high and low cotton

Bill Steber, Pick Jesus, Belen, MS, 1994


They don't make cotton bales like they used to. A cotton bale today is the size of about 16 bales of the old 500 lb. burlapped-wrapped ones. They are the size of a tractor-trailer bed. They pick the cotton, compress it in layers, drop it at the end of the field and there it sits till the truck picks it up. No more trailers full of just picked cotton gong down the road to the compress. The reason behind the large bales is the same concept as the very large hale bales. Less surface area is exposed to the elements, therefore less spoilage of the product.

Folks are still poor in Mississippi, although casinos have brought new money in the state, largely figuring out a way to further tax the lower- and middle-income citizens while suggesting that the prize is still within the grasp. Hanging out in casinos, is sorta like a sub-prime balloon mortgage. In theory it can pay off; the reality, it almost never does. You don't imagine you'll get struck by lightning, why do you think you'll win the lottery? Only the house walks away from the table while they're ahead.

How poor is Mississippi? According to U.S. Census data more than a third (34.7 percent) of rural children in Mississippi live in poverty. The problem? Education and jobs. Without a good education, there are no good jobs. There are largely unskilled jobs in the service industry and casinos and many of those won't take you from poverty.


Elvis is still alive. At least in Tupelo. At least for a day. Hillary Clinton, who carried only a few counties in Mississippi, did carry those surrounding Tupelo. The power of Bill speaks once more.

But in Clarksville, just a short driver from the birth of the blues and the most famous road crossing in the world, voters went solidly for Barack Obama, as did the rest of the state. Clintonites are suggesting that the reason Obama won in Mississippi was because of the black vote. However, 100,000 more votes were cast for Obama as for Clinton. Although Mississippi has the highest percentage of blacks in the country, they account for only 37 percent of the population. Therefore, of Barack's total, if he got, as some suggested 90 percent of the black vote, this still accounted for only about half of his total votes. The rest. From whites and Hispanics.

So if HRC could have mobilized voters in her favor she would have been able to win the state. Isn't this how it's supposed to work? You convince the voters to vote for you, and if they do, then you win? Apparently a lot of those white folks went and voted for McGruff the Crime Dog.