Last Sunday’s Martinsville Bulletin ran a story about the Patrick Henry Community College School of Craft and Design in uptown Martinsville. Better known to the Virginia blogosphere as the Artisan Center, where we held a pajama party the first evening of the Blogs United in Martinsville conference last August. Southern Living magazine has had a writer and photographer on assignment there for a while in preparation for an article that will be published sometime in 2008.

Art? My big fat granny! They call this stuff art? Look at this bowl I purchased there last summer. It’s fine I suppose for the use I put it to, holding the leftover coffee grounds until I can get them to my composter, but I would never set that thing out where people can see it.

If Southern Living wants to highlight the arts in Henry County they should send a photographer to follow Cindy Price around. Now that girl’s an artist. I have all her CDs and I’ve even put together a Cindy Price outfit. Cut offs, a belly shirt, and of course, the hat and boots. I need some leather pants, though. Since Cindy has been on my mind lately, I’m beginning to reconsider Ward Armstrong. He has been a great Cindy supporter, supporting her just like he has the people of his district. I hear that he even recommended a lawyer for her.

I don’t know what the people here think Southern Living can do, we just had a half page ad in Blue Ridge Country magazine and it didn’t help anything at all. I’m starting a campaign that is sure to be effective in getting our local economy back on track. I’ve just sent e-mail to CMT to let them know what great talent we have here in Henry County. It wouldn’t surprise me to see them roll in here long before that Southern Living piece hits the presses. I’ll even bet they get here before NASCAR comes back.

UPDATE: (From Alton) In case you haven’t figured it out by now, 4 of us got together for a special April Fools Day post. As the plan was put forth by Ward Smythe some several days ago, we decided to follow the tradition of several of the better known comic strip artists and “substitute” for one another for this post. I placed all the names in a McDonald’s bag and then wrote down all the names on a page in alphabetical order, except I placed my name last on that list. I then drew names from the bag, assigning badrose to substitute for Greg, Greg to substitute for me, Leslie and Ward turned out to be reciprocal, leaving me to write for badrose.

So, Greg has not really moved in with Greg(2), he’s not even considering a move to Charlottesville to hook up with Rick Sincere. His satirical post “Some Announcements” was very well written by badrose.

While I do enthusiastically endorse Jeff Evans over Roscoe Reynolds, I think Greg did a great job imitating my rather unique style of writing. He even fooled Chris at STD, check out this post.

Leslie and Ward worked just as well off each other I think, with each writing in a very convincing manner imitating the other.

Badrose loves art, especially folk art. Her home is filled with it, and the “Starry Night” bowl made by Joyce Wray is among her favorites. As much as she loves art, her feelings for Ward Armstrong run just as deep in the opposite direction. As for Cindy Price, well, you would just have to live here to believe that story.

Alton did a great job impersonating me (it’s not easy being me!)   To see what I did to poor Greg, go here!

is going on over at Em’s Place, HERE and HERE.  I have it on good authority that no dogs will be harmed in the weaving of this tale.

For a wonderful reading experience, I suggest that you go on over and encourage him to keep going.  The last thing he needs is one more unfinished manuscript cluttering up his space!

I’m on Spring Break this week - wasn’t going to blog, BUT as I was shutting down my desktop  computer before “hitting the road,” I noticed an e-mail from Scott with some BIG NEWS.  I couldn’t wait a whole week to play with my new colors! 

As I was saying - I’m at my undisclosed location - here’s a hint:

This is my second year of celebrating Spring Break by staying in my home state.  After September 11th, I got tired of always being the “token white chick” that got “randomly” chosen for extra security screening in airports.  No more commercial flights for badrose.  No more putting my flip flops in a basket - I’ll just drive.  And I’ll probably spend more time vacationing in the commonwealth as a result.  I’ve lived here my entire life and I still have a lot to see and learn about the Mother of Presidents.

Here’s a question (I’m such a corn pone): As I was driving on I64 yesterday, I noticed some new (or maybe I’m blind and never noticed them in the past) crossing guards installed on the exit and entrance ramps to the interstate.  Long red and white striped bars that look like candy canes without the hook.  Were these installed as part of the hurricane evacuation route plan?  If not, why are they there?  To catch bad guys?  Bad girls?

