Slipek's Kilpatrick

Having known Edwin Slipek Jr. since 1972, when he was the editor of the Commonwealth Times and I was managing the Biograph Theatre, I'm somewhat familiar with his views. The Biograph was a regular advertiser in the CT; naturally, I took an interest in its pages.

After that Ed wrote for the Richmond Mercury (1972-75), which also published some of my early cartoons. With his subsequent work for STYLE Weekly I've read what Ed has had to say about Richmond many times. More often than not, I've agreed with him ... not always.

This time I have to go on record: Thanks for writing "Poisoned Pen," the Aug. 25, 2010 Back Page of STYLE Weekly that delivers a native Richmonder's unvarnished look at the late James J. Kilpatrick.

Yes, today's Richmonders need to see that view of Kilpatrick, instead of wallowing in his reflected celebrity and accepting the soft-focused image of a man's work that still poisons debates about education in Richmond today.

Kilpatrick relentlessly and effectively championed massive resistance to desegregation through the bully pulpit of the News Leader, where he was editorial page editor from 1949-1966. “Brilliance and bias,” read the headline of the black-bordered obituary on the front page of the Aug. 17 Richmond Times-Dispatch. “A Courtly Warrior for Conservatism,” proclaimed The Wall Street Journal.

But The Washington Post got it right in quoting University of Virginia political science professor Larry J. Sabato on Kilpatrick’s demise and his studied defiance to integration: “It was one of the saddest episodes in Virginia’s long history, and it helped keep the state a backwater for years to come.”

Click here to read Slipek's piece.

Lights Are On at the New Charter School

After all the twists and turns Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts opened on Aug. 11.

As the story developed it became much more than a matter of establishing a new school in an old school building that needed refurbishing. It became a complicated political issue with agendas in the air that had more to do with history than they did with science or arts.

Click here to read "Lights Are On at the New Charter School" at Richmond.com, penned by yours truly.

Semi-Viral Video

This short film is a dream-like pastiche of sounds and images (stills and moving) set to the pace of an imaginary crying-in-your-beer Bob Wills song ("Bubbles in My Beer," lyrics by T. Duncan, B. Walker and C. Mills), playing in an abstract sort of bar. It was made by reusing some of my old art, film footage, etc., and a proper measure of sarcasm.

Suddenly, it has gone semi-viral. Although it's been on YouTube for a year-and-a-half, for some reason it has gotten five-times more hits/viewings in the last three or four days than it had garnered in the previous 18 months.

While I don't know what has set this interest in my little video off, I do find it semi-fascinating, so I hope this post stokes it.

-- Images and sound by F.T. Rea. All rights reserved.

When is intruding on solemnity OK?

Now I wonder how many conservatives who follow the lead of Virginia’s attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, are adamantly opposed to building the Muslim community center two blocks away from Ground Zero.

My reason for wondering is this: Cuccinelli declined to file a brief supporting Albert Snyder’s side of the case against Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church. That made Virginia just one of two states to pass on the opportunity. The Supreme Court will decide the case soon.

Rather than rehash it, click here to read my Richmond.com article on this matter. By the way, I agree with Cuccinelli’s take on this one.

Anyway, after you read about Cuccinelli’s concerns for freedom of speech, even when the speaker is being deliberately obnoxious at military funerals, you’ll see he’s not willing to protect the families of fallen military personnel from being offended at the worst time.

How are the sensibilities of the families of people who perished in the 9/11 attacks all that different from the families at such funerals?

Since most reasonable people of any political persuasion agree that the owners of the property in Manhattan have the "right" to do as they please, within zoning regulations, etc., we hear from those opposed to the community center -- who call it the Ground Zero Mosque -- that such a purpose would be/could be offensive to the families of 9/11’s victims.

They're saying it's terribly inappropriate, which is understandable, even if one disagrees. Yet, almost anything one does today will be called inappropriate by someone. Most of us worry about such things when we feel like it.

So, is the No-Ground-Zero-Mosque movement also saying the presence of a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan is more offensive and inappropriate than what the Westboro hate group does at funerals?

Think about it.

What could be meaner or less appropriate than a group of professional haters from Kansas showing up at your child’s funeral, waving outrageous signs -- God Hates Fags! -- that say your lost loved one deserves an eternity in hell, because he or she died fighting for a country that enables homosexuality?

But a fair reading of the First Amendment says the government can’t stop them. So, Cuccinelli and other conservatives can live with that intrusion into a solemn occasion. How is a community center that can’t even be seen from Ground Zero less appropriate?

In the current scheme of things, how many conservatives have more tolerance for a Westboro hater's rights, because he calls himself a Baptist, than they do for the rights of any Muslim under the sun?

Queen of Claptrap

Dr. Laura is in the news today. My only brush with her persona was the experience I had when I took an assignment to write a column about her for Richmond.com in 2000. The title of my piece then was "Queen of Claptrap."

