Breaking news: Vilsack still has his job

If only the Obama administration had restrained itself last week. If only Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack had first done a little checking, before he acted upon a heads-up about a potentially damaging story about to air on Glenn Beck’s show.

Instead, Vilsack let himself get snookered by a trick as old as storytelling, itself -- editing.

Just imagine how sweet it would have been for the White House if Fox News had run the story with Vilsack’s spokesperson saying, “The Shirley Sherrod tape raises serious questions that call for an investigation. However, until we know more about the tape and have spoken with Mrs. Sherrod, there will be no further statement.”

A day later the entire unedited tape would have surfaced, as it did, anyway. Then Beck, plus whoever else had weighed in by then to condemn Sherrod‘s supposed racism, would have been called upon to eat crow.

After that the history of how the tape had been prepared and made its way into the mainstream press would have been the story. But caught in a panic, Vilsack passed on that beautiful opportunity to one-up his rivals.

Instead, Sherrod was fired on the telephone, pronto!

Then we all witnessed the spectacle unfold. Fox News looked bad. The NAACP looked bad. The White House looked worse than any of them. Vilsack’s blunder revealed a scaredy-cat side of the Obama team that was just the opposite of the coolness under fire it had exhibited during the campaign in 2008.

Perhaps that is what living hardwired to the electronic media will do any group of people, eventually. But when quick response time is valued over accuracy and fair play, isn't trouble bound to follow?

According to reports President Barrack Obama said, “Vilsack jumped the gun.”

Speaking of jumping the gun, remember how long Democrats laughed at the premature jubilation of President George Bush in his jet pilot getup? “Mission accomplished!”

Well, there will be Republicans laughing at the cell phone sacking of Sherrod for at least that long.

So, the character behind the crafted-to-deceive tape, Andrew Breitbart, hit a home run in the dirty tricks game. Plenty of Republicans will decide that his highlights-reel version of Sherrod's remarks revealed a greater truth than the unedited version. No doubt, Breitbart's celebrity status has been buffed by this episode, so we've hardly heard the last of him.

At this writing, the most curious part of this story remains -- Vilsack still has his job.

When Oops Isn't Enough

My most recent OpEd piece at Richmond.com compares the oil spill in the Gulf to a pollution story closer to home.

Virginians hope nothing, dredging or a storm, will stir the old poison up. More fingers crossed. We’re told by government regulators the amount of Kepone still being found in the seafood harvested from those waters is not too dangerous for consumption.

In the late ’70s some millions of dollars changed hands, but nobody at Allied ever did a day in jail for what Kepone did to harm innocent Virginians in a myriad of ways, some we’re still finding out about.

Recent news from France offers evidence that Allied’s recklessness dramatically increased the chance its employees, who stood ankle deep in Kepone as they shoveled it into bags, would get prostate cancer.

Click here to read "When Oops Isn't Enough."
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Hinkle questions Cuccinelli's fraud probe at UVa.

In spite of his own conservative leanings, Bart Hinkle didn't have much good to say about Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's fraud investigation of former UVa. climatologist Michael Mann (Mann is now at Penn State):

If Mann had taken state grant money and then blown it on cocaine and prostitutes, that would be one thing. But Cuccinelli doesn't say Mann failed to do the work for which he was paid: producing research on matters such as Resolving the Scale-wide Sensitivities in the Dynamical Coupling Between Climate and the Biosphere and Decadal Variability in the Tropical Indo-Pacific: Integrating Paleo & Coupled Model Results.

Rather, Cuccinelli says Mann's conclusions from the work he did are wrong. The AG hangs his hat on the fact that other scientists dispute the hockey stick graph and so forth. Yet as UVa argues in a May 27 court filing, "FATA does not authorize the Attorney General to engage in scientific debate."

To read Hinkle's excellent analysis of this matter, published in Thursday's RT-D click here.

One gets the feeling that hardcore skeptics of Mann's research are assuming that everyone on the other side is as likely to stretch or ignore the truth as they are. So, they assume legitimate scientists, whose findings they reject, are mostly trying to find evidence to justify their elitist, liberal beliefs.

Shanahan at Redskins Park

From the Washington Redskins web site:

Mike Shanahan, 57, was hired Jan. 6 as the Redskins’ executive vice president and head coach. As head coach of the Denver Broncos from 1995-2008, he guided the club to back-to-back Super Bowl victories following the 1997-98 seasons and compiled a record of 154-103. He spoke with Redskins.com’s Larry Weisman in an exclusive Q&A interview at Redskins Park.

