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COMMENT
Traditional schools
As a student who has attended Little Rock public schools since pre-K, I have gotten a firsthand look at what makes public schools great. With the pro-charter school agendas of President Trump and his secretary of education, our education system could lose public schools and their great qualities altogether. Charter schools don’t have to follow the same rules as public schools, so they aren’t required to offer the same services as public schools. Charter schools don’t have to offer transportation, such as school buses for students, which I think is a must-have for any school. Charter schools want to “transform our public school system,” but when you don’t offer transportation you are keeping children that have no means of getting to school from attending a charter school. No free transportation to charter schools is keeping children who want a better education from leaving problem schools to attend a charter school. I would hate to see a world where schools didn’t offer free transportation and many of the programs in current public schools to their students. John Swaim Little Rock
Economic Darwinism at work
How ’bout that Trump Budget? I loved the way Mick Mulvaney, budget director, characterized the budget as “perhaps” the most “compassionate” budget ever. I watched Mulvaney proudly recite how his budget was tailor-made to fulfill Agent Orange’s campaign promises. The ugly truth is, what I witnessed with barely restrained horror, was selective euthanasia: economic Darwinism at work carried out by Trump’s budget priorities. The weakest among us, poor children on the one end and helpless seniors clinging to the other, must go. Keeping them alive, as Mulvaney so smugly asserted, “isn’t producing satisfactory results.” He’s right; most are still alive. Agent Orange views their existence as unworthy, even burdensome to those of us who are blessed with good health and a job. His budget will fill the cracks beneath the feet of the living with the carcasses of the poor and defenseless. Now throw in a health care plan that is clumsily and speciously crafted to nail the coffin on seniors who somehow beat the system, and what have you got? Come on Arkansas. You voted overwhelmingly for this monster, what have you done? Please don’t assume you know my politics, because you don’t. 4
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This is a moral issue. Harry Hergert Little Rock
From the web In response to Gene Lyons’ March 16 column, “More on pits”: Gene Lyons, visit your local shelter. The majority of the homeless dogs are pit bulls. Meet those pit bulls and see real danger that you write about. You are a part of the reason pit bulls get
euthanized, abused and neglected more than any other breed. Oh wait, I forgot, pit bulls aren’t a “real breed” right? I am a volunteer at my local shelter and “breeds” are meaningless. These animals are scared, alone and desperate for a family. Pit bulls, no matter how kind and gentle, are always there the longest. What more torture and misfortune do you wish upon these innocent animals? Yes, many pit bulls are bred for fighting. That is a terrible crime and those dogs can be rehabilitated. When dogs are made to fight, they are being tortured. They need to be rescued. On behalf of rescuers
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and loving dogs, I employ you to write an article apologizing for your ignorance on this matter. Susan Swanay As an American citizen, I understand you have the right to your opinion; however, your news piece is really an editorial. I am outraged that you choose to belittle a loving and docile collection of dogs. Pit bull-type dogs cover hundreds of mixed breeds. If you would look back in history, pit bull-type dogs were called nanny dogs because they took great care of children. Your picture indicates that you are perhaps old enough to remember the television show “The Little Rascals,” in which a pit bull-type dog was the star. Dog aggression is not natural for any breed. Remember, dogs are domesticated, which by Merriam-Webster’s definition means “to adapt (an animal or plant) to life in intimate association with and to the advantage of humans.” Illiterate, non-responsible and perhaps greedy humans have chosen a very loyal breed (meaning a breed that really wants to do what is asked by his human) to dogfight or be vicious. The owner is training a domesticated animal to do vile things. Many pit bull-type dogs are tortured, and/or given cocaine to alter their normal docile personality. Pit bull-type dogs are often put to death in a horrific fashion if they choose not to fight. The humans have the issues, not the dogs. Yes, innocent humans suffer at the hands of terrible and perhaps psychopathic people, just as innocent people suffer and are maimed by distracted drivers. Hmm. Maybe that’s a cause you could take up, and leave the innocent pit bulltype dogs alone. Diane Gardner Diane, this is a column, not a news piece. So yes, it’s opinion. It’s supposed to be. And dogs evolved from wolves. Claiming they are not naturally aggressive is naive/uninformed at best. They are no longer wild, but one of the reasons humans and dogs struck up a relationship was because dogs are protective. That some humans have taken advantage of that natural aggression in an extreme way doesn’t negate the science. Vanessa
Correction: In last week’s Readers Choice edition, we mistakenly identified I Love Juice Bar as the winner in the Yogurt/smoothies category in a photo caption. Red Mango was the winner.
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WEEK THAT WAS
Quote of the Week: “What we will have done is create a framework of education so our children will know the truth about who we are. They’ll know the pain and suffering of war. They’ll know the pain and suffering of being mistreated and [being] told, like I was told when I first went to the University of Arkansas, ‘You cannot live in this dormitory because of the color of your skin.’ … Let’s do something for our children. Let’s do something for the state of Arkansas by creating some space where they can take time to talk about Robert E. Lee and what he did that day when he painfully surrendered and reached his hand across and said enough is enough.” — Rep. George McGill (D-Fort Smith), urging colleagues to vote for a bill that would remove official state recognition of Lee from the annual holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The House voted, 65-10, in favor of Senate Bill 519, which also requires Arkansas to develop a school curriculum on civil rights leaders and state Civil War history. The governor, who led the push for separating Lee from King Day, signed the bill into law on Tuesday.
The River Valley culture war A group of conservative legislators, including Rep. Trevor Drown (R-Dover) and Sen. Greg Standridge (R-Russellville), are hell-bent on eliminating a department at Russellville’s Arkansas Tech University, sparking protest from students and others. Last week, an amendment to Tech’s budget was introduced that would strip all funding for the Department of Diversity and Inclusion. It was pulled down temporarily, perhaps due to the scores of Tech supporters who showed up at the Capitol early Wednesday morning — but it will likely be back. The legislators’ proximate complaint: An LGBTQ-advocacy student group, Spectrum, sponsored a sex-ed event in which one table evidently included sex toys. The diversity department did not sponsor the event, but Spectrum included the department’s name on its flyer. In an interview with a local news outlet, Drown listed other grievances, including “transgender-friendly bathrooms” at Tech. Among those speaking out against the legislators’ crusade was Russellville Mayor Randy Horton. “If we start here, what’s the next step?” he asked. “Are we going to defund the entire university?”
Running on fumes The most sensible way to raise money 6
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ARKANSAS TIMES
for roads is to tax drivers. But a legislative proposal to allow Arkansans to vote on a highway bond issue in 2018, to be paid for with an effective increase in the fuel tax, was rejected by the state House last week, 38-35. The fact that 20 representatives didn’t vote means the measure isn’t entirely dead, but the Republican majority is split on the proposal. Pragmatists recognize that maintaining the state’s roads requires new revenue, but many anti-tax hardliners refuse to lend their support.
Trump’s budget cuts in Little Rock, by the numbers: President Trump’s proposed budget released last week includes a $54 billion increase in defense spending, offset by devastating cuts in the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department and much more. If approved by Congress, those cuts would hit communities in Arkansas hard, as detailed by Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola in an email this week. Among the potential losses:
Voucher proposal reborn Last week, the House voted down a contentious bill to create “education savings accounts” in Arkansas, which would give wealthy donors tax breaks in return for funding K-12 students’ private school tuition and other educational expenses. This week, it was revived in the Senate and passed that chamber easily, with a few changes. Senate Bill 746 places a lower cap on the number of participating students that could be drawn from a single school district and prevents education savings account funds from being used for college tuition after the student graduates from high school. Nonetheless, it’s still bad, bad news for public schools, which is why associations representing teachers, superintendents and school boards all oppose it.
Community Development Block Grant funds to LR, which pay for health clinics and Meals on Wheels, among other programs. Trump wants to eliminate CDBG, which funds $23 million in projects across the state.
Funds from the HOME Investment Partnership Program,
which provides affordable new housing and home rehabilitation. The program funds $8 million in projects statewide, Stodola said.
The number of AmeriCorps members who served in Little Rock over the past year. Trump’s budget
would eliminate the program, which pays young people a small amount to work up to two years in nonprofit and educational institutions in return for some alleviation of college debt.
OPINION
Don’t cry for Robert E. Lee
C
ongratulations are in order for Governor Hutchinson. He decided this year to devote the weight of his office to end the state’s embarrassing dual holiday for slavery defender Robert E. Lee and civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. People like Nate Bell and Fred Love put the ball in play in 2015. Several made it happen this year, but none more than the governor. He got notable supporting oratory from people like his nephew, Sen. Jim Hendren (R-Gravette), and the usually silent Rep. George McGill (D-Fort Smith), who enthralled the House with the perspective of a black man who’d felt the lash of discrimination as a student at the University of Arkansas. Much mutual backslapping followed the victory Friday and the governor waited until Tuesday for a full-dress ceremonial bill signing. Now let me rain on the parade of people singing “We Shall Overcome”
and comfort Lee’s defenders. For one thing, it was embarrassing that it was so hard to pass a bill taking us off MAX the front seat of BRANTLEY the Dixie Flyer bus maxbrantley@arktimes.com with Alabama and Mississippi. Nobody celebrated Lee on the third Monday in January, so nothing practical was at issue. But a noisy number deeply resented granting higher status to a black man than to the Confederate general. Few of them knew the legislated day of honor grew directly from Southern resistance to desegregation in the 1940s. But here’s the thing. The Confederacy’s legacy lives on. The Arkansas Republican revolution was achieved in the political equivalent of a nanosecond thanks to disdain, if not hatred, for a black man, Barack Obama. The continuing resistance to his legitimacy gave
Attack the poor
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hat do Pope Francis and the Republican Party have in common? I’m waiting. Let’s make it easier by eliminating possibilities, or at least one. They do not share a common admiration for Jesus’ sermons that we should give to the poor and that if you are really rich your path to Heaven is to distribute your wealth to the poor and go among them. There must be millions of Republicans who at least share that sentiment even if like the rest of us they don’t follow it, but it is scarcely evident in the national Capitol or Arkansas’s — or many statehouses for that matter. If there is a unifying motif to the labors of Congress and the Arkansas legislature this spring it is to make life harder and existence more intolerable for Americans who don’t have or make much money or else find themselves socially unacceptable owing to some physical or mental condition. Though masked by discussions about disincentives and religious convictions, the purposes are as simple as that. The tumult among Republicans
over whether to scrap Obamacare altogether or just change a few key provisions to make the whole thing ERNEST unworkable is DUMAS altogether about how far to pull up the safety net for the poor — OK, and cutting taxes for the top tenth of 1 percent, drug companies and insurance companies that were levied by Obamacare to shore up Medicare and Medicaid. As part of the reform of Obamacare, Congress is about to start shriveling Medicaid (but after two more elections have passed) so that the needy, from indigents in nursing homes to the disabled of every description, will have to fight among themselves to preserve some access to medical care. The Trump and Ryan budgets — let’s save them for another day. Bills are flying through the Arkansas legislature to make it harder to get nutrition and medical help, to dictate exactly what nourishment the poor can get with public assistance (no more Snickers or 7Ups), to cut off medical aid for people
Donald Trump an Arkansas landslide. The South hasn’t quit fighting. The Arkansas legislature wants to change the state’s Constitution to make it harder to vote. King died fighting for the franchise. Where King wanted to eliminate segregation root and branch, the legislature is working root and branch to aid resegregation — through school transfers that disregard racial motive, charter schools and public payment of tax money to private schools, including some whose existence is owed to segregation. At his death, King was planning a poor people’s march. Today, the Arkansas legislature and its Republican representatives in Congress see poverty as a character flaw. Lawmakers believe — if they believe in public assistance at all — that the working poor must jump more hurdles to get health care or food for their children (and many legislators want to dictate what food they may buy.) A scholarship program created to send more people to college is funded by the hopelessly poor desperately chasing lottery longshots. Legislative requirements for the money now guarantee that it goes disproportionately to white people of comfortable economic means.
THE ARKANSAS LEGISLATURE also recalls sharecropper days with landlordtenant law. Failure to pay rent remains a crime in Arkansas, no matter how uninhabitable the shelter a landlord provides. It is also impossible to imagine that Martin Luther King would have supported discrimination against people on account of religion or sexual orientation. The Arkansas legislature is hard at work attempting to do just that, with better than a dozen bills aimed at denial of equal rights. Minorities of various stripes, including philosophical, are also at the root of legislative extortion attempts at Arkansas Tech. These legislators want to put colleges in bondage to their narrow philosophy, academic freedom be damned So whatever the end of the King-Lee holiday might do for Arkansas’s image, it will have scant impact on daily life and ring hollow against dozens of votes with more tangible impact. To borrow liberally from King’s “dream” speech on the occasion of elevation of his holiday: I come to remind Arkansas of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of empty symbols or to take the tranquilizing drug of self-congratulation. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. I have a dream.
who don’t have payroll jobs, to reduce unemployment benefits (Arkansas is not quite at the bottom yet), and the list goes on. Pope Francis must have had all the Washington news in mind when he gave an interview about the poor to an Italian magazine that serves the homeless and marginalized people. They asked a question that bothers us all. Is it your Christian duty to give something to the beggar at the intersection carrying a homemade sign, the bedraggled woman on the parking lot who asks for money to buy gas for her car that is stalled on the Interstate, the guy who needs a hot lunch or bus money to get to Memphis to see his dying mom or any of the other familiar lines? Yes, the pope said, it is “always right” to give to the poor. People refuse to give to the homeless because it is likely to be spent on alcohol, not healthy food, or because they should stay in a shelter or find some kind of job. People feel better about not giving if they can think of plausible reason, he said. “ ‘I give money and then he spends it on drinking a glass of wine,’ “ the pope said. “If a glass of wine is the only happiness he has in life, that’s OK. Instead, ask yourself what do you do on the sly? What ‘happiness’ do you seek in secret?” People should admit that they are luckier
in life but seek their own guilty pleasures. Francis also admonished Christians not to toss coins casually and refuse to engage the poor but rather to show respect and concern about their situation and not look down upon them as they would animals. He said he had found more genuine humanity and shared empathy in the slums of Buenos Aires than in the better quarters of town. He thought it was wrong to ban begging and the homeless from any quarter, a growing movement in American cities. A Republican congressman who was instrumental in designing the Obamacare repeal offered a different take on the Bible than Francis’. Jesus didn’t like the poor or else he would not have said they would always be with us. Jesus expects the government to kick the bums off the rolls and give them incentives to get a job. When the Hutchinson administration was able to announce that 25,000 people had been forced off the Medicaid rolls for not following up on administrative requirements and that the Trump administration was about to give the state permission to end health insurance for many thousands more “able-bodied” people who for many thousands of reasons don’t hold down payroll jobs, it was cause for celebration. Being a good Christian is so easy.
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Worse than N.C.’s
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UPCOMING EVENTS ON CentralArkansasTickets.com ACANSA Arts Festival
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Fine Art and Craft Preview Party and Silent Auction with heavy hors d’oeuvres, wine and beer. $25
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UA - Pulaski Tech’s Center for Humanities and Arts
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Delbert McClinton Live at The Center for Humanities and Arts Go to CentralArkansasTickets.com to purchase these tickets - and more!
