Defend the Indefensible: Mississippi

Good.

The ACLU should get involved

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2016/feb/24/mississippi-governor-declares-april-confederate-hi/

April is Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi proclaims the Governor

What better month to celebrate one's Confederate heritage than the month in which your forefathers gave up, surrendered and laid down their arms to Gen. Grant.

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/03/30/3764798/mississippi-anti-lgbt-bill/

Many states have considered bills that enable discrimination against the LGBT community, but Mississippi’s proposed legislation is perhaps the most explicit in this regard. HB 1523 spells out in storied detail all of the different ways that a person should be able to mistreat people for being LGBT without consequences from the government.

The bill does not pretend to be neutral; it only protects people with anti-LGBT religious beliefs and nobody else:

The sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions protected by this act are the belief or conviction that:
(a) Marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman;
(b) Sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage; and
(c) Male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.

^^^^^ Approved 80-39 by the House last month, approved 31-17 by the Senate today. Governor has indicated he will sign it. Way to fucking go, Mississippi.

Super disappointing, and about as hateful a bill as the new law in NC.

First reported 2-3 days ago, starting to hit the national news.

http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2016/04/02/mississippi-rv-park-owner-evicts-interracial-couple/82469086/

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/03/mississippi-isnt-worried-about-boycotts.html

Unlike Georgia (or the more proximate Louisiana), Mississippi has not gone completely hog-wild for film and TV subsidies. Yes, it has a subsidy program, but one with outlays (per project and overall) that are limited by law. So its lawmakers are less subject to pressure from Hollywood moguls who threaten not to rip off its taxpayers anymore if the state champions discrimination.

Of perhaps even greater importance given the sports-mad nature of the Deep South, Mississippi is not going to be hosting any Super Bowls or any college-football national championships (or NCAA basketball Final Fours) in the near future. It also differs from Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, and North Carolina in having no college-football bowl games being played within its boundaries.

...Perhaps more to the point, Bryant's a guy who seems to be comfortable living in the past, as evidenced by the fact that thanks to him Mississippi will begin celebrating Confederate Heritage Month

I wonder if the day will ever come when someone, anyone realizes the connection between Mississippi's politics and the fact that it is by any reasonable standards a third-world shithole. Second-highest teen pregnancy rate (after New Mexico), worst childhood literacy rate (tied with New Mexico!), second-highest murder rate (after Louisiana), and on and on.

The other people need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps myth will never die

I spent about two years in Mississippi, living in Indianola and Greenville. That was about 20 years ago. In the time since then, almost any positive memories, impressions or beliefs have been washed away by shit like this.

I know someone who teaches at a University there and also does work setting up blues trail landmarks, and writing about Mississippi musicians. He's not happy with the politics there, of course.

"blues tourism" is such a strange and uh problematic phenomenon

i stayed here once

http://www.shackupinn.com/

the shacks provide comfort as well as authenticity.

Business-community disapproval not enough.
http://www.wtva.com/news/Governor_Bryant_signs_HB_1523_into_law.html

That's infuriating. My heart goes out to all the queer and trans people whose lives are going to be damaged by this ridiculous law.

"blues tourism" is such a strange and uh problematic phenomenon--Goole

My friend there has nothing to do with that. He's a University prof who has been into blues for decades and has been writing about the music and making little money doing so for the newspapers down there and for Living Blues Magazine. He also more recently got involved with writing the text for blues landmark signs. Yep "blues tourism" can be problematic when it is disrespectful such as those shacks, but when its historic landmarks that are publicized in a slightly more fair way it can also pay the bills of old blues performers themselves and others working there in the tourist biz.

http://wivb.com/2016/04/05/gov-cuomo-bans-government-travel-to-mississippi/

the shacks provide comfort as well as authenticity

i feel like an authentic shack would be mighty uncomfortable

"in our 'blues shacks,' you can sleep on an authentic pallet on the floor. also, if you ask room service for whiskey, then bring you gasoline."

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2016/apr/11/statement-mississippi-writers-opposing-hb-1523/

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/02/us/mississippi-law-protecting-opponents-of-gay-marriage-is-blocked.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

A federal judge blocked — less than an hour before it was to go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday — a Mississippi law that would have given a wide range of special protections only to those who oppose same-sex marriage.