Oh - Speaking of bad girls - Demzilla’s got the Virginia Blog Carnival going in full swing over at VB Dems.  Go on over and give her a big wet sloppy kiss from me, blogger #10.

and my “blogging career!”

(editor’s note: I had planned to write this post, or one similar, on April 28th in order to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Commonwealth Conservative Caption Contest having a head-on collision with the Martinsville-Henry County Community Pride Jingle Contest. Since I failed to mail my raw meat sacrifice to Demzilla in time, I’ve decided to go ahead and publish this now as “MY Virginia Blog Carnival Submission.”)

I moved to Martinsville (from Manakin-Sabot) in August of 2004. Like most small towns in the South, excuse me, I forgot . . . it’s still a city, Martinsville is rich in Southern quirkiness. The people here, for the most part, are helpful and friendly to a fault. Sometimes it’s hard to complete tasks like painting a room or mowing the lawn because a neighbor will “drop by” with a bottle of wine or a pitcher of appletinis. The climate is splendid and it’s well-endowed with natural beauty as we lay cradled in the arms of Smith and Bull Mountains. Most importantly, I can’t think of a better place to rear children and that’s mostly why I’m here.

Martinsville is unique in that not too far in the distant past, it was an economic powerhouse with the textile mills and furniture factories employing thousands of people earning high wages. The city once boasted of having more millionaires (per capita) than any other. That changed when NAFTA created the “giant sucking sound” about which Ross Perot warned us, as jobs went elsewhere. While NAFTA benefited most of the country by providing lower prices, it took a heavy toll on Martinsville. DuPont, Tultex, Pillowtex and numerous other companies closed their doors and the ones that remained greatly reduced their workforce. The mass exodus of jobs was accompanied by the exodus of Martinsville’s middle class (I think I may be the only member of this group here) and created somewhat of a “haves” vs. “have nots” environment, albeit real or perceived, it’s here.

Economic development has been an oxymoron in Martinsville/Henry County for a number of years. I have spent countless hours on the internet reading, copying and pasting articles crucial to a better understanding of Martinsville’s past, present and potential future. The majority of the articles I saved were from Virginia Business and Bacon’s Rebellion and the best of these were written by Will Vehrs.

For anyone who has ever felt a special bond or connection with an author whom they’ve never met, I won’t need to explain it. For the rest of you, I still have hope. Will Vehrs was my Geopolitical Guru, my Southside Sage, my Economic Einstein, my State Budget Cutting Casanova, my Common Sense Compass . . . I hope you get my point, I’m starting to scare myself . . . AND he was always optimistic when it came to the future of our area. When it looked like the New College Institute wouldn’t become a reality, he wrote one of my favorite pieces: Let’s Have Traffic Jams in Southside. An excerpt:

Anyway, I am totally baffled as to why this university idea is not a total slam-dunk. We know that there will be unrelenting pressure to create more state university slots for our growing Virginia population. We should know that creating more slots at current universities in gridlocked areas like Charlottesville, Fairfax, Williamsburg, and Fredericksburg is problematic. There is land and private grant money available in Southside. Southside is a struggling area and a university would bring a welcome shot in the arm economically.

Will left Bacon’s Rebellion to co-blog with the recently made Honorable Chad Dotson (Congratulations on your new Judgeship, Chad) where the Friday Caption Contest was a mainstay.

Those in the blogosphere recognized the caption contest as a “place” to unwind and be silly on Friday. On the week of April 28th, 2006, this picture (from the Martinsville Bulletin) of Mack Davidson and Cindy Price, the winners (in a field of two entries) of the Martinsville-Henry Co. Community Pride Jingle Contest, found its way into the caption contest. Tempting as it is to hold another caption contest with this photo, I won’t. Consideration for those who may be reading this while at work prevents me from doing so.

Will, whose job as a Business Services Manager with Virginia Department of Business Assistance, was having a slow Friday. A great deal of his time was operating a “Live Chat” on the Department’s Web site. He had to be online and ready for a chat whether someone was on the other end of the chat or not. To bide his time while waiting for the next chat to start, Will made a few okay, several, oops - lots of comments captioning the photo (my favorite: Cindy’s top was symbolic of the decline in Southside’s fabric industry.)

