So you want to be a space exporer, do ya?

Had you ever noticed how some things that are just beyond belief become grist for the Internet news mill, and for that matter fodder for local newspapers?  I notice it every day. For instance, while watching CNN during my lunch break at the place I affectionately call work the other day, a headline read “Sharks near the Coast.”

I wondered about that, since I know that most of the shark attacks happen in relatively shallow water, which one way or another might be construed as near the coast. Still, just how important a piece of news is this when to anyone who lives near any ocean or sea, sharks being near the coast is pretty obvious?

Along the same lines, we have this story that cropped up lately about people queuing up to volunteer to make an interplanetary trip to Mars.  NASA touts it was taking only 10 months, but the catch is that it’s a one-way ticket.  Still, 400 people volunteered to go.  I say let them go.

To my way of thinking these people are pretty much out of their minds.  Not only would the trip entail some grueling times just getting there, but living on Mars (if you could get there and land safely), would offer some of its own difficulties.  Aside from the ‘what would you eat and drink’ scenarios (Pop Tarts will only go so far, with or without Tang), there is the issue of a place to stay.

Mars, to my knowledge, is not a particularly inviting planet.  Maybe it was the first Earth?  And then, after so many million years, the environmentalists turned out to be right.  Martian global warming took hold and the planet ended up just one big heap of rust-colored dirt.  That would explain a lot, I think, not only about what happened to Mars, but also what might happen here on Earth.

Instead of taking on volunteers, maybe we could just assign people to go. I could provide a list pretty quickly of my top 400 and anyone else who wanted to volunteer a list could provide theirs. Then someone, maybe even Stephen Hawking, could run a computer program comparing the lists and coming up with those who figure prominently across the board on all lists?

No one ever thinks they would end up on a list like that, except probably me, but I have that kind of negative bravado going all the time. To me, if it can go wrong, it will go wrong and it will likely involve me in a way I have no idea how to predict.  In fact, it’s kind of amazing that I made it as far in life as I have, given that those things tend to happen to me all the time.

After a while, you get used to it, and find ways to keep yourself out of the mix, so to speak. For me, just standing on the roadside and commenting on the parade that goes by has turned out to be a pretty fair way to keep living and keep out of trouble.

But back to those volunteers.  A trip to Mars would be pretty difficult, I’m thinking.  Not coming back would have its pros and cons, and for some living on the Red Planet may be preferable to living on the Blue Marble.  I still have a hard time figuring out why people would want to do that?  Is it just a historical thing? Is it just an overwhelming desire to become part of history?  The modern time equivalent to Yuri Gagarin?

Maybe I have gotten a bit soft in my old age.  Still, I don’t think a one-way trip to Mars is anything I would want to undertake at anytime.  In terms of what other-worldly place should we colonize, if any, I would think our moon provides a much safer/better place to start.  Something happens there, and there’s always the space station to go to, and a trip to the moon is a mere 250,000 miles away—basically a day-trip by interstellar standards.

Still, the Journal of Cosmology (isn’t that about hair dressers?) says that a trip could happen as soon as 20-years from now. I guess my chances of going, or being sent, will be off the board by then.  I will be past 75, and unless they come up with some miracle drug to turn back the sands of time, I won’t be up for a trip anywhere.  I will probably need help just to get into and out of bed by then.

So for now, I guess I am safe and won’t have to worry much about coming up on the short list for “volunteers.”  I’m not so sure about the rest of you folks; however, so you better mind your Ps and Qs—big brother is watching.

What's wrong with Virginia?

For several years now, I have thought about writing a series of essays addressing issues in the state that at some level appear to be ludicrous.  It isn’t so much intended to be political, per se, although some of the topics approached certainly will rub some politicians the wrong way.  But just to point out in general places where we, the people of VA (or those who act in our behalf), actually get it wrong.  Say it ain’t so?  Well, I’ll write and you can be the judge of that.