LOCAL TICKETS, One Place
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ARKANSAS TIMES
From your goin’ out friends at
he basketball teams from the flagship state universities in North Carolina and Arkansas played an exciting game in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday. At the same time, the Arkansas General Assembly was pondering whether to enter a different sort of contest with North Carolina by passing a competing anti-transgender “bathroom bill.” Senate Bill 774 is clearly inspired by North Carolina’s infamous House Bill 2 that has served as a disruptive force in Tar Heel politics and economics since its passage a year ago. Last week, state Sen. Linda Collins-Smith (R-Pocahontas), the chief sponsor of the “Physical Privacy and Safety Act,” presented her legislation to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Although Collins-Smith pulled it down from a vote because it lacked the votes for a committee green light, there is still time for it to begin moving in the legislative process following revisions to the legislation. At the hearing, Collins-Smith claimed that her proposed legislation differs from the North Carolina law. She’s right. It’s more problematic in two important ways. The bulk of SB 774 is clearly modeled on HB 2, but there are two major differences between HB 2 and SB 774 Both make the legislation even more objectionable than HB 2. First, while HB 2 requires one to use a bathroom matching the sex on his or her current birth certificate, SB 774 requires one to use the facilities matching the sex on the individual’s original birth certificate. Assuming the current legislature does not bar the practice (a bill to do that failed in a House committee last week), Arkansas has a fairly straightforward judicial process for changing one’s sex on a birth certificate based on a doctor’s notice that a sex change has occurred. No matter what one’s current birth certificate states, SB 774 requires one to use the bathroom matching the sex on the birth certificate issued at birth, a sex deemed “immutable” by the law. In response to a question from Gretchen Hall, the head of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, about how those covered by the legislation might actually effectively weed out those in the bathroom that didn’t match their original birth documents, Collins-Smith responded: “It’s your job to find a way.” SB 744 also allows individuals whose privacy was “invaded” by sharing a bathroom with someone of a different sex (at least according to their origi-
nal birth certificate) to file suit in either state or federal court against the governmental entity that had JAY been slack in its BARTH policing of those who enter its bathrooms. The offended party would have up to four years to file suit for the harm done to them and could gain compensation from the state or local governmental entity for any “psychological, emotional, and physical harm.” Such expansion of tort liability (and undermining of state sovereign immunity) is ironic, considering that the legislature will send to voters constitutional amendments to dramatically limit tort liability in medical malpractice cases. In the lead on the opposition to SB 774 to date have been the elements of the business community most likely to feel the impact of a loss of tourism (i.e. the hospitality industry) and governmentowned facilities like North Little Rock’s Verizon Arena. Their engagement is driven by the impact of HB 2 on North Carolina’s economy. In the past year, the state has felt what the Greensboro mayor called a “manmade recession.” The hit on North Carolina’s economy has been estimated at $630 million with the biggest losers being the low-wage workers relying directly on jobs related to concerts and sporting events that have been canceled because of boycotts of the state. The Greensboro Coliseum claims that the facility and its vendors have lost over $200,000 because of cancellations tied to HB 2. Behind the scenes, the state’s largest corporations are also pushing against a piece of legislation that could badly damage the state’s image. And, if SB 774 begins to move through the legislative process, higher education institutions also no doubt will become more public in their opposition to legislation that is contrary to their values and interests (the Razorback track and field program would be prevented from hosting national championships, for instance). Perhaps it goes without saying, but it is the “Physical Privacy and Safety” of transgender persons that is put at risk by this singularly discriminatory piece of legislation. Hopefully, the General Assembly will not seek to one-up North Carolina in targeting citizens that instead deserve protection and respect.
Macee’s babies came several months early. We made sure they left healthy. As the mother of two preemies (babies born before 26 weeks), Macee knows all about hope — and the benefit of choosing the right hospital. Born five years apart, her daughters Leilani and Lucy each weighed less than three pounds at birth. Macee delivered both babies at UAMS, where preemies have a greater chance of survival. As the state’s only academic health sciences center, UAMS is known for the life-saving care it provides to premature babies. Faced with tremendous challenges just as they entered the world, Leilani and Lucy not only survived, they thrived. Thanks to the experts at UAMS.
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ALMANAC OF ARKANSAS HISTORY
This unique book offers an offbeat view of the Natural State’s history that you haven’t seen before – with hundreds of colorful characters, pretty places, and distinctive novelties unique to Arkansas. Be informed, be entertained, amaze your friends with your new store of knowledge about the 25th state — the Land of Opportunity.
Payment: CHECK OR CREDIT CARD Order by Mail: ARKANSAS TIMES BOOKS 201 E. MARKHAM ST., STE. 200, LITTLE ROCK, AR 72201 Phone: 501-375-2985 Fax: 501-375-3623 Email: ANITRA@ARKTIMES.COM
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Foul play
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his beautiful little ride couldn’t have just ended conventionally. That’s not the Razorback way. Arkansas reeled off nine wins over 11 games, including a thrilling openinground vanquishing of Seton Hall in the NCAA Tournament, and earned another Round of 32 date against North Carolina for its troubles. The Tar Heels, as usual chock-full of skill and bereft of glaring weaknesses, have obvious designs on a sixth national title, and they looked every bit the part after the first 15 minutes Sunday in Greenville, S.C. UNC’s size and versatility had the Hogs on the ropes. The margin was 30-13, the pace was uncomfortable for the underdogs in red, and nobody seemed primed to reverse the course. It was shaping up to be a rout like the 2008 matchup between these programs, and not like the back-and-forth affair of two years ago. Daryl Macon pulled off a four-point play with a quick-trigger corner heave, though, and something clicked. The junior guard, largely ineffective Friday against Seton Hall, though he did hit two big free throws late, started to pepper the Heels with his soft jumper and sneaky drives, and freshman Adrio Bailey came off the bench to provide additional spark. When Macon swished another three to close the half, Arkansas had reeled off an impressive 20-8 finish to draw within five. The burst was sustained, too. Carolina’s backcourt was flustered by the Razorback defense, turning it over repeatedly in the second half while the Hogs waited on their usual leaders of late — Moses Kingsley, Dusty Hannahs and Jaylen Barford — to come to life. Arkansas stole away the lead and held it for extended stretches of the last 20 minutes, with Barford’s acrobatic lay-in putting the Hogs up 65-60 with barely 3 minutes left. The surge, all told, was remarkable: Over the span of about 22 minutes of game clock, Arkansas had outscored the Heels 52-30, and did it in a way that rekindled memories of Nolan Richardson’s best Razorback teams. It was frenetic but controlled basketball, and it was awe-inspiring. And then, with the aiding and abetting of a Big Ten official who was suspended three years ago for that conference’s tournament due to some flagrant rule violations, it was over. UNC finished out the game on a 12-0 run that was equally marked by the Hogs’
ill-timed tightening up and referee Bo Boroski’s indelible and inexcusable impact on the game. At the risk BEAU of pinning the seaWILCOX son-ending, 72-65 loss on officiating, let’s look past some of the Razorbacks’ gaffes in the closing minutes to center on a sequence that has typified the “Hog Experience” for those of us cursed to have followed the state school’s athletic programs for decades. Macon tried a 22-footer with 1:18 left and the shot clock winding down that, upon an extensive replay review, was clearly tipped by UNC’s Kennedy Meeks before it hit the baseline, but Boroski’s crew made the determination that the replay was inconclusive and gave UNC possession. Then, UNC’s Joe Berry II threw about a half-pound of salt into a widening wound, first by taking four steps that didn’t get whistled, then by careening into Bailey’s perfectly positioned frame for a charge that also didn’t get whistled, and then by heaving the ball up to the glass recklessly, where it ominously deflected right onto Meeks’ waiting hand. That tip over Kingsley, who then rimmed out two free throws at the other end to effectively seal the Hogs’ fate, proved to be a galvanizing moment in the Twittersphere, as lots of impartial onlookers evinced shock and disgust at the no-calls. It was merely the icing on another inedible cake for the Hogs, though. UNC was whistled for only 10 fouls the entire game, compared to 20 for Arkansas, which is illogical in any context given the Heels’ aggressiveness, and the Tar Heels never put the Razorbacks in the bonus, shooting a whopping 25 free throws compared to the Hogs’ meager eight attempts (and Macon, you’ll recall, had four of those on his three-point attempts in the first half). The game was fairly physical; there was no explanation for this kind of disparity unless you watched Boroski patrolling the far sideline on the broadcast and paid close attention to the fact that for the final 10 minutes especially, the veteran official was quick with the whistle when Arkansas was on defense and suspiciously silent at the other end. And don’t chalk this up as paranoia, as the replay of the game inescapably will yield the same conclusion. It was an officiating travesty, and it in large part dictated the outcome.
MARCH 31 & APRIL 2 ` CABE FESTIVAL THEATRE
THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE
Steamrolled
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evy is different. Different, even, than Dogtown, which is different in and of itself. A lot of the businesses along MacArthur Drive have been there since The Observer was a lad: Stanley Hardware (where our dear, crotchety aunt and uncle have worked for an age), Undercar Garage and the Bellwood Diner. It’s a place that feels old school, covered in grit from the railroad tracks. The businesses that start there tend to stay. Sadly, that will not include The Gettin’ Place, a mom and pop store and deli that stood at 5303 MacArthur Drive since September 2000, the building built with owner Tony Runions’ own two hands on a site occupied by another store since 1948. Friday of last week was their last day. They don’t plan to reopen elsewhere. It’s the kind of joint The Observer might have stopped into with Pa for a pint of chocolate milk back in our roofing days. The walls were hung with neon beer signs, one side was full of Formica booths, the fare included fried bologna and chopped ham and cheese sandwiches, ordered from a lighted pegboard over the cigarette rack and served on white butcher paper. Sandy Runions, Tony’s wife, worked behind that counter almost every day for 17 years. On Thursday of last week, she stood behind the counter and clutched a dishrag with which to dab her tears. She had been crying all day, a victim of the march of progress. Up the street, work continued, as it had for the past three years, on the new, wider bridge over the railroad tracks. Slowly, unstoppably, the construction had curved like a blade and sliced off the parking lot out front, the land taken through eminent domain and on the strength of a document from 1942 establishing a state right-of-way, which Tony said hadn’t turned up in the original title search when he bought the property.
In the beginning, Tony said, representatives of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department told them they would be contacted with an offer to buy the place or to remodel so they could move their parking lot to the side, but those calls never came. Before the construction, they’d had around 750 people a day through the store, picking up a sixer of Bud Light, a pack of smokes or a hot ham and cheese from the deli, loyal folks they knew by name. Over the past two years, business dropped by 40 percent. Some of the hardhats working on the bridge have become regulars. Until Sandy was forced to fire two of her four employees back in December, the girls joked with the construction workers when they tromped in for lunch, telling them they were the enemy. Nobody is joking anymore. By this time next year, traffic will be rolling past at 50 miles an hour, 15 feet from Tony and Sandy Runions’ former American Dream, for sale or lease. Over the years, Tony said, he’s collected and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales taxes. “With the amount of taxes I’ve paid, I figured somebody from the city would have stood behind me and helped keep the store open,” he said. “But it’s not that way.” Ever since the couple posted on Facebook that the store would close, Tony said, there had been a steady stream of customers through, saying their goodbyes. “This week has truly been like a funeral,” he said. “Sandy’s been crying all day. Every group of customers who comes in the door, they say it’s like coming to a visitation.” Behind the counter, Sandy Runions wiped tears from her red eyes with the dishrag, and considered what it would be to say goodbye tomorrow to the waitress wiping down the tables — a single mother who had worked there 14 years — and what it would be like to work somewhere else herself. Meanwhile, up the street, progress continued.
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Arkansas Reporter
THE
y.
Bid to eliminate corporal punishment in schools fails But another school discipline bill advances. BY IBBY CAPUTO ARKANSAS NONPROFIT NEWS NETWORK
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BRIAN CHILSON
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bill that would have banned corporal punishment in public schools failed on a voice vote in Senate Education Committee last week. Corporal punishment “is the intentional infliction of pain or discomfort and/or the use of physical force upon a student with the intention of causing the student to experience bodily pain so as to correct or punish the student’s behavior,” according to the National Association of School Psychologists. Sen. Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock), lead sponsor of Senate Bill 610, said that corporal punishment should be a parent’s responsibility and that allowing corporal punishment in schools sends the wrong message to kids. “It should be the mission of our schools, I think, to teach our kids ways of resolving conflict other than there having to be physical conflict,” Elliott said in an interview. During questions, Sen. Alan Clark (R-Lonsdale) asked Elliott if she believed corporal punishment “never works.” “We can talk about my experiences with corporal punishment,” Clark said. “I’ll just say, I found them to be quite effective.” Clark relayed one experience he had in which a principal paddled his son in seventh grade for “horsing around in the football dressing room.” The handbook said the school should suspend the boy for three days, but the principal opted to punish with the paddle instead. “I got fire in my eyes, y’all have seen me that way, and I said, ‘If you had suspended my seventh grader for three days for horsing around in the dressing room, I would have been mad.’ So there are different value systems here,” Clark said. Elliott responded, “I think you were
SEN. JOYCE ELLIOTT: The sponsor of the bill to ban corporal punishment told her colleagues the mission of the schools is to teach children how to resolve conflict in ways that aren’t physical.
in that position because you’ve been forced into a false choice” between suspension or corporal punishment. In a paper called “State Policies Addressing Child Abuse and Neglect,” the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan nongovernmental organization that monitors and researchers state policies, wrote that, “Substantial research shows negative
long-term outcomes for children who are disciplined through corporal punishment.” Former U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. sent a letter in 2016 to state leaders urging them to eliminate the use of corporal punishment. Students of color are more likely to receive corporal punishment, and “in nearly all of the states where the
practice is permitted, students with disabilities were subjected to corporal punishment at higher rates than students without disabilities,” according to King’s letter. “These data and disparities shock the conscience,” the letter read. Johnny Key, state commissioner of education, said the Department of Education had a neutral position on the bill “because it’s still a local control issue,” but he said the department has been promoting positive alternatives, such as deescalation. “I think that it’s something that we can move away from and find better ways, more positive ways to have discipline.” Arkansas law explicitly allows school districts to include corporal punishment in their discipline policies. Many school districts allow parents to opt-out of corporal punishment for their child, according to Key. A second bill dealing with school discipline passed the Senate last week and was in the House Education Committee on Tuesday. Senate Bill 609 would prevent public schools from suspending students in kindergarten through fifth grade unless the student poses a physical risk to him or herself or others, or causes a series disruption that cannot be addressed through other means. Elliott was also the lead sponsor of that bill. “What that will do is that will force us as adults in essence to, quote unquote, be smarter than the kids, and figure out ways to deal with discipline other than from suspending them from schools,” Elliott said. “That’s the same principle I think we ought to apply to corporal punishment. As adults let’s figure out ways to administer discipline other than there having to be physical contact between an adult and a kid.” Twenty-two states currently allow corporal punishment in schools. Fifteen states permit it by law. Seven states do not have laws that prohibit it. This reporting is courtesy of the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an independent, nonpartisan news project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans.
