August is the Mississippi of the calendar. It's beastly hot and muggy. It has a dismal history. Nothing good ever happens in it. And the United States would be better off without it.

Geez, what did Mississippi ever do to David Plotz? I live here, and I take exception to the scorching assertions that nothing ever happens here and that my entire country would be better off if I, along with most of the people I know and love, didn't exist.

Doesn't Plotz know that, in addition to being astonishingly rude to those who've lived their lives here and struggled with dignity and integrity for equal civil rights, it's intellectually lazy to vilify the state with sweeping and dismissive statements like the one above? It's easy for those who live elsewhere to sum up Mississippi with a quick and dirty caricature and saves having to come to grips with any complexities.

Here's the interesting thing: this quick summing up and dismissal of an entire socio-cultural group is exactly the kind of thinking that undergirded segregation. Exclusion of a culturally devalued group is always easier than struggling to understand and value them. In this case it allowed an author to go for an easy laugh, but one whose shallow mean-spiritedness ultimately rings hollow.

I don't live in Mississippi. But I was born in August.

Geez, Mississippi must be an awful place that we're better off without if you can't even learn a sense of humor there.

It's intellectually lazy to not recognize how cliches and stereotypes can bring something to popular literature.

But perhaps it's easier to critique than struggle to understand and appreciate....

Oh I think the home team with Faulkner and Welty will hold their own. And Shelby Foote in relief ....

I couldn't get past that Mississippi reference either. According to Plotz, we'd all have been better off without Eudora Welty, Shelby Foote, Faulkner, Elvis, Charles and Medgar Evers, BB King, Tennessee Williams, Faulkner ...

Of course, he doesn't really mean that, but you'd think, given the fact this is a reprint, he might have had time to come up with a less insulting analogy. Or an editor might have pressed the issue. And I'm not even from Mississippi.

I will concede this, though: August IS a miserable month.

you,sir, have done the glorious month of August and those who were born in that mob=nth a grave disservice. Obvio9usly you have pput your opiniated ideas ahead of others who love this month. Here in northern NH, August begins to usher in the cooler days and nights of autumn and the most glorious foliage in all the world. Leos are lovers and gregarious people. I, personally love the month of August. Before attacking the most beautiful month of the year, you should consider the feelings of others. If more people tried to understand the feelings of others, perhaps this would be a better world..

Louis

au

Not to mention that Elvis, whose death has marred August in the writers eye, was born in Mississippi!

My feelings exactly SM. I wish that this jerk would go ahead and just tell us what he really feels- that the entire southern portion of the United States is expendable. At least he would be honest. You do have the consider the source- a person who is so egocentric that even when he describes the hottest summer month it has to be the hottest one for his particular region ( the East coast.) Typical for many northeasterners. Also, I've noticed, shares a similarity in the ethnicity of his surname with most of the writers on Slate.

Sure. Appreciate it.But be selective about who you include in a cliche, right? wink. That is a bit hypocritical, don't you think?

Very eloquent, Sage. Well done.

Mississippi is a bastion of creativity that spawns talent. In addition to the other individuals named, let's not forget the countless number of blues musicians, Oprah Winfrey, Jim Henson, and especially Jimmy Buffett--all of whom come from Mississippi.

Not at all. When you write something on Slate, feel free to use whichever cliches in whichever ways you like. You'll be selective in your own way....but if you weren't selective at all, it wouldn't be a cliche.

what exactly are you trying to say, Jen 25? Because your comment comes off looking quite Anti-Semitic, as you well know.

As for Mississippi, check the stats on everything from health care availability and disease rates, voting rights for minorities, conviction rates for same vs. white people, educational performance particularly in public schools, income levels and disparities among the races and classes, infant mortality stats, and "last" but not least: literacy rates. Mississippi is the pits. With Alabama and Louisiana, close behind. That is not prejudice speaking, it is nationally recognized, statistically based ... FACT.

Sorry if you-all can't stand it that a Slate writer is speaking the truth --or even just the nationally perceived truth --about that State, but the facts support Mr. Plotz's assertions. Has it occurred to you that MIssissippi is also one of the hottest and most humid states in the nation? Perhaps that's the reason the Slate writer chose to use it as his metaphor. So simple. And watch that pesky little Anti-Semitism problem you've got there, ok?

fro MS. can you mention? I see only one that you have omitted who comes to mind: the writer John Grisham. MS's list of notable and highly achieved citizens is lamentably short. I met Shelby Foote years ago and he was a charming gennamun; but he moved to Memphis years before and hadn't been a true Mississipi-an for years, possibly decades.

Also, you listed Faulkner twice. fyi.

metaphor. Mississippi is, exactly, "the August of the calendar." A former Southerner here, fyi.

Why don't you learn some respect because you obviously don't have any for yourself! Only some ignorant biased loser would write an article such as this! Get your head out of your butt or take some Midol because you need some desperate therapy! I was also born and August and at least I can appreciate all the other months without bashing them--- even though I don't particularly find them interesting. Get a life!