New Media from a Journalism Veteran
Virgil Goode plots his comeback
Virgil Goode, the former Virginia Congressman whose overt racism and bigotry embarrassed the Old Dominion, is — with the help of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) — plotting his comback in the 2010 mid-term election.
Goode has already filed his intentions run again to regain his seat from Democrat Tom Perriello, who narrowly defeated Goode. He submitted paperwork to the Federal Election Commission in March.
The NRCC is also spending thousands of dollars on television ads questioning Perriello’s votes on the economic stimulus bill and other legislation. A friend who works for the NRCC tells me Republicans have already targeted Perriello as a "vulnerable seat" in 2010.
Goode is just one of many racists who have embarrassed Virginia and the GOP in recent years. Former Republican Senator George Allen destroyed his Presidential ambitions and lost his Senate seat over his infamous "macaca" racial slur in 2008.
On Sunday, Virginia Republicans tossed out racist state chairman Jeffrey Fredrick after he ignored calls for his resignation by just about every GOP elected official in the Commonwealth. Fredrick’s overt racism towards Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign brought even more shame on the Grand Old Party.
As Time Magazine reported during the campaign:
With so much at stake, and time running short, Frederick did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon," he said. "That is scary." It is also not exactly true — though that distorted reference to Obama’s controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. "And he won’t salute the flag," one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, "We don’t even know where Senator Obama was really born." Actually, we do; it’s Hawaii.
And, of course, there’s Bobby May, the longtime Virginia Republican operative who has worked for Virgil Goode in the past and was John McCain’s campaign chairman in Buchanan County last year when he wrote that Obama’s Presidential platform would:
Hire rapper Ludacris to paint (the White House) black. Taxes to be increased to by enough paint for the job plus spray-paint for graffiti.
Raise taxes to send $845 billion, most to Africa so the Obama family can skim off enough to allow them to free their goats and live the American dream.
Republicans tried to dismiss May’s extremism as the actions of a "low level campaign operative but the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the state’s most conservative newspaper, reported:
May has been involved with dozens of Republican campaigns throughout Virginia, including former gubernatorial candidate and Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-5th.
Which brings us back to Virgil Goode’s plan to regain his Congressional seat. Perhaps Bobby May, a former campaign operative for Goode, will run his new campaign. Racists of a lather still flock together.
Ask not for whom the Parkway tolls: It tolls for thee
Dan Casey of The Roanoke Times wants to charge tolls for those of us who use the Blue Ridge Parkway to get from Point A to Point B.
Writes Casey in Thursday’s Times:
If you’re in a hurry and you need to get from Clearbrook in southern Roanoke County to the eastern county section of Bonsack, there is exactly one quick and hassle-free road you want to take: the Blue Ridge Parkway.
So many Roanoke-area drivers have happily discovered this nifty National Park Service shortcut that it’s often swarming with rush-hour motorists. Some wags already call it the "Wal-Mart Expressway."
Spend any weekday evening on that gorgeous blacktop ribbon and you’ll see what I mean. Long lines of hurrying-to-get-home commuters zip along at 50 to 60 mph or so, unimpeded by traffic lights, stop signs or typical traffic bottlenecks.
That’s one of the reasons it’s time to reconsider an idea floated but rebuffed in the past: tolls, or some sort of fee system, for parkway users who get a free ride now.
If you’re thinking, "That darn Casey is one of those infernal parkway bicyclists who doesn’t like all that traffic," you’re partly right.
But what you may not know is that all those motorists are helping to wear out that beautiful road much faster than the National Park Service’s repaving budget can handle.
As one who often uses the Parkway as an alternate route from home to Roanoke, my first thought is "wow, Casey must be smoking some of Floyd County’s primary cash crop." The last thing we need in these over-taxed times is yet another way to separate cash-strapped locals from their hard-earned bucks.
Park roads often serve as commuter routes. In the Washington area, the George Washington Parkway, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and the roads that wind through the National Mall — all parts of the federal park system — serve as primary routes during rush hour. I used them often during our 23 yeas in the National Capital Region.
Yes, the Parkway is far, far behind in maintenance projects but the crumbling roads exist not so much because commuters are pounding the pavement into dust but because the feds diverted much of the Parkway’s budget to other areas — like the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
You find potholes and cracked pavement on the Parkway on areas not used by commuter traffic. Try driving south of Meadows of Dan and the pavement will pound your fillings loose. The road there is in far worse shape than the stretch that runs from U.S. 220 to U.S. 460 in Roanoke County.
