Hickman was sentence to three years' probation for felony theft, felony forgery, and tampering with the public record. Hickman was forced to return the money he stole, but three years' probation seems to be a rather light sentence.

What do you suppose the sentence would have been for you, dear reader, or for your editor, had either one of us been convicted of three felonies? Would it have been three years of probation?

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, in keeping with its policy of attempting to de-emphasize negative news regarding African Americans, relegated this story to section B. It deserved front page treatment. In the middle of the front page, however, was a large inspirational piece entitled "A Model Elementary School."

OFFICIALS OF THE LITTLE ROCK FBI OFFICE, early in June, were distraught to find that they themselves had become the victims of a crime. A Suburban van, owned by the Little Rock FBI office, was stolen from the parking lot of a hotel in Memphis. To make matters worse, the van was full of high-powered weapons used by SWAT (special weapons and tactics) units. These weapons, such as grenade launchers and machine guns, are more appropriate for military action than for police work.

Immediately after the theft of the van was reported, the mass media and elected officials tried to arouse public hysteria by speculating that "right wing militias" had stolen the weapons. Senator Dale Bumpers opined that the thieves might be "militia" members. Senator Tim Hutchinson thought that they were "terrorist."Even the head of the FBI in Washington, D.C., while vowing to do everything possible to find the thieves and the missing weapons, had to offer speculation about terrorist.

No one seemed to realize how improbable it would be for rightist militia types to be operating in a neighborhood of Memphis which is almost totally African American. Within a few days, the burned-out van was discovered. Next, many of the weapons were reported to have been recovered and several suspects were arrested. The weapons and suspects were, in fact, discovered barely more than a block from the hotel parking lot. The suspects were not right wing militia types or right wingers of any type.

Newspaper reports of the arrest of the African American suspects were buried deep in the newspaper and confined to short articles. In this respect, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was no better than the New York Times.

This little fiasco raises question beyond those involving lapses of security in the handling of weapons. Why were the FBI agents taking so many weapons with them in their van if they were only attending a conference along with a couple of hundred other FBI agents? Was the ostensible conference only a cover for a practice mobilization in case a critical situation develops in Memphis or a similar city?

Police work is becoming more like a military operation. Residents of central Little Rock are familiar by now with the police helicopter which flies low over the city for hours late at night, frequently sweeping the streets and other areas with searchlights. Much is going on that we citizens are never told about. A news black-out is easily accomplished when one considers that ownership of newspapers and of radio and television stations is restricted to a small number of people. Obviously, the situation is so bad that the news media are forced to tell us something about it least they lose all credibility. Think about what they probably choose not to tell us.

WE ARE PLEASED TO NOTE that some citizens in Rogers, Arkansas, area have organized to express their concern over the influx into their small city of tens of thousands of aliens both legal and illegal who were brought there to work for Tyson. According to an account in the June 8th issue of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, their organization is called Americans for an Immigration Moratorium.

Local "sell-out" community leaders had previously formed the Multi-Culture Forum of Northwest Arkansas to try to convince the people of Rogers that it is a good thing for housing prices to be raised and wages lowered by the influx of alien workers because it supposedly enriches our culture. Spokesmen for the Moratorium actually dared to attend a Forum meeting and ask to be included on the agenda. The head of the Moratorium observed that it is not the responsibility of the city of Rogers to shoulder the burden of creating a work force for any industry. We agree wholeheartedly and congratulate these patriots for doing something to try to save our nation from the destruction which short-sighted greedy employers would inflict upon it.

GOVERNOR PROMOTES COLLECTIVE GUILT: Arkansas's Governor Mike Huckabee, who is also an ordained Baptist minister, early in February announced his official support for a public history project to cost $700,000 a year initially and $100,000 a year thereafter which will receive matching funds from state tax revenues. The project is a kind of civil rights museum to be established across from Little Rock's Central High School, a visitors' center which will have the major purpose of reminding everyone everywhere that the European American citizens of Arkansas are somehow collectively liable for and/or guilty of supposed misdeeds perpetrated there when Governor Faubus dared to intervene in the government's plan to integrate Central High. We wonder what earthly, constructive good this project is supposed to do anyone. In supporting it, Gov. Huckabee is endorsing a claim of retroactive collective liability that is counter to the principles upon which the Republican party was founded.

The museum/center is to be formally opened on September 25, 1997, marking the 40th anniversary of the confrontation. Plans call for all of the Little Rock 8 (i.e., the first African Americans to be enrolled at Central) to be present along with Gov. Huckabee and President Clinton. Huckabee and Clinton are to open the doors of Central High to the Little Rock 8. Whether a suitably dazzling doorman's uniform has been especially designed for either or both of them has not been disclosed as of this writing.

DO AS WE SAY, NOT AS WE DO: According to a recent account in the Arkansas Times, Little Rock's Trinity Episcopal Cathedral recently consider opening a junior high school, which would be an extension of Trinity's already-operating elementary school, but hesitated for fear that it might adversely affect enrollments in Little Rock's public schools.

