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Sounds Like …
No one likes talking to a music snob. Statements like "This isn't psych-pop, it's proto-shoegaze with a proggy, math-rock attitude" don't lend themselves to conversation. As a recovering snob, I can assure you there's nothing to fear in all those fancy words. Sometimes they even contain a little wisdom.
Marcus Burger
Marcus Burger knows his way around the three primordial elements of rock, paper and scissors. Burger, who is the Hinds County deputy director for Young Leaders in Philanthropy, is organizing a tournament of the game to raise money for YLP's signature program, Imagination Library, an early childhood literacy initiative.
Senate Grants Barbour More Budget Power
The Mississippi Senate passed a bill yesterday that would give Gov. Haley Barbour greater leeway in cutting state agencies to balance the state's budget. The bill, Senate Bill 2495, would allow the governor to cut agency budgets by up to 10 percent at his discretion. Current state law requires Barbour to make across-the-board 5 percent cuts to all agency budgets before cutting any individual budget by more than 5 percent.
Legislature Slows Its Roll
The Mississippi Legislature got off to a productive start last week, with the passage of an economic incentive package and an extension of workforce training funds, two measures that Gov. Haley Barbour had requested. That spirit of compromise seems to have waned, though, as the House and Governor's office remain locked in a standoff over Barbour's budget-cutting authority.
Wicker Leading Musgrove By 11 In New Poll
The latest Rasmussen poll doesn't look good for Ronnie Musgrove. Rasmussen has him trailing Roger Wicker by only two points, 47 to 49 percent, in early October. Now they're putting Wicker ahead 54 to 43, a week before the election. Most surprising is that Musgrove's support among African-Americans seems to have slipped this month, from 96% to 87%.
New Wicker Ad Uses Cheap Gay Stereotype
A new ad from Roger Wicker's Senate campaign attempts to tie former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove to such left-wing groups as...the Village People. The ad shows a parade of liberal interest groups--including a man dressed like a cowboy representing "the largest gay-rights group in the country"--all donating money to a "DSCC Musgrove fundraiser."
Killer Ribs
If you go to a restaurant called The Rib Shack, you'd better order some ribs. The Lynch Street barbecue joint just opened in late July, and I recently decided to put its namesake item to the test.
Midtown Makeover
Sandwiched between Millsaps College and Mill Street, North Midtown has tremendous resources, but the neighborhood has struggled with blight, losing nearly 26 percent of its population since 2000.
Digital Divide
As omnipresent as the Internet has become in most people's lives, the "digital divide" separating those with regular, fast Internet access and those without persists. By the mid-1990s, the "digital divide" had become a concern for policy makers.
Technology and the Government
Google set off grassroots campaigns in dozens of cities this year when it announced its Google Fiber for Communities contest. Google promised to finance enormous fiber-optic infrastructure projects in the city with the best proposal. The project would provide connection speeds of 1 gigabit per second—100 times faster than broadband available to most Americans—for up to 500,000 people, the company said.
'Glories of Summer' Opens Downtown Tonight
An exhibition of artwork celebrating the season of heat and leisure opens tonight at the Gallery 119, formerly known as Highlands Fine Art Brokers.
The Kid In the Picture
When brothers Joel and Ethan Coen filmed "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" in Canton 10 years ago, they gave many Jackson-area residents their first—and in some cases, their only—taste of Hollywood.
Diverse Views of Art
"Art should reflect the diversity of people," Lorenzo Gayden says.
Master of Puppets
For generations of American children, Jim Henson's imagination is hard to distinguish from their own. Henson's Sesame Street characters and Muppets have become enduring archetypes: Miss Piggy, the personification of frivolous vanity; Cookie Monster, a creature of pure id.
We Got Served
On a Tuesday night, six members of Trill'Agy, a Jackson hip-hop dance troupe, goof off in a dance studio on Hattiesburg Street. The six young men, mostly high school students, are with their coach Bridget Archer and a few women from the Bridget Archer Performing Arts Company, or B.P.A.C. They're practicing for an upcoming Black History Month performance. To the sound of old-school hip-hop breaks, the dancers face the studio's long mirror and play a version of "follow the leader," each taking a turn improvising steps and poses. By the time the music stops, everyone is winded and laughing.
Drawing From Hopes
Tucked away in a classroom of the Mississippi Museum of Art, the work of over 50 young Mississippians covers a full wall with a riot of faces and colors.
Building a Better World
For more than 20 years, a quiet revolution in American architecture took place in Canton. Samuel Mockbee, a Meridian native, practiced a defiantly local but widely influential form of modernist architecture in the Deep South from the 1970s until his death in 2001.
Miss. Reps. Split on Auto Bailout
Mississippi's congressmen are divided on the prospect of a bailout for the domestic auto industry. Reps. Gene Taylor (D) and Bennie Thompson (D) voted for a $14 billion rescue package for General Motors and Chrysler yesterday, while Reps. Chip Pickering (R) and Travis Childers (D) voted against it. Now the bill travels to the Senate, where its chances look less favorable. Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker have already indicated their opposition to a bailout. This morning, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's spoke out against the bill on the Senate floor.
Miss. Dems Host "Sky Party" to Inauguration
Does the Mississippi Democratic Party know how to have (slightly ridiculous) fun? All signs point to yes:
Congress Reauthorizes Children's Health Insurance
The House of Representatives voted to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) yesterday, a move that, if sustained, would extend coverage to an additional 4.1 million children nationwide. The bill, which passed by a vote of 289 to 139, secures federal funds for Mississippi's State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) through the 2013 fiscal year. Democratic Mississippi Reps. Bennie Thompson, Gene Taylor and Travis Childers voted in favor of the reauthorization, while Republican Rep. Gregg Harper opposed it. Childers released the following statement after the bill's passage: