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Thursday Morning Various

NMC — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:54:17 +0000

The Clarion Ledger ran an AP report on the Supreme Court’s decision to take the pardons case. In at least one way it’s a traditional C/L report, though: There are comments by Matt Steffey (According to the report, Steffey thought this a positive development. Interestingly, Jim Hood says that he thought so, too, saying: ”This is a good development.”). CNN– which has had a truck in Oxford and is apparently running a story on Anderson Cooper’s show tonight– reports the development along with details about Ozment, the pardonee served with process while in Wyoming. Reuters has a report that doesn’t add much other than confusing county court and circuit court (hint to Reuters: ”trial court” would have worked).
Mitt Romney, divider not a uniter: ”I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor.” Yep, Mitt Romney said that, yesterday morning to Soledad O’Brien. It was one of those moments that make one think that, as smart as Romney seems to be, his people ought not let him unscripted near a microphone. He went on to dig in further, I mean, to explain (and, no, I don’t think saying “the poor have a safety net,” or that he’d fix it if it tore made it all right. He said the poor are covered so he doesn’t worry about them). Gail Collins in a NY Times op ed has more.
Did you ever have the impression that Boar’s Head meats and cheese just came out of nowhere, sort of mysteriously? And they weren’t really as good as they were supposed to be? Well, you aren’t alone, and Slate has a bit of the story.
In 1865, Col. P.H. Anderson of Tennessee wrote one of his former slaves, asking him to return to work for him. He apparently got a pretty memorable reply that was run in contemporary newspapers. Hilarious and worth reading.
Clive Stafford Smith, the lawyer who handled death penalty cases across the south for years and is now at Reprieve in the UK, where he’s represented Guantanamo inmates and others, has written a new book (probably not available in the US yet) about the death penalty, focusing on a Florida case of his own. Here’s an interview.
Michael Hasting’s book The Operator (worked up from his time with Gen. Stanley McChrystal) is on my to-read-soon pile. Now his interview of Julian Assage is in my online cue. h/t Lee.

Tuesday Morning Various

NMC — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:13:08 +0000

The picture above is Will Campbell, on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel immediately after Martin Luther King had been killed there. Life has online a sequence of previously unpublished pictures from that night.

The legislature has started making its mischief. Kingfish writes about the bill designed to set limits on the attorney general’s ability to contract with outside attorneys which is being described as a direct personal attack on Jim Hood. I read one of the bills. While I think a provision making hourly charge documents subject to the Open Records Act is dubious because it seems to allow a demand for that information while suit is pending, the rest of the bill– requiring findings with reasons if Hood doesn’t take bids in a a process that doesn’t require accepting low bids, for instance~~, and setting some limits on the amounts but allowing the limits to be exceeded where the hours and expenses justify it~~– doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. I am expecting a lot worse from this legislature. On the other hand, the other proposed bill on the subject seems inconsistent with the first and designed primarily to undercut the power of the attorney general rather than solve a percieved problem.

Speaking of Open Records, Anita Lee in the Sun Herald commended Delbert Hosemann’s office for the way they immediately set about to make the Barbour pardon documents fully available to the public immediately when the pardons were signed.

Joe York has a new short movie out, Eggers, about caviar harvesting in the Mississippi River.

The Guardian uses a lawsuit filed by Ezra Pound’s daughter against neo-fascists using Pounds name as an opportunity to describe her life, and visit her castle in the Italian alps. She has had an amazing life, worth a read. H/t Bookslut.

The New York Times writes optimistically about Beth Henley’s new play, about to open in New York. It’s called “The Jacksonian,” and is the first play she’s set in her hometown.

Kim Severson in the New York Times has the story of a black minister in Laurens, South Carolina became the landlord of a closed movie theater housing The Redneck Shop, a store of Klan memorabilia and rebel flags.

Steven Colbert last night: ”Growing up in South Carolina, I was taught that freedom was why we started the Civil War.”

Update

Paragraph on attorney general bill changed with deletions struck through and additions underlined, based on first two comments.