Those outside of the blogosphere apparently saw the contest as an economic development think tank where the most inspired and profound thoughts regarding the plans for progress in Martinsville were to be deposited. Will, portrayed as the ultimate power holder and decision maker, was frowning on Martinsville. He must certainly be to blame for the economic woes of late and must be held accountable. The Bulletin led the charge and the majority of public officials followed suit:

Del. Danny Marshall, R-Danville: “It’s just absurd. If he’s in economic development, he’s in the wrong job,” Marshall said. “The other thing that bothers me is, was this on our (taxpayers’) time?” However, the bottom line is, “the folks in Martinsville and Henry County don’t need this.”

Paula Burnette, Iriswood District, (my representative on the Board of Supervisors) said Vehrs’ posts “do not create positive attention toward our community … (a community) which he may be representing at some point. It’s hard to see how somebody could slam a community one week and the next (week) say it’s a good place to do business,” Burnette said.

Perhaps the harshest and cruelest recommendations came from (predictably) the area’s highest ranking state Democrats (this was before they became Democratics):

Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Collinsville, urged Gov. Tim Kaine “to call for Mr. Vehrs’ resignation, effective immediately” in a letter dated May 4. In his letter to Kaine, Armstrong said “given your strong commitment to the revitalization (of) Martinsville and Henry County and the efforts your administration is making to assist in that regard, I know you were shocked and displeased” at online comments.

“Shame on him,” said State Senator Roscoe Reynolds, D-Ridgeway, of caption entries posted on a blog by Will Vehrs. “If I were him, I would resign,” Reynolds said. “Or if I had the power to fire him, I’d fire him.”

The question for Ward Armstrong is: Do you prefer to be called HYPOCRITE or HYPOCRITIC? Considering Ward’s history of making tasteless, demeaning to women jokes while on the tax payers’ clock:

Freshman Del. Jeannemarie Devolites (R-Fairfax) was still miffed today about randy remarks that a Southside Democrat made about her Thursday as he parodied President Clinton. Del. Ward L. Armstrong (D-Henry) was doing a schtick on the House floor about that night’s legislative basketball game when he announced that Devolites was the team’s center.

“In fact, she’s coming over to my place later. We’re gonna go over the play book,” Armstrong said as Delegates roared with laughter.

At a postgame party, Armstrong told more Clinton jokes, this time comparing Devolites to Monica S. Lewinsky, again in her presence. Those present recalled Armstrong saying something to the effect that Devolites was “no Monica Lewinsky,” but that she had potential . . . .

Armstrong, 41, apologized during today’s House session, saying that “to the extent that some members may have been offended by my remarks, I wish to extend an apology . . . .I was merely trying to bring a little levity to the process.”

–The Washington Post, March 7, 1998.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial board picked up on this hypocrisy as well and called for Del. Armstrong to resign:

Vehrs, who received a 10-day suspension without pay, has apologized more thoroughly and sincerely than Armstrong did. If Armstrong is right now that Vehrs should be fired for his postings to an online caption contest, then the Delegate, who is called upon to vote on women’s issues, should resign as well.

People sometimes say and do things they shouldn’t. If Armstrong is grandstanding, then he has made his point. To the extent that he might be genuinely offended by Vehr’s attempt to bring a little levity to a subject, then he should stop pouting and accept Vehrs’ apology like the grown-up he ostensibly is.

Thankfully, Governor Kaine did not follow the recommendations of those two bozos and Will was allowed to continue his career with the state. If someone was truly offended by the captions, they could’ve contacted Will. He would’ve removed them and that would’ve been the end of the story and I probably wouldn’t be blogging.

I didn’t intend to write such an in depth review of the jingle vs. caption contest debacle but I wanted to provide a backdrop of why I’m here. I first became aware of the controversy when Mary Rives, my best friend, called with what I truly thought was a fake tone of indignation in describing what the “Head of Economic Development for the State” had said about Martinsville. Using my own best fake tone of indignation, my response was something along the lines of, “How dare he laugh at Cindy Price, our cornerstone of decency and decorum in Martinsville?” I laughed and we ended the call.

The following morning, I read with disbelief Mary Rives’ letter to the editor of the Bulletin and realized that she wasn’t joking the day before. My first reaction was to resolve to never speak to Mary Rives again. Upon my next realization that she was my only friend and I loved her dearly, I called her (at 7:30 in the morning - this is significant to those of you who know me and my love of sleep) and said, “We need to talk.”

