Arkansas Times - March 9, 2017

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Since Election Day, progressives looking to fight the regime of Donald Trump are at the vanguard of a new age of protest

BY DAVID KOON

IT’S FINALLY

Friday, March

10 DON’T BLINK, MY FRIEND

The bands have been high-fiving, practicing, tuning things and high-fiving a few more times probably.

But now it is time to break a few more hearts and blow a few more minds.

AND EMBR ACE THE FEAR .

HEARTS N BROKE

M IN D S N B LO W

Join us for the epic…

Final(ly)!

Friday, March 10!

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R AH HOWARD

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COMMENT

Radical Zinn Re: the bill to remove Howard Zinn books from school libraries: When “alternative” books are removed from school libraries and class curriculums, it is the beginning of broader suppression of education and civilian participation in politics, not the end of it. Our grade-school books are traditionally skewed —ostensibly to protect impressionable youth. But the education police are growing bolder now because Zinn’s work is highereducation, college-level political science material. A major part of the topic itself is the study of radical political thought and action. “Radical” to those who have not been poor, oppressed, colonized, marginalized, brutalized or outspoken about it — and to those who care not about people with such past experiences or current conditions.

This routine political science knowledge seems truly radical only to those without any feeling of responsibility for or compassion toward these “others.”

Radical political theories are uncomfortable, terrible — even horrifying to those who greatly fear becoming like any of these “losers” — should their realities become commonly known among the young.

Mady Maguire Little Rock

Concerted effort Regarding the two Arkansas bills that would gut the state law giving taxpayers access to public records: Bills like these are part of a systematic effort to strip the people of any power they hold over an established bureaucracy. It’s a strategy of incremental legislation, year after year, meant to entrench the system in such a way that ordinary people no longer have a say in their own government.

This strategy was laid out in the Powell Memorandum in 1971.

Add to these bills another one in the current assembly that criminalizes protests and peaceful assemblies, and yet another voter I.D. law that places more hurdles between the voter and the vote, and you get the picture.

I’ve read that similar bills criminalizing protests have popped up in many state legislatures this year. I suspect that ALEC, the corporate right-wing think-tank and bill mill, is the culprit.

People like Bart Hester, Jason Rapert and Bobby Ballinger are frankly too stupid and venal to have cooked up 4

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ARKANSAS TIMES

these bills on their own.

Ask yourself: Who really benefits from these laws? Certainly not ordinary Arkansans.

This isn’t democracy. This is totalitarianism.

Brad Bailey Fayetteville

From the web In response to the March 2 Arkansas Blog post, “Anti-transgender bill would prevent amending birth certificates”: The party of concentrating on how to be most cruel to the most vulnerable, how to accomplish this in as perverted a manner as possible, and ignoring the most important issues to concentrate on the totally irrelevant — or, I should say relevant only to those whose lives they are trying to make even worse, intentionally.

Betty J Rousey My, my. We should expect a 5-yearold to make what could be a drastic life-changing decision, huh? As a 5-year-old, I remember wanting to wear a pair of red corduroy pants to church, a definite no-no for a little girl back then — and probably now. Sponsor Rep. Mickey Gates thinks I should have made a decision about my gender at that age, too?

I have to admit I did decide I didn’t much want to be a woman when I learned the facts of life a few years later. But I don’t think I wanted to be a man either. Of course, in a few years that issue started sorting itself out.

Gates needs to back up, grow up and live his own life. And butt out of the lives of others.

Doigotta This is a direct act of legalizing discrimination against the transgender community who were born here in Arkansas. And there is no reason for this bill to make it out of committee.

Those who vote for it will be seen as openly discriminating against a segment of Arkansans that is equivalent to the population of Maumelle.

Gwen Fry In response to the filing of the so-called “bathroom bill” by Sens. Greg Standridge of Russellville and Gary Stubblefield of Branch: Wait until a trans woman walks into the “men’s room” in the Capitol and stands next to a male legislator at a urinal and starts talking to him about legislation. Or a trans man walks into a “ladies’ room,” scaring the hell out of a woman. Would the legislators feel uncomfortable? Please, tell us, dear senators, how you will react and, better yet, how you will enforce this? As to the former you won’t. As to the latter, you can’t. Therefore, you are passing unenforceable, yet mean-spirited, legislation. Time for you to go home.

Between that and your BS voter I.D. law, you guys are worthless to everybody except your “base”: bigots.

Tucker Max In response to the Feb. 23 “Downtown Dancing” cover story:

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Great issue. The people of Arkansas are amazing at nurturing their communities and developing equality in neighborhoods and businesses. If the Arkansas government would get out of the way, people can make downtown more tourist friendly, which generates revenue and develops community pride.

ShineonLibby In response to a March 6 blog post about the bill before the state legislature to make same-sex marriage illegal in Arkansas: It has become obvious the only way to stop these idiots from wasting the taxpayers’ money is to hold them personally responsible. We need to draft an initiated amendment to the state Constitution that legislators that vote for a law that has been previously ruled unconstitutional by the federal courts or the Arkansas courts shall be personally responsible for any damages awarded against the State of Arkansas, and said legislators can not void said responsibility by claiming bankruptcy or sovereign immunity.

Take the money out of their wallets, not ours.

Fort Smith Observer In response to the March 2 Arkansas Blog post, “Local control? Depends with Bart Hester. Not on gays, OK on medical marijuana”: The level of hypocrisy that exists within these people is almost making me puke. They know exactly what they are doing. Plausibly denying that anything about cannabis is beneficial, even ignoring the mountain of facts, which are in this country’s records, is just tantamount to lying to our faces. I hope this stuff can be brought before the state Supreme Court, because any judge would have to be dimmer than a 3-watt bulb not to think these laws are being corrupted. Even after the [Drug Enforcement Agency’s] own judge said it was the safest therapeutic substance known to man, they are still being hypocrites and liars. It must be they are being paid off, and they are using their religion to beat everything down that they do not agree with. This is not the working of the United States I gave my time in the Armed Forces for. I am truly angry at, and ashamed of, these legislators.

Dale Worthington

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WEEK THAT WAS

Tweet of the Week: PULASKI Co: The ALL-NEW #BroadwayBridge opened to traffic tonight at 9:30! #arnews #artraffic — The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department (@AHTD) on Wednesday, March 1, announcing the end of months of worse-than-usual traffic snarls on surface streets in downtown Little Rock. The new Broadway Bridge arrived a full month ahead of schedule, partly due to an unseasonably mild winter that aided the pace of construction.

Contractor Massman Construction will earn a big bonus thanks to the early completion date.

Private option restrictions coming On Monday, congressional Republicans released a bill to rework the Affordable Care Act (see columns from Ernest Dumas on page 7 and Jay Barth on page 9). But for the 310,000 Arkansans covered by Medicaid expansion, even more significant Obamacare news came a few hours earlier from Governor Hutchinson, who announced he was seeking a federal waiver to modify the state’s Medicaid expansion program (a.k.a. the private option or Arkansas Works).

The two largest changes proposed are to cap financial eligibility at the federal poverty level, rather than the current 138 percent of the FPL, and to institute work requirements for able-bodied adults. The new income eligibility cap would remove some 60,000 beneficiaries from the program. However, those people would then become eligible for federally subsidized insurance on the individual marketplace. The good news: They’ll still have coverage. The bad news: They’ll face more cost-sharing.

The governor hopes to have the waiver in place by Jan. 1, 2018. The changes still require federal approval, but Hutchinson said the Trump administration’s secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, indicated in a phone call that HHS would “look favorably” upon the request.

Former state senator indicted New federa l cha rges were announced in the public corruption scandal that previously snared former state Rep. Micah Neal of Springdale.

Former state Sen. Jon Woods (also of Springdale) and Oren Paris III, the president of a small Christian college in Springdale, were named in an indict6

MARCH 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

ment filed last week. Federal prosecutors allege a scheme in which Woods guided hundreds of thousands of dollars in state surplus money to Ecclesia College, the institution headed by Paris. They say Woods and Neal conspired to take bribes for steering the state money to enrich Paris and his school, after which Paris allegedly paid the bribes to the legislators through a third-party consultant firm. That firm was set up by Randell Shelton Jr., a personal friend of Woods and Paris.

Shelton also was indicted.

More may be yet to come. The money in question came from the General Improvement Fund, a repository of state surplus dollars that legislators have long used for pork projects. Other legislators besides Woods and Neal directed their share of GIF to Ecclesia and to other questionable activities.

House of horrors Monday was the filing deadline for the 2017 regular session, and the bills

came pouring in. Among the worst, the meanest and the goofiest of the last-minute legislation: • Against Zinn Rep. Kim Hendren (R-Gravette) hopes to prohibit public schools from including books or materials authored by Howard Zinn in their curriculum or courses. Zinn, who died in 2010, was the leftist historian who authored the bestselling “A People’s History of the United States.” (The day after the bill was filed, an organization called the Zinn Education Project announced it would offer a free copy of the text to any Arkansas teacher.)

• No prizes for the poor A bill by Rep. John Payton (R-Wilburn) would require the state to seize lottery winnings from individuals who receive public assistance from the Department of Human Services. A winning lottery ticket over $500 would be

subject to garnishment in the amount that “the person has received in public assistance benefits” for the previous 10 years.

• Sheer meanness Rep. Mickey Gates (R-Hot Springs) introduced anti-transgender legislation that would make it impossible for individuals to change the sex listed on their birth certificate.

• Bathroom cruelty Speaking of persecuting trans people, Sen. Linda Collins-Smith (R-Pocahontas) filed a bill to prohibit individuals from using bathrooms in government buildings that don’t correspond to the gender they were assigned at birth.

• Allow guns or get sued Rep. Richard Womack (R-Arkadelphia) proposed that an injured individual be allowed to sue a property owner who doesn’t allow guns on his or her property — including a private residence — if the injury derived from “unlawful physical force” by another person.

• And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

OPINION

Alienated “You can’t be pro-gun enough in Arkansas.”

So said Sen. Linda Collins-Smith (R-Pocahontas) of her proposal to allow any concealed weapon permit holder of any age to take a gun onto any public college campus in Arkansas.

Collins-Smith also has proposed to open most public buildings — including the Capitol, Justice Building and the state’s courtrooms — to people with concealed weapon permits. Collins-Smith apparently thinks the minimal requirements for obtaining a concealed carry permit somehow guarantee responsibility by the holder. She’s wrong. To name just one: A concealed carry permit holder opened fire on the office of his divorce court judge in Van Buren in 2011.

Collins-Smith is also wrong about unlimited gun love in Arkansas, if the scientifically conducted Arkansas Poll at the University of Arkansas is a measure. That last poll, a huge statewide sample, found that only 14 percent wanted less strict gun

laws. About 31 percent wanted stricter gun laws and 53 percent wanted no change. Yet Collins-Smith and Rep. MAX Charlie Collins BRANTLEY maxbrantley@arktimes.com (R-Fayetteville) and many others think we have too many obstacles to more guns in more places.

It is stories like these — indeed the whole gamut of the last-minute flood of 2017 legislation — that make me feel like a space alien. Liberal politics have never been much in flower in Arkansas, but the current atmosphere is poisonous beyond anything I’ve seen in 44 years on Arkansas ground.

Among all the excesses — Bible as official state book, efforts to curb the state’s generally poor assistance for poor people, corporate favoritism, environmental disregard — the spate of legislation aimed at gay and transgender people stands out.

Trumpcare

I

gnorance may not exactly be bliss, President Trump and a lot of other politicians are discovering, but it is a good operating model as long as wisdom doesn’t rear its ugly head.

But in the case of Obamacare and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, wisdom, or a tiny cache of it, is what has befallen the president suddenly, and it has created a dilemma for the party with which he shares governance.

Through the campaign and afterward, Trump described Obamacare (never “the Affordable Care Act”) as a “total disaster” and he promised to replace it with a system that covered every American with better benefits and at costs far lower than people now pay for their insurance. His exact words: “We’re going to have insurance for everybody. There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us. People can expect to have great health care . . . much less expensive and much better.”

If he had the barest knowledge of what the law did, he would have known his promise was mathematically impossible, unless he had in mind some form of universal socialized medicine like Great Britain’s, Israel’s or Cuba’s, and also a political

absurdity.

Someone sat him down in late February and explained to him how Obamacare ERNEST worked and why DUMAS dismayed congressional Republicans in seven years had never produced the miraculous replacement he had described.

“Nobody knew health care could be so complicated,” Trump mused.

But House Republicans unveiled their plan Monday and hoped to rush it through committees by week’s end. It doesn’t come close to meeting the president’s description, but he will pretend that it does and will bet that the voters will be as ignorant of “Obamacare Lite,” as conservatives are calling the GOP plan, as they (and he) were of the original.

Insurance will be far more expensive for millions of people, millions more relatively poor people will lose insurance altogether because the premiums will be far out of reach, others will have their benefits and coverage reduced, not expanded as Trump promised. And it will be repeal in name only. Like Obamacare, the plan is built upon government subsidies, in the

At last count, 14 bills had been filed aimed at discrimination of some form against gay and transgender people. The marquee legislation would please George Wallace and Orval Faubus. Irrespective of current U.S. Supreme Court holdings, it would declare a same-sex marriage and any rights or contracts attached to that marriage invalid in Arkansas. It would also deny the constitutional promise of full faith and credit among the states on differing laws. A legal marriage in California would not be judged valid in Arkansas and any related agreements would be void here.

That’s crazily unconstitutional unless and until the Republican majority reshapes the U.S. Supreme Court. But it is only the beginning. In the name of religion, Arkansas legislators propose to specifically protect, by law, those who discriminate against gay and transgender people in employment, housing and public accommodations. You need only say it’s a moral dictate. The proposed legislation also requires that no business be denied government money or tax benefits if they discriminate against LGBT people. You could, for example, operate a nursing home that refused to hire or house gay people and the state would be power-

less to stop sending tax money your way.

Other proposals say transgender people must be kept out of the bathrooms that fit their identity, no matter how disconcerting this might be when a big burly man is forced into the little girl’s room or a curvaceous woman slides up to the trough at War Memorial Stadium. Criminal penalties are being proposed to make any trans person who does this subject to harsh treatment should a private part be inadvertently exposed. One particularly mean bill would invalidate one of the rare charitable pieces of Arkansas law, which allows those who undergo a sex change to have their birth gender changed on their birth certificates.

