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Just when you thought Christmas was overBy Quail Bell History Buff QuailBellMagazine.com Photos courtesy of Berkeley Plantation Berkeley Plantation, home of Benjamin Harrison V, signer of the Declaration of Independence and William Henry Harrison, ninth U.S. president, is not only a 1726 manor house; it's a regular Christmas wonderland, too. This past holiday season, Berkeley decked the halls with fresh arrangements and wreaths cut from the property's boxwood, cedar and holly trees. Here's photographic evidence of what you missed halfway between Richmond and Williamsburg off Route 5: The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Heady ThingsRICHMOND -- A proposed joint subcommittee stands at the center of a clearly defined focus on mental health services in Virginia less than two months after tragedy shook the state capital. Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-25, whose son was treated for bipolar tendencies before ultimately stabbing his father and killing himself is the chief patron of Senate Joint Resolution 47, which seeks to establish a nine-person subcommittee to study the mental health services in the commonwealth. The joint resolution is one of at least 60 mental health related bills proposed thus far during the 2014 session, according to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill Virginia state chapter. And though the latest flurry of mental health initiatives promises to bring change to the lives of thousands of Virginia citizens, skepticism doesn’t come unwarranted. Delegate Kenneth R. Plum, D-Reston, the co-patron of SJ 47, has represented his district since 1982 and acknowledges that Virginia’s mental health services fail to measure up to other state systems nationally. After former Gov. Bob McDonnell pledged $38 million expand mental health programs in December, Plum says he thinks the governor’s reactionary budget move might expose an alarming trend in the commonwealth’s commitment to mental health services. “It needed to have been done anyway,” Plum said. “We wait for tragedy sometimes to bring us to the point of doing something.” This isn’t the first time Virginia has seen sudden spikes in legislative consideration for mental health services. Similar attention was directed toward the subject six years ago when the General Assembly authorized $42 million for health care reform in the wake of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. However, legislators reportedly retracted $37.7 million of that funding within a two-year period, according to NAMI Virginia, and subsequent budget issues have helped hinder any large-scale reform efforts since. One of the chief concerns among mental health service advocates is that Virginia’s historical approach to repairing the mental health system has left the public sector incapable of providing sufficient services for those in need. The deficiency of the commonwealth’s public providers largely stems from skewed spending. Virginia ranks ninth in the country for spending on hospital-based care, according to the National Association of State Mental Health Providers, but ranks 39th in spending on community-based care for services that assist in stability and recovery. This heavy focus on institutional funding takes away from the more critical preventative services, an Family Insight President and CEO Sam Gray says it ultimately costs the state more money long-term because neglected patients often end up institutionalized. Instead of pouring money into hospitals and jails, Gray says the legislature should be working to equip Community Service Boards, which are the state’s public mental healthcare providers, with more efficient preventative services in an effort to mitigate the problem before it occurs. “There are so many people who suffer from mental illness who do not get the case management that they need,” Gray said. “The CSBs maybe give them one hour or two hours a month because they don’t have the time or the qualified people.” An estimated 308,000 Virginia adults have had a serious mental illness during the past year, NAMI Virginia reports. But with only 40 CSBs statewide, the public sector faces a nearly impossible task in trying to adequately provide mental health services for all those in need. Molly Cheek, the clinical director at Dominion Youth Services, says she believes the commonwealth should strongly consider partnering with private providers to deliver preventative services for Virginia’s mentally ill. “There’s sort of a rift between the public sector, which traditionally handles the lower socio-economic population, and private providers who got into it because the local CSBs can’t handle it all,” Cheek said. “I would like to see more cooperation.” Another way to tackle the same problem would require Medicaid expansion, Cheek said. Because most private companies only can help individuals covered by Medicaid, a large portion of patients are forced to sit on waiting lists for CSBs where preventative services are either lacking or absent. The commonwealth ranks 48th nationally in per capita Medicaid expenditures, according to Healthcare for all Virginians, a healthcare advocacy group. Cheek says she thinks an expansion of the program would alleviate pressure on the CSBs by allowing more patients to utilize private providers. Cheek says it’s time cooperation overtake competition as the public and private sectors work toward one common goal. “We should very well be able to forge a partnership,” Cheek said. “At the end of the day, we should make sure that everyone has access to a provider that can help them.” Check out Phoebe Thomas' original illustration set on grief, entitled "Margaret." #MentalHealth #Depression #Health #VirginiaPolitics #VirginiaLegislation #VirginiaGeneralAssembly #News The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
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People Call for City Government, Not Sports! Attending City Council meetings can sometimes be a grueling, boring task. Similar to digging a hole in muddy ground. The suits, the droning voices, the routine content and the fluorescent lights all add up to a task it can be difficult to engage in. You may not believe me, but in the end, it is all worth it. If you want to know the cutting edge of what is going on in town, attend the meetings. You get information on important issues, and you will get to hear from many involved citizens. And while laughing in session is probably frowned upon, I find myself doing it on a regular basis. There is a drama to the interactions at Council meetings. Knowing the players and knowing the history can add up to both tense and humorous moments. I've seen City Council admonished, asked to resign, cursed as in with a spell, and treated with three minutes of silence to reflect on their actions. Folks have some really creative ways of getting City Council's attention and presenting their case. The first meetings of 2014 started off with a relatively small turnout and a small agenda. There was, however, a great deal of drama and tension around certain issues. Community activist, documentarian, and City Council regular Silver Persinger spoke three different times to call out City Council for violating their own rules. At this meeting Council voted on an appointment without the individual being present. This violates their own rules, and there was no explanation forthcoming. Council next switched around the order of the meeting, voting on the consent agenda before the Citizen Comment Period, and then pushing the Citizen Comment Period until after the Regular Agenda. Persinger's frustration was palpable, and Council's response was silence. The two items on the Regular Agenda for this meeting both pertained to the transfer of the baseball Diamond and property at 3003 North Boulevard from the Richmond Metropolitan Authority to the City of Richmond. Opponents of these two ordinances were critical of the Boulevard development plan that has been proposed, as well as the link between the plans for the Boulevard property and Mayor Jones' scheme to build a baseball stadium in Shockoe Bottom.
