Craptacular Hack

As I was browsing through Sunday's Richmond Times Dispatch I ran accross Mark Holmberg's column. It was a bit about a murder in Richmond that went largely unnoticed. The victim was a person who, sadly, lived his life on the edges of society, etc, etc... Toward the end of the piece Holmberg feels compelled to make this statement:

It just doesn't weigh the same as the other slayings that week, not to mention last year's death of college student Taylor Behl. Which is why few reporters contacted Roberts' family, while Behl's mother continues to bask in the media spotlight like a contestant on some kind of strange "American Idol" for grieving family members.

What an amazingly shitty thing to say.

Plug

Today is my birthday so we went out for a really nice dinner at a semi-local place called Wabi Sabi. It's in the older downtown section of Petersburg, VA. Absolutely great food and a wonderful atmosphere. They have a website here. If you're in the Richmond, VA area and you're looking for a great dinner in a fun, laid back place, do check out Wabi Sabi. Richmond does a local gallery 'art walk' on the first Friday of every month. It's called "First Friday". Downtown Petersburg does a similar thing on the second Friday of the month, appropriately called "Second Friday". Head on down there and check out the art, then have a great dinner at Wabi Sabi.

Democratic Agenda: [ Political party seeking direction and vision. Apply within ]

After doing some reading and emailing today (the subject of both being politics) I've reached a disheartening conclusion. The Democratic party is still really fucked up. Yeah, I know. Who didn't know that? It's really bumming me out though. This is 2006. Winning a significant number of seats in the House and Senate is just so crucial, so important, it should be the number one focus of the Democratic party right now. Hell, it should have been the number one focus since November, '04. I realize the fund raisers and consultants and image polishers are already in full swing. But something really, REALLY important is absent. It's been AWOL for at least 12 years now. Democratic politicians and leaders appear to have no clue what the hell they want to do if they actually manage to win. They still can't explain to voters why they should choose them over the Republicans. Yes, yes, they're the "Not Republican" party. We get that. But in order to win, and in order to lead, there has to be something more to being a Democrat than just being "Not Republican". That won't win an election for dog catcher, much less an election against an incumbent politician who is backed by what might be the slickest, most disciplined political machine in anyone's memory. So here's some homework for Democrats, both voters and politicians.

Answer these questions:

What is the "Democratic vision"?
Why is the Democratic vision preferable to the GOP vision?
What is the Democratic agenda and the game plan for reaching the goals of that agenda?
How can this vision and agenda be effectively articulated to voters?
What would be an effective strategy to build tough, cohesive party unity among the various Democratic and progressive political and social activists and their following?

Well, feel free to reply. I think these are the questions that Democratic voters need to be bugging the party leadership and politicians about. An optimisitic, affirmative Democratic vision for the future and an agenda to get us there are absolutely crucial to achieving the big victories that us Democrats are longing for in November.

Uncle Sam wants to ogle your Googles

From AP, via Richmond Times Dispatch:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google Inc. is rebuffing the Bush administration's demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet's leading search engine - a request that underscores the potential for online databases to become tools for government surveillance.

snip...

The government wants a list all requests entered into Google's search engine during an unspecified single week - a breakdown that could conceivably span tens of millions of queries. In addition, it seeks 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases.

In court papers that the San Jose Mercury News reported on after seeing them Wednesday, the Bush administration depicts the information as vital in its effort to restore online child protection laws that have been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The administration's position seems to be that they 'need' these records in order to determine how frequently porn comes up in various google searches. Now I'm no lawyer, but this argument seems very weak to me. Can't the government's own goons do this research for themselves? Sit a few lackeys down in front of some PC's and give them a list of several hudred terms to google and take a look at the results.

So, since any 8th grader can figure out that the feds don't need Google customers' search data in order to get ahold of the statistical info they claim they're looking for, what do they really want this information for? Are they really after this particular bit of information or are they merely using this as an opportunity to set a precedent which will allow them to supoena search engine records for other purposes in the future?

Given the recent revelations regarding the federal governments willingness to run roughshod all over laws designed to protect the privacy of Americans from government snooping, I'm hopeful that the courts will tell the Bush administration go shove it.

Friedman Gets Flattened

Matt Taibbi, a favorite of mine, has reviewed the latest book from columnist Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat.
Taibbi is one of a few columnists who can make me laugh out loud and he doesn't disappoint this time around. Watching him poke fun at the self-important, overrated NYT columnist is good for some grins.

I think it was about five months ago that Press editor Alex Zaitchik whispered to me in the office hallway that Thomas Friedman had a new book coming out. All he knew about it was the title, but that was enough; he approached me with the chilled demeanor of a British spy who has just discovered that Hitler was secretly buying up the world’s manganese supply. Who knew what it meant—but one had to assume the worst.

More over at New York Press..

FreewayBlogger has a blog

You may or may not be familiar with Freewayblogger. It's sort of part political speach/protest, part social experiment. Freewayblogger has started a weblog in the last few months. Go check 'em out at both sites (if you haven't already). Who knows? Maybe it will inspire you to do a bit of you own freewayblogging. Regardless, the pics are interesting so, enjoy.

World of Mirth to reopen today

The story is in the Richmond Times Dispatch. Let's give WoM some support as they get up and running again. Go spend some money there.