The specifics are almost irrelevant. The fear and loathing are palpable, though directed at a group so small and so powerless and so often fearful themselves that it is laughable that the swaggering guntoters of the Arkansas Legislature believe they have anything to fear.

For people who often wear religion on their sleeves, a refresher course on the Sermon on the Mount seems in order — Matthew 7:12 for those who have a copy of the soon-to-be-official-State Book at home.

form of income tax credits, to help people buy private health insurance policies, but the tax credits will be useless for people with low family wages because premiums and deductibles will be out of reach. People from 50 to 65 (Trump votes?) will see their premiums and deductibles soar so that people in their 20s can see theirs go down.

But Obamacare Lite will achieve the two things the big opponents of the law have sought most since 2010: It will end Obamacare’s taxes on rich folks like the Koch brothers and the benefiting medical businesses, which pay for the program, and sharply reduce government aid for poor people to gain access to medical care.

In Arkansas, perhaps the single biggest beneficiary of Obamacare because it insured 400,000 of the state’s neediest people and bailed out the state treasury and budget, the state government is moving in tandem with Washington’s economic royalists by setting rules that deprive the poorest of health care if they can’t hold a steady job. The governor rejoiced last week that 25,000 poor people had been stricken from the rolls and that many more would follow.

Congressional Republicans are experiencing a reprise of 2010, when people aroused by industry and party ads claiming this new law, “Obamacare,” was going to strip away their Medicare, take medical decisions away from them and their doctors and assign it to the government, cut life support for grandma when she got sick,

and turn America into a socialist state. The new president was unpopular enough in the South and rural Middle America and they assigned his name to this complicated system for expanding the right of medical care to everyone. Obama said he was happy to be its namesake, and that’s what it became.

It had two big flaws, both pointed out by the insurance industry: The government’s fundable tax credits were still too small to make private insurance affordable to many lower-income households and the tax penalty for people who didn’t buy it was too low to induce healthy young people to buy it, which forced the companies to raise premiums. Red-state governors and legislatures threw up roadblocks, refusing in 19 states to cover the poorest people under Medicaid after the Supreme Court gave them the option and erecting other barriers to people buying the insurance. The Arkansas legislature blocked the use of $10 million of federal aid to help people enroll.

Slowly, ignorance subsided and now most Americans think Obamacare is a good deal and, like Social Security and Medicare, just needs some fixing.

They’re already venting their doubts about Trumpcare, or Ryancare, or whatever distasteful epithet sticks to the ramshackle new health law, if indeed it passes.

Republicans pray they remain at least partially ignorant until, say, after the 2018 election.

Follow Arkansas Blog on Twitter: @ArkansasBlog

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ou know, along with having the impulse control of a 7-year-old boy, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Donald J. Trump just ain’t real smart. He’s a cunning self-promoter, but dim. He did manage to go bankrupt in the casino business, you know. That’s really hard to do.

Trump showed losses of close to a billion dollars operating his grandiose gambling dens in Atlantic City. In the process, he stiffed investors and contractors alike, right down to the guys who installed the toilets and slot machines.

Around the same time, Trump Air — his personal airline — also went bust. U.S. banks basically quit lending him money.

So he turned to the Russians.

But I’m getting ahead of the story.

Trump eventually made good playing a tycoon on a scripted “reality TV” program, dabbling in professional wrestling on the side. If he hadn’t inherited a fortune, odds are he’d have ended up a sideshow barker luring hayseeds to see the bearded lady. Instead, with a little help from Vladimir Putin, they made him president of the United States.

Anyway, let’s keep it real simple. A smart person, if he wanted to accuse his predecessor as president of the United States of a serious felony — such as an illegal wiretap against Trump himself, which would constitute the worst crime against American democracy since 1860 — that person would assemble an airtight case before opening his mouth. Only an impulsive fool would blurt out such an incendiary charge with no evidence whatsoever.

Meanwhile, ever wondered what it must be like for the White House flacks — Spicer, Conway, Sanders — tasked with explaining away Trump’s overnight Twitter-storms? Here’s something I wrote a few weeks ago: “The whole country is learning how exhausting it can be to live with a seriously mentally ill person: the constant feeling of apprehension and unease over what kind of manipulative, delusional nonsense is coming next. The uncertainty about how to react … .Will calling the police make things better, or worse? Is it too early to seek order of commitment? Or too late?”

So am I saying Trump’s mentally ill?

Not in the sense of having a treatable brain disease, no. Nor am I a psychiatrist, although I spent years writing a book (“Widow’s Web”) about a couple of characters like Trump, one a politician who eventually sabotaged himself by making wild allegations he could never prove.

Most professionals who have weighed in on Trump’s mental health mention Narcissistic PerGENE sonality DisorLYONS der. Here’s what the Mayo Clinic’s website says about it: “If you have narcissistic personality disorder, you may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious. You often monopolize conversations. You may belittle or look down on people you perceive as inferior. You may feel a sense of entitlement — and when you don’t receive special treatment, you may become impatient or angry. You may insist on having ‘the best’ of everything — for instance, the best car, athletic club or medical care.

“At the same time, you have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, vulnerability and humiliation. To feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and try to belittle the other person to make yourself appear superior.”

So did you read about President Trump screaming and cursing at White House aides last week before flying off to his Florida castle to launch a bizarre Twitter-storm against Obama? Or as the inimitable Charles P. Pierce put it, “Ensconced in Camp Runamuck, the president is a voracious consumer of angry paranoid junk food. We are all now living in Talk Radio Hell.”

So now what? Writing in Columbia Journalism Review, Lee Siegel put it this way: “We don’t need to be told by a doctor that the guy who is coughing and sneezing at the other end of the train car is probably sick. … All we know is that the safe thing to do is to stay away from him.

“When someone is compulsively lying, continuously contradicting himself, imploring the approval of people even as he is attacking them, exalting people one day and abusing and vilifying them the next, then the question of his mental state is moot. The safe thing to do is not just to stay away from him, but to keep him away from situations where he can do harm.”

Barring some unpredictable (if quite likely) disaster, it’s basically up to the Republicans, who have it in their power to keep the presidency while saving the nation from Trump.

I am not holding my breath.

GOP health care

F

or much of the past decade, a collection of those of us who study Arkansas politics convene at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association for a roundtable where we analyze where Arkansas is politically and where it’s heading. We did so again last weekend in Russellville. As our tradition has taken place over a period of unprecedented partisan change, it’s been a fascinating ride with insightful scholars of politics. In contrast to previous years where the future of the state’s politics was somewhat blurry, we all were clear-eyed last Saturday about the state’s probable ruby-red future.

While demographic change in Northwest Arkansas may create a point of entry for the state’s Democrats over the long haul, in the short run Arkansas feels like a sure-bet for Republicans from the top of the ticket to the bottom.

But, as I noted on Saturday, there is this little thing called the Affordable Care Act that screams “danger ahead” for Republicans in Arkansas. Because of the dramatic success of Medicaid expansion in the state through Arkansas Works — Arkansas’s innovative bipartisan program that has been central to the sharpest decrease in uninsured residents in the U.S. — any disruption to the ACA that would bump significant numbers of Arkansans off the rolls could bite Republicans who support it.

Too, because beneficiaries of health care benefits are disproportionately in counties where white rural Arkansans who have swung so emphatically toward the GOP in the Obama and Trump eras, the impact could be consequential.

On Monday evening, House Republicans released the draft of their replacement to the ACA —the American Health Care Act. Immediately, detractors on both the right and left converged in pejoratively calling the multifaceted bill “Obamacare Lite.” Both sides will likely be given ammunition for their arguments when, in the coming days, the Congressional Budget Office presents its analysis that will inevitably highlight the increased price tag and decreased numbers of those covered by the plan as compared to Obamacare.

Most significantly from an Arkansas perspective, new recipients for the Obamacare expansion of Medicaid would no longer be added starting in 2020. Arkansas (and other states) would continue to receive moneys to cover those who were part of Medicaid expansion for as long as they are eligible, but any federal

dollars paying for their Medicaid coverage would disappear at the moment that they became ineligiJAY ble. Moreover, a BARTH reduction in federal match rates from Obamacare levels almost ensures that Medicaid expansion would come to an end in Arkansas. The changes to Medicaid don’t stop there under the House bill. Traditional Medicaid — covering the disabled, elderly population and children — would shift from providing the dollars to states needed to provide comprehensive benefits to recipients to a formula-based funding program. Understandably, many are concerned that such monies would not keep up with increasing health care costs, forcing a reduction in services.

The release of the federal legislation followed an announcement only hours earlier by Governor Hutchinson that his team was seeking significant shifts in Arkansas Works. Most importantly, the Hutchinson administration is asking for a series of waivers from the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services to alter how the Arkansas program works. They will almost certainly be approved. Most relevant is the desire to shift those Arkansas Works recipients between 100 percent and 138 percent of poverty — approximately 60,000 Arkansans — away from the program and onto the health exchange where federal tax credits would cover most — but not all — of the insurance costs. Obviously, while much remains unclear about the future of health care reform, what is clear is that a decent chunk of Arkansans will see dramatic changes to their health care insurance in the coming years and some will lose coverage altogether.

The electoral dynamics throughout the Obama years indicates the potency of health care debates in reshaping politics. It seems logical that the threat to coverage found in the AHCA creates similar electoral ramifications, this time to the Democrats’ advantage. It will be good politics for Arkansas Democrats to play the health care card nonstop in the coming years. However, Arkansas Democrats can only take advantage of new political opportunities at both the federal and state levels if they have viable candidates. That remains a fundamental challenge to Arkansas’s minority party as it tries to pick itself up.

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10

MARCH 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

ven in a week where a modest winning streak went by the wayside at Gainesville, Arkansas authored one more earnest surge toward an NCAA Tournament berth that not long ago seemed beyond its grasp.

The Hogs’ five-game spurt back into March Madness consideration stalled out in a 78-65 loss at Florida on Wednesday night, but this oddity of a game actually proved how far the team had come in short order. Despite playing poorly at both ends of the court for much of the night, the Hogs were persistent and difficult for a skilled Gators squad — one that is likely headed for a No. 3 or 4 seed in the tourney — to fully shake until the final minutes. And Florida, despite getting outshot at the free throw line, also reaped the benefits of a couple of key home-cooking calls in the second half that kept the visitors at bay. When the Hogs did trim the Florida lead to six points on a couple of occasions, after trailing by as many as 16 in the first half, Florida simply answered in the way that quality teams do.

Arkansas ensured that it would not let the loss become an albatross. The Hogs polished off their regular season at 23-8 and 12-6 in SEC games by pasting Georgia 85-67 in an entertaining Saturday afternoon game where its three seniors had a fitting sendoff in a near-capacity-filled Bud Walton Arena.

Moses Kingsley and Dusty Hannahs each shared top-scorer billing with Jaylen Barford as all three put in 15 points to pace the balanced approach that has led to the Hogs being so successful down the stretch. The other senior, Manuale Watkins, capped off what has been a quality final year of his career, chipping in with 12.

The unselfishness of this team has made even the most jaded Hog fans hearken back to the halcyon years of the program in the early to mid-1990s.

Certainly the championship-era Hogs had their bellcows: Todd Day, Lee Mayberry, Corliss Williamson and Scotty Thurman were generally always guaranteed productivity even when the shots weren’t falling. But what made Nolan Richardson’s best teams lethal was the ability for a Watkins-like role player to erupt for a quality performance that the opponent could never quite anticipate.

If it wasn’t Al Dillard slinging home 30-footers with abandon, it was Dwight Stewart or Robert Shepherd or Clint McDaniel chipping in, or an even less

heralded guy like Elmer Martin or Warren Linn giving the team quality minutes.

Mike Anderson BEAU has coaxed forth WILCOX the best efforts of Trey Thompson’s previously undistinguished career in recent weeks. Dustin Thomas has been a helpful resource at times, and when he’s not been at his best, transfer Arlando Cook has made some subtle contributions in his stead.

Anton Beard’s junior year has been his best by far, with a more confident perimeter stroke and better ball control in the open court. Even when he has an off half like the first 20 minutes against Georgia, he’s responded nicely (second half for Beard: six points, three rebounds and a steal) and shown composure that he completely lacked in a truncated and frustrating sophomore year.

The oddity that has to be troubling for Hog fans at this point is the team’s lapses have been jarring, to say the least. Oklahoma State, Kentucky, Florida, Minnesota and Vanderbilt all put double-digit losses on the Hogs, and a couple of other defeats came to the likes of mediocre Mississippi State and Missouri. So there’s still enough distressing precedent to be heeded as the team embarks on a short weekend trip to Nashville, earning the double-bye with the third seed in the conference tournament that has largely bedeviled the program save for four magical days back in 2000 when a team a hair over .500 blitzed through a quartet of games to secure the Razorbacks’ only tourney championship to date out of a quartercentury’s worth of bids.

This team, ironically, could present the best threat at sewing up a second title. Kentucky is still formidable, but also susceptible to fits of laxity that are one of the only negative byproducts of collecting the egos of five-star teenagers every year. The Gators knocked the Hogs off twice, but the adage about the obstacles inherent in beating a team thrice in a season accordingly inures to the benefit of the upstarts from Fayetteville.

Bottom line: We’ll take a 1-1 or 2-1 showing in Nashville because either could give the team a slight seeding bump, but at this point the last few weeks alone have made the rollercoaster season worth the ride.

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THE OBSERVER NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

Grease and goodness

F

or many a year now, The Observer has been getting our jalopies patched back together at Foster’s Garage, the old-line joint at 409 W. Eigth St., a grease-monkey palace of oil and antifreeze, complete with a tiny office hung with yellowed receipts and vintage fan belts, so oldschool that the mechanics out in the bays don’t even use hydraulic lifts, just low-riding creepers to roll on, flat on their backs, under the cars. Foster’s has been in business continuously somewhere in Little Rock since 1929. That’s a hell of a long time, children, especially considering that cars have gone from sputtering horseless carriages to futuristic conveyances with more digital readouts and electronic geegaws than the space shuttle in those 88 years. God grant them another 88. Lord knows that with the way America is going, plenty of us are going to need the services of a good mechanic someday if we hope to keep motorvating.

We’ve yet to run paid advertorial in this space (give us time, though, as times are tight in the newspaperin’ bidness), but we’re not above doing the occasional personal endorsement.

