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Making Ends Meet: Lawmakers Wrestle with Education, Infrastructure and Shrinking Revenue

Education funding dominated headlines throughout 2016, as lawmakers worked to level-fund and not cut the amount of funding that went to the Mississippi Adequate Education Program in previous budget years, despite cutting most other agency budgets.

MAEP’s Moral Center: Mississippi’s Education Enigma

The quality of education in Mississippi is falling behind the rest of the nation with only 61 percent of students graduating from high school on time and two-thirds of kindergarteners not ready to learn how to read.

Black Women Weigh Hyde-Smith's Win, Say Not 'Senator for All'

While Cindy Hyde-Smith made history as the first woman from Mississippi elected to Congress, it is hard for some black women to celebrate strictly on the basis of gender.

WIGGS: Sweet Potato Power

What one Jackson man gleans from the Sweet Potato madness.

My mother and father each grew up with sisters and started off wanting some boys to balance the genealogical mix a bit. They wound up with four sons. "Be careful what you wish for," my mom was wont to say, especially stuck in the house late on a rainy afternoon with thrown objects whizzing through the air around her. With all those brothers around, my early years at home centered around sports (including our own fraternal version of studio wrestling in the living room), pranks on the unwary, eating everything in sight and other guy-type pursuits. Given these conditions, one might wonder where I first encountered any hint of feminine influence on my worldview. My mother was definitely outnumbered and, sad to admit, all of us guys ignored her good advice every once in a while.

[Chick] Teaching Monkey the Birds and the Bees

Eight years into it, and I'm still allowed to be a mother. I can't believe it. What kind of decision-maker approves me as a fit mother? Oh, that's right. God. God gave me this child. I'm sure this is when someone should throw the "God has a sense of humor" cliche' into the situation. "Dear God, can I please, please, please complete a thought today without interruption? Yes, I'm thankful for Monkey and all, but I really think I was supposed to get a quieter one. I mean all my life, I had said that I would have a better behaved child than everyone else. Remember?

[Chick] How Not To Dump A Guy

I feel that writing a "chick" column has not ruined my dating life quite enough, so I have thus pursued the answer to yet another post-divorce dating question: How do women dump men now?

[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?"

[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.

No. 36, May 24-31

A Bunch of Punks?

As a young Jackson voter, I am mad at the black leadership that lets Frank Melton walk all over the city. Our leaders act like a bunch of scared punks, so I guess I have to come to the white newspaper to get a breath of fresh air. You provide an outlet for the truth. There must be much more investigation into and debate about the young man who was punched in the stomach and face while in handcuffs, as caught on tape by a WLBT helicopter.

[Mott] Nearing Nirvana

I've always been fascinated with how my brain works. Sometimes, it's downright confounding. Take dieting, for example. I know exactly what I should be eating (and not eating), but I can talk myself out of doing what's good for me in a hot second.

[Kamikaze] You Got This One Right

I have been a staunch supporter of Ward 6 Councilman Marshand Crisler's "Buy Jackson" campaign. Based on the fact that I helped spearhead a movement to get folks to better support our local artists, I thought it was high time that someone took a stand; a circling of wagons was long overdue. Though some will disagree, I'm ecstatic that the City Council has shown some cantaloupes in adopting a "stay in Jackson or lose our business" stance. The council recently rejected three low bids for services from out-of-town companies. Preference will be given, they say, to local businesses.

[Halkias] Love Lost and Gained

On a recent drive home, I started crying, in part because of an argument I had with my mom. I also had a mix of emotions after a weekend trip to New Orleans to visit a close friend and to see Arcade Fire perform at Jazz Fest.

The Best In Sports In 7 Days

Doctor S sez: Enjoy NBA hoops while you can, folks. Your favorite hoopsters are about to be locked out by the owners, too.

Hinds County Gets New District Plan

Hinds County Board of Supervisors picked a new county redistricting plan Monday night, even as critics complained that the board did not make all of the maps under consideration available for examination until the day of the meeting.

Hopes and Dreams

Last Friday was the first of the weekly Jackson Free Press summer intern workshops. With more than a dozen people stuffed into our classroom around the long stretch of tables, Editor-in-Chief Donna Ladd led a spirited discussion centered around the hopes and dreams of a talented group of young people.

Making Joyful Noises

Jackson comes alive when Christmas comes to town. With the Belhaven Singing Christmas Tree, Chimneyville Crafts Festival and several other local traditions, most people seem to get into the holiday spirit. This year's joyful noises not only help get everyone into Christmas mode, but also help those in need.

[Twelve-Bar Blues] Heaven When I Die

In the documentary "M is for Mississippi," James "Son" Thomas says: "Daddy always told a joke. He said, ‘There's lots of ways you can have the blues. If you're broke, you got the blues. If you're hungry, you got the blues. If you got a good woman, and she quit you, that ain't nothing but the blues.'"

This Foley Can Jump

I sat in the Mississippi Basketball and Athletics center watching Jackson's new American Basketball Association team hold its first tryouts with a nice turnout of about 18 to 20 players on March 24. All hoped to continue their basketball careers and become an inaugural member of the Jackson Showboats.

Making Peace: First, Love Yourself

Alice cared about her neighborhood and was convinced that her "bad" neighbors across the street were into drugs. She believed that signing an affidavit against them risked her safety; Jackson police officers had come out on occasion, and nothing had changed.

Rep. Andy Gipson

Here's why permitting gay marriage is "horrific social policy," according to Republican Rep. Andy Gipson of Braxton:

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