Our conversation was the beginning of my defense of Will which can best be summarized by, “You’ve got the wrong guy.” I didn’t understand why the community had its panties in a bunch over Will’s captions but Mary Rives explained that it was like a familial response to an outsider. Like a brother can call his sister a slut but pound the noggin’ of anyone else who dares to say the same.

My mantra continued to be, “You’ve got the wrong guy.” I said it loudly but realized I needed a venue and had none. Riding a horse through Martinsville and shouting my lungs out wasn’t an option, nor was printing thousands of fliers and stuffing them under wiper blades at shopping centers. Writing a letter to the editor was pointless since they had created this melodrama to begin with. All I could do was lay out my defense to one person at a time and hope that I could persuade them to see things as I saw them. This is what I do today, with my blog, but hopefully reaching more than one person at a time . . .

Meanwhile, Charles Roark, of local media Star 18, dialed information and received Will’s home phone number (all of this was aired publicly) and berated Will while under the guise of conducting an interview. Will, through all of this, continued to take the high road. He had graciously and generously apologized (too much, in my opinion) to a group of people that was increasingly proving that Martinsville was a joke. Hearing Will Vehrs defend his reputation to a low-life bottom feeder like Charles Roark was more than I could stand. Maybe I wasn’t the only person in the world whose favorite blogger was being demonized by their local media and whose new home was becoming known for it’s lack of a sense of humor in the blogosphere, but I sure felt like it. My newly adopted hometown, the majority of which had never heard of a blog, was calling for my favorite blogger’s head. Feeling like my husband must’ve felt upon hearing that Dale Earnhardt was dead, I started sobbing for this blogger whom I’d never met.

Waldo Jacquith’s blog, which I had read just enough to assume that Waldo was a woman (I think it was because we had the same taste in computers, cameras, music, movies and television shows and I thought “Waldo” was a super cool name for a woman) was a source of comfort for me as each day brought more ridiculous accusations and recommendations regarding Will. On Waldo’s Web site, I saw numerous political bloggers crossing party lines in their support of Will. Waldo himself said it best (emphasis mine, typos his):

Whatever harm may befall the region because of Will’s posts — and clearly none actually will — the current and future benefits of Will’s work on behalf of the region and within the Virginia blogosphere far outweigh that harm.

Just last month Will contacted me about giving a presentation to some state businesses about using blogs to promote themselves. I immediately agreed to do so. It never crossed my mind to ask for compensation or even further details. Why? It’s Will Vehrs. If he says that Virginia businesses could benefit from a few minutes of my time, I’m certainly going to do so. This is the sort of benefit that comes of Will’s extensive work as a Virginia political blogger. He has made connections, friends and allies across the state, all of which will serve him well in his work for the Virginia Department of Business Assistance and, by extension, will serve Virginia well.

If Martinsville officials are smart — and I hope they are — they’re know that they can turn these lemons into lemonade. I don’t doubt for a minute that, if they asked, Will would dedicate a significant amount of time to using his pulpit to promote Martinsville and Henry County. I would love to see him write a series of blog entries about the region, telling his readers about the area’s history, its culture, its businesses, and the economic opportunities available to the area. I’m sure that he could start a statewide blog discussion about Southside’s past, present and future. I’d be proud to take part in that discussion.

Will Vehrs erred in making jokes about Martinsville. Here’s hoping that Martinsville won’t err in their reaction. If any city in the state should know that “opportunity” is just another word for “problem,” it should be Martinsville. If they’re to have any chance any building a brighter future for themselves, now is their chance to demonstrate that they’ve learned that lesson.

Martinsville, of course, did continue to err in its reaction. Except for one Henry County Supervisor, Andy Parker, who seldom gets credit in our local media for being the lone voice of reason:

“I think people are making a bigger deal about it than necessary,” Parker said. However, “clearly, this guy has too much time on his hands.”

Parker also saw the humor in Vehrs’ comments. “While it might be in poor taste for some, some of it was pretty funny,” Parker said. “I certainly didn’t take offense.”