With that in mind, we give our highest recommendation to Foster’s, which has saved us a Dutch pail of money on occasion, like the time a few years back when we came in convinced we needed a $1,400 rack and pinion in our heap, and told them so at Foster’s, and that we’d saved up the dough to do just that, only to get a phone call that afternoon informing us that we’d been sold a bill of goods by the doctor who levied the initial opinion, and only needed a $40 power steering pump hose. In a world of alternative facts where the craven grab for money seems to rule every aspect of life, that kind of honesty is in short supply. It’s also why no other greasy hand will ever touch

the Mobile Observatory, nor any outof-warranty vehicle owned by a family member, until the day The Observer heads off to the Great Junkyard in the Sky, to join the coveralls-wearing pater familias of the Foster clan, who is, no doubt, wrenching right now on The Good Lord’s Cadillac Coupe Deville.

All this is The Observer’s roundabout way of getting to the story we came here to tell in the first place.

Arkansas Times senior editor Max Brantley, who was the original source of the Foster’s recommendation when we were looking for the fabled Honest Mechanic to hold a junker together back in the day, recently forwarded along a link to an online copy of the 1949 edition of “The Negro Motorist’s Green Book.” In case you don’t know, during the days of Jim Crow, when discrimination was the rule in the South, The “Green Book” was a guide for African-American motorists, featuring lists of black-friendly hotels, restaurants, beauty parlors, nightclubs, service stations and other places where a black driver might need to stop while out on the road and in need of discriminationfree services.

Max pointed out that there, under the “Little Rock Garages” heading, was good ol’ Foster’s Garage — a previous incarnation that stood at 1400 W. 10th St. From what we could see in the copy of the “Green Book” Max provided, Foster’s is the only Little Rock business listed in the 1949 “Green Book” that still exists today.

Consistency is important, folks, especially when it comes to character.

Made Yours Truly damned happy to know that a white-owned business that had some in Little Rock back in 1949 has survived to the present day. We might need to get The Mobile Observatory into Foster’s for a look-see soon.

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11

Arkansas Reporter

THE

Charter takeover continues Bill would force traditional public schools to sell or lease unused or ‘underutilized’ buildings to charter schools.

BY IBBY CAPUTO ARKANSAS NONPROFIT NEWS NETWORK

the bill ran in the Senate Education Committee in February.

At that hearing, Sen. Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock) raised the issue of what “underutilized” means. “Right in my neighborhood, two blocks from me, a school is going to be closed because it is underutilized, and I can’t come up with a definition of what underutilized means except that it seems to mean what anybody wants it to mean.” Elliott was referring to Franklin Incentive Elementary School, one of the LRSD schools that Superintendent Poore has slated

12

MARCH 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

BRIAN CHILSON

A

bill that would grant Arkansas charter schools the right to use “unused or underutilized” public school buildings advanced out of the House Education Committee late Monday afternoon on a voice vote with some dissent, drawing criticism from some opponents of the bill who cried foul at the unusual timing of the committee’s action. It has already passed in the full Senate.

Charter schools already have right of first refusal under previous legislation, but only if a district sells a public school building. Senate Bill 308 would add the requirement that school districts submit a yearly report to the state that identifies all unused or underutilized public school facilities. A charter school could then give notice of its intent to purchase or lease the unused or underutilized school facility, and preference would go to the charter school.

The bill also states that a district cannot sell or lease a public school property to a third party that is not a charter school for two years after the facility is listed as unused or underutilized by the state Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation.

If a school district fails to comply, it could be classified in academic facilities distress and subject to state takeover.

“We’re trying to allow those buildings to be repurposed — or not really repurposed, the purpose is going to be education,” House sponsor Rep. Mark Lowery (D-Maumelle) said. He said it would “breathe life back into those facilities.”

In his presentation of the bill, Lowery attempted to allay concerns about the bill. “It’s been out there that this is about the Little Rock School District. This is

LOWERY: Sponsor of Senate Bill 308.

about the four schools that have been closed down and to try to allow charter schools to do a grab on those schools, and that’s absolutely not the case.” The Little Rock School District plans to close or repurpose several campuses at the end of the 2016-17 school year, which LRSD Superintendent Michael Poore has said is a necessary cost-saving measure.

Richard Abernathy, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, which represents school superintendents, testified against the bill. He said what happens to public school facilities should be a local decision. He also said “underutilized” is not well defined in the bill, a concern Democratic senators voiced when

for closure at the end of the current school year.

At the House Education Committee on Monday, both Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola and Poore testified against the bill.

“We’re crafting legislation right now that’s yanking out local control,” Poore said. “Most of you know, we just closed facilities. My job right now is create a repurpose for those facilities and to work with my community to come up with a repurpose that will be good for our overall community.”

Poore said a good example of what a community can do with a closed school building is the Willie Hinton Neighborhood Resource Center in Little Rock.

Lowery, in his closing remarks, said

that if a district is able to find a community group that wants to continue an educational pursuit in a school building, then the district doesn’t have to report the building as unused or underutilized.

Poore also said he objected to a provision in the bill that states how the terms of the lease would be determined.

“The lease length gets determined by the charter, so again we are usurping local control. The charter school dictates the agreement, not the local school district,” he said.

Stodola expressed concerns that the bill would lead to more vacant buildings because of the provision that districts must not dispose of a building for two years after it has been identified as underutilized or unused.

“It’s of great concern to a community, to a neighborhood,” Stodola said.

“Many of these schools are in fragile neighborhoods. There’s been declining enrollment, which is why the schools are being closed to begin with, and the last thing that I need in the neighborhood around UALR and around Stifft Station is to have schools that are closed and to strap the arms of the school district to be able to dispose of those to people who want to use those.”

The bill was presented at the end of the day in a special meeting of the committee, which usually convenes Tuesday and Thursday morning. Several people opposed to the bill expressed dismay about the surprise hearing and said they had to rush to the Capitol.

Bill Kopsky, executive director of the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, speaking against the bill, said he was told the bill would not run until next week.

“I know you have people signed up to speak ... against it. Those are my friends, my allies. Those are also institutional people whose job it is to be here. Those are not the grassroots parents around the state, from rural communities, who are deeply concerned about this bill, who are being denied their opportunity to voice their concerns about it because of the timing of when this bill is being run. It’s unfair. It’s just blatantly wrong,” Kopsky told the committee.

Committee chair Rep. Bruce Cozart (R-Hot Springs) responded. “I will tell you that if they came and all signed up they would get limited debate and they would not get to speak anyway,”

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he told Kopsky. A short back-and-forth exchange between the two exemplified the frustration expressed by opponents of the bill. Kopsky told Cozart, “Well, sir, they wanted to be here to watch you all do your work and express their concerns about this piece of legislation.”

Cozart replied, “We are on TV. They can watch there.” The House streams and archives committee meetings on its website, arkansashouse.org.

“I appreciate that. They cannot speak to the TV, although I am sure they are shouting right now,” Kopsky said.

Questions and testimony lasted more than an hour and a half. Rep. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro) expressed concern about the precedent the bill might set.

“I think it’s a laudable goal, but my concern is we are setting up a preferred buyer ... in this educational setting that we wouldn’t do in any other — we wouldn’t do this with public buildings and allow only grocers to buy public buildings. We’re setting up a standard that I don’t know that we want to go into,” Sullivan said.

But Lowery said the bill was “protecting the rights of those taxpayers who paid for that building to be used for education and not to be used as a grocery store or warehouse.”

Helena facility fight inspired legislation According to Lowery and Sen. Alan Clark (R-Lonsdale), the lead Senate sponsor, the impetus for the bill was a situation that unfolded after the state Board of Education declared the Helena-West Helena School District in financial distress in 2010. Almost a year later, then-Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell dissolved the school board and put the district under state control. In 2012, the district closed three schools, including Beechcrest Elementary, citing declining enrollment and financial difficulty.

Scott Shirey, founder and executive director of KIPP Delta Public Schools, a charter school operator in Helena-West Helena, spoke in favor of the bill. He said at the time Beechcrest was closed, “students at our school attended school in modular trailers ... there were no science labs in there, no cafeteria, no

THE

BIG PICTURE

Inconsequential News Quiz: Leave Jeremy Hutchinson ALONE! Edition

1) Which of the following are real bills filed recently in the state legislature?

A) Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson’s SB 626, which would “preserve the right to be left alone.”

B) Rep. Jana Della Rosa’s “Chocolate Covered Cherry Freedom Act of 2017.”

C) Rep. John Walker’s bill to require that every member of the legislature pass the civics portion of the U.S. citizenship test before being allowed to vote on bills.

D) All of the above.

2) Recently, a petition was filed on change.org that involves Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway) and has already drawn over 2,400 signatures. What is the nature of the petition?

A) To have a volunteer carrying a giant, 1980s-era boom box trail him at all times, blaring the song “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy).”

B) Asking Jesus Christ to hurry up and return to earth already so He can slap the snot outta Rapert.

C) To rename all sewage tanks in the city of Conway after him.

D) To rechristen the Faulkner County landfill “Jason Rapert’s Partially Filled Hole.”

3) According to researchers at the University of California-Davis, approximately what percentage of U.S. agricultural workers are undocumented immigrants?

A) “Build the wall! Build the wall!”

B) “Trump! Trump! Trump!”

C) “I hate gatdamn vegetables! I’m a MAN!” D) 70 percent. Better hope grandma cans up plenty of tomatoes this summer, kids.

4) In mid-February, an animal at the Little Rock Zoo made national news.

What was the animal and the story?

A) Rick, the zoo’s white rhino, succumbed to the throes of rut, bashed his way out of his enclosure and made sweet love to a zookeeper’s Volvo station wagon parked nearby.

B) Fred, a male orangutan, mastered the use of sign language and immediately registered to run for office as a Republican.

C) Trudy, who was captured as an infant in Africa in 1957 and moved to the Little Rock Zoo in 1988, became the oldest western lowland gorilla in captivity and possibly in the world.

D) Rusty, a giant tortoise, briefly escaped and led keepers on a very slowspeed chase around the flamingo pond.

5) Rep. Mary Bentley (R-Perryville) recently took to Facebook to remind Arkansas Tech University that state legislators “hold the purse strings” of the college’s budget, apparently a threat over a March 9 event on campus that she disagrees with. What was the event?

A) A “Sex on the Lawn” event, in which students are invited to talk about sex, relationships and sexual health.

B) History Department PowerPoint presentation to refute the idea that Mary and Joseph fled to Bethlehem riding on a triceratops.

C) English Department workshop on the difference between “There,” “They’re” and “Their,” which Bentley says infringes on the “grammeratical freedom” of Trump supporters.

D) A weekend retreat during which Arkansas legislators will be forced to watch the “Schoolhouse Rock” series while tied to chairs with their eyelids propped open, as seen in “A Clockwork Orange.”

D, C, D, C, A

LISTEN UP

CONTINUED ON PAGE 31

arktimes.com MARCH 9, 2017

13

Surveying Arkansas’s grass roots resistance to Donald Trump and the Republicans who back him.

Fighting

BRIAN CHILSON

BY DAVID KOON

A

lot of the people working the hardest in Arkansas against the aims of Donald Trump and the Republican Party he leads won’t even say his name. Instead, they refer to him simply as “45,” a reference, of course, to his place at the end of a chain of men stretching link by link from George Washington through Jefferson and Lincoln and FDR and JFK, before coming to rest, improbably, on a portly former game show host with the shellacked, urine-hued hair of an aging televangelist; a man who once appeared on WWE wrasslin’.

Though 45 and the pundits who seek to delegitimize the grassroots resistance that has sprung up since Election Day would likely call protesters haters, it’s not hate that they have for him, exactly. Hate is an emotion that requires an investment of the heart, and if they’re not willing to call him by name, they’re damn sure not going to give him that. For most of them, what they seem to have for Trump 14

MARCH 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

is a profound sense of dismay. Mention Trump’s name and you don’t get hate.

Instead, you get much the same look a long-suffering teacher might give little Johnny Spitball in the back row, the boy too dumb or too lacking in home training to understand that using a stick to hoist little girls’ skirts on the playground to get a peek at their underpants isn’t the path to their hearts.

Since the election of Donald Trump, a homegrown resistance has materialized throughout the state and across the nation, hell-bent on working against a regime intent on rolling back the odometer on the social, environmental and financial reforms of the past half-century. On Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration, an estimated 7,000 Arkansans marched on the state Capitol in solidarity with the Women’s March on Washington, an event that drew nearly a million people to D.C. and millions more at sister marches around the nation and

world. On Feb. 22, over 2,000 people showed up to roar their disapproval at Sen. Tom Cotton in Springdale, an event that wound up making international news and included Cotton tapdancing around a question posed by a 7-year-old boy, who asked the senator to spend less on Trump’s wall and more on PBS Kids.

It’s all thanks to a volunteer resistance, including almost a dozen groups in the state working off the principles outlined in the “Indivisible Guide,” a handbook for the burgeoning resistance written by former congressional and White House staffers (see sidebar). But in a state as red as Arkansas, where Cotton was elected with over 60 percent of the vote, is the burgeoning rebellion all sound and fury, signifying nothing?

The question is yet to be answered, but in considering it, one should recall that there was a time, not much more than a decade ago, when this state was blue as

could be. Both the weather and politics can change quickly here.

The striking thing about the resistance groups in Arkansas and nationwide is how female they are. Of the half-dozen organizations we talked to for this story, all are either wholly led by women or have an overwhelmingly female leadership. It’s a striking break from most past mass movements in this country, and probably has a lot to do with the bruising campaign against Hillary Clinton and the sometime vulgar man who now sits in the Oval Office.

A lot of the current momentum in Arkansas grew from the state’s Women’s March held Jan. 21. The state march, which drew thousands of purple-clad protestors to the lawn of the state Capitol, was the brainchild of Gwendolynn Combs, who founded the Little Rockbased Be the Change Alliance to help organize the march.

edly as we’ve tried to mobilize the people who participated in the Women’s March is, ‘I’m all alone. I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel connected,’ ” she said. “That has been the real benefit of bringing up these Indivisible groups. It’s given people a community when they felt like they were in isolation. … I can’t imagine being in Yellville or something like that and having liberal progressive beliefs.”

Be the Change is in the process of making the pivot from outrage to action,

research in those areas and start thinking about ways to act locally. Combs said the ultimate goal is to eventually use the tactics of the Indivisible movement to shape the conversation in Arkansas, from city boards to the state legislature.

“We want to knock down Jason Rapert, and all the others who are out there — the little mini-Donald Trumps. That’s where we’re a bit different,” she said.

