Looking for a few good friends

Last year the Colonial Heights Food Pantry doled out $500,000 worth of food products to needy families in the 23834 ZIP code area, according to Bill Humphreys, vice president of the Food Pantry. The Food Pantry, founded by Ruth Chappell as Community United in 2004, has been in operation for eight years in Colonial Heights.

The organization has grown significantly over the years. After starting out in a trailer it quickly was too big and had to move into a rented 1,000 square foot building.  In October 2006, the organization was incorporated as Colonial Heights Food Pantry.  In 2008, the Food Pantry had again outgrown their building. Parking issues drove them to find a new location, and with the support of the Cameron Foundation and the John Randolph Foundation, they were able to set up operations at their current location, 530 Southpark Blvd., Colonial Heights, VA, next to Dance’s Sporting Goods.  They can also be found on the Internet at:  http://www.gatewayrfp.org/default.html.

“Last year, we serviced 114,132 adults, 3,700 seniors, and 12,086 under 18 last year.  That last figure, the number of young people, was what really caught my attention when I was approached about taking on this job,” Humphreys told a small group from Highland United Methodist Men.

Humphreys said other things that caught his attention, were people he knew from throughout the community who needed help. Some of those, he said, were former co-workers. It hurt him to see them in need, but also drove home the point that such a place as the Food Pantry was necessary.

The key to the Food Pantry’s success; however, is its volunteers, he said. Last year, they accumulated 12,770 volunteer hours.  The volunteers come in and everyone just goes to work.

Several local churches, in particular Colonial Heights Baptist Church and Highland United Methodist, have been working with the Food Pantry for years, he said.  Other groups throughout the community also volunteer for the many tasks that need to be performed, a large contingent of volunteers have come from Fort Lee and everyone is put to good use, he said.

Humphreys said the key to the program was the volunteers.  The Food Pantry runs on donations from the community, businesses, and civic organizations and churches in the surrounding area.  Without that support, he said, the Food Pantry wouldn’t be the organization it is today.

“We can always use volunteer help,” he said. “But we also need fresh foods, sanitary items, and other paper goods that people can donate.”

Recently, the Food Pantry sought out someone to take over as the Executive Director, to take over for Mrs. Chappell, Humphreys said.  The Food Pantry conducted a search and found Lorrie Mollnow, who will pick up the reins of the organization.

“The heart and soul of the Food Pantry is without a doubt our volunteers,” Humphreys said.  “We can always use more help. If anyone is interested in volunteering, they can stop by the Food Pantry any week day.  There’s always someone in the office,” Humphrey’s said.

The wheels of Justice grind slow, but exceeding fine

Amid the hue and cry about justice for Trayvon Martin who was shot dead by George Zimmerman during an alleged conflict in Sanford, Florida, it would seem best to wait for the facts to come to light before making any outrageous statements.  Initially, judging by the earliest reports in the papers, this seemed like an obvious case of manslaughter.

It also seemed that the Sanford PD didn’t do their job, and let a killer go free.  But in my experience, after covering the courts and police for many years, police don’t simply let someone go who was involved in a shooting without justification.  To think that the Sanford PD might do such a thing in this incident strikes me as odd.

And now, as more information appears to be coming out, it seems the case may be more than the young man with Skittles and Arizona tea being gunned down by a crazed vigilante neighborhood watch commander. I’m not talking about all the other information that has come out that seems to be smearing Trayvon’s character. That has nothing to do with this incident. I am talking about the evidence that is slowly trickling out about the case.

It’s hard for me to believe that any police department would have messed up the investigation of this kind of incident to the extent that they allow a person of interest to go free. Zimmerman didn’t run away; he didn’t deny what he had done; and he provided a full statement to the police regarding the shooting. According to reports, he is very remorseful about the shooting.

That doesn’t help Trayvon and his family, who are seeking justice. But, if Zimmerman’s statements turn out to be true and indicate that Trayvon did initiate the incident, where are we left then?  Zimmerman has a broken nose and battered back of his head that seem to substantiate his story.  There are witnesses whose statements appear to corroborate his statement.  There are also witnesses who seem to corroborate Trayvon’s story.  Only a court can untangle that kind of mess.

