The Beatles Lose Out to Eddie From Ohio

Well, it's now "interim-ly" official. As opposed to being the only state with a state song emeritus and nothing else, we've not got a state song emeritus, and an interim state song, and a promise of an even larger net to be cast to find a permanent state song.

But god bless the Senator from Western Fairfax. His attempt on the floor to amend the Senator Colgan's SB 682 to make The Beatles "The Tax Man" our state song is maybe the funniest thing I've ever seen any legislator do. Now, I'm afraid I'll have to cross the aisle and agree with Senator Houck that considering our tax burden relative to the rest of the Union we aren't really the Commonwealth of the Taxman. But it probably has more to do with Virginia than Shenandoah. Senator Watkins made an impassioned plea on the floor against Shenandoah, pointing aspects of its story which may make it in the near term as controversial as our state song emeritus. And I agree with the reasoning of the 10 Senators who voted against it, most of whom are on record saying that it doesn't make sense to have a song which isn't about Virginia as our state song, even if only for an interim period.

For my money, CCR's "Who'll Stop the Rain?" would have been a much better choice. Sure, it's not really a happy, uplifiting song, but the protagonist does visit our fair Commonwealth, seeking shelter from the storm.

If the Senate could pick a song for itself, I think they should pick "Why Can't We Be Friends?" by War.

And then it is heard no more; it is a tale

In just two short weeks, I've learned two striking things about politics in our commonwealth. First of all, despite what voter turnout may indicate, Virginians are very much interested in the direction of their government. Alright, the cynical of you may think that of course people get involved, greed is the base motivating factor of all human existence. And its true. Everybody wants something; at least most of these people want it for at least one more person other than themselves, though. Even I was a little surprised by the level of activity. The second thing I've learned is that most people have no idea what they're doing when it comes to grassroots politics.

Certainly, some of it is innocent enough, to be blamed on the little focus that is given in American classrooms to civics education. Indeed, I get a little proud when someone calls me and tells me they were told to call their congressman, or ask to speak to their Representative, or plead us to do something about Social Security. Other misguided attempts at activism are a little more disturbing. Today I recieved several hundred pages of photocopied federal agency forms, mostly from human resources, from a gentleman who lives in Delegate Moran's district (who as so much admitted he suffers from schizophrenia) outlining his belief of systematic torture within the USDA, his release from the USDA, and his banishment from his local public library. He sent a copy to both his delegate, senator, all the members of the Courts committee and several federal representatives. Needless to say, it went straight in the trash (but only after I scanned it for possible threats), much like the letter from one Jack Mills, who is apparently quite fond of the word pettifogger.

pet·ti·fog·ger
noun

1. A petty, quibbling, unscrupulous lawyer.
2. One who quibbles over trivia.

I first crossed paths with Mr. Mills last week when he was wheeling his report around to all the new members. I looked out the door, got up with a smile to meet this new visitor, stuck my hand out but was met with a report in my chest. "I'm Jack Mills and I want a judge impeached." He then began to expound upon the supposed sins of this particular judge, which he claims include child abuse and molestation. Not the judge directly, mind you, but because of his gross incompetance. The disturbing thing about Mr. Mills is how disconcerting his claims sound, prima facie. Certainly you have to be rather doubtful about the details, but this is the sort of thing that involves you from the get go, which is a particularly unfortunate thing when your co-worker needs your help and and when said co-worker is also of the sort that has little tolerance for anyone who doesn't reside in the district. Being the naive young idealist (or perhaps just terribly shy and polite man) that I am, I got about 5 minutes of Mr. Mills before I was pulled away. I learned later that Mr. Mills is somewhat of a fixture at the General Assembly Building, one of those eccentric figures who is tolerated but ignored, to the point where you almost have to pity him if his allegations are by some twist of fate true.