Carlton Reeves is one of this state's heroes.

case against this law seems p airtight

...and AG Jim Hood says "fukk u" to the governor and legislature, refuses to appeal Judge Reeves' decision. Woot!

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/weblogs/jackblog/2016/jul/13/statement-attorney-general-jim-hood-hb-1523/

Yeah, that's seriously heartening!

But the governor is still appealing the case

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/suburbs/desoto/mississippi-attorney-general-wont-join-appeal-of-religious-freedom-law-378977bc-becc-05dc-e053-01000-386703211.html

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said Wednesday he won't join Governor Phil Bryant in appealing the state's "Religious Freedom" law, saying he was convinced an appeal would be "divisive and expensive" and not in the best interest of the state or taxpayers.

The decision means Bryant will move forward without the backing of the state's top legal officer in attempting to enact the controversial measure, which supporters say is designed to protect strongly held religious beliefs

My alma mater, Mississippi State University, has taken the MS state flag down on campus. They join Alcorn State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi Valley State University, UMMC, University of Mississippi and University of Southern Mississippi. Not sure what the holdup is with MUW or Delta State.

I hate this goddamn place so much. If I breathe my last breath in Mississippi, I'm going to haunt some people for fucking eternity for trying to hold me here.

Officials Investigate Claim of Noose Put on Black Student

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/officials-investigate-claim-noose-put-black-student-43035507

business trip to Starkville tomorrow through Wednesday. anything to do there or to make me aware of?

mostly I plan to do nothing but work and sit in the hotel, but tomorrow mostly want a sports bar to watch my football game at since my flight gets in long before hotels open

Oby's for reasonably good po-boys, Restaurant Tyler for good gussied-up southern home cooking and a zillion ways to prepare a sweet potato. Beyond that, I can't help re: sports bars beyond what Yelp might have to say, or things to do. Been a few decades since I graduated.

lol, I just looked at Tyler's dinner menu and they don't have a heading for Vegetables, they have a heading for Starches.

Starchville .. sounds about right.

"white foods"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/waiting-for-history-in-mississippi-a-state-with-the-worst-record-of-electing-women/2016/11/09/60f148b8-a20e-11e6-8d63-3e0a660f1f04_story.html?wpisrc=nl_daily202&wpmm=1

So last year Slater, a 60-year-old trial lawyer, decided to run for governor herself after years of trying to recruit other women to do it. She was widely seen as the favorite to win the Democratic Party’s nomination.

But she lost in the primary to a man, a long-haul truck driver who campaigned so little that his own mother didn’t know he was running. Stunned party officials said several factors were at play, including Slater’s gender. The Republican incumbent, Phil Bryant, easily won reelection.

“I am the woman from Mississippi who lost to the truck driver!” Slater told Clinton when she met her at a fundraiser in the spring.

“Don’t give up. Do not ever give up,” Clinton told her.

http://djournal.com/opinion/letters-editor-nov-22-2016/

Voters reject power in charge since 1960

In reference to the successful campaign of President-elect Donald Trump, listen up.

Attention, pointy headed liberals, secular progressives, fetus killers, twisters of history, sanctuary cities, illegal immigrants, dope dealers, lobbyists, bloated bureaucrats, biased news media including AP, ABC, CBS, NBC, MOB and their cable affiliates, ACLU, BLM newspaper columnists (including leftists opining within the Journal), the entertainment industry including its pampered and pompous “stars, ” work averse entitlement leeches, tenured university purveyors of leftist propaganda, and those administrators of our educational institutions who have usurped the purpose of education as to political for racial or sexual orientation correctness, etc, et al:

There’s a new sheriff in town and hard working, tax paying God fearing, family values, conservative Tea Party members and an army of patriotic Christian American citizens are coming to a location near you. We don’t care what sexual, social or gender identity you feel the need to display. Be quiet about it. There are two restrooms, male and female, so use the equipment you were born with. Life is not always fair. Get over it.

The corruptions, negligence and perversion of Hillary/Bill Clinton, their Ponzi scheme Clinton Foundation, the Democratic Party, their campaign minions, the POTUS including incompetent federal officials who, apparently, thought lying wasn’t precluded by their oaths, have all been repudiated. The mystery, however, remains as to how these people thought they could, with the aid and assistance of the leftist media, put this fraud over on the American voters. Their arrogance and hubris was apparent to many cognizant voters yet, and it’s a larger mystery, how or why anyone could vote for them.

