My favorite Jackson, Mississippi restaurants for dinner.

Looking for a place to take an out-of-towner for dinner, but don’t want a chain restaurant.  Jackson, Mississippi has an unusually high number of good restaurants for dinner.  Below is the list of restaurants in no particular order that I frequent often, take out of town guests to and have no problem recommending.  All are locally owned.  (This is not to be confused with a list of Best Restaurants in Jackson.)

Bon Ami
Bravo’s
Julep
Nick’s
Walker’s

Had dinner at Basil’s in Belhaven this past weekend and it will probably be added to my list of most frequented restaurants.

Happy dining!

UPDATE – Comment from Liz:

These are great pics for restaurants in Jackson. Another incentive for budget conscious consumers is to be able to brown bag wine. Aladdin, the Mayflower, BonAmi, Basil and the Thai House are a few that allow you to “take your own”.

State Treasurer Tate Reeves to address Stennis-Capitol Press Luncheon on Monday, March 2

State Treasurer Tate Reeves will address the Stennis-Capitol Press luncheon meeting on Monday, March 2 at noon at the University Club in downtown Jackson, Mississippi.  Click here for registration details and more info about the event.

Tourism Impact on Mississippi Counties

There are over 75,0000 jobs in direct tourism employment, according to the Mississippi Tourism Association.  The county with the smallest number has only two jobs, while the county with the largest has 14,000.  Just for fun, match the county with its Direct Tourism Employment in the following quiz:

1.  Adams                            a.  295
2.  Alcorn                             b.  24
3.  Amite                              c.  717
4.  Attala                              d.  2,100

Answers can be found by clicking here.

What should you do when your community is featured negatively on the news?

How many times has your community been the subject of a news report from an outside organization that you felt disparaged your community and failed to project the whole story?  What should you do? I suspect that it varies on a case-by-case basis.  How would you handle this case?

Eastern Kentucky has found out that when a national news organization (ABC’s 20/20) pays a visit and then airs a program on national television in prime time the feelings of the locals can run deep and visceral.  Was this program fair?  Was it good journalism?  Does it reinforce negative stereotypes?

There is a thought-provoking article entitled “Speak Your Piece: Diane Sawyer in Eastern Kentuicky,” by B. L. Dotson-Lewis about the above case in Daily Yonder, which is a digest published on the web by the Center for Rural Strategies.

Ten Questions for Your Staff Meeting

1.  Why are we in this business?

2.  What are our core competencies and unique skillsets?

3.  What type of business do we want to develop?

4.  How do we want to be viewed by our customers?

5.  How do we involve all employees in this vision?

6.  Where do we want to be in three, five and seven years?

7.  How do we develop goals and who should be held accountable for the outcome?

8.  How do we monitor our progress?

9.  How do we reward performance?start

10. How do we attract the right personnel to meet our vision and goals?

Chicago: Most Miserable or City of the Year

About those lists.

We love lists, don’t we?  But they can be skewed, or at least appear to be unless one reads the small print on what factors were used to generate the list.  Chicago is a good example.  On the post below it made the Most Miserable list, but in 2008 Fast Company magazine named it City of the Year.

America’s Most Miserable Cities

Now here’s a list you would not want to be on.  Forbes has a Web article on America’s Most Miserable Cities.  Cities for purposes of this list are defined as metropolitan areas over 378,000, e.g. America’s 150 largest metros.  The responses to this article are more passionate than usual.  Here’s the list:

1.  Stockton, CA
2.  Memphis, TN
3.  Chicago, IL
4.  Cleveland, OH
5.  Modesto, CA
6.  Flynt, MI
7.  Detroit, MI
8.  Buffalo, NY
9.  Miami, FL
10. St. Louis, MO

Will America’s Boomtowns Keep Booming?

An interesting article in Business Week discusses this subject.  Most of the communities labeled as boomtowns are suburban communities that attracted new residents from urban areas.  These towns had proximity to larger cities and had a good quality of life.

The article has a map listing each state and its biggest boomtown.  Click here to go to the article; or click here to go to the map to find your state’s biggest boomtown.

Read the Stimulus Bill

The so-called Stimulus Bill, officially enrolled as American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is now over 1,500 pages.  Has anybody read the whole thing?  Or better yet, is there a way to search for specific items in the bill?  Fortunately, the answer is yes.  There are two Web sites that may interest you – and, yest, there are others.

The first is the official Congressional Web site, known as THOMAS, where you can search all or specific legislation.  Click here to go to the search link.  The Stimulus Bill is HR, so just click on Browse by Bill Number and look for HR 1.

Another site of interest is readthestimulus.org.  It is simpler and easier to use as well as providing news updates.  Again, there are similar sites from various political organizations.  Send me an e-mail; I’ll be glad to list it here.

Are libraries the new town square?

Are libraries the new town squares?

Project for Public Spaces (PPS) thinks so.  Billing itself as a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating and sustaining public places that build communities, PPS recently listed its “10 Trends Shaping the Future of Our Communities.”  Number five on the list is “Libraries emerge as new town squares.”

I believe that PPS may be on to something.  Have you been to your local public library lately?  I go to quite a few on my booksigning tours, and from I’ve seen libraries are in the midst of change, much of which is driven by technology.  Ask any librarian if there is an increased demand for Web-connected computers, community rooms, music, meeting rooms and even coffee bars.

Some of the things going on at a library that I visited recently:

Lunch at the Library, a lunch provided by the library and a lecture by an author;
Adult education classes in preparation for the GED – Morning Classes    8:00-1:00 pm  Monday – Thursday;
Humanities Discussion group from 4-6 p.m. featuring a variety of discussion subject related to the history of the community;
The Book Bunch – 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on  Wednesdays; and
Hobby in the Lobby.