Monday Morning Various

NMC — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:16:14 +0000

Who won Iowa? “Look for those final results in about a week and a half” says a party official in a story out of Iowa about that fact that there might just have been a 20 or so vote discrepancy that would change the outcome of the primary there to a Santorum victory. The story was broken by a local TV station that talked to a Paul supporter who said the state level reporting for his precinct was wrong, giving Romney 20 extra votes (and in an update reported the quote, above). The Des Moines Register found county officials who corroborated the report, which has been picked up by blogs and some national media. Given this is operating at the level of margins of error, does it matter? Probably some, because one of the things Romney is doing is trying to create the impression he is a juggernaut rolling toward inevitable victory. H/T to Lee for the blog reports.
I’m getting some hits about Clarksdale Dr. Roger Weiner (here’s where charges against him were dismissed), who is apparently going to qualify to run against Roger Wicker for Senate. In addition to practicing medicine, he’s at present a member of the Coahoma County Board of Supervisors.
A Planet Money podcast recounts how lard got a bad name, basically starting with Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (you really don’t want to know what he wrote would turn up in those rendering tanks. Worse than rats), and then with advertising for a new thing, hydrogenated vegetable oil, which is worse for you than lard. I’ve heard that in the 80s, when Phoebe Cates and Ally Sheedy were in Oxford filming “Heart of Dixie,” several of the actresses went to Smitty’s. One asked the waitress what made the biscuits so good. ”Lard,” said the waitress. The biscuits were immediately put down.
There’s a nice piece in the Times Picayune about the trend there in pop-up restaurants, with sufficient details to allow you to check them out. There’s one in Stein’s Deli on Sundays that sounds interesting. I’m not sure I’m inspired by one called “Noodle and Pie.”
So, is the suspect in the illegal killing of a black bear in Amite County, Mississippi a crazed Colonel Reb supporter or a Mississippi State fan emulating the guy who killed the oaks at Auburn? And are we to assume that the federal government’s almost simultaneousauthorizing of the killing of Golden Eagles is a coincidence?
And then there’s this: Best what? Some dog has put a billboard up in Oxford that’s causing some consternation. This sort of hubris cries out for punishment by the fates.
An essay about the first volume of Hemingway’s letters and a semi-biography that uses his cabin cruiser as a centerpiece gives details about Hemingway-as-jerk and writes about his war wound.
The New York Times has a really endearing review of Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s fiftieth anniversary concert in Preservation Hall.

Friday Morning Various

NMC — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:12:00 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Update: The ad above may be from a Ron Paul supporter but I’m assuming is from no one connected to his campaign directly. It may even be from someone trying to injure Ron Paul. I too-quickly read James Fallows’ post about the ad and posted it here; I wonder now if both of us should have waited until authorship was clearer. I’ve edited the following (underline is new and strikethrough removed as inaccurate). The ad above seems to me a supporter of Ron Paul’s effort to channel and revisit the emotional and moral tone of his old newsletters. ~~I think this clearly opens Paul to questions about his pretense that someone else is responsible for the racism and other obnoxiousness in those newsletters. And w~~ What’s the point of this repulsive xenophobic attack on Jon Huntsman? Why Huntsman? Is whoever created it he going to do an attack advertisement with Romney speaking French next? James Fallows pointed it out on his blog as the worst ad of the campaign.
The LA police have proposed that they will drop charges against Occupy LA members if the members agree to attend police-run free speech classes. Seriously. H/t Boing Boing.
Here’s a unique product liability defense: Pepsi says that the mouse carcass a Mountain Dew drinker claims to have found in a can of the drink could not have been in the Mountain Dew because it would have dissolved into a gelatin-y goo if it had really been left in there any length of time.
Even if you have been following the case of Tina Funderburk, the woman ruled incompetent to stand trial who has been held in the Hinds County jail rather than a mental hospital, you might be surprised by the latest development: There’s a Steven Hayne angle, and, once again, he seems to be pushing the envelope in expressing medical opinions:

In 2003, forensic anthropologist Dr. Marie Danforth examined the remains believed to be the girl. She concluded there appeared to be skull injuries suggesting the likelihood of trauma but that she could not determine the cause or manner of death.Pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne ruled the death a homicide, saying the girl’s injuries were consistent with suffocation.

After examining the reports by Danforth and Hayne, renowned New York pathologist Dr. Michael Baden concluded this week, “There is no autopsy evidence of intentional murder by deliberate suffocation or head trauma.”

In fact, the child’s death is entirely consistent with environmental exposure, he said. “Many changes do occur to a dead body over a period of three months due to the environment, including rain, wind, temperature, maggots, insects, rodents and larger animals.”

Wednesday, Judge Green ruled that Funderburk will not likely ever bee competent to stand trial, ordered the criminal case retired to the files and sent it to Chancery Court for a commitment proceeding.

Happy New Year!

NMC — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 03:30:30 +0000

Wednesday Morning Various

NMC — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:54:37 +0000

It turns out that prosecutor outside Chicago who wanted to ignore exculpating DNA evidence also used dubious bite mark proof. After a national expert who views all such evidence as bogus highlighted the testimony of two “experts” in a case where there was later a DNA exoneration (but the defendant is being denied a new trial), the two “experts” have sued for libel. Radley Balko thinks that, if this comes to trial, it may be about whether there’s any validity at all to such proof.
Surely this is parody. Surely.
The Paris Review has online John Jeremiah Sullivan’s remembrance of his time spent with Andrew Lytle (novelist, associated with the Fugitive poets and the Southern agrarians), which he’s republished in his recent essay collection, Pulphead.
Here’s the New York Times obituary of Jacob Goldman, a physicist who convinced Xerox to found a research center in Palo Alto, which invented the Atlo personal computer, the laser printer, the graphical user interface, the mouse, and the ethernet network. And Xerox decided not to capitalize on all of that, leaving others to do so.

