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Things My Mother Taught Me     Mom passed away September 2014 after living almost 84 years and going through a thankfully short illness.  All four of her sons were there with her when she took her last breath, and she waited until her two sisters arrived before she decided to give up the struggle.  Momma was an amazing woman in many ways, and the lessons she taught us go far beyond the normal table manners and polite forms of address and behaviors she expected but didn’t always get.  Raising our Dad and four boys at the same time gave her an inner core of steel hidden by a soft spoken demeanor that could be deceiving to those that didn’t know her well.       She graduated at the top of her class at good ole Ruleville HS, was responsible for raising her sisters and her brother, played French Horn and Bass Drum in the band, played girls basketball, was Class President and went to Delta State before she married Dad and I c...

A version of this article was published in the AJC by Maureen Downey.   Proposal or Proposition? This article was written just before the vote in Mississippi on Initiative 42 and 42a.  Official election results show both amendments failed the first hurdle needed to pass: for a majority of people to vote to change the state constitution. About 54 percent voted against changing the state constitution. Forty-six percent voted to change the constitution.  News reports cite enormous confusion on the part of voters as a result of a two step process required to vote for either initiative.  Voters had to first vote to change the state Constitution and only an affirmative vote allowed them to proceed onward to vote for one of the two initiatives.  The confusing procedure and the inclusion of 42a on the same ballot was an intentional political ploy.   Rep. Greg Snowden, the primary author of 42A, acknowledged the alternative initiative was created as a r...

Propositional Situations     I am a native of Mississippi, and credit Mrs. Moore from Raines ES in Jackson with instilling an interest in learning and reading that continues to this day.  I was fortunate enough to attend Raines ES, Hardy Jr. High School, Provine HS, and Ole Miss.  Mrs. Moore was my 6th grade teacher, and believed in me to the point that meeting her expectations became one of the driving forces in my life.  Mr. Bickley at HJHS and Mr. Kenney at Provine taught me about music and about life, and Mrs. McBride at Provine told me I would never be a mathematician but she was pretty sure I had learned enough Algebra II not to hurt myself.  My brothers and I all attended public schools in Mississippi, my nephews and niece are graduates of Mississippi public schools and there are more relatives than I can count that can all attribute at least part of what they have achieved in life to public education in the Magnolia state.  All o...