James Miller, in opposition of these ordinances, spoke on the economics of the Boulevard plan, and seriously questioned the validity of the numbers presented. His main point being that projected figures for retail were based on a 15-mile radius from the property. Which includes areas like Short Pump and Mechanicsville, who's residence are not so likely to come to the Boulevard for their shopping since they have their own stores and malls. He also pointed out that without letters of intent from any businesses it is a real gamble to say that there will even be stores who want to set up shop in that location. Some of the funnier moments in my mind, were when opponents to the proposed ordinances, linked them to the Shockoe Stadium plan, and suggested that since hardly anyone uses the stadium we do have it would be silly to build a new one. When asked if they attended baseball games, Council members remained silent, perhaps in shame. It was also mentioned that this was an awful lot of to do over a team called the Squirrels. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Rain and RadioAn early morning breakfast run on Broad Street, half listening to unknown talk radio. #RVA #Rain #Driving #Morning #BroadStreet #Morning #TalkRadio #Gloomy #Breakfast
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Oral History Rules I've Broken
***This piece originally appeared in Para Contar and was republished here with permission.*** #OralHistory #OldenDays #Archeology #Archives #HumanStories #Politics #Records #Memory #Memories #Academia The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Look: Vintage French Secretary#DirtyRichmond #RVA #StreetFashion #VintageFashion #Nostalgia #GoodLooks #Cool #StreetArt
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I Never Poop at WorkBy The Sparrow Goddess QuailBellMagazine.com She was the girl your mother or your aunt or someone else obsessed with propriety expected you to be: clean, organized, well spoken, stylish yet conservative and one to go with the status quo. She dressed in J. Crew, but never chose bold colors, except occasionally bright pink, which she only wore in accents. Her hair was shiny, combed and usually worn back. Her make-up, though there, appeared nearly transparent. She mostly spoke when spoken to and always chose the right words. One day, after the boss’s dog had taken a crap on the office floor for the third time that week, she started complaining about the smell and ended her whining with, “I never poop at work.” “Ever?” I asked. “Ever. That’s for my own toilet in the privacy of my own home.” How uptight do you have to be to not so much as allow yourself to loosen your own bowels? Little Miss Perfect Uptight. I asked her what she did if she had diarrhea. She did not answer the question. You know what I have to say about that? Shit wherever you want. Just clean up afterwards. #Poop #Crap #Shit #Toilet #Bathroom #Bowel #Diarrhea #Gross #Ew #WTF? #Strange #Yuck The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Road Rage?RICHMOND – Contested federal permits and a large environmental impact are putting the “Commonwealth Connecter,” a new 55-mile addition to Route 460 from Prince George Co. to Suffolk, in jeopardy. Gov. Terry McAuliffe told the Virginian-Pilot in December he did not believe taxpayer money should be used on the project until federal permits were issued and—even then—he would still “take a hard look” at the project. “The project does not include improvements to the existing U.S. Route 460 or other adjacent roadways,” the Commonwealth Connector website states. The proposed route will cost around $1.4 billion. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration’s website, the project will be funded from three different sources. The Virginia Department of Transportation would provide about $900 million and the Virginia Port Authority would provide about $250 million of public funding, both of which would ultimately come from taxpayers. The rest—around $250 million—would be provided through tax-exempt toll revenue bonds, which will be paid back with tolls collected from highway users. Drivers who travel the length of the new addition would be charged around $4 while trucks would pay around $12. The existing Route 460 would remain free. Supporters of the road project say they believe the addition will help the local economy. Delegate Rick Morris, R-Carrollton, says the route is needed to bolster economic development because the highway will provide additional ways for goods to get to market from the port. “It’s great and needed for economic development not only for East and Southeast Virginia, but our entire Commonwealth,” Morris said. In a 2013 briefing presented to the Suffolk City Council by Virginia Department of Transportation project manager Philip Rinehart, VDOT said the construction of the addition would create approximately 4,000 jobs in the area. VDOT also estimated, because of new economic development, the road addition would create more than 14,000 long-term jobs. In addition to helping the economy, Morris says he thinks the route is needed for public safety reasons as the current route can be dangerous in severe weather situations. “In any type of hurricane or inclement weather, the current route gets flooded and gets backed up for miles and miles,” Morris said. According to the VDOT, the new route also would reduce evacuation time by carrying at least 14,000 more evacuating vehicles than the existing Route 460, which would allow for the evacuation of 153,000 more citizens. The new road also would reduce the reliance on water crossings. The Southern Environmental Law Center based in Charlottesville says the project would be detrimental to the surrounding environment. The project could impact at least 470 wetland acres and up to 3,000 farm acres. The organization has spoken to McAuliffe about the project. According to Trip Pollard, senior attorney and leader of the SELC’s Land and Community Program, the project is not worth the cost to taxpayers. “There are far better uses for the money earmarked for a new Route 460,” Pollard stated in an email, “including improving the existing Route 460, improving rail in the 460 corridor, reducing the tolls on the Downtown/Midtown Tunnel and improving I-64.” Pollard stated he also thinks there are other ways public safety can be improved in the area that do not involve building this new road. Instead of creating the new route, Pollard says the area can be efficiently evacuated when necessary by reversing eastbound lanes on the existing, improved versions of Routes 58 and 460. “It is the bottlenecks on the local roads leading to these highways that are the true impediment to effective evacuation from this region,” Pollard stated, “not the existing Route 460.” #Highway #UrbanPlanning #StateLegislature #VirginiaPolitics #Construction #Traffic #Driving #Roads The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Otherwise UnlivableBy Fay Funk QuailBellMagazine.com It’s easy to list five things I couldn’t live without: food, water, shelter, heat, air, the basic necessities for staying alive. So this list is more like things that would lower my quality of life if I did not have them. Could I live without them? Sure, and I have before, but life was not as good during those times. They are: Pine Trees Outside of my old apartment in Brooklyn, there was one sad, stunted little deciduous tree. I simultaneously resented and pitied that that tree. It was almost impossible for the tree to thrive in a city encased in concrete, yet it was the only bit of nature I saw regularly, and I was angry that it fell short. It was a great shock and pleasure to return to Portland and be surrounded by massive evergreens so abundant it often feels as though they are about to take over the city. I never noticed the trees for the first eighteen years of my life because they were just there, always there. When I first came back seeing the pointy tops of the pine trees, a shade of green so dark it’s almost black, poking up into the cloudy grey sky I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Over a year later, it still is. Rain The rain is what keeps Portland so green, and it is probably what keeps a lot of people from moving here. A lot of people hate rain. My dad, who is originally from