Joe Biden’s Slot Machine

Will gas prices topple President Joe Biden?

The French demanded bread. The queen is supposed to have told them to eat cake. The king’s head thudded into the basket below the guillotine. Tea chests splashed into Boston Harbor. In 2007, Mexicans rioted over the price of corn used to make tortillas.

The president of the United States of America is capitalism’s innocent bystander. He (and it’s always a he) watches as the price of automobile gasoline or home heating oil goes up or down, and he hopes the peasants will not take to the ballot box. Compared to the power of a multinational oil company, the president has very little power, and he cannot buy senators nearly so recklessly.

The American population is a one-eyed beast, which means it can only watch one thing at a time. Right now, it’s watching prices at the pump. This isn’t as stupid as it seems. Gas gets you to work, where you make the money you need to buy food. That’s no small thing.

And, like the ownership of a gun, the ownership of a car is one of the last vestiges of the old, American free life. We are Americans. We are mobile, and we are armed, and our mothers can drive us to another state to kill people. Other than flying an American flag from the back of your full-sized, four door, four-wheel-drive pickup truck, there is no truer expression of American freedom than driving somewhere with a gun.

There are people who insist that Biden is deliberately raising the price of gasoline to “destroy our country.” In other words, we riot for gas, and Biden says, “Let ‘em drive electric cars.”

Still, I’ve lived three quarters of a lifetime, and over those six decades, gas prices have only gone up. They have gone down for short (very short) periods of time, but the general direction, like the price of cigarettes, has been upward.

Behold the economics of a Saturday night when I was in high school during the 1970s.

A six pack of beer for $1.50. A small cheese pizza for $1.50. Two gallons of gas for $1. A pack of Marlboros for half a buck. The girl was impressed, not by how cheap everything was, but by the fact that I could get us beer. She came along for the ride.

Biden must remember days when everything could be bought even more cheaply, when no president really had to watch the price of gasoline, when the numbers at the pump might not be the face of the slot machine that determines his fate.

Those numbers, those small numbers flickering behind the dirty Plexiglas at the pump, those numbers may turn out to be the most important poll taken about the Biden presidency; they may be the very earliest of early voting.

Maybe 60% of Americans would give up on voting rights, rights for gays, abortion rights, cheaper day care, cheaper prescription drugs, economic equality and racial equality for a 25% decrease in the price of gasoline. For a 50% drop, we’d storm the Capitol all over again.

We won’t, will we? Maybe. No one thought we’d do it the first time.

An entire social agenda, an entire theory of government, great castles of thought about sex and race and fairness, all of it rides on the numbers spinning at the pump.

And Biden is losing

Kindergarten readiness scores fall during pandemic

JACKSON — The percentage of Mississippi children considered ready for kindergarten has fallen during the pandemic, according to state test results released Friday.

The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment showed 31.8% of kindergarteners scored kindergarten-ready this year, according to the Mississippi Department of Education. That is down from 36.6% in 2019 and 36.1% in 2018. Scores from 2020 were not released.

The test evaluates early literacy skills.

“The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment is further proof of the pandemic’s impact on students in the state,” Carey Wright, the state superintendent of education, said in a press release.

“Mississippi’s kindergarten teachers are outstanding. Yearly, their hard work leads to significant gains for the state’s youngest students, and I anticipate seeing those gains when students are retested in spring 2022,” Wright added.

The score to be considered ready for kindergarten is 530, which means students can identify most letters of the alphabet, match most letters to their sounds and are building their vocabulary and understanding of print. Research shows 85% of students who score 530 or higher on the assessment at the beginning of kindergarten are proficient in reading at the end of 3rd grade, the department said.

The Clarion-ledger reports that the 2021 Pre-kindergarten Readiness assessment also showed a decline in readiness with 13% of four-year-old students tested at or above the threshold. That is down from nearly 16% in 2019.

The newspaper reported that a separate report showed about 10% of students in other Pre-k programs, such as Title I and special education programs, met state standards. Roughly 14.3% of students met the same standard two years ago.

Mississippi State receives grant to return native remains

STARKVILLE — A new National Park Service grant will help Mississippi State University assess human remains found at a historically significant late prehistoric Native American mound near campus and return them to their decedents.

