V14n47 - Back to School

Jackson, Mississippi

OPEN HOUSE & RIBBONCUTTING!

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

Come join Cynthia Garland and the Guaranty Trust team for the official open house and ribbon cutting by the Madison County Chamber and City of Ridgeland Chamber of Commerce.

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AUGUST 3, 2016

RIBBON-CUTTING: 10:30 A.M. | OPEN HOUSE: 10:30 A.M. - 12:30 P.M. Come see us and learn more about the mortgage services and personal service Guaranty Trust can offer you!

2 Professional Parkway, Ste. A, Ridgeland, MS 39157 769-300-5100 Guaranty Trust NMLS #135462

Crawfish Live & Boiled New Location!

The Bayou 5649-C Hwy. 25 | Flowood

(At Castlewoods) (601) 326-2723 Hours: Wed-Thurs:4-8pm Fri - Sat: 11am - 9pm Sun: 11am - 7pm

The Shack

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The Swamp 5752-B Terry Rd. l Byram, MS

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Amber Taylor

JACKSONIAN Edrick G. Franklin

W

hile looking out a window that overlooks Jackson, Edrick G. Franklin says, “If not band, then what?”

The 14-year-old was recently promoted from the eighth grade at Northwest Middle School, where he was an International Baccalaureate student. There, he also played French horn and alto saxophone.

Franklin will attend Jim Hill High School in the fall, where he will continue to be an International Baccalaureate student and will also participate in the marching band. He also plays the tuba.

Franklin has big dreams even before he crosses the threshold of Jim Hill.

“I want to become drum major by sophomore year,” Franklin says. “If I stay motivated, anything will be possible.” He says he is already practicing his drum major moves.

With both the International Baccalaureate program and band, Franklin says school will be a challenge.

He describes the IB program as “an advanced level of courses that give you no choice but to think outside the box. Once you do that, you never want to go back in that box.”

He says he couldn’t see himself participating in anything but IB.

“If I’m taking band in high school, then IB is a package deal for me to successfully enjoy high school,” he says.

Franklin says he hears constant criticism

contents

of Jim Hill and its surrounding neighborhood’s reputation, but it does not deter him.

“Jackson has its rough areas,” he says. “Everywhere in the world does, but there are spots of great things within them. Like Jim Hill, you have to try to improve the city—not just complain about it.”

Franklin admits he does have his share of complaints about the state. He says he doesn’t approve of the current governor that too much—specifically his signing of HB 1523, also called the “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act,” which provides protections for “a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.” Franklin finds the law appalling and unfair.

“I mean, Jesus is my main influence, but the governor seems to forget that not everyone believes in the same thing,” he says. “It adds to the stereotype that Mississippi is a backwards place, and that’s all Mississippi seems to be known for in the media.”

Franklin, who was a member of the Mississippi Youth Media Project this summer, plans to study film in college. He is not sure about where he wants to attend yet, but says that will hopefully change after his first year of high school.

“Then I can attack the stereotypes and make art at the same time at a broader perspective,” Franklin says.

—Amber Taylor

cover photo of Aja Purvis

by Imani Khayyam

6 Lethal Injection Drug War Death-row inmates filed new challenges to Mississippi’s lethal-injection drug protocol.

22 Summer Spirits

“‘Here is this gift we give you. We call it tequila.’”

—Amber Helsel, “The Spirits of Summer”

27 ‘Weekend’ With Dream Cult Read about Jackson-based indie-pop band Dream Cult ahead of its July 29 release party for the band’s new album.

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

4 ............................. Editor’s Note 6 ............................................ Talks 14 ................................. editorial 14 .................................. Sorensen 15 ..................................... opinion 16 ............................. Cover Story 20 ....................... Back To School 22 .......................................... food 24 ........................................ 8 Days 25 ....................................... Events 25 ...................................... sports 27 ........................................ music 27 ........................ music listings 29 ..................................... Puzzles 31 ........................................ astro

Courtland Wells; Amber Helsel; MDOC

July 27 - August 2, 2016 | Vol. 14 No. 47

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editor’s note

by Micah Smith, Music Editor

Education and Lessons from the Game of ‘Life’

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sk just about anyone, and they’ll agree: Education is in a bizarre place. In most cases, though, the person you ask will follow up their answer with something about the federal or state government, or they’ll say something about Jackson Public Schools, even if they truthfully don’t know much or don’t have much skin in the game.

I’m not talking about that. Not yet, anyway. Here, I’m talking about a problem that stems from the way that we’ve misrepresented the value of education, most of the time without us even realizing it.

We’ve all known people who would probably say they understood that education has some sort of value, but they sure didn’t show it. When I was a student at Brandon High School, I had plenty of classmates who would pay little attention during lectures, forget every homework assignment (or write it as the teacher picked it up) and still complain that tests were too difficult. If they were gifted “multiple-guessers,” they might have scraped out Cs, but if you asked them anything about chemistry now, they’ll be lucky if they remember what H2O means. It’s like the guy who grew up in church but forgot everything except the lyrics to “Yes, Jesus Loves Me.” OK. Good work, but that won’t come in handy as often as you might think.

Growing up playing music, I noticed the problem was a little worse for some of my friends who were also musicians. It was rare that they had the delusional “I won’t need this when I’m a rock star” mindset or that it just wasn’t hardcore to enjoy math. It also wasn’t that they couldn’t foresee a career for themselves that would use what we learned in high school. More often, they just couldn’t foresee a lasting career for themselves, at all.

Need money now. Education can wait.

To better explain why, I submit to you Milton Bradley’s “The Game of Life.” Ignore the brightly colored tiles that make it

to where you, who are currently bankrupt and have three kids, would for some reason throw a $50,000 gala, and there is actually a valuable lesson in there. One of the first major decisions that a player has to make at the start of the game comes at a massive fork in the road: You can take the costly college route, or you can take the quick-and-easy career path and start making money now.

In the context of the game, the choice seems like a no-brainer. Yeah, I’m dropping

They just couldn’t foresee a lasting career for themselves, at all. $100,000 to go to college, but hey, I get more career options at the end. I could become a doctor, and I know I’ll multiply that 100 grand many times over by the end of my short, child-filled life. The missus and I will be retired and sipping sangrias in Millionaire Estates while the other players are still chilling in their doublewide RVs.

Of course, deep down, we all know that logic doesn’t parallel our real world as closely as we would like to believe. Even college graduates can be stuck in a part-time position with that all-too-real $100,000 of college debt still breathing down their necks. Many of my friends saw that and weren’t willing to chance it, and so often, going to Mississippi State University, the University of Mississip-

pi or the University of Southern Mississippi sounded great but just wasn’t a realistic goal.

They knew that their dads couldn’t “take care of” their tuition by calling a buddy on the board and getting a hefty discount. For some of my peers, grades were a legitimate source of worry, as well. Even ignoring that scholarships aren’t abundant for kids who had a bad semester here and there, it’s understandable that the go-to logic is, “What’s the point in paying all that money to go to college if I fail all the more spectacularly once I’m in?”

Just looking at that, I’m sure that it sounds like I’m against higher education, but I’m truly not. I attended Mississippi College, and I learned more in four years—both in classes and out—than I had in most of my life. I learned skills that I constantly use in my career and my daily living, I became better acquainted with the systems that make up our world and how I work within them, and I made friends that I still talk to regularly. But it wasn’t as simple as choosing Path A or Path B. I had to apply for countless scholarships throughout my senior year of high school and throughout all my years of college to make it possible for me to graduate.

To graduate without debt, I had to get help from my incredibly kind parents, who saved money for many, many years because they knew that my sisters and I would want to go to college one day. And once I was in classes, I had to do well enough and stay active in extracurricular activities to keep those scholarships. With all the work that my family and I put into giving me that opportunity, it’s not surprising that Milton Bradley opted for a more fun “Life” experience.

No, I’m not against higher education, which is absolutely life-changing for those who have the luxury to obtain it. However, I am entirely against the way that we’ve decided that what you can get from it is what determines its value. It’s not a gateway to a better career, though it can sometimes be

that. It’s not a four-year-minimum plan to get a more impressive paycheck, though it can sometimes provide that, as well. If we look at education as just an expensive rental car getting us to an eventual destination, it isn’t surprising that so many students would prefer to say, “I can’t afford it, and I don’t see the point, so I’ll stay right here.”

I’m not trying to shame anyone who views a university or college through that lens, but when we ask what the value of education is, we’re not noticing the error in the question itself. Ask any child in America who is ecstatic to find out that they’ll be learning to read soon. Ask any child from Cambodia, from Ethiopia or from any country where people view education as a precious commodity rather than a nuisance or an overhyped career requirement. The value of education is education.

It might be that you’re a casual JFP reader who picked up an issue in the past and saw that we were talking about Mississippi’s chronically low test scores, about the state’s perpetual underfunding of public schools or about how our school system tends to pay less attention to those with the most need (something you’ll find in our cover story, pages16-18). You might have thought to yourself, “Really? This again?”

You’re right. The Jackson Free Press has covered all those things many times before— and we’ll continue to do so because those problems matter and because education matters. If anything, we should be more surprised that change isn’t happening, that not enough people are talking about it and that we aren’t doing enough to solve these problems. It doesn’t need to be a thought that only enters your mind every now and then when you pick up a JFP issue. Reframe your thinking, reassess what education should mean to you and to the students going through our school system now, and you might see that it has more value than we let on.

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

contributors

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Sierra Mannie

Amber Helsel

Imani Khayyam

Tim Summers Jr.

Arielle Dreher

Maya Miller

Myron Cathey

Mary Osborne

Education Reporting Fellow Sierra Mannie is a University of Mississippi whose opinions of the Ancient Greeks can’t be trusted nearly as much as her opinions of Beyoncé. She wrote the cover story for the JFP and The Hechinger Report.

Assistant Editor Amber Helsel is a foodie-in-training and an artist, and her favorite pastime is people watching. Her patronus charm is a cat. Email her story ideas at amber@jacksonfreepress.com. She contributed to the cover package.

Staff Photographer Imani Khayyam is an art lover and a native of Jackson. He loves to be behind the camera and capture the true essence of his subjects. He took the cover photo and many others,

City Reporter Tim Summers Jr. enjoys loud live music, teaching his cat to fetch, long city council meetings and FOIA requests. Send him story ideas at tim@jacksonfreepress.com.

He wrote about Uber and ADA compliance.

News Reporter Arielle Dreher is working on finding some new hobbies and adopting an otter from the Jackson Zoo. Email her story ideas at arielle@jacksonfreepress.com. She wrote about the death penalty.

Deputy News Editor Maya Miller writes about crime, music, art and her ever-growing obsession with Beyoncé.

Send her crime and news tips to maya@jacksonfreepress. com. She wrote about Jackson indie-pop band Dream Cult.

Sales and Marketing Consultant Myron Cathey is from Senatobia. He is a graduate of Jackson State University and enjoys traveling, music and spending time with family and friends.

Sales Assistant Mary Osborne is a Lanier Bulldog by birthright and a JSU Tiger by choice. She is the mother of Lindon “Joc” Dixon. Her hobbies include hosting and producing “The Freeda Love Show,” which airs on PEG 18.

The best buffet in Vicksburg just got better!

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July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

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6/30/16 10:02 AM

Roberta Kaplan filed a publicrecords request that reveals in emails who helped draft HB 1523 p 11

“The thing that I feel as though we still have to address is handicapped accessibility.”

—Ward 2 Councilman Melvin Priester Jr. on more budget-conscious accessibility options for Jacksonians with disabilities

Tuesday, July 19

The Mississippi Supreme Court hears arguments in a legislative dispute that started this spring when Democrats tried to filibuster and the Republican House speaker used a superfast computer voice to read bills out loud.

Thursday, July 21

Florida police officer Jonathan Aledda fires three times at Charles Kinsey, an autistic man’s black caretaker, as he is lying down with his arms raised, wounding him in his leg. … Attorney Roberta Kaplan reveals numerous emails that show the Alliance Defending Freedom’s influence on Mississippi’s HB 1523.

Friday, July 22

Hillary Clinton names Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her vice presidential running mate. … Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke announces on his website that he plans to run for U.S. Senate in Louisiana.

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

Saturday, July 23

Fedor Konyukhov, a 65-year-old Russian adventurer, reaches the Australian coast and claims a new record by flying solo around the world nonstop in 11 days.

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Sunday, July 24

Olympic leaders give individual sports federations the task of deciding which athletes should be cleared to compete in next month’s Rio de Janeiro Games. … Debbie Wasserman Schultz announces that she will step down as DNC chairwoman at the end of the party’s convention following the leak of some 19,000 emails that suggest the DNC favored Hillary Clinton.

Monday, July 25

Gunfire erupts at a nightclub hosting a party for teens in Florida just after midnight, leaving two teens dead and at least 17 other people wounded. ... Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Michelle Obama push for unity in speeches at the Democratic National Convention.

Get breaking news at jfpdaily.com.

by Arielle Dreher

R

On July 6, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court ichard Jordan has been on death The state courts will be left to interpret row in Mississippi for 40 years for of Appeals vacated the lower court’s injunc- challenges to Mississippi’s death-penalty kidnapping and murdering Edwina tion and remanded the case back to the dis- laws and challenges to drugs used in the Marter in 1976, even though the trict court system.“(B)ecause Mississippi’s lethal-injection procedure. average wait time for death-row inmates to be killed is about 14 years. Jordan and fellow deathrow inmate Thomas Loden Jr., convicted in 2001 for sexual assault, rape and murder of Leesa Marie Gray in 2000, have filed new challenges to Mississippi’s lethal-injection drug law in the Mississippi Supreme Court, after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent another drug challenge filed by Jordan, Loden and another death-row inmate Ricky Chase, challenge back to the district court. The district court has not yet considered the plaintiffs’ First and Eighth Amendment challenges.

Jordan and Loden Jr. could be executed at any point, however, because as the Associated Press reported earlier this month, The State of Mississippi uses a three-drug protocol to execute prisoners on death row; this both men have exhausted their practice has been on hold for a while with drug challenges made in federal court—until recently. Now, challenges to the state’s death penalty and use of the lethal drug are appeals. pending in both the state and federal court systems.