The will of “we the people” shall once again dictate the future course of America. We now have the opportunity, duty and obligation to return the visions, hope and greatness that was this country to our children and their children. These long-held beliefs I opine not for myself, as I am in the twilight of life, but to address the fears I have long had, for my loved ones.

Our long national nightmare, beginning in 1960, with a reprieve of only eight years of the Reagan presidency, is nearing an end and we can give thanks to our God we will have our beloved country back. Free at last, etc.

David Horn
Houston

6 months before he laments the 'pussy' Trump (or whatever epithet he throws at him)

I was thinking the same thing. How was the Starkville trip?

lol not bad! it was a shit place to be the day after the election, but tbf any place would have been. but i was in the MSU area so it was pretty nice overall.

weirdest thing was trying to find a sports bar and seeing most of them closed on Sunday - managed to find a Buffalo Wild Wings and watched my game there.

the Golden Triangle regional airport tho, lol, that is small. only the second time I've deplaned on a tarmac. but I actually kinda liked it - much less busy than most airports.

sadly didn't get to eat much local fare as I was in the office late each day. the one place I did eat I later found out was a chain that we have in FL. lol...oh well.

rae sremmurd is from Tupelo

Mississippi city faces criticism for calling MLK Day 'Great Americans Day'

http://theweek.com/speedreads/673458/mississippi-city-faces-criticism-calling-mlk-day-great-americans-day

I mean, what the rest of the state calls Monday is even worse though.

http://www.rollingstone.com/country/news/charlie-worsham-blasts-mississippi-legislators-on-arts-defunding-w463900

Charlie Worsham expressed his opposition to Mississippi's HB-1325, a proposed bill that would, in part, abolish the Mississippi Arts Commission.

http://mississippitoday.org/2017/01/30/bryant-cites-lack-of-input-on-governors-arts-awards/

Gov. Phil Bryant on Monday spoke about his lack of input over distributing the Mississippi Arts Commission’s annual “Governor’s Arts Awards.”

The comments on The Gallo Radio Show provided context to the push by some lawmakers friendly to Bryant to fold the Mississippi Arts Commission into the state’s economic development office.

Each year, the Mississippi Arts Commission selects an independent panel of judges to award Governor’s Arts Awards to excelling Mississippi artists with close ties to the state.

The governor traditionally attends the awards ceremony each February, giving a short speech to the crowd, handing awards to recipients on stage and inviting honorees to the Governor’s Mansion for a reception afterward.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/us/ole-miss-liberal-agitators-education-university-mississippi.html

http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/03/senator-feds-shut-down-more-than-100-bridges-miss/98684896/

You can't get there from here.

Sen. Willie Simmons, D-Cleveland, warned his colleagues Friday that they might get some calls over the weekend about the closures.

Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves responded: “Thank you, Sen. Simmons. Random timing, I’m sure.”

Pretty wild that the speaker figured out that the Democrat from Cleveland was in cahoots with the Trump administration, huh?

https://www.thenation.com/article/a-cruel-new-bill-is-about-to-become-law-in-mississippi/

"You people just aren't groveling enough for your scraps. Let's fix that."

https://mississippitoday.org/2017/05/21/rep-karl-oliver-those-removing-confederate-monuments-should-be-lynched/

“The destruction of these monuments, erected in the loving memory of our family and fellow Southern Americans, is both heinous and horrific. If the, and I use this term extremely loosely, “leadership” of Louisiana wishes to, in a Nazi-ish fashion, burn books or destroy historical monuments of OUR HISTORY, they should be LYNCHED! Let it be known, I will do all in my power to prevent this from happening in our State.”

I was just in Mississippi for the first time. Went to Clarksdale (after having been in Muscle Shoals, Al and Nashville, TN) for a day and a half. Enjoyed going to club Red's and the Blues museum and elsewhere. Sad to see the abandoned buildings on many streets, and the lack of opportunities job-wise. In addition, quickly saw Friar's Point, MS. Also went one night from Memphis down to the Otha Turner memorial Barbequed Goat Fest in Senatobia, MS. Small crowd-- but I love how the late Otha's granddaughter Sharde is keeping the blues fife and drum tradition alive.

Did not stay in those sharecropper Shack Up Inn "authentic" shacks, although I later noticed they were renting for $10 less than where we stayed! Blues tourism is not bringing in bucks the way country music does in Nashville.