California, almost couldn’t handle it when he first moved to Eugene. Every morning he would shout curse words and flip off the sky. I can live without snow and sun, but if there were no rain I don’t know what I would do. Running I have been running on a treadmill since I was fourteen, and it has the biggest impact on my mental and physical well being of anything I do. I started running after a family vacation to a resort in Mexico where we just… sat. The whole time. I felt extremely restless and knew I needed to start moving, which was weird since I had never been very active before. But I was right, I needed to move. For a while I felt like running on the treadmill was supposed to be a primer for running outside, which seemed like “real” running. But I’m a control freak, and there are too many variables in play when running outdoors. So on a treadmill it is. Education My greatest accomplishment in my life so far has been completing my bachelor’s degree. I learned how to think, really think, my sophomore year of college while taking a science fiction literature class. My degree sometimes gets called useless, which I find infuriating. It is the most enriching and useful thing I have ever done with my time. I do not have the kind of degree that comes with an obvious career path, and while that can be frightening at times it is also perfect, because I can create my own path. Music I learned that one of my college roommates talks in her sleep after a catastrophic iTunes failure during our freshman year. It was 5 AM, and I was desperately attempting to restore my lost music. It’s the only all-nighter I ever pulled in college. I received my first bass guitar when I was fourteen. I joined my first band at seventeen, recorded an album, and played a show about once a week. I have met some of my closest and most interesting friends through music. It’s how I survived moving back to a city where I knew almost no one. It’s a lifeline. #Life #Living #Necessities #CantLiveWithout #LovingLife #Lists #Essay #Personal #Needs #Wants #Desire #Impossible The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Still Protesting This ShitEditors Note: This is the second part of an important piece about Appalachia and Coal that we got from our friends at the Earth First! Journal Newswire. You can check out Part 1 here. On the third day after 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM) leaked from a storage facility into West Virginia’s Elk River, little has changed for 300,000 West Virginians who remain without water. The estimated size of the leak remains unclear. Freedom Industries’ President Gary Southern could only say for certain that less than 35,000 gallons leaked out, but West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin claims the spill did not exceed 5,000 gallons. No one can say for sure when the water will be safe to use for even the most basic daily tasks: brushing teeth, washing hands, clothes, and dishes, and, of course, drinking. Finally, the EPA issued an order forcing Freedom Industries to close down its operation and drain any remaining chemical in the tank. While the site cannot accept any new materials for storage, they will not be required to remove other chemicals from the site. Instead they have been ordered to test the integrity of all other above ground tanks and secondary containment systems. But it comes too late. The Department of Environmental Protection had no jurisdiction over the site since the chemical was only stored—not produced—there, meaning that hazardous chemicals stored in close proximity to major water source had no state or federal oversight and were supposed to self-report EPA violations. OSHA has also launched an investigation into potential violations of worker safety, but their statement also highlighted further oversight and negligence–OSHA has no past relationship with Freedom Industries. Yet another workplace containing dangerous chemicals went uninspected. Those defending the company because it has no record of violations entirely miss the point: after all, you can’t find violations that you aren’t even looking for. The state has launched an investigation into the disaster, and by Friday afternoon, at least six lawsuits had been filed against Freedom Industries and West Virginian American Water, two of which are seeking class action status. But these lawsuits primarily focus on economic “damage” to businesses over water contamination–and not on the hundreds of thousands of people who may have been exposed to toxic water and who have lost access to the most important public resource as a result of Freedom Industries’ negligence. The state is also investigating price gouging on the part of businesses that had stockpiles of bottled water at the time of the spill. More than 16 trucks of relief water have arrived, but distribution remains uneven as nine counties remain without water. And, perhaps more importantly, no one seems to be asking the questions that should have been prompted by this disaster. Why, for example, in a water-rich area in the country with the fourth largest renewable water supply in the world, are hundreds of thousands of people forced to rely on water brought in from other states? Why is a chemical company allowed to store 4,000,000 gallons of chemicals with varying levels of toxicity only a mile upstream of a water treatment facility that serves hundreds of thousands of residents and is connected to the water table that supplies well water for many more? How can a chemical that cause headaches, irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, skin rashes, damage to the heart, liver, kidneys, and lungs, possibly resulting in death be considered part of a “clean” energy source? Why, in the middle of a state emergency, is the government allowing water to still be sold in stores and not allowing for free community distribution to anyone who needs it? Why aren’t the people being kept from working—people who are disproportionately low-wage workers in restaurants, food service, schools, and hospitals—being paid to help with emergency relief? These are the questions that most people aren’t grappling with, because they call into question the country’s energy policy, economic and social inequality, the notion of private property. They call capitalism into question, and the media can’t respond. But ecosocialists can. Every disaster–from the BP oil spill to the fertilizer explosion in Texas, from the Massey mine disaster to “development” of the tar sands as a oil resource–underscores the increasing urgency of our project. Capitalism is destroying our planet faster than we can study the effects of that destruction. Increasingly, the fundamental conflict emerges with astounding clarity–capitalism and the world’s more than six billion people are accelerating on a collision course. -- The people of West Virginia probably understand this conflict better than most people in the United States. Central Appalachia contains some of the world’s largest accessible deposits of bituminous coal, and coal drives the region’s economy. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, coal mines were owned by railroads, then by steel companies, and in the 1960s, began to transition to being owned by large energy conglomerates—usually oil companies, but coal has been an important part of the American economy for more than a century, and as capitalists rushed to exploit the region’s natural resources, they also subjected the people who lived in the region and worked in the mines to countless ecological disasters and deadly explosions and cave-ins in the mines, all while keeping the region in poverty by keeping businesses located out of state. And West Virginia found itself at the center of a similar debate nearly 45 years ago, as the nation grappled with the rise of nuclear power, increased development of strip mining, and decline of oil and natural gas being used as source fuels in the generation of electricity. As operators pressed for ever-increasing levels of productivity in the nation’s coal mines, increasing numbers of miners died in workplace accidents. Then in 1972, the Buffalo Creek disaster happened. One of the coal slurry dams owned by the Pittson Coal Company burst, releasing 132,000,000 gallons of the black liquid. The deluge, which crested at thirty feet, killed 125 people, injured more than 1,000, and left four-fifths of the town’s population homeless. The company called it “an act of God” but residents knew that, yet again, the companies had put profits ahead of the lives of local residents. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Falling Out of Love with Sea WorldBy Christine Stoddard QuailBellMagazine.com Randolph: You must have something special, that's why Willy didn't eat you up. Maybe high blood, medicine roots. Jesse: No way. Randolph: Then you're just one lucky little white boy, you like the sound of that better? -Free Willy (1993) Shamu was a personal childhood favorite, not the least because of the smiling whale dolls popular in the '90s and the re-runs of Free Willy on television. Killer whales are also beautiful, expressive animals whose language begs to be translated. During documentaries on National Geographic and Animal Planet, Wee Christine enjoyed imagining what the whales were saying. I still do. While my interest in orcas never waned, my appreciation for marine mammal parks and aquariums did. For a brief time, I liked to pretend that my Barbie doll was a dolphin trainer, but, at some point, I made her a mermaid instead. Humans hurt dolphins; mermaids did not. (Plus, mermaids speak Whale.) My infatuation with circuses, roadside zoos and safari parks also faded. It seemed strange to me, even as a little girl, that a creature native to Africa should be wallowing in a muddy waterhole in Orlando as families roared past him in Jeeps with their disposable cameras in tow. I hated the taste of Circus Peanuts and liked them even less when mean kids threw them at the animals on display. Barring special circumstances, wild animals should roam free. The chance to get splashed by a killer whale therefore caused me increasing anxiety, rather than excitement, as I approached the end of elementary school. I wanted the whale to swim in the ocean instead. Then he could be in his natural environment surrounded by family. He'd be even cuter, too, because he wouldn't suffer from dorsal fin collapse. If the whale had to be contained at all, it should be for the sake of science, not my entertainment. I had books, toys and TV for that. With those sensibilities in mind, it should come as no surprise that Gabriela Cowperthwaite's Blackfish recently made for the perfect Friday night feature while hanging out at my friend's house—a self-described “mesmerizing psychological thriller with a killer whale at its centre, Blackfish is the first film since Grizzly Man to show how nature can get revenge on man when pushed to its limits.” The movie confirmed my childhood suspicions that the big wigs at Sea World make animals miserable. It was like the case of Sarah Baartman, one of the African women paraded around as a freak show attraction in 19th-century Europe: Can you really be happy if your whole purpose in life is to be made a spectacle? Oppressors decide how they want to view someone and then perpetuate myths to encourage others to share the same perspective. As Blackfish points out, Sea World routinely lies about killer whales' habits in the wild to convince park-goers that their whales are content in captivity. Likewise, Scottish doctor Alexander Dunlap and showman Hendrik Cesars removed Sarah Baartman from her native South Africa to use her as a specimen in their racist shows. They wanted Europeans to believe certain atrocious things about Africans, so they found a person they thought could help them prove their points. In other words, these men lied to gullible medical professionals to oppress Baartman and Africans everywhere. Baartman was turned into a spectacle, living her last years in poverty before dying and having her brain and skeleton put on display in the Museum of Man in Paris. Sea World is not a scientific institution any more than the Baartman shows were anthropologically accurate or humane. It is a glorified prison that sells adorable plushies and tacky T-shirts. Now we look upon the Baartman story in horror; perhaps in years to come, our society will be ashamed of how we treated Shamu and Tilikum, too. #Blackfish #Shamu #SeaWorld #AnimalRights #HumanRights #SarahBaartman #Racism #Oppression #Injustice #Mean The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Because Impressive Taxidermy Alone Won't Cut ItBy Quail Bell History Buff QuailBellMagazine.com Some weekends are meant for errands and chores. For this me, this past one happened to be well-suited to crossing things off of my to-do list. One feared task involved combing through all of my mail from the past two weeks. For a variety of reasons, there was a lot of it. Since most of it ended up being junk, I was disappointed to find that something I'd actually been looking forward to receiving was, well, lame. It was a magazine produced by a local museum association, one whose name shall be spared here. The magazine was mostly black and white with hints of different shades of purple scattered throughout its pages. Though glossy, the publication was not too far removed from the PTA newsletter of a well-to-do public high school. The articles were not much better. The whole premise of the magazine is to teach museum professionals how to maintain their institutions and better their careers. In a word, the magazine is about money. This issue contained, for example, a rather obvious and unhelpful story about crowdsourcing. Perhaps the magazine appeals to the current generation of senior curators, but what about the next generation? Does the average educated 22-year-old really need to be told what Kickstarter is? And isn't the recent college graduate or the young professional the one most likely to benefit from a monthly magazine concerning the tricks of the trade, at least in the long-run? Museums rely heavily on fundraising. They look for private donations and grants. Earning all they need from admission sales is a rare, if not non-existent, occurrence. This is what makes the vast majority of them non-profit organizations. According to the American Alliance of Museums, more people visited American museums in 2011 than the number of people who attended major league sporting events and theme parks. But you'd never guess it from the revenue baseball and Disney World generate. Even the Smithsonian—la crème de la crème—can't rely on gift shop sales alone or even largely. 70 cents of every dollar used by the Smithsonian comes from the federal government. Perhaps that model works now and maybe it will continue to work for a long time. Yet it is unlikely that it will work forever, and most museums in the United States cannot even dream of having the Smithsonian's budget. Think of all the little house museums in Virginia and Maryland alone, for instance. Some of these places operate on less than $100,000 per year, including what it costs to pay employee salaries. Assuming a museum has two full-time employees earning $40,000 each, that leaves only $20,000 to run the joint. If you're a homeowner, you know that ain't squat. Sure, museums get tax breaks, but it's not like they get everything for free. The museum staff must still spend money to keep the museum open. However, museums will have a difficult time staying open if they do not learn to appeal to young people. Not everyone, dear Quail Bell(e)s, appreciates the inherent awesomeness of old things. That is one of the reasons why museums exist: to show the general public why history matters. Museum staff already have quite a responsibility updating their exhibits. (The iPad craze has helped and hurt them in that regard.) Museum staff have another responsibility, as well: to keep their industry media (e.g., publications, websites) fresh and interesting to everyone in the field, not just the long-timers. If you can't get the people working in museums excited about museums, you can't expect museums to be around forever, especially if there's nobody to take them over in a decade. #Museums #History #NewMedia #Multimedia #Curators #NextGeneration #Millennials #Technology #Publishing The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Threat of Free Speech in Richmond In the fall of 2010, the Monroe Park Advisory Council went public with their $6.2 million (that is just the sticker price on their first phase) renovation plan of Monroe