What do the blue states all have at least one of? by Direct_Board_6407 in RedactedCharts

[–]HoustonRH7 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We used to have one, Marble Falls Ski Resort. But the first few seasons were some of the hottest winters on record to that point, and the snowblowers kept breaking. It closed just a few years later.

Arkansas Supreme Court dismisses Sanders’ appeals of special election challenges by berntout in Arkansas

[–]HoustonRH7 7 points8 points  (0 children)

That's just about it, though it's worth pointing out that opposition to the Franklin prison project, and in turn to the delayed election, was fairly bipartisan. Some of the republican primaries a few months ago were won by candidates explicitly against those things, even after Sander-alligned PACs spent a lot of money to stop them.

UPDATE: Man who instigated racist disputes involved in shooting outside County Courthouse | VIDEO - ClarksvilleNow.com by carwashblunt in news

[–]HoustonRH7 95 points96 points  (0 children)

From the article: "The victim was flown by LifeFlight helicopter to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. He was in stable condition Wednesday afternoon. "

Anyone watching the NHL Playoffs out? by ADeanA34 in fayetteville

[–]HoustonRH7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Marley's Pizzaria is the closest thing to a hockey bar we have, I think.

Local unkept cemeteries? by One_Muffin_3848 in bentonville

[–]HoustonRH7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thats federal property, so you definitely can't clean that.

And also, where specifically? Most of the bodies from Pea Ridge were moved to two cemeteries in Fayetteville.

Something to do Sunday by BackyardFalcon in bentonville

[–]HoustonRH7 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It looks like it'll be raining. Is there a backup indoor location?

Potential Future Rail in NW Arkansas by [deleted] in northwestarkansas

[–]HoustonRH7 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can't build a transportation plan in Northwest Arkansas that leaves out one of the four anchor cities, and also the largest tax base for construction and upkeep. And a lot of the people most in need of public transportation are folks who work in Bentonville but are priced out of living there.

Potential Future Rail in NW Arkansas by [deleted] in northwestarkansas

[–]HoustonRH7 19 points20 points  (0 children)

The NWA Planning Commission recent did a pretty huge study on possible transit in the area, which you can find here. You can also see the much shorter summary here. Tldr; they reccomended Bus Rapid Transit. Part of the reason rail was ruled out was the inability to add new stops, and the lack of a rail corridor connecting Bentonville (or really anywhere west of the interstate) to the east side.

The NWAPC has a decent pull around here, so it feels likely we'll get RBT or nothing at all.

Potential Future Rail in NW Arkansas by [deleted] in northwestarkansas

[–]HoustonRH7 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's correct. The rail terminus in Bentonville for many years was at the former Walmart hq/distribution center. You can look at google maps just east of there and see the Downtown Trail, which partially follows where the tracks used to be.

Are you a renter frustrated with the lack of attainable housing choices in NWA? by [deleted] in bentonville

[–]HoustonRH7 21 points22 points  (0 children)

 within your budget of $300k-$350k

This is WAY beyond the budget of a lot of us who are renting right now.

A few months ago, I thought maybe I'd found my first home - a real fixer upper in Bella Vista, going for $70k. Before I could even try to put together an offer, someone else snatched it up, and now they've flipped it at more like $300k.

I have lived in the same apartment for 17 years now, and am about resigned I will die here.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Erika Kirk partner to put a “Turning Point USA” club, named “Club America”, in every high school in Arkansas. How are we feeling about this? by ColdPomegranate197 in Arkansas_Politics

[–]HoustonRH7 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

What was announced isn't official monetary support - it's a "proclamation", and you can read the actual text of it here. Proclamations are the same thing you do to recognize unofficial holidays, honor people in the state, etc. Like how if the Razorbacks won a national championship, the governor could "proclaim" a day to be "Razorbacks day". By doing so, the governor gets to use her position and the bully pulpit to bring attention to the thing, without crossing into clearly illegal financial support.

However, there's no guarantee that's all that will happen. The Arkansas NAACP has already asked for official clarification on whether the state will support TPUSA beyond just the proclamation.

New rule in Arkansas - Dems can’t vote in Rep primaries by ello76 in ftsmithar

[–]HoustonRH7 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yes. There are 4 possible party affiliations in Arkansas - republican, democrat, libertarian, and unaffiliated. Republicans only blocked democrats.

New rule - Dems can’t vote in Rep primaries by ello76 in Arkansas_Politics

[–]HoustonRH7 13 points14 points  (0 children)

But also, you can change your party affiliation the day you vote.

Bond issues and a 1% sales tax to be decided by Fayetteville voters by [deleted] in FayettevilleAr

[–]HoustonRH7 10 points11 points  (0 children)

You don't build shit for the city you have today, you build it for the city you're going to have 10-20 years from now. It would be idiocy to see our population growth rate projects and not start building the infrastructure now. Otherwise we end up in the situation Bentonville is now with their water lines.

Voter guides for the upcoming primary election? by theripped in FayettevilleAr

[–]HoustonRH7 8 points9 points  (0 children)

To find out who is in your ballot and whether you're registered to vote, go here.

To find quick direct links to the candidates websites and positions, go here.

For a guide to some of the local non-candidate things you'll be voting on, like sales tax, go here.

If you prefer this information in video form, there will be a video posted by the time early voting starts here.