Other than that time, I haven't really paid much attention to the minor celebrity of Ms. Laura Schlessinger. It was easy to ignore her.

However, after writing that OpEd piece in 2000, I received an avalanche of nasty, even threatening, emails from a small, very organized national group that apparently did that sort of thing to any writer who criticized their queen. It was disconcerting, nonetheless.

Here's the ten-year-old piece:

Anybody who thinks the job of an opinion writer is easy should think again. Yes, everybody has opinions. That part is easy. What I'm referring to here - aside from the small task of gathering an opinion and converting it into an essay - is research. In order to put this piece together, I had to watch and listen to Laura Schlessinger.

Yes, the same Laura Schlessinger who is better known as talk-radio's Dr. Laura, the acerbic, self-styled adviser to the forlorn who has ridden a wave of controversy to a new syndicated television show.

To be fair with the reader, I have to admit that I have no patience with the entire confession-driven genre of programming to which Dr. Laura's television show belongs. I'm talking about the likes of Jerry Springer, Montel Williams, Ricki Lake, and so forth.

However, Schlessinger has been deliberately pushing buttons to move the stories about the views she voices on her broadcasts from the entertainment section to the news and editorial sections.

Thus, Dr. Laura has become a topic for OpEd columnists to consider. After a sampling of her product I have to say a little bit of the supercilious Dr. Laura goes a long way. For my money, she may well be the most obnoxious of the daytime talk-show hosts.

From what I can tell, her formula combines the hard-edge political and cultural outlook of the typical right-wing AM radio windbag - Rush Limbaugh being the most obvious example - with the lonely hearts advice of an Ann Landers.

Dr. Laura's frequently expressed judgments on homosexuality - notions that some would call antediluvian, while others plainly see as hateful - have provoked an anti-Dr. Laura movement that is making news as well. For more about that, check out stopdrlaura.com.

Dr. Laura, in spite of her startling throwback opinions, is a modern gal when it comes to making money; so she's got a Web site, too: drlaura.com.

"Do the right thing" is Dr. Laura's oft-stated slogan. Well, I can't argue with that. Who can? But the rub is who's defining what "right" is?

Dr. Laura's tonic is basically a dose of Pat Buchanan's political and social agenda, served up with Bobby Knight's bedside manner. The sad part of it - maybe even the scary part - is that some pitiful soul might take her mean-spirited blather to heart, because it sounds bitter and medicinal.

The burgeoning movement to protest her bashing of gays and other people she sees as immoral is gaining momentum. With quotes such as, "a huge portion of the male homosexual populace is predatory on young boys," being attributed to Dr. Laura, it's easy to see why.

While I can't say I'm prepared to endorse everything that's being said and done to "Stop Dr. Laura," I can say with enthusiasm that I'm a great believer in the time-honored tactic of boycott.

Apparently Procter & Gamble got the message. It, like a string of other would-be national sponsors of her TV program, such as Verizon, RadioShack Corp., Kraft Foods, and Kimberly-Clark, have decided to back off.

It won't surprise me if the television show - aired locally at 4 p.m. weekdays by WRIC TV 8 (Ch. 8 broadcast and AT&T Ch. 10 Comcast) - runs into trouble in the Richmond market. Virginia's particular brand of conservatism is baffling to people from other states.

Yes, Virginians are happy with right-of-center politics on many issues. Yet, they aren't comfortable with extremes in any direction; especially those extremes that are blatantly tacky.

Ask Ollie North: In spite of his far-right beliefs, his 1994 $25 million cakewalk to a Senate seat turned out to be a fall from grace. Ollie, with that checkered blue shirt and his self-serving lies to Congress, was just too gauche for Virginians to stomach.

By the same token, Howard Stern's radio show didn't last long in Richmond, either. Although it had plenty of listeners, the big local advertisers weren't comfortable being associated with it. What some of Stern's fans failed to grasp was it wasn't so much his lefty politics that got Howard in trouble in this market; it was his style.

It will be interesting to see whether WRIC will be able to run the commercials of major local advertisers such as Ukrop's Super Markets or any of the big banks in or adjacent to the Dr. Laura show.

With the anti-Dr. Laura movement picking up speed, I wonder how many Richmond companies are going to be willing to write off the entire gay and lesbian market for the sake of riding Laura Schlessinger's publicity wave. Beyond the organized alternative-lifestyle groups, the controversy that is swelling up around this talk show has bad vibes.

In ad jargon, it's going to be too easy for local agencies to buy around the Dr. Laura telecast. That simply means that roughly the same audience is readily available to an advertiser through other vehicles, so Dr. Laura and her hefty baggage can easily be avoided.

Bottom line: My hope is Dr. Laura will get canceled before I have to write any more about her. Just the thought of having to watch her on television again gives me the willies.

Too close to Ground Zero

Without my natural cynicism, the contrived issue to do with the Ground Zero Mosque might baffle me. After all, if this country wasn't founded on religious freedom and doing what you want on your own property ... then what?

