[Stiggers] Eatin' Green with Rev. Vegan
Mr. Announcement: "Welcome to 'Planting Seeds of Thought' with Rev. Vegan of the Vegetarian Church International. This program is brought to you by Scooter Libby's Freedom Juice: If it says 'Libby' on the label, you're pardoned and free to go! Ghetto Science Radio presents the vegetarian preacher, Rev. I.M. Vegan."
[Isbister] What About Women Musicians?
As I left my office June 15, I had a heavy heart. Everyone was getting ready for Jubilee!JAM—the barricades were going up and parking had been a nightmare for two days.
Stop Supporting Abuse, Governor
Patrick Gregory, DHM, sent the following letter to Gov. Haley Barbour on July 2, 2007.
The Other Ridgeway Incident
This week, I will begin a journey across the hemispheres to Auckland, New Zealand. I am moving for reasons that begin with my parents' departure for Auckland nine months ago and end with a baby in California, but I'll spare you the several pages I would need to explain.
The 50-State Strategy Should Include Us
A poll recently conducted by the New York Times, CBS and MTV showed that Americans aged 17-29 lean toward the political left. The poll found that 54 percent of young Americans plan to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008, and, overall, that age group gives President Bush a 28 percent approval rating.
[Stiggers] Captain Cutback Strikes Again
Mr. Announcement: "He's faster than a job outsourced overseas, more powerful than a mass firing, able to leap over a crowd of disgruntled, downsized middle-class workers in a single bound. Look, in the board room! It's a callous CEO! It's a pink slip! No, it's Captain Cutback and his sidekick Price Gouger.
[Mott] Some People Talkin'
Brian Johnson, Matt Saldaña and I passed the pages of "We Are Family"—last week's cover story about Shirley Beach's journey from racism—between us last week, proofing and correcting them. Brian read them first, then passed the pages to Matt as he finished, and then Matt passed them on to me. Donna watched us all, inserting telling facts as we went, calling Shirley Beach to get just one more question answered, hovering like a new mother while we "doctors" corrected and polished and made it fit. What a story.
The Merry Month Of June
Unlike many fellow Jacksonians, I actually look forward to the month of June, despite the impending heat and humidity. That's partly because it's Jubilee!JAM Month—and this year the Jackson Free Press was extremely pleased to partner with JAM to help get the word out about its return to Capitol Street and its emergence, once again, as a high-caliber downtown music festival. Word is it was extremely successful and has put the JAM organization on the footing it needs to continue bringing national acts to downtown Jackson. We look forward to being a partner with JAM for many years to come.
Cold Cases Bill Must Pass
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. That legislation would authorize $10 million a year over the next decade to create a unit at the Department of Justice that would pursue unsolved civil rights cases.
[Stiggers] A 'Sicko' Nation
Mr. Announcement: "On this episode of 'All God's Churn Got Shoes,' Nurse Tootie McBride and her certified nursing assistant, Nurse Tasha, are determined to beat down poverty in the ghetto. To complete this monumental task, they need a loan from Rudy McBride, president of Let Me Hold Five Dollars National Bank. But first, Tootie and Tasha must convince Rudy to loan them 'da money.'"
[Kamikaze] Three Strikes, And You're Out
I was browsing through a copy of the Mississippi Link the other day, and I was hit with a startling reality. It was a moment of clarity like no other. I scanned the page several times over just to make sure that my eyes didn't deceive me. But alas, it was true. Pictures don't lie.
[Grayson] Stand Up To Crime
Once again, crime has the Capitol City in disarray. Like so many others in Jackson, Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon was robbed outside her home on June 9. The robbery occurred in broad daylight, a bold move by another dumb criminal, who authorities say they have arrested.
A Journey of Bones
During her largely improvised closing argument, federal prosecutor Paige Fitzgerald stumbled upon one of the most poetic moments in the James Ford Seale federal kidnapping trial.
Southwick Must Go
Last week, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a confirmation vote on Leslie Southwick when it became clear that the committee would reject his nomination. This is at least the third delay since President George W. Bush nominated Southwick last January to the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, a court just under the U.S. Supreme Court. The Fifth Circuit covers parts of Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
[Stiggers] It's a Long Way Down
Philmo Jones: "When I lost my good-paying corporate job, after the Twin Towers fell on Sept. 11, a series of unfortunate events changed my life.
