Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art reaches out to local schools

A recent New York Times feature story about the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art recited the now familiar spiel on the location of the institution, the pet project of Wal-Mart heir, Alice Walton, which opened in November, 2011. Roberta Smith calls the museum's home, Bentonville, Arkansas, a "small town in northwest Arkansas."

As I have noted in earlier posts, Bentonville is hardly a "small town." In fact, is in a metropolitan area with nearly half a million people, but Smith is not the first to characterize it as such. See earlier posts here and here. And admittedly, the immediate setting of the museum is bucolic, as the top photo suggests.

But Smith is more focused on the museum and its collection than she is on its location, and she concludes her opening paragraph with this assessment:

But there it stands, a big, serious, confident, new institution with more than 50,000 square feet of gallery space and a collection worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a region almost devoid of art museums.

Smith mentions an interesting gap in the Crystal Bridges collection--indeed an ironic one: "the almost complete lack of paintings by largely self-taught or folk artists."

This omission is especially noteworthy because rural America is so often associated with the common man, as well as with other connotations of folksy.

And, indeed, the museum is reaching out to the "common man" or--more precisely--the common child. Smith notes the museum's "ambitious education program, which will reach out to more than 80,000 elementary students in the area."

Related to these programs, I assume, is the Crystal Bridges Fenceworks exhibit, which sits at the entrance to the museum grounds.

The art fence caught my eye when I visited the museum on its opening day, Nov. 11, 2011. I took the photos below of the artwork of students at area schools, including Springdale, Bentonville, Fayetteville, West Fork, Elkins and many others. Some of the scenes depicted are very local--such as that of the Rodeo of the Ozarks. You can see that one painting is in a van Gogh style, another a la Monet. I wonder how long Fenceworks will remain, and if it will be a rotating exhibit, with new paintings by area children each year. The sign on it suggests that the exhibit will grow.

Uranium mining blocked at Grand Canyon

Read the New York Times story here, for which the lede follows:

The Obama administration is set to announce on Monday that it will block new uranium mining on one million acres in northern Arizona near the Grand Canyon, lobbyists and Interior Department employees who had been informed about the decision said on Friday.

Such mining has been the subject of an interim ban since 2009. In proposing an extension of the ban, Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, cited "potential for pollution in waterways and harm to wildlife, desert vegetation and air quality."

Felicity Barringer's story offers this political perspective on the moratorium:

The long moratorium has been opposed by the region's Congressional Republicans. They argue that it would prevent the creation of thousands of jobs and upend a 28-year-old compromise on land use forged by environmentalists and mining proponents during the Reagan administration.

Once again, then, the story is spun as one that pits rural economics against environmental protection. See a recent, related post here.

A subsequent New York Times report is here.

New York Times again turns attention to Post Office closures

Campbell Robertson reports in today's paper on the grassroots efforts of communities in rural north Arkansas to save their post offices. While I've been writing about such efforts in the context of northwest Arkansas (in particular, Newton County, see posts here, here and here), Robertson's focus is a bit farther east, mostly in Stone County, population 12,394. The story also includes mention and photos of the post offices in Witts Springs (Searcy County) and Tilly (Pope County), which I mentioned in this post a few weeks ago.

The story refers to the same sorts of practical arguments I've recited in my coverage of the issue (e.g., delivering medicines to the elderly, lack of broadband), but Robertson's headline, "A Fight for Post Offices and Towns' Souls," highlights what I see as the most interesting part of the story. It is the nostalgia angle--the place-as-identity angle--which is reflected in this quote:

The deeper anxiety [among rural residents fighting to keep their post offices] is an existential one. Prim, Tilly, Ida, Fox--all of these communities were named into existence decades ago, and in some cases more than a century ago, by a postmaster. While the postal authorities insist that there will be alternatives to stand-alone offices--for example, an outdoor bank of boxes--residents fear that place that began with post office buildings could simply cease to exist with their departure.

