Archive for the 'Charlottesville' Category

9/11 + 8: Remembering The Day The Earth Stood Still

Published on September 11, 2009 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

In early 2001, I began Semi Truths as a pseudonymous venue for my political satire. Tuesday nights were my night for writing, so I would spend much of the day in my pointless job thinking about what I would craft that evening. On Tuesday morning, September 11 2001, I met some co-workers for breakfast, then drove in a little later than usual, listening to the radio on the way. That was when I first heard about the plane that had struck the World Trade Center.

I didn’t go into work right away. I sat in the car and listened. I tried to remember which of the towers I had actually been in a few years before, visiting a friend’s office. I was shocked and concerned, but I had no idea then that every minute of that day would end up burned into my memory, every moment taking on significance.

This is not “my 9/11 story”. I don’t have a story. I went about my life, went back to work the next day, carried on as before. In fact, the past eight years have been generally pretty good to me. I didn’t lose anybody that day, my life was not forever changed.

And yet. And yet…

We all have a 9/11 story. We all know where we were and what we were doing when we heard. And our lives have changed. Some days, it still feels like a bad dream, the kind you can’t shake off the next morning.

Because of various other projects, I haven’t had much time lately to post original content to this blog, so I am making an effort to republish some of my original articles and posts from the past. The link below will take you to an essay that I wrote that evening of September 11, 2001. My words may not be particularly meaningful to anyone else, but now I find them to be both curiously naive and sadly prophetic.

Read The Day The Earth Stood Still …

ELVIS = LIVES

Published on August 8, 2009 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

In 1987, while driving from L.A. to my new life in New York, my dasboard power light started flashing shortly outside of Texas. I stopped at a garage in Alabama and they diagnosed that my alernator was failing. They also informed me that it would take them days to get that part for my VW Rabbit. My best bet was to get to Memphis, so they charged up my car battery and pushed me downhill toward Tennessee.

As it turns out, I spent a memorable weekend in Memphis. My hotel was just down the street from where Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot, which was odd. I couldn’t afford Graceland, but I visited the gift shop and bought a set of Elvis placemats.

Today, I am merely passing through Memphis and (knock on wood) my car is just fine. As much as I’d love to, I cannot take the time now either to visit Graceland, which is a double shame because I learned from the gentleman below that this is Elvis Week. As he explained “This is the week we celebrate Elvis’ death!” (I suggested that “commemorate” might be a better choice of words; after a moment’s pause, he agreed.)

I ran into Elvis at the Patsy Cline & Chet Atkins Memorial Rest Stop, found here: http://www.schmap.me/6wdnzt

Smoky Mountain Dawn

Published on August 8, 2009 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

In October of 1987, at the age of 26, I loaded a small U-Haul trailor with my boxes of books and comics, hitched it to the back of my ten-year-old VW Rabbit, and left Los Angeles for my new home in Brooklyn, New York.

For a week or two before my departure, Southern California had experienced a number of substantial earthquakes. A sign on the back of my trailer read:

I’m tired of waking with a shake.
I’m going where the land don’t quake.
L.A. to N.Y. or bust!

Today, in August of 2009, I am having flashbacks to that trip as I travel over much of the same ground in reverse (not actually in reverse gear, you understand) as I leave my east coast home and drive to California to visit friends and family.

There are several notable differences, of course, between 1987 and now. On this trip, I am driving a 2009 Prius (getting about 500 miles a tank), listening to my iPod, getting directions from my GPS, and blogging my journey by typing into my iPhone.

In 1987, I drove 700 miles a day (except for the days I lost when my car broke down, but that is a story for another time), pulled into rest stops when I got tired, and slept in the back of my car.

Part of the reason I chose to do the trip this way now, I will confess, is to prove to myself that I still can. So yesterday, after a week at the Outer Banks with the family (and in-laws; but that, too, is a story for another time), I bade everyone goodbye and steered west. Last night around midnight, after covering just over 500 miles, I pulled over into a rest stop high up in the Smoky Mountains National Park and climbed into the back of my car to grab some much-needed sleep.