Mary Rives, in what can only be described as a grand example of open-mindedness and courage, took Waldo’s suggestion to turn these lemons into lemonade and contacted Will. She invited him to come to Martinsville during his suspension from his job. Will accepted and I finally had the opportunity to meet him. In person, Will was even more insightful and wittier than I expected. I was at a loss for words in this “presence of greatness” with whom Mary Rives and I dined at Chatmoss. I did manage to give him a copy of the Community & Economic Development Strategy for Martinsville/Henry Co. Now the guru had the play book, my job was done. Except we did mention the possibility of a blog conference being held in Martinsville . . .

Most of you know the rest of this story but I plan to continue it in “Why I Blog, Part Deux” which will have to come later. I suppose the “short answer” to Eileen’s question about why we blog comes from my very first post:

Sunday, June 18, 2006

After seeing the trouble Will Vehrs got into with his blog, I knew I had to have one. If for no other reason, I needed a place to defend people that had been wronged. I linked my defense of Will to my myspace.com page but it didn’t seem very dignified. So here I am….

I don’t intend for this to be entirely about Virginia politics, really….I hope for it to be more of an online journal. A way to hone my writing skills, let friends and acquaintances know what I’m up to, reminisce about “growing up” in Richlands, and of course, defend those who deserve it as well as offend those who deserve it.

 

When events are unjust and good people are being hurt by those wishing to further an agenda, we can no longer remain silent. This is why I blog.

The Blog Carnival gods smiled kindly upon me this week as I reap and present to you a rich harvest of thought-provoking posts. I had hoped to present a quilt of personal glimpses but as those of you who have already hosted know, blog carnivals tend to take on a theme of their own. This week’s carnival has the theme: EDUCATION.

It is fitting to start with a newcomer to the carnival and a great addition to any blogroll, The Educational Tour Marm, whose motto is: Educational travel should be a journey, not a guided tour! Ironically though, Tour Marm serves as a splendid tour guide. She is a proponent of historic character interpreters and relates an inspirational account of a “whatEVER” child who was touched by history when she “met” Thomas Jefferson. The Tour Marm reminds us that education has to be more than memorizing facts and dates. To make history interesting, it needs to be made meaningful. Her story about Christina is an example of how an otherwise indifferent student was transformed by her interaction with TJ.

Eileen continues on with this thread of inspiration, learning and achievement with her carnival submission, deftly entitled, “My Blog Carnival Submission.” She shares with us “the Levandoski women’s adventures in Virginia this weekend” which includes this excerpt:

First up is my 10-year old violinist who participated in her first solo festival. She was adjudicated by a violinist who plays in the Colorado Springs Symphony and scored a I+.

Definitely a testament to the love of learning that Eileen and others have instilled although neither Eileen nor I are quite sure what adjudicated means - I just hope that it wasn’t too painful. (Reminder: Ain’t nobody adjudicating nobody in my house!)

Eileen’s other daughter helped bring home a soccer trophy - WAY TO GO! And Eileen herself was educated in the gentle art of transportation debacles, also known as HB3202, by none other than our very own James Atticus Bowden. She has composed a podcast that I encourage all to hear.

I intend to eventually become educated enough to podcast something but first I’ll need to find me an “Appalachian translator.” Those of you unfortunate enough to hear me speak know what I’m talking about!

“Darling Munchkin” is progressing rapidly with her horse riding lessons and Kat has some wonderful video posted for us.

While we celebrate our children as they continue to achieve success in sports, playing musical instruments, learning equestrianism and mastering history lessons, John Maxfield, in his “Iran’s Children of Hatred” serves us a sharp and sobering contrast between the education of children in the United States compared to that of the children in Iran:

Every morning in America, school children stand up, put their hand over their hearts, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In Iran, school children stand up, and are required to sing a song which is called, Arabs are Beloved, Jews are Dogs. Sometimes their songs have refrains that eloquently echo with, Oh, Jews! Oh, killers!

John Continues:

In America, we’re given the choice (for the most part) of how we want to raise our kids in the educational sense. From public to private, even to homeschooling–it’s a choice. Even in those settings, the flexibility of teachers to teach what they want and/or how they want is broad. In Iran, as you might guess, this is not the case. The government of Iran and their “clerics” are involved in every process of an Iranian child’s education–to the extent of coming on the news, lining out how your child should be taught properly–

I couldn’t help but look at this child and imagine him snuggled up at the feet of Thomas Jefferson as he listens to the remarkable tale of the struggle to achieve democracy and freedom of speech.

