"Quit drunk tweeting. RT @RobyBrock: Not any more than I am calling @blakerutherford "Skeletor"! RT @TolbertRepor Are you calling me a girl?" — blakerutherford
It’s with some sadness that The Think Tank bids farewell to Zack “It’s with a K” Stovall, a.k.a Nick, who wrote for Stephens Media and ran an entertaining and wordy blog that often lampooned me and my arch nemesis, John Brummett. Mr. Stovall’s heading north, to St. Louis, where a young lady that he likes lives, and where he claims that he’ll be working in politics and journalism. I just hope he attends at Cardinals game or two.
Anyway, Arkansas loses a blogging personality and national media face (He was on The Rachel Maddow Show, you know) today. And The Lonely Misfits Drinking Society loses a member and friend.
Enjoy the ride, Nick. I’ll see you on the Internet.
It’s Friday and I’ve received a few comments from readers wondering where all of the round-ups have gone. More specifically, they’re missing the quote of the day, e-mail of the day and text of the day. Okay, fine, I generally bow to peer pressure so here you go. I’m not sure I’ll be blogging much this weekend, so deal with it. What will I be doing? I have no idea. But I am going to see this.
Let’s get on with it:
Why Do People Run for the Arkansas Legislature?: I don’t know, but Mike Fletcher, a Democrat from Hot Springs, announced that he’s running for State Senate District 27 previously occupied by Sen. Steve Faris who is term-limited.
Pay Me My Money: House speaker Robbie Wills and super blogger Jason Tolbertspar online over the salaries paid out to lottery personnel. Max Brantley of the Arkansas Timesweighs in on this, too.
Undecided, Huh?: Sen. Mark Pryorsays he’s “leaning” towards supporting Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the US Supreme Court. Sen. Blanche Lincoln says she’s still undecided. Summa Cum Laude from Princeton. Yale Law (An editor of the Yale Law Journal). On the federal bench since 1991 (nominated first by George H.W. Bush). Hell, she saved baseball. Republicans Richard Lugar, Olympia Snowe and Mel Martinez have indicated they will support her. Jason Tolbert shot his mouth off on Twitter exclaiming that Republicans were nice during the confirmation hearings. The heat must be getting to him.
Rex is Bloggin’: Everybody’s All-Arkansas, Rex Nelson, is blogging. They threw a party for him this week a Whitewater Tavern. It was a who’s-who crowd of political and media people. They served free beer and barbecue, which guaranteed that the Lonely Misfits Drinking Society would show up. I rapped with Paul Greenberg about the Red Sox which was a lot of fun for him. Arkansas Project Girlfriend put in an appearance I’m told.
Kim Hendren Is An Idiot: He mouths off again. As I wrote in my original post it’s time for this guy to get out of politics.
Sunday Reading: I have a brief piece in Sunday’s Arkansas Democrat Gazette about the worst book I’ve read this year. I didn’t pick on any of the writers that we all know suck. I took on a heavyweight. Kane Webb put it together before he announced he’d be leaving the paper for a teaching gig at Catholic High School. The paper will be worse for it. The boys at CHS won’t.
Trolling the blogosphere led me to a bunch of interesting developments in and around Arkansas while I was away.
State Rep. Dawn Creekmore, a Democrat, announced that she’ll run for the State Senate, district 22, which was occupied by Shane Broadway. State Rep. Dan Greenberg, a Republican, has also announced his candidacy for the seat. This one will be one to watch. Saline County resident and super-blogger, Jason Tolbert, is all over it.
Todd Witham, a local small business owner and former U.S. Marine, also announced he’ll be running in the Democratic primary. Mr. Witham and his wife, Carol, serve as President and CEO of Woodland International Research Group and Inspiration Day Treatment, Inc. They live in west Little Rock.
Things don’t appear to be good in the Arkansas prison system. Apparently there was a meeting about recent reported abuses in the system, but having read only John Brummett’s tweets I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. Thankfully, Mr. Brummett cleared it up in this blog post and this column.
The first black woman to serve on the Arkansas Supreme Court died this week. Judge Andree Roaf was 68.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln has been in the news lately, the focus mainly related to President Barack Obama’s health care plan. Over on his spectacularly busy blog, Zack Stovall, offers up thoughts and perspectives. Can we expect more pressure on Sen. Lincoln now that Al Frankenhas won the Minnesota Senate race?Chuck Todd of MSNBC discusses President Obama’s approach.