I awoke this morning before dawn. As the sun rose, I snaked my way down a foggy mountain and watched the morning mist slowly rise from it’s own slumber and pepper the sky.

Another difference from 1987: I’m no longer 26 years old! It’s not yet 10:00 AM, and I’m already bloody exhausted. Tonight, I check into a hotel, catch some TV, and sleep on a mattress!

Feeling like Bartleby

Published on August 7, 2009 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

I tested it all at home, before I left: using the iPhone Geotweet app, I could simultaneously post my location to Twitter, Facebook, and here on CitizenMcCord.com. You can see the successful tests below, but now that I have embarked on my actual road trip, the Geotweets are not posting. So I am forced to do this the “old-fashioned way”, typing my location in using the keyboard on my iPhone.

*sigh* … I feel like Bartleby the Scriviner.

Anyway, here I am at a rest stop between Burlington and Greensboro NC: http://www.schmap.me/brmcp8

I hope to make Chattanooga TN tonight.

Road Trip

Published on July 28, 2009 in Charlottesville. 1 Comment

In a few weeks, I plan to drive my little Prius across the country (starting in North Carolina’s Outer Banks) to visit friends and family in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. In some ways, this will be a recreation of the drive I made in 1987 when I moved from L.A. to New York. Except it’s a round trip. And in a better car. And I’ll have a cell phone. And an iPod. And a laptop with Internet. And I plan to blog and Tweet along the way…

Come to think of it, I really do not miss 1987.

Custom Charlottesville keyword search in Firefox

Published on July 6, 2009 in Charlottesville and Tech. 1 Comment Tags: .

Several times a week, I launch Firefox and search for a Charlottesville business or event. Each time that I type the long word “Charlottesville” into my search bar, I tell myself that there must be an easier way.

Turns out, there is. Firefox uses keywords to create shortcuts to oft-used sites. So, for example, if you often search the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), you can create a keyword for that site and substitute your specific search term. Following this example:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/smart-keywords.html

You could then type “IMDB Rachel Bilson” in your search bar, and IMDB page would pre-populate with Rachel Bilson as a search term.

That’s nice, but I wanted to find a way to automatically bring up “Charlottesville”, and then append additional search terms.

The steps to do so are similar to that which was outlined in the page above. Here’s how to do it:

  • In Firefox, type Ctrl-Shift-B to bring up Bookmarks Library.
  • Under All Bookmarks, select where you want to place your new custom bookmark (Bookmarks Menu, for example, but it can be anywhere).
  • Under the Organize tab, select New Bookmark. In the Add Bookmark window, give it an intuitive name (like “Google CVille”). In Location, type the following:

    • http://www.google.com/search?q=charlottesville%20%s

  • Finally, in Keyword, give the bookmark a short code that you will remember (ex.: “cv”, without the quotes).
  • Put what you want in Description, then click Add.

Now, when you type “cv” (without the quotes) in your Firefox address bar, followed by a search term, Google will come up with “Charlottesville” and your additional term already in the search box.

So, for example, if I type (without the quotes) “cv sandwich” in my address bar and hit enter, Google will launch a search window for “Charlottesville sandwich”.

Of course, this is for doing a Google search. It would be just as easy to use any other search site, such as Bing, just following the same context. So, for example,

http://www.bing.com/search?q=charlottesville%20%s

The first part of the URL specifies which search engine to use. “q=” means search term query. The “%20″ is a space, and the “%s” gets substituted for whatever you type after the pre-populated search term. In the example above, “%s” = “sandwich”.

There is probably a similar way to do this in Internet Explorer, but I haven’t found it yet.

If you find this useful, or you have other tricks to add, please feel free to comment below.

Vote Today

Published on June 9, 2009 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

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’

Lemonade, and the next Governor of Virginia

Published on June 9, 2009 in Charlottesville. 1 Comment

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.

Reaching the Parks and Rec Advisory Board

Published on May 28, 2009 in Charlottesville. 2 Comments

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.

On Pool Passes

Published on May 20, 2009 in Charlottesville. 2 Comments

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.

Coverage of the Democratic Candidates Forum

Published on May 7, 2009 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

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.

