Jackson Jambalaya

Great woman and advocate for education...she will be missed.

You mean an advocate to maintain the status quo of Mississippi's failing education system.

You may want to look at her record before you pass judgement. Moreover, if the system is failing we (parens of children, teachers, administrators and representatives, etc.) all are maintaining the status quo. The system didn't fail overnight and can't be fixed overnight, however, pointing a finger doesn't get us anywhere. As a parent of two high schoolers I have to do my part...making sure homework is done, that they understand what is being taught, checking with the teachers and being invovled with the school. That is what my mother did and I will continue to do also. I can't speak for you 9:29a or anyone else but it is easy to get on social media and point a finger but as I learnerd 35 years ago pointing a finger points some back at you.

So sad. She taught gym when I was at Callaway a million years ago. A great lady.

Jane Tucker

Harden voted party line Donkeycrat and school districts like JPS are an example of her legacy. YOU are apparently the one who needs to take a look at her record.

Please save your one-world-we're-all-responsible-its-going-to-take-time-bullshit for some other numbskull stupid enough to actually believe it.

We can only hope and pray that your high schoolers don't exit into the adult world with a brain full of mush.

Wow...I love that song!! Pulling it up on iTunes right now...thanks!!!!!

But seriously...did you not read what I said about my doings...AGAIN...I can't speak for you or anyone else...I am doing for mine and not complaining about a system that I can't fix alone. However, I can take responsibility in my home with my children...I gues YOU miss all that because you are so gunho to speak ill of the dead. Oh well...life does indeed go on...

9:49 and 11:43 am and 1:54 pm, are , I pray, one inappropriate person. Clearly, these blogs reflect the uninformed opinion of someone who never met Sen. Harden.

Sen. Harden cared very much about quality education for ALL students.

When I served on the Board for Community and Junior Colleges and liasoned with the legislature, I found her to be very well informed on issues regarding community colleges ,very hard working and always pleasant.

Of even greater importance to me at the time, she was unflailingly honest with me about what she could and could not support or succeed in doing and why. She was always rational and logical. That kind of honesty and reasoning ability was, sadly, far too rare.

Many, I am sorry to say, told me either what they imagined I wanted to hear or literally that they were uninterested in information but would vote " how they felt".

I respected Sen. Harden and those who shared her sense of honor very much, whether they agreed with the position I was supporting on behalf of the board or not.

My condolences to Sen. Harden's family.

Susan Purdy

Susan Purdy delivers a nice eulogy. It's not 'speaking ill of the dead' when an emotional issue bumps heads with the reality of the death of an elected official.

We have a choice of pretending she was an angel delivered into our midst to salvage the education system (which never happened), or we can be honest and scrap the emotion over her passing and deal with honesty. What difference did she make? Emotion aside!

What the hell did she accomplish? In all these years while she was "Championing this" and "supporting that" and "believing in the other", none of the system she came from improved one God Damned bit.

Years ago Alice Harden realized she could enjoy employment as a legislator more than as a teacher. The benefits were better, the hours were way more desirable and she had nobody to answer to. No annual reviews, no requirements to show up after hours for conferences and dealing with the plebes, no recertification, no mandated annual certification updates. She succeeded at what she went after ~ a vocal position in the domed building, just a little to the right of Maxine Waters. Nothing offensive intended. It is what it was.

Whether or not she was a 'great lady' I have no clue, as I don't know her personally. But, to suggest we must revere her because she has passed over Jordan is nonsense.

dam you zealots, a woman passed away. good grief.

No kidding. Leave the political battles to the side for once.

ShadowHearse sums it up quite well.

The news coverage of Harden's passing is full of politics Kingfish. The media is heralding the issues she "championed" -- especially education -- though, of course, they say nothing about the dreadful results in public education during her 24 years in the Senate. So they can tout her love for Blackburn all they want and herald her devotion to the school but the academic results there and throughout Jackson Public Schools are atrocious and pathetic.

Thoughts and prayers to her family.

I knew Alice from the morning workouts in Paul Lacoste Sports classes and she was a great person.

It might be wise for Kingfish to not publish obituaries if he does not want respondents to speak honestly about the issues surrounding the deceased. In that case, what is the purpose and benefit of publishing them in the first place. I respond to these sorts of blog posts just as I did when Edward Kennedy died or when Kirk Fordice died (two opposite ends of my spectrum). Is there a certain amount of time that should pass before we should give our opinion of the legacy of a deceased public figure?

Shadow, I applaud you for using the plain, declarative verb "DIED." The phrase "passed away" seems...welll...sorta "prole" to me. Not much better than "went to be with her Lord and Savior" which we read daily in the Glaring Error obits.

