Bobby Harrison: Agency that doles out tax credit funds to private schools can’t say how the state money is being spent
House leaders, who say they want to bolster public education spending, have also proposed more than tripling the size of a program that sends millions in state funds to private schools even though information is not available on how the money is spent.
Froma Harrop: Creeps hunt kids on social media
We have entered a new social media hell, where online creeps run sadistic schemes targeting high school kids. Since late 2021, their ruses have driven at least 20 young people, mostly boys, to take their lives.
Froma Harrop: Did legalized abortion lead to lower crime rates?
Growing restrictions on the right to an abortion have revived talk of what many still regard as a highly controversial theory. It holds that the legalization of abortion in 1973 reduced the number of unwanted children, who might have been at higher risk of committing serious crimes. And that explained the sharp drop in the crime rate that started in the early 1990s.
Thom Caraccio: I want a phone… to actually call someone
Was Steve Jobs a good person? Well, destroying society and all of human civilization kinda takes you out of the running for “Mr. Nice Guy of the Millennia.”
Roses and thorns: 4-20-24
A rose to the hundreds of residents who turned out Tuesday for the official opening of the BankFirst Yards Sportsplex in west Lowndes County. The
Ask Rufus: Dr. John Richards, Columbus’ connection to the Titanic
Last Tuesday afternoon I was on Mississippi Supertalk Radio’s “Good Things With Rebecca Turner” program telling about a Mississippi connection to the Titanic.
Letter: Life under a dictator
In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote that he abhorred democracy because it gave a voice to non-Germans, particularly Czechs, Slavs, Balts and, of course, Jews.
Other Editors: The Jan. 6 riot reaches the Supreme Court
The people who breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are being held accountable, and attempts to rebrand them as patriotic choirboys are a sign of the bizarre political times. Yet is it unduly stretching the law to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters using the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002?
Our View: Attendance policies are healthy for boards and their members
It’s fair to say that most towns and cities rely on volunteers to meet the needs of their citizens, mainly by serving on boards and commissions.
Our View: Historic places are chances to share a shared history
It seems self-evident today, but the most interesting aspect of the 181-year-old Friendship Cemetery is not the headstones and grave markers but what lies beneath them.
Letter: Starkville’s use of ARPA outshines county
During the fall of 2021, Starkville received $3.2 million from the American Rescue Plan Act and in December 2022 received another $3.2 million, totaling $6.4
Letter: Education in the democratic republic
Back in the 1600’s, when the idea of a democratic republic was invented, guys like Spinoza and Diderot wrote that the biggest obstacle to success
Other Editors: Thank you, Mississippi taxpayers, for funding Medicaid expansion in 40 other states
Happy Tax Day, when millions of us Mississippians will send our hard-earned money to 40 other states that are providing health care coverage to millions of poor, working people.
Froma Harrop: As Nebraska goes, so could go Maine
Every state is different. Nebraska is quite different. It is one of only two states that doesn’t use the winner-take-all system in presidential elections. Along with Maine, it allocates its Electoral College votes to reflect the results in each of its congressional districts.
Other Editors: Felon voting bill will have to wait
Though the effort was unsuccessful this year, a bill to restore voting rights to certain felons had bipartisan support and should be reintroduced in 2025.
Dustin Gentry: Medicaid is a blessing, not a burden for Mississippi
Medicaid Expansion in Mississippi has been wrongly construed as a vehicle to support non-working, able-bodied people who do not deserve free (to them) healthcare.
Sid Salter: In Mississippi’s Medicaid debate, look at rapidly increasing rural mortality rates
As Mississippi legislators head to conference on the state’s first sincere consideration of some form of Medicaid expansion, we’ve heard alarms sounded by the right and the left on why the state alternately should or should not expand Medicaid coverage for the state’s working poor.
Letter: Response to Shad White: College is about thinking critically
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true
Slimantics: No good or bad, just important
I had been sports editor at The East Valley Tribune, located in the Metro Phoenix area, for only a few months when the newspaper’s editor, Alan Geere, announced in our editor’s meeting that we would be trying something different for the July 22, 1998 edition of the paper.
Letter: A bad plan is a bad plan
The Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors at its April 1 board meeting approved a proposal for Slaughter and Associates, an urban planning firm based in