With the Redskins training camp to open on Thursday click here to read the interview.

Krugman on climate-change denial

In a Sunday OpEd piece for the New York Times Pulitzer Prize winning writer Paul Krugman connects the dots on why we can't pass legislation to deal effectively with climate change.

Nor is this evidence tainted by scientific misbehavior. You’ve probably heard about the accusations leveled against climate researchers — allegations of fabricated data, the supposedly damning e-mail messages of “Climategate,” and so on. What you may not have heard, because it has received much less publicity, is that every one of these supposed scandals was eventually unmasked as a fraud concocted by opponents of climate action, then bought into by many in the news media. You don’t believe such things can happen? Think Shirley Sherrod.

Click here to read the entire piece.

Music and pork in Libby Hill Pk.

How about an outdoor live music festival to be staged on the grassy hill that is Libby Hill Park? How about a Saturday afternoon in early October? With plenty of barbecue and beer on hand, does it sound familiar? Weather permitting, do you think the concept might draw a crowd a crowd?

A source with knowledge of the plans, tells me STYLE Weekly and the Church Hill Association are in the process of cooking up just such a promotion for this fall. Details aren't available at this writing.

However, readers should know this new endeavor does not involve the small group of backers that planned and oversaw the annual High on the Hog parties that were staged in the same space between 1977 and 2006. So, regardless of how derivative this concept may be, on the surface, it is not another installment of High on the Hog.

Still, I'm looking forward to seeing what name the current promoters will put on the event.

Cuccinelli demands VMFA doodles

An example of what Cuccinelli might see as fake art: Pollacks' Autumn Rhythm Number 30 (1950)

With the temperature in triple digits outside the courtroom, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was back in court on Friday afternoon, this time to turn the heat up on more alleged fraud within academia. On the heels of his Civil Investigative Demand directed against the University of Virginia, to do with climate-change research, now Cuccinelli has the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in his sights.

So far, no one at the VMFA will go on the record to say what its position is/will be regarding Cuccinelli’s demand to see all records to do with Abstract Expressionism, and abstract art in general, for the last four decades. That includes all emails and doodles in margins.

“Flabbergasted,” was the word that summed up the feelings of an anonymous source within the VMFA, who spoke off-the-record in a dark restaurant a few blocks from the Museum. Cuccinelli’s sweeping demand for information will apparently require thousands of hours of work by VMFA employees.

“I’m no art critic," said Cuccinelli. "This probe isn't about good or bad art, it's about un-art. It’s about fraud. The people who‘ve been handing out grants to their friends and spending the taxpayers' money to exhibit so-called abstract works of art -- stuff that nobody knows for sure what it even means! -- they are now going to have to answer for their dishonesty.”

Cuccinelli, a vocal skeptic of the value of ambiguous art, said he believes it’s mostly a matter of people with no talent for drawing trying to dupe the public into supporting fake art. He suggested the entire concept of abstract art has always "been a hoax." He wondered aloud how much money has been paid to art professors who perpetuated the hoax.

“If they want to sell meaningless paintings and sculpture in prissy private art galleries that’s one thing,” said Cuccinelli, “but when the taxpayers' dollars are used as a social program to redistribute money to slackers who can‘t even draw, well, that‘s where this attorney general draws the line.”

When asked if he planned to go after the art departments at state supported universities that have been teaching students about Abstract Expressionism, etc., Cuccinelli winked, “That’s a question for another day. Hopefully a cooler day.”

*

Note: Isn't it about time for a little satirical relief from the heat? Here are the two other posts -- here and here -- that actually inspired me to concoct this one for SLANTblog. Who else wants to play?

The End for Buttermilk & Molasses?

One of Richmond's best known blogs over the last six or seven years has been John Sarvay's Buttermilk & Molasses. Over the years Sarvay's thoughtful commentary has been provocative without being incendiary. And, he's had a sharp eye for seeing through propaganda and claptrap.

Buttermilk and Molasses introduced me to hundreds of the coolest people in Richmond – the known, the less-known, and the not known at all. And for that reason alone, I have no regrets.

Now Sarvay says he's going to shut down his blog.

Read why here.

