Jackson Free Press

The legislative session has not been without drama. But with the deadline to introduce general bills passing earlier this week, it seems like there have been relatively few bills related to traditional red-meat issues.

Only one bill title mentions abortion and it was put forth by Rep. Nick Bain, D-Corinth. Bain's bill, HB 513, says that "any discussion of abortion must be presented from the medical perspective of the potential long-term and short-term hazards presented to patients as the result of having the procedure performed."

Sen. Michael Watson, a R-Pascagoula, has a bill that would make it a felony if exposing a fetus or a child to a controlled substance or chemical substance causes serious physical injury to the child or fetus. Watson's bill carves out exceptions for legally administered prescription drugs.

Attempts at regulating immigration are also non-existent thus far. Besides a bill from Rep. Reecy Dickson, D-Macon, that authorizes a task force to study the role of immigrant communities in alleviating poverty, we haven't seen renewed attempts to impose strict show-your-papers kinds of immigration bills (at least not yet).

That said, there are a handful of gun bills.

U.S. Senate hopeful Chris McDaniel would prohibit state cooperation with any federal effort to ban firearms. Rep. Mark Formby, R-Picayune, has a similar bill in the House. Another proposal, from Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, makes certain exceptions to concealed-carry permits for gun and ammo-related companies.

The numbers are in, and it looks like the soon-to-be-law, one-percent local option sales tax won in every precinct last Tuesday.

The results, which you can view here, show that the vote received the highest support in north Jackson, but enjoyed widespread support throughout the city's seven wards.

The four wards with the highest turnout went overwhelmingly for the measure. To wit:

• Ward 35, which votes at Spann Elementary School in Ward 1, voted 475-34 in favor of the tax.
• Ward 45, which votes at St. Philips Episcopal Church in Ward 1, voted 463-48 in favor of the tax.
• Ward 46, which votes at Christ United Methodist Church in Ward 1, voted 689-90 in favor of the tax.
• Ward 83, which votes at New Hope Baptist Church in Ward 2, voted 648-38 in favor of the tax.

See the following press release from Belhaven University:

Belhaven University and the Department of Athletics is pleased to announce that Hal Mumme will be the next Head Football Coach. Mumme comes to Belhaven from Southern Methodist University, where he served as an Assistant Coach and Passing Game Coordinator under Head Coach June Jones in 2013.

“I heard for years Hal Mumme’s reputation as a football genius and innovator,” said Belhaven University President Dr. Roger Parrott. “Then when I got to know him personally, I was amazed at how what we as football fans see on the field is just the tip of the iceberg of this remarkable coach and leader. I am excited for our students, our players, and our alumni, because Belhaven football is going to join the “Air-Raid” and soar, with Hal Mumme coming to be our head coach.”

Under the coaching of Mumme, SMU quarterback Garrett Gilbert set multiple single game and single season records during the 2013 season. Gilbert racked up 635 yards of total offense against Temple, seventh most in a game in NCAA history. Gilbert also recorded single season school records, second for most total offensive yards (3795), second in passing yards (3528), and first in completions (335). As a team, the Mustangs recorded 5,222 total yards with 4,097 of those yards coming through the air in 2013.

“I want to thank Hal for his work over the past year,” said SMU Head Coach June Jones. “He is an innovator and a friend. I really enjoyed the time we spent together. We wish him well at Belhaven.”

Mumme not only brings experience as an assistant coach at the NCAA Division I level, but has been a head coach at Division I Kentucky, New Mexico State, and Southeastern Louisiana. Mumme was also the Head Coach at NCAA Division II Valdosta State, Iowa Wesleyan (NAIA), and most recently McMurry (Division III and now Division II).

Mumme spent four seasons at McMurry and led the team to a 27-16 record, including three consecutive winning seasons. Mumme resurrected a McMurry program that had lost 13 consecutive games and had not had a winning season for eight years prior to his arrival. In 2011, Mumme posted a 9-3 record with the team and secured McMurry’s first postseason victory since 1949 by beating Trinity in the first round of the Division III playoffs.