Gary Carl Simmons was the last man executed by lethal injection in sovereign immunity prevents a federal court No execution dates were set by press the state of Mississippi back in June 2012, from enjoining state officials to follow state time for Jordan or Loden Jr. MDOC’s website says. A federal court’s in- law, and because plaintiffs have not shown “We certainly hope that they recognize junction froze executions due to three pris- they are likely to succeed in establishing a that this is the kind of issue that should be oners on death row challenging the state’s violation of either their procedural and sub- vetted and weighed by the federal court priuse of the type of sedative drug—the first stantive due process rights,” the 5th Circuit’s or to them trying to precipitate some kind used—in the three-part injection. revised opinion states. of artificial crisis by setting an execution

Mississippi Department of Correction

Wednesday, July 20

Dr. Carl Reddix of Jackson is charged with paying bribes and kickbacks to former Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Christopher B. Epps in exchange for receiving contracts involving the MDOC and its operations.

Fighting the Lethal Injection

Better Speakers for Neshoba The 2016 Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Miss., on Friday July 22. Halfway through the election year, the fair hosts guest speakers including Donald Trump Jr., Gov. Phil Bryant and House Speaker Phillip Gunn, R-Clinton. Here are some of the speakers we wish would speak instead: Two children in a trench coat pretending to be an adult.

A hologram of an apologetic Andrew Jackson.

The Large Hadron Collider.

Beyoncé with her line of beret-ed power dancers lined up in formation on each side of the pavilion.

Former QVC host Lisa Robertson.

A man who claims that Mr. Clean is based on his visage.

Joe Biden doing a Borat impression.

Henry Cavill, star of “Batman v Superman.”

The guy from the Quaker Oats box.

Kermit the Frog’s screw-up brother, Roger.

Michelle Obama.

Eddie Murphy’s nephew.

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

YOUR FUTURE IS BRIGHTER AT MC.

7

TALK | state

LETHAL from page 6

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

date,” James Craig, a lawyer at the MacArthur Justice Center, which represents Jordan and Chase, told the Jackson Free Press.

Attorney General Jim Hood’s office did not offer any specific comment on the numerous cases pending or the new appeals filed. Hood’s spokeswoman Rachael Ring said the State of Mississippi will respond in court to challenges pending in both federal and state courts.

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Drug Drama

Immediately before a July 2015 hearing on the prisoners’ challenge to Mississippi’s use of pentobarbital, the Mississippi Department of Corrections changed its policy to include more drugs on its list of possible drug “#1s” (the sedatives) in its three-drug injection.

“In the event of the unavailability of sodium pentothal, a sufficient quantity of pentobarbital will be acquired and administered in its place. In the event of the unavailability of pentobarbital, a sufficient quantity of midazolam will be acquired and administered in its place,” an MDOC policy request form included in court records states.

The form was signed and dated July 28, 2015. In the state’s memorandum filed on that same day, lawyers from the Attorney General’s office wrote, “the state no longer has pentobarbital in any form for executions.” The memorandum also says the policy had to change because the state was unable to obtain the drugs anymore.

“MDOC and Commissioner Fisher have absolutely no motivation to change the State’s lethal injection protocol, an event absolutely sure to produce litigation, unless the change was necessary and unavoidable,” the July 28 brief says.

A year later, Jordan and Loden Jr. are challenging specifically the state’s proposed use of midazolam, and those fresh appeals were filed in the Mississippi Supreme Court earlier this month.

The men’s lawyers argue that midazolam is not an “ultra short-acting barbiturate” that Mississippi’s death-penalty law requires.

Instead, they argue that “it is a benzodiazepine, an entirely different class of drugs from that authorized by Mississippi law.”

The “ultra short-acting barbiturate” is supposed to act as the sedative in the threedrug injection used to execute prisoners in the state of Mississippi.

The three-drug injection includes the sedative, the paralytic drug (“so you don’t see the body flopping around”) and the drug that stops the heart, Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Infor-

mation Center, told the Jackson Free Press.

Oklahoma was the first state to begin using the three-drug approach back in 1977, and more states “just piggybacked on that,” Dunham said. In the 1940s and ’50s, Mississippi used the electric chair to kill prisoners on death row. After 1954, the State used a lethal gas chamber until 1984, MDOC’s website states, until it introduced lethal injection as a method of execution.

“There’s no reason to do that. If you euthanize a horse, you don’t use three drugs— you use a larger dose of one drug,” Dunham said of the execution formula.

Only a few states have caught on to the one-drug approach, however, and now because fewer drugs are available for lethal injections, they are—perhaps consequently— the only states still executing prisoners on death row. Alabama, Georgia, Missouri and Texas are among the states that use one-drug

sippi’s pre-execution inventory check require the injection team to check everything not less than 24 hours and not more than 96 hours before the scheduled execution. Details of procedural operations of an execution are not included in the filing.

Preserving State Secrets

The pushback and stall of state executions in the past few years is largely due to large drug manufacturers coming out against their drugs being used to execute people.

“Every American manufacturer of sodium pentothal, pentobarbital and midazolam are on record as saying that they don’t want their drugs to be used in executions,” Dunham said. “And they have adopted internal regulations on sale and distribution of their product to try to keep them out of the hands of executioners.”

Pfizer came out against the practice

“If the drugs are unavailable publicly because everybody has opted out of the policy, that’s a problem with the policy, not a justification for secrecy.” lethal injection for prisoners on death row.

An April analysis by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit journalism outlet dedicated to the criminal-justice system, shows that they are the only states currently executing prisoners.

Eight states have used single-drug lethal injections to execute prisoners, the Death Penalty Information Center data shows.

In the meantime, midazolam was a part of the subject of a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Glossip v. Gross. While the U.S. Supreme Court found that challenges to Oklahoma’s use of midazolam failed, Craig says the Glossip case did not approve the use of midazolam—contrary to what his “opponents” say.

“The federal judge in Oklahoma is still considering whether the use of midazolam violates the Eighth Amendment,” he told the Jackson Free Press. “Our opponents like to say that the Supreme Court approved the use of midazolam, but they did no such thing.”

Craig said that the Glossip case differs from his clients’ situation in Mississippi for several reasons. Oklahoma has adopted several safeguards in their lethal-injection practices, Craig said, like waiting five minutes after they’ve administered the sedative drug and tested the prisoner to make sure they are unconscious before the other drugs are administered.

“Mississippi has nothing like that,” Craig said.

Court documents show that Missis-

most recently, The New York Times reported in May, saying they did not want their drugs used for executions. Dunham says Pfizer is the 20th company by his count to do so. The drug manufacturers backing down from lethal drug sales has, consequently, left many states in limbo when it comes to acquiring the drugs necessary to execute prisoners.

Dunham said if states aren’t getting drugs from manufacturers, that means they are getting them from compounding pharmacies, and compounding pharmacies—in general—are not subject to the same types of regulations as major pharmaceutical companies.

“As a result, there are significantly greater safety risks,” Dunham said.

In the 2016 legislative session, Attorney General Jim Hood asked the Legislature to consider a law that would keep the identities of the state’s execution team, suppliers of lethal injection chemicals and the witnesses of an execution all a state secret—exempt from the Mississippi Public Records Act. The bill became law July 1.

The law specifies “a supplier of lethalinjection chemicals” as one located within the state of Mississippi.

Dunham said he is unaware of any Mississippi drug manufacturer, so that provision of the law would most likely protect the identity of any compounding pharmacy in the state. Reading Senate Bill 2237, Dunham said the law might prevent those on death row from “obtaining information nec-

essary to ascertain whether he or she is going to be subjected to a torturous execution.”

Information about the drugs themselves, like how they are handled or if they are properly mixed or tested are all factors that could come up in court, but Dunham said, “if the compounder is a part of the execution team, you never get to ask him where they came from because you don’t get to know who he is.”

Other states have adopted secrecy laws like Mississippi’s, but the state-specific supplier clause is different than what Dunham has seen in the past.

In the cases of Jordan, Chase and Loden Jr., the State of Mississippi has said it is unable to obtain pentobarbital.

In a footnote of its June 27 order, the 5th Circuit did not rule on this provision specifically. “Because other states retain access to pentobarbital it seems possible that Mississippi could regain access in the future,” the footnote says.

Craig has asked the Missouri Department of Corrections for that state’s lethalinjection methods to prove that other states have managed to keep executing people and finding the drugs to do so.

Missouri uses a one-drug lethal injection protocol, using pentobarbital. The federal court there ruled in Craig and the plaintiffs’ favor to access the information, but Missouri has appealed that ruling.

Dunham says Mississippi has presented no evidence that the drugs are unavailable without secrecy, but with several manufacturers publicly opting out anyway, the only thing left to hide is who is mixing the drugs in-state.

“If the drugs are unavailable publicly because everybody has opted out of the policy, that’s a problem with the policy, not a justification for secrecy,” Dunham said.

Email state reporter Arielle Dreher at arielle@jacksonfreepress.com and follow her on Twitter @arielle_amara.

Most viral stories at jfp.ms:

1. “Attorney: Reddix Alleged Bribery a ‘Shakedown’” by Tim Summers Jr. 2. “Erin Shirley Orey” by Adria Walker 3. “White Male Shoots Black Minor for Breaking into Car Near Juvenile Detention Center” by Tim Summers Jr. 4. “Expert on Death of 17-year-old: ‘Castle Doctrine’ Needs Danger Threat” by Tim Summers Jr. 5. “UPDATED: ADF to Defend Bryant in HB 1523 Appeal, Emails Reveal Outside Groups’ Influence” by Arielle Dreher Join the conversation at jfp.ms

Most viral events at jfpevents.com:

1. Neon Nights, July 23 2. Remember When Hip-Hop Was Cool?, July 23 3. Dance Party at WonderLust, every Saturday 4. Coffee and Vibes, July 23 5. Cakes by Crystal Grand Opening, Aug. 1 Find more events at jfpevents.com.

TALK | city

Uber, ADA Accessibility and Jackson

by Tim Summers, Jr.

Barrett-Simon, of Ward 7, said allowing small businesses to enter and participate in the market was paramount.

“And your plan would allow for that,” she said of Crawford’s idea.

An Uber public-relations representative, Evangeline George, sent a form release on the company’s policies for

riders, including those with disabilities. Uber expects driver partners to comply with all state, federal and local laws governing the transportation of riders with disabilities, including the ADA. As part of this, driver-partners on the Uber platform are prohibited from denying rides to individuals with service animals or small assistive devices.”

Tim Summers, Jr.

Not a Perfect Solution The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public-policy organization in Washington, D.C., looked into how partnerships between metropolitan transit providers and transportation network companies—called TNCs—might benefit both partners by providing services that neither adequately addresses on its own.

“Transit agencies may want to explore contracting out direct response services to TNCs,” the report explains, indicating that paratransit services fall into the direct-response category. “Beyond minimizing costs through their software platforms and efficiency deploying drivers to customers, TNCs can probably update technologies faster than traditional public transit agencies. Riders could also benefit, free from worrying about the need to schedule days in Around the Edges advance.”

Dr. Scott Crawford waits his turn to speak to the Jackson City Council about accessibility

“It seems as though other people If the City moves in the direction for people with disabilities during the July 22 Planning Committee meeting. in this local marketplace are stepping of Crawford’s suggestion, perhaps a in around the edges, perhaps illegally, partnership would work for everyto offer wheelchair accessible service,” one’s benefit. But not everyone agrees Priester said.

“Uber Accessibility.” It mentions a specialized service that on such an alliance. Amalgamated Transit Union, an advo In his opinion, Priester said, the City should require the company rolled out in June 2015 called uberASSIST. cacy organization for transit workers, argues that the TNC taxicab companies to offer wheelchair-accessible service, in- “Top Uber driver-partners receive specialized training dependence on independent contractors and required high centivize the service for a company or find some other type on providing additional assistance for seniors and people density of participating contractors in an area are divisive of solution. with disabilities,” the release explains, listing cities that the flaws to the public-private partnership model.

Dr. Scott Crawford, a local advocate for Americans program has currently launched in major metro centers like “For instance,” on ATU report released April 27 states, with Disability Act compliance, said he knew of only Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Salt Lake “if a TNC were given a paratransit contract it would have two companies in the area providto ensure reliable service according to ADA standards. It City, Houston and Portland, Ore. ing on-demand service for those

It is not clear if and when Jackson is one thing to rely on an army of casual drivers with their with mechanized wheelchairs: Taxi own vehicles to transport people during their spare time. It would have the same service.

Uber’s Required Tim and Veterans Taxi Cab. A rep “uberASSIST is designed for addition- is quite another to ask these workers to retrofit their vehicles ADA Compliance resentative for Veterans Taxi said the al assistance for members of the senior and to be ADA-accessible or to purchase new ones outright and Under State Law company had three vehicles that disability communities. Drivers are specifi- ensure that they provide service to this market segment.” provided 24/7 service.

ATU’s International President Larry Hanley said cally trained to assist riders into the vehicles

Crawford said he believes the during a July 22 phone interview that instead of directly and can accommodate folding wheelchairs, Mississippi’s Uber best-case scenario would be to require walkers, and scooters,” a July 9, 2015, post outsourcing the paratransit demand to a private compalaw states that coma number of wheelchair-accessible ny, cities like Jackson should work on acquiring the techon the company’s site states. panies “shall adopt vehicles that the City could rent out

That service does not include ramps nology to address the biggest problem with paratransit: a policy of nonto the taxi companies, as they needed or the ability to transport passengers with scheduling. them. He also spoke of the elephant

“For some reason, this technology eludes them,” motorized wheelchairs. discrimination with in the room—Uber.

Hanley said. “It’s like they feel like they have to make the

George said she was not sure exactly respect to riders and

“The way it is going to shake how Uber drivers were currently trained entrepreneurs their partner in running transit and thereby potential riders and out is that Uber eventually is goto handle such a request. She declined to drain the whole system in order to just operate the whole notify transportation ing to have to provide wheelchair make further comments on the record over schedule, and it’s simply not true.” network company service. It is only a matter of time,” Email city reporter Tim Summers Jr. at the phone but later sent an email response: Crawford said.

“Uber’s technology has expanded ac- tim@jacksonfreepress.com. See more local news drivers of policy.”

Council Vice President Margaret cess to reliable transportation options for all at jfp.ms/localnews.

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

I

n the wake of state legislation cementing transportation network companies like Uber into the market, the Jackson City Council is in the middle of an overhaul of the ordinances governing taxicabs, while members of the disabled community are expressing trepidation that they will be left out in the rain.

During a July 18 Planning Committee meeting Ward 2 Councilman Melvin Priester Jr., the lead author of the revised ordinances, focused a large part of the discussion on providing better service to people with disabilities.

“The thing that I feel as though we still have to address is handicapped accessibility,” Priester said.

Considering the current budget crunch that the City is suffering, Priester suggested to the committee that the council explore other options than simply writing a check with taxpayer dollars.

“What I think we frankly need to do is find federal money or pool money to just buy some handicappedaccessible vehicles,” Priester said.

