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[Stiggers] It Is Winter in America, Baby
Your presidential candidate for 2004, Mo'tel Williams: "Ladies and gentlemen! I know it's late. But since Jessie and Al are past tense, I think I have a chance. I'm not here to lie to yawl, even though everybody else has. Case in point: African-Americans were promised 40 acres and a mule, received nothing and were fooled.
[Gonsalves] The No-Stupid-Question-Rule
So how come conservative Christians aren't insisting that Jefferson is burning in Hades, quoting verses from Paul's letters about what hellish future awaits those who mess with the Word?
[Stiggers] Col. Reb's Last Stand
Concert and event promoters: Have I got an idea for you! Man, this could be the biggest gala event in the "state of minds" of Mississippians! I'm thinking of a retirement celebration for Col. Reb. Let's call it the "Stone Soul" picnic, disco, gun show and hiphop concert featuring guest M.C. George Bushy, D.J. Dick "Off the" Cheney and Secretary of "D-Fence" Rumsfeld's Weapons of Mass Destruction Search Posse performing the chart-climbing single "Back Dem Tanks Up"; the new millennium world beat hit (oops, I did say hit?) "Preemption Song"; and the billboard No. 1 single "Air Strike: Drop It Like It's Hott!"
[Stiggers] Darned Good Rhyme
In an effort to reach a younger audience, DGI (Darn Good Intelligence) and Bring Em On Records present M.C. George Bushy's new hiphop single "Back Dem Tanks Up: Speech Aftermath, pt 2 (The Remix)" from the CD "Those who Know Don't Tell, and Those who Tell Don't Know"—featuring George "Blame it on the Rain" Tenet, Condoleeza "Kizzy Speaks" Rice, Colin "Where's Waldo" Powell and the White "In the Howse" Staff. Here are a few lines from the single. ...
[Spann] Without Dodging a Single Bullet
I watched the previews on television all week with apprehension. I thought, "Please don't let it be Mississippi." I've never been ashamed of Mississippi, though I've often renounced the racists and other trite characters that call our state home. But fears about my state being misrepresented ran rampant when I saw scenes from an upcoming episode of the NBC drama "Crossing Jordan." The show's characters were to visit a southern state to render Bostonian justice for an old hate crime.
[Parks] I'm a Decent Human Being, Too
When I first got to my precinct in Louisiana to vote, the people behind me greeted me cheerfully. They wanted to know where I go to school, what I want to be, what I thought of the rain outside. After we all realized the line we were standing in was where we'd be for almost an hour, they started comparing the wait to the lines for the Louisiana Marriage Amendment a few weeks ago, which were much shorter. That amendment passed by 78 percent of the vote, but was declared unconstitutional by a state judge on Oct. 5.
[Ladd] A Fool by Any Other Party
Man, I can't stand Bill Clinton. It drives me crazy to see him all over the place, hawking his new book and his excuses for his bad behavior in the Oval Office. His reasons for lying to the American people. His rationale for using his power to screw around with the lives of a parade of vulnerable women, some barely old enough to drink.
[Eastburn] Love Your Soldier
It is Monday night, and I am driving my oldest son, 19, to a hotel where he will wait to be picked up by a bus. We've stopped at K-Mart for toothpaste and shampoo and a prepaid telephone card and other last-minute incidentals. I grab a pad of unlined paper and a box of envelopes, hoping they will remind him to write. We drag out his departure as long as we can. When the bus picks him up at the hotel, it will deliver him to the United States Army. A reservist, my son will spend the next 10 weeks getting fit, training to be a soldier, should he be called to active duty. The odds are great that he will. We are, after all, at war.
[Stiggers] Come Chill at Clubb Chicken Wing
Has the election got you down? Join the "Financially Challenged" at the hippest and least expensive place in town, Clubb Chicken Wing. As food, gas and energy prices increase, the only thing you can afford at a club these days is a chicken-wing snack!
WIGGS: Give T-Shirts a Chance!
Does freedom of expression still exist in the U.S.? Mark Wiggs explores.