Mumme began his coaching career in the NAIA at Iowa Wesleyan in 1989 and led the Tigers to the playoffs in 1991. In 1992, he moved on to NCAA Division II Valdosta State and then to Kentucky in the SEC where he coached Number One NFL Draft Pick Tim Couch. In 1998, the Wildcats went 7-5 and played in the Outback Bowl, becoming the first coach to take the team to a New Year’s Day bowl game since Bear Bryant in 1951. He is the only coach in the modern era at Kentucky to beat Alabama and numerous college head coaches’ are part of his coaching tree, …

A recent listing on online classified ads web page Craigslist shows that the old Broadmoor Baptist Church on East Northside Drive is for sale for $2.8 million. The building most recently went under the title of Wesley Biblical Seminary.

I'm not sure who is looking to buy a church and is surfing Craigslist with a budget near $3 million, but the listing is complete with pictures of the property, which is in surprisingly good condition.

The building features seating for 750 in the updated sanctuary, "dozens of offices, tons of rooms (over 100), (a) 250-seat chapel, (a) 120-capacity lecture hall, choir rehearsal room, heated baptistry, commercial kitchen and large fellowship hall... ."

It also contains conference rooms, a board room, an organ, video surveillance capability, an elevator, parking for 500 of your closest friends.

But forget all that. Here's the kicker – the building includes a gym and a four-lane bowling alley and an apartment. With all the talk about charter schools** in the city, this could be primed to be a location for one.

Can anyone else think of a way this building could be used (other than the obvious - a church)?

** Please do not consider this an endorsement of charter schools.

I received this stunning letter a couple days ago from a (white, I think) man in Pearl, presumably in response to my recent column about the abominable Mississippi state flag. I post it now without comment but will be back along with some thoughts later. Here it is, verbatim:

Please permit me to submit the following letter to Jackson Free Press:

Some of us have heard the question "What happens when an unstoppable force hits an immovable object?" The puzzle might seem a bit superficial until one notices we have a similar problem concerning our state flag.

I think the JFP has well demonstrated that the Confederate emblem on the Mississippi flag continues to cause hurtful memories to blacks who have endured the horrors of segregation and the Civil Rights era.

So why would so many Mississippians continue to resist changing such a hated symbol of our state's dark past? Ignorance? Bigotry? Could there still be some unspoken reason why many white southerners insist on keeping our flag in its current form?

Hey. We want progress. So let's just go ahead and bring it out in the open.

Just as the current Confederate emblem causes hurtful memories to our state's blacks, the absence of the symbol would cause hurtful memories to many white southerners. And I do not mean just segregationists.

To many whites, the erasure of the Confederate emblem would be an unreciprocated nod to the kind of blacks who attempted, and in some cases, DID seize control of Jackson's schools by force, who pulled knives on white students and threatened them with violence, who stole my brother's school books and urged him to steal from my parents to get money to get his books back.

The erasure would be seen as a nod to "gangsta rap" stars who record songs saturated with sexualized slang and glorify abusing women. It would be seen as a nod to people who have petitioned the NBA to declassify the use of the "MF" word as a technical foul because it is part of "black culture."

To be blunt, there are some facets of "black culture" many of us do not want in Mississippi culture. THAT is what some Mississippi southerners are afraid of.

Though voters decided by referendum to keep our current flag, one can argue that we must have a system in place to protect people from a tyranny of the majority. But there is a bit of a corollary to that here.

If Mississippi blacks are a minority, there is a tiny minority to THAT minority. There are some blacks who want to keep our current flag. Some support groups like the Sons of Confederate Veterans because they are proud to be the descendants of black soldiers who fought for the CSA. Should not their rights be considered too?

But my position is not based entirely on fairness. Perhaps we should lose the current flag.

But that is not going to happen until we have answered the …

JazzFest and New Releases...