He added that perhaps the City should also offer tax incentives to bring a company in to fill the need.

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TALK | state

What the ‘Bryant Documents’ Say About HB 1523, Its Future

by Arielle Dreher

D

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

Imani Khayyam

espite U.S. District Judge Carlton emails between the governor and ADF 1523 was drafted by the ADF, was pro- tution [or] the [STATE] constitution [or Reeves’ 60-page preliminary in- employees show. moted by the ADF and other conservative State RFRA], or any state law, against a junction blocking House Bill In a court filing last Wednesday, Christian groups, and that, as a result, HB person wholly or partially on the basis 1523 from becoming law, the Roberta Kaplan, one of the lawyers rep- 1523 improperly and unconstitutionally that such person believes or sincerely acts legal battles could just be heating up. resenting plaintiffs in the case, revealed reflects the sectarian Christian values of in accordance with a religious belief or

Gov. Phil Bryant and the executive numerous emails, dubbed the “Bryant these organizations.” moral conviction that: (1) marriage is or director at the Mississippi Department of Documents” in her brief, that show ADF Emails between Alliance Defend- should be recognized as the union of one Human Services have asked Judge Reeves and other religious groups’ influence on ing Freedom staff and Gov. Bryant’s staff man and one woman; (2) sexual relations to stay his injunction against the law go- HB 1523’s language and marketing. reveal that HB 1523 was based, at least are properly reserved to such a marriage; ing in effect, as well as filed appeals in the “I think these documents are rel- in part, on a model executive order ADF or (3) male (man) or female (woman) re5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. evant because even though we got them sent to Bryant’s office back in June 2015. fer to an individual’s immutable biological

The Jackson Free Press confirmed after the two-day hearing before Judge In an email to Drew Snyder and Jim sex as objectively determined by anatomy last week that the Alliance Deand genetics by time of birth.” fending Freedom, a controver HB 1523 defines the sial national legal group represame three religious beliefs and senting far-right interests, will moral convictions, word for serve as co-counsel for Bryant’s word. The similarities between appeal to the 5th Circuit. the model executive order and

When Attorney General House Bill 1523 continue, Jim Hood announced that he emails show. would not appeal HB 1523 or

The model execuuse taxpayer dollars to do so, tive order from ADF includes Bryant announced on Facespecific protections for relibook, “I have engaged nationgious organizations, clerks and ally recognized appellate attormagistrates and state employee neys, at no cost to the taxpayspeech, just like HB 1523. ers of Mississippi, to appeal the

Emails from March district court’s ruling.”

31, 2016, show that repre ADF will serve as that sentatives from the Alliance co-counsel, defending the Defending Freedom offered governor in the 5th Circuit, to help the governor’s office Greg Scott, vice president of “from a PR/messaging/supcommunications with ADF, port perspective” before he told the Jackson Free Press signed the bill. ADF personnel The Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Gov. Phil Bryant (right), who has appealed the via email. The legal fees will also sent Bryant two different House Bill 1523 case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Attorney Roberta Kaplan (left) not cost taxpayers any money drafts for his HB 1523 signing revealed ADF’s influence on HB 1523 via a records request for the governor’s emails about the law. because ADF, a national legal speech. organization that advocates for

Kaplan’s brief re“the right of people to freely live out their Reeves, it’s pretty clear that they com- Campbell in Bryant’s office, an Alliance veals that other groups including several faith,” according to its website, represents pletely corroborate almost everything Defending Freedom counselor sent model Christian foster-care and adoption serthat we said at the hearing,” Kaplan executive orders “that would prevent state vices groups, Mississippi chapters of the its clients at no cost.

A group of Christian leaders, in- told the Jackson Free Press last week. governments from discriminating against Catholic Diocese, the United Pentecostal cluding James Dobson of Focus on the their citizens because of their views about Church, and the Southern Baptist EthFamily and Donald Wildmon of the Tracing the Email Chain or actions concerning marriage.” ics and Religious Liberty Commission Judge Reeves asked plaintiffs if HB American Family Association in Tupelo, The email with the executive order all wrote letters of support of House Bill helped found ADF in 1994. Former 1523 was based on model legislation. The draft policy was sent on June 24, 2015, 1523.

Judge Charles Pickering in Mississippi is answer came in a public-records request just days before the U.S. Supreme Court Kaplan’s public-records request also on its board. The group’s key issue areas Kaplan had filed with Gov. Phil Bryant’s ruled in the Obergefell case that same-sex revealed some businesses expressing disare “religious freedom, sanctity of life, office asking for any emails “between the marriage should be recognized nationally. pleasure for the bill. The president of softand marriage and family.” The alliance office of Mississippi Governor Phil Bry- The language used in the model ex- ware company, Pilot ERP Software, wrote litigates cases dealing with “religious free- ant and the Alliance Defending Freedom ecutive orders looks very similar to House an email to the Mississippi Development dom” and is currently asking the U.S. Su- (“ADF”), the American Family Associa- Bill 1523, including the three specific def- Authority, saying the company would no preme Court to hear a Colorado cakeshop tion (“AFA”), and any other individual, initions of a religious belief or moral con- longer authorize travel to Mississippi or owner’s case, who refused to bake a wed- organization, or entity that assisted in the viction used to support the whole bill. purchase good or services from Missisding cake for a same-sex couple due to his drafting of or advised on HB 1523.”

Section 1 of the model policy states sippi-based vendors, due to the passage of

Kaplan says in her brief that the that: “Notwithstanding any Order to the HB 1523. faith.

The organization also helped, at emails and documents in the governor’s contrary, the State Government is prohib- For more about HB least in part, influence the language of the response to the request “completely cor- ited form taking any action inconsistent 1523, see www.jfp.ms/lgbt.

“Freedom of Conscience from Govern- roborate the substance of Professor Doug- with the restrictions placed upon the State Email Arielle Dreher at ment Discrimination Act,” or HB 1523, las NeJaime’s expert testimony that HB Government by the United States consti- arielle@jacksonfreepress.com.

11

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TALK | city

Death, Self-Defense and the Castle Doctrine

by Tim Summers Jr.

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Courtesy of Google Maps

n July 21, a white male employee of Performance To Steffey, the law as it is often interpreted seems black victims, 34 percent of the resulting homicides are Oil Equipment on McDowell Road shot and killed almost to invite deadly conflict resolution. deemed justifiable, while only 3.3 percent of deaths are 17-year-old Charles McDonald as the teenager al- “That’s the way it is being used,” he said. “And it is ruled justifiable when the shooter is black and the victim legedly attempted to break into a gray Lexus in the almost like a political invitation to do so.” is white.” parking lot.

More telling for McDonald’s case is when research The numbers seem to back him up. A September

McDonald, the Jackson Police Department reports, 2013 study from the National Urban League and the ers investigated what happens when an older white male had run away from his mother, who was driving him to Mayors Against Illegal Guns examined FBI data from shoots a younger black male. the Henley-Young Juvenile Justice Center which is right states that enacted Castle Doctrine or “Stand Your “When an older white man shoots a younger black next to Performance Oil Equipment. He was not sched- Ground” laws from 2005-7. Their research showed that man with whom he had no prior relationship, the shootuled to be booked into the center for any ing is determined justifiable 49 percent of reason. The shooter had spotted McDonald the time,” the study reports. from inside the store, confronted the young “Yet when the situation is reversed, and man and, in a struggle, shot him twice. an older black man shoots a younger white

The police report states that the two man with whom he had no previous relafatal gunshots to McDonald’s chest were the tionship, the homicide is only judged justifionly injuries to the minor or the employee able 8 percent of the time.” who shot him. The Lexus, owned by one of

still-unnamed shooter’s co-workers, sustained Quardious Thomas damage that police said was consistent with Now that the case might go to the grand an attempted break-in. jury, and with the current state of the Hinds

In a press release, the Jackson Police DeCounty District Attorney’s office, old cases partment said that the case would be sent to a can shed some light on the new. grand jury. But whether the shooting, which In 2013, Eric Williams, a black home may be defended as an application of Missisowner in Jackson, walked outside and shot sippi’s version of Castle Doctrine laws, will Quardious Thomas five times, as 20-yearThe parking lot of Performance Oil Equipment was the scene of the be ruled justified is anyone’s guess. old Thomas was rummaging through Wilshooting death of 17-year-old Charles McDonald on July 21. liams’ truck in the driveway. Williams, who Trayvon Martin shot into the truck from the outside, was

Mississippi Code 97-3-15 outlines the never charged or indicted in the shooting. requirements for “justifiable homicide” under the “Castle Then-Police Chief Lindsey Horton, during an interview Doctrine” as “when committed by any person in resistwith the Jackson Free Press a month after the incident, ing any attempt unlawfully to kill such a person or to said that Williams had “every right to do that.” commit any felony upon him, or upon or in any dwell The Hinds County sheriff at the time, Tyrone Lewis, ing, in any occupied vehicle, in any place of business, in lived near Williams and also had a window on his vehicle any place of employment or in the immediate premises shattered that night. He expressed a similar sentiment to thereof in which such person shall be.” the police chief at the time.

The law, passed in 2006, rode with the national

“Anybody that takes it upon themselves to intrude trend of American Legislative Exchange Council-based and impede upon people’s personal property, they’re at bills that focused on copying a Florida law known as the risk of losing their life or suffering the consequences that “Stand Your Ground” principle, one used later to pave come with it,” Lewis told WLBT-TV the morning of the the way for the acquittal of George Zimmerman for his shooting. shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin. After the

Like with the shooting of McDonald, at least so far, trial, ALEC distanced itself from the application of the police did not arrest Williams after the incident. legislation in the Martin death in a press release.

Eric Greenwood, boyfriend to Thomas’ mother

“Moreover, it is unclear whether that law could apthen, said during a phone interview on July 25 that the ply to this case at all,” ALEC said of the Trayvon Martin in states that passed such laws, “the justifiable homicide family still hopes to get some relief through the Missiscase. “‘Stand Your Ground’ or the ‘Castle Doctrine’ is rate was on average 53 percent higher in the years after sippi attorney general’s office. designed to protect people who defend themselves from passage of the law than in the years preceding it.”

“Now they are saying to write them a letter to the imminent death and great bodily harm. It does not allow “By contrast, in states that did not enact Stand Your integrity division,” Greenwood said. He added that he you to pursue another person. It does not allow you to Ground laws during this period, the justifiable homicide believes that it has something to do with the recent alseek confrontation. It does not allow you to attack some- rate fell by 5 percent on average over the same period,” legations against Hinds County District Attorney Robert one who does not pose an imminent threat.”

Shuler Smith, who did not send the Thomas case to a the study states.

Matt Steffey, a professor at the Mississippi College So, the average was 53 percent, but the outliers show grand jury.

School of Law, said in a July 22 phone interview that the significant jumps. “The average number of justifiable ho- “We think that now since they have grabbed Smith Castle Doctrine is not designed to take the place of police micides jumped by 200 percent in Florida, 54 percent in that it may all be in the light,” Greenwood said, adding intervention, especially in non-dangerous situations.

Texas, 83 percent in Georgia, 24 percent in Arizona, and that other past Mississippi Castle Doctrine cases might

“People should be reminded that’s fundamentally 725 percent in Kentucky,” the study found. need further study to determine if the application of the what the police are for,” Steffey said.

A racial element may also involved, the study says. law was appropriate.

“And self-defense has always primarily been for those The Urban Institute, a policy research center that Presi- “If you look at every single case, there is something situations that are too dangerous to wait for the interven- dent Lyndon Johnson founded in 1968, “examined racial wrong,” Greenwood said. tion of law enforcement.” disparities in justified gun homicide rulings that involve

“It’s not for you to go play Walker Texas Ranger,” a single shooter and victim who are strangers.”

Email city reporter Tim Summers Jr. at tim@jackson13 Steffey added.

“The researchers found that when white shooters kill freepress.com. See more local news at jfp.ms/localnews.

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

“‘Stand Your Ground’ or the ‘Castle Doctrine’ is designed to protect people who defend themselves from imminent death and great bodily harm.”

— American Legislative Exchange Council

Mississippi’s Relentless Pursuit of the LGBT Community

“I

t feels like the state will never stop pursuing us,” said Joce Pritchett as she testified under oath in a federal courtroom in Jackson recently. She was describing what it felt like to be a LGBT person living in Mississippi when HB 1523 passed this spring.

Joce explained the relief she experienced a year ago, when, for the first time, her family was recognized in her home state after the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. But with the passage of HB 1523—titled the “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act”—those feelings dissolved, replaced by a familiar sense of being targeted. In the past year, the South has emerged as ground zero for anti-LGBT political backlash. During the 2016 state legislative season, antiLGBT bills proliferated across the region as the religious right road-tested a twopronged strategy: first, they used religious exemptions to justify discrimination against the LGBT community, and second, they targeted transgender people.

HB 1523 is so extreme that it enumerates three specific religious beliefs that will be protected above all others: 1. Marriage can only be between a man and a woman, 2. Sexual relations are properly confined to such a marriage, and 3. Sex is an innate characteristic that is assigned at birth and cannot change. The law allows public officials, doctors and others to invoke these specific beliefs as justification for refusing treatment and service to LGBT people.

Too often, LGBT Southerners lack the political power to stop a discriminatory bill once it’s proposed. This was certainly the case with HB 1523, which sailed through the Mississippi legislature before Gov. Phil Bryant signed it into law. But where the political process failed in Mississippi, federal courts offered remedy. Less than 30 minutes before HB 1523 was scheduled to go into effect, U.S. District Court Judge Carlton W. Reeves issued an order striking the law down: “The title, text, and history of HB 1523 indicate that the bill was the State’s attempt to put LGBT citizens back in their place after Obergefell. The majority of Mississippians were granted special rights to not serve LGBT citizens and were immunized from the consequences of their actions. LGBT Mississippians, in turn, were “put in a solitary class with respect to transactions and relations in both the private and governmental spheres” to symbolize their second-class status.”

