due to shaky consumer confidence or simply fatigue with Black Friday hype; the National Retail Federation still predicts strong sales for the holiday season overall.

118 — The average caseload of an Arkansas parole officer, according to a report from the Arkansas Department of Community Correction (DACC) released this week. Some officers are responsible for as many as 130 parolees.

The recommended national average is about 60. DACC officials say they’d need funding to hire about 201 additional probation and parole officers to reach that target.

5,000 — The number of Arkansas parolees released from behind bars in 2014, out of a total of 10,000, estimated to return to prison in the next three years. That’s according to DACC Director Sheila Sharp, who testified before a legislative committee this week about badly needed reforms to the state’s prisoner re-entry system.

Ferguson’s tremors As in other cities across the country, a crowd turned out for a vigil/rally in Little Rock last week in response to a Missouri grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the white police

officer who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown after a scuffle in August in a St. Louis suburb.

Around 100 people, white and black and otherwise, gathered in peaceful protest at the state Capitol on a chilly evening a few days before Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, LRPD Chief Kenton Buckner attracted some criticism for a statement issued immediately after the grand jury’s decision, in which he said police would “allow” peaceful demonstrations but would not “tolerate destructive unlawful behaviors.”

There was never any indication that violent protests might emerge in Little Rock. Adjoa Aiyetoro, a law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law, replied to Buckner with a letter of her own: “Your message was not supportive of the Little Rock community and rather came across as … an act of intimidation of those who may choose to demonstrate.”

Leveraging Duggar dollars Lucie’s Place, one of the nonprofits we profiled in this issue’s cover story, received some much-deserved national attention thanks to a

stroke of social media marketing genius.

An illustration juxtaposed Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, who have contributed heavily to the campaign against Fayetteville’s civil rights ordinance (see column, opposite page), with Lucie’s Place, which “ministers to the LGBTQ homeless youth population of Arkansas” with an annual operating budget around $7,500. “Which cause would Jesus support?” it asks.

The Internet answered. The Duggar illustration circulated widely on Facebook and Twitter, and Lucie’s Place raised a remarkable $27,000 from donors across the country over the Thanksgiving weekend. Attention snowballed further when the story was picked up by nationally syndicated columnist Dan Savage, who gave the organization a generous plug. At this rate, Lucie’s Place may finally raise enough funds to achieve its goal: building an LGBT-friendly shelter of its own.

d’oh!

OPINION

Keep Fayetteville Fair

F

ayetteville voters will decide Dec. 9 whether to repeal a civil rights ordinance that provides small penalties for discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodation based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, disability, sex, veterans status, gender identity or sexual orientation.

It’s all about the gays. Sexual orientation isn’t protected under federal and state civil rights laws. Fayetteville recently became one of many cities around the country to add a small measure of protection — a maximum $500 fine that is mostly symbolic, given the lack of administration to enforce the law and the due process required to reach a trial.

The ordinance says Fayetteville welcomes all. Conservative church groups don’t. They support legal discrimination.

So, too, do many Republican legislators.

Eighteen of them have hinted at retribution against University of Arkansas Chancellor David Gearhart for speaking out against a Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce resolution condemning the ordinance.

university, [Mayor Parker] Wiseman said. “… Speaking in the husk of what next year will be christened the new city hall, Wiseman, a Democrat, characterized the town as a triumph of the technocratic New South, with $100 million in active construction, research and entrepreneurship centers that seek to exploit the university’s engineering talent, and a walkable neighborhood of townhouses and bars near campus that has been lauded by the Congress for the New Urbanism, an urban design organization.”

Would a city rather have that publicity or a national news article that voters had rolled back civil rights protections?

By the way, there was no mention of restroom incursions in Starkville.

Irony abounds in Fayetteville. The Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, a nominal promoter of the city, leads a pro-discrimination campaign. It is doing this at the same time it has been lobbying to be paid a fee out of city tax money to manage the city Advertising and Promotion Commission. What would be the new slogan? A city not too busy to hate?

Other cities with nondiscrimination ordinances or resolutions include Shreveport, New Orleans, Austin, Dallas, Fort

Worth, El Paso and, in Mississippi, Oxford, Waveland and Hattiesburg. Even a resolution has failed before in Fayetteville, thanks to some of the same business and church forces now leading the charge against the more meaningful ordinance.

The protestations of Steve Clark, Chamber president, about his love-filled heart will ring hollow after a second city vote endorsing discrimination.

Opponents say the ordinance is unnecessary. They didn’t hear the testimony about discrimination experiences – and some explicitly expressed desires to be able to discriminate — at the marathon City Council hearing. Consider the wedding photographer — much beloved symbol of opponents — with a religious objection to photographing a gay couple. He or she is, if anything, an argument for the ordinance. If a photographer may choose to discriminate, so might a Walmart store manager, a hotel desk clerk, a restaurant maître d’ or a sporting goods store or insurance agent. Would we protect a photographer who refused to work for an interracial couple?

For legal discrimination or against it.

There is no other question on Tuesday’s ballot in Fayetteville.

to be stopped.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which took up the pipeline cause when will commence the president first said he wasn’t sure, to challenge its regularly and righteously cudgels him. environmental After the House passed and the Senate defeated a pipeline bill this month, the compatibility. newspaper characterized the president The Keystone follies deserve a as a virtual idiot because he did not ERNEST good study by the embrace it as the economic salvation of DUMAS the country and for buying the palaver ablest political scientists. How did a purely business about the environmental harms from issue of concern to Canadian producers fossil-fuel pollution. The paper’s and royalty owners and U.S. refinery editorialists, who think global warming is interests (can you say “Koch brothers”?) a hoax, accused the president of believing become a burning issue to average that fossil fuels were bad and that clean, Americans who will never be affected renewable energy was good. And he was by it, unless it turns out to be true, as wrong?

NASA’s James Hansen warned, that Keystone began as a jobs issue. In the full development of the Canadian 2012, recovery from the great Bush tar pits would be the final nail in the recession of 2007-09 was still sluggish.

Earth’s global-warming coffin? Even that Unemployment was still close to 8 is problematical because the Alberta tar percent and only 2.2 million new jobs is being developed with or without the were created that year, which was better pipeline. than only six of George Bush’s eight years.

But here in Arkansas and in other So Republicans said Obama’s dalliance red venues it is a frenzied issue. Every on the pipeline showed that he was not Republican in Congress and candidate interested in jobs or the suffering of for virtually every contested office in the unemployed. Estimates of the jobs Arkansas promised voters they would that the pipeline would create soared defy Obama and get the pipeline built, — TransCanada claimed 130,000 — and and fearful Democrats fell in line, too. finally settled happily at 42,000. That Letters to newspapers, in save-the-world is based on the economic model that tones, cry for Obama, the pipeline tyrant, says if I buy a big hamburger and fries

at McDonald’s I create six new jobs when my five bucks flushes through the economy. A Cornell University business school study put the number at 20 permanent jobs and hundreds of temporary construction jobs.

But if it indeed were 42,000 jobs, that’s the number created every five days in the current so-moribund economy.

It has been a year since TransCanada completed the 485-mile segment of the Keystone from Oklahoma to refineries on the Gulf coast, the key part for U.S. interests because it ended the bottleneck of oil from tar sands in the upper Plains at the giant tank farms around Cushing.

Now, all that U.S.-produced dilbit is feeding the refineries around Houston and Port Arthur that have been modified to process the heavy sludge.

The refineries would like to get the dirty, thick Canadian tar because it is so much cheaper than, say, the highquality sweet Texas crude, and the Canadian crude, unlike domestic oil, can be exported to the highest bidder, probably China. The viscous Canadian tar is cheaper because it is expensive to refine into fuel, burning one BTU in the process of making it suitable for piping and of refining it for each three BTUs of energy that the fuel will produce.

But Keystone has become less about jobs and more about global warming.

Contrary to overheated opponents, the ordinance isn’t about bathrooms or restricting the practice of MAX religion. Nor is it BRANTLEY maxbrantley@arktimes.com meant to legalize topless women, as one local Baptist preacher claimed.

It’s about brotherly love. It’s about whether Fayetteville can hold its head up with Starkville, Miss.

Starkville, also a once-bucolic place home to a land grant university with a big Ag school, has a growing national reputation. The New York Times noted over the weekend that, along with a fine football team, “Stark Vegas” was living up to its ironic nickname.

It’s universally viewed as a welcoming place. It received flattering attention Saturday in the New York Times.

“The town’s quiet progressivism, such as recognizing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens as a class that may not be discriminated against, matched its

Keystone: Fight ignores fact

F

rom all the fear campaigns launched around the election season — Obamascare death panels, secret Benghazi plots, Islamic State crazies storming the Mexican border to cut American throats, an Obama-led Ebola epidemic, national bankruptcy and all the rest — it would be hard to pick the flimsiest.

Just for academic purposes, let’s choose the Keystone XL Pipeline, which Republicans jumped on four years ago when it appeared that President Obama, who had already approved one Canadian oil pipeline into the United States, might not approve the northern leg of TransCanada’s proposed line from the Alberta tar sands to Oklahoma.

The president wouldn’t say two years ago whether he would authorize the transnational pipeline and he still won’t, although many believe that he eventually will, perhaps for a deal with the Republican Congress. It is less likely that, even then, the pipeline will be built because it is the costliest way for the Canadians to get their bitumen, the foulest pitch on earth, to the buyers around the world who might bid on it. Nebraska ranchers are in court to block it, and, if it is ever authorized, federal litigation

CONTINUED ON PAGE 34 www.arktimes.com

DECEMBER 4, 2014

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The bluest of the blue: LR

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Enjoy the sounds of holiday music, arts & crafts for children, and the homemade decadence of baked sweet potato pies!

SUNDAY 12/07/14 2 PM– 5PM Bring a toy to benefit Stop the Violence!

Browse the amazing Browse works thecurrently amazingon works display currently in on disMTCC’s new Creativity play inArkansas MTCC’S new arts Creativity collection Arkansas & our arts newest exhibition, collection “Freedom! andOh, ourFreedom! newest exhibition, Arkansas’s People of African “Freedom!

Descent Oh,and Freedom! the Civil Arkansas’s War” People 1861-1866.” of African Descent and the Civil War: 1866166.”

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DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

or several decades, a capital city in discrimination the state to Arkansas’s southwest ordinances that stood out as a progressive island send the signal in an otherwise ruby red state. Although that the city is open to the now joined by other urban areas like Dallas and Houston that show weaker “creative class”; JAY strains of progressivism, Austin remains • Expansion of BARTH community an outlier in a state that is several election cycles from being competitive in policing to both build trust between statewide elections. This progressive the police and those in neighborhoods bent is expressed not just in its votsouth of Interstate 630 and to aid in ing patterns but in the public policies dropping a murder rate disproportionpursued by Austin’s city government, ately impacting those neighborhoods; creating a magnet for in-migrants from • On the health front, improvement in around the country despite Texas state access to community-based primary policies on criminal justice, education care, behavioral health services (menand women’s issues emphatically optal illness and substance abuse), and posed by most Austinites. urgent health care within neighborThe 2014 election cycle has left prohoods across the city; • Assertive implementation of planning gressives in Arkansas — never in the majority but consistently holding a place policies that ensure development patat the table in the state’s policymaking terns mixing residential density, via— scrambling to determine what comes ble local businesses and recreational opportunities; next in Arkansas. While engagement on state issues where there is the possibil- • Promotion of walkable, connected ity for strong coalition with business neighborhoods through sidewalk redeconservatives (e.g. the private option velopment and the expansion of a system of bike lanes and paths; and prison reform) is crucial, there is • Creation of incentives for local busino immediate path toward progressive rehabilitation in a decidedly Republinesses to reinvest in Little Rock, identican state. But there is a clear, obtainfication of the skill sets that those busiable answer for those progressives who nesses need from their employees, and happen to live in the state’s capital city: nourishment of the local educational institutions that cultivate those skills; Make Little Rock the “Austin” of Arkansas through creating a thoroughly pro- • And, because a city is only as healthy gressive city government. as its schools, reduction of the wall It is clear that the numbers are there between city government and the Little Rock schools to ensure communifor Little Rock’s electorate to do just that.

While U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor fell short of cation and collaboration on key issues 40 percent statewide in his race for resuch as summer and afterschool proelection, he gained just under 65 pergramming where facility and transporcent of the votes cast in those precincts tation access often serve as key chalentirely or partly in the city of Little Rock. lenges.

This represents a 25 percent gap in the Much more important than the Democratic vote in Little Rock compared specific policies that would enliven to the state as a whole in an election cycle this agenda, however, is a city govwhere some of the city’s most reliably ernment that recognizes the physical Democratic precincts showed distinctly and psychological divisions within low turnout. Moreover, the fact that a the city and laser-focuses on building number of longtime city directors may the bridges across groups and neighchoose to make this their last term creborhoods that will create a single city ates an opening for quick change in the rather than a collection of factionalcomposition of the city’s governing body. ized wards.

(In 2016, all three at-large city directors’ Like their fellow progressives across Arkansas, Little Rock’s proseats are up and the mayor and all but one ward director follow in 2018.) gressive community has been thrown So, what might the agenda of a prooff kilter by the events of Nov. 4. But, gressive Little Rock city government unlike many of their fellow progreslook like? sives across the state, those in Little • Passage of policies like expansive antiRock have an answer: Go local.

Stand with fast food workers

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y the time this is published, McDonald’s workers from the Central Arkansas area will have started their 24-hour strike together with workers in hundreds of other cities across the nation. You may have caught the news in September when fast-food workers and community supporters blocked Broadway to demand a living wage and the right to form a union. Little Rock was one of 150 cities across the United States to join in the September day of action as part of the “Fight for 15” campaign. National organizers from the Service Employees International Union supported the one-day “flash strikes” and street blockades here and in several other cities across the region.

Folks may wonder why workers continue to push for higher wages when Arkansan voters approved an increase in the state minimum wage only weeks ago. Approval of the ballot initiative — which will raise Arkansas’s floor wage to $8.50 by 2017 — was an overwhelming victory. However, $8.50 an hour is simply not enough, especially given that most fast-food workers are hired as part-time employees so that companies can avoid paying benefits.

Even with full-time hours, the new Arkansas minimum wage will still be well under the poverty line for a family of three. Despite those who desperately want to prove otherwise, U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that a significant portion of low-wage workers in the fast- food industry are middle-aged people trying to support families, not teenagers. Today, the average age of a worker in the fast-food industry is 29.

The minimum wage has increased at an appallingly slow rate over the past 50 years. Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage in 1968 would be $10.98 per hour today. One key distinction between the referendum on the ballot in Arkansas this year and the fast-food worker movement is that workers are asking their employers to do the right thing independently, without needing instruction from the government. Take some of the billions that McDonald’s rakes in every year in profit and the millions it pays top executives, they’re saying, and ensure that everyone serving the company is able to put quality food on the table and a roof over their heads.

Those involved with Fight for 15 also point out the discrepancy in wages

across countries in which McDonald’s operates. For example, a fastfood worker in Denmark makes a minimum of $20 hourly, in ACADIA addition to paid ROHER sick leave and the right to unionize. Even accounting for the higher cost of living in Denmark, workers there report that their wages place them solidly in the middle class.

Basic survival is not a daily struggle like it is for many low-wage workers in the U.S. To head off those who worry about costs being passed down to the consumer, the Big Mac in Denmark costs on average only 35 cents more than the same sandwich here.

In the past year, Seattle and San Francisco approved ordinances to increase their citywide minimum wage to $15 per hour over the next several years, meeting the demands of the fastfood workers’ movement. Of course, Little Rock is no Seattle, but workers in our city also deserve a living wage.

It’s breathtaking to watch workers who have everything to lose putting themselves publicly on the line for the dignity they need and deserve. The sparks in their eyes and the spirit with which they are working together is something no one imagined even two years ago. But they’re here and they’re organized and the movement is only growing. They are joining forces with workers from other low-wage sectors to demand a more just economy. Just wait until spring.

Hundreds of courageous people new to this kind of action in our state are seizing the opportunity to make their voices heard. It’s not easy; low-wage workers who operate without the protection of a union are vulnerable to unfair treatment on a daily basis. Their ongoing struggles compel them to fight for change. This is the moment to stand in support of our neighbors and fellow citizens who will strike this week and commit themselves to action for the long term.

Acadia Roher is an organizer with Little Rock Collective Liberation and other social justice groups in Central Arkansas.

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9

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DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

Another meltdown

H

aving risen like the proverbial phoenix with those grand shutouts, the football Hogs just couldn’t have a true regular-season finale without officiating controversies and lightning-rod personnel issues.

Arkansas lost to Missouri, 21-14, in the first laboratory-created rivalry game, a.k.a. The Battle Line. It was hokey enough on its own but developed a quick edgy veneer after one uneven 60-minute chapter. To wit: Arkansas fans who attended this game reported that Mizzou fans acted boorishly before and after the game, that Faurot Field was like (God help us!) a poor man’s War Memorial in terms of comfort and convenience, and that the concessionaires actually ran out of food way early ... unless, of course, you were wearing black and yellow. I am not fabricating that last tidbit, either.

Now, as if that didn’t generate a little bit of rancor for next year’s game, what happened between the lines most assuredly did. First, Arkansas blazed to a 14-3 lead in a fashion that seemed to answer all conceivable pregame queries. Yes, Brandon Allen could and would throw it with ease (seven tight completions to six different receivers in the first half, two for TDs). Yes, the Arkansas defense could and did maintain its zealous and aggressive approach against an up-tempo offense. Yes, the Hogs could get by without ailing tight end AJ Derby and even overcome a rash of inexcusable procedure penalties at the outset.

Things changed shortly before halftime. Mizzou’s Maty Mauk was backed up inside his own 20 and clearly felt the weight of the Hogs’ overcharged defensive line smothering him. As he elevated his arm to either throw or pump out of desperation, the ball was knocked loose

by Trey Flowers and Taiwan Johnson recovered the called fumble. The problem? It went up for booth review and after several agonizing minutes went by, you got the clear sense that a seismic shift was in the offing. Sure enough, the refs returned, pronounced a reversal without credible video to support the same, and Andrew Baggett wound up drilling his second field goal of 50-plus yards to end the half.

Instead of thundering into the locker room with a 14- or 18-point lead and the stands hushed, Arkansas went in ahead 14-6, marginally less confident. A half that felt dominant looked less so on the only quantifiable plane of consequence.

From there, Mizzou did what it has done literally all season long, which is rely on its skill people to overcome Mauk’s haphazard play and its defensive line to restrain the opposing backfield. The Tigers BEAU WILCOX started gashing a winded Hog defense by ground in the fourth period, and after Mauk chucked a touchdown pass and two-point conversion to knot the score early in the quarter, the tide had swung fully. Marcus Murphy trotted in easily from the Hog 12 for the winning score, and the Hogs’ final attempt to gather themselves was also cruelly ripped away by the review booth.

Whether you believe Alex Collins was down, or that he fumbled and managed to recover before Markus Golden sprinted away from the scrum with the ball in hand, is irrelevant. This worldclass officiating crew failed to either blow the play dead or clear the pile quickly, then the booth reported that, of course, the ball was fumbled and Missouri had it. Bewildering nail in a dilapidated coffin, to be sure.

And yet, these decisions weren’t, by game’s end, solely in the crosshairs of fans. Rather, the overwhelming sentiment on the south side of this so-called battle line was that somebody needed to be strung up and interrogated for Allen remaining in the game. He was already on a day shorter recovery from the midsection injury he sustained against Ole Miss, and after the Tigers got some decidedly hard blows on him in the second period and more thereafter, the junior quarterback’s accuracy waned badly. Throws were sailing hopelessly awry.

Where does the blame ultimately lie? On the guy who called plays that principally place the quarterback in further harm’s way, and thereby allowed Missouri to exercise a 5:26 time of possession advantage that spelled 23 more plays and 135 more total yards. For the fifth time in six crushing SEC losses, Arkansas failed to score a fourth-quarter point. A team constructed from the trenches outward is going pro-style in tight games late, and it’s clearly not working.

So, with that, the Hogs go bowling, but should do so with someone other than Jim Chaney wearing the OC headset.

THE OBSERVER

CORPORATE TRAVEL?

NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

-30-

T

he Observer lost a friend and colleague over the Thanksgiving holiday: Doug Smith, the long-time Arkansas newsman and editorial writer, who retired from the Arkansas Times in 2013 and died on Nov. 26 after a long struggle with heart ailments. He was 74.

