Brummett's Blog

State Sen. Jim Argue, honored last night at the Peabody as one of four humanitarians of the year by Just Communities of Central Arkansas, formerly NCCJ, said this to me at the reception beforehand: "You're a terrible blogger. You never update it. I've quit even checking you." Don't I know it? I started so strong with this new toy during the legislative session. I'd see something in a Capitol corridor and blog it in real time. But I turned out to be a kid with a new toy, and kids tire of toys. I write five columns a week. I go around the state talking to groups. I play tennis four times a week. I need to cut the grass. I'm going on a two-week vacation in a couple of weeks. So, where does this blog stand? Dormant. But not dead. I reserve the right to jump-start the rascal whenever the mood strikes or events warrant. By the way, Joycelyn Elders was another honoree last night and said some fun stuff about sex that will be the subject of my Sunday column. You'll notice I save the good stuff for the newspaper. I'm incurably old media, I guess. Incurably old, period.

Posted by John Brummett at 09:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Perhaps you recall my mentioning from time to time that I lead a class called "Behind the Headlines" each Wednesday morning at Second Presbyterian Church in Little Rock in the active-retiree program called "LifeQuest," formerly Shepherd Center. We have a good time and maybe a couple of hundred attend in the sanctuary. So next week I'll be in Fayetteville overnight Tuesday for what sounds interesting and fun, 10 minutes of commencement remarks to GED graduation. Not wanting to drive back to LR late at night or by 9 a.m. the next day, I had to get a sub for LifeQuest. So I got one. It's the governor, Mike Beebe. I appreciate his tinkering with his schedule to do it — not for me, but for those admirably active and thoroughly delightful retired folks. Fair warning to him: I encouraged these fine folks to ask him why he didn't show more initative and leadership and inject himself ad hoc into the Little Rock school mess for mediation. I told Beebe having him there would be the next best thing to having me. He replied, and I do not know what this had to do with it: "I know Dale Bumpers. Dale Bumpers is a friend of mine. You're no Dale Bumpers."

Posted by John Brummett at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I need to blog more or not at all. For the moment, I pick more. Let's talk about Mike Huckabee's supposed new viabilty as a Republican presidential candidate for making a joke. One — that says something about our political discourse, doesn't it? Two — I've said all along that his glibness will give him a fleeting moment in the sun. Three — I've also said all along, and I stole this from a fellow who can't be identified with it, that Huckabee is really running for cable talk show host. That's unless he gets the vice presidential nomination first. How about this: Hillary-Richardson versus McCain/Rudy-Huckabee? I think McCain, but Rudy showed me something in the debate the other night, seizing that Ron Paul-produced moment to play to his anti-terror strength and shift the spotlight from his social liberalism. Winning candidates show that kind of initiative and savvy. More on that in my national column, which, by the way, you can discover Sunday at reviewjournal.com before it shows up on Arkansas sites Monday at nwaonline.net or arkansasnews.com. Speaking of coming columns: Saturday's picks the best and worst of the recent legislative session. Sunday's seeks to stir a dollop of contoversy about the modern power of the Arkansas speaker of the House, the "mini-governor."

Posted by John Brummett at 07:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Walter Hussman, taking time out from running the Little Rock Public Schools, writes a commentary piece for the Wall Street Journal's on-line edition explaining that newspapers are "cannibalizing" themselves by offering free news, criticizing the AP for allowing Yahoo and Google and MSN to subscribe and bragging on himself for having subscription-only news for the Dem-Gaz on-line, and for using the on-line edition to tease, or, as he says, complement rather than cannibalize the paper product. He says we've made news a ubiquitous commodiity, and that that's a mistake. Actually, you can still get a lot of the D-G news free by going through nwanews.com, the Northwest Arkansas alliance with the Northwest Arkansas Times and Benton County Daily Record. And I have found myself weaned from Hussman's Little Rock paper product, mainly because the Arkansas Times blog tells me everything I need to know (immediately and with savvy attitude) about local news and I get national and international news elsewhere. The only things the D-G has locally that the Times blog doesn't are obituaries and local columnists who haven't managed to become required reading. But that's just me. There's a company I know of — well, I work for it — that seems to think the future viability of the paper product (well, at least one form of future viability) is in small towns and mid-sized towns where there are no on-line options for community news. It is interesting that while newspapers everywhere lost circulation in the recent cycle, three that gained were the D-G and the Stephens' ones in Northwest Arkansas and Fort Smith. You can almost always count on Arkansas to be different.

Posted by John Brummett at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, the Republican presidential debate of last evening brings me out of blogging semi-retirement. I have a column for tomorrow ranking those characters 1 to 10, and doing so quite differently from this morning's emerging conventional pundit wisdom. Look for it at arkansasnews.com or nwaonline.net/opinion. I'll not scoop myself, but say this: I thought Huckabee was typically superficial and trivial, but his old pal and paid political consultant, Dick Morris, produces a column this morning calling him the third winner, with McCain, who scared me at times, and Romney, certainly the prettiest. I seem more impressed with Rudy than others were.

Posted by John Brummett at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)