But the fight isn’t over. Gov. Bryant is now appealing Judge Reeves’ ruling to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. He is now represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, which drafted HB 1523 and is widely regarded as the control center of a robustly funded movement that strives to enshrine anti-LGBT discrimination in our nation’s laws. Another such group, the Family Research Council, had this to say: “Fortunately, Governor Phil Bryant . . . who’s been tough as nails under pressure, didn’t roll over before—and has no plans of doing so now. The winner of FRC’s Samuel Adams Religious Freedom Award is already looking forward ‘to an aggressive appeal.’” And so, as in every seminal chapter of our nation’s history, we again see deep contestation around the interplay of faith, public life and human dignity. In the closing section of his ruling, Judge Reeves wrote: “Religious freedom was one of the building blocks of this great nation, and after the nation was torn apart, the guarantee of equal protection under law was used to stitch it back together. But HB 1523 does not honor that tradition of religion freedom, nor does it respect the equal dignity of all of Mississippi’s citizens.” From Mississippi to the Carolinas, I’ve heard many people echo Joce’s words. But I’ve also heard LGBT people in their 80s describe the feeling of being legally married, and kids talk about coming out in rural high schools and being met with support. All of this speaks to how nuanced LGBT life in the South is, and to the hope and urgency that so many of us live with each day.

Jasmine Beach-Ferrara is the executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, a nonprofit that promotes LGBT equality across the South. CSE is among the plaintiffs in Campaign for Southern Equality v. Bryant, one of the two federal 14 lawsuits that struck down HB 1523.

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

“HB 1523 does not honor that tradition of religion freedom.”

Mindsets Must Change to Stop Juvenile Crime

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ast week, a Performance Oil Equipment employee shot and killed 17-year-old Charles McDonald during what police described as an alleged auto burglary. The employee, a white male, saw the black youth near a gray Lexus in the parking lot which police said belonged to another employee. The white male, armed, exited the business and confronted the 17-year-old, then shot McDonald during the struggle. He died from two gunshot wounds to the chest.

McDonald, police confirmed, had run away from his mother’s vehicle. She had been driving him to the Henley-Young Juvenile Justice Center, although police say he was not scheduled to be booked. Did she intend to attempt to book him in herself? Was she just trying to scare him? We will never know unless the case goes to court. The boy himself, still a minor, never had a day in youth court, never had the chance to turn his life around.

What if the shooter was wrong? What if his decision robbed not only a mother of a son, but society of the opportunity to prove that criminal behavior can be corrected before it becomes a life-long career? Why wasn’t intervention and rehabilitation an option for Charles McDonald?

Instead, an armed citizen acted as judge, jury and executioner of a minor. Many defend his actions, even as they did the black homeowner who went outside and shot the unarmed Quardious Thomas, also black, for breaking into his car. Still, not even the Castle Doctrine provides a defense for walking outside and killing someone for committing a property crime. That’s what the legal system

is for: to prove guilt before punishment.

Assumptions that a citizen execution is appropriate for a property crime and that certain young people can’t be helped and should be locked up are at the crux of our juvenile-crime crisis. Those are the kinds of beliefs that keep our community from focusing on serious prevention efforts that save both the young people, and their victims. The sad truth is that even if Johnson had lived, he likely would have gone into a system that turned him into a worse criminal.

The 2016 BOTEC report about crime in Jackson addresses unpopular myths about juvenile crime. For one, it shows that any connection with the criminal-justice system, including juvenile detention, increases the risk of that young person continuing to commit crime. “Juveniles who spent time in correctional facilities are more likely to drop out of high school and on public assistance,” the report says. Dropping out of school, in turn, is the highest indicator that a young person will commit violent crime.

The 19-year-old in Sierra Mannie’s cover story was forced to repeat the ninth grade, again and again, due to his run-ins with the law. His last attempt at finishing school was cut short by his untucked shirt, he says. What is the point of the juvenile-justice system then, if it is not effectively rehabilitating juveniles, helping them move toward graduation? It is time that all Mississippi citizens decide that all lives matter, including that of a black teen committing a property crime, and band together to help those kids choose a better path.

Email letters and opinion to letters@jacksonfreepress.com, fax to 601-510-9019 or mail to 125 South Congress St., Suite 1324, Jackson, Mississippi 39201. Include daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, as well as factchecked.

Leslie McLemore II Action, Reaction

EDITORIAL Assistant Editor Amber Helsel Deputy News Editor Maya Miller Reporters Arielle Dreher,Tim Summers Jr. Education Reporting Fellow Sierra Mannie JFP Daily Editor Dustin Cardon Music Editor Micah Smith Events Listings Editor Latasha Willis Editorial Assistant Adria Walker Writers Bryan Flynn, Genevieve Legacy, Danie Matthews, LaTonya Miller, Greg Pigott, Julie Skipper Editorial Interns Morgan Gallon, Onelia Hawa, Tiffanie Heron, Christopher Peace, De’Aris Rhymes, Amber Taylor, Shelby Scott Harris, Kelsee Davis, Brooke Dutton Consulting Editor JoAnne Prichard Morris ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY Art Director Kristin Brenemen Advertising Designer Zilpha Young Staff Photographer Imani Khayyam ADVERTISING SALES Advertising Director Kimberly Griffin Sales and Marketing Consultant Myron Cathey Sales Assistant Mary Osborne BUSINESS AND OPERATIONS Distribution Manager Richard Laswell Distribution Raymond Carmeans, Clint Dear, Michael McDonald, Ruby Parks Assistant to the CEO Inga-Lill Sjostrom Operations Consultant David Joseph ONLINE Web Editor Dustin Cardon Web Designer Montroe Headd

CONTACT US: Letters letters@jacksonfreepress.com Editorial editor@jacksonfreepress.com Queries submissions@jacksonfreepress.com Listings events@jacksonfreepress.com Advertising ads@jacksonfreepress.com Publisher todd@jacksonfreepress.com News tips news@jacksonfreepress.com Fashion style@jacksonfreepress.com Jackson Free Press 125 South Congress Street, Suite 1324 Jackson, Mississippi 39201 Editorial (601) 362-6121 Sales (601) 362-6121 Fax (601) 510-9019 Daily updates at jacksonfreepress.com

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The Jackson Free Press welcomes thoughtful opinions. The views expressed in this newspaper are not necessarily those of the publisher or management of Jackson Free Press Inc. © Copyright 2016 Jackson Free Press Inc. All Rights Reserved

I

believe that everything doesn’t happen for a reason. Sometimes, reason is thrown out the window, and one simply becomes afflicted with either fortunate or unfortunate luck. Often, there is no sound reasoning to explain scoring a last-minute one-night stand with a gorgeous woman during last call or being hit by a bus after scoring a last-minute onenight stand with that gorgeous woman during last call. However, there are times in which some events happen for an obvious reason. The laws of cause and effect are clear. As Sir Isaac Newton stated, “To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.”

The gunmen in Dallas and Baton Rouge sought an equal reaction to the wave of “out of the closet” police brutality via camera technology. While we, the general public, vehemently disagree and condemn the reaction, we fail to acknowledge or give credence to the reason or action that caused the reaction. Let’s set aside the fact that both gunmen were veterans who more than likely suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. Lets also set aside the fact that the intersection of being a veteran and African American made them less likely to seek help in combating PTSD. Even though these components are immensely important factors, the driving force behind it was the action of police brutality.

Police brutality or genocide is a multigenerational cancer that is still affecting the African American community, and like any successful disease, the central goal is for the host carrying the disease to die.

When a host is infected, stopping or curing the cancer becomes the number one priority, and while searching for a slew of cures, trial by error occurs. Eventually, if the cancer metastasizes, desperation sets in, and with desperate times come desperate measures. There is a small sect of the African American community turning toward experimental medication, i.e., violence via vigilante vengeance, rooted in desperation, to cure the cancer of police brutality.

Even before Rodney King got beat like an 1845 Mississippi runaway, African Americans have continuously witnessed the lack of punishment done to law-enforcement officers after injustice takes place. In the case of many victims of unjust brutality or murder at the hands of

law enforcement, not much or any justice awaits them in the courtrooms. Hell, no one has still yet to answer for the murders of Eric Garner or Mike Brown. Neither case even made it past the initial grand jury proceedings. The blatant stripping away of due-process liberties in both cases has set a precedent that equity cannot be obtained in the courtroom. The lack of grand jury oversight fully displayed the conflict of interest between law enforcement and prosecutors. The prosecution in both cases exhibited grand-jury practices that are alien to many in the legal community, including conflicting witness testimony and allowing both potential defendants to share their side without threat of cross-examination.

Grand jury and trial jury acquittals of police officers or “wanna-be” police officers (See George Zimmerman) have left many in the African American community turning toward one another and asking, “Where else can we find justice?”

Well, for a few, it comes in the form of revenge aka “an eye for an eye.”

What both gunmen did to invoke their own form of justice was neither heroic nor valiant.

However, the action or the reason behind it was one of hopelessness and desperation.

So, even though 99.9 percent of the African American population would not commit the crime, they fully comprehend the action that ultimately contributed to the reason for the gunmen’s reactions.

In a perfect world, black folks being shot with their hands up wouldn’t exist, protesting wouldn’t be necessary, and violence wouldn’t be a last-ditch effort to some in order to seek justice. However, we live in a flawed world where police brutality is alive and well, protest is very necessary, and violence begets violence.

Unfortunately, to those who fall victim to violent acts (on both sides), it doesn’t matter if you are innocent and righteous.

Violent acts are committed with very little thought as to what the consequences may be for committing said violent acts.

The gunmen who brutally murdered the police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge lacked consequential sound minds, as did the police officers that brutally murdered Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. Action, reaction.

Leslie McLemore II is a Jackson native, now in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Jackson State University, North Carolina Central University and American University Washington.

Equity cannot be obtained in the courtroom.

CORRECTION: In last week’s Chicks We Love issue (Vol. 14, Issue 46, July 20-26), we incorrectly stated that Cassandra Welchlin’s grandmother, Eva Thompson, was a social worker. She was not.

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Editor-in-Chief Donna Ladd Publisher Todd Stauffer

15

Chronically Absent

Is Quality Education in Juvenile Detention Possible in Mississippi?

by Sierra Mannie

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July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

is a main contributor to chronic absenteeism in students. And when students miss school, they do worse there—marking a cycle of continuous involvement with crime.

But many years of work to improve juvenile-detention centers in Mississippi, in some cases as a result of lawsuits, may curb recidivism rates by increasing the quality of life in detention. Despite those efforts, however, Mississippi’s juveniledetention centers might still be unable to give detained students what they need the most—a quality education.

confirm a student’s discipline, the handbook considers box cutters weapons, and forbids students from having one in their personal possession on campus for non-instructional purposes.

McChristian said when he got to the office he thought momentarily about running, but knew it would be fruitless; popping balloons wasn’t a big deal to him, but

room instruction, and it was already his second time through the 9th grade.

Detention almost always has a negative impact on the education of young people.

A 2006 Justice Policy Institute report, “The Dangers of Detention: The Impact of Incarcerating Youth in Detention and Other Secure Facilities,” says 43 percent of incarcerated youth nationally receiving remedial

possession of a weapon was the straw on the camel’s back already weighed down by his earlier arrests for possession of marijuana and auto burglary.

“I was trying to explain it to them, that I didn’t bring it to school, I’d found it, but they weren’t trying to hear none of that,” he said. “When we went outside, they had a whole bunch of squad cars in the parking lot. Like I’d killed somebody.”

McChristian says Jim Hill kicked him out. He spent 47 days at Henley-Young Juvenile Justice Center where, he says, he did not get a hearing for 21 days­—before the consent decree placed on Henley-Young for alleged abuse against detainees.When he finally got out, it was summertime. He had missed a month and a half of regular class-

In-school detention The Rankin County Youth Detention Center sits down a stretch of country road in Pelahatchie, Miss.

A curving drive welcomes visitors to the front of the building; from the entrance, you can see saplings neatly pressed into the lawn like toothpicks in appetizers.

Jelin McChristian, 19, is pursuing Inside, the center’s his GED since leaving Jim Hill High School. He wants to be a administrative offices are therapist when he gets older. modern and polished, but the stone floors leading to where they detain kids are an unfriendly gray, the bluepainted walls interrupted only by laminated posters reminding the children of the center’s expectations for behavior.

But then, Clifford, a big red dog adeducation services in detention did not go back to school once they got out, and an- opted via the detention center’s dog foster other 16 percent went back to school, but program, springs up to be petted at the first sign of attention. dropped out after five months.

To the right of the computerized door

The report also found that two-thirds to three-fourths of 9th graders who did re- allowing access to the classrooms and living turn to school after incarceration withdraw spaces for the students, a sign adorned with within a year. Less than 15 percent of de- a cute Easter duck reads “hello!” It’s just like any other school hallway except segregated tained 9th graders finished high school.

And the future is grim for their adult by gender: a couple of girls watch a movie lives; a 2016 BOTEC study on crime in in their brightly decorated class loaded with Jackson and JPS says “those who have failed textbooks and musical instruments. The a grade, dropped out, or been chronically ab- boys do schoolwork in a noticeably more sent from school are more likely than others crowded classroom.

In a December 2014 “Dear Colleague” to become criminally active” and that “those involved in the juvenile-justice system are letter from the Departments of Justice and more likely to be criminally active as adults.” Education, then-Secretary of Education

Detention, like it was for McChristian, Arne Duncan and then-Attorney

Imani Khayyam

elin “Jay” McChristian, 19, said he gets excited when he is around a lot of people. Not like nervous, just that he’s social, he says. He’s tall and serious and thoughtful, but quick to smile. He is a selfdescribed extrovert.

McChristian went to school in the Jim Hill feeder pattern in Jackson Public Schools, like most all kids in Jackson’s Washington Addition neighborhood, where school is close enough to walk to. He liked school but said it bored him.

As a 17-year-old ninth grader, he was held back once in middle school and spent long periods out of school while staying in different behavioral institutions around the metro area. He says he could communicate but not empathize with his younger classmates. They weren’t on his level, he said.

Coursework didn’t challenge him. He had joined the band and learned to play the trombone, but he hardly ever got to play it anywhere.

“Too many discipline issues,” he told the Jackson Free Press during an interview at his house in the Washington Addition in June 2016.

So one day at school two years ago, McChristian, bored, found a box cutter in the hallway as he was changing classes; maintenance had left their supplies unattended.

With his new gadget, he ambled down the hallway, leaving a trail of balloons popped with the box cutter in his wake. By the time he had made it to class, that teacher had already seen him and alerted the front office.

He was hardly in the door, he said, when he learned the principal wanted to see him.

Three policemen, who were waiting for him in the principal’s office, arrested McChristian for possession of a weapon on school grounds. When asked for comment, Jackson Public Schools officials said that al16 though they cannot publicly comment on or

Judge Thomas H. Broome is the youth-court judge for Rankin County.

“Basically, they hand you some worksheets and tell you to get to work, but mostly they just leave you alone,” McChristian said.

“If you ask them for help, they’ll help you.

Otherwise, they don’t really ‘teach’ unless they want to.”