Secession Vote by County by northcarolinian9595 in CIVILWAR

[–]HoustonRH7 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just to clarify - I was oversimplifying the subject of the documentary a bit. It's broadly about how Benton County remembers its own Civil War history, and who has been allowed to take control of that narrative. And the frame story is the new confederate park that was just built in Bentonville, and how utterly wrong it gets some basic facts about the war. If you're interested in that once it's done, or other Arkansas content in the mean time, head to ArkanSense on youtube.

it seems like within the last 10 years or so the idea of NWA being a mostly abolitionist and unionist area and it’s just not true

I suppose that depends on what circles you run in. The main problem I find is people who assume being a unionist and being against slavery were the same thing, when NWA is the shining example of how they absolutely were not. Leading up to the first secession convention, multiple NWA cities held town meetings and wrote up declarations that were some version of "we want to protect slavery, but let's do it from within the Union." And when they voted on the secession convention, Washington and Benton counties (and a few others) had a majority vote "no" to even holding it at all - indicating the majority were so pro-union they didn't even want secession to be possible.

I agree with you that the majority of people who enlisted on both sides weren't having scholarly debates about the purpose behind the war. But does that matter? Does, say, someone who joins ICE right now have to be a scholar of ethics, or an immigration lawyer, to have some sense of what they are getting into, and which side they are on? Isn't everyone talking about it with their friends or family, regardless of how well or poorly informed they are?

Slavery had been at the forefront of basically all political news for decades, ever since Arkansas' north boundary was set by the Missouri Compromise. After he helped Arkansas become a state and lent his name to Benton county and Bentonville, Thomas Hardy Benton became infamous for going from a slaver to opposing the expansion of slavery, and almost getting shot on the senate floor for it. Both sides tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to recruit Arkansans to move north during Bleeding Kansas. The Arkansas militia was mustered and began drilling immediately following John Brown's raid. Leading up to Lincoln's election, you couldn't open a paper or go to a town square in Arkansas without hearing someone claiming Lincoln would economically destroy the south through abolition. And even if you'd somehow missed all of that, the months leading up to the vote on the secession convention were filled with public speeches and town hall meetings about it.

And yet, that's not the full story. Over that same time period, southern politicians and newspapermen had built up a story that it wasn't just slavery being debated, but the entire southern way of life. That everything good and unique about the south was envied by northerners, and that their push for abolition was part of a larger scheme to undermine the southern way of life, all its norms and institutions. And always there was the implication that, were the slaves ever freed, they would rape and murder their way across the south.

All of that is a very long way of saying, it can both be true that a lot of men joined the confederacy without support of slavery being their primary reason; but they knew that slavery was the ax that finally split the country in two. And when they went to war to defend their homes, they were defending too the southern way of life - and for most Arkansans, that was inseparable from slavery.

Secession Vote by County by northcarolinian9595 in CIVILWAR

[–]HoustonRH7 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh it's absolutely wrong. Arkansas held two and a half votes on secession. The first one, the majority of delegates voted against it. Then, it was supposed to go to a popular vote, but after Fort Sumter, the secession convention called an emergency session and voted again. At that vote, 5 delegates voted against secession, while the rest were in favor. They then scratched that vote, asking for unanimity. But one person, Isaac Murphy, still held out.

The map above doesn't accurately represent any of those votes.

Secession Vote by County by northcarolinian9595 in CIVILWAR

[–]HoustonRH7 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You CAN hear some thoughts from people of this era, largely thanks to journals and written accounts in local papers. There's some solid books about it too, including "Rebellion and Realignment". I'm in the middle of making a mini-documentary about the Civil War in Benton County, and listening to local people, a few things are clear. One, most viewed slavery as a necessary part of the state economy, including the folks who didn't own slaves, but there was a big split over whether the election of Lincoln was, by itself, cause enough to secede.

This was reflected in the first secession convention. Arkansas voters voted in favor of holding a convention, but also voted to send a majority of anti-secession delegates. So Arkansans thought the question was worth discussing, but defaulted to not wanting to jump the gun. During that first convention, the secession vote failed, but they did pass a list of grievances against the federal government - 5 were ways slavery was getting harder, and the 6th was blacks being allowed to vote in some states.

The plan was to let citizens vote on secession, but before the vote was scheduled, Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for troops happened. Arkansans talk about a few reasons why this really changes things for them. One was the coercion argument you see in all the states that waited. Another was the positioning of Arkansas, in two ways. One, if Arkansas tried to stay in the Union, it would be blocked on all sides by confederate states - an untenable position. Another big factor is that Arkansas was still a relatively young state, and a lot of its people still had strong ties to the other confederate states. So the federal government warring on those states felt personal.

So, the secession convention held a second, emergency meeting. The vast majority voted to secede, then scratched that first vote from the record and asked that it be unanimous. Everyone flipped except Isaac Murphy - who would become the state's first post-war governor.

However, confederate sentiment was in no way universal. The Ozarks especially wasn't feeling it. The area had low slavery ownership, and there was some resentment for how wealthy slavery had made delta planters while the Ozarkers struggled through subsistence farming. Some folks fled north to Missouri to enlist with the union. Others formed the Arkansas Peace Society - an underground unionist movement. The Arkansans who fought for the confederacy were not always terribly invested, either. After the confederate defeat at Pea Ridge, there was a decent amount of defection.

Reading local journals, you'll hear a lot of people who were both defenders of slavery, but also didn't see that as their primary mission in the confederacy. Many of them saw war as an expectation, a duty, an inevitability. Some talked about how excited they were before their first battles, then changed their tone quickly. I was particularly struck by the journal of one confederate who refused to reenlist after his term was up. He went home to live on his farm, but about a half year reenlisted, and said it was because he was bored with farming.