Fear the Taliban Monkey

After all those years of the terrorists training on monkey bars in secret camps, somewhere in Afghanistan -- we've all seen the film clips -- now it seems the war may have escalated to to a bizarre new level. Now there are reports the Taliban is recruiting and training monkeys to be terrorists ... click here to read the story at Wonkette.

It's not clear why the monkeys would be taking sides in the conflict. Powerful mind-bending drugs can't be ruled out.

The impact of 'Mockingbird'

If the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" is one of your favorites, then this story by a husband and wife writing team will make you feel good.

So time flies, but can it be possible that 50 years have passed since Mockingbird first hit the public prints? Yes, it is true: J.B. Lippincott and Co. (since merged into HarperCollins) released this novel on July 11, 1960. (The movie followed in 1962.) Now available in more than 40 languages and still (amazingly) selling upward of 750,000 copies a year, this masterwork of Alabama native Harper Lee has had an impact on the lives of countless people -- and most certainly the co-authors of this article.

Click here to read "Holland: Mockingbird Brought Couple Together" by Allyne and Bob Holland in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Cuccinelli's Miracle

Last November he was elected to be Virginia's attorney general; since then Ken Cuccinelli has been a dependable headline-maker. A new OpEd piece of mine about Cuccinelli's blind eye toward global warming is up at Richmond.com.

Meanwhile, Cuccinelli’s unusual probe into a former University of Virginia professor’s research notes and emails lost some steam recently, as a pair of investigations have exonerated scientists accused of fudging the facts about climate change.

Click here to read "Cuccinelli's Miracle."

Updates:

• Click here for a Washington Post comment on today's filing by Cuccinelli's office (7/13/10).
• Click here to read about Cuccinelli's brief in the RT-D (7/14/10).
• Click here to read "Virginia's Top Bully" in C-ville (7/13/10)
  

An attaboy from professional haters

Well, one just never knows what might appear on a lazy Sunday afternoon to make one's day. When I got home from Chiocca's, watching Spain outlast Holland to win the World Cup, I found an unexpected email from a friend ... with a link. He expressed surprise to find my name in a rather unusual place.

The link took me to a brief recently filed in a Supreme Court case, Snyder vs. Westboro, to be heard in the fall. At the bottom of Page 4, an article I wrote for Richmond.com is cited. Scroll down past the table of contents and -- voila! -- there it is.

No doubt, if I had known where it would end up being seen, I'd have worked a little harder on the OpEd piece about free speech, to polish it up for the Supremes to read ... or, at least for their clerks to read. (I just noticed a typo in it.) Here's the link to the Richmond.com piece, "How Free Are We to Express Hate?" which was published on June 21, 2010.

Of course, I love it when the people I happily disagree with on almost everything under the sun -- such as the outrageously tasteless demonstrators from the Westboro Baptist Church -- show me they like my work. In this case, getting an attaboy from the Fred W. Phelps hate team has provided me with a supreme grin.

-- Hat-tip to Waldo Jaquith

Republicans acquiescing to a poisonous 'demagoguery'

Here's some straight talk from a Republican congressman, via AP:

Too many Republican leaders are acquiescing to a poisonous "demagoguery" that threatens the party's long-term credibility, says a veteran GOP House member who was defeated in South Carolina's primary last month. While not naming names, 12-year incumbent Rep. Bob Inglis suggested in interviews with The Associated Press that tea party favorites such as former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and right-wing talk show hosts like Glenn Beck are the culprits.

Click here to read the entire article.

Braves: Best in the NL

As the All-Star break approaches there’s a nice story developing in Atlanta. It’s especially nice if you‘re a Braves fan.

At this writing Atlanta has the best record in the National League, 50-35. The Braves longtime manager, Bobby Cox, 69, says he’s hanging up his spikes when this season ends, however it ends. The Braves pitching staff looks strong, once again, and they have the rookie outfielder everybody in Major League Baseball has been talking about all season, Jason Heyward, 20, who made the All-Star team as a starter.

One of the great losses local baseball fans suffered, due to the R-Braves moving their outfit to Gwinnett, was that we didn’t get to see Heyward, 6-5, 240, a five-tool phenom, play in Richmond during the 2009 season. However, local fans did get to see Cox (depicted above) play third base at Parker Field during the 1967 season.

Barring injuries to key players at the worst time the Braves seemed well equipped to make a run into postseason play. After 14 straight seasons in the playoffs, Atlanta has failed to make the grade for the last four years. The players must love it that, so far, they have performed well enough to have Cox’s legions of fans envisioning him winning a World Series ring for his last campaign.