A major repaving and rehab project is underway on the stretch that runs down Bent Mountain but attention is needed elsewhere.
Perhaps the Parkway would be better served if elected representatives like Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) spent more time getting the Parkway funds for maintenance instead of concentrating on funding monuments to themselves like the Blue Ridge Music and Rockey Knob Visitor’s centers.
Perhaps those of us who drive the Parkway would be better served if the political appointees who run the Parkway would budget funds for upkeep instead of using limited resources to create Gestapo-like "criminal interdiction teams" to harass users of the region’s primary tourist attraction.
(Edited on March 28, 2009)
The pain of rain causes some to complain
Enough rain has fallen on the area lately that some are actually starting to complain about all the wet stuff. Usually, a few days of rain is dismissed with "we need it" and folks move on. But rain and the late winter snow storm that brought March in like a lion has soured some on all the wet stuff.
After four straight years of below average rainfall, the water tables in the area are up because of higher than average wet weather in March.
Even with a wet March, the region needs a lot more rainfall to make up for the dry conditions of past years. The snowfall at the beginning of the month helped restore nutrients to the ground during the week it took for the foot of white stuff and three-foot-high drifts to melt. But we could have used three or four such snowfalls over the winter months.
So let it rain. We need it.
More than one toke over the line
Had a prolonged debate the other day with a member of Floyd County’s marijuana advocacy community (yes, there is one).
He, of course, advocates legalization of grass. I oppose it.
Marijuana emerged in public conversations again Wednesday with the revelation that Vincent Lumia had a "considerable amount" of grass in his system when he turned his Ford Explorer into a weapon and created a situation where a Virginia State Trooper had no choice but to shoot and kill him.
Lumia was also bi-polar and reportedly not taking his medication when he went on the rampage. The lack of drugs to control the erratic behavior of bi-polar condition most likely contributed more to his violent behavior than smoking grass but a friend of Lumia told me recently that the young man used grass because he felt it helped control the bi-polar symptoms.
The results of Jan. 12 — when Lumia died after being struck by bullets in the head and other parts of his body — effectively refute that argument for self-medication.
Writes Dr. Alan N. Schwartz on MentalHealth.Net:
I have directly witnessed the tragedy of patients going off of their medications for Bipolar Disorder, using marijuana and ending up re-hospitalized in worse shape than any time prior to the relapse. In fact, it has been my experience that many of these unfortunate patients experienced multiple relapses and were caught in an endless cycle of hospitalizations marked by periods of instability in between.
It is important to keep in mind that there are many intensities of this disorder. There are those people who experience rapid cycling while others rarely become manic. However, when they become symptomatic, they experience Major Depression. Also, there are those who experience Auditory and Visual Hallucinations while others do not. It is possible to have hallucinations at either end of the spectrum: major depression or mania. Then too, there are cases where the illness is so severe that is considered in the realm of schizophrenia and is called Schizoaffective Disorder. It has been my experience with the patients I knew who suffered from severe bipolar disorder and with those who fell into the Schizoaffective domain, that they were not helped by marijuana and were made much worse through its use.
Leaving aside anxiety, those who experience severe depression and who use marijuana end up feeling much more depressed, at least that is what I have witnessed.
There is a lot of denial around the problems of not only marijuana but other drugs of abuse and severe mental illness. In order to break through some of this denial I was, at times, able to get patients to agree to stop their marijuana use for a few weeks just so they could determine whether there was or was not an improvement in mood. These individual were surprised but were willing to admit that they felt real improvement in mood and functioning.
Police found nearly 1,000 marijuana plants at Lumia’s home in what they called an obvious manufacturing facility. That’s sale weight in Virginia and a felony. He was also under the influence when he went to the home of his mother and stepfather and tried to use his SUV to ram through his front door.
He was breaking the law by manufacturing grass and by smoking it. He put his own life and the lives of others at risk by driving while stoned and his actions, fueled by a lack of medication that controlled his bi-polar condition, created a situation that led to his death.
We can argue until the cows come home about whether or not grass should be legalized but the events of Jan. 12 involved the use of marijuana. Was the grass in Lumia’s system a contributing factor to the actions that led to his death? The end result suggests it didn’t help and, in the opinion of some experts, it certainly hurt.
(Updated at 3:50 p.m. to add information from a doctor and clinical social worker)
Area found itself mostly unprepared for snow storm
Southwestern Virginia found itself unprepared, for the most part, for the snow storm that hit and crippled the region this past week.
