Friday

Last day (hopefully) of WOTP deinstall. Last Friday in to work. I'm going in early so as to enjoy my coffee and paper routine one last time.

More Pie

Coconut from Chips

Rare Sight

Look at that empty street! And all that parking! On a Friday lunch hour in the River Market! Riverfest begins tonight, folks, and the police already have the area cordoned off. You have to park and hike in. As to the barricades, I have no idea. But that green storefront is Boulevard Bread, maker of the best sandwich this side of the Atlantic, and walling it off blocks from parking during the lunch hour is just cruel. It's not for myself I say this, but for all the disenfranchised downtown workers without a blog and thus no means to protest. Still, despite all the obstacles, the truly devoted sandwich eater will rise to the challenge.


See? This is lunch for two, plus cupcakes from Brown Sugar. I am on a mission of mercy. Have no fear, friend who is at home, I will bring you a Boulevard sandwich (and a cupcake).

Postpartum Lost

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Huge Internal Dilemma

Sarah is Home

Taking Stock Before Tuesday

Senator Blanche Lincoln is supposedly in tight but survivable territory as she endures a primary challenge this Tuesday from Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter. Sitting senators almost always win in these scenarios, possibly why there hasn't been a primary challenge to a sitting AR senator from either party in 36 years. This fact was thrown out during the intro to the Lincoln Halter debate this last Friday in an attempt to gild the frame around the event. This was especially necessary as neither candidate had especially impressed in previous debates. The MC went on. A Golden Glove boxing competition was held in this same space last week! Debate is the safeguard of our democracy and our greatest protection from tyranny! And then they brought out the candidates and got down to brass tacks. I was sitting next to Mrs. Davenport, who gave me a pen to take notes in return for a promise to spread the word that her husband Monty is running for land commissioner. Mrs. Davenport was supporting Lincoln. A row of teamsters in front of me were with Halter. In fact my row seemed to be all Lincoln supporters, but as an Amen Corner they were far less vocal than the teamsters.

This feels the race in a nutshell. Halter with lots of Union support, making lots of noise, lots of ads on the radio and on tv, his face in banners on all my news websites including, disconcertingly, the international ones. Lincoln is supposed to be running an intense campaigning too, but it is far less visible to me. I've only seen one ad for her. When I go down to the river to pick up the girls for mentoring, the street is lined with Halter signs. Coming up to the Convention Center for the debate, Halter volunteers were everywhere. Lincoln did get in a dig at the door though.


Lincoln has been dinging Halter for buying a rug with taxpayer money. I doubt it's very effective. Certainly not as effective as all those country accents thanking Bill Halter on the radio, or complaining about Blanche Lincoln's Washington ways.

In the debate Halter was pugnacious and on point, consistently using every reply to contrast himself favorably with Lincoln. Lincoln was sweet and vague. By the close Halter seemed irritable, perhaps tense at not having got more of a rise out of Lincoln and possibly annoyed that the third candidate in the race, a non factor named DC Morrison, had a good showing dryly delivering anecdotes and common sense one liners to the crowd. Halter needs the Lincoln protest vote to go to him if he is to have a chance. But half the time Morrison sided with Lincoln and never really joined Halter to attack the Senator. Meanwhile Lincoln seemed a little unsteady early, but closed strong with a better ending statement than Halter's. She can rightly tout her experience and her chairmanship of the Agriculture Committee.

The truth is, the debate makes clear Lincoln as benefited from weak to non-existent opposition in her political career. This seems true of a lot of state politicians. They rise through the ranks with a combination of timing and luck. Halter's challenge vs. Lincoln also benefits from timing and luck, running in an anti-incumbent year against a senator that national unions are deeply invested in defeating. Even though Halter's union position is very much the same as Lincoln's. But Lincoln voted against card check legislation, and although unions know Halter isn't for card check either, they don't particularly care as long as they can be shown taking a senatorial scalp.

In this way local elections are battlegrounds for groups neither from the state nor with much investment in its welfare. Likewise the results will be read to reflect larger national story lines. My hope is that Arkansas will return Blanche Lincoln, mainly because the Agriculture Chairmanship in good for the state. That Bill Halter will pack up his political ambitions after this race, mainly because his lottery legislation and his letting his campaign be used as a head hunting tool by outside parties strikes me as cynical. And that come the fall, the Democrats nationwide will take stock of the new numbers in the Senate, whatever they may be, and decide it should not be such a bad thing to have a tent big enough to accommodate conservative democrats.

