Sean McCord, Citizen Activist, Charlottesville VA
I just received an email from Pam Deeds, wife of Creigh Deeds, which begins:
Creigh and I went this morning to vote in Bath County. Right after, he filmed a short video asking you to do the same.
I watched the video, and I didn’t notice him ask us to vote in Bath County. 
But seriously, no matter where you live in Virginia, get out and vote today. The polls are open until 7:00 PM.
Here’s the full letter:
Continue reading ‘Vote Today’
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Today is election day in Virginia, when we will pick our party candidates to run for office in November. Just this morning, a friend of mine here in Charlottesville wrote to ask which gubernatorial candidate he should vote for to be the Democratic candidate for, um, Gubernator. Here is what I wrote:
Let me start with a negative.
I think Terry McAuliffe is exactly the wrong kind of Democrat to have in office. This is the first elected office he has ever run for. He has a big fat rolodex, but a dearth of anything he can point to as genuine legislative accomplishments, and he really seems to be the ultimate opportunistic carpetbagger. His entire campaign appears to be fueled by name recognition and who are his friends. I would be personally embarrassed if Democratic voters supported him.
Strictly on the issues, I am probably more closely aligned with Brian Moran. But he, too, is a total Northern Virginian. I do not get the sense that either he or McAuliffe really care about the issues we face here in Central and Southern Virginia. I would go so far as to say that they only want our vote, except that I’m not sure they even want that. I have not seen either one of them down here, even in Democratic Charlottesville, other than at a single fund-raiser for the McAuliffe campaign.
And then there is Creigh Deeds. I’ve had the opportunity to meet with him probably half a dozen times in the past few years. He is warm, and genuine, and what you see is entirely what you get. I may not agree with him on all the issues, but I think he is more representative of this part of Virginia. I have spoken to Republicans who would be willing to support Creigh. And in the general election, I think he has a better chance against Bob McDonnell.
Here is a Creigh Deeds story. Last summer, I attended a Democratic Party picnic here in Charlottesville. It was mainly an event for Tom Perriello, who was then running against Virgil Goode. I was there with my 11-year-old daughter. I helped her fill up her plate, got her some lemonade, then went back and got my own lunch. I sat down next to my daughter, was just about to finally take a bite of my food, and she interrupted by asking if I would get her more lemonade. Indeed, she had downed her entire glass. I sighed, put down my food, and was about to get up when a voice over my shoulder asked “You want some more lemonade, honey? Let me get that for you.”
And then, of all people, Creigh Deeds picked up my daughter’s lemonade glass, walked back to the beverage table to refill it, then with returned the glass. Of course, he stopped along the way to shake hands and chat with people, but still, she got a fresh glass of lemonade and I got to eat my lunch. Very smart move on his part. I told her later to remember the man who got her lemonade, for he just might be the next Governor of Virginia.
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I am inspired by my friend Marijean to use this blog space for personal memoirs. Below is a remembrance that I wrote in 2003, on the eve of our invasion of Iraq. We have all since learned to live with the sense of dread that time has made a part of our lives, but the sheer sadness does not go away.
He looked around uncomfortably at the young men and women gathered to hear him speak. It mustn’t have seemed that long ago when he was their age, yet he sensed that they eyed him with suspicion. His own teenage son would be eligible for the draft in just a few years, so he was very much on their side, but they were the ones fighting this war.
Still, as they lounged on the grass in their jeans and t-shirts and vests, he must have looked just like “the man” as he stepped up to the lectern in his suitcoat and tie .
Some in the crowd were listening, but many kept talking or laughing nervously. Too many speeches had already been given, and speeches had stirred action, and action had stirred violence, and so the time for speaking seemed past, yet nobody knew what action to take.
How had it come down to this? How had it become about right and might, peace and war, objectives and campaigns? How had people who looked like him — white men in suits with close-cropped hair — forgotten that they were sending young men who looked like them — young men of all colors with long hair — to a miserable spot halfway around the globe to fight a war against political forces that nobody really understood.
He knew that another speech about who might be right and who might be wrong in this conflict would accomplish nothing. He needed to make men who looked like him sit up and take notice, to comprehend the harm they were inflicting, and he needed young men who looked like them to realize that men in suits understood.