THE
ARK ANSAS TIMES RECOMMENDS
BIG PICTURE
THE TIME EDITION
MY FAVORITE MOVIE about time travel is “Primer.” “Primer” was made for $7,000 by a regular dude, a mathematician, Shane Carruth. He was just some guy who decided to make a movie. What he ended up making is one of the most disturbing, influential, and relevant time travel movies of all time. And my new favorite factoid about time… There is an area of the universe known as the “CMB cold spot.” It is a void in space (missing approximately 10,000 galaxies, on average, compared with the rest of the universe) and it measures 1.8 billion light years across! If enough time elapsed for life to form on any of the planets located in one of the very few galaxies within this void, there would have been a loooong period of time when a person (or glip glorp, as it were) would look into the sky at night, and see only darkness. Then, over time, all the stars in the universe would have slowly appeared. I bet that was nice for them. Oh, and if you wanted my opinion about Daylight Savings Time, I think it’s ridiculous. We should pick a stopping point, and split the difference. Like in October, we should move the clocks back thirty minutes and be done with this nonsense. — Aaron Sarlo
“TIME IS ON MY SIDE.” Irma Thomas, the soul queen of New Orleans, did this in early 1964, ahead of the Rolling Stones’ hit, and it’s still my favorite version. “Yes it is,” to quote Irma. It was one of a stellar lineup on her “Wish Someone Would Care” album, its grooves worn smooth by lovesick teenagers all over Southwest Louisiana back in the mid- to late-1960s. And still. — Max Brantley
Time?
It’s a fraught topic at the moment for me, poised to dive off a life-change precipice with no idea of what I’m doing next. Time feels synonymous with death. It makes me think of “Fun Home,” comic artist Alison Bechdel’s melancholy masterpiece of loss, memory, family and cloistered sexuality. It makes me think of Gillian Welch’s “Time (The Revelator),” which makes me remember there was a time, 10 years ago, when that album was new and exciting to me and not worn into near-meaninglessness with brute-force repetition. Time is the revelator and the donut of the heart. Time makes me think of my favorite poem I’ve read in the past few months, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Elegy Before Death” — a gorgeous rebuke to the desire to be immortalized in the memories of the living: Saving the mayweed and the pigweed Nothing will know that you are dead — These, and perhaps a useless wagon Standing beside some tumbled shed.
Spring will not ail, nor autumn falter, Nothing will know that you are gone, Saving alone some sullen plowland None but yourself sets foot upon
But as we all trudge toward our respective graves, we must be outfitted with good consumer products. Which is why I want to recommend the Casio Men’s MQ24-7B2 analog watch! (I’m not sure what makes it a man’s watch, as it seems pretty androgynous to me. Is it soaked in testosterone?) I recommend this watch because it costs $10, it’s not ostentatiously ugly and it works. It’s as bare-bones and no-frills as a watch can be, with no light and no date and no alarm; it is nothing but a tiny analog machine that straps to your arm and keeps accurate time. It works well without disputing, which I’ve been told is the only way to render life tolerable. — Benji Hardy
INSPIRED BY: a) a New York Times article about the timed photographic studies of William Christenberry, Zoe Leonard and Jem Southam, as well as b) Austin-based musical collective Montopolis’ “Time Machine” project earlier this year, I’ve set out on an experiment to document a few fixed points in the Central Arkansas area over time by shooting photos of them at various points in 2017 (and maybe
even in subsequent years, should I be so disciplined). I’d recommend you do so, too — in photographic form, if you’re so inclined, or through a line drawing or written description of a fixed location. If that sounds like fun to you, or if you’ve already embarked on such a project and would be interested in sharing it with the Arkansas Times, drop me a line at stephaniesmittle@arktimes.com. — Stephanie Smittle
MY YOUNG CHILDREN don’t have anything against knowing what time it is. However, I would like to have inspired them a little earlier to know how to read an analog clock. They pretty much know how to read one these days, but still struggle to care to even gaze upon a clock. So I made these. They are my illustrations featuring a number of characters my kids and I created together, so they’re kid-approved, if that is still a thing to say. Collectively, they’re called Bash-O-Bash. Go to bashobash.com to find out more. Don’t be late. — Bryan Moats
arktimes.com MARCH 23, 2017
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GRATEFUL FOR ARKIDS: Amanda Tucker says it would take half her paycheck to pay for medications for her son, Benjamin.
ARKids turns
20
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wenty years ago, Marquita Little was among the first Arkansas children to get health insurance under then-Gov. Mike Huckabee’s Medicaid expansion initiative, ARKids First. Surrounded by kids, Huckabee signed the act creating the program on March 10, 1997, with a crayon. Today, Little is the health policy director for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Familes. Like other children of working parents who earned too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid but did qualify for ARKids, she got the medical care she needed to have a healthy childhood, which surely contributed to her successful adulthood. Unlike the president of the United States, who expressed surprise at the complexity of health insurance, Little is knowledgeable about Medicaid and how federal laws, including the Affordable Care Act, affect ARKids. She and her colleagues at Arkansas Advocates worry about ARKids’ next 20 years. Will the past 20 years be one day remembered as the Golden Age of health insurance in Arkansas, an age in which hundreds of thousands of children could afford to see a doctor and, more recently, when more adults had access to health care, an era before Congress dismantled the Affordable Care Act and also put new restrictions on Medicaid? That’s a real concern.
Medicaid expansion in 1997 brought huge change for children’s health. What will the next 20 years bring?
BRIAN CHILSON
BY L E S L I E N E W E L L PE AC O C K
HOW ARKIDS FIRST came about is one of those great stories in Arkansas politics. Huckabee, concerned about how much of Arkansas’s budget was dedicated to Medicaid, convened a task force to find ways to reduce Medicaid spending. Amy Rossi, then the director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and a member of the task force, decided she was going to ask the arktimes.com MARCH 23, 2017
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ARKids turns 20
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MARCH 23, 2017
ARKANSAS TIMES
He was making do. That got to me. I thought, my gosh, here’s a dad who can’t afford meds getting an antibiotic intended for a puppy. ARKids changed that. How can you not think that’s a
the decision was made to ask for a federal waiver to be able to charge a co-pay: $10 for doctor visits and $5 for medications. It was controversial; Medicaid required no co-pay. “I took a lot of flak”
BRIAN CHILSON
governor to increase Medicaid spending instead, so that children whose parents’ income was too high for traditional Medicaid but too low to afford private insurance could get regular doctor visits. “I remember calling my colleagues,” Rossi said, to tell them she planned to ask for more spending on children’s health care. The governor had asked the task force “to put everything on the table,” so she told fellow task force members that she would “put out there that there is a growing problem,” and that improving children’s access to health care “is going to make a difference in the economy.” The response from her colleagues was skeptical. “They pretty much said, ‘You do that,’ ” Rossi said. The pediatricians were the only ones who encouraged her to try it. Dr. Gil Buchanan, a highly regarded pediatrician, asked Rossi, “What could it hurt?” she recalled. Her economic argument was that sick kids miss school, which means parents miss work. Sick kids who go untreated get sicker, and may require more expensive care down the road. Uncompensated care is a burden on hospitals. Rossi also had a startling fact on her side: At the time, almost one in four Arkansas children had zero health insurance. The governor “was truly surprised” at that, she said. “He had no clue it was that bad. And he had an affinity for lowincome families.” Huckabee’s Medicaid director, Ray Hanley, confirmed the numbers. Huckabee didn’t say yes to Rossi when she followed through and raised the issue at the task force meeting, which she remembered was held on a Thursday. But the following Monday, Huckabee called Rossi and told her he wanted to talk to her more. That was November 1996. In December, Huckabee released his budget, and funding for ARKids First, which would cover children whose parents earned up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, was included. Huckabee, in a video produced by Arkansas Advocates for ARKids First’s 20th anniversary, called the expansion an alternative that “put a wider net around people that had nothing. These were working people.” The former governor, who traveled the state to promote the program, said he talked to a man in Mena who was getting his antibiotics for his children through a farm supply store. “It was all he knew to do, because he couldn’t afford meds at a pharmacy.
good idea?” Huckabee campaigned on his role in creating ARKids in his subsequent presidential bids. When representatives from the state Department of Human Services took to the road in the late 1990s to explain the ARKids program — a media campaign funded by matching grants from the Daughters of Charity and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — they were surprised to learn that parents didn’t want free coverage, Rossi said. “They would say, ‘What do I need to pay?’ ” she said, and when told the coverage would be free, “they’d say, ‘I want to put my share in.’ … It was a pride element.”So
PEDIATRICIAN DR. AARON STRONG: Says he is “passionate about the benefits of extended access to care that ARKids provides to children of working families.”
for going along with the idea, Rossi said. The waiver request “went all the way to the White House.” It was allowed after it was agreed there would be a safety net for parents who couldn’t afford the copays, like those with multiple children who would go to the doctor at once. Thus Arkansas became only the third
state in the nation to expand Medicaid eligibility for children up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, Arkansas Advocates says, and the first in the South, acting even before Congress passed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP, now known simply as CHIP) to specifically cover the population between 133 percent and 200 percent. ARKids was the Obamacare of its time: It was Medicaid expansion, offering coverage with low co-pays to working families who could not afford private insurance. In ARKids’ first year, an estimated 30,000 children enrolled. THE ARKIDS FIRST brand now includes both Medicaid, called ARKids A (for children, up to age 19, of families whose income is at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level), and the CHIP-funded expansion, now known as ARKids B. Combining the two programs under the ARKids First moniker helped remove the Medicaid “stigma,” Arkansas Advocates Director Rich Huddleston said. On Feb. 28, there were an estimated 381,907 children enrolled in ARKids First, Brandi Hinkle, a spokesperson for DHS, said. (Out of that number, 50,759 were enrolled in ARKids B). That’s nearly half of all Arkansas children. Another 7,000 were covered under ACA marketplace plans, AACF’s Little said. AACF data shows the percentage of children who don’t have health insurance in Arkansas, which before ARKids was near the top nationally, is down to 4.9, below the national average. Some of the recent enrollment in ARKids First is due to the “welcome mat” effect: When parents get insurance, they tend to get insurance for their children, too. This effect could be seen in 2015, after the ACA made health insurance accessible to hundreds of thousands of adults in Arkansas: The uninsured rate for children, which had been at 9 percent, dropped to 6 percent. Our “thank God for Mississippi” state is ranked at the bottom in many indicators of social well being, but in 1997, thanks to ARKids, it became a national leader in its support for expanded health care to children. In 2013, Arkansas became the first state in the nation to get a waiver to offer Medicaid insurance through private plans — the “private option” — and the program now covers 310,000 Arkansans, many of them previously uninsured.
changes in eligibility for kids covered by Medicaid through 2019, Little explained. What 2020 holds for children’s insurance coverage is what worries Arkansas Advocates.
or about 60,000 people. They would have to shop for more costly plans in the marketplace. THE BENEFITS OF MEDICAID, the
BRIAN CHILSON
“YOU HAVE TO GIVE HUCKABEE a lot of credit,” Arkansas Advocates’ Huddleston said. “He could easily have said it was not [going to work].” It’s likely that today’s Republican legislature would not have gone along with expanding children’s health care coverage to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. “I’m deeply concerned,” Huddleston said, “about the political environment and what it’s going to mean for kids’ health.” The ACA brought additional benefits for children as well as adults. Before the ACA came into being, the eligibility cutoff for ARKids A was at 133 percent of the federal poverty level for children younger than 6 and at 100 percent of the poverty level for children 6-18. Now it’s 138 percent for all children up to age 19. The CHIP program comes up for congressional reauthorization in September. Once under a renewal schedule of every four years, Congress changed that, first to every two years, and then every year. Those who want to dismantle the ACA see the renewal of CHIP as a bargaining tool. But “the big flashing light” that says danger when it comes to the revision of the Affordable Care Act being proposed by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, Little said, is that it would restructure the entire Medicaid program, putting caps on dollars to be provided to the states. “I don’t think that it’s an understatement that this would radically change how Medicaid works,” said Elizabeth Wright Burak of Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., at the Clinton School celebration of ARKid’s 20th anniversary. Burak said the caps will shift an estimated $370 billion in health care costs to the states over the next 10 years. If states can’t afford the costs, “it would reverse all the success we’ve seen, not just in children but in seniors and folks with disabilities.” The caps would be based on the cost of health care in 2016 plus a small inflation factor, Little said. But the rise in the cost of health care significantly outpaces the inflation rate. See, for example, the hike in costs of EpiPens, an essential medication for people with certain allergies: A pack of two that once cost $100 rose to $600 in 2016. It appears that families who insure their children through ARKids can breathe easy until 2020. There is a “maintenance of effect” clause in the Affordable Care Act that says there can be no
But Huddleston worries that Medicaid caps will require states to “rethink who is eligible. States are going to have to make cuts in either the population [to be covered] or in benefits.” “What does that mean for pocketbooks?” the AACF director said. “Will medical bankruptcies start to skyrocket again?” Governor Hutchinson announced a couple of weeks ago that he will ask the Republican-friendly federal government to lower Medicaid eligibility from 138 percent of the poverty level to 100 percent. That would boot one in five Arkansans off Arkansas Works,
ARKIDS ALUMNA: Marquita Little, whose mother was able to provide health insurance to her under the original ARKids program, is now the health policy director for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.
Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center for Children and Families says, are great. Research into heath care over the past 30 years shows that the program has reduced childhood mortality and increased long-term health with fewer hospitalizations. It has reduced school dropout rates, protected fami-
lies from medical-care bankruptcies, increased incomes and increased tax payments. One study of tax benefits showed that by the time a child reached the age of 28, the government had recouped 32 percent of the dollars spent on childhood Medicaid eligibility and 56 cents on the dollar by the age of 60. That study was of tax receipts alone, not incorporating other benefits, like college attendance and lower rates of mortality. The immediate benefit to Elizabeth Woods, 4, who has been on both ARKids A and B as her family’s income has waxed and waned, is that she’s been able to have her chronic ear infections treated. ARKids has paid for tubes in her ears — she’s already had three — and medicine for those ear and sinus problems. That’s a relief for her mother, who is single, working and going to college. The benefit to Benjamin Hernandez, 10, was the medication he was able to receive for his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — ARKids B paid for his ADHD meds, otherwise $200 a month — and chronic allergies. His mother, Amanda Parker, realized, “I didn’t have to worry if he came down with something.” “It would take half my paycheck” to pay for his medications, Parker, who is membership coordinator for the nonprofit Quapaw Quarter Association, said. Parker has had no trouble with the re-enrollment required for Benjamin’s ARKids B: “It’s a sheet of paper to fill out.” That is by design: Huckabee wanted the signup for ARKids to be much simpler than regular Medicaid, which required a face-to-face meeting and assets tests at the time. Those were eliminated for the expansion program. ARKids “has saved my butt. … It has always been a blessing,” Parker said. If Benjamin were to lose his ARKids eligibility because of changes to Medicaid, Parker could get a second job. But she’s not crazy about the idea. “I’d hate to get a second job to work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and not spend time with my son,” she said. Elizabeth Woods’ mother, Hawley, 34, is a parent educator for the Family Network, a nonprofit in Springdale that helps families in need find services, including ARKids First. That means she’s savvy when it comes to Medicaid: When her own insurance expired two years ago because of an infamous Department of Human Services computer glitch, she knew whom to call. Not everybody knows how to apply for Medicaid or arktimes.com MARCH 23, 2017
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ARKids turns 20
JUSTIN RUCKER
R E Z I R E D N E T N THE CO
HAPPY AND HEALTHY: Hawley Woods said ARKids coverage means she can get timely doctor visits for her daughter, Elizabeth, 4.
