Singing the Broken Pipe Blues
When the water in their sinks and showers slowed to a drip last week, many Jacksonians found their thoughts turning subterranean. Following five days of freezing temperatures, water mains across the city began to burst Sunday, Jan. 10. By Friday, the city had seen more than 150 breaks in its water system. Jackson Public Schools and area colleges were closed most of the week, along with state offices and many businesses.
Scaring the Scared
One way politicians get their constituents to vote against their best interests is to play into already existing fears. It's a time-honored, if not somewhat dishonest way of keeping people from even attempting to distinguish a politician's words from reality.
Levee De-certification Not a Corps Decision
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Kavanaugh Breazeale said yesterday that the Corps will not make the decision to either certify or de-certify local levees that protect the city of Jackson from a Pearl River flood.
[Hutchinson] Where Was the World When Haiti Really Needed It?
The heartbreaking and pathetic scene that I and a group of American visitors witnessed at the small beach town in Northern Haiti still haunts me. We had no sooner arrived at the beach when a contingent of Haitian police and local officials frantically waved away a throng of the town's residents who had poured onto to the beach to hawk food, trinkets, carvings and tattered clothing items—but mostly to beg.
Barbour Disavows House Effort to Limit His Power
Gov. Haley Barbour is speaking out against a bill the Mississippi House of Representatives passed yesterday, which exempts budgets of certain state agencies from reduction when state revenues fall below revenue estimates. HB 392 also restricts cuts to agencies beyond projected budget shortfalls.
Eric Stringfellow
As a journalism professor, Eric Stringfellow, 49, is never far away from a newspaper. As he works on his computer, a stack of papers accompanies him.
Single-Minded Purpose
In March 1944, Hannah Senesh, a young Jew from Budapest who had immigrated to Palestine five years earlier, parachuted into Yugoslavia in an effort to make contact with Hungarian Jews, establish resistance movements and carve out routes of escape from eastern Europe. Senesh was single-minded in her purpose, driven by her desperate need to find her mother and spirit her away before the Final Solution would ultimately descend upon the last bastion of Hungarian Jewry.
Ballet Competition Names Mitchell
The USA International Ballet Competition has named Arthur Mitchell as the honorary chairman of the 2010 Jackson competition scheduled for June 12 through June 27, 2010. Mitchell is the founding artistic director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
Deuce Announces His Retirement
After joining the Saints briefly in a "ceremonial" role for last Saturday's playoff game, Deuce McAllister has announced that he's retiring from football.
Undisclosed Funders Pay for Consolidation Study
Gov. Haley Barbour's Commission on Education Structure will use funds from an undisclosed private source to pay for a study of school consolidation. At its first meeting yesterday, the Commission agreed to pay a Denver-based consulting firm $72,000 to deliver a report on the potential cost-savings and improvements to educational quality offered by merging some of the state's 152 school districts.
Bad News and Hard Cuts Embody State of State
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's 2010 State of the State address on Monday fell short on good news. The state is facing a revenue shortfall of more than $350 million, and Barbour has recommended cutting 10 percent of the state's budget in nearly every agency, save the Department of Corrections.
Thelman Boyd
Public Works Director Thelman Boyd has been in the infrastructure business a long, long time. Boyd came on as interim Public Works director and then official Public Works director under the administration of former Mayor Frank Melton, after first serving in the department throughout the Johnson administration. He couldn't help picking up a little innate knowledge during all that time.
20th Century Boy - A Skin-Deep Appreciation of Glam Rock
You would never know it to look at me, but I love glam rock so much it hurts. Aesthetically, I'm pretty devoid of pigments, opting to wear black 9 times out of 10. But inside, there is a Technicolor 70's NYC hipster with skinny pants and glittery eyeliner, pretending to be an alien from the future. Scratch that...I'd be a British version of that. But the creator did not grace me with the form, temporal placement, or geography to pull it off. And I'm straight. But hey, we all have our cross, right? All of that is to say that it is a subject dear to my glittery heart. So along the next couple of paragraphs, I will touch on some of the things that make it such an incredible era of music which spawned a cultural revolution, particularly for the Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Transexual community.
[Balko] That Other War
Drug War deaths show that the Verndun mentality continues to thrive in America's effort to protect its citizens from themselves. Law enforcement officials shrug off the deaths of innocents and use paramilitary-style units to bear on suspects in volatile and dangerous manners.
Pickering in Court Today
Former U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering will appear in Madison Municipal Court this afternoon at 1 p.m., along with youth soccer coach Christopher Hester. Pickering and Hester filed simple assault complaints against each other early last month after the two had a disagreement over a soccer game in Madison in which Pickering's son was a player. The charges carry a maximum fine of six months in jail and a $400 fine.
Immigration Reform for Dummies
If passed in its present form, Mississippi SB 2032--charitably titled the "Immigration Reform Act of 2010"--would: Force undocumented immigrants to remain in Mississippi for up to 10 years against their will, at taxpayer expense [see Sections 1(5) and 2(5)];Impair the ability of Mississippi agencies to cooperate in federal immigration law enforcement by giving any racist crank in the state the authority to monopolize personnel time with as many writs of mandamus as their little heart desires [see Section 5(5)]; andUnfairly target family members of undocumented immigrants, forcing legal citizens to rat out their parents, children, or siblings to law enforcement or face imprisonment [see Section 3]. Ordinarily when I see a bill this nasty and punitive, I chalk it up to the race-baiting excesses of the anti-immigrant movement. But this isn't even, strictly speaking, just an anti-immigrant bill; it's an anti-common sense bill. SB 2032 tells us the best way to make immigrants leave is to imprison them here, that the best way to keep immigration paperwork moving through the system is to pile on an indefinite amount of additional immigration paperwork, and that the best way to promote family values is to criminalize them. There is only one conceivable reason why anyone would propose a bill like this: to bait public officials of good will (and good sense) into opposing it, then paint them as "pro-amnesty" by misrepresenting the bill's contents to the press.
Franks Responds to Barbour's State of the State
[verbatim] Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Jamie Franks today released the following response to Gov. Barbour¹s State of the State address:
Donate Shoes and Help Haiti
Read the press release below.
(http://www.giveshoes.org) and Shoe Carnival have joined forces to provide shoes
Barbour Delivers State of the State Address
(verbatim statement) Mr. Speaker, Governor Bryant, members of the Legislature, distinguished guests and fellow Mississippians:
Protesters: HBCU Merger Cannot Happen
Alumni, students, and advocates for historically black colleges and universities marched to the state Capitol from the Mississippi State Fairgrounds today to recognize the birthday of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and to protest Gov. Haley Barbour's recent proposal to merge Mississippi Valley State University and Alcorn State University with Jackson State University.