Mississippi auditor says taxpayers shouldn't be paying for your anthropology degree

The auditor doesn't understand why people flee Missouri, blames anthro

https://www.wapt.com/amp/article/mississippi-auditor-says-several-college-majors-indoctrinate-students-and-should-be-defunded/45247915

 

@Dustin "Why people flee Mississippi" - I think you mean, not Missouri. Oh Lord! How did this man, Shad White, ever become a State Auditor? The guy talks about "useless" and "garbage" degrees, yet ignores the fact, in his own study, that just 36 percent of all engineering grads and 42 percent of business grads from the 2015-2017 cohort were still working in the state in 2020.

I like Dr. Rifkin's proposals way better. He's a Hattiesburg physician who responded to the benighted Mr. White's posts on social media. All in the article. Good one, too. Thanks!

 

Oops! Good catch on the state Johann

 

De nada, amigo. Easy one. For 65 years of my life, Mississippi has been my go-to Blues State. Missouri - not so much. And now, Mississippi State Auditor Shad White is GIVING me the blues!!

 

Not even Kansas City, Johann? You surprise me.

In a way, the critics are correct. Higher education can indoctrinate students by making them think critically about difficult issues. That's threatening to the White Supremacy status quo.

 

Not so much. But definitely Kansas City for jazz - after all, Charlie Parker was born and raised there. Blues was a necessary founding component in jazz, but the formative, earliest sources of blues were elsewhere. Originally, Africa of course - and here, Mississippi was central to the earliest traditions. In New Orleans, the blues form was well-integrated into jazz right from Day One. Later, The "Great Migration" brought the Blues everywhere it went - Chicago, West Coast etc. Texas also has an unbroken line of great Blues performers since early days. Start with Blind Lemon Jefferson in the 1920s, spend a long time with Lightnin' Hopkins and T-Bone Walker, then on to Albert Collins, Johnny Clyde Copeland - and his daughter Shemekiah Copeland, who is a star performer today. Good times!

Kansas City's jazz scene of the 1930s and 40s was magnificent - thanks to gangsters and a corrupt political machine. And yes, there was, in the early days, a debt to the Blues. Here are a couple of paragraphs from an article on Bennie Moten's orchestra, that deal with that subject:

"On September 23, 1923, the Bennie Moten Orchestra became the first Kansas City band to make a phonograph recording of its tunes. With the help of Kansas City's Winston Holmes Music Store, which previously concentrated on blues records, the orchestra arranged a recording session in Chicago with the Okeh Recording Company. The songs were an early form of jazz that really just added additional beats to blues songs. They included "Selma 'Bama Blues," "Chattanooga Blues," "Break o' Day Blues," "Evil Mama Blues," "Elephant's Wobble," "Crawdad Blues," "Waco Texas Blues," and "Ill-Natured Blues."
(Emphasis mine - J.)

This first recording session would have been unremarkable were it not for the continued evolution of the orchestra's style after 1923. Moten continued aggressively hiring the best performers he could find, and their form of jazz matured into some of the best examples of big band swing. Their music became known as the "Kansas City style," characterized by complex rhythms, carefully restrained drum beats, and especially riffs. Riffs referred to the practice of using rhythms to accompany the soloists who became the main focus."

Whole thing here: https://pendergastkc.org/article/buildings-orgs/bennie-moten-orchestra

The Blues are everywhere. Right now I'm listening to "When Coltrane Played the Blues" on JAZZ-FM.

 

My apologies, to Ms. Copeland and DI readers. Her name is Shemekia, not Shemekiah.
Her beautiful name is derived from Hebrew (שֶמֶש) [shemesh] - "sun" . That is appropriate - she is a STAR.

Wiki here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shemekia_Copeland