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), hit hard by a continuing series of budget cuts, didn’t have enough equipment or men to handle the snow clearing duties. Trucks on the road broke down or couldn’t cope with the high drifts created by driving winds on the day after the storm. A farmer on drifted-over area of Harvestwood Lane cleared the road with his tractor and front-end loader so he could feed his cattle. It would be two more days before a VDOT truck would plow the road.
Schools remained closed for four days in many counties. Carroll and Patrick County remained on two-hour delay today.
Floyd County blogger Fred First couldn’t get home on a Tuesday night because both routes into his home were blocked by broken-down VDOT trucks. He spent the night at Hotel Floyd. David St. Lawrence tried to start his generator when the power went out and found a hopelessly-fouled spark plug — a problem that could have been prevented with a little pre-snow maintenance.
The Town of Floyd fell behind in clearing public parking areas and sidewalks. Hardware stores reported a run on shovels and ice scrapers. Small-engine repair shops fielded a lot of calls from owners of generators and snow blowers who had skipped maintance on their machines and found they either wouldn’t start or broke down while running.
A lot of people, it seemed, forgot the old Boy Scout motto: Be prepared.
Your Floyd tax dollars NOT at work
Many business owners in Floyd worked Monday and Tuesday to clear the sidewalks in front of their establishments so customers, clients and patrons could make it to their front door after the snow that blanketed the area.
But sidewalks that the town of Floyd should keep clear remained untouched as of 10:45 a.m. Tuesday.
Deep snow blocked the sidewalks on Locust Street in front of Lineberry Park and the town parking lot, forcing pedestrians to use the roadway and face the danger of traffic.
Yet sidewalks were clear in front of Angels in the Attic, the Floyd Country Store, Farmers Supply, Blue Ridge Restaurant and most other town businesses. Establishments that serve food collect and pass on extra sales tax to the town but the town’s slow response to cleaning the streets makes us wonder where the money is going. It certainly isn’t going to keep the sidewalks clear or safe.
Update: The sidewalks were finally shoveled — sort of — Tuesday afternoon although a lot of ice and slush remained. Most of the sidewalks in front of businesses were open and dry. A glaring exception was the snow and ice covered walk in front of two lawyers’ offices: Bob Boswell and Rob Spessard on Main Street between the Blue Ridge Restaurant and Highland Hardwoods. You would think lawyers would be more aware of the town ordinance requiring the sidewalks to be cleaned.
SECOND UPDATE: The sidewalks in front of the lawyers’ offices have been cleared.
A lawyer from Roanoke recently called Blue Ridge Muse an "inflammatory" web site. What do you think?
* Inflammatory? Absolutely.
* Inflammatory? Nah.
* Not inflammatory. Just colorful.
* Actually, the writing here is kinda dull.
* None of the above.
A costly failure for Citizens Telephone
Citizens Telephone Cooperative of Floyd is pulling the plug on a costly failure to become a player in wireless broadband Internet Service. The phone company will shut down its mobile high speed service in Christiansburg, Blacksburg and Radford on April 30 after spending — and losing — a lot of money on the failed project.
"We agonized over making this decision, frankly," Citizens General Manager Greg Sapp, said in making the announcement.
The agonizing decision is the latest setback for Citizens, the cooperative that tried to be many things to many people while — some say — forgetting its roots in Floyd County. Deployment of the wireless service was expensive and the company never came close to meeting its goals for a subscriber base, signing up less than five percent of available customers.
This web site reported in May of last year that Citizens’ wireless broadband deployment in Montgomery County was in trouble. Verizon, the area’s dominant wireless carrier, offers its version of high-speed wireless service for less and even provides the service in Floyd County — which Citizens apparently never had in its plans.
In many ways, Citizens is a shining example of what a small, locally-owned telephone cooperative can — and should — be. It provides good phone service, an excellent level of high-speed wired broadband Internet service and decent wireless phone service that piggybacks on Verizon cell towers.
But the company is also victim to ambitious plans that could not always be fulfilled by reality. A promise to roll out fiber to the home service countywide four years ago is way behind schedule and its television over phone lines (IPTV) service does not deliver high definition broadcast signals and is still not available to many Floyd County residents. Perhaps the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Citizens spent in Montgomery County could have been put to better use in Floyd. Perhaps then the citizens of Floyd County would not pay more for telephone and Internet service than our neighbors in nearby counties.