Park. Organizations such as Food Not Bombs, and various churches began to come out against the proposed plans. Opposition grew, and signatures on the petition against the plans reached over 1000. During this time period, petitions, protests, public meetings, a party in the park, and even a ten day occupation of the park were some of the ways that the coalition against the renovation plan pushed the anti-shutting-down-the-park agenda. Well, $6.2 million is a lot of money, and MPAC received a lot of negative attention. Their plan seemed to be stuck treading water, but really, they went underground. The plan lost the spotlight, and we didn't hear anything for a while. The next I heard about it was when city council voted to put some money towards the Monroe Park Renovations in the budget they passed in July 2013. I met with Parker Agelasto to discuss what the money in the budget meant. My understanding from those meetings was that Richmond was providing money to do some of the nuts and bolts renovation necessary for things like fixing sewer/water, electricity, and the park's pathways. The folks once unfondly known as the the Monroe Park Advisory Council are back, and calling themselves the Monroe Park Conservancy this time. They want to get a thirty year lease for Monroe Park, paying the City just a dollar a year. Excuse me please? I mean, geez, can low-income people in Richmond get leases for a dollar a year? That'd do a hell of a lot for keeping people safe and comfortable. Additionally, the Mayor has apparently agreed that the MPC would not be responsible for paying annual property tax, either. A pretty cushy deal that many Richmonders would be happy to get. Something to consider about the intentions of the folks involved: they might be a non-profit organization, but that doesn't mean the folks involved won't be making money off this venture. The concept of non-profits is pretty misleading. Being a non-profit simply means that any profits made by the Monroe Park Conervancy can't just be split amongst the owners. But they can still get paid six figures a year to do their jobs; they can still vote on bonuses for themselves. According to the 2008 version of their renovation plan, the MPC is definitely making sure there will be well-paid positions for their own workers. They plan on hiring a park director, an assistant, private security, a program manager and an events staff. They plan on having an off-site office costing them over 3,000 a month in rent and maintenance. Which is more than double the monthly cost including utilties, tax, insurance, and mortgage on my 2,500 square foot brick house. Seems like they really plan to run Monroe Park from the lap of luxury. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Traveler's PrivilegeBy Paisley Hibou QuailBellMagazine.com I recently had the fortune to indulge in a guilty pleasure à la trashy film viewing. How trashy? “I watched a Miley Cyrus film” kind of trashy. The film LOL was insipid, although probably not quite as horrible as you'd expect—but this is not a movie review. I just want to use an example from this less-than-grand oeuvre: the part of the movie where Miley Cyrus and her little high school friends take a class trip to Paris. They behave like, unsurprisingly, Ugly Americans. Most of the students make no effort to speak French and they choose partying with their American friends over cultural immersion. Miley Cyrus and her boy toy even do the nasty in a host family's bedroom while the host mother and her daughter attempt awkward small talk with a halfway-decent American teen in the living room. How many terrible things can a guest do in one sentence? Please re-read the second-to-last sentence and count them. Traveling is a privilege, not a right. The average American high school student does not visit Paris. Truth be told, more than half of Americans of any age have never ventured outside the Red, White, and Blue. A third of them lack a passport altogether. One obvious explanation for these stats is that traveling costs beaucoup bucks. Even savvy, price-conscious travelers are spending money that could've gone toward groceries, rent, gasoline, car payments, college tuition or a number of other expenses many Americans find necessary for day-to-day living. Yet travel is more than expensive; it is foreign, literally and figuratively. This otherworldliness scares some people. The currency, cuisine, clothing, customs—C after C after C. France has Carrefour, not Walmart. In Vietnam, heterosexual males will hold hands with their male friends. In Mexico, people eat crickets. To certain Americans, other countries might as well be alternate realities. Lola, played by Miley Cyrus, and her best friend in the movie get so freaked out by a stuffed deer head in their host family's house and the brains served at dinner that they spend most of their trip whining (when they aren't making out with their beaus.) Hey, brats! You're in Paris! Swallow those snails and move on! There is more than one kind of American traveler. Not every American traveler fits the Ugly American stereotype. Not every American traveler reads magazines for the jet set and books high-end travel agents without a second thought to financial planning. Even (or, in some cases, especially) the wealthy and the educated make ignorant mistakes. But the white sneakers and the drunkenness and the disregard for local etiquette have become a stereotype because of a kernel of truth wedged in there somewhere. If and when we are lucky enough to travel, we have a responsibility to find that kernel, mash it with our molars and spit it out. One of the most important traveling tips is respect: respect the people whose land we are visiting and, chances are, they'll wow us with their hospitality. #UglyAmerican #AmericanTraveler #AmericanTourist #Touristy #TouristBehavior #CulturalExchange #FirstImpressions The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
It's Not Like YOU'RE Going to ChangeBy Starling Root QuailBellMagazine.com It's already the second full week of 2014, dammit, and you're flailing when it comes to maintaining your resolutions for the new year. Big surprise: you're a loser. But it's okay. So am I and everyone else you know. That's why the more ambitious of us have put all our savings toward making a clone to do our bidding. After all, if there's going to be two of you, at least one of them shouldn't be a fuck-up*. By the way, one of your resolutions should be to stop being so cynical. Honestly, this is real advice—not sci fi. Nothing otherworldly going on here! Anyway, now that I have your attention (and trust), here's how to whip your clone into shape and guarantee 2014 is the year you make mama proud: • Starve your clone: It's a proven fact that a hungry person is also a person aiming to please. Don't feed your clone for three days straight and you'll be amazed by what he's willing to do for a chicken nugget, even the off-brand kind. • Gag your clone: The longer your clone goes without a voice, the more eager he'll be to follow your instructions. Plus, your clone will become 10,000 times more efficient simply by avoiding chit-chat. Think about how much he'll accomplish without having to comment on the weather! It's raining? You don't say! Oh, I didn't notice. I just won the Nobel Prize! • Kick your clone: Kicking anyone is a horrible thing to do. It's sooo mean, especially when that person's already down. Conveniently enough for you, though, clones aren't people. They're kind of blow-up dolls—more or less anatomically correct but unable to think or feel. If you doubt me, you might actually have a soul and a heart. But if you had either of those things, you wouldn't have read this far into the article. Now you're off to see the wizard, the wonderful cloning wizard of cloned Oz! *I love you, fledglings! I really do! One of my resolutions is to cure my potty mouth. So far, no luck. What an affliction! #Clones #Funny #Stupid #Silly #ScienceFiction #Inhumane #Jokes #2014 #NewYear #Resolutions #SelfImprovement The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Does Ageless Beauty Only Come in One Size and One Color?By Brainy Bird QuailBellMagazine.com The high fashion world couldn't be more enamored of wunderkinds Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, especially