Of course, this is a point I have made in my earlier posts, too, but it's a little different when the New York Times gives it a platform. I also appreciate this quote from Stanley Morrison, identified as a 59-year-old rural Stone County logger and justice of the peace:

There are those who have been downtrodden so long, they can't get back up. And there are others who've been downtrodden so long they decide to fight back.

Another rural resident, this one in Tilly, commented, "I don't remember an issue where we had to pull together like this." Rural Arkansas communities are indeed organizing to fight the closures, but the effectiveness of their efforts remains to be seen.

Robertson notes that the junior U.S. Senator from Arkansas, Republican John Boozman is departing from his small government philosophy to propose "legislation that would ban the closing of any post office if the nearest one is more than 10 miles away."

There are times it's not as profitable, but it's important to provide that service.

Robertson's focus on Arkansas is apparently based on the fact that the state stands to lose one third of its post offices under the current round of proposed closures.

Don't miss the slide show accompanying Robertson's story. It features photos of many rural post offices in the area, and a few of their post masters, too. An earlier post about the New York Times coverage of the proposed post office closures is here.

Pulling out all the stops to save a rural school (Part VI): The value of the "isolated" school designation

I wrote in recent posts, here and here, of the efforts of the Deer-Mt. Judea School District in the Arkansas Ozarks to attract Oark school patrons away from the Jasper District, their current home. The Jasper Board of Education passed a resolution at its December 15 meeting "resolving not to cede territory to other school districts," according to the December 21, 2011 issue of the Newton County Times. An excerpt from the Jasper District resolution follows:

Whereas in the eight years since the merger, the resulting school district sand its school administration team have made substantial improvements and repairs to the physical plant at Oark Campus, substantially increased the salaries of the former Oark School District employees, and has spent countless hours forging a healthy and productive relationship with the students, parents and community members in Oark;

The resolution also referenced a December 17, 2009 public meeting with Oark school patrons at which none of the 100 or so in attendance expressed a desire to leave the Jasper School District to join the Deer-Mt. Judea district. This suggests, of course, that the issue of Oark joining Deer-Mt. Judea was on the table as recently as two years ago.

Also at the December Jasper Board of Education meeting, the members of the board and the superintendent explained that the petition recently submitted by those purporting to be Oark School patrons did not feature the requisite 75 "verifiable signatures"--meaning registered voters in the school district. The Board therefore decided not to meet with the petitioners because it was not required to do so under Arkansas law. The District's lawyer advised that doing so might set a bad precedent by which future disgruntled patrons, though few in number, might expect an audience with the Board of Education regarding grievances.

One thing the Jasper Board of Education resolution did not mention is the state funding it receives because Oark is an isolated school. I wrote an earlier post about funding for isolated schools, but I have recently learned more about what qualifies as an isolated school and a bit more about how much state funding is associated with the status. First, to qualify as an isolated school, the school must meet four of these five criteria:

• There is a distance of twelve (12) miles or more by hard-surfaced highway from the high school of the district to the nearest adjacent high school in an adjoining district;
• The density ratio of transported students is less than three (3) students per square mile of area;
• The total area of the district is ninety-five square miles (95 sq. mi.) or greater;
• Less than fifty percent (50%) of the bus route miles is on hard-surfaced roads;
• There are geographic barriers such as lakes, rivers, and mountain ranges that would impede travel to schools that otherwise would be appropriate for consolidation, cooperative programs, and shared services.

The law that provides this definition (Arkansas Code Annotated Section 6-20-601) goes on to state that an isolated school is eligible to receive isolated funding if three criteria are met:

• the school district's budget is prepared by the school district with Department of Education approval;
• the school district has a prior-year three quarter average daily membership of less than three hundred fifty (350); and
• the school district and each school within the school district meets the minimum standards for accreditation of public schools prescribed by law and regulation.