The Observer is the caretaker of Doug’s old office, in fact — one exposed brick wall, a door that shuts mostly tight, carpet the color of sodden newspaper, and a big window that looks down on the corner of Scott and Markham, where drivers regularly entertain Yours Truly by playing smash-’em-ups in the intersection. It’s a good lair for a newspaper fella to call home base.

Doug, like several of the inmates here, was a refugee from the old Gazette, starting there all the way back in 1963 and coming to the Arkansas Times only after the conquering horde drove him away from his desk with rocks and sharp sticks.

From 1992 until his retirement, he was a reporter for the Times, and wrote most of our unsigned editorials, lending a voice that sang in harmony with the long-gone Gazette. He was also our main copy editor, looking over proof pages and scrawling his “DS” in the corner in red pen to show he had somehow managed to machete his way through the kudzu of The Observer’s prose, killing off our ferocious, dignity-eating typos along the way.

He saved Yours Truly from embarrasing embarassing embarrassing myself many a time.

Doug was already a fixture here when The Observer arrived in 2002, all of 27 years old and greener than gooseshit, having last written a newspaper story during an Intro to News Reporting class I took back in college before coming to my senses. He was impressive, the stoic sort, always in a suit and tie, always carrying a sensible black umbrella any time there was more than a 20 percent chance of rain. It took a good five years here before we heard him speak 10 sentences, and another five before we heard him speak 20 more. He kept his office, which The Observer has since turned into a den of filth and iniquity, like a monk’s cell: a

small desk against one wall, uncluttered except for a telephone, a Rolodex, a computer screen, a keyboard, a pad and a pen.

No pictures on the walls, no rug on the floor, no stained-glass lamps and red velvet cushions around a hookah pipe like The Observer has installed. Just the nononsense tools of the journalist’s trade.

We were not surprised when his niece said about Doug at the memorial service last Monday afternoon that his tidy bachelor’s apartment in Hillcrest was just like that: a few sticks of furniture, a lamp, a bunch of books, a pile of newspapers. A no-nonsense life, dedicated to the mind, the news and the written word.

His work ethic was a lot like that, too.

Reporters, we’ve learned from working here and personal experience, are notorious gripers. We complain about stories that just won’t come, about the boss, about deadlines, about brilliance skewered by an editor’s red pen, about sources who just won’t call us back for a nice, leisurely chat between friends that will be printed verbatim in the newspaper. Doug, though, seemed to hover outside of all that. He did not complain and did not explain. He reported and wrote without complaint, and when the copy was due, he turned it in without the need for commiseration.

The Observer doesn’t have one role model we look to for hints on how we should spend this life. We’ve got a couple dozen. From our father, we get the ability to find beauty in every crack in the sidewalk. From Ernie Pyle, we get courage. From Bob Lancaster, we get how to spin golden thread from the straw of existence. From Max Brantley and Mara Leveritt, we get bulldog tenacity. From Flannery O’Connor, we get faith. From Eudora Welty, we get how to write the senses. And from Doug, we got what it is to be someone who makes the phone calls, takes good notes, puts pants to chair, shuts his mouth and does the job. That’s so much more valuable than you might think.

They just don’t make ’em like you anymore, Doug, but we’re trying. Goodnight, Mr. Words.

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11

Arkansas Reporter

THE

IN S IDE R

What’s the Battle Line Rivalry?

The Arkansas Razorbacks lost heartbreakingly to the Missouri Tigers in the inaugural Battle Line Rivalry football game Nov. 28. What does Battle Line Rivalry mean? Who dreamed it up?

Logical thinkers say you don’t declare a rivalry. It develops over time. A seasonending game between states that share a border might come to constitute such a game over time. But to declare it so — primarily to get a marketing tool to sell to an insurance company — seems a touch premature.

But what about that Battle Line? Kevin Trainor, University of Arkansas associate athletic director for public relations, offered this explanation: “When Texas A&M and Missouri were added to the Southeastern Conference, Arkansas and Missouri were assigned as cross-divisional rivals. The 2014 football season was the first season to feature the matchup.

“The Battle Line Rivalry was a name derived out of discussions between the two institutions and with the consultation of Shelter Insurance, the presenting sponsor.

There was a desire to acknowledge the proximity of the two states and campuses as well as their relationship as bordering states.

“As you are likely aware, Missouri had previously been involved in a Border War series with the University of Kansas. Some of the potential names proposed and discussed did include various versions of ‘Border’ or ‘Battle’ etc.; however, the two institutions ultimately agreed upon the Battle Line Rivalry.”

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas identifies the primary border dispute between Missouri and Arkansas as the confusion over the “bootheel,” that nubbin of Missouri that extends along the Mississippi River down below the otherwise straight east-west line that divides the two states. Nobody ever battled over it. Arkansas probably should be grateful for the loss, given the Bootheel’s reputation for lawlessness over the years.

Maybe we should have a Bootheel trophy to go with The Boot, which was invented for the LSU-Arkansas game (a rivalry with historic football roots, unlike the Missouri game.) An appropriate trophy would be a stolen car. Time was, federal court cases turned now and then to stolen vehicles taken across the line to Bootheel chop shops.

A friend of the Arkansas Times suggests something derived from the shared Ozarks.

Battle of the Ozarks? No, he didn’t suggest the trophy should be a cedar outhouse 12

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

Longtime editorial voice of the Times dies Doug Smith also had a long career with the Arkansas Gazette.

D

oug Smith, a longtime journalist who wrote principally for the old Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Times, died Nov. 26 at a Little Rock hospice. He was 74.

Plagued by heart trouble, he had retired at the end of 2013 as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for the Arkansas Times.

Smith, whose full name was Paul Douglas Smith, was born Feb. 7, 1940, at Ione in Logan County. He graduated from Searcy High School and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he was associate editor of the Arkansas Traveler, the campus newspaper, and editor of the Razorback, the school yearbook. He was one of three children. An older brother, Mike, was killed when his plane crashed in North Vietnam. His body was never recovered. Doug was an implacable foe of the Vietnam War and subsequent American wars.

He went to work for the Gazette in 1963 as a reporter and in about 1970 he became a political and state government reporter. His last eight years or so were with the paper’s editorial page. His spare and mordant literary style flourished in the latitudes of the editorial page. The Gazette’s ponderous editorials, typically long and heavy with argument, were leavened by Smith’s often mock-serious pieces on such subjects as the social disorders of cats, which often consumed no more than four inches of the editorial columns. On matters of gravity, his editorials were equally spare but caustic. He believed persuasion was a pointless exercise, a self-delusion of editorial writers, and he went straight to the point.

When it was reported that Presi-

SMITH: Always sharply dressed.

dent Ronald Reagan kept diaries, Smith wrote a spoof under the headline “Are these the Reagan Diaries?” about a day’s entries by the president. Imitating the classical diary entries of Samuel Pepys, the 17th century British naval administrator, Smith adapted Pepys to what he imagined was the style of the 40th president.

When the Gazette closed in 1991, Doug went to work for the Arkansas Times, which converted from a monthly magazine to a weekly newspaper. He wrote in-depth articles and nearly all the paper’s editorials from 1992 through 2013. At the Gazette, he wrote a humor-

ous weekly column on English usage that was rich with wordplay, and he continued the column at the Times after retiring, until the spring of 2014 when he became too ill to write. It was called “Words.”

Doug was an autodidact of deep knowledge, especially in history, biography and sports. He was cherished by his friends as a man of quick wit and keen perception. A conversation with him was always rewarding, refreshing and often brought tears of laughter.

An unapologetic liberal, Doug fired off withering ripostes to conservative gibes that his editorials often brought.

He made no secret of his disdain for disingenuous, sanctimonious, uninformed and self-absorbed opinion writers.

Governor Beebe, who is from Searcy, Smith’s hometown, sent him a letter at the hospice expressing his concerns.

“I want you to know how much I’ve admired your tenacity, independence, and commitment to journalistic excellence over the many years we’ve known each other. You’ve been a legend for a long time, from your days as reporter and editorial writer at the Arkansas Gazette to becoming the words and language guru, among other work, at the Arkansas Times. Thanks for your many thought-provoking contributions to the world of journalism, and thank you for your friendship.”

As the son of clothiers, he prided himself on being a well-dressed man, wearing a suit and tie (or sometimes a sports coat and tie) to the office nearly every day, long after the lamentable trend of “casual office wear” had taken hold. It’s doubtful Doug ever wore a pair of blue jeans in his adult life.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Paul and Madge Ward Smith, and a brother, William W. “Mike” Smith. He is survived by a sister, Ann Fair of Memphis; three nieces, Bobbie Andrews and Necia Cuesta of Memphis and Valerie Canepa of Searcy; a nephew, Doug Fair of Southhaven, Miss.; four great-nieces; and a great nephew.

A memorial service was held Monday at Ruebel Funeral Home. It was led by Rev. Marie Mainard O’Connell.

Burial was at Roselawn Memorial Park.

A guest book is available at ruebelfuneralhome.com.

THE

BIG PICTURE

Inconsequential News Quiz: Make bubbles edition Play at home!

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

Available on iTunes & arktimes.com

INSIDER, CONT. replica. But a genuine Ozark Mountain DoNothing would be perfect.

1) Police responding to a Thanksgiving Day domestic violence call in Barling (Sebastian County) said a 6-year-old swore them to secrecy before leading them to something his dad would probably have preferred to stay hidden. What, according to police, was it?

A) Leather-clad gimp in a wooden crate.

B) Ultra-deluxe DVD box set of “The Gilmore Girls.”

C) Candlelit shrine featuring a life-sized portrait of a shirtless Gov. Mike Beebe.

D) A water bong, a closet grow-room outfitted with florescent lights, and three marijuana plants — which, the boy allegedly told cops, “helps my dad to make bubbles.”

2) According to the same report, what did a family member shout as the boy was revealing the alleged secret to officers?

A) “I know somebody who’s gettin’ NOTHING from Santa!”

B) “Only Darwin can judge me!”

C) “So full of artless jealousy is guilt. It spills itself in fearing to be split!”

D) “Shut up! Shut the f**k up!”

3) During a recent appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen.-elect Tom Cotton reacted defensively after host Chuck Todd accused him of fear-mongering about a certain issue. What was the issue?

A) Cotton’s belief that if you play Taylor Swift’s 2008 album “Fearless” backwards, you’ll hear Obama saying, “Actually, I AM from Kenya! Suck it, haters!”

B) That the ATF will soon begin going door to door to confiscate all potato guns and T-shirt cannons.

C) That Middle Eastern terrorists will attempt to infiltrate the U.S. by slipping over the Mexican border.

D) How glaringly undemocratic it is that two Republican senators from Arkansas (population: 2.9 million) will soon be able to effectively cancel out the votes of both U.S. senators from California (population: 38.3 million).

HIS

HERS

4) According to a recent story in the New Yorker magazine, what is the sole display of affection allowed between a child of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and his/her significant other prior to being engaged to marry?

A) Poking each other from across the room with cane poles of 10-plus feet.

B) Side hugs.

C) Sharing a toilet (not at the same time, of course).

D) Sniffing each others’ Bibles.

5) A millionaire who made his money in spill-proof pet bowls has announced plans to bring back something from Arkansas’s past that some might remember fondly. What is it?

A) Bionic clone of former University of Arkansas Athletic Director Frank Broyles.

B) All-You-Can-Fondle Lap Dance Nite at The Paper Moon.

C) The abandoned Dogpatch U.S.A. theme park near Harrison.

D) Sanity in government, via large doses of lithium in the State Capitol coffee pot.

6) The New York Times teamed up with Google just before Thanksgiving to decide which food was the most “distinct” dish in each state — that is: the dish that Arkansans searched for more often than the residents of any other state. According to Google, what was the most distinct dish for Arkansas?

A) “Grandma’s Spicy Methamphetamine.”

B) “Butter and Lard Surprise.”

C) “Four-Layer Delight.”

D) “Squirrel on Kaiser Roll.”

Push for clemency for Goff The Innocence Project, which takes up cases of convicted prisoners where strong evidence points to unjustified convictions, has mounted a campaign to get Gov. Mike Beebe to consider a clemency request for Belynda Goff of Green Forest before he leaves office.

It seems a long shot. Beebe’s use of clemency power has been restricted to lesser offenders who’ve discharged sentences. (A Beebe family friend and his own son’s marijuana conviction have been recipients of clemency consideration.) But the case remains worthy of attention. As the project recounts: “On June 12, 1994, Belynda Goff walked out of her bedroom and into the living room of her apartment to find her husband, Stephen, lying unconscious just inside the doorway. She immediately called to request emergency medical assistance.

The paramedics arrived ten minutes later.

Despite the quick response by both Belynda and the paramedics, Stephen died from his injuries.

“An autopsy revealed that Stephen’s cause of death was blunt force trauma to his head. This is a fact. When it comes to Stephen’s death, very few other facts have been conclusively established. No murder weapon has been found, no witness has attempted to identify Stephen’s killer and no physical evidence has linked anyone to the murder. Yet Belynda Goff has languished in prison for two decades.”

Multiple witnesses have come forward to say that Stephen’s murder was the result of his involvement in an arson scheme and that Belynda had no involvement in his death. The Innocence Project is performing DNA testing on evidence in Belynda’s case, but some crucial pieces of evidence have gone missing, so testing may never be able to fully vindicate Belynda.

Goff’s case has been the subject of court appeals and periodic news accounts.

She is serving a life sentence. www.arktimes.com

DECEMBER 4, 2014

13

ANSWERS: D, D, C, B, C, C, D

PHILANTHROPY IN ARKANSAS Better times, increased giving.

BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

SITE OF COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHY: Fort Smith project gets grant from Windgate Foundation.

T

he years 2013 and 2014 were good years for nonprofits, thanks to increases in foundation and private assets bolstered by a recovering stock market.

If you were to add up the dollar value of grants made by Arkansas’s top family foundations in 2013 (the most recent year for which figures are available), you’d come up with around $270 million. That’s only part of the picture: That figure accounts only for gifts by the richest charitable foundations in Arkansas. There are many with assets under $20 million (our arbitrary cutoff) that are giving to needy groups here, and many millions more are awarded by corporate foundations, private individuals and other nonprofit grantmakers.

The Walton Family Foundation, the richest in Arkansas ($2.4 billion in assets) and the 39th largest family foundation in the United States, has nearly doubled its giving since 2008; its 2013 tax form 990 shows the foundation awarded $311,475,768 in grants; of that, $32,489,424 went to its “home region.”

The Windgate Foundation ($174 million in assets), headquartered in Siloam Springs, also nearly doubled its giving in 2013, with grants of $41 million, up from $26.4 million in 2012.

William L. Hutcheson, whose mother, Dorothea, founded Windgate with Wal14

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

Mart stock, and Mary E. Hutcheson of Fort Smith added $79.5 million to Windgate’s assets in 2013. (Foundation director John Brown called Windgate “the Walton Family Foundation’s little brother.”) Windgate has a “modified spend down policy” (it gives more than the required 5 percent with the anticipation that it will not continue in perpetuity), Brown said, but will stay in business “as long as we keep getting additional gifts that are so generous,” Brown said.

The amount of private giving, according to the 2013 Generosity Index of the Fraser Institute, ranks Arkansas as the 19th highest in the nation. Arkansas individuals do even better in average charitable giving as a percentage of income: 9th. (Utah, which has a large tithing Morman population, continues to rank first in both.)

Alumni and foundations in Northwest Arkansas continue to shower gifts on the University of Arkansas, which raised more than $100 million for the fourth year in a row, the university announced in August. The school raised $113.3 million in cash, gifts in kind, planned gifts and new pledges for the fiscal year 2014.

The largest single foundation donation in 2013, according to tax returns examined by the Times, was the Walton Charitable Support Foundation’s $26.4

million gift to the Arkansas Community Foundation, which manages more than 1,500 funds.

Robert H. Biggadike’s estate commitment of $7.8 million to the University of Arkansas’s College of Engineering was the biggest individual gift made public in 2014. Biggadike was a native of Newport who got bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from the UA and worked in the aerospace industry in California.

Approved grants for 2013 and 2014, on which foundations have begun payments, are also big news in giving: They include the Windgate Foundation’s $15.5 million pledge for a new arts building at the Uni-

and bequests were estimated at $335.17 billion, close to the peak hit before the 2008 recession.

Family foundation grants can be found in a sidebar. What follows is a list of philanthropic gifts of $250,000 or more by individuals made public since last fall: University of Arkansas alumnus Robert H. Biggadike, a Newport native who made his career in the aerospace industry in California, made an estate gift commitment valued at more than $7.8 million to establish the Robert H. Biggadike Endowment for Teaching in the University of Arkansas College of Engineering.

Wallace and Jama Fowler of Jonesboro donated $2.5 million to the UA’s $9.1 million building project for its baseball and track teams and pledged $2.93 million for the second construction phase of the Fowler House Garden and Conservatory, which houses UA Chancellor David Gearhart and his FUTURE ART BUILDING: At UA-Fort Smith, helped by wife, Jane.

Windgate.

The Johnny Allison versity of Arkansas-Fort Smith and its $14 family made a gift commitment of $5 million pledge for the proposed Arkanmillion to Arkansas State University to sas College of Osteopathic Medicine at expand its Centennial Bank Stadium, Chaffee Crossing in Fort Smith, and the which two years ago received $5 milWinthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust’s lion from Liberty Bank, now Centennial. approval of $9 million for the UA’s WinAlumnus Kevin Brown and his wife, throp Rockefeller Institute.

Marie, of Houston endowed the UA ColOne pot that Arkansas will not be able lege of Engineering department head to look forward to in the future is the Donchair with a gift of $3 million. ald W. Reynolds Foundation, which has Robert and Sandra Connor of Little committed all its funds and is no longer Rock and Dallas pledged $1.5 million taking grant applications. The foundation, toward the Robert C. and Sandra Connor which has given around $450 million to Endowed Faculty Fellowship to support Arkansas institutions over the lifetime junior-level faculty in the UA Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. of the foundation, according to PresiA bequest of $1.4 million will create dent Steve Anderson, is spending down as those who were personal friends with the Dan and Johnnie Winn Memorial the media mogul are becoming inactive Scholarship in the University of Arkanon the board. “We want to stay as close to sas at Little Rock’s College of Social the founder as possible,” Anderson said.

Sciences and Communication. John“We wanted to accomplish everything we nie Winn was the first licensed woman could while people on the board making amateur radio operator in Arkansas. Dan decisions had some knowledge or could Winn helped create 30 radio stations in refer back to Reynolds.”

Arkansas and established the Arkansas In 2013, the Reynolds Foundation Radio Network. made a contribution of $3.5 million to the Racynski Phillips, dean of the Fay Museum of Discovery, and Camp AldersBoozman College of Public Health at gate recently announced a $1 million gift the University of Arkansas for Medical from the foundation for a 6,000-squareSciences, and his wife, Martha Phillips, foot activity center. There may be future have pledged a planned estate gift of $1 million to create the Raczynski Phillips grants already approved for Arkansas, but Anderson said he would not be able Bruce Chair in Social Determinants of to announce them now.

Health. The gift was made in honor of Nationally, according to Giving USA, the college’s inaugural dean, Thomas A. Bruce, and his late wife, Dolores. individuals, corporations, foundations

Stuart Cobb of Little Rock has donated $1 million to help pay for construction and services at the new breast center of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute at UAMS. Alumnus Richard Greene of Lowell will create the Camden E. and Dortha Sue Greene CARE Endowed Scholarship with a $1 million gift to benefit the UA Office of Diversity and Community.

Doug McMillon and his wife, Shelley, donated $1 million to the UA Sam M. Walton College of Business to endow a proposed School of Global Retail Operations and Innovation. McMillon is CEO of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The estate of Merrily Purnell Parker made a gift of $800,000 to create the Owen W. Parker Sr. and Merrily Parker Endowed Scholarship at UALR, with a preference for philosophy or music majors.

N.W. “Chip” Buerger of Dripping Springs, Texas, has made a planned gift of $500,000 to endow scholarships to the UA Fulbright College, the College of Engineering and the Sam M. Walton College of Business.

The A.L. Chilton Foundation in Dallas has created a faculty fellowship with a $500,000 gift to the UA College of Education and Health Professions.

The foundation’s distribution committee includes alumnae Patti Brown and Bonnie Harding.

Alumna K. Denise Henderson of Hot Springs is making a planned gift of $600,000 to be divided between the UA Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences; the Women’s Giving Circle, and the Arkansas Alumni Association.