For argument’s sake, let’s say the Sanford PD acted according to law?  Maybe there was no just cause to arrest Zimmerman in this incident? Justice is a two-edged sword, and both victim and perpetrator deserve it.  In this case, Trayvon certainly deserves justice, but what if justice also shows that Zimmerman was within his rights to use his gun to protect himself? Where are we then?

This issue may never go away. It’s linked inextricably with racism, even though the case may, in actuality, have nothing to do with color.

It’s always a tragedy when something like this happens; losing a young man for any cause is regrettable.  If the facts show that Zimmerman acted wrongly, then I believe the courts should apply the law to the fullest extent. But if he did not act wrongly, it would be as much of an injustice to find him guilty and impose a jail sentence.

That’s not what the US Justice System is about in my mind. To me, it is about being fair, following the law, and begin impartial. I am sure in the end this case will resolve itself. As much as we may feel some injustice transpired, jumping to conclusions one way or the other is a form of injustice in itself.  As more of the facts in this case unwind, a better picture of the events of that night will appear.  There may never be a satisfactory result for some of the parties in this case, but in the end I believe justice will be served.

The Grammar police have retired

Criticism is an evil necessity that appears to be going by the wayside in today’s new and exciting world of social networking and the Internet in general. It is fairly easy to find all kinds of writing on the Internet: good, bad, and, well, just plain ugly.

Anyone who really wants to know about the state of communication within our, or for that matter any, society merely has to make a trek through the Internet, visit Facebook, or any other form of social networking (dare we say Twitter).  Aside from the long list of emoticons, new words, and various acronyms, the time’s they are a changing for sure.  It is almost impossible to visit a site, read a story, or communicate with someone without finding some egregious error of one sort or another.

Typos are rife on the Internet. Their very abundance smacks of people with horrible communication skills. The old adage for writers used to be “write as you speak.” But people today speak English so poorly, they would be better off writing how they don’t speak.

Subject-verb issues vibrate through my skeletal structure whenever I enter the Facebook realm. Unfortunately, such errors are compounded when they appear in other supposed authorities, such as local newspapers, advertising, and TV and Radio spots. Good golly miss molly!

It’s easy to fall into local lingo and let a few things slip. In a way, it makes you seem more approachable. And I have long since stopped worrying about how other people speak, since I don’t’ want to cast myself as a member of Grammar Cops. It doesn’t do much for likeability.

Still, it has to stop somewhere.

Back in the days when my kids were in school, they used to hand off their written papers with dear old dad, the writer, for review. Well, dear old dad quickly became not so dear, as he (see I) would go through their written pieces and ravage the language issues, as well as the logic issues, and the non-sequiturs and the gobbledygook. When I was finished, their prized document would look like a map of the Amazon delta (I always edit with blue pen, red looks too much like blood).

It didn’t take too long before they would start bringing their writing to dear old mom for editing. Perhaps it was the delivery, or some perceived lack of sensitivity on my part as editor, but things change and that aspect of my life changed, as well.

That’s not to say that my English is perfect. I certainly have places where I could use some refinement, but my basic skills, I think, are better than most. I do, however, know where my weaknesses are. Whether or not I make the effort to clean it up is another matter altogether.

Still, writing in general is so subjective that the rules are often shunt aside. In fact, nowadays I often go out of my way to speak in the vernacular and not concern myself so much with proper grammar. Speaking loosely presents a slightly different persona from the schoolmarmish prig, which I think goes with the territory of the grammar police.

Alas, I suppose it’s best to just keep your mouth shut and not say anything about other peoples’ English struggles. Smile, and go on about your business.  Inside, you’ll know the truth, and those who practice the inexact art will continue to go on their merry way, unaware of their grammar faux pas but perfectly happy.

Colonial Heights: Lean, mean, and grabbing my green

Colonial Heights City Council recently passed an ordinance to fund the new courthouse project that requires a one percent increase in the local meals tax rate and a four-cent hike to the current property tax rate.

While council has gone to extreme lengths to show that the net effect of the tax hike would in essence result in less taxes this year due to a drop in assessed home values, it isn’t so for everyone. There are indeed some houses in the city that are either unchanged by the reassessment or fall on the other side and actually have an increased assessment. Anyway you look at it it’s a tax hike, even if it means I will have, on average, an extra $39 in my pocket.

