Advertisement
← Back to issues

September 30, 2004

Vol 2 • No 37

The New Republic

The John family are among an estimated 6,000 citizens from the Republic of the Marshall Islands who have immigrated to Northwest Arkansas in the past decade. Most have settled in Springdale, in enclaves near the downtown business district as well as on the east side of town. Arkansas is believed the have the largest concentrated population of Marshallese outside the islands themselves.

Greed (on film) is good

As someone too broke to own a stock portfolio, I’ve often been puzzled as to how the greediest 2 percent of the population managed to seize control of the nation’s economy. Pork belly traders in New York get antsy, and the next thing you know, a carpenter in Alabama — some poor schlep who only thinks about “futures” when he stops by to have his palm read on the way to the track — is pawning his hammer to buy shoes for his kids.

Insiders Sept. 30, 2004

No Nader raider Sam Hilburn, the North Little Rock lawyer, won’t say whether he’s being paid for his legal work to get Ralph Nader on the ballot in Arkansas. But don’t confuse him with a Green.

Sugimoto in Jerome

There are so many exhibits in Little Rock for the “Life Interrupted: The Japanese American Experience in World War II Arkansas” project that this writer is going to have to take them one by one. First: “Henry Sugimoto: Painting an American Experience,” at the Cox Creative Center.

More than words

Guitar solos are supposed to be tiring, self-absorbed examples of instrumental onanism, an opportunity for the audience to check out the T-shirt vendors in the lobby and the rest of the band to catch its breath. Fortunately for the 5,494 in attendance, no one ever explained that bit of stage wisdom to Eddie Van Halen. At 47, Van Halen has added some gray hairs but he’s lost none of his dexterity, which he aptly proved during a nearly 20-minute solo near the end of his band’s two-hour tribute to a career that spans 30 years and shows no sign of ending.

The geezer at midnight

Sorry to have gone senile on you. Some of you weren't surprised, I'm sure, but it was a shock to ol' moi. You're cranking along not noticeably different from five year ago, or 20, then you awake one morn like Gregor Samsa only it's a geezer you've turned into rather than a cockroach. You can chop off a cockroach's head, and it will go on functioning normally for weeks, probably glad to be rid of the encumbrance. Roaches have that in common with geezers. A geezer might as well not have a head, for all the good it does him, for all the imbecile notions it contains.

Promises, promises

We didn't ask for much. A burger at lunch was big as advertised, but cooked until dry, served lukewarm on a cold bun. The fries, with the burger and a companion's sandwich, were inexcusably limp, undercooked and greasy. The fish sandwich - mahi mahi with leeks and fontina - was supposed to come on toasted ciabatta. The thick slabs of dense white bread, with only the barest toasting, didn't look like any ciabatta we ever knew. The fish was tough and, well, fishy tasting. Unappetizing.

Our drinking problem

Lt. Gary Crain, the University Police spokesman, confirmed the policy and sent along a log of arrests made that day. Most were for public intoxication, but none was for merely possessing and/or consuming alcohol. He said some people were confronted by officers and forced to discard their drinks, but the vast majority of fans were left alone.

Words Sept. 30, 2004

My way or the segue: Veda Moore has questions about segue. "First, is there any other word in the English language that ends with the letters ue pronounced as way, and secondly, when did this word begin being used other than as a direction in music?" First, I can’t think of another ue word that is pronounced like segue, and secondly, the 1987 Random House gives as one definition "to move from one thing to another smoothly and without interruption: The conversation segued from travel anecdotes to food." So the usage is at least a few years older than that. But perhaps not a lot older. A 1944 college edition of The Winston Dictionary doesn’t list segue at all.

Cowboy TV

Though he found himself cut last year by the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, that didn’t keep former Arkansas Razorback quarterback Clint Stoerner from talking up a new venture between his old team and cable giant Comcast.