Pat Rogers-Ward, one of the cofounders of the Progressive Arkansas

BRIAN CHILSON

BRIAN CHILSON

A Gifted and Talented teacher in the Little Rock School District, Combs had been only lightly political before the election, the totality of her previous protest experience involving attending a rally when the state Board of Education took over the district. In what has become a familiar story in resistance groups, however, Combs was galvanized by the surprise election of Donald Trump. She stayed up until the early morning hours watching the returns come in on election night, then had to go face a classroom full of children she calls “my kids” next morning. These days, she’s one of those who refers to Trump only as “45.”

“I have 53 kids,” she said.

“Fifty of them are black, two are Hispanic and one is white. …

Teachers are silenced in a lot of ways. We’re supposed to make sure we don’t impact the political beliefs of our students. But at this point, I feel like if I’m not vocal about some things, I’m doing my students an injustice. Silence is just as bad as doing bad things. So I’ve kind of jumped out of that unspoken, ‘teachers stay silent’ mentality. That’s been hard to do.”

Combs wanted to go to the Women’s March in D.C., but knew that financially and from a time standpoint a trip wasn’t in the cards. So she started planning the sister march in Little Rock, creating a Facebook group and choosing the name Be the Change Alliance, taken from the Gandhi quote about being the change one wants to see in the world. Combs said she wanted a group that was accepting of all people. If you’re in opposition to the Trump regime, you are welcome.

“When we picked the official color of the [Arkansas] Women’s March, we chose purple, because we wanted to avoid going blue and turning off those people who might have voted red in the past,” she said. “I am a very new blue voter.

I used to vote Republican. We’ve had some conversations about how to talk across the aisle, how to be friendly, how to not shut people down. I think it’s hard because people are defensive. They don’t want to feel like they’re attacked. It really has to start with listening.”

Since the march, the group has continued to grow. Combs said there are nine people in the planning group and over 3,400 on their mailing list. They’re in close contact with other grassroots progressive organizations around the state, and have helped secure meetings and town halls with congressional representatives. Combs said the group and the overall resistance movement are giving a voice to progressives throughout state.

“One of the things we’ve heard repeat-

INDIVISIBLE: Ozark Indivisible founder Caitlynn Moses with Sen. Tom Cotton in Springdale.

helping steer participants toward established progressive organizations like the Sierra Club, Audubon, the Hunger Relief Alliance, the Arkansas Education Association and the network of Indivisible groups. On the team messaging service Slack, Be the Change has established seven working groups, including voter rights, human rights, economic issues, education, increasing the number of women in politics and the environment.

Combs said the groups would allow volunteers to do deep, crowdsourced policy

Women PAC — a year-old group working to increase the number of women in elected office in Arkansas — says the large number of women leading the groups resisting Donald Trump is a reaction to his disrespect for women.

“We know that we cannot be silent with someone in leadership like that,” Rogers-Ward said. “We’ve spent enough time in the back room. We’ve spent enough time stuffing envelopes and doing things behind the scenes with no recognition. We don’t need to be recognized

by someone else. We can recognize ourselves and build ourselves up. Women are the organizers behind what has happened for years. We are the foundation behind all that. We want to be up front.”

Another co-founder, lawyer Bettina Brownstein, said there has been a surge in interest in the Progressive Arkansas Women PAC since the election of Trump.

Their goals, however, are long term.

“We’re thinking 10 years,” she said. “It’s a long, hard slog to change the composition of the Arkansas Legislature, city boards and councils and quorum courts.

We’re in it for the long haul, starting with the grassroots, getting women to be more involved in politics more, to run for office.”

Brownstein said the number of women approaching the group for advice on how to run for something has seen an uptick. To that end, the group is planning a series of training events to recruit female candidates, the first of which will be a “Ready to Run” seminar on April 1 at Hendrix College in Conway. The PAC’s goal, Brownstein said, is to recruit women, let them know what it’s going to be like to run for elected office, then — once they become candidates — give them “the maximum amount of money we can under the laws of the state.”

Women, said group member Katherine West, have leapt to the vanguard against Trump because his election proves they have a lot to lose.

“Nobody is going to help us but ourselves,” West said. “We’ve kind of had this perception that if we were nice and good and we worked hard, that we would be protected, that we would get along, that we would advance. With the Trump election, we know that is not true. We’ve had to step way back, and at this point we’re unwilling to do that. Some people are calling this another wave of feminism.

Maybe that’s what we need.”

Kimberly Benyr, one of the cofounders of the group Ozark Indivisible, is another who said she wasn’t political at all before the election of Trump. Like many, her frustration led her to activism. “I was pretty much in shock and depressed after the election,” she said. “I didn’t really know what to do and how to channel my angst about this. I found the “Indivisible Guide” by watching ‘The Rachel Maddow Show [on MSNBC].’”

Benyr started a private Facebook group called NWA Indivisible around the first week of January. Through word-ofmouth and friends adding friends, the group membership exploded from dozens to hundreds.

“I live in Benton County, which is very conservative,” Benyr said. “I thought I was one of only half a dozen people who arktimes.com MARCH 9, 2017

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BRIAN CHILSON

NO SHOW: Central Arkansas Indivisible founder Terrie Root, shown here at the “Missing Persons” town hall, says Trump “scares the hell out of us.”

would be interested in a group like this.

It seemed like people were coming out of hiding almost, when I’d hear from people.

I don’t really know how people found out about it. I certainly wasn’t advertising.

Once they would find one person who was interested, they’d add their friends.”

After discovering another group called Fayetteville Indivisible, Benyr reached out to founder Caitlynn Moses and they soon joined forces, renaming their combined group Ozark Indivisible. The group now has over 3,000 members on Facebook. As it is with many groups in the movement, the leadership of Ozark Indivisible is all women. Benyr said about two-thirds of their membership is female.

Since its founding, Ozark Indivisible has been heavily involved in the effort to push Sen. Cotton to meet with representatives about their concerns or to hold a town hall meeting, including showing up at his Northwest Arkansas office in early February to protest what they saw as a “closed door policy” toward constituents. At Cotton’s town hall in Springdale — the venue was changed three times to accommodate a crowd that eventually numbered over 2,200 — Cotton brought Moses onstage and offered her an apology for her unsuccessful attempts to reach him. Though other public events Cotton has since held in Heber Springs and Jonesboro have featured much friendlier crowds, Benyr said the anger on display in Springdale is a reflection of the mood of the country and the energy on the left. She said other representatives of the state are running scared, seeking refuge 16

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in small gatherings and conference calls rather than facing their constituents.

“I think they’re aware that a lot of their constituency is not happy with what’s going on in Washington, and they’re aware that we’re not wanting them to rubber-stamp Trump’s agenda,” she said. “They believe we’re the minority, that we’re not the ones that voted to put them in office, so they don’t show up. I guess they don’t think it’s important to govern for all of us. Just the ones who voted for them.”

Benyr, who works part time and has two children, said that she has seen the effects of Trump’s election on her kids, especially her middle-school-age daughter, and that’s part of what spurred her to action. Contrary to the Republican talking point about “paid protestors,” Benyr said she and others in the group are sacrificing time and money to stay in the fight.

“We’re a Facebook group. There’s definitely no money behind this. We just utilize a free guide that’s online. It’s people finding us online, and we organize almost entirely online. People are self-motivated.

They asked what they could do to participate and help, and they just showed up in force.”

Because of that spontaneous energy, Benyr says, she believes it isn’t a given that Trump will win the state in 2020. “I really don’t know that people will vote for Trump in Arkansas in four years,” she said. “I don’t think Trump is conservative. I think he’s an anomaly. So I’m not resigned to the fact that he will be reelected, even in this state. I think that

as more comes to light and more things happen that people didn’t realize could happen, minds will be changed.”

Terrie Root, one of the four founders of Indivisible Central Arkansas, can tell you off the top of her head how many days are left until Election Day 2020 (the day of our interview, it was 1,342). She said her sense of mourning and fear after the election was so deep that she skipped celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“He scares the hell out of us,” she said.

“He wants to take us back to what we’ve fought our whole lives, in my opinion.

He wants to erase all the progress we’ve made, all the gains we’ve made, all the protections we now have in the court system.”

Root and co-founders Deana Jennings and Jan Baker became involved after their book group studied the “Indivisible Guide” in the weeks after the election. They later met fourth founder Jason Bailey. Though the group started small, they’ve grown exponentially in recent months. Their “missing persons” town hall Feb. 26, meant to draw media attention to the refusal of Arkansas’s allRepublican congressional delegation to hold public town halls in Central Arkansas, drew over 400 people only nine days after it was announced.

“We’re offering assistance and opening the door to everybody who has a concern about 45 and his agenda and the way our members of Congress have turned against the people who sent them to Congress, so everybody can find a place in what we’re doing.” Root said, “Maybe

their particular interest is immigration.

We have a place for immigration, we have a place for education, we have a place for veterans. It’s a broad base.”

Bailey, who has made it a habit to call the office of each Arkansas congressman every day since Jan. 21, says that as a gay man, he feels particularly threatened by Trump and his policies.

“When marriage equality was established, I had the ability to dream that I could get married,” he said. “Now that has the potential of not being something I can do. It’s very disheartening and soulcrushing to grow up as a gay man in deep southern Arkansas, have something that you’ve fought for in the shadows because you can’t be out, fight for it even more, get it, just to have it snatched out of your hands.”

Indivisible Central Arkansas is planning to spin off neighborhood groups so people can work on issues that they are passionate about and affect local change rather than just waiting for events so they can protest. Bailey said that’s important to keep the base motivated and energized for the long fight ahead. “We have recognized that continuing to motivate people will take a lot of work,” she said. “We’re in it for the long haul. We’re constantly reevaluating how we can motivate people who come to the town halls, people who come to our meetings, how we can keep them motivated to continue the process.

It is a long process, and people can get burned out quickly.” Baker said the group will eventually move in the direction of helping register and educate voters, and help progressive candidates run and get elected to public office.

“We’re going to talk about how we can work with the other Indivisible groups in the state for a common goal, which is looking toward the 2018 election,” she said. “All our members of Congress in the four districts will be up for re-election.

We’re not just meeting to empower. We’re meeting to empower with a purpose.”

Jason Bailey agreed. “Working with the Indivisible group and seeing what’s happening with President Trump has shown me: What does democracy look like? This is what democracy looks like,” he said. “We are resisting. We are the group that did not vote for that man. And he is starting to see what it looks like.”

State Rep. Greg Leding (R-Fayetteville) is one of those who hopes the energy directed at Trump may soon turn to more local matters. In his fourth term in the legislature, Leding says there’s a troubling degree of anonymity to being a state legislator, which he believes denotes a lack of public engagement. “I can still walk through my district and most folks just have no clue who I am,”

them the opportunity to have a single weekend when confusion longer conversation. But you’re reigned over Trump’s execunot going to get anywhere calltive order banning travel from ing names.” seven predominantly Muslim Leding said he has seen countries. Though Sklar said increased public participation she doesn’t anticipate seeing much of those donations to this session, including a large turnout for committee hearassist in efforts in Arkansas, the ings on the so-called “campus group continues to push back carry” bill that would allow in the state.

“Soon after the election, bulconcealed handguns on college lying broke out like a bad rash campuses. Though Leding said that bill is very likely to pass in all over the country,” she said. some form in the Republican“People thought it was open seadominated legislature, conson on blacks, Hispanics and stituents shouldn’t be swayed Muslims. So there’s definitely from showing up and having been an uptick on those kinds their voices heard. “Even if the of problems. And the legislature, bill is guaranteed to pass, the certainly, has decided it’s open season on everybody not them. people passing it need to hear So we’re busy for sure.” from the opposition,” Leding said. “They need to know that Like Leding, Sklar said she’s focused on local issues, they are acting against the overand wishes more Arkansans whelming wishes of most people. If you didn’t show up, this who have joined the resistance thing could pass, and then the against Trump would be as well. people who support it can say, “Who is president is extremely WORKING FOR WOMEN: Progressive Arkansas Women ‘Well, we didn’t hear from anyimportant for a lot of reasons, PAC founders Katherine West, Pat Rogers-Ward and body who opposed it.” It’s about but what they’re doing at the Bettina Brownstein. establishing a public record and legislature affects us in so many letting the lawmakers know they do face cowardly. The people who helped shape different ways,” she said. “I wish people would pay more attention to that.” opposition.” the framework for this country a couple Leding said House Bill 1578 by Rep. centuries ago felt that it was so important Nationally, the ACLU has launched a Kim Hammer (R-Benton), the latest in new effort at the website peoplepower. that it’s right there in the First Amendment, so I completely oppose any effort a series of anti-protest bills across the org to help resistors channel their energy to curtail our rights.” country, which would change the legal and frustration into action. On Saturday, March 11, Sklar said, the ACLU will host definition of “riot” to include “causIf it ever comes time to fight Hamstreaming training events supported by ing public alarm” and impeding traffic, mer’s effort in court, ACLU of Arkansas Executive Director Rita Sklar will likely allowing civil lawsuits against those who national ACLU staff and hosted at private be there. Sklar said over a thousand peooffend, is a sign that people need to “stay homes. (Vino’s, at Seventh and Chester ple have joined the Arkansas chapter of out there marching.” streets, will host one of the streaming “To chip away at our freedom to gather the ACLU since the election, part of a trainings, starting at 3:30 p.m. Others can in protest is just absolutely ridiculous,” be found at peoplepower.org.) push that included over $23 million in Leding said. “I think it’s also a little bit “The idea is really just to take all these donations to the national ACLU in the BRIAN CHILSON

he said. “Personally that can be a good thing, because I can go to the store without being hounded. But I think it would be a great thing and democracy would be better served if people were paying attention.”

Since the election, Leding has made several Facebook posts highlighting huge turnout at capitols in other states to resist bills that are seen as harmful to social progress, labor movements or the LGBT community. In January, he distributed a “Determined Constituent’s Guide to the Arkansas State Capitol,” a pamphlet featuring phone numbers, communication tips, committee room assignments and other information useful to a citizen who wants to make his or her voice heard by state legislators. Leding said Arkansans focused on resisting and protesting Trump are doing good work but ignore local issues at their peril.

“I think it’s perfectly fine to be calling your legislators in D.C., and you should be,” he said. “But the people here in Arkansas are going to be making decisions on a daily basis that will, in a lot of cases, more immediately and more directly affect your everyday life. Not just in the legislature. Your quorum courts, your city councils. So I would tell people to become familiar with whom your local elected officials are, learn what’s going on in the state Capitol and your city hall.

