Editorial Roundup: Recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers

Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers:

Southwest Times Record. Aug. 18, 2019.

It has taken years to get to this point, but the Fort Smith Board of Directors has finally built a foundation to begin controlling the city’s pet population.

And despite the local conspiracy theorists, this has absolutely nothing to do with the U.S. Marshals Museum.

The overpopulation of animals in Fort Smith is a community-wide problem, and it is going to take a community-wide effort to get under control.

In August 2018, the HOPE Humane Society wrote the Times Record to let us know they were “past the breaking point.” There were 540 dogs in the shelter and more than 200 cats. Fort Smith was a hub for drop-offs. It was appalling. Dogs literally were stacked on top of each other, crammed in crates inside rooms that were supposed to only hold cats.

That is not humane. This animal ordinance is. And it brings Fort Smith up into the 21st century.

It took a year of haggling, and the collapse of the HOPE Humane Society, but there is light at the end of the tunnel now for local animals. And it is not going to cost us much. People who own a dog or cat will need to get the animal microchipped, registered, and spayed or neutered, unless they want a breeding license for $500.

For rescue animals, there are vouchers available for spay/neuter operations at Kitties & Kanines. For others, the price is about $30. Microchips, which we are told are not tracking or listening devices for the government, are also reasonably priced in the $35-$50 range.

And once the ordinance is complete and on the books, companies like PetCo and PetSmart are more likely to provide grants that will pay for microchipping. Just call a veterinarian or even Kitties & Kanines and they’ll get you started.

“How are they going to know if my pet is fixed or microchipped and registered or not?” may be a common question now.

Answer: They’re not.

The police are not going to come knocking on your door asking if you have your pet registered and spayed or neutered. The police are actually moving Animal Control out of their patrol division and renaming it the Health & Safety division.

How much is going to cost?

During the rule-making process, At-Large Director Robyn Dawson thankfully introduced an amendment that makes registration of spayed/neutered animals a one-time $10 fee instead of an annual fee. Vice Mayor and At-large Director Kevin Settle also held strong to a provision that will not penalize responsible pet owners. With Settle’s rule in place, a pick-up fee will not be imposed on people whose pets are spayed/neutered and microchipped.

There is also a motion to reduce licensing costs/fees for senior citizens. The board is expected to vote on that soon.

One of the best things about the ordinance, too, is it allows TNR (Trap Neuter and Release) programs for feral cat colonies. Feral cats are not adoptable, so they won’t be held at Kitties & Kanines. They will be fixed and released back into their cat colony.

Considering the situation Fort Smith was in just six months ago, with dogs and cats inhumanely housed in a “humane society,” we think the city board and administration has done an excellent job in trying to finally get something done about this problem.

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Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Aug. 18, 2019.

“The past is a great place and I don’t want to erase it or to regret it, but I don’t want to be its prisoner either.” - Mick Jagger

The frontman for the Rolling Stones, who is now 76 years old, has lived an extraordinary life since he first took the stage with his bandmates in 1962. His life was born of musical talent capable of taking him around the world performing through the next 57 years.

His past is a story full of remarkable creativity and success. Like most people, he’s experienced great joys and heart-rending tragedies. All in all, Jagger could easily be forgiven if he just sat back and basked in nostalgia.

Jagger knows the past cannot be forgotten, but if allowed, it can become a limiting force on one’s future.

Once upon a time, back in 1975, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones was arrested in Fordyce, Arkansas, on a charge of reckless driving as he and three others opted to sightsee between concerts in Memphis and Dallas. Thirty-one years later, Gov. Mike Huckabee issued him a pardon. That, to our knowledge, is Arkansas’ most interesting brush with the Rolling Stones beyond two concerts performed in the state.

We certainly don’t know that Jagger ever visited Harrison, the county seat of Boone County, but city leaders there today seem to share Jagger’s sentiment about not wanting to be under the thumb of history. To a degree, they have tried to erase a racist past that gives them no satisfaction in 2019.

Mayor Jerry Jackson says the Harrison of today deserves to be known as the “best small town in America.” As the city’s chief executive, he ought to believe that and work to make it so.

Something from the past, however, is holding Harrison back. And Wikipedia is, at least in part, getting the blame.

Wikipedia.org is one of the most visited websites on the World Wide Web. From its start, it has been an open-source reference site whose users contribute content. From a journalistic perspective, it might be a good starting point for a general idea on a subject, but the nature of its creation means it’s not an entirely reliable as a source of information.

But people use it. A lot. More than 500 million unique visitors a month.

The problem for Harrison is found in Wikipedia’s article about the city. About five sentences into the article, readers find this: “Race riots by whites in 1905 and 1909 drove away black residents, establishing Harrison as a sundown town. Today (2019) it is known as a center of white supremacist activity, including the national headquarters of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.”

More details follow deeper into the piece.

Over the years, people editing the article have removed the references to the town’s racial history. It’s usually not long before someone adds the information back.

