365 Days

A sidewalk chalk shrine made by neighborhhod kids decorates the steps on the front porch of the Harvey family house. (Dec. 29, 2006) ERIC DAVIS/TIMES-DISPATCH

One year ago many Richmonders had their whole world view shaken right down to the roots at the news of the murders of Bryan, Kathryn, Stella and Ruby Harvey in their home, on New Year's Day. Throughout this past year there have been a number of milestones, both beautiful and horrific, that have marked the path through these 365 days. I think the trials were hardest for me personally. As each one passed I felt myself let out a sigh of relief. A little bit of the weight comes off with each one.

I don't know if I'm the only one who saw January 1st looming ahead somewhat menacingly. Another marker in the road...but maybe the last of the really hard ones. It's been one year since that terrible day and I am so proud of Carytown for ringing this day in right. Rather than allow New Year's Day to lurk as the dark anniversary of terrible loss, the merchants chose to throw a great party (benefiting the Harvey Foundation and The Byrd Theater). Kudos to Carytown for choosing to banish the boogymen and reclaim New Year's Day for optimism, fun, and thoughts of the future. It's the right way to remember them well.

Update:
Another good article in the T.D. about the NYE festivities in Carytown.

It was as if Richmond-area residents wanted a massive dose of togetherness and harmony to end a crazy and violent year that began with the New Year's Day massacre of the Harvey family, said Todd Schall-Vess, manager of the Byrd Theatre and the man who designed and built the ball.

Kathryn Harvey operated the World Of Mirth shop in one of the blocks anchoring the street party.

"We really -- more than a lot of years past -- needed a point to say, 'This is where it starts over,'" Schall-Vess said. "This is where we start anew again."

More here...

Water, Water, Everywhere...

For residents of north Richmond, a day's worth of torrential rain can only mean one thing...




















..Battery Park is flooded again.

Happy friggin' New Year. :/

The 10 Most Outrageous Civil Liberties Violations of 2006.

Slate has the list.

Opponents and Enemies

Over the last week or so I've watched a controversy erupt within the Virginia community of political bloggers. It involved an owner of a Virginia political blogs aggregator deciding to remove a blog in order to remove an offensive image (a terrorist propaganda photo of a beheaded American man) posted on that blog from his aggregator. What followed was a drama that reflected what I consider to be a troubling trend in politics and political discourse in general over the last decade - decade and a half. People seem unable to distinguish the difference between an opponent and an enemy. In this particular case, nearly all of the people involved in that controversy are obviously Virginians who care about their state, their community, and their country. They wouldn't be bothering to blog about politics if they didn't care. They are people who all care about the same things yet disagree about how to approach political issues. Yet some participants in that controversy began to speak in terms of their political opponents as "the enemy" and using military jargon to describe their own behavior toward "the enemy".
Where did people lose the capability to distinguish between a real enemy and a political/ideological opponent?

Talk radio and trashy cable news channels, with all the hours that they have to fill, have created programming that has encouraged this way of viewing political differences, certainly. As have some columnists and web sites and, of course, blogs.

It gratified me to see that there were many observers and participants in that particular tiff that did seem to recognize that there are deeper and more important things we all have in common that transcend political, religious, or ideological differences. However, I was troubled by the few folks that didn't see that and by the tactics and pressure they applied to their ideological and political brethren to try to pressure them into taking up the same extreme position of viewing their political opponents as enemies. When it really counts, will these people be able to figure out the difference?

"It's A Wonderful Life" maligned as 'commie propaganda' by the FBI

Wisebread has the details, including the original FBI memo from 1947.

'It's A Wonderful Life' has been a favorite of mine for a long time. Yes, it's sappy, yes, it's played over and over, year after year, but for me it never loses its charm. I think its message just gets more and more relevant every year. However, I'm not at all surprised to learn that it was despised by people obsessed with free market capitalism and eat up with suspicions of commies hiding under every bed. It is a film that glorifies the virtues of the working man and disdains greed and materialism.

Why?

I've spent the last two weeks or so listening to the various "smart people" in Washington discussing the idea of a troop 'surge' in Iraq, ostensibly for the purpose of 'fixing' things there. What's been driving me nuts about this debate is that none of the people who are advocating this increase in troop levels will explain WHY they think it would be helpful.

