THE REFLECTOR | WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2023 | @REFLECTORONLINE
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OPINION
Landon Scheel | The Reflector
The Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge offers citizens of Starkville an easy escape to nature. While Mississippi’s public outdoor infrastructure does not garner much attention, trails and roads are there if you know where to look.
Love Letter: Mississippi gets a bad rap Holly Harrison staff writer
Growing up in Mississippi, I have always heard, “What even is there to do in Mississippi, and who would ever want to go there?” Hearing these questions made me wonder if people truly believe Mississippi has absolutely nothing to offer for travelers. However, after living here for 20 years, I can tell you that Mississippi has more to offer than meets the eye. Mississippi is best known for being the birthplace of America’s music for influencing genres like rock and roll, gospel, country and the blues. One museum located in Tupelo celebrates the most
famous Mississippi musician, allowing tourists to see the childhood home of Elvis Presley. According to the Elvis Presley Birthplace website, the home Presley was born and lived in for 13 years in Tupelo, Mississippi, was turned into a museum to show where it all started for him. If travelers want to learn more about other Mississippi famous musicians, they can visit the Grammy Museum in Cleveland. According to its website, the Grammy Museum shows the impacts American music has made on culture and history by sharing famous artists and their impacts. It does not stop with music, though. Ask Mississippians their favorite thing about home, and many will
bring up the cuisine. According to Visit Mississippi, the foods people should try in Mississippi are soul food, barbecue and seafood. Any place can have its own local menus, but nothing compares to the comfort foods here. Fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, fried okra, collard greens, cornbread, sweet potatoes, fried catfish and sweet tea come to mind when describing the Magnolia State’s comfort foods. Restaurants scattered across the state serve these dishes to much acclaim from residents and visitors. Families pass on recipes for generations. My great-grandmother’s cornbread recipe has been shared in my family since the 1930s or earlier, and it is superior
cornbread. (No Jiffy Quick Mix in this house.) When it comes to food, barbecue is a Mississippi staple, if not the state favorite. Some of the best barbecue in the world comes from the Magnolia State. While it may not be Mississippi’s most iconic specialty, locals know Mississippi’s seafood is nothing to be ignored. According to Visit Mississippi, an advantage Mississippi has being located on the Gulf of Mexico is the availability to catch plenty of fresh seafood such as shrimp, crab and oysters. Restaurants on the Mississippi Gulf Coast serve the freshly caught seafood. In the spring, crawfish season takes over the state. Despite the variety of popular foods in Missis-
sippi, sometimes even the best restaurants are overlooked because of their rundown or plain appearances. However, these restaurants, if still in business, are typically known for having some of the best foods around and a cult of loyal customers that know they offer more than meets the eye. Along with the nationally famous food and music, Mississippi has some hidden sightseeing and hiking places for travelers. The Mississippi gulf offers a costal escape. While it may not be the Bahamas, the beach stretching from Biloxi to Henderson Point is 26 miles long, making it the longest man-made beach on Earth, according to an article by Zach Eady of Our Mississippi Home, which is
a weird record to hold, but a record we hold nonetheless. Other sleeper-hits include Red Bluff in Foxwell (Mississippi’s Grand Canyon) and Ships Island located 11 miles south of Gulfport and Biloxi. Through my research of the state, I have only scratched the surface of all the tourism opportunities Mississippi has to offer. Too often, Mississippi is ignored or written off for its public reputation. But — much like the beloved rundown barbecue shacks our state is so fond of — if you can get past preconceived notions about appearances, if you are willing to poke around a bit, there is gold here to be found. So goes my point, why not visit Mississippi?
