Thursday’s thumbs

Johnny Cash, Treylon Burks and windmills

It’s Thursday and another chance to fire off a few up or down thumbs about some of news developments in our neck of the woods and elsewhere:

People’s proclivity for attaching significance to inanimate objects knows no bounds. Recognizing that calls to mind the 1959 phone booth operated by Prairie Grove Telephone Co. along Douglas Street in Prairie Grove. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places, one of the few working booths remaining in a nation that once had 2.6 million pay phones. Now, the latest turn in historic rescues arises from a windmill in Pea Ridge. The device loomed large over a family farm for a hundred years, but some of that land was developed into a subdivision, known as Windmill Estates. The windmill remained, but its future unclear. In step Robert and Jenny Wood, nearby neighbors whose kids saw that windmill just about every day of their lives. The couple, who bought wood flooring in the old high school before it was torn down, decided to swoop in and save the windmill from uncertainty. They recently had it moved to a farm on the north end of town. It may just be old metal to some people, but to others in the community, it’s a marker of many shared memories. Congratulations to the Woods on investing in the future by remembering the past. We’re big fans.

From Warren, Arkansas, to the Tennessee Titans via the University of Arkansas, former Razorback football star Treylon Burks has signed a four-year deal to play for the NFL franchise for a fully guaranteed $14.4 million. The Titans selected Burks in the first round of the 2022 draft last month. It’s an amazing achievement for a kid from south Arkansas. We suspect there might be a few more Tennessee Titan fans around the state once Burks starts playing.

We can’t defend the Department of Homeland Security’s troublesome launch of the so-called Disinformation Governance Board, but the serious questions that led to its ill-fated start-up can’t be easily dismissed. In recent years, foreign adversaries have implemented strategies designed to use the American freedoms those adversaries do not value as a weapon. Using ubiquitous social media feeds, the nation’s foes are more than happy to spread lies artfully disguised as truth and crafted to appeal to certain segments of U.S. society.

Why? To sow chaos, distrust and enmity in American political and social culture. No, we don’t need some Orwellian-style government panel deciding whose views are acceptable and whose aren’t, but we do need a national security defense against foreign intervention, particularly in U.S. political campaigns and elections. And Americans need to be on guard against being manipulated by social media. In a way, this reminds us of the ancient Greeks’ Trojan horse attack on the city of Troy. Except today, there’s no need to build a huge wooden horse. The little-guarded gate to our society is already in everyone’s pockets.

We’re always glad to see longtime entertainers get their due respect within their industries. So yes, it’s thrilling to witness their inductions into the appropriate halls of fame. But Dolly Parton in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? And now, Jerry Lee Lewis in the Country Music Hall of Fame? Good for them, but goodness gracious, it’s making our heads spin.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal got the scoop the other day based on a leak. And by that, we mean quite literally a leak, as in the city of Kingsland, Arkansas, water tower. Someone shot a hole in the tower, which has city leaders irked, because repairs are quite expensive. News of the leak spread far and wide, though, because of the leak’s location. The tower features a silhouette of the town’s most famous native, Johnny Cash, and the water streaming from the bullet hole makes the Man in Black appear to be, um, relieving himself on his hometown. Sure, it’s funny, but town leaders say it’s serious felony vandalism that could send someone to the pokey. Imagine sitting in a cell singing, “I shot a man in Kingsland just to watch him leak.” Cash is so beloved in Arkansas as a whole that a statue of him will be among two representing the state in the U.S. Capitol after its completion. Let’s hope the sculptor isn’t adding a water feature.

We know things aren’t as lively as everyone wishes in some of Arkansas’ smaller cities, but a word of advice: Don’t take your guns to town.