So, just how valuable is this "isolated" designation? According to this 2005 news story, up to $4.8 million dollars is available each year to be divided among the state's 27 isolated schools. An excerpt from that 2005 story follows, providing background on the "isolated" designation and what lawmakers saw as at stake. The excerpt begins with a quote from the law's sponsor, Representative Roy Ragland of Marshall, in Searcy County:

"This is probably the most important bill for me and my district," [Ragland] told colleagues. The bill would deliver about $4.8 million to the state's remotest schools in an effort to help them meet new education requirements, such as an increase in the state's minimum teacher salaries.

If the schools can't meet state standards, the state could close them, forcing even longer bus rides for students in those districts.

SB 191 passed 70-11 and now goes to the governor.

Ragland told House members there is not a companion appropriation bill. Rather, the $4.8 million would come out of the regular general fund, but only if available.

To illustrate the need for additional funding, Ragland used the consolidated Huntsville and St. Paul School District, located in his North Arkansas district.

The new district is paying about $200,000 annually to keep the tiny St. Paul schools open. If those schools close, students there would have to be bused more than 60 miles to schools in Huntsville.

Also, the rugged back roads would make the bus trip very dangerous, he said, adding that there are 27 isolated schools in the state, with about 7,000 students, which would split the $4.8 million.

"This is to subsidize those schools," Ragland said.

More recent data indicate the following amounts associated with the isolated school funding at Deer, Mt. Judea, Oark, and Kingston. I also note, for the sake of comparison, how much the Huntsville district gets for the St. Paul isolated schools (referring to all grades, K-12, not literally to multiple schools), to which Ragland referred in his 2005 comments. Note that it is substantially less than the Jasper District and the Deer-Mt. Judea districts receive.

Deer-Mt. Judea District (for those two campuses): $210,968

Jasper District (for Oark and Kingston): $296,874

Huntsville District (for St. Paul): $24,233

These payments, in February 2011 (click on "Isolated" in right hand column), represent one of two "isolated" payments to each district for FY 2011. However, the second of the two payments for FY 2011, in June 2011, are much smaller, e.g., for Jasper just $98,958 and for Huntsville, just over $8000.

Looking at the payments to all of the Arkansas school districts, the Jasper District (for Oark) receives more than any other district, following somewhat closely by the Ozark Mountain District (which covers parts of Newton County and Searcy County), which receives $232,347, and the Cossatot River District, which receives $245,538 for tiny schools at Umpire, all in Polk and Howard Counties.

In a future post, I will discuss the Ozark Mountain District's recent decision to annex an additional school, the one at Lead Hill.

Nouveau riche in North Dakota

This story in the New York Times a few days ago was chock full of rural themes: Lack of anonymity, attachment to place, and rural economies--including their association with extraction industries and farming. A.G. Sulzberger's story is headlined "A Great Divide over Oil Riches" and it tells of those who have gotten rich--and those who haven't--in the state's oil boom. In some ways, the story is the same one we're hearing more and more these days in the United States--the story of a burgeoning income and wealth gap. The difference with this one is that it presents income inequality in the microcosm of a nonmetropolitan area where, even more than than in the U.S. generally, the existence of class stratification is often vehemently denied.

The dateline is Stanley, North Dakota, population 1,301, and the story features a number of members of the community, including some long-time farmers. Some of those farmers got rich thanks to the mineral rights on their land--and some got even richer because they happened to own the mineral rights on others' land. (North Dakota happens to be a state where mineral rights can be separated from the underlying property). Here's an excerpt that provides an overview of the story and what has happened in Mountrail County, population 7673.

Sure enough, money is flowing by the barrelful into Mountrail County, transforming a tiny community once proudly situated in the middle of nowhere into an unexpected oasis of prosperity at the heart of the nation's biggest oil play.

The number of households earning more than $100,000/year spiked last year to 21%, from 6% a decade earlier. The median income rose more than 50% in the last decade, the fifth-highest rise in the nation. Deposits are one Stanley bank are now at $135 million, up from $43 million at the start of the boom.

