Defend the Indefensible: Mississippi

Dr. Dirt used to be the cohost of a gardening/horticulture radio show on MS Public Broadcasting. The host is a southern-horticulture expert and a real dick. (I used to work with his brother at Ole Miss; unsurprisingly, he too was a dick.)

Will otm about Tupelo. But somebody has opened a new bar there with 20 taps and 100+ bottled beers, which is real progress for that John Birch Society Southeast Regional HQ.

srsly, visiting that town pretty much killed any vestigial desire I had to live someplace that wasn't a large, major city

wait I thought you lived in boston

parse the sentence, iatee...

oh come on at least we're SUBTLE about our racism up here in the mid-atlantic suburbs

oh wait, I see what you did there (maybe) xp

like, maybe I don't know 95% of my neighbors, but on the flipside they aren't organizing a mob to run me out of town so I'm basically all good

several xps: lol NYC, how ya doin'

yeah the drive dang perry out of somerville chapter i attempted to launch never really got off the ground :/

Mississippi is one of twelve states in which I've had sex.

D. Kimbrough used to come kick it in Oxford and jam with some of my musician friends. he was a good-looking, smooth-talking SOB (circa 95-96). used to bring us moonshine, too. saw Junior in his old juke joint Junior's Place before it burned.

Mississippi, the state where things like this still happen

I mean jeez at least in Oakland we make sure the racists murdering black guys wear uniforms

I bust out the same schtick every time there's an "I hate Texas!"/"I hate Florida!"/whatever thread so I'll just do the abbreviated version here: there are good, wonderful, creative people everywhere, and if it makes you feel awesome about yourself to go "well in [Texas, Florida, Mississippi, whatever] they're the EXCEPTION, most everybody there is horrible and you know it" etc., knock yrself out but I'd rather live in Mississippi than in a house full of people who puff themselves up by hating on places like Mississippi instead of finding some way to add to the available fund of good in the world

This thread is an invitation to Jonah Goldberg to whine about liberal east coast bias.

I mean jeez at least in Oakland we make sure the racists murdering black guys wear uniforms

you actually said this

referring to recent case where BART cop shot an unarmed, handcuffed black man in the back of the head, yes

also for the record I big upped Fat Possum already in this thread, and only posted the story here cuz it seems like the most recently active, relevant thread

there is lots of great stuff from Mississippi

also donated to available good fund earlier but am kinda in a bad mood at the moment

I bust out the same schtick every time there's an "I hate Texas!"/"I hate Florida!"/whatever thread

To be fair, this was fully intended as a thread for people to rise to Mississippi's defense. WMC lives there and was said it was indefensible and I called him on it.

A while back I was casting a critical eye at my own state of Maryland, a majority liberal, Democratic stalwart of a state and despite of that, there's still definitely a strong conservative presence and I've encountered plenty of racism, both first-hand and in the news. And in spite of a strong conservative, racist presence in Miss., the 2008 Presidential election went 56% McCain 42% Obama and so like, that's a huge lead obviously, but it's closer to an even split than you'd think, given all the horror stories that people tell about the state. And there are demographic and class considerations and all that shit to factor in, but whatever.

What's Mississippi's nature like? That's one of my main considerations when judging a state. Is there somewhere good to go there when the weather's nice?

It's a conservative Bible-belt state full of horrendously undereducated folks scared by their pastors and Fox News into voting against their own economic self-interest. As everywhere, there are generous, open-hearted people, and there are brutes.

xpost -- lots of hunting and fishing, lakes and state parks, a not-particularly-clean beach on our tiny strip of coastline. Oppressively hot and humid from May through mid-September, not cold enough to get much snow in the winter, wonderful for two months each in spring and fall. Not much variation in elevation until you get to the far northeast corner, so there aren't any dramatic nature formations.

Nice state for bird-watching.

Also, I didn't say the state was indefensible, I said I wasn't going to be the one doing the defending. (But of course I occasionally do anyway.)

hate to see the old roxy

not cold enough to get much snow in the winter

this speaks in favor of MS, snow is terrible & should be outlawed

Well, this is changing. Until the last couple of years, we'd have a measurable snowfall roughly once a decade. This past winter, we had 3", 5" and 6" school-letter-outters.

It's legal to drink alcohol while driving in Mississippi, as long as your BAC stays below .08%

And there are demographic and class considerations and all that shit to factor in, but whatever.