Betty Haga of Riverside, Calif., and her late mother, Merl McKinnon Haga, donated $500,000 to endow a scholarship for the nontraditional students pursuing a degree in the UA College of Education and Health Professions.

Alumni Tom Bercher and Francis Hayes Bercher of Racine, Wis., have created a testamentary trust of $450,000 to benefit the UA Fulbright College.

Alumna Ellen Gray pledged an estate gift of $250,000 to establish an endowed professorship in art history at UALR. Carolyn Cole and her husband, Nick, have pledged $250,000 to create the Nick and Carolyn Cole Honors College Path Endowed Scholarship for UA honors college students with financial need. Carolyn Cole holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English from the Fulbright College.

At Aldersgate, kids are kids Not diagnoses.

BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

A

lex Madison Roberts, 13, has cerebral palsy, which means she is wheelchair-bound and needs what her family calls a “talker” (a Vantage Light device) to communicate.

Alex also swims, dances, goes scuba diving and canoeing. She’s ridden a zip line through the woods (the faster the better is her approach to life, her dad says) and made a bullseye in archery. And so do the other kids at Camp Aldersgate — kids with spina bifida, Down Syndrome, autism, cancer, diabetes. Children on respirators. Children who, while at camp, are children, not diagnoses.

Founded in 1947 by Methodist women, Aldersgate, at 2000 Camp Aldersgate Road off Kanis Road, has offered camps for children with medical conditions since 1971, when Dr. Kelsy Caplinger, a pediatric immunologist, organized the first. Since then, Aldersgate’s services have grown to include weeklong camps all summer and respite weekends in the fall and spring to give parents a breather from what can be round-the-clock care for their special needs child.

Aldersgate, says Alex’s father, David Roberts, “is this natural oasis nestled in the urban fabric of Little Rock. Most people don’t know where it is.” They don’t know, he said, that “it’s amazing.”

Roberts, director of planning for Crafton Tull engineers, worked with Aldersgate professionally, working on the facility’s master plan, before his personal engagement. Aldersgate staff suggested Roberts and his wife, Diane, bring Alex for a day over a weekend to see how she’d like it. Soon, Alex asked to stay for an entire weekend — Friday night to Sunday morning — so she could do all the things the other kids got to do. When the Robertses pulled up on Sunday morning after her first weekend away, “she was beaming,” her father said, and wanted to know when she could go back. She was 9 years old; it was the first weekend to themselves her parents had had in a long time.

Now, Alex also attends Aldersgate’s weeklong KOTA camps for children, camps for kids with CP, Down’s and autism. Campers can bring along a sibling or other family member who does not have a medical diagnosis. There is a waiting list for the KOTA (friend in Quapaw) camps.

The experience changed Alex, Roberts said, giving her self-awareness and self-confidence. Alex, who has a good mind and is an A/B student at Maumelle Middle School, began to see herself not just as a dependent, but as a child, one who got to play with other kids, sleep SWIMMING AT CAMP: Alex, 13, with lifeguard Anna Phillips at Aldersgate. away from home in a cabin with other girls, giggle with friends. “It took her into her teen years,” Roberts said. “She has a very different way about her.”

Anna Phillips, 20, a student at the University of Central Arkansas who is a lifeguard and counselor at Camp Aldersgate and one of Alex’s caregivers, “fell in love” with the camp when she accompanied a younger cousin with Asperger’s there about five years ago. “You get to see these kids that have struggles that are a lot harder than yours and they are smiling with them, and taking it day by day.”

Over her time there, Phillips has seen kids change, from not wanting to go to camp to “accepting who they are and encouraging other people to do the same. They encourage one another.”

Counselors, many of them physical therapists or students interested in a career in therapy, get an intensive weeklong training before working with campers. There are also volunteers, the CAMP ALDERSGATE RECENTLY BENEFITED FROM THE PHILANTHROPY majority from local high schools, who of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundaalso receive training but are always tion, which has awarded the camp $1 supervised by a counselor. The ratio of million to build a 6,000-square-foot accounselors and caregivers to campers tivity center. But Aldersgate still needs is mostly one to one. There are 55 seasonal paid staff, 15 full-time employees operating dollars, scholarship support and in-kind contributions. and more than 180 volunteer counselors.

“We rely heavily on in-kind dona“Camp has been by no doubt the tions,” development director Kerri BIGGEST blessing that I could ever ask Daniels said, “whether that’s arts and for,” counselor and caregiver Phillips crafts supplies or maintenance supsaid. “Camp isn’t just a place where we port — rakes and water houses and all go. It’s a home away from home. My lightbulbs.” The camp has 30 buildco-workers aren’t just people I work ings to maintain, “and it takes a lot of with, they are family, and the kids aren’t manpower,” she said. You can find a just a random group of kids that roll list of needs on the camp’s website, though week after week. It’s a family.” campaldersgate.net.

Aldersgate has “a beautiful partnerCash contributions help pay for ship with Arkansas Children’s Hospischolarships for campers who can’t aftal,” development director Kerri Danford the $1,000-a-week camp fee. “We iels said. “The majority of our nurses come from Children’s Hospital. They don’t turn anyone away for inability to pay,” Daniels said. take a week’s vacation and come volunYou can support Aldersgate right teer, and in turn Children’s will reimnow by taking part in its Petit Jean burse them their vacation time. They fundraiser: If you order smoked hams are one of our biggest advocates.” There and turkeys and food gift boxes from are typically two nurses on staff for the Petit Jean Smoked Meats, a portion summer camps. of the price goes to the camp. Order Daniels was thrilled that this sumforms, and more information about mer, a child on a respirator who has Aldersgate, are available at the camp’s been coming to summer camp decided website. to brave the zip line. “Camp is a happy The camp also holds an annual fish place. Where everyone is the same and fry fundraiser each fall. the focus is the diagnosis. That’s why we live by.” www.arktimes.com

DECEMBER 4, 2014

15

Apathy vs. empathy ne of the painful realities of living and working in a city the size of Little Rock is that you’re constantly reminded of how thin the line between being middle class and being homeless can be. If you care enough to look for them, the homeless are everywhere, and more of us than would probably care to admit it are one paycheck, one long hospital stay, one divorce, one eviction or one mental health issue away from joining them.

One of the homeless in Little Rock is Billy, a 20-something man who asked us to conceal his identity because he fears it might exclude him from certain services, including the ability to sell plasma, one of his only sources of income. Some of the plasma centers will not accept donations from those who admit to being homeless, he said. “[Homelessness] opens you up to a lot of diseases,” Billy said. “Just the environment you’re in is a lot more unhealthy.”

Originally from Hot Springs, Billy said he’s had mental health issues since childhood. He wound up homeless in Hot Springs after going off his medication.

After getting back on his meds and seeking public housing, he was placed in an apartment in Little Rock, only to be evicted at the beginning of November after going off his medication again.

“I had that apartment for a while, but I got off of my medication and had multiple suicide attempts,” he said. “I couldn’t

even get out of bed or do anything to help myself. I couldn’t even move around. I had to go to the mental hospital, and I lapsed on my rent payment while I was in the hospital, and so I got evicted.”

Since then, Billy has been homeless. He said that being homeless is not as bad as most people think, but it can be dangerous, especially if you’re naive or too trusting.

Some resort to prostitution, drug dealing or addiction. Hopelessness can set in after awhile, he said, and that can lead to other problems.

“There are people who have already given up on life before they were homeless,” he said. “Being homeless may exacerbate that in some way, or amplify aspects of it into their social interactions.

But the majority of [homeless] people you meet are really upbeat. It’s just a temporary thing. … It’s something out of their control, they don’t fret needlessly about it. They don’t accept it, but they shoulder their burden with grace and humility. They’re just down on their luck.”

Most homeless shelters, Billy said, allow people to stay free for a certain number of days — usually 10 to 15 — providing food, shelter, showers and other help. After those days are used up, he said, the shelter where he stays costs $4 per day.

“You can go that route, if you can get money,” he said. “With the cold weather, if it’s 42 degrees or below, you can stay in the shelter for free after your 10 days for that month are used up.”

Billy describes himself as “pansexual.”

He learned about Lucie’s Place, a nonprofit that focuses its services on the LGBT community, from another homeless person who had received assistance from the charity. He submitted some information about himself and his needs, he said, and now Lucie’s Place helps him with transportation and phone access, helping him get to doctor’s appointments so he can stay on his mental health medication, and putting minutes on his cell phone after a glitch wiped out all his minutes. To a homeless person, a basic cell phone can be a crucial lifeline, helping him find shelter, jobs and assistance.

“That’s one of the biggest issues I ran into: Everything is done either online or over the phone, and a lot of homeless people don’t have access to phones or the Internet except at the library,” he said. “There are places like Jericho where they have a public phone, but it’s not a number you can be reached at any time, so it kind of closes the door to a lot of possibilities.

Billy said that volunteering with or spreading the word about a nonprofit like Lucie’s Place can sometimes be just as valuable as money. If you don’t have the time to volunteer or the money to donate, he said, be an intermediary, bringing a charity for the homeless to the attention of someone who does have those things.

Educate yourself about the issues, and then do something to change what you don’t agree with. A lot of people, he said, are just apathetic.

“To me, apathy is the opposite of empathy,” he said. “You can’t really be apathetic about something if you understand at least a little something about it. There’s a lot of people who help the homeless, so I think there’s a lot of goodwill out there.”

PENELOPE POPPERS, THE COFOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF LUCIE’S PLACE, said that she first became aware of the link between being LGBT and homelessness while working with a charity called “Food Not Bombs” in about 2010. She was serving food under a bridge in downtown Little Rock, she said, when she realized something. “At some point, I looked around under the bridge and realized that more than half the people there had come out to me as LGBT,” she said.

“Statistically, that shouldn’t be true, so I did more research and discovered this nationwide trend of LGBT people being disproportionately represented in the homeless community.”

The following year, Poppers helped start Lucie’s Place, a group that provides assistance and outreach to homeless people who are also LGBT. It’s named after Lucille Hamilton, a transgender woman who died in 2009.

Hamilton’s mother is on the board of Lucie’s Place. The group received nonprofit status in 2012.

The original goal was to open a shelter for LGBT young adults aged 18-25.

Funding for that shelter is still coming together, but Lucie’s Place isn’t waiting, providing outreach and assistance to homeless LGBT people, including transportation, phones and help finding shelter.

Poppers said the typical story she

hears from homeless young people is that they were kicked out of their parents’ home after coming out as LGBT. “That’s not to say that there’s never been an LGBT homeless person who became homeless for another reason, but that’s the overwhelming reason,” Poppers said. About half the young people they help are from Arkansas, including many from rural areas of the state. “We’ve had a few people whose parents dropped them off in Little Rock and literally drove away, just because it was a convenient spot,” she said.

Once people become homeless, she said, it’s very hard to get back in the mainstream.

Poppers said that the charity is still

Lucie’s Place brings help and hope to LGBT homeless.

BY DAVID KOON

O

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ARKANSAS TIMES

ON THE STREETS: “Billy,” in front of the Main Library.

about $150,000 away from opening a permanent shelter. While the board is working toward that goal, Poppers said they plan to start discussions in January on putting services to the homeless front and center.

“At this point, we’ve stopped putting a timeline on [opening the shelter],” she said. “We can fill the place in two months when it does open, but now we’re just waiting on that last round of funding.”

To learn more about Lucie’s Place or to make a donation to help, visit its website at luciesplace.org, or find it on Facebook at facebook.com/luciesplace.

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DECEMBER 4, 2014

17

Restoring the Little Red, and more The Nature Conservancy at work in Clinton, other parts of Arkansas.

BY BENJAMIN HARDY

C

linton doesn’t look like the kind of place that needs environmental remediation. A town of 2,600 nestled in the Ozark foothills at the spot where two forks of the upper Little Red River join together and feed into Greers Ferry Lake, its woods and streams appear pristine to the eyes of most travelers on U.S. Highway 65. Yet because of past modifications to the landscape, the waterways of Clinton are more troubled than they look.

In 1982, a massive flood hit the area, sending nine feet of water through downtown. The response was understandable: Working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the town channelized a portion of the Little Red that flows through Clinton, the Archey Fork, carving out a deep floodplain some 3.2 miles long and 100 feet wide to contain any future floodwaters. What happened next is testimony to the difficulty of imposing manmade constraints on the natural world, said Scott Simon of the Arkansas field office of The Nature Conservancy.

“The river started flopping around in that channel and eroding land. You know, Mother Nature doesn’t like a straight line,” Simon said. Because a river tends to wend back and forth across the land, forcing it into a channel will only encourage the water to eat into its surrounding banks. The 100-foot channel began to grow and grow, as the river attempted to regain the natural shape of its flow. Three decades later, the floodway is eight times as broad as it was originally.

“The corridor is now 800 feet wide.

It’s threatening landowners, it’s threatening the airport, and it’s sending silt

down into Greers Ferry Lake. And, there’s a bunch of rare fish and mussels that occurred there — there used to be some great fishing habitat — but there’s no habitat for hardly any fish in that 3.2-mile stretch.”

Now, all of that is changing because of a river restoration partnership between The Nature Conservancy, the city of Clinton, the Arkansas Canoe Club and several other public and private organizations.

With the help of two grants from Southwestern Energy totaling over $1.8 million, the partners are building a new channel for the Archey Fork within the existing floodway. The project employs engineering techniques known as “natural channel design” to strategically nudge the river back into a natural pattern of bends and curves. Workers use local materials — rocks and boulders to create riffles, native vegetation to recolonize the eroded riverbanks, and erosion control structures called toewood, built of trees already downed by a storm. (For more details and pictures, visit restoringtheupperlittlered.com.)

It’s not an easy process, nor cheap, but Simon said there’s a local consensus that it’s needed.

“It’s the town of Clinton that wanted this, that contacted the local partners and got everybody together. They’ve been great,” he said. “The goals are to stop the loss of land from erosion … improve the river habitat so that rare fish and sport fish will return, and create some recreational opportunities right there in the city of Clinton — canoeing, fishing, swimming holes.”

Preserving the safety of the town is a priority, too, of course. “We had the

ROLLING ON THE RIVER: Work proceeds on the natural flow of restoring the Archey Fork.

design reviewed by an engineering company, and they certified that this design will not cause any rise in the floodwater.”

Phase 1 of the project was completed about a year ago; Phase 2 is ongoing right now. “We like to do river restoration projects in phases,” Simon explained. “We want to see how the river responds to the restoration work so that we can understand if there are any adjustments that need to be made to the next phase of the project.” So far, so good. Already, wildlife monitors from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and the University of Central Arkansas are seeing increased numbers of smallmouth bass — and the reappearance of the yellow-cheeked darter, a rare fish that’s been absent from this stretch of river for 30 years.

“You build it and they will come, and you can actually measure it,” Simon said. “It’s just pretty neat.”

The Archey Fork is only one of the Conservancy’s many projects in Arkansas. In the Big Woods of the Delta, a seven-mile stretch of the lower Cache River was channelized in the 1970s to control flooding of farmland; the Conservancy is now halfway through a project to return the lower Cache, which is a vital wintering spot for mallards, to its old meandering route.

The organization is also preserving a stretch of the Kings River near Eureka Springs that had become badly eroded from nearby mining operations and deforestation. And, in several woodland areas — north of Atkins, on Mount Magazine, around Pinnacle Mountain — the Conservancy is using controlled burns to restore the health of forests that have grown too dense. Clearing the underbrush reduces the chance of a truly catastrophic fire in the future and boosts the population of species such as bobwhite quail.

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“Most of us don’t realize how much Arkansas has changed, and how different a healthy river or healthy woods compares to something that’s not in really good shape,” Simon explained.

“A healthy river will have very, very few feet of visibly eroding banks. Most of it will be all vegetated. … In some rivers in the Ozarks, you’ll see those real messy, muddy, earthen banks without any vegetation on it — that’s not natural.”

Other environmental organizations focus on policy and advocacy work.

In contrast, the role of The Nature Conservancy is much like that of a social worker: One case at a time, it’s attempting to remedy the damage dealt by years of abuse and neglect.

“These are projects that benefit nature but also benefit people,” Simon said. “Since it’s such practical, on-theground work, you can see the results.

You can walk around on the results, and you can measure it.”

IN ARKANSAS, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY IS SEEKING DONORS FOR THE NEXT PHASE of its Cache River restoration project. Donate online at nature.com (search for “Arkansas” to navigate to the specific page for our state) or by phone at 663-6699. Checks can also be sent to the headquarters of The Nature Conservancy in Arkansas at 601 N. University Ave. in Little Rock.

The organization also welcomes volunteers to assist with its restoration projects in Arkansas. For individuals interested in helping the Conservancy preserve land in critical conservation areas, the Conservation Buyer Program sells properties to individuals who agree to the terms of a protective conservation easement.

Where small businesses get rewarded.

TOP FOUNDATIONS 2013

Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation Willard and Pat Walker Foundation Endeavor Foundation

The following figures are based on tax form 990 information filed by the foundations.

Audited numbers may be slightly different.

RANKED BY 2013 GIVING

FAIR MARKET VALUE AT END OF 2013

Walton Family Foundation Walton Charitable Support Foundation Arkansas Community Foundation Windgate Charitable Foundation Care Foundation Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, Winthrop Rockefeller Trust Charles M. Frueauff Foundation Ross Foundation The Jones Trust The Murphy Foundation The Jesus Fund Horace C. Cabe Foundation Tyson Foundation Schmeiding Foundation

$2,480,825,574 $602,804,011 $187,261,005 $174,284,603 $152,845,172 $147,122,062 $120,788,800 $111,220,900 $94,231,153 $70,250,795 $68,441,292 $44,809,838 $34,280,761 $29,419,208 $24,420,429

$22,973,057 $19,972,077 $19,766,207

Walton Family Foundation $311,475,768 ($32,489,424 in “home region”) Windgate Charitable Foundation $41,741,431 ($13,452,662 in Arkansas) Walton Charitable Support Foundation $32,377,479 Arkansas Community Foundation $11,089,135 $7.6 million Endeavor Foundation Willard and Pat Walker Foundation $7,276,548 Jesus Fund $5,290,800 $4,632,000 ($1,182,000 in Arkansas) Charles M. Frueauff Foundation Winthrop Rockefeller Trust $4,817,241 Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation $3,106,129 $2,945,033 Care Foundation The Murphy Foundation $2,429,279 Tyson Foundation $2,104,500 Horace C. Cabe Foundation $1,697,347 ($1,109,290 in Arkansas) $1,471,163 Schmieding Foundation Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation $690,000 Ross Foundation $602,955 Jones Trust $396,828

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DECEMBER 4, 2014

19

Help Us Celebrate

20WithYEARS OF SERVICE Our End-of-Year Fundraising Drive!

We are asking for donations in multiples of 20 in honor of our 20th year.

We have served over 80,000 children and adults, including relative caregivers around the state of Arkansas these last 20 years.

Won’t you help us continue this very important cause?

Donate today!

OUR MISSION:

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

Find out more about our programs or to become a volunteer online at www.arkansasvoices.org or call 501-366-3647

GOOD DECISION: Emeka Onyekwelu got help for his legal problems from Bowen’s legal clinic.

Bowen takes the price tag off justice With legal clinic.

BY DAVID KOON

L

ike a lot of immigrants, what brought Nigerian-born Emeka Onyekwelu to this country was the promise of a better life — for himself, for his wife, and especially for his five children. He calls America the greatest country in the world, and it’s easy to see why. His older children are in college or recently graduated, heading for careers in engineering and medicine. The younger ones will soon follow.

Onyekwelu is not a rich man, but he’s proud. It’s hard, therefore, to listen to him talk about one of the harsher realities of life in this country: that the amount of money you can afford to pay a lawyer is often proportionate to the amount of justice you receive in court.

In December 2011, Onyekwelu and his family signed a lease on a home in North Little Rock, agreeing to pay just under $1,200 a month. Onyekwelu said it was immediately clear there were problems with the house. “We moved in, then the mold started coming through,” he said.

“We called them and they said, ‘You need to clean it.’ We said: ‘How about the roof? The house is leaking. The windows are leaking.

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ARKANSAS TIMES

The bathroom is not working. When you flush the toilet upstairs or take a shower, it comes through the ceiling. The ceiling caved in’. ... That year was one of the coldest [winters] in years, and we had no heat. I told them that even in Africa, people don’t punish people like that. This is the greatest country in the world, and you want my children to freeze?” Later, Onyekwelu said, they learned from neighbors that the house had been abandoned for several years prior to their moving in.

