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[Lott] Less Partisan, More Plainspoken

To win the War on Terror we must recognize it for what it should be—a deadly serious fight to save American lives. When we treat it as a political exercise or a word-parsing game, we do so at our nation's peril. The fight against terrorists will proceed regardless of who is President or which party controls Congress. The outrageous beheadings of Americans Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, Paul Johnson and South Korean hostage Kim Sun Il show that terrorists will be stopped only by their own demise. Either we wait for them to kill Americans in our homeland again, or we kill terrorists on their turf, before they get here. Waiting for another attack is not an option, and it's time political leaders and some press folks are less partisan and more plainspoken about this conflict.

[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.

[Fleming] A Brand-New Day

A rooster crows in the morning, at sunrise, to signal a brand new day, and in metaphorical essence, hope. The rooster that was crowing last week was Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus Chair Rep. Phillip West, D-Natchez. His exuberance comes from the news of the House Committee assignments announced on January 15, 2004. In the announcement, made on the 75th birthday of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., African-American legislators made historic quantitative gains in the Mississippi House of Representatives.

[Fleming] On Earth, As In Heaven

Hurricane Katrina was truly an act of God. God in His own way reveals things to us and forces us to act upon them no matter how reluctant we are. A reporter from the Chicago Tribune nailed it on the head when she stated that the current administration in Washington had done their dead-level best to perpetuate poverty in America as a myth, but Katrina washed these huddled masses onto our screens.

[Johnson] An Imperfect Storm

I'm sitting in my modest but comfortable Fondren home on a Saturday night, nursing a summer cold. My power is finally back on; my AC, television and Internet are working, and my car even has some gas! My wife and I are expecting our first child any minute now, and I feel fairly confident that we'll be able to bring him into this world with some semblance of safety. And although I am grateful for all of this (except the cold), I am also extremely angry, almost to the point of despair.

[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.

[Kamikaze] Give Raines A Second Chance

I guess there's no such thing as second chances. Mistakes, accidents, lapses in judgment—it doesn't matter. Mess up once, and you've got one hell of a road to travel back to public approval. Commit a crime, serve time, and America would rather you just sit over in a corner and keep your mouth shut. Commit a crime, serve time and be black, and you're a pariah.

[Kamikaze] Hello, Mayor Jones

I was reading The Clarion-Ledger recently, and I came across something that made me laugh. Some parents in Florence are up in arms over their kids allegedly being harassed by police, in particular, by Sgt. Mike Crowdus. About 30 parents are outraged because Crowdus demanded wallets from their teen kids, used inappropriate language to them and arrested one, 16-year-old Glenn Wynn, during a traffic stop

[Kamikaze] Let's Get ‘Real'

Listen, this proposed "council" on racial reconciliation that I've read so much about in previous weeks appears to be a good idea ... in theory. But here's the thing, while this "council" is a necessary tool in the healing process, it will only work if two key pieces are in play.

[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."

[Fleming] Pragmatic, Not Un-patriotic

Despite your personal opinions about Cindy Sheehan's political beliefs or motives, she has single-handedly brought into focus the lack of an exit strategy in Iraq. She has done more in the last few weeks than all of the politicians and special-interest groups in Washington to make us painfully aware that we are mired in a conflict similar to Vietnam and Bosnia, where we really have no consensus plan to pull out our valiant military forces in a timely and successful manner.

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."