"People in Mississippi can no longer use the social media platform Bluesky."

"The company announced Friday that it will be blocking all IP addresses within Mississippi for the foreseeable future in response to a recent US Supreme Court decision that allows the state to enforce strict age verification for social media platforms.... The company says that compliance with Mississippi’s law—which would require identifying and tracking all users under 18, in addition to asking every user for sensitive personal information to verify their age—is not possible with the team’s current resources and infrastructure...."

From "Bluesky Goes Dark in Mississippi Over Age Verification Law/Bluesky has chosen to block access in the state rather than risk potential fines of up to $10,000 per violation" (Wired).

Much has been made of Mississippi’s stringent rule preventing third-grade students from moving to fourth if they aren’t reading proficiently...."

"[A]n analysis homing in on the inaugural group of Mississippians subject to the state’s rule concluded that repeating third grade resulted in significantly higher reading scores in sixth grade — with Black and Hispanic students showing particular improvement.... [But i]t is impossible to disentangle retention itself from all that comes with it... after-class tutoring, for example, or specialized instruction during the school day... In Mississippi, literacy coaches have been painstakingly selected, trained and monitored by the state and dispatched to perform one job: supporting teachers as they learn, and learn to teach, the science of reading.... [R]etention done absent such a strategy is retention done wrong — and it might hurt more than it helps. That’s why obsessing over retention as some sort of magic solution to learning loss is the wrong approach...."

Writes the Editorial Board of The Washington Post, in "Holding kids back can’t explain Mississippi’s education ‘miracle.'"

The editorial refers to "the science of reading" but doesn't mention phonics, and yet, right in the middle of it, there's a link to WaPo Editorial Board opinion from last March: "Cut the politics. Phonics is the best way to teach reading."

What's the evidence that Mississippi is looking at retention as a "magic solution"? Isn't it obvious that a strict retention rule lights a fire under everyone to strive very hard to save children from getting held back?

"Donald was given the opportunity to pursue his passions and his interests, and he was able to build a very happy life for himself on his own terms."

"He was known in his community, he was accepted in his community, and he was celebrated in his community. All of that demonstrates the importance of building an inclusive society."

Said Christopher Banks, the president and chief executive of the Autism Society, quoted in "Donald Triplett, first person diagnosed with autism, dies at 89/With support from his family and hometown, he graduated from college, worked as a bank teller and traveled the world" (WaPo).

The obituary links to this Atlantic article from 2010, "Autism's First Child." Excerpt:

[I]’s clear that Donald reached his potential thanks, in large part, to the world he occupied—the world of Forest, Mississippi—and how it decided to respond to the odd child in its midst.... In Forest, it appears, Donald was showered with acceptance, starting with the mother who defied experts to bring him back home [from a mental institution], and continuing on to classmates from his childhood and golfing partners today. Donald’s neighbors not only shrug off his oddities, but openly admire his strengths—while taking a protective stance with any outsider whose intentions toward Donald may not have been sufficiently spelled out. On three occasions, while talking with townspeople who know Donald, we were advised, in strikingly similar language each time: “If what you’re doing hurts Don, I know where to find you.” We took the point: in Forest, Donald is “one of us.”

I've collected 9 TikToks for you today. Let me know what you like best.

1. How to live really well in what ought to be a too-small space.

2. At the "dollar holler" in Purvis, Mississippi.

3. "Don't look at me like that.... Don't look at me like that either."

4. Let's take a close look at those "thirst pockets."

5. How to sound like a TV news talking head.

6. About that candy bar with teeth marks, found on the floor.

7. Finding out your little girl can sing.

8. The "pride" collection at Target.

9. Get ready for the trends of summer 2022.

"We don’t really want to see Mamaw at Thanksgiving and bury her by Christmas... It’s going to happen. You’re going to say hi at Thanksgiving, it’s so nice to see you..."

"... and you’re either going to be visiting her by Facetime in the ICU or planning a small funeral by Christmas." 

