Will Vehrs over at Commonwealth Conservative links to an article on acquaintances and relationships [and the lack of] in modern wired society.

Will says he’ll write something of his own –always a great read—sometime about it. But that reminded me of an experience I had some 30 40 years ago.

As a child, I spent each Saturday morning at a gym, and this one time my parents would be late picking me up. They arranged for me to wait for them in the lobby of a friend’s business that was several doors away. This worked fine; I was soon seated in the waiting area reading travel magazines.

After I’d been there a while, the owner (my parents’ friend) came out and asked me back to his office. I remember him sitting behind his desk, I remember us chatting, and I remember the conversation seemed easy –not the usual grilling children are put through.

To this day I can’t remember the subject, but I was mid-sentence when the telephone rang. A black telephone that jangled; all telephones were black at that time.

I stopped speaking to let him answer the phone. He asked me to go on. I blurted out something about the importance of answering his phone. He smiled and delivered his lesson.

“You are here, you are real. The phone call is a voice; it may be important, but not important enough to come here and see me”, he said. “While anyone sits in that chair” indicating my seat, “the telephone won’t get answered.”

Although we continued our conversation, his statement stuck with me. It seemed strange to me, like he was odd or eccentric. People always answer the phone, right?

Years later the memory had almost faded when I learned my parents’ friend was a successful businessman. Very successful; as in millionaire-owner-of-factories-and-shopping-malls type of financial success.

Eccentric people occasionally become wealthy, but they aren’t also ‘beloved community activists’ and local politicians; much less (and it almost becomes unbelievable here) remembered fondly by the community 30 40 years later.

He knew perfectly well what was smart and made good policy. I only talked to him that one time. The lesson I took —and what a lesson it was— is that small gains from efficiencies of communication aren’t worth risking the enormous value of personal contact.

Maybe it’s one of those enigmas: capitalism appeals to the individual’s desire, but is the most productive supplier of humanity’s needs and economic justice the world has ever seen.

Businesses succeed by concentrating on people, not pursuing their dollars; a twist on the old saying “The customer is always right”.

There you they go again. –paraphrase of R. Reagan

Just about the time you think some environmental groups are becoming reasonable, there they go again and prove you wrong.

With almost half its workers commuting out of the county to work, leaning on tourism as a major part of our economy, Shenandoah County is very sensitive to energy (gasoline) prices and supply.

Hustle - NOUN: 1. The act or an instance of jostling or shoving. 2. Energetic activity; drive. 3. Slang An illicit or unethical way of doing business; a fraud or deceit.
–from The Environmental Protection Hustle by Bernard J. Frieden, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Governor Kaine, bowing to the Sierra Club and its associates, just vetoed the possibility of simply exploring for natural gas off the Virginia coast. Apparently the idea that Virginia could possibly –in twenty years or more—do something to reduce the demand on, and the price of, imported oil is foreign to Kaine and his extremist supporters.

We do need to change our energy consumption and sources; no argument there. The solution is to remove obstacles in the way of new energy, not add obstacles. Here’s the scorecard for American energy supplies:

Keep interim supplies (petroleum) intact
1) Ensure oil sources: In progress
2) Ensure oil transportation & routes: Done
3) Ensure oil processing & refining capability: Starting.

Encourage new renewable energy
1) Wind: Done.
2) Solar: Done.
3) Ethanol & biofuel: Done.
4) Wood: Abandoned commercially.
5) Waste: Politically abandoned, some interest in landfill methane.
6) Geothermal: No interest.

Minimize unnecessary use
1) Energy per person: Mostly done
2) Increased efficiencies: In progress
3) Move critical uses to domestic supply: Done.

All the above are great. But securing sufficient energy –the lights, heat, and transportation for almost 300 million people— will take far more than holding onto what exists and small gains from maximizing efficiency. We need a lot more energy; enough for increased use and replacement of mid-east supplies.

Increase large-scale domestic energy supply
1) Coal: Increasing.
2) Natural gas: Politically abandoned under environmentalist pressure.
3) Domestic petroleum: Politically abandoned under environmentalist pressure.
4) Atomic generators: Politically abandoned under environmentalist pressure.
5) Hydroelectric: Politically abandoned under environmentalist pressure.
6) Wind generators: Currently under environmentalist attack.
7) Biofuel production: Environmentalists gearing up against..