The family lived there until February 2013 before moving out. In spite of the problems they experienced, Onyekwelu said he paid his rent on time and has canceled checks to prove it. It was a surprise then, when he was served with a lawsuit filed by his former landlords in April of this year, seeking over $6,000 in back rent, plus attorney’s fees and court costs.

“I couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer and pay the attorney to go to court,” he said.

“I almost gave up and agreed to pay them whatever they were saying, even though I know I have all the evidence showing that I paid them.”

Desperate, Onyekwelu eventually went to the law library at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law, attempting to learn enough of the law to file a reply. Someone there suggested he go to the Legal Clinic just down the hall.

The Legal Clinic, which is a studentstaffed law firm inside the law school, has been in operation for over 30 years, providing pro bono legal help and

representation to clients who can’t afford an attorney. Low-income clients get legal help, while students get invaluable experience representing real clients in court.

The clinic consists of four divisions, each with a different focus: the Consumer Protection Clinic, which deals with issues like housing disputes, fraud, credit access, evictions and foreclosures; the Litigation Clinic, which represents clients in family law disputes, including visitation and custody issues, divorce and guardianship cases; the Tax Clinic, which provides outreach, education on tax issues and representation for people involved in state and federal tax cases; and the Mediation Clinic, which provides impartial mediation, often in cases involving allegations of juvenile delinquency, child abuse, small claims disputes and minor-child visitation issues.

Students who work on cases are supervised by an attorney licensed to practice law in the state.

“I told them my story,” Onyekwelu said. “They said they were going to look at it and see if they still have a slot. Before I knew it, it was the miracle of the year for me. I got the help that I couldn’t have gotten. They made two students in charge of the case. They followed the case and were doing everything even professional

lawyers wouldn’t have done. I asked them: ‘How much should I pay?’ and they said, ‘Nothing.’ I said: ‘Why nothing?’ They said: ‘We help people who can’t afford to pay for a lawyer, and you qualify.’ ” With the help and representation of law students Andrew Branch and Patrick Melikian, supervised by Consumer Protection Clinic director Amy Pritchard, Onyekwelu was able to have the case against him dismissed in October.

Onyekwelu calls his decision to seek help from the clinic one of the best he’s ever made. If he’d never found the clinic, he said, he likely would have been forced to pay whatever had been demanded of him.

He said his situation is representative of many low-income people who lose in court every day — not because they’re wrong, but because they don’t know how to go about proving they’re right, and can’t afford an attorney to help.

“They did it better than people who were paid,” he said. “If I make money any day, no matter how, this is the kind of place that I would want to contribute my money. Other people who are being humiliated need such a service. I am so grateful for what they have done. God knows that what I’m saying is from my heart of hearts.”

THE LEGAL CLINIC AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law has been around over 30 years, said Kelly Browe Olson, an associate law professor and the director of clinical programs there.

Even before the school was associated with the University of Arkansas system, Olson said, there had been a long tradition of training law students to work with clients. Hands-on experience with real clients is a vital part of learning to be a lawyer, she said.

“My example I always use is: Can you imagine a medical doctor who said: ‘I’ve never touched a patient, but I’ve read a lot of books’?” she said.

“A lot of lawyers used to graduate from law schools and had never met a client. They would be trained at firms, or by their father, or by someone they interned for. ... That’s really changed and evolved. Now every school in the country has clinics.”

The clinic at Bowen is funded through a mixture of sources. The salaries of the professors and directors are paid out of law school funding, but the clinic is also funded by grants.

Currently, the program receives funding from the Administrative Office of the Courts, the Arkansas Alternative Dispute Resolution Commission and the Arkansas Department of Education. The

low-income Tax Clinic is funded through the IRS, while the Consumer Protection Clinic is completely paid for by money set aside by Attorney General Dustin McDaniel following the settlement of a lawsuit the AG’s office filed against mortgage providers over fraudulent home mortgages. Olson said that most of the clients served by the clinic are low-income, though a potential client’s income is considered on a case-by-case basis.

In addition to real-world training, Olson said, law students who work at the clinic are also getting a different kind of education: just how many people there are out there who can’t afford legal help, and the impact that can have on peoples’ lives.

“People just don’t have access to legal services,” she said. “They just have to be turned away, even by the providers who are out there to do it.

What we’re trying to do is two-fold.

One, we’re training law students. But also, we’re trying to make them aware of the great need out there for people to get legal help. It’s not a balanced playing field.”

For more information about the William H. Bowen Legal Clinic, visit its website at: ualr.edu/law/clinical-programs. Find out how to make gifts to the school at ualr.edu/development. www.arktimes.com

DECEMBER 4, 2014

21

Learning the ABCs It’s never too late, new reader, 66, says.

BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

W

hen Sammy King, 66, learned about Helen Keller, he thought, heck. Look what she went through to learn to read despite her inability to see or hear. He figured if she could do it, so could he, and he’d keep working with his tutor at Literacy Action of Central Arkansas to finally become literate.

If you can’t read and you own your own business — King had a tree-cutting business — you have to have someone send out the bills for you. If you can’t read and you’re at a restaurant, you’ll just have what everyone else is having. If you’re in Vietnam and you ask if someone would please teach you how to read, you might have a drill sergeant tell you forget it, learn to survive instead.

King grew up in England (Lonoke County), the son of a man who could not even sign his name. His mother died when he was young. His father wanted his son to get the education he never had a chance to get, so when King came home from 6th grade one day and announced he wasn’t going back because he wasn’t learning anything, his father gave him “one hell of a whooping.” When the whooping didn’t persuade him to go back to school, his father put him on one end of a crosscut saw, and he went to work cutting trees.

He later built irrigation wells.

It was a time when driver’s licenses weren’t laminated, and King, who couldn’t have passed a written driver’s test, managed to drive with a faked one — a friend washed her father’s in hot water with her blue jeans to blur the name and then wrote King’s in. King just kept renewing it.

In 1968, King, 18, got drafted to fight in Vietnam, serving with the 504th Military Police, escorting convoys. He could man a machine gun, but he couldn’t read, and some of his Army brothers treated him differently because of it. It made him ashamed. No one in the Army, including his drill ser22

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ARKANSAS TIMES

geant, was interested in helping him.

“I’m not dumb,” King said. But he couldn’t get help. “If I was knocking on a door, I was knocked back.”

King got tuberculosis after a year and a half in Vietnam and was shipped home to a Denver hospital. He went from war to being in medical lockup, and the aftermath wasn’t good. He had PTSD, couldn’t read, couldn’t get help.

“I’d get drunk and talk to a tree” about his problems, King said. Nineteen years ago, however, “my life turned around,” thanks to the woman who became his wife. Kathleen King, ironically, works in sales at the Oxford American, a magazine of Southern literature and music.

Kathleen had never met anyone who was illiterate “that I knew of,” she said. “So I was kind of like, wow. … It never crossed my mind that someone living in America [couldn’t read].”

She wasn’t put off by it. He had his own business, and what she called “incredible strengths.”

Kathleen trained herself in how to teach someone to read, but she and King, both working, didn’t have the energy to tackle the difficult task in their free time.

Then, a year and a half ago, King — now retired — decided he would go on his own to Literacy Action, which has an office on the fifth floor of the Main Library. “I went into the parking lot three times before I got the guts enough to come in the library,” he said.

He decided he would not tell Kathleen for a while, to see if he would stick with it. He started working with volunteer tutor Pratt Remmel, who will begin his fourth year of volunteering this year. “I told him I’ve been laughed at and treated like dirt,” King said. Remmel, who believes that mild dyslexia set King back as a child, told him they would work in stages.

First on the ABCs, then learning how to sound out words. Using a workbook to test comprehension. After seven or eight months, King told him he was getting frustrated and he didn’t know if it was worth it. It wasn’t easy. But he stuck with it.

Together, he and Remmel spend an hour reading and a half hour on the workbook, and they do that twice a week. “He don’t push,” King said of Remmel. “He’ll say, ‘Read that sentence.” If King skips over a word, or makes one up (“he’s caught me at that”), Remmel makes him read it again.

King is now reading at about a sixth-

grade level. He’s read the book about Helen Keller. He just finished a book about Jonas Salk. (“Did you know he tested the vaccine on his wife and children?” he asks.) He’s read a book about Audie Murphy. Next up, a book about Buddy Holly.

“I have the confidence I never had all my life,” King said. He compared making his illiteracy public — “I don’t keep it a secret no more,” he said — to “gay people coming out of the closet.”

For Kathleen King, “It’s been an honor … to be with someone who has come out of hiding.”

Sammy King has become so comfortable with his reading that he spoke at the Governor’s Mansion at Literacy Action’s “Shine a Light on Literacy” event in August. He told the assembled crowd that for the first time in 19 years, he’d picked out Kathleen’s anniversary card himself, and signed it, “to my loving wife.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, he said.

He said learning to read “took the burden I’ve been carrying all my life,” and he hoped others who can’t read wouldn’t wait as long as he did to get help.

LITERACY ACTION OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS SERVES ABOUT 350 STUDENTS at any given time, Sara Drew, the executive director, said. They include both English-speaking adults and nonEnglish speakers who learn English as a second language at St. Edward Catholic Church downtown and St. Theresa in Southwest Little Rock. There is also a program for Asian immigrants at the Pleasant Valley Church of Christ.

“We rely entirely on volunteers” to tutor, Drew said, and the job is a huge commitment: After tutors are trained, they need to spend one and a half hours twice a week with their students. Most

need a break after about six months, she said. Tutors for Spanish-speaking students don’t need to speak Spanish — in fact, Drew said, it is better if they don’t.

Literacy Action, which has only two full-time and two part-time employees, “is financially strapped,” Drew said. The organization needs dollars “to keep the doors open and the staff paid and to keep the program running.”

While it tackles a problem closely tied to the cycle of poverty and unemployment — the primary factor in academic success, Drew said, is whether children have been read to by their parents — people still blame a person

Foundation giving Major gifts of 2013.

F

or a list of total assets and grants for 2013, see the chart on page 19.

THE WALTON FAMILY FOUNDATION

TURNING A PAGE: Learning to read has given Sammy King confidence.

for his illiteracy. Illiteracy lacks the sex appeal of, say, needy children.

“When I make a pitch” for contributions, Drew said, “I have to go into great length to describe how many there are that can’t read. … 30,000 roughly in the Central Arkansas area.” Because people “don’t have illiterate stamped on their forehead,” the problem isn’t well recognized. “We are working with people to get jobs, to help children with homework, to [help people] know how to read a prescription label … . They come into us and we do not recruit.”

Learn more about Literacy Action at literacylittlerock.org.

The Walton Family Foundation, headquartered in Bentonville, divides its giving into three main areas: education ($164.2 million), environment ($93.1 million) and “home region” ($32.4 million). Among the foundation’s grants of $1 million and up reported on its 2013 tax form: $5,896,028 to the Endeavor Foundation; $5,341,694 to Camp War Eagle; $4,867,984 to the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission; $4,087,500 to Southern Bancorp Community Partners; $4 million to Teach for America-Mississippi Delta; $3,414,057 to the Arkansas Public School Resource Center; $3,350,000 to the Walton Arts Center; $2.1 million to the University of Arkansas to fund programs within the College Access Initiative and the Center for Multicultural and Diversity Education, specifically for students from Philllips County and public charter school graduates; $2,007,500 to the Razorback Foundation; $1,333,890 to the City of Siloam Springs, and $1 million to the Jones Trust, which supports the Jones Center for Families.

THE WALTON CHARITABLE SUPPORT FOUNDATION

This Walton foundation awarded $26,488,042 to the Arkansas Community Foundation. Other major gifts: $2,685,903 to the University of the Ozarks, $2,399,814 to John Brown University and $2,058,528 to the Endeavor Foundation.

WINDGATE CHARITABLE SUPPORT

FOUNDATION

Windgate, in Siloam Springs, which gives heavily to the arts and education (including support for John Brown University), doled out $13,452,662 in grants in Arkansas in 2013, a portion of its $41.7 million total. It also approved grants of $15.5 million for an art building at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith and $14 million for the School of Osteopathic Medicine to be built in Fort Smith. Other major grants paid in 2013 and 2014: $3.5 million toward a $5 million pledge to the First Assembly of God Church’s Legacy Alzheimer’s unit in Van Buren; $3 million to the Arkansas Arts Center, plus $300,000 for curator salaries; $2.6 million toward a pledge of $5 million to John Brown University; $1 million to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; $553,300 in several grants to the Thea Foundation and a pledge of $500,000 upon Thea’s completion of its $2 million capital campaign, and $520,000 to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art for its online distance learning project.

THE ARKANSAS COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

The ACF’s more than 1,500 funds made total contributions of $11 million. The largest single award in 2013 from one of its funds was a gift of $711,000 to the Arkansas Single Parent Scholarship Fund in Springdale.

THE ENDEAVOR FOUNDATION

Endeavor, in Springdale, is a community foundation that focuses its giving on Northwest Arkansas. Its major 2013 gifts were $3,538,969 to the Jones Center for Families and $2,058,528 to the Northwest Arkansas Council, which promotes business in the area.

THE CARE

FOUNDATION

Care, in Springdale, is a hospital conversion foundation, created with funds from the sale of Springdale Memorial Hospital and Bates Memorial Hospital in Bentonville in 1999, and is a fund of the Endeavor Foundation. Major gifts for 2013 include $1 million for the city of Bentonville and $524,750 for the Jones Center for Families.

THE WILLARD AND PAT WALKER FOUNDATION

The Walker Foundation, in Springdale, supports education, medicine and the arts, and in 2013 made awards of $1 million to Crystal Bridges Museum’s endowment; $1 million to the New School in Fayetteville; $750,000 and smaller grants to Washington Regional Hospital; $625,000 to UAMS’ Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Center; $625,000 to Razorback Athletics; $500,000 to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and $333,334 to UAMS’ Jones Eye Institute.

THE ROSS FOUNDATION

The Ross Foundation, in Arkadelphia, made a gift of $351,684 to the Arkansas Promise Foundation Scholarship Fund and approved a grant of the same size for the future.

THE MURPHY FOUNDATION

This El Dorado foundation, which gives scholarships to seniors graduating from El Dorado schools, awarded a total of $680,573 in scholarship money in 2013, and gave Hendrix College $465,000.

THE TYSON FOUNDATION

The Tyson family foundation, in Springdale, provided $500,000 to the Jones Trust in 2013.

THE SCHMIEDING FOUNDATION

This Springdale foundation gave $823,357 to UAMS. — By Leslie Newell Peacock www.arktimes.com

DECEMBER 4, 2014

23

PHD BOUND: Marquese McFerguson says P.A.R.K. steered him from a prison track to a college track.

‘The perfect storm for success’

P.A.R.K. ACCEPTS NOMINATIONS FOR PARTICIPATING students in 7th and 8th grade, and provides academic support and mentorship throughout their high school years. It serves about 250 students currently, and has graduated some 375 kids, the majority of whom are now in college. P.A.R.K. is a Christian-affiliated organization.

In addition to a full-time staff, P.A.R.K. relies on volunteers for tutoring and other services, especially in core subjects such as math and English language arts. With the help of founder Keith Jackson, the nonprofit is building an endowment to secure its future; the organization is currently seeking additional funders to reach its $10 million goal. To donate or volunteer, contact P.A.R.K. online at positivekids.org or call 562-5223.

P.A.R.K.’s facilities are located at 6915 Geyer Springs Road in Little Rock.

How an afterschool program changed the life of one kid from Wrightsville.

BY BENJAMIN HARDY

M

arquese McFerguson grew up in the 1990s in Wrightsville, a tiny community in southeast Pulaski County best known for its prison.

Though his family struggled financially, he had a happy childhood — and then, in 8th grade, his father died of colon cancer and his life began to go off the rails. His mother had to pick up a second job to support the family, which left McFerguson alone with his grief most evenings. By the time a school counselor nominated him to participate in a Little Rock afterschool and summer program called Positive Atmosphere Reaches Kids, or P.A.R.K., his GPA had slid to a 1.67.

“I was accepted, and it just really changed my life,” he recalled a few weeks ago. “I have three friends that, when we graduated high school, they got sent to prison. If I hadn’t gone to P.A.R.K., I probably would’ve been with them. And I wasn’t necessarily the bad kid — my mom raised me to be a man of character, but I hung around with a lot of people who were doing not-so-good stuff. … So my environment kind of led me in that direction.”

P.A.R.K. was founded in 1993 by NFL star and Arkansas native Keith Jackson. It today serves nearly 250 students from Little Rock and Pulaski County public schools, 85 percent of whom are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Its target demographic is kids like McFerguson, who are 24

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

in danger of slipping through the cracks but still have a toehold on solid ground.

Unlike some afterschool programs which welcome all comers, P.A.R.K. is somewhat selective. Students must be nominated by a teacher or counselor, pass an initial interview and have a GPA of between 1.5 and 2.5.

But once a kid is in, he or she’s in for good: P.A.R.K. makes a five-year commitment to ensure its 8th graders have the tools they need to complete high school and go on to college. That means at least an hour of tutoring and study four days a week, followed by evening recreation time. Thanks to a grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, the organization is housed in a sparkling new facility in Southwest Little Rock that includes a cafeteria, a gym, a library, and a rec room, all built around a massive tutoring center.

Although academics are the cornerstone of P.A.R.K., it’s at least as important that junior high students have access to mentorship and guidance, explained the organization’s program director, Jason Lanier.

“In 8th grade, you’ve had some life in you, and you’re about to enter high school,” Lanier said. “Those are very dangerous, valuable years. Every kid has a case manager whose job is to make sure that kid goes to school and keeps up. We try to fill in those holes and not give them excuses.”

McFerguson said the impact of being

surrounded by adults who had been to college and graduate school — many of whom were African-American, like himself — can’t be overstated.

“For a lot of students coming from poverty, it’s more than just a financial thing.

It’s a psychological thing, because we mimic the behaviors we see on a regular basis. If you’ve never seen anyone in your family graduate from high school or go to college, that’s an obstacle you’re going to have to overcome, a mental hurdle to even believe that you can do it — because you’ve never seen anyone do it.”

During his years at P.A.R.K., he recalled, the idea of college gradually changed from something abstract and distant into something attainable. He especially remembers the impact of meeting young adults who were working towards a higher degree.

“I remember back then there were three Mr. McMurrys, all cousins — one ended up being a doctor, one a pharmacist, and one a biologist. It was extraordinary! I’d never met a biologist before. … They’re educated, and they’re telling us about life — things I should do, or shouldn’t do. They’re taking us on college trips. I’ll never forget, one of the first college trips I ever went on was to UNC Chapel Hill.

“Once you expose a child to something like that, it’s hard for them not to want to go to college … it’s like the perfect storm for success,” he said. “You keep telling chil-

dren they can succeed, and somewhere along the route they’ll start believing it.”

McFerguson recalls getting suspended once, in 9th grade, and how keenly he felt the disappointment from his mentors.

“But there was the also the second part of the message, which is, ‘I still love you and believe in you,’ ” he continued. “I think a lot of times, those students who are suspended on a regular basis don’t hear that.”

His grades never again fell below a 3.0.

He graduated high school in 2001, becoming the first person in his family to do so; four and a half years later McFerguson graduated from Ouachita Baptist University with a degree in studio art, and in 2010 he received his master’s degree in communications from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Now, he’s a career coach at Central High School and is applying for PhD programs.

Would any of that have happened without P.A.R.K.? He laughed at the question.

“No way. That’s a no-brainer.”

McFerguson stops by P.A.R.K. two or three times a week to work with students, keep an eye on kids he knows from Central talk to his former mentors.

“I’ve had a lot of support. Almost everything I’ve experienced in life, I met someone else here who experienced it too,” he said. “It feels good to see somebody who’s said, ‘I’ve been through what you’ve been through and I made it.’”

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DECEMBER 4, 2014

25

Arts Entertainment AND

‘ELF: THE MUSICAL’ BRINGS SANTA TO THE REP Through the eyes of Buddy the Elf.

BY ABBEY DEAN

doused with maple syrup.

Ethan Paulini, the actor playing the role of Buddy in the Rep’s production (curly red wig and all), says that Buddy’s childlike optimism is what endears him to audiences of all ages.

“Because he was so sheltered growing up and raised by elves, Buddy has no subtext. He just says everything on his mind and speaks at face value.”

