Weekend Digest: The crazy GOP primary, ‘inconvenient’ gun facts, and Winslow, Ariz., edition

TV PREVIEW
On this week’s TV edition of Talk Business & Politics with Roby Brock, which airs Sunday at 9:30 a.m. on KATV Channel 7.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson reflects on his first year in office and discusses his new highway funding plan. What are the ramifications if it does or doesn’t pass later this year?

Several political groups have weighed in on the highway proposal. David Ray from Americans for Prosperity and Rich Huddleston with Ark. Advocates for Children and Families debate.

And, big layoffs in the natural gas industry. Southwestern Energy – the biggest player in the Fayetteville Shale play – cuts 600 jobs in state. What other signals suggest that the natural gas boom in Arkansas may be going bust?

Tune in to Talk Business & Politics with Roby Brock on KATV Ch. 7, Sunday at 9:30 a.m.

ARE WE HEADED FOR A RECESSION?
Bloomberg Business says, “Talk of a downturn is in the air, and the numbers are squiggly.” So is a recession looming?

“People who ordinarily ignore economic forecasters are eager for whatever intelligence they can glean. What’s grabbed their attention is the January plunge in the U.S. stock market, the worst two-week start on record.  If the bears are right, profits and economic growth in general are going to be weak in 2016.”

Weakness is emanating from China, where pessimism has driven stock prices down 40 percent since June, vs. a decline of 12 percent in the U.S.  The economies of more than 9 in 10 U.S. counties still haven’t gotten back to their prerecession peaks.  Analysts estimate that profits of Standard and Poor’s 500 companies in the last quarter of 2015 had their biggest drop from the year before since 2009, according to data collected by Bloomberg.

But what do the bulls say, and is cheap oil really that bad of news? Go to this link to take a deeper look at … recession or no recession.

THIS TIME, CHEAPER OIL DOES LITTLE FOR THE U.S. ECONOMY
The New York Times reports, “It has been a truism of the American economy for decades: When oil prices rise, the economy suffers; when they fall, growth improves.”

As oil prices have fallen to levels not seen since 2003 – sagging below $27 a barrel on Wednesday before rebounding to about $30 on Thursday – many experts now say they do not expect lower prices to bolster the domestic economy significantly in 2016.

“We got this wrong,” John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, told an audience in Santa Barbara, Calif., this month.

Why did we get it wrong this time? Follow this link to find out.

HOW TO SPEAK OFF THE CUFF LIKE A PRO
Fast Company says, “We make a mistake in conversation roughly every 4.6 seconds. The more you try to sound like Churchill, the less you will.”

“When (Steve) Harvey mistakenly declared the wrong contestant the winner of the Miss Universe pageant last month, he turned a routine ceremony into one of the most cringeworthy moments in live television history.”

That was probably better proof than any of us needed that live speaking carries the potential for major mishaps. So, how do you demonstrate the power of your thinking in those unexpected hallway meetings, sudden phone calls, or other speaking occasions when you have no time to prepare? These five strategies can help you speak with power at a moment’s notice.

Get them, here.

NEED SOME SELF-ASSESSMENT AT WORK?
Harvard Business Review says, “We all need to grow – not only to stay engaged in our work but also to keep up with our employers’ changing needs. And this is the perfect time of year to set personal development goals and start making progress on them.”

No matter what skills you’d like to improve, it’s important to know where to begin. So we’ve pulled together several of HBR’s best assessments and quizzes to help give you a sense of what you need to work on and how to go about it.

Click this link for, “The 8 Self-Assessments You Need to Improve at Work This Year.”

WHY THE GOP PRIMARY COULD BE EVEN CRAZIER THAN YOU THINK
POLITICO Magazine has posted, “An insider’s guide to 19 long weeks of chaos.”

“Welcome to a 2016 Republican presidential primary unlike any other. A crowded field, angry electorate and uncharacteristically divided establishment, not to mention the wild-card role of super PACs, have already made this nominating contest more frenzied and unpredictable than its recent predecessors. It’s become conventional wisdom that, whatever the chaos of the early campaign, a winner is most likely to emerge by mid-March.”

This cycle, we can’t be so sure. In fact, the better you understand how the 2016 calendar works, the more likely it seems we can face a messy slog that runs into late spring and possibly even into the July convention—an unlikely fate at this point but one that’s no longer impossible.

The “insider’s guide” has all the details at this link.

IS HILLARY STILL THE INEVITABLE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE?
“Yes,” says U.S. News and World Report.

She can recover even if she loses the first two nominating states to Bernie Sanders.

Here’s why. At this link.

SOME INCONVENIENT GUN FACTS FOR LIBERALS
The New York Times says, “For those of us who argue in favor of gun safety laws, there are a few inconvenient facts.”

“We liberals are sometimes glib about equating guns and danger. In fact, it’s complicated: The number of guns in America has increased by more than 50 percent since 1993, and in that same period the gun homicide rate in the United States has dropped by half.”

