OPINION

BRUMMETT ONLINE: The arrows land

Readers don’t clamor for the arrows quite as loudly and insistently as they demand the rural wisdom of Bubba McCoy. But they clamor nonetheless.

For that, I should be, in the spirit of the week, thankful. And I am.

Donald Trump — The longer we live with the crazy, the more we get accustomed to it. As Jimmy Buffett put it: “If we weren’t all crazy, we would go insane.” So, over four years, we’ll just go with the crazy to keep from going crazy. You see. Or not. Some call that “normalizing” Trump, which they decry.

Asa Hutchinson — The state’s alt-right groups are assailing him because I’ve written favorably of him and his governing. He desperately needs for me to write a fiery broadside against him, but I just can’t come up with one. Multiple executions, kicking people off Medicaid — I did those already. Maybe if he would hurry down to Alabama and campaign for Roy Moore …

Jan Morgan — The “Gun Goddess” of Hot Springs did, in fact, hurry down to Alabama and campaign for Moore. She, in fact, sort of invokes the child that Moore and Sarah Palin might have conceived while listening to a Ted Nugent song. If she follows through on her threat to infect the Republican gubernatorial primary by running against Hutchinson, she’ll make plenty of noise while storming to a rowdy 31 percent.

Tom Cotton — He’s the future of the national Republican Party, fusing Trump’s intellect with Hillary Clinton’s charm. That means he’ll take away your health insurance to pay for tax cuts for the well-to-do and growl at you while he does it.

National Democratic Party — See immediately preceding item.

Roy Moore — For a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Alabama to lose Tom Cotton, and prompt even John Boozman to chance a public position against him … that’s Ripley-grade material right there.

Al Franken — He’s not as bad as Moore but, still, comedians trivialize our politics nearly as much as real estate developers do.

Men — They tend to lose their boyish charm but hang on to their boyish maturation levels.

Women — They are starting to get it through our thick skulls. Don’t objectify them. Don’t patronize them. By all means don’t bully or abuse them. Treat them professionally. Respect them for what they are — equals, at least. Our legislative bodies both state and national would be instantly improved if their memberships reflected the population and were 51 percent female.

The Clintons, Bill and Hillary — They’re better than the sick hatred of them but, still, their adoring local cultists need to wean themselves from singing “Don’t Stop Thinking About Yesterday,” which they gathered to perform yet again Saturday.

Arkansas Democrats — Talented young educators are announcing for state office on their ticket, or thinking strongly about it, suggesting a new generation and a new progressive emphasis that might produce only a win or two right away, but which, more importantly, will plant the seed for a new and badly needed post-Clinton era.

Little Rock — It’s a public relations campaign masquerading as a community.

Bret Bielema — I apologize for references to him as comparable to Houston Nutt. To Nutt, I mean. Houston took a team to the SEC championship game. Bret can’t take a team to the fourth quarter. Going for it on fourth-and-two on his end of the field at the end of the game and risking giving Mississippi State a ready-made opportunity for a winning field goal — if I didn’t know better, I’d think that was a flip of the finger to what they call Razorback Nation. But I am reasonably confident it was merely an absurd coaching decision.

Cole Kelley — He’s lucky Bielema didn’t really punish him by making him play the last two games behind that offensive line.

John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was inducted into the Arkansas Writers’ Hall of Fame in 2014. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.

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