But at the heart of this cult Christmas tale are larger themes that resonate

“There’s a moment in the show when Buddy is introducing his dad to Santa Claus. Santa asks him if he believes, and his father responds that he just doesn’t know. So much has changed and so much has happened. Buddy then responds, ‘but he’s standing right in front of you.’ ” Capri says that this scene speaks to the jaded person in all of us, the one that begs, “How can you not trust something that’s right in front of you?”

D

ecember is finally here and with it the icy chill, decorative twinkle lights and pumpkinflavored everything, not to mention the best of traditional wintertime entertainment. But, for a moment, disregard the ugly-sweater parties, white elephant gifts and the spiked cider, and turn your attention to the Rep. This Christmas the Arkansas Repertory Theatre is toasting the season with the musical adaptation of the beloved 2003 film “Elf,” starring comedy superstar Will Ferrell.

Now, more than 10 years after the film’s release, “Elf” has become a holiday staple holding equal rank with claymation classics adored for decades since the affable elf with brilliant red curls was conceived. Its popularity wasn’t just due to the often slapstick appeal of Ferrell or the big blue doe eyes of a blonde Zooey Deschanel. Instead, the cult popularity stemmed from Buddy’s earnest lightheartedness and his awe-inspiring belief in something greater and more important than himself. Yes, the fact that Buddy also happens to be a gigantic 30-year-old man in tights certainly adds an appreciated level of absurdity. But then again, it’s a Christmas tale.

As a reminder, Buddy the Elf is the playful protagonist. A human raised among elves in the North Pole after crawling into Santa’s bag of toys as child, Buddy is unaware of his true origins.

Although he (quite literally) towers above his fellow elves and is lacking an aptitude for toy-making that the other elves have, Buddy remains clueless that he is human. That is, until he eventually confronts the obvious truth.

Determined to find his biological father and learn more about his true identity, Buddy sets off on a magical 26

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

HO, HO, HO: Ethan Paulini as Buddy and J.B. Adams as Santa.

journey to New York City. From here, hijinks ensue as Buddy attempts to connect with a new family while also adjusting to life among other humans.

Director Nicole Capri says that the musical does depart from the film in some regard, the most obvious being the dazzling musical scores and dance numbers. According to Capri, the cast might be the largest to hit the Rep’s stage since “Les Mis.” Fans of the film shouldn’t worry though: The classic Buddy the Elf moments remain, such as Buddy’s constant declarations that Santa is his best friend and, perhaps more memorably, his fondness for spaghetti

with young and older audiences alike.

For one, Paulini says that, despite the obvious humor inherent within Buddy’s character, this musical is not just another sugarcoated Christmas story. Buddy is challenged throughout and, in turn, his friends and family also confronted with difficult circumstances that address larger themes of love, loss and belief. Oh and, of course, the true meaning of Christmas.

“No matter how old you are and no matter how everything is cemented in place, there’s always room to grow and learn from someone,” Paulini says.

Capri echoes these sentiments and pinpoints a specific scene in the musical.

“Buddy has this childlike wonder,” Capri says. “We all want to believe in Santa Claus, and he still does. He’s so charismatic that everyone around him wants to believe.”

Audiences should expect a production complete with adorable children dressed as elves, memorable musical numbers, and a hearty dose of the absurd, cleverly alternated with the sentimental and true. Yet, more importantly, let the musical do what musicals do best. Allow yourself to be transported, to believe in Santa, to revel in the dancing and singing elves.

After all, for a couple of hours anyone can believe.

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

A&E NEWS

MUSICIANS, THE SEARCH IS ON FOR THE 2015 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase, to be held at Stickyz throughout Januar y and Februar y. Per formers of all genres will compete for an array of prizes (including money!), and any ac ts with at least four songs of original material are encouraged to enter.

The finals will be held at the Rev Room in March. Our friends at K ABF, 88.3 FM, will be hosting this year, and an esteemed panel of judges will be announced in coming weeks. The deadline for entr y is Jan. 1. Musicians can apply online at showcase.arktimes.com or via snail mail by sending an entr y form and a demo CD to Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase, 201 E. Markham, Suite 20 0, Little Rock, AR 72201. For more information, email will@arktimes.com.

COMING UP THIS MONTH: Garth Brooks plays Verizon Arena (12/11-12/13); Stickyz hosts Hornucopia 2014 (12/18) and William Clark Green (12/19); White Water Tavern hosts Bonnie Montgomery (12/11), Jimbo Mathus and The Tri State Coalition (12/19), American Princes (12/27) and Cory Branan (New Year’s Eve); South On Main hosts Chris Parker and Kelley Hurt (12/17) and a listening par ty for the Oxford American’s new vinyl release “Texas Love Letter” (12/18); Juanita’s hosts Framing Hanley (12/20), L. Cole (12/21) and Reverend Horton Heat (12/29); and Revolution hosts Tragikly White Band (12/12), Lucero (12/20) and Hayes Carll (12/26).

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It could be featured in the Arkansas Times’ 5th annual Big Ideas for Arkansas issue on Dec. 18. We’re looking for specific, potentially transformative suggestions for making Arkansas a better place to live. Ideas can be practical or wacky or anything in between.

See past ideas at arktimes.com/bigideas. Submit your idea to Lindsey Millar at lindseymillar@arktimes.com before Dec. 1.

ARKANSAS TIMES arktimes.com

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DECEMBER 4, 2014

27

THE TO-DO

LIST

BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK AND WILL STEPHENSON

THURSDAY 12/4

AARON CARTER

8 p.m. Juanita’s. $15 adv., $20 day of.

Lou Pearlman was born in Queens in 1954, the son of a dry cleaner and the first cousin of Art Garfunkel. He writes of his upbringing in his memoir, “Bands, Brands and Billions,” recalling that he grew up near the Flushing Airport, where he would often sit and watch blimps landing and taking off. His first business plan was for a helicopter taxi service, but he quickly switched to blimps, founding Airship Enterprises in the 1980s. After the failure of that company, he decided to become a music mogul. (Every generation gets the Colonel Tom Parker or Kim Fowley or Malcolm McLaren it deserves.) He created the Backstreet Boys and later NSync, O-Town and LFO. There was also Aaron Carter, younger brother of one of the Backstreet Boys. Carter’s career seemed like a very rich man’s revenge on the listening public, a statement that had everything to do with Pearlman’s own Mr. Burns-like confidence in his marketing omniscience. He was right to be confident, for a while.

Carter’s career was meteoric, in that it grew steadily smaller, disintegrated by the Earth’s atmosphere as it approached the ground. In 2002, Carter sued Pearlman for racketeering and cheating him out of the bulk of his revenue. In 2008, Pearlman pled guilty to charges of conspiracy, money laundering and fraud.

He was said to have sustained one of the biggest and longest-running Ponzi schemes in American history.

There is another way to phrase this, which is that he made pop music.

He will be released from prison on March 24, 2029, when Aaron Carter will be 41. WS

DIAMONDS AND DIRT: Rodney Crowell is at South on Main 8 p.m. Thursday, $25-$35.

`THURSDAY 12/4

RODNEY CROWELL

Rodney Crowell moved to Nashville in 1972, and quickly fell into the orbit around Guy and Susanna Clark, who ran a Gertude Stein-like salon for country musicians in those days. “I started reading,” Crowell would later say of this period. “I got real hungry to have something to contribute.” Because he had songwriting partnerships with Emmylou Harris and Rosanne Cash (to whom he was also married from 1979 to

1992) and wrote successful singles for Waylon Jennings, Bob Seger, Alan Jackson, Keith Urban and Tim McGraw, among others, Crowell has often been considered a writer’s writer. In a 1982 feature, Texas Monthly wrote of his “own particular blend of X-Acto blade vocals with a purist’s rock ’n’ roll sound, along with a little country picking and pedal steel,” but also became the first publication to articulate the dilemma that has trailed him ever since: “Why Crowell the performer hasn’t gained as great a following as

Crowell the songwriter … is beyond me.” He’s had plenty of hits himself — and even a gold record in 1988’s “Diamonds and Dirt” — though his reputation as an underrated figure is secure and, at this point, basically a badge of honor. And though he’s spent much of his time in Nashville and in Los Angeles, he was born in Houston, and Texas has always claimed him. Thursday’s show doubles as a release party of sorts for the Oxford American’s new music issue (out now), which focuses on Texas. WS

weaving, blown glass, brooms, multimedia art, yarns, ornaments, metalwork, jewelry, pottery and more pottery, quilts, candles, soaps and soups and jams — all by Arkansas crafters and artists, more than 150 of them down from the hills to sell

their stuff. This year’s showcase adds something new: beer and music from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday! That’s Art After Hours, and it includes samples of suds from Stone’s Throw Brewery for free. Tickets to the Showcase are $5 unless you rise early Saturday

morning, put on your best Christmas sweater and your felt antlers and hit the event between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.

You can find a guide to the booths at facebook.com/christmasshowcase, where you will also find information on the crafters. LNP

8 p.m. South on Main. $25-$35.

FRIDAY 12/5-SUNDAY 12/7

ARKANSAS CRAFT GUILD CHRISTMAS SHOWCASE

Statehouse Convention Center. $5.

This weekend brings the annual Craft Guild craftapalooza to Little Rock, with its strolling troubadours, woodworking and wooden tools, 28

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 12/4

FRIDAY 12/5-SUNDAY 12/7

HOLIDAY HANGOUT

7 p.m. White Water Tavern. $25$60.

A three-day music festival presented

by Last Chance Records, White Water and Tree of Knowledge Distro, the Holiday Hangout closes out the year with

one of its strongest lineups yet: American Aquarium, Lee Bains III and The Glory Fires, Two Cow Garage, Austin Lucas, John Moreland, Kevin Kerby, Slobberbone, Brent Best, Shane Sweeney, Micah Schnabel and many, many more. There will be concerts Friday and

Saturday night and a “Breakfast Books and Booze” daytime show on Sunday beginning at noon. Individual tickets are $25 and weekend passes are $60 (available at lastchancerecords.com).

A video promoting the show promises that, unlike last year, it won’t snow. WS

SATURDAY 12/6

TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Verizon Arena. $59.50-$89.50.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra would be an ideal name for a Soviet music ensemble dedicated to the principles of socialist realism, but the Orchestra (or TSO, as it is called for short) is something else. “Their path to success was unusual,” Wikipedia claims, “in that TSO is the first major rock band to go straight to theaters and arenas, having never played at a club, never having an opening act and never being an opening act.”

How is this possible? It is possible because the group was founded by a man named Paul O’Neill, whose previous career was as a promoter and booker, setting up festival appearances and Japanese tours for artists like Madonna, Sting, Bon Jovi and Whitesnake. After a few of years of this, O’Neill realized that a more fun and lucrative approach to the industry would be to create a classic rock band of his own. He enlisted a littleknown hair metal band from Florida called Savatage and refashioned them into the core of a highly professional and well-funded prog-rock holiday spectacular, like Mannheim Steamroller but with guitar solos and baroque, enthusiastically choreographed live shows featuring lasers and fireworks and dancers and exotic settings and virtuosic keyboard playing. They are also family-friendly and donate a dollar or so of every ticket sold to a local charity (here, that’s the music education effort “Play It Again, Arkansas!”).

“I wanted to take the very best of all the forms of music I grew up on and merge them into a new style,” O’Neill says modestly. “We were very fortunate.” WS

Country star Clint Black is at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, 7 p.m., $32-$62. Comedian Michael Mack is at the Loony Bin through Saturday, Dec. 6, 7:30 p.m., $7 (with shows at 10 p.m.

Friday and Saturday, $10). Jazz group Pattern Blu is at The Joint at 9 p.m.

FRIDAY 12/5 Arkansas Skatium hosts “A Frozen Holiday Spectacular” through Dec. 7, 6 p.m., $10. Revolution is holding its Toys for Tots fundraiser at 7 p.m. featuring Burning Addison, Flameing Daeth Fearies, Stella Luss, G-Force and more, $10. Comedy troupe The Main Thing presents its new holiday program, “A Fertile Holiday,” at The Joint Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., $22. Riverbottom Debutante is at Vino’s with Poor Richard, 9 p.m., $5. Oklahoma country rock group The Hosty Duo is at Stickyz, 9 p.m., $5. The Trustees are at Another Round Pub, 9 p.m., and The Intruders are at Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7-$12.

SATURDAY 12/6 OUT OF THE BLACK: Royal Blood is at Juanita’s 9 p.m. Saturday, $10.

SATURDAY 12/6

ROYAL BLOOD

9 p.m. Juanita’s. $10.

The excitement around Brighton rock duo Royal Blood has reached an interesting level of absurdity. They have been called “rock’s new heirs” by the Huffington Post and “the most universally deified emergent UK rock band since the Arctic Monkeys” by Pitchfork.

Jimmy Page claims their debut record “has taken the genre up a serious few

notches,” and next year they’re touring with Iggy Pop. They’re also in their mid20s and play blues-rock that sounds a lot like the White Strips or the Black Keys.

Front man Mike Kerr was previously in a band called Hunting the Minotaur. “I think the most badass thing you can do is write great songs and put on a great show,” he told the Guardian recently, before reconsidering. “That’s very Jack Black, isn’t it?” WS

SUNDAY 12/7

CHRISTMAS IN THE QUARTER

2-5 p.m. Quapaw Quarter. $20 adv., $25 day of.

The Quapaw Quarter, with its old Victorian beauties and wide streets preserving 19th century Little Rock, sets the perfect scene for a traditional, plumpudding and boughs of holly kind of Christmas. The event kicks off at the Quapaw Quarter United Methodist Church, sponsor of the event, at 1 p.m., when the church will be open for tours and will sell tickets. Home tours start

The Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis begins at the Clinton Presidential Library at 11 a.m. The Little Rock Zoo hosts Christmas in the Wild at 10 a.m., $8-$12. The Big Jingle Jubilee Holiday Parade kicks off at Broadway and Second Streets at 3 p.m. The Arkansas Chamber Singers present “A Capitol Event” at the Little Rock Club, 5 p.m., $125. Georgia sludge metal duo Jucifer is at Vino’s at 9 p.m. with Mothwind and Peckerwolf, $10. Trey Johnson is at Afterthought, 9 p.m., $7-$12, and The Belairs are at Another Round Pub, 9 p.m. Soulcom Collective presents DJs John Baugh and Sounds Like… at MUSE Ultra Lounge at 9 p.m.

TUESDAY 12/9 at 2 p.m. The lineup: The Empress Bed and Breakfast at 2120 S. Louisiana St., also known as the Hornibrook House, completed in 1888; the imposing FosterRobinson House at 2122 S. Broadway (1904), home of Sen. Joe T. Robinson; the Mehaffy House at 2101 Louisiana St. and the 1881 Villa Marre at 1321 Scott St. The Sweet Adelines “Top of the Rock” chorus will sing at 3:30 p.m. at the Villa Marre. Trolley buses will provide transportation between church and houses.

LNP

Geoff Winningham gives a lecture, “Working in the Eye of the Sun: Photographing the Vernacular Architecture of Arkansas,” at the Arkansas Arts Center at 6 p.m.

Jeremy Schaap, ESPN host and the author of “Cinderella Man,” will speak at Ron Robinson Theater at 6:30 p.m. Vino’s Brewpub Cinema presents the 1967 spaghetti western “Death Rides a Horse” at 7:30 p.m., free. Nashville indie rock group Whoa Dakota, fronted by Little Rock native Jessica Ott, is at White Water Tavern at 9:30 p.m. www.arktimes.com

DECEMBER 4, 2014

29

AFTER DARK All events are in the Greater Little Rock area unless otherwise noted. To place an event in the Arkansas Times calendar, please email the listing and all pertinent information, including date, time, location, price and contact information, to calendar@arktimes.com.

Michael Mack. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. and10 p.m., $10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

The Second City’s Nut-Cracking Holiday Revue.

Walton Arts Center, 8 p.m. Dec. 5-6, $15-$35.

495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600.

THURSDAY, DEC. 4

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

Bess Chisum Stephens Community Center, 8-11 p.m., $7-$13. 12th and Cleveland streets. 501221-7568. www.blsdance.org.

Contra Dance. Park Hill Presbyterian Church, first and third Friday of every month, 7:30 p.m.; fourth Friday of every month, 7:30 p.m., $5. 3520 JFK Blvd., NLR. arkansascountrydance.org.

“Salsa Night.” Begins with a one-hour salsa lesson. Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $8. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.littlerocksalsa.com.

DANCE

MUSIC

Aaron Carter, Dyllan Murray. Juanita’s, 8 p.m., $15 adv., $20 day of. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com.

Clint Black. Walton Arts Center, 7 p.m., $32-$62.

495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600.

Fingers of Magic 2014. With Rodney Cummings, Drummerboyinfinity and more. Revolution, 8:30 p.m., $10-$20. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501823-0090. www.rumbarevolution.com/new.

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

Sway, 9 p.m. 412 Louisiana. 501-907-2582.

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

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

Krush Thursdays with DJ Kavaleer. Club Climax, free before 11 p.m. 824 W. +Capitol. 501-5543437.

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

Lucious Spiller and friends. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., $5. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

Mayday By Midnight (headliner), Chris Declerk (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m.

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

Open Jam. Thirst n’ Howl, 8 p.m. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com.

Open jam with The Port Arthur Band. Parrot Beach Cafe, 9 p.m. 9611 MacArthur Drive, NLR. 771-2994.

Pattern Blu. The Joint, 9 p.m. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

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

Rodney Crowell. South on Main, 8 p.m., $25-$35.

1304 Main St. 501-244-9660. southonmain.com.

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

EVENTS

GEORGIA SLUDGE: Jucifer is at Vino’s 9 p.m. Saturday with Mothwind and Peckerwolf, $10.

Glenn Road. 501-562-3317.

Burning Addison, Flameing Daeth Fearies, Stella Luss, G-Force. Toys for Tots fundraiser.

Revolution, 7 p.m., $10. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501-823-0090. www.rumbarevolution.com/ new.

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

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

Holiday Hangout 2014. With American Aquarium, Austin Lucas, John Paul Keith, Kevin Kerby, Lee Bains III and The Glory Fires, Two Cow Garage and more. White Water Tavern, Dec. 5-7, 7 p.m. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www.whitewatertavern.com.

The Hosty Duo. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 9 p.m., $5. 107 Commerce St. 501-3727707. www.stickyz.com.

The Intruders. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 9 p.m., $7-$12. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

Katmandu (headliner), Richie Johnson (happy

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

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

Riverbottom Debutantes, Poor Richard. Vino’s, 9 p.m., $5. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www. vinosbrewpub.com.

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

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

The Trustees. Another Round Pub, 9 p.m. 12111 West Markham. www.anotherroundpub.com.

COMEDY

“A Fertile Holiday.” An original comedy by The Main Thing. The Joint, through Dec. 20: 8 p.m., $22. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

COMEDY

Michael Mack. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m., $7.

10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501-228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

EVENTS

Eighth Annual Tie One On Silent Auction.

Pavilion in the Park, 6 p.m., $55. 8201 Cantrell Road.

Hillcrest Shop & Sip. Shops and restaurants offer discounts, later hours and live music. Hillcrest, first Thursday of every month, 5 p.m. 501-6663600. www.hillcrestmerchants.com.

FRIDAY, DEC. 5

MUSIC

All In Fridays. Club Elevations. 7200 Colonel 30

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6 Visit SIX stunning homes, all in West Little Rock and Chenal Valley TOUR: 12 – 4 PM Tickets $25 BREAKFAST: 10:30 AM Tickets $25 (Reservations Required) O R D E R O N L I N E AT W I L D W O O D PA R K . O R G

20919 Denny Rd 501.821.7275

Arkansas Craft Guild’s 36th Annual Christmas Showcase. Statehouse Convention Center, Dec. 5-7, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. 7 Statehouse Plaza.

Christmas in the Park. Fearneyhough Park, 6 p.m. C Ave, NLR. “A Frozen Holiday Spectacular.” Arkansas Skatium, Dec. 5-7, 6 p.m., $10. 1311 S. Bowman Road.

LGBTQ/SGL weekly meeting. Diverse Youth for Social Change is a group for LGBTQ/SGL and straight ally youth and young adults age 14 to 23. For more information, call 244-9690 or search “DYSC” on Facebook. LGBTQ/SGL Youth and Young Adult Group, 6:30 p.m. 800 Scott St.

SATURDAY, DEC. 6

MUSIC

The Belairs. Another Round Pub, 9 p.m. 12111 West Markham. www.anotherroundpub.com.