[Chick] ‘It Ain't Me'
Praise the Lord, Jill is No. 1! Again, The New York Times confirms what we all know anyway: Southerners are the best darn writers on the planet. Now, Jill Conner Browne will try to tell you that the Sweet Potato Queens canon is not literature, but any intelligent, fun-loving woman in the South, or the world for that matter, begs to differ. If "Make me laugh and buy me sparkly things, and I am yours" isn't a timeless and cultural universal, I don't know what is. Hence, literature. I know I'm right about this.
[Stiggers] Escape from Jacktown!
Funkee Fanger Filmworks/Productions, Inc., Esq.,Co.,LLC,OPP,Yeah U Know Me (producers of the upcoming HBO Pay-Per-View event titled "Rumble In The Political Arena"—featuring City of Jackson officials and journalists) lyrically proposes this rough treatment/music video idea titled "Escape from Jacktown: Urban Flight."
[Stiggers] Fresh Breath is Coming to Town
Season's greetings, folkses! This is your favorite non-black, Mo'tel Williams, along with the Sausage Sandwich Sisters, also known as the Electric Slide Ambassadors for World Peace and Rent Money. We know that 2003 has been a year of putrid mouths spewing out foul phrases. Now the air is polluted with negative thoughts as misinformed masses bask in lethargy and apathy because the world is at war, the economy is in decay, nations are in conflict, religion is steeped in controversy, the issue of race remains unsolved and Girls Gone Wild Doggy Style. And if you hear anyone say, "life stinks," it's because the world has a bad case of halitosis.
[Silver] The 30-Year-Old War
I'm glad I'm not running for president. My service record would be made public, and while there's little in there that's embarrassing other than my grade in navigation, it's not the stuff of the greatest generation, either. To avoid stomping through rice paddies, I joined Navy ROTC at Tulane and majored in sociology. It was a way to defer the worst of the war and ensure that when I went, I would go on my terms.
Thanks, But No Thanks
I'm no feminist, and I definitely wear a bra most days of the week, but I am fed up with men giving me their unsolicited advice or trying to force me into liberation. It happened on the track one day at the YMCA on Fortification Street. I was plodding along at my 5.5 mph pace minding my own business. Suddenly some jerk … oops, I mean strange man … ran up beside me and said, "You should lengthen out your stride," then ran on ahead. Look, buddy, I'm training for a marathon and being coached by a nationally ranked triathlon athlete; I don't need your advice. Needless to say, I didn't see the fellow again that evening. Why? After one measly mile, he headed inside to lift weights. I finished my six miles in record time while fuming over this meathead's comment.
[Spann] Right the First Time
I don't really follow politics per se; the whole mess bores me. But I have taken note lately. Over the last year, the political scene has been a colorful place from Pennsylvania Avenue to Silas Brown Street, home of Jackson's temporary city hall. As I watch the political ads and listen to the news reports, I wonder: Wouldn't it be great if life were as carefree as the most idyllic childhood? Someone might goof during a game, everyone would chuckle, and then you'd simply yell, "Do over!" and all would be right in play land again.
LADD: Talk About Freedom
Join another vigil for peace and safety of the troops Sunday, March 23, at 7 p.m. in front of the Eastland Courthouse on West Capitol Street downtown. This column is dedicated to Todd Allen, who showed up one day to help distribute the Jackson Free Press because he believes in our mission. He is a peace-lover and an Army chaplain who is now en route to the Middle East. Godspeed.
Doin' the Cha-Cha for Equality and Rent Money
Electric Slide Foundation of America presents the 2004 Post Olympic Cha-Cha Slide/Steppin' Dance Competition and Voter Registration Drive for World Peace and Rent Money.
[Stauffer] To Peace and Prosperity
As I'm writing this, the Dow seems to have settled into a new level over 10,000 and up about 25 percent on the year. Our abysmal unemployment numbers have seen a little improvement recently (although some manufacturing jobs would be nice), and orders for durable goods have been up in past months along with GDP growth. That's all pretty good news, and it's news that I hope translates into peace and prosperity for all of us in the new year. There is, of course, a lot of work to do—particularly in government, where the red ink flows at both the federal level and here in the state capital.
