Month: July 2013

Moe testified at the Bradley Manning trial and the above is a   courtroom sketch of the birthday boy.  His friends think he looks far better in person.

Many happy returns of the day, Moe.  Watch out for those double digits!

Was the verdict right or way off base?

Back in the Spring of 2012, Mark Granville Smith proposed a Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA), again, on land in the Rural Crescent.  And although his CPA was going to fail, again, the result included an additional ending.  This time, the proposal from Marty Nohe, Coles District Supervisor, was to study the efficacy of this very critical land use tool while denying the CPA.

Thus began the genesis of our current journey into the long term viability of the Rural Crescent.

As part of Prince William County’s rural preservation study, the planning office will host a public meeting at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 1 in the Nokesville Elementary School gymnasium at 12625 Fitzwater Drive in Nokesville.

The public input session on the area of Prince William County known as the Rural Crescent is part of a study that began June 4. Since then, staff introduced a consultant team and noted that there would be several opportunities for public input.  The purpose of the study is to review rural preservation policies, identify additional rural preservation tools and make recommendations regarding possible amendments to the county’s rural land use planning policies.

On its face, land use sounds SO incredibly boring, but folks, I am here to tell you, land use is where all the action happens.  It is, at its very core, the driver of any community’s quality of life.  Land use will predict how much tax payers invest in the infrastructure required to support its citizens.  How many dollars will be spent  on  schools,  teachers,  intra-county connectivity,( whether it be roads, buses or trains), police officers, firefighters , social workers, libraries, parks (active and passive), hospitals, etc etc.

Land use is the driver, baby, don’t ever think otherwise.

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Washingtonpost.com:

RICHMOND — Virginia first lady Maureen McDonnell bought nearly $9,800 in clothing with money from her husband’s political action committee and tapped into his campaign and inaugural funds to buy $7,600 in mostly unspecified items, according to records and a representative for the PAC.

The spending is legal under Virginia’s lax campaign finance laws, which prohibit the conversion of political funds for private use only when a PAC or campaign committee disbands — not while it is operating.

But the purchases are unusual in Virginia, where campaign finance records indicate that candidates do not routinely dip into political funds to buy personal items such as clothing for themselves or their spouses.

Maureen McDonnell’s use of political donations comes to light at a time when she and her husband, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R), are under intense scrutiny for accepting luxury items and $120,000 in loans from wealthy Virginia businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. Federal and state investigators are probing the Star Scientific executive’s ties to the McDonnells, who promoted his firm’s nutritional supplement, Anatabloc. Last week the governor apologized for embarrassing the commonwealth and repaid the loans.

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independent.co.uk:

Former US President George Bush Senior has shaved his head to show support for a child suffering from leukaemia.

Washingtonpost.com:

RICHMOND — Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, who for months has said very little about gifts and loans received from a campaign donor, has launched an aggressive drive to improve his reputation.

Over the past two weeks, he has switched lawyers, hired a private spokesman, apologized to the commonwealth, given back $124,000 to the wealthy benefactor and, on Wednesday, traveled to Afghanistan, looking very much like a governor immersed in something other than his own political and legal troubles. The activity, culminating in McDonnell’s surprise visit to Virginia troops overseas, represents a clear shift in strategy for the governor.

“We’re going to be more aggressive in presenting the governor as a man who is honest, honorable and has spent a good deal of his adult life in public service,” said Rich Galen, the private spokesman McDonnell hired to work with his legal team.

So McDonnell has gone from someone who has done nothing wrong to someone who is apologizing and repaying nearly $125,000 to Jonnie Williams.  I am not sure why he went to Afghanistan.  He is the govvernor of Virginia.  He does not hold national office.  I am not sure it is at all appropriate.  The bottom line of course, is, who paid for this horse-hair trip?

According to all news sources, Athony Weiner is still at it with the lewd messaging.  Washingtonpost.com:

Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman who polls suggest is a leading candidate for mayor of New York, admitted Tuesday that he engaged in a series of sexually explicit communications with a young woman on the Internet.

The behavior allegedly occurred in 2012, more than a year after Weiner was forced to resign from Congress after admitting to similar episodes. But in a news conference that seemed a little like a public therapy session, Weiner stood with his wife, Huma Abedin, and vowed to stay in the race for mayor.

According to a gossip Web site called the Dirty, the Democratic ex-congressman, using the pseudonym “Carlos Danger,” exchanged obscene messages and nude pictures and engaged in phone sex with an unidentified woman, then 22.

Nuff said?  It all depends on the voters.  If that kind of behavior bothers the voters, they won’t vote for him.  If it doesn’t, then they will.  Weiner is fractious and cantankerous.  Once again, his poor wife Huma Abedin bailed him out.  She spoke for him and said she loved him.  She is a class act.  Weiner is not, nor is he a “changed man.”

Huma should take away his cell phone.  He lacks self-control.  For the record, Weiner was strutting his stuff, once again.

Much mud has been slung at President Obama since he walked into the press room last Friday and spoke extemporaneously about growing up black in America.  Some folks said too little too late.  Other people said that he was race baiting.  Then there are people like me who think what he said was just right.

Much goes in to our own identities.  We start with our race, our gender, where we live, our region, our parents, and our physical attributes.   Not much changes with those identifiers unless we move or get adopted.  Even then, our genetic code does not change.   Our place in time is also important and that does not change.

Yet, I feel some are attempting to deny the president his birthright—that being who he is as a bi-racial man.  For starters, I really don’t think white folks get to evaluate this.  How can I possibly address what it’s like to be a bi-racial man as a white woman?  I can’t.  Nothing in my DNA makeup gives me that right. 

For many years, well in to my lifetime, your main identity depended on your race.  One’s race determined where you went to school, where you could eat, where you could go to the bathroom, where you could even get a drink of water, whether you could vote, where you could sit in public establishments and on public transportation.   

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