Arkansas Chamber Singers, “A Capitol Event.”

The Little Rock Club, 5 p.m., $125. 400 W. Capitol, 30th Floor.

Club Nights at 1620 Savoy. See Dec. 5.

Grand Theft Auto (headliner), Brian Ramsey (happy hour). Cajun’s Wharf, 5:30 and 9 p.m.

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

Holiday Hangout 2014. See Dec. 5.

John Baugh, Sounds Like.... A charity event presented by Soulcom Collective. MUSE Ultra Lounge, 9 p.m. 2611 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-6636398.

Jucifer, Mothwind, Peckerwolf. Vino’s, 9 p.m., $10. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

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

Karaoke. Casa Mexicana, 7 p.m. 7111 JFK Blvd., NLR. 501-835-7876. Zack’s Place, 8 p.m., free.

1400 S. University Ave. 501-664-6444.

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

K.I.S.S. Saturdays. Featuring DJ Silky Slim. Dress code enforced. Sway, 10 p.m. 412 Louisiana.

501-492-9802.

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

Memphis Symphony Big Band. The Warfield

PARTY AT OUR PLACE!

Concerts presents a night of historic music originally performed and broadcast at the Peabody Hotel during the golden years of big band music. Lily Peter Auditorium, 7:30 p.m. 1000 Campus Drive, Helena.

Pickin’ Porch. Bring your instrument. All ages welcome. Faulkner County Library, 9:30 a.m. 1900 Tyler St., Conway. 501-327-7482. www.fcl.org.

Royal Blood, Nick Thomas (of The Spill Canvas).

Juanita’s, 9 p.m., $10. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com.

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

Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Verizon Arena, 4 and 6 p.m., $59.50-$89.50. 1 Alltel Arena Way, NLR. 501-975-9001. verizonarena.com.

Trey Johnson. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 9 p.m., $7-$12. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

COMEDY

“A Fertile Holiday.” An original comedy by The Main Thing. The Joint, through Dec. 20: 8 p.m., $22. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

Michael Mack. The Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., $10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

The Second City’s Nut-Cracking Holiday Revue.

Walton Arts Center, 8 p.m., $15-$35. 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600.

DANCE

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

EVENTS

Argenta Farmers Market. Argenta Farmers Market, 7 a.m. 6th and Main St., NLR. 501-8317881. www.argentaartsdistrict.org/argentafarmers-market.

Arkansas Craft Guild’s 36th Annual Christmas Showcase. Statehouse Convention Center, through Dec. 7, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. 7 Statehouse Plaza.

Big Jingle Jubilee Holiday Parade. Broadway and Second Streets, 3 p.m., free. Broadway and Second Streets, 3 p.m., free. S Broadway St & W 2nd St. Christmas in the Wild. Little Rock Zoo, 10 a.m., $8-$12. 1 Jonesboro Drive. 501-666-2406. www. littlerockzoo.com.

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

“A Frozen Holiday Spectacular.” Arkansas Skatium, through Dec. 7, 6 p.m., $10. 1311 S. Bowman Road.

Hillcrest Farmers Market. Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, 7 a.m.-2 p.m. 2200 Kavanaugh Blvd.

Historic Neighborhoods Tour. Bike tour of historic neighborhoods includes bike, guide, helmets and maps. Bobby’s Bike Hike, 9 a.m., $8-$28. 400 President Clinton Ave. 501-613-7001.

Holiday Shopping Event. Arkansas State Fairgrounds, 10 a.m., free. 2600 Howard St. 501372-8341 ext. 8206. www.arkansasstatefair.com.

Holiday Tour of Homes. Wildwood Park for the Performing Arts. 20919 Denny Road.

Living Gift Market 2014. Heifer Village, 10 a.m.

Heifer Village, 10 a.m. 1 World Ave. 501-3766836. heifer.org/heifervillage.

Pork & Bourbon Tour. Bike tour includes bicycle, guide, helmets and maps. Bobby’s Bike Hike, 11:30 a.m., $35-$45. 400 President Clinton Ave. 501-613-7001.

Book Our Party Room Today!

BENEFITS

Christmas Karaoke. All proceeds benefit The Van. Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 8 p.m., $10. 107 Commerce St. 501-372-7707. www. stickyz.com.

Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis. William J. Clinton Presidential Library, 11 a.m. 1200 Clinton Avenue. 501-374-4242. www.clintonlibrary.gov.

Pancakes with Santa for United Cerebral Palsy.

Applebee’s (West LR), 8 a.m., $10. 12110 Chenal Parkway. 501-954-8444. www.applebees.com.

All American Food & Great Place to Watch Your Favorite Event

SUNDAY, DEC. 7

MUSIC

Holiday Hangout 2014. See Dec. 5.

Irish Traditional Music Session. Hibernia Irish Tavern, first and third Sunday of every month, 2:30 p.m. 9700 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501246-4340. www.hiberniairishtavern.com.

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Walton Arts Center, 7 p.m., $52-$82.

495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600.

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

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

501-982-1939 .

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

EVENTS

47th Annual Christmas Frolic. Historic Arkansas Museum, 1 p.m., free. 200 E. Third St. 501-3249351. www.historicarkansas.org.

Arkansas Craft Guild’s 36th Annual Christmas Showcase. Statehouse Convention Center, 10 a.m. -8 p.m. 7 Statehouse Plaza.

Arkansas Style Awards. Clear Channel Metroplex, 7 p.m. 10800 Col. Glenn Road.

501-217-5113.

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

“A Frozen Holiday Spectacular.” Arkansas Skatium, 6 p.m., $10. 1311 S. Bowman Road.

“Live from the Back Room.” Spoken word event.

Vino’s, first Sunday of every month, 7 p.m. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

MONDAY, DEC. 8

MUSIC

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

Monday Night Jazz. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., $5. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

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

LECTURES

“Amendment 3: It Passed. Now What?”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 32

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415 President Clinton Ave. • LR, AR • 501.379.9865 www.arktimes.com

DECEMBER 4, 2014

31

AFTER DARK, CONT. The Arkansas Times & the Root Café proudly present Little Rock’s

T H I R D A N N UA L

BEARD-GROWING CONTEST C AT E G O R I E S

WAR OF THE

Fullest Beard, Most Original Beard, plus…

WHISKERS

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT Best-Groomed Beard Best Mustache Best Natural Beard (no hair products)

W O M E N'S C AT E G O R Y

Best DIY Beard (craft your own beard out of anything you want!)

3-day Shave-in December 5th, 6th, and 7th (Friday, Saturday, Sunday): Contestants for beard growing categories must get certified clean-shaven at the Root Cafe during their regular business hours.

Judging will be held at the South Main Mardi Gras celebration at the Bernice Garden on Saturday, February 14, 2015 (Valentine’s Day)

PRIZES FOR WINNERS More Info: 414-0423 or theroot@therootcafe.com

Panel discussion featuring Sen. Jon Woods, Rep. Warwick Sabin, Little Rock attorney Scott Trotter and Randy Zook, CEO of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce. Sturgis Hall, noon.

1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu.

CLASSES

Finding Family Facts. Rhonda Stewart’s genealogy research class for beginners. Arkansas Studies Institute, second Monday of every month, 3:30 p.m. 401 President Clinton Ave. 501-320-5700. www.butlercenter.org.

TUESDAY, DEC. 9

MUSIC

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

Irish Traditional Music Sessions. Hibernia Irish Tavern, second and fourth Tuesday of every month, 7-9 p.m. 9700 N. Rodney Parham Road.

501-246-4340. www.hiberniairishtavern.com.

Jeff Ling. Khalil’s Pub, 6 p.m. 110 S. Shackleford Road. 501-224-0224. www.khalilspub.com.

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

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

Music Jam. Hosted by Elliott Griffen and Joseph Fuller. The Joint, 8-11 p.m., free. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501-372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

Tuesday Jam Session with Carl Mouton.

Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

Whoa Dakota. White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., donations. 2500 W. 7th St. 501-375-8400. www. whitewatertavern.com.

COMEDY

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

DANCE

“Latin Night.” Revolution, 7:30 p.m., $5 regular, $7 under 21. 300 President Clinton Ave. 501823-0090. www.littlerocksalsa.com.

November 10 – January 7

T

he lens of photographer Johnny Cash Gordon Gillingham June Carter provides backdoor perspective Elvis Presley Roy Rogers on the longest running radio Patsy Cline program in the world, the Minnie Pearl Grand Ole Opry. During the Chet Atkins 1950s, Gillingham captured Hank Williams Jr. the carousing spirit of the … MORE! era, both on- and off-stage.

Many of these remarkable photographs have never before been published or reproduced. The Grand Ole Opry exhibit unveils this insider’s view of a vital hallmark of American culture in historical context, including audio snippets of the radio show itself.

EVENTS

Little Rock Green Drinks. Informal networking session for people who work in the environmental field. Ciao Baci, 5:30-7 p.m. 605 N. Beechwood St. 501-603-0238. www.greendrinks. org.

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

FILM

“Death Rides a Horse.” Vino’s, 7:30 p.m. 923 W. 7th St. 501-375-8466. www.vinosbrewpub.com.

LECTURES

A program of ExhibitsUSA, a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance with The Arkansas Arts Council and The National Endowment for the Arts.

ARGENTA BRANCH 420 MAIN STREET • NORTH LITTLE ROCK 5 0 1 - 6 8 7 - 1 0 6 1 • W W W. L A M A N L I B R A R Y. O R G W I L L I A M F. L A M A N P U B L I C L I B R A R Y S Y S T E M

32

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

Jeremy Schaap. A lecture by the ESPN host and author of “Cinderella Man.” Ron Robinson Theater, 6:30 p.m. 1 Pulaski Way. 501-320-5703. www.cals.lib.ar.us/ron-robinson-theater.aspx.

“Working in the Eye of the Sun: Photographing the Vernacular Architecture of Arkansas.” A presentation by Geoff Winningham. Arkansas Arts Center, 6 p.m., free. 501 E. 9th St. 501-3724000. www.arkarts.com.

CLASSES

Christmas Yule Log Culinary Class. Pulaski Technical College-South Campus, 5 p.m., $75.

Exit 128, I-30.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 10

MUSIC

Acoustic Open Mic. Afterthought Bistro & Bar, 8 p.m., free. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501-663-1196. www.afterthoughtbistroandbar.com.

Jacob Whitesides, Dylan Holland, Zach Matari.

Juanita’s, 7 p.m., $25-$165. 614 President Clinton Ave. 501-372-1228. www.juanitas.com.

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

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

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

Open Mic Nite with Deuce. Thirst n’ Howl, 7:30 p.m., free. 14710 Cantrell Road. 501-379-8189. www.thirst-n-howl.com.

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

COMEDY

The Joint Venture. Improv comedy group. The Joint, 8 p.m., $7. 301 Main St. No. 102, NLR. 501372-0205. thejointinlittlerock.com.

“Pagans On Bobsleds! Let It Show! Let It Show!

Let It Show!” An original sketch show by Red Octopus Theater. The Public Theatre, Dec. 10-13, 8 p.m., $10. 616 Center St. 501-374-7529. www. thepublictheatre.com.

Valerie Storm. The Loony Bin, Dec. 10-13, 7:30 p.m.; Dec. 12-13, 10 p.m., $7-$10. The Loony Bin, Dec. 10-13, 7:30 p.m.; Dec. 12-13, 10 p.m., $7-$10. 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road. 501228-5555. www.loonybincomedy.com.

DANCE

Little Rock Bop Club. Beginning dance lessons for ages 10 and older. Singles welcome. Bess Chisum Stephens Community Center, 7 p.m., $4 for members, $7 for guests. 12th and Cleveland streets. 501-350-4712. www.littlerockbopclub.

LECTURES

“Next Generation Science Standards: A Key to the Next Generation of American Jobs.”

A lecture by Dr. S. James Gates Jr., director of the Center for String and Particle Theory at the University of Maryland. Sturgis Hall, 6 p.m. 1200 President Clinton Ave. 501-683-5200. clintonschool.uasys.edu.

POETRY

Wednesday Night Poetry. 21-and-older show.

Maxine’s, 7 p.m., free. 700 Central Ave., Hot Springs. 501-321-0909. maxineslive.com/shows. html.

NEW GALLERY EXHIBITS, EVENTS ARGENTA GALLERY, 413 Main St.: “Sacred Images: Icons of Sylvia Inzerella,” Dec. 5-23, reception for the artist 5-8 p.m. Dec. 5. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Tue.-Thu., 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Fri.-Sat. 590-8103.

ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “Working in the Eye of the Sun: Photographing the Vernacular Architecture of Arkansas,” Architecture and Design Network lecture by Geoff Winningham, reception 5:30 p.m., talk 6 p.m. Dec. 9, lecture hall; “William Beckman: Drawings 1967-2013,” through Feb. 1; “A Sense of Balance: The Sculpture of Stoney CONTINUED ON PAGE 32

DECEMBER 12 THE 2ND FRIDAY OF EACH MONTH • 5-8 PM

Gourmet. Your Way. All Day.

STRATTON’S STRATTON’S STRATTON’S Market Fine Wine Market Fine Wine Market

Fine Wine

Spirits

Spirits Spirits

FEATURED ARTIST BARRY THOMAS WINE TASTING 405 E 3rd • Downtown Little Rock 501-791-6700

300 Third Tower • 501-375-3333 coppergrillandgrocery.com

GYPSY BISTRO 200 S. RIVER MARKET AVE, STE. 150 • 501.375.3500 DIZZYSGYPSYBISTRO.NET

COME SEE THE ARKANSAS WINNING STATE ENTRIES FOR THE 2014 JUNIOR DUCK STAMP CONTEST!

The Federal Junior Duck Stamp Conservation and Design Program incorporates scientific and wildlife management principles into a visual arts curriculum, with participants completing and entering a Junior Duck Stamp design into a national art contest.

PEOPLE, PLACES, AND THINGS Curator

ROBERT BEAN

10th Ever Nog-Off A friendly eggnog competition, two new exhibits & live music.

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

200 RIVER MARKET AVE., STE 400 501.374.9247 WWW.ARCAPITAL.COM ROBERT BEAN, CURATOR

HANDMADE JEWELRY AND GIFTS 523 S. Louisiana, Suite 175 479.200.1824 www.bellavitajewelry.net

A museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage

200 E. Third St. 501-324-9351 HistoricArkansas.org

These venues will be open late. There’s plenty of parking and a FREE TROLLEY to each of the locations.

Don’t miss it – lots of fun!

Free parking at 3rd & Cumberland

FREE TROLLEY RIDES!

Free street parking all over downtown and behind the River Market

Arkansas Chamber Singers Holiday Concert

Fri. & Sat. 7 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m.

Free - RSVP today at ar-chambersingers.org

(Paid parking available for modest fee.)

www.arktimes.com

DECEMBER 4, 2014

33

AFTER DARK, CONT. Lamar,” through Jan. 18, “Color, an Artist’s Tale: Paintings by Virmarie DePoyster,” through Feb. 15, Museum School Gallery. 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Sun. 372-4000.

ARKANSAS CRAFT GUILD ANNUAL CHRISTMAS SHOWCASE, Statehouse Convention Center Hall 2: 36th annual show and sale, more than 250 artists, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Dec. 5, 8 a.m.-6 p.m.

Dec. 6, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Dec. 7, with Art After Hours, live music and beer sampling, 5-8 p.m. Dec. 5. $5 (free 8-10 a.m. Dec. 6).

MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER, 501 W. 9th St.: “Holiday Open House,” music, arts and crafts for children, with “Say It Ain’t Say” sweet potato pie contest, 2-5 p.m. Dec. 7

(bring a toy for Stop the Violence); “Freedom!

Oh, Freedom! Arkansas’s People of African Descent and the Civil War 1861-1866” exhibit; permanent exhibits on African-American history and entrepreneurship in Arkansas. 6833593.

SWEET HOME FURNISHINGS, 1324 Main St.: “Holiday Open House,” assemblages by John Bell, 5-8 p.m. Dec. 4.

BENTONVILLE CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, One Museum Way: “State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now,” work by more than 100 contemporary artists, through Jan. 5; “John James Audubon and the Artist as Naturalist,” through Jan. 5; “Meet the Artist,”

demonstration by SOTA wood sculptor Bob Trotman, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Dec. 6, lecture by Trotman 4-5 p.m. Dec. 7; “The Future of Frank Lloyd Wright,” lecture by Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation president and CEO Sean Malone, 6:30-7:30 Dec. 10, $10 (free to members); permanent collection of American masterworks spanning four centuries. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon., Thu.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed., Fri.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Sat.-Sun., closed Tue. 479-418-5700.

TRUCK/ART GALLERY, opposite 200 NE A St.: Closing reception for Louis Watts’ exhibition “Work: Deconstruction, Reconstruction, Communication and Labor,” 6-8 p.m. Dec. 6.

Drinks after at The Hive in 21C Hotel.

FORREST CITY

TASTE THE FLAVOR There are many brands of beef, but only one Angus brand exceeds expectations.

The Certified Angus Beef ® brand is a cut above USDA Prime, Choice and Select. Ten quality standards set the brand apart. It’s abundantly flavorful, incredibly tender, naturally juicy.

EAST ARKANSAS COMMUNITY COLLEGE, 1700 Newcastle Road: “Common Ground,” paintings by Rebecca Thompson, through Jan. 5.

HOT SPRINGS ALISON PARSONS GALLERY, 802 Central Ave.: Paintings by Parsons, mixed media by Lori Arnold, glass by Sharon Barrett, open 5-9 p.m. Dec. 5, Gallery Walk. 501-625-3001.

ARTISTS’ WORKSHOP GALLERY, 601 Central Ave.: Paintings by Christine Lippert, glass by Janet Kuhn, through Dec.. Open 5-9 p.m. Dec. 5, Gallery Walk. 501-623-6401.

FINE ARTS CENTER, 626 Central Ave.: “12th annual Diamond National Art Competition,” Dec. 5-Jan. 24. Open 5-9 p.m. Dec. 5, Gallery Walk. 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 501-624-0489.

JUSTUS FINE ART, 827 Central Ave.: Work by Masatoshi Kudo, through Dec., also work

by Taimur Cleary, Matthew Hasty, Rene Hein, Dolores Justus, Tony Saladino, Dan Thornhill and others, Gallery Walk reception 5-9 p.m.

Dec. 5 with talk by the artist at 6:30 p.m.

Percentage of sales of Kudo’s work will be donated to the Hot Springs Sister City program. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat. 501-321-2335.

CONTINUING ART EXHIBITS (CENTRAL ARKANSAS) ARKANSAS CAPITAL CORP. GROUP, 200 River Market Ave.: “People, Places and Things,” paintings by Kathy Strause and Taimur Cleary, jewelry by Christie Young. 374-9247.

BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: “Of the Soil: Photography by Geoff Winningham,” through Feb. 28; “Johnny Cash: Arkansas Icon,” photographs and recorded music, Underground Gallery, through Jan. 24; “Echoes of the Ancestors: Native American Objects from the University of Arkansas Museum,” Concordia Gallery, through March 15, 2015; annual juried Arkansas League of Artists exhibition, West Gallery, through Dec. 27. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 320-5790.

DUMAS, CONT.

Available at these locations: 1701 Main Street 501-376-3473

34

DECEMBER 4, 2014

10320 Stage CoaCh rd 501-455-3475

7507 Cantrell rd 501-614-3477

7525 BaSeline rd 501-562-6629

please visit us at www.edwardsfoodgiant.com

ARKANSAS TIMES

2203 north reynoldS rd, Bryant 501-847-9777

Environmentalists and climate scientists urge the president not to approve the pipeline because it might speed development of the tar pits and increase carbon compounds in the atmosphere.

On the other side, so well expressed by the Democrat-Gazette, is the argument that pipeline opposition is a cruel attack on America’s favorite energy source, petroleum.

Both sides are folly. Canadian crude production is booming. Canadian oil reaching the Gulf refineries, by rail and other pipeline routes, has risen 83 percent since the debate began. Canada will soon be shipping from its own ports. The Canadian producers have learned that shipping by rail is easier and cheaper than by the Keystone. Warren Buffett, America’s biggest rail capitalist, must be happy. As long as a bazillionaire is pleased, why can’t all Republicans be satisfied?

I AM THE AEA

K

Meet Kathy Hill, Cabot School District

athy Hill is a kid at heart. And mind. And career.