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ARKANSAS TIMES
what recourse they have when their coverage lapses, or has the confidence to call and ask for help, Hawley Woods said. (Woods, who had breast cancer and had had a mastectomy, required emergency surgery to treat an infection during the time she’d lost her Medicaid coverage during the DHS glitch. Fortunately a surgeon volunteered his services to perform the emergency procedure.) Because Woods, 34, is working toward a bachelor’s degree, she has had to limit her work hours. Even so, she said, she “needed help” even when she worked full time. Medicaid “is a huge deal for my family,” Woods said, as it is for others “working as hard as they can to provide for their child.” Elizabeth is prone to sinus infections as well as ear infections, “so we were at the doctor quite a bit,” Wood said. She said the stress would be huge “if I didn’t
have the knowledge that her coverage was good and affordable.” Having coverage “gives me confidence. When I notice something is going on with her I can get her in. What I see in my job is that parents wait because of the expense,” and then their children need more intensive care. “I can go in as soon as I know something’s going on.” The prospect that changes to the Affordable Care Act and Arkansas Medicaid could alter ARKids eligibility or coverage “is terrifying,” Woods said. “The thing is a catch-22. You’re working really hard to get out of where you are, but there is this middle area where you start losing supportive services, but you’re not making enough money [to afford private care]. I’ve had to get creative and work harder than I’ve ever worked in my life to get ahead. The system is against you.”
BRIAN CHILSON
OFFICE INTERIORS
WORRIED ABOUT THE FUTURE OF HEALTH INSURANCE: Rich Huddleston, director of AACF, hopes congressional action on Medicaid won’t mean people will have to go bankrupt paying for health care.
“If I was poorer, I would qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” Woods said. But because she works, she’s not. Bettering herself could cost her access to Medicaid as well. “It seems counterintuitive to me, to set people up to fail.” AACF’s Little, who was 14 when ARKids came into existence, said that because her own health care costs were so low, her mother was “able to move up the ladder without fear of us losing coverage. … That’s one of the beauties of the state filling in that gap: It’s a support for working parents. “There is so much conversation about encouraging work and independence; that’s why programs like ARKids are critical. My mom was able to go from being a janitor at an elementary school while she was in college to now being a director at the agency” where she works.
Connie Little is agency relations director at the Arkansas Foodbank. Little pointed to data that shows kids who have access to health care become economically stable adults, and that is true for her. “I was able to finish college, pursue a graduate degree, and here I am advocating for that access.” Little holds a bachelor’s degree from Hendrix College and a master’s degree from the Clinton School of Public Service. She worked at DHS before moving to Arkansas Advocates.
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IN ADDITION TO THE PROSPECT of fewer dollars is the disruption in provision of services that changes in the ACA and Medicaid will mean for the states. DHS’ well-known problems in dealing with system changes brought about by the ACA, such as the requirement that all re-enroll, plus technologarktimes.com MARCH 23, 2017
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ARKANSAS TIMES
ARKids turns 20 ical problems with ‘There is so much out coverage. “With computer databases ARKids, you don’t conversation about and software, data have to worry that.” Strong, who is on input mistakes, mail- encouraging work ing errors and the the board of Arkanand independence; constant turnover in sas Advocates, said people may not employees has meant that’s why programs appreciate “how that thousands of like ARKids are unique ARKids is, eligible Arkansans, adults and children, critical. My mom as far as how Arkanhave suffered lapses sas has arranged its CHIP program. or been dropped alto- was able to go from There really are gether from Med- being a janitor at an not a lot of states icaid. Because of changes in DHS com- elementary school that have worked it puter systems, Little the way we do. It’s while she was in said, Arkansas Advoexcellent insurance. cates has not been A lot of times I have college to now being a able to get countymore trouble findlevel enrollment director at the agency.’ ing opportunities numbers since 2014. for kids with private AACF has veen rely— Marquita Little insurance, like refering on Georgetown rals for therapy and University’s Cenmedication coverage. ter for Families and It’s comprehensive at Children, the Annie its best.” E. Casey Foundation and census data for DR. CRESHELLE yearly enrollment figNASH, formerly an ures. assistant dean at the College of Public Health at the UniverChanging things up again, as the Republican Congress want to do, would sity of Arkansas for Medical Sciences mean DHS would have to reprogram and medical director for the Arkansas once again. Expect trouble. Minority Health Commission, is now with Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield. At the Clinton School’s celebration of DR. AARON STRONG, a pediatrician in practice with the Little Rock Pediatric ARKid’s 20th anniversary, she was asked Clinic, said he is “passionate about the if there would ever be the political will benefits of extended access to care that to join the rest of the developed world and extend government insurance, like ARKids provides to children of workMedicare, to everyone. ing families.” “I still think we have a sense of rugARKids A’s EPSDT coverage — early and periodic screening diagnosis and ged individualism here as opposed to treatment — means doctors “can stay the collective good,” Nash said. “I look at it this way: Life is a journey, on top of their general health and catch potential problems so they can be treated a trajectory, right? And necessarily we’re early and aggressively and don’t become all going to need health care at some bigger problems.” point in time. … And I would want to The developmental screenings covhave, just in case I need it, when I need it, ered under ARKids allow him to refer it’s there ... and I want that for everyone. patients for developmental evaluations “I don’t think we have that sentiment. and therapy if he suspects the need. “If I still think that we, as a culture, operate I identify a problem, [children] have in a zero-sum game: That means, if you resources under their insurance. It have any, I have less. That’s a problem. “So until we get past, get to the value doesn’t give me a dead end: I don’t have point of that this is a common good that to say your child may have a problem with growth but, sorry, I can’t help you.” we all want in the United States of AmerARKids also provides dental care. “In ica, that’s going to be a tough thing to terms of numbers, if you are thinking get done.” about common diseases, dental problems In the current political climate, even — cavities, caries — are one of the most limited programs like ARKids and frequent health problems we see for kids,” expanded coverage for adults appear and may go undetected in children withto be at risk. arktimes.com MARCH 23, 2017
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Arkansas Made Arkansas Proud Locally Made Market A crafty festival with a little bit of everything for sale. BY AMY GORDY, DWAIN HEBDA AND HEATHER STEADHAM
A
rkansas is brimming with a unique creative energy that reaches from furniture designers and folk musicians in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains to the vibrant, bohemian maker culture emerging along Main Street in Little Rock. You’ll experience that energy when some of the state’s best crafters come together Friday and Saturday, March 31-April 1, in an inaugural maker’s market on the grounds of War Memorial Stadium. Arkansas Made Arkansas Proud 22
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ARKANSAS TIMES
Locally Made Market, co-chaired by Aimee Shelby and Lindsey Gray, owner of Eggshells Kitchen Co., will include furniture, leatherwork, jewelry, edibles and more. More than 85 vendors will sell their wares under pop-up tents at the rain-or-shine event (on the field if it’s not raining, concourse if it is), presented by the Arkansas Times and the War Memorial Stadium Foundation. A preview party from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday will be an evening of eats, libations, live folk music and access to silent auc-
tion items. Artists will attend and talk about their crafts. Sysco’s in-house chef, Jason Knapp, will prepare Southern delicacies, including grilled pimento cheese finger sandwiches, strawberry pretzel crostini and chicken salad phyllo cups, and crafters from the Ozark Folk Center will demonstrate their work and offer hands-on crafting experiences for little ones. Shoppers can enjoy these treats while sipping a glass of wine or beer and getting first dibs on one-of-a-kind Arkansas-made creations. Preview party tickets are $25 in advance at centralarkansastickets.com and $30 at the door. Proceeds benefit the nonprofit War Memorial Improvement Trust. The main event begins on the field at 10 a.m. Saturday. Shoppers will find crafts from every corner of the state in prices ranging from $5 to $1,200. “You won’t find anything here that would be in a big box store,” Gray said. “This event is a good chance to showcase the great Arkansas vendors and bring awareness to all the great art that comes out of the state. You’ll get to see the story behind the product and meet the creator.” In addition to vendors’ edible offerings, find stadium food, beer and wine available for purchase. Early bird shoppers can sip mimosas and Bloody Marys.
BATHHOUSE SOAPERY & CALDARIUM
Entry is $5 at the door; children 5 and under get in free. Ample, free parking is available on both days. Read on for info on the vendors: 2ND LIFE WOOD Rescuing wood removed during construction and from damaged and dead trees, Fayetteville’s 2nd Life Wood turns slabs of walnut, oak, cherry and other indigenous hardwoods into fine pieces of unique furniture. From ceiling-high headboards to bar counters on Dickson Street to wood pillars and beams in brewing companies, 2nd Life Wood’s work adorns both residential and commercial spaces with beautiful wood. Wood slabs, ready-made furni-
ADRIAN QUINTANAR
ture pieces, and custom work are all available from this fine craftsman. A CONVERSATION PIECE Featuring unique items from all across Arkansas, Russellville’s A Conversation Piece specializes in handcrafted textiles, glassware, ceramics, jewelry and paintings. ADHARA INC. Using metals, glass, semi-precious stones and natural, repurposed and found objects, Adhara jewelry is inspired by romance, fantasy and steampunk. ADRIAN QUINTANAR Originally from Fort Worth, Texas, Adrian Quintanar brought his artistic skill to Central Arkansas and has incorporated his new home into his work. From the rust of sugar maple leaves in autumn to the turquoise sky of an early spring morning, Quintanar’s pottery reflects the brilliant spectrum of Arkansas colors. His practical pieces of drinkware, vases and plant pots are as artistic as his ceramic sculptures. Custom pieces are also available. ALLISON EASTMAN BRITT DESIGN Allison Eastman Britt Design handcrafts dangly beaded earrings and reclaimed-silver “State Pride” necklaces. AR-T’S Based in Little Rock, AR-T’s screenprints T-shirts and tote bags in classic designs with a clever, urban edge. ARKANSAS AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT The Arkansas Agriculture Department administers the Arkansas Made program, promoting Arkansas goods and products and connecting buyers to local makers. ARKANSAS RICE COUNCIL Representing the state’s rice industry, the Arkansas Rice Council works to promote and protect the interests of rice producers, millers, merchants and allied businesses. ART BY LOIS From red Arkansas-shaped fishstamped magnets to flame-painted copper cuff bracelets, Art by Lois offers unique handmade jewelry, pottery and art.
BARBARA SMOCK EQUINE ART AND MORE Barbara Smock Equine Art and More paints friendly and often comical portraits of animals.
CARY COLLINS DESIGNS Cary Collins Designs offers hand-drawn, heartfelt encouragement through calendars, notecards and notepads featuring whimsical scripture art.
BATHHOUSE SOAPERY & CALDARIUM At one time, Hot Springs’ motto was “We Bathe the World,” making the Spa City the perfect location for Bathhouse Soapery & Caldarium. With its flagship boutique across from celebrated Bathhouse Row, Bathhouse Soapery & Caldarium specializes in small batch, hand-blended bath and body products. Bathhouse Soapery crafts personal care items, from body scrubs, bath bombs and mineral salts to smell-good essentials like deodorants, shaving soaps and lip balms. Its “Milk” products blend scents of raspberry, cotton candy and caramelized sugar.
CHERYL KELLAR With watercolors resonating with influences from Matisse to Monet, Kellar is inspired by store mannequins and the art of display. CHIPOTLE JOE’S Chipotle Joe’s dipping and grilling sauces, available in hot, mild and mustard, are all-natural, which means it contains no corn syrup, no artificial flavors, no preservatives.
BEADMAKERS SAGE & TOM Sage and Tom Holland are known as Arkansas’s top crafters of beads.
COCOA BELLE CHOCOLATES Cocoa Belle is the first and only Certified Professional Chocolatier in Arkansas and crafts handmade, artisan chocolate truffles, bonbons and barks.
BEE NATURAL SOAP Using wax and honey gathered from their own bees, Jacksonville’s Bee Natural Soap handcrafts soaps and lotions that naturally protect and heal skin.
COUNTRY DEEP CLOTHING From women’s motorcycle fashion to men’s tank tops, Country Deep Clothing is apparel that sticks with Southern roots.
BERINGER WOOD Beringer Wood fashions pens, cutting boards and other beautiful necessities from exotic hardwoods turned on a lathe.
CRAZY DAISY DESIGNS A one-stop shop, working on projects 2.9W in x ranging from graphic design, photography, furniture refurbishing and painting.
AR-T’S
sprinkled and more. DESIGNS BY DENISE Decorate your door with a wreath of colorful flip-flops or a red-andblack swath celebrating the Hogs from Cabot’s Designs by Denise. DIVA FROM SCRATCH While Diva from Scratch’s products range from bath salts to lip balm, its star product is stunning book art where folded pages become shapes and words.
1.4H ELECTRIC GHOST In addition to screen-printing for customers, Electric Ghost offers cool home decor items, apparel with its rad retro logo and much more.
BLUE SWALLOW CLOTHING CO. Inspired by vintage apparel, Blue Swallow Clothing Co. creates artisanhandcrafted jewelry and comfortable, natural-fiber clothing.
CREEK BABY Carefully curating small batches of simple, safe and unscented skin care and cosmetics, Creek Baby uses highquality USDA organic all-natural fairtrade ingredients.
ELIZABETH & MAXINE Elizabeth & Maxine crafts boho chic jewelry with gems from artisan pieces.
BRYAN KELLAR ART Kellar, who is retired from the state Parks and Tourism Department, specializes in vibrant watercolor paintings.
THE CRISPERY This vendor sells giant rice crispy treats in more than 30 different varieties, including dipped, filled, decorated,
FARM DIVA This vendor makes everything from money clips to earrings fashioned from repurposed bullets.
A CONVERSATION PIECE
Unique, local & handcrafted • Over 40 Artisans
312 West 2nd Street- Russellvile • (479) 567-5174 arktimes.com MARCH 23, 2017
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FRESH MOUNTAIN SOAPS With scents like cherry almond and bay rum, Fresh Mountain Soaps offers all-natural handmade soaps. GERI’S JAMS & JELLIES Find cranberry pecan and old-fashioned fig jams and candy apple and apple muscadine jellies from Hot Springs’ Geri’s Jams & Jellies. GREAT FERMENTS The probiotic cultures that promote good health flourish in the fermented okra pickles and crunchy kraut of Winslow’s Great Ferments. HILLCREST WATERBUGS The original makers of y’all shirts as seen on national media, Hillcrest Waterbugs brings progressive, Arkansas-proud apparel to your closet. HONEY PIES Using the freshest, high-quality seasonal ingredients, Little Rock’s Honey Pies bakes small-batch artisan goodies with techniques passed down from grandma. HONEYSUCKLE LANE CHEESE Quitman’s Honeysuckle Lane Cheese creates four varieties of cheeses from fresh raw milk produced by pasture-fed Jersey-influenced cows. I AM HERE I Am Here’s archival, acid-free cotton-fiber cards can’t be produced with modern machinery. I Am Here’s Gregory Mitchell, a cartographer working in Fayetteville for the past 10 years, draws maps and other images (everything from guitar heads to bacon sizzling in a skillet) on large sheets of vellum. These quirky works of art are then scanned and scaled to postcard size and converted to letterpress printing plates; a vintage platen press prints the postcards one at a time. ITTY BITTY BOOTS Featuring snap closures, supple leather soles, and soft cowboy heels,
baby’s first pair of boots from Itty Bitty Boots makes a great keepsake.
ors are available constantly. MADE. One-of-a-kind necklaces, rings and other jewelry pieces fashioned from native crystal and quartz harvested in the Natural State.
JAXON MARZ GOODS Fayetteville’s Jaxon Marz Goods produces affordable, all-natural body care using ethically sourced ingredients. The cleansing, deodorizing and moisturizing products are handmade in small batches.
