a couple days ago, max brantley, on the arkansas blog, posted a list of city employees organized by place of residency (little rock or non-little rock). the most skewed numbers toward non-little rock residents—confirming brantley’s suspicions—were police and fire employees.
non-little rock fire department employees outnumber little rock employees by an almost 3 to 1 margin (295 to 110). despite the margin being more narrow, the far more troubling numbers, to me, are non-little rock police employees who outnumber little rock employees by more than 100 (365 to 252).
this past weekend, i had the privilege of spending the weekend at the arkansas juvenile detention center in alexander. i participated as the “spiritual director” for a ministry event called kairos torch (a part of an ongoing ministry called kairos).
there’s a number of stories i could share of young men (ranging from 14 to 17) who have great hearts and shared things with me that i would never expect to hear from someone twice their age. it was a humbling experience and i was glad to be a part of it once again.
but…that’s for another post.
i’ve been wanting to create an infographic for a very long time. not only do i love them, but i’ve had a particular project i’ve been working on for quite a long time that lends itself to an infographic. while i’m still working on that project, i recently had an opportunity where this type of presentation seemed like a good fit.
the project was a handout/”promotional” graphic we assembled to solicit volunteers for our 4 primary connecting points at eikon. we’ve been preparing to put a little more shape and form to these various aspects of our church and lining up volunteers was one of the primary things we needed to do in order to bring that to fruition.
if you listened very closely a couple days ago, you could hear the collective gasp of the residents of little rock, the state of arkansas & the entire south. why?
because it snowed.
for long-time readers of this blog and those who know me in real life, it’s no mystery that i’m quite the proponent of public schools. famously (ok, that may be a strong word…but you get the idea…), i’ve written a couple posts that highlighted this value and it’s certainly gotten me in some hot water. largely, the hot water, of course, has come from my criticism of private schools. but in the last few years, a new player has entered the fray here in little rock and stirred the waters of debate: charter schools.
most notably, estem public charter school arrived in 2008 and has set the stage for quite a debate, drawing the proverbial line in the sand for both traditional public and private school proponents. the drama ramped up last march when the little rock public school board decided to take legal action against the state’s department of education for violating its policies regarding desegregation by greenlighting a growing number of charter schools. no doubt, the lines have been drawn and people have begun to choose sides.