Kathy Hill has taught Kindergarten for more than 30 years, and she has never thought once of changing her path.

“We have so much fun,” Hill said. “They may begin the year a little timid, but after a few weeks, my students

say, ‘What are we doing next?’ and ‘Why do we have to leave so soon? This was a short day!’ It always reaffirms to me that what they are learning in class is sticking with them as they move on to other grades.”

Hill teaches in the Cabot Public School system, at what is known as the International School, an English-as-second-language program.

Hill teaches students from all over the world – China, Russia, Japan and Mexico, to name a few.

“I’ve had students who don’t speak a word of English when they start my class,” she said. “In fact, I had one little girl who had only been in this country for two days before she started school. By Brian Chilson

the end of the year, she was reading chapter books. It is amazing to watch how quickly kids learn English.”

In addition to teaching full time, Hill tutors students two days a week and leads the Extended Learning Opportunity program, which works with small groups of students to help with math and reading.

“The great thing about ELO is it helps students who need a little extra instruction get the help they need, and their parents don’t have to pay for a tutor,” Hill said. “We call our program Math and Literacy Learning, or MALL for short. Because the kids have been in school all day and they’re tired, we try to make it as much fun for them as possible so they want to learn. We have MALL bucks they can earn through good behavior, improved grades and other criteria, and when they have saved up $10 in those bucks, they can go shopping for supplies in our school store. Around Christmas and at the end of the school year, we have parties where we cook hotdogs, decorate cookies, watch a movie. Because we teach MALL from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., the kids don’t get to go home

and play. This is our way of keeping them motivated and making them feel special.”

For 32 years, Hill has been a member of the Arkansas Education Association. She said she initially joined at the encouragement of her fellow teachers, but she has remained a loyal supporter because of AEA’s commitment to its members.

“Education has changed so much since I started teaching,”Hill said.

“The AEA wants to make sure that it’s going in the right direction.”

Hill notes the solid partnership the AEA has with its members as one of the association’s greatest strengths.

“They are knowledgeable about the issues teachers face, and they can answer our questions when we have them,” Hill said. “I know that if I need something, they will back me up.”

1500 W. 4th St. Little Rock 501.375.4611 aeaonline.org www.arktimes.com

DECEMBER 4, 2014

35

MOVIE REVIEW

‘HORRIBLE BOSSES 2’: Charlie Day (left), Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Chris Pine star.

Mostly horrible ‘Bosses’ doesn’t take advantage of talent.

BY SAM EIFLING

F

“A Modern-Day Speakeasy”

}

Grand Opening

December 5th 109 Main Street, Downtown LR Featuring food items from Butcher & Public

www.facebook.com/109Co 36

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

rom behind bars, one of the horrible bosses from the predecessor to “Horrible Bosses 2,” here a savage Kevin Spacey, asks the three dundering heroes at the center of these movies who, in fact, is the worse boss: him or them? He might be evil, yes, but early in the sequel, the schmucks — Nick, Kurt and Dale, played anticly by Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day — have torpedoed their hopes at running their own business. Stupidly, they’ve allowed a catalog company to renege on a big order of their homeinvented shower gizmo. Which is the worse boss, indeed? One who squishes your ego between his fingers like a whitehead? Or ones who let Christoph Waltz, as a smarmy purveyor of yuppie stocking-stuffers, fleece them by canceling a verbal deal?

Not that it matters much; the troika of quick-yammering goobers decide their best way to recoup their losses is to commit another grave crime, achieving some warped justice to boot.

In the previous movie, they conspired to kill their respective bosses, on the way to more than $200 million at the box office, somewhat inexplicably. It wasn’t all that great. This one’s not, either, but it is amusing, and does feature, again rather inexplicably, three Oscar winners in the cast: Spacey, Waltz and Jamie Foxx, the latter reprising his role as a sort of underworld consultant named Mother Jones, except with an f-bomb stapled to that first name. We even get Jennifer Aniston again as a sex-crazed seductressdentist and Jonathan Banks (Mike from “Breaking Bad”) filling the screen as an LAPD detective. There’s a lot of talent here — more than enough, in fact, to

squeeze some legit fun out of a goofball script with more lulls than LOLZ. The victim of the criminal novicemind plot is catalog-biz heir Chris Pine, the cocky jock with the sapphire eyes, who could use nothing more desperately than a hard slap across the noggin. After his old man shanks our protagonists, they decide to kidnap him and ransom him back to the old man. It’s a tough story for writer/director Sean Anders (“Hot Tub Time Machine,” “We’re the Millers” among his screenplays) to keep interesting for the duration of a medium popcorn. Mostly time passes with the three leads tossing dialogue around like pinball bumpers. Bateman, for the nth time in his developmentally arrested career, is the straight man. Sudeikis, half as smart and twice as randy, and Day, a self-incriminating rack of nerves, are the best friends you’d draft last if you were filling your felony fantasy team.

There’s not much of an underlying point to the hijinks, lest you count Waltz’s speech on a putting green that wealth, not hard work, creates wealth. Stick it to the Man, you say in reply, Let’s see ’em squirm. As soon as the movie hands you a pitchfork, it forgets which way to point it, in true American style. A great number of bosses are not horrible, but at least an equal number of them determine they ought to be in charge largely because they are unseemly sorts. At least in the first “Horrible Bosses,” a vaguely populist vibe drove the action. Ah, but that was 2011. Now the stock market’s up, unemployment’s down and people maybe hate their bosses a little less, if they’re lucky enough to have ’em in the first place.

2015 ARKANSAS TIMES

MUSICIANS SHOWC ASE The search is on.

Deadline for Entry JANUARY 1

It’s the return of the annual Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase with performers competing for an array of prizes. All acts that have at least four songs of original material are encouraged to enter. All styles are welcome.

ARKTIMES.COM/SHOWCASE

CASH PRIZE TO WINNING BAND! PLUS MUCH, MUCH MORE! 2014 Winner Mad Nomad

ARK ANSA S TIMES MUSICIANS SHOWC A SE ENTRY FORM

Semifinalists will compete throughout January and February at Stickyz.

NAME OF BAND

Weekly winners will then face off in the finals at the Rev Room in March.

HOMETOWN

SEND THIS ENTRY AND DEMO CD TO:

DATE BAND WAS FORMED

Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase 201 East Markham St, Suite 200 Little Rock, AR 72201

AGE RANGE OF MEMBERS (ALL AGES WELCOME) CONTACT PERSON

OR

ADDRESS

Enter online and upload your music files at showcase.arktimes.com

CITY, STATE, ZIP PHONE

For more info e-mail willstephenson@arktimes.com

E-MAIL

FACEBOOK LINK HAS YOUR BAND ENTERED THE SHOWCASE BEFORE?

❏ YES

❏ NO

Please attach a band photo.

IF YES, WHAT YEARS?

www.arktimes.com

DECEMBER 4, 2014

37

Dining

Information in our restaurant capsules reflects the opinions of the newspaper staff and its reviewers. The newspaper accepts no advertising or other considerations in exchange for reviews, which are conducted anonymously. We invite the opinions of readers who think we are in error.

B Breakfast L Lunch D Dinner $ Inexpensive (under $8/person) $$ Moderate ($8-$20/person) $$$ Expensive (over $20/person) CC Accepts credit cards

WHAT’S COOKIN’ IT USED TO BE, “LET’S GO TO THE Hop.” Now, The Hop has closed, and new song will be “Let’s Meet At the Corner,” when Kamiya (pronounced Kam-eye-ya) Merrick opens up her “modernized” diner at 201 E. Markham St. the first of January. The Hop closed Nov. 26.

Merrick is a Canadian who came to Arkansas to play soccer for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Torn ACLs ended her soccer career, so she’s going into the food service business instead. Her parents were caterers and smoked their own meats, so Merrick said her experience goes back to her childhood.

She plans to introduce to Little Rock (an “amazing town,” she says) the common Canadian dish poutine: house-cut french fries, cheese curd and brown gravy. That should go great with the rest of the lunch menu: hamburgers, hot dogs, salads and shakes.

The space will get a facelift before Merrick opens, but it will look familiar to Hop regulars, she said. “January is not ideal” for opening a new restaurant, she acknowledged, “but we’re so eager to get in, and we’re going to generate a lot of hype.” At the Corner will be open for breakfast and lunch, with a to-go or eat-in menu of breakfast sandwiches and Westrock Coffee in the a.m.

If downtown business is good enough, At the Corner will be open daily.

DINING CAPSULES

AMERICAN

1620 SAVOY Fine dining in a swank space, with a menu redone by the same owners of Cache downtown. The scallops are especially nice. 1620 Market St. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$.

501-221-1620. D Mon.-Sat., BR Sun. ADAMS CATFISH & CATERING Catering company in Little Rock with carry-out trailers in Russellville and Perryville. 215 N. Cross St. All CC. $-$$. 501-336-4399. LD Tue.-Fri. AFTERTHOUGHT BISTRO AND BAR The restaurant side of the Afterthought Bar (also called the Afterthought Bistro and Bar) features crab cakes, tuna tacos, chicken tenders, fries, sandwiches, burgers and, as entrees, fish and grits, tuna, ribeye, chicken and dumplings, pasta and more. Live music in the adjoining bar, also private dining room. 2721 Kavanaugh Blvd. Full bar, All CC. 501-663-1196.

ALL ABOARD RESTAURANT & GRILL Burgers, catfish, chicken tenders and such in this train-themed restaurant, where an elaborately engineered mini-locomotive delivers patrons’ meals. 6813 Cantrell Road. No alcohol, All CC. 501-975-7401. LD daily.

ALLEY OOPS The restaurant at Creekwood Plaza (near the Kanis-Bowman intersection) is 38

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES

NEEDS A KICK: Grilled flank steak tacos at The Fold.

Spice would be nice Otherwise The Fold is well done.

T

he Fold is very close to being an excellent restaurant. The fun, funky Riverdale taqueria uses fresh, high-quality ingredients. It has a well-stocked bar and turns out some of the best cocktails we’ve had of late — including a spiced pear Collins ($7) that was luscious and a near-perfect top-shelf margarita ($7.50). The beer selection is broad, and the beer-winecocktail prices are extremely reasonable compared to competitors’ offerings.

We enjoy the vibe at the Fold, hip but relaxed. A couple of vintage motorcycles are suspended from the ceiling. It is brightly lit by day with light from walls of windows and a pair of garage doors that reveal its former life as a gas station.

The servers are friendly — attentive but relaxed. There was one TV featuring sports programming the day we were there but with no volume. The bar is

fairly large and inviting.

But just a few bites into our lunch we remembered why we hadn’t returned more often to the Fold — with only a couple of exceptions the food lacks zip.

It is too bland. Yes, fresh, high-quality ingredients should be front and center, but when they are vegetables, chicken or ground meat, they need a boost from herbs and spices. The Fold needs to considerably spice up its dishes. We don’t mean make them “hot,” necessarily, just more boldly flavored.

One exception is the habanero queso ($5 for a smallish bowl), which has a zing that offsets the creaminess of the dip. It’s some of our favorite cheese dip in town. We detected a bit of cumin in the guacamole ($6.50), which is freshly made but needs salt and maybe a bit of something else. Our third appetizer — Mexican street corn ($6) — was beauti-

ful: seven smallish “cobbettes” artfully arranged, dusted with queso blanco, featuring a nice dose of shredded cilantro and rendered creamy with a jalapeno aioli. It was only slightly warmer than room temperature (we would have preferred it hotter) but overall was pleasing.

We tried a cup (huge for $3) of the soup of the day — chicken vegetable.

It was hearty with plenty of shredded chicken, zucchini, potatoes and a few other vegetables. It featured a rich broth, but overall the taste wasn’t adventuresome.

For our main courses, we both opted for the three-taco plate ($9.50), and the consensus was that five of the six were too bland. Again, the ingredients were fresh and top-notch, and the corn tortillas were tender and fresh. But these tacos could have been so much more with a heavier hand in the kitchen.

The one that passed the full-flavor test was the Puerco Verde, which featured a sizable pile of pulled pork that had been rendered crispy on the flattop and was dosed with salsa verde and cilantro. The Pollo y Pablano had nice hunks of blah chicken, and the ground bison on the Gringo was dry and not very flavorful. The same general condition compromised what the shrimpbased and two vegetarian tacos could have been.

The good news for the Fold — at least where our taste buds are concerned — is that these are simple fixes. There are no tragic flaws anywhere in this restaurant’s formula or approach. The proprietors simply need to heed Emeril’s advice and kick it up a notch.

The Fold Botanas Bar 3501 Old Cantrell Road 916-9706 thefoldlr.com

QUICK BITE We’ve now added the Fold to our weekday happy hour list, when the already reasonably priced drinks get cheaper and the fabulous habanero queso offers a nice bridge between afternoon hunger and dinner. The vibe is good and so are the drinks.

HOURS 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday.

OTHER INFO Full bar, credit cards accepted.

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

a neighborhood feedbag for major medical institutions with the likes of plate lunches, burgers and homemade desserts. Remarkable chess pie. 11900 Kanis Road. Full bar, All CC. $-$$. 501-221-9400. LD Mon.-Sat. ASHER DAIRY BAR An old-line dairy bar that serves up made-to-order burgers, foot-long “Royal” hot dogs and old-fashioned shakes and malts. 7105 Colonel Glenn Road. No alcohol, No CC, CC. $-$$. 501-562-1085. BLD Tue.-Sat. ATHLETIC CLUB SPORTS BAR & GRILL What could be mundane fare gets delightful twists and embellishments here. 11301 Financial Centre Parkway. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$.

501-312-9000. LD daily.

B-SIDE The little breakfast place in the former party room of Lilly’s DimSum Then Some turns tradition on its ear, offering French toast wrapped in bacon on a stick, a must-have dish called “biscuit mountain” and beignets with lemon curd. 11121 Rodney Parham Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-716-2700. B-BR Sat.-Sun. BAR LOUIE Mammoth portions of very decent bar/bistro fare with an amazingly varied menu that should satisfy every taste. Some excellent drink deals abound, too. 11525 Cantrell Road, Suite 924. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-2280444. LD daily, BR Sat.-Sun. BIG WHISKEY’S AMERICAN BAR AND GRILL A modern grill pub in the River Market District with all the bells and whistles - 30 flatscreen TVs, whiskey on tap, plus boneless wings, burgers, steaks, soups and salads. 225 E Markham St. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-3242449. LD daily.

BOBBY’S COUNTRY COOKIN’ One of the better plate lunch spots in the area, with some of the best fried chicken and pot roast around, a changing daily casserole and wonderful homemade pies. 301 N. Shackleford Road, Suite E1. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-2249500. L Mon.-Fri. BOGIE’S BAR AND GRILL The former Bennigan’s retains a similar theme: a menu filled with burgers, salads and giant desserts, plus a few steak, fish and chicken main courses.

There are big-screen TVs for sports fans and lots to drink, more reason to return than the food. 120 W. Pershing Blvd. NLR. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-812-0019. BD daily.

BOOKENDS CAFE A great spot to enjoy lunch with friends or a casual cup of coffee and a favorite book. Serving coffee and pastries early and sandwiches, soups and salads available after 11 a.m. Cox Creative Center. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501- 918-3091. BL Mon.-Sat. THE BOX Cheeseburgers and french fries are greasy and wonderful and not like their fastfood cousins. 1023 W. Seventh St. No alcohol, CC. $-$$. 501-372-8735. L Mon.-Fri. BUFFALO GRILL A great crispy-off-the-griddle cheeseburger and hand-cut fries star at this family-friendly stop. 1611 Rebsamen Park Road. Full bar, CC. $$. 501-296-9535. LD daily.

CAFE 201 The hotel restaurant in the Crowne Plaza serves up a nice lunch buffet. 201 S. Shackleford Road. Full bar, All CC. $$. 501-2233000. BLD Mon.-Fri., BD Sat., BR Sun. CATFISH CITY AND BBQ GRILL Basic fried fish and sides, including green tomato pickles,

and now with tasty ribs and sandwiches in beef, pork and sausage. 1817 S. University Ave. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-663-7224.

LD Tue.-Sat. CHEERS IN THE HEIGHTS Good burgers and sandwiches, vegetarian offerings and salads at lunch, and fish specials and good steaks in the evening. 2010 N. Van Buren. Full bar, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-663-5937. LD Mon.-Sat. 1901 Club Manor Drive. Maumelle. Full bar, All CC. 501-851-6200. LD daily, BR Sun. CHICKEN KING Arguably Central Arkansas’s best wings. 5213 W 65th St. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-562-5573. LD Mon.-Sat. CHICKEN WANG & CAFE Regular, barbecue, spicy, lemon, garlic pepper, honey mustard and Buffalo wings. Open late. 8320 Colonel Glenn Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-5621303. LD Mon.-Sat. COLD STONE CREAMERY This national chain takes a base flavor (everything from Sweet Cream to Chocolate Cake Batter) and adds your choice of ingredients or a combination of ingredients it calls a Creation. Cold Stone also serves up a variety of ice cream cakes and cupcakes. 12800 Chenal Parkway. No alcohol, All CC. $. 501-225-7000. LD daily.

CRACKER BARREL OLD COUNTRY STORE Chain-style home-cooking with plenty of variety, consistency and portions. Multiple locations statewide. 3101 Springhill Drive. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. (501) 945-9373. BLD daily.

DAVE AND RAY’S DOWNTOWN DINER Breakfast buffet daily featuring biscuits and gravy, home fries, sausage and made-toorder omelets. Lunch buffet with four choices of meats and eight veggies. 824 W. Capitol Ave. No alcohol. $. 501-372-8816. BL Mon.-Fri. DAVID’S BURGERS Serious hamburgers, steak salads, homemade custard. 101 S. Bowman Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-227-8333.

LD Mon.-Sat. 1100 Highway 65 N. Conway.

No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. (501) 327-3333 4000 McCain Blvd. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$.

501-353-0387. LD Mon.-Sat. E’S BISTRO Despite the name, think tearoom rather than bistro — there’s no wine, for one thing, and there is tea. But there’s nothing tearoomy about the portions here. Try the heaping grilled salmon BLT on a buttery croissant. 3812 JFK Boulevard. NLR. No alcohol, All CC. $$. 501-771-6900. L Tue.-Sat., D Thu.-Sat. FLIGHT DECK A not-your-typical daily lunch special highlights this spot, which also features inventive sandwiches, salads and a popular burger. Central Flying Service at Adams Field.

Beer and wine, All CC. $-$$. 501-975-9315. BL Mon.-Sat. HILLCREST ARTISAN MEATS A fancy charcuterie and butcher shop with excellent daily soup and sandwich specials. Limited seating is available. 2807 Kavanaugh Blvd. Suite B. No alcohol, All CC. $$-$$$. 501-671-6328. L Mon.-Sat. JASON’S DELI A huge selection of sandwiches (wraps, subs, po’ boys and pitas), salads and spuds, as well as red beans and rice and chicken pot pie. Plus a large selection of heart healthy and light dishes. 301 N. Shackleford Road. No alcohol, All CC. $-$$. 501-954-8700.

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Bombay Sapphire London Dry Gin Reg $47.99.................... Sale $37.99

BEER SPECIALS

WINE BUYS 750ML

Woodchuck Amber Cider 12pk Cans Reg $17.39 .................... Sale $15.99

Stag’s Leap Winery 2011 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Reg $55.99 ................... Sale $39.99

Marshall Big Jamoke Porter 6pk Bottles Reg $9.79......................... Sale $7.99 Straffe Hendrik Heritage 750ML Bottle Reg $23.79 ................... Sale $18.99

Knob Creek Small Batch Bourbon Reg $59.99....................Sale $49.99 Absolut Vodka Reg $36.99 ................... Sale $31.99

DECEMBER 3 - DECEMBER 9, 2014

Mother’s Winter Grind ................6pk Bottles Reg $8.69 ........................ Sale $7.99

1.75L SPIRITS

Chivas Regal 12yo Blended Scotch Reg $76.99.................... Sale $67.99

Schug 2011 Carneros Pinot Noir Reg $28.99 ................... Sale $21.99 Signature de Loire 2011 Sancerre Reg $25.59 ................... Sale $18.99 Terra Andina Sparkling Moscato Reg $14.99..................... Sale $11.99

750ML CONNOISSEUR SELECTIONS

Glenfiddich 15yo Single Malt Scotch Reg $58.99 ................... Sale $41.99 Balvenie 12yo Doublewood Single Malt Scotch Reg $61.99....................Sale $49.99 Don Julio Blanco Tequila Reg $47.99.................... Sale $39.99 George Dickel Rye Whiskey Reg $22.99 ................... Sale $18.99 *In Store Only • While Supplies Last.

