Opinion

EDITORIALS : Ace Blakeslee

ATACITURN old gent, Donald James Matthew Blakeslee has died at 90 in Miami. But he had a lot he could have talked about. - Thursday, November 20, 2008

Arkansas lost another of its giants in architecture when Cyrus Sutherland died at the age of 88. He spent a career teaching students of architecture at the University of Arkansas when he wasn’t working to preserve historic buildings in the state. Or designing various homes, churches and libraries in Northwest Arkansas. - Thursday, November 20, 2008

COLUMNISTS : ‘No’ to more experiments

BY JONAH GOLDBERG TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES

On Sunday night, President-elect Barack Obama told 60 Minutes thats Franklin D. Roosevelt would be a model of sorts for him. “What you see in FDR that I hope my team can emulate is not always getting it right, but projecting a sense of confidence and a willingness to try things and experiment in order to get people working again.” This is a problematic standard. What do you want in a surgeon? One who “gets it right” or one who projects “a sense of confidence?” Ditto accountants, defense lawyers, mechanics and bomb-disposal technicians: cocky and selfassured, or gets it right? - Thursday, November 20, 2008

Give us something to vote for

BY LEONARD PITTS JR. MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

They’ll be back. Don’t think for a minute that they won’t. - Thursday, November 20, 2008

LETTERS

Wealthy are getting handouts I see that some letter writers are concerned that President-elect Barack Obama will be taking some of their hardearned cash and giving it to poor, nonworking people. Well, folks, Obama is not president yet and won’t be for another two months. - Thursday, November 20, 2008

Fayetteville’s new regime

Kane Webb

Not long before the election, I got an e-mail from Danny Shameer, state editor and true-blue newspaperman, asking if I wanted to sit in on a meeting with David Gearhart. - Thursday, November 20, 2008

Where to send your letters, Northwest Arkansas

The Democrat-Gazette welcomes your opinions, Northwest Arkansas. Unfortunately, not all letters received can be published in the space available. Clarity, brevity and originality are particularly valued. Send letters of preferably no more than 250 words to Voices, Democrat-Gazette, 515 Enterprise Drive, Suite 106, Lowell AR 72745, by FAX at 479-770-8484 or via an e-mail form found at our Web site, www2.arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform/. - Thursday, November 20, 2008

Guide to the Editorial Page

Only the editorials express the opinion of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. They almost always appear on the left side of the editorial page. The editorial writing staff includes Paul Greenberg, George Arnold, David Barham and Jake Bleed. - Thursday, November 20, 2008

EDITORIALS : Still for Lioneld Jordan

LIONELD JORDAN, the conscientious alderman, is in a run-off for mayor of Fayetteville. He’s trying to unseat Dan Coody, the two-term incumbent who’s seeking a third term. Mr. Jordan was our choice in the general election earlier this month. He remains our choice in Tuesday’s run-off. - Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Still for Doug Sprouse

DOUG SPROUSE, a long-time member of Springdale’s school board, remains our choice for mayor of Springdale. We endorsed him in the general election and endorse him again in Tuesday’s run-off. - Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Stagecoach holdup

THAT SETTLES it. Ray Dotson doesn’t get to keep that stagecoach after all. The state’s Supreme Court has ruled that the City of Lowell owns it lock, stock and wagon wheels. - Wednesday, November 19, 2008

COLUMNISTS : A time like this

Paul Greenberg

“Any precise documentation of one’s immaturity is embarrassing. . . .” —John Cheever I’ve been reading the latest collection of John Cheever’s short stories in the vain hope that some of the style will rub off. For is there anyone who can read the first sentence or two of a Cheever story and quit there? - Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Searching for dollars

WASHINGTON POST

In the world of business and antitrust law, big is not necessarily bad or illegal. But alarm bells went off when Google and Yahoo, the top two players in the search advertising market, decided to join forces. The Justice Department was right to challenge that proposal, which the companies have since withdrawn. An inadvertent beneficiary: Microsoft, and not just for the obvious reasons. A possible casualty: Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. - Wednesday, November 19, 2008

UCA ‘gifts’ demand disclosure

Meredith Oakley

Maybe I could scrape up a couple of thousand bucks if I tried real hard, but life would be a whole lot easier if my alma mater would cough up one of those discretionary presidential scholarships. - Wednesday, November 19, 2008

