Category Archives: Virginia

January 1, 2011 · 2:37 pm

Colin Goddard, Virginia Tech Shooting Survivor, Fights to Tighten Gun Laws

This is relates to a Documentary “Living for 32” about one of the survivors of the Va Tech massacre and his journey to being a gun control advocate.

I want to see this…

WASHINGTON — Surviving the deadliest shooting massacre in U.S. history wasn’t enough to make Colin Goddard an advocate for stricter gun laws. Only when he watched another rampage play out on TV two years later did the Virginia Tech graduate realize he had to speak out.

“That took me back to the day like none other,” Goddard said of another troubled gunman who killed 14 at an immigration center in Binghamton, N.Y. “I was watching the body count rise and I was like, this is just the same stuff that is happening to another family now. … I was like, I’ve got to get involved. I’ve got to do something about this.”

What Goddard did was join the nation’s largest gun-control organization, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. At first, he made public-service spots, speaking for the 32 people slain by a deranged gunman on the campus of Virginia Tech. But he also spoke for the 32 people killed every day in gun violence, people whose deaths don’t conjure a million hits on Google.

Living for 32

Colin Goddard was shot four times during the Virginia Tech rampage but survived. Now, he’s working to tighten a loophole in the gun laws.

“Virginia Tech happening every single day is pretty powerful,” said Goddard, one of 17 wounded people to survive the massacre. He was shot four times and still carries bullet fragments in his hips and knee.

Maria Cuomo Cole and Kevin Breslin agreed. With her money and encouragement and his direction, the two scions of New York royalty — she’s the daughter and sister of two governors and the wife of fashion designer Kenneth Cole, he’s the son of legendary journalist Jimmy Breslin — convinced Goddard to let them tell the story of what happened on April 16, 2007.

The result is “Living for 32.”

via Colin Goddard, Virginia Tech Shooting Survivor, Fights to Tighten Gun Laws.

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Filed under Education, Media, Politics, Social Commentary, Virginia

December 29, 2010 · 10:34 pm

Some Va. history texts filled with errors, review finds

It’s even more scary that even a Hampden-Sydney professor was able to recognize this…

I am a W&L Man….

In the version of history being taught in some Virginia classrooms, New Orleans began the 1800s as a bustling U.S. harbor (instead of as a Spanish colonial one). The Confederacy included 12 states (instead of 11). And the United States entered World War I in 1916 (instead of in 1917).

These are among the dozens of errors historians have found since Virginia officials ordered a review of textbooks by Five Ponds Press, the publisher responsible for a controversial claim that African American soldiers fought for the South in large numbers during the Civil War.

“Our Virginia: Past and Present,” the textbook including that claim, has many other inaccuracies, according to historians who reviewed it. Similar problems, historians said, were found in another book by Five Ponds Press, “Our America: To 1865.” A reviewer has found errors in social studies textbooks by other publishers as well, underscoring the limits of a textbook-approval process once regarded as among the nation’s most stringent.

“I absolutely could not believe the number of mistakes – wrong dates and wrong facts everywhere. How in the world did these books get approved?” said Ronald Heinemann, a former history professor at Hampden-Sydney College. He reviewed “Our Virginia: Past and Present.”

More:   Some Va. history texts filled with errors, review finds.

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Filed under Books, Education, History, Politics, The South, Virginia

December 10, 2010 · 10:49 pm

Chapter 45: The Help | My Southern Gothic Life

Yet another new post is up on my other blog.

Here is the beginning and a link to the full post:

I can’t encourage you enough to read the book “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett.  If you haven’t read it, put it on your Christmas Wish List.  If you have read it, give it to your friends.

I’ve never read a truer book about the interaction between black women who worked as Maids in the early 1960′s and their “white ladies.”

Although the book is set in Mississippi, it could very well have been set in Danville, Virginia.  I remember those days too well.

People seem to already be forgetting that the South in those days, from Richmond to Mobile, was like South Africa under Apartheid.  I was in South Africa in 1997 and felt just like I did in Virginia in 1965.