with their recent model choices. Their Pre-Fall 2014 lookbook for The Row features older models, including a handsome 65-year-old woman--Linda Rodin, beauty entrepreneur. Her co-stars are Ursula Wallis and Esther de Jong, neither of whom would qualify as spring chickens, either. The twin designers champion age as an asset and gray hair perhaps one's best accessory. Bravo! But while it is true that such casting is a huge departure from the corporate norm, the downside is that these models are simply more mature versions of the standard catwalk gal, whose “willowy” is often really anorexic. What would truly be revolutionary is if the Olsen twins put the likes of The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty in their luxurious fabrics. Where are the women of color? Where are the plus-size women? What more than one 21st century consumer would appreciate seeing is a vision of beauty that is over age 50, non-white and a size 12 or larger. This is the Holy Trinity of apparently undesirable physical traits: signs of age, a dark complexion and meat on the bones. Thanks for trying, Mary-Kate and Ashley. It was a lovely effort. But please try again. #Fashion #OlsenTwins #TheRow #Age #Aging #Beauty #GoodLooks #RealBeauty #Vanity #WomenOfColor #FatShame The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Monty Mason, Not Monty PythonRICHMOND — New delegate Monty Mason, D-Williamsburg, said education was his top priority coming into office, but his committee assignments have broadened his focus, as shown by the legislation he has introduced. Mason was appointed Wednesday to the committees of House Courts and Justice and Counties, Cities and Towns. “I’m essentially going to be getting a master’s degree in legal education over the next 60-70 days,” Mason said. “I think that the participation on committees—particularly one as important as Courts—will help shape the direction of my focus.” According to Mason, while education is important, he wants to use this opportunity to cement his new legislative role. “I’m going to have to focus a lot of time just towards trying to be a smart, competent member of (the Courts) committee,” Mason said. Mason also said he stands by his belief in early childhood education partly because of his own personal experience. “I’m the father of a 5-year-old daughter who started kindergarten this year, and upward of 20 percent of her class came to school with no foundational education,” Mason said. “I think children of all levels in society (should have) access to early childhood education.” In addition to early childhood education, Mason is addressing issues ranging from scamming seniors online to mental health with his proposed bills this session. Delaying individual school grading Mason has introduced House Bill 618. A summary of the bill states that its passage would delay the “dates by which the Board of Education is required to implement the A-to-F individual school performance grading system.” He says his intent is to amend and improve the way schools collect and quantify performance data. “Rather than trying to start a big fight and throw (the legislation away),” Mason said, “my goal is to just delay it for a few years. (The Board of Education) just changed the testing standards. So, let’s get three years of data and get the superintendents to sit down with the board and come up with formulaic ideas that will adequately grade our schools.” Protecting seniors from web fraud A risk sales specialist at Visa, Inc., Mason explained how his own experience influenced other bills he has introduced in the House. House Bill 619 would increase the penalty for computer fraud of $200 or more from a Class 5 felony to a Class 4 felony if the victim is 65 or older. The increase would allow judges to impose the offender with a minimum prison term of two years instead of just one year. “While my background has some bearing, (HB 619) really came as much as anything out of the campaign,” Mason said. Mason says he spoke with many seniors in his district who he said he believed were victims of online scams. “Twenty years from now, most seniors will have been on computers all their life,” Mason said. “Now we’re in that gray area where seniors are getting exposed to the Internet but are not quite as savvy as someone who has grown up with it.” During the 2012-2013 fiscal year, only 10 offenders were convicted of felony computer fraud. Currently, victim age cannot be identified by available data. The Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission issued a fiscal impact statement in December that stated, “while the impact on community corrections resources cannot be quantified, any impact is likely to be small.” HB 619 was referred to the House Courts and Justice Committee. No excuse absentee voting Another bill Mason introduced is House Bill 622, which would allow in-person absentee voting without providing an excuse. “I think our goal should always be more people participating in the process,” Mason said. “Not fewer.” Emergency custody orders House Bill 621 would allow a magistrate to execute a 48-hour emergency custody order for a person suffering from -- or is suspected of suffering from -- mental illness. Mason says introducing this legislation is not an attempt to seize on the Creigh Deeds tragedy. (Sen. Deeds, D-Bath, was attacked in November by his son after unsuccessful attempts to have him committed to a mental hospital. His son then committed suicide.) “What I want to do is help our community service boards who have to deal with these people that need our help,” Mason said. #MontyMason #Williamsburg #GeneralAssembly #VirginiaLegislature #VirginiaPolitics #GANews #Richmond #RVA The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
And the Baby Grows UpIn just several hours, my little sister will begin her first day of her last semester of college. She's molted and it's nearly time to fly. I still remember her as a chick, newly hatched. I watched her wiggle and squirm through the glass that separates passersby from newborns in the hospital. She was small, pink and naked save for her tiny diapers. Born so teeny they put her in an incubator to bake a while. The bun was returned to its oven for three weeks—and now that bun is only credits away from earning her university degree. Nauseating articles about millennials written by baby boomers aside (my personal favorite clueless dek: “Young adults do not think and act alike, as it turns out. In fact, some do not want to be called millennials at all.” What an epiphany!), let's admit it: adolescence no longer ends at 18. High school graduation means End of Adolescence, Part 1. Ages 18-23? Adolescence, Part II. 24-25? Early adulthood...maybe. How many times has Grandma told you she was already married at your age? My boyfriend and I enjoy watching classic films and looking at old photos, not just as image-makers and history-lovers, but also because of the sense of awe that rises in us each time we see a twenty-something in the 1940s. That twenty-something would pass for a thirty-something in this day and age. The hard gaze, the conservative haircut, the buttoned-up wardrobe that comes with parenthood—all of these elements add a decade or two to a body that, today, would still be footloose and fancy-free. Without a family, a mortgage, or even necessarily a significant other (or dog!), the young urbanista of 2014 can afford to be selfish. I recently and reluctantly found explaining “hookup culture” to the older folks at my office job. Blushing, I described the concept behind OkCupid. I quickly added many footnotes, none of which I'll bother detailing here, but the question I couldn't exactly answer was, Why has traditional dating all but died? If I could answer that question, I'd probably have fewer heartbroken friends. I could've spared myself countless hours of listening to OkCupid horror stories. I'd never have to hear the words “He dumped me by text” again. Because if I knew the answer to that question, I would've found a solution for my generation going back to traditional dating en masse. I would've been that prude-turned-savior my entire social circle worshipped for matching everyone with their soulmate. Because even if we're living longer and infertility for women in their late 30s is less of an issue now than it was for