Spank That Donkey reminds us of the importance of preserving freedom of speech with his post regarding the stifling of expression that is currently occurring in France. I hope that Chris will continue to follow this story closely and keep us posted.

Ann Coulter certainly exercised her freedom of speech recently, huh? Joe Budzinski astutely notes that:

“. . . Ms. Coulter did not call John Edwards a faggot. The sentence structure is a combination of the pluperfect and future subjunctive forms and yields a hypothetical statement regarding both Mr. Edwards and the term in question. There is no reason to assume she did not choose her words carefully, because regardless of whatever else one might say about Ann Coulter few accuse her of being a poor writer. Her actual statement concerned what happens if you use a particular word. Considering that the public response to her statement has precisely confirmed what she said, there is a simple factual accuracy to the remark.

My response to Joe’s usage of the words pluperfect and future subjunctive confirms that I was snoozing instead of being educated in eleventh-grade English class. Actually, I was probably praying that I wouldn’t be the one to be called “faggot” in gym class later that day.

While Hillary was being educated at Wellesley, she wrote a thesis (probably using pluperfect and future subjunctive forms, no doubt) examining the tactics of radical community organizer Saul D. Alinsky. Bill Dedman of MSNBC says:

“Despite the fervent interest in the thesis, few realize that it is no longer kept under lock and key. As MSNBC.com found, it is available to anyone who visits the archive room of the prestigious women’s college outside Boston. With Clinton’s opponents in the 2008 presidential race looking for the next “Swift Boat” attack ad, and the senator herself trying to cast off her liberal image, Clinton’s 92-page thesis is certain to be read and reread by opposition researchers and reporters visiting the campus.”

Peter suggests that the thesis be posted on the net so that we can all read it. I agree with Peter. Then we can make our own judgments and she won’t have to be concerned with being “Swift Boated” in her upcoming race for election. Besides, just think of the gas we’ll save not having to drive up to the archives at Wellesley! Al Gore would certainly be touched.

Apropos of elections, Rick Sincere gives an in-depth report on the Election Reform Conference held at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington:

Addressing the questions, “Is Our Election System Broken? Can We Fix It?”, the conference – part of an ongoing joint project of conservative AEI and the liberal Brookings Institution – heard very different answers from different participants, reflecting an observation of panelist Thomas Mann of Brookings, who compared the situation to Rashomon, the classic film that tells the same story from various points of view.

Mann said that people of good will and integrity can “view the world in different ways,” and gave as an example the issue of proposed legislation to require photo ID cards from voters. There is “a belief among Republicans that there is fraud” that needs to be prevented, while “Democrats believe there are accessibility problems” making it more difficult for people to exercise their right to vote.

Read it and you’ll be educated about the suggestions regarding various reforms as well as view a first-hand example of the two sides of the political aisle coming together to resolve current voting issues.

Just as Tour Marm referred to our former president, Thomas Jefferson, Adam Gurri refers to another former president, Woodrow Wilson, in his recommendation of “What Has Government Done With Our Money?” by Murray Rothbard. While the book sounds like an interesting foundation in the history of currency, what I found more interesting was Adam’s idea:

“More and more I think that the best policy would be to allow banks to establish their own competing currencies. There’s no reason why we should have to “privatize” the dollar–the government could still issue its own currency. It could even make it mandatory for taxes to be paid in that currency. But in terms of what currency people use for their savings or even for day to day purchases, the dollar should be made vulnerable to the competitive pressures of any other commodity. That way, if inflation gets out of control, people can simply choose to exchange their money for the currencies provided by banks that aren’t so dishonest as to devalue the holdings of their clients for their own profit.”

I feel we should first privatize the DMV, USPS and ABC stores - that will leave us with more currency regardless of who’s printing and backing it. With more money in our pockets, Eileen, Kat, Tour Marm, myself and thousands of others can continue to see to it that our children have even more educational opportunities as they mature into adulthood.

I remember fondly how my grandmother took advantage of almost every opportunity for learning that presented itself. Until she no longer could.