Or perhaps the employees of Citizens would feel more secure in their jobs. The company currently employs 56 people, has reduced staff through attrition and avoided mandatory cutbacks that were threatened last year but some employees say the threat is still there if conditions do not improve. Also, Citizens has outsourced some services that once were local.
(Updated on March 1, 2009)
The economic roller coaster
Talk to business owners in Floyd County and they say pretty much the same: Business is down. It could be better. Then again, it could be worse.
The chatter over coffee at The Blue Ridge Restaurant or Cafe del Sol is more downbeat. Idled workers from Volvo and fixed income retirees facing increased costs for taxes, utilities and other staples share a common worry: Can I make it through these hard times?
That question is being asked more and more around the country. Reports The Associated Press:
As the economy continues to struggle, the public is growing increasingly concerned about losing jobs, not having enough money to pay the bills and seeing their retirement accounts shrink, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll.
Nearly half of those surveyed said they worry about becoming unemployed — almost double the percentage at this time last year.
The poll released Wednesday also found public support dipped slightly in the past month for the $787 billion package of tax cuts and government spending President Barack Obama signed into law this week on the promise that it will save or create 3.5 million jobs and re-ignite the economy.
"I lost a job myself," said Edd Winkler, 40, a married attorney and father of two in Grand Rapids, Mich. "There were just too many attorneys for the amount of work we had coming in to the firm at that time." Winkler has opened his own practice, and says most of his work involves bankruptcies.
"I know a lot of other people who have lost jobs," he added.
You know times are bad when lawyers get laid off.
Appalachian Power does its part with another rate increase that doubles electric bills for some over the past year. Floyd County government is setting the stage for increases in property taxes. Gas prices are sneaking back up. So are food costs. Signs announcing foreclosure auctions now appear along roadways in Floyd County.
Clients who used to pay in 30 days are now take 90 days or longer. A half dozen of our web hosting clients went bust last year and more are on the ropes. More and more local clients want to barter for services. Amy and I now refer to our 401K as our "01K." It’s not a joke.
Many people in Floyd County just scrape by in the best of times. Now they scramble, working three or more parttime jobs to pay the rent and put food on the table. Teachers in our school system worry about job cuts. State budget cuts could also force the Sheriff’s Department to lay off deputies and other county employees could lose their jobs as well.
Floyd Countians have a reputation of standing tough in tough times. We band together to work out a solution.
We’ve weathered hard times before. We can do it again.
Floyd County's closed-door government
A recent transplant to Floyd County dropped by the studio last week to introduce himself and ask about life in our little corner of the world. He wanted to know when the Floyd County Board of Supervisors met so he could attend a meeting.
"Second Tuesday of the month," I said. "The meeting starts at 8:30 and generally runs all day."
He said he couldn’t go to meetings on a Tuesday. He works for a living.
"Why," he asked, "doesn’t the board meet at times when citizens can attend?"
Good question. I have asked the same questions to various members of the county board in the past. What I got in response was a lot of hemming and hawing and not a real answer.
For the most part, the primary governing body of Floyd County conducts its business on a business day when many citizens of the county are at work, often out of the county. The amounts to closing the door of government to many citizens.
Other county governments find a way to be more accessible to their citizens.Arlington County Supervisors meet on Saturdays, staring at 8:30 a.m. Roanoke County’s board meets at 3 p.m. for a general session and at 7 p.m. so the public can attend and comment. Montgomery County meets twice a month on Monday evenings starting at 7:15 p.m. Carroll County meets on the second Monday of each month with the meetings starting at 4 p.m. Even Floyd’s Town Council, hardly a shining example of open government, meets on Thursday evenings when citizens can attend.
No so for Floyd Supervisors. Meetings are on Tuesdays during the day, starting at 8:30 a.m. The supervisors’ "public comment" period is set at 9 a.m. — a time when most people are at work.
By late afternoon, at a time when some citizens might be able to get to a meeting (even if they have to leave work early), the supervisors are usually locked away in one of their frequent closed-door "executive sessions." Sometimes, the board will hold a public hearing on a matter during the evening hours but many of those hearings are also held during the day, limiting citizen participation in government.
In the 2005 local elections, angry voters sent two incumbent supervisors packing, expressing their dissatisfaction with the status quo in Floyd County.
Two more supervisors stand for re-election this year. When they come to your door seeking votes, why not ask them why they can’t meet at a time when you and other citizens can view and participate in how they spend your tax money?