WE WILL MATCH ANY LOCAL, ADVERTISED PRICE! BRING IN THE AD TO SAVE.

11200 W. Markham Street · 501-223-3120 · colonialwineshop.com · facebook.com/ColonialWines CEL E B R AT E R ES P O N S I B LY.

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– O’Looney

#theeverydaysommelier Your friendly neighborhood wine shop.

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

DECEMBER 4, 2014

39

DECEMBER 4, 2014

Holiday

Gift Guide F

eeling the pressure to find the perfect gift? Then check out this week’s holiday gift guide, which is chock full of wonderful ideas from local merchants, from the handy to the handmade, there’s something for everyone on your list this year.

Don’t miss the ARKANSAS CRAFT GUILD’S 36th annual Christmas Showcase Dec. 5-7 at the Statehouse Convention Center. The show features more than 100 fine and functional artists who are members of the statewide Arkansas Craft Guild and their invited guests and their unique handcrafted art. Meet the artists, enjoy live music, and register for artist-donated door prizes throughout the show.

Another way you can start your holiday shopping adventure is at OZARK OUTDOOR SUPPLY. Take a look at Ozark’s 2014 gift guide at OzarkOutdoor.

com or on their Facebook page. You can also register to win a $100 gift card to the store that Ozark will give away right before Christmas. Ozark Outdoor Supply in the Heights is open on Sundays from 1-5 p.m. now through Dec. 21 for your shopping convenience.

Make a visit to O’LOONEY’S WINE AND LIQUOR if you have any questions about what to get for that hard to buy for wine or whiskey lover.

O’Looney’s is the state’s only sommelierowned liquor store, and they specialize in carefully curated selections for any palate. You can also follow #theeverydaysommelier on Twitter to get regular updates on specials at O’Looney’s, or look for their weekly ad in the Times.

RHEA DRUG will be open late for First Thursdays in Hillcrest on Dec. 4, so take the opportunity to browse their many gift ideas – they’ll also gift wrap

for free. Check their Facebook page for a special online giveaway.

BELLA VITA JEWELRY has handmade, one-of-a-kind baubles, as well as gift items like soap bars shaped like gemstones, handmade scarves, candles and works by local artists. You can also pick up holiday cards to send with your gift. The store’s hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. You can also book an appointment with owner Brandy Thomason McNair outside of operating hours by emailing brandy@bellavitajewelry.net or calling 479-200-1824.

If you’re buying for an art lover, then take a look around GALLERY 26’S latest show to see what the 64 participating artists have on offer. The gallery always has free gift wrap, and they have a bigger selection of Christmas ornaments and handmade pillows for sale this year. You

hearsay ➥ The Christmas season means more time to shop: stores like BEYOND COTTON II in the Pleasant Ridge Shopping Center and BOX TURTLE in Hillcrest will be open from 1-5 p.m. Sundays from now until Christmas. ➥ Speaking of Sunday hours, both WHITE GOAT locations (Little Rock and Conway) are now open from 1-5 p.m. Sundays as well. ➥ If you’re in Fayetteville on Dec. 5-6, be sure to check out the 2014 LITTLE CRAFT SHOW at the Fayetteville Town Center. This is the handmade holiday market’s fourth year, and this year features wares from 80 vendors from seven states.

40

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO ARKANSAS TIMES

Hours are 5-9 p.m. Dec. 5 and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dec. 6.

Admission is $10 for Dec. 5, and comes with access to a special happy hour event and swag bags for the first 200 people. Admission is free for Dec. 6.

For more information, visit thelittlecraftshow.com. ➥ Enter for a chance to win a $100 gift card from THE TOGGERY by posting a picture of where you’ve recently found your Elf on the Shelf to the store’s Facebook or Instagram pages. ➥ TULIPS now has a new way to shop: through Instagram. All you have to do is like their Instagram page and register at www.soldsie.com/ instagram/tulipsinlittlerock. They have regular

sales nights, and all you have to do is comment “sold” on the picture of the item you like. You’ll receive an invoice through email and you’ll have 12 hours to pay it. Once you pay, your items will be shipped to you. ➥ If you love karaoke and want to help out a great cause, then head over Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack from 8 p.m. to midnight Dec. 5 for an OPEN KARAOKE NIGHT TO BENEFIT THE VAN, a nonprofit organization that helps the homeless in Little Rock. There will also be a raffle and silent auction. Admission is $10 and the event is for folks over 18.

Box Turtle Looking for the perfect gift for the wine lover in your life? This gorgeous, handmade wine rack is made from driftwood and is artistically arranged by skilled craftsmen. Each rack is unique and can hold five standard bottles. Box Turtle has also unique glassware to help you complete your gift.

2616 Kavanaugh Blvd.

661.1167 » shopboxturtle.com

HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE! 12/5 & 12/6 • 10am – 6pm JEWELRY 50% OFF • ALL OTHER ITEMS 20-30% OFF • Ala Carte Grits products • Artist Ben South T-shirts, aprons, & prints • Leggings, tunics, bootsocks • Tory Burch-like Jewelry & More!

INSIDE GALAXY FURNITURE 304 MAIN ST. • ARGENTA ART DISTRICT

O’Looney’s CUSTOM JEWELRY CANDLES • SOAPS SCARVES • SHIRTS PERFECT FOR YOUR MOM • GRANDMOTHER SISTER • BESTIE CASUAL • ELEGANT • VINTAGE GIFTS FOR EVERY OCCASION

The Prisoner Wine Company - Saldo Zinfandel - $49.99 The 2012 Saldo Zinfandel is dark ruby in color with beautiful bold aromas of black fruit (think blackberry, blueberry).

A fullbodied wine with concentration and a racy backbone, this red is dense, soft, and velvety with smooth polished tannins. The finish is persistent and marks this high quality red that would pair well with big game, bold cheese, or a Thursday afternoon. 90 points rated by Robert Parker.

523 S. Louisiana, Suite 175 479.200.1824 www.bellavitajewelry.net

Far Niente Winery – Napa Chardonnay – $69.99 The beautiful 2012 Far Niente Chardonnay delivers lively aromas of lemon and lime citrus zest, honeydew melon, wet stone and honeysuckle blossom. It is perfect with soft rind cheeses, fresh grilled scallops or cedar planked salmon. A bright wine with silky texture, this winery consistently makes fantastic whites.

3 Rahling Rd. at Chenal Parkway » 821.4669

can also pick up art inspired T-shirts and hats. Swing by during First Thursday in Hillcrest on Dec. 4.

Who doesn’t love surprises, especially during the holidays? Be sure to sign up for DREAMWEAVERS’ email blasts for surprises and discounts through their extended holiday hours, which begin Dec. 5. Call 501-371-0447 for more details and get signed up.

Want to give something a little different? Then visit one HEIFER INTERNATIONAL’S Living Gift Markets to get a first-hand glimpse at the impact giving to Heifer makes. The Living Gift

markets are scheduled for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 6 at Heifer Village in downtown Little Rock, and 5-8 pm. Dec. 13 and 3-6 p.m. Dec. 14 at Heifer Ranch in Perryville. These family-friendly events allow visitors to get up close and personal with the living gifts as represented by animals from Heifer Ranch, as well as other activities. You’ll also have opportunities to make a living gift donation or shop for ethically sourced and fair trade items.

BOX TURTLE has interesting items for the guys in your life, like leather flasks and journals, corkboard CONTINUED ON PAGE 43

HAPPY HOLIDAYS WE’LL BE OPEN FOR EXTENDED SHOPPING DECEMBER 5 THRU 20

COME SEE US!

RUGS • PILLOWS • THROWS • MIRRORS • AND MORE!

OUTLET 1201 S Spring St • (501) 371-0447 • M-F 8am-5pm • Saturday 7am-1pm • Closed Sunday facebook.com/DreamweaversOutletStore ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO ARKANSAS TIMES

DECEMBER 4, 2014

41

Bella Vita Jewelry “Vintage Redux” Necklaces, $140- $160 Bella Vita upcycled these beauties from vintage beads, buckles, buttons, brooches and chains. These gorgeous one-of-a-kind pieces are the perfect gift for someone special in your life. You can rest assured no one else will have this piece!

Gallery 26

523 S. Louisiana St., Ste 175 479.200.1824 » bellavitajewelry.net

The Southern Fox

2601 Kavanaugh Blvd.

664.8996 » gallery26.com

Rhea Drug

Custom Candles, Reg. $24, Sale $20 Check out this boutique with customized gifts including aprons, shirts and these custom candles by artist Ben South.

304 Main St., NLR (Inside Galaxy Furniture) 454.4570

Helinox Chair One Voted the best outdoor adventure accessory at the prestigious ISPO awards this year, this two pound folding camp chair is a friend to anyone on the go.

Packing down smaller than the Sunday Times, you can take your Helinox Chair One anywhere. You will find this and many other great gifts for all outdoor enthusiasts at Ozark Outdoor Supply.

5514 Kavanaugh Blvd.

664.4832 » ozarkoutdoor.com

Shown in photo, left to right: Kit Cupcakes Cupcake Kit by Mastrad from Paris. Includes plastic cupcake tins, six icing options, and pastry bag. Set of four matching fun and colorful plastic mixing bowls by Zak Design. Mix, spread, flip and fold with these fun, colorful Tovolo spatulas made of silcone.

4310 Landers Rd., NLR 687.1331 » krebsbrothers.com

42

DECEMBER 4, 2014

YOXObot, $21 This fun toy comes with everything you need to make your own 18” tall robot. Y, O, and X links connect in thousands of ways and attach to stuff around your house (like paper towel tubes and cereal boxes) to build anything you can imagine! Come by and see what other great toys are in store this Christmas.

2801 Kavanaugh Blvd. » 663.4131 facebook.com/RheaDrug

Ozark Outdoor Supply

Krebs

You know Gallery 26 as the go-to place for some of central Arkansas’s most cutting edge and innovative artists. The holiday season is no exception. Find one-of-a-kind gifts like artwork, jewelry, belt buckles and other decorative items like these fun, funky Arkansas pillows by Shannon Knowles. Many different patterns and colors are available. Stop in for some of the most unique gifts that can be found locally. Gallery 26 can take care of all framing needs as well.

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO ARKANSAS TIMES

Springhill Wine and Liquor Knob Creek Knob Creek has bold flavors helping make Kentucky famous for bourbon. It is aged the longest out of all the small batch bourbons—nine years in a charred American white oak barrel. Two times the drinking experience, it can be served cold or warm and neat.

Basil Hayden Rule-breaker Basil Hayden, Sr. had the thought to mix small grain into the corn mash. His idea to give his bourbon a little bit of spice worked out giving his whiskey a dry, clean unique finish. Basil Hayden’s unique flavor mixes spice and sweetness and is a great idea on any day.

4281 McCain Blvd., NLR » 945.5153 springhillwineandspirits.com

d ,

d e

e

maps for the world traveler, specialty beer and tequila glasses and fleece-lined Tom’s slippers.

Now is the time to buy kitchen knives for yourself or the foodie in your life: KREBS BROTHERS RESTAURANT STORE has all of their in-stock knives and cutlery buy one, get one half-price.

This includes brands like Victorinox and Wusthof.

Every proud Southerner needs to visit THE SOUTHERN FOX, located inside Galaxy Furniture on Main Street in downtown North Little Rock. During Dec. 5-6, all jewelry is 50 percent off and all clothing is marked down 20 percent.

If you’re planning a special holiday dinner, then here are some wine recommendations from Clark Trim of COLONIAL WINES AND SPIRITS. He suggests offering guests two options: a red and either a white, rose or sparkling wine. Here are some of Clark’s favorites: Pinot Noir Grayson Cellars California 2012 Elk Cove Willamette Valley 2012 Merry Edwards Russian River 2011 Red Blend The Seducer Red Rendezvous Califor-

nia 2012 Coppola Diamond Series Claret Reynold’s Family Persistence Napa Valley 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Souverain North Coast 2011 St Francis Sonoma County 2011 Stag’s Leap Winery Napa Valley 2011

Just In Time For Christmas!

TOMS Slippers

(men’s styles also available)

Riesling St Urban’s-Hoff 2012 Chateau Ste Michelle Harvest Select Columbia Valley 2013 (sweet) Schloss Vollrads Kabinett Rheingau 2011 Chardonnay Beringer Napa Valley 2012 Landmark Overlook 2012 Buoncristiani Family Winery Napa Valley 2011 Rose Acrobat by King Estate Oregon 2013 Gerard Bertrand Gris Blanc 2013 Le Remise de la Mordoree Tavel 2013 Sparkling Toso Brut Argentina Piper Sonoma Brut or Blanc de Blancs Moet Brut Imperial Rose

Best Gift Shop

GIFT CARDS AVAILABLE

M-F 10-6 • SAT 10-5 • SUN 12-5 2616 KAVANAUGH BLVD. LITTLE ROCK 501.661.1167 | WWW.SHOPBOXTURTLE.COM

Dreamweavers Outlet Store Made from upcycled neckties, these pillows are as eco-friendly as they are chic, $12 each.

Foosball Darts

“Celebrating 90 years of game room excellence.”

M-F 8:30-5:30 • Sat 10-5

309 W. Broadway | North Little Rock

Table Tennis

Shuffleboard

Poker Tables

501-372-0168

Jonesbrospooltables.com

Cozy up this winter with gorgeous throws ranging in price from $15-$200. A multitude of colors and textures are currently in stock with additional throws to be added during the extended sale hours.

Rhea

Drug Store A Traditional Pharmacy with eclectic Gifts.

Since 1922

1201 S. Spring St. » 371.0447 facebook.com/DreamweaversOutletStore

2801 Kavanaugh Little Rock • 501.663.4131 ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO ARKANSAS TIMES

DECEMBER 4, 2014

43

Arkansas Craft Guild Morrison Oregon Jasper Set, $300 This gorgeous set was made by artisans Ryan and Suzanne Rathje. Find more of their pieces at the Christmas Showcase.

Colonial Wine & Spirits Your holiday wine and spirits headquarters!

Look for the Colonial Gift Guide in this issue and the Dec. 18th issue of the Arkansas Times!

Clark Trim, Owner

Copper Garden Art Bowl, $95 This Copper creation by Bill Merritt of Ozarklake Distinctive Decor is artfully hand-worked around individual rescued glass items then embellished following his personal inspiration to create fun and functional garden art.

Joints are soldered for integrity.

Bird-tested and approved.

Porcelain Pin This 24CT Gold wire work and freshwater pearl pin is created

by Jeff and Judy Goodwin from Huntsville. Find this and other colored porcelain clay jewelry.

Hand-woven Shawl, $75-$375 Fiber artist Jeanette Larson spins yarns and weaves shawls on her Havencroft farm in the Ozark mountains where she raises the sheep, angora goats and alpaca that provide the fiber for her creations. Each shawl is a one-ofa-kind creation, patiently woven by hand, one thread at a time.

All of these artisan pieces, and more, can be found at The Arkansas Craft Guild 36th Annual Christmas Showcase December 5-7 at the Statehouse Convention Center Hall #2 Fri. 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Sat. 8 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sun. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. arkansascraftguild.org 44

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO ARKANSAS TIMES

Bell Winery 20th Anniversary Clone 6 Cabernet Sauvignon Only 7,000 bottles are produced.

Moet & Chandon Imperial Brut Make any gathering a celebration!

Crown Royal Reserve This one is reserved just for you!

St-Germain Liqueur A bar cart essential, this French liqueur is made from handpicked elderflowers.

11200 W. Markham Âť 223.3120 Colonialwineandspirits.com Facebook.com/ColonialWines

l,

Heifer Living Gift Market The third installment in Arkansas Times’ new film series collaboration with the Little Rock Film Festival at the CALS Ron Robinson Theater.

Experience the Heifer Village Living Gift Market Saturday Dec. 6, from 10 a.m to 3 p.m. They bring the Ranch animals into the big city.

Get up close and personal with the living gift animals. Check out the artisan goods at the Shop @Heifer and stay for lunch at Café @Heifer for a full day of fun, charity and education!

7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 18 • $5 CALS Ron Robinson Theater • 100 River Market Avenue

Goat, $120. These versatile creatures can survive in even the most extreme climates. They supply up to a ton of milk a year (used also to make cheese, yogurt and butter), leading the way for better nutrition in impoverished communities. Because they have two to three kids a year, it’s easier for Heifer families to pass on the gift of a goat to another family.

Heifer, $500. There are so many wonderful reasons to give a Heifer and training in its care this holiday season. It will provide the daily milk to nurse a malnourished child back to health. It will provide income from milk sales that parents can use for food, clothes, school and medicine.

One Heifer can impact an entire community.

Pass on a Gift of offspring.

Chick, $20. Chickens require little space and can thrive on scraps; this allows families to make money from the birds without spending much.

Since a good hen can lay up to 200 eggs a year, your gift of chicks provides a steady source of nutrition and income.

Water Buffalo, $250. One of the toughest animals out there, water buffalo lead a family out of hunger by providing milk to drink and sell, the strength to till soil and plant rice. A farmer can plant four times more rice with the help of a water buffalo than he can by hand.

Strong enough to haul heavy loads to the market, Heifer families often rent out their buffalo to neighbors to earn extra income.

Also, experience the Ranch for the festival of lights, sounds and tastes of the holiday season Dec. 13 from 5-8 p.m. and Dec. 15 from 3-6 p.m.

Visit our show barn to meet our animals. There will be activities for all ages and opportunities to support the mission of Heifer by purchasing an animal for a family in need. Also stop into the fair trade gift shop to purchase unique gifts for your friends and family.

46

DECEMBER 4, 2014

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2155 Deerwood Dr. Hensley, AR 72065

Presents

3 miles off Sheridan Hwy 167 left on Springlake

Pet Obits Your Pet Passages

FOR SALE

BY OWNER

1800 sq.ft. and a full basement unfinished of 1800 sq.ft. w/8 acres

Issue Dates: Thursdays Material Deadline: Mondays, same week of publication. ...

"The most richly enjoyable new play for grown-ups that New York has known in many seasons…" -- New York Times

A divided family, a memoir and a long-held family secret…

Directedby

by Ralph Ralph Hyman Directed Hyman

December 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, and 20, 2014

December 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, and 20, 2014

Tickets: $16 Adults $12 Students and Seniors Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm For more information contact us at 501.374.3761 or www.weekendtheater.org Fridays & Saturdays 7:30pm • $16 Adults / $12 Students & Seniors

• 3 bedrooms/ 2 baths; 42 years old • Insulated well, low monthly electric/water bills • All 4 sides of the house are surrounded by woods and very private • Large insulated metal shed

Feature your pet with a photo.

Ad Size 1/16 1/8 1/4

Dimensions 2.12 W x 2.62 H 4.5 W x 2.62 H 4.5 W x 5.5 H

Rate $70 $150 $300

For more information contact us at 501.374.3761 or www.weekendtheater.org

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

Other Desert Cities is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.

Originally produced by Lincoln Center Theater, New York City, 2010.

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

Feature your pet without photo Ad Size 1/32 1/16

Dimensions 2.12 W x 1.18 H 2.12 W x 2.62 H

Rate $35 $70

Wonderful neighbors and a great place to raise children and to have inside or outside dogs!

For more info, call or text 501-607-3100

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

Support for TWT is provided, in part, by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the DAH, and the NEA.

Contact luis@arktimes.com 501-492-3974

YOUR ULTIMATE FAMILY PUPPY! Jasper is a great little puppy we picked up on the Buffalo River near the town of the same name. He loves to play with our dogs, cats and other farm animals. He is a great cuddler and bed partner with our kids. He is house broken, very smart and learns quick. He needs lots of room to run a play and is extremely social both with people and other animals.

We have four other dogs or we would keep him. We think he is really special and needs a forever home. He has had his first round of puppy shots and has been wormed. He is extremely healthy and just a few months old. We are asking $25 to cover the cost of his puppy shots and medication.

Call Kaytee

501.607.3100 WE ARE IN NORTH PULASKI COUNTY, 11 MILES WEST OF CABOT NEAR HWY 107.

C U S T O M F U R N I T U R E tommy@tommyfarrell.com ■ 501.375.7225 www.arktimes.com

DECEMBER 4, 2014

47

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www.kylerochellejewelers.com 48

DECEMBER 4, 2014

ARKANSAS TIMES