Make sure you’re holding local officials accountable, too.” Leding said many state legislators would likely be swayed by what he called “appropriate public input.”

“I always tell people when you’re contacting a lawmaker: Be brief, be polite and be to the point, because they can be busy,” Leding said. “If you just show up screaming at them, they’re never going to listen. But if they engage, that gives

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people who continue to meet and march, saying, ‘We want to do something!’ and say, ‘This is what you can do.’ We hope it’s the beginning of a movement that keeps going. When you feel like you’re on the winning side, you forget that you need to keep in touch with politics, you need to keep up with your representatives. That’s

a problem we see locally. People think that because abortion is legal, they don’t really have to pay too much attention to what goes on. But they’ve been chipping away at it for decades.”

Sklar said that the resistance against Trump among progressives and women especially is rooted in “his utter disregard

Resistance roadmap Born of frustration, the ‘Indivisible Guide’ is the lens that has focused Trump’s foes.

for women.” Trump’s election, she said, was a shock to the system that offends moral decency, and women across the country have risen to the challenge, as has the ACLU. “I’m very gratified that when people think the Constitution is threatened, generally in many different ways, that they

know that we’re the ones you can turn to across the board on so many issues,” she said. “The Constitution is in danger?

Call the ACLU. That is very heartening.

I know it feels corny, but that’s the way I feel. It’s wonderful that people feel that way, even if they didn’t know it until the crisis came and hit them in the face.”

grown beyond anything we ever could have imagined.”

Fleming said the appeal of the guide is that it is so accessible. For staffers, it seemed like “Civics 101” information, but for Americans who had never reached out to their congressmen or tried to shape public policy, it was revelatory.

“Congress is viewed by a lot of people as this kind of black box that isn’t accessible to them,” he said. “We viewed the

“Organizing work is hard work, and you win a lot and you lose a lot,” he said.

“I think for us, what we’re trying to do is to really celebrate the wins we’ve had. The Jeff Sessions news? That’s a big win for our chapters. Were they not constantly pressuring their members of Congress to give Jeff Sessions a full hearing in the Senate, it’s highly unlikely he would have been asked the number and the types of questions he was asked. We may not have had anything on the record about his involvement with Russia.”

The authors of the “Indivisible Guide” plan to keep that momentum going by periodically issuing free updates to the guide in the form of “tool kits.” Recently, for example, they released a primer on how to hold events that draw public attention to members of Congress who refuse to schedule public town halls with their constituents.

Though Fleming said the fight against Trump is “a long game,” he said Sen. Tom Cotton’s town hall in Springdale was unlike anything he’s ever seen in Arkansas politics. “We should feel heartened and we should feel proud of all our people in groups like Ozark Indivisible and across the country who are taking time out of their lives to invest in their communities and to invest in their civic responsibility in the public process of engaging in discourse with their representatives to Congress,” he said. “Those are the kind of things that should be lifted up and applauded, because not enough people do it.”

Still, Fleming said, people shouldn’t get so caught up in the energy of the moment — and the potential for progressive wins at the polls in coming years — that they forget people will be harmed by the presidency of Donald Trump.

“People will die, people will get deported and people will lose their quality of life because of this president,” he said.

“However that translates into energy on the progressive side, that’s great. But we should also look at this a bit more soberly and say, ‘In addition to however this translates to wins down the road, what can we do to be good allies and good supporters for the people who will suffer the most under this administration?’ ”

BY DAVID KOON

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JORDAN BLANCHARD

E

very movement has a manifesto, and for the effort to resist the policies of Donald Trump that manifesto is “Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda,” available at indivisibleguide.com. Written by former congressional and White House staffers in the wake of the surprise election of Trump and released free online in mid-December 2016, the 27-page guide draws heavily on the lessons those staffers learned from the tea party movement on how small groups of average citizens can apply enough pressure to tilt the political table in their direction. The result is a blueprint for shaping the opinions of members of Congress and defend against the worst impulses of the Trump regime.

Over 100 former aides worked on the guide and the follow-up “tool kits” meant to shape the direction of the burgeoning Indivisible movement. One of those authors is Billy Fleming. Originally from Fort Smith, Fleming is a graduate of the University of Arkansas, where he served as student body president. He later worked as a junior staffer in the Obama White House, and now lives in Philadelphia, where he’s teaching and studying for his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.

Fleming said the guide came about as a way for the authors to deal with their frustration over the election of Trump.

“They had this sort of epiphany that we lived through this incredible period of resistance in 2009-2010 through the tea party,” Fleming said. “These guys were all Hill staffers when that was going on, and they all asked themselves, ‘What can we learn from that experience to help us stop as much of the bad things about the Trump agenda as we can?’ They got started drafting — putting some of those

FREEDOM WRITER: “Indivisible Guide” co-author Billy Fleming is a Fort Smith native.

thoughts into a Google doc. That’s when they pulled me and some other folks in to help flesh out that document and get it ready for public consumption.”

From the moment the guide was released, it was clear it had tapped the fear and energy of the left. Within hours, it had been downloaded so many times that the hosting site crashed.

“It was one of those things that we thought maybe a hundred people might read, including our parents,” Fleming said. “It was pretty wild to watch it that first night, going from a few dozen people reading the Google doc online to a few hundred to a few thousand and then have it crazy within hours of it launching. It’s

guide, and we still view all the work we do, as a way to demystify how all those things work in Congress and to give people the tools they need to influence and interact with their members of Congress.

It shouldn’t be as hard as it is to do that.”

Fleming said the number of Indivisible groups that have sprung up nationwide has been incredible. While sustaining that energy throughout the Trump presidency will be a challenge, he said there have already been results. He believes the revelation that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions may have lied under oath about his contact with a Russian ambassador is directly attributable to pressure applied on Congress by Indivisible groups.

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Arts Entertainment QUARTER CENTURY OF NOISE AND

A preview of the Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase finals in its 25th year.

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

T

his Friday, we celebrate the silver anniversary of the Musicians Showcase, inaugurated in 1993 by the now-defunct Spectrum Weekly and handed over to the Arkansas Times in 1997. The winner that first year under Spectrum was Substance, a Towncraftera band from Sherwood whose members would later join Big Cats and Red 40.

A stellar list of champions followed: Ho-Hum, Pokerface, Ashtray Babyhead, Big Cats, Big John Miller & The Direction, Brenda & Ellis, Big Silver, Mojo Depot, Runaway Planet, Salty Dogs, Grandpa’s Goodtime Fandango, The Odds, Hannah Blaylock and Eden’s Edge, Cooper’s Orbit, 607, Velvet Kente, Brother Andy & His Big Damn Mouth, Tyrannosaurus Chicken, Holy Shakes, The Sound of the Mountain, Mad Nomad, Ghost Bones and The Uh Huhs.

The showcase is older now than a handful of the musicians who entered it this year. It’s been competitive, it’s been collegial and it’s been loud. More importantly, it’s turned a lot of listeners on to local music they might not have heard otherwise, including some inventive work from bands that didn’t necessarily end up on top. Our judges — Alex Flanders, host of KABF’s “Girls”; LaSheena Gordon, operatic soprano and frontwoman for Off the Cuff; Tyler Nance, drummer for 2016 winner The Uh Huhs; and Zac Smith,

helicon player for polka duo The Itinerant Locals and co-founder of Hot Springs’ solar-powered community radio station, KUHS-FM, 97.9 — have narrowed the contenders down to six bands: four that won their respective rounds and two runners-up caught in a dead tie. Shepherded by emcee Traci Berry, LGBT activist and host of KABF’s “The T with Traci and Angie,” they’ll battle it out at the finals starting at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 10, at Revolution.

The winner’s prizes: some cold hard cash, a spot at Legends of Arkansas in September, a spot at Riverfest, a performance at the Bud Light Pavilion during the 2017 Arkansas State Fair, a spot at the Valley of the Vapors music festival, a celebration party and drink named after the band courtesy of Stickyz and Rev Room, a photo shoot with the Times’ own Brian Chilson, a gift certificate to Trio’s Restaurant, a recording session at Capitol View Studio and a $200 gift certificate to Dogtown Sound.

Here’s a snapshot of the six bands and their answers to these questions: “Somehow, magically, you get to pick two of your favorite bands/composers/musicians — living or otherwise — to share a secret backyard party show. Who are they?” And, “Name something nonmusical that would ‘pair well’ with your band’s sound — a book, a movie, a city, a piece of art, cocktail, a pizza topping, etc.”

CosmOcean (Jaimee Jensen-McDaniel, Ron Jensen-McDaniel, Simon Gable, Doug Roysen, Nate Mathews, Matt Glenn): Funkforward dance band with prog leanings, two classically trained front people who also hapDazz & Brie (Dazzmin Murry, Kabrelyn Gabriel Boyce, Gavin Le’nard, Kamille Shaw, Hope Dixon and Darius Blanton): Self-described “girl gang” armed with divine melismas, an airtight rhythm section, virtuosic organ solos and a mission of “trying to change the world, one weirdo at a time.”

Check out: NPR Tiny Desk Contest Entry video,

“Old Tee Shirt.”

Murry and Kabrelyn Gabriel Boyce respond: Two favorite musicians/bands: Spice Girls (circa 1997) and James Brown!

Music pairs with: French fries topped with crabmeat and spicy mayo with a drink in a glass bottle.

The Inner Party (Keith Miller, Dave Morris, Derek Faires, Bob Gaiser): Solid rebellion rock band from Fayetteville, sticking it to The Man with snotty punk vocals and songs about minimum wage and death-by-office-work. The quartet played as a trio at the semifinals and still killed it.

Check out: “Blast Off” on Bandcamp, from the band’s 2015 release, “The Inner Party Makes a Mess.”

Dave Morris responds: Favorite musicians/bands: I am speaking for myself on this first one, but I am confident Keith [Miller] would be OK with it as well. The first pick would undoubtedly be Nirvana because they’re the reason I do this — and in this hypothetical it would mean Kurt Cobain is alive, and I’d give almost anything for that to be true. The second would certainly be Bad Religion because we’re all very big fans and we think we’re kindred spirits musically and intellectually. Last year when they announced the “Bad Religion/Against

Me! Tour,” I went berserk trying to make a Fayetteville date happen because I think that would be a perfect show for us and anyone watching.

I even sent Laura Jane Grace a personal message on Facebook and tried to backchannel through some mutual friends but sadly nothing came of it. Honorable mentions to the Pixies, the Cure and Nine Inch Nails.

Music pairs with: Right now, especially with many of the songs from our upcoming new album, our music would pair well with a congressional town hall meeting protest. We wanted to try to do something as a band for [Sen.] Tom Cotton’s recent one in Springdale, but we couldn’t work it out. Ideally, though, we’d like to protest every Republican in Congress — and especially public enemy No. 1, Donald Trump. Aside from that, our name obviously comes from the book “1984,” and I feel like our music is heavily influenced by the spirit of it, so I think the two go together well and I always hope fans of George Orwell do, too, when I meet them.

Brae Leni & The Evergreen Groove Machine (Brae Leni [Braelon Leniear], Sam Clark, Brittany McFadden, Natalyn Bell and Ashton Hollow): Commanding frontman with a D’Angelo falsetto and a ton of energy, two show stealers singing Supremes-style backup, 20

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pen to be spouses, making for some sexually charged duetting. Retro guitar tones with a theatrical presentation.

Check out: “Devil Dance” on Bandcamp, from the band’s eponymous debut EP. The band responds: Favorite musicians/bands: Queen & Puccini.

Music pairs with: Bulges of any kind and whiskey.

an effortlessly solid drummer backing a strong call-and-response game that veers from dance territory to something that resembled freeform jazz. Formerly called Soulution.

Check out: The YouTube video for “Miss That.”

Leni responds: Two favorite musicians/bands: Michael Jackson & Kanye West! Oh my! How brilliant that would be ... .

Music pairs with: Easy, a beautiful dancing woman at a club somewhere in the United Kingdom!

ROCK CANDY

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

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Rah Howard (Rah Howard, Xavier Riley, Rikardo Borum): Fiery, political spoken-word from a charismatic emcee with Andre 3000-esque fashion savvy, blended with harmonica that one of our judges said “hasn’t given [her] that many feels since ‘Roseanne’.”

Check out: The YouTube video for “Everything.”

Howard responds: Favorite musicians/bands: I would have to say Jason Ricci and Kanye West.

They have both made such a huge impact on my life and the way that I believe music should sound.

Music pairs with: The film “Crooklyn” by Spike Lee. In many ways, the film mirrors my childhood and a great deal of the experiences that I use as source material when writing music. I honestly believe that if there was going to be a watch party for this film, playing a few of my records would help set the mood for the event.

DeFrance (Drew DeFrance, Michael Fuller, Andrew Poe, Zach Williams, Joseph Fuller): Unfailingly tight Southern rockers with over 200 live shows in 2016 and a Garth Hudson musical genius of a keyboardist that one of our judges called a “feel-good Pepsi commercial band, for sure.”

Check out: The YouTube video for “I Need You” from the 2016 release “Second Wind.”

Drew DeFrance responds: Favorite musicians/bands: It’s really hard to answer, but Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, I’ve loved them since childhood.

Music pairs with: Major League Baseball and recreational marijuana.

RIVERFEST 2017 ANNOUNCED a portion of its lineup this week. The 40th annual riverfront celebration will feature performances from Wiz Khalifa, Justin Moore, Cage The Elephant, Billy Currington, Grouplove, Cold War Kids, Jon Bellion, Cody Jinks, Moon Taxi, Craig Campbell, The Joy Formidable, Colt Ford, Dylan Scott, Cody Canada and The Departed, Split Lip Rayfield, Seratones and the winner of NPR’s 2017 Tiny Desk Contest, Tank and The Bangas. The festival kicks off with a ticketed event, Flowing on the River, Thursday, June 1, and concludes with a fireworks celebration Sunday, June 4. Individual tickets are $40, with free admission for children 10 and under. See riverfestarkansas.com for details.

CLUB SWAY DRAG queens Rhiannon and Symone are among the artists featured in a new adult coloring book from illustrator Kasten McClellan Searles, “Drag Queens of the South.” The 48-page book was funded by a Kickstarter campaign that ended Tuesday morning, in which Searles nearly tripled her goal of $2,000. “If I can provide some stress relief, humor, and honor these amazing drag performers, I’ll be very happy,” Searles told The Huffington Post, adding, “If you haven’t been out to a show recently, get out there and support your local drag queens!”