Sulzberger's story highlights how the lack of anonymity that characterizes rural places can aggravate the awkwardness of the newfound and increasing income and wealth gap:

As with any major boom--from real estate to tech stocks to natural resources--the sudden split between the winners and the witnesses has been painful. But this is happening in a small town, where proximity and familiarity make a sudden re-ordering all the more difficult.

"It's not all good," said Leslie Anderson, who is among the lucky locals who sometimes make more from a single month of oil payments than he used to earn in a year of farming. "There are a lot of families fighting that got along before."

Sulzberger also provides a vignette of rural frugality, writing of a newfound oil millionaire living in a trailer home. Lenin Dibble farmed his whole life, but now receives as much as $80,000 a month in oil royalties. He's not spending it, though. He says he can live comfortably off his Social Security and payments he receives from leasing his farm. He's saving his oil wealth for his adult children. Dibble does complain about some of the changes the oil boom has brought:

What he and others in town notice more than the newfound money are the problems: locking the door to his house, taking the keys out of his car and seeing a quiet community where everyone knew everyone overrun by the bustle of strangers.

"I wish it had never happened," Dibble said.

Other residents may not be talking about their oil wealth, but hints of it are found in the fact that they are driving their first new car--and perhaps taking their first-ever vacation, to boot.

The trend of population loss of the high plains has also been reversed as a consequence of the boom. Mountrail County's population up nearly 16% over the past decade. And this relates to another rural phenomenon-- the attachment to place that the county's young residents can now indulge themselves, given the plentiful jobs.

The rest of Sulzberger's story is worth a read for its many rich quotes from Mountrail County locals.

An awfully rosy portrait of rural Iowa

A front-page story in today's Washington Post paints a very rosy portrait of Washington, Iowa, population 7,135, in the southeast corner of the state. Here's an excerpt from Eli Saslow's story, which contrasts how good things are in this Washington, with the bleak national portraits painted of Washington, DC and the nation by those vying for the Republican nomination for President:

What could be better at the beginning of 2012 in this other city called Washington, a rural town of 7,200 surrounded by the corn and soybean fields of eastern Iowa? This is the Washington with a 4 percent unemployment rate, with record-breaking hog and cattle production, with a new high school and a $6 million library, with a newspaper that doesn't bother to print a crime blotter, with heated sidewalks in front of the bank so customers never have to walk in the snow.

In fact, Washington is not "rural" by official U.S. Government measures, one of which sets the threshold for a rural place at fewer than 2,500 in population. Furthermore, Washington County--of which Washington is the county seat--is part of the Iowa City, Iowa Metropolitan Area. No mention is made of population loss, with which the midwest is so oft associated; indeed, Washington County's population grew about 5% in the past decade.

Never mind those so-called ecological measures of rurality. The place Saslow depicts certainly sounds rural, marked by lack of anonymity and an informal way of handling problems--problems like missed loan payments. The bank official who is the focus of the story, 62-year-old Keith Lazar, tells of how he has learned lessons regarding these matters. He recalls how, several years ago, he initiated the seizure of 25 cattle and 365 hogs from a farmer who defaulted on a loan. The seizure took seven trips, and the farmer watched from his porch for its duration. It was very tense. The banker felt awful the next day, and he hasn't handled problems the same way since.

Now Lazar abides by the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The bank manager now grants a payment extension on a small business loan to a customer encountering a sudden turn of bad luck.

Saslow suggests a link between such policies and success of Lazar's bank, which was established decades ago. The bank has had a great fiscal year, with $2.7 million in profits for 2011, $1.5 million being paid in dividends to the bank's 430 shareholders (many of them local) and $300,000 in bonuses to staff, "including greeters and tellers without college degrees." In fact, only 17.9% of Washington County's residents have a bachelor's degree or higher--about 10% below the national average. That's about the only measure by which Washington County looks less salubrious than the nation, though. Consistent with other rosy economic metrics, especially for a county with such a small population, Washington County's poverty rate is 10.9%, well below the national figure.