State Rep. Deborah Dixon, D-Bolton, has introduced a bill that modifies the state's so-called Castle Doctrine, which establishes parameters for when homicide is justified (e.g. self-defense).

Under Dixon's legislation, HB 179, the Castle Doctrine would only apply within 30 feet of the exterior of a dwelling. Outside of that 30-foot threshold, the shooter would not be immune from criminal liability.

The legislation would also require some shooters in Castle Doctrine cases to "submit to a sobriety test or drug test at the time of investigation to determine whether the individual was under the influence of an intoxicating liquor or controlled substance."

The bill has been assigned to the House Judiciary A Committee, chaired by Rep. Mark Baker, R-Brandon.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood is touting a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that he says affirms the rights of state attorneys general to file lawsuits in state court.

Here's the full release from Hood's office:

Jackson, MS – In a case brought by Attorney General Jim Hood, the U.S. Supreme Court today unanimously upheld the right of attorneys general across the country to enforce their state’s laws in state court. The Supreme Court ruled in Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp. that a state attorney general asserting state law claims for damages incurred by its citizens can have that case resolved by its state court, and is not required to be removed to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA).

All nine Justices agreed to reverse the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that the State’s antitrust and consumer protection enforcement suit could not proceed in Mississippi state court. The Fifth Circuit had encroached on state courts’ rights to hear important public matters by significantly broadening the interpretation of what can constitute a federal “mass action.” Under CAFA, that requires the presence of 100 or more individual “plaintiffs.” The Fifth Circuit had ruled that, despite the State Attorney General being the only plaintiff in the case, the court would treat all Mississippi residents as “plaintiffs” so that CAFA’s 100 person requirement could be considered satisfied, depriving the state courts of the right to interpret their own laws.

Having recognized the important state sovereignty issues at stake, all U.S. Courts of Appeals that had addressed the issue – except the Fifth Circuit – had flatly rejected this analysis. The Supreme Court has now corrected the Fifth Circuit’s error, and Mississippi’s case will properly be returned to Mississippi Chancery Court.

Attorney General Jim Hood stated, " The United States Supreme Court was crystal clear that federal courts have no jurisdiction under the so-called Class Action Fairness Act over actions brought by state Attorneys General for consumer and anti-trust violations. For far too long, large corporations have abused the federal judiciary by trying to drag every action filed by an Attorney General in state court into federal courts. The working people of Mississippi and other states won one this time."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that an action by an attorney general on behalf of the state’s citizens does not fit within CAFA’s language. The Court held that, because the State of Mississippi, through its attorney general, is the only plaintiff, this suit does not constitute a mass action.

The State sued makers of liquid crystal displays (LCD) in Mississippi state court in January 2011, alleging that these manufacturers had formed an international cartel to restrict competition and boost prices in the LCD market. Several of the defendants in the State’s case pled guilty to charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and paid criminal fines to the U.S. Government. The Mississippi Attorney General sued to recover for the economic harm to the State and …

After years of planning, Whole Foods Market in Jackson is opening in less than one month. Here's the full, verbatim release from the company:

JACKSON, MS (January 10, 2014) Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFM) announces it will open its doorsTuesday, February 4, at 9 a.m. at Highland Village, 4500 I-55 North in Jackson. The 34,000 square-foot store features an organic salad bar, in-store smoked barbecue, fresh-made gelato, natural body care and nutritional supplements, beer growler filling station and the Yazoo Bend Coffee & Taproom with 4 beers on tap.

“We really look forward to finally opening our doors and being part of the Jackson community,” said Marty Cribb, Store Team Leader for Whole Foods Market, Jackson. “We offer a unique grocery shopping experience, but we also give back to the community through our 5% Days, local vendor partnerships, and donations.”

Whole Foods Market will also offer an early look at its first Mississippi store with sneak-preview tours. For a $5 donation to The Literacy Garden at the Mississippi Children’s Museum, curious customers can take a pre-opening tour of the store at a specified time slot. Tours are scheduled between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Friday, January 31, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, February 1. Tour attendees will be the first to get a glimpse of the new store, learn a bit about Whole Foods Market and the store highlights, taste samples, and receive a goodie bag.