While the intent is to point out things that are wrong in Virginia, the subjects are not intended as an opportunity to smash republican, democrat, or tea party people.  While it is impossible to point out all of the things that are wrong with Virginia without some unintended collateral damage, it is not the intent of the blogger (that would be me) to attack any individual on a personal front.  Now, however; if said individual happens to be involved with such a project that comes under the scrutiny of these “What’s wrong with VA?” essays, then unfortunately, and most grievously, they will likely be painted with the brush of their own divining.

The What’s wrong with VA? essays are intended as a commonsense view of things gone awry in the commonwealth.  For instance, the idea of closing the Rest Stops along the Interstate highways as a cost-savings measure is a perfect example of something wrong in Va.  Cost savings here is much less the issue than political grandstanding: see we are so poor we have to shut down our rest stops.

Yeah, I know, this blog isn’t supposed to be political.  And, for the most part, it’s not intended to be. But there are other ways to handle the rest stop problem.  For instance, anyone traveling I-95 north of the Mixing Bowl is more than familiar with how Maryland, New Jersey, and New York handle the rest stop question.  They outsource to the likes of Starbucks, McDonald’s, KFC et al.  The result is that in those states, you have a one-stop center along the main highways that supplies food, restrooms, petrol, and has its own security.

Now, why can’t we do something like that here in Virginia?  The only reason we are not doing this right now that I know of is that the Federal Government made it an issue when they started building the Interstate highway system.  Those aforementioned states were grandfathered in (they already had the rest stops).  If that’s true, then maybe we should start by getting that portion of the Interstate Highway transportation bill repealed or amended or just plain scrapped.  Then, we (being the state of Virginia) can charge the companies a fee for the right to occupy those sites and use that money to help pay the upkeep of the highways these businesses are situated on.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  Will it be easy? Maybe not, but guess what, it is logical, serves multiple purposes, and can help out the federal and local highway budgets.  Oh, and by the way, it will also produce JOBS.  Granted they may not be high paying jobs, like those in the state’s VITA program, but they will be places people can get work if they really want it.

Butterside up: Blast Boxers--Just what the Dr. ordered?

Finally, after all these years of living dangerously, a company has come up with a product that is exactly what I have been looking for, and needing (especially if you ask my wife, Jackie), for the last 30 or 40 years.  I know these things sometimes take a little time, and testing them must have had its own drawbacks, but a British manufacturer, BCB International LTD, has come up with a product designed to meet my needs: Blast Boxers.

So much for Michael Jordan and all those other briefs brokers. Say so long to huggers and hangers and hi-rise and low rise.  Bring on the latest; give me a set of those Blast Boxers.  Actually, I’m sort of surprised they didn’t come and get me to test them out.

I know these have been on the horizon for years. The need is apparent, and these not only protect against those dangerous SBDs, but they are also designed to protect against external explosions like IEDs, too, or so I’m told.

No matter how long it took to develop these breeches it couldn’t have come a moment too soon for my household.  For years, my wife aired her grievances about such eruptions in and around her house, often we looked to our two boys, and lately, with them out of the house, I have trained my eye to locate our black lab, Sadie.  Now, I won’t have to live a life of shame any longer.

But now, with the invention, distribution, and sale of Blast Boxers, I need no longer fear scolding from my spouse.  Now, I no longer have to live with the guilt of blaming my tummy rumbles to our household pets, or our children.  (For some reason, she never believed the one about the gold fish, even though I could show her the evidence in bubbles.)

Now, I can fess up and start my long climb to recovery. I can stand in a room of my peers and say, “My name is David, and it’s been six months since I lied about IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).”

Ironically, the Brits had to come to America, and to nearby DuPont in Richmond, for the magic cloth that can save my dignity, as well as my marriage and assorted underwear. Yes, some of you know already, Blast Boxers use that miracle magical mystery fiber, Kevlar. What else could it be?  Kevlar can stop a bullet and if the weave is tight enough, it can apparently help out with other, more sinister, methods of attack.

As to my marriage, anything that can help change the topic is good enough for me. For that I will be eternally grateful to BCB’s Edward Schmitt. Schmitt told FOXNews.com that they were hoping to have my saving grace in the marketplace by mid-March.

“What we're trying to do is to provide a meaningful level of protection” in an old threat environment, Schmitt said.