our grandmothers, we do not fall in love later than our grandparents did. Infatuation still starts with puberty, and that's when the heart first begins to ache. Yet today's primary post-grad heartache seems to center on LinkedIn profiles and Skype interviews more than anything. When my sister graduates in May, most of her female classmates will not walk across the stage and grab their diploma with an engagement ring shining beneath the auditorium lights. Most of them will be more anxious about employment than marriage. I have told her about a few of my classmates: the ones who still did not have a job a year after graduation, the ones who, two or three years out of college, thought they were destined for a career as a professional waitress rather than the professor or television producer they imagined being at age 19. We have had plenty of conversations about grad school, too. In December 2012, I remember warming my hands over a mug of hot chocolate listening intently as one of my friends elaborated upon the various multimedia samples she planned to include with her grad school applications. After each summary, she'd second-guess herself in a frenzy: “Do you think they'll accept me if I put that in?” I picture two young women in a coffee shop two generations ago discussing love instead: “Do you think he'll like it if I wear my hair that way?” Now my friend is a successful student in an Ivy League program studying exactly what she had hoped for. But it took her two years of waitressing after college, one year of working at two different non-profits for crappy pay and a lot of agonizing over her grad school apps to get there. This morning, I told my sister that I was proud of her for going into her last semester of college. Plenty of people never get to that point. She muttered thanks, averting my gaze. For her and other privileged twenty-somethings, the concern is not finishing college. The hand-wringing lies in deciding what to do the moment the cap and gown come off. “Do something good,” I had told her the day before. “Help somebody.” I suggested AmeriCorps, teaching fellowships, artist residencies with a community engagement angle, an internship at an art or history museum that cared about community outreach. I thought back to our grandmother who, at about the same age, had herded alcoholics and drug addicts in The Bowery toward clean living. That was the 1950s, when a dark cloud hung over the Manhattan neighborhood, and Quaker missionaries like my grandmother hoped to give the down-and-out a second chance at a sense of purpose. My sister nodded after I made my suggestion. “That's what I want to do,” she said simply, and went back to filling out online job applications. #College #Graduation #Unemployment #Millennials #Twentysometimes #Jobs #GradSchool #Uni #CollegeDegree #Anxiety The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
I Can't Believe We Still Have to Protest This Shit Editor's Note: This is our first piece from the Earth First! Journal Newswire—a news service providing news and information about direct action in defense of living systems around the world. This is Part 1 of a two-part series that will examine the political and social ramifications of the chemical spill in West Virginia and the history of Appalachian struggle against human and ecological destruction. Part 1 will focus on the spill and its aftermath. Part 2 will put this disaster in historical context and discuss what the legacy of ecological and class warfare in central Appalachia can teach ecosocialists today. A Freedom Industries worker places boom in the Elk River at the site of the chemical spill Imagine living in the rugged countryside of the Appalachian mountains. You have no source of income or means of transportation, and you find your water has been poisoned and cannot be used—even after being boiled—until further notice. Imagine trying to run a hospital when none of the city’s water can be used, even for hand-washing. Imagine having to ration drinking water to school-age children in the fourth most water-rich country on earth. All of these stories and more came true in West Virginia on Jan. 9, after residents reported water that tasted like licorice. The contamination turned out to be 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, a chemical used to produce the misleadingly named “clean coal” through the froth flotation process which “scrubs” the coal prior to burning in power plants. As of this writing, an unknown amount of the substance had spilled from a 48,000 gallon container located along the Elk River, owned by Freedom Industries (FI). Despite being located only one mile upstream from the water treatment plant where drinking water was contaminated, Tom Aluise of the West Virginia Environmental Protection Association noted that the chemical cannot actually be removed from the water—and residents will simply have to wait for more than 60 miles of pipelines to be completely flushed before water safety can be reassessed. “This material pretty much floats on the water, and it’s floating downstream, and eventually it will dissipate, but you can’t actually get in there and remove it,” Aluise said. FI claims they don’t know how the hole which caused the toxic substance to leak into the containment area and then into the river got there, but then, according to its own website, FI keeps maintains bulk quantities of not only 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, but 5 other flotation reagents–not to mention the other products stored on site, which include other specialty chemicals including freeze conditioning agents (used in deicing), dust control palliatives, water treatment polymers, and other mining chemicals. ”With 4,000,000 gallons of storage capacity,” boasts the Freedom Industries website, the Elk River terminal “can process large volumes of chemical rapidly, and cost effectively.” Processing them safely, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be a primary concern. Although air-quality officials began receiving odor reports about the facility as early as 7:30 a.m., the emergency response chief of the Department of Environmental Protection didn’t receive word of the spill until noon. The Charleston Gazette reported that the company had failed to report the spill to the self-regulation agencies, which raises the question why a chemical corporation more interested in efficiency than the safety of hundreds of thousands of people is allowed to regulate itself anyway. A search of the Environmental Protection Agency’s facility compliance reports found no record of inspections at the facility for available years, presenting a striking parallel with low OSHA inspection rates that resulted in a deadly explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant last year. And, of course, with no way for the chemical to be removed from the water through a clean-up operation, it remains unclear what the short and long term effects will be beyond contaminating the water supply of the Kanawha Valley, West Virginia’s most populated region. The materials safety data sheets, compiled by OSHA, lists little information about the effects of the chemical, and many emergency officials say they know little about the potential effects of the chemical. West Virginia American Water President Jeff McIntyre did little to reassure residents when he refused to get specific about possible effects, only saying that “it’s not particularly lethal in its usage form.” And while not completely sure how the contamination will affect residents, the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources said that possible effects of ingestion or inhalation could include “severe burning in throat, severe eye irritation, non-stop vomiting, trouble breathing or severe skin irritation such as skin blistering.” The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
