Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers:
Pine Bluff Commercial, Dec. 21, 2016
Why not Wi-Fi?
We read with great interest a news item regarding free wireless internet access in downtown Batesville.
The free service was launched this month and is being implemented to attract more people to the downtown district which has been revitalized over the past three years, according to the Associated Press.
Batesville Main Street executive director Joel Williams says the town is the second in Arkansas to offer free internet access throughout its downtown area. Conway was the first. Batesville’s service has restrictions on most streaming video in order to prevent the system from being frequently overwhelmed.
Bob Carius, former president of Main Street Batesville’s board of directors, says activity in the downtown area has surged only recently because merchants and officials have bought into a cohesive vision to upgrade the area.
Bad Boy Mowers, one of the city’s largest employers, sponsored the free Wi-Fi project by committing about $10,000 over three years, said Scott Lancaster, general counsel for the company, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
This is exactly something that Pine Bluff could benefit from. Everyone loves free internet access, and what better way to help attract businesses and shoppers to the downtown area? We must begin offering some incentives before our downtown can grow and prosper.
Free internet access may seem like a small thing to some, but we know that it would be an attraction, just as the good folks of Batesville knew it would be one for their city.
We are not alone in our thinking, either.
John Horn, CEO of Ingenu, a technology company that specializes in wireless technology, wrote recently on ReadWrite.com that “a city that illustrates a commitment to improvement through smart initiatives is more likely to build strong, well-informed, and healthy communities.
“For example, by creating an autonomous smart bus network and offering free citywide Wi-Fi, Barcelona has effectively encouraged its residents to drive less, walk more, and get out and explore the area. As a result, pollution levels have decreased, obesity rates have dropped, and residents feel engaged with their hometown.
“In America, Atlantic City, N.J., is embracing smart technology by installing LED streetlights that feature charging stations and display screens that keep citizens informed of current events and emergency announcements.”
The bigger point we are trying to make is this: When are we going to get our act together and do something with our city’s core? Just about every other community in the state is making strides with their downtowns. We know that our streetscape project is going to roll out next year, where new trees and sidewalks will help beautify the area. But we need to do something to attract businesses and foot traffic as well.
We need sidewalk cafes and shops and other small businesses. Free internet would be a good place to start, we believe. Start small and branch out is the key. At least provide some kind of incentive for folks to come downtown. Right now, it’s a dead zone.
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Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Dec. 26, 2016
A new Lee holiday?
Gov. Asa Hutchinson is taking on a adversary who lost his last fight, but who still commands a significant following.
Who will win the Battle of Hutchinson-Lee remains to be seen.
Robert E. Lee has been dead 146 years, but some states still pay tribute to the Confederate commander who, even in ultimate defeat, is the iconic symbol for the defense of Southern life. Today, only fools embrace the uglier parts of the pre-Civil War South, but there is a longing to preserve Southern identity. Much about Lee — his intelligence, his exceptional success as a soldier in service to the U.S. and Confederacy, his desire to behave honorably even in circumstances he would have preferred to have avoided - stands him up as champion of Southern heritage.
But Lee’s best qualities are overshadowed by his leadership in a war that centered on the unjust enslavement of human beings.
Arkansas has formally observed Lee’s birthday since 1947 as a state holiday. In the mid-80s, responding to a national movement, state lawmakers adopted a holiday to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Achieving it required a legislative compromise: Both men were to be honored on the same day. That worked in the 1980s, but it’s been a distasteful arrangement for many who see Lee only for his worst behaviors and King for only his best.
Hutchinson, in announcing his priorities for the approaching 2017 General Assembly, said he wants the January holiday focused on King and his civil rights achievements. Perhaps an observance of Lee could happen in the fall, he suggested. He hasn’t detailed exactly how he wants to fashion the new state approach, but apparently, the fact Lee’s birthday is on Jan. 19 doesn’t factor into Hutchinson’s notions.
If a Lee holiday didn’t already exist in Arkansas, a proposal to create it in 2017 would rightly be ridiculed. So in this debate, perhaps the question is whether the two really can be separate but equal?
