[Kamikaze] Wrangle the Crazies
OK, I get it. There are varying opinions on the new health-care bill. You have some who are staunchly in favor of the resolution. Others are none too fond of the new plan. This is what America was built on, correct? The right to respectfully disagree.
[Tatum] My Personal Easter
It's easier to gather a breeze in a basket than to totally grasp the mystery of Easter.
[Balko] Progress and Challenges in Mississippi
Last week Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour signed House Bill 1456, which would require anyone conducting autopsies in the state to be certified in forensic pathology by the American Board of Pathology. The bill was a response to an effort last year by the state's coroners to incorporate themselves into independent districts for the purpose of circumventing existing state law when it comes to death investigations. Specifically, several coroners and district attorneys wanted to bring back disgraced medical examiner Steven Hayne to begin performing autopsies for them again.
For Those We Love
We buried my cousin Anita last week. She was a beautiful, saucy blonde who used to tag around her brother Martie and me back on Fork Road in Neshoba County. Our mamas--both deliciously loud women married to Ladds--were great buddies, and took turns "keeping" us all. Martie and I were born the same year, and people used to think we were twins.
Bluster Isn't Enough, Governor
Earlier this week, Gov. Haley Barbour announced that he would sue the federal government over the new health-care law the U.S. Congress passed March 21. In his usual windy style of political rhetoric, his press release was full of statements guaranteed to scare the bejeezus out of the uninformed while adding nothing substantive to the national conversation.
[Stiggers] Rabid Race Mixers
Mr. Announcement: "On this episode of 'All God's Churn Got Shoes,' members and supporters of Operation White Backlash have organized a Tea Party protest rally and barbeque outside the offices of the Progressive Multi-Cultural Review, World Report and Other Stuff Journal Inc.
[Hutchinson] An Ugly Glare
The throng of angry whites jeered, catcalled and spat out borderline racial insults at the small group of mostly black protesters. The charged racial confrontation happened March 14, 2010, in the self-billed all-American, mostly white Los Angeles suburban bedroom city of Torrance, Calif.
[Balko] Pre-Crime Policing
To hear them tell it, the five police agencies who apprehended 39-year-old Oregonian David Pyles early on the morning of March 8 thwarted another lone-wolf mass murderer. The police "were able to successfully take a potentially volatile male subject into protective custody for a mental evaluation," announced a(Medford, Ore., police department.) press release. The department had recently placed the subject on administrative leave from his job, was "very disgruntled" and had recently purchased several firearms. "Local Law Enforcement agencies were extremely concerned that the subject was planning retaliation against his employers," the release said. Fortunately, Pyles "voluntarily" turned himself over to police custody, and the legally purchased firearms "were seized for safekeeping."
Thinking ‘Locals' First
It's hard to believe Mal's St. Paddy's Parade—and the attendant celebrations both downtown and elsewhere—are already upon us. It doesn't seem like it's been long enough since the Great Snowman Contest of February, even if daylight savings time is here.
‘Good Enough' Isn't
Mississippi has not had a state medical examiner for the past 15 years. To fill that hole, the state has relied mainly on Dr. Steven Hayne, a decision that has often proved unwise.
[Stiggers] Vicious Whack
Boneqweesha Jones: "Live from the new Hair Did University television studio, it's time for 'Qweesha Live: 2010 Edition.'
[Kamikaze] A Work in Progress
You'll have to excuse me. I'm writing this column in somewhat of a sleepy haze. You see, sleep has devilishly escaped me for the past few days. I wish it would return. But alas, I'm a new father again so there are miles to go before I sleep.
[Moore] My Life as a Tree
My life was as normal as it could be my first half-century.
[Balko] The Other Broken Windows Fallacy
One of the central themes of the critically acclaimed HBO series "The Wire" was the pressure politicians put on police brass, who then apply it to the department's middle management, to generate PR-friendly statistics about lowering crime and increasing arrests. The show, based in part on co-creator Ed Burns' experience as a narcotics cop at the Baltimore Police Department, was a running narration of the chasm between what politicians and the public consider to be effective crime-fighting techniques and what measures actually make cities safer.
[Ladd] Ain't That Something
Not long ago, Todd and I were downtown to see "Groovaloo" at Thalia Mara. As we walked to the car, an obviously homeless man walked up and respectfully asked us for money. Todd did what I've watched him do so many times when we lived in New York City and when visiting San Francisco and other cities. He paused for a split-second in decision and then reached into his pocket. He pulled out a $20 bill, glanced at it and handed it to the man who was holding the bucket he uses to wash windshields. The man looked surprised.
Bring Development to Earth
Tea-partiers and fiscal conservatives make a lot of noise about how much citizens pay in taxes—income, property, sales and so forth—decrying any effort toward increased spending on health care or social programs.
[Stiggers] Whooty Whoot Time
Mr. Whooty Whoot Man: "Good morning! And welcome to the 'Mr. Whooty Whoot' television show. This program is brought to you by a tiny grant from the Poor Ghetto Children's Television Network. Additional funding is brought to you by the Ghetto Science Team's Community Stimulus and the Let Me Hold Five Dollars National Bank (L.M.H.F.D.N.B.).
A Yankee Reporter in the Bible Belt
I drove 19 hours to get from New York to Mississippi. Nearly a dozen cans of Coke kept me from falling asleep and drifting into oncoming traffic. The only company in my Volkswagen was a bamboo plant sitting on the passenger seat. Each time I shifted gears, the plant's green leaves jolted forward.
[Collier] The Sweetest Taboo
This past Valentine's Day I got two things: a single white rose–which every woman older than 18 received at church that day–and a card from my mother. That's it. No more. It's virtually impossible for it to have been less. That's the way things work when you're unattached.
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.
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.
[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.
[Balko] Is Texas About to Execute Another Innocent Man?
Henry Watkins "Hank" Skinner was supposed to be executed tomorrow, but last Tuesday a Gray County, Texas, district court judge pushed the date back one month, to March 24. Skinner has been on Death Row in Texas since 1993, awaiting execution for the murder of his girlfriend and her two sons. He has maintained his innocence since his arrest, and investigators from the Northwestern University Journalism School's Medill Innocence Project have shot numerous holes in the prosecution's case. But Texas officials refuse to conduct a simple DNA test that could point to the condemned man's innocence or cement his guilt.
The Power of Now
When I moved back to Mississippi in 2001, I was naïve. I thought I was coming home to write about the past that shamed me as a white Mississippian. I wanted to be a white Mississippian who wasn't afraid to face the past.
Will U.S. Chamber Win Again?
In 2004, Attorney General Jim Hood hired attorneys Joey Langston and Timothy Balducci—who later pled guilty to corruption in 2008 and 2007, respectively—to recoup unpaid taxes and interest resulting from a multi-state tax fraud scheme Clinton-based WorldCom cooked up before the company's 2002 collapse.
[Stiggers] That Sounds Nasty
Boneqweesha Jones: "Welcome to Hair Did University's S.O.H.K. (School of Hard Knocks) Critical Thinking Lecture Series. Psychologist Judy McBride wants to share with us an effect that is affecting people today."
Pseudopolitics Equals Pseudofailure
Recently the Mississippi Legislature passed legislation outlawing the sale of medical products containing pseudoephedrine without a prescription. The intent of this legislation is to reduce the rampant methamphetamine epidemic.