CURATORS CYNTHIA POST Hunt and Emma Saperstein have announced the lineup for the 2017 Northwest Arkansas’s second Inverse Performance Art festival, to take place March 30-April 1 at various venues, including Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the University of Arkansas, 21c Hotel Museum and Foxhole Public House. For a full schedule, visit inverseperformanceartfestival.org. The first Inverse Performance Art Festival took place in 2016.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH the William F. Laman Public Library, the Argenta Reading Series announced a writing contest for original, unpublished work from high school students, with a deadline of April 21. A prize of $1,000 will be awarded to the winning entry. Interested applicants should visit argentareadingseries.com/writing-contest for more details.

IN ADDITION TO a savvy musical lineup that includes Downtown Boys, DTCV and Joan of Arc, the Valley of the Vapors Music Festival announced a collection of free workshops this week, including “The Unusual Thing,” a sketch comedy workshop from David Hill (Upright Citizens Brigade), and “Bedtime Stories,” a documentary project on fear from writers and performers Martha Bayne and Andrea Jablonski. See valleyof thevapors.com for details.

The Argenta Irish Festival follows the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which starts at 1PM in Little Rock at 3rd & Rock Streets, ending at 6th & Main in Argenta with clowns, floats, antique cars, Irish Wolfhounds and more!

March 11, 2017, 2-5PM

at the Argenta Plaza, 520 Main Street Benefiting the Argenta Downtown Council

Free to the Public

Beer Garden including Diamond Bear, Flyway, Stone’s Throw, Rebel Kettle and more!

Live Music, Blackhound BBQ, Loblolly and WonderBus Food Trucks and Kids Activities

WEEKLY SPECIALS AT

DIAMOND BEAR TUESDAY: BOGO Burger Night

Buy one get one free burgers from 5-9

WEDNESDAY: Live Trivia Night THURSDAY: Hope Plate Special Donating $’s from Beer and Specials to charity

FRIDAY: Flight Night (w/Bites)

$5 Flights and $5 Bites

SATURDAY: Hoppy Meal

A meal, a beverage and a toy for $10 (toys are for adults)

SUNDAY: To Go Beer Brunch coming soon!

DON’T FORGET

The Petio.

The best place in the area for dogs to bring their humans for great food, beers, and fun!

600 North Broadway St., North Little Rock • 501-708-2337 Tues-Sun: 11AM-9PM • Bar open til 10PM on Fri and Sat • Closed Mon Follow Rock Candy on Twitter: @RockCandies

arktimes.com MARCH 9, 2017

21

THE

TO-DO

LIST

BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE AND LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK

THURSDAY 3/9

DR. CRAIG ZABEL

6 p.m. Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall, UA Little Rock. Free.

In Paul Goldberger’s 1981 article for The New York Times “The New American Skyscraper,” he uses words like “the computer esthetic” and “romanticism” to describe burgeoning trends in Manhattan skyscraper design, noting the “restrained, sleek use of modern materials to create a cool, Minimalist abstraction, as at

I.B.M.” and the “drive toward active, busily sculptured form, as shown in Trump.” Our buildings have long echoed our values, and maybe our grandest of intentions, whether that’s the Sears Tower or a tiny house made out of a repurposed shipping container. Pennsylvania State University Art History Professor Dr. Craig Zabel writes about that connection between architecture and culture a lot, having co-edited “American Pub-

lic Architecture: European Roots and Native Expressions” and authored a presentation titled “The American Skyscraper, from the Emerald City of Oz to Glass Towers of the 1950s.”

He’ll give that presentation at UA Little Rock Thursday evening as the keynote speech for the 27th Annual Arkansas College Art History Symposium. “The cinematic image of this streamlined magical city will be examined within the context of

the skyscraper age of the 1920s and 1930s,” Zabel said, “as well as the Great Depression.” Zabel also examines the glass-walled Lever House completed in 1952 and the concurrent “collision of radical modernism and American consumerism/advertising targeting the 1950s housewife.” The Little Rock-based nonprofit Architecture and Design Network hosts a reception beforehand in the Fine Arts Building, 5 p.m. SS

THURSDAY 3/9

‘PETER AND THE WOLF’

7 p.m. St. James United Methodist Church. $10-$25.

Though Benjamin Britten reportedly grew up in a musical home, his father didn’t allow a phonograph in the house — or a radio, when those began to make their way into English homes. Maybe that’s part of why he began taking notes at a tender age for his “Simple Symphony,” completed in 1934 and prefaced with the following note from Britten: “The ‘Simple Symphony’ is entirely based on material from works which the composer wrote between the ages of nine and twelve.” The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra features this symphony, four movements with a runtime of around 16 minutes, in its Intimate Neighborhood Concert at St. James United Methodist Church (321 Pleasant Valley Drive). The movements include a “Boisterous Bouree,” a “Playful Pizzicato,” a “Sentimental Sarabande” and a “Frolicsome Finale.” Then, actor Courtney Bennett (The Rep, Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre) joins the ASO to narrate a piece from the same time period, Prokofiev’s symphonic fairy tale “Peter and the Wolf.” Commissioned by Russia’s Central Children’s Theatre, Prokofiev wrote it using different instruments to depict each character: Peter by the strings, the Duck by an oboe (of course), The Wolf by the French horn. SS 22

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ARKANSAS TIMES

THE ERICA EFFECT: Birmingham’s Love Moor brings tunes from her 2015 EP “Blu Polka Dots” to the White Water Tavern Thursday night, with Dazz & Brie and Joshua Asante, 9 p.m., $7.

THURSDAY 3/9

LOVE MOOR, DAZZ & BRIE, JOSHUA ASANTE

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

If you want to see the work of a talented producer in action, watch Love Moor’s raw acoustic confessional “The Ogre” on YouTube, then flip to the full studio version on SoundCloud. Producer Suaze, who plays sparse guitar on the acoustic version, takes Moor’s supple Follow us on Instagram: ArkTimes

vocals and puts them underwater, surrounding them with background vocals like they’re her own alter egos, echoing the suffering she feels from an intense and unrequited affection. Suaze, too, gave the stardust treatment to Moor’s self-affirmation “Earthtoned,” and illuminated the singer’s Antiguan ancestry in “Black Cat Sings the Blues,” putting a heavy bass beat, a beaded metal rattle and a slide whistle behind Moor’s husky contralto: “Fuck

that gleam in ya eye, all galaxy-styled, got me tripping off balance, see I’m a black cat sitting in a queen lap.” Moor dropped her debut EP “Blu Polka Dots” in July 2015, and it’s full of polyrhythm and the kind of easy melismas that make Dazz & Brie a fitting companion for this show. Joshua Asante opens, which is one more reason not to miss this last-minute addition to the White Water Tavern’s calendar. SS

IN BRIEF

THURSDAY 3/9

MADE IN ARKANSAS: Thomas Harding’s palladium print “Oak Grove Church at the ‘Y’” is part of the “Arkansas Made: County

by County” exhibition opening Friday at the Historic Arkansas Museum.

FRIDAY 3/10

2ND FRIDAY ART NIGHT

5-8 p.m., downtown art galleries.

Free.

Dinosaur toes, a machine gun associated with Bonnie and Clyde and prehistoric Native American artifacts are among the diverse items to be featured in the exhibit “Cabinet of Curiosities: Treasures from the University of Arkansas Museum Collection” opening Friday night at the Old State House Museum (300 W. Markham; the reception here starts at 6 p.m.). Paintings of Arkansas in the 1950s

by Glenda McCune and “Arkansas Made:

County by County” will be the 2nd Friday draw to the Historic Arkansas Museum (200 E. Third St.); there will also be live music by Phil G. and Lori Marie and beer from Core Brewing Co. Arkansas Innovation Hub student artwork is on exhibit at the Cox Creative Center (120 River Market Ave.). Continuing down the street will be “Together,” work by Gary Cawood, Mia Hall, Joli Livaudais, Carey Roberson and Rachel Spencer, at Arkansas Capital Corp.

(200 River Market Ave., Suite 400), and graphic art by Aaron Stearns at new venue Beige Clothing (300 River Market Ave.).

The Butler Center Galleries (401 Presi-

dent Clinton Ave.) will feature music by Folkin’ around Arkansas for its 2nd Friday shows, which coincidentally share prison themes: “Bruce Jackson: Cummins Prison Farm,” photographs, and “The American Dream Deferred: Japanese American Incarceration in WWII Arkansas,” objects from the internment camps. In the Creative Corridor, Matt McLeod Fine Art (108 W. Sixth St.) continues the show “Key Connections of Humanity,” work by Angela Davis Johnson, John David Pittman, David Clemons and Bryan Massey.

Handmade jewelry will be featured at Bella Vita (523 Louisiana St.) LNP

SATURDAY 3/11

ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE, ARGENTA IRISH FESTIVAL

1 p.m., Dugan’s Pub, Argenta Plaza. Free.

HOWLIN’: Fayetteville sibling quartet Witchsister joins Hawtmess and Sabine Valley for an evening at Vino’s Friday, March 10, 8 p.m., $6.

FRIDAY 3/10

HAWTMESS, WITCHSISTER, SABINE VALLEY

8 p.m. Vino’s. $6.

If you can’t make it to the Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase finals, go dig some Hawtmess. Frontwoman Kayley Fisher is a riot to watch, Cory Fisher’s drumming is muscular and heavy, giving the whole set a manic abandon — and the guitars play almost exclusively in tight unison, allowing lots of space for aforementioned drum madness and a half-Billie Joe Armstrong, half-Ronnie Spector delivery from Kayley. They’re joined by Fayetteville’s Witchsister: sisters Skylar, Stevie, Kelsey and Stephanie Petet. Witchsister’s been cultivating primal sibling rock at house shows and venues like George’s Majestic Lounge since the youngest three sisters were still in high school, and the band’s sets have taken on a raw, guttural drive in the years elapsed since its self-titled debut EP in 2014. Dark-rock quartet Sabine Valley opens the show. SS

The U.S. experienced a nursing shortage in the 1980s, and Arkansas hospitals were no exception. The Irish Cultural Society of Arkansas attributes its genesis, in part, to an influx of Irish nationals who immigrated to Arkansas as nursing recruits around that time, many of whom intended to live in the States temporarily, but ended up staying and raising children here. In keeping with a mission to “develop and further enhance local interest in the culture of Ireland and its people” and to “publicize the presence of an active Irish community in the Little Rock area,” the ICSA holds its 18th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, beginning at 1 p.m. at Third and Rock streets, in front of Dugan’s Pub. Longtime ICSA members Anne and Michael Downes are the grand marshals, and they’ll lead the parade down through the River Market district, across the Arkansas River via the Main Street Bridge and through Argenta, culminating at 2 p.m. at Fifth and Main streets with “Dancing at the Crossroads,” a celebration of Irish culture featuring a kid’s zone, food trucks, a beer garden and performances from marching pipe and drum bands, the McCafferty School of Irish Dance and the O’Donovan School of Irish Dance. Then, follow those dance and drum troupes back over the river to the parade’s starting point for a reprise, when Dugan’s Pub hosts an evening of Irish music for the 7th annual “3rd Street Block Party,” featuring The Little Rock Pipes and Drums Corps (3:30 p.m.), more dancing from the O’Donovan and McCafferty schools (4:30 p.m.) and performances from Big Red Flag (5:30 p.m.) and Barrett Baber (7 p.m.) SS

Austin-based Leopold and His Fiction brings its pulp-laden, Motowninfused rock to Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack with The Howling Tongues and American Lions, 8:30 p.m., $7. Star of the Broadway show “The Illusionists” Adam Trent gives a sleight-of-hand show at the Reynolds Performance Hall at the University of Central Arkansas, Conway, 7:30 p.m., $10-$40. Michael Mack brings his music-comedy blend to the Loony Bin, 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., $8-$12. The MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History hosts Arkansascentric trivia at Stone’s Throw Brewery, 6:30 p.m. Self-described “electro tribe” band Trouble in the Streets from Austin, Texas, shares a bill with Conway’s Motherfunkship at Vino’s, 9 p.m. Third Degree takes the stage at Cajun’s Wharf, 9 p.m., $5. Visiting poet Arecelis Girmay, a National Endowment for the Arts fellow, speaks at Hendrix College’s Reves Recital Hall, 7:30 p.m., free.

FRIDAY 3/10 The Art Group Gallery, 11525 Cantrell Road, introduces four new artists at its spring show opening, 5-8 p.m.

Violinists Meredith Hicks and Leanne Day-Simpson, violist Tze-Ying Wu, cellist Ethan Young and pianist Naoki Hakutani give a faculty recital in UA Little Rock’s Stella Boyle Smith Hall as part of the school’s Piano and Strings Festival, 7:30 p.m., free. Andy Tanas plays a free show at Markham Street Grill and Pub, 8:30 p.m. Thirty-five of the top Professional Bull Riders hang on for dear life in hopes of winning a $140,000 purse at Verizon Arena, 7:45 p.m. Fri., 6:45 p.m. Sat., $18-$106. Stickyz hosts a music-magic mash-up with “An Evening with That1Guy,” known to some as Mike Silverman, 10 p.m., $12$15. Trumpeter Etienne Charles gives a concert at Walton Arts Center’s Starr Theater, Fayetteville, 7:30 p.m., $30-$50.

Mandy McBryde and Brent LaBeau play The Undercroft, the underground venue below Christ Episcopal Church, 8 p.m., $10. Brian Martin opens up for Burger Records’ Pink Mexico and N.C.’s The Nude Party at Maxine’s, Hot Springs, 9:30 p.m., $7. Taylor Made plays Cajun’s Wharf, 9 p.m. The Akeem Kemp Band brings the blues to King’s Live Music in Conway with Jamie Patrick, 8:30 p.m., $5. Southern blues rockers Greasy Tree take the stage at Four Quarter Bar, 10 p.m., $7. Soul quintet TP and the Feel returns to South on Main, 10 p.m. The Big Dam Horns take the stage at Oaklawn’s Silk’s Bar and Grill, Hot Springs, 10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., free.

SATURDAY 3/11 Ozark Mountain-based journal-

Follow Rock Candy on Twitter: @RockCandies

arktimes.com MARCH 9, 2017

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BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE

SATURDAY 3/11

SXSW TAKEOVER

10 p.m. Discovery Nightclub. $10.