Dontae Ball
Luke Copley
Drinking license should replace legal drinking age JoHn balaDi staff writer
It will forever make me laugh about how much we argue at what age we should allow citizens to poison themselves. That being said, it remains one of the most talked about issues in American life. The most often proposed ages for legal drinking remain to be 18 and 21, but I argue that neither of these solve the entire issue. Sure, if you are old enough to fight in the military, it could be argued that you are old enough to drink a beer. While a logical argument, it also would be irresponsible to give any 18-year-old a fifth of whiskey and let them go. The argument remains, at what age are you mature enough to drink wherever you go? While age can correlate to maturity, to say that it is the only factor is just wrong. The question of the drinking age should be “At what point will
you make responsible decisions while intoxicated?” This is different from person to person. According to the CDC, six people died per day in America of alcohol poisoning in 2015. This is a number that has been steadily rising since 1984, when the age was changed from 18 to 21. Despite the age to drink being changed to a more mature age, the alcohol mortality rate has gone up. To those who grew up during the time, the answer to why is obvious. Once again, according to the CDC, underage drinkers are more susceptible to alcohol poisoning. This is an interesting thing to think about, considering the fact that alcohol poisoning rates were much lower back in the 1980s, when current “underage” drinkers were drinking the most. To me, this states that the maturity level of those drinkers was higher, on top of them beginning to drink even
younger, at an age where it was not frowned upon to have a beer with parents. All of this to say, the raising of the drinking age has put a stigma on drinking before a certain age, even with parents. This has led us to send kids to college with no experience with alcohol, leading to their first experiences being dangerous ones. Finally, I propose this. 18 year olds are oftentimes immature and stupid, but just as often competent and mature. This, however, also goes for 21 year olds. With this, I say the drinking age should not exist. There should be no universal point to gauge a quality that is not universal. From there, I only see one solution. There must be a way to measure an 18-year-old’s maturity not to consume beer after a few drinks due to an aversion to carbonation. There also must be a way to measure a 21-year-old’s immaturity to sit at a poker table for three hours and not
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remember it the next day. With this, I say we make drinking a maturity level, not an age level. With an optional class and license test, not unlike driver's ed, new drinkers could learn about the dangers and pitfalls of drinking before going into the world with an informed knowledge of their legal and physical limits. A maturity level would keep those that would put themselves and others in danger from being able to do so. A maturity level also incentivizes smart behavior and safety while alcohol is in the picture. At the end of the day, I feel as though we can all agree a drinking age is not a perfect solution as is. I know 21year-old people far dumber than 14 year olds, and 18 year olds more mature than 25 year olds. It is time that we stop allowing irresponsible people to be able to drink based on age and allow only those that would be safe and responsible to do so.
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Hot take: Dragons do exist
Joylessly referred to as dinosaurs rose Doyle staff writer
Upon reading the title, I know you have probably already decided that I am a conspiracy-driven, theorizing dinosaur nerd with way too much time on her hands. Only part of that is true. I love dinosaurs, who could disagree? I also love a good dragon-slaying, which could be disagreed with, depending on your personal definition of animal cruelty. I would like to propose that our scaly predecessors may have more in common with dragons than you might want to think. A dragon, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is “a mythical monster, represented as a huge and terrible reptile, usually combining ophidian and crocodilian structure, with strong claws, like a beast or bird of prey, and a scaly skin; it is generally represented with wings, and sometimes as breathing out fire. The heraldic dragon combines reptilian and mammalian form with the addition of wings.”
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If you were to create a checklist, dragons and dinosaurs are large, reptilian and scaly, and some even have wings. One specific type of dinosaur fits the definition of “dragons”: Pterodactyls. The majority of Pterodactyl skeletons have been found in Africa and Europe. Coincidentally (or not?), stories about dragons originated in Europe and China, independently. The argument could be made that the first people to come across these remains believed they had found the remains of a dragon. If you had no context for the creature and had never seen anything like it, you could be convinced you found something truly terrifying in our world. Between the location Pterodactyls have been discovered, their physical characteristics and our relativelylimited knowledge of what happened millions of years ago, the difference between the taxonomies is negligible. The only thing stopping dinosaurs from being dragons is semantics.
CORRECTIONS The Reflector staff strives to maintain the integrity of this paper through accurate and honest reporting. If we publish an error, we will correct it. To report an error, email editor@reflector.msstate.edu or call 325-7905.