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[Stiggers] Tuning the Toyotillac

Mr. Announcement: "Live from the Clubb Chicken Wing Multi-Purpose Complex, G-SPAN (the Ghetto-Satellite Public Affairs Network) presents a brief press conference held by Big Deacon Jones, chairman of the deacon board, head mechanic and company spokesperson of Rev. Cletus' Car Sales Church.

[Balko] Ruining Kids in Order to Save Them

That the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would even need to hear oral arguments in the case of Miller, et al. v. Skumanick last week is a pretty good indication that law enforcement officials in Wyoming County, Pa. have lost their collective minds.

[Stiggers] I Have A Weave

Boneqweesha Jones: "Welcome to Hair-Did University's School of Cosmetology fall semester orientation! I want to have an 'off the-cuff' chat with you.

[Stiggers] ‘Amazing Gracie's' Thanks

Brotha Hustle: "It's been a while since members of the Hustle family have come together for Thanksgiving. It's really nice to see familiar faces, like my second cousin Gracie Hustle, former all-star point guard for the Cootie Creek Community College ladies basketball team.

[Queen] We're Getting Hitched

"Do not dwell in the past; do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." Buddha's famous quote has directed my life for the last 30 years. I've always done my best to live life to the fullest no matter what. The last month of 2008 has proved to me that planning life is a great idea, but provides very little certainty.

[Stiggers] The Chitterling Holiday Season

Earnest "Monday Night Football Head" Walker: "Attention, Pork-N-Piggly shoppers: Now that the elections are over, it's time to enjoy the holiday seasons. As chief executive officer of Pork-N-Piggly supermarkets, I am happy to announce the start of the Chitterling (Chit-lin) Holiday Season."

[Balko] What No One Bothered to Ask Sotomayor

Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor included much of what we expected. Almost entirely left out of the discussion was a subject you might think has some relevance to the Supreme Court: the criminal justice system.

'Local' Means More than 'Locale'

In her Aug. 21 column, "How Locavores Brought On Local-Washing," Forbes magazine Deputy Editor Elisabeth Eaves takes umbrage with the story "A Local Lie" (link) published here and in a handful of other newsweeklies around the country.

The First Step

My small group of friends and I spent the majority of last Saturday at Smith Robertson Museum. Our still nameless singing group and band performed at an art opening featuring many budding talents in our city. The exhibit's title: "Trapped Flowers." Jason Thompson, who emceed the show, said that a trapped flower was any woman who was stifled or suffocated, whether by domestic violence or by something more prosaic.

[Stiggers] Beware the Party Crashers

Mr. Announcement: "In the ghetto-criminal justice system, the people are represented by two members of the McBride family: police officer and part-time security guard at the Funky Ghetto Mall, Dudley 'Do-Right' McBride, and attorney Cootie McBride of the law firm McBride, Myself and I. This is their story."

Of Anger and Alternative Endings

When I was a teenager, I decided I wanted to be a civil-rights attorney. I had visions of righting the kinds of wrongs done in my hometown of Philadelphia, Miss. I only learned about the murders of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner by people my family knew when I was 14, even though they happened when I was 3.

[Mott] The Cost of Executions

Quitman County, Miss., population 10,500, raised taxes for three years and borrowed $150,000 to provide legal counsel to Robert Simon and Anthony Carr, sentenced to death for the 1990 murders of four family members. A death-penalty case "is almost like lightning striking," county administrator Butch Scipper told The Wall Street Journal in 2002. "It is catastrophic to a small rural county."

An Ache in Our Souls

A few years ago, I made what was, for me, a radical step: joining the Unitarian Universalist Church of Jackson. For a minute or two, I was on the board and even sang in the choir.

Where The Streets Have No Name

I've flown to Chicago twice in a month to give writing workshops at Northwestern's journalism school, and each time I've been swept up in a wave of compassion and love. I like to think it's because so many Mississippians have made the city their home, but that may well be a bit egocentric of me.

[Stiggers] Little Bit of Change

Miss Doodle Mae: "Finally, it looks like this winter's cold spell has broken. Trees covered with white blossoms decorate the ghetto landscape. The street corners and hangout spots are alive with unemployed folk, winos and beggars."

Doing It Our Way

My favorite James Meredith story involved the über contrarian sot Christopher Hitchens. Todd and I were asked to "entertain" Hitch during his visit to Millsaps College a few years back; after he arrived from the airport, we met him at Que Sera Sera and, essentially, watched him drink all afternoon and pontificate his passionate-but-weak reasons for supporting the Iraq War.

[Balko] Justice For Johannes Mehserle

Early the morning of Jan. 1, 2009, in a now-infamous incident that dozens of cell phones captured on video and then replayed across the globe, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed 23-year-old Oscar Grant as Grant lay on his stomach on an Oakland BART platform.

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