In Mississippi, when a student enters juvenile detention, the center acquires that student’s educational file from the child’s school district. The juvenile-detention center does state Department of Educationestablished assessments that show whether or not a student is on track or behind with Mississippi’s benchmarks, and that determines their coursework for their stay.

If a student has an Individualized Education Program (a document outlining an education plan for students with special needs), like McChristian did, the center is supposed to have exceptional-education teachers to provide services for them as well.

McChristian says he got special counseling at Jim Hill for ADHD, but did not get any special services at Henley-Young. JPS says it has two exceptional-education teachers assigned to the center, and that they do work with students’ IEPs. Usually, boys and girls are taught separately, and because students in juvenile detention can be anywhere from 10 to 17 years old, different grade levels are represented in each classroom. Jackson Public Schools serves Henley-Young’s education complex, which in turn detains students from all over Hinds County.

The Rankin County School District serves that county’s detention center, which serves kids not only in Rankin County but also from other areas, as every county does

not have its own place to keep incarcerated young people.

Selina Merrell, an education consultant who works with the Rankin County Youth Detention Center, says that facility sees success with students detained through its positive behavior interventions and supports system, which is known as PBIS.

PBIS focuses more on rewarding students for their successes rather than punishing them when they misbehave, with the goal of fostering a structured and compassionate classroom environment. School districts all over the state use the system. Experts say it can cut down on discipline problems when it is used with high fidelity.

“First we started with education component, but it really didn’t work, because the detention officers didn’t understand the process that the schools were using, and it made us really realize we needed to implement it facility-wide,” she said.

“Really what it was about was looking at their discipline systems and what data they were using to make decisions facility-wide in response to youth behavior.”

At the Rankin County Youth Detention Center, PBIS is a wraparound service.

That means PBIS policies are in place at the regular public schools and even at the alternative school in the Rankin County School District, and students are taught what to expect, behavior-wise, at every more DETENTION, see page 18

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July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

McChristian, who was also detained for a night in Rankin County before spending the bulk of his sentence at Henley-Young, says school in detention was easy.

Imani Khayyam

General Eric Holder wrote a letter to state superintendents and attorney generals across the nation, asking them to continue their investment in correctional education.

The letter acknowledged the inordinate numbers of incarcerated black, Latino and Native American youth, and the economic and social impacts of youth incarceration on society. It further explained that providing an education for detained young people is necessary to support communities and the kids’ future success. Or maybe preventing their detainment altogether.

“For youth who are confined in juvenile-justice facilities, providing high-quality correctional education that is comparable to offerings in traditional public schools is one of the most powerful-and cost-effective levers we have to ensure that youth are successful once released and are able to avoid future contact with the justice system,” the letter reads.

Rankin County Youth Court Judge Thomas Broome told the Jackson Free Press with some pain that before 2006, juveniledetention centers in the state didn’t have to have school. With few organized efforts to educate detained children, they missed days or weeks of school at a time.

This was problematic to Broome, because kids get in trouble the most during the school year. “[K]ids have more eyes on them during the school year,” Broome said. “A lot of these kids who have challenging behaviors have difficulty in regular classroom settings.”

17

CHRONICALLY ABSENT from page 17

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

Lockett calls the educational services offered at Henley-Young an intervention process. He says they make the most of the limited amount of time students spend there.

“We have a new program called Reengaging Students for Academic Progress. It’s a fast-track program in which we try to catch them up from the 9th grade and get them back to their cohort of students,” Lockett said. “We focus on them leaving. We know they have a strong possibility of dropping out of school once they leave there.”

Lockett says the detention center uses its transition coordinator and its principal in order to help facilitate a healthy transition back to students’ regular academic

Imani Khayyam

education facility in that district. So for compliance with creating structured educasome students, who might end up in both tional, rehabilitative or recreational programjuvenile detention and the alternative ming. Legislation passed in the past session school, there is a set standard of behavior. will create higher accountability standards

“If you go to a job, you want to for all juvenile-detention facilities in the state know what your job is, and their job in order to ensure the health and safety of dewhile they’re here is to improve their be- tained students. havior,” Broome said.

Broome says though PBIS works with Interrupted Lives kids, it really benefits the adults in places that Cassio Batteast, director of M.A.N. implement the system, because, like in regu- U.P., a Jackson nonprofit serving young lar schools, it focuses on how they respond to men and boys of color, volunteers often at children’s behavior.

Henley-Young, and previously worked at

Toni Kersh, bureau director for com- the Rankin County center. He says though pulsory school attendance enforcement, the classroom model at detention centers is alternative education and GED option for straightforward, the reality is that no place the Mississippi Department of Education, says the biggest challenge for Selina Merrell, facility-wide changes education consultant in the beginning was in the Rankin County training guards, some of School District and for the county’s juvenilewhom come from adult detention center, detention centers, to be says positive behavior sensitive to adolescent intervention and behavior. support, or PBIS, starts with the right behavior

“We forget how from adults. we grew up as teenagers,” she said. “The biggest shift for adults was going back and understanding children’s brain development.

We’re dealing with children who are impulsive and making rash decisions.

Sometimes you have to move the adults who are not willing to make operates perfectly. those changes,” she said.

Because there are students in different

Kersh says she hopes that the Rankin County center’s discipline program can not grades in the same class at the same time, only serve as a model site for the state, but classrooms can be crowded, and students also that the state can go on to become a might not have the opportunity to get one-on-one time with the teacher. And model for the rest of the nation to emulate.

A 2016 BOTEC study on crime in the despite assessments of students’ academic city of Jackson and JPS, however, reported level when they enter detention, it is difthat underfunding means schools have diffi- ficult for students to play catch-up if they culty implementing PBIS with district-wide were already behind in school in the first fidelity. Teachers have been critical of the sys- place—if they were even attending school tem, with some, the report shows, expressing at the time of arrest.

Batteast says discipline plays a role in nostalgia for days of zero-tolerance policies, a highly punitive system that typically results whether or not detained students have a in even more kids in the school-to-prison good day at school; if they’re ordered back to their cells for discipline problems, they miss pipeline.

Henley-Young itself has seen contro- yet another day of classroom instruction.

Dr. Calvin Lockett, director of special versy in the past due to allegations of abuse against detainees and providing inadequate programs for Jackson Public Schools, says care. Since the original onslaught of lawsuits, the school district serves the detention center a state-mandated court monitor does annual on a voluntary basis, providing subject-area reports assessing how effectively the facility and exceptional-education teachers. Lockett upholds the standards of the consent de- says a large majority of students detained at cree. Conditions have improved at Henley- Henley-Young at any given point are JPS Young, but the facility still fails to meet 26 of students, but that state law mandates that 71 compliance standards; Henley-Young is detained students must receive educational non-compliant with mental and psychiatric services 12 months out of the year, meaning 18 health-care standards and is just beginning they get summer-school instruction as well.

lives. Staff members meet with the student’s parents and home-school administrators and counselors in order to craft an individual plan that helps ease the student back to school. They work as close to that plan as possible, no matter how long the student was in detention, he added.

“You give a child hope when they get there and give them promise when they leave, (and) recidivism goes down,” he said.

“But if you just run them through it, put them back out and say ‘go for it’— of course they didn’t end up there by success.

How do you expect them to leave there by success? You have to provide that avenue and that approach for them. I think that’s what we’re good at in JPS as a whole, inclusive of our detention center.”

McChristian says he believed he got a good education during his times at Henley-Young. He says every time he was there, he felt like he could pay attention, something he attributes to the small class sizes. He didn’t have the same distractions had in his regular classes before.

But, he said, it still wasn’t enough to prepare him to go back to Jim Hill.

After a month and a half of juvenile

detention, McChristian tried school one last time. He re-enrolled in Jim Hill that fall, with the promise from his then-principal Bobby Brown that if he could behave himself, he would advance him to the 11th grade—where he was supposed to be.

But McChristian says things didn’t work out; his first and only day of 11th grade, he says, the principal saw him with his shirt untucked and made good on his promise. McChristian found himself back in ninth grade for another day, but the thought of doing it for a third year in a row was too much.

Brown says he has no recollection of this set of events with McChristian; he says though he worked closely with McChristian in order to help him stay on the right track, no administrative power exists that would arbitrarily allow him to promote or demote a student to different grade levels.

McChristian dropped out. Now he is in the process of getting his GED. “I never made it out of 9th grade,” McChristian said.

Like the Maytag Man The U.S. Department of Education calls access to high-quality education during the confinement of young people a “vitally important and cost-effective strategy’ for making sure they become productive community members after incarceration. DOE reports that the average cost to confine juveniles is $88,000 a year, with 55 percent of young people rearrested within a year of release.

The Justice Policy Institute reported that in 2014 the state of Mississippi paid $153,300 a year on average to confine a juvenile.

Broome says that though juvenile-detention centers may intervene depending on the severity of the infraction, juvenile detention isn’t his first choice for students.

“Detention is the last option. It is not the first tool in the toolkit we use. We try to empower the family and the child to seek community-based solutions first, such as counseling or drug and alcohol assessment, or some type of community involvement either through parochial involvement, church, mentors, Big Brother or Big Sister,” he said.

McChristian says after he gets his GED, he wants to go to college to become a therapist. He would probably go to Mississippi State, he says. “I want to be a therapist because I want to be able to be there for people and show them that I know where they’re coming from,” he said.

Broome, a Mississippi State graduate with a rubber Bully the Bulldog mask under his court bench, says he hopes one day that there will be no need for his job.

“My goal is to be like the Maytag man,” Broome said. “Bored.”

Sierra Mannie is an education reporting fellow for the Jackson Free Press and The Hechinger Report.

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19

Back to School le fi to o

ph

Kindergarten to Second Grade

Crayons (K: package of eight large, package of 16 regular, first and second: 24-pack) Washable markers Hand sanitizer Glue sticks Scissors (blunt for K-first, Fiskars preferred) Pencils (K: primary, first and second: No. 2 pencils) Manuscript tablets (K: six-line, first: eight-line) Pocket folders (K: two, first and second: six, assorted colors) Also Needed for Kindergarten Change of clothing (in a plastic bag, all clothing labeled with student’s name) Also Needed for First and Second Grade Erasers (Paper Mate Pink Pearl or Sanford Art Gum) Six vinyl folders 12-inch plastic ruler (should have lines of differing lengths indicating 1/4 inch, 1/8 inch and 1/16 inch markings)

by Dr. Timothy Quinn

A

s I evaluated a ninth grader on her first day back to school, her mom told me, “She woke up this morning complaining of stomach pain.”

The mom said the child complained that the pain was worsening while she was driving her to school, so the mom decided to bring her in for an evaluation. After finding no physical or laboratory abnormalities, I asked if one of my nurses and I could talk to the patient alone.

After the mom left the room, the now teary-eyed teenager told me of a couple of girls that she was not ready to see again.

School is stressful for students, and it can come in many forms, from bullies to academics and everything in between. My suggestions for parents in dealing with stress include increasing communication to detect

Imani Khayyam

School Supply Lists, K-5

Help STUDENTS Lower stress

Don’t let your kids be stressed out at school this year.

potential stressors such as bullies. In dealing with that issue, I advise parents to contact the school and speak

Also Need for Second Grade Colored pencils Notebook paper (wide-ruled) Spiral-bound notebooks or composition tablets (two, wide-ruled, standard paper size)

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

Third-Fifth Grade

20

Crayons (package of 48) Washable markers Colored pencils School glue (eight-ounce) Glue sticks Hand Sanitizer Manila Paper (12-inch by 18-inch) Scissors (Fiskars preferred) No. 2 Pencils Notebook paper (wide-ruled) Cursive tablet Spiral-bound notebooks or composition tablets (four, wide-ruled, standard paper size) Erasers (Paper Mate Pink Pearl or Sanford Art Gum) Pocket folders (six, assorted colors) 12-inch plastic ruler (should have lines of differing lengths indicating 1/4 inch, 1/8 inch and 1/16 inch markings) Also Needed for Fourth and Fifth Grades: Protractor Also Needed for Fifth Grade: Package of grid paper (one-centimeter square grids) This information is from jackson.k12.ms.us.

A list for grades 6-12 was not available.

with school authorities so they can intervene. This approach is different and much more highly advised than my dad’s approach many years ago that consisted of going to the bully’s home, and “fighting it out.”

Academic requirements can also be a major contributor of stress. Parents should help their children with time management, which will significantly help with their academic performance. It is a good idea to set dedicated time aside daily to allow for homework assignments and preparation for the next day.

The pressures of school and the associated social life can feel overwhelming to students. I advise parents to spend time with their children, and talk and listen to them.

Proper sleep, not overscheduling with too many extracurricular activities and good nutrition, including a balanced breakfast, will help.

Some stress is not always the worst scenario because it helps young students develop into stronger adults who are better able to manage the stresses that come later in life. But it becomes a problem when the student is overwhelmed and has negative results such as lower academic achievements or behavioral problems. As parents, we cannot totally protect our kids from stress, but we can help them develop healthy ways to cope with it and solve everyday problems.

Where You Can Get School Supplies Supplies McDade’s Markets (multiple locations, mcdadesmarkets.com); Ajax/Academic Solutions LLC (4807 N. State St., Suite 306, 601-398-4622); School Aids (301 Orchard Court, Ridgeland, 601-957-2755); N.U.T.S. (114.

Millsaps Ave., 601-355-7458)

Splash Back to School

Where: Jackson Zoo (2918 W. Capitol St., 601-352-2580)

What: Come to the zoo on Saturday, Aug. 13, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. for water slides, slip-n-slides in the amphitheater area, a dance party, face painting and more. The event will also have education organizations and vendors with information, back-to-school supplies or giveaways. It is included with regular admission, which is $10.25 for adults, $9.25 for seniors and $7.25 for children ages 2 to 12. Children under 2 are free. To see military discounts, visit jacksonzoo.org.

Backpacks and Bags Swell-o-Phonic (2906 N. State St., Suite 103, 601-981-3547); N.U.T.S. (114. Millsaps Ave., 601-355-7458); The Orange Peel (422 Mitchell Ave., 601364-9977); Repeat Street (242 Highway 51, Ridgeland, 601-605-9123); Buffalo Peak Outfitters (4500 Interstate 55 N., Suite 115, 601-366-2557)

JFPmenus.com Paid advertising section. Call 601-362-6121 x11 to list your restaurant

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21

LIFE&STYLE | food&drink

In High (Summer) Spirits

by Amber Helsel

22

and basically ripped her to shreds. … The stars in the sky, they didn’t like this. ... so they went to Earth, and they picked up the pieces of Ambhar. They brought them back into the heavens, and then, to signify the love that she had for mortal men, they sprinkled them across Mexico. Now, each of these little tears of Ambhar became the agave fruit, which looks like a star. … The gods are still very petulant, very emotional; they get angry. ... They take lightning, and Amber Helsel

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

I

n June, a group of people—some strangers, some not—gathered together at BRAVO! Italian Restaurant & Bar for drinks and fellowship. For this summer tasting, Assistant Manager and Bar Master Chris Robertson wanted to feature something a little lighter, resulting in the Spirits of Summer tasting on Saturday, June 18.

