Anonymous in a Small Town

This just in from the Annals of the Anonymous: "If you look up 'dysfunctional' in the dictionary, the third meaning will be 'Eureka Springs city council.' ... If you look up 'shoot yourself in the foot,' the third meaning will be 'Eureka Springs city council.' ... If you look up 'Absolutely not! Wait, what was the question?' the third meaning will be 'Eureka Springs city council.'" ... Seriously, it wasn't me, and why is it the third definition?

OK, shouldering the heavy responsibility of being Haven for the Anonymous this week, I'll share the musings of another Eurekan in brief: "Back in the 1950s the idea was touted that Arkansas cities and towns needed more professionalism and less politics. The idea was to put well-to-do business types, unelected leaders of the community, but 'leaders' nonetheless, in control of the city's finances, commissions and employees. ... Of the 500 cities in Arkansas, only 15 changed governments ... the biggest -- like Little Rock and Ft. Smith. Today Little Rock is constantly changing ordinances to give more power back to the mayor and elected officials. The majority of the 15, like Fayetteville, Benton, & Camden all changed back to mayor/council governments. So only 5 have failed to go back to a representative form of government. That's 5 out of 500 -- 1%, so are 99% of the cities and towns wrong? ... (bunch of deleted paragraphs) I don't know about you, but I want to vote for my city leaders."

Yeah, we all know how that turns out. Anyway, thanks for the email, guys ... and hey, 5 out of 15 (33 1/3%) ain't bad.

If you're as over politics as I am, you can just sit back and replay the Christmas parade or tune in live for a lot of fun stuff coming up on eurekaspringschannel.com, like the Mardi Gras crowning and interviews with locals. Between that, Channel 21, and eurekaspringswebcam.com you'll never even have to leave the couch to find stuff to be ticked off about.

You can even email me from there: oliverdeplace@hotmail.com. Then we can both be ticked off.