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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Dec. 26, 2016
True to their trust
It used to be called the problem of the Faithless Electors, those who refused to follow their pledge to cast a state’s electoral ballots in accordance with the instructions of their state legislatures and of the voters themselves. Lest we forget, We the People do not vote for president directly in this representative system of government, but for a slate of electors pledged to support the presidential candidate of our choice. But this year, our six duly elected and certified electors - one for each of the state’s four congressional seats plus two at-large - stayed true to their pledge and all went off without a hitch. Whew.
To quote one of the faithful electors, Gayla Paschalle of Little Rock, “I’m really here to exercise my civil rights. I could have stayed home. It’s a really cold morning.” But she did her duty, just like all the other electors. They’ll all do to tie to, as used to be said of units that held their place in the line of fire despite all the enemy’s best efforts to break them. Or just encourage them to desert and return home to their wives and families.
This year each elector wore his/her insignia of rank, too: a small round pin to show they were members of an elite group, the Electoral College of the United States, and not some mob intent on bending others to their personal will. Or handing off their votes to the highest bidder. All of them went by not just the letter of the law but its spirit. And all was peaceable, even friendly, as electors mingled with protesters, thanking them for being there to express their views in the most peaceable, even friendly, fashion. So do self-respecting and others-respecting citizens of a Republic show that they understand that united we stand, divided we fall. Civility was the order of the day, not ordering others about under the guise of telling them to follow their own conscience.
One of this state’s electors, Keith Gibson of Lavaca, said he’d been the recipient of almost 70,000 emails, 100 letters and a dozen phone calls urging him to follow his conscience, do his duty, and stand up against any rush to misjudgment - and, sure enough, he’d done all of the above by voting for Donald Trump as the next and 45th president of the United States.
It wasn’t clear how many among this deluge of demands to buck the Founders’ system had actually come from Arkansans and how many were just mass-produced by out-of-state outfits. Whatever its origin, Elector Gibson said he never considered voting for anyone but The Donald for president. That’s what he’d said he’d do and that’s what he did. To him and his fellow electors, it was as simple as that - and as complex as a system of representative government rather than one that follows the lead of a dictator and obeying his every whim.
No matter how high the piles of paper appeals mounted, it didn’t seem to matter to these distinguished citizens and electors, who weren’t about to make a big deal of just doing their duty and following the will of the people. Good for them and good for all who just do their duty without a lot of fuss-n-feathers and histrionics in general. It shouldn’t take a mailing list and lots of pre-fabricated appeals to get citizens to just do what’s right without all these high-pressure tactics and the rest of the rigmarole that goes with it. Why urge folks to follow somebody else’s conscience? They have a conscience of their own, thank you, and one should more than suffice.
To read all these supposedly high-minded appeals and how they’re different from politics as she is usually played brings to mind Huey Long’s distinction between high popalorum and low popahirum. One was taken from the top of the tree down and the other from the bottom of the tree up. Why not just tell it with the bark off, and let the Devil take the hindmost? Which greatly simplifies matters and, what’s more, allows those who practice honest candor to sleep better o’nights. Unlike a contemporary version of Cassius, who was forever pacing the floor and wondering how much devilment he could put his fellow citizens up to by calling it conscience instead of opportunism.
Just let electors do the electing and voters do the voting and there’ll be no need to worry about how other folks are doing their duty, let alone pressing them to join the mob, aka Public Opinion, and setting off all kinds of repercussions that no republic needs. Indeed, the whole purpose of the Constitution of the United States would seem to be hold public opinion in check, not give it reckless reign. Or as the Preamble to that remarkable document puts it: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” If the spelling and punctuation of that document are more than a little dated, its principles aren’t.
When this quadrennial storm has safely passed and will be noted in old history books rather than today’s headlines, there’ll be time enough to conduct post-mortems and trade second and third thoughts. Sure, none of these goings-on are easy on the families of the electors, but theirs is almost an occupational hazard of going into politics or marrying someone who has taken up that vocation. Our thanks to all those who find themselves caught up in this hemi-semi-demi web of pressures and counter-pressures. You’ve done your duty and none of us can ask for anything more - or expect anything less.
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