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Its funny, if you want to make a place look bad, always use percentages.
Mississippi always comes out at the bottom of the list when people talk about fat states, because its always given in percentage. California, the golden, healthy state has more fatso's than any other state. If obesity is a national problem(it is), then fix the biggest problem.
thats precisely why you don't use raw numbers. you always use percentages. percentages give a clear indication as to whats really going on. deal with it mississippi
I guess I just came away with a different opinion than you Randy, I just saw many more positives that summer than you did. But being snarky and pedantic never helps, even with facts that you just love to smack others over the head with.
Your attitude won't make Mississippi any better.
i hate facts to. so objective and real. i hate em!!
Wow. It's amazing that people can say so many harsh things about a state in our Republic. I would never criticize a state where I don't live and purport to say things that would indicate that I know what I'm talking about.
I am from the central part of Illinois and know that I love Mississippi. I go there at least 2 to 3 times a year. And I go to both the north (and even the Delta) and to the south to the gulf area.
The drive from north to south is beautiful and especially on Route 49 from Hattiesburg to the Gulf. With as many visits as I have made in the last 21 years when my grandson was born in Biloxi, I have made friends of all races. Good friends who would do anything for me as I would do for them. I'm not afraid of any person and they aren't afraid of me as I am not one to criticize anything that goes on in any one's life or in their state. What's the purpose of criticizing any where in the world? And, especially when you aren't an expert on the subject.
I will someday move to Mississippi. Even with my northern accent I will feel safe and happy.
..........I am from the central part of Illinois ..........I will someday move to Mississippi. Even with my northern accent I will feel safe and happy.
A lot of people don't know it, but people from southern Illinois and southern Indiana are southerners, too. They sound much as we do, and have about the same standards.
I've lived in MS all my life. I have to say I have no desire to live anywhere else. Yes there are bad parts of MS as any other state... But where I live, I love, it's not perfect but what place is. I live in a neighborhood where I can honestly say i have had the same neighbors for 10 years or more. Very little crime.
I wish folks would stop bad mouthin' MS, especially when they hadn't been here or haven't been here long, or just passing thru. You can not come to a conclusion of this state by driving thru a county or two. For those who say MS is a dump...probably need to stay the hell out of MS...I'm just saying what I'm saying.
In light of all of this, I have decided the only realistic option for me is that after I obtain my bachelor's degree I'm going to take a shot at Ole Miss. Guess I'll be a Rebel, and carry Colonel Reb memorabilia if they'll let me but maybe I'm getting a little too far ahead of myself.
So Oxford it is for me, in 2014, if some school in Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee or somewhere doesn't get me first...
There seems to be so many people quick to downgrade MS, including the media, which really distorts what MS is really like, and it ignores many facts about the contributions to this country that MS has made.
Most people want to learn and be enlightened, therefore, to help educate all people that have questions about MS, start by going to a site that truly depicts The Magnolia State in all its deserved glory. You will find facts about the state that I'm certain you will find surprising and interesting.
Of course, there is nothing like first hand information from posters, and nothing is better than a personal visit, but rather than believe all you hear and see on TV or read in the media, at least start out with the facts.
THIS SITE SHOULD BE RECOMMENDED READING FOR ALL MISSISSIPPIAN'S AND ANYONE ONE ELSE THAT WANTS TO BE ENLIGHTENED ON THE SUBJECT.
Mississippi Believe it campaign was designed by the Cirlot Advertising Agency located in the greater Jackson area. I believe they had a contract with the state tourism board to create ads that would negate the typical image of the state in hopes of encouraging people to visit Mississippi, spend their money in the state.
I think the ad campaign is in quite poor taste. In terms of the ad "You may think we talk funny, but the world likes our music" is entirely misleading and represents a complete 180 degree turn in typical Mississippi attitudes about the state's musical leaders like Elvis, Charley Patton, Son House, Jimmie Rodgers, Robert Johnson, etc. In short, Mississippians hated these performers because they blurred racial lines. Much of the music of the blues and Rodgers's early tunes were protest songs, but the ads don't clue you in to the backstory.
In terms of the ad that explains that "Yes we can read and a few of us can write too" is also misleading. Many of the writers featured on the ad, namely Faulkner, wrote stories explaining the backwardness of Mississippi. Faulkner was even hated in Oxford where he lived. He even said that Oxford residents wouldn't even speak to him. This was similar to Elvis during the 1950s. Mississippi's leadership rejected the King because the music he played scared them. It sounded like "black" music and actually it was nothing but blues with a faster tempo. Also Elvis was the Pelvis, his drummer played the same drum licks he used in burlesque shows, and Elvis wore eyeliner and make-up, blurring gender lines as well. This was all very scary in his heyday to Mississippians. The ads don't relate this fact about the music played by Elvis--which he copied from unsung blues artists like Son House and Skip James.