And to top it all off, the new product will be manufactured right here in the good old USA.  The Blast Boxer plant is ready to go into production in upstate New York, where I spent my formative years.  It sure was a wise decision to put this plant dead smack in the middle of an area that likely needs it most.

My main problem with the Blast Boxers, however, is the $95 price tag.  That seems a bit of a strain for a pair of skivvies, even if they do have that added benefit.  Then again, $95 is a drop in the bucket when it comes to a peaceful home front, so to speak.

Hold on a second while I check out this text.  It’s from wife, she wrote, “Hey honey, those Blast Boxers are meant to protect our soldiers from improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan, not for what you are thinking they were made for.”

Oh, never mind….

Butterside up: Kids and elected officials, we've only ourselves to blame

Not making any excuses for myself, but Tuesday I attended the first Colonial Heights City Council meeting I have been at in a long time. By a long time, I mean in years.

In the past, I had been a bit of a fixture at these meetings, as part of my backup coverage when I worked at another local paper that will go unnamed to protect the innocent.  In those days, it was always fun to watch the fracas as the political pugilists would split off to one faction or the other. Isn’t it always one group against another? One group, the majority-the bullies, always seemed to have that “all important” swing vote that would determine the way things would go for whichever municipality they represented.

Sometimes, and I know this is hard to believe coming from such a vaunted democratic area as Virginia, but sometimes the decisions made in this kind of atmosphere aren’t necessarily for the good of the community.  Instead, they are for the good of whatever group happens to have the good fortune to have the swing vote or for that matter the majority vote, and therefore get their way.  Democracy at its best, right? Majority rule? Might makes right?

At the Colonial Heights City Council meeting Tuesday night, it was interesting to see how some people, who used to wield extraordinary power in the community, have been relegated to a sideline player, a bit actor in the magnum opus of small town politics. Now, who might I be talking about?  Perhaps you can guess. Yup, that’s right, the honorable John T. Wood himself.  He’s an interesting character and he was in full display Tuesday night.

For one thing, he really, really likes to hear himself talk.  The puffery, the grand-standing is just phenomenal; I think, sometimes, Mr. Wood believes he is in St. John’s Church preaching to a group of Patriots and trying to carry the day.  It would just be funny, if it weren’t at some level a condemnation of our political system.

On this day, Mr. Wood was decrying his hurt feelings at being left off either of two committees the city commissioned concerning the property at 213 Chesterfield Avenue, the property formerly known as the old Colonial Heights Baptist Church.  Mr. Wood pleaded his case.  He said that because he wasn’t on either committee, he felt obligated to vote no in both cases.  This is like taking your baseball and going home when you can’t be the pitcher.  It is childish behavior, and not the kind of behavior one would expect from an elected official.  There is something to be said for grace under fire, and something else to be said about the commonweal.

Mayor C. Scott Davis, after the meeting, explained why Mr. Wood was not included in the group of people on the committee.  He said that the city staff recommended Mr. Milton Freeland, another City Councilman, who also lived in the neighborhood, and who also happens to be on the Planning Commission and is very familiar with land use planning.  In attempting to accommodate Mr. Wood, Mr. Freeland offered to let him take his place on the committee.  Mr. Freeland made a substitute motion to allow Mr. Wood to take his place, but Council stuck to its guns and voted against the substitute motion 4-2.  They then voted in favor of the original motion.

During the early part of the meeting a local citizen brought up the question about televising the meetings or doing a live broadcast over the Internet.  Mayor Davis said he did not favor doing so, because he saw that as being a way in which people would grandstand even more than they do now and the whole process would become politicized.  Added to that, he said, was his concern for having any of the council’s session on the Internet, where anything could happen to the video.

Mayor Davis makes some good points, but he misses the biggest point. If people could actually witness the behavior of some of their representatives they might be inclined to think differently at the polls.  As a reporter and servant of the people, I personally think anytime the political machinery can get the word out to the public they should take advantage of it.  Yes, this could lead to some negative things, but after the first couple months everything would tone down as the council became familiar with the new media.

