Starkville City Jail

“I was whistlin’, pickin’ flowers, swayin’ in the southern breeze. I found myself surrounded…”

And here.

Gori in Karachi

I’ll still post the occasional update here, and in a few months I’ll be back full-time. But for now I’ll be spending a lot of time in culture shock.

Wilcox County’s racially segregated proms

**I wrote this story in April of 2009, as part of my requirements to fulfill my journalism degree at Columbia University. I didn’t want to let it quietly hibernate on my laptop through another prom season, so I’m posting it here. And just to be clear, this issue is not only present in the deep South. Throughout my research, I found recent (within the past decade) segregated proms scattered throughout the US, included a “Russians Only” prom in Brooklyn. I do think, at this point, Wilcox County holds the only remaining segregated prom–though my research is certainly not exhaustive.  **

United We Stand, Divided We Dance: Wilcox County Proms in Black and White

The classrooms at Wilcox County High in Rochelle, Georgia stand empty on a cool, sunny Thursday morning. Whitney Turner, a petite junior with a headful of tiny braids, chocolate skin and wide-set expressive eyes, shifts her weight and studies her feet. Her stiletto heels sink in the soft earth. She’s sandwiched between her identical twin Brittney and their friend Regan Beale. When Whitney turns to survey the crowd, Beale’s long blond hair brushes her cheek. The whole school, black and white, has turned out. Everyone loved Jay McDuffie.

Brittney clings to Whitney and sniffs, swiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Beale stares stoically ahead, yanking at the hem of her baby-doll dress as Britt Peavy, pastor of Pitts Church of God, says, “Jay was always laughing and joking. He wouldn’t want y’all to mope around.”

On cue, Michael McDuffie and Mac McKinney, both 19, crank their engines and, with their trucks still in park, slam on the gas. The quick, satisfying bursts are their own eulogy to the lean, blue-eyed 17-year-old who had been Michael’s brother and McKinney’s best friend—the boy who lived in his John Deere hoodie, loved souped-up trucks and massive parties and four days ago, slammed his Chevy into a tree at 80 mph, ending his life on Rochelle’s infamous S-curves.

As the final roar descends into silence, punctuated by muffled weeping, Whitney thinks about Jay’s father, Police Chief Michael McDuffie.  An hour ago in the high school gym, he had begged his son’s peers—“Please slow down.” February 8, 2009, in the wee hours of Sunday morning, Chief McDuffie had discovered his son’s mangled body.

MSU Featured on Animal Planet’s Must Love Cats

Photo courtesy of MSU Agricultural Communications/Tom Thompson

The episode featuring Cedarhills, “Kitty Tree Houses and the Cat Guys,” aired Feb. 19. The episode featuring MSU, “Cat Colleges and Kitty Heros,” will air Saturday, Feb. 26.

MISSISSIPPI STATE – A dapper John Fulton—green eyes flashing, hair perfectly gelled, sprouting a casual shadow of cinematic stubble—wheels a surgical cart down the center aisle of the technology classroom cum radiology lab at MSU’s Wiseman Center. He stops smartly in front of the camera, beaming at Chief of Radiology Erin Brinkman.

“Look what I found, Doc!” he chirps.

“OK, let’s cut,” says Don Baret, the producer of Animal Planet’s new show Must Love Cats. Fulton tugs at his maroon surgical cap while the cameras are repositioned.

The crew of Must Love Cats has already been on the road a month, traipsing the country in search of unique felines and the people who adore them.

“I think cats represent where we are in a society, with people working 10, 12 hours a day,” Fulton says. “A cat can be independent. Leave some food and water out, and when you come back, you have this reminder of family.”

On camera Fulton smiles easily. He’s earnest and exaggerated, given to phrases such as “real cool” and “really neat.” He’s exactly what one would expect from the host of a lighthearted, family-friendly show about man’s other best friend.

In March of 2010, a representative from Animal Planet contacted Kari Lunsford, assistant professor of internal medicine, requesting her help to develop a “lab cats” episode. Lunsford, who has three cats herself, had been working on a form of insulin that could be administered to diabetic felines once a week, instead of the current twice-a-day product. She knew she wouldn’t have concrete conclusions by the early June shooting date.

“But I didn’t want them to get away,” Lunsford says. “I thought it was a great opportunity for MSU, so I starting putting together ideas.”

Lunsford worked with production assistant Heather Scudellari for three months before they settled on a theme. The episode would compare and contrast the physiological and behavioral traits of domestic cats and big cats, with Lunsford acting as a liaison between the crew and one of the CVM’s most prominent clients, Cedarhill Animal Sanctuary in Caledonia.

Speaking of Punk Rock and River Cities…

True Sons of Thunder rocking it with a yoga-savvy mannequin

Memphis and music are synonymous, yes. But for many people, Memphis means motown and Stax or Elvis and Sun. About three decades ago, another sound—rawer and ruder—began to fester in the noxious, sun-blanched fumes of the Mississippi. And a dive called the Antenna Club—Memphis’s answer to CBGB’s—firmly pinned River City on the word-of-mouth-and-mail (wtf, long distance calls were expensive!) punk rock touring map. Now the legacy fuels Goner Records, Gonerfest and a slate of shows that, being three hours away and working a day job, I mostly miss. Big sad sigh.