The mid-East’s fanatical immans want us to return to their ‘glory days’ of the 14th century. By obstructing every possible avenue for responsible energy policy, the enviromentalist coalitions are working hand-in-hand with the mad mullahs.

The 2006 Pultizer Prize for poetry has been awarded to “Late Wife” by Claudia Emerson of Chatham Virginia. A graduate of, former Academic Dean, and Poet-in-Residence of Chatham Hall; Emerson is assistant professor of English at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg.

For three years you lived in your house
just as it was before she died: your wedding
portrait on the mantel, her clothes hanging
in the closet, her hair still in the brush.

There’s the joke –way too true— that it takes three Virginians to change a light bulb; one to replace it and two to talk about how nice the last one was. How true.

You have told me you gave it all away
then, sold the house, keeping only the confirmation
cross she wore, her name in cursive chased
on the gold underside, your ring in the same
box, those photographs you still avoid,

Emerson’s very much in that Virginia tradition. In “Late Wife” she doesn’t break from that stereotype of ‘how nice the last one was’, but plays on the natural tension between the pull of the past and the very real needs of the present.

and the quilt you spread on your borrowed bed—
small things. Months after we met, you told me she had
made it, after we had slept already beneath its loft
and thinning, raveled pattern, as though beneath
her shadow, moving with us, that dark, that soft.

Faintly bittersweet, the poetry’s pure Virginia; a nostalgia too strong to be ignored, but one that a person can live with, the wistfullness that has its place in each of us. Congratulations on a deserved award.

(Hat tip to Jim Bacon)

The study commissioned by Strasburg Town Council on the growth it’s been experiencing is “out” now. 

 The Council wanted to keep the report unreleased until after May elections; a FOIA by the Northern Virginia Daily obtained the results.  A copy is available for download here: Strasburg Growth and Needs Study: Report of Findings (3.3 Mb PDF)

It has tons of information for data-geeks, and a lot for regular folks too.  The bottom-line is that Strasburg’s grown and still growing, mostly from NOVA refugees.  More families are coming than before, more educated people, more commuters ….

Lots more inside the report, so I’ll refrain from a litany of ‘I told ya so‘.  Read it yourself!

Kudos to the Council for commissioning the study; and to the NVD for publicly releasing it.

ADDENDUM: More kudos are due to the survey’s designers and authors; Elisabeth Schillinger, Joyce M. Wolf, and Linda C. Wheeler. All too often ’studies’ in Shenandoah County have been driven by special interests, with predetermined conclusions.

This study is professional and unbiased; it would be a credit to any state or national organization. The entire study-team is to be commended.

UPDATE: Local copy of the survey on this server now. (click) It may be slower than the NVD site, but it can stay available a month or two.

HB 1106 would have allowed any “… person who may lawfully possess a firearm to carry a handgun in a private motor vehicle or boat if the handgun is locked in a container or compartment in the vehicle or vessel.” 

The courts have consistently held that –locked or not—immediate accessibility is the difference between concealed carry and non-viewable possession; eliminating a common misconception about a ‘loophole’.

It’s a mild and reasonable bill.  Concealed-carriers are one of the most law-abiding groups in the state, even more so than police.  Delegate Athey’s bill is a small, sensible, logical extension of current practices.

Governor Kaine’s explanation for his veto was that “This measure runs contrary to existing state law regarding concealed weapon permits …” 

Earth to Governor:
All new bills are different than –and therefore contrary to— existing law!   That’s sort of the definition of ‘new’, as in, not the same as the old laws.  Oh well, so much for his campaign promise to “support second amendment rights”.

Does anyone remember the campaign issue about the death penalty?  Kaine’s advertisements solemnly promising to “uphold the law on death penalty cases”.

Kaine’s been in office four months and already gutted his promises about taxes, land use, transportation, and now firearms.  Who wants to bet his ‘support of the law’ on death penalty cases is the same law that allows the Governor to pardon every one of them?

The Governor and the Shenandoah Board of Supervisors simultaneously announced that Merillat Inc. would significantly expand the company’s Mt. Jackson manufacturing facility.  Close to $16 million in construction, with as many as 150 new jobs were forecast over the next couple of years.

