MetaFilter posts tagged with Arkansas

The Light The Dead See

troubles — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:03:30 -0800

30 years ago today, Frank Stanford, a young Arkansaw poet shot himself three times in the heart with a 22-caliber pistol. He was 29. By then he had become a powerful and unique voice in the American poetry landscape, dubbed "a swamprat Rimbaud" by Lorenzo Thomas and "one of the great voices of death" by Franz Wright. He left behind a strong (though often hard to find and/or unrecognized) body of work, most notably his immense epic The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You, a 15,280 line poem with no punctuation or stanzas. The first link is to great resource with selections of poems from many of his unpublished books. It also contains a haunting essay by his wife, Ginny Stanford, that recounts Frank's death - “Death in the Cool Evening.” A well written article on Frank Stanford at the Poetry Foundation. Bill Willet (a friend of Frank Stanford) reads “The Singing Knives” (YT) Wikipedia.

"Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?"

orthogonality — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:05:29 -0800

Every One That Hates Billy....” It featured a photograph of Billy’s face superimposed over a likeness of Peter Pan, and provided this description of its purpose: “There is no reason anyone should like billy he’s a little bitch. And a homosexual that NO ONE LIKES.”

Billy, busy building a miniature house, didn’t see it coming: the boy hit him so hard in the left cheek that he briefly lost consciousness. [His mother] remembers the family dentist sewing up the inside of Billy’s cheek, and a school official refusing to call the police, saying it looked like Billy got what he deserved.

A car the color of a school bus pulls up with a boy who tells his brother beside him that he’s going to beat up Billy.... While one records the assault with a cellphone camera, the other walks up to the oblivious Billy and punches him hard enough to leave a fist-size welt on his forehead. The video shows Billy staggering, then dropping his book bag to fight back, lanky arms flailing. But the screams of his sister stop things cold. The aggressor heads to school, to show friends the video of his Billy moment, while Billy heads home, again. It’s not yet 8 in the morning. .... Judging by school records, at least one official seems to think Billy contributes to the trouble that swirls around him.

"Then, on Election Day, 1975, I disappeared."

amyms — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:51:01 -0800

Mayor Ken Williams of Centerton, Arkansas, recently resigned over allegations of identity theft and other weirdness. He claims that a truth serum injection helped him to recognize that he was formerly The Rev. Don LaRose. He runs a website telling the "amazing story" (in 11 chapters) of his abduction by satan-worshippers three decades ago.

"The niggers are coming!"

madamjujujive — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:03:17 -0800

Through a Lens Darkly - on September 4, 1957, when 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford tried to enter Little Rock Central High, she was blocked by the National Guard and surrounded by a screaming mob of 250: "Lynch her! Lynch her!" "No nigger bitch is going to get in our school! Get out of here!" "Go back to where you came from!" Looking for a friendly face, she turned to an old woman, who spat on her. Photos. Dramatic news footage. Ernest Green, another of the Little Rock 9 recalls the first day of school. Also in 1957 A Picture Counts - recent thread by zzazazz of Dorothy Counts entering the Charlotte School system in 1957 Willie Edwards: Justice Still Absent in Bridge Death - January 23, 1957 All Through the Night - Strom Thurmond's 24-Hour Filibuster, August 29, 1957 Civil Rights Act 1957 - signed by Eisenhower September 9, 1957

Bloody awful: How money and politics contaminated Arkansas's prison plasma program.

thisisdrew — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:45:32 -0800

Blood Money : A widow is fighting to open records on how tainted blood plasma from Arkansas prisoners entered the U.K. and led to the death of her husband.

Skateboarding IS a crime?

blaneyphoto — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:53:31 -0800

Go skateboarding Day didn't end well for a bunch of teenagers in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Youtube Video. Unreasonable/Excessive force by the police? You decide.

Maryland joins the ranks of states attempting to thwart the electoral college.

terrapin — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 06:25:19 -0800

Maryland joins the ranks of states attempting to thwart the electoral college. Maryland's General Assembly approved a bill [PDF] to ignore the U.S. Electoral College [official website] in presidential elections, instead awarding the state's 10 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. [via | previously on MeFi | more inside]

Hope Watermelon videos

thisisdrew — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 14:13:08 -0800

Theres nothing like a BIG MELON to bring everybody together in Hope. ( video ) It takes Bright Women to grow big melons, and old men to pick the world's largest. A better tagline possibly: "Hope Arkansas: Home of President Bill Clinton and the World's Largest Watermelons". Videos, as always, brought to you by the Hope MelonFest On-Deman Video Center.

DIY Diamond Mining

Burhanistan — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 08:12:14 -0800

Crater of Diamonds State Park Interested in obtaining diamonds but feeling troubled by the diamond business? Head over to Arkansas and dig your own damned diamonds.

Welcome to Jesustan

forwebsites — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 09:04:15 -0800

First they came for the atheists - Arkansas state constitution says: "Atheists disqualified from holding office or testifying as witness:- No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court" Link to pdf, pg 74 in pdf(via reddit).