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Civil Rights Museum to Tougaloo?
Jackson hip-hop artist Kamikaze is organizing community feedback regarding a consulting group's recent recommendation to place the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum north of County Line Road in Ridgeland. Museum consulting firm LaPaglia & Associates recommended Tougaloo College as the site of the museum on Feb. 11, even though it received a No. 10 ranking on a site list (PDF, 177 KB) as recently as November when the top spot under consideration was the site of Smith Wills Stadium on Lakeland Drive.
Meeting Addresses Crime, Calls for Tax Increase
Straight talk was the theme at a March 27 town hall meeting on Jackson crime at the Board of Education auditorium in downtown Jackson. The meeting, hosted by the Jackson Police Officers Association and the Jackson Free Press, featured Jackson Police Chief Malcolm McMillin, Assistant Chief Lee Vance, former Assistant Chief Edna Drake, Rev. Hosea Hines, and Det. Juan Cloy and David Domino of the police union. Hinds County DA Robert Smith was also slated to be on the panel, but his assistant called just before the event to say he wouldn't attend. City Councilman Margaret Barrett-Simon canceled earlier the day of the event.
NAACP Asks Barbour to Condemn Klan Plate
Mississippi NAACP President Derrick Johnson is asking Gov. Haley Barbour to condemn the Mississippi Sons of Confederate Veterans' push to create a commemorative license plate for Confederate General and the Ku Klux Klan's first Grand Wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Miss. State Wins Egg Bowl, 41-27
Throw out the records. This is the Egg Bowl. This year's annual rivalry between the Ole Miss Rebels (8-3) and Mississippi State Bulldogs (4-7) is the most appealing Egg Bowl in the last half-decade, or longer.
Sen. Hagel: GOP Has Lost Its Way
AP is reporting that Chuck Hagel is sounding the death knell on the Republican Party as its "evolved." Good. He's a good Republican, and should be ashamed of what his party has turned into. And, hopefully, he'll be able to lead it a new direction. I've always admired his unwillingness to be caught up in the party's corruption and demagoguery. We need more Repubs like Hagel—and will likely get them, now that this version is likely to get its a$$ handed to it by the American people.
Don't Nobody Know: Lalee's Kin
Everyone who cares about human dignity and justice should see "Lalee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton," which debuted on HBO Sept. 18. I first saw it during the Crossroads Film Festival in Jackson last spring in a mixed-race audience, most of whom stayed to hear a lengthy and emotional discussion about African-American poverty in the Delta.
18 Going on 21: Jubilee Jam! Almost Legal!
Mississippi's largest annual music festival has returned for its 18th birthday after its near-fatal deluge of rain and indebtedness in 2003. Jubilee! Jam, with its move to mid-June, has been imagined and re-energized by several changes. As you peruse the line-up, you'll notice that the festival has been scaled down to Friday night and Saturday only. The stages have shifted toward State Street so you won't have to trek back and forth to One Jackson Place from the governor's mansion. You'll have continuous music on two national headliner stages on Capitol Street, a Mississippi stage on Congress Street, and a variety of Jackson's musical offerings in the Jackson Lounge (organized by the Jackson Free Press and other local businesses). The Baroque Dresden exhibit has inspired a traditional German beergarten, complete with German music, food and beer to get your Weinerschnitzel-ed. And, bless us all, the Hallelujah Stage at St. Andrews Cathedral will continue the always-popular Gospel Jubilee on Saturday, and offer a new acoustic singer/songwriters stage on Friday evening.
[BREAKING]: Subpoenas Issued in Melton Trial
(For background info and links to stories about the Melton indictments, see the JFP Melton Blog here).
Update: Sheriff McMillin is New Chief
Update: Just came in on text message...Mac is the new chief. Donna and Adam are covering and will be in with the scoop. (Listen to the radio show at noon for more: WLEZ-FM, 103.7FM.)