Shortly after that The Free Press, a local paper, reported Merillat’s parent company, Masco Corp. as denying any such expansion plans.  Like many others, I’d been glad about the expansion, then had my hopes dashed by this new information. 

After a long day sorting this out, it seems this is a case of internal mis-communication; a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing.  It happens to the best of companies, especially in large, diverse corporations.  Shenandoah County acted in good faith on the best information available, as did the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the Governor.  I sincerely hope this works out.

Steve Byron, Managing Director of Corporate Engineering at Merillat, Inc. said,

“The Commonwealth of Virginia has been an excellent host state, and we are pleased to be expanding at the Mount Jackson facility.  Shenandoah County has certainly shown us how much they appreciate our company as part of their industrial and business community.”

We do appreciate Merillat.  To help in that, the Board of Supervisors partnered ($43,000)  with Shenandoah Gas to install a new gas pipeline, even if an expansion doesn’t happen.  The Board made that decision after considering an expansion might not take place, and it’s a decision I support.  It was the right thing to do.

Shenandoah County values the Merillat manufacturing facility here.  We want it to stay, to do well, and if possible, even to expand.    If Masco and Merillat resolve this and proceed with their plans, the Governor’s Opportunity Fund Grant and the County’s matching funds can help the company reduce the cost of construction.

Shenandoah County native Wade Zirkle has written a column in the Washington Post on the leftist coalition against the war.

 Murtha, Moran and MoveOn.org; with the tacit consent –at least cooperation– of the MSM (mainstream media) are consistently misrepresenting how American troops feel about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. [OK, I left out CodePink because their name doesn't start with an 'M', but they're part of it too]

A Marine Corps commander when wounded in Iraq, Zirkle shows how the 4M’s are absolutely wrong. Wrong about service member’s motivation and morale; wrong about their approach to ending the war.

Veterans continue to make clear that they are determined to succeed in Iraq. They are making this clear the best way they can: by volunteering to go back for third and sometimes fourth deployments. This fact is backed up by official Pentagon recruitment reports released as recently as Monday.

Murtha claims to support our troops, but he demands immediate withdrawal from Iraq; something servicemen and women don’t support or want.  Of course Moran is Virginia’s foot-in-mouth embarrassment of a Congressman.

Wade is right.  The only way the press can demonstrate its neutrality is to give equal and fair coverage to our troops’ opinions.  The press hasn’t done that yet, but it’s time they started.

Due to recent events in the county, many people are cynical about politics.  Everyone needs to remember that there are good and honest people dedicated to public service.  Of all those, the most dedicated and principled has been Senator George Allen.

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned — this is the sum of good government.”  - Thomas Jefferson. 

Senator Allen has worked successfully to create thousands of new jobs in Virginia and bring investments that will benefit future generations. He is responsible for bringing Virginia’s public schools to the highest academic standards and accountability of any in the nation.Senator Allen is a responsible and fiscal conservative in the Jefferson tradition who’s worked to restrain spending, balance budgets and pay down the national debt.   

George Allen is the model of dedication and moral principles that our Founding Father’s envisioned.  Volunteer, donate, tell friends; please join me in supporting him.

Maybe numbers are just for nerds, except when they’re the number of dollars out of your pocket.  One of technologies greatest strengths is the ability to quickly look at figures in different ways; to spot trends or isolate specific areas.

In this case, it’s a jump in the schools’ Special Program dollars that’s been otherwise unnoticed or uncommented on.  In the year from FY04 to FY05, the SP budget went from $1.51 million to $5.77 million; almost tripling what it was previously.

Sic Semper Tyrannis has closed, and we say farewell to Lighthorse Harry, Old Zach, and Addison.  It was a great blog, and I hope its authors take up some other public service.

Julius Caesar, the world’s first dictator-for-life, transformed the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. The quote Thus Always to Tyrants is credited to Brutus when he assassinated Caesar.  In 1777, George Mason recommended the phrase as Virginia’s motto, along with the state seal.

Virginia has the distinction as the only state with a seal and flag containing weapons, nudity, violence, and threatening language.  It’s a miracle Virginia’s schools haven’t banned the flag; though my better half says to be quiet and not give the idiots them ideas.  Since the schools get the majority of their funds through Richmond, maybe any legislators determined to interfere with local policies can mandate Virginia’s flag be displayed in every class.