"This is going to be a terrible day; I have no one to hang!"

I've known quite a lot about my mom's side of the family for a while. I only really knew one of my grandparents. My grandfather had gone on a genealogy kick a while back and filled in most of that side of the family, but my dad never liked talking about his family.

I read Ge(neal)ogist on Maitri's site and decided to interrogate my dad (no waterboarding needed, but that was considered). Here are some of the responses


* What is your earliest memory?
My father and his parents were driving back to Carrolton, MS when a tornado came down and moved the car 100 feet. There was no damage and they drove on.

* What were your [father's] grandparents like?
Paternal Grandfather (deceased)
Paternal Grandmother (very very old, never knew that well) Known as Big Momma
Maternal Grandparents - Emma and William Bluford Vance. My dad knew them very well, because they were still living and my grandmother would drop my dad by their place from time to time. My dad never really liked, them, though. Bluford had a law degree from Vanderbilt, but never practiced law. Instead, he became Sheriff of Carrolton, MS. I've found this article describing the last legal hanging in Carrolton, MS. You see, this was one of Bluford's first hangings.

There was a mood for lynching, but McDougal’s family insisted the case be tried. Caught in June 1914, Myers was appointed an attorney, J.W. Conger. Oct. 31 at the Carrollton courthouse, a jury convicted Myers. Fifth Circuit Judge James A. Teat sentenced Myers to be hanged Dec. 11 by Sheriff W. Bluford Vance.

Conger didn’t file an appeal.

The day of the hanging was apparently a celebrated occasion.


Bluford used to love his hangings (although he didn't care for little things like trials). Bluford used to remark every morning, "This is going to be a terrible day; I have no one to hang!" He would sometimes find someone to hang. My dad was once brought to a hanging by Bluford; my dad did not think it was a very grandfatherly move.

Bluford became a millionaire off bribes from bootleggers (in a dry county). The money was lost to gambling later on (or so I've heard).

* What were your parents like?
My Dad's Father- Used to like to sit around and read a lot. Very literate, smart. Liked Football. Went to Ole Miss and got a degree in Civil Engineering. Worked on the Manhattan Project*.

My Dad's Mother- A gifted pianist, once taught Mose Allison, went to Juilliard, wanted to be concert pianist, but then got pregnant. My dad hated taking lessons from her.

* What are you proudest of in your life?
Answered the lowest point: Dad was going crawfishing with friends, they stopped at Schweggman's to get chicken necks (bait), the line was too long, so my dad tried to just shoplift, but got caught. "Getting caught stealing chicken necks is about as low as a man can get."

That's it for now. Thought it was interesting, so I'd post it. It's also amazing the genealogical resources out there these days.

* One of the things that always confused me growing up was why was my dad born in eastern Tennessee, despite his whole family being from the Greenwood area. Now I know. I don't know exactly what he did (a topic for future research), but I've been told by family friends it was mostly roads and bridges in eastern TN.

Economic Mess

Bush's Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire. By the NY Times. Excellent reporting. It's being billed as a devastating indictment of Bush, and while it doesn't reflect very well on him, I personally thought Paulson took it on the chin in that article.

With Stevens' Fall, a Pipeline for Lobbyists is Shutting Off. More NY Times. One lobbyist wrote, "“For those of us long on the dole, the coming reality will take some getting used to.”"

Entergy caught with hand in the cookie jar. Not a peep of this from the Times-Picayune. Entergy was caught by the state of Mississippi using the fuel surcharge line item on bills (which they are legally prohibited from making a profit on) to pad their profits. Will their be an investigation in Louisiana? I doubt it. Too many of our Public Service Commissioners like getting generous campaign contributions from Entergy.

At Siemens, Bribery was a line item. This is an unfortunate reality in many overseas business ventures. Reminds me of Enron's Dabhol Power Plant in India.

1 Local Scandal, 1 National Scandal

"Sterilization Plan Fights Poverty" Wow, the commenters at Nola.com have finally put StormFront (no way I'm providing a link there) to shame. The Nola.com administrators aided and abetted this racist shit, too. They placed that article at the top with direct links to the comments to fuel the fire.

I'll get past the obvious horror of the proposal to point out two things: this is a pre-planned ploy to get reelected and it will work.