In his hand he held a stack of plain index cards, the kind you would find in any office. Once he knew what he had to do, the information had not been hard to gather. He was a newspaperman, after all; he made his living writing words, but he understood deeply the importance of images.
He held up a card for the crowd to see. Many of those who had been talking stopped and turned, the picture of this patient man in a dark suit holding a single white card catching their attention.
He read:
“William Stearns, Washington High School class of 1966, killed in action January 1968.” Then, with a practiced flick of his hand, he sent the card sailing out into the crowd, watching it spin and flutter and finally nosedive into the grass just a few inches from a young man who picked it up curiously.
He held up another card. “Jeffrey Haines Jackson, Irvington High School class of 1965, killed in action November 1967“. This card sailed out a little further, flying and twisting and settling gracefully down several feet away.
Another card. “Michael Klein, Hayward High class of 1966, missing in action in a fire fight, October 1967, body never recovered, presumed dead.” A quick twist and the card flew away, causing someone in the crowd to duck as it sailed over their head.
Another card, another name, another death, another quick flick of the wrist. Then another. Then another. All young men from local schools, all shipped off to Vietnam, all killed or presumed dead, all coming to rest on the grass in front of the lectern.
Names, like rain, fell from the sky.
Some in the crowd picked up the cards, reading the names quietly to themselves, only to find another landing nearby. They hesitated, wondering whether to gather more, not wanting to let go of what they had. Others only stared, watching the cards sail down. Many wept.
Still they came. More names, more cards, more young men coming to rest. He was reading faster now, his quiet fury punctuating his words, his anger propelling the names into the air. Soon, the cards outnumbered the gathered crowd, cards landed on cards, small piles resting ingloriously upon each other. His arm started to get a little sore, but his voice never wavered. Another name, another name, another name…
There was mostly calm now, the crowd hushed by numbness, the weight of the cards too much to bear. At last he finished, one final card dropping fitfully down, the sudden silence awful in its finality. Without another word, the speaker strode away, and the people bowed their heads. Those assembled understood the terrible truth; that the speaker had not run out of names, he had only run out of cards.
(I was seven years old that late summer day when I saw the names fall from the sky. The man in the suit was my father. My brother never had to go to Vietnam.)
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Policies that affect our parks and recreational services, such as leasing public land to the YMCA and establishing tiered pricing for seasonal pool passes, are not decided solely between city staff and City Council. Charlottesville has a Parks and Recreation Advisory Board consisting of citizens who examine the City Parks and Rec Department proposals, weigh all the merits, and add their own suggestions before passing recommendations onto the City Council.
I mention this because, as a member of the aforementioned Board, I am often surprised to hear how many people do not know that we exist, or do not know who serves on the Board, or have no idea how to contact us.
The list of Board members is on the city website. We come from many different backgrounds and, as with any group this size, often have disagreements. But we all share a commitment to improving the lives of the entire community through our public parks and recreation services.
And in response to a request from the Board, the City has made it easier to reach us. If you have questions about what we do on the Board, or the recommendations that we have made to the Council, you can now reach the entire Parks and Recreation Advisory Board through a single email address: (parksandrecreationadvisoryboard@charlottesville.org) parksandrecreationadvisoryboard (at) charlottesville (dot) org.
We are simply citizens, just like you, and share many of your concerns. We have dedicated ourselves to learning all about the factors that may impact the future of parks and recreation in our city, and take seriously the recommendations that we make to City Council. So if you have an issue with any of those recommendations, or may not fully understand all the elements that weighed in our decisions, try asking. We want to hear from you.
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Local conservative radio personality Rob Schilling asserts that summer pool passes, recently introduced by the Charlottesville Department of Parks and Recreation, will be discounted only for students who attend city schools, or who are home schooled. He writes:
Hey, doesn’t that debar a huge number of Charlottesville kids (i.e. those attending private schools)? Why on earth would we exclude children whose parents pay copious city taxes, but don’t dun a dime’s worth of City public education resources?
Courtney Stewart of independent weekly The Hook repeats the charges in a story on the city pools, and Henry Graff of NBC-29 picked up the tale and spoke with Schilling as well as Charlottesville City Spokesperson Ric Barrick. My friends at CVilleNews highlight the story, adding that “the current policy (was) set by the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee.”
