Comments by dangyankee
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Posted on July 1 at 2:04 a.m.
You're not crazy (maybe a little off-balance) to chase after storms, but you can experience "Mother Nature's beauty" every day of the world, storm or not. The beauty lies not only in the natural violence or drama you seem to be looking for. Open your minds! (That said, I must admit I LOVE a really loud, world-crashing-down-on-your-head, wrath-of-God thunderstorm.)
Posted on June 29 at 9:15 a.m.
I'm thinking they must have had NO competition, except perhaps among small-town high-school newspapers, or the equivalent thereof.
Awards they deserved, but somehow missed out on:
Most factual errors in shortest sentence: Adam Koob.
Most "typographical" (spelling) errors in headlines: Staff. (Can we say "lude"?)
I could go on, but won't. Y'all have a nice day.
Posted on June 24 at 12:19 a.m.
Wow, people are REALLY cranky down here! Kevin, I have more than 10 years on you, age-wise, and I don't get that irritated about anything (except maybe spelling and factual errors in the local paper, but I don't even lose much sleep over those).
Probably you should get a cat--it will help keep your blood pressure down, or at least divert you from your assorted current peeves and give you whole new things to be peeved about. Variety! It will do your heart good (won't help you with the male pattern balding thing, though. Sorry.)
Posted on June 21 at 2:25 p.m.
No, fire39212, I was in the Wal-Mart right here in Natchez. Probably it helps that I usually go there around mid-morning, before the hostile crowd gathers and before all the employees have been standing on their feet for several hours and have had time to be cussed out by several irate customers (who generally are irate about stuff the employee cannot control). Just for fun, you should spend some time observing customer behavior, and then imagine yourself in the employee's shoes, and THEN imagine standing in those shoes 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, for the rest of your natural life because there are NO opportunities in Natchez, for probably minimum wage or maybe a little more IF you've managed to stick it out long enough. And with regard to Wal-Mart, specifically, imagine working in an environment in which employees are "used" in ways that have been very publicly described in more than one lawsuit.
That I have occasionally received "bad" service there (usually because there were like, 2 people on to serve 500 customers) surprises me much less than the fact--yes, FACT--that I have so consistently received good service there.
No, I don't work for Wal-Mart--I couldn't afford to, first of all, and frankly, I haven't met a Natchez employer yet for whom I would be willing to work. The rampant "plantation mentality" here, the idea that one small group of people could, should, and in fact are ordained by God to keep a much larger group at the scrambling-for-existence, poverty level, leaves me a bit cold.
Maybe that is an unfair characterization of employers. The problem, really, goes beyond them. The paradox here is that, even with regard to Wal-Mart employees, we are talking about Natchez citizens. When we say "they" are rude and inhospitable, etc., we are saying Natchez citizens are rude and inhospitable. It is not only the employers or employees--it is US. ("We have met the enemy, and he is us." Who said that? Cartoon character.)
Maybe if we stopped looking at them as "them," and instead saw them as "us," we would all get along better.
P.S. There is ONE local employer I would work for, if I knew anything about his business, which I don't. His name is Frank Heard, of Heard Music. Without going into private detail, I know how he helped a long-time employee who had been injured (not on the job). He is good people--he is someone I could work for (again, if I knew anything about his business, which I don't).
Posted on June 20 at 5:48 p.m.
I wonder why my own experience at Natchez Wal-Mart has been consistently so much different than everyone else's? This morning, for instance, I was pushing my cart down the row of checkout lanes, looking for the shortest one; a cashier standing a few feet ahead of me waved me over and directed me to her lane, which was actually a couple of lanes over. She was actively SEEKING a customer to help, and I appreciated it (and thanked her for it, too).
A couple of weeks ago I was standing at the paint counter, looking for any kind of attendant there. An employee, maybe a supervisor, walked past with another customer, saw me standing there, and the next thing I knew, a very pleasant young woman was hurrying over to the paint counter to help me. "Can you mix paint?" I asked, because she looked very young and as if she might be more comfortable at the jewelry counter or maybe in cosmetics (yes, she was young and cute, so I stereotyped). "Sure," she said, and immediately went very professionally and competently about doing just that. While my paint can was shaking, she helped out another customer who had come up behind me.
Finally, for years I've received unfailing courteous and helpful service in their photo lab.
Again, why has my experience been so much different? Of course I am sometimes frustrated there by too few checkout lanes open to serve WAY too many customers, but that is not the fault of the cashiers, is it? So I never take it out on them, which would really be a stupid and rude thing for a customer to do (and, unfortunately, a very common thing for customers to do).
Service at the fast food restaurants . . . Well, it varies a lot. DQ workers are always friendly and helpful, for instance, as are the workers at the McDonalds in Tracetown. There seem to be management problems at a few others, which I will refrain from naming (we all probably know them, anyway).
