Musical highlights
from last year
It was a great year for music, both live and recorded. Our musical journey started out last January in Clarksdale, Miss., where we heard a young soul singer named O.B. Buchana at the local VFW Hall. He played to an enthusiastic audience that line-danced the night away, impressing those in the audience who just sat and watched.
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Free pass for state inmates possible=Prisons are overcrowded, but the Legislature is not ignoring the problem. At least two bills address the challenge of crowded jails, but neither bill calls for building more prisons.
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This killer stays behind bars for now After a year of lawsuits from prosecutors and victims' rights groups and coverage in this newspaper, Gov. Huckabee has again withdrawn his offer of clemency to yet another murderer.[FULL TEXT]

Pentagon has
to pay bills,
so it cuts back
___The C-130J program is the latest casualty of the war in Iraq. As we reported here on Saturday, the Defense Department could soon halt production of the new airlifter, saving $5 billion. Little Rock Air Force Base will get seven C-130Js rather than the 16 it was scheduled to receive, and construction plans for an additional training center have been halted at a savings of $26.5 million. [FULL TEXT]

A modest funding plan The bipartisan, ad hoc band of senior legislators who took it upon themselves to develop a plan for building and renovating ArkansasÕ substandard schools finally delivered this week, and the reflexive response is Òwhy did you bother?Ó
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Moving up primaries Arkansas is going to try again to be a big player in the presidential nominating scheme. It has never worked, but let us indulge the politicos one more time.
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Modest step forward__For 20 years, the Arkansas legislature has been a battleground between managed-care insurers and big industries on one hand, and hospitals, doctors and pharmacists on the other over a principle called "any willing provider."
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How to finance road program The legislature is fast approaching the moment when it will most feel the want of the experience and knowledge that flows from seniority, which term limits denies us. It is about to decide how to finance a billion dollars of highway construction, which is as dangerous as an ungraded hairpin curve.
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Legislature still avoids reality These must be the best of times in the Wonder State, an age of wisdom and belief, a season of light, a winter and spring of hope. A governor who vows determination to stay with his wife before a throng of thousands is on the throne of Arkansas. [FULL TEXT]