Regular readers realize how opposed I am to the misguided "civil rights" ordinance proposed by Fayetteville alderman Matthew Petty for that city or any other in Arkansas.
This horrifically bad idea basically would establish a commandant of correct behavior at city hall who could use police powers to hammer those he or she determines to be guilty of acting in a "discriminatory" fashion while conducting business in Fayetteville.
There's actually plenty of opposition to this, if the packed room at this week's council meeting is an indication. One who hasn't drunk the Kool-Aid is Rosa Edwards, who wrote the other day to express her concerns with Petty's folly.
As others have written, because there's never been one instance of discrimination that Petty could even cite in introducing his politically saturated ordinance, it truly is "a solution in search of a problem." As if this university city doesn't have enough legitimate challenges to tackle.
"Fayetteville has a long tradition of doing the right thing for the right reasons," writes Rosa. "I was so proud to read ... that Fayetteville peacefully desegregated and that high school football players voted to forfeit their games for a season rather than bench their black teammates."
She properly notes there was no city ordinance to monitor citizens' thoughts or promote those students' actions. "They simply did the right thing because that's what Fayetteville does. The diversity of our community today, and the statement by Mr. Petty himself that there have been no complaints presaging this proposal testifies this still is true."
Ms. Edwards also shows just how astute she is by pointing out that, under such an ordinance, one person coming into Fayetteville from elsewhere with an agenda to bring a lawsuit around the religious exemption added to this ordinance would make national news.
"And a community determined to respect each other's freedom of conscience and personal liberties, balancing both in an honorable manner, then would find itself torn between the two while such a case winds its way to the Supreme Court. There's simply no need to open this door when no complaints have been put forward ... Right now cases (in Colorado and Iowa) are winding their way to the Supreme Court regarding actions taken by state civil rights commissions."
She wonders, as do I, why Petty's needless, divisive folly carves out an exemption for public but not private schools. And her concerns become stickier when she asks how children can be better protected from predators who might access bathrooms by simply claiming to be of the opposite gender.
Still, defying common sense, the council apparently seems intent on forging ahead with this bad idea that to me feels like part of some larger national political agenda. That would be an agenda seeking to creep its intrusive tentacles into the nation's grass-roots communities. Rather than killing this ordinance, the council gave it a second reading at its most recent session. That means one more reading, the third, and this potentially oppressive mess would become the worst ordinance Fayetteville ever enacted.
N-Bomb blast
Spread the word across Arkansas, valued readers, there's a new drug in town that's been wreaking physical havoc and even taking youthful lives.
The garbage is known as N-Bomb and its affects are akin to hallucinations produced by LSD. One Fayetteville woman recently lost a nephew to the stuff and police say another youth in Fayetteville appears to have died from it.
Count me among those who wonder why young men and women continue to ingest substances known to be fatal and seriously harmful, often without realizing (or caring) what they are doing to themselves.
I asked Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder if his office is seeing this potential killer drug in Northwest Arkansas. "Yes, we've see an increase in this drug over the past six months," he said. "It is more commonly referred to as 25i or 2C-I. It is a synthetic drug very similar to LSD. However, it is said to have much more intense trips. A U of A student died after using a form of this drug sometime around December.
"I don't know a lot of details about the death," Helder added. "But KNWA recently did a story about it and I gave them an interview about 25i."
Just up Interstate 49 in Benton County, Sheriff Kelley Cradduck said, "It's difficult to say exactly how many cases we have had this year because it is tracked along with LSD. But I'd guess we've had in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 cases since January. This coincides with an increase in LSD cases, as well. It's sold in the same form as LSD and mimics its effects in many ways--typically placed on blotter paper, absorbent candies, toothpicks and sugar cubes."
Cradduck said the drug was available on the Internet from China and other countries and since has been categorized as a Schedule I narcotic with no medical use. "I've contacted the Arkansas State Crime Lab and left messages for the lead chemist to contact me back to learn about the manufacturing process," he said.
A chemist there told Cradduck it requires appropriate laboratory glassware and a sophisticated understanding of chemistry to produce the stuff.
It requires no sense at all, however, to consume it.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
Editorial on 08/09/2014