We started off with a John Daly cocktail, which is the alcoholic version of an Arnold Palmer. Robertson said that while Palmer was known for being wholesome and family-oriented, Daly was the opposite.

The golfer has struggled with alcoholism and other issues throughout his life and career.

At first, Daly, who is now sober, wasn’t OK with the cocktail being named after him, accusing some restaurants of trademark infringement. In 2012, he released the Original John Daly Cocktail. The cocktail is an Arnold Palmer (sweet tea and lemonade) with a shot of vodka.

The first spirit on the menu was Prairie Organic Cucumber Vodka. Robertson said he normally doesn’t like flavored vodka, but the Prairie vodka was an exception. James Conway, who is a former BRAVO! employee and current bar director at City Pork Brasserie in Baton Rouge, and Robertson talked about the distillery’s care in making sure its farm is organic (for example, the families that own the farms rely on native bats and birds to get rid of pests and use prairie fires to kill unwanted weeds), which comes out in the vodka’s flavor. The vodka was fresh and almost tasted like actual cucumbers.

The next spirit was Bobby’s Schiedam Dry Gin from the Netherlands. Sebastiaan von Bokkel, who owns the company, has called it “Dutch courage with Indonesian spirit.” The spirit comes from his grandfather Bobby Alfons’ recipe and blends oldworld Dutch jenever (malt-wine gin) with Indonesian spices. It smelled a bit like a mixture Froot Loops, butter and flowers. It’s cool going down, though it burned a little.

The next spirit was Calvados Morin, which is essentially a French apple brandy.

If it’s made in the U.S., it’s called applejack (Laird’s is the most popular brand). Calvados Morin began in France in 1945. Conway said the spirit has some earthiness that is absent from many New World spirits, and the flavor note comes from the French oak that it’s aged in. He said it imparts a smoother taste than American oak.

The next spirit we tried is a small-batch tequila called AMBHAR Plata Tequila. To go along with this spirit, Robertson told the story of the company’s name, AMBHAR, which is a reference to an old-world goddess. “As most goddesses do, at least the pretty ones, they unfortunately fall in love with mortals,” he said. “Now, the thing this, other gods hate this. They really don’t like it.

So the other gods all went over to Ambhar

On June 18, BRAVO! Italian Restaurant & Bar hosted a summer spirit tasting.

they rain lightning down all over Mexico, hitting all of these little starred fruits.

From cooking the agave, out pours a nectar. Mortals, fearing more wrath from the gods, took this, distilled it and then took it to the gods and said, ‘Here is this gift we give you. We call it tequila.’ The gods said, ‘OK, we’re good.’”

After the tequila, we tasted Knappogue Castle 12 Year Old Irish whiskey.

Robertson said Irish whiskey is inherently sweeter. The brand takes its name from Knappogue Castle in Quin, County Clare, Ireland. It tasted smoky and sweet, with hints of burnt caramel and vanilla.

The last liquor we tried was Plantation Pineapple Rum Stiggins’ Fancy, which some of the tasters recognized from last year’s Plantation rum tasting (see jfp.ms/ plantationrum).

It wasn’t overly sweet like some flavored rums are, and it tasted of caramel and pineapple.

The next tasting is “Bar 103,” where Robertson will teach participants how to make cocktails for a large party. It takes place at 3 p.m., Saturday, July 30, at BRAVO! I(4500 Interstate 55 N., Suite 244).

Tickets are $35. For more information, call 601-982-8111 or visit bravobuzz.com.

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THURSDAY 7/28

FRIDAY 7/29

SATURDAY 7/30

Paint Nite is at Biaggi’s in Ridgeland.

The Community Bike Ride is at Rainbow Natural Grocery Cooperative.

MPB “Amped & Wired” Live Taping: Lisa Mills is at Duling Hall.

BEST BETS July 27 - Aug. 3, 2016

History Is Lunch is at noon at the William F. Winter Archives and History Building (200 North St.). Sally Palmer Thomason discusses her book, “Delta Rainbow: The Irrepressible Betty Bobo Pearson.” Free; call 576-6998.

THURSDAY 7/28

Sneakerboxx Photography

The Bill Loehfelm and Ace Atkins Book Signing is at 5 p.m. at Eudora Welty House and Museum (1119 Pinehurst Place). Loehfelm (“Let the Devil Out”) and Atkins (“The Innocents”) sign books. $26 for “Let the Devil Out” and $27 for “The Innocents”; call Lemuria Books at 601-366-7619; lemuriabooks.com. … “Avenue Q” is at 7:30 p.m. at Actor’s Playhouse (121 Paul Truitt Lane, Pearl). Fondren Theatre Workshop presents the Tony Award-winning musical about puppets who search for purpose. Additional dates: July 29, 7:30 p.m., July 30, 2 p.m., July 30, 7:30 p.m. $15-$20; call 601-301-2281; fondrentheatreworkshop.org.

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WEDNESDAY 7/27

Artist and graphic designer Will Brooks of JellyDonut Studios presents his latest work at POP Portraits: The People of NMAC, Friday, July 29, at the North Midtown Arts Center.

… MINDgasm Erotic Poetry: “NOLA x JACKTOWN Edition” is at 9 p.m. at Soul Wired Café (111 Millsaps Ave.).

Featured poets include Miss Creoleness and Immaculate.

Enjoy purple and white chocolate-covered strawberries, wine specials and more. For ages 21 and up. Doors open at 9 p.m. $10 cover; call 863-6378.

SATURDAY 7/30

The Race at Renaissance is at 8 a.m. at the Renaissance at Colony Park (1000 Highland Colony Parkway, Ridgeland). The Nunchuck Bunnies host the event. Cyclists race to compete for cash prizes. Fees increase by $15 after July 27.

Additional date: July 31, 6:30 a.m. $25-$50; call 601-5190900; email nunchuckbunnies@ gmail.com. … The City with

by Micah Smith Soul Awards is at 7 p.m. at the Metrocenter Mall (3645 Highway 80 W.). At Center Court. jacksonfreepress.com The Jackson Music Awards AsFax: 601-510-9019 sociation awards local Jackson Daily updates at businesses in nine categories. Injfpevents.com cludes entertainment. $20; call 800-745-3000.

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

events@

Mississippi-based electronic-pop artist Briar Lunar performs Sunday, July 31, at Offbeat.

FRIDAY 7/29

POP Portraits: The People of NMAC is from 5 to 9 p.m. at the North Midtown Arts Center (121 Millsaps Ave.). See the work of artist and graphic designer Will Brooks of JellyDonut Studios. The event is held in conjunction with 24 Final Friday. Free; call 372-8088; find the event on Facebook.

SUNDAY 7/31

The 38th Annual Mississippi Gospel Music Awards is at 5 p.m. at the Jackson Marriott (200 E. Amite St.). Recipients receive awards in 27 categories. Includes entertainment. $20, $30 VIP; call 601-981-4035 or 800-745-3000; jmaainc.com. … Briar Lunar performs from 8 to 11 p.m. at Offbeat (151 Wesley Ave.). 3rd Eye Booking Company is the host. The Mississippi-based electronic-pop singer performs to support her latest EP, “March Badness.” Kerry

Thomas, D Mcday and Orlincia also perform. Also see artwork from Chanelle Beaumont. $10; call 601-376-9404; find the event on Facebook.

MONDAY 8/1

The 42nd Annual Jackson Music Awards is at 5 p.m. at the Jackson Marriott (200 E. Amite St.). The theme is “A Journey Through Soul.” Rob Jay and Alice Marie are the emcees. Recipients receive awards in 28 categories. Includes entertainment. $20, $30 VIP; call 601-981-4035 or 800-745-3000; jmaainc.com.

TUESDAY 8/2

An Artist’s Look with Bebe Wolf is from 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at the Mississippi Museum of Art (380 S. Lamar St.). The Mississippi artist leads a casual, conversational gallery experience, sharing personal reflections and connections to pieces from the exhibition “When Modern Was Contemporary.” $20, $8 members (includes admission to the museum); call 601-960-1515; msmuseumart.org.

WEDNESDAY 8/3

History Is Lunch: Eric Darnell Pritchard is at noon at the William F. Winter Archives and History Building (200 North St.). The assistant professor of English at the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign speaks on the topic, “Vicksburg Fashion Designer Patrick Kelly.”

Free; call 601-576-6998. … Odie Lindsey signs copies of his book, “We Come to Our Senses,” at 5 p.m. at Lemuria Books (Banner Hall, 4465 Interstate 55 N., Suite 202).

Reading at 5:30 p.m. $25.95 book; call 601-366-7619; email info@lemuriabooks.com; lemuriabooks.com.

Events at William F. Winter Archives and History Building (200 North St.) • History Is Lunch: Sally Palmer Thomason July 27, noon. The author discusses her book, “Delta Rainbow: The Irrepressible Betty Bobo Pearson.”

Free; call 601-576-6998.

• History Is Lunch: Eric Darnell Pritchard Aug. 3, noon. The assistant professor of English at the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, speaks on the topic, “Vicksburg Fashion Designer Patrick Kelly.” Free; call 601-576-6998.

Final Friday July 29, 5-9 p.m., at Midtown Arts District. Held on the last Friday of each month, tour businesses to enjoy art, music and shopping.

Free; follow Midtown Jackson on Facebook.

City with Soul Awards July 30, 7 p.m., at Metrocenter Mall (3645 Highway 80 W.). At Center Court. The Jackson Music Awards Association awards Jackson businesses in nine categories.

Includes entertainment. $20; call 800-745-3000.

Events at Jackson Marriott (200 E. Amite St.) • 38th Annual Mississippi Gospel Music Awards July 31, 5 p.m. Recipients receive awards in 27 categories. Includes entertainment. $20, $30 VIP; call 601-981-4035; jmaainc.com.

KIDS

STAGE & SCREEN

Thomas & Friends: Explore the Rails Special Event July 30, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., at Mississippi Children’s Museum (2145 Highland Drive). Learn to build a locomotive or a new invention. Included with admission ($10, children under 12 months free); call 601-981-5469; mschildrensmuseum.org.

“Avenue Q” July 28-29, 7:30 p.m., July 30, 2 p.m., July 30, 7:30 p.m., at Actor’s Playhouse (121 Paul Truitt Lane, Pearl). Fondren Theatre Workshop presents the Tony Award-winning musical about puppets searching for their purpose. $15-$20; call 301-2281; fondrentheatreworkshop.org.

FOOD & DRINK

Capitol City Summer Comedy Jam July 30, 8-10:30 p.m., at Thalia Mara Hall (255 E. Pascagoula St.). Comedians include Corey Holcomb, Red Grant, J.J. Williamson, Robert Powell and Rita B. $36-$56; call 800-745-3000.

Firkin Friday July 29, 5 p.m., at Saltine Oyster Bar (622 Duling Ave., Suite 201). Enjoy beer from a selected brewery on the last Friday of each month. Limited supply. Beer for sale; call 601982-2899; saltinerestaurant.com.

SPORTS & WELLNESS Community Bike Ride July 29, 6 p.m., at Rainbow Natural Grocery Cooperative (2807 Old Canton Road). Bikers ride to a different destination on the last Friday of each month. Free; follow Jackson Bike Advocates on Facebook.

CONCERTS & FESTIVALS Byram Swinging Bridge Festival and 5K July 29, noon-9 p.m., July 30, 10 a.m.-9 p.m., at Jackson Dragway (7557 S. Siwell Road, Byram). Includes a carnival and motorized wagon ride on July 29, and a 5K race, “Byram Idol” singing competition, and car and motorcycle show on July 30. Dexter Allen, Shadz of Grey, Jarekus Singleton and Skylar Laine perform. Free admission; call 601-3727746; byram-ms.us.

• 42nd Annual Jackson Music Awards Aug. 1, 5 p.m. Recipients receive awards in 28 categories.

Includes entertainment. $20, $30 VIP; call 601981-4035 or 800-745-3000; jmaainc.com.

2016 BancorpSouth Sports Hall of Fame Induction Weekend: Meet the Inductees July 30, 10-11:30 a.m., at Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum (1152 Lakeland Drive). Inductees include Sean Brewer, Willie Heidelburg, Kay James, Jackie Sherrill, Larry Smith and Wesley Walls. Admission $5, $3.50 seniors and students, 5 and under free; call 982-8264; msfame.com.

Flash Bang! Art & Music Block Party July 30, 7 p.m.-1:45 a.m., at One Block East (642 Tombigbee St.). Includes street performers, live painters, vendors and more. Enjoy music from iLL. GATES, Malignate, MayneLayne, Dem Jams Yem and DJ Uri. For ages 18 and up. $15-$25; call 944-0203; flashbangevents.com.

2016 Image Awards Program and Scholarship Banquet July 29, 7:14 p.m., at Mississippi e-Center at Jackson State University (1230 Raymond Road). Honorees includes the Maloney Brothers, Isiac Jackson and more. Benefits the Mississippi Kidney Foundation. $50; call 769-610-4046.

The Race at Renaissance July 30, 8 a.m., July 31, 6:30 a.m., at Renaissance at Colony Park (1000 Highland Colony Parkway, Ridgeland). The Nunchuck Bunnies host. Cyclists race to compete for cash prizes. Fees increase by $15 after July 27. $25-$50; email nunchuckbunnies@gmail.com.

• MPB “Amped & Wired” Live Taping: Lisa Mills July 30, 8 p.m. Mississippi native and multigenre singer Lisa Mills performs. $15 in advance, $20 at the door; call ardenland.net.

SLATE

the best in sports over the next seven days

by Bryan Flynn

This is the last week before the start of the Olympics and preseason football. If you plan to binge-watch sports, use this week to get those projects done that you’ve put off this summer.

Thursday, July 28 a College sports (midnight-midnight, SECN): The University of Mississippi takes over the SEC Network for 24 hours, with past games, documentaries and much more for fans of all Rebels sports.

Friday, July 29 CFL (9 p.m.-midnight, ESPN2): Former ASU wide receiver Emmanuel Arceneaux takes the field with the British Columbia Lions to face former USM running back Tory Harrison and the Calgary Stampeders.

