[link|http://www.dukesatire.com/articles/mississippi.htm|It's a quagmire!]

Excerpt:

During a strident protest on the Chapel\ufffds steps, members of the Duke and Durham community demanded that the United States immediately pullout from the embattled state of Mississippi.

\ufffdAmerica\ufffds unilateral control of Mississippi has created a place with one of the worst education systems in the nation,\ufffd remarked protestor Abigail Chen. \ufffdFor too long, the U.S. has neglected this poor state, letting it devolve into an almost unfixable quagmire. I think it\ufffds time we just counted our losses and left Mississippi to the Mississippians.\ufffd

According to the National Education Association, Mississippi is 50th in education spending, 47th in public elementary and secondary teacher\ufffds average salaries. Furthermore, those with a bachelor\ufffds or higher only account for 16.9% of the population, the third worst percentage in the nation.

Echoing Chen\ufffds anger, Trinity sophomore Marcus Banks, a pre-med student, spoke to the Magnolia State\ufffds appalling healthcare system.

\ufffdAs we have seen with Iraq, the United States cannot be trusted to run a whole entire country, let alone a state. As a pre-med student, I make it my business to study health and what I have learned about Mississippi is atrocious. Over 62% percent of their population is obese, it has one of the lowest health care per capita expenditures, and more infants die there than anywhere else in the U.S.A. George Bush should be ashamed of himself. Instead of liberating the Iraqis, Americans should be concerned with the poor, poor people of Mississippi.\ufffd

Members of the Duke Progressive Union, one of the protest\ufffds sponsors, added that while most people admit that Iraq has security problems, they fail to consider the constant danger that average Mississippian has to endure.

\ufffdI mean like all the soldiers and Iraqis dying in the Middle East is bad enough,\ufffd stated Progressive Union secretary Kavita Pavel. \ufffdBut has the Republican administration given one thought to how dangerous it is to live in Mississippi? Over 28,000 people died there in 2002, like way more Americans than have been killed in Iraq. Mississippi also has the highest traffic fatality rate in the country and over the last decade 130 people have been killed by tractors. We need to pullout as soon as possible and divest quickly from John Deere.\ufffd

Some protest attendees believe that the United Nations should be brought in to alleviate the disaster of this impoverished, unsafe southern state.

\ufffdClearly, our go-it-alone approach has failed,\ufffd said Professor of Sociology Ernest Raines. \ufffdWhat we need is a multilateral force under the control of the United Nations that will come in, administer much needed assistance and, with any luck, give these poor people a fighting chance. How can we allow Mississippi to fester any longer under the weight of an oppressive American regime that allows them to eat so much damn deep-fried food?\ufffd