And the story does refer in passing to less affluent members of the community who are also bank customers, noting one seeking a loan for a mobile home. Part of the story's message--whether an accurate depiction or not--is that folks who live in mobile homes, too, are members of the community--able to pop into the bank manager's office.

Finally, the story touches on the role of civic institutions in communities like Washington. Saslow explains that folks in the Kiwanis Club--including the middle school principal, the dentist, the sheriff and the hospital president--would rather "pitch in a few $20s than raise taxes or rely on government to fix their problems." So they "solicit community improvement donations"--which they've used in the past to fund a weight room, a park fountain, and a bandstand.

Can life really be this good? Who's to be trusted to enhance our quality of life? the "state" or our neighbors? should the answer vary from rural to urban?

One thing is clear: Saslow's depiction of "rural" Iowa reflects the "love" end of our nation's love-hate relationship with rural America. But I'm always skeptical of the accuracy of any depiction of rurality that is so clearly love or hate.

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part XCIV): Training law enforcement officers

A few stories in the Newton County Times in recent months have highlighted the issue of financing, hiring and training local law enforcement officers. In prior issues, I have discussed law enforcement staffing in the county, including a plea last year by Jasper residents to have 24-hour patrols--that following a spate of burglaries. Read more here.

Now, the October 5, 2011 issue of the paper reports that the Western Grove City Council is discussing the municipality's need for law enforcement. Western Grove is Newton County's largest city, with a population of 518 (sign above shows the 2000 count), though Jasper is the county seat (2009 population down to 357). The story indicated that the city was considering contracting with the Newton County Sheriff's office to station a deputy in Western Grove. This could be a win-win for both city and county since the Sheriff's office has recently reduced its staff due to budget cuts. The Sheriff said he was working one day recently as a bailiff in the Newton County Circuit Court, the implication being that he has no staff to perform this function. The same story provides the September, 2011 Activity Report for the Sheriff's office, which shows 29 arrests, with 29 inmates housed in out-of-county detention facilities for 234 total inmate days at a total cost of $8,155. The Sheriff's office patrolled 14,299 miles, used 841.09 gallons of fuel, issued 86 citations, served 31 warrants and tuned over $1,087.83 to the Circuit Court. The office reported 40 felony and 24 misdemeanor cases for the month.

A front-page story from the November 30 issue of the Newton County Times reports that Jasper Police officer James R. Wright was one of 42 officers from around the state who completed Basic Police Training Course 2011-B at the Black River Technical College Law Enforcement Training Academy in Pocahontas. The 13-week course includes instruction in "standard police tactics, firearms, legal, educational, technical skills and practical exercises." The story does not indicate whether Wright paid for his own training or whether the City of Jasper financed his attendance at the course.

A December 14, 2011 story features the headline, "District trying to lock up criminal justice grant." It reports on the Jasper School District's application for a $40,000 grant from the Arkansas Department of Career Education to provide a course in criminal justice for Jasper District students, grades 9-12. A representative of the Dept. of Career Education had recently visited the Jasper campus to inspect its "distance learning classroom" because the program would transmitted simultaneously "between the Jasper, Oark and Kingston campuses." The program would be taught three days a week at Jasper and one day each at Kingston and Oark. Once in each nine-week period, students would meet in one location "for physical training such as learning proper handcuffing techniques." The grant would provide the school district with finger print kids and other basic equipment. The district would have to hire a certified law enforcement officer to teach the course. The Jasper Police Department and the Newton County Sheriff's office have written letters in support of the program, according to the news story.

The story also noted the significance of such career courses for students not interested in a traditional curriculum tracked toward college. The District's assistant superintendent suggested that securing this program is an urgent matter because, without it, some students feel they have no reason to stay in school. The visiting administrator from the state office of Career Development noted that the program encourages students "to provide services to the community, like directing traffic at ball games and parades and other tasks that give them some limited authoritative responsibilities."

