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[Stiggers] Keep It to Yourself
Miss Doodle-Mae: "I'm proud to welcome five new members to the staff of Jojo's Discount Dollar Store. You've experienced the rigorous training and intense orientation sessions. I hope you've mastered the Four-Way-Test Customer Service class."
[Stiggers] Too Nasty
Mr. Announcement: "G-SPAN presents live coverage of the Ghetto Science Community Health Care Reform Clinic grand opening. The clinic is the newest addition to the Club Chicken
[Gregory] Killing Me Softly
I have a Polaroid of myself taken sometime in this past year stuck in the edge of a mirror in the living room. One would think I was horribly conceited. This is probably true in some respects, but it isn't the main reason the picture is hanging near the front door. I keep it there because it was taken right before I quit my job of five years, and well, I also look horribly skinny in it. This past year held an assortment of upheaval for me. I went through three jobs in four months. It seemed every month I decided on something new I was going to be when I grew up. I'm surprised I didn't run off to join the circus. I probably would have if carnies didn't scare me and smell faintly of cabbage. Every so often, I look at this picture and think how the girl doing the fake "get-this-camera-out-of-my-face" grin had no idea what the next year held.
Note From A Concerned Citizen
When I arrived at the office one recent morning, an e-mail from a "concerned citizen" was awaiting my eyes in my inbox. In that e-mail, a Jackson resident expressed her outrage at an incident she and her husband had witnessed on their way to church the previous day.
[Stiggers] Hot Fun in the Sun
Momma Roscoe: "While enduring this time of economic gloom, Big Roscoe and I concluded that the recession will teach us all how to be thankful, resourceful and careful this summer."
[Balko] Clemency on Trial
Most governors grant clemency for the wrong reasons, including Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. Here's what coverage of the Huckabee/Clemons case is missing.
[Gregory] I Want Everything
New Year's Day, the SciFi channel ran a "Twilight Zone" marathon—the old black-and-white ones. I watched for a few hours because I love that they allow the weirdo host to smoke during his introductions and that they created most of the episode's eerie feelings with no special effects, whatsoever. After all, in this day and age, I can't leave the house without applying a hell of a lot of special effects to my own face.
Jackson, We Still Have A Problem
It's been a tough week or so over at Frank Melton's house. First, we broke the news online on Dec. 4 that the young man he is accused of mentoring into helping destroy a Ridgeway Street duplex was arrested for armed carjacking (link). The last time Michael Taylor—who lived in Melton's home until a few weeks ago, was arrested, in late 2005, he was 16 and accused of robbing a barbershop at gunpoint. Then on Aug. 15, the mayor drew the felony for Taylor because investigators say Melton and his bodyguards told him to use a sledgehammer to destroy private property.
The Next Americans
Last week, President George W. Bush signed The Secure Fence Act, which adds 700 miles to the 83 miles of fence on our border with Mexico. Along with the fence, which will cost at least $6 billion, Congress approved billions of dollars for more border patrol officers, more prison space for illegal immigrants and more raids on employers.
[Balko] A New Trial for Cory Maye
Mississippi's Court of Appeals affirms a right to a local jury.
[Wilson] Draining A Bloated Government
In Mississippi, a new year means more than just changing calendars. It means the Legislature is back in session, and all 174 of our elected representatives have descended upon the capital city.
Pity Would Be No More
In a few hours, I would be leaving Africa. After two weeks traveling through Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and the Central African Republic with New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nick Kristof, I stood in the Bangui, C.A.R. airport ready to leave. I had won the trip through a New York Times essay contest—"Win A Trip With Nick"—that 3,800 people had entered.
Common Sense in 2011
Political junkies watched with some surprise as the lame-duck 2010 Congress passed a number of last-minute bills to bring the year to a close. Widely heralded as a week of "wins" for President Obama, the accomplishments are hopefully a bit of a harbinger of things to come.
[Stiggers] Don't Feed The Natives
Ike (on a bike): "Welcome fellow cyclists to the Ghetto Science Team's Village Ghetto Land summer recreation bicycle tour—inspired by the Stevie Wonder album 'Songs in the Key of Life.'
[Stiggers] Ball of Confusion!
Miss Doodle-Mae: "Greetings Jo-Jo's Discount Dollar Store customers! I'm your friendly cashier and security guard reminding financially challenged citizens about the Jo-Jo's Back-to-School Daze Sale Bonanza!
The Folks Are Coming
A JFP reader commented on our Web site Tuesday that it is a very different world in which citizens can watch live feeds of a trial on WAPT's Web site and then click to jacksonfreepress.com and comment on it, ask questions and have them immediately addressed by the lawyers obsessed with the site. It is, indeed.
[Balko] Bad Prosecutors, Mississippi and Beyond
Anthony Caravella walked away from a Florida prison last month. He served 26 years for a rape and murder that DNA testing has shown he didn't commit. Caravella was 15 at the time he was arrested and has an IQ of 67. A confession that his attorneys say was beaten out of him by police interrogators played a part in his conviction. Caravella's prosecutor, Robert Carney, has put at least two other people in prison for murder who were later cleared of the crimes. Carney is now a judge in Broward County, though he recently announced he's retiring at the end of this year.
[Agnew] Voters with Disabilities
"My mom won't take me to vote, but I want to go," a young woman says to me as I take questions from her group. I ask her if she lives with her mother, and she answers that she and her husband do. Her mother does vote, but the woman tells me, "My mom doesn't think me or my husband are smart enough to vote."
[Stiggers] Enduring Money Stress
Rudy McBride: "Many of my loyal customers are concerned about how the Let Me Hold Five Dollars National Bank will hold up under the U.S. government and Ghetto Science Team's economic stress tests."
[Stiggers] As the Oil Flows
Boneqweesha Jones: "It's the ‘Qweesha Live 2010 Weekly World Report.' It looks like this summer is putting the heat on world and corporate leaders. Case in point is the president. It seems like the nation, media and Congress are sweating him about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.