Everyone had a place and stayed in it.  But the times were beginning to change…

In the 1960′s, the bus line ran near our house.  The corner of Brook Drive and Lansbury Drive was a major stop for the Maids.  Six or seven women would get off the bus around 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. and walk back down there to go home around 6:00 or so.  Some of them wore their bedroom shoes to work as their feet were so tired and broken down from standing all day, all they could wear were scuffs.

Most of the White Ladies in Temple Terrace had maids.  They didn’t have jobs, but they had Maids.  I remember our “car pool” for Miss Touchstone’s Kindergarten, our Mothers would throw a London Fog all-weather coat over their pajamas to take us to “school” and only get dressed and made up around 4:30 before our Fathers came home from work.  I don’t know what they did in the meantime…

MORE:   Chapter 45: The Help | My Southern Gothic Life.

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Filed under Danville, History, Politics, Social Commentary, Style, The South, Virginia

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December 9, 2010 · 9:51 pm

Chapter 44: Christmas With the Grannies | My Southern Gothic Life

Another new post is up on my other blog.  I’m rather prolific this week…

All the Christmas Drama and mayhem at our house was off set by the simplicity of Christmas at Granny’s.

By this I mean, my Mother’s Mother, not my Father’s Mother, who was safely packed away to the State Hospital for the Insane in Staunton and, later, Petersburg.

But we did have to go visit my Father’s Mother, Granny Susie, AKA Susan Catherine Rush Michaels,  sometime around Christmas.  This was always an ordeal.

This was before there was an Interstate Highway to Staunton, so we had to travel along winding mountain roads to get there.  With not many restaurants or gas stations to stop.

A few times, my Great Aunts wanted to go along.  Aunt Lily and Little Mary were her sisters and her brother Joe’s wife, Big Mary, usually went along, too.  The one trip I remember was when we still had the station wagon- before Daddy flipped it coming home in an ice storm from Earl’s Bar and Grill.  They were all lined up in the back seat in their black wool coats, hats and white gloves.  Aunt Lily would always pack her lunch and refuse to share it.  When I was about 5 or 6, I asked once and she told me I should have planned better.

Link to full Post:   Chapter 44: Christmas With the Grannies | My Southern Gothic Life.

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Filed under Danville, Holidays, My Journey, Social Commentary, Style, The South, Virginia

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December 1, 2010 · 8:20 am

Chapter 42: AIDS in a Small Southern Town | My Southern Gothic Life

There is a new post up on my other blog:

December 1st is World AIDS day and I feel like I need to comment on this…

The AIDS epidemic was one of the defining events of my life.  It all began when I was in my early 20′s and no one, who was not there, can imagine the fear and confusion, the hate and the love, that resulted from this health crisis.

People forget, that in the early days, no one knew what was causing it or why Gay Men were suddenly getting sick and dying.

All of us were wondering who was next.  Would it be one of our friends?  Could we get it ourselves?  How were you exposed to it?  What was our personal risk level?  Were our young lives going to be cut short before we even figured out who we were?

AIDS blew open a lot of closet doors.  Not the best way to “out” people.  No one could have wanted that result, but it did make a lot of people face the fact, for the first time in their lives, that they actually knew Gay people.

MORE:   Chapter 42: AIDS in a Small Southern Town | My Southern Gothic Life.

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Filed under Danville, Gay, Health Care, History, My Journey, Politics, Religion, Social Commentary, The South, Virginia

November 30, 2010 · 5:58 pm

Va. lawmaker claims pat-downs part of ‘homosexual agenda’ – wtop.com

What next?  Has every lawmaker in Virginia lost their minds????

WASHINGTON – A conservative Loudoun County lawmaker says controversial airport pat-downs by the Transportation Security Administration are part of a “wide-scale homosexual agenda.”

Eugene Delgaudio, a Republican representing Sterling on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, made the comments in a widely distributed e-mail sent in his capacity as president of the conservative nonprofit Public Advocate of the United States.