Waxing nostalgic for the community of small-town America

David Brooks' column yesterday focused on the small city of St. Francisville, Louisiana, population 1,712    (which is part of nonmetropolitan West Feliciana Parish, population 15,625). In particular, Brooks told of how native son (and conservative blogger) Rod Dreher had moved back to St. Francisville after living in a number of large cities.  He moved "home" because his sister Ruthie, then aged 40, had fallen ill with a virulent form of cancer.  The main point of Brooks' column seems to be how the town rallied around Ruthie.  Brooks describes how the town declared April 10, 2010, Ruthie Leming Day and how more than half of the town went to a fund-raising concert for her.  Someone even brought a camper-trailer so Ruthie would have a place to rest and take oxygen.  Dreher blogged:

The outpouring--an eruption, really--of goodness and charity from the people of our town has been quite simply stunning.  The acts of aid and comfort have been ceaseless, often reducing our parents to tears of shock and awe.

Ultimately, Dreher and his family decide to stay in St. Francisville rather than return to the Philadelphia area.  Dreher wrote:

Standing in Ruthie's kitchen the day after she died, laughing with all of [her husband] Mike's friends who had surrounded him to hold him up ('We're leaning, but we're leaning on each other,' Mike later said), I thought, 'Even with all the sadness, there's no place else in the world I'd rather be.'

Brooks continues:

They wanted to be enmeshed in a tight community.  They wanted to be around Ruthie's daughters, and they wanted their kids to be abel to go deer hunting with Mike.  They wanted to where the family had been for five generations and to participate in the rituals ....  They decided to accept the limitations of small-town life in exchange for the privilege of being part of a community.

The story of Dreher's family is undeniably very moving, but it leaves me wanting to know a few things.  Did Ruthie and her family have medical insurance?  If not, did the benefit concert raise enough funds to significantly defray the expenses associated with her treatment?  I value family and attachment to place as much as just about anyone, but I sometimes think we make too much of these small-town, communitarian tropes.  Would a family less esteemed in St. Francisville have been so supported by the community?  Where is "class" in this tale?  Where is race--the 46% of the parish who are black?  Where are the cold, hard economic realities of making do in places like West Feliciana Parish?  

New haute cuisine movement focuses on the South

A headline in yesterday's New York Times is "Southern Farmers Vanquish the Cliches," and in it Julia Moskin reports on a trend among Southern farmers and chefs in the region to revive or remake (depending on your perspective) Southern cuisine. Moskin describes a

thriving movement of idealistic Southern food producers who have a grander plan than just farm-to-table cuisine. They want to reclaim the agrarian roots of Southern cooking, restore its lost traditions and dignity, and if all goes according to plan, completely redefine American cuisine for a global audience.

Their work is being encourage, and sponsored by a new generation of chefs who have pushed Southern cooking into the vanguard of world cuisine--and who depend on these small producers to literally flesh out their ambitions.

California readers, hold onto your hats, because Moskin continues thusly:

Like California in the 1970s--when Alice Waters collaborated with farmers, foragers and cheesemakers on the food at Chez Panisse--the South today has just the right combination of climate, culinary skill, regional chic and receptive audience.

That the South is experiencing a time of "regional chic" is news to me, but I did get a kick out of the chefs and purveyors interviewed putting down Paula Deen as representative of all that is wrong--but too often associated with--Southern cooking. I also learned a trendy word to refer to this revival of Southern cooking and its focus on pork, "lardcore." In fact, the latter surprised me because I don't think of pork as a critical component of the food with which I grew up, though one of my sets of grandparents did raise a pig or two at a time for slaughter, along with a cow or two, lots of chickens, and a big garden. Unlike the fine charcuterie products discussed in the NYTimes article, bacon grease (a form of lard, right?) was ubiquitous. In my opinion, however, there was nothing haute about any of it.

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part XCIII): Year-end wrap up

In this post, I will catch up on various law and order news for Newton County, Arkansas for 2011.