-- Words and illustration by F.T. Rea

Single Bullet Theory's music unearthed

The Single Bullet Theory, a Fan District-based band (1976-84), was probably the most visible Richmond band of the punk rock scene era. Now you can take a walk down memory lane, via the Internet, to learn more what SBT was about.

Click here to listen to Rocker's Night Out (Punk for a Day) and some other 30-some-year-old songs, via the Free Music Archive.

The heat wave blues

The record-breaking heat got you beat? According the the RT-D's Rex Springston, maybe you better get used to it.

Richmond's recent unpleasantness included the warmest March through May on record. After that came a record June in which every day hit 80 degrees or higher, 19 reached 90 or higher, and three got to 102. That hot streak might not signal climate change, but it offers a preview of life in a warmer world, some observers say.

Today: 103! Click here to read the entire article in the RT-D.

Beer and bullets

Well, here it is July 1. Now we know that the month that just ended was the warmest June on record in Richmond, according to today's RT-D. Remember those folks in February who saw snow on the ground as proof that global warming was a hoax? Didn't hear much from them during June.

No, they were probably busy as little beavers criticizing President Obama for being too hard on BP.

July 1 also means a bunch of new laws will start being enforced. Easily the most controversial is the statewide law to do with toting guns in saloons. Now, in Virginia, adults must carry handguns when they enter restaurants, if they want to consume alcohol. Note: It's now OK to carry a concealed weapon inside a church, too, be it's not yet required.

However, starting today, if the person tending bar or waiting on your table asks to see your handgun you must produce it, just as you have to show an ID.

Still, the vice president of Virginians for Gunfights, Phineas T. Bluster, decried the failure of the General Assembly to require handguns in churches. "Mother of pearl! Nobody is safe on a dad-burned slippery slope."

Friday Films at VMFA

A short piece I penned about an old friend's new project at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is in the latest issue of STYLE Weekly.

So if you haven’t already found sufficient reason to check out the dazzling new museum, perhaps a gourmet movie and some serious discussions about the art of the film on a Friday evening is just what’s needed.

“We are working toward achieving status as a top-10 comprehensive art museum,” [Trent] Nicholas says, “and motion pictures are part of that drive.”

Click here to read about Friday Films at VMFA.

Remembering last summer's hot air about baseball

Going into the July 4th weekend baseball is on my mind. My favorite team, the Atlanta Braves, is in first place in the National League East. And, they are on television tonight, only because they’re playing the Washington Nats. Braves fans know nearly all of Atlanta’s games used to be available locally. Now they are hardly ever on.

So, it’s a nice treat. And, the Braves are better this year than they have been over the last three or four years. That this is longtime manager Bobby Cox’s last season in the dugout, with the team playing like a contender, puts icing on the treat.

Maybe I’ll take in a Flying Squirrels game in the next few days. Which brings me to the reason for this post -- have you noticed what a difference one year can make?

Last season there was no professional baseball at the Diamond. When the season started, instead of an umpire calling out, “Play ball!” we heard the din of the squabble over where to build a new stadium.

On April 22, 2009 a presentation was made at Albert H. Hill (middle school), by Paul Kreckman of Highwoods Properties and Bryan Bostic of Richmond Baseball Club. It was part of a series of such appearances in public auditoriums. The two explained to an audience of about 70 people why a new baseball stadium ought to be built in Shockoe Bottom. Nearly everyone in the audience who spoke during the questioning period seemed unconvinced it was a good idea.

Until that presentation most of the people I had talked with seemed against the concept of building a stadium in The Bottom. But then they said they expected it to happen. That perception was in the air, for a while. Then, as the weather warmed up and more public opinion seeped into the process, the perception began to melt away.

On May 12th, at the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Public Square Forum, the presentation by Kreckman and Bostic went over like a lead balloon. An audience of some 200 saw in that room what became more and more obvious in the days to come -- public sentiment was overwhelmingly against the taxpayer-backed three-quarters-of-a-billion-dollar development being touted by Highwoods and RBC.

Before the month of June had passed the whole deal just evaporated.

The irony was that the pitchmen, Kreckman and Bostic, were so bad at selling their plans. Of course, I thought the plan itself was bad. But those salesmen were amazingly inadequate at selling.