MAVIS & CYNTHIA Named after the owner’s grandmothers, Mavis & Cynthia offers handcrafted jewelry pieces in bold colors reflecting the artist’s upbringing in tropical Trinidad.
JEANETTA DARLEY Taking inspiration from her Conway garden, Jeanetta Darley creates fine art prints that showcase the beauty of nature.
MINTAKA DESIGN Delta artisans create unique jewelry pieces including earrings, pendants and bracelets from a variety of metals and polished natural stone.
JK WOODWORKING Quitman’s JK Woodworking turns drought-stricken, dead and storm-damaged trees into wood items, from biscuit cutters to cutting boards. JUANITA’S CANDY KITCHEN Juanita’s Candy Kitchen in Arkadelphia will satisfy your sweet tooth with their signature peanut, pecan and cashew brittles. JULI ODUM’S URBAN JUNGLE JEWELRY Adorn yourself with the one-of-akind jewelry handmade from semi-precious stones and found objects from Juli Odum’s Urban Jungle Jewelry. KANNED BY KAREN Your jelly can smell of elderberries when you purchase the tart treat from Kanned by Karen. She also makes a variety of other jams and crafts. ARKANSAS FOOD BANK Pick up tasty rice side dish and soup mixes or a variety of other merchandise while helping Arkansas Food Bank feed the hungry in Arkansas. KAREN AHUJA STUDIOS Florals, landscapes and more are skillfully created in impressionistic and abstract style by make-up artist Karen Ahuja. KENT WALKER
I AM HERE
ARTISAN CHEESE Kent Walker Artisan Cheese has become a familiar gathering place for cheese lovers of every description since Walker opened his shop and tasting room in 2011. Walker makes cheeses from raw goat, cow and sheep’s milk, sourced from throughout Central Arkansas. KYYA CHOCOLATE Northwest Arkansas-based chocolatier Kyya specializes in small-batch, single-origin chocolate bars, powder, syrups and bonbons from cacao beans sourced from around the world. LIGHTHOUSE DESIGNS Add some sparkle and pizzazz to your wardrobe with Lighthouse Design’s line of bold jewelry, from single pieces to matching sets. LOBLOLLY CREAMERY Loblolly Creamery creates interesting twists on old favorites and seasonal delights using fresh, local ingredients sourced from area farms. LUV MY WALLET Give your wallet some personality with Luv My Wallet’s vibrant fabrics and quality construction; new styles and col-
KENT WALKER ARTISAN CHEESE 24
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MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER Arkansas-made merchandise handcrafted in Arkansas by African-American artisans, including jewelry, handbags, scarves, woodcarvings, head wraps and more. MOUNT OLIVE PEPPER CO. Tucked into the Ozark woods, Mount Olive smokes red-ripe peppers over hickory for almost 100 hours to create pure ground pepper without salt or preservatives. NAILED IT DESIGNS Fayetteville area-based Nailed It Designs creates a variety of intricate, whimsical string art designs. NATURAL STATE LEATHER GOODS A need for a creative outlet inspired Michael Hicks into leather working, a hobby that turned into a small obsession. His first major piece was a structured, square bag made from a single piece of leather folded and wet-molded into shape, and the beautiful bag is still a cornerstone of the collection. Natural State Leather Goods, which Hicks formed with his brother, Ethan, offers wallets, messenger bags, belts and satchels that are sure to outlive whoever you hand them down to. ODDBOWLZ CERAMICS This vendor specializes in funky and functional wheel-thrown pottery, featuring coffee mugs, pitchers, soup/
She works with metals, artisan beads and reclaimed jewelry. ROCHE APPAREL New clothing company producing Arkansas-influenced concept designs and T-shirt motifs promoting environmental causes.
KYYA CHOCOLATE
cereal bowls and more in earthy hues or vibrant colors. OZARK APOTHECARY From a small cabin in Lincoln (Washington County) comes this delightful line of crafted natural products, including lotions, soaps, balms and salves. PAULA SMITH POTTERY Sturdy and simple, Paula Smith Pottery’s rustic creations are meant to be used and enjoyed with family and friends. PICKLES’ POTTERY Fayetteville’s own Pickles’ Pottery artisans produce a variety of unique coasters and ornaments to suit any decor, including puzzle creations. POTTERY BY THEDA Bright colors and sturdy craftsmanship bring this Hot Springs potter’s work to life in hand-painted terra cotta earthenware dubbed “Happy Pottery.” PRATT FAMILY SALSA In addition to fresh salsa from an old family recipe, Pratt Family also produces dry spice mixes to lend a kick to a variety of dishes. PURE SOY CANDLES High-quality, fragrant soy candles poured with care in Saline County, Pure Soy Candles also makes lotion bars and wax melts. RHINODILLO DESIGN Founded in 2015, this Little Rockbased creative duo has produced original art, art prints and graphic-forward T-shirt designs. ROBINSON LANE DESIGNS Louisiana-born designer Christy Bourns Ward takes inspiration for her jewelry from the world around her, borrowing from nature, music and people.
SCRIPTED JOY/CHANCE PERCHANCE Home decor featuring customscripted messages on a variety of media and backgrounds. SERENDIPITY Bright, bold impressionistic artwork is the order of the day with the artist’s inspiration drawn from family, friends and community. SERENITY NATURALS Handcrafted, all-natural beauty products are created in small batches including body butter, soaps and cosmetics by this Harrison-based company. SHAWNA ELLIOTT ART Veteran artist Shawna Elliott uses fluid acrylics and other medium to create vibrant seascapes, dramatic abstracts and other whimsical pieces. SILVERWEAR BY LINDA Silver-plate flatware finds new life as bracelets, rings, pendants and other creative jewelry items. SOLOMON’S FARM Enjoy quality, natural soaps and an array of other bath and body products for men and women crafted from wholesome ingredients. SOUTHERN FOX Southern Fox steals the show with gorgeous, handmade birdhouses for all of your feathered friends, featuring repurposed wood and metal accents.
NATURAL STATE LEATHER GOODS
balance of work and prayer with everything in moderation, which inspires the monks daily in their various labors. Their handicrafts, which fund their community, include hot sauce from peppers grown in the abbey gardens, peanut brittle handmade by the monks themselves, and various woodworking items for home and church use. SWAG Southern Women Artisans Guild, a North Little Rock collective, features paintings, jewelry, photographs and more from an array of member artisans. SHABBY STITCHERY Show your pride of place with pillows, banners, yard flags and other stylish home decor items handmade in Conway. SWALTY KERNEL Get the best of salty and sweet with Swalty Kernel kettle corn and be sure to ask about promotional packaging for your event or business. SWEET CREATIONS BY DJ From Perryville comes one of the hidden treasures of the Natural State, Sweet Creations by DJ. This family-run chocolatier crafts nut-free, gluten-free and Kosher-certified confections with natural ingredients and without the wax and additives common in commercial chocolates. Owners Dale and Jeannie Baldridge put a spin on the business by offering the additional feature of cus-
tom engraving their chocolates with any message or image. THE TINY TWIG Taking “repurposing” to a new level, Tiny Twig uses dried and pressed flowers in its handmade jewelry for a truly one-of-a-kind finished piece. TOWNSEND SPICE & SUPPLY Whether it’s rubs and blends, sausage seasonings, high-quality individual spices or butcher supplies, Melbourne’s own Townsend Spice & Supply carries it. TUCKER MOUNTAIN METAL DESIGN & NEW DAY COLLECTION A dynamic partnership of two passionate artisans transforms jewelry into wearable art as individual as the person who wears it. WOODWORX WORKSHOP Owner Jake Lewis brings out the art in every piece of reclaimed wood with his refined rustic mirrors, furniture and wall hangings of every description. XIMENA & ELLE Browse felted soaps, baby items, screen-printed tees and quality, handappliqued clothing for every member of the family from this Little Rock-based artisan.
SPIRITED RECREATIONS This Cabot artisan produces a dazzling array of jewelry and accessories by repurposing everyday items. SUBIACO ABBEY Founded 139 years ago in rural Logan County, Subiaco Abbey is a working Benedictine monastery that includes a Catholic church, farm, vineyards, conference center and Subiaco Academy, a boarding school for boys. The Holy Rule of St. Benedict states that a life should be a
2ND LIFE WOOD
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ARKANSAS TIMES
actually, and I don’t think it means what we are really representing that it means. By that, I’d say that a real failure — an abject failure — is, like, getting drunk and missing a job interview. Like, that’s objectively screwing the pooch. What we mean when we talk about helping kids to fail better isn’t that. It’s very specifically what I call “keeping them awake to the path.” Here’s what I mean by that. Whenever you set out to alter the world (and this is what I’m referring to when I say “making”), whenever we make something we create something out of nothing. Whether that’s a song or a poem or a car or a bicycle, we are manipulating the surroundings around us, and whenever we set out to do that, one is never going to end up where you thought you were. That’s just the default. And that’s why we do any art form. If every painting we embarked upon looked exactly like what we thought it was going to look like at the beginning, nobody would paint, because it would just be a foregone conclusion. ... So when you ask how we’ll know if we’ve succeeded, to me there’s a reality to the end result, when you realize, ‘Oh, I’ve traveled along an arc, and something is different now than it was before.” But that only happens when you’re awake to the path. So, to me, I think that helping kids see that is just letting them make stuff and realize just how far and wide things can go from where you thought they would go. MATT CHRISTINE
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he things that special-effects designer Adam Savage is responsible for include, but are not limited to: 14 seasons of the Discovery channel show “Mythbusters,” a molten Talking Feynman and failure with science metal shell for a snowball intended to champion Adam Savage. give it the proverbial “chance in hell,” a torture device called the “Pizzinator” BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE for Pizza Hut’s “Mr. Bill” commercials, a replica of the Overlook Hotel Maze from Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” and a 7-foot, 3,000-pound ball of Legos. Since the sunset of “Mythbusters,” Savage has been acting as editor-in-chief of a vast set of experiments on tested.com and serving on the board of a new nonprofit initiative called “Nation of Makers,” where he, Burning Man co-founder Harley K. Dubois, Winston-Salem State University Professor Pamela L. Jennings and former White House Senior Advisor for Making Stephanie Santoso work, as the organization’s website states, “to ensure that more Americans have access to the spaces, communities, and tools that enable them to make things, not just consume things.” He’s currently EUREKA!: “Mythbusters” star Adam Savage co-stars in a traveling show designed to spark underon tour with Michael Stevens, host standing of scientific principles through live demonstration, “Brain Candy Live.” of YouTube’s “VSauce,” in an interactive science show called “Brain Candy Live,” which lands at Robinson no, it’s an excellent question,” he says, profit organization, the “Nation of Center on Tuesday, March 28. I talked “but when you get to the ‘why’ of someMakers” project, you said, “Making with Savage ahead of that appearance, thing, it gets very complicated very is a new term for the oldest of human excerpted here. Check out our online quickly.” He said, “Look, my problem endeavors, and that is: the reaching arts and entertainment blog, Rock Candy, with explaining to you why magnetism out into the world and manipulatfor the full conversation. works is that I couldn’t explain it to you ing it to better suit our needs. And, in any …” — I always sort of drift into by the way, when I say ‘making,’ I Richard Feynman’s patois – “I couldn’t You’ve said that the idea with “Brain don’t mean specifically laser cutting explain it to you in any terms that you or 3D printing or carpentry. I mean Candy Live” is to “physicalize undercould understand without five years of standing,” which is a beautiful phrase, everything: poetry, rapping, singing, school. I could explain that it has to do and something a lot of people buy dancing, cosplay, and all the things with weak magnetic force, and I could very expensive drugs for. you’re already thinking of as ‘making.’ explain that the reasons why magnets Yeah! You know, Richard Feynman is ” That’s lovely, but it’s a lot squishier, totally famous for being brilliant, being attract and repel is similar to the rearesults-wise, than a “Mythbusters” a genius, but specifically being a cerson why my hand doesn’t go through experiment. How will you know if tain kind of genius. Murray Gell-Mann the arm of this chair; why they resist you’ve succeeded? said, “If you’re a normal scientist, you sit each other. But ultimately, I couldn’t down and you start diagramming posexplain it in terms that you’d underWe talk a lot about education in gensible solutions, unless you’re Richard stand, which means that, ultimately, I eral right now as a culture, and we’re Feynman, in which case you think of a don’t understand.” Richard Feynman is using the word “failure” a lot. We’re problem, think about it really hard and so beautiful because what he’s saying is saying it’s incumbent upon us as parents then write down the answer.” Feynman that genuine understanding means that and educators of the next generation has a wonderful video online where you could explain it to a 5-year-old. Anyto help kids learn to fail better. “Fail” is a great word, because it catches one’s someone says, “Can you explain magthing less than that means that we don’t attention. It’s a shocking word. It’s not netism; why magnets attract and repel fully understand it. That’s what I mean a word you expect in education. For all each other?” And there’s a pause. And by the physicalization of understanding. the guy says, “I think it’s a reasonable those reasons, it’s narratively interestquestion.” And [Feynman] says, “Oh, In a video introducing your new noning, but I don’t think it’s the right word,
I was thinking, scientists are a lot like the Supreme Court of the United States. Both science and law like to believe they are anchored by truth, sequestered safely from the political environment swirling around them. And really, science — at least in practice, if not the purer aspects — has never been safe from political bullshit. And maybe especially now. Do you worry about that? I do worry about that. ... And I think — how do I put this? I think on one hand you have the politicization of science, which itself is never not a tragedy, because it’s subverting what all those of us who participate in the sciences think of as a pure discipline driven only by the acquisition of accurate information. And that’s terrible. At the same
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time, we need to help our kids understand what real critical thinking is, to understand that when they see a newspaper headline that says “Scientists do blah blah blah,” to take that with a jaundiced eye because of the sensationalist nature of storytellers, which is totally in their nature, and part of my nature, too. Finally, I think that the biggest disservice to science we continue to do isn’t political; it’s that we continue to put it in the category of “something smart people do.” I think there are fewer more damaging things we can do to a kid. I think this question can be answered without the necessity of revealing any political leanings you may have, but if you had to offer one piece of scientific advice you think would most benefit someone in the current administration who is looking for an anchoring point, what would it be? Well, we have these very damaging, polarizing discourses in this country, and all over the world. There’s been plenty of empirical data showing that when you show people things that disagree with stuff they believe, rather than changing their minds, they entrench. They hold tighter to their beliefs, and this is very scary. People say, “Oh, but science is just as much of a religion — you have faith in science.” And I point out that, no, actually not at all. Science is specifically going to adjust its belief system based on the data available. There’s no inherent faith in any specific version of the story. At all. So the real thing that, culturally, we should strive for is being willing to have our minds changed. “Brain Candy Live” comes to Robinson Center 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 28. Tickets range from $33-$63, and are available on Ticketmaster or at robinsoncentersecondact.com.
a Pinch: Easier, Faster, Fresher Southern Classics,” at the 300 Third Tower at 3 p.m. April 27, $15. “YOUTH,” A SCULPTURE by UA Little Rock art professor Michael Warrick, will go to Little Rock’s sister city in South Korea, Hanam City, this summer. The 7-foot bronze is of a female figure composed of vines, leaves and a small bird. Hanam City will send a sculpture to Little Rock in exchange. “FUN HOME,” THE Tony Award-winning musical based on Alison Bechdel’s memoir of the same name, kicks off the 12th season
of Northwest Arkansas’s TheatreSquared (T2) on Aug. 23. The show continues through Sept. 17. Bechdel is the author of the comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For,” which in 1985 depicted the now-famous Bechdel-Wallace Test widely used in feminist art criticism to call attention to gender equality in fiction and film. In a press release last week, T2 Artistic Director Robert Ford and Executive Director Martin Miller also announced plans to “bring home an Arkansas playwright’s acclaimed new play — told partly in rap, with comic verve — of how his parents first met as refugees in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas” with Qui Nguyen’s “Vietgone.” “Vietgone” will be directed by T2 artist-in-residence Kholoud Sawaf and will
run March 14-April 8, 2018. T2’s next season also features Amy Evans’ “The Champion,” a play about “untold, true events in the life of R&B legend Nina Simone” to run Oct. 11-Nov. 5; “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play,” a twist on Frank Capra’s classic film, Nov. 29-Dec. 31; Tony Karam’s “The Humans,” the 2016 Tony Award winner for Best Play, Jan. 24Feb. 18, 2018; and “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” a Sherlock Holmes mystery adapted by Steven Canny and John Nicholson, April 25-May 20, 2018. Single tickets for the 2017-18 season go on sale this summer; subscriptions are on sale now at theatre2.org/subscribe, or at the Walton Arts Center Box Office at 479571-2785.