But it seems there are some new-wave conservatives, who are so much about the latest talking points strategy that they don't give a happy hoot about traditional conservative values. And, apparently there are some focus-group numbers out there that say striking a high-profile pose against "building a mosque too close to Ground Zero" will play well with enough voters who thoroughly dislike all Muslims that it could help with turning out the vote in November.

Doesn't matter if it's not a mosque. Doesn't matter that such a strategy endorses hate.

So, being against anything Muslim is the game. Too close to Ground Zero is the cover. Since none of the jowls-shaking critics can agree on how close is “too close,” that makes for lots of easy chatterbox cable news television.

If, after the votes are counted, this ugly issue slowly melts into the woodwork -- to sleep with the cockroaches -- well then, you'll know why.

Confusing justification with justice

This Wednesday the Back Page of STYLE Weekly deals with immigration, liberty and morality.

Too many Americans no longer see immigration as a positive ingredient in our national melting pot. Rather, it is being posited as a noxious weed thrown into a politically toxic stew. To use this tragic accident as justification for Virginia to join Arizona in seeking to do what the federal government is constitutionally charged to do, i.e., secure our national borders and direct our foreign policy, is grossly misguided, though sadly in character with our nation’s and Virginia’s historical mistreatment of our fellow human beings.

Click here to read the entire piece, "Justification Without Justice," written by Shaun Kenney and Claire Guthrie Gastañaga.

Is Kaine's DNC job secure?

With off-year elections less than three months away, Democrats are bracing for losses in congress. It's traditional for the party in the White House to suffer such. Currently, the donkeys have a majority in both houses. It remains to be seen how well prepared the Republicans are/will be to take advantage of that natural swing of the political pendulum.

Former Gov. Tim Kaine (depicted above) is the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. It's his job to hold onto as many seats as possible this year. How long will Kaine last as chairman, if Democrats have a bad November 2nd?

According to Michael O'Brien's piece in The Hill, Kaine is so well liked in the party that he's not a likely scapegoat.

“I think Tim Kaine is out there doing what he should be doing — building the party, building the party apparatus,” Axelrod said. “That is what you want a party chair to do. That is the guts of the job.”

Lawmakers and party insiders contacted by The Hill expressed unified support for Kaine’s work as chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and praised him for working to channel President Obama’s grassroots support into a tool for governing.

Click here to read the entire article.

Hat-tip to Blue Virginia. Illustration by F.T. Rea

Dedicated to the Ones

The version of the song "Dedicated To the One I Love" that is probably the best known today is the one performed by The Mamas and Papas, as seen in the 1967 video below.

My memory of the song takes me back to the Shirelles' version, which was actually given two releases about a year apart. The original 1959 single was apparently ignored by the disc jockeys. When the same record was re-released later, which I didn't grasp was a cover, something about the market had changed ... it became a hit.

But, as I've recently learned, the original version of the song was put out in 1957 by the 5 Royales. It was written by two members of that band -- Ralph Bass and Lowman Pauling. The video below is that version. It's funny, now I like both the M&Ps' effort and the original by the 5 Royales better than the one by the Shirelles, which I liked just fine at the time.

Change is good. See what you think.

Cuccinelli the perpetual campaigner

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli isn't on the ballot in November. Still, he seems to be in the news more than any other Virginia politician. Maybe more than all the other Republicans in the commonwealth, put together.

Just as Cuccinelli’s shoot-from-the-hip style pleases Tea Party convention planners, it has been creating a problem for some in the Virginia Republican Party. He has completely overshadowed the two other men on the GOP’s winning ticket in 2009, Gov. Bob McDonnell and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling.

Bill who?

Click here to read Cuccinelli's Week That Was."

Boies on Prop 8 challenge

David Boies on Prop 8 & Supreme Court from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Update: Ted Olson explains why he and Boies won on Fox News. This one is really something to see/hear. It's fun watching Olson swat Wallace's irksome questions about "judicial activism," etc., like they were slow-moving, late-summer flies.

Net neutrality, free speech issue

Minnesota's Sen. Al Franken says net neutrality is the free speech issue of our time:

But telecommunications companies want to be able to set up a special high-speed lane just for the corporations that can pay for it. You won't know why the internet retail behemoth loads faster than the mom-and-pop shop, but after a while you may get frustrated and do all of your shopping at the faster site. Maybe the gatekeepers will discriminate based on who pays them more. Maybe they will discriminate based on whose political point of view conforms to their bottom line.

Well, I'm certainly not in favor of more consolidation of the telecommunications industry. They are basically the same people who killed locally owned and programmed radio. They are the cloaked why behind Hollywood's tedious penchant for doing so many remakes and sequels.

Click here to read Franken's entire OpEd piece at CNN.

'Love is a fog'

"Love is a fog that burns with the daylight of reality."
-- Charles Bukowski (1920-94)

-- Art by F.T. Rea

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.