I’ve written about the cruel, gnarled talons of Alzheimer’s Disease which has now grasped and taken away two of the most beloved women in my life. Fortunately for myself and others, we have people heroes like Scott White and programs like Project Lifesaver:

As a police officer and first responder, I often find myself in situations dealing with Alzheimer’s patients as well as autistic children and other conditions associated with “missing persons”. Over the years, I have been fortunate enough to be able to find, help find, or facilitate the locating of most of the folks that have wandered away from their caregivers. In fact, I can’t think of any that I was personally involved in that didn’t end happily. But there are a few that my agency has had to deal with. This of course is hard, beyond comprehension on the family, but trust me when I tell you it is hard, very hard, on the public safety officials who are involved.

While saying the course is “hard” is somewhat of an understatement, I can’t imagine how much harder it would be without Scott and the many dedicated public safety officials helping us keep our loved ones safe. For the umpteenth time, Thank you, Scott!

Not only does Scott help protect us and our families, he has helped protect my Web site from its greatest threat, me. He has been an invaluable asset in my ongoing love/hate (mostly hate) struggle with WordPress. Another valuable asset is David St. Lawrence.

David helps us decide if we even need a Web site (we’re bloggers so I say we do) and then helps us decide how much of a Web site we need. His post deals with business Web site applications but it’s still a good read for the garden variety blogger.

After we decide that we need a Web site and how much Web site we need, it’s time to name our Web sites. Is it narcissistic to name our Web sites with our real names? Douglas T helps us sort that out. Using my REAL name wasn’t an option for me because the domain mamapleasebuymethis.com was already taken.

Roci has excellent points regarding the recent news about Walter Reed Army Hospital. One of his ten hard-hitting points is this:

Everything in the legacy media misses the point entirely. This issue was not about rodents and mold. This hospital is in DC. Every building in DC has rodents and mold. Nor is it about a failure of leadership. No leader can be everywhere and see everything. Firing Generals is great sport for politicians but ultimately solves nothing.

Check it out to catch the other nine points and proposals.

Spring is just around the corner! Andrew saw a half dozen or so Cedar waxwings and Ward directs us to a site where we can learn how to plant America’s Anniversary Garden to help individuals, communities and groups mark America’s 400th Anniversary with a signature garden planting. The signature gardens will have red, white, and blue color schemes.

Last, but certainly not least, Alton shares photos of his recent trip to deep, dark and mysterious Southwest Virginia and challenges us to identify the sights he captured.

I wish to thank all who contributed to this week’s Virginia Blog Carnival as well as bestow an extra heapin’ helpin’ of gratitude on Eileen (affectionately dubbed Demzilla) for helping to bridge the gap between bloggers of different political persuasions. What a boring world it would be if we were all alike. (Unless, of course, everyone was just like me!)

Just a quick reminder that I’ll be hosting the Virginia Blog Carnival this week. I’m hoping to piece together a “quilt” that shows different patterns and colors of life in our commonwealth, pieces not necessarily centered around politics. Pieces that display a portion of a blogger’s life not usually “exposed” are often the most interesting, like Brian Patton’s house renovation posts.

Possibly my favorite post is one of a personal nature by Steve Minor where he shared his painful goodbye to Chrissy. I read his post near the two year anniversary of having to make the same decision regarding my own four-legged best friend of almost TWENTY years, Ben. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that I’m not the only one in the world willing to trade everything I have for just one more (healthy) year with a crazy canine.

Once in a while, I think it’s good to be reminded that behind our keyboards, despite our political differences, are people a lot like ourselves - facing the same challenges and successes.

If you have a piece to contribute to this “quilt of the commonwealth,” please submit it to me on the VBC site by 6:00 today.

Thanks!

Okay . . . forget my one good idea for today. Turns out that the Virginia Blog Carnival DOES have its own site:

Virginia Blog Carnival

From the site:

Description: “Virginia needs a carnival of its own. Though the well-known Virginia bloggers are all political, I’d like to see a round-up of blog entries on all kinds of topics, one that is decided non-partisan. It’d be a great way to get attention for lesser-known blogs, and for politically-minded people to discover the blog world outside of politics.”

Submission categories: “regional, politics, travel, education, activities, celebrations, traditions, history, just plain fun”

Submission deadline: Sunday 6pm ET, for post on each Monday (I say earlier is better but that’s just the opinion of badrose).

One-stop shopping! Now that we know about it, let’s use it.

Feathery Hat Tip to Jason.