Common Thread

A friend of mine showed me a recent post on Riverbend's blog, 'Baghdad Burning'. It's called "Thank You For the Music" (which is about the sudden loss of a good friend to the daily violence in Iraq) . Riverbend lives in Iraq and blogs about her personal experiences and life in general in US occupied Iraq. Reading it, I couldn't help but be reminded of all the touching and kind tributes to Bryan Harvey and his family that I have read in the last couple of weeks. It's a great post and reading it evoked a strange mixture of emotions, but I was left with this thought: Coping with the events of the first week of January gave us here in our little part of the world just the tiniest taste of what it must be like to live in a place like Iraq, where senseless, anonymous and brutal violence take the lives of scores ordinary people on a nearly daily basis. Or Pakistan, where a recent botched CIA attempt to kill a Bin Laden crony resulted in the deaths of 17 ordinary people. Imagine the anger and bewilderment that we're feeling here...then multiply that by about a thousand.

Keeping the focus on what matters...

Over the past week, like so many other Richmonders who were struggling to process the terrible events unfolding in their city, I found myself spending way too much time reading commentary on internet message sites. Some of it was interesting, some of it was disturbing, and some of it was very touching. A lot of it was pretty pointless.

What I found most curious was the tendency of some commenters to link the murders committed by Dandridge and Grey to Richmond itself, as a reflection of our city's high murder rate.

That really bugged me. The two alleged killers weren't from Richmond. They came here from somewhere else to commit their crimes. Richmonders were shocked and bewildered by these murders.

I think it's worthwhile to point out that Richmond's homicide rate was down in 2005, by nearly 10%, from the previous year. If you've lived here long enough you know that parts of our city that once seemed hopelessly troubled with crime and decay are in the process of improving. Jackson Ward, Highland Park, the section of Woodland Heights south of Semmes Ave., the Carver neighborhood, etc are all experiencing renewal. Even our once desolate downtown area seems poised for a new life.

So enough already with beating up on Richmond.

I have a better idea. Do something positive in your community to make it a better place. Organize a neighborhood clean-up. Start a 'get to know your neighbors' social group. Volunteer some time tutoring kids in public schools. Have a fundraiser to raise cash for community projects. Everything someone does, big or small, that sends out a positive vibe can really add up.

All Things Must Pass...

Yesterday, I finally took down the Christmas tree ornaments. It was January 10th. When I put everything up, back before Christmas, I had intended to leave the tree and the house decorated until January 6th. It's the "12th Day of Christmas", after all, and I'm also too lazy to get everything undone before then. This year, though, I was days later in getting this somewhat melancholy chore done. I guess it's because, for me, time sort of stopped on January 2nd.

Early morning, Monday January 2nd, I got a phone call from my mother, a long time resident of the Woodland Heights neighborhood in my city, Richmond, VA, asking me if we knew Stella Harvey.

For Richmonders, the rest of the story will seem sadly familiar. My mother related to me that 9 year old Stella, and the rest of her family (parents Bryan and Kathy and little sister Ruby) had been found murdered in their home on New Year's Day.

After that call, everything seemed to stop.

Stella was born just a few weeks before my own daughter. They attended the same elementary school. Her mom, Kathy, ran a cool store in my community called "World of Mirth" in which I loved to shop. Her dad was a well known, talented musician who had also been a fixture in my world within a world, the Fan District and greater Richmond music and arts scene. I had crossed paths with these people for years. The connections, both direct and indirect, were numerous. I did not know them well but they were a predictable part of my universe.

The days that followed that terrible news were filled with tears, phone calls, vigils and obsessive attention to the local (and national) news. Terrible details of the brutality of the crime. Terrible images in my imagination of their final moments. Endless speculation about the identity of the killer(s) and their possible motives. I struggled mightily to try to understand who could do such a ghastly thing to such lovely people. I think everyone who knew them, and many that only knew of them, were engaged in the same.

Time seemed to stop.

Despite the terrible sadness I was feeling in that week that followed, I was amazed and deeply touched by the beautiful things that were revealed around me. The love and care between the people in my community, the loyalty to the dignity and memory of the Harveys, the diligence of the local print media in covering the story with the same sense of dignity and care, and the determination of those that were suffering to push ahead and make a beautiful legacy for these people and push off from the images of the horror that Bryan, Kathy, Stella and Ruby suffered.

I attended both of the vigils. The one at the Unitarian Church was the better of the two, in my opinion. It was good medicine for people in terrible pain. Quiet, brief, dignified and poignant.

The second vigil, outside of the Harvey home, was more of a neighborhood thing with a considerable amount of the focus being on the issue of neighborhood crime. Understandable. Also, there was a noisy generator powering a giant array of police lights. That was pretty distracting.

But, something really special happened after all the talking and speeches were done. People began to surround the front yard of the house itself and place their candles, pictures, notes, flowers, etc, all around the perimeter of the front yard.

The house itself, a dark and empty thing...seemed as though it was also dead. It had been lurking throughout the week, a dark and foreboding monument to sadness and death (it seemed to me) but the neighbors and friends spread their loving trinkets and expressions of grief all around. It felt as though they were banishing the bad mojo, and allowing the home to be what it was before: a place where love and compassion lived every day.

After the vigils came the memorial, which I did not attend. I decided to stay home and make cookies with my 7 year old son instead. I needed a breather. Then the arrest came.

With the memorial over and the arrest of the alleged killers, it seems that many of us are trying to push ahead. Time really didn't stop, after all. Here it was, January 10th, and my tree sat there, covered in ornaments and the lights on my porch still twinkled.

So I put the ornaments away, took down the porch lights (most of 'em anyway). It's time to turn around now and look toward the future. It's time to take this experience and figure out what it will mean for me, in my own life. I know I want to always remember what wonderful people are all around me, all of the time. I won't forget the deep love I felt connected to as my community shared its grief. I also want to remember the terrific example that Bryan and Kathy set: to live your life well, laugh a lot, and be generous with your gifts. Remembering that and living it honors their legacy. I imagine they would be proud of it.