A COMEDY-D R THAT WILL T AMA YOUR HEART UG AT STRINGS Maya Jackson (Vennie), Shannon lamb (MayDee), CeCelia Antoinette (MaDear) and Joy Lynn Jacobs (Lola) in The Rep’s production of Jar the Floor. Photo by John David Pittman.
“A TASTE OF the Arkansas Literary Festival” is scheduled at the Main Library’s Darragh Center for noon Thursday, March 30. The program features a catered lunch and a preview of books by over 70 authors and illustrators to visit during the festival, which takes place April 27-30. Admission is free, but the Central Arkansas Library System, sponsor of the festival, requests attendees register at eventbrite.com. Passes are also on sale at arkansasliteraryfestival.org for two of the festival’s ticketed events: the “Author! Author!” gala meet-and-greet at the Main Library at 7 p.m. April 28, $25-$40, and “Easier, Faster, Fresher,” a demonstration from Robyn Stone, author of “Add
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ARKANSAS REPERTORY THEATRE MARCH 29 — APRIL 16 | THEREP.ORG | (501) 378-0405 Follow Rock Candy on Twitter: @RockCandies
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THURSDAY 3/23
THE STEEL WHEELS
FRICTION AND VELOCITY: Margot Lee Shetterly, the author of "Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race," speaks at the Statehouse Convention Center's Wally Allen Ballroom, 6 p.m. Thursday, March 23, free, registration required.
THURSDAY 3/23 6 p.m. Wally Allen Ballroom, Statehouse Convention Center. Free, registration required.
In an interview with The New York Times following the successful box office debut of “Hidden Figures,” Margot Lee Shetterly, the author of the nonfiction book on which the film was based, said, “The black experience isn’t exclusively slavery/civil rights/Obama. There are certain stories that are automatically on the trajectory, and anything that’s not on that is hidden in the shadows. Meanwhile, most people live their lives between those dots.” The acclaimed film, nominated for three Oscars and two Golden Globes, tells the stories of the NASA mathematicians Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, and of their work as “computers” in the Langley Research Center in Shetterly’s native Hamp-
MARCH 23, 2017
ARKANSAS TIMES
All four members of The Steel Wheels — Trent Wagler (guitar, banjo), Eric Brubaker (fiddle), Brian Dickel (upright bass) and Jay Lapp (mandolin) — grew up in Mennonite families, and although Wagler and Dickel took a detour by way of punk music, it’s undeniable that the quartet’s upbringing influenced the band’s sound. “Red Wing” (2010) and “Lay Down, Lay Low” (2012) are the true blue stuff of bluegrass tradition — frantic fiddling, ambient-mic harmonies, measured waltzes — but the group seems to have superimposed some gospel and grit onto its later efforts: “Leave Some Things Behind” (2015) and its 2017 release, “Wild As We Came Here,” recorded in 10 days at producer Sam Kassiter’s farmhouse in rural Maine. For five years running, they’ve been spearheading a summer roots festival called Red Wing in Natural Chimneys Park in Mount Solon, Va. This year, the festival features the likes of Steve Earle & The Dukes, Lake Street Dive and Sarah Jarosz. If mountain music on Mule Resophonics is your bag, check out this final show in Oxford American magazine’s Americana concert series.
FRIDAY 3/24
MARGOT LEE SHETTERLY
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8 p.m. South on Main. $20-$32.
ton, Va. Based on Shetterly’s “Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race,” the movie rights were snagged before Shetterly had even finished the book. For this lecture, part of the Frank and Kula Kumpuris Distinguished Lecture series, Shetterly will sign copies of her book following a talk on Johnson, Vaughan and Jackson and the importance of being able “to see those people who are working in these fields. Even in the black community, they’re a little invisible. If we’re going to change these things, we all have to be responsible for having more imagination and being able to accept that these are part of our experience, too.” Tickets may be reserved by emailing kumpurislecture@clintonschool.uasys.edu or by calling 683-5239, and if you can’t make it, stream the event live at clintonschool.uasys.edu/uacslive/.
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‘MOVING FORWARD’
7 p.m. Ron Robinson Theater. $10.
Itsjusbobby Tillman, the rap artist responsible for some major charm added to November Juliet’s set at the Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase, the “Weirdo Wednesday” shows and 2015’s album “Anybody But Bobby,” is releasing his newest record via a musical meditation on race and, as he says, discomfort. “Discomfort can either make you or break you,” Tillman told us. “Society’s going through a transition with the way we talk about racism. Everybody’s uncomfortable with these conversations, but we’ve gotta have ’em. I’m basically trying to give my own interpretation about how to move forward, dealing with it in a different way. Some new rules need to be made.” To that end, itsjusbobby’s album release is accompanied by live instrumentation and “theatrics on the big screen.” See arkansassounds.org for tickets.
IN BRIEF
THURSDAY 3/23
SATURDAY 3/25
ARGENTA READING SERIES: JAY JENNINGS
6:30 p.m. 421 N. Main St., NLR. Free.
When Jay Jennings moved back to Little Rock in 2007 after a 20-year journalism career in New York, he did so with the knowledge that “the city was preparing to commemorate the integration anniversary,” as he told Steve Barnes in a televised interview on AETN. Jennings wanted to “take the temperature,” as he said, of Little Rock 50 years after the historic crisis at Central High
(a time that, coincidentally, equaled the span of Jennings’ own life), and did so by following the Central High School football team through an unexpectedly tumultuous year, chronicling the school’s team — and the climate of race relations surrounding it — in his 2010 book “Carry the Rock: Race, Football, and the Soul of an American City.” Jennings then edited “Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany,” including an interview with the notoriously elusive Portis by Arkansas Gazette journalist Roy Reed, and has written for Garden
and Gun magazine, The New York Times, Lowbrow Reader and the Oxford American magazine, where he’s a senior editor. Jennings is the next featured author in the Argenta Reading series, and his talk is preceded by a reading from UA Little Rock Professor of Rhetoric and Writing George H. Jensen Jr., author of “Some of the Words Are Theirs: A Memoir of an Alcoholic Family.” Singer/songwriter and Late Romantics frontperson John Willis opens the evening with a performance, 6:30 p.m., followed by the readings, 7 p.m.
San Antonio stand-up comic Rick Gutierrez lands at the Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., $8-$12. Jucifer, Hell Camino and For Godless Sake share a bill in the backroom at Vino’s, 8 p.m. Funkanites brings all the funk their name implies to the White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. Amarillo country singer Aaron Watson celebrates the release of his 13th album, “Vaquero,” with a show at Revolution’s Rev Room, with the Ray Johnston Band and Trey Stevens, 8 p.m., $20. Two teams of three comedians battle it out at The Joint in Jay Jackson’s Comedy Cage Match, 8 p.m., $8. Italy-based Nothing for Breakfast joins The Federalis and Peckerwolf at Stickyz, 8:30 p.m., $7. Nerd Eye Blind plays at Cajun’s Wharf, 9 p.m., $5. Wildwood Park for the Arts hosts “Lyon College Showcase: An Evening of Pipes & Jazz,” 7 p.m., $10, to be followed by a reception.
FRIDAY 3/24
FRIDAY 3/24
CEDRIC BURNSIDE PROJECT
LUCA PROSPERO
9 p.m. White Water Tavern. $10.
DESCENDANTS OF HILL COUNTRY: The Cedric Burnside Project channels its Mississippi genesis at the White Water Tavern 9 p.m. Friday, March 24, $10.
If you’ve heard any music from Mississippi harmonica player, guitarist and sharecropper R.L. “Big Daddy” Burnside, chances are you heard him in the latter part of his career. Despite having played his first public appearance around 1947, he didn’t land on most listeners’ radar until the 1990s, when he began recording for Fat Possum Records in Oxford, Miss. Chances are, too, you heard his grandson Cedric drumming behind him. Cedric began touring with R.L. before he turned 15. He recalled that upbringing on his website: “We’d have house parties every weekend.
Johnny Woods would come over and blow harmonica, and he’d drink two or three gallons of corn liquor. We just stomped up dirt.” Later, during the days of his collaboration with Lightnin’ Malcolm, Cedric would come out from behind the drums and play guitar, not so much imitating R.L. as channeling him, alongside childhood friend and fellow blues heir Trenton Ayers, the son of longtime Junior Kimbrough sideman Earl “Little Joe” Ayers. Ayers, Cedric and Cedric’s uncle Garry Burnside released “Descendants of Hill Country” in 2015, which was funded by 101 people on a Kickstarter cam-
paign and ended up winning a Grammy Award for Best Blues Album. Maybe, like me, you’ve heard enough synthesized horn rock masquerading as blues to justify a “meh” toward the whole genre. Don’t mistake this for that. It’s the genuine article, too often appreciated more in France and Switzerland than in its own backyard — and made by men who have never not lived in and around blues music. Or, as Cedric said on that Kickstarter campaign, “I was born a blues baby, raised a blues child and I’m gonna die a blues man.”
Big Piph & Tomorrow Maybe join Arkansas Bo, Aaron Joseph Newman and Marcel P. Black and DJ Silky Slim for an evening of hip-hop at Stickyz, 9 p.m., $15. Good Foot returns to jam at Four Quarter Bar, 10 p.m. Nearly 50 barbershop choruses from across the Southern U.S. will compete in the Sweet Adelines Heart of America Region 25 Competition at the Robinson Performance Hall, 3 p.m. Fri., 11:30 a.m. Sat., $20-$25. Eric “Squnto” Roth brings his custom subwoofers to the Rev Room for a bass-heavy EDM show with Madcap, Doug Kramer and Paul Grass, 9 p.m., $15-$20. Mary-Heather and The Sinners take the stage at Kings Live Music in Conway, 8:30 p.m., $5. Memphis Christian rock band Skillet plays the Clear Channel Metroplex with Sick Puppies and Devour the Day, 8 p.m., $25. Tulsa five-piece The Fabulous Minx share a show at Maxine’s with fellow Oklahomans Bringer and Italian pop rockers Nothing for Breakfast, 9 p.m., $5. Raising Grey takes the stage at Cajun’s Wharf, 9 p.m., $5. Singer-songwriters Rena Wren and Jay Jackson share a bill at the Town Pump, 8 p.m., $5.
SATURDAY 3/25 The Ben Miller Band returns to Little Rock for a show at Stickyz, 9 p.m., $10-$12. Mothership, Couch Jackets and Rogue Planet play the Motherfunkin’ Disco Dance Party at Discovery Nightclub, 9 p.m., $10. Shoog Radio’s Scott Diffie hosts an early show from Christworm, Year of the Vulture and Tempus Terra at The Parlor, 4603 E. Broadway, 7 p.m. The Bluegrass virtuosos of Runaway Planet pluck strings at Thirst N’ Howl, 9 p.m. Lady Boi hosts “Loud,” a new party series at Sway, 9 p.m. Jason Boland and the Stragglers bring tunes like the marijuana anthem “Electric Bill” and “I Guess It’s Alright to Be an Asshole” to the Rev Room, 9 p.m., $12-$15. Randall Shreve takes his vaudevillian rock
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BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE
SATURDAY 3/25
HARD PASS, ATTAGIRL, SPERO
9 p.m. White Water Tavern. $5.
It’s not hyberbole to say that Hard Pass is a local supergroup. The band’s 2016 release “The Axe Forgets” features the talents of Little Rock mainstays Mitch Vanhoose, Jordan Trotter, Jonathan Dodson and Chad Conder, and the album credits note contributions from Will Boyd of Marvin Berry, R.I.O.T.S. and American Princes; Ryan Hitt of Amasa Hines; Alisyn Reid of A Rowdy Faith, and more.
Little Rock’s Attagirl (not to be confused with “Attagirl,” Dutch band Bettie Serveert’s third album, or with Toronto indie rockers Attagirl, or Richmond tween pop quartet Atta Girl) played an unbelievably tight and cohesive set at a toy drive at North Little Rock’s The Parlor last year, and shares the bill with delightfully titled thrashers like “JK Unless You’re Into It.” The show opens with a solo set from Spero (Correne Spero of Northern State, Lucky Bitch), featuring songs from her projects SPERO and Daughters of Triton.
TUESDAY 3/28
BRIAN CHILSON
HAYDN’S ‘EMPEROR’
THE SPOKEN WORD: Roots Art Connection co-founder Chris James debuts his play “Dear Black People” at Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall with a performance from Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase winners Dazz & Brie, 7 p.m. Saturday, March 25, $15.
SATURDAY 3/25
‘DEAR BLACK PEOPLE’
7 p.m. Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall, UA Little Rock. $15.
Chris James, the co-founder of Roots Art Connection, the self-described “social entrepreneurship” endeavor based at North Little Rock’s House of Art (108 E. Fourth St.), will direct “Dear Black People,” a one-act play he wrote entirely in poetic verse. James was inspired, he told us, by Justin Simien’s 2014 film “Dear White People” and felt a subsequent need “to write a piece to talk to my beautiful black Americans about what we should work on and what we should be proud of.”
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The satire, he says, “talks about black culture in America: identity, racism, relationships, politics and the typical stereotypes ... meant to make the audience laugh and learn all at the same time.” In one segment, the writer recalls a list of insults hurled at him in childhood, jokes that James says “are the very reason black children grow up to believe they aren’t beautiful.” Preceding the play are performances from guest artists, including Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase winners Dazz & Brie. For tickets, search for “Dear Black People” on eventbrite.com.
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7 p.m. Clinton Presidential Center. $10-$23.
There are, no doubt, many reasons why royalty might figure so prominently in the works of cla ssica l composers, but chief among them is that most great composers were, at one time or another, beholden to patronage from the aristocracy — and their wallets. Haydn was no exception, and his “Quartet No. 62 in C Major, Op. 76, No. 3” is nicknamed “Emperor” because its second movement riffs on “God Save Emperor Francis,” a Croat peasant song Haydn adapted for Francis II’s birthday in 1797. It’s the third in a set of six of Haydn’s last quartets, and though it’s unlikely anybody could spontaneously hum a few bars of “God Save Emperor Francis,” they’d surely recog-
nize the melody itself if it were played. It’s been resurrected in Christian and Masonic hymns, and in 1922, Germany adopted Haydn’s melody as the basis for its national anthem: “Deutschland, Deutschland, uber alles, Uber alles in der Welt …” Following on the program is Stephanie Berg’s “The Promise of All My Tomorrows,” the Kansas City composer’s 2015 trio for oboe, French horn and harp, and Brahms’ lush “Sextet in B-flat, Op. 18.” This last one has pastoral beauty for miles. It’s from the period when Brahms was still feeling his way through writing for strings without the aid of piano, and so he added two voices to the standard, bare-bones string quartet, something that lends the movements much more than two extra voices’ worth of drama and depth.
