Finding out more about state firings
Gov. Mike Beebe promises he’ll run an open administration, unlike his predecessor, the secretive Mike Huckabee, who used to walk out with the office furniture when no one was looking.
[FULL TEXT]

Favorite jazz, blues from ’06
While talking to Lonoke County Justice of the Peace Larry Odom, who could pass for drummer Levon Helm’s brother, I remembered I still hadn’t listed my favorite CDs and DVDs of 2006:
[FULL TEXT]

Time of year bringing out best in folks
Marti Frederick of Cabot returned home around 7 o’clock Christmas night from family gatherings in Little Rock.
[FULL TEXT]

Man loses long fight to cancer
Andrew Parker, who had fought a brain tumor much of his life, wanted to see his sister and her family in Atlanta one last time over the Thanksgiving weekend.
[FULL TEXT]

What little girl wanted for holiday
When my friend Jack Sallee was with the Jaycees in Fayetteville, they’d put an ad in the paper at Christmastime, saying that for $2 you could have Santa come to your place.
[FULL TEXT]

Rape victim in Lonoke recalls her nightmare
One of Joe Rounsaville’s three rape victims was crying as she recalled her attacker menacing her in her home in Lonoke.
[FULL TEXT]

Next stage in Iraq still uncertain
More than 30 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq during the first week of December while politicians in Washington debated the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group on how to extricate ourselves from a war that will soon enter its fifth year
[FULL TEXT]

It's cold, but Africa is too hot just now
The cold weather blew in from the southwest, but we escaped an ice storm, which is not uncommon around here in early December.
[FULL TEXT]

Robert Junior Lockwood, RIP
Robert Junior Lockwood, the last of the great Arkansas Delta bluesmen, died this week in Cleveland, Ohio, at the age of 91 after suffering a stroke earlier this month.
[FULL TEXT]

General who served here runs mobile war center
A group of airmen inside a metal building near the flightline at Little Rock Air Force Base were talking shop while they stood near several covered pallets of cargo last week, when Gen. Scott Gray, commander of Air Mobility Warfare Center at Fort Dix, N.J., walked in.
[FULL TEXT]

Vote count disaster for Bush, GOP
Few Republicans expected this year’s mid-term elections would go their way, but Tuesday’s results are worse than any of the polls had predicted.
[FULL TEXT]

Eyewitness to uprising in Hungary
I'm going to write this week about an eyewitness to the Hungarian revolution–me.
[FULL TEXT]

First school since 1970s a possibility
Attorney Gen. Mike Beebe wants to build the first new school in Jacksonville in 30 years, and he thinks he can fund it with the state's surplus, although that's vanishing about as fast as last decade's federal surplusd
[FULL TEXT]

Honoring heroes in a time of terrorism
Sgt. Synnora Guinn of the Pulaski County Sheriff's Department was decked out in her Scottish regalia and played "Amazing Grace" on her bag pipes at the ceremony Monday honoring America's heroes.
[FULL TEXT]

Bad guys will get hands on nukes soon
While talking to Israel's consul general not long before the fifth anniversary of 9/11, I realized that in his country, they commemorate such anniversaries just about every week.
[FULL TEXT]