Even the folks who are advocating this surge just for the purpose of intensifying training for Iraqi military and police seem to be ducking serious questions on this issue. How will more US troops working to improve the skills of the Iraqi army address what might be the most serious problem affecting the Iraqi military and police: the obviously deep infiltration of sectarian and political militia within the ranks of the Iraqi forces?

Why would 20,000-50,000 more troops make things any better there? How would such and increase in troop levels address any of the REAL problems that are undermining security and stability there?

Baghdad ER

I managed to catch HBO's excellent documentary about the 86th CaSH (Combat Support Hospital) in Baghdad this past week. HBO will be airing it in prime time again on Memorial Day. I can't say enough good things about this program. I think it's important for Americans to see it, if for no other reason than to see the amazingly skilled and dedicated people (volunteers) that are keeping the number US war dead much lower than it could be (remember, nearly 18,000 US service persons have been injured). Thanks to the medical staff at the CaSH, the US has a higher survival rate for injured soldiers than in any previous war.

I think it's also important for us in the US to remind ourselves about the realities of war. It's not glorious and noble adventure. It's not nifty videos of "surgical strikes" that are released to CNN for our amusement. It's blood and guts. It's kids getting their asses blown off. And it's the shocked, blank expressions on their faces as they wonder what the hell happened to them.

Update*
Fresh Air's Terri gross interviewed Baghdad ER filmmakers Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill on Monday. You can listen to it here.

Memorial Day Weekend

Don't forget to take a moment to think about the men and women who will never come home, and those who will come home but will never be whole again:

2,400 killed
17,774 wounded

ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH

by Wilford Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in The hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine The holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Empty Spaces

Fan District residents know that today was the Strawberry Street Festival. This event is a lot of fun for the neighborhood and the kids who attend Fox Elementary School (which benefits from much of the proceeds). This year we are missing some good people. Bryan and Kathy Harvey and their daughters aren't here this year. Kathy had organized the games at the festival for the past couple of years. Bryan used to help with the week long run-up to the event, doing his goofy Elvis impersonation act, which he would perform for the kids as they made their way to their classrooms in the morning. Obviously, Stella was a student here. She's gone too. No doubt her pals are thinking about the empty space she's left behind. Their absence is hard to miss.

This year the proceeds from the children's games and activities were donated to the Harvey Family Memorial Fund. More info on that is available here.

WTF?!

So however many millions have been spent on an investigation into the Plame leak, one reporter was jailed, others were threatened with the same, a White House staffer is under indictment and Bush could have spared all of this by simply stating that he, himself, had authorized this leak of information? Do I have this right? In all of the coverage/discussion that I've seen and heard on this most recently revealed element of the Plame story I have yet to hear anyone point this out. Bush could have simply come forward with this fact from the very beginning. Instead, he apparently decided to lie and pretend that he had no idea how this information become public. Is this not a relevent aspect of the story?

Nuthin' to see here...

Blogging will be very light for the next couple of weeks. We just bought a house and will be indulging in the delicious experience known as 'moving'. I'll be busy schlepping heavy things in and out of trucks and attempting to talk some poor soul into helping me remove that massive stump at the rear of my back yard.

Holy crap...

This could be the spark that sets off the long threatening civil war that's been percolating for a couple of years now in Iraq:

In Iraq, bombing sparks fears of more violence

Today's bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, Iraq, has renewed fears of an escalation in violence between the country's Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities. Protests erupted in Samarra (photo) and elsewhere around Iraq, while some Shiite leaders appealed for calm while others promised retribution. President Bush has condemned the bombing and urged Iraqis to "exercise restraint" in responding to it. Here's a roundup of the latest news:

and...

Update at 5:55 p.m.ET: Three imams were killed as Shiite gunmen attacked 27 Sunni mosques.

- Al Jazeera reports that Shiite leaders in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood "called for demonstrations against the blast." The Arab network also gives this background on the shrine that was attacked: "The shrine contains the tombs of two revered (Shiite) imams, both descendants of the prophet Mohammed. ... An attack at such an important religious shrine would constitute a grave assault" on Shiites.

