Riff Raff

Thank you, Raymond

This week we are to remember the military men and women who served this country — especially those who saw combat and those for whom combat was the last thing…

All thanked up

In this month containing the Thanksgiving holiday, folks on Facebook have taken to listing something each day for which they are thankful. Of the few friends on my little page,…

Crazy luck

Doyle Webb wishes “good luck” to three legislative candidates who have said slavery was a “blessing in disguise,” all Muslims should be deported, that if slavery were really bad Jesus…

Education questions

Money, balance and priorities may be the three key take-aways from a series on Arkansas' higher education system. With a recently concluded series of stories, The City Wire reviewed the…

During a recent Friday evening event in Northwest Arkansas, a Republican legislator from the area walked up to another Republican legislator. This fella from Northwest Arkansas looked at me-the-media-hack and…

Billy, Jeff and Chuck

Billy, the old friend from the college days at Arkansas Tech University, called again this week. He typically calls after a few beers on a Sunday afternoon, but wasn’t able…

Yoakam’s Pears

Dwight Yoakam reached out to various pop culture influences, including the Beatles, to craft his newest album, “3 Pears.” Influences are not a surprise for this fan of Yoakam who…

It’s your fault

The thing that pisses me off more and more with each election cycle is not the BS we hear from politicians or political groups, it’s the folks who allow the…

That terrible day

The many memorials this week were as painfully sobering as they were respectfully appropriate. It has been one year since that day. What fell from the sky one year ago…

A General question

Dear Attorney General Dustin McDaniel: What with all the time you spend fighting payday lenders and studying the layout of the governor’s office and responding to letters from Arkansas House…

Tax rhetoric and reality

Let’s travel once more into the most dangerous ground in today’s political environment, which would be the damn-near abandoned beautiful valley of calm in which compromise, moderation and careful deliberation…

Keep calm

The Arkansas GOP is doing everything but measuring for new carpet in the Arkansas House Speaker’s office. They are anticipating that come November the Republicans will capture a majority in…

$0

The assignment of $1.54 billion in special highway project funding contained within a road tax plan on the Nov. 6 election ballot includes $648 million for the central Arkansas area,…

Am trying to be optimistic

Am trying to be optimistic in the give-them-the-benefit-of-the-doubt allowance. This optimism and its need is in reference to the Fort Smith Regional Council, a group of CEO’s who have agreed…

Haw Creek brain trust

Have heard again from Billy, a college friend from thousands of years ago. He’d spent the day with friends at Haw Creek Falls sipping Newton County “spring water” and throwing…

An unfortunate review

What follows is an abridged and heavily amended version of a Riff Raff essay first published in June 2009. Although more than two years old, many points in the essay,…

Billy and ballot stuff

Billy, a college friend from thousands of years ago, called again this week. Hadn’t heard from him in several months. He took a part time job on evenings and some…

Seven-year itch

In 2005, just two years after Whirlpool gave us a clear hint about the future of its Fort Smith manufacturing operations, business and community leaders in the Fort Smith region…

A simple concern

There during Thursday’s (June 21) taping of The City Wire show were two examples of what we likely could use more of in Little Rock. Sen. Jake Files, a Republican…

Hoodwinked

In explaining why individualized trash collection preference is a right of citizenship beyond the whims of collective governance, Fort Smith Director Philip Merry Jr. says the city is not necessarily…