LaBruzzo has been a dick for a while. He was recently famous for pushing hard for the legislative pay raise and then denying it. The pay raise issue would have killed his chance of getting reelected, but now District 81 will probably reelect him. He was a waste of oxygen, even without the eugenics, but now he'll get reelected. Far more people agree with him than people are comfortable to admit. He can claim he's being 'persecuted by the liberal media,' the 81st district will fall for the ploy, and they'll forgive a good ole boy. And then they'll have a few more years to put up with his sorry ass.

McCain Abruptly Cuts and Runs from First Debate. VERY shocking. He might have just shot his chances with the election on this one. His speechwriter should reserve some time to start the first draft of his November concession speech at this rate. It's been a HORRIBLE week for him. Reporters revolted, Freddie Mac has been paying his campaign manager all the way through August, the Edwards team at the National Enquirer is now going after Palin's past infidelity, ... (the list is rather long). Suffice to say, McCain has not been a happy camper recently.

I think the real reason is McCain is laying awake at night with what will happen when Palin gets asked actual questions. She's going to have a "Macaca" moment that will be the new buzzword for "Macaca" moments. They now realize what a fuckup they made with not vetting her. What they wanted all along was to delay/cancel the VP debates. They'll let McCain take the criticism for the presidential debates and hope nobody notices Palin is still being kept in a box. McCain has handled lots of devastating news. It's taken a toll, but he's still standing and he's kept the race close.

I feel so sorry for Ole Miss and Oxford, MS, though. They are the true victims in this mess. They've done a lot to clean up for the big date and they're shocked. Those that aren't shocked are furious. Ole Miss is getting incredible press (see this fantastic article from today's NY Times). They were looking forward to accommodating scores of national and foreign reporters to the first debate to show off how far Mississippi has come. McCain's decision to screw them over will have a price, though: the MS Senate race to replace Trent Lott. I predict the next polls will show Ronnie Wicker taking the heat for McCain in MS. Musgrove, the popular (and surprisingly liberal) former governor, will win big. Once a Mississippi politician wins a senate race, they pretty much have the seat for life. Lott/Stennis and Chochran/Eastland held most of the 20th century for Mississippi.

On a personal note, Ole Miss was my evacuation school. Katrina happened during my senior year of college and I had to fill in enough classes to graduate on time. Ole Miss took me in and, while I'm not going to lie and say I enjoyed it (it was Katrina, not the school), it was as good as it could have been under the circumstances. Everyone there was so understanding, especially the Dean of Students and the head of the engineering school. Thank you so much Ole Miss. Without them, I wouldn't have graduated on time or even worse. Thanks again. You have my sincere condolences and I hope McCain shows up.

UPDATE- Celecus has more on LaBruzzo with a nice roundup of the local blogosphere reaction.

Also, my dad grew up in north Mississippi. He knew the Mississippi McCains and my dad was a freshman at Ole Miss during the Meredith riots. He remembers every redneck in Mississippi converging on Oxford to turn federal agents into swiss cheese and the agents responding by shooting tear gas grenades into every window on campus, including his freshman dormitory. Curtis Wilkie, a friend and classmate of my dad wrote a wonderful book about his experiences growing up in Mississippi and coming back as an adult named Dixie: A Personal Odyssey Through Events That Shaped the Modern South. I've read it and I recommend it.

Non-prostitution-related crime

As much as I'd love to keep hitting Vitty-Cent over the head with a baseball bat, there is also some serious news to report.

Eddie Jordan has done is again. Jordan dropped the murder charges on the quintuple murderer. Fucker. Can he do NOTHING right?

Sorry I haven't done a crime mapping update in a while. I've just been overwhelmed. I've just let it slide. Look at what Chicago Crime has put together in the meantime, though

100 MPH in a PRIUS!!! Once again, the mainstream media buried the lede in this article. I don't give a damn about Al Gore III. A Prius goes 100 mph? Now THAT is a newsworthy event.

State Lawmaker Shoots Copper Thief.

Non-crime related:
CS Monitor article about Katrina recovery on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

My Trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast

S.S. Camile, still there.

About a week ago, I went over the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I wanted to visit some of my relatives who spent Katrina up a tree watching a home that had been in their family for generations and make it through Camile disintegrate under the fury of the waves.

I, like many New Orleanians, spent many vacations on the Coast when I was growing up. I was especially eager to visit because I had seen the Mississippi Gulf Coast less than 2 weeks before Katrina hit. I was doing a survey for an engineering firm I worked at over the summer before my senior year. We were doing some work for the port of Gulfport and I remember thinking, "Gee, all those empty lots from Camile have finally been filled in. It looks so good."

