InkBlots

As if the Republican Party didn’t have enough bad press generated by its very live members, a long-dead president is at the center of a nasty debate between New York Times columnists over remarks he may or may not have uttered at the Neshoba County Fair. (Accuracy is, apparently, not everything: E&P gets the town name wrong. But we nitpick.)

Paul Krugman, columnist for the NYT who is regularly made C-SPAN “Charlie Rose” roadkill by more powerful and overbearing idealogical opposites, argues in Monday’s Times that the world shouldn’t avoid tarnishing Ronald Reagan’s image by refusing to debate what he says was Reagan’s exploitation of white backlash against the Civil Rights movement. In an earlier article, Krugman said Reagan called the movement a “humiliation for the south” in a 1980 appearance at the Neshoba fair.

Columnist David Brooks has said Reagan’s remarks were distorted and that Krugman’s musings amount to a “slur.”

Ever-vigilant, the Neshoba County Times last week reprinted Reagan’s remarks in their entirety.

Denizens of Weir and Choctaw County have worked themselves in a froth in recent weeks over a feature, um, spread in Penthouse Magazine. Seems the tiny town’s penchant for cranking out pro-football worthy players from its powerhouse high school squad caught the eye of a freelance writer who pitched the story idea to Sports Illustrated.

One problem: SI had already run a feature on the Weir Lions and, thus, passed on a replay. The intrepid freelancer then sold the piece to Penthouse. (Hey, the guy’s got to eat.) Angry folk gathered with their torches and pitchforks recently to let off steam during a county school board meeting.
But that isn’t the only dustup resulting from the article. Former Star-Herald publisher Mark Thornton, who we’re told suggested the piece to the freelancer in the first place, is catching flak for an acerbic comment in the article that only “log haulers, crack dealers and pro football players” ever emerge from the sleepy burg. Thorton’s successor in Kosciusko, Robbie Robertson, took the former publisher to task for the comment, which appeared in the second graf of the article.

Others have chimed in, too: Choctaw Plaindealer publisher Joseph McCain wishes “real challenges” facing the community and school district were discussed as thoroughly as the magazine article.

Civic leaders gathered in Robinsonville at one of the quarter boats for the annual Delta Development meeting to discuss strategy for the upcoming legislative session. One topic on the agenda was community foundations and charitable giving by the non-profit CREATE group, to which the Daily Journal was gifted by its publisher and CREATE founder George McLean many years ago.

Tom Pittman of the Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi and owner of the DeSoto Times also spoke to the flock. Pittman himself is an alum of the Daily Journal.