Defend the Indefensible: Mississippi

you'll never catch me defending this place

― the presidential candidate inside me (WmC), Thursday, June 30, 2011 10:58 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

I'd like for you to try.

Mark Twains!

that's missourah

Off to a good start.

I once parked the car outside an International House of Pancakes south of Jackson, went inside, and within five minutes, had a fully cooked ham steak with scrambled eggs, hashbrowns and fresh fruit. I'm still impressed with the service there.

Graceland, too!

No, that's Memphis.

The McDonalds salad bar in Tupelo had a stained glass sneeze guard with the king depicted on it.

Now this was 25 years ago, when McDonalds had salad bars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U61JP4KkFKc

Welty and Faulkner:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/62/202147139_15c8103723.jpg

Good literary tradition, great cost of living. That's all I got.

Lots of Mississippi musicians including Muddy Waters (born McKinley Morganfield) and RL Burnside

Jim Henson

Medgar Evers, civil rights leader was from Mississippi

Stoplight Cameras are banned in Mississippi for ticketing purposes.

PP, I think the Elvis McDonald's is closed now...I don't know if their memorabilia was moved to any of the other locations in Tupelo.

I'm sure they had quite the run.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01403/mississippi_1403900c.jpg

If it wasn't for Mississippi, then Arkansas would have to be last in everything.

Stoplight Cameras are banned in Mississippi for ticketing purposes.

man idg the logic behind a law like this, beyond "we want people to be able to break the law"

http://www.kohnmusicstore.com/peavey.jpg

x-post
Keeps police employed to give out tickets

you can have both!

there's the usual suspects - music and folk art traditions, some pretty decent writers, unhealthy but awesome food. low cost of living and some good folks here and there, but on balance i still say fuck it. these dicks have been tea-partying for 30 years and look where it gets them. idiots.

I've been to Clarksdale (before Morgan Freeman opened his place there,) visited the Delta Blues Museum, spent the night camping at the state park in Rosedale, and drove from there down to Vicksburg. I've also been to Tupelo. Good eats, friendly people and lots of photo ops along the way.

Being from the north, the southern way of letting things sit and slowly decay is interesting to me. (I guess the New Roxy theater in Clarksdale is undergoing some sort of renovation, but when I was there the ceilings and walls were open to the elements and vegetation.) And some of the most immaculate (and faux-colonial) roadside rests are in MS.

http://www.jimgroutphotography.com/Photography/Around-the-country/Roxy-Theatre/1059104120_26YwV-L-1.jpg
http://www.bfasblondeau.com/assets2/11_bitner/2011-03-17/works/disp/NewRoxy600.jpg

http://www.vikingmixer.net/Vike.jpg

these dicks have been tea-partying for 30 years

that's low balling it

Yeah but, except for Haley Barbour and one other, Mississippi has had Democratic governors for about a hundred years.

The Mississippi Legislature did finally vote to ratify the 13th Amendment of the Constitution.

In 1995.

FAT POSSUM

that's low balling it

true. i'm more or less talking about the modern era of modern era of conservative taking hold and choking the ever-living shit out of everything around it in such a despicable, all-encompassing fashion. people are still jacking it to Reagan kicking off his '80 campaign at the Neshoba County Fair.

http://www.presidentsrus.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/reagan-neshoba-wide.jpg

Yeah but, except for Haley Barbour and one other, Mississippi has had Democratic governors for about a hundred years.

Solid South Democrats is kind of a different animal though. Not exactly progressive.

Yeah, true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TyzAAwJnIw

I am confident that somewhere in Mississippi I could get some damned good fried chicken. I'm not sure what else there is to recommend the place.

I was born in Columbus, MS, guys!

Columbus Air Force Base, to be exact.

wait is that for the pro or con column?

Alfred is a Southerner. I have to sit down for a spell on this one.

I too was born at Columbus AFB. Have lived in Columbus, Starkville, Noxapater, Jackson

well, my Cuban-American dad was stationed at that air force base for three years at the tail end of Vietnam.

same here, minus the Cuban-American part

Dad loves to joke that I cost $4

I already knew andrew m was a Southerner. He's got a reserved table at Rendezvous.

Replace Rendezvous with Neely's Interstate and you're right on. Charlie Virgo's been hit-or-miss for last coupla years and we grew apart.

any name can be better with Mississippi in front of it
ie.
"Mississippi Walter Mondale"

i cant spell missisipi without spell check and I dont give a shit

Like most Mississippians with some sense and moxie, alfred no longer lives there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm6M7pj2tT4

I was born in heidelberg, germany on an army base. i cost something like a buck to be born. plus the doctor told my mother to drink two pints of beer a day while pregnant with me

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.