Then there are the policies that liberals fought for, starting with the assault weapons ban. A 113-page study found no clear indication that it reduced shooting deaths for the 10 years it was in effect. That’s because the ban was poorly drafted, and because even before the ban, assault weapons accounted for only 2 percent of guns used in crimes.

What about open-carry and conceal-carry laws, gun regulation and the N.R.A? According to The Times all tricky fields for liberals to navigate, and it’s not going so well.

For the complete story, follow this link.

THE HORRORS OF FETAL ALCOHOL DISORDER
The Washington Post reports, “Kathy Mitchell wants to share something with you. She’s not proud of it, and it’s not a behavior she hopes you’ll emulate. It’s just the truth: As a teen, Kathy drank alcohol while pregnant with her daughter, Karli. It was a perilous if unwitting mistake that has defined both of their lives.”

Karli is now 43 but is the developmental age of a first-grader. In the home she shares with her mother and stepfather, she collects dolls and purses, and pores over Hello Kitty coloring and sticker books. Karli has fetal alcohol syndrome, the result of alcohol exposure in utero.

In middle age, Karli has none of the awareness, self-determination and independence that most of us take for granted. She can’t recognize social cues, is easily led and manipulated, and can’t predict dangerous behaviors. She can only follow one rule at a time and doesn’t understand sequence. She can cross a street at a lighted crosswalk, but if the light is out, she’ll step in front of a car. She likes to wear pretty clothes, but she can’t remember to brush her teeth.

For more on this tragic story of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder with disabilities that “last a lifetime” and how Kathy “has made it her mission in life to tell the story of her and Karli so that others won’t make the same mistakes,” go to this link.

THAT CORNER IN WINSLOW, ARIZONA
Sound familiar? And it’s where The Washington Post says “each year thousands of people, usually on the way to somewhere else, make a stop…”

It’s now called “Standin’  on the Corner” Park, “which stands as a tribute to guitarist and singer Glenn Frey.”

The Eagles co-founder passed away this past week and those words about standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona are memorable in the Eagles’ classic, “Take It Easy.”

There’s not much there – a statue of a guy holding a guitar and a red flatbed Ford at the curb. They say if you look hard enough, you’ll see the girl from the song, too.

But how is song writer and singer Jackson Browne involved in all of this and why Winslow, Arizona? Go to this link for, “Glenn Frey and the mystery of the ‘Take It Easy’ corner in Winslow, Ariz.”

And while you’re at it, if you would like to listen to the isolated vocals only of “Take It Easy,” the band’s first single, released on May 1, 1972, click on this link from That Eric Alper.

CARPOOL KARAOKE
Mashable posts, “When Adele does something, she does it right. The singer-songwriter predictably crushed it last week on Carpool Karaoke with James Corden on The Late Late Show, and after less than a week online, the video has become the most viral late night clip to hit the web since 2013.”

That feat is even more impressive given precedent: The last late night video to go this viral was a trailer for Captain America: Civil War, debuted by Robert Downey, Jr. and Chris Evans on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. According to ListenFirst Digital Audience Ratings, Adele’s Carpool Karaoke has been the most shared over platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and YouTube (but not Twitter). The Late Late Show With James Corden was also the most highly-watched late night show during that week.

The highest-viewed Carpool Karaoke video is currently Justin Bieber’s — but if we know Adele, that won’t be true for long. Take a look, here.

EDDIE SUTTON’S NAISMITH HALL OF FAME CANDIDACY
CBS Sports contributor, Doug Gottlieb has posted a must-read and heart-felt open letter about former Razorback basketball coach Eddie Sutton’s candidacy for the Naismith Hall of Fame.

Dear member of Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Committee,

My name is Doug Gottlieb and I am writing this on behalf of the hundreds of kids who played for a great coach who made us into the men we are today. His name is Eddie Sutton, from Bucklin, Kansas. We all call him “Coach.” You know him well, or well enough to have made him a finalist for the Naismith Hall of Fame for the fourth time.

I’m writing this letter because the time is now. I could point out that Coach’s health isn’t the best or be bitter that his lovely wife Patsy won’t see him inducted on this earth. But the truth is, Eddie Sutton belongs in the Hall of Fame based on merit, not sympathy.

There isn’t another college coach with 800 wins, or 806 to be exact, who isn’t in the Naismith Hall of Fame. While he is in the College Basketball Hall of Fame, we all know that Springfield, There isn’t another college coach with 800 wins, or 806 to be exact, who isn’t in the Naismith Hall of Fame. While he is in the College Basketball Hall of Fame, we all know that Springfield, Massachusetts is a special place and one that feels like the home of basketball’s all-time elites — and that should include Eddie Sutton.

For the complete letter from Gottlieb, who played for Sutton, and his appeal to forget about the coaches’ “personal demons” connect here.