Big Sole Blog (BSB)

Soledad O'Brien did one of the best interviews I've seen with Jamie and Gladys Scott since their release. They talked about the kidney donation; Gladys reiterated that she wanted to donate a kidney as far back as January 2010, and Jamie said she and Gladys refuse to let bitterness consume them. They also answered questions about how race played a role in their convictions for a crime they

Mrs.Grapevine informed me that the Old School Friday meme for 2011 is kicking off, and the theme for today is Teena Marie. I posted other videos of the singer when she died in December. But thinking about OSF, I came across not a song but this great video of Teena Marie singing to Patti Labelle, "Somebody Loves You, Baby" and after she's done, Patti talks about how much she loves her, and that

A spokesperson for the Scott Sisters announced last night that the Scott Sisters will be released Friday to begin their new lives on parole. They go home to their mother and their five children and grandchildren. The women were convicted of armed robbery in 1994, but how that conviction came about back then is clouded with dubious court procedures. For more details on this case, as well as

My essay "Haley Barbour Will Free the Scott Sisters: Beyond Race to the Bitter Aftertaste" has just been published at BlogHer.com. I'm definitely happy that the sisters will walk freely away from a Mississippi prison; however, I don't think joy for them, their five children, their grandchildren, siblings, and their mother, Evelyn Rasco, should divert voter attention from the governor's

The Scott Sisters are free! Watch videos here.Below is a podcast of the interview, and at BlogHer.com, this opinion piece is live, "Haley Barbour to Free the Scott Sisters: Beyond Race to the Bitter Aftertaste." Powered by Podbean.comBy now many of you have heard the good news that this past Wednesday December 29, 2010, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour announced that he is suspending

When I wrote on Wednesday about Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour suspending the sentences of Jamie and Gladys Scott, my post's headline emphasized the kidney deal. Barbour's treatment of the Scott Sisters just did not seem right to me. Now I've learned via ABC News that that deal may not even be legal. Read the full story at ABC where bioethicists indicate, "Governor's Deal Violates 50-

Updated January 1, 2011: ABC News has published an article indicating Gov. Barbour may have broken transplant laws with this deal:Ethicists say suspending a prison sentence on the condition that one sister give the other a kidney is a "quid pro quo" and threatens the ethical underpinnings of living donation laws. ... Dr. William Hurlburt, a Stanford neurologist who sat on the President's Council

The campaign to release the Scott Sisters of Mississippi is finally getting the mainstream media attention it deserves. As I wrote at BlogHer this summer, a judge sentenced the the two young women to double-life after they were convicted in 1994 for alleged involvement in a roadside robbery. They were given harsher sentences than the young men, teens who testified against them, and the case is

This post has been moved to BlogHer.com.Jamie Scott was allowed to leave prison for her sister's funeral.Here she holds her grandchildren. Her sister Gladys, reportsSan Francisco Bay View, was not allowed to attend.If you should find yourself falsely accused and facing prison time or worse--in prison serving time for a crime you did not commit or for a crime you committed but received an