For me, I am in favor of letting the people see the actions of the members of City Council. We vote for these people; we put them in office, but we rarely take the time to see what they are doing or how they are acting on our behalf.  I say televise it or stream it over the Internet, let people get a good look at this product that we vote on year after year.  The general public is not as dumb as some might think, and they will recognize the grandstanding, the politicking, and the general demeanor of their elected officials.  It’s a double-edged sword really, one may think they are getting their message across by their clever antics, but most people know how to judge the things they see.  Let the public have a good look at this bright and shiny City Council.

Butterside up: Justice for all; but not all just.

Consider it a contrast in styles.

Kudos to the Colonial Heights PD who, with help from the Virginia State Police were able to make an arrest in one of the most egregious murder mysteries to have occurred in the Heights in many a year.

In one week to the day, the CHPD was able to put Matthew Allen Brady in jail on a pair of capital murder and robbery charges.  While I know these are just charges and Brady is innocent until proven guilty, I also know that the CHPD must have pretty good evidence in order to substantiate the capital murder charges.

In the words of Chief Faries, who told me about the arrest last Friday night at a CHHS basketball game, “We made an arrest.”

For some it might seem a no-brainer to find the culprit lived only a few doors down from Joseph and Evelyn Bland’s Conduit Road home.  The Blands were the elderly couple who Brady allegedly bludgeoned to death and robbed.  Still, having reported on a few capital murder cases, it seems reasonable that the CHPD got their man.  That others may be involved remains to be seen, but for now they have taken one potential threat off the streets.

It doesn’t always go that smoothly with capital murder cases.  One such case, the Charity Powers murder, in Chesterfield County didn’t go quite that easy.  Despite having a “good idea” who was responsible for the murder, a procedural error allowed Everett Lee Mueller to remain free for several months before the CPD had enough evidence to put him behind bars.

But despite the four-month hiccup, when all was said and done, the CPD had their man.  It didn’t take the jury long to resolve the murder charge, and it took even less time for them to come back with the death penalty. And, considering the fact that Charity Powers was a 10-year old, once convicted there wasn’t much hope for a life sentence in the case and no one offered him one.

Contrarily, the Robbie Braswell case in Petersburg has been a complete fiasco.  The police, who believe they know who was responsible for the murder, have been unable to close the door on the crime.  They have made arrests, but lo and behold the charges didn’t hold up in court.

The result? Nearly five years after four people gunned down Robbie as he was getting ready to open up his business, Lowry Tire in Petersburg, there has been no resolution to the crime. After the first case failed, the Commonwealth withdrew charges against the accomplices and the case has basically been in storage ever since.

One of the three people charged with the murder, Shelly Grey, was initially indicted for murder, robbery, two counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and conspiracy to commit robbery. She pleaded guilty to a single charge of robbery in Petersburg Circuit Court.

A Petersburg jury took less than an hour to acquit Antoine D. Myler of five charges, including first-degree murder and robbery in June 2009.  Later that month, the state chose not to pursue charges against Timothy Williams and Dantryl Ingram, a juvenile at the time of the murder.

Justice, it would seem, is meted differently by location.  And so it would seem.  Some time ago, when I was covering the Charity Powers case, the differences in how local communities respond to cases was a point of discussion between the reporters covering the case and Chesterfield’s top prosecutor at the time, Warren Von Schuch.  Von Schuch told a story about a person who robbed a fast-food restaurant in Henrico County, directly across the street from Richmond City. When the person was caught, charged and tried he ended up with a 15-year term.  Had he opted to rob the fast-food restaurant on the Richmond side of the street, he probably would have only received a five-year sentence.  Paraphrasing Von Schuch’s remarks at the time, he said the only thing the robbery suspect did wrong was to be on the wrong side of the street.

Most prosecutors will tell you that it depends on the community’s tolerance for criminal behavior.  Some communities, Chesterfield, Henrico, and Colonial Heights come to mind, are what some would call prosecution prone.  That means they are more apt to believe the case as stated by the Commonwealth and less inclined to believe the defendant’s story.