That's how the President of the State Health Office talks to Mississippians, as reported in the Mississippi Free Press.

And a doctor warned that if you travel you'd better drive with special care, "because there’s nowhere for you to go if you have a car wreck."

"Other than the blonde hair when I was growing up, they said I looked like Elvis. I always considered that a great compliment."

Said President Trump, at his rally in Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis, quoted in the Tupelo Daily Journal.

Here. You decide.



That baby looks like it's thinking: Oh, no, I got this guy!

I watched the rally on YouTube last night, and I was surprised that the invocation of Elvis did not get a big reaction from the Tupelo crowd. I wonder if the people of Tupelo are annoyed that outsiders all seem to know exactly one thing about the place they know a lot about.

Trump was there to support Cindy Hyde-Smith, who was appointed Senator after Thad Cochran resigned and must defend her seat in a run-off election today. She spoke briefly at the Trump rally, and I learned something from her about how to pronounce "Mississippi." There's no "siss" in her pronunciation. I don't know how common her approach to saying the state's name is, but she very clearly enunciates "Missy Sippy."

There's no "rage" in "outrage" and "courage."

I'm reading "The Freedom Trail in Mississippi Is a Chronicle of Outrage and Courage," which I recommend but won't summarize. I want to talk about a language matter, the "rage" in "outrage" and "courage." You probably already realize that there's no "rage" in "courage," that it's a combination of "cour" (which means heart) and "-age" (which is a standard way to make a noun "denoting something belonging or functionally related to what is denoted by the first element" (OED)). But you probably, like me, think "rage" is the foundation of the word "outrage" and "out" is a prefix, such as in "outside" or "outlaw." I was surprised to see that "outrage," like "courage," is using the "-age" ending, and the "r" is part of the root of the word, "outr-." It comes from the Latin ("ultra") and the French ("outre") for "beyond," signifying transgression. The OED acknowledges, "In English often reanalysed as out- prefix + rage n., a notion which affected the sense development." That is, there is no "rage" in "outrage," but we see it there anyway and it affects how we understand the word. I don't think we see "rage" in "courage," though. I'm only seeing it now because of that headline, putting "outrage" and "courage" side by side, so I don't think our understanding of "courage" is affected by the unseen "rage."

"Everything seems to go to seed along the Gulf: walls stain, windows rust. Curtains mildew. Wood warps. Air conditioners cease to function."

"In our room at the Edgewater Gulf Hotel, where the Mississippi Broadcasters’ Convention was taking place, the air conditioner in the window violently shook and rattled every time it was turned on. The Edgewater Gulf is an enormous white hotel which looks like a giant laundry, and has the appearance of being on the verge of condemnation. The swimming pool is large and unkempt, and the water smells of fish. Behind the hotel is a new shopping center built around an air-conditioned mall, and I kept escaping there, back into midstream America."

A passage from a book I'm reading that came back to me as we were talking about the South in the middle of the night. The book is "South and West: From a Notebook" by Joan Didion. A new reprint came out last month, but it tells the story of a road trip through the Gulf South that she made in 1970 (and a second trip in the west in 1976).

Here's another passage:

In New Orleans in June the air is heavy with sex and death, not violent death but death by decay, overripeness, rotting, death by drowning, suffocation, fever of unknown etiology. The place is physically dark, dark like the negative of a photograph, dark like an X-ray: the atmosphere absorbs its own light, never reflects light but sucks it in until random objects glow with a morbid luminescence. The crypts above ground dominate certain vistas. In the hypnotic liquidity of the atmosphere all motion slows into choreography, all people on the street move as if suspended in a precarious emulsion, and there seems only a technical distinction between the quick and the dead. 

Mississippi knows it needs a new flag.

And it's going to get one, though it's not enough of an emergency to call the legislature back into session during its summer break:

Republican Gov. Phil Bryant said Thursday... "As has been my longstanding practice, I will not call a special legislative session for something other than a natural disaster or a major economic development project"....