Saturday, July 30 AFL (6-9 p.m., ESPN3): Former JSU star Qua Cox and the Tampa Bay Storm hit the road to face the Jacksonville Sharks in the season finale.

Sunday, July 31 MLB (7-10 p.m., ESPN): The Chicago Cubs, one of the best in the MLB, host the Seattle Mariners, who are trying to stay alive in the wild-card hunt.

Monday, Aug. 1 MLB (6-9 p.m., ESPN): Tune in for the battle for New York, as the Yankees and Mets battle for the bragging rights in the Big Apple.

Tuesday, Aug. 2 Basketball (6-8 p.m., ESPN): Watch the championship game of The Basketball Tournament, in which the winning team gets $2 million for its victory.

Wednesday, Aug. 3 Soccer (5-8 p.m., NBCSN): The opening ceremony isn’t until Friday night, but Olympic action begins on the pitch, as the defending gold-medalist women of the USA take on New Zealand.

By the end of July, every NFL team will be in camp, preparing for the coming season. The New Orleans Saints’ rookies reported for training on July 20, and veterans will report on July 27.

Follow Bryan Flynn at jfpsports.com, @jfpsports and at facebook.com/jfpsports.

Events at Duling Hall (622 Duling Ave.)

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• Star & Micey July 31, 7:30 p.m. The rock band from Memphis promotes their self-titled album. $5 in advance, $10 at the door, $3 surcharge for under 21; ardenland.net.

Bonnie Bishop July 30, 9:30 p.m., at Hal & Mal’s (200 Commerce St.). The singer-songwriter performs to promote. $15 in advance, $20 at the door, $3 surcharge for under 21; ardenland.net.

LITERARY & SIGNINGS Bill Loehfelm and Ace Atkins Book Signing July 28, 5 p.m., at Eudora Welty House and Museum (1119 Pinehurst Place). The autors sign their latest books. $26 for “Let the Devil Out” and $27 for “The Innocents”; lemuriabooks.com.

“We Come to Our Senses” Aug. 3, 5 p.m., at Lemuria Books (Banner Hall, 4465 Interstate 55 N., Suite 202). Odie Lindsey signs books. $25.95 book; call 601-366-7619; lemuriabooks.com.

CREATIVE CLASSES Paint Nite at Biaggi’s July 28, 7-9 p.m., at Biaggi’s (970 Highland Colony Parkway, Ridgeland). Paint Nite hosts the event featuring painting and cocktails. $25-$45; call 601-354-6600; email meredith. gf@paintnite.com; paintnite.com.

Bar 103: Pool and Patio Edition July 30, 3 p.m., at BRAVO! Italian Restaurant & Bar (Highland Village, 4500 Interstate 55 N.). Learn to make six cocktails for parties. Limited to 12 guests. RSVP. $35 per person; call 982-8111; bravobuzz.com.

Check jfpevents.com for updates and more listings, or to add your own events online. You can also email event details to events@jacksonfreepress.com to be added to the calendar. The deadline is noon the Wednesday prior to the week of publication.

ALL STADIUM SEATING Listings for Fri. 7/29 – Thurs. 8/4 Jason Bourne PG13 Ghostbusters (2016) PG13 Bad Moms R The Infiltrator R Nerve PG13 The Secret Life of Ice Age: Collision Pets PG Course PG Mike and Dave 3-D Ice Age: Need Wedding Collision Course PG Dates R Star Trek Beyond PG13 The Legend of Tarzan PG13 3-D Star Trek Beyond PG13 Free State of Jones R Lights Out PG13 Finding Dory PG Hillary’s America Central Intelligence PG13 PG13

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Dream Cult: Working on ‘Weekend’

by Maya Miller

W

pand boundaries, whether it’s him finding inspiration for lyrics in old text messages or Boyd rereading things he wrote when he was younger. Boyd says the musicians like to write in the way that they feel each song should be written and performed, not following one strategic model.

One of the most important things to remember in being a band is planning, Boyd

courtland Wells

hat began as a group of Jackson friends jamming together as surf-rock band The Weekend Kids has turned into a music career for the members of ’80s-inspired indie-pop act Dream Cult.

Vocalist and rhythm guitarist Hayden Boyd, drummer Cody Bass, bassist Salar Almakky, guitarist Travis Bass, and guitarist and key-

(Left to right) Justin Moreira, Hayden Boyd, Salar Almakky, Cody Bass and Travis Bass of Jackson-based indie-pop band Dream Cult will release their debut fulllength album, “Weekend,” Friday, July 29.

board player Justin Moreira, will release their debut full-length album, “Weekend,” through Cincinnati-based label Old Flame Records on Friday, July 29.

In the early days of Dream Cult, the band of high-school friends mostly performed at local events such as Fondren’s First Thursday before embarking on regular weekend tours 2013. Boyd said it was after they began performing outside of Jackson regularly that they decided to change their name in 2014 and cracked down on recording an album, which was an almost two-year process. They wrote more than 40 songs, but only 11 tracks made it to “Weekend,” which they recorded last spring and named as an homage to their previous moniker.

“We wanted it to sound pristine, and that’s what we set these songs aside for,” Almakky says. “We really wanted those songs to shine, and we dedicated those songs to that.”

The band drew on indie-rock and new-wave influences, such as The Cure, to write its latest batch of music. While they recorded drums and bass at studio The Brown Owl in Berry Hill, Tenn., the musicians tracked guitars and vocals themselves before sending the album to Michael Freeman of Los Angeles-based EastWest Studios for mixing and mastering. While every member plays guitar and dabbles in songwriting, Almakky says they also try to find new ways to create and ex-

says. On their tours, sometimes a venue will cancel a show, and instead of getting frustrated with the process, they make the best of it by spending time working on new music or seeing friends that they hadn’t in awhile.

“If you expect the worst, then you’re going to be let down,” Boyd says. “If something falls through, it’s not the end.”

While listeners have only been able to hear the first two singles from “Weekend” thus far—“Convince Me” premiered through The Big Takeover on June 1, and “Limousines” premiered through Impose Magazine on July 21—Dream Cult already has new material lined up for its next record, which Almakky says has kept the band in the creative loop and working to write songs that are fun and relatable that people will connect with.

“We’ve been kind of listening to the same songs since January of last year, but it’s like no one has heard it except for us at this point, so it will still be new to people,” he says. “Once we kind of grasped that, it felt like we could kind of breathe again. ...

People are still given a chance to have a reception to it, and that’s exciting.”

Dream Cult’s “Weekend” is available Friday, July 29, at oldflamerecords.com.

The band’s album release party is at 7 p.m., Saturday, July 30, at Big Sleepy’s (208 W. Capitol St.). Admission is $5. For more information, find Dream Cult on Facebook, Instagram and Bandcamp.

Music listings are due noon Monday to be included in print and online listings: music@jacksonfreepress.com.

JULY 27 - Wednesday Char - Tommie Vaughn 6 p.m.

Fitzgerald’s - Johnny Crocker 7:30 p.m.

Hal & Mal’s - New Bourbon Street Jazz Kathryn’s - The Owens Brothers w/ Danny Scallions 6:30 p.m. free Kemistry - Open Mic Night 9 p.m.

601-665-2073 McB’s - Acoustic Crossroads 8 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Barry Leach 6:30 p.m.

Shucker’s - Silverado 7:30 p.m. free Table 100 - Charles Scott 5-9 p.m.

JULY 28 - Thursday Char - Tommie Vaughn 6 p.m.

Fenian’s - Joe Carroll Fitzgerald’s - Don Grant 7:30 p.m.

Hal & Mal’s - D’Lo Trio free The Hideaway - Mushroomhead 8 p.m. $20 advance $25 door Iron Horse Grill - Jimmy “Duck” Holmes 6 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Dylan Moss Band 6:30 p.m. free Martin’s - Ocean Disco 10 p.m.

Offbeat - They Sound Weird feat.

Microwave Miracles & Lisbon Deaths 7-11 p.m. $5 Pelican Cove - Brian Jones 6:30 p.m.

Shucker’s - Road Hogs 7:30 p.m. free Soulshine, Ridgeland - Jessie Howell 7 p.m.

Sylvia’s - Thursday Night Live feat.

The Blues Man & Sunshine McGhee 9 p.m. free

Pelican Cove - The Stonecoats 7 p.m.

Ole Tavern - Nellie Mack Project Pop’s Saloon - Fade2Blue Reed Pierce’s, Byram - Faze 4 9 p.m. free Shucker’s - Travelin’ Jane 5:30 p.m. free; Lovin Ledbetter 8 p.m. $5; Chad Perry (deck) 10 p.m. free Soulshine, Flowood - Brian Smith & Shaun Patterson 7 p.m.

Soulshine, Ridgeland - Andy Tanas 8-11 p.m.

TurnUp Studios - Love SOL Film Fundraiser feat. Clouds & Crayons, Antwone Perkins & Physics for Poets 6-10 p.m. $5 WonderLust - DJ Taboo 8 p.m.

July 30 - Saturday Ameristar Bottleneck Blues Bar, Vicksburg - Emerson Hart of Tonic 8 p.m. $10 Big Sleepy’s - Dream Cult Album Release w/ Swear Tapes & Robert Chisolm 7 p.m. $5 Duling Hall - Amped & Wired Taping feat. Lisa Mills 8 p.m. $15 advance $20 door ardenland.net F. Jones Corner - Jamell “MellyMel” Richardson midnight $10 Fenian’s - Mark Taylor Hal & Mal’s - Bonnie Bishop 9:30 p.m. $15 advance $20 door ardenland.net

JULY 31 - Sunday Char - Big Easy Three 11 a.m.; Tommie Vaughn 6 p.m.

Duling Hall - Star & Micey 7:30 p.m. $5 advance $10 door ardenland.net The Hideaway - Mike & Marty’s Jam Session Kathryn’s - The Axe-identals 6 p.m. free Offbeat - Briar Lunar, Kerry Thomas, D Mcday & Orlincia 8-11 p.m. $10 or two for $15 Pelican Cove - Andy Tanas noon; Patterson & Alexander 5 p.m.

Shucker’s - Greenfish (deck) 3:30 p.m. free Sombra Mexican Kitchen - John Mora 11 a.m.

Wellington’s - Andy Hardwick 11 a.m.

Aug. 1 - Monday Char - Tommie Vaughn 6 p.m.

Fitzgerald’s - Hunter Gibson 7:30 p.m.

Hal & Mal’s - Central MS Blues Society (rest) 7 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Joseph LaSalla 6:30 p.m. free Martin’s - Open Mic 10 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Aaron Coker 6:30 p.m.

Table 100 - Andrew Pates 6-9 p.m.

Aug. 2 - Tuesday

JULY 29 - Friday Ameristar Bottleneck Blues Bar, Vicksburg - The Anteeks 8 p.m. free Cerami’s - Linda Blackwell & James Bailey 6:30-9:30 p.m. free Char - Ronnie Brown 6 p.m.

County Seat, Livingston - Larry Brewer 7-11 p.m.

F. Jones Corner - Jamell “MellyMel” Richardson midnight $10 Fenian’s - Risko Danza Fitzgerald’s - Ronnie & Grant McGee w/ TJ Hall 7:30 p.m.

Hal & Mal’s - Barry Leach free The Hideaway - Joking Around Comedy feat. Ronnie Jordan, Mope Williams, Comedian Q & more 8 p.m. $20 advance $25 door; Splendid Chaos 9 p.m. $10 Iron Horse Grill - Adib Sabir Trio 9 p.m.

Jackson Dragway, Byram - Swinging Bridge Festival feat. Jarekus Singleton Kathryn’s - Acoustic Crossroads 7 p.m. free M Bar - Flirt Fridays feat. DJ T. Lewis free Martin’s - Passing Parade & And the Echo 10 p.m.

McB’s - Chasin’ Dixie 8 p.m.

Soulshine, Flowood - Stace & Cassie 7 p.m.

Soulshine, Ridgeland - Stevie Cain 7:30-10:30 p.m.

Nellie Mack Project The Hideaway - Jason Miller Band 9 p.m. $10 Iron Horse Grill - Barry Leach Band 9 p.m.

Jackson Dragway, Byram - Swinging Bridge Festival feat. Skylar Laine Kathryn’s - Shadz of Grey 7 p.m. free M Bar - Saturday Night Live feat. DJ Shanomak free Martin’s - Southern Komfort 10 p.m.

McB’s - May Day 7 p.m.

Offbeat - Marcel P. Black Album Release w/ Jabee, So Savvy Wit’It & Viciouz 9 p.m. $5 Ole Tavern - Dark Waters Pelican Cove - Sofa Kings 7 p.m.

Pop’s Saloon - Sarah Ross 7 p.m. $12 advance $15 door Reed Pierce’s, Byram - Sid Thompson & DoubleShotz 9 p.m. free Shucker’s - Silverado (deck) 3:30 p.m. free; Lovin Ledbetter 8 p.m. $5; Todd Smith (deck) 10 p.m. free

7/29 - Swear Tapes - Proud Larry’s, Oxford 7/29 - The Bar-Kays - Island View Casino Resort, Gulfport 7/30 - Stryper & Skid Row - Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Biloxi 7/30 - Culture Club - IP Casino. Resort & Spa, Biloxi 7/31 - Ray LaMontagne - Saenger Theatre, New Orleans

Char - Tommie Vaughn 6 p.m.

Fenian’s - Open Mic Fitzgerald’s - Larry Brewer 7:30 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Silverado 6:30 p.m. free Last Call Sports Grill - Top-Shelf Tuesdays feat. DJ Spoon 9 p.m.

Margarita’s - John Mora 6 p.m.

Pelican Cove - Richard Lee Davis 6:30 p.m.

Table 100 - Chalmers Davis 6-9 p.m.

Aug. 3 - Wednesday Char - Tommie Vaughn 6 p.m.

Fitzgerald’s - Johnny Crocker 7:30 p.m.

Kathryn’s - Larry Brewer & Doug Hurd 6:30 p.m. free Kemistry - Open Mic Night 9 p.m.

601-665-2073 Pelican Cove - Acoustic Crossroads 6:30 p.m.

Shucker’s - Silverado 7:30 p.m. free Table 100 - Charles Scott 5-9 p.m.

Send music listings to Micah Smith at music@ jacksonfreepress.com by noon Monday.

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

MUSIC | live

Dag Anderson

DIVERSIONS | music

27

OPEN NOW - DECEMBER 30 AT THE SCIENCE MUSEUM Who says fear can’t be fun? Learn why your heart races and knees shake when you’re scared.

