Tag: mississippi?

Report: Mississippi man under fire for fixing potholes using city’s supplies [w/video]

Filed under: Government/Legal, Videos

Potholes, also known as the bane of every motorist’s existence, are a huge problem in many cities. One resident in Jackson, Mississippi got fed up with the constant bumps and craters in his city’s roads, and took matters into his own hands.

The self-proclaimed Pothole Patchman, the secret identity of one Ron Chane, appropriated city asphalt to repair 100 of the city’s potholes over the course of five evenings.

Naturally, the government isn’t pleased with this, but only because Chane took the city’s asphalt without “going through the proper legal channels,” Mayor Chokwe Lumumba said in a press release. As Chane sees it, he’s putting the asphalt “back where it belongs.”

Asked by The Clarion-Ledger about the Pothole Patchman, many residents saluted an average citizen taking municipal matters into his own hands. After each repair, Chane tagged the potholes as “Citizen Fixed.” But because he’s taking city resources without permission, the Patchman recognizes the trouble he could be in saying, “Some people say I could be arrested.” Here’s hoping cooler heads prevail… Scroll down to see the news report.

Continue reading Mississippi man under fire for fixing potholes using city’s supplies [w/video]

Mississippi man under fire for fixing potholes using city’s supplies [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 13 Jul 2013 15:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: Mississippi under fire for considering KKK leader and Confederate hero on license plate

Filed under: Etc., Government/Legal

Mississippi SCV Tag
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has come under fire for failing to condemn efforts by the state’s Sons of Confederate Veterans to institute a license plate commemorating Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Historically, Forrest has been both hailed for his military brilliance and condemned for his brutality both during and after the Civil War. The general infamously slaughtered black Union troops that surrendered at Fort Pillow Tennessee in 1864 and became a Grand Wizard in the KKK after the war ended.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans, meanwhile, say that the license plate is meant to commemorate those who lost their lives in the war and that a number of black soldiers served under the general during his command.

Those words apparently aren’t doing much to console members of the NAACP, however, who argue that Forrest should be counted among terrorists like Osama bin Laden for his heavy involvement in the KKK.

Mississippi currently offers a license plate to commemorate the Civil War, and funds from those plates go toward maintaining the state’s collection of Confederate battle flags and restoring Beauvoir – the final home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The current plate features the estate, while future designs include everything from the Battle of Corinth to the Siege of Vicksburg. The Forrest commemorative license plate is slated to debut in 2014.

Governor Barbour, meanwhile, says that he isn’t interest in denouncing people or the license plate proposal, even though he feels there’s little chance of the plate making its way into production.

[Sources: The Commercial Appeal, The New York Daily News, Politico]

Report: Mississippi under fire for considering KKK leader and Confederate hero on license plate originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Soviet vehicles stage in Mississippi?

Filed under: Classics, Etc., Military, Russia

Restored Zil 131 truck, photo by Stephen Hanafin

When old Soviet-bloc vehicles started showing up in Mississippi, mutterings about overthrow plots and secret roads began to spread. Were all these trucks being staged as part of an advance effort? The truth turned out to be far more mundane, but also ironically symbolic of the ignominious end to the U.S.S.R.

Rather than any kind of clandestine military operation, the vehicles had been sold as surplus to a businessman who planned to retrofit them for humanitarian use by the United Nations. That effort didn’t quite pan out, and the vehicles (including decrepit Zil trucks similar to the restored one above) weren’t suited for road use in the United States. Some went to Mexico, others were used by the Air Force for target practice, but in the end, a huge number of the vehicles patiently decayed in a Biloxi, Mississippi storage lot until Hurricane Katrina, a civil court ruling and continuing lack of interest sealed their fate. Off they’ve gone, leaving the tall weeds of the storage lot for the towering piles of the scrap yard, destined to be melted down into home appliances and even new automobiles.

And so perishes one of the remaining vestiges of the Cold War. In dying out, the raw materials that once fueled tense stalemate are being transformed into commodities, the raw material of capitalism.

[Source: The New York Times | Image: Stephenhanafin/Flickr – CC 2.0]

Soviet vehicles stage in Mississippi? originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 02 Jan 2011 17:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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