To wallow more in this flashback, below is a list of links to stories I wrote about this business last year. In some cases the comments under the posts are somewhat funny and rather revealing.

Note: My strategy then was to draw the online boosters of the project (many of whom had cloaked identities) out and make them talk. My thinking was that the more the public saw of the people behind the push, the less they would like and trust them and the pushy developers, themselves. I believe it worked.

• Swiftboating in Shockoe Bottom (2/19/09)
• Steal this art (3/26/09)
• Crunching the baseball numbers (4/1/09)
• Baseball stadium meeting a fizzler (4/22/09)
• Baseball, bozos and sunsets (5/12/09)
• Baseball Talk: Pitching Panned (5/14/09)
• Mr. Baseball's Bull (5/18/09)
• The Tipping Point for Shockoe Bottom Baseball (6/18/09)
• Shockoe Baseball is kaput! (6/23/09)

Now the Richmond Flying Squirrels are drawing good attendance numbers at the Diamond and Richmond avoided what had the look and smell of a boondoggle.

Byrd's ignored plea (3/19/03)

Sen. Robert Byrd, 1917-2010, will be remembered for many things. Among them, he was the longest serving senator (1959-2010).

Seven years ago, on the eve of a war, Byrd's words of warning were dismissed by many, especially those in the Bush administration who were practicing their "cake-walking" steps. Byrd was cast by war mongers as an old goat, who was just out of touch with the times.

Byrd’s brief, passionate speech delivered on the floor of the U.S. Senate on March 19, 2003 makes for a particularly interesting read now, in light of all we've learned since that time. Today it's appropriate to remember those words:

I believe in this beautiful country. I have studied its roots and gloried in the wisdom of its magnificent Constitution. I have marveled at the wisdom of its founders and framers. Generation after generation of Americans has understood the lofty ideals that underlie our great Republic. I have been inspired by the story of their sacrifice and their strength.

But, today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.

Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination. Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein, we seem to have isolated ourselves. We proclaim a new doctrine of preemption which is understood by few and feared by many. We say that the United States has the right to turn its firepower on any corner of the globe which might be suspect in the war on terrorism. We assert that right without the sanction of any international body. As a result, the world has become a much more dangerous place.

We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance. We treat UN Security Council members like ingrates who offend our princely dignity by lifting their heads from the carpet. Valuable alliances are split.

After war has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America's image around the globe.

The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice.

There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11. The twin towers fell because a world-wide terrorist group, Al Qaeda, with cells in over 60 nations, struck at our wealth and our influence by turning our own planes into missiles, one of which would likely have slammed into the dome of this beautiful Capitol except for the brave sacrifice of the passengers on board.

The brutality seen on September 11th and in other terrorist attacks we have witnessed around the globe are the violent and desperate efforts by extremists to stop the daily encroachment of western values upon their cultures. That is what we fight. It is a force not confined to borders. It is a shadowy entity with many faces, many names, and many addresses.

But, this Administration has directed all of the anger, fear, and grief which emerged from the ashes of the twin towers and the twisted metal of the Pentagon towards a tangible villain, one we can see and hate and attack. And villain he is. But, he is the wrong villain. And this is the wrong war. If we attack Saddam Hussein, we will probably drive him from power. But, the zeal of our friends to assist our global war on terrorism may have already taken flight.

The general unease surrounding this war is not just due to "orange alert." There is a pervasive sense of rush and risk and too many questions unanswered. How long will we be in Iraq? What will be the cost? What is the ultimate mission? How great is the danger at home?

A pall has fallen over the Senate Chamber. We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans, even while scores of thousands of our sons and daughters faithfully do their duty in Iraq.

What is happening to this country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends? When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might? How can we abandon diplomatic efforts when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy?

Why can this President not seem to see that America's true power lies not in its will to intimidate, but in its ability to inspire?

War appears inevitable. But, I continue to hope that the cloud will lift. Perhaps Saddam will yet turn tail and run. Perhaps reason will somehow still prevail. I along with millions of Americans will pray for the safety of our troops, for the innocent civilians in Iraq, and for the security of our homeland. May God continue to bless the United States of America in the troubled days ahead, and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us.

Update: It should come as no surprise that some folks will use the occasion of his death -- the very day he dies -- to talk more trash about Sen. Robert Byrd, to underline whatever warmed-over talking points they assume will upset Byrd's admirers the most. So, it will be easy to read/listen to such pettiness today.