Advance registration is required, register TODAY! http://jackson.wholefoodsrsvp.com/

The store opens for business Tuesday, February 4, immediately following a bread-breaking ceremony (Whole Foods Market’s version of a ribbon-cutting,) with city officials and special guests. Customers arriving between 8 - 8:30 a.m. receive a free raffle ticket and are automatically entered for a chance to win a gift card ranging from $5-500. There will be 100 winners!

Merchant of Vino by Whole Foods Market, the 950 sq. ft. wine & spirits shop adjacent to the larger grocery store, will open at a later date with its own celebration! Whole Foods Market added approximately 120 additional jobs to the Jackson market and has been named by FORTUNE® magazine as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in the U.S. for 16 consecutive years – every year since the List’s inception.

The few new releases that hit the streets this week...

After his election as mayor, one of the biggest questions hanging over Chokwe Lumumba's new administration was what kind of relationship he would have with the state Legislature.

Historically, that relationship has been icier than our weather the past few days. Lumumba's predecessor, Harvey Johnson Jr., wasn't known as someone who liked to hobnob and press the flesh.

Today, Lumumba opened what he called a new "era of cooperation" as he gave the Legislature a warm welcome to the capital city.

"I want you to feel welcome; I want you to to feel like you're home. Go out and spend lots of money," Lumumba told members of the Mississippi House of Representatives.

Lumumba even recommended a couple of his favorite haunts, Chitoes African Deli in west Jackson and Pearl's Southern Kitchen on Terry Road, and urged members in need of a new set of wheels to stop in at a Jackson car dealership.

Then, he struck a slightly more serious tone.

"Vote for all the pro-Jackson stuff," he said. "What's good for Jackson is good for Mississippi and what's good for Mississippi is good for Jackson."

Read more about the city of Jackson's legislative agenda.

There's a new place for state government news, commentary and analysis. It's called Rethink Mississippi, and it's a project of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at Ole Miss.

According to the site's "about us" page, Rethink Mississippi "is a forum for insight, analysis, and debate about Mississippi’s critical long-term issues — run by and intended for the people committed to working on these issues in the future. RM offers a space for Mississippi’s emerging leaders to be heard, and, more importantly, to hear from each other. In short, we want the people who will shape the public policy of tomorrow discussing it today at RM."

The city of Jackson has announced that a portion of South Medgar Evers Boulevard will be closed for the next three days. The closure starts at the intersection known as Freedom Corner, at Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, and continues south to Pocahontas Street at Society Ridge Baptist Church.

Public Works crews are working to repair a broken water valve, and it's expected to take three days, weather permitting. Detour signs, they say, will be posted.

While this can be considered inconvenient, we've been lucky, so far, despite the constant below-freezing temperatures that have gripped the Jackson over the last 48 hours. A similar freeze in 2010 burst pipes all over the city and forced repairs all over the city.

Brent's Drugs in Fondren is set to host CROSSHATCH, a fundraiser for Fund the Hatch, a mixed-use creative business incubator the old warehouse building at 143 Keener Ave. in Midtown.

The JFP first wrote about the incubator on April 3, 2013, and project's lead promoter/developer/fund-raiser Whitney Grant of Midtown Partners has been working since then to find a workable, self-sustaining system for the building to operate under and the funding to bring it to a reality.

The event at Brent's is set for 8 p.m., Friday, January 10. It will feature music, an arts raffle and drinks and is scheduled to roll 'til midnight.

The Indiegogo campaign for the Hatch has 13 days left, and it's currently raised approximately $4,800 out of the $25,000 goal.

Check it out.

Up this time in the beer fridge it's Schlafly APA from St. Louis Brewery; this is a smooth drinking, hoppy pale ale that's worth a taste:

Last week, Forbes Magazine ran an interesting Q&A with HOPE Enterprise Corp.'s chief-executive officer Bill Bynum.

