Weird Tourism in the Land of Clinton

Holy Bill Clinton, Batman!

If you want to consider a tourist spot for your next vacation that is a bit out of the ordinary, consider West Helena, Arkansas. No, this doesn’t have anything to do with the Whitewater scandal, but this town in Clinton country is so poor hillbillies come in from Appalachia just to go slumming. The crime rate there is so bad the mayor has declared a 24-hour curfew. Yes, that’s right. You can be arrested in West Helena for sitting on your own porch in broad daylight.

Not that you would want to. The police carry fully automatic M-16s, equipped with laser sights, but the citizens have armed themselves with the more durable AK-47. The AK-47 is a Russian design assault rifle, fully automatic like the M-16, but made in both Russia and China. The Chinese counterfeit everything nowadays. With the police on one side and the citizens on the other, both armed with machine guns, sitting on the porch is not a favored leisure time activity. Neither is pickup basketball at the local school.

No information is available on what a police officer gets paid in West Helena. A lot, we hope. Naturally the ACLU has threatened to sue, but whom could you sue in a town that poor? And what lawyer would have nerve enough to show up in a town that violent?

For information on other tourist spots in Arkansas, please contact the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.

Clinton country. Don’t make any sudden moves.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080813/ap_on_re_us/arkansas_town_curfew;_ylt=AvkvL1LZxmJ6Z7NNojA7_xBH2ocA