IN BRIEF
DAN BAIRD & HOMEMADE SIN
9 p.m. White Water Tavern. $15.
Mr. Mister’s “Kyrie” and “Broken Wings” occupied two of Billboard’s top 10 spots in 1986, and that alone gives us a pretty good sense of what sort of soft-rock synth party the Georgia Satellites were walking into when they released “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” that same year. Frontman Dan Baird’s yodels came across like drunken hiccups, and the guitars were nasty enough (RIP, Chuck Berry) to stand in for the sexual frustration the song’s narrator never got a chance to work up in the first place. I was learning to navigate school bus culture when it happened, but I imagine its arrival must have felt like somebody had called up the “Delilah” radio show and requested Motorhead. “I don’t know if we were swimming against the tide or, as Wee Willie Keeler said, ‘hittin’ ’em where they ain’t,’ ” Baird said in a 2013 interview with the Ultimate Classic Rock blog. The tune became a barroom anthem, and Baird eventually left the
Satellites and scored a hit with a track from his solo project, “Love Songs for the Hearing Impaired”: the goofy, lovesick plea “I Love You Period.” Maybe because Baird didn’t take himself too seriously, audiences didn’t, either, and found ample reason to ignore the sort of deeper tracks that relegated him to “musician’s musician” territory: “Younger Face” and “Cumberland River” from his 1996 record “Buffalo Nickel,” for example. He’s back, though, and as of 2008, has been playing with fellow ex-Satellite drummer Mauro Magellan as Dan Baird & The Homemade Sin. Georgia Satellites hits and Baird’s solo work make appearances on the current set list, along with tunes from 2015’s “Get Loud,” including “Fairground People,” a track Baird told Rolling Stone was inspired by the residents of Nashville’s forgotten neighborhoods. “They’re the poor white trash who didn’t finish high school. I know they’re Trump supporters and ‘white man can’t get a break’ people, but still they’re salt of the earth. I hate them and I love them.” See lastchancerecords.us for tickets.
Like Moths to Flames of Columbus, Ohio, joins locals Mortalus, MisManage and Census for an early show at Vino’s, 7 p.m., $13. In “The Green Book and Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program,” historian Frank Norris gives a talk on New York City postman Victor Hugo Green’s guide for African-American motorists during the Jim Crow era, noon, Clinton School of Public Service’s Sturgis Hall, free. The Film Society of Little Rock’s Monday Night Shorts focuses on University of Central Arkansas student films, 7 p.m., $8.
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‘LOVE SONGS FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED:’ Ex-Georgia Satellite Dan Baird and his band Homemade Sin get loud at the White Water Tavern 9 p.m. Wednesday, March 29, $15.
PM:
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church hosts a “Festival of the Senses,” featuring a revue of American standards, original compositions and musical theater, 6:45 p.m., free, with a preceding dinner, 6 p.m., 4106 JFK Blvd., $7-$15. Parodist Eric Schwartz (known to some as “Smooth E”) gives a one-night performance at the Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m., $12. Arkansas Circus Arts co-hosts “Central Arkansas Flow Jam,” a family-friendly hula hoop and fire spinning gathering (fire spinners must attend a fire safety meeting, 6 p.m.) at Allsopp Park, 5:30 p.m.
PO:
SUNDAY 3/26
FRIENDSHIP BY THE BOTTLE.
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to King’s Live Music in Conway with an PRINT opening set from Tate Smith, 8:30 p.m., $5. Memphis “electro-soulfunk” band Objekt 12 takes the stage at Four Quarter Bar, 10 p.m. Steve Howell and Dan Sumner (of Louisiana Soul Revival) pair up for a show at South on Main, 9 p.m., $10.
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TUESDAY 3/28 The sprightly and virtuosic Vienna-based Janoska Ensemble performs a concert at Walton Arts Center’s Baum Walker Hall, 7 p.m., $10. Riverdale 10 Cinema screens 1979’s “The Warriors,” 7 p.m., $8.50. Elizabeth Hill gives a talk at the Arkansas State Archives, “A Splendid Piece of Work: Arkansas’s Early Home Demonstration Clubs,” for the next “Pen To Podium: Arkansas Historical Writers’ Lecture Series,” 1 Capitol Mall, 6:30 p.m., free.
Call 501-242-4091 today to schedule a visit and complimentary meal!
WEDNESDAY 3/29 Journalist Alan Schwartz gives a talk at the Clinton School of Public Service’s Sturgis Hall, “ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic,” 6 p.m., free. Celtic duo Neil Byrne and Ryan Kelly play “Acoustic by Candlelight” at the Argenta Community Theater, 7:30 p.m., $35-$55. UA Little Rock professors Erin Finzer and David Clemons give a workshop on making artists’ books, 4:30 p.m., Applied Design Studio, University Plaza, in conjunction with the exhibition “Binding Communities: Cuba’s Ediciones Vigia and the Art of the Book and Entrepreneurism” at the Ottenheimer Library.
Andover Place Independent Retirement Living
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MARCH 23, 2017
ARKANSAS TIMES
ALSO IN THE ARTS
THEATER
“DRIVING MISS DAISY.” Murry’s Dinner Playhouse presents the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama. 7:30 p.m. Tue.-Sat., dinner at 6 p.m., 12:45 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. Sun., dinner at 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., through March 25. $15-$37. 6323 Colonel Glenn Road. 501562-3131. “FANCY NANCY: THE MUSICAL.” A musical based on Jane O’Connor’s “Fancy Nancy” books. 7 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun., through April 2. $10-$12.50. Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre. 501 E. 9th St. 501-372-4000. $12.50. “NAKED PEOPLE WITH THEIR CLOTHES ON.” The Main Thing’s comedy revue. 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., through March 25. $24. The Joint, 301 Main St., NLR. 501-372-0210. “INTIMATE APPAREL.” TheaterSquared’s production of Lynn Nottage’s drama. 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun., through April 16. $15-$45. 505 W. Spring St., Fayetteville. 479-443-5600. theatre2.org.
FINE ART, HISTORY EXHIBITS MAJOR VENUES ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “Feed Your Mind Friday,” talk by Dr. Ann Prentice, curator of drawings, and Virmarie DePoyster, AAC Museum School instructor, on Georgia O’Keeffe’s “From Pink Shell,” noon-1 p.m., lunches may be pre-ordered from Canvas and available after the talk; “Ansel Adams: Early Works”; “Herman Maril: The Strong Forms of Our Experience” and “Seeing the Essence: William E. Davis,” photographs, all through April 16; UALR photography class talk on Ansel Adams; 47th annual “Mid-Southern Watercolorists Exhibition,” through April 16. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. 372-4000. ARTS AND SCIENCE CENTER FOR SOUTHEAST ARKANSAS, 701 S. Main St., Pine Bluff: “Resilience,” printmaking by Emma Amos, Vivian Browne, Camille Billops, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Samella Lewis, and Rosalind Jeffries, through July 8; “Bayou Bartholomew: In Focus,” juried photography exhibition, through April 22; “Dinosaurs: Fossils Exposed,” through April 22. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 1-4 p.m. Sat. 870536-3375. ARTS CENTER OF THE OZARKS, 214 Main St., Springdale: “On the Brink, On the Brim, on the Cusp,” work in various media by Dan Snow, Cory Perry, Sofia Gonzalez, John Harlan Norris, Helen Maringer, Dillon Dooms, Cynthia Post Hunt, Sean Morissey and Angelina Bowen, through March 29. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. 479-751-5441. BUTLER CENTER GALLERIES, Arkansas Studies Institute, 401 President Clinton Ave.: “Bruce Jackson: Cummins Prison Farm,” photographs, West Gallery, through May 27, “The American Dream Deferred: Japanese American Incarceration in WWII Arkansas,” objects from the internment camps, Concordia Gallery, through June 24. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 320-5790. CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSEUM VISITOR CENTER, Bates and Park: Exhibits on the 1957 desegregation of Central and the civil rights movement. 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. daily. 374-1957.
CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL CENTER: “Ladies and Gentlemen … the Beatles!” Records, photographs, tour artifacts, videos, instruments, recording booth for singalong with Ringo Starr, from the GRAMMY Museum at L.A. LIVE, through April 2. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 adults, $8 seniors, retired military and college students, $6 youth 6-17, free to active military and children under 6. CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, One Museum Way, Bentonville: “Border Cantos: Sight and Sound Explorations from the Mexican-American Border,” collaboration between photographer Richard Misrach and Mexican American sculptor and composer Guillermo Galindo, through April 24; “Roy Lichtenstein in Focus,” five large works, through July; American masterworks spanning four centuries in the permanent collection. 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. 479-4185700. ESSE PURSE MUSEUM & STORE, 1510 S. Main St.: “Reflections: Images and Objects from African American Women, 1891-1987,” through April; “What’s Inside: A Century of Women and Handbags,” permanent exhibit. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sun. $10, $8 for students, seniors and military. 916-9022. FORT SMITH REGIONAL ART MUSEUM, 1601 Rogers Ave.: “Heartbreak in Peanuts,” digital photographs of Peanuts comic strips, through April 16; “Liv Fjellsol: Art Says,” representational works on paper accompanied by poems and other writings, through April 2. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 479-784-2787. HENDERSON STATE UNIVERSITY, Arkadelphia: “Nasty Woman,” work by 32 artists exploring the female perspective on contemporary issues, in conjunction with Women’s History Month, through March, Russell Fine Arts Gallery. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. 870-230-5207. HISTORIC ARKANSAS MUSEUM, 200 E. 3rd St.: Opening reception for “Paintings by Glenda McCune,” through May 7; “Modern Mythology: Luke Amran Knox and Grace Mikell Ramsey,” mixed media sculpture and paintings, through May 7; “All of Arkansas: Arkansas Made, County by County”; “A Diamond in the Rough: 75 Years of Historic Arkansas Museum.” Ticketed tours of renovated and replicated 19th century structures from original city, guided Monday and Tuesday on the hour, selfguided Wednesday through Sunday, $2.50 adults, $1 under 18, free to 65 and over. (Galleries free.) 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9351. MacARTHUR MUSEUM OF ARKANSAS MILITARY HISTORY, 503 E. 9th St. (MacArthur Park): “American Posters of World War I,” through March; “Waging Modern Warfare”; “Gen. Wesley Clark”; “Vietnam, America’s Conflict”; “Undaunted Courage, Proven Loyalty: Japanese American Soldiers in World War II. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-4 p.m. Sun. 376-4602. MOSAIC TEMPLARS CULTURAL CENTER, 9th and Broadway: “Arkansas Made, Black Crafted,” workshop on earning income from jewelry-making, 5 p.m. March 23, info@mosaictemplarscenter.com of 683-3593 for details; permanent exhibits on African-American entrepreneurship in
centralarkansastickets.com
CONTINUED ON PAGE 35 arktimes.com MARCH 23, 2017
33
MOVIE REVIEW
ON THE ROCKS ONTHE THEROCKS ROCKS ON
Saturday, Saturday, Saturday,
April111 April April 6:30 p.m. 6:30 p.m. 6:30 p.m. Junior League
Junior League League of Junior Little Rock Ballroom Little Rock Ballroom ofofLittle Rock Ballroom 401 Scott Street 401Scott ScottStreet Street 401 Purchase Purchase tickets tickets atat Purchase ticketsatat Purchase tickets centralarkansastickets.com www.oitr.org www.oitr.org www.oitr.org
TALE AS OLD AS TIME: Dan Stevens and Emma Watson bring Walt Disney’s 1991 animation to life in the blockbuster remake of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”
Wanted: 1991 Magic
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Untitled-1 1 Untitled-11 1 Untitled-1
3/19/172:10 2:10 PM 3/19/17 PM
Use of bicycles or animals
Every person riding a bicycle or an animal, or driving any animal drawing a vehicle upon a highway, shall have all the rights and all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle, except those provisions of this act which by their nature can have no applicability.
overtaking a bicycle
The driver of a motor vehicle overtaking a bicycle proceeding in the same direction on a roadway shall exercise due care and pass to the left at a safe distance of not less than three feet (3’) and shall not again drive to the right side of the roadway until safely clear of the overtaken bicycle.
anD cyclists, Please remember...
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‘Beauty and the Beast’ revamp gets lost in the details.
3/19/17 2:10 PM
MARCH 23, 2017
ARKANSAS TIMES
BY GUY LANCASTER
O
nline pop culture commentary has, over the last few years, awoken to the realization that the much beloved 1991 “Beauty and the Beast” animated film is somewhat problematic, despite its stunning visuals and genuine charm. Doesn’t it seem a bit harsh for the enchantress to curse the beast, a pre-pubescent boy apparently left alone without parents in a giant castle, for life, with the requirement that he find true love in 10 years’ time? How was it that people living around the castle had never encountered it — and were apparently unaware of this prince, the ostensible head of regional government? And isn’t the whole thing a rather troubling celebration of Stockholm Syndrome? I mention these questions because the new “live-action” remake of “Beauty and the Beast” seems designed specifically to answer them. In the opening sequence, we learn that the prince (and beast-to-be, played by Dan Stevens) exults in luxury and has a truly selfish heart. The enchantress (Hattie Morahan) not only transforms this prince into a beast and his staff into furniture
and cookware, but she also erases all memory of them and the castle from the minds of locals. And if Belle (Emma Watson) accustoms herself perhaps a little too easily to being a prisoner in the beast’s castle, well, it’s no doubt because “this provincial life” is, in many ways, already a prison for her. It could be an interesting exercise — lightly updating a classic for modern sensibilities, rather than radically reinterpreting the original (as the studio had first considered, a la “Snow White and the Huntsman”). Unfortunately, the performances simply don’t hold up to the story. Emma Watson, in particular, plays the role of Belle with very little conviction, practically sleepwalking through her introductory song, while Kevin Kline’s Maurice, Belle’s father, proves a nondescript, doddering old man. Ewan McGregor doesn’t hold a candle to Jerry Orbach’s original Lumière, and Emma Thompson only provides an impersonation of Angela Lansbury. Indeed, the only person truly committed to his role is Luke Evans, who plays the narcissistic Gaston with a refreshing gusto, even if he lacks the car-
ALSO IN THE ARTS, CONT.
toonishly buff body of his predecessor. Too, although one would expect greater visuals with a modern liveaction movie, this movie just doesn’t look as good as the cartoon. For starters, “Beauty and the Beast� uses the desaturated color palette common to most blockbusters these days. In fact, the nighttime sequences when Maurice gets lost, the beast fights off wolves and the villagers attack the castle are so thick with shadow they could have been cut from the “Underworld� franchise. Secondly, the beast’s servants are now rendered in such detail as to rob them of personality. As cartoonist Scott McCloud has observed, there is value in simplicity, in a few lines used with skill — namely, it allows a wider audience to identify with the figure depicted. Cogsworth the clock, though, is such a baroque assemblage that Ian McKellen’s voice has to do all the comedic work in getting across his combination of propriety and cowardice. I am not one to tilt at remakes. As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.� Certainly, there is value in retelling these stories as we, as a society, grow and evolve, and in this respect, “Beauty and the Beast� is oddly ambitious in its lack of ambition. Its desire is to tweak rather than recreate anew. Rather like Belle with the beast, audiences fell in love with the original movie rather quickly, despite some obvious flaws. Only time will tell if their children do the same with its live-action revival.