Council has been good in trying to deflect the cost of building the new courthouse, and it’s not really the fault of the current council that they are facing a lawsuit from the 12^th Judicial Circuit demanding better court facilities. Still, it stands to reason that something was going to happen. The Circuit Court has not been happy with our old courthouse for years, and who could blame them really?

If you have ever had an opportunity to sit in one of our court rooms, it wouldn’t take too long to figure out they have problems.  They are old, they are antiquated, and they really don’t get the job done.  They have been an issue for some time, and it’s somewhat surprising that it has taken the Circuit Court so long to file suit against the City.

It has to get a long way down the road before the courts move to filing a law suit. Usually, the mere threat of a law suit is enough for a community to react and take action toward building “adequate” court facilities. Locally, we just need to look at Hopewell, Prince George, and Chesterfield for prime examples of localities responding to circuit court complaints about court house needs to see what can happen.

Council would like to shift the blame for the tax increase squarely on the shoulders of the 12^th Judicial Court.  But the court building issue has been going on for some time. A lawsuit is probably the last thing the courts want to do, and they would much rather use a potential lawsuit as a club to get the municipality to do what they are supposed to do, provide “adequate” court space.

Now, the argument over what constitutes “adequate” court space is another matter altogether. And it’s a losing argument, since the 12^th Judicial Circuit actually has the right to say whether a certain facility is adequate or not.  It’s interesting that they get to move the issue into their home field or court so to speak, but all of that should have had the attention of the local officials.

While I don’t particularly care for the tax hike, and have a real hard time swallowing the whole “real estate assessments are going down” rationale for not being in my pocket any deeper than they are now, I still think the city needs to look at their own budget a bit more.

The city is doing its best to figure out a way to pay the costs incurred by the new courthouse.  But they don’t seem to be looking at all options. This year is the first year that the city budget shows a decrease in property taxes.  In 2008-09, property taxes increased by $1,130,454; in ’09-‘10 taxes grew by $262,678; in ’10-11, tack on an additional $229,117.  This year, the proposed budget shows $105,817 less than the last year, including the four cent increase.  The difference this year is the result of real estate reassessments, just as the city points out in the pamphlet they sent out explaining the tax hike.

This recession isn’t new. It’s not something that has just cropped up. A lot of other municipalities are scrambling to try to cover short falls in their budgets, and to that extent the city has done a good job of keeping us ahead of potentially bigger problems. But during that four year period of decline from 2007 to 2010, the city actually increased its property tax revenue. City Mayor C. Scott Davis, in a recent meeting, stated that local government has very limited taxing authority and really can only generate revenue through the meals and property tax rates. He is right.

There are, however, other ways the city can affect the budget’s bottom line.  It’s called a balanced budget because you have to balance income against expenses. It’s an equation; a two way street, not one way. Simply increasing the tax rate is one way to get there, the other way is to reduce expenses. The current solution only looks at one side of the equation.

Take the situation in Powhatan County, for instance, where the very same lower real estate assessments left a $6 million deficit in the county’s budget. Their response to covering that revenue loss was twofold: they upped the real estate tax rate by 14 cents, and looked into their own budget for additional ways to make it balance.

One way they opted for was to cut 10 positions, each position was worth an average of $50,000 per year.  The cuts include not filling open positions, and, unfortunately, laying some people off. How many will eventually be let go is still up in the air, but county officials have gone on record stating that the cuts have little or nothing to do with job performance. What they are looking at is areas in which the county is overstaffed.

In Colonial Heights, City Council has tried to weather the weakening economy without having to lay anyone off. They have done a great job of doing so, but maybe they should look at other contingencies in case the economy continues to falter, or if their changes to the meals tax rate keeps people from dining out in the community.  At this point, it would be difficult to come back to the community and try to hike taxes again.

New cruise excursion: Robbery

Now we have something more to think about before heading out on a nice relaxing cruise:  robbery.

It seems that a band of hooded banditos robbed 23 Carnival Splendor passengers at gunpoint as they traveled on a bus from a hiking trail back to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. They banditos took everything from the passengers, all their valuables, cameras, money, and identification. The upside? No one was physically injured during the robbery.

But it begs the question? Where are people safe anymore?  Carnival shut down the hike excursion, we assume at least until it can be deemed safe.  But how many incidents like that can an industry sustain before there are no stops?