Explore the Fear Lab to learn how your brain responds to fear. Don’t be afraid...come to the Science Museum for Goose Bumps! Learn more at www.mdwfp.com/museum.

presented by:

Mississippi

01.07.17

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

MArathon 28

years Running

Jackson, Miss. www.msbluesmarathon.com Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi, A Mutual Insurance Company, is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

Last Week’s Answers 31 Battleground of 1836 33 Power shake ingredient, maybe 34 Get ___ start 35 “Julius Caesar” phrase before “and let slip the dogs of war” 36 Minor symptom of whiplash 39 One way to enter a hidden cave?

40 Gp. concerned with hacking 41 “Hollywood Squares” veteran Paul 44 Talk show host Geraldo 45 No longer upset 46 Beaux ___ (gracious acts)

“Willard’s Theme” —featuring a few minor characters.

Across

1 “... why ___ thou forsaken me?”

5 Agitated state 11 “Cool” amount of money 14 Largest of seven 15 Pacify 16 “UHF” actress Sue ___ Langdon 17 Cardio boxing animal?

19 ___ juste 20 Colgate rival, once 21 Two-tone cookie 22 Exhale after a long run 23 Lewis and Helmsley, for two 25 Servicemember with the motto “We build. We fight”

27 Nightfall, in an ode 28 2012 Republican National Convention city 32 How some people learn music 33 Chemical analysis kit used on the banks of a waterway?

35 One of its letters stands for “Supported” 37 Family surname in a 2016 ABC sitcom 38 Portraits and such 39 Shopping center featuring earthtoned floor coverings?

42 “All Quiet on the Western Front” star Lew

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Sign up at JFPDaily.com

Best Fried Chicken in Town & Best Fried Chicken in the Country -Best of Jackson 2003-2016-

-Food & Wine Magazine-

707 N Congress St., Jackson | 601-353-1180 Mon thru Fri: 11am-2pm • Sun: 11am - 3pm

For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800 655-6548. Reference puzzle #782.

BY MATT JONES Last Week’s Answers

Down

1 Dicker over the price 2 Snowden in Moscow, e.g.

3 San ___ (Hearst Castle site) 4 “What I do have are a very particular set of skills” movie 5 25-Across’s gp.

6 Launch cancellation 7 Serengeti sound 8 Raison d’___ 9 Chases away 10 Auto racer ___ Fabi 11 Her bed was too soft 12 Sans intermission 13 11th in a series 18 Classic violin maker 22 2002 eBay acquisition 24 Delight in 26 Go out, like the tide 29 Meal handouts 30 Newman’s Own competitor

48 Word after war or oil 50 Medicine dispenser 53 Drug ___ 54 Pound of poetry 55 “Burning Giraffes in Yellow” painter 58 Some movie ratings 59 Prefix meaning “power” ©2016 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@ jonesincrosswords.com)

“Kaidoku”

Each of the 26 letters of the alphabet is represented in this grid by a number between 1 and 26. Using letter frequency, word-pattern recognition and the numbers as your guides, fill in the grid with well-known English words (HINT: since a Q is always followed by a U, try hunting down the Q first). Only lowercase, unhyphenated words are allowed in kaidoku, so you won’t see anything like STOCKHOLM or LONG-LOST in here (but you might see AFGHAN, since it has an uncapitalized meaning, too). Now stop wasting my precious time and SOLVE! psychosudoku@gmail.com

July 27 - August 2 , 2016 • jfp.ms

BY MATT JONES

43 Black, as a chimney 44 Krivoy ___, Ukraine 47 Old Navy’s sister store 49 Belgian ___ 51 Bit of anguish 52 Got 103 percent on (including extra credit) 56 Peace advocates 57 The ___ Glove (“As Seen on TV” mitt) 58 Neighborhood a long way from the nearest pie?

60 “Funky Cold Medina” rapper Tone ___ 61 “Amazing,” to ‘80s dudes 62 Great Lakes port 63 Nickname of 2004 Cooperstown inductee Dennis 64 Cannabis variety 65 What you might say when you get the theme answers (or if you can’t figure them out)

29

HOME

Sweet HOME EQUITY USE IT WHENEVER,

Back-to-School OPEN HOUSE

Thurs., Aug 4th 11am-2pm Food, Photo Booth, Games & Prices

CATHOLIC SCHOOL DIFFERENCE

Sister Thea Bowman Catholic School PreK- Grade 6 | 601-352-5441 | www.theabowmanschool.com

CE

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ER VI

T FAI

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*For qualified borrowers. Property must be owner occupied and located in the state of Mississippi. Restrictions and limitations apply. Call for more details.

THE

Enrollment is underway now in all Catholic Diocese of Jackson schools

FOR WHATEVER

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OWLEDGE

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Saint Richard Catholic School PreK- Grade 6 | 601-366-1157 | www.strichardschool.org Saint Anthony Catholic School PreK-Grade 6 | 601-607-7054 | www.stanthonyeagles.org Saint Joseph Catholic School Grades 7-12 | 601-898-4800 | www.stjoebruins.com

TASTE of INDIA

TASTE of TUESDAY – SUNDAY INDIA LUNCH 11:00 AM TO 2:30 PM DINNER 4:30 TO 9:00 PM (Closed Monday)

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

957 HIGHWAY 80 E CLINTON MS 39056 601-272-3000

30

Lunch Special

11:00 am - 2:00 pm 4925 I 55 N, Suite 105 • Jackson, MS 39211 601-368-8623

Monday - Thursday: 11:00 am - 9:30 pm Friday : 11:00 am - 10:00 pm • Saturday: 10:00 am - 10:00 pm Sunday: 10:00 am - 9:00 pm

Now Open for Lunch on Saturday 11:00 am - 2:00 pm

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BULLE TIN BOARD: Classifieds As low as $20! jfpclassifieds.com

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):

Be alert for white feathers gliding on the wind. Before eating potato chips, examine each one to see if it bears a likeness of Rihanna or the Virgin Mary. Keep an eye out, too, for portents like robots wearing dreadlocked wigs or antique gold buttons lying in the gutter or senior citizens cursing at invisible Martians. The appearance of anomalies like these will be omens that suggest you will soon be the recipient of crazy-good fortune. But if you would rather not wait around for chance events to trigger your good luck, simply make it your fierce intention to generate it. Use your optimism-fueled willpower and your flair for creative improvisation. You will have abundant access to these talents in the coming weeks.

You have just begun your big test. How are you doing so far? According to my analysis, the preliminary signs suggest that you have a good chance of proving the old maxim, “If it doesn’t make you so crazy that you put your clothes on inside-out and try to kiss the sky until you cry, it will help you win one of your biggest arguments with Life.” In fact, I suspect we will ultimately see you undergo at least one miraculous and certifiably melodramatic transformation. A wart on your attitude could dissolve, for example. A luminous visitation may heal one of your blind spots. You might find a satisfactory substitute for kissing the sky.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):

For many years, my occupation was “starving artist.” I focused on improving my skills as a writer and musician, even though those activities rarely earned me any money.

To ensure my survival, I worked as little as necessary at low-end jobs—scrubbing dishes at restaurants, digging ditches for construction companies, delivering newspapers in the middle of the night and volunteering for medical experiments. During the long hours spent doing tasks that had little meaning to me, I worked diligently to remain upbeat. One trick that worked well was imagining future scenes when I would be engaged in exciting creative work that paid me a decent wage. It took a while, but eventually those visions materialized in my actual life. I urge you to try this strategy in the coming months, Libra. Harness your mind’s eye in the service of generating the destiny you want to inhabit.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):

You have every right to celebrate your own personal Independence Day sometime soon. In fact, given the current astrological omens, you’d be justified in embarking on a full-scale emancipation spree in the coming weeks.

It will be prime time to seize more freedom and declare more autonomy and build more self-sufficiency. Here’s an important nuance to the work you have ahead of you: Make sure you escape the tyranny of not just the people and institutions that limit your sovereignty, but also the voices in your own head that tend to hinder your flow.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):

Of all the forbidden fruits that you fantasize about, which one is your favorite? Among the intriguing places you consider to be outside of your comfort zone, which might inspire you to redefine the meaning of “comfort”?

The coming weeks will be a favorable time to reconfigure your relationship with these potential catalysts. And while you’re out on the frontier dreaming of fun experiments, you might also want to flirt with other wild cards and strange attractors. Life is in the mood to tickle you with useful surprises.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):

You have a special talent for accessing wise innocence.

In some ways you’re virginal, fresh and raw, and in other ways you’re mature, seasoned and well-developed. I hope you will regard this not as a confusing paradox but rather as an exotic strength. With your inner child and your inner mentor working in tandem, you could accomplish heroic feats of healing. Their brilliant collaboration could also lead to the mending of an old rift.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):

“Where is everybody when I need them?” Even if you haven’t actually spoken those words recently, I’m guessing the voices in your head have whispered them.

But from what I can tell, that complaint will soon be irrelevant. It will no longer match reality. Your allies will start offering more help and resources. They may

not be perfectly conscientious in figuring out how to be of service, but they’ll be pretty good. Here’s what you can do to encourage optimal results: 1. Purge your low, outmoded expectations. 2. Open your mind and heart to the possibility that people can change. 3.

Humbly ask—out loud, not just in the privacy of your imagination—for precisely what you want.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):

Millions of Pisceans less fortunate than you won’t read this horoscope. Uninformed about the rocky patch of Yellow Brick Road that lies just ahead, they may blow a gasket or get a flat tire. You, on the other hand, will benefit from my oracular foreshadowing, as well as my inside connections with the Lords of Funky Karma. You will therefore be likely to drive with relaxed caution, keeping your vehicle unmarred in the process. That’s why I’m predicting that although you may not arrive speedily at the next leg of your trip, you will do so safely and in style.

ARIES (March 21-April 19):

Free your body. Don’t ruminate and agonize about it.

FREE YOUR BODY! Be brave and forceful. Do it simply and easily. Free your gorgeously imperfect, wildly intelligent body. Allow it to be itself in all of its glory.

Tell it you’re ready to learn more of its secrets and adore its mysteries. Be in awe of its unfathomable power to endlessly carry out the millions of chemical reactions that keep you alive and thriving. How can you not be overwhelmed with gratitude for your hungry, curious, unpredictable body? Be grateful for its magic. Love the blessings it bestows on you.

Celebrate its fierce animal elegance.

Tree Service Tri-County Tree Service. Tree Removal, Tree Trimming, Stump Grinding. 20 Plus Years of Experience, Licensed and Insured.

Call 601-940-5499 Needs Assistance? Let Us Help!

Magnolia Sitters, LLC is a privately owned non-medical home care company that is proudly serving the Jackson and surrounding areas. Our services include: - Meal Preparations - Bathing/hygiene care - Mobility assistance - Light housekeeping - Laundry - Transportation - Medication reminders Companionship Contact us today! 601-2080915 or go to magnoliasitters.com for more information.

Help Wanted Office Furniture Installers Part Time Office Furniture Installers wanted.

Experience in STEELCASE preferred. Contact Greg Mason at 601.473.4992 to apply.

Drivers needed J&d transit is hiring non-emergency transportation drivers. Must be at least 25 yrs old, Pass a drug screen, Have clean background, No more than 1 traffic ticket in past 3 yrsPlease come by 120 Southpointe Dr., Ste. D, Byram MS (601) 203-2136 Van Drivers Wanted in Jackson Local company is looking for drivers to transport railroad crews up to a 200 mile radius from Jackson. Must live within 20 miles of Jackson, be 21 years or older, valid driver’s license and a pre-employment drug screen is required. A company vehicle is provided, paid training, and benefits.

Compensation is $8.50 per hour. Apply online at www.renzenberger.com

FOR SALE Gorgeous T-cup Yorkie!

Male/female. AKC reg., champion bloodline, shots/deworm.13wks old. $500. dreampets90@outlook.com, 662-581-299

TO PLACE A CLASSIFIED AD:

Post an ad at jfpclassifieds.com, call 601-362-6121, ext. 11 or fax to 601-510-9019.

Deadline: Mondays at Noon.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):

The people of many cultures have imagined the sun god as possessing masculine qualities. But in some traditions, the Mighty Father is incomplete without the revitalizing energies of the Divine Mother. The Maoris, for example, believe that every night the solar deity has to marinate in her nourishing uterine bath. Otherwise he wouldn’t be strong enough to rise in the morning. And how does this apply to you? Well, you currently have resemblances to the weary old sun as it dips below the horizon. I suspect it’s time to recharge your powers through an extended immersion in the deep, dark waters of the primal feminine.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):

An interesting opportunity is definitely in your vicinity. It may slink tantalizingly close to you in the coming days, even whisper your name from afar. But I doubt that it will knock on your door. It probably won’t call you seven times on the phone or flash you a big smile or send you an engraved invitation. So you should make yourself alert for the interesting opportunity’s unobtrusive behavior. It could be a bit shy or secretive or modest. Once you notice it, you may have to come on strong—you know, talk to it sweetly or ply it with treats.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):

(Note: The counsel offered in the following oracle was channeled from the Goddess by Rob Brezsny. If you have any problems with it, direct your protests to the Queen Wow, not Brezsny.) It’s time to get more earthy and practical about practicing your high ideals and spiritual values. Translate your loftiest intentions into your most intimate behavior. Ask yourself, “How does Goddess want me to respond when my coworker pisses me off?”, or “How would Goddess like me to brush my teeth and watch TV and make love?”

For extra credit, get a t-shirt that says, “Goddess was my co-pilot, but we crash-landed in the wilderness and I was forced to eat her.”

Homework: Is it possible there’s something you really need but you don’t know what it is? Write Truthrooster@gmail.com.

Elephant House Café

A perfect “staycation” day includes the Elephant Cafe at the Jackson Zoo; complete with Icees, burgers, hotdogs and “carnival fare” the Elephant Cafe is part of a full day of animals, train rides, splash pads and great food. How do you Zoo? 2918 W Capitol St, Jackson, MS 601-352-2580

to find out more about Elephant House Café, visit

@VISITJACKSONMS

July 27 - August 2, 2016 • jfp.ms

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):

Services

31

Cuvée Jean-Paul Blanc & Rouge are now in stock!

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Write stories that matter for the publications readers love to read.

The Jackson Free Press and BOOM Jackson are seeking hard-working freelance writers who strive for excellence in every piece. Work with editors who will inspire and teach you to tell sparkling stories.

Email and convince us that you have the drive and creativity to join the team.

Better yet, include some kick-ass story ideas. Send to:

micah@jacksonfreepress.com

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