Engaging war

‘Tracers’ Weekend Theater Sept. 25

Picks, Sept 30 - Oct. 6, 2004

Channing at Pine Bluff Film Fest

An appearance by the internationally renowned performer Carol Channing highlights the Pine Bluff Film Festival, scheduled for Friday and Saturday, Oct. 1-2, at the Saenger Theatre on Second Street. The festival includes films starring Clara Bow, James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Humphrey Bogart, Joan Blondell, Robert Redford, Mia Farrow and, of course, Channing’s, whose “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” which also starred Julie Andrews, will be shown. John Beatty will open the festival at 5 p.m. Friday, and the 1939 Cagney-Bogie film “The Roaring Twenties” starts the screenings. Admission is $5.

Court of last resort

The Arkansas Supreme Court heard arguments last week on two lawsuits aimed at reducing voters' ballot choices Nov. 2.

Music rules the river

The legendary Texas-born blues guitarist Johnny Winter, rated by Rolling Stone magazine as among the greatest guitar players of all time, will headline the Arkansas River Blues Festival at North Little Rock’s North Shore Riverwalk on Saturday, Oct. 2.

Rock, hip-hop merge in Vino’s ‘Fall Classic’

Local rockers the Poeboy Society and hip-hop quintet Arkatext are doing it and doing it well: The former went on to win in the Battle in the Rock contest at the Clear Channel Metroplex in August, while the latter is making a name for itself in regularly winning local and regional hip-hop contests. So, what better than to see these two contest favorites play a double-bill at Vino’s Brewpub on Saturday, Oct. 2.

Out of play? At the moment, yes

President Bush's campaign transfers some of its campaign staff out of Arkansas and the conventional wisdom becomes that the president has the state locked up.

'Great Shootout' combatants share the love

FAYETTEVILLE - Everywhere else, the spirit of competition was ugly. The presidential campaign's rhetoric resonated with bitterness. In the modern world known as online, Internet message boards screamed with vulgar name-calling by Razorback and Longhorn fans worked into a subhuman frenzy about a forthcoming football contest between 20-year-olds representing state universities from Arkansas and Texas.

Fire alarm

While the funnel of the cooling tower of Arkansas Nuclear One near Russellville might look like the epitome of peacefulness - a white, curving monolith belching clouds of steam - the Nuclear Regulatory Commission once thought that if a fire broke out there in the wrong place, it could lead to disaster.

Kerry outlook bleak

Tonight's the night (Sept. 30) for the first debate where John Kerry can to try to convince Americans that he can run this country better than George Bush. It doesn't look as though this will happen. .

What about energy?

President Bush's war to turn Iraq into a client state is sucking up national treasure, eroding the country's will, despoiling its honor among nations, swelling the wave of terrorism into a floodtide, destabilizing the whole Middle East and heightening the perils from North Korea and Iran, regimes far more radical and dangerous than Iraq.

Opposing philosophies

Ten years ago, President Bill Clinton announced that the era of big government was over. Marvin Parks didn't buy it.

As a state legislator and as a candidate for the 2nd Congressional District seat held by Vic Snyder, Parks has continued to advance the rights of government over the rights of the individual. He not only champions a constitutional amendment to prevent people from entering gay marriages and civil unions (the government decides who can make commitments to whom), he favors laws banning sodomy and wants such laws enforced (the government crashes the bedroom). He is a longtime proponent of allowing the long arm of government into the womb, sponsoring legislation to deny women dominion over their own bodies.

Who was William Calley anyway?

“We did nothing in Vietnam that I was ashamed of.”

Rupert Holmes makes ‘Escape’ to Broadway

n Credited with writing one of the silliest songs of the ’70s, "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)," Rupert Holmes found far more admirers with his recent work in theater. His "Say Goodnight, Gracie," which opens with Jamie Farr for a three-night run at Robinson Center Music Hall on Monday, Oct. 11, was the 2004 Tony Award winner for Best Play.
Advertisement