The $90,000 grant is part of a larger $1.9 million in federal funds dispersed by the National Park Service through 11 grants across the U.S. supporting the transportation and return of cultural items.

Since 1990, federal law has required that institutions like museums and schools that receive federal funding return human remains, funerary objects and other sacred items to their Native American, Alaska

Native and Native Hawaiian descendants.

Located in the Black Prairie region of northeastern Oktibbeha County, Lyon’s Bluff is a large Native American mound and village complex a few miles from Mississippi State University.

Throughout the process, the university team will consult with all Native American nations who have cultural and historical connections to Mississippi, said Shawn Lambert, principal investigator and an assistant professor in MSU’S Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures.

Lambert said the process will strengthen tribal collaboration and develop a better understanding of Mississippi’s cultural heritage.

“More importantly, this project showcases the value of respecting and implementing tribal cultural protocols into archaeological practice,” he said.

Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures faculty members Anna Osterholtz said students will be able to see the process unfold from start ot finish and “experience the benefits of ethical cooperation.”

Elvis enthusiast to head Presley foundation in Tupelo

TUPELO — An Elvis Presley enthusiast who has helped promote the late singer’s ties to his Mississippi hometown will take over as head of a memorial foundation in Tupelo.

Roy Turner was named executive director of the Elvis

Presley Memorial Foundation, which oversees the Presley birthplace site, news outlets reported Monday.

Turner wrote a companion booklet to the 2007 DVD release, “Tupelo’s Own Elvis Presley,” which was a concert film documenting Presley’s 1956 performances at the Mississippi-alabama Fair and Dairy Show in Tupelo. Turner was also had a guiding hand in the writing of the 2004 biography “Elvis and Gladys” by Elaine Dundy, which details the life of Presley’s mother and her relationship to the superstar.

In 2006, Turner joined Jim Palmer as an executive director and producer of the film “Homecoming: Tupelo Welcomes Elvis,” which was later sold the concept of the show to the A&E Biography Channel.

Turner will replace Dick Guyton, who will retire in January after about two decades.

1st home of Tennessee Williams getting bronze statue of him

COLUMBUS — The first home of Tennessee Williams will undergo restoration, and a new life-size bronze statue of the playwright will be installed out front.

WCBI-TV reported that the Tennessee Williams Home and Welcome Center has been awarded two grants from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the Mississippi Hills Heritage Area. The Victorian-era house is the headquarters for tourism promotion in Columbus, Mississippi.

The grants will go toward repairs and renovation, including plasterwork inside and repainting outside.

A longtime educator, Dixie Butler, is paying to commission the bronze statue. The CEO of Visit Columbus, Nancy Carpenter, said the artwork could draw in visitors.

“We think that it’s going to allow people to drive up to the Tennessee Williams House Museum and Welcome Center ... get out of their car, and come and take a picture like this has been done in Oxford and other places, and then they will decide, ‘I think we’ll shop a little, or maybe we can eat,’” Carpenter said.

Oxford, Mississippi, has a statue of novelist William Faulkner seated on a bench on the town square.

Renovations of the Tennessee Williams home are expected to start in a few months. Work on the statue could take about a year.

Born as Thomas Lanier Williams in 1911, he spent part of his childhood in Columbus and Clarksdale, Mississippi, before his family moved to St. Louis. He lived in New Orleans as an adult. The Pulitzer Prize winner’s plays include “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “The Glass Menagerie” and “Streetcar Named Desire.”

Oxford knocking down building to make way for downtown park

OXFORD — The city of Oxford is proposing knocking down a building to put a park next to city hall.

Designs for the project are still being finalized. The park will contain nearly 7,500 square feet of green space and a path from the downtown square to the parking lot located behind city hall, The Oxford Eagle reports. Seating areas will be included along with water features, a small stage and lighting.

The Oxford Courthouse Square Preservation Commission recently approved a permit to demolish the RSVP building to make way for the park. Built in the mid-1970s, the structure has permanent roof damage.

A magnolia tree will also have to be removed to construct the new park. Mark Levy, who is the city’s special projects director, said the tree has to come down so the park can meet Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines.