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Where's Pod Rogers, the Hope watermelon booster, now that we need him? And, quick, call in somebody to reshape the melons on those Hope Watermelon Festival T-shirts. I foresee a boom in melon sales from this article: (thanks Jake). It says watermelon has an effect similar to Viagra.

Watermelons contain an ingredient called citrulline that can trigger production of a compound that helps relax the body's blood vessels, similar to what happens when a man takes Viagra...

A letter to the editor in today's NY Times, from a batch about U.S. road trips:

I disagree with Michael Paterniti’s bid of “good riddance” to the American road trip.

As a result of my wife’s recent surgery, this winter we elected to drive, instead of fly, from our home outside Philadelphia to our condo in Phoenix.

Not only were we spared the high cost, stress, hassle and risks (for example, lost luggage or missed, delayed or canceled flights) of air travel, but we also discovered sights we never would have found otherwise.

We had the joy of visiting the Presidential Library in Little Rock (who outside of Arkansas knew Little Rock was so beautiful?), the breathtaking caves at Carlsbad, N.M., impromptu antiquing in Tennessee and the joy of reading “Harry Potter” out loud.

The Interstates were surprisingly clean, offered convenient rest stops and, more often than not, provided scenic vistas and beautiful landscapes.

I say: “Rediscover America. Take a road trip!”

Bob Griffin
Perkasie, Pa.

The part about convenient interstate rest stops? In Arkansas, not so much.

Brummett chats with Mike Huckabee about how full-contact Arkansas politics prepared him for national campaigning. And what would a Huckabee interview be without a little rhetorical excess?

He and I talked a little about that [national opposition from some business conservatives], too, long enough for Huckabee to say that outfits like the Club for Growth don't understand that you can't always cut taxes at the state level and meet basic needs. Such people would "let an 8-year-old child choke to death on the steps of the Children's Hospital" for lack of Medicaid.

I chastised him for his famous and all-too-typical hyperbole. These guys wouldn't really let a child choke. Would they? He said maybe, and maybe not.

The week's calendar includes a couple of events of interest to those politically inclined:

' Eleanor Clift, the Newsweek writer and TV political commentator, will speak at the Clinton School of Public Service at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, July 10. She'll talk about and sign copies of her new book about the death of her husband from cancer and the Terri Schiavo case, events which occurred simultaneously in 2005.

' Tickets are still available for a performance at 8 p.m. Saturday, July 12, at Wildwood by the Capitol Steps, the song-and-comedy troupe that spins its work off current political events. The show is preceded by drinks and snacks at 7 p.m. and is a benefit for Planned Parenthood. Buy tickets at capitolsteps.eventbrite.com

Charles Durnett, also known in some web circles as The Raven, died yesterday. He picked up the pieces of a pioneering local e-mail news and gossip publication known as Bullwhiz and made it The Briefing Notebook, an erratically published compendium of anonymous comment, news and gossip. Media people made up a big portion of the free e-mail distribution list.

Chuck had been a political consultant and was a Civil War buff, active in several groups devoted to the subject. He was also a news junkie and a frequent source of tips for me.

Farewell, Chuck. Memorial service is at 1 p.m. Tuesday at St. Mark's Episcopal Church.

In a day when the U.S. is torturing people and in a state where the ability to beat kids is stoutly defended, this probably isn't news, but ....

A reader points me to this article about an Arkansas Correction Department rule change broadening guards' ability to use force on inmates. The reader has some trepidation, I think, about giving latitude for physical punishment to a department that has often abused use of force.

Speaking of unilateral exercise of authority:

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette today did further reporting on a subject it has mentioned previously -- City Manager Bruce Moore's granting of waivers from building permit and street closure fees for downtown construction projects  -- $130,000 worth for Moses Tucker Real Estate's River Market Tower. No link to the story is currently available, but I've put the introduction of the story on the jump.

The waivers follow a long city practice of encouraging welcome downtown redevelopment.

But this is what particularly caught my eye:

Mayor Mark Stodola and City Attorney Tom Carpenter said they think Moore’s general supervisory power over city departments extends to waiving fees for this project.

“I think it’s clearly within the discretion of the manager to do that,” Stodola said, citing Arkansas Code 14-47-120. The statute, which doesn’t specifically address waiving fees, says, “To the extent that such authority is vested in him or her through an ordinance enacted by the board of directors, a city manager may supervise and control all administrative departments, agencies, offices, and employees.”

Here I go again, practicing law without a license, but I call horse hockey on this argument. I don't believe administrative control confers a right to nullify city ordinances. If it does, we need to rethink the law. It's an invitation to favoritism, at a minimum, and runaway corruption at worst.

If the unelected city manager can waive statutory street closing fees, he can override code enforcement citations, parking tickets, franchise fees and every other one of the thousands of rules set out by city ordinance. This is power Strong Mayor Stodola has only in his dreams.

If the city manager does decide to hold one favored property owner exempt, say, from weed lot ordinances, there's not much anyone can do about it. You can file suit over illegal exactions. But I don't think there's a reverse process by which you can make someone pay a lawful fee that a city official has waived.

Like so many things the city has done with good intentions and demonstrable public benefits -- Clinton Library, anyone?, or the midnight tax waiver for the Acxiom office building, or this laudable condo project -- the worthy goals can be accomplished without giving voters another reason not to trust City Hall. You have a project of demonstrable benefit to the city ? You think it deserves help to the limited extent the city can provide it? Fine. Announce the proposed benefit in public, with sufficient notice, and have the City Board vote on it.

I had this same conversation yesterday with Rush Harding about the UCA Board of Trustees' secret use of its private slush fund. If the actions are defensible, why be reluctant to publicize them and approve them in a public vote?

Amen to City Director Joan Adock, who told the D-G Little Rock would benefit from clarifying the city manager's authority.

“I think that is important that people look at city code and know what’s expected,” she said. “I would like to revisit the code and come up with the exceptions that say what’s 100 percent so it doesn’t look like we’re doing certain things for certain people.”

The Log Cabin Democrat has added a bit more detail to reports about the special UCA Board of Trustees fund -- taken mostly from bookstore and on-campus food sales -- that was used to make a $300,000 incentive payment to President Lu Hardin.

Trustee Rush Harding, who was Board chair when the compensation plan for Hardin was adopted, told me yesterday that the special Board fund was useful for providing financial help to worthy campus causes without prompting dissension or competition from other interests. When I asked if that meant that the Board had viewed expenditures from that fund as not subject to public disclosure, he responded: "That won't be the case in the future."

The Log Cabin reveals that there is a proviso by which the Board chairman can spend up to $5,000 from the fund without approval of the rest of the Board.

Wow.

A special slush fund, expenditures kept secret, from which one man (update: or woman -- see comments -- as the case may be) has the ability to write checks up to $5,000.

The money was used for severance pay for former president Win Thompson and some student government expenses, officials have said. I believe a public listing of ALL expenditures from that fund -- particularly unilateral spending by Board chairs -- would be a useful gesture on UCA's road back to full accountability.

UPDATE: Trustee Harding has contributed some comments to the thread. Thanks for that. It appears the spate of publicity this week is producing positive results.

An Arkansas angle pops up in a New York Times story on the impact of high gas prices on services for old folks.

For many isolated older people, home delivery of meals provides not just nutrition but also regular contact with the outside world, said Elaine Eubank, president of CareLink, a nonprofit agency that serves elderly people in six counties in Arkansas, delivering 480,181 meals to 18,000 people last year. Because of gas prices, Ms. Eubank said, one center in Monroe County had closed its kitchen, and others were delivering frozen meals two days a week.