LETTERS

Chuck Dicus termination undeserved As Peter Finch famously said in the 1976 movie, “Network,” I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore. - Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Advice for Obama

Gene Lyons

One of the Republican right’s most successful inventions has been liberal media bias. Even as the “mainstream” press has trended rightward, the liberal-bias trope has had two big advantages in keeping the party faithful, well, faithful. - Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Where to send your letters, Northwest Arkansas

EDITORIALS : How to make sausage

IT’S NOT as eye-catching as all the campaigning in an election year, but there’s always a lot of entertainment in watching annual budgets being ground out by local governments. Those who compare watching laws being made to making sausages might note that the comparison applies just as well to the making of city and county budgets. This year’s budgeting has been unusually entertaining in Northwest Arkansas. Take Fayetteville’s antics, please (see H. Youngman, social critic). The city council has been trying to balance another of Mayor Dan Coody’s proposed budgets. He’s notorious for avoiding the tough calls at budget time and tossing the tough decisions into the lap of the city council—after he’s proposed a budget that requires dipping into reserves. (Which isn’t a good idea, unless there’s absolutely no other choice.) But the city council in Fayetteville has come up with some alternatives. A few less streets being overlaid, a few less speed tables, another cut or two here and there, and—presto !—the budget’s - Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Roughin’ it on Wall Street

WHO SAYS corporate executives aren’t accountable to their shareholders ? The leadership team at Goldman Sachs, one of the handful of outfits that used to be called investment banks, has decided to go without its annual bonuses. Instead of the usual, multi-million dollar packages, the executives at Goldman Sachs are going to tough it out on their $600,000 annual salary. Rough life. - Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Michael Crichton

The author of The Andromeda Strain has died at 66 in Los Angeles without ever repaying us, and who knows how many other readers, for the sleepless night we spent reading that all too credible sci-fi thriller. But we gladly forgive him. It was a great read, however scary. - Tuesday, November 18, 2008

COLUMNISTS : Performing a war

George Arnold

SPRINGFIELD, Missouri About 25 of us spent an evening last week with Larry Rottmann in Vietnam. - Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Depression economics

BY PAUL KRUGMAN NEW YORK TIMES

The economic news, in case you haven’t noticed, keeps getting worse. Bad as it is, however, I don’t expect another Great Depression. In fact, we probably won’t see the unemployment rate match its post-Depression peak of 10.7 percent, reached in 1982 (although I wish I were sure about that). - Tuesday, November 18, 2008

LETTERS

Accept consequences of risk I am gravely concerned about the current panic that has struck our government. I can understand such a sense of urgency to uphold an entire financial structure when it is teetering on the brink of collapse. However, providing financial backing of private companies is not something that I consider appropriate. - Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Occupancy record dubious

Mike Masterson

Try to visualize living night and day with 22 others, including 14 children, crammed into a 1,747-squarefoot home infested with biting mice and other vermin. - Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Where to send your letters, Northwest Arkansas

EDITORIALS : Time for a do-over

NOBODY gave it much thought, at least not on the election day when Hope and Change were running strong against Experience and Character. But there it was, hidden way down there on the ballot, an unreadable pile of words in all-caps : AN AMENDMENT PROVIDING THAT NO LEGISLATIVE APPROPRIATION SHALL BE FOR A PERIOD LONGER THAN ONE YEAR, PROVIDING FOR FISCAL LEGISLATIVE SESSIONS. . . blah, blah, governmental blah. - Monday, November 17, 2008

Hoisted by his own reform

Having sown this whole new cockamamie system of Campaign Finance Reform, John McCain now has reaped the bitter harvest: He succeeded in torpedoing his own campaign. - Monday, November 17, 2008

COLUMNISTS : Minimal versus massive

Charles Krauthammer

Finally, the outlines of a coherent debate on the federal bail-out. This comes as welcome relief from a campaign season that gave us the House Republicans’ know-nothing rejectionism, John Mc-Cain’s mindless railing against “greed and corruption” and Barack Obama’s detached enunciation of vacuous bailout “principles” that allowed him to be all things to all people. - Monday, November 17, 2008

Barack Obama’s Iran opportunity

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Of all the congratulations that President-elect Barack Obama basked in last week, the most unexpected came from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. - Monday, November 17, 2008

LETTERS

Why not just ‘Mr. President’ ? - Monday, November 17, 2008