― walloginabox (kkvgz)

[Living in a redneck, white-trash, hillbilly neighborhood - Advice?

I just heard a story from old friends who spent one year in Jackson after law school. The week they moved in, my friend Jen answered a knock at the door to find two personable local women who greeted her and said "welcome to Jackson, we'd love to show you around." My friend immediately offered that she was both Catholic and a Democrat, and the two women simply turned around and walked away.

Anyway, most of Mississippi is the dud by which all other duds are judged, but boy is Oxford a lovely little town. Just 10 hours from Chicago!

a former boss was born and raised in Mississippi ... he's also gay and Catholic. tough little queen!

I was born in Bratwursterstizen, germany on an army base. i cost something like a dead seahorse in a jar to be born. plus the doctor told my mother to drink two pints of Octopus blood a day while pregnant with me

― coffeetripperspillerslyricmakeruppers (Latham Green), Thursday, June 30, 2011 12:38 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark

hanle y is back YAY

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Business/images-3/redneck-toilet.jpg

tbf that picture could've been taken at off-campus housing at my fancy NE alma mater

Off-campus. That could probably be take on campus at most big schools.

tru dat to the both of yas ... i may've seen such a thing back at Rutgers back in the day

I think the story Shakey Mo linked to upthread was about James Craig Anderson's murder. Anyway, the shitbag who ran him over changed his plea to guilty today.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/21/justice/mississippi-hate-crime/index.html

We're number one!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/teen-pregnancy-rates_n_1413820.html

The Little Big Store, Raymond, Miss.

Big World by Mary Miller
Cowboy Maloney's Electric City by Michael Bible

Two fantastic little books. The latter I picked up based on the title alone because, growing up in Jackson, Cowboy Maloney's was so ubiquitous. Should we get our new TV at Cowboy or REX?! Bible's definitely up on his Donald Barthelme and Letters to Wendy's. Good stuff. Mary Miller has the Fred Barthelme vibe, and in fact she thanks him in the book and I'm guessing she studied under him in Hattiesburg. So yeah.

/Big World/ by Mary Miller
/Cowboy Maloney's Electric City/ by Michael Bible

Two fantastic little books. The latter I picked up based on the title alone because, growing up in Jackson, Cowboy Maloney's was so ubiquitous. Should we get our new TV at Cowboy or REX?! Bible's definitely up on his Donald Barthelme and /Letters to Wendy's/. Good stuff. Mary Miller has the Fred Barthelme vibe, and in fact she thanks him in the book and I'm guessing she studied under him in Hattiesburg. So yeah.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/02/mississippi-officially-abolishes-slavery-ratifies-13th-amendment/

Mississippi School Forces Students To Listen To Christian Lecture, Teachers Block Exits

I don't care what aero says, I hate this goddamn fucking state.

never been to mississippi, or the so-called "deep" south, but it has always had a sort of dark mystique for me, probably due to my teenage infatuation with faulkner. when i think of mississippi i think of spanish moss, humidity, and guilt. also like, a state full of people i have nothing in common with. glad i don't live there.

is this the easiest or hardest PR project ever?

http://mississippibelieveit.com/home/

No Black. No White. Just The Blues.

Some see the world in black and white. Others see varying shades of gray. But, Mississippi taught the world to see ... and hear ... the Blues. Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, W.C. Handy, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddly, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Milton, B.B. King ... they all travelled the most revered blues highway in the world – Mississippi’s Highway 61. Mississippi. Birthplace of the Blues.

mississippi taught us all that color doesn't really matter

i've been to clarksdale just recently and yeah 'blues tourism' is pretty weird

Faulkner and the blues are enough to defend mississippi, which i always think of rightly or wrongly as our most "tragic" state.

What started on an airplane as a conversation between a 12-year-old boy from Connecticut and a Mississippi businessman led to the creation of Mississippi, Believe It!™ The boy asked Rick Looser, COO of The Cirlot Agency, if he, "still saw the KKK on the streets every day" ... and whether or not he "hates all black people." This stunning revelation was the catalyst to create the campaign, which combats the erroneous stereotypes that plague Mississippi. The Cirlot Agency designed Mississippi, Believe It!™, pro bono, to inform and educate the world about the accomplishments, wonderful people, aspects and facts associated with the state of Mississippi. The campaign takes common Mississippi stereotypes and twists them to reveal the truth about the state.

Wait i said basically the same thing at the last revive. Sorry all. State tourism PR campaigns are generally lol