REALITY CHECK: News on the BP Oil Spill

Written by Richmond native Jean of phenomina78.xanga.com. These are her views and should not be considered a news report but a first person account of the situation down in Louisiana with the BP Oil Spill.

My sadness has turned to outrage! As planned, I was up and out the door by 6 a.m. heading down to Grand Isle, LA where, as you hopefully already know, the majority of the oil in Louisiana has hit the shores. BP has claimed the beach fronts for cleaning and they are off-limits to civilians. You can; however, drive to Grand Isle State Park and walk out on the fishing pier to see the coastline. You want to know what I saw?

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BOOK REVIEW: Blockade Billy

I’m always excited when a new Stephen King title hits the shelves, and while I thought he was losing power prior to resurrecting his career when he finally finished the Dark Tower series, his most recent works have been extremely rewarding. Duma Key and Under the Dome represent King at his best, and though I knew Blockade Billy wasn’t going to be nearly as substantial as either of those triumphs when I saw how small it was, I was still looking forward to the experience. The book itself is a nifty little throwback to the sports novels young men of another generation devoured, plucky tales which were normally named for the athletes whose feats were recounted in the pages of the tale. Both the cover and the size of the book intrigued me, though at $14.99 the book could hardly be called a bargain.

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Lamb Of God's Hourglass Anthology

Has it been 15 years since Lamb Of God got together in Richmond? In that time they have reinvigorated a genre and put our city on their shoulders reppin' us across the globe.

I finally got their new anthology Hourglass in the mail a few days ago and I am stoked! All the best of Lamb Of God in one set which includes 3 discs and this has it all. The Underground Years covers the best of their first band - Burn The Priest, their debut New American Gospel, and the album that blew everyone away, As The Palaces Burn. The Epic Years covers from Ashes Of The Wake to Sacrament to Wrath. The last one has 18 rare cut and stuff never heard before. It was worth the wait. Check it out at www.lamb-of-god.com.

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Memorial Day: Red Flowers, Hats Off

Ah, Memorial Day. It’s a wonderful day of not working, cookouts, and graveyards.

That’s right; many Americans, especially those who served in the military and their families, spend Memorial Day visiting with the glorious fallen. Originally made a federal holiday after the war of northern aggression Civil War (called Dedication Day), Memorial Day became Memorial Day after the first Great War. There are ceremonies, parades, and other observances all over the country, here’s a list of occurrences in Virginia if you’d like to know where to take your hat off. All over the nation, however, poppies are laid on graves and brought to memorials, in reference to a poem, In Flanders Fields (video of the song below), which tells of a battlefield in Flanders, France that is, still to this day, rife with red poppies. It was written by a Canadian, John McCrae, the day after witnessing the death of his friend Alexis Helmer in battle.

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HOLDING STRONG : Kevin Greene's Art Behind Bars

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The road to Lunenburg Correctional Center is a ribbon of pavement pulled through trees that crowd the shoulders and open suddenly into hillside farmlands, dilapidated barnyards, the great American South lounging on the sloping grass of counties with no memory of urban progress. There is no hint of cosmopolitan consciousness in the easy accent of cattle and rural decay.

We pull onto a gravel road that edges itself through a well-manicured field, and the vernacular of the landscape shifts with abrupt and awe-inspiring completeness. In the glorious sunlight of a pre-spring morning, spires of shimmering and vicious barbed-wire rise toward the unblemished blue of a country sky. Pristine guard towers like belfries lumber over the fences and fences that screen the bright orange and blue of prisoners playing basketball from contact with the forests, the hidden creeks behind the tree line, fallen leaves, the unseen sanctuaries of nature, and people like us.

This is not a beautiful landscape.

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The Swamp (A Disgruntled Voter’s Take on Politics) 5-22-10

PART ONE

So, this week I’m discussing the controversial healthcare platform WonderBoy enacted for the people of America despite their apparent distaste for such a measure. Last week I discussed the hasty process that yielded a proposal that was made official despite a number of obvious flaws, and that column was an illuminating experience for me. I wanted to have a discussion based on ideas, an exchange of information that wasn’t shaped by the talking points the media is obsessed with. I didn’t expect to encounter so many people who were more interested in vilifying my views than examining things from another perspective. With that in mind, I’ll take a more detailed approach here, though that is somewhat contrary to my intent. For the record, while much of the feedback I received last time week was predicated upon what the talking heads have to say, I am always more interested in what the average citizen has to say. I know the notion of democracy is troublesome to this administration, but it is supposed to be government by the people as opposed to government by the people on the basis of what various pundits have told them. In addition, I firmly believe that much (if not all) of the voting public is capable of shaping their own opinions, but truthfully many people readily embrace being told what to think or do in a given situation.

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Unconditional Faith : An Independent Catholic Community In Richmond Makes Acceptance The Foundation Of Faith.

Donna Kaye is used to listening when God calls her – even in traffic.

When she felt called to make a quick right down Ellwood Avenue as she exited the Downtown Expressway two years ago, she didn’t hesitate to turn the steering wheel.

What caught her attention – what had spoken to her so strongly – was an unobtrusive, whitewashed sign set cattycorner on a lawn at the corner of Ellwood and Cameron Street.

“I see ‘Independent Catholic’ and ‘11 a.m. service’ and I think ‘Oh, I can sleep in, and it’s independent!’” says Kaye, a divorced former Catholic schoolteacher, who’d spent the past decade or more living in a church-imposed spiritual purgatory.

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A Look Back at my Top 5 Faith No More tracks.

Tony asked me for a Top 5 Faith No More Songs list in light of their ongoing reunion, and he definitely found the right guy for the job. FNM is my favorite band, and as such, this is going to be really, really tough. In fact, this could be the most perplexing Top 5 ever simply because I am so in love with this wonderful band and all the great songs scattered throughout their impressive legacy.

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Free Kutmah: Background, Detention, Petition

Kutmah is a deejay. He spins dub. He was born of Scottish and Egyptian ancestry, moved to the United States when he was twelve, and has been repeatedly denied a green card. Two weeks ago, he was arrested in his home in Los Angeles, was interrogated, and is now in a detention center in New Mexico. There's more info and a petition HERE. If that's too many links for you, the Facebook Page has all of them in one place.

It's not just dub deejays with a good following and myspace pages that are getting disappeared in the middle of the night in the United States.

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DIO R.I.P.

Another legend has passed away. Dio was a metal original and his music will live forever.

There was once a man in ancient times who wished to find a mythical element known only as The Metal.
He searched almost all his life until he found it,
and at that very moment of laying his eyes on the glory of The Metal,
he was transformed into a God,
all knowing and all powerful.
Being the benevolent God he is, he bestowed portions of his power
among others in order to spread the glory of The Metal.
His name is Dio, LONG LIVE THE D!!! via streetkings

VIDEOS AFTER THE BREAK

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Shockoe Bottom late at night.

From the comment thread to this article.

I used to live in Shockoe Bottom, right above the Farmer’s Market. Myself and many other residents of the neighborhood begged and pleaded with the police department to resolve some of the issues that made life unpleasant at night… Everything from the nightclubs blasting music outside, to sex acts being performed in the street, to people using anything that would hold still long enough as a public urinal. Our pleas were met with “If you don’t like it, move”.

There is a link to a video below - be cautioned, it would probably elicit an “R” rating if it were a feature film, with coarse language and the like. But, this was recorded from my old bedroom window right above the farmer’s market, and it is what we all had to live with in that area. How is this acceptable anywhere? via streetmedicine