A Libertarian Appeal
Recently, I was involved in a political conversation in which I made a comment about the Constitution, noting how rarely politicians cite it as a document limiting governmental power. My interlocutor dismissed the argument, saying, "Yes, but it isn't relevant today; it's so old."
[Hutchinson] Do Blacks Kill Whites Because They're White?
A recent murder trial in Tennessee shows an aspect of violent crime in America that isn't much talked about: Whites are far more likely to be the victims and blacks their assailants in interracial crimes than the other way around.
Stand By Your Man
This issue is full of men-folk: men we love and those we like, guys we've known for a while and those who are coming through town for the first time, dudes we sometimes question and some others we love to hate.
Close Columbia Training School
This Tuesday, the Juvenile Justice Committee of the Mississippi House of Representatives heard testimony from families and experts about abuse at Columbia Training School, where eight girls were allegedly shackled at the ankles, some of them for more than a week, because another student falsely claimed they planned to escape. One former student also reported that male staff members had solicited sexual favors from girls at the school.
[Stiggers] Look Out, David Hasselhoff!
Boneqweesha Jones: "As day transitions into night, a young 'brotha' rides the mean streets of his neighborhood. With dutiful purpose, he pumps the pedals of a pink five-speed banana-seat bicycle.
[Kamikaze] Celebrate Jackson With JAM
Webster's Dictionary defines an institution as a "significant practice, relationship or organization in a society or culture." An institution is baseball on a summer's eve. It's apple pie cooling on a windowsill. It's the Superbowl.
[Fainberg] Saving Our Children
America's health-care delivery system is riddled with racial and economic disparities—certainly old news. But here in the South, these words resound with a troubling new accuracy as the youngest members of our communities are dying.
The Truth Can Hurt
A reckoning happened last week in the James O. Eastland Federal Courthouse in Jackson. A lot of truth came out before anyone ever took the stand to testify in the James Ford Seale trial for the kidnapping of Charles Moore and Henry Dee.
Melton Mismanagement Hits the 'Bottom Line
This week, city officials finally handed in their budget revisions to the City Council, detailing cuts that will be made to city departments in order to reconcile a nearly $4 million deficit. Those cuts represent a sad state of affairsthe manifestation of Mayor Frank Melton's mismanagement of the city.
[Stiggers] Dig Deep
Ernest "Monday Night Football Head" Walker: "It looks like U.S. troops will be overseas a little while longer. Meanwhile, questions that reflect uncertainty loom in the thoughts of wondering poor and middle-class families. How will you pay the rent when the government is slow with the check, especially after your loved one returns home? The price of gasoline is high, and you ask why, as the children cry, because you can't drive to the grocery store to buy milk and cereal. I know; it's a sad-case scenario. Nevertheless, Brotha Hustle and I have an idea to eliminate the people's depressed and despondent thoughts."
[Davis] Secret Holds And Open Government
Congress is on the verge of having a single member derail the most meaningful reform in years of the federal Freedom of Information Act.
[Gregory] Do-overs
I work with kids daily in my "grown up" job. Sometimes, these daily interactions cause the strongest desire for a glass of wine that I've ever had. Sometimes, these interactions amaze me in their ability to prove to me that kids under the age of 10 can be the most profound creatures in the world. This is only after you get past their annoying habit of asking "what" everything in the whole world is.
A Letter to Caller Number One
"Why don't y'all just leave him alone?" The passion in the caller's voice was alarming. "He's an old man. Just leave him be. Let sleeping dogs lie." When I heard these words back in February, I stepped away from the sink where I was washing dishes and stood in front of my television, with suds dripping down onto my feet and the hardwood floors below. The anonymous caller was ranting to the hotline of a local news station, and the "old man" was James Ford Seale.
Seale the 'Last' Case? We Doubt It.
To fill space this weekend in The Clarion-Ledger's package on the James Ford Seale case, reporter Jerry Mitchell returned to a well from which he has drunk in the past with a story headlined "Seale Case Could Be Last of Its Kind." The article is a thinly disguised prognostication that seems to pander to a perceived demographic of readers who are "tired" of civil rights cases being brought to trial. But the article flies in the face of evidence that both the federal government and Mississippians intend to prosecute any of these old civil rights cases when the facts of the case warrant it.
[Viewpoint] Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia
In the days since Rev. Jerry Falwell died, much has been written about his influence on politics, but relatively little has been written about his hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia—that is, his "fear of the number 666," a number the Book of Revelation calls "the mark of the beast."