Guest Commentary

by The City Wire staff -

A visit to Arkansas City

For five miles east of McGehee, Highway 4 is as straight as the Delta farmland is flat. Headed toward the Mississippi River, you see the levee rising in the distance….

by The City Wire staff -

Avoiding the escalation

Another police officer is dead, murdered in the streets of Memphis, Tennessee. Only a few weeks ago, two police officers were gunned down on the streets of Jackson, Mississippi. Murders…

by The City Wire staff -

The secret embezzler

I have a particular dislike for bookkeepers and accountants who commit fraud and embezzle from their employers. The act is vile and the person committing the fraud betrays their employer’s…

by The City Wire staff -

The economic benefit of the arts

Civic leaders increasingly recognize that the arts, creative place-making and arts tourism not only provide social and cultural benefits to our community but economic benefits as well. We need only…

by The City Wire staff -

Our naïve idea about Iraq

Some Iraqis are now beginning to say the country should be divided into regions composed of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. The Kurds have pretty much gone their own way, the…

by The City Wire staff -

A tough sale for Huckabee 2.0

Recent political history has it that the Democratic Party tends to “fall in love” with its presidential nominees, while the Republican Party tends to “fall in line” behind the presumptive…

by The City Wire staff -

Lessons learned from a bad experience

When businesses become customers of other businesses, the interactions between the companies can be very instructive, providing each company with “how to” lessons, and many times with “how not to”…

by The City Wire staff -

A call for judicial independence

Despite the talk radio criticism facing him today, United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is a conservative justice and quickly becoming one of the greatest figures in modern…

by The City Wire staff -

A tale of two flags

The murder of nine people inside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., by a 21-year-old addict and self-identified white supremacist, has re-ignited a debate over the Confederate battle…

by The City Wire staff -

Celebrating Riffraff

In 2009, a 21-year-old interior design major at the University of Arkansas took a risk, trusted her gut, and started her own business on just $100. Today, that business —…

by The City Wire staff -

Regulations and manufacturing productivity

Despite Arkansas’ reliance on the manufacturing industry for economic growth and jobs, manufacturing within the state has languished. According to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Arkansas’ manufacturing GDP…

by The City Wire staff -

A governor in Europe

A few weeks ago, I was in Silicon Valley in California. Last week, I was in Newport and Batesville. Saturday, I leave for Paris and Germany. The locations change but…