Ascension Sunday: the Kingdom and the State

A thought after hearing the sermon today. That politics dominates the human imagination even among people not particularly political, so that even though people hold ideas that describe power in many different ways, when something of enormous magnitude happens imaginations often leap to politics as a sort of secret pinnacle of the transformative.

Consider the resurrection and ascension. Christ is bodily raised. And though Christ has given many explicit and implicit signs that his kingdom is not of this world, and though the disciples have been under Christ's instruction through all of it, they still extrapolate the resurrection out to it's implications for the Romans and Israel's governance. We are not given indications that the disciples are particularly interested in politics. Only one of them is described as having any political identity. Yet the resurrection is such an amazing event it is as if its ends must primarily manifest themselves in human governance. "Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" the disciples ask at the beginning of Acts. Christ brushes off the question. Instead he points to the coming of the Holy Spirit and commissions them as witnesses. Israel does not get another mention. Then he ascends. The Ascension, for one final and definitive time, separates out the Kingdom of God from the human State. Shifting in systems of human governance will happen, but this won't merit a mention at Christ's farewell. The coming of the Kingdom, as Christ prepares the disciples for it, is an event outside the parameters of the State.

This is worth considering after watching elections for the past few weeks. I've been following the British elections and I'm watching the US gear up for midterm elections too, with primaries this month. For me, fascinating stuff. It's not as if politics doesn't matter or as if health or hurt aren't advanced through the state. But it is true - like the disciples wondering if the resurrection's purpose wasn't going to be a coup - that we are terrible at assigning things their true significance. In default, we order things pretty much as the world orders itself, with governance at the top. The disciples might not have described themselves as overrating the importance of politics. They were all following an itinerant preacher around for a living, after all. But assumptions of the apparent natural order of things operated in them just as strongly. Will you restore the kingdom to Israel?, they ask. We are prone to these same assumptions about the primariness of the state, even when we are not particularly interested in politics. On the day to day level maybe we're right in this assumption. But ultimately the answer is no. The Ascension brushes aside the state as the key to big picture understanding. In the natural order of that world, no coup or election drives the action. Instead, Christ points toward the Holy Spirit. To invest your energies in the world, in whatever arena, with true significance, look there.

Future sermon series?

Civic Duty Lunch Break

The Arkansas Times is reporting that Lincoln vs. Halter is a toss up, but using Kos numbers for what that's worth. And assuming that pretty much all the undecideds swing to Halter. All this should spice up their last debate. I'm off to find out.

Ha!

Following the British election I thought it was a choice between Labor (Gordon Brown), Tories (David Cameron), and Liberal Democrats (Nick Clegg). But apparently that doesn't cover all the options.

Activate the Queen

Sleeper cells of monarchy, awake! Your country needs you.

Yen for a Deviled Egg

There is nothing you can do...


except go to Terri Lynns...



and buy one.

Your Faithful Correspondent Relentlessly Tracks AR Politicians. Let No Coffee Break Go Unnoticed!

Grabbing Friday coffee and who should show up at Community Bakery but Bill Halter, senate candidate. Caffeinating for tonight's debate? He's down in the polls but closing. Because holding the Senate Ag committee chairmanship is a terrible thing for Arkansas.

Friday Morning Ritual

...and the movie section of the newspaper :)

Five Embarrassing Misses for an Arkansas Girl

1. The races at Oaklawn
2. Crater of Diamonds
3. Floating the Buffalo
4. Helena Blues Festival
5. Dog Patch

I've got four months

Hello Spring

Beginning today, the first full week. Vernal Equinox shout-out.

Yum!

Dean and Deluca marzipan bunny family

Alice in Wonderland

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum both say Yay, but in a divided way, as is their wont.

Can't Help Myself

A book I want to read

A book I can't wait to see

Ha!

A dream come true

Sunday Morning Links

A little Sunday morning randomness for your pleasure (and because for two of these items I need to save the links):

MSNBC has a nice slide show up on the long forgotten Clark fortune. So that's where that wing of the Corcoran comes from!

