by - May 14, 2017 5:57 pm
Riff Raff: Camel backs and last straws
A friend wanted to know if the fiasco with Fort Smith’s recycling program is the result of fraud or stupidity. Yes. In spades. And then some. Let’s consider why the…
Tag: riff raff
by - April 25, 2017 6:18 pm
Riff Raff: Observations, drug money, ‘far away eyes,’ and gum and trinkets
There is this guy dressed as a clown singing The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” to the music of Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.” Genius. America is great again, already. Even if we…
by - April 18, 2017 2:24 pm
Riff Raff: Observations, corporate pieholes, and the ultimate halftime show
It’s been one of those weeks where one feels they drew the short straw on a United Airlines flight. Hell, not even the Luftwaffe had passengers removed by Hitler. Or…
by - April 4, 2017 10:26 pm
Riff Raff: Observations, germ wagons, and getting state-ified
Should have been at the gun range this week getting some religion as the Lord R. God intended. What follows are musings that might have occurred between busting caps for…
by - March 19, 2017 5:12 pm
Riff Raff: Observations, the politics of color, and celebrating creativity
Again we take a few bite size bits from the thoughts that bounce around my head during a regular week. Or an irregular week. Normal seems to have taken an…
by - March 11, 2017 5:37 pm
Riff Raff: Observations, good whisky and hipster logos
A lot of stuff rolls through the days and weeks and hyperactive impulsive minds of us enemies of the American people who daily and deftly deliver dishonesty. What follows is…
by - January 1, 2017 10:47 am
Riff Raff: Calling the system an SOB
Editor’s note: This essay first appeared Dec. 28, 2008, on The City Wire, now Talk Business & Politics. It continues to be an appropriate note to begin a new year….
by - November 20, 2016 11:12 am
Riff Raff: The lucky ones
Sadness about the loss of such positive energy in this troubled world is natural but please do not be sad for the close friends and family of Patricia Brown, for…
by - November 11, 2016 8:16 am
Riff Raff: A Veterans Day remembrance
Editor’s note: This essay about my grandfather, Raymond Evans, was first published November 2002. Raymond Evans died Dec. 6, 2008. There is no expiration on the need to remember Veterans…
by - October 30, 2016 2:50 pm
Riff Raff: 3 concerns with Issue 3
As a former chamber of commerce employee, Issue 3 is appealing. As an Arkansan interested in good public policy, the appeal wanes. Issue 3 would amend Arkansas’ Constitution “to encourage…
by - September 29, 2016 4:48 pm
Riff Raff: Kneeling, grandstanding, and zig zagging
Questions hitting the inbox in recent days and weeks have sought opinion on protest by anthem kneeling and amazing depths of Wells Fargo thievery. Let’s throw some marijuana in for…
by - September 5, 2016 11:53 am
Riff Raff: ‘Unexpected’ connects the What Was with the What’s Next
They are back. These artists. These people who see and apply amazing visions where entirely too many of us see only brick and block and plaster and nothing and yesterday….
by - July 10, 2016 12:17 pm
Riff Raff: Don’t just say no
The medical marijuana debate will ramp up now that at least one medical marijuana issue is on Arkansas’ November ballot. Let’s hope the debate from all sides has more depth…
by - May 16, 2016 6:27 pm
Riff Raff: Got relevancy?
Carl Geffken, who recently arrived in Fort Smith to be the city’s top boss, may face a bigger chore than filling key management vacancies, or abiding by an estimated $480…
by - May 7, 2016 1:54 pm
Riff Raff: A fortunate son
Editor’s note: This essay was first posted May 10, 2009. Happy Mother’s Day! ––––––––––––– A lot has changed in Mom’s world. The world in 1949, the year of her birth,…
by - March 27, 2016 7:34 pm
Riff Raff: An attitude adjustment assessment, part II
The Fort Smith metro area has good bones. We’re a great people in a great place capable of great progress. We’ve recently seen bubble up a “shift in attitude, in…
by - March 20, 2016 8:54 pm
Riff Raff: An attitude adjustment assessment
It’s a helluva thing to have a bunch of attitude thrown in your face and delivered with a hint of swagger and a pinch of pride. Not that puffy pride…
by - March 6, 2016 6:42 pm
Riff Raff: Your papers, please
It was as if I announced intent to get naked before voting. Or begin to debate, like all the cool kids are doing, penis size. Immediate looks from several poll…
by - February 21, 2016 8:39 pm
Riff Raff: Recalculating
The firing of Fort Smith’s sanitation boss and the subsequent “discovery” of savings in the sanitation budget once again require us to compare what we hear from city officials to…
by - February 14, 2016 3:21 pm
Riff Raff: Godvernment, the new testament
One might think even with a superficial knowledge of history and religion we would see the advantage of avoiding God-based government or government-based God. That was the beginning line of…