What will the new flag look like?

In January 2001, Governor Ronnie Musgrove appointed an independent commission which developed a new proposed design, and on April 17, 2001, a non-binding state referendum to change the flag was put before Mississippi voters. 

Obviously, the proposed flag lost. (It was 64% to 36%.) But there was a specific flag:



You can see how a committee would derive that from the existing flag:



I know I'm an outsider, but I'd just like to make a suggestion, and it's a suggestion based on something Mississippi did very well: the state quarter:



Derive the new flag from that. It's a positive image that completely sheds the remnants of the Stars and Bars, yet it's rooted in tradition. Mississippi is — but please don't write this on the flag — The Magnolia State. And flowers have, over the years, appeared on various flags, for example:



So so it's not an absurd innovation in vexillology, like, say, putting an upholstered chair on the flag (furniture being Missisippi's largest manufacturing industry).

Governor Phil Bryant wants the world to know that "Mississippi has changed."

And it was "unfortunate" that some people at a Mississippi church didn't want 2 black people to get married there.

"I'm sure there are very good people of Crystal Springs and in that Baptist church that don't feel that way and are supporting that effort," Bryant said of the Wilsons' desire to marry in the church.

"Look, when people want to get married, we ought to let them get married," Bryant said. "We have enough people that won't go and get married. I want to make every opportunity I can for any couple that wants to, to go get married."

But when asked if that should include couples where both partners are of the same sex, he added: "I wouldn't say gay couples, no," Bryant said. "I'd say a man and a woman. Let me make sure, let's get that right. When I say couples, I automatically assume it's a man and a woman."

Will Romney win in Alabama and Mississippi?

And if he does, is it all over?

UPDATE: Email from CNN: "Rick Santorum will win the Alabama Republican primary, CNN projects. Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are in a close battle for second."

UPDATE 2: Santorum wins Mississippi.

"Voters turned a skeptical eye toward conservative-backed measures across the country Tuesday..."

"... rejecting an anti-labor law in Ohio, an anti-abortion measure in Mississippi and a crackdown on voting rights in Maine."

The NYT's Katharine Q. Seelye begins her coverage of yesterday's elections.

Taken together, Tuesday’s results could breathe new life into President Obama’s hopes for his re-election a year from now. But the day was not a wholesale victory for Democrats. Even as voters in Ohio delivered a blow to Gov. John R. Kasich, a Republican, and rejected his attempt to weaken collective bargaining for public employees, they approved a symbolic measure to exempt Ohio residents from the individual mandate required in Mr. Obama’s health care law.

But Obama has never advocated collective bargaining rights for federal workers. His name is all over the health care law. So it's hard to see much good news here. 

And while voters in Mississippi, one of the most conservative states, turned away a measure that would have outlawed all abortions and many forms of contraception and had drawn conservative support from members of both parties, they tightened their voting laws to require some from of government-approved identification....

Actually, it would have been great news for Democrats if Mississippi voters had gone for the extreme anti-abortion law. Democrats would have used that result to scare, motivate, and manipulate voters. It's their very favorite wedge issue. There's much less potential for leveraging the voter ID issue. Seelye reminds us that Democrats portray voter-ID laws as "a thinly disguised attempt to intimidate voters of color," but I suspect that most voters find that sort of race-mongering unpleasant.

(I had to make a "2011 elections" tag for this post, which is another way of saying I having been paying much attention to the off-year elections. Sorry. These are very interesting issues, and I've been following the Wisconsin iterations of the collective bargaining and voter ID issues.)

Driving in Colorado and crossing the Mississippi from Iowa into Wisconsin.

"Finally, Mississippi and Alabama get a room!"

Ha.

And: "Panhandle Alert." The epidemic spreads.