A Cheerful HeartBy Raquel Lynne QuailBellMagazine.com I’ve been asked, “Why do you write about the memories from your past”? My response: “We need to reflect on the past for our overall well-being." You see, I believe that when we look back over the flicks of our lives, it brings to us a clearer understanding of who we are, and how we’ve arrived at this juncture in our lives. Merriam-Webster defines memory as "a: the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms; b: the store of things learned and retained from an organism's activity or experience as evidenced by modification of structure or behavior or by recall and recognition." My evolution as a writer began with short stories focused on characters that used their memory to help them cope with the world around them. In my story, “Memories are Forever,” the character Helen used memory to reconcile her abuse as a child. In “Life as We Knew It,” the main character Isaac used his young daughter's memories to rebuild the past he had forgotten due to a tragic accident. Today my use of memory has broadened into a series of essays to capture past events and to settle my restless mind. These memories have helped me to re-instill sets of personal values, re-establish broken relationships, and to teach others about differences. My cheerful disposition is often questioned with, “Are you always this happy”? and “Do you ever get upset?” or “Don’t you get tired of smiling”? To answer the last question, I reflect upon my father. He was a constant hummer; he whistled, he sang and he smiled. My father’s spirit was always upbeat; he lived each day with an appreciative heart. When he experienced a bad day, he would be quiet, as if to go inward, possibly to recollect a memory, to solve the issue, but it was never for very long. I knew when everything was alright because his singing and humming returned. So why is my disposition always so cheerful? I learned to be joyful and grateful in all circumstances; I learned the fine art of humming and singing, and the act of inward reflection. My hope is that when I share my reflections, that it too brings you a sense of peace. Perhaps these pieces will help you to reminisce about your past, and that you are encouraged to share your flicks with others. We are here to teach and share with one another, and for that I am so grateful. #FamilyMemories #Father #Daddy #FatherDaughterRelationships #ChildhoodMemories #FirstPerson #Essay #Reflections
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The Writer's Love for a CharacterMy sister treated me to a showing of Saving Mr. Banks this past weekend, and I loved the movie. I am continuing to ponder a couple of themes that relate specifically to writers, since the premise of the film was that P.L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books, was reluctant to give up the rights to Walt Disney, who ultimately made the film which starred Julie Andrews. Two things came to the forefront in the film: that writers love their characters "like family," and that one's intellectual property is, when it comes down to it, one's most precious possession. Every writer might dream of seeing his or her work on the big screen, but along with that dream would go the dread that something might go wrong. The ill-fated movie V.I. Warshawski did no justice to Sara Paretsky's elegant and exciting novels, but crammed the books' plots together in a way that was not satisfying to her loyal readers. Sue Grafton has famously refused to ever let Kinsey Millhone become a character on the screen, and has told her children that they may not allow it, either. It's not a surprise that writers are fiercely loyal to their characters. First of all, these literary people are born from the author's mind, as Athena sprang from the head of Zeus. J.K. Rowling says that Harry Potter was fully formed when he came to her, and on her website she writes that, "I had never been so excited about an idea before." And there's the crux of the matter: writers fall in love with the act of creation, which is itself a mystery, and their relationship with each character becomes a new love affair. To betray that character is to betray a loved one, which is the dilemma of P.L. Travers in the movie. Walt Disney even says he understands, since he once faced the same conundrum with Mickey Mouse. So why sell out at all? Well—for money. Writers struggle just as all artists struggle. Everyone knows that J.K. Rowling is the exception, not the rule, and even she couldn't have anticipated just how well Harry would do in the literary world. In the case of P.L. Travers, she muses, "I would like to keep my house," as a reason that she might consider going to the dreaded Los Angeles to meet with people she is sure she will not like. But I think many writers would agree that the dream of money is only a dream which would allow them to write in peace (and perhaps luxury) for the rest of their lives. Writers like to write, and the world often doesn't want to let them do so, since the world demands that people work to pay their bills. Walt Disney, as portrayed by Tom Hanks, is weirdly benevolent and never angry, which I don't believe for a second, and of course P.L. Travers is represented as an odd crank who needs to just get along. Luckily Emma Thompson gives her dimension, which makes the film a moving examination of the writer/producer relationship. Hollywood may be the dream that many writers have for their novels today, but I doubt much has changed in the way authors feel about their characters. Those people on the page are intimately known to their creators, and their creators won't entrust them to just anyone. ***This piece originally appeared on Poe's Deadly Daughters and was republished here with permission.*** #Disney #TomHanks #MaryPoppins #Movies #Writers #WritersLife #Cinema #PLTravers #Authors #Mickey Mouse #novels The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Rain or Shine—Get a Glimpse of Terry!By Laura Bramble QuailBellMagazine.com Downtown Richmond will be packed tomorrow for Gov. McAuliffe's inauguration festivities. Bring your brolly if you plan to be there! Rumor has it there may be thunder and lightning—and not just the metaphorical kind.
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The Mole of Capitol Hill10 Blocks represents the distance of several low-income housing communities in Washington, D.C. to the US Capitol building, a symbol of our country’s prosperity. As the capitol of our country, DC should stand as a model for all of the hope and potential our collective power can encourage and facilitate. Instead, it has come to represent the growing disparity between the people of our country, and its governing body. Neighboring monumental symbols of power, freedom and equality, are communities living in abject poverty, located in a city where one in 20 residents have HIV. The project features the stories, hopes, and frustrations of community members who all live in view of the capitol building but whom are overwhelmed by low-paying jobs and the struggle to have their most basic needs fulfilled. Stories reveal the threat of drug addictions, violence and health concerns which add stress, distraction and danger for the youth. In the face of these constant issues, how can one begin to access and understand the ideals that these monuments profess? What semblance of the illusive ‘American Dream’ remains? '10 blocks' incorporates both the voices of today's youth as well as the oral histories of senior citizens. Many of these individuals lived in D.C. through segregation, the race riots, the drug/crime/AIDS epidemics, white flight, and now, are not only struggling to keep their homes and salvage their communities due to gentrification, but find themselves, more often than not, alone and isolated, unable to share these incredible histories that they have witnessed and survived. In our current economic and political climate, these symbols fail to represent the reality of America. This reality is one where millions of people go without decent housing, safe streets, good schools and nutritious food, while living under the shadow of the façade our country has built for itself. If these injustices exist within such a short proximity of one of our greatest symbols, we must question the greater tragedies and injustices that are occurring every day. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Warehouses and Factories of YoreThis iPhone video shows Richmond's Tobacco Row. Across the James River from Manchester lies an assortment of tobacco warehouses and cigarette factories founded in the 1700s. During the Civil War, this Richmond district laid claim to Libby Prison and Castle Thunder. |
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