Someone else's long forgotten fortune has appreciated nicely: Woman Tried for Failure to Report Treasure

Vancouver is over, next up Sochi. "Develop a good thick skin and don't shy away from criticism," said spokeswoman Renee Smith-Valade (to the Russians), "because it's healthy and it makes you better at what you do." There is a slight absurdist vein to Russia receiving this advice. In the same vein - Sochi was established as a summer resort under Joseph Stalin. Thank You Stalin! Sochi 2014

A different sort of survival of the fittest: a fascinating article in the London Review of Books on psychological Darwinism

But the world is not all tooth and claw: The Goring celebrates its 100th anniversary. I have never stayed here, but it is the nicest place in London for tea. Big deep chairs, fireplace. I thought it was sort of démodé. It is a little disappointing to learn that it is not.

A blue sky picture with an iPhone is doomed to fail from the start, but you should know that the sky is blindingly blue and cloudless today.

Alternate Love Stories for Valentines Day

Lorna's Silence

Just Another Love Story

Let the Right One In

Snow!

We were not supposed to get snow. Do you know how often Arkansas gets snow even when it is forecast? Almost never! Do you know how often Arkansas gets snow when it is not forcast? Never! And yet...


Snow!


I can finally wear my furry Russian hat!!

Back From the City

But if New York is a city, what is Little Rock? Clearly not the same type of city. In fact, is Little Rock a city at all?

Nope, I'll say for argument. Little Rock is a lovely place, spread along a river and up into the foothills of the Ozarks, but why call it a "city?" Like half the nation, it is a distended realm of housing and businesses, like a paved prairie for living, and with this distinct shift in the urban environment of the country should come a name to acknowledge the modern feat. Little Rock is not some ancient collection of resources gathered within walls or some honeycomb of culture concentrated within easy distance of inhabitants. "City" is just the name of the government. Once you have traveled far enough away from one government to run into another one, voila!, you've switched "cities." Efforts to revitalize downtown centers the country over are a testament to the fact that most cities are no longer "cities" and are trying to reinvent the lost image of self in the shell of a pre-car downtown root. Nothing wrong with that. But there is the danger of costly boondoggles while trying to get people to live in ways that modern society outgrew (trolleys?). Why not just rename our spaces a title more suggestive of what we are and what we have invented? Maybe thinking of where we live as "cities" is what causes some of the hang-ups with planning because the conceptions are all wrong, old old images that don't apply. Maybe we should name the realms something new and get busy landscaping.

My Dream Is To One Day Perfectly Separate Chopsticks

Little Rock In The Rearview Mirror

Ha! A New Take On the Morning Dosage of Politics

I hope there is more where this came from

Heads Up

Thomas Hudson will be on Fox 16 at 10 to talk about relief efforts in Haiti. I'll see if I can find a link later.

Heights Nostalgia With My Mother

Where can you order breakfast till 2:00? Satellite Cafe!





Eggs Hollandaise with extra hollandaise. You have to watch these generous serving types.

"I used to come here all the time, " says Mama as we enter. Back then it was Halls Drug Store.

"That was all a soda fountain," gesturing, "and that whole area there, where they are cooking, was where they did the drugs." Mama has a way of accidently referencing sinister activities in mundane descriptions.

She goes on. The bank across the street on the corner used to be Miss Cordell's, a big old home turned into a delicatessan which smelled, according to Mama, of wood and coffee and which had a pickle barrel and suckers from Europe.

Down the street by the Heights theater was The Food Palace where her mother always bought bread at Frank's Bakery, disappointing all her kids who wanted the white loaves in plastic sacks from the chain stores.

Across the street was Fridays Florist, which was the main florist and designer in town. "There was always sawdust on the floor. Howard was just starting out with Tipton and Hurst against Fridays. Now he's put them out of business." Or almost - I think Fridays is exiled to somewhere out Hwy 10.

Cobblestone and Vine, the boutique at the corner of Club and Van Buren, was Smith's Drug, which served cheesebugers and fries in baskets for the caddies from the Club and for what seemed like all the world on Saturdays.

"Laura," she says, "I wish you could have seen the Heights in its glory days."

Temptation Resisted

Game Change

Chronic City

Changing My Mind

The Evolution of God

It helps if you make lists.

Rosie Meets Chocolate Pie

Rosie takes a bite. She is naturally a cautious. What is this strange mass of gelatinous stuff? Or maybe gelatinous stuff is not far from what she is used to. Will it taste like carrots?


Joy! No carrot can compare! It is true, dear child. And this is just your first slice! Welcome to the world of pie.

More Pie

Coconut pie