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Private Prison on Trial: Inmates at ‘Bleak’ Facility Tell Harrowing Stories

Merlin Hill was one of 19 inmates who testified during the five-week class-action trial against the Mississippi Department of Corrections for what they describe as appalling conditions at the privately run East Mississippi Correctional Facility near Meridian.

Nowhere to Go: LGBT Youth on the Move, Without a Home

A 2015 Williams Institute survey of homeless-youth service providers found that the most widely selected reason for homelessness among LGBT youth (as reported to service providers) was "forced out of their homes or running away from home because of their sexual orientation."

Choosing a Furry Family Member

After losing my Basset Hound, Charlie, to cancer a couple years ago, I decided to wait a while before getting a new pet. I just missed my floppy-eared friend too much. Eventually, I decided that I would not turn away an animal in need.

Learning to Change

JoEva Flettrich turned off the fluorescent lights in her office after 23 years on the job. The lights are an external manifestation of the change she wants to see in her personal life—like a haircut or sitting in a different seat at the dinner table.

Sexy Fitness

This was the moment I had been waiting for: my first session of i to Pole Fitness. I was excited and intrigued by what I would see and learn.

CHICK: Nice Southern Girls Do Breastfeed

It looked like any other picnic scene you would find in a Chapel Hill, N.C., park on a beautiful spring day. Lots of trees, grass, children, Frisbees, dogs and smoking grills. As my husband and I sat down to eat, an attractive woman sitting across from us deftly produced her breast to feed her baby, while introducing herself to my husband, correcting her 3-year-old and sampling the coleslaw. We were both amazed, but for different reasons. I was impressed at the poise she displayed and her expertise at multitasking. My husband was just amazed that he was able to carry on a conversation with her while pretending to be so interested in his baked beans. It was the perfect way to break him into the world of breastfeeding—gently, at a La Leche League barbeque, complete with beer and spare ribs.

[Ladd] Stuck in the Middle with You

I don't know about you, but I'm sick of nastiness. Of sniping. Pettiness. Silly arguments. Name-calling. Divisiveness. It seems as if hurling insults has become the new national pasttime. Chris Matthews yelling louder than his guests. Michael Savage telling a presumably gay listener he hopes he contracts AIDS. Ann Coulter accusing anyone left of Attila the Hun of committing treason. Michael Moore exploding at the Academy Awards.

This Here Alternative Universe

I'm sitting here, OK lying here, in a humongous, brick-colored sofa far away from Jackson in the Pacific Northwest, counting my blessings about life in Mississippi. I didn't start out to wax about my good fortune, however. Truth is, we left Jackson in a flurry after putting out our biggest issue (The Annual Manual) and holding an open house for 100 people to honor our interns and young staffers (who produced the Manual). So I didn't have time to write my editor's note before we left.

Proud to be an American

We only lost three distribution spots due to our last issue, which offered dissenting views to the Iraqi War. We knew when we switched last issue's cover story at the last minute from the state of the crime debate in Jackson (which is now this issue's cover story) to the war, which was in its opening moments as we went to press, that we were courting controversy. But we also knew that we would not be true to our mission and our promise to our readers to be thought-provoking if we failed to take a more critical look at the build-up to the war as it was developing into the most important issue that most of us would be facing over these weeks—both intellectually and emotionally. We simply do not know how not to analyze the news, question dogma and exercise our right to free expression at every turn.

[Stiggers] What's In a Name?

Boneqweesha Jones and the Ghetto Science Repertory Theater present a sneak preview of the stage play "Colored Folk Who Considered Changing Their Ethnic Sounding Names When the Corporations Wouldn't Hire Them."

Running with the Young Guns

I just typed "04" in the date for this file and then corrected myself. It's that time of year again. After our week off for the holidays, we're back and ready to take on the world, even if we can't get the year right yet when writing a check or dating a file.

Barbour: Heed The Will of The People

We feel it's important to ask a serious question of Gov. Haley Barbour—has he returned to Mississippi to govern the state, or just to test his pet ideological theories about what wins elections?

Mr. Barbour: It's Time to Start Governing

It is telling that Haley Barbour was not in the state of Mississippi when he decided to call a special session this past weekend in a gambit to force the Mississippi House to pass Barbour's favored fix for Medicaid's 2005 funding woes this year. Because he couldn't make it back to the state in time, Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck signed the order to open the session.

[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.

[Fleming] Goodbye, My Friend

In the early spring of 1993, I had a serious decision to make. One choice was to become a lance corporal in the United States Marine Corps, having served six months reserve duty in a special program designed to lure African Americans into the Corps' officer ranks. The other was to serve as the campaign manager for a long-shot mayoral candidate whom most people saw as a protester rather than a public servant.

You Can Do That

I hadn't planned to write about the death, or the life, of Rosa Parks. I know she was an amazing hero, but I didn't think I had anything else to say that everybody and his brother aren't already falling over each other to say.

Same Picture, Different Frame

Friday, the rain wouldn't stop as I drove down Highway 49 South. I wondered where the sunshine or a rainbow was. "Stories about hope and inspiration always have sunshine and rainbows," I said to myself, as I headed toward the Mississippi Gulf Coast. That's what I was looking for.

[Balko] Death of a Watchdog

In an age when journalism has been inflicted not only by ballyhooed budget woes and challenges from new media, but also a glut of dubious trend stories, horserace political coverage and endless navel-gazing about the state of the profession, Pete Shellem merely freed four wrongly convicted people from prison in a period of 10 years with his reporting.

[Wilkes] TSA: Terrorists Screw America

The Transportation Security Administration implemented new policies that, in essence, give strippers more rights in their places of employment than airline passengers in an airport.

A Taste of Something Sweet

My earliest memories come to me in pictures. The drawings and etchings in the huge old book of German fairy tales my grandmother read to me are clearer in my mind's eye than the stories they illustrated. I can see the glitter on the colorful advent calendar hung over my crib. Too tempting, I pulled myself up to its bright, sparkling colors and promptly yanked the calendar down on the floor. Screaming out my frustration, I brought my mother running.

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