That's the spirit in today's political landscape. And, it is especially the spirit that animates too much of what passes for commentary in the political blogosphere, where poseur sociopaths fancy themselves to be pundits.

Moreover, “blog” is a word that has been stretched into so many weird shapes -- David Weigel a blogger? -- that I hardly know what it means now.

Freedom of speech and hate

My latest OpEd piece is up at Richmond.com. It's called "How Free Are We to Express Hate?" Once again, Virginia's new attorney general is in the picture.

Cuccinelli’s apparently agrees with the 4th Circuit’s decision, his office cited a concern about curtailing “valid exercises of free speech,” as its reason for choosing to make Virginia just one of two states not to file a supporting amicus brief.

Westboro grabbed the national spotlight in 1998 when some of its members appeared at the Wyoming funeral of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old man who had been brutally murdered. The Phelps contingent brandished signs announcing that because he was gay Shepard was burning in hell.

To read the entire story click here.

The Freelancer's Worth

Fiction By F.T. Rea

Jan. 24, 1991: Bright sunlight lit up the thin coating of freezing rain that had painted the city the evening before. In the crisp air, Roscoe Swift, a slender middle-aged man, a freelance artist/writer, walked at a careful but purposeful pace on the tricky sidewalk. The ice-clad trees along the street were dazzling, as seen through his trusty Ray-Bans.

The woolly winter jacket his girlfriend, Sally, had given him for Christmas felt good.

Since the freelancer couldn’t concentrate on his reading of the morning’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, he left half a mug of black coffee and a dozing cat on his desk to walk to the post office. He hoped the overdue check from a magazine publisher was waiting in his post office box.

Anxiously, Swift opened the box with his key. It was empty. He shrugged. An empty box had its upside, too -- there were no cut-off notices in it. With his last 20 bucks in his pocket, the freelancer hummed a favorite Fats Domino tune, “Ain’t That a Shame,” as he headed home.

By the end of the workday Roscoe's task was to finish an 800-word OpEd piece, with an accompanying illustration, and drop it all off on an editor’s desk in Scott's Addition. With the drum beat for war in the air he wanted to focus on the inevitable unintended consequences of any war. Yet, with the clock ticking on his deadline he was still at a loss for an angle.

In early-1991 the nation was mired in an economic recession. The national debt was skyrocketing. War with Iraq was looming, it seemed all but inevitable. Pondering what demons might be spawned by an all-out war in Iraq -- only to be discovered down the road -- he detoured a couple of blocks, to pick up a Washington Post and a fresh cup of coffee.

Approaching the 7-Eleven store Roscoe noticed a lone panhandler standing off to the left of the front doors. The tall man was thin and frail. He wore a lightweight denim jacket with a hooded sweatshirt underneath. Snot was frozen in his mustache. The whites of his heavy-lidded eyes were an unhealthy shade of red.

When Roscoe had run the Fan City Cinema, in the '70s, he had determined his policy should be to never in any way encourage panhandlers to hang around on the sidewalk in the neighborhood surrounding the theater. The rigid policy had lingered well after the comfortable job had faded into the mists.

On this cold day it wasn’t easy for Roscoe to avert his eye from the poor soul’s trembling outstretched hand. Not hearing the desperate man’s hoarse plea for food money was impossible. When there are always so many lives to be saved in our midst, Roscoe wondered -- why do we have to go to the Middle East to save lives?

Inside the busy store Roscoe poured a large coffee. Fretting profusely, he snapped the cup’s lid in place. It was one of those times when the little Roscoe with horns was standing on one of his shoulders, while his opposite -- the one with the halo -- was on the other, both offering counsel.

Roscoe's policy caved in seconds later. Still, he decided to give the panhandler food, rather than hand over cash to perhaps finance a bottle of sweet wine. What the hell? it might change my luck, he thought as he smiled.

Trying to max out the bang-for-the-buck aspect of his gesture, Roscoe settled on a king-sized hot dog, with plenty of free stuff on it -- mustard, chopped onions, relish, jalapeno peppers, chili and some gooey cheese-like product. Not wanting to push it too far, he passed on the ketchup and mayonnaise.

Outside the store, Roscoe found the starving panhandler had vanished. So, the crestfallen philanthropist took the meal-on-a-bun with him as he walked, softly singing a Buffalo Springfield song, “For What It’s Worth.” With his strides matching the beat, he kept to the sunny street to avoid the slick sidewalk in the shade.