Terms such as 'passed', 'passed away', 'crossed over Jordan' and 'went to be with her Lord' are heartfelt expressions written into obituaries by family or friends. I have no disrespect for that if it consoles the survivors. I've done the same with family members and will again. Anybody who has passed away or crossed over Jordan has died. I didn't mean to be disrespectful of the deceased with my honesty, unlike Ophelia.

I am puzzled...if alice hardin cared so much about the education of the little chirens why in the world didn't she do something worth while like fixing the broken system or was she to dumb to even know the system was broken in the first place?

One of my favorite movie lines, spoken by the mahhhhvelous Lainie Kazan: "When your father passed away, and eventually died..."

Certainly no disrespect intended, Shad me lad! Just a bit of gallows humor. I used to call it "black humor" until my mother and I were watching her favorite comedian, Kevin James, and after one of his routines I used that term. " 'Black humor'? What are you talking about? He's as white as you are!"

Senator Harden could not be expected to singlehandedly improve education, but she was in the fray, working hard and taking the abuse of the ill informed who don't know jack about education.

I am frankly more than a little tired of arm chair critics who bitch about everything and everybody but are NEVER the ones actually working to improve whatever they are bitching about nor do they do more than superficially familiarize themselves with any issue.

And, I'm more than nauseated by mean spirited, unimaginative people who can't apparently understand that Sen. Harden left a family behind who is in grief or realize, that Sen Harden is no longer here to annoy them, and that they may find Sen. Harden's replacement far less to their liking.

Not only did Shadow and his cohorts never meet Sen Harden, not a one of them has ONE clue about what education bills she did or didn't support or what actions she did or didn't take. All they know about her is her political party, her gender and her race. If they weren't boorish ignoramouses then they'd know she supported many measures they would applaud.

You have NO IDEA December 8, 2012 9:04 AM about anybody here so look in the mirror because the boorish ignoramus is YOU.

Please educate us 9:04. Since I have no idea what Hardin did, will you list her accomplishments. I'm not so much interested in what 'she supported' as in what she actually 'did'. Please list three of her accomplishments regarding education during her lengthy career at the state trough.

Shadowdoubt, allow me, please, even though I'm not 9:04

You seem to have forgotten that education isn't only K-12.

While I'm certain Sen. Harden's overall focus was for improving all levels of education, let me just share was I know from working with her.

Senator Harden also was interested in community and junior colleges and our institutes of higher learning.

She worked to make sure during my tenure on the Board for Community and Junior Colleges that parents didn't have to double pay for courses their child had already passed with a C or better when they transferred to Ole Miss or State or Southern from one of our junior colleges.

Indeed, she worked to create the Board when before, the Junior College Presidents had their own little fiefdoms.

In doing both of those things, the boondoggle annual coastal meetings at the Broadwater at tax payer expense were curtailed considerably.

She worked to make sure that our junior colleges could compete for good faculty with our neighboring states when we were losing faculty( and students) to LA and ALA and TN.

She understood that our IHL and community colleges were losing money by not taking advantage of economies of scale and supported ( and garnered support) whenever she could for changes in the law that would allow fiscal responsibility.

She understood that ALL of our educational systems should be not only student focused but efficient.

She was involved in getting better funding for the libraries as most , to my horror, in the community college system relied too heavily on donations...lots of Danielle Steele and few reference books.

She supported kindergartens.

She understood what an " average" is and how it is derived and you would not believe how many legislators and junior college presidents argued that an " average" didn't account for lows or highs. Had I not been certain they had actually averaged grades, I might not have known they were lying as their sincere demeanor was impressive.

I can't think of a good bill regarding education from 1978 -1986 that she didn't lend her full weight to getting passed.

She tried to stop the helter skelter growth of duplicating programs that occur because our institutions too often compete rather than co-ordinate.

There was much she couldn't do because too many, like you, have opinions that aren't factually based.

Cy Rosenblatt and Alice Harden stood out during my political years as being the best informed legislators when it came to education. They did their homework.

You should do your homework before you speak so ill of the dead, Shadow.

Susan Purdy

There was much she couldn't do because too many, like you, have opinions that aren't factually based.

Ding, ding, ding.

Thanks for playing Susan.

You've got LADD SYNDROME.

Head to Fondren immediately for a Falcon Award and a complementary ObamaisGOD sticker from the old Editor Bitty herself.

Carry on.

All right. I've had it. I'm closing off comments to this thread. No damn respect for those passed away. And yes, that is my damn term for it. You can go practice your Monty Python skit on another website. Some of you have no class whatsoever. Probably like to tell 5 year old kids there is no Santa Claus.