Bynum told interviewer Willy Foote that the population HOPE serves through its credit union is similar to a developing nation and talked about why HOPE is successful, saying:

"It’s certainly not easy but it doesn’t require rocket science. The tools are by and large the same ones that the banks use. Our difference is that we add a commitment to serving these markets. It’s a matter of will. We are very committed to making sure people have access to capital regardless of who their parents were, or where they live or what they look like. "

Read the rest of the interview here.

Hello readers. 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.

Click HERE for 60-51 Click HERE for 50-41 Click HERE for 40-31 Click HERE for 30-21 Click HERE for 20-11

10) Dosh “Milk Money” Dosh, who is from Minneapolis, is a multi-instrumentalist who makes experimental beat driven electronic music, with an organic flair, mostly from the marimba and Rhodes piano he normally plays as part of his live set up. He creates lush songs with the help of an array of samplers and …

While working on a story on Tony Yarber's Jackson Crime Alignment, I got the pleasure of speaking with pastor Matt McGue of one of Jackson's newest churches, One Church.

I am admittedly not very religious, but there's something about McGue's message of inclusion that struck me as incredibly genuine.

There aren't too many pastors you can interview who will quote Billy Graham and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but McGue isn't like many pastors. His One Church is intent on becoming a multicultural, multiracial and multi ethnical house of worship, which is rare in this part of the country.

Our churches, much like the rest of our everyday lives, are still segregated – not by law, but by cultural barriers that have needed to be knocked down for years.

That'll change if McGue has his way. He moved here from North Carolina, after helping to start a similar church in Charlotte called Lifepoint. He brought his wife ("I'm glad she decided to come"), his son and his son's wife, who is a recent addition to the family.

They are meeting in the Ridgeland Recreational Center near Northpark Mall, and he says he's found a location he hopes will be the future home of a permanent church. It's too early to say where it is, but he's hoping to be able to make an announcement soon.

He said two things in the course of a 15-minute conversation that have stuck with me the last two days, but probably won't make a story about fighting crime: "The churches have been preaching a message of inclusion and racial harmony from segregated pulpits," and "I want to build a church in Jackson that looks like Heaven, with people from every tribe and nation."

What a message – and a breath of fresh air – for a city as ethnically and racially divided as Jackson.

An interesting piece in Salon this week seems to have discovered (bless their little San Francisco hearts) that 'open carry' is a "new craze" (ahem) out here in flyover country.

But, now that they've caught on, the piece does take a fascinating look at some of the psychology of open carry and presents a case for the idea that open carry actually contributes to violence instead of curbing it.

How can that be? Here's a couple of the key points they make:

• People with guns tend to see guns, even when they're not there. Result: higher chance of shooting an unarmed "threat."

A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology suggests that when people are holding a gun, they’re less capable of evaluating a threat than they would be if they didn’t have a weapon in their own hands.

• The presence of a weapon can make a hostile environment more hostile.

Since 1967, researchers have been observing the “weapons effect,” a phenomenon in which the mere presence of a weapon can stimulate aggressive behavior. Of course, a person doesn’t respond to a gun the way a cartoon bull reacts to the matador’s cape; we aren’t spontaneously enraged every time we notice a firearm. But empirical research has repeatedly shown that when people are already aggravated, seeing a gun will motivate them to behave more aggressively.

• Your body responds involuntarily to threats, and the presence of weapons is frequently interpreted as a superior threat in a given environment.

“The ‘threat superiority effect’ is the tendency for people to be able to pick out very quickly in their environment things that might pose a threat to their security — anything that might be dangerous,” explains Isabelle Blanchette, a professor of psychology at the University of Quebec. “People have a tendency to be able to see these things before they see other things.”

Read the whole piece; it'll fly in the face of some people's worldview, but if you've got an open mind about this topic it really is food for thought on the psychology of open carry.

Cool stuff at Morningbell, new releases and regional picks...