The GODZ are Rock and Roll machines!!!
They liked Mississippi so much they sang a song about it.
The GODZ are Rock and Roll machines!!!
They liked Mississippi so much they sang a song about it.
Too many black folks.
It's really that simple. Look at any stat in the USA, IF you are wanting a place that has the best schools, the safest streets, the highest level of per capita income, the lowest unemployment or any other positive stat- chances are the place you are talking about will have a very very very low minority population.
Conversly if you want high drop out rates, high crime, teen pregnancy, AIDS,etc.. well you'll find a lot of minorities living there.
here yee wrote:
Yeah man Sally Field looks great in that movie.
If you're talking about Steel Magnolias, isn't that in Louisiana?
marketing101 wrote:
Too many black folks.
It's really that simple. Look at any stat in the USA, IF you are wanting a place that has the best schools, the safest streets, the highest level of per capita income, the lowest unemployment or any other positive stat- chances are the place you are talking about will have a very very very low minority population.
Conversly if you want high drop out rates, high crime, teen pregnancy, AIDS,etc.. well you'll find a lot of minorities living there.
Too many Republican Politicians in Office
They obstruct every attempt to improve the quality of life in the south, or for the less privledged. They vote against banning job discrimination, same sex marriage, gay adoption, gun control, abortion rights, healthcare for the poor....
as long as the GOP in the south continues to obstruct legislation to improve human dignity....all will remain undesirable places to live and work and go to school.
The old white southern politicians are counting on the states remaining ignorant and poor, because intelligent individuals would know they are pieces of shit.
Mr. Price wrote:
A couple of obvious reasons:
1) It's an old southwestern state. That means leading up to the Civil War they relied on cash crops and slave labor. We all know how well that went.
2) They fought the changes that came along afterward. This meant no land-grant universities, no new infrastructure, a reliance on agriculture, etc. Just compare the changes between Virginia in 1865 and 1965 to Mississippi. There's a reason the Civil Rights movement really was in issue in the deep south. Most of the people there fought the direction the nation was going in and paid for it.
3) What else do they have? Not much. So, there wasn't a way for Mississippi's economy ever to really take off without radically changing from an agrarian system.
4) It's hot. And humid. The weather just isn't like Florida or Southern California. Who want's to live there just because?
1) correct. Mississippi was the richest state in the Union in 1860. Many people forget that. Slaves are valuable, and cotton was king.
2) They certainly fought the changes. "The closed society" was the subtitle of an important mid-1960s book. The flip side to this is, things were SO bad (i.e., "massive resistance" to Freedom Summer and the like) that people here were shocked, and a lot of self-examination went on. The same is NOT true to nearly the same degree for Louisiana and Alabama. Mississippi these days is a friendly place, for black and white alike, although poverty, mostly black, certainly continues, and the Delta remains troubled.
2) continued: Isn't Mississippi State a land-grant university? I'm pretty sure that Mississippi Valley State and Delta State are.
3) If by "what else do they have" you mean "in the way of economic engines," you're mostly right. Health care is pretty strong (Oxford is one of the top-10 town in America to retire to, and the UM medical school in Jackson is highly rated); there's a fair bit of light manufacturing (Remington); there's a big auto plant in Jackson and another planned for Tupelo. Tourism is strong and getting stronger, thanks in part to blues tourism. Far north Mississippi just south of Memphis (i.e., Southhaven) is exploding, but that's mostly due to Memphis. Memphis and New Orleans are sometimes thought of as the biggest cities in Mississippi.
4) Here you're mostly wrong. Speaking as a runner who moved here from NYC seven years ago: I recently took a look at comparative weather patterns for Manhattan and Oxford. The average daily high during the summer in Oxford is 7 degrees higher: 90 vs. 83 for July, as I recall. The humidity comes and goes, but it's not bad. This morning, on August 31, it was 60 degrees at 7 AM, and dry. Gorgeous weather. What is it in Miami? Florida weather is noticeably warmer and more humid than Mississippi's. (Of course, various regions of Mississippi have slightly different weather. The Delta is a little warmer and more humid, overall.)