Local drama played out in Virginia District courts tends to uphold that theory.  In other words, punishment may or may not fit the crime, depending on where the crime was committed.  For some it’s just a matter of reasonable doubt versus the evidence being beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Reasonable doubt, what the jury is supposed to act on, relies on one’s ability to judge matters like rational, reasonable human beings. On the other hand, some jurors tend to believe that the culprit has to be caught red handed, on video, and with a full confession.

In the case before us, Mr. Brady has a tough row.  If the evidence supports his arrest, there isn’t a lot of wiggle room. How the whole thing pans out may depend on what evidence he may have to offer in the case that might cause the Commonwealth to accept a plea arrangement.

Personally, I don’t know how the community would respond to that.  It seems to me that they want the matter handled properly and quickly.  If it goes to a jury, the city’s residents will have the last word.

Butterside up: Interstate Frogger or driving in the south

It’s perplexing to see how badly many people drive.  It’s even stranger to see how they act on the main highways that traverse our country like hamster habitat tubes.

On a recent trip to sunny (and bitter cold) Florida, I had ample time to witness and experience the manner in which some people take to the highways.  At some level, I already was aware of the horrid driving skills some of my fellow road warriors exhibit.  A quick spin up to Richmond affords a driver ample examples of some of the best and much of the worst driving on the North American continent. Notwithstanding the utter disregard for common sense, speed limits, and other driver-warning signs, it’s not unusual to see a vast array of poor driving tactics employed.

Perhaps the most annoying driving skill in practice today involves the cell phone.  Besides being a danger to the driver and other people on the road, it’s just a huge distraction.  While even I have succumbed to doing this, my few experiences have assured me that it’s not something I do as common practice, condone in any manner, or suggest my children do.  But other drivers, I think, seem not to be able to function without the cell phone pushed against an ear and the other hand working the steering wheel.

What’s even worse is the astounding number of people who think they need to text while driving. I can’t text while sitting at my desk, so I have to wonder about these Mario Andretti’s of the Interstate who pay almost as much attention to the highway as they do to the keyboard and the messages they are getting and giving. Give me a break.  I suspect a good many accidents that happen today are a direct result of that kind of behavior. Everyone seems to know it is wrong, but they succumb to the habit anyway. It’s like an addiction; it’s like a video game.

So needless to say my drive through five states led me to some bizarre speculation.  Driving is like a video game?  Well, maybe so after all.  If you think about it, driving in Virginia is a lot like playing the old arcade game Frogger.  North Carolina driving resembles Space Invaders; South Carolina is, beyond a doubt, Whack a Mole; Georgia is like Pac Man; and Florida is like Centipede.  You don’t understand? Well, allow me to clear things up for you.

First of all, anyone who has driven on the Interstate highway system in Virginia, and who knows what Frogger is, can see why driving on I-95, or I-81, or I-64 or any other I-roads in this state, is like Frogger.  First of all, it starts at the on ramp.  Why is it that some people don’t understand the meaning of acceleration lane?  The on ramp, on any highway, is designed to allow you to get up to the prevailing running speed that matches what the traffic is doing at the time.  When you get up to speed, you simply find an appropriate spot and slide your vehicle into the 70 MPH line of moving vehicles.

That seems easy enough, and on most days that’s how it goes. But like Frogger, which changes the speeds of the lanes and the spacing of objects in the lanes, the highways can pose some intimidation to certain drivers who for some reason don’t get the idea of an acceleration lane, or worse yet, wait until the very last second before they decide they need to be in the “slow” lane or risk becoming an ornament on the guard rail.  At the same time, the driver on the inside lane could, out of courtesy, opt to move into the other lane allowing said first driver the opportunity to get on the highway without incident.  But they don’t always have a chance to do that, and sometimes out of perversity they just want to make it difficult for the other driver and refuse to shift lanes.  That of course leads to the driver in the access lane coming to a complete halt, and causing the six or eight cars behind them to smash into each other.  By that time, and before the smashing reaches them, the first car enters the highway completely oblivious to the mess they left behind.

North Carolina driving, by comparison, is a breeze. In North Carolina the enemies, errr other drivers, seem to line themselves up in nice neat columns.  When you come in contact with them, they stay right in the column they are supposed to be in, most of the time. Every once in a while someone gets a bit antsy and tries to jump out in front of you as you are trying to pass.  But unlike other drivers (see paragraph about South Carolina), typical North Carolina drivers do their best to get out of your way before you run a bumper into their tail pipe, so to speak.