"Dirt and Deeds in Mississippi"

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/a-new-documentary-about-mississippi-in-the-60s-seems-frighteningly-relevant-today/

http://highway61music.blogspot.com/

very nice concert calendar of Miss. & Memphis area music gigs by Scott Barretta

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/us/south-magazines-bitter-southerner-charlottesvile-garden-and-gun.html?mcubz=0

Scalawag looks more interesting than Bitter Southerner, of the websites/magazines discussed in this article. Both could use Barretta's help

Alabama has Roy Moore, but are y'all sure it's the worst state? HB 1523 is now in effect.

http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/politics/2017/10/02/opponents-house-bill-1523-appealing-u-s-supreme-court/722725001/

The people of Mississippi have the right to ensure that all of our citizens are free to peacefully live and work without fear of being punished for their sincerely held religious beliefs teh gays.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/blues-brothers-don-jr-and-eric-trump-gamble-on-mississippi-tourism/2017/10/22/e906c8f0-aacc-11e7-b3aa-c0e2e1d41e38_story.html?utm_term=.faa5ea3a54df

“Have you all been out west of Cleveland?” he queried his audience. “To those that don’t know, get ready. Get ready, ’cause the blues is on the way.”

President Trump’s hotel company, the New York-based managers of luxury properties and golf courses around the globe, seems an unlikely presence in this struggling stretch of the Delta, where new businesses are hard to recruit and black residents are eight times more likely than whites to face unemployment.

But in June, the Trump Organization, now run by the president’s sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, bestowed a singular distinction upon Cleveland, population 12,000, and two nearby towns. It announced it would debut two new hotel brands here, beginning with a four-star, 100-room Scion hotel originally designed to replicate an antebellum plantation.
...Two are Comfort Inns, in Cleveland and Clarksdale, on the side of the highway and surrounded by strip malls and gas stations. The third is a Rodeway Inn in Greenville, across the street from the Trop Casino and separated by a levee where local residents take power walks. The area nearby is pockmarked with empty and boarded-up buildings.

“I don’t support [Trump]. I wouldn’t go to his hotel unless I had to. But I don’t blame other people if they do,” said Shanna Ray, 31, a medical lab technician on a stop during her walk.

Prospects for success

Skepticism remains that the hotels will succeed financially, particularly if blacks avoid them. Bolivar County is 64 percent black, and the railroad tracks that cut through the center of Cleveland, despite being out of use and mostly buried, still separate the more prosperous white areas from black neighborhoods.

https://thinkprogress.org/mississippi-proposes-license-to-harass-for-transphobic-teachers-70fdf6085b2c/?fbclid=IwAR2dQxgA_tPiPmon-HbBK2ad2bsV_REVDOQJHHsMYjuYXB8JXZAHO8FGmBc

Mississippi lawmakers propose ‘license to harass’ for transphobic teachers

Hosemann, Gunn: ‘Racial animus’ of Jim Crow no reason to change law designed to thwart African Americans being elected statewide

https://mississippitoday.org/2019/07/18/hosemann-gunn-say-racial-hostility-in-jim-crow-era-not-reason-to-throw-out-election-provision-today/

The response said, “neither the speaker nor the secretary wish to defend the motivations behind a law allegedly enacted with racial animus” But in reality, the Hosemann/Gunn response, said the lawsuit “is not about race…It’s about partisan politics.”

Get ready to hear similar arguments over and over again as the Supreme Court said it’s cool.

mississippi the state may be terrible but mississippi avenue in portland is quite nice

Obviously we all know this, but Mississippi is home to an enormous black population that doesn't want or care to leave, despite the racist bullshit of a majority of the white folks in the state. Dismissing the whole state is dismissing them, too, unless one provides caveats, so it's best to tread lightly imho

any statements i might make about the terribleness of the south are applicable only to the white people who run things unless i specifically state otherwise

Coincidentally, I woke up with “Living for the City” stuck in my head this morning.

https://www.propublica.org/article/ole-miss-students-pose-with-guns-in-front-of-shot-up-emmett-till-memorial

Who was the person the other day who naively aske on the politics thread "why do young people like Tr*mp?"

I hate people.

U.S. immigration officials raided numerous Mississippi food processing plants Wednesday, arresting 680 mostly Latino workers in what marked the largest workplace sting in at least a decade.

The raids, planned months ago, happened just hours before President Donald Trump was scheduled to visit El Paso, Texas, the majority-Latino city where a man linked to an online screed about a "Hispanic invasion" was charged in a shooting that left 22 people dead in the border city.