The best racing season is October through April. It's a pretty good place to be a runner, overall.
As for the women: if I'm not wrong, more Miss Americas have come out of Ole Miss than any other college or university. Beauty pageant culture and cheerleader culture are a big deal here. (My stepdaughter is an Ole Miss cheerleader and a HS beauty queen. She's also one of the best pound-for-pound competitive power lifters in the state.) Anybody who imagines that women in Mississippi are all big, fat, and ugly really needs to jump on a plane to Memphis, rent a car, and drive on down.
Ole Miss cheerleaders from last year.
http://thesportsculture.com/2008/11/14/the-great-bcs-cheerleader-rankings-ole-miss/
Let's not forget the #50 ranked Mississippi educational system
kudzurunner wrote:
My stepdaughter is an Ole Miss cheerleader and a HS beauty queen. She's also one of the best pound-for-pound competitive power lifters in the state.
PICS??
That's right, and your defensive response did nothing to refute that. MS is backwards (thanks to Southern Baptists) and has crap weather most of the year. Between those two "assets" what could possibly appeal enough to make them worth it?
Wow. wrote:
Duck Hunt wrote:No. You couldn't have missed my point if you'd deliberately tried to. You must be the epitome of the Mississippi brain trust.
Easy, asshole. All I did was counter your slam on Mississippi summer climate by pointing out that it's nice in the winter.
But apparently I missed your point. What point was that? Were you not implying that there's poor running weather between March and November?
Sorry, I'm obviously from Mississippi, and it hurts me to see it get hammered by people that don't know anything about the state or what it's like to live here. I've lived in MS, IL, WY, CO, AR, TX, LA, and NY. Every single place was great in its own way, and Mississippi is no different. What exactly do you think is so bad about Mississippi? You think everyone is fat, poor, and stupid? That's just false.
You guys can continue to get off on bashing someone else's home if you wish, but that won't make you feel any better about yourself or where you live. Seriously, get over yourselves.
re mississippi'e educational system. It is right at the bottom with California's. Must be all those conservatives that run the legislature in California wrecking the state.
I stand corrected on the weather. My bias. I shoulden't have even thrown that in there.
As far as the university thing goes... I'm not saying there aren't any land-grant universities now. I just was saying that that the State historically hasen't supported higher education in the same way successful ones have. And, Mississippi's land-grant schools don't seem to be on par with - say - Wisconsin or Michigan.
The further south you go in any country or continent, the lazier and stupider people become. See, you don't have to be particularly smart or even effective to live someplace warm.
The further north you go, of course, you must be thinking ahead, preparing for the challenges that winter brings. You can't just slide by, hard work is required to make it through the winter.
Non-college wrote:
The further south you go in any country or continent, the lazier and stupider people become. See, you don't have to be particularly smart or even effective to live someplace warm.
The further north you go, of course, you must be thinking ahead, preparing for the challenges that winter brings. You can't just slide by, hard work is required to make it through the winter.
Thanks for the blazing insight, Nanuk. Your diet consists of whale blubber and......?
carrots.
The delta wrote:
Why is Mississippi the poorest and obese state in the union.
Read Clyde Woods's DEVELOPMENT ARRESTED. Neal McMillen's DARK JOURNEY: BLACK MISSISSIPIANS IN THE AGE OF JIM CROW might also be a good idea.
looks like Mississippi is last or near last in just about everything pertaining to personal wealth, education levels and health.
you might think it is a nice state, but it doesn't sound "nice" for the majority of it's residents.
I suppose Governor Barbour is still refusing stimulus funds that would help the unemployed and poor.
typically nasty south...your motto should be "Thank God for West Virginia".......
The South will rise agin!
Many of us don't have much affection for the Governor.
That's "its," not "it's." Or at least that's standard American usage. The possessive of "it" doesn't take an apostrophe.
