Phil Hardwick

Altoona, Pennsylvania was offered – and accepted – $25,000 to change its name for 60 days to POM WONDERFUL PRESENTS: THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD, Pa. It is all part of a movie promotion. Last week I wrote a column about product placement at city halls. I guess this rather validates the idea that advertising is now everywhere. Read the AP story entitled Altoona, PA, changes name to movie title.

It is National Volunteer Week, and time to salute those who give to their communities. One of my favorite volunteers is Cathy Johnson, who just won the Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Service Outstanding Achievement in Education Award. Johnson has been an adult education teacher all of her adult life. She began by teaching soldiers GED skills in Germany in the mid seventies. As she moved from post to post with her Army husband she applied for adult education positions in each new location. Invariably, this would lead to the only opening available, which was in the city, or county jail where she would teach basic academic skills associated with receiving a General Equivalency Diploma (GED) to the inmates. She has worked in five jails in five different states. When she moved to Mississippi in 1995 upon her husband’s retirement from the Army, she accepted a job with Hinds Community College teaching inmates at the Hinds County Jail, located in downtown Jackson. She loved her

The headline read, "Poll on interracial marriage stuns some." Stennis Institute Director Dr. Marty Wiseman said, "That's the damnedest thing I've ever heard." Here is what the daily newspaper article said: According to Public Policy Polling, 46 percent of Mississippi Republicans said marriages across racial lines should be illegal, compared to 40 percent who believe it should be legal. Fourteen percent were not sure. Here is what the Public Policy Polling press release said: 46% of these hardcore Republican voters believe interracial marriage should be illegal, while 40% think it should be legal. (emphasis added) That is not a whole lot of difference to quarrel with, but it does aid in explaining what many consider are rather bizarre results. On the other hand, it leaves no doubt that "conservative and strongly conservative" Mississippi Republicans have a strong view on interracial marriages. Dr. Wiseman also wondered whether these poll