Well, about two weeks later Katrina hit and you know the rest.


Steps, all that remain of many homes.

Another reason I wanted to go to the Coast was to see how true (or should I say, how false) the, "well, Mississippi is recovered, why is New Orleans still asking for money" thought process is.

I toured the ENTIRE coast over the course of a day. From Waveland to Ocean Springs and everything in between. We had to navigate around the missing bridges in Bay St. Louis and Biloxi. Spent a lot of the afternoon in Ocean Springs, too.

I brought my good ole Canon AE-1, one of the greatest cameras ever made. It was my grandfather's and it's still going strong. Load it up with black and white film and you'll be amazed at the photos it produces.

I was amazed at the devastation. I sort of assumed that Bay St. Louis and Waveland took the brunt of Katrina and the areas closer to Alabama were largely spared. Boy, was I wrong. It's also hard to see exactly how much was lost, unless you knew what it looked like before Katrina.

Here are some of my observations

Differences between Gulf Coast and NOLA:
* No abandonments- In New Orleans, some people just evacuated and never returned. That just hasn't happened over there.
* Excellent government (but has remarkably little bearing on the recovery). Their politicians aren't stuffing money into freezers. Not that it's helped that much. A lot of those places have EXCELLENT schools. In Ocean Springs, all the schools are "5 out of 5" (MS rating system).
* Crime. They've had some problems in their FEMA trailer parks, but they got a handle on things early before crime ever got a toehold. The same can't be said of the Big Bloody.
* Better connection between recovered zones/struggling zones. In New Orleans, there's the "Isle of Denial" and there's the "Magical Misery Land." There's a lot less interaction than there should be. In Mississippi, there's a much better connection.
* Small biz's doing slightly better in NOLA. In Louisiana, there are more tourists, so small businesses at least have enough to break even. In MS, they're still struggling (except for the big casinos).
* FEMA flood plain. FEMA didn't wuss out over there. The BFE (Base Flood Elevations) are extremely high (as they should be). We're talking about 15-20' above grade. Some places even higher. What is getting rebuilt is getting built high.

Similarities:
* Ancestral homes, don't have $ to rebuild. So many of the homes were inherited from one generation to another.
* Inflated construction costs.
* Stuck (no $). Their version of the Road Home is better, but still not great. Also, their is the simple fact that, especially factoring in inflated construction costs and high BFE's, it simply isn't enough money to rebuild.
* Islands of recovery, islands of despair.
* Big business recovers well. In Louisiana, the oil companies got their infrastructure repaired in short order, despite massive damage.
* The "New Normal."
* Dilapidated, abandoned buildings.
* They have a Lower 9, Claiborne Ave, Lakeview (& Magazine Street). Their Lower 9 is a neighborhood of Vietnamese and Polish fishermen just Northeast of the Port of Gulfport. The homes were handed down from generation to generation. Many were little more than shacks, but they were all owned. The main business road in Gulfport looks like Claiborne Ave. (lots of shuttered and abandoned businesses). They have a Lakeview (bedroom community of brick buildings that are still intact, but deserted). Main Street in Ocean Springs, which is way up on a hill, is filled with boutique stores, art galleries, bars, and great restaurants. Reminds me of Magazine Street.
* Still have lots of legal battles (but different targets). We're suing the Corps. They're suing their insurance companies. Insurance over there was far worse than in Louisiana, at least in my opinion. State Farm was, under the circumstances, fair with us. My relatives also had State Farm and they were treated like criminals. I was shocked at that they were describing the same company.
* Good food. I had a late lunch/early dinner at the Beau Rivage. Excellent! I stuffed myself. I'd recommend to anyone. A lot of the chefs had New Orleans roots. You could tell by the very flavorful (but not overly hot) food.


The beach, just as beautiful as ever.

I really enjoyed my trip. I learned a lot, I ate great food, and I got to see my relatives. If things get to hairy in New Orleans, I'd definitely think of moving to Ocean Springs. It's a nice little town.

If someone tells you why can't Louisiana be like Mississippi, you tell them that we pretty much are like Mississippi.

I've got a bunch more photos that I want to post. Blogger's software is acting up on me and it's taking a hell of a long time to upload these high quality photos. I still need to get another roll finished off. That roll has the best photos. I'll get them up eventually.