While not universally so, generally it is true that people will give pretty much what they get, in terms of treatment of others. I worked very briefly in retail a lot of years ago, and learned very quickly to "read" customers: If they wanted light chat while I checked them out, that's what I gave them; if instead they silently piled their purchases onto the conveyor belt, or chatted with someone else while they did so, I would leave them to it, and just get the stuff checked as quickly as I could. I always appreciated the customers who made eye contact, maybe even smiled, asked me how I was, whatever, because that made me feel as if they at least saw me as a fellow human being rather than as a stupid, incompetent jerk who was just slowing their lives down or whatever.
Point is, if you enter a place EXPECTING bad service, you WILL get it. (And I'm probably running out of space, so will shut up.)
Posted on June 13 at 3:01 a.m.
EnKiKur, I think you may be right . . . We are all guilted into thinking that we HAVE to be doing something, all the time, and so we go into sensory overload. We have lost sight of the fact that it is not only okay to "do nothing," but even desirable sometimes. In the same way that we need sleep, we need "do-nothing" time--time to sit on our back steps and watch the sunrise, for instance, or time to walk around with our dogs or cats, or to watch dragonflies down by a pond.
Maybe we shoud worry less about finding "something" to do, and more about finding time to have "nothing" to do.
It's all about perspective, isn't it?
Posted on June 13 at 12:34 a.m.
What percentage of Ferriday residents with small children read the Natchez Democrat, I wonder? For that matter, what percentage of Natchez residents with small children read the Democrat? Point is, how many people actually KNEW about the free movie, or the dance, even?
Of those who did, how many had the freedom from work or other responsibilities to take their children to a free movie? Especially given that there is nothing particularly "special" about either air conditioning OR movies in an age when nearly everyone (or so it seems) has AC at home AND cable TV AND video games, etc.
That said, you DO have a point: People would rather complain about having nothing to do, than actively seek something to do. If they really wanted to look for "stuff," well, hey, a copy of the Democrat costs only 50 cents (except on Sunday), and in most grocery stores, as well as many other businesses that most Mis-Lou residents frequent, there often are flyers, etc., posted about current goings-on--people need only look. But that would take "energy," of course.
I grew up in a town (or outside of it) of about 8000 people, lived for a while in a college town of about 70,000, lived for a long time in a metropolitan area of 2.5 million people--and in every one of those places, the most common complaint was that there was "nothing to do." Heck, people in Manhattan and San Francisco and Seattle and Miami all probably spend a good part of their free time complaining that there is "nothing to do." Societally (if that is a word) speaking, we seem to have lost the ability to FIND things to do on our own, and instead wait passively to be entertained by some kind of cosmic television or something.
I could go on, but will shut up, realizing that I'm writing only because I have nothing to do right now.
(Hope y'all don't get rained out at the Relay tonight!)
Posted on June 11 at 1:32 a.m.
"But like cancer, the Mississippi River isn’t always friendly"
Is cancer EVER friendly?
My favorite aunt is dying of cancer now, and her brother, whom I'd only seen a couple of times but reminded me a lot of my grandmother (their mother, of course), died of bone cancer a few years ago. Relay for Life sounds like a great way to pay tribute to them.
Nice piece (mostly), Ms. Finley. Keep practicing!
Posted on June 10 at 12:20 a.m.
I have no idea who Dan Bland and Vidal Davis are in "real life," but I thank them and my shelter-evacuee dogs thank them for that incredible gift to the Humane Society. The good folks at the Humane Society have worked hard and long hours caring for way too many animals in way too cramped conditions for way too long; this gift will bring some relief to all of them, and, more important in the long run, should improve the "adoptability" of the animals by allowing them to be visited in a more pleasant environment. Mr. Bland and Mr. Davis have made winners of everyone--human, canine and feline--involved, here, and as such are winners themselves. Can we all say "yay!"? (Well, Bubba the dog says "woof," but it's kinda the same thing, in this context.)
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Posted on July 4 at 12:28 a.m.
Thought-provoking piece, Ms. Finley.
Basically you seem to be trying to figure out what a small-town newspaper should "be."
I used to work for a small-town paper, but that was a long time ago, in a very different age. Thirty years ago, my small-town paper was "it" when it came to informing our community of news from around the world (except for Walter Cronkite, et al, of course, but it was tough to sit down at the breakfast table with a television in your lap, plus they never covered the stuff happening to the guy down the street from me, etc.). As you point out with regard to the stock market, we have a lot more options, today.
So the question you're asking, really, is what a small-town paper should "be" in a world with internet and cable TV and so forth. What can a small-town paper do for its small town that all these other sources of information cannot?
Think "back yard." Think "local." Anything you're buying from outside, dispose of. Chances are most people who read the Democrat have either cable TV or internet access or, more likely, both. You should focus on "us," your neighbors, the people who probably are not going to be showing up on CBS Evening News or CNN anytime soon but who nevertheless may be doing really cool or "newsworthy" things.
If it ain't local, don't waste space printing it. While we are all interested in national/world news, there are other sources, better sources, for that, and we all use them. Stick with what those other sources cannot do better than you, and that is to cover Natchez/Vidalia/Miss Lou (whoever she is).
I'll think more on this tomorrow. Maybe. (Don't y'all fall off your chairs from the suspense.)
On Are you using all your ketchup