Categories
News, Spin

Election, in Heat

Third District Congressman John Boozman. He’s always seemed goofy for reasons I couldn’t put a finger on, plus he’s a Republican, but now, running for his fourth two-year term (first elected in November 2000), I’m starting to like the guy. Very much. His Democratic challenger, Woodrow Anderson III (from my hometown Fort Smith but I […]

Categories
News, Spin

Tax the Poor

Replace the grocery tax; don’t repeal it. (This is an Arkansas Brick.) It’s not too late to put in your 6 cents’ worth — that’s the amount of state sales tax in Arkansas, before municipalities add on theirs. Nothing can happen until the Legislature convenes in January, but various state candidates are leapfrogging over one […]

Categories
American Culture

Paging powerless parents vs. Congress

The state of children today, declaims the curmudgeon. Here’s a clue from a recent outdoor wedding. Any more details, and some people will know where I was and who I mean. The bride and her mother arranged for flower petals to be spread down the middle of the center aisle — yes, between the folding […]

Categories
Body, Home, Street

Promenade Lemonade: Cynical Pinnacle?

PROM-E-NADE — The Pinnacle Hills Promenade Shopping Center opened Wednesday. Wanting to see the center, not the artifice of ribbon-cutting, and crowds that won’t be that big until the day after Thanksgiving, I’m here for an hour Thursday afternoon. Background here and here. Forget this joint on bustling weekends, too. Well unless there’s an exceptional […]

Categories
News, Spin

Baseball Takes a Walk

The multipart sale-tax increase passed in Fayetteville on Tuesday. Those who love to taunt the city doubtless will mock the smaller percentage approving the bit for continued construction of trails, as compared to the 3-to-1 majorities for the sewage treatment and road improvements. Specifically, according to the NWA Times (and here) and The Morning News […]

Categories
Body, Home, Street

Blades, Rakes – Tools or Fools

In Sunday’s newspaper the columnist for the gubmint’s Master Gardener program (slogan: “No vegetable problem than can’t be solved with a chemical spray”) answers this question: Why are there so many mushrooms on lawns around town?” While the nice lady explains about fungus in three quick sentences, she senses that the reader surely does not […]