There's nothing Wisconsin-related in those New Yorker cartoons about state maps. I remember seeing a hand-drawn cartoon in that State Street liquor store window that used to be full of funny signs. It had a map of Wisconsin and writing that said something like: "The Upper Pennisula! WTF? Did we lose a war or something?" That was many years ago. It still makes me laugh. I mean look at the map:

That is ours, baby. It's like that mitten is reaching up there an yanking off our manhood. And speaking of manhood, I think, if we had that peninsula that is rightfully ours, the politics of Wisconsin might shift from Mommy Party to Daddy Party.

Mississippi!

Crank up your excitement once again. Today, we're so very interested in Mississippi.

"World is lucky to have Bob Dylan and his voice."

I'm a little pleased with myself for knowing why it's funny to phrase it that way. That is, I see a reference to a Dylan song in that headline to a column about a Mojo Magazine list of the 100 Greatest Bob Dylan Tracks. ("How good do you have to be to have a list of your 100 greatest songs?")

Mojo’s critics picked the following Dylan songs for their top 10: 1. “Like A Rolling Stone,” 2. “Positively 4th Street,” 3. “Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands,” 4. “Desolation Row,” 5. “Blind Willie McTell,” 6. “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” 7. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” 8. “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” 9. “Mississippi,” 10. “Just Like A Woman.”

Mojo’s readers picked these 10: 1. “Like a Rolling Stone,” 2. “Desolation Row,” 3. “Visions of Johanna,” 4. “Mr. Tambourine Man,” 5. “Tangled Up In Blue,” 6. “Positively 4th Street,” 7. “Idiot Wind,” 8. “Blind Willie McTell,” 9. “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” 10. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”

It looks like the critics and readers agreed on five.

Now let’s look at Uncut Magazine’s list that came out in 2002: 1. “Like A Rolling Stone,” 2. “Tangled Up In Blue,” 3. “Visions Of Johanna,” 4. “A Hard Rains Gonna Fall,” 5. “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” 6. “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” 7. “Desolation Row,” 8. “I Want You,” 9. “Idiot Wind,” 10. “Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands.”

What do you think? Do you agree or not? What are your favorite Dylan songs?

Don’t ask me. Two of my favorites “If Not For You” (64) and “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” (100) didn’t even make the top 50 on the Mojo readers’ list.

I am really not very good at picking top 10 lists when it comes to music. It always seems to be a struggle for me.

I guess that I am just too much of a music fan to make up my mind. It also depends on what day it is.

I'm always looking for "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat."



Maybe I just like the fashion theme. What are the great songs about fashion? And I mean songs with lyrics that focus on a particular item (or items) of clothing. So don't all of you just shout out this one:



A good answer for this assignment would be "Raspberry Beret." But you don't have to restrict yourself to hats.

And don't slight the other questions raised here:

1. What Dylan song does the headline refer to?

2. "What are your favorite Dylan songs?"

3. "How good do you have to be to have a list of your 100 greatest songs?" -- i.e., which other artists are worthy of a list of 100 greatest songs?

4. How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand? And what does it sound like when doves cry?

5. What was the question I had here under point #5 that I had to take out because I just don't want that much trouble?

6. And lest you've forgotten: What are the great songs about articles of clothing?

Now, go get dressed!

Michael Ochs and Phil Ochs.

Here's an article about The Michael Ochs Archives of rock and roll photographs, with not enough photos at the link. (There's a nice one of Sonny and Cher with Bob Dylan, but you can't see the picture that's in the paper NYT of Gladys Knight as a child singing on "The Amateur Hour.")

Michael Ochs is the brother of Phil Ochs:

A contemporary of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Phil Ochs was one of the primary topical songwriters and folksingers of the 60's, protesting the escalating Vietnam conflict ("I Ain't Marching Anymore") and the struggle for civil rights in the South ("Here's to the State of Mississippi"). As his causes lost relevance in the 70's, his chronic depression became unbearable. He hanged himself in 1976.