It’s odd in a way, but several years ago when my family was going on a Carnival cruise along the Eastern Caribbean (think islands, like Puerto Rico, etc.). I gave a great deal of thought to insuring my camera and camera equipment.  If I only had a pocket camera, I would say who cares. But the camera I use for shooting sporting events carries a hefty price tag, and the lenses are even more expensive.  So what’s a shutterbug to do?

For me it was simple. After finding out that my homeowners policy probably wouldn’t cover the loss, since I use the camera to make money (say it ain’t so, you horrible capitalist), I tried to find an insurance company that would write a policy covering the items. They are not easy to find, and they are quite expensive. It ended up costing me $400 for a year to cover $5,000 worth of equipment.

But I was going on a cruise, and the thought of someone lifting $4,000 worth of camera equipment by simply cutting my neck strap weighed heavily, no pun intended. So I bit the bullet and bought the insurance. I didn’t like how much I paid for it, but I did feel secure in taking my camera around and shooting pictures all over the place.

As time has gone by, I have wondered about whether it was really worth purchasing the insurance, and now lo and behold we have this incident in Mexico that makes me think I had a good idea in purchasing the insurance, even if I did see the need ahead of time.

It’s beguiling to me how these kinds of things can happen. But the realist in me knows they go on all the time. When I lived in Italy, there were rampant stories of people whose cameras and purses and other items were stolen while they were still on a strap around their necks. What would happen is a thief would come up behind them, lift and slice the strap and pull hard on a loose end. More than likely, the object suspended by the strap ended up in the hands of the thief.

That kind of stuff was happening back in the late ‘70s, in an area that was pretty tame by today’s standard. With everything that has been going on in Mexico, I would be extremely wary about carry anything valuable with me on a hike or a tour.  But since my avocation is shooting pictures, it would be hard to do without my equipment. I guess, in the end, if I put myself into that kind of situation the only thing to do is to purchase the insurance.

In the latest incident, Carnival has stepped up and has said it will “make good” on the lost and missing items. But that still wouldn’t make me feel good while traipsing around the area with a big dollar sign hanging around my neck.

Guess I will have to figure in the price of insurance for any future cruises, or for that matter any vacations.  Just because this happened in Mexico doesn’t mean it can’t happen here. Right?

None of these guys are Jack Sparrow

There’s this old saying that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," that everyone in the world seems to attribute to whoever their favorite philosopher was.  Truth is, George Santayana, wrote it in his book, Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason, Vol.1.  But absolutely no one argues about its veracity.

Today we find ourselves, as a nation, faced with a very similar situation as it relates to the current state of affairs in Somalia, where pirates seem to be acting without fear of reprisal. They randomly take control of tankers or container ships that venture throughout the Arabian Sea from off the coast of Oman to the Seychelles and pretty much any and every point in between.

Every country seems to be annoyed with these rascals, and some have actually done a thing or two about them, including the US. But, more often than not, the companies or associated countries opt instead to just pay the ransom, often in the millions, to have the ships released.

All this may seem very diplomatic. But it is poor diplomacy; it’s like having Neville Chamberlain for Prime Minister. This is not the first time in the history of this country that pirates and piracy were an issue, and I am not talking about Internet piracy either. In fact, you can have all the “illegal downloads” you want, as far as I am concerned.  This piracy, however, could use a little old fashioned political emphasis.

A large number of people today don’t even know that the United States faced similar pirate issues in the past. Sure, it was a long time ago, but the incidents were memorialized in the Marine Theme song, “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.” It’s the shores of Tripoli that I am talking about, and it happened just after Thomas Jefferson took office.

Jefferson had to deal with the Barbary Pirates, based off the North African coast in Morocco, Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers.  Piracy was seriously hampering a fledgling United States from conducting business by capturing her merchant fleet and holding them for ransom, early Al Qaeda no doubt.

Even Jefferson, a person who was not so interested in getting the US involved in battles on foreign soil, was moved to take action. On August 1^st, the USS Enterprise defeated the Tripoli, a 14-gun ship. A year later, congress passed an act for the Protection of Commerce and seamen of the United States against the Tripolitan cruisers.  That effectively was the end of the Barbary pirates as the US sent six ships under the command of Commodore Edward Preble to bring an end to piracy off the coast of Africa.