WARNING:  North Carolina is also home to drivers who believe fully in the state motto, First In Flight.  Those drivers will do their best to ensure you become the next person to following in the tradition of Wilbur and Orville. It’s not that unusual to find yourself coming back down to earth near mile marker 12 from virtually any Interstate highway after tangling with one of those types of North Carolina drivers.  The good news is they are rare, more often than not, typical North Carolina drivers do their best to assist in the flow of traffic.

There’s plenty of reasons why Pedro hangs all of those billboards, many of which can be seen more than 150 miles from South of the Border, that have nothing at all to do with accommodations or fire crackers.  Consider them an early warning device for those heading in a southerly direction, and a goal marker for those heading north. Like Whack a Mole, cruising the Interstates in South Carolina has more to do with dodging than it does with driving.  In fact, once you hit Lake Santee, you can expect traffic to crumble like an accordion for absolutely no known reason only to resume shortly thereafter without a hint about why the half dozen vehicles around you screeched breaks and careened onto the shoulder to avoid smashing into each other.

In South Carolina, the drivers are experts at timing exactly when a sudden lane shift will cause the absolute most disruption to the flow of traffic.  Here’s how it goes. You are in a line of traffic doing 80 mph, a clean 10 mph over the speed limit which the troopers allow.  In the right lane, cars are traveling around 70 mph, I say around because some people are traveling a smidgen slower. As you get close to someone who is doing 70 that is approaching someone who is doing 69, the person doing 70 decides it is time to pass the slower moving vehicle. Despite having had ample opportunity to take advantage of optimum spacing between vehicles for the past half mile, the 70 mph driver instead chooses to pull out into the faster lane in front of you. They do so with no concern about the speed differential and the consequential need to jam on brakes, which leads to the accordion effect explained earlier.

What a pleasure it is to leave South Carolina’s two lane, high-speed rat nest of a highway and enter Georgia.  In Georgia, I 95 spreads to three lanes, and the traffic flow is much, much better. In fact, driving in Georgia is just like playing Pac Man.  As you head down the highway, and especially if you are driving a VW Bug, you quickly gobble up broken white lines as you zip along on the last leg to sunny Florida.

The only problem people have driving in Georgia is the Georgia Highway Patrol. Now, these patrol people aren’t really that bad, but since they have these wide expanses of macadam, they are a little bit less inclined to allow high-speed driving.  No, even they allow drivers to average 10 mph over the marked speed limit, but don’t do 11 over.

The shoulders of I-95 in Georgia are chock full of examples of people driving at 81 MPH.  In fact, the GHP hang out, just like Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde, and wait for the unsuspecting drivers from up north.  No doubt you have seen them stopped along the sides of the road, lights-a-flashing, heads-a-bobbing, pens-a-writing.

That brings us, at last, to the sunny state of Florida.  Florida is by far the easiest driving on the Interstate system, mostly because no one obeys the speed limit and all the people who have headed there over the years has forced the state to create massive highways capable of handling an enormous number of vehicles. Driving in Florida most closely resembles that old video game Centipede.  Centipede involved building a line of centipieces [sic] together and continuing to move around the “game board” without either running into an enclosed box of your own making, or a nearby wall.

In Florida, it is very easy to develop a “tail” of cars traveling at whatever speed suits your fancy.  Anytime day or night, the masses are more than happy to pull in behind you and let you lead the way to the next destination, whether that be the Disney, Cape Canaveral, the Everglades, or just Lake Okeechobee.  Despite the seemingly easy sailing, you always have to be aware of how a long tail can affect what’s going on. It’s very easy for a driver to get caught up in leading the way and miss their exit. This creates a huge traffic jam as the driver attempts to get off the highway, only to make a U-turn to get back on the highway going in the opposite direction.  Typically, the long tail of the Centipede breaks down at that point and the driver reaches his desired destination without further incident.

Next year, I think I will drive up north.