I mention all this media attention because that was where I first heard this “news”, despite the fact the I am actually on the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee. I would understand some outrage at this idea, if it were remotely true, but that is not what we proposed. Rather, we voted for a tiered pricing structure that differentiates between City and non-City residents, and offer discounts to city students. That does not mean, and never meant, that we were excluding city residents who attend private schools. There may be a semantic argument here that we did not word our intentions clearly enough, but to assert, as Schilling does repeatedly, that we are discriminating against private schools, or somehow punishing families who remove their children from public schools, is asinine.
The Parks and Rec Citizen Advisory Board met today and toured the still-under-construction Onesty Pool at Meade Park. This is going to be a fantastic facility for the community. Although we did not sit in a formal session, we all discussed Schilling’s charges and agreed that his interpretation was erroneous. Across the board, we are interested in encouraging participation in the new season pass system. We voted to keep the price as low as reasonably possible, and to make the passes attainable for as many Charlottesville families as we can. I encourage all city residents to consider purchasing the summer pool pass — particularly now before Memorial Day, when the passes are discounted even further — and enjoy the summer in city pools.
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Last nights Democratic Candidates Forum was well-attended, with 40 to 50 people in the Walker School Library to hear the three Democratic Sheriff candidates, and the three candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for Charlottesville City Council. Rachana Dixit covered the story for the Daily Progress, and Charlottesville Tomorrow has posted audio.
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On May 6, the Charlottesville Democratic Party will host a Candidate’s Forum for all three City Sheriff candidates, and all three Democratic City Council candidates. I am scheduled to moderate.
The forum will start at 7:00 in the Walker School Library/Media Center. Previous reports had the forum being held in the cafeteria, but we have definitely moved to the Library.
Please plan to attend and, if you have questions for the candidates, feel free to post them below. I will do my best to address each submitted question.
The format for the candidates forum will be as follows:
Five minute break
After the forum ends, the candidates have been asked to stay and engage in personal and informal exchanges with those present. We will clear out after 9:00.
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Friends who have been following the rebirth of our back porch (which I have dubbed Deck 2.0) may not all know another interesting fact about our home: we purchased it from the estate of Madeline Kahn.
Yep, that Madeline Kahn. The famed actress bought the home for her mother in the late 1970s. Paula Kahn lived in what is now our house and taught drama and music on what remains of a small stage in the basement until she moved to an assisted facility.
As a small tribute to a fine comedienne, I will present some favorite clips. And I may as well start at the beginning, with this 1968 Academy Award nominated short film.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3803584387889303730From Wikipedia:
The Dove (De Düva) is a 1968 Academy Award-nominated short film that humorously parodies the films of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. The film borrows heavily from the plot lines of some of Bergman’s most famous films made before 1968. There is a journey by car back to the location of childhood memories as in Wild Strawberries. The main characters meet with the shrouded figure of Death as in The Seventh Seal. The film was directed by George Coe and Anthony Lover. Madeline Kahn made her first film appearance, in a supporting role.[1] The dialogue and voice-over narration are spoken mostly in a heavily accented fictional language, which is mostly English made to sound like Swedish, with many of the nouns ending in “ska”. There are also a smattering of Yiddish words.[2] The subtitles, which often do not literally match the dialogue, add to the humor.
The film was often shown in repertory film houses as a short feature when Bergman films were on the bill. Audiences frequently did not realize that the short was a comedy until individuals started laughing when they began to understand the fake Swedish.
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GOP struggles to win over Charlottesville | Charlottesville Daily Progress.
I am a CVille Democrat, and I support the local party, but I hope that the Republicans do find a candidate who can represent their party in the upcoming city council race. First, though, they need a platform, not just a slogan of “We’re not Democrats!”
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So I’ve been off the blogging horse for awhile, and of all things, Facebook has inspired me to start again. For reasons that I will explain in a future post, I have decided to use CitizenMcCord as my primary blogging presence. I am also using a new plugin called Wordbook that, if it works correctly, will automatically cross-post to my Facebook page. In just a moment, I’ll know if this works.
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