However, Robert Wright, a law professor, told a meeting of school backers that they should not worry about the impact of another private school because the public schools are making a comeback. Wright, who has a child in Trinity's elementary school, probably is confident because the public schools are under the control of Mrs. Wright, better know as Federal Judge Susan Webber Wright, who oversees the never-ending school desegregation case. Of course, the Wrights both expect the European American working people to send their children to the public schools with no complaints! This reminds us of the local leader of the National Conference of Christians and Jews who made it his full-time job to shame people about their racism while he was sending his child to a local Catholic parochial school (despite the fact that he is not a Christian).

PROMISE KEEPERS: Please note that we mention particular religious denominations for purposes of identifications only. We do not endorse or condemn any religious group. We do note, however, that the leadership of every denomination we have mentioned in this issue seems to agree that European Americans should feel collectively guilty for acts done by some of their ancestors more than a hundred years ago. Even worse in this regard is the evangelistic outfit know as Promise Keepers, which is due to come Little Rock this year. Promise Keepers will contribute its efforts to heighten even more the mass guilt trip planned for European Arkansans upon the 40th anniversary of the resistance at Central High School. Many Christians believe that Promise Keepers also smuggles New Age concepts into its ostensibly Christian literature. Promise Keepers also promotes interracial marriage.

AN ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFFER, Michael Leahy, published in its April 6th issue a lengthy opinion piece in which he concludes that the Confederate battle flag has been hopelessly "soiled" by racism because it was used by segregationist during the 1950s and 1960s. He urges the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other groups to quit using the battle flag and substitute for it the first national flag of the Confederacy. We suspect, however, that within two years of the retirement of the battle flag, there would be a huge campaign mounted against the racism represented by the first national flag. If a flag representing segregation is racist, then certainly any flag representing slavery is racist. The sooner that members of the S.C.V. begin to ignore those who bait them, the better off they will be.

ALMOST 300 WORKERS AT LITTLE ROCK'S PHILIPS LIGHTING CO. lost their jobs when it was announced that the factory will closed and, probably, reopened in Mexico. How can U.S. workers compete with Mexican workers earning $1 an hour? The answer is that they cannot.

There is an interesting historical note to this: The Philips enterprises originated in Holland and may be traced back to Lion Philips and Jacques Philips, and others in the Philips family. Lions was the uncle of Karl Marx, while Jacques was a cousin of Karl Marx. (No, we are not making this up. See any complete biography of Karl Marx, also the annotation to Karl Marx-Friedrich Engels: Selected Letters, ed. Fritz Raddatz, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1981, p. 183.)

Karl Marx was obviously a renegade from his family's tradition. In more than one place, we have seen Karl Marx's mother quoted as having said that she wished that Karl had spent more time getting capital rather than only writing about it. (Unfortunately, we do not have a precise citation for this at hand.)

ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT ITEMS TO APPEAR IN THEARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE in recent months was almost buried in a small story placed far within one of the paper's sections. This was the brief report (on March 16th) that, according to Germany's weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel, there are about 100 American intelligence agents operating under cover in Germany. Already the first such agent, Peyton Humphries, a U.S. diplomat, has been expelled from Germany.

The smallness of this item helps to de-emphasize the fact that it reveals a fundamental shift in relations between the U.S. and Germany. Up until now, it was presumed that there was full cooperation between the C.I.A. and its German counterpart, the B.N.D. Now, for the first time, Germany dares to expel an American diplomat who has been accused of attempting to recruit German citizens as spies. Presumably, the diplomat-spy sought information regarding Germany's relations with Iran.

Germany is darling once again to act as an independent nation. At the same time, the U.S. is doing all that it can to recruit as many Eastern European nations as possible Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary into N.A.T.O. According to the June 15th Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the U.S. may spend as much as $125 billion to complete the military integration of these three nations into NATO.

Why, given the fact that this country may default on future Social Security and Medicare payments, do we need to spend such excessive amounts of money to assure a military presence in Eastern Europe? The Cold War is supposed to be history. Two theories that your editor has to account for this push into Eastern Europe are (1) that we "need" a military presence there to restrain Germany from any attempt to recover the lost German lands of East Prussia and Silesia, and (2) that we "need" to be ready to intervene if an "anti-Semitic" regime comes to power in any of these Eastern European nations. Your editor does not believe that either of these are real needs of the American people.

After years of stagnation in a bipolar world, historical change is once again astir and, probably, accelerating. The world is not as secure and peaceful a place as the heralds of the New World Order would have it to be.

CAN ANYONE TELL US WHY WITH ALL THE FLOODS we have suffered in Arkansas (and in the upper Midwest) this spring, we are constantly propagandized about the need to preserve "the wetlands" ? Given the chronic flooding in this state, it would seem that "the wetlands" can get along on their own without our solicitude. Furthermore, why are they now "the wetlands"? We have always called them swamps or bogs, but evidently there is now something politically incorrect about using the word swamps. Enlarging the swamps in the South may not be such a good idea, anyway, if it leads to an increase in the number of mosquitoes and, as a consequence, the return of malaria, yellow fever, and encephalitis.