It turns out, the city government of Harrison has actively tried, and tried, to remove the sentences mentioned above. They never stay gone long. Wikipedia’s operators have placed limitations on the removal of the content, recognizing the battle over its inclusion.

Who can blame Harrison, really? In recent years, the city has had a task force that has worked hard to promote diversity and battle against continued accusations of racial bias. There’s no question the race riots in the early part of the 1900s happened, but more than 100 years later, city leaders say it doesn’t make sense to highlight them as a relevant reflection of modern-day Harrison.

“Those race riots were all over the country, so I don’t know why we would want to highlight Harrison in that manner,” Mayor Jackson told Democrat-Gazette reporter Bill Bowden. “It’s not exclusive to Harrison, and it was 100 years ago.”

Time, Mick Jagger might say, is on their side.

Harrison really does deserve to be known by more than its past and its lingering KKK connection, fueled largely by a KKK leader’s residency in a town about 15 miles from Harrison. That leader uses a Harrison post office box for correspondence.

We applaud the city’s efforts toward diversity. It’s a beautiful small town in the middle of the Ozarks with about 13,000 residents. People should give it a chance. Visit there.

Harrison has come a long way. But nobody can or should just pretend that the past didn’t happen. Trying to erase history is a fool’s errand. History fights to be remembered. Forgetting it is something done at the community’s own peril.

They say the best revenge is living well. That’s what this community in Boone County has to do. Harrison in 2019 has a story to tell. It’s naive to suggest the town is the same as it was in the early 1900s.

Every community is so much more than its Wikipedia entry. Anyone seriously considering a visit or relocation ought to do far more homework than relying on a website known to have its shortcomings.

As for Harrison’s dogged pursuit of cleaning up the Wikipedia article? Just ask Mick Jagger: You can’t always get what you want.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Aug. 20, 2019.

Fayetteville is a beautiful town in the Boston Mountains that’s likely to soon become the second-largest city in Arkansas. And it has a lot going for it: a strong economy, a brilliant university, and an alluring entertainment district on Dickson Street.

Part of that entertainment district includes a nationally famous bookstore that so many people have come to love. And we’re sad to say the co-founder of that bookstore died last week. His name was Charles O’Donnell, and he was 85.

Anyone who’s been to the bookstore will likely be able to recall how magical it is. On the outside, it just looks like a long brick building at the corner of Dickson Street and North School Avenue. On the inside are endless Harry Potter-like halls filled with thousands of books that stretch for what seems like miles.

We’ve been there a few times, and there’s just something fantastic about the smell of the old bookshop, a hidden wisdom dancing across surrounding pages, sometimes felt, never seen. It’s easy to get lost in the Dickson Street Bookshop, both literally and metaphorically, within one of thousands of books.

And one of the most magical things about Mr. O’Donnell was if you asked him where something was, even vaguely, he could pull out a map and show you exactly where to look. We bought a few books from there through the years, but one of our favorites was a Calvin and Hobbes collection. The store had everything.

Comics? Right over there. Cookbooks revealing hidden Indonesian cuisine? Go down a few rows and turn left. Obscure fiction series about a secret agent during World War II? Check that stack over there behind the framed map. If you wanted it, Dickson Street Bookshop likely had it.

The bookshop also helped the Fayetteville Public Library get some rare books back that had been stolen. One of our friends who works there told us someone was taking valuable first-edition books and attempting to sell them to the Dickson Street Bookshop. Well, someone at the bookshop recognized the books, got the cops involved, and the library got some of its books back. Isn’t there something about books of a feather sticking together?

It seems in life, Mr. O’Donnell also got a little bit of everything. His obituary (which you can read here: https://bit.ly/30aBOin) said he fought in the Korean War, developed and overcame a drinking problem and survived some pretty serious heart and kidney problems that failed to take him down before his time. The guy even worked up until the day before he died. Talk about a trooper.

When his physical health eventually prevented him from working at the store, Mr. O’Donnell simply decided he’d continue work from home. And this was between dialysis, doctors’ appointments and hospital stays. That’s a sign of a man who has built something dear to his heart and won’t let anything short of the Grim Reaper stop him from being involved with it.

The obituary is full of grand humor, saying he loved “the Boston Red Sox (even this season, the bums).” Something tells us he probably had a hand in crafting the obituary.

Our favorite line from the whole thing was that Mr. O’Donnell claimed he read every title that came through his bookshop, which seems impossible, but isn’t really. It seems Mr. O’Donnell stayed sharp right up until he left this world.

Fayetteville owes him quite a bit for starting that famous bookshop and brightening the lives of residents for decades. And we send along our condolences to Mr. O’Donnell’s family. May you find peace through this loss.

Thanks for the books and the laughs, Mr. O’Donnell. We need more of both in this world each day. Now if we could only learn more about that shotgun blast that took out a bookshop window and very nearly hit Mr. O’Donnell. Some mysteries persist.