Everybody’s All-Arkansas and soon-to-be-blogger, Rex Nelson, is having a blog launch party on July 14. I don’t know if I’m invited or not. Frankly, I don’t care. I’m showing up at Whitewater Tavern. Lucky him.
Thanks to Mr. Tolbert for this; David Kinkade of The Arkansas Project for this; and Max Brantley of the Arkansas blog for this.
Blogger Curtis Coleman, Republican U.S. Senate candidate in 2012, will speak today at the Central Arkansas Republican Club at 11:30 a.m. Super blogger Jason Tolbert of The Tolbert Report will be on hand with his flip cam, so Mr. Coleman better be on his best behavior. Remember what happened to state Sen. Kim Hendren with Mr. Tolbert showed up with his Flip Cam? Thought so.
An e-mail came in to The Think Tank yesterday indicating that Chris Matthews of MSNBC was talking about Mr. Coleman’s infamous southeast Arkansas comments. I can’t find the clip, but apparently he quoted Arkansas Democratic Party executive director Mariah Hatta on the air. Previously, Politico picked up Zack Stovall’s Arkansas News Bureau story.
UPDATE III: Oh man, blogger Curtis Coleman fell into Jason Tolbert’s Flip Cam trap and goes on camera to clarify his “you need a visa and a shot to travel to southeast Arkansas” comment. If I counted it right his explanation was more than 3 minutes, involved a listing of every city in “southeast” Arkansas and the number of friends Mr. Coleman has from there. All of this to say he didn’t mean it the way it was interpreted. Of course, if you watch the entire video you’ll note that he does say this:
I could have easily said that in southeast Arkansas about northwest Arkansas.
For those of you that read David Kinkade’s hilarious blog, The Arkansas Project, you have seen him write from time to time about Arkansas Project Girlfriend, or APG. John Brummett, fresh off a deep spring slumber in that hollowed cabinet of the past where I keep him confined, had the opportunity to meet her in person and wrote about it on his blog.
Oh, and P. S., since cross-referencing and cross-pollination seem to be the essence of local blogging — Afterward a perfectly normal-looking and nice-seeming young woman introduced herself to me as the “Arkansas Project girlfriend.” In case you don’t know, former Katherine Harris/Asa Hutchinson aide David Kinkade operates a consistently funny, sometimes mean, sporadically informative and often bikini model-adorned blog at thearkansasproject.com, and there he sometimes invokes some semi-charming anecdote involving the “Arkansas Project girlfriend,” a fictional character, I always assumed, on account of his being a lonely misfit blogger.
Mr. Brummett’s a bit stunned by the whole thing. Like most things with JB I don’t care. But the last sentence does seem to suggest that us lonely misfit bloggers (Me, Mr. Kinkade, Lance Turner and Jason Tolbert and along with Zack Stovall, The Lonely Misfits Drinking Society) can’t get girls to go out with us.
Dude, please. This, featuring The Lonely Misfits, from the archives.
Jason Tolbert breaks national news, Zack Stovall scores an appearance on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” and now Mr. Kinkade graces the Perspectives section of the Sunday paper. Oh, and Lance Turner finally got his Tweetup. Big week for the Arkansas blogosphere. Nice work, fellas.
Thumbs all the way up to Zack Stovall who appeared on “The Rachel Maddow Show” last night to talk about Sen. Kim Hendren’s “That Jew” comment that has torpedoed his U.S. Senate campaign. Mr. Stovall kindly credited Arkie blogger Jason Tolbert of The Tolbert Report for breaking the story.
Mr. Stovall works for Arkansas News Bureau and he’s a blogger. He hangs out with the Lonely Misfits Drinking Society from time to time. Follow the link to his blog for the video.
The Arkansas blogosphere has fanned out all across the state hitting mainstream media outlets, college campuses, restaurants and such. In case you don’t read these folks regularly I wanted to direct you to them and let you know what they were up to today. (And you should read them, with the exception of John Brummett, whom I link to for my own amusement knowing full well that you won’t ever read him.)
Lance Turner’s chilling in Monticello. No, he’s not on the Spirit of Arkansas Roadtrip. He’s at the Arkansas College Media Advisors Conference at UAM. I hope he has better luck with PowerPoint and the Internet this time around.