In the e-mail — reported by WUSA9 — Delgaudio also says the TSA’s non-discrimination hiring policy is “the federal employee’s version of the Gay Bill of Special rights.”

“That means the next TSA official that gives you an enhanced pat-down could be a practicing homosexual secretly getting pleasure from your submission,” he wrote.

via Va. lawmaker claims pat-downs part of ‘homosexual agenda’ – wtop.com.

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Filed under Politics, Social Commentary, Travel, Virginia

November 29, 2010 · 10:07 pm

Chapter 41: In the Basement, Part 2 | My Southern Gothic Life

New post up on my other blog:

The basement renovations were completed just in time for my teenage years.

The basement became my domain.  My sister did not seem interested in it and my Father grudgingly shared it.  My Mother pretty much ignored it and stayed in her room with “inner ear” issues.

My Mother always used “inner ear” issues to get out of doing anything she didn’t want to do.  No matter what it was…if she didn’t want to do it or deal with it, she went to bed with “inner ear”.  I think that was a pseudonym for Valium.

In any event, my Father and I thoroughly enjoyed the new basement.

Link to complete post:   Chapter 41: In the Basement, Part 2 | My Southern Gothic Life.

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November 17, 2010 · 9:35 pm

Daily Kos: Jim Webb Re-Elect Numbers Look Good in Virginia

This is great news…

I’ve met George Allen.  He is dumb as dirt…

Jim Webb doesn’t always vote the way I would like, but he’s an honorable and brilliant man.  It’s increasingly rare for those to be elected in Virginia….

From DailyKos.com:

PPP. 11/10-13. Registered voters. MoE 4.2% (No trend lines)

Jim Webb (D) 49

George Allen (R) 45

Webb is under 50 percent, but the usual rules don’t apply — Allen is a pseudo incumbent himself, the guy Webb took out in 2006 and a former governor as well.

What makes these numbers surprising is that Virginia was rough territory for Democrats this year, losing several House seats. Democrats also lost the governorship last year. And given the current climate, well, it wouldn’t be a stretch to expect Webb to be suffering against a high-profile Republican.

But he’s holding his own.

Webb hasn’t been doing much fundraising (not that he ever did), thus sparking rumors that he may not run for reelection. In that case, our useless DNC chairman might be able to do something more useful — hold the seat for us.

Tim Kaine (D) 50

George Allen (R) 44

Now here’s the big caveat — these are REGISTERED voters, not likely votes. However, Tom Jensen at PPP says that in presidential years, the registered and likely voter models are extremely similar. While Virginia Democrats suffered under this year’s intensity gap, presidential elections bring out far more people, and in that case, Virginia looks much, much better.

This is good news not just for Senate Democrats, who face a brutal map in 2012, but for Barack Obama, who will face a much tougher reelection map unless the GOP gifts us with Sarah Palin.

::

via Daily Kos: State of the Nation.

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Filed under Politics, Virginia

November 15, 2010 · 7:43 pm

Chapter 40: In the Basement | My Southern Gothic Life

There is a new post up on my other blog.  Please click the link at the bottom for the full post….

There has always been a myth that New Englanders locked their crazy relatives in the attic.  Everyone knows, in the South, most of ours roamed free.

However in the 1970′s another phenomenon occurred:  People started putting their teenagers in the basement.

More: Chapter 40: In the Basement | My Southern Gothic Life.

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November 12, 2010 · 10:33 pm

Shame: Evelyn Champagne King

This was the first “disco” song played at my college fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, at Washington and Lee University in the late 1970’s.

As I recall, it was quite controversial to play this as previously it had been all Beach Music or some strange Southern rock stuff late at night…

But my friend Ralph prevailed.  He was after a new attitude for the parties…

And the parties got much better…

It was a good mix…

And we danced all night…

Because it might have been “disco” but you could still shag to it…

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Filed under Entertainment, My Journey, Social Commentary, Style, Virginia