Ellington

Shoes, Shoes and More Shoes - There is no better way to burn some time than to count shoes in the spring afternoon on my front porch, knowing it's worth every minute.

When I began my senior project this year, I had a lot in mind for my product, like an Iron & Wine concert, but the Senior Project Steering Committee of Northwest Rankin High School suggested that I collect shoes for battered women and children at the Center for Violence Prevention in Pearl. I have, at last count, more than 500 pairs of shoes. I was inspired to pick the topic of domestic abuse because as a child I saw it and felt it, and I had no one to turn to about my problems except for at school. That was the only place where I could be just a normal kid. I just hope that a woman or child who receives a pair of the shoes will have something that will make them smile, regardless of how the day goes.

At first, this whole thing was just a project that had to be completed just to graduate, but as I collected more shoes it became much more than that. I just hope that someone else can be inspired by what I have done.

I would like to thank the Children's Defense Fund, Trinity United Methodist Church, Jessie White, the students and faculty of Northwest Rankin and the Class of '08, the Jackson Free Press and the Jackson public who donated shoes.

Alecia Edney
Northwest Rankin High School '08

Positive Opposing Forces
In 1844, feuding abolitionists split their vote, resulting in the election of unpopular slaveholder James Polk as president of the U.S. This event set the country on course for the Civil War. Today, the two great American liberation movements—for women and for blacks—are now in collision with a potentially tragic result.

We have two excellent candidates differing little in their welcome grasp of the desperate problems we face, driven by admirable and totally understandable constituencies, weakening each other. If this is not resolved quickly, and we do not control the resentments being carefully inflamed by experts, the unthinkable is going to happen: A man who still talks about "winning" in Vietnam, who is defined by war itself, will be elected and give us an even bloodier "third Bush term."

John Davis
Jackson