Jackson Free Press

The Jackson Free Press received this notice from the city this morning:

Due to the recent loss in water pressure, the City of Jackson Water/Sewer Utilities Division has issued a precautionary boil water advisory until further notice for all customers on the City of Jackson Surface Water System. This notice does not affect customers served by Jackson’s Well Water System.

Due to a driver hitting a fire hydrant last night, a loss of pressure has occurred in the distribution system resulting in this precautionary boil water notice. The system should recover as repairs are completed.

City crews are currently performing repair work. Water pressure should be restored by the end of the day.

This is a precautionary advisory. This notice does not mean that the water is unsafe, but it does mean that customers must take precaution and boil the water before use. All customers are advised to boil their drinking water until adequate pressure is restored to the system. Water should be brought to a rolling boil for one minute for the following: cooking or baking, making ice cubes, taking medication, brushing teeth, washing food, mixing baby formula or food, mixing juices or drinks feeding pets, washing dishes and all other consumption.

Residents will be notified immediately when the advisory is lifted. For more information, call 601-960-2723.

The US Human Rights Network has announced it will honor Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and six others with the 2013 U.S. Advancing Human Rights Award. The Atlanta-based organization describes itself on its web site as "a team of thematic experts, organizers, education specialists, trainers, communications experts, and human rights activists."

It describes the award ceremony, set for Dec. 6-8 in Atlanta, as an opportunity to "recognize and celebrate six visionary people and one organization building and strengthening the human rights movement at the grassroots level."

To be considered, nominees must have had at least five years experience in grass-roots organizing in the area of immigration, environmental and climate justice, workers rights, or access to justice, as well as other areas such as racial justice, women's rights, disability rights, and economic, social and cultural rights.

Other award recipients include Haitian Women of Miami Executive Producer Marleine Bastien, Desis Rising Up and Moving Executive Director Monami Maulik, Texas Latina Advocacy Network Field Coordinator Lucy Ceballos Felix, Navajo Nation Corrections Project Supervisor Lenny Foster, Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign Co-founder J.R. Fleming and Mossville, La. community organization Mossville Environmental Action Now.

Hello readers. Garrad Lee here. You might remember me from my time at the JFP as the writer of the bi-monthly column “The Key of G,” where I covered local and national music, as well as just musing about different topics related to music in general.

One of the things I liked to do was to make top 10 release lists at the end of the given year. While I did enjoy that, I always felt a little disingenuous, because I don’t listen to that much new music; I spend most of my time digging for and listening to old records. Hence, my top 10 lists would barely be made, as I squeezed in a few listens right at the end of the year to go with the few albums from artists that I always check for. Further, I never kept a running list, so my top 10 would have omissions, on top of my already poor sample size. (For instance, I somehow left Robert Glasper’s “Black Radio” off of last year’s list).

But this year has been different. I made it my mission to listen to as many new releases as possible, and to document them. What I have now is a list of 60 new albums that I have listened to and ranked in order. Mind you, this list is not meant to be definitive; there is a lot that I didn’t listen to for several reasons, mainly just because there isn’t enough time in the day to hear everything. I did listen to almost everything from artists that I am a fan of, which is something I have done a poor job of over the years. I also branched out to some artists I never was a fan of before, even though I knew who they were and ignored them on purpose. The results are fairly predictable. I also discovered some new artists I had never heard of at all, which was quite nice in most instances.

So, over the next several weeks, I am going to present you all with a ranked list of the 60 albums I listened to this year. Again, this list is not intended to be definitive at all; it is just a list of what I listened to, ranked solely by my opinions. I am sure there will be some disagreement and head scratching, but some of you might also see some new things that interest you that you go check out. And that’s what it’s all about anyway. Thanks for reading and indulging my opinions.

60) Daft Punk “Random Access Memories” Oh yeah. You are reading this right. I have in fact put Daft Punk at the bottom of this list. You know right away this isn’t your average top 60 list, given that this album is sure to populate many top 5 lists this year. Someone had to be the sacrificial lamb in my last spot. Frankly, I just do not like this album. At all. I …