Happiness Worth Celebrating
In my own relationship with an abusive man, "You're the best" turned fairly quickly into "I'm the only one who loves you," along with overt attempts to demonize my friends and isolate me.
Friendship Ball Promotes Dialogue, Helps Kids
This Saturday, Jackson 2000, a nonprofit established to improve race relations will host the 10th annual Jackson Friendship Ball, a celebration of the work of non-profits and individuals working to better the city by creating and expanding interracial dialogues.
Nursing Homes and Overrides
Last week was all about passing budget bills, with the House and Senate considering a huge list of appropriation legislation funding various state agencies.
Barbour Blames Media for Toyota Woes
In 2007—before the economy tanked—Mississippi lawmakers and Gov. Haley Barbour approved a $293.9 million incentive package to persuade Toyota Motor Corp. to build a factory in Blue Springs, Miss., near Tupelo. Proposed improvements to the 1,700-acre site plan include infrastructure upgrades to water and sewer lines, and new roads.
Get Serious About Flooding
The area got good news last week when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it is recommending that FEMA certify existing Pearl River levees as capable of withstanding most of the flooding that the metro experiences.
[Stiggers] Future Paradise
Rudy McBride: "This may sound weird, but an epiphany came to me. It happened while I was doing some paperwork and listening to the 'Good Morning Ghetto' Drive Time Morning Crew on the Serious Ghetto Science Team Radio Network."
[Kamikaze] Take It Back
Being a born and bred Jacksonian, I can say I've lived on every "side" of this city. I've seen the good and the bad up close, met some treasures, and met some trash.
[Eady] Our Students Deserve Better
Three young boys waited on a wooden bench in a brown-paneled office on the hot May day. Anton stretched his legs out and slouched back, his face blank and eyes flashing with anger. Next to him sat Reggie, whose brown eyes darted around the room nervously. The third boy, Derek, was crying.
The Commons: Continuity of Love
Under the quiet gaze of an oversized bronze statue of Eudora Welty, a friendly but insistent workman keeps asking Jonathan Sims what to do about the dishwasher. Sims can't answer right away. He looks down at the brick-imprinted concrete covered with wet leaves and concentrates.
A Legendary Tribute
"Ain't Got Long to Stay Here" is a 90-minute one-man show in which actor Barry Scott plays 12 characters with varying perspectives about the Civil Rights Movement.
Dysfunctional Splendor
New Stage Theatre brings theater-goers another southern comedy with "Dividing the Estate" by Horton Foote. Set in Harrison, Texas, the play portrays the Gordon family and its struggle to hold on to privileged lives.
Collection of a Lifetime
Art lovers Herb and Dorothy Vogel celebrated their engagement by purchasing a vase by Pablo Picasso. Soon after they were married, the couple acquired a metal sculpture by American artist John Chamberlain.
A New Kind of Fabulous
Lynn Nottage's "Fabulation or The Re-Education of Undine" is a dark comedy about an African American businesswoman, Undine, who falls from the New York City high life back to Brooklyn and the family she has tried to forget.
Bartered Souls and A Crooked Brow - Furrows' Debut Album Review
To Furrow is to, generally in a pained manner, wrinkle one's forehead. This expression is so pronounced that the bunched skin resembles the parallel farming trenches, from which, the verb derives: furrows. While digesting the lyrics presented in Furrows' self-titled debut, you imagine that Cody Cox, lead singer and songwriter, has heard that description before. It isn't hard to suppose that, after living some of the experiences described here, the topography of one's brow would be altered. It is a credit to the songwriting that these experiences are felt, with the mind, just as acutely as the physical expression would be noticed by the eyes.
Lessons of the 1979 Easter Flood
Part 3 in a series
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommended last week that FEMA re-certify the levees protecting the Hinds and Rankin County edges bordering the Pearl River, despite the fact that the levees cannot stop a 200-year flood event similar to the 1979 Pearl River flood.
Target: Dating Violence
When Brittany started dating Jack (not their real names), she was involved in her high school's athletic program, spent time with a large group of male and female friends, and had a personality that radiated happiness.
No Overnight Sensation
It's unfair to call The Overnight Lows' "City of Rotten Eyes" a debut. It's more a culmination--a mail bomb packed tightly with a decade's worth of hand-scrawled show flyers and tallboy cans. The Lows are a Jackson musical institution, albeit a subterranean stronghold.
[Mott] Happiness Worth Celebrating
For too long in Mississippi, the legal community--police, lawyers and judges--have seen domestic abuse as a problem best dealt with at home. Women bring violence on themselves, the thinking goes; they should just do what their men tell them to. That's changing in this state, albeit slowly, and only after a lot of work by smart and dedicated people.
Hate Groups Up by 244 Percent
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has documented extremist groups in the United States for decades, yesterday released its annual report on the number of active hate groups in the country. Calling the figures "alarming," Morris Dees, founder of the Montgomery, Ala.-based organization, says it has documented a 244 percent increase in just the past year.
Jason Goree
At first sight, Jason Goree looks as if he is all about business. As he flops in his brown executive chair, a picture of his wife, Khylah, and 3-year-old son Isaiah rattles on his desk. Goree, a real estate and business developer for 3G Management and Development Group, is involved in several projects to improve the city of Jackson.