Moreover, the ad about literacy does not reflect state leaders' insistence on gutting public education in the state. Mississippi has a long history of hostility to education. It was a common statement up until the 1980s that "book larnin' only ruins a good field hand." Also I think the ad is entirely misleading, suggesting that something about the state made the writers great. Actually, poverty, racial discrimination, debauchery of the upper classes is what these writers wrote about and so maybe the state's more unseemly aspects made their work "great literature."
Like an ad campaign, Mississippi Believe It! was designed to conceal the truth and gloss over the worst parts of the state's society, culture, history, and politics. It was designed to sell to people a bill of goods that few want and that's what all ad campaigns do -- try to convince you that you need crap that you don't need.
I could go on. "Yes our road are paved...have the best student drivers" represents only a handful of students at one small, rural school in Mississippi. Actually, traffic fatalities caused by teenagers in Mississippi has been extremely high since the 1950s.
As for the athletic ads about shoes and cleats, well it's a sad fact that at state universities the vast majority of football and basketball players are African American, usually led by a mostly white or all-white coaching staff. There's been some loosening up of the barriers in this regard in recent years, but when you have nearly an all-black football team at Ole Miss and nearly an all-white coaching staff, then something's not right. Moreover, in the stands at Ole Miss games, you'd be hard-pressed to find very many black fans in attendance.
When the move The Help came out, several Jackson professors at JSU and Millsaps and Tougaloo organized a reception following the private screening for Jackson officials, state officials, college officials, and Jackson civil rights movement veterans. At the reception, I noticed that all of the black people with the exception of about a dozen black movement veterans were working the event--that is serving us white folks drinks and cleaning up after us--very much what was depicted in that movie. Little has changed in terms of economic opportunity for the state's black population.
I could go on. The "modern" medicine ad is revolting considering that it takes weeks to get a doctor's appt. in many Mississippi towns.
"No black, no white, just blues" is also misleading that conceals the fact that the blues was the black community's response to white supremacy that hardened in the 1880s and lasted well into the 1970s. Blues performers used the lyrics of their songs either to lodge protests against the discrimination and exploitation they suffered or they documented the African American experience in blues lyrics.
I think the soldier ad is ridiculous considering that so many Mississippians hold two contradictory thoughts simultaneously. Most claim "states' rights" and call for secession from the "oppressive" federal government. But it's the same federal government that so many young Mississippians have defended overseas. That doesn't make much sense to me.
Some of the other ads have very little to do with Mississippi, like the NASA ad. The Stennis center is some government dole and many of the scientists employed there have come from places other than Mississippi.
I think the unsinkable freedom ad is revolting considering that Mississippi has long been known as "the closed society" that was very much unfree for the state's majority black population. Only in the 1970s did the white supremacist oppression die down some. But there's other forms of unfreedom in Mississippi, namely the Lisa Herdahl affair--a Lutheran woman objected officially to the local public school instructing her children in the Baptist faith. The community response was to ostracize the children and phone in death threats to the mom. this happened in the 1990s.
There are also racially segregated proms in the state. Some schools rotate black and white student body presidents. In odd years like 2013, some schools require students to elect only blacks to student government. In even years, whites are available for the positions.
Considering the job situation in Mississippi--that is the lack of viable economic opportunity outside of the service sector like gaming and table waiting--there's still not much freedom in the state. Moreover, on any given holiday weekend, you can count on waiting on the road to go through a roadblock where the authorities will ask you for your papers to see if everything is in order.
Mississippi Believe it campaign was designed by the Cirlot Advertising Agency located in the greater Jackson area. I believe they had a contract with the state tourism board to create ads that would negate the typical image of the state in hopes of encouraging people to visit Mississippi, spend their money in the state.
I think the ad campaign is in quite poor taste. In terms of the ad "You may think we talk funny, but the world likes our music" is entirely misleading and represents a complete 180 degree turn in typical Mississippi attitudes about the state's musical leaders like Elvis, Charley Patton, Son House, Jimmie Rodgers, Robert Johnson, etc. In short, Mississippians hated these performers because they blurred racial lines. Much of the music of the blues and Rodgers's early tunes were protest songs, but the ads don't clue you in to the backstory.
In terms of the ad that explains that "Yes we can read and a few of us can write too" is also misleading. Many of the writers featured on the ad, namely Faulkner, wrote stories explaining the backwardness of Mississippi. Faulkner was even hated in Oxford where he lived. He even said that Oxford residents wouldn't even speak to him. This was similar to Elvis during the 1950s. Mississippi's leadership rejected the King because the music he played scared them. It sounded like "black" music and actually it was nothing but blues with a faster tempo. Also Elvis was the Pelvis, his drummer played the same drum licks he used in burlesque shows, and Elvis wore eyeliner and make-up, blurring gender lines as well. This was all very scary in his heyday to Mississippians. The ads don't relate this fact about the music played by Elvis--which he copied from unsung blues artists like Son House and Skip James.