A lot of pop newcomers catch on with the gay nightclub crowd long before they become hits at large (see: Madonna, Lady Gaga). That said, there’s probably no more apt addition than Discovery Nightclub to the list of venues blessed with a pop-in from SXSW artists on their way to the festival. Little Rock’s convenient location as an Austin waypoint means that the week before the massive festival is a choice one for music fans. These three Nashville-based artists are throwing down the kind of cotton-candy house music with predictable, satisfying bass drops you’d be dancing to at Disco at 2:30 a.m. anyway: Cappa, the pop prodigy responsible for the earworm “I’m Good”; Masha, the Latvian-born singer behind the somber, torchy love letter to The King called “Mr. Presley”; and Lukr, an emo pop rocker whose biography says he was “born in an ambulance and raised on a Christmas tree farm.” SS

SUNDAY 3/12

ADAM FAUCETT AND THE TALL GRASS, FOX 45

10 p.m. Four Quarter Bar, Argenta. $8 BUT YOU LIKE COUNTRY MUSIC: Thirty Tigers songwriter Sunny Sweeney plays Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack the day following her new release, “Trophy,” Saturday, March 11, 8:30 p.m., $10-$15.

SATURDAY 3/11

SUNNY SWEENEY

8:30 p.m. Stickyz. $10-$15.

Sunny Sweeney doesn’t shy away from a polished country radio sound with pedal steel and tons of production shine. Maybe it’s because she finds her bite elsewhere: On her 2014 album “Provoked,” she details a list of unsavory kindnesses in the song “Backhanded Compliment:” “I love that you don’t care about your looks” and “I hope I look like you when I’m your age/It seems like you have lost a lot of weight.” On her newest — and deceptively titled — tune, “Bottle by My Bed,” Sweeney sings of a bitter longing for motherhood: “All my 24

MARCH 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

friends are raisin’ babies, I’m still raisin’ Cain/They must think that ’cause I’ve waited/I don’t want the same. ...We wait, we wait, it’ll be our turn someday.”

Sweeney co-wrote the song with Lori McKenna, and recorded the scratch vocals for the tune after finally receiving news that she’d become pregnant.

“My best friend was in the room with me and she knew,” Sweeney told NPR last month. “I mean, there were only two or three people that knew that I was pregnant. Then I had a miscarriage, and I had to do my final vocals.”

The Saving Country Music blog called it “the type of song that Music Row in Nashville gets its hands on and figures

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out how to screw up,” the kind that gets toned down under the assumption that mainstream country audiences will cry “TMI!” Somehow, this one made it through intact. Sweeney’s throwing open the windows on parts of the feminine experience that tend to get edited out of the Nashville machine. For that, “Bottle by My Bed” belongs on a list with Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill” and The Dixie Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl.” It’s closer to being outlaw country than a lot of material that calls itself outlaw country — production shine or no — and here’s hoping Sweeney keeps on being, as she confessed to Rolling Stone, “a teeny tiny bit of a shit starter.” SS

“Gehenna” and early covers of Riot Grrl tunes proved to be a mere hint of where Fox 45 of Rochester, N.Y., was headed: steadily toward “Ashes of Man,” the band’s heavy, fuzzed-out debut full-length album. The band calls the album “stoner rock,” and that’s fair but maybe incomplete. Lead singer and bassist Amanda Rampage’s vocals are like some heavy, plodding offshoot of Wendy O dosed with Robitussin, and the band — Vicky Tee, Nick Walter and Casey Leach — calls to mind Sleep and Sabbath on tracks like “Coup d’etwat,” “Narcissister” and “Urinal Acid.” Little Rock is the band’s last stop before a string of dates in Texas, and it’s joined

by Adam Faucett and The Tall Grass, the consistently stellar embarrassment of rhythmical riches that’s made it their business to turn Faucett’s bruised-butnot-bitter wordplay into three-minute diamonds. SS

IN BRIEF

FRIENDSHIP

BY THE BOTTLE.

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FREEDOM RIDER: SNCC co-founder and civil rights activist Bernard Lafayette speaks about his life and experiences Tuesday, March 14, in the Friday Courtroom at UA Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law, 6 p.m., free.

TUESDAY 3/14

BERNARD LAFAYETTE

6 p.m. Friday. Courtroom, UA Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law, 1201 McMath Ave. Free.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis’ life story was brought to life by Andrew Aydin’s and Arkansas native Nate Powell’s National Book Award-winning “March” trilogy, but he wasn’t alone in the struggle the books depict. Alongside Lewis at the planning meetings for the Nashville sitins of 1959-60 were his friends Diane Nash, James Bevel and Bernard Lafayette. Lafayette, now a distinguished senior scholar-in-residence at Atlanta’s Emory University, co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. As the Digital SNCC Gateway states, Lafayette was motivated by “the abuse his grandmother received on the

segregated streetcar system” and joined the NAACP at age 12. After studying nonviolent resistance techniques at the Highlander Folk School while he was attending seminary, Lafayette participated in the Freedom Rides, and eventually moved to Selma, Ala., with his wife, Colia Liddell Lafayette, in 1963 to head up the Alabama Voter Registration Project. He was beaten severely in Selma shortly after his arrival, but nevertheless continued his voting rights advocacy until (and after) the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He will speak about his life experiences at this lecture, sponsored by the Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity, the Bowen School of Law and the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site. SS

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ist Ibby Caputo, who’s been cover- PRINT ing the Arkansas legislative session for Arkansas Times partner Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, gives the keynote speech at a panel discussion called “Women in the Media,” 1 p.m., Ledbetter Room, UA Little Rock Donaghey Student Center, free. Psychrock outfit Agori Tribe jams at Four Quarter Bar, Argenta, 10 p.m., free.

Nashville’s Pamela K. Ward brings her saxophone-forward rock set to Cajun’s Wharf, 9 p.m. Catch Jason Lee Hale at Cregeen’s Irish Pub in Argenta, 8 p.m., free. Knox Hamilton celebrates the release of its album “The Heights” at Revolution with Firekid and Joan before heading to SXSW, 8 p.m., $12$15. NOLA septet Tyler Kinchen & The Right Pieces brings its funk-infused horn section to South on Main, 9 p.m., $10. Texas trio Urban Pioneers goes by the motto “Trappin’ pigs and playin’ gigs,” and makes good on the latter at the White Water Tavern, with The Whole Famn Damily, 9 p.m. Adam Faucett & The Tall Grass share a bill with the Ryan Sauders Band and The Go-Rounds at Maxine’s, Hot Springs, 9 p.m. Check out the fight card at the “Rumble in the Rock” boxing tournament, Clear Channel Metroplex, 5 p.m., $25-$50. Reggae singer Rochelle Bradshaw and her band Hypnotion play a show at Smoke & Barrel, Fayetteville, 10 p.m., $3. Oklahoma City rockers Sledge play the backroom at Vino’s, with Criminal Violence making its debut, 8 p.m., $8. A tour of the University of Central Arkansas’s new planetarium will be kicked off by a performance of Holst’s symphony “The Planets” by the Conway Symphony Orchestra, with narration by professor Dr. Scott Austin, Reynolds Performance Hall, Conway, $5-$30. Trouble in the Streets takes the stage at King’s Live Music, Conway, with Edward Briggler, 8:30 p.m., $5.

The Shannon Boshears Band plays at Prospect Sports Bar, 9 p.m. Pair your outing to the Robinson Center to see “Phantom of the Opera” with Central Arkansas Library System’s screening of the 1925 original film, 1 p.m., the Ron Robinson Theater, $5.

SUNDAY 3/12 Cellist David Gerstein and pianists Tomoko Kashiwagi and Naoki Hakutani play a faculty recital in UA Little Rock’s Stella Boyle Smith Hall as part of the school’s “Piano and Strings Festival,” 3 p.m., free. Alabama surf rock revivalists Daikaiju play the Smoke & Barrel Tavern, Fayetteville, 10 p.m., $5.

Hot Springs vocal ensemble The Muses give a spring concert, “Celtic Springs,” at Garvan Woodland Gardens’ Anthony Chapel, 3 p.m., $35.

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MONDAY 3/13 Sarah Shook and the Disarmers bring their sullen, 3 a.m. brand of country to Stickyz, with Jamie Lou and the Hullabaloo, 8 p.m., $7.

TUESDAY 3/14 Dr. Kyeung-Yun Na, vocal coach and pianist at UA Little Rock, gives a recital at the campus’ Stella Boyle Smith Hall, 7:30 p.m., free. “Dr. Nyasha Junior, author of “An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation,” gives a talk titled “The Bible in Black and White” in Philander Smith College’s Kendall Nugent Building, 7 p.m., free.

Adirondack Mountain crooner Wade Sexton lands at the Rev Room, 8 p.m., $20-$30. The MacArthur Museum of Military History screens Min Sook Lee’s award-winning documentary, “The Real Inglorious Bastards,” 6:30 p.m., free.

WEDNESDAY 3/15 Prodigal Arkansas duo Handmade Moments returns to the White Water Tavern, 9 p.m. Kentucky country quartet Sundy Best lands at Stickyz, 8 p.m., $8-$10.

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MARCH 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

rigors of superhero-ing, one with a body count that spins like a pinball scoreboard.

The success of “Deadpool” a year ago must’ve convinced 20th Century Fox to turn up the ultraviolence: This chapter of the long-lived “X-Men” franchise is the least kid-friendly of the lot to date, despite its revolving around Logan’s relationship with an 11-or-so-year-old mutant named Laura (Dafne Keen, in a big-screen debut for the books). “Logan” unspools more like a pulp novel sprung to bloody life, one hell of a ride even if you couldn’t be bothered to yawn at most superhero movies. In its structure and its tight cast, it’s among the simplest movies in the genre. Rather than getting bogged down in a universe of names and new characters, writer/director James Mangold opts for Western-style simplicity. The payoff is an actual piece of filmmaking, rather than a feature-length commercial for Halloween costumes and Xbox games.

For once in these films, the intrigue winnows down to one new, tiny dervish of a character. Anyone who caught a glimpse of the trailers already knows this tyke Laura sports some sort of Wolverine-style knuckle-knives and can zip around perforating goons’ faces with the best of ’em. But Logan, scratching out a living as a limo driver and trying to keep to himself, remains the crappiest father figure in the history of the comics genre.

Jackman plays this version of the title character — the ninth movie appearance as Wolverine — as salty, duty-bound and physically vulnerable, literally limping throughout two hours that all but mutter I’m getting too old for this shit. He’s barely scratching by and sacking away a few grand so that he and his oldest friend and mentor can buy a boat to live at sea.

Speaking of, Patrick Stewart is back,

probably for a final time, as Charles Xavier, also deep in years. The film takes place in 2029, when Xavier corrects a goon who calls him an octogenarian that he is, in fact, a nonagenarian. Both of the men show their considerable wear, and in their dreary settings — largely the Texas borderlands and the dusty roof of Mexico — everything looks sun-blistered and desiccated. Xavier, losing his (exceptionally powerful) mind, is confined to a huge industrial tank where Logan drops by every so often to dose him with meds that keep him from essentially detonating a psychic dirty bomb in his senes-

cence. Tending to the good professor in the desert is Caliban (Stephen Merchant, charmingly), who can detect mutants, an ability that he compares to being a truffle-sniffing pig but which adds a dimension to the manhunts that dominate the film’s middle.

And, yes, you knew there’d be a manhunt. A hallmark of the “X-Men” films is the extraordinary abilities of its stars, pitted against spooks/scientists who fear/ desire said powers. This time it’s a dude with a gold tooth and a robotic hand (a Southernly Boyd Holbrook) who’s trying to track down Laura. Good luck with

all that, pal. The kid, Laura, she’s a dang force — and Keen is a dynamo charged with carrying the swagger of a feral labbuilt tween who goes from bouncing a ball in a parking lot to, one scene later, rolling a freshly decapitated head across the dusty ground. Bilingual and utterly ferocious, she looks like the future of a franchise whose stars are putting themselves out to pasture after almost two solid decades of playing pulpy heroes.

After such a long run, Stewart and Jackman manage to pull off the impossible: Somehow, they’re leaving us actually wanting more.

DID YOU WORK AT

BIG O TIRES in Little Rock, AR

between 1966 and 1968?

Seeking former employees for historical research.

Please email Lisa at lbrokaw@levinsimes.com or call Lisa Toll Free at 1(888)426-4156 ext. 152

BLUES TRAVELER

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APRIL 4 | 8pm

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LIVE AT GILLEY’S | NO COVER SARA LYONS BAND

THE RAIN KINGS

THE VINCENT BAND

DJ MIDNITE

Thu | Mar 9 | 7pm

Wed | Mar 15 | 7pm

Wed | Mar 22 | 7pm

Wed | Mar 29 | 7pm

THE FUNK FACTORY

AARON WOODS

ROUTE 358

RANDALL SHREVE

Fri | Mar 10 | 9:30pm

Thu | Mar 16 | 7pm

Thu | Mar 23 | 7pm

Thu | Mar 30 | 7pm

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MR. CABBAGE HEAD & THE SCREAMING RADISHES

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Sat | Mar 11 | 9:30pm

Fri | Mar 31 | 9:30pm

Fri | Mar 24 | 9:30pm BLAZE OF GLORY Sat | Mar 25 | 9:30pm

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2/16/179, 9:02 arktimes.com MARCH 2017 AM27

Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’

ALL THE PEOPLE panicked by the closure of Terry’s Finer Foods, the Heights grocery store of longstanding, take heart: Its replacement, the Heights Corner Market, could be open in three weeks or so, proprietor Eric Herget says.

Herget is leasing the entire 8,000 square feet in the building that formerly housed Terry’s, closed last week by the financially troubled Lex Golden.

The new store (heightscornermarket.com) will have three parts: a market where outside vendors — such as a bakery and a chocolatier — will have their own spaces (in the space formerly operated as a full restaurant and before that Foster Cochran Co.); the grocery store and an expanded deli; and a bistro serving pastries and coffee in the morning and drinks at night (in the space formerly occupied by The Pizzeria). “We already have the best meat department in town,” Herget said, with employees “who have been there forever” and who will keep their jobs. The grocery’s deli will be able to steam fresh seafood for takeout, and the store will put more emphasis on prepared meals than did Terry’s. The product line will also be expanded, including such items as flowers and bulk candy. The little bistro, which will close at 8 p.m., will feature a “liars’ table” off to itself and surrounded by bookcases that you can reserve. Heights Corner Market will also deliver; Herget is partnering with his son, Ryan, who owns Chef Shuttle. “We will have an entirely fresh inventory, from aluminum foil to shrimp and prime meats,” Herget said, in case people worry they’re getting dated food from the closed store.