Today we face a very similar situation in Somalia. While it seems that peaceful, if not expensive, acceptance is the way of most shipping firms today, we might want to keep in mind our not too distant past.

The piracy taking place right now needs to stop. It’s too costly, in both financial and human life, and the simple and most direct answer is to hunt them down and take direct action. After recent actions to save two people being held by the pirates, they have come out and moved another prisoner and stated that any other such action would be met with a stand to the death.

In my way of thinking, that’s an invitation. These pirates have not shown themselves to be tactical geniuses. True they have taken control of generally unarmed and unprotected merchant vessels, but tangling with the US Navy and in particular Seal Team 6 hasn’t exactly proved to be productive.

I think we need to feed them some more of the same. We should not be wasting time negotiating with this group of riff raff. Let’s take a page out of the 1803 book on how to handle pirates, follow TJ’s lead, and start going to work. I am sure we don’t need to allow this scourge to continue to thrive along the Somalia coast.

Nat Turner's Bible finds the right home

Dealing with artifacts of the past can seem to be an easy matter for outsiders, but when it comes to singular events in American history doing the right thing can create a moral dilemma. Living in the south the specter of early American history abounds. The relationships between the people, the whole southern plantation way of life, which we like to think is far removed from the 21^st century, often isn’t that far removed.

Such is the case for an extended part of my family. Recently, a cousin, Maurice Person, and his stepdaughter, Wendy Porter, presented the National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian, an iconic bit of Americana in Nat Turner’s bible. For those who don’t know, Nat Turner was a slave who led one of the deadliest rebellions in American history.  Back in 1831, Turner’s rebellion left about 55 white Virginians dead.

If not for the heroics of one of the Francis family’s house slaves, the revolt would have wiped out the Francis family, part of my extended family.  Instead, the house slaves hid Lavinia Francis, and the family continued on from that point.

Turner’s bible was one of the pieces of evidence from the 1831 trial. It was left in the Southampton County Courthouse until it was renovated in 1912. At that time, a court official asked the Person family whether it wanted Turner’s Bible. Person’s father, Walter, accepted the book and kept it on display at his home for years. The family later put it in a safe-deposit box.

What to do with the Bible? Certainly, it deserved to be on display somewhere. It is such an iconic piece of American history, it deserved to be on display where others could view it. But it’s not always easy to take those steps forward.  So, the Bible sat with Maurice for a few more years.

I don’t personally know what prompted the move to donate the Bible to the Smithsonian, but I do know that the Bible can go a long way to telling the story of slavery in the south. Handled properly, which I know the Smithsonian will do, it can tell a great many stories not only about Turner’s rebellion, but also about those who risked their lives to save Lavinia.

As historians are wont to do, they started to investigate the Bible’s authenticity.  No one really expected it to be anything other than the real deal, but artifacts need to be verified. Needless to say, the Bible was verified as authentic in short order.

In addition to verification of the type of paper and other trappings of early book construction, a 1900 photo of the book showed staining that matched stains in the donated book.  There’s little doubt that Nat Turner’s rebellion is among the most significant uprisings in American history. Nat Turner’s bible would be a crown jewel for any museum. But where better for it to reside than in the Smithsonian’s new African American museum?

The value of the gift wasn’t lost on the museum’s director, Lonnie Bunch. In a story that appeared in the Washington Post earlier this week, Bunch had a lot to say about the book.

“This is about as rare a gift as it gets,” said Bunch. “The Nat Turner rebellion is probably the most significant uprising in American history. To have something tied to the insurrection is unbelievable, and this one is important on so many levels. To have something from Turner is significant and iconic.”

Often history’s artifacts are lost forever. This one, tied so closely to early American history, could easily have disappeared. But it didn’t. It was kept safe in the Person family for nearly a hundred years. Giving it to the Smithsonian is absolutely the right decision of what to do with the Bible.

Turner, born in 1800, was taught to read and write, and spoke about his deep reading of the Bible, especially the Book of Revelations, a chapter from the Bible that is missing. In addition to the bible, the museum also collected two bricks from the chimney where the young Francis was hidden.  More than enough to tell the whole story.

“Our generation wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the house slaves,” Porter told the Post.

“The significance of the Bible has always been understood by the family,” she said. “We never saw it as something that belonged to one person. We didn’t feel we were the keepers. I think Nat Turner would have wanted his Bible to rest in Washington.”