Merry Christmas, everyone

NMC — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 06:00:20 +0000

Thursday Mid-Day open thread

NMC — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:51:26 +0000

If this family had holiday dinners, they’d be pretty difficult, Part One: “But even when their father was alive, this was not a family known for its togetherness.”
If this family… Part Two: “Turns out… his father-in-law’s family was hacking his personal and business emails.”
Speaking of dubious families, American Family Association founder, erstwhile protector of family values, Donald Wildman, endorses Newt Gingrich for president. Not the only endorsement coming Newt’s way.
Kim Severson writes in the New York Times about pecan russlin’ in South Georgia. “[T]housands of acres of unpatrolled Georgia nut orchards might as well be a carpet of nickels.” Full of nice details like local rapper Hawkdogg’s pecan-stealing song “Crank Dat Pecan” and this quote: “With a peach, it’s like you’re holding a melting ice cube and trying to unload it.” Does this go on in our part of the world?
Another DNA exoneration, this one in Georgetown Texas, of Michael Morton, after twenty-five years in jail for murder.
NPR nicely takes most of the air out of the fake-honey scare that circulated about a month ago. There are still things to know, and I’m sticking with local honey as I always have, but the story is a good read about how a food-scare story explodes.
Speaking of exploding popular stories, Radley Balko follows up on the one- American-in– three- arrested- by 21 story and discovers its… not so much true.
Here’s an interesting obit for Bay-Area billionaire and friend of bluegrass, Warren Hellman, who financed a major Bay Area bluegrass festival. He had Jimmie Dale Gilmore record an album with Hellman’s bluegrass band.

Thursday morning various

NMC — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:53:23 +0000

Al Bell was a soul DJ who went into the record business and ultimately bought Stax Records, running it in the early 70s through its demise. He produced most of the Staple Singers singles there was involved in a huge growth spurt at the label. Memphis station WDIA, “widely recognized as the first radio station in America to be programmed entirely by African-American”has begun a Friday night show called Al Bell Presents American Soul Music. It can be heard by live-stream at www.mywdia.com.
The line up for next year’s Oxford Film Festival is out. The festival is February 9-12.
Seeing it in store windows and references on Facebook from parents with small children, I wondered: What is this Elf on the Shelf thing? And now I know: It’s preparing our youth for the national survelliance state. “When friends come over, the kids tell them about [our elf on the shelf named] Elvis and remind them that Elvis will tell Santa if they’re good, too. Visiting our house is like visiting East Germany, circa 1983!”
Charles Simic says good-bye to serenity in the New York Review of Books. He notes that the political classes have reached agreement on one thing: “Either geezers like me tighten their belts, stop heating their homes in winter, forget about the cost of living and future social security increases, don’t run to the doctor every time something hurts them and allow their teeth to rot and fall out, or the United States won’t have enough money to fight wars and bail out the big banks.”
The Jazz Fest line up for next year leads off with the likes of the Eagles, Tom Petty, Foo Fighters, and Bon Iver. What? Yes, the local stuff is truly great and some visitors I’d like to see (e.g. Mavis Staples with Levon Helm, and I’m always up for an Al Green show) but the headliners don’t do much for me. I don’t think I’d walk across the street for a free show by Bon Iver.
Interesting story about a Louisiana shrimper who set up a freezer on his boat that allows him to cut out the middle man. Horrid cheap foreign farmed shrimp (a great way to add unhealthy metals and who knows what else to your diet) are making it harder for Gulf shrimpers to survive, and this guy may have found an angle.
I had no idea that “Baby It’s Cold Outside” helped inspire jihadi militants. Here’s Ray Charles and Betty Carter singing it for anyone out there needing their own inspiration.

Tuesday Morning Various

NMC — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:03:49 +0000

The Daily Journal describes the status of the dispute between Jim Hood and Stacy Pickering over paying outside lawyers, presently before the Mississippi Supreme Court.
Rapper Ice Cube lays down some architectural criticism at an Eames house in Los Angeles.
Longform picks its favorite long form journalism of the year. The three I’ve read were quite memorable.
The Commercial Appeal delivers a fairly fluffy bio of new Ole Miss coach Freeze.
On Slate, David Gans and Doug Kendall describe how an originalist argument that the Fourteenth and Nineteenth Amendments combine to protect against sex discrimination, and argument that is apparently making some headway and may have even broader consequences, they suggest.
Finally, here’s a best-of list of truly inexplicable black and white photos.