Tim Murphy

Reporter

Tim Murphy is a reporter in MoJo's DC bureau. Last summer he logged 22,000 miles while blogging about his cross-country road trip for Mother Jones. His writing has been featured in Slate and the Washington Monthly. Email him with tips and insights at tmurphy [at] motherjones [dot] com.

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Heavy Artillery and the Wisdom of Strangers

—By Tim Murphy

| Mon Aug. 2, 2010 6:10 AM PDT

Ferriday, Louisiana—Ever since we jettisoned our trebuchet somewhere outside Murfreesboro, we've been traveling a little light in the way of high-powered weaponry. If pressed, our first line of defense would probably be a bag of fried pig skins (impulse buy), but even at their most potent, those would take a few decades to kill you. We're toast, basically—as strangers we've met have been quick to point. Here's some sage advice we received—entirely unsolicited—from the two employees of a one-room diner in Natchez, the first a thirtysomething male named (I think) Marsaw, and the second a woman a few decades his senior.

"You're going through Texas!," says Marsaw. "What kinda gun you got?"

"Just our fists."

"You mean you're not carrying a gun?" Marsaw's incredulous.

"We like to think we're pretty intimidating people."

The woman laughs, which I'll just assume is her defense mechanism. We get that a lot.

"My dad always said, 'Always have a flashlight and a gun wherever you go,'" says Marsaw. "'That way if you need to stop and fight you won't get shot in the back.' You can pull out the .22. Protect yourself."

The flashlight seems kind of superfluous in that scenario, but okay.

The woman jumps in: "Well you can just use the tire iron [she makes a violent thwacking gesture]. You know, it's legal to put the tire iron in the glove compartment in Mississippi, from the trunk. You can just do that."

"Well they should get the .22, too."

"Yeah, but if they don't have a .22 they gotta use the tire iron."

"Yeah, .22 and a tire iron."

Done and done. Of course, if you buy a .22, you'll probably want a concealed-carry permit to go with it. Utah, anyone?

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A Sense of Where We Are: Acadiana

—By Tim Murphy

| Fri Jul. 30, 2010 7:28 PM PDT

View Westward Expansion in a larger map

The View From My Windshield: I've Known Rivers

—By Tim Murphy

| Fri Jul. 30, 2010 5:50 PM PDT

The Mighty Mississip': (Photo: Alex Gontar). The Mighty Mississip': In Natchez, the Mississippi River is now more of ornament than lifeblood (Photo: Alex Gontar).Natchez, Mississippi—Old river towns don't age, they just fade away. Back in the glory days of the old river, when men were men and "steamboat captain" was an acceptable career choice for a 12-year-old boy, Natchez-Under-the-Hill was one of the best places in the country to get stabbed, beaten, shot, or all of the above.

Things have quieted down since then; the "riffraff of the river," as Twain called the drunken (and violent) river rats and women of the night who populated lower Natchez, left town ages ago, along with the steamboats and the Mississippi's grip on the American economy. In their absence, the city has morphed into a vacation hotspot for seventysomethings, marketing its antebellum mansions, B&Bs, and a floating riverboat casino called "The Isle of Capri." Walk just a few blocks, though, and you'll find crumbling wooden houses and businesses so thoroughly shuttered no one's even bothered to board them up.

Obama's War on Churchgoers

—By Tim Murphy

| Fri Jul. 30, 2010 5:21 PM PDT

Evolution of Species: The Neshoba County Fair is like "one big family reunion," says one attendee. That's me in the blue. (Photo: Tim Murphy) More Bros in More Places: The Neshoba County Fair is like "one big family reunion," says one attendee. That's me in the blue. (Photo: Tim Murphy)Natchez, Mississippi—I only have a few rules for this trip: never turn down a free meal; don't use the bar soap at a public shower; and if a political candidate begins her stump speech with the phrase, "What I've gotta say is not gonna be politically correct," always—always—make sure I have plenty of juice left in my Quick-Quotes Quill.

So with that in mind, I present Gail Giaramita, Constitution Party candidate for the House seat currently held by Travis Childers, a Democrat. Ms. Giaramita probably won't be the next US Represenative for Mississippi, but if she loses in the fall, it won't be because she ran away from her principles. As her campaign site puts it, "As a nurse, Gail views America as a body with cancer."

That's pretty much her stump speech, too. Here's what she told the crowd at the Neshoba County Fair last week:

"What I've gotta say is not gonna be politically correct, but it's gonna be the truth. Nothing's gonna save America, unless we turn back to Holy God," says Gail. "And when I say that, I'm talking about Jesus Christ."

"There are two reasons why God has blessed America and the first is because we stand by Israel...There's a book out there that's interesting, and it shows that when America pressures Israel, catastrophes happen." And what does that entail exactly? Two words: Hurricane Katrina (gays: you're off the hook!). Gail is running for Congress to put a stop to the nonsense. Ever since the Supreme Court outlawed school prayer, the nation has been in a precepitous decline falling deeper and deeper as Christians become relegated to second- and then third- and maybe even fourth-class citizens.

Under Obama, things may be worse than they've ever been: "I don't know if we're gonna be arrested for going to church. I don't know!"

This may have only been the second most bizaare speech I saw at the Fair, though. First place goes the Honorable Vernon Cotton, an incumbent circuit court judge who began his speech by speaking directly to his challenger, seated a few rows from the front: "You were in my dream last night. I dreamed that you were robbed at gunpoint. Killed. Dead." Just like the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Meet the Mule Lobby

—By Tim Murphy

| Thu Jul. 29, 2010 3:25 PM PDT

Philadelphia, Mississippi—Ray Lilley is technically head of the Mississippi Mule Association, but he prefers his unofficial title: "I'm top ass," he says. He’s decked out today in what I’d imagine would be his Monday–Saturday best: blue overalls, an old yellow shirt, and a maroon hat with a pointy-eared mule on the front. He and his friends Rusty and Jim, farmers both, are handling the livestock competition today at the Neshoba Giant Fair.

"Tell 'em we don’t like Nancy Pelosi," says Jim, and they all laugh. Noted.

The Neshoba County Fair has, over the last century or so, become more well known by its other name, Mississippi’s Giant Houseparty. Some 600 cabins of varying degrees of luxury, priced at as high as $300,000 and habitable for only 10 days each year, occupy the fairgrounds, divided into streets and neighborhoods. But it's still a county fair at heart, which means that if you have a favorite dairy cow, steer, watermelon, or artichoke, you can still bring it the grounds to get measured, appraised, and certified.

Things go relatively smoothly over at the weigh station, with one notable exception: One cow, appropriately the only one not brought in by a young kid, does a nose-dive onto the scale and doesn't feel like leaving. Our Bessy cheked in at either 400 or 440 lbs.—a big spread, admittedly so Rusty took the average—and then she pretty much checked out. Some days you just don’t feel like showing off for the head of the Mississippi Mule Association.