A longtime friend, the publicist Bobbi Cowan, thinks Michael Ochs collects his photographs, primarily of 1950's and 60's musicians, as a way of "preserving time so that people don't forget what that time was about, what Phil was about." Michelle Phillips is more direct: "I think it's part of keeping his brother alive."

As his causes lost relevance in the 70's, his chronic depression became unbearable. That's a lot of causality to package up in one sentence. Does a songwriter gravitate toward protest songs because he is depressed or is he depressed because of the things that move him to protest? If he gains an audience protesting a political situation that then changes, will he become more depressed or less depressed? A human being is too complicated to subject to general questions like that.

Back in the 1960s, I used to listen to Phil Ochs. I especially remember this one:

So do your duty, boys, and join with pride
Serve your country in her suicide
Find the flags so you can wave goodbye
But just before the end even treason might be worth a try
This country is too young to die

I declare the war is over
It's over, it's over

One-legged veterans will greet the dawn
And they're whistling marches as they mow the lawn
And the gargoyles only sit and grieve
The gypsy fortune teller told me that we'd been deceived
You only are what you believe

I believe the war is over
It's over, it's over

Serve your country in her suicide.

This was from one of his later albums, which, I think I remember correctly, turned away from hardcore protest music. Notice how those lyrics give predominance to his inner life. You can go on with your involvement in the war, but I'm saying that beliefs are everything, and I'm going to believe in what I want to be true, that the war is over. This was a theme in the late 60s and early 70s, when artists got weary of political engagement and began to indulge in a naive form of politics that was really more about personal psychology. I hear that theme in John Lennon's "War is over/If you want it/War is over/Now."

RIP, Phil Ochs.

"American Idol" is really "Southern Idol"... but why?

Some analysis from WaPo writer Neely Tucker. It's not that southerners watch the show more and vote more and vote for their own, Tucker argues.

"Idol" kids grew up in the postmodern era, long after the throes of the civil rights movement, long after interstates and Wal-Marts had made small towns in north Alabama look a whole lot like small towns in Michigan. The old days are gone. Listen to two iconic Southern recordings: Hank Williams's (Alabama) "Your Cheating Heart" and Robert Johnson's (Mississippi) "32-20 Blues." The first is twangy beyond description and the second is almost incomprehensible.

People don't talk like that anymore. But a softer Southern accent persists, as does the cultural memory of things long gone. There is still an emphasis on church and family, both entities that, in the course of Southern life, heavily influence music, particularly among the working class.

"There's still an awful lot of old-school singers who got their starts in church, and many mainstream country musicians still do a gospel album," said John Reed Shelton, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of North Carolina and one of the region's most respected observers. "Everybody tends to go to church, and Southern evangelical Protestantism, both black and white, emphasizes and rewards musical performance."

Plus, as Wilson, the Mississippi scholar, points out, the only way a lot of kids stuck in one-horse towns know that they can find life-changing fame and fortune is on the stage.

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional."

Ousted FEMA director Michael D. Brown testifies before a House panel today and lays the blame on the governor and the mayor:

Brown told the committee, FEMA's approach worked in Mississippi and Alabama, whose governors are both Republicans.

Of the disastrous flooding that stranded thousands for days in New Orleans, he said, "The only variable was the state government officials involved."

The way FEMA works with state officials in disasters is "well established and works well," Brown said in emphatic tones in his opening statement, pointing his finger and shaking a clenched hand at lawmakers. "Unfortunately, this is the approach that FEMA had great difficulty in getting established in Louisiana."

... "I very strongly, personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together. . . . I just couldn't pull that off."

An old song comes to mind.

I'm watching the news reports, talking about Hurricane Rita aiming straight at Lake Charles, Lousiana. Maybe like me, you've got this song running through your head:

When I get off of this mountain, you know where I want to go?
Straight down the Mississippi river, to the Gulf of Mexico
To Lake Charles, Louisiana, little Bessie, girl that I once knew
She told me just to come on by, if there's anything she could do.