“Race and Moral Leadership in the U.S. Judicial System,” open forum discussion

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves of Mississippi.

“District Judge Carlton Reeves has presided over key race and equality cases in Mississippi.” (NPRPhoto by Jackson State University.

NEW: University of Mississippi PRESS RELEASE on this event

When: Tuesday, October 27th, at 4pm.

Where: Bryant Hall room 207, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS

U.S. Judge Carlton Reeves of Mississippi caught national attention with a speech he prepared for the sentencing in a murder trial. The case concerned the racially motivated murder of James Craig Anderson. Reeves’s speech has been called “breathtaking” on NPR.org and has been viewed well over a million times. NPR published a short bio about “The Man Behind the Speech.”

Poster for the event. Click on it to open a large Adobe PDF file of the poster.Reeves’s position and leadership are special in part because of his position as a judge. We often think of executives or legislators as leaders. Judges also exercise leadership in their own unique ways and contexts, however. Reeves’s example is also special because of the context of his leadership and the location and circumstances of it. We will have an open forum discussion about “Race and Moral Leadership in the U.S. Judicial System” in Bryant Hall room 207 on Tuesday, October 27th, at 4pm.

Dr. Eric Thomas Weber, associate professor of Public Policy Leadership at the University of Mississippi, will be moderating the discussion.

This forum is free and open to all students, faculty, staff, and community members. Anyone needing accommodations related to disabilities, contact Dr. Eric Thomas Weber at etweber@olemiss.edu.

WLogo of the Mississippi Humanities Council.e are grateful for the generous support of the Mississippi Humanities Council and the University of Mississippi’s College of Liberal Arts.

Date: October 27, 2015
Time: 04:00-05:00 p.m.
Event: Moderating "Race and Moral Leadership in the U.S. Judicial System"
Topic: Race and Moral Leadership in the U.S. Judicial System
Sponsor: The Mississippi Humanities Council
601.432.6752
Venue: Bryant Hall, 207
662.915.1336
Location: 1944 University Circle
University, MS 38677
Public: Public

Unscientific Justification for My Coffee Dependency

Silly chart that I made unscientifically to show a slight correlation between increased coffee consumption and increased per capita GDP.

I was thinking about coffee because I love it, and a silly idea struck me. I’m not a quantitative researcher and the silly activity I spent a few minutes on this morning is utterly unscientific and drawn from sources that confer no serious credibility. Therefore, I urge anyone looking at this not to cite it in any kind of research or writing, unless you’re writing about silliness.

I wondered whether one could show some correlation between growth in coffee consumption and economic growth. Selecting out an inconvenient year before my chart starts, I got a bit of a correlation. Both go up! See?!

It gave me a chuckle, so I thought I’d share. Even if it’s just a silly thought to make me feel better about my dependency on coffee…

Cartoon of a cartoonist at his drawing desk, with Death in a black hooded robe and with his scythe at the door yelling "Deadline!"

I had two deadlines Friday. Made one of them. The grant application is out. I’m so lucky that the other deadline was more flexible. BUT, today’s the deadly deadline… This guy at his desk is me today. MUST get this done. Final edits are due on my latest journal article. The piece is important for my book, A Culture of Justice. It’s first coming out in a journal. Helpful feedback is the best part of journal publishing, not that reviewers are ever encouraging. The important part is that they’re often right about some ways in which I could improve my work.

I’m grateful to artist Oliver Ottitsch (OliverOttitsch.com) for permission to post his artwork, “Deadline” (February 22, 2013), which he kindly granted me. I ordered one of his books today, most of which are in German, though one is in French and one’s in English. The cartoon above is online here.

Oliver’s piece inspires me today, including now, as I do something fun for a few minutes before (instead of) finishing my edits! Back to work!

Photos from the book signing at Square Books

Thanks to Daniel Perea for snapping these pictures at the book signing on Wednesday (September 9th, 2015)! Daniel kindly agreed to let me have the copyright for the images (Weber, 2015). Please do not use these without permission. Visit my contact page and drop me a line if you’d like to use one, especially for press or promotional purposes for future events. Thank you, Daniel!

I also want to thank Cody Morrison and Square Books for being great hosts. It was a wonderful first book signing experience. I’m honored and was very grateful and encouraged to see a number of nice folks brave the weather to hear about Uniting Mississippi. I’m pleased to report that we sold all but two copies, though one of those remaining is now gone. Square Books has one left as I write this, though a new shipment will be there soon. I’ll head over at some point soon to sign those, as one of the really cool things about real, brick and mortar bookstores like Square Books, and about literary towns like Oxford, is that authors sign books here and you can get your new book already signed by the author. You can’t do that on the forest-river-yellow Web site site. Thanks again, Square Books!

To learn more about the book, visit my page for Uniting Mississippi. If you’d like to support local bookstores like Square Books, you can order your copy on their Web site here:

Buy ‘Uniting Mississippi’ from Square Books

You can also see a brochure about the book here:

Printable Adobe PDF Brochure for ‘Uniting Mississippi’

Photo of Weber signing a book for Mrs. Gray in Oxford, MS.

I’ve got a gallery of photos from that evening, which won’t be found here if you clicked on the “Photos” link in the menu. It has something to do with the kind of post I put the gallery in. Anyway, click here to see all the photos from that night.

Thanks again to Daniel Perea for taking the pictures that night. Please do not reuse these without requesting permission first. Copyright Weber 2015.