Jason Tolbert’s picking out his wardrobe for his appearance on “Talk Business with Roby Brock.” It will air on Sunday night and you should watch it. I have a feeling we’re going to hear, “Oh, Blanche Lincoln and Mike Beebe are totally beatable. Like, for real.”
No one knows what David Kinkade does for a living, if anything, so it’s particularly strange when he announces on his blog that he’s got other stuff to tend to today. Like what? An IRS audit? Quick trip to Baghdad?
Robbie Wills and Steve Harrelson are running together in Washington, D.C. Did the image of Rocky and Apollo on the beach just pop into your head too?
Roby Brockhas more on the negative ad targeting Rep. Marion Berry. That, and he’s sweating the decision of featuring Mr. Tolbert for the entirety of his television program.
Ms. Adverthinker’s going to own this women-need-to-be-paid-attention-to-by-the-Arkansas-media-dammit issue. She tells us there are more women than men online. What’s next? More women own an iPhone? Remind me what this proves again? Quantity equals quality. Right. Now I’ve got it.
Zack Stovallhas some advice for the Arkansas Republican Party. Yeah, me too: Find a candidate not named Kim Hendren.
As for The Think Tank let’s just say that the shit I’m doing today is real cool and leave it at that. Think Shoji Tabuchi in Branson cool. You’ll hear from me later.
I don’t know what Andrew DeMillo was thinking inviting bloggers David Kinkade of The Arkansas Project and Zack Stovall of Stephens Media Group and his own blog to sit on the same panel discussing the future of journalism, but that’s what he did for the Regional XII Conference of the Society of Professional Journalists. Thankfully these two will be joined by one adult, Conan Gallaty of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
The conference also includes lectures and panels featurin AP’s Ron Fournier, Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Hallman of The Oregonian, as well as local media personalities Max Brantley, Evie Blad and Gwen Moritz.
The Think Tank can’t make it so you’ll be spared endless Twitter updates. But if you want to go send an e-mail to andrew.demillo@gmail.com and he’ll set you up.
Kinkade, Turner, Stovall, new media, multimedia, journalism, Twitter . . . skip that Final Four party and get in on this action. I’m sure they’ll let you bring beer.
Lance Turner and I appeared on The Morning Rush with Jeff Matthews and Lisa Fischer on B 98.5 today to talk about American Idol, crockpot recipes and Twitter, of course. You can listen to complete audio of the appearance here. Ms. Fischer insisted they play Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” as we went off the air. I’m not sure what that was all about, unless she was channeling someone else.
No, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. This kind of thing actually happens to me.
We’re taking a beating on the Internet, naturally. Bloggers David Kinkade and Zack Stovall brought the thunder, but don’t feel like you have to read it. I link to it simply because no one reads those losers and they could use the traffic.
Upcoming at the Ledge: House speaker Robbie Wills lays it out. Early buzz on the appointments to the Lottery Commission? Speaker Wills will have his three picks finalized by next week, he notes. Gov. Beebe and Sen. Pro Tem. Bob Johnson will fill the remaining positions.
Monday Night (Relevant) Reading: “Mr. Becker sat five feet away at a matching desk. His fans were on the floor and papers were stacked haphazardly on his desk. In the midst of the papers he was adding up figures in an account book. He had inherited the [Tyler] Favorite from his father and he’d kept it alive for twenty years and he was going to keep it alive if had to set the print himself.” – - from “Sarah Conley,” by Ellen Gilchrist.
I Don’t Get the Photos: Zack Stovalloffers his own take on President Barack Obama and Congress. “It’s tough out there,” he observes.
Let’s Hug Talk It Out, Bitch: David Kinkade of The Arkansas Project speaks Tuesday to the Central Arkansas Young Republicans at Loca Luna in Little Rock. Call time is noon. Hell yes, I’m going. Now, whether I get in is another matter. Either way, you can read about it on Twitter. It might look something like this:
Twitter-tastic: Jason Tolbert, fresh off a Twitter smackdown, writes of the drawbacks to the popular microblogging site. Video included, naturally.