The really big news is that Newton County finally broke ground on a new jail, but that news is so big that I'll save it for a separate post.

The Oct. 5, 2011 issue of the Newton County Times reports that the 14th Judicial Drug Task Force arrested 28-year-old Billy Joe Lewis when a probation/parole visit by the Newton County Sheriff's office revealed 19 grams of meth on Lewis's person, as well as marijuana growing at his Marble Falls residence.

The Oct. 26, 2011 issue of the Newton County Times reports that the Jasper City Council passed an animal ordinance, this after twice tabling it. The ordinance was "prepared" by the city's attorney, Dawn Allen, and it is apparently based on a similar ordinance in effect in the city of Eurake Springs. The ordinance notes that the city has no animal shelter, so animal owners must "maintain proper care over them and are encouraged to cooperate and abide by the provisions of the ordinance." Further, "the burden for animal treatment, removal or disposal falls entirely on the owner of the animal or property owner." The ordinance requires both dogs and cats to be vaccinated, and dogs must have both a collar and a tag. The newspaper reports:

Dogs are not allowed to run at large on public property unless the animal is under voice control and would be prohibited to run at large on private property without the owners permission." The ordinance also addressed vicious animals, animal cruelty and the disposal of dead animals' bodies.

Responding apparently to concerns that the ordinance represented "too much law" and insufficient deference to the informal order that has previously prevailed, the mayor announced that he was "not going to be out looking for stuff." He said he didn't expect the city to be getting a call every time a dog crossed onto someone's property. He said if the city gets a call, he will simply call the owner and "tell them to take care of it." The ordinance sets a $50 fine for a violation, and a fee of up to $250 may be assessed if the owner refuses to respond to a violation. An earlier report on this proposed ordinance is here.

The Nov. 9 issue of the Newton County Times reports that a 52-year-old woman was formally charged in September, 2010, with two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of permitting abuse of a minor and a single count of battery in the second degree, all Class D felonies. She entered a no contest plea to those charges on Nov. 3 and was ordered to six years of probation and a fine of $3,500. The charges stem in part from the woman's failure to respond to an admission from her 14-year-old son that he had engaged in sexual contact with his two sisters, aged 13 and 11, and that he continued to to have sexual contact with the older sister. In addition, when the 11-year-old girl wrote a letter to her mother detailing the sexual contact, the woman hit the girl in the face, knocking out a tooth. The woman was charged with aggravated assault for sitting on her 13-year-old and pressing the minor's face into a pillow, and also for hitting the child with a board on her buttocks and the back of her legs. The woman also allegedly stuffed socks into the 13-year-old's mouth and "punched her." The story does not indicate whether the woman retains custody of her children.

A 28-year-old man was sentenced to six years of probation and $1000 fine after pleading guilty to to theft of 24 oxycodone-acetaminaophen tablets and possession of marijuana. In exchange for the plea, a charge of residential burglary was dropped.

A 50-year-old man was charged with possession of a firearm, aggravated assault and possession of a controlled substance (marijuana) following an incident at Marble Falls, when the man shot in the direction of law enforcement officers who were investigating a methamphetamine lab. In a plea deal, the man was sentenced to 30 days in jail and payment of $1000 in fines and court costs.

A 35-year-old man was charged with delivery of a controlled substance and related charges after he distributed marijuana he received by Federal Express from California. He was sentenced to three years in the Arkansas Dept. of Corrections but given a five-year suspended sentence and fined $1000 plus costs. The man was also ordered to forfeit items seized in the investigation.

A 24-year-old man was charged with stealing a 1985 Chevy Blazer and leading police officers on a high-speed chase through southern and western parts of the county, over many miles, including parts of Highways 16 (Ponca to Mossville), 7 (Deer to Jasper), and 374 (McIlroy Gap toward Vendor). At one point, the man even ran a police roadblock. In a plea agreement, he was sentenced to two years in the Arkansas Dept. of Corrections "with a judicial transfer to a regional punishment facility, followed by a three-year suspended imposition of sentence and a one-year sentence in jail, all concurrent."