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/2019/08/07/immigration-ice-raids-hit-mississippi-food-processing-plants/1945057001/

Scott County Superintendent Tony McGee said on Wednesday he knew of at least six families within the district that had a parent caught up in the raids. The students range from kindergarten to high school. Bus drivers were asked to return the children to the school if there was no one at their home. He said the school district created a plan to care for students and all were released from school by 7 p.m.

On Thursday he said more than 150 students in his district remained absent from school Thursday, many kept at home out of fear after the immigration raids.

McGee told the Associated Press that some longtime teachers told him Wednesday was "by far the worst day they ever spent as an educator."
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2019/08/07/ice-immigration-raids-mississippi-what-we-know-peco-koch-foods-poultry-plants-jackson-sanctuary-city/1949156001/

The next governor.

https://i.imgur.com/o6WjeXD.jpg

https://mississippitoday.org/2020/02/05/former-welfare-agency-head-others-arrested-for-embezzling-millions-intended-for-poor-mississippians/

https://mississippitoday.org/2020/04/08/black-mississippians-at-greater-risk-72-of-deaths-56-of-states-covid-19-cases/

the great thing about all this is how like 70% of white ppl in Mississippi will fully grasp that this is unmistakably embezzlement, but still maintain that it was actually a better use for that money


https://news.yahoo.com/94-million-mississippis-poor-spent-160358379.html

New state flag is kinda erotic.

I was partial to the Stennis flag but hey I’ll take it

Stennis flag was available as a custom license plate this year and we got that, but yeah, anything but the battle flag.

corruption corruption
https://mississippitoday.org/2021/10/04/new-audit-mississippi-welfare-misspending/
New audit shows ‘a tragic amount’ misspent, but can’t find what happened to $40 million in welfare funds

corruption corruption continued: in case you were wondering what Brett Favre's been up to lately -- he's been grifting with the ex-guv

https://mississippitoday.org/2022/04/04/phil-bryant-brett-favre-welfare-scandal-payout/
https://mississippitoday.org/2022/04/06/brett-favre-used-fame-favors-welfare-dollars/

Man

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/08/30/us/jackson-water-system-failing-tuesday/index.html

https://www.blackenterprise.com/reporter-brett-favre-mississippi-gov-welfare-fraud-jail/

Reporter won’t reveal sources on Brett Favre case and is threatened with jail time

https://open.substack.com/pub/rooted/p/mississippi-native-birney-imes?r=2ck8a&utm_medium=ios

Mississippi photographer

From the interview linked by curmudgeon:

What do you wish the rest of the country understood about Mississippi?

I don’t know. I used to get defensive when people made the predictable, disparaging remarks about the state. Now I’m less concerned what the rest of the country thinks about Mississippi.

This is a rare and distinct place—visitors, over and over, are astounded by the hospitality they receive here.

Counterpoint (from this thread):

the one time I went to Mississippi was the first time I heard some use the word "jew" as a verb and the only time that the person saying it was being serious

on the same trip, after I told this one dude how nice his house and neighborhood was and how I'd like to live someplace like that someday, he told me that that was nice but they liked to make sure only the right kind of people moved into their neighborhood, after which he stared at me and asked, "Do you understand what I am saying?"

not too many positive impressions of Tupelo, MS

― DJP, Thursday, June 30, 2011

That Mississippi photographer's answer is way too privileged and he as someone who has been photographing Black blues clubs there , he should be able to balance the good with the bad there.

I see he also is involved with this-- Six years ago my wife Beth and her good friend Jamie Davidson started a chapter of 100 Women Who Care. In those six years the organization has raised and given away more than $200,000 to local non-profits. Along the way they’ve increased awareness of the good work going on in our community and have tapped in to the formidable power of women here who want to make a difference.

His family has been part of the Columbus media landscape for a long time. A previous Birney Imes (presumably this guy's father, maybe grandfather?) started North Mississppi's first tv station, WCBI, in 1956.

Mississippi's extremely stupid and avoidable liquor famine makes the national press.
https://archive.ph/jhwIZ

(WaPo)

I had a feeling that's why this thread was bumped.

the baptists have won!

lol

can you sell your home stash to the bar at a profit?

Legally no, though it's an idea I floated to them a couple of years ago. No interest. One problem is that much of my collection is stuff that's not sold in this state.
In Mississippi, Buffalo Trace bourbon is an extremely scarce allocated product, and some retailers use that scarcity to limit it to one per customer or charge insane prices like $65/750ml. Every time I've gone shopping for personal booze in Memphisto, it was a reasonable $23-26 per 750ml, no limit, so on my last trip I got the ar-bay an ase-cay. There's no way we're the only retailer that's done that.