There’s somethin’ happening here,
What it is ain’t exactly clear.
There’s a man with a gun over there,
Tellin’ me I gotta beware.

I think it’s time we stop, children, what's that sound,
Everybody look, what's going down.

A line from that song’s last verse -- “paranoia strikes deep” -- suddenly snapped an idea for the OpEd into place, which launched an instant mini-mania. A block closer to home an image for the illustration occurred to him. The freelancer picked up his pace and began whistling a jazzy version of “For What It’s Worth.”

Back in his office/studio space, rather than waste money, he tore into the feast he had prepared for a beggar. The food scared, or perhaps offended the cat, who fled. Between sloppy bites the artist wiped his hands off and sketched furiously to rough out a cartoon of Saddam Hussein as the provocative Tar Baby of the Uncle Remus story, inviting America into a war.

About an hour later the heartburn started. Eventually, it got brutal. Roscoe pressed on. He wrote about the way propaganda always works to sell war -- every war -- as glorious and essential to the everyday people, who risk their lives. That while the wealthy, who rarely take a genuine risk on anything, urge the patriots on and count their profits.

Thinking of the war that thinned his generation out in Vietnam, he wrote:

After the war the veterans were largely ignored, even scorned.

Roscoe lamented the popular culture having gone wrong, so there was no longer a place for anti-war protest songs. He wrote:

Where are today’s non-conformists? Today's questioners of authority?

The freelancer turned in his work at 4:50 p.m.

An hour later his sour and noisy stomach began to calm down during his second happy hour beer at the Bamboo Cafe.

When he recounted the tale of the stuffed frankfurter, the inspiration of the Buffalo Springfield song and the belly ache, Roscoe made it seem funny enough to those gathered around the elbow of the marble bar. Since the bar's owner had agreed to hold his tab for a day or two, Swift bought a round of beers and joked about his empty mailbox.

Smiling Sally showed up in the middle of his story; she joined the audience of familiar faces who laughed and groaned when Roscoe finished off with, “Deadlines mean paychecks. And, there's but a thin line between heartburn and inspiration ... for what it’s worth.”

* * *

All rights reserved by the author. The Freelancer's Worth, with its accompanying illustration, are part of a series of stories called Detached. Two remaining stories, set in the '70s, will be inserted, eventually. Links to the six others which have been finished are below:

Central Time
Dogtown Hero
Fancy Melons
Gus the Bookstore Cat: The Film
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Cross-eyed Mona

The Fan District's Goddess of Democracy

Built by art students, on May 30, 1989, the Goddess of Democracy was erected in Tiananmen Square as a symbol of their call for democratic reforms in China. The gathering protest in Tiananmen Square had begun in mid-April; tension was mounting.

Subsequently, on June 4, 1989, following orders, the People’s Liberation Army put an end to the demonstration. Mayhem ensued.

Although reports varied widely, hundreds, if not thousands, were killed. Made of chicken wire and plaster the Goddess was destroyed during the brutal routing of the protesters that had remained to the end, in defiance. As the drama played out on television, via satellite, the events shocked the world.

As their art student counterparts in China had been murdered in the shadow of their 33-foot-tall sculpture, in Richmond a group of VCU-affiliated artists heard the call of inspiration to stand with those who had fallen. They knew they had to build a replica of the lost Goddess.

The impromptu team of the willing and able worked around the clock for the next couple of days to give form to their tribute to the courage of those who had perished for freedom of expression. While the project was not sponsored by the school, wisely, VCU did nothing to discourage the gesture.

Richmond’s Goddess of Democracy (pictured above and below) stood the same height and was made of the same basic materials as the one in China had been.

Twenty years ago, facing Main Street, it stood as a memorial for about a month in front of the student center. CNN had a report on it, as did many other news agencies. Its image was on front pages of newspapers all over the world.

Art-wise, it was one of the coolest things ever to happen in the Fan District. And, nobody made a penny out of it. It was constructed and maintained entirely by volunteers.

It was also a wonderful illustration of how traditional right and left, liberal and conservative, characterizations of all things political don’t always do justice to the truth of a situation. Was the stubborn and heavy-handed Chinese government standing to the right, or to the left, of the students calling for reform?

It was the most dignified and successful piece of guerilla art this scribbler can remember.

-- Words and photos by F.T. Rea