By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

I don’t know if Bobby Petrino’s first return to Arkansas since 2012 was the most important statewide story this week, but it definitely was one of the most interesting.

The former Arkansas Razorbacks head football coach appeared before 700 people at a sold-out-in-24-hours Little Rock Touchdown Club meeting Monday. The format was a Q and A with media personality and former Razorback David Bazzel.

It didn’t take long for Petrino to address the issue that was on everyone’s mind. After briefly sharing some football-related memories, he said, without being asked, “I wanted to be able to come here and apologize to everybody, the fans, the players, and truly tell you how sorry I am for the way it ended. I also wanted to come here and thank you for everything that the people in this room and the state did for me and my family.”

His voice choked up a little, but he held it together. The crowd gave him a standing ovation.

Petrino had not been back in the state since after he was fired April 11, 2012, by former University of Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long. Continue reading →

Angela Haseltine Pozzi poses next to one of her creations at the Clinton Presidential Center.

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

June 13, 2019

Angela Haseltine Pozzi’s a-ha moment came when she was walking along her beloved southern Oregon beach and saw a “mosaic of plastic” – pieces so small she realized they were turning into sand.

“I always felt that the ocean was something that would never change, that would always be the same and be that beautiful constant, serene beautiful place. And I was horrified to know that we were really hurting the ocean so much, so I really decided that my mission in my life was going to have to be to save the ocean,” she said with a laugh.

The artist and art teacher founded Washed Ashore in 2009 at age 51. It has created 75 works of art from 22 tons of trash washed up on the Oregon coastline to call attention to ocean pollution. Pozzi has done this with help from a staff of 10 and more than 14,000 volunteers. Twenty pieces are on display at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock until Oct. 27.

How big is the problem? Her website says the world produces 300 million pounds of plastic annually, and less than 10 percent is recycled. In some places overseas, trash-infested rivers are pouring plastic into the ocean. Some of the plastic litter in Arkansas’ recently flooded areas likely will end up in the sea. Plastic is not biodegradable and can take hundreds of years to disintegrate (turn into tiny plastic pieces). Sea creatures mistake it for food and eat it, so it enters the food chain. Ocean currents have created the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is twice the size of Texas, between California and Hawaii. There are four other garbage patches worldwide. Trash including a plastic bag has been found in the Mariana Trench seven miles below the surface. Continue reading →

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

It’s no secret that Congress is broken. So how do we fix it?

For this column, let’s be realistic about some of the really big fixes, such as term limits or a balanced budget amendment. Constitutional amendments must traverse a winding, uphill path that ends with ratification by three-fourths of the states. When do 38 states agree on anything these days? The Founding Fathers made the Constitution difficult to amend. Today’s culture wars make it impossible to amend.

What realistically can be changed in the near future? The rules. Procedural rules governing House and Senate business can be altered by a simple vote of either relevant body.

Granted, changing the rules wouldn’t be easy, either. As Ouachita Baptist University political science professor Dr. Hal Bass reminded me a few weeks ago, inertia in politics is a powerful thing. But at least changing the rules doesn’t require 38 states.

The nonpartisan group No Labels has some suggestions it’s calling The Speaker Project. One is electing the speaker of the House by a vote of the entire body.

Here’s the rationale.  Continue reading →

By Steve Brawner

© 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

I was mad at someone on Facebook, until I saw him in real life.

The victim of my annoyance was an Arkansas state legislator who posted something online I didn’t agree with. There was a brief back and forth, nothing serious and perfectly civil, and then it ended. But the debate stayed with me.

A day or two later, the Legislature had just dismissed from its special session, and the governor had just finished a press conference. I was writing my story while sitting in a vacant committee room when that same legislator hurried down the stairs and passed by. He was carrying belongings with both hands and nodded through the window in a friendly way, and I smiled and waved.

I realized I wasn’t mad at the actual person I’d just seen. Continue reading →