Quality of life can't be measured by statistics alone. I've visited 45 out of the 50 states, lived on both coasts, and have lived in north Mississippi for 7 years. I didn't realize until I actually moved here just how ignorant I was about the texture of daily life here. The stuff that matter--in daily life, I mean--doesn't show up in the statistics, or the history books, or the movies. You'll have to trust me on this. I felt the same way living in upper Manhattan (Inwood) for several decades when I heard people talking about "New York City" in terms of a handful of cliched phrases (unfriendly people, crime, gays, etc.) with negative connotations. I have no particular investment in defending Mississippi. It is what it is. But people who know it only from what they read in books, or on websites proffering statistics, are speaking from ignorance.
You would never know, for example, that Oxford, Mississippi has arguably the finest dining of ANY American town its size (30,000 when school is in session, half that when it's not). This is the case for the curious reason that one of America's finest chefs, John Currence (google him), happens to have a restless need to keep opening great restaurants: City Grocery, Ajax Diner, Big Bad Breakfast, and a couple of others.
The legendary Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh visited Batesville, Mississippi (which really IS a kind of backwater) over the weekend (in fact, he's still here) for the grand opening of Magnolia Village, a Buddhist center.
http://nmisscommentor.com/2009/06/08/mindfulness-in-batesville-mississippi/
So maybe Batesville--even Batesville--is something less than the gun-totin', redneck-lovin' fat/unhealthy/backward backwater than some would assume it is.
But lets stick with facts. Just out of curiosity, I went back to Weather Underground and punched up figures for August weather in Tupelo, Mississippi, New York's Central Park, and Miami. These are average annual temps and dew point for this August:
History for Tupelo, MS
Month of August, 2009
Monthly Summary
Daily Weekly Monthly Custom
Max: Avg: Min: Sum:
Temperature:
Max Temperature 94 °F 88 °F 70 °F
Mean Temperature 84 °F 78 °F 62 °F
Min Temperature 74 °F 69 °F 58 °F
Dew Point:
Dew Point 79 °F 69 °F 55 °F
History for Central Park, NY
Month of August, 2009
Monthly Summary
Next Month »
Daily Weekly Monthly Custom
Max: Avg: Min: Sum:
Temperature:
Max Temperature 92 °F 82 °F 66 °F
Mean Temperature 84 °F 76 °F 64 °F
Min Temperature 76 °F 69 °F 62 °F
Dew Point:
Dew Point 77 °F 65 °F 47 °F
History for Miami, FL
August 2009
Monthly Summary
Next Month »
Daily Weekly Monthly Custom
Max: Avg: Min: Sum:
Temperature:
Max Temperature 94 °F 91 °F 87 °F
Mean Temperature 88 °F 86 °F 81 °F
Min Temperature 83 °F 79 °F 74 °F
Dew Point:
Dew Point 79 °F 76 °F 70 °F
The average daily max and average daily dewpoint for this month for the three locations are as follows (and I believe I"m reading the charts correctly):
Tupelo 88/69
Central Park 82/65
Miami 91/76
Sure, Mississippi is a little hotter than NYC, and a little more humid on average, but Miami is quite a bit worse than both, as that dewpoint suggests.
Anybody who imagines that summer running in Mississippi is like the Gobi Desert or some other off-the-charts region of the world is being....well, a little girlish. It's just not that bad.
You will NEVER find more beautiful women, quality and quantity, than in the state of Mississippi. It's stunning, actually.
They're are doing at least one thing right.
BOOM BABY! wrote:
You will NEVER find more beautiful women, quality and quantity, than in the state of Mississippi. It's stunning, actually.
They're are doing at least one thing right.
I find that Soooooooo hard to believe, really, how are you going to prove that! you can't.
and it is funny what many of you call quality of life ratings:
good looking cheerleaders, chefs at high end restaurants, and temperatures.
I hardly think of these things as ways to measure quality of life when I am fairly positive that wealth, access to healthcare (Mississippi was rated last in dental health behind Puerto Rico), education (49th or 50th, graduation rates (47th) and support networks probably have the most prominant impact on the quality of life for the average person. NOT who has the best chef in town. please don't make me choke.