Radio Free America: Local blogger, Ms. Adverthinker, recounts a conversation she had with The Think Tank on Sunday afternoon about content delivery and wonders if radio will be the future of news. The Think Tank loves radio mainly because it allows for interminable sarcasm. That, and I can drink Diet Coke and Twitter. Seriously, I think @RadioNeal would agree that radio has nothing but upside in the media consolidation world. Whether it will take advantage is another matter, of course. NPR’s trying; KUAR, too (although I can’t say I’m too fired up about this site redesign).
Arkies on Film: The Coen Brothersplan to remake “True Grit,” based on the novel by Arkansan Charles Portis. (Thumbs Up: @LT)
Run, Baby, Run: The Think Tank received a note that Little Rock Central grad Chris Burks has launched his candidacy for president of the Arkansas Young Democrats. I don’t know a damn thing about the race, but Mr. Burks is a bright guy and would do a good job. Many years ago I tried to convince him to go to The Think Tank’s alma mater, Middlebury College, but he chose Davidson College instead. (Thumbs Up: Conner Eldridge, Elizabeth Fleming, Caroline Hubbell and Blake Clifton.) Kudos for taking the plunge, Mr. Burks. If you’re young and need to be inspired into public service watch this.
Re-read: Philip Martin’s guest post here on The Think Tank. The first in the blog’s short history. Guest blogging invites out to: Jennifer Christman, Kane Webb, David Koon, Think Tank Mom, David Sanders, Ron Breeding, Jimmy G, Gwen Moritz, Pat Lynch, Rex Nelson, John Vines, Bob Steel, Mallory HardinandMelissa Dunbar-Gates, collective, Jason Thomas and Kenny Powers, the celebrity.
Quote for the Night: “As the moon lingers a moment over the bitterroots, before its descent into the invisible, my mind is filled with song. I find I am humming softly; not to the music, but something else; some place else; a place remembered; a field of grass where no one seemed to have been; except a deer; and the memory is strengthened by the feeling of you, dancing in my awkward arms.” – - From “A River Runs Through It,” by Norman Maclean.
The show airs Friday at 6:30 p.m. Be sure to tune in and count the number of times you hear “I agree” and “That’s right.”
I’ll gather more information at tomorrow night’s meeting of The Lonely Misfits Drinking Society.
UPDATE: Mr. Sanders comments below. And Mr. Kinkade is ranting about the month’s show being on the Web only. It’s been pre-empted by a program for Steve Barnes.
Quit drunk tweeting. RT @RobyBrock: Not any more than I am calling @blakerutherford "Skeletor"! RT @TolbertRepor Are you calling me a girl?— blakerutherford
Curtis Coleman Better Bring . . . Something – - UPDATE V (Coleman Speaks!)
Blogger Curtis Coleman, Republican U.S. Senate candidate in 2012, will speak today at the Central Arkansas Republican Club at 11:30 a.m. Super blogger Jason Tolbert of The Tolbert Report will be on hand with his flip cam, so Mr. Coleman better be on his best behavior. Remember what happened to state Sen. Kim Hendren with Mr. Tolbert showed up with his Flip Cam? Thought so.
An e-mail came in to The Think Tank yesterday indicating that Chris Matthews of MSNBC was talking about Mr. Coleman’s infamous southeast Arkansas comments. I can’t find the clip, but apparently he quoted Arkansas Democratic Party executive director Mariah Hatta on the air. Previously, Politico picked up Zack Stovall’s Arkansas News Bureau story.
UPDATE: Here’s the transcript from MSNBC.
UPDATE II: Here’s the video.
UPDATE III: Oh man, blogger Curtis Coleman fell into Jason Tolbert’s Flip Cam trap and goes on camera to clarify his “you need a visa and a shot to travel to southeast Arkansas” comment. If I counted it right his explanation was more than 3 minutes, involved a listing of every city in “southeast” Arkansas and the number of friends Mr. Coleman has from there. All of this to say he didn’t mean it the way it was interpreted. Of course, if you watch the entire video you’ll note that he does say this:
I could have easily said that in southeast Arkansas about northwest Arkansas.
I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.
UPDATE IV: Ben Smith of Politico picks up on Mr. Tolbert’s interview on his own blog.
UPDATE V: And yes, as I suggested earlier, Mr. Coleman must be dumb. He says so himself in Mr. Tolbert’s interview:
It is a thousand more times more likely that I am stupid than I am racist.