“It’s going to be as good at a minimum as what Terry’s used to be.” Facebook and Instagram sites, which should go live this week, will keep people up to date on what’s fresh.

LA POTOSINA, A butcher shop in business for 15 years at 5412 Baseline Road, is expanding to include a bakery featuring traditional Mexican and Central American bread and pastries and to-go dinners. The dinners will include Mexican barbecue, slow-cooked beef in Mexican spices that can be served as a torta or taco, co-owner Jordan Narvaez said. Narvaez said he hopes the new space will be ready in six weeks. La Potosina’s butcher shop sells “a little bit of everything,” Narvaez said; besides meat and traditional Mexican groceries, there is Western wear, canned goods and statues of saints. Narvaez and his brother are the butchers.

BLUE SAIL COFFEE in the Little Rock Technology Park is waiting on “a couple of pieces of equipment,” co-owner Andy Pickle said, and still has finishing touches to do, but is shooting for a March 24 opening at the building at 417 Main St. Blue Sail Coffee Roasters was opened by Kyle Tabor in Conway in 2014 and has two locations there, on Front Street downtown and on the University of Central Arkansas campus. Blue Sail roasts five specialty coffees, including directtrade beans supplied by the Long Miles Coffee Project in Burundi.

28

MARCH 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

CAN’T GO WRONG WITH COMBINATION NOODLE SOUP: It’s the standout pho at Mike’s.

Liking Mike’s pho-ever Noodle soups a standout at Vietnamese cafe.

Y

our restaurant correspondent is part of a semi-weekly lunch outing with friends. We have a half dozen-spots we regularly visit, but none more often than Mike’s Cafe, the nondescript Vietnamese and Chinese restaurant on Asher Avenue. Why? It’s cheap and delicious. And when it comes to pho — Vietnamese rice noodle soup — Mike’s seems to have curative powers. Hungover? Got a cold? Feeling depressed about the state of the world? It’s raining? Mike’s pho makes it all better.

We’re partial to Pho Dac Biet ($8.95), better known as P1, which the menu describes as “combination rice noodle soup.” It’s a combo not for the squeamish, an assortment of beef

Follow Eat Arkansas on Twitter: @EatArkansas

parts: tendon, flank, brisket, meatballs, tripe and rare beef slices. It comes with typical pho garnishes — cilantro, sliced jalapeno peppers, bean sprouts, Thai basil and lime wedges.

Throw whatever combination of that you like on top, liberally douse with Sriracha and hoisin sauces and slurp without shame. The only way to get all of Mike’s clear, rich broth is to pick the bowl up with two hands and drain it into your mouth.

Our party of four typically sticks to pho, but on a recent visit we decided to explore Mike’s voluminous menu.

To get a true sense of it would take weeks, as the menu has 16 categories and, at least by our count, 179 items.

Your correspondent got Bun Thit

Nu’o’ng ($7.95) or B5, chargrilled pork strips and three or four shrimp atop cold vermicelli noodles. Topped with Thai basil, crushed peanuts, sliced scallions, bean sprouts and pickled carrots and cucumber and served with a sweet dipping sauce, it had the feel of a salad. We would definitely get it again, especially on warm days when we craved something lighter than pho.

Another of us got Bug Gao Ga Xao Ca Ri ($8.95) or B13, chicken rice vermicelli stir-fried with curry, which was a little off the beaten path for our companion. Internet research suggests this dish might also be known as Singapore Noodles on some Chinese menus. Either way, it was delicious if a little heavy on the onions and scallions. The curry flavor was unmistakable but not overpowering, which we appreciated.

Another tried a dish with obvious Chinese cuisine influences, Tom Xao Toi ($10.95) or X36, stir-fried shrimp with garlic. It, unsurprisingly, was heavy on the garlic, with onion, mushrooms and jalapeno and green bell peppers mixed in with the chicken.

It came with rice. He thought it was

BELLY UP

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

I N D E P E N D E N T M U S I C F E S T I VA L MARCH 17-21, 2017 VA L L E T O F T H EVA P O R S . C OM

JOAN OF ARC - DOWNTOWN BOYS- WEAVES MOON HONEY - NO JOY - MUUY BIIEN - NE-HI BIG JESUS - GRANDCHILDREN - RONNIE HEART & MANY MORE

FOR SOMETHING A LITTLE LIGHTER: Grilled shrimp and pork on noodles.

tasty, but said branching out was tough because he spent a lot of time thinking about what else he could have tried and whether trying something new was even worth it because he knows the pho is excellent.

Our vegetarian friend had been stung before at Mike’s when he ordered something a waiter told him was veggie only and it came with big chicken pieces. But this time he came clued to the fact that

Mike’s Cafe 5501 Asher Ave. 562-1515

QUICK BITE Most of the time Mike’s blasts a playlist of music that one of our companions described as the “Grey’s Anatomy” satellite radio station. It’s lots of anthemic modern rock you could imagine during a montage of doctors breaking hearts and saving lives. There are also disco balls, lights and a large monitor that appears to be for karaoke. So consider Mike’s next time you’re bar-hopping, is what we’re saying.

HOURS 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to midnight Friday through Sunday.

OTHER INFO Beer and wine only.

the Banh Mi ($3), the delightful Vietnamese sandwich, was hidden in the appetizer menu and available with pork or tofu. Since it was a $3 appetizer, he decided to get two. They turned out to be full-sized sandwiches so filling he took one to go. Served on soft French bread, his came with tofu, sliced cucumber, fresh jalapeno, cilantro and some kind of sweet sauce (maybe hoisin). He said it was on a level with many great regional banh mi sandwiches. “This is probably going to be all I eat from now on,” he said.

Our crew also tried all the standard appetizers: fried egg rolls ($2.99), spring rolls ($2.95) and fried tofu ($3.95). The latter was described on the menu as fried bean curd. It was fried and served in cubes; it retained the spongy texture of fresh tofu. The egg rolls were fine; nothing to write home about. The spring rolls were also pretty much what you would expect: sticky translucent logs of noodles, lettuce and shrimp or tofu with a peanut sauce. They start out neat and get messy as the structural integrity of the wrap becomes compromised. They, of course, went wonderfully with the peanut sauce.

Little Rock’s Most Award-Winning Restaurant 1619 REBSAMEN RD. 501.663.9734 thefadedrose.com

March

10 - Greasy Tree 11 - Agori Tribe 12 - Adam Faucett and the Tall Grass w/ Fox45 17 - Funky St. Patty’s Day w/ Groovement 18 - Magnolia Brown 24 - Good Foot

Coming April 8th Junior Brown! (Get your tickets before we sell-out!)

Open until 2am every night!

415 Main St North Little Rock • (501) 313-4704 • fourquarterbar.com arktimes.com MARCH 9, 2017

29

ALSO IN THE ARTS

Theater

UPCOMING EVENTS ON CentralArkansasTickets.com Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Pulaski County

MAR

9

Hope Wins!

MAR

Revolution Music Room

10

Musicians Showcase Finals Wyndham Riverfront Hotel

11

Fourth Annual Jimmie Lou Fisher-Lottie Shackelford Dinner

MAR

Buffalo River Watershed Alliance

MAR

16

Sing Out for the Buffalo

Argenta Arts Acoustic Music Series presents

MAR

16

Peter Janson & Aaron LargetCaplan at The Joint

“The Elephant Man.” The Community Theatre of Little Rock’s production of Bernard Pomerance’s drama. 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun., through March 12. $14-$16. 320 W. 7th St. 501410-2283.

“Titanic: The Musical.” The Weekend Theater’s production of Maury Yeston’s musical. 7:30 p.m. Fri. and Sat., 2:30 p.m. Sun., through March 12. $16-$20. 1001 W. 7th St. 501-3743761.

“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.

“The Giver.” National Players’ touring play adapted from Lois Lowry’s book of the same name. 2 p.m. March 11. $15-$29. The Sheid at Arkansas State University-Mountain Home, 1600 S. College St. 870-508-6280.

“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 Feb. 18. $15-$37. 6323 Colonel Glenn Road. 501-562-3131.

“Naked People With Their Clothes On.” The Main Thing’s comedy revue. 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., through March 25. $24. 301 Main St., NLR. 501-372-0210.

“Phantom of the Opera.” The touring Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical. 7:30 p.m. Tue.-Sat.; 2 p.m. Sat.-Sun.; 7 p.m. Sun., $33-$153. Robinson Center, 426 W. Markham St. 501-244-8800.

FINE ART, HISTORY EXHIBITS

MAJOR VENUES ARKANSAS ARTS CENTER, MacArthur Park: “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 “MidSouthern 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. 870-536-3375.

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, reception 6-8 p.m. March 9. 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; “Once Was Lost,” photographs by Richard Leo Johnson, through March 18. Open 5-8 p.m. March 10, 2nd Friday Art Night, with music by Folkin’ Around Arkansas. 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

UA-Pulaski Tech Center for Humanities and Arts P

R

E

S

E

N

T

S

Three-Time Grammy Winner

ACANSA Arts Festival

MAR

Fundraiser featuring Nora Jane Struthers and Joe Overton

30

Arkansas Made Arkansas Proud

Fine Art and Craft Preview Party and Silent Auction with heavy hors d’oeuvres, wine and beer. $25

MAR

31

UA - Pulaski Tech’s Center for Humanities and Arts

APR

26

Delbert McClinton Live at The Center for Humanities and Arts Go to CentralArkansasTickets.com to purchase these tickets!

LOCAL TICKETS, One Place

1-800-DELBERT / www.Delbert.com

& Self-Made Men ...with Special Guest Doug Duffey

April 26th Wednesday, 7:30 PM

UA-Pulaski Tech Center for Humanities and Arts 3000 W. Scenic Dr. North Little Rock, AR

From your goin’ out friends at

www.pulaskitech.edu/delbert 30

MARCH 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES

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 sing-along 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 ac-

tive 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. 479-418-5700.

CHARTER TAKEOVER CONTINUES, CONT. library, and on rainy days it was nearly an impossible campus.”

KIPP Delta wanted to purchase Beechcrest, but the school district, under state control, would not immediately sell the building. Under current law, charter schools have first right of refusal only if a district sells the building.

“Meanwhile, that entire time period where our students had inadequate access to facilities, a functional school building, Beechcrest Elementary, sat vacant as current law prevented us from using those unused district facilities,” Shirey said.

He said Beechcrest was vandalized as it sat empty. During Shirey’s testimony, pictures of the school were passed around for the committee to see.

Shirey, when asked in an interview why the building sat empty, said, “My sense of it was the state was trying to manage the local politics and not wanting to upset the local school district.”

In an email, Kimberly Friedman, director of communications for the state Department of Education, wrote, “Due to numerous issues, including leadership transitions, vandalism and a lawsuit, the sale of the building was delayed.”

Tony Wood, who was appointed state education commissioner in 2014, initiated the sale of the building to KIPP Delta, according to Friedman.

Normally, a locally elected school board would make decisions about a district’s facilities, but when a district is taken over by the state Education Department, the school board is dissolved. The state education commissioner acts in the capacity of a local school board in such districts. The commissioner may appoint a community advisory board to solicit input from the community, which is what happened in the case of Helena-West Helena, but that board has no actual authority.

Andrew Bagley was the president of the district’s community advisory board.

“During the period of local control prior to the state forcing the transfer of that property to KIPP Delta ... the [local school] board made the judgment that it was not in the best interest of our students or our school district to let a property get in the hands of a competitor that was taking

hundreds of students from our school,” Bagley said in an interview.

“Our advisory board — before any decision was made — wanted to complete our long-term facilities plan, and we wanted to get the properties appraised so that we would know how much money we should try to get if we chose to sell,” Bagley said. “The state would not let us do either one of those things, and by the state I mean Commissioner Tony Wood.”

Wood, now the superintendent for Jacksonville North Pulaski School District, said in an interview that he didn’t remember having a conversation with the advisory board about an appraisal.

“There very likely could have been some discussion with someone on the advisory committee wanting to ... bring a firm in, a real estate firm or somebody to do an appraisal. I don’t remember.

“There could have been fair market value established perhaps in some manner other than the quote,” Wood said.

Shirey testified Monday that KIPP Delta submitted a $50,000 sealed bid for the school building, which was accepted. The decision was upheld in court.

In March 2016, Helena-West Helena regained local control of its school district after the state Board of Education voted to remove it from state control. Bagley is now president of the Helena-West Helena School Board.

“What the state essentially did was force the equivalent of McDonald’s being forced to give a facility to Wendy’s,” Bagley said.

Lowery said traditional public schools and charter schools are partners in the educational process. “Charter schools are public schools and the shame of it is, this whole battle over facilities and students and all these things have created this oppositional warfare that shouldn’t exist.”

The bill now goes to the full House.

ARKANSAS TIMES MARKETPLACE TO ADVERTISE IN THIS SECTION, CALL LUIS AT 501.375.2985

HEALTH CARE POLICY FELLOW Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a non-profit advocacy organization, is accepting resumes for a one-year, full-time health care policy fellowship. The position requires a bachelor’s degree. Graduate-level study is preferred, but not required. The ideal candidate will have excellent analytical, writing, communication, and organizational skills.

Full job description is available at www.aradvocates.org/ about-us/jobs/. Send cover letter, resume, writing sample, and references to dclark@aradvocates.org.

AACF is an equal opportunity employer.

PASTURED OLD BREED PORK 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 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

This reporting is courtesy of the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an independent, nonpartisan news project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans.

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 9, 2017

31

SHOP OVER 80 WORLD CL A SS ARK ANSA S CR AFTSPEOPLE! Art, Jewelry, Woodwork, Crafts, Edibles, Bath Products and more.

SATURDAY, APRIL 1 10 A.M. TO 7 P.M.

ADMISSION $5 AT THE DOOR ALL DAY

AL SO! ArkansasMadeArkansasProudMarket

Brought to you by War Memorial Stadium, the Arkansas Times, and Arkansas Made Magazine

PREVIEW AND PRIVATE SHOPPING PART Y Southern Eats, Libations & Silent Auction FRIDAY NIGHT, MARCH 31 6 TO 9 P.M.

TICKETS $25 AT CENTRALARKANSASTICKETS.COM

For more information call Vickie Hart, 501-537-5227 or email at arkansasmadearkansasproud@gmail.com 32

MARCH 9, 2017

ARKANSAS TIMES