The Thursday line commences. Final words:
* MERRY CHRISTMAS: We were happy to see that Aaron Reddin, featured in the Times for his service to homeless through The Van, had received a $10,000 grant from Walmart for his program, The One, to help homeless people.
* ARKANSAS AWARD WINNERS: Little Rock filmmakers Craig and Brent Renaud have been named winners of duPont-Columbia awards for broadcast journalism this year for their film for the New York Times on Haitian children after the hurricane.
* NO. 1 ON AMAZON: You might remember “Accountable to None,” a roman a clef about an accounting firm in a Southern city written by a local author under the pen name Ashley Fontainne. The book is smoking on Amazon this week, if not in a profit-making way. To stir talk, it went free for a day and that drew 17,000 dowloands, could for the No. 1 spot on Amazon’s free list of wirelessly delivered books.
* OOPS. TALK ABOUT EARLY PRISON RELEASE: Northwest Arkansas Online (pay wall) reports that a court clerk’s typographical error led to early release of a habitual criminal who — guess what? — got charged with more crimes during his unexpected freedom. Cody Shields, 22, of Bentonville got 36 years for burglary as a repeat offender in June, but the clerk recorded his sentence as 36 months. He was sprung less than five months later, and within six weeks had been arrested in a home invasion, burglaries and the beating of two men. He’s back in the slammer, his original sentence corrected and awaiting trial on new charges.