Auditors: Billions Squandered in Iraq
AP is reporting:
About $10 billion has been squandered by the U.S. government on Iraq reconstruction aid because of contractor overcharges and unsupported expenses, and federal investigators warned Thursday that significantly more taxpayer money is at risk. The three top auditors overseeing work in Iraq told a House committee their review of $57 billion in Iraq contracts found that Defense and State department officials condoned or allowed repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for shoddy work or work never done. More than one in six dollars charged by U.S. contractors were questionable or unsupported, nearly triple the amount of waste the Government Accountability Office estimated last fall.
2008 College Football Preview
Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder summed up what's going on in Mississippi college football when he sang: "It's evolution, baby."
Legislature 2006: A House United?
Last year, in the days before the new legislative session, lawmakers were ready to walk into the state capitol with their guns out. Mississippi was, and remains, a state where financial ends are never comfortably met, and legislators with a passion to meet federal requirements for education or health-care funding rarely sleep well at night. The state has routinely delivered shortfalls in Mississippi Adequate Education Program requirements, and meeting the one-third match for the federal funding of Medicaid was a battle last year and the year before.
Community Events and Public Meetings
Free Tax Counseling and Filing. IRS/AIM or AARP volunteers will do electronic filing. Bring all necessary documents. Joint filers must come together. Free.
Welcome to the Wild, Wild West
So, how many innocent people's lives were endangered in this inter-agency chase and shoot-out in the streets of Jackson? Good to know they recovered a small amount of marijuiana to justify this madness.
UPDATED: Chick Ball Donations Piling Up; Here's Who Has Donated So Far ...
With the JFP Chick Ball less than three weeks away and the deadline to make the big Chick Ball gift/silent auction guide (in the July 6 issue of JFP), the donations are arriving fast and furious at the JFP offices. Here is a list of the donations and donors we have logged to date; we will update between now and Chick Ball (if you don't see your name and you've donated, email [e-mail missing] to make sure you get due credit).
[Stiggers] To Whom It May Concern
Dear F.E.M.A.: This is Brotha Hustle applying for a job with your organization. I figure if Mr. Brown can get a job with ya, so can I. Please check out my resume!
College Football Preview 2006
Will this be the fall of our discontent? Let's face facts, Mississippi college football fans, things don't look good for the home teams. None of the state teams are picked to finish higher than second in its conference or division. The best you can say about any state team is that its prospects are "uncertain."
Clarion-Ledger's Jackson Circulation: 22,000
This is so deliciously educational that it deserves its own blog entry. In an article today about the city's legal-ad controversy, The Clarion-Ledger admits that out of its total circulation of "roughly 100,000," that only "about 22,000" of that is in Jackson. That means that less than a quarter of the paper's circulation is in Jackson—perhaps explaining a lot about why the paper dumps on Jackson so hard. Of course, its dumping on Jackson so hard is probably part of the reason so few Jacksonians read The Clarion-Ledger. It also explains why the Ledge is chopping itself up into pitiful little pieces and throwing piles of unwanted publications in our yards -- in a corporate scheme to try to force more Jacksonians onto its circulation rolls.
[Kamikaze] Look Inside The Matrix
I had the honor of speaking on a panel recently at Tougaloo College to discuss sexual imagery in hip-hop. It was apropos because my last column spoke to a similar issue. It was a spirited debate to say the least, and one that made me want to even go deeper into this controversy.
Council: No to Payroll ... and Bodyguard Raises
The Jackson City Council failed to approve the city payroll by a 3-to-3 vote at a special meeting this afternoon. Council President Leslie McLemore, Ward 7 Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon and Ward 6 Councilman Marshand Crisler opposed the payroll, with Ward 1 Councilman Jeff Weill, Ward 4 Councilman Frank Bluntson and Ward 5 Councilman Charles Tillman in favor. Members opposed the payroll because of controversial pay raises for Mayor Frank Melton's bodyguards Michael Recio and Marcus Wright, and two others, including the lieutenant who signed off on the raises when the mayor made him chief for three days after the last chief would not approve the raises.