And more here.

Drinking Liberally in Richmond, VA

Don't forget, Drinking Liberally (hosted by Richmond's own J.C Wilmore) is this Thursday (February 23), 7-9pm at Richbrau Brewing Co. 1214 E. Cary St. Join Richmond's 'Drinking Liberally' mailing list here. More info on 'Drinking Liberally' here.

The Black Hole

For nearly a year now I've been seeing a steady trickle of news articles about the tangle of political and religious grudges in Iraq that appear to be deeply infiltrated into the Iraqi police and security forces. Today I read another one in Newsweek. Here's a snippet:

No one knows how many death squads are currently operating in Iraq, but in the past year hundreds of murdered bodies have been found, many of them with their wrists bound execution style and a single bullet through the head. Some death squads are killing Shiites; others are executing Sunnis. In many cases, witnesses tell of victims being abducted by unidentified men in police uniforms. Almost unnoticed amid the country's chaos, the dirty war is beginning to rival the insurgency in its deadliness and in its damage to national stability.

The administration has avoided discussing this problem for obvious reasons, but it demands serious attention. When I read that US troops are arresting Iraqi cops/deathsquads it sends up a red flag. We seem to be getting pulled deeper into the complicated morass of Iraqi political and social conflicts. It's arguable that we are obligated to do this. Our toppling of the previous regime let this genie out of the bottle. That's fair. But where does it end? Is the American public ready to dive into the challenge of sorting out these deep grudges that exist between the various factions? I don't think we've had this discussion yet, not really, and it's pretty important that we figure out where we want to draw the line here...or if it's even possible to draw that line now. Maybe it isn't.

Cheney gets his flowers

From MSNBC:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb parked at a Baghdad market killed 21 people and wounded at least 25 on Tuesday in one of the worst attacks for weeks.

An Interior Ministry official said the 25 wounded were nearly all civilians, while a hospital source said medics were treating at least 32 people injured in the explosion.

Witnesses said people in the market spotted a man park the car and make off despite efforts to apprehend him.

Iran pulls a "freedom fry"

In response to public outcry over some offensive cartoons published in Danish newspapers, Iranians have renamed a favorite treat:

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranians love Danish pastries, but when they look for the flaky dessert at the bakery they now have to ask for "Roses of the Prophet Muhammad.

Bakeries across the capital were covering up their ads for Danish pastries Thursday after the confectioners' union ordered the name change in retaliation for caricatures of the Muslim prophet published in a Danish newspaper.

"Given the insults by Danish newspapers against the prophet, as of now the name of Danish pastries will give way to 'Rose of Muhammad' pastries," the union said in its order.

"This is a punishment for those who started misusing freedom of expression to insult the sanctities of Islam," said Ahmad Mahmoudi, a cake shop owner in northern Tehran.

Cartoons

They're getting in on the controversial cartoon action over at The Poor Man Institute

Shoe-Bomb-a-Palooza II: Sneakers of Mass Destruction

Digby's got the latest on the dastardly plot via leaked Al Quaeda phone conversations hot off the NSA wiretaps!

#2: Uh, Mohammed?

#1: Yes Mohammed?

#2: Something, um, doesn't sound right. Are you quite sure...

#1: Of course I'm sure. It says right here [sounds of more paper shuffling] that we are to use high explosives to gain access to the cockpit, where we then threaten to blow up the rest of plane if they don't fly it into the Liberty...

#2: Literary...

#1: Liberty, Literary... I don't... [sighs] Look, just tell the pilot "The tall one." I'm quite sure they'll know which building you're talking about. Just tell them that if they don't immediately fly the plane into the tallest building in Los Angeles, you'll blow them up with your Sneakers of Mass Destruction. They won't want that, I can assure you.

Catch the rest of the shocking exchange over at Hullabaloo!

The electronic confessional

If you haven't ever checked out the long term community art project "Post Secret", it's worth looking at. When I popped in there today I noticed that the creator of the site has compiled a book of many of the secrets that participants have mailed in, many that were posted on the site and some that were never seen. The Post Secret book will be sold in chain and indie bookstores.

Pickled NASA

From the NYT:

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.