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We Got A New At-ti-tude
Cue the Patti LaBelle, baby. As we prepare our third Best of Jackson issue, it strikes me that Jacksonians are starting to take for granted the idea that "best" is a superlative term that applies to their city. We got a new attitude.
[Chick] Tankini Hell
First of all, I had every intention of boycotting the swimsuit industry this year. No, I was not going to be that chick you see at the public pool wearing gym clothes in the water. (By the way, if she's not going to suit up, she could at least get some band-aids. I'm just saying.) I spent big bucks on a suit last year that covers what needs to be covered and accentuates the few good things I've got going for myself.
[Spann] Road-Tested, Mother-Approved
I still remember the day I discovered my first gray hair. I was blow-drying my hair and just as I parted a new section to dry, I saw it in all its pale, wiry glory. I gasped and froze, not sure whether to jump for joy or cry out in despair. I raced from the bathroom into our home office to share my discovery with my husband. "I have a gray hair," I said with a mixture of confusion and delight. I saw him pause suddenly with his hands poised above the computer keyboard. "OK," he said tentatively. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he deliberated his next response. Were congratulations in order, or should he be prepared to comfort me with some lame comment about wisdom? Luckily, I broke the tension with something like "I guess I'm officially a grown-up now. This is kind of a special moment, huh?"
[Ladd] Catching a Creative Wave
I've been thinking a lot about who's in charge lately. This first entered my brain because of Haley Barbour's half-hearted attempts at appointing a Cabinet that looks like Mississippi (for the record, that would be close to half black and just over half female. And a good percentage of them would be under 40. For the record). But, he tells us, there aren't enough "outstanding" women who are "qualified" for "leadership" positions in his administration. Ouch.
[Chick] Your Racism Is Not Wanted
I don't know about y'all, but the Monkey and I were needing some Jesus real bad this last week, so we got ourselves to church even though I was very uncertain about the message we might receive. Chalk it up to a rural Southern Baptist upbringing, but I for one was not up for the wrath of God sermon if you know what I mean. Our family was thirsty for some hope and for a place to direct some helpless energy.
[Hughes] Travels with Gary
I didn't know when I called Gary Baldwin the other day that I'd be going on a 25-mile bike ride. I just wanted to talk with him about the newspaper he's published for 13 years in Vicksburg, where my mother grew up and where I've lived, off and on, for a good third of my adult life. I'd read The New Times before, just hadn't paid much attention to it 'til I picked up this month's issue.
[Stiggers] Watch Yo' Metaphors, Similes and Allegories
The following is an editorial from chief linguist Dr. Trey Cognac Courvoisier Jackson Jr. of the James Brown "Say It Loud" Ebonics Speech Therapy Centers of America.
[Sawyer] Replacing the Law Book with the Good Book
"Value voters" is becoming the new buzz phrase in politics. They are identified as evangelicals, fundamentalists, so-called suburban moms and NASCAR dads, and conservative Catholics. When it comes right down to it, these million-plus men and women have emboldened America's right-wing polity toward a culture guided by the ethos of a fundamentalist Christian worldview.
[Ladd] One for the Grrls
I was recently visiting a couple in Fondren who have two delightful little daughters with whom I love to hang out. They're loud, proud, colorful, confident. The oldest came up to me and told me about the bedtime story her dad had been reading her about a bored princess who didn't want to take her prim princess lessons and preferred to go live with the dragons and have adventures. After telling me the story in some detail, my little 5-year-old girlfriend, the most chic little thing I know, looked at me and said, "You can borrow the book sometimes if you want."
[Stiggers] At Play In The Fields Of Greens
From the makers of "Poor Folk Gone Postal" is a film about a man who follows that inner voice. While flipping Crunchie Burgas on the grill at Crunchie Burga World, chief cook Purvis Jackson hears a Barry White voice say, "If you plant collard greens, cook 'em with a juicy ham-hock and serve 'em with a nice slice of cornbread, people will come."
[Ladd] Thin Line Between Love and Hate
I was talking to a young woman the other day who is in the family of a Jackson man who toiled and lobbied and prodded and threatened for many years to try to block school de-segregation and then to encourage white families to pull their children out of the public schools. The young woman told me that she admires my work. She has progressive ideas. She likes the JFP.
No Minors Allowed
I had only eaten half of my French fries at Fenian's one night when they asked me to leave. I was in the back watching Fatman Squeeze with some friends. I was drinking water.
[Johnson] ‘60 Minutes' Missed Pickering's Real Record
President, Mississippi NAACP
"60 Minutes" seemed intent on making the point that African Americans within Pickering's hometown know best about Pickering's qualifications for the appellate court, and that their support is revealing: "Pickering enjoys strong support from the many blacks who know him." This misses the point completely about federal judicial nominations. The Senate's advise and consent role is not reduced to a personality contest limited to a nominee's popular support in his hometown. Nominees—even controversial ones—can receive overwhelming support from local friends and associates.
[Stiggers] An Inner-City Fairy Tale
Kunta Rahsheed X. Toby film working in conjunction with Ghetto Science Productions present "The Adventures of Sista Gurl, Honey Child: An Inner-City Fairy Tale."
I Felt the Earth Move
It was like old home day in Neshoba County Sunday … with a few twists. The usual suspects—the people I've gotten to know in the struggle for justice and racial reconciliation in the state—were there to honor Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner: former elected officials and social activists and journalists and movement veterans and everyday citizens who want justice for victims of civil rights violence.
[Chick] She Is My Business
I think most of us women have had that friend at some point, and if you don't remember that friend, then I bet you were that friend. That friend was the one girl we really, really wanted to be. She made us laugh. She retained our confidences. She was strikingly beautiful and fiercely loyal, and we envied her just a bit, but loved her even more.
[Solomon] Backlash Against Outrage
Looking at visual images from U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, news watchers now find themselves in the midst of a jolting experience that roughly resembles a process described by Donald Rumsfeld: "It is the photographs that gives one the vivid realization of what actually took place. Words don't do it. ... You see the photographs, and you get a sense of it, and you cannot help but be outraged."
[Browning] As Good Fridays Go
I am constantly haunted by water. I try to drink eight full glasses a day, swim as often as possible (the dog paddle is my favorite stroke), do some menial hard labor task so that I coax tiny droplets to ooze out of me, and I adore soaking in a hot spring during those quiet crepuscular hours before dawn in contemplation of all that the day may bring. But my favorite association with water is sitting on top of it in a canoe, rhythmically stroking a good wooden paddle again and again and again, in motion meditation.
[Stiggers] Stuck Like Chuck On The Side Of The Road
The Ghetto Science Team's Department of Transportation presents Transportation Secretary and Head Mechanic of Rev. Cletus Car Sales, Deacon O.D. Mann, promoting his transportation program for financially challenged commuters.
[Greggs] Why Ask Why
A few days ago I got an e-mail asking if I could write a column about "college" due to the theme of this week's paper. I decided it probably wouldn't be kosher for me to write a column screaming about politics, and then roll it in weed and dip it in beer. In sitting around thinking about what I could write that would encapsulate my five years of college, I wasted 100 words writing this introduction. I thought that was fitting, considering most everything I wrote in school had about 100 words of crap at the beginning.