The Nov. 30, 2011 issue of the paper reports that a 53-year-old man from Deer, Steven Moore, was charged with aggravated assault after he shot at his brother and swung a machete at him on August 31, 2010. The brother under attack eventually tackled the aggressor brother and pinned him to the ground, which was the situation when Jasper Police Chief Peter DeChant arrived. In a plea deal, the aggressor was sentenced to 12 months probation and ordered to pay a $500 fine plus court costs.

Other reported cases arose from a March, 2011, assault on a Newton County Sheriff's Deputy in the context of an arrest and an incident in which the man came onto another person's property and pointed a firearm at the landowner. The aggressor was charged with terroristic threatening, among other crimes.

Chinese villagers' revolt attracts worldwide attention; will more villages follow suit?

A story out of Wukan, China has attracted persistent coverage during the past few weeks. I first heard of Wukan (a/k/a Wuhan) on December 15, 201, when this story appeared in the New York Times and NPR also ran a story. Here's the lede from that mid-December story.

A long-running dispute between farmers and local officials in Southern China exploded into open rebellion this week after villagers chased away government leaders, set up road blocks, and began arming themselves with homemade weapons, residents said.

The conflict in Wukan, a coastal settlement of 20,000 in the country's industrial heartland in Guangdong Province, escalated Monday after residents learned that one of the representatives they had selected to negotiate with the local Community Party had died in police custody.

* * *

Spasms of social turmoil in China have become increasingly common, a reflection of the widening income gap and deepening unhappiness with official corruption and an unresponsive legal system. But the clashes in Wukan, which initially erupted in September, are unusual for their longevity--and for the brazenness of the villagers as they call attention to their frustrations.

The story goes on to report that the essential dispute regards whether farmers were adequately compensated for land that went to developers. In fact, the "discontent in Wukan has been simmering for more than a decade" because "land seizures began in the late 1990s, when officials began selling off farmland for industrial parks and apartment complexes."

A second story, which ran about a week ago, credits the Wukan villagers for their success in attracting attention, calling them "canny." It tells of how villagers have grasped the power of the media and bloggers to cover their plight, even as they have asked journalists not to label it an "uprising."

Revolt or not, the protest over land sales here, which began months ago, was sustained in its final and most perilous phase by the villagers' canny interactions with journalists from foreign and Hong Kong news organizations. Mainland Chinese news media were barred from reporting on Wukan, but dozens of reporters for foreign publications arrived here last week after being alerted to the protest by an article in the British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph. They slipped through a police cordon by traveling on motor rickshaws along winding dirt roads and, in one case, by hiring a boat to reach the harbor.

The villagers threw open their doors. They now had the means to wage a propaganda war.

A retired Chinese professor notes that Guangdong's situation near Hong Kong has been critical to these events because villagers like those in Wukan get their news from Hong Kong rather than from China Central Television. This gives them a "better understanding of civil society and the rule of law."

The most recent story suggests that the problem for the Chinese government goes beyond Wukan. The latest story appeared under the headline, "A Village in Revolt Could be a Harbinger for China."

There are 625,000 potential Wukans across China, all small, locally run villages that frequently suffer the sort of injustices that prompted the outburst this month in Wukan.

One China expert opined that 50-60% of Chinese villages "suffered governance and accountability problems of the sort that beset Wukan, albeit not so severe." The story continues with a discussion of local government in China:

On paper, the Wukan protests should never have happened: China's village committees should be the most responsive bodies in the nation because they are elected by the villagers themselves. Moreover, the government has built safeguards into the village administration process to ensure that money is properly spent.

Village self-administration, as the central government calls it, is seen by many foreigners as China's democratic laboratory--and while elections can be rigged and otherwise swayed, many political scientists say they are, on balance, a good development.

Time will tell, of course, whether protests like that in Wukan spread, from country to city, and around the vast nation.