Saw this book yesterday in the library. I was surprised. The book is interesting so far, 40 pages in. The book is a McSweeney’s Rectangulars and can be purcahsed here.
I just learned about this - so don’t take my word for it. But from what I’ve gathered, the French were one of the first Europeans to come out west and explored America around the early 16th century. And in our study of Arkansas’ history we came across this guy Henri de Tonti who, in the late 1600s established a trading post off of the Mississippi River and it later became known as the Arkansas Post.
So who is Tonti? He’s Italian, found the city Detroit with his younger brother, and was the friend and associate of René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (see above, the one with a sad face, kneeling) - the famed French dude who explored and “claimed” the entire Mississippi area (as in, the state of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota) for France.
Tonti lost his hand during the Sicilian Wars and wore a prosthetic hook. His nickname was “Iron Hand”. I cannot find any connection between Tonti and Captain Hook.
“Archeology is not simply about finding old things that have been buried by time and dirt. As a subdiscipline of anthropology, archeology is inevitably about what those things can tell us about past people—their cultures, their lives and what their daily experiences might have been like. Van Winkle’s Mill offers researchers several important venues in which they can contribute to understanding the past of not only the Arkansas Ozarks, but of modern America in a broader sense.”
My name is Charlie Brennan, From Charleston I come. I’ve travel’d this wide world over, Some ups and downs I’ve had. I’ve travel’d this wide world over, Some ups and downs I’ve saw, But I never knew what mis’ry was Till I hit old Arkansas.
In its Brown v. Board of Education decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that state laws that established segregated schools are unconstitutional. On September 4, 1957, nine black students tried to enter the Little Rock Central High School - they are known today as the Little Rock Nine. Then governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block the entrance of the nine young students. Three weeks later, the nine finally got into the school, escorted by units of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, ordered by good ol’ Dwight.
Sometimes, you just can’t leave it to the States to handle things. Heaven forbid that John McCain were to win in November, you can be sure he, or Palin, will appoint some Supreme Court judge and overturn Roe v. Wade, and leave the decision up to the State. The same will happen to affirmative action and gay marriage, and the conservatives of America will keep their goodol’Americantradition alive.
Incidentally, while the Little Rock Nine were entering the high school, protestors outside the school chanted “Two, four, six, eight…We ain’t gonna integrate!” You can disagree with the 1960s skin heads, but you must admit that it’s quite a clever chant - far more catchier than their modern day counterpart’s “Drill baby, Drill!”
Before we go any further with Arkansas, let’s established one thing first: Arkansas is pronounced as Arkan-saw, and not ar-Kansas. This pronunciation is not to be taken lightly: it has been made into a law by the state legislature in 1881.
Whereas, confusion of practice has arisen in the pronunciation of the name of our state and it is deemed important that the true pronunciation should be determined for use in oral official proceedings.
Be it therefore resolved by both houses of the General Assembly, that the only true pronunciation of the name of the state, in the opinion of this body, is that received by the French from the native Indians and committed to writing in the French word representing the sound. It should be pronounced in three (3) syllables, with the final “s” silent, the “a” in each syllable with the Italian sound, and the accent on the first and last syllables. The pronunciation with the accent on the second syllable with the sound of “a” in “man” and the sounding of the terminal “s” is an innovation to be discouraged.
The dutch oven is the official cooking vessel of Arkansas. I’ve never seen one of these in person, only time I’ve witnessed one in action was on tv, the Food Network I think. Arkansans (or Arkansawyers) take this heritage pretty seriously.
What can come out of this big metal pot? Arkansan dishes include corn-bread, baked stuffed wild duck, stewed chicken, candied sweets, and jelly pie. My stomach’s growling just imagining all this.
They appreared in the spring of 1991, suddenly and in great numbers, like dandelions colonizing a meadow: thousands of green bumper stickers with white letters reading “Speak Up for Decency.” It was not long before a response emerged: thousands of yellow bumper stickers, designed according to the same template, but this time reading “Speak Up for Liberty.” Soon you found as many of these on the road as you did of the originals. Car for car there were probably a few more Decency supporters in the city, but sticker for sticker the two were running at a dead heat, since some cars sported multiple Liberty stickers — it wasn’t remarkable to see as many as a dozen papered across the back of a van — while most the cars with Decency stickers featured only one. (State by State, pg. 36)
I’ve done quite a bit of searching on the web and can’t find a single image of these bumper stickers. If you any of you out there has an image of one, please let us know!
We're Judy and Shawn. We're designers, we're parents, and we live in New York City.