 
 Standard Podcast [59:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Democratic Candidates Forum

Published on May 4, 2009 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

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:

  • All six candidates will have one minute to introduce themselves (who they are, why they’re running, etc.).
  • The next 40 minutes will involve questions to the Sheriff candidates.
  • The moderator will pose a few questions to these candidates, followed by questions from the audience.
  • Each sheriff candidate will have time to ask another sheriff candidate one question.
  • This part of the program ends with each sheriff candidate having one minute for a final statement.

Five minute break

  • The next 50 minutes will be for council candidates.
  • Again, the moderator will pose some questions, followed by audience questions.
  • Each council candidate can pose a question to one other council candidate.
  • Council candidates will each have one minute for a final statement.

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.

Continue reading ‘Democratic Candidates Forum’

The Madeline Kahn Memorial Porch

Published on April 8, 2009 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

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=3803584387889303730

From 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.

DP: “GOP struggles to win over Charlottesville”

Published on March 9, 2009 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

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!”

Cross Blogging

Published on March 3, 2009 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

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.

It’s All My Fault!

Published on October 23, 2008 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

I had a terrible dream last night. It was November 7th, and I saw this on my TV.

Sorensen Story

Published on October 17, 2008 in Charlottesville. 1 Comment

Update: It has been pointed out to me that I might increase my chances of acceptance if I actually spell Sorensen correctly. Duly noted and corrected.

I have decided to apply for the 2009 Sorensen Institute Political Leaders Program. Only 35 people will be accepted, so the competition is fierce, but several people I know and respect have gone through the program previously, including Waldo Jaquith and Jennifer McKeever. I am working on the application now, and the deadline is November 10.

Local NPR affiliate WVTF ran a very nice story on the Sorensen program yesterday, featuring Jennifer McKeever (among others) and you can listen to it below.

 
 Sorenson Story [3:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Citizen appointments

Published on October 17, 2008 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

I recognize that it has been too long since I posted here. I have found that I can either do, or I can write, but I have difficulty balancing both. For the past several months, in addition to my day job and my work as lead writer for the Virginia Film Festival, I have enjoyed serving on the City Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee. I strongly feel the responsibility as a citizen to contribute my time and interest to topics that affect our community, and I have a particular interest in those areas that impact children and families. So I was particularly pleased last week to receive a letter from Mayor Dave Norris that I have now also been appointed to the Charlottesville/Albemarle Commission on Children and Families. Their next meeting is November 5th and I look forward to writing about my impressions in this space.

“Probama” WordPress theme

Published on March 11, 2008 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

I find this to be an extremely clever use of open market resources. Category 4, a local web design and hosting firm (I worked with them when implementing the new Virginia Film Festival website) is offering a Barack Obama WordPress theme. Here is the message that went out from Cat4′s CEO:

In the past year Category 4 has been developing a lot of WordPress-based web sites for our clients. We recently decided to expand our reach by developing some free custom themes. Our first free theme, “Probama” went live for public download today. It’s a theme for bloggers who want to support Barak Obama and his campaign for President. In addition to a beautiful visual style, it includes some cool features, such as:

• Control panel options for Flickr, Youtube and Feedburner
• Subcategory dropdown menus
• Author-highlighting and gravatars in the comments section
• Custom archives page
• Latest-post highlighting on homepage
• Dynamic subpage menus
• RSS integration with BarackObama.com
• Additional print.css stylesheet

You can learn more about the theme and download it from the Cat4 site.

“Five Years Too Many in Iraq” Film Festival

Published on March 10, 2008 in Charlottesville. 0 Comments

Iraq occupation film festival flyerFrom March 13-16, the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, OFFSCREEN, and University Democrats, are sponsoring a film festival marking five years of occupying Iraq. All events are free and open to the public; discussions will follow each screening. The sponsors encourage everyone to come, regardless of their opinions on the Iraq occupation or political affiliations.

WHERE: Kaleidoscope Room in Newcomb Hall, on the main grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. (#30 on this map.)

WHEN: March 13, 14, 15, 16. Events begin at 7 p.m. on the first three nights and 5 p.m. on the final day.

Continue reading ‘“Five Years Too Many in Iraq” Film Festival’