Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Arkansan, from Texarkana to West Memphis, from Fort Smith to Helena, and all the boats on Greers Ferry Lake. Let's go to press . . . .
The mayor of Little Rock, not to mention several city directors, sounded none too thrilled to learn that a certain rapper was supposed to give a concert on Colonel Glenn Road the other night--a rapper who has violence follow him around like dirt followed around Charles M. Schulz's untidy boy Pig-Pen. Little Rock's police chief had sent a letter to iHeart Media, saying this fella Moneybagg something, had been in the neighborhood of several shootings in other states recently, and we have our own problems. Besides that, the rapper in question also has what the newspaper called "ties" to Ricky Hampton, another Memphis-based rapper who was performing at a downtown Little Rock club this summer when 25 people were shot. On top of it all, the police chief said it was his opinion that the concert didn't have near enough security. This, we didn't need. After some heated discussions between city leaders, and some more phone calls to iHeart Media, the managers of the concert venue decided to cancel the concert. Now all the rest of us need to know is why city leaders were caught off guard and surprised, unpleasantly surprised, by this scheduled concert in the first place . . . .
The papers noted the other day that the Boy Scouts of America will now allow girls to participate. Some of us are curious as to why. Haven't they ever heard of the Girl Scouts? . . .
Strange to note, but there is one export the United States sends overseas that our buyers are getting tired of: Recycling material. For those of you who recycle regularly--bless you every one--the plastics and cardboard that are emptied in your driveway every Tuesday morning are often shipped to China. And we ship a lot of it. "We're like the Saudi Arabia of scrap," one expert said. But China has got enough in the pipeline to last it a while, or so says Beijing. Which might hurt American exports in coming years. For this country exported $16.5 billion in scrap in 2016 alone. Sixteen point five billion! Who says we have a trade deficit? Not when it comes to 2-liter plastic bottles . . . .
Word around the campfire is that the ratings for Thursday Night Football continue to slip. That might be expected when the NFL schedules the Texans vs. the Bengals (Sept. 14), the Rams vs. the 49ers (Sept. 21) and the outmatched and blown-out Bears against the Packers (Sept. 28). But how do you expect the 4-1 Eagles and the 4-1 Panthers to fall by 5 percent, as reported late last week? Could it be because of certain actions by players before the games begin? And if fans are being turned off, and sponsorships lost, is the league listening? ... .
The next Star Wars movie comes out in December. But there is other news on the movie front: Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are making another movie together. And it's directed by Martin Scorsese. And it's about the mob. That's enough to get us into the theater. But there's more: Apparently Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel have signed on for the project as well. This is going to require an extra-large bucket of popcorn . . . .
The Nats lost yet another series in the postseason last week. At least we still have the Astros and the Cubs to prevent a Dodgers-Yankees World Series . . . .
It was a surprising headline on CNN, so we decided to give the network a minute of our time: "How Trump can become one of America's greatest presidents." Hmmmm. Sounds interesting, especially given the medium. We might expect this from Fox News, and even be surprised when something like that isn't mentioned nightly on Hannity, but coming from CNN? What could this story possibly provide? It turns out that all Donald Trump has to do is reverse himself and his pledges, turn around decades of American policy, and provide the leadership for the world to ban all nuclear weapons. Bingo, he's Lincoln. Or at least Reagan. It turns out we were not so surprised at CNN's report . . . .
Editorial on 10/16/2017