RETAIL GALLERIES, OTHER EXHIBIT SPACES ARGENTA GALLERY, 413 N. Main St. “Dancers,� paintings by John Gaudin, portion of proceeds from sales goes to Christen Pitts dance program at North Little Rock High School, Argenta ArtWalk. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat. 258-8991. ARKANSAS CAPITAL CORP., 200 River Market Ave., Suite 400: “Subtle and Bold,� work by Susan Chambers and Sofia Gonzalez, by appointment only. 374-9247. ARTISTS WORKSHOP GALLERY, 610 Central Ave., Hot Springs: Sheliah Halderman, landscapes and florals; Amaryllis J. Ball, expressionist paintings. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.Sat., noon-6 p.m. Sun. 623-6401. BOSWELL-MOUROT, 5815 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Works by Delita Martin, Elizabeth Weber, Anais Dasse, Kyle Boswell, Jeff Horton, CONTINUED ON PAGE 39
DO ´7KH RULJLQ RI &DUGV ¾ VH X R + ² %RE +XSS 'LUHFWRU
Michael Stewart Allen (Macbeth) in Macbeth. Photo by John David Pittman.
Arkansas. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat. 683-3593. MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY, 500 President Clinton Ave.: “Magnificent Me,� exhibit on the human body, through April 23. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun., $10 ages 13 and older, $8 ages 1-12, free to members and children under 1. 396-7050. OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM, 300 W. Markham St.: “Cabinet of Curiosities: Treasures from the University of Arkansas Museum Collection�; “True Faith, True Light: The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley,� musical instruments, through 2017; “First Families: Mingling of Politics and Culture� permanent exhibit including first ladies’ gowns. 9 a.m.5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 324-9685. OUACHITA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY, Arkadelphia: “Abstract Art,� work by Arkansas artists Dustyn Bork, Justin Bowles, Robyn Horn, Sam King, Marc Mitchell and Steven Wise; paintings by British artist Tony Smith; both through March 29 in Rosemary Gossett Adams Gallery. 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. 870-245-5559. SOUTH ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, 110 E. 5th St., El Dorado: “Brotherhood: Jason Sacran and John P. Lasater IV,� through March 29. TOLTEC MOUNDS STATE PARK, U.S. Hwy. 165, England: Major prehistoric Indian site with visitors’ center and museum. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun., closed Mon. $4 for adults, $3 for ages 6-12, $14 for family. 961-9442. UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK: “Student Competitive,� Zina AlShukri juror, March 27-April 30, Gallery I, Fine Arts Building; “Binding Communities: Cuba’s Ediciones Vigia and the Art of the Book and Entrepreneurism,� 71 artists books created by the Cuban publishing house, through April 19, with bookmaking workshop 4:30 p.m. March 29 with Erin Finzer and David Clemons, Applied Arts Studio, University Plaza; student presentations 3 p.m. April 6; scholar led tour 5 p.m. April 12; closing reception with filmmaker Dr. Juanamaria Cordones Cook 4:30 p.m. April 14; and other events, Ottenheimer Library, email esfinzer@ ualr.edu for workshop information. 569-8977. WALTON ARTS CENTER, 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville: “The Fabric of Nature,� mixed media by Andrea Packard, through April 24, Joy Pratt Markham Gallery. Noon-2 p.m. daily, one hour before performances in the Arts Center. 479-443-5600.
Directed by Bob Hupp | Produced by W.W. and Anne Jones Charitable Trust
SEPTEMBER 11-27, 2015 (501) 378-0405 | TheRep.org
BEER NIGHT
Come try a sampling before the show!
ARKANSAS REPERTORY THEATRE
ARKANSAS REPERTORY T H E AT R E Sponsored By
Before the start of the show, enjoy a complimentary beer tasting provided by Lost Forty Brewing. Thursday, March 30, 2017 6-7pm Lobby at The Rep For tickets, call the Box Office at (501) 378-0405 or visit TheRep.org sponsored by
ARKANSAS TIMES arktimes.com MARCH 23, 2017
35
Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’
KATMANDU MOMO, the food truck created by Nepal native Saroja Shrestha, will open an indoors eatery in April in the River Market’s Ottenheimer Hall. Katmandu Momo serves steamed dumplings, Nepali fried rice, fried spring rolls and aloo dum (spicy potatoes) from the food truck, but Kyler Nordeck, who is Shrestha’s husband and partner, said the menu will grow in the market. The food truck will continue to serve lunch and do special events. “The River Market will be more like a home base for us,” Nordeck said. Katmandu Momo will occupy the space on the northeast end of the food hall and will be open six days a week. Find food truck locations on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. “A DECADE of Diamond Chef,” the 2017 Diamond Chef Arkansas competition, will be held at UA Pulaski Technical College’s Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute 6-9 p.m. April 13. The competition will pit “The Gratest of All Thyme” chef Donnie Ferneau Jr. of The 1836 Club, the competing champion, against Casey Copeland of The Avenue, Scott Rains of Table 28, Patrick Buchanan of YaYa’s Euro Bistro, Mary Beth Ringgold of Cajun’s Wharf, Capers and the Copper Grill, Jimmy Carter of the Pine Bluff Country Club Catering and Brandon Douglas of Green Leaf Grill. This year, the UA Pulaski Tech Foundation fundraiser will feature a “Diamond Chef in the Rough” cupcake decorating competition for youngsters who have completed the school’s Youth Chefs Camp. Tickets are $150. The institute is at 13000 Interstate 30. The chef’s competition will leave Ferneau fueled up for the Chefs Cycle 2017, which raises money for the No Kid Hungry nonprofit. Ferneau and hundreds of other chefs will ride 300 miles May 16-18 in Santa Clara, Calif. The fundraising goal is $2 million, or 20 million meals. For information on how to contribute, go to chefscycle.org. 36
MARCH 23, 2017
ARKANSAS TIMES
IRRESISTIBLE: The fried Brussels sprouts at North Bar in North Little Rock
Go North Park Hill bar gets high marks.
I
t’s been almost three and a half years since the residents of the Park Hill neighborhood in North Little Rock voted to go “wet,” erasing a decades-old designation as one of the few “dry” areas in Pulaski County. The campaign, logically, touted the benefits of restaurant alcohol sales as an economic boon. Just look at Conway, backers urged. But curiously there hasn’t been a big rush of new businesses serving booze in the quaint neighborhood. And the ones we tried — E’s Bistro and Ira’s Park Hill Grill, in the same space in the Lakehill Shopping Center — weren’t overrun with thirsty patrons. North Bar has changed that. The third occupant of the space, it opened in February. We mentioned to a North Little Rock friend that we’d heard good things about it, but the first time he went, and the first time we went — both on Fri-
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day nights — it was so crowded neither of us even got out of our cars. So we decided to team up and try again, at 6 p.m. on a Wednesday. This time we were immediately seated, but North Bar was still pretty full, most tables taken as were all eight seats at the small bar. And we had an exemplary experience all the way around. North Bar has only 14 tables, and we were struck that there were four waiters working the small space, each with a hand-held tablet to take and convey orders. The bartender and kitchen staff also jump in to serve. In fact, when we ordered one of the many fine craft beers on tap, none other than chef/co-owner Eric Greer delivered it to our table. Greer and partner Kyle Ray Dismang also own the Garden Bistro, the restaurant on the first floor of the Lakewood House high rise. It’s clear that North Bar
isn’t their first culinary rodeo. North Bar has a strong customer service focus that is rare and most appreciated. The servers are not of the “I’m a senior in high school, and this is my first job” genre. The gentleman who waited on us told us he’s a realtor who also has 33 years in the restaurant business, including as a general manager. This overqualified waiter takes his job much more seriously than most. Our friend had already ordered two appetizers when we arrived, and each was outstanding. The fried Brussels sprouts ($8) are irresistible — a large basket of split-sprouts, pan-fried crispy, dosed with local honey and Parmesan shavings. We almost fought over them. We have an aversion to coconut shrimp, primarily because they were featured prominently in “Forrest Gump,” which stole the Best Picture Oscar from both “Shawshank Redemption” and “Pulp Fiction,” and clearly we’re still peeved about it 23 years later. But there they sat, so we dug in. Eight nice-sized crustaceans were very crisp, but not overcooked and not at all greasy. And
BELLY UP
Check out the Times’ food blog, Eat Arkansas arktimes.com
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ARKANSAS TIMES
bike
LOCAL
TASTY: Waffle fries and fish tacos.
the coconut was not overpowering. The accompanying sweet chili sauce was a nice touch. At $12, we thought they were a good deal. North Bar has a large menu, including nine appetizers, seven meat-based burgers, five veggie burgers and five sandwiches, two of those meat-free. Plus seven fish dishes, seven wraps and five salads. Vegetarians will find plenty of options, and vegans and those with
North Bar
3812 JFK Blvd. North Little Rock 420-1117 Quick bite North Bar’s only dessert options are good ones — fried pies from Flywheel’s Pies, an institution in Prescott that a few years ago began freezing its pies to be sold wholesale. There are eight varieties available: apple, peach, cherry, chocolate, coconut, blueberry, strawberry and sugar-free peach. Hours 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Other info Credit cards accepted, full bar.
gluten issues also are in luck. Many of the burgers feature ingredients that could be described as interesting or odd, depending on your point of view. Our friend opted for one of them — the Curry High-Rise Burger ($12 with waffle fries). It features a juicy, good-sized patty topped with raw carrot and celery, lettuce, tomato and a curry aioli that is more sweet than spicy. He described it as “sweet salad on a burger.” Not a traditionalist’s choice, but he devoured it and also declared the fries excellent. We opted for the fish tacos ($11, also with fries) — three small flour tortillas, each cradling two fingerling-size fillets, field greens, cucumber, onions, tomato, remoulade and a bit of shredded cheddar. The spice coating on the fish, which was grilled to a bit of a crunch, really elevated the dish. The size of the crowds would suggest the North Bar’s got something going on, and the dining experience there confirms it — from the service, to the size and scope of the menu, to the broad selection of craft beers and cocktails, to the food itself.
Little Rock’s Most Award-Winning Restaurant 1619 REBSAMEN RD. 501.663.9734 thefadedrose.com
March
23 - Speakeasy party benefiting ALS w/ Matt Treadway Trio - 7pm 24 - Good Foot 25 - Objekt 12 31 - Brian Nahlen Band
April
1 - The Crumbs 7 - Electric Rag Band 8 - An evening w/ Junior Brown 14 - Elysian Feel
Open until 2am every night! 415 Main St North Little Rock • (501) 313-4704 • fourquarterbar.com arktimes.com MARCH 23, 2017
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M IN D S N B LOW
AND EMBR ACE THE FEAR .
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MARCH 23, 2017
ARKANSAS TIMES
ALSO IN THE ARTS, CONT. Dennis McCann and Keith Runkle. 664-0030. CANTRELL GALLERY, 8205 Cantrell Road: Reopens reception 6-8 p.m. March 31 with reception for exhibition of paintings by Jeffery Nodelman, “The Making of an Artist: Creative Inspirations.” 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.Sat. 224-1335. CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 509 Scott St.: “The Watercolor Series of Kuhl Brown,” through March. 375-2342. CHROMA GALLERY, 5707 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Work by Robert Reep and other Arkansas artists. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. 664-0880. COX CREATIVE CENTER, 120 River Market Ave.: “Hub Crafted,” works in paint, clay, print, sculpture and digital technology by youth makers from the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. 918-3093. DRAWL GALLERY, 5208 Kavanaugh Blvd.: Work by regional and Arkansas artists. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 2407446. GALLERY 221, 2nd and Center Sts.: Work by William McNamara, Tyler Arnold, Amy Edgington, EMILE, Kimberly Kwee, Greg Lahti, Sean LeCrone, Mary Ann Stafford, Cedric Watson, C.B. Williams, Gino Hollander, Siri Hollander and jewelry by Rae Ann Bayless. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 801-0211. GALLERY 360, 900 S. Rodney Parham Road: Third annual “IceBox,” work by Layet Johnson, Gillian Stewart, Stacy Williams, Matthew Castellano, Sulac, Woozle, Emily Parker, Tea Jackson, Ike Plumlee and Emily Clair Brown.
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LAWN CARE WORKERS needed in Little Rock. Salary based on experience. For more information call Ricky at 501-590-3051 or 501-297-4484
Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a non-profit advocacy organization in Little Rock, seeks an Administrative & Finance Director. Hours are 30 hours a week with benefits. Bachelor’s degree with experience in daily operations of a nonprofit including book-keeping and database management. EOE. Send cover letter, resume, and references to: dclark@aradvocates.org
sip LOCAL ARKANSAS TIMES
PASTURED OLD BREED PORK MICHEL LEIDERMANN Moderator
IMMIGRATION: NOW WHAT?
Our hogs are a cross between Large Black and Berkshire, old 19th century breeds. They are raised on our pasture and forage in the forest that adjoins our fields. They are never confined like industrial hogs. We do not use any kind of routine antibiotics. Our hogs live ARKANSAS GRASS were FED LAMB like they meant to. PRICE LIST FRESH RAW HAM $7 lb.
PORK LOIN $8 lb
HAM BREAKFAST STEAKS $7 lb
BREAKFAST SAUSAGE $9 lb
We offer first quality one-year-old lamb raised on our farm in North Pulaski County. Our meat is free of steroids or any other chemicals. The only time we use antibiotics is if the animal has been injured which is extremely rare. All meat is USDA inspected.
PORK STEAKS $10 lb PRICE LIST: RIB ROAST TESTICLES
FRIDAY, MARCH 31 AT 6:30 PM In Spanish with English subtitles
contains about eight ribs (lamb chops) $17 lb.
$10 lb
WHOLE LEG OF LAMBPORK BUTTS TANNED SHEEPSKINS, $10 lb SHOULDER (about 4 to 5 lbs) $12 lb.
(bone in, cook this slow, like a pot roast. Meat falls off the bone). $11 lb.
HEARTS, LIVERS, KIDNEYS, $5 lb
$100-$150
(Our sheepskins are tanned in a Quaker Town, Pa. tannery that has specialized in sheepskins for generations.)
PORK TENDERLOIN BONELESS LOIN $12 lb TENDERLOIN $8 lb
$20 lb
LAMB BRATWURST LINK SAUSAGE
(one-lb package) $10 lb
aetn.org www.aetn.org/programs/ellatino
PORK BRATWURST $10 One pound package
You can pick up your meat at our farm off Hwy 107 in North Pulaski County (about 25 miles north of downtown Little Rock) or we can meet you in downtown Little Rock weekdays. All meat is aged and then frozen.
NECKBONES
(for stew or soup) $5 lb
SPARE RIBS $9 lb BABYBACK RIBS $12 lb
India Blue F a r m
12407 Davis Ranch Rd. | Cabot, AR 72023 Call Kaytee Wright 501-607-3100 alan@arktimes.com
12407 Davis Ranch Rd. | Cabot, AR 72023 Call Kaytee Wright 501-607-3100 alan@arktimes.com arktimes.com MARCH 23, 2017
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MARCH 23, 2017
ARKANSAS TIMES