Moreover, the ad about literacy does not reflect state leaders' insistence on gutting public education in the state. Mississippi has a long history of hostility to education. It was a common statement up until the 1980s that "book larnin' only ruins a good field hand." Also I think the ad is entirely misleading, suggesting that something about the state made the writers great. Actually, poverty, racial discrimination, debauchery of the upper classes is what these writers wrote about and so maybe the state's more unseemly aspects made their work "great literature."
Like an ad campaign, Mississippi Believe It! was designed to conceal the truth and gloss over the worst parts of the state's society, culture, history, and politics. It was designed to sell to people a bill of goods that few want and that's what all ad campaigns do -- try to convince you that you need crap that you don't need.
I could go on. "Yes our road are paved...have the best student drivers" represents only a handful of students at one small, rural school in Mississippi. Actually, traffic fatalities caused by teenagers in Mississippi has been extremely high since the 1950s.
As for the athletic ads about shoes and cleats, well it's a sad fact that at state universities the vast majority of football and basketball players are African American, usually led by a mostly white or all-white coaching staff. There's been some loosening up of the barriers in this regard in recent years, but when you have nearly an all-black football team at Ole Miss and nearly an all-white coaching staff, then something's not right. Moreover, in the stands at Ole Miss games, you'd be hard-pressed to find very many black fans in attendance.
When the move The Help came out, several Jackson professors at JSU and Millsaps and Tougaloo organized a reception following the private screening for Jackson officials, state officials, college officials, and Jackson civil rights movement veterans. At the reception, I noticed that all of the black people with the exception of about a dozen black movement veterans were working the event--that is serving us white folks drinks and cleaning up after us--very much what was depicted in that movie. Little has changed in terms of economic opportunity for the state's black population.
I could go on. The "modern" medicine ad is revolting considering that it takes weeks to get a doctor's appt. in many Mississippi towns.
"No black, no white, just blues" is also misleading that conceals the fact that the blues was the black community's response to white supremacy that hardened in the 1880s and lasted well into the 1970s. Blues performers used the lyrics of their songs either to lodge protests against the discrimination and exploitation they suffered or they documented the African American experience in blues lyrics.
I think the soldier ad is ridiculous considering that so many Mississippians hold two contradictory thoughts simultaneously. Most claim "states' rights" and call for secession from the "oppressive" federal government. But it's the same federal government that so many young Mississippians have defended overseas. That doesn't make much sense to me.
Some of the other ads have very little to do with Mississippi, like the NASA ad. The Stennis center is some government dole and many of the scientists employed there have come from places other than Mississippi.
I think the unsinkable freedom ad is revolting considering that Mississippi has long been known as "the closed society" that was very much unfree for the state's majority black population. Only in the 1970s did the white supremacist oppression die down some. But there's other forms of unfreedom in Mississippi, namely the Lisa Herdahl affair--a Lutheran woman objected officially to the local public school instructing her children in the Baptist faith. The community response was to ostracize the children and phone in death threats to the mom. this happened in the 1990s.
There are also racially segregated proms in the state. Some schools rotate black and white student body presidents. In odd years like 2013, some schools require students to elect only blacks to student government. In even years, whites are available for the positions.
Considering the job situation in Mississippi--that is the lack of viable economic opportunity outside of the service sector like gaming and table waiting--there's still not much freedom in the state. Moreover, on any given holiday weekend, you can count on waiting on the road to go through a roadblock where the authorities will ask you for your papers to see if everything is in order.
For some odd reason, I can't help but think you are overstating or exaggerating a bit.
I've been to Vicksburg and Natchez, and while I did sense a bit of Black/White going on, I never experienced much of anything else you are saying.
"I think the ad campaign is in quite poor taste. In terms of the ad "You may think we talk funny, but the world likes our music" is entirely misleading and represents a complete 180 degree turn in typical Mississippi attitudes about the state's musical leaders like Elvis, Charley Patton, Son House, Jimmie Rodgers, Robert Johnson, etc. In short, Mississippians hated these performers because they blurred racial lines. Much of the music of the blues and Rodgers's early tunes were protest songs, but the ads don't clue you in to the backstory."
I know from personal experience in the case of Elvis, and from reminiscences from countless older acquaintances in the case of Jimmy Rodgers, that they were wildly popular in Mississippi during their lifetimes.
For some odd reason, I can't help but think you are overstating or exaggerating a bit.
I've been to Vicksburg and Natchez, and while I did sense a bit of Black/White going on, I never experienced much of anything else you are saying.
Yeah..Ever been asked for 'your papers'?
Me neither.
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