Other activism faux pas are not so disturbing as they are just embarassing, particularly if the group committing them is on your side. The VCDL is particularly guilty of such breaks in convention. They have a nasty little practice of having all their members mail all the delegates in the General Assembly. Now, from what I understand they've backed off their pace of several years ago. However, our inbox will often be flooded with emails by activists from Richmond, Falls Church, Newport News, and every other locality NOT in our district imploring us or if so much as directing us to vote down a ban on soft grips, you know, the kind that's not as rough on your hands when you're holding your favorite pistol. Now here's a dirty little secret: If they're not from the district, we simply do not care. Emails will be deleted, letters trashed, phone calls get a quick nod and then "Have a good day." Personal visits get a slightly different response, but certainly constituents come first. Some may throw their hands up at this. How dare we ignore the people of Virginia?!!!!! The people's voice must be heard!!!!

Here's the problem: there's only so much time in the day. Do you honestly think we are going to tally up the responses and inform the delegate from Bumbleville, who has been in subcommittee since 7:30 and is heading to floor before his bill comes up in General Laws while he's supposed to be at the caucus meeting, about how the people of Bumtropolis feel about hb2341, The Virginia Organgrinder Registration Act of 2006? More importantly, should the delegate really care? Chances are he'll never have to work for your vote. And emailing all the Committee members? Try public comment. Certainly legislators want citizen input, but trust me; just about every bill will have SOMEONE saying SOMETHING about it. A subcommittee hearing on a "fish bill" today was met with an overflowing crowd of citizens ranging from suit-clad businessmen to flannel-wearing farmers to bushy-bearded environmentalists. I can assure you your voice is being heard. Now some may take offense to this, thinking that only lobbyists get our attention. First of all, lobbyist is a very loose term. Doctors, farmers, anybody with an agenda counts as a lobbyists. You don't need a crackberry, a checkbook (but only between sessions), and an id badge. If you've got an issue, we've got a second. I for one take a moment with anyone who comes to the office. Naturally, though, the delegate will only see constituents or lobbyists working on our issues. Secondly, constituents will always come first. A lobbyist will wait outside, and if they don't, you better believe there's going to be a stern word from the LA.

However, we still have problems with simply misguided communication. A particularly annoying bill was HB1368. This has got to be the absolutely worst piece of legislation proposed in at least the past decade. For those non-wonks, HB1368 is a bill the would require the unanimous permission of any homeowner within 65 yards of a playing field in order for a game or practice to be conducted before 8 a.m., after 6 p.m., or on a Sunday. Obviously this could have a quick squelching effect on athletic events in the Commonwealth. But there are some things to keep in mind here. First of all, even the sponsor Delegate Hull admitted that this was a terrible piece of legislation. He only introduced in on request (though I'll admit he ended up shooting both feet by admitting that it was bad in public. Come on, you still introduced it for the constituent; at least let him THINK you agree with him. Don't embarass the poor guy by making him look like a mean man sneering at the children from his porch, no matter what the case may be). Secondly, they know how to kill these things. At least let it get out of Committee and become a real problem before you go absolutely nuts. I swear to god, I think every little league dad and soccer mom was in contact with the General Assembly over the past week. They could have waited until it reported out, or at the most gotten their top leaders to speak against in committee. Nope, they did mass organization. And it was a very disparate group.

Of the hundreds of emails I recieved on hb1368, only five were from constituents. The rest were either from NOVAites or those from the Beach or Richmond. Many were quite polite, but some were quite outragreous in their rhetoric. Call me a crummudgeon, but to me totalitarianism requires a slightly more egregious offense to human decency than preventing a football game from taking place close to a home. Yet such claims were bandied about with little regard for their impact. A quite common fallacy was that this would somehow halt all athletic activity in the commonwealth, turning our children into mush-headed vegetables. Even in NOVA, though, I think children should have been able to get a little bit of physical activity. I will admit that some were very well-written and even poigiant, such as one woman who related an anectdote about a dying relative who was soothed by the sound of playing children. However, there were some other lapses of judgement in prose, such as one email (that was merely related to me) that implied that this was somehow part of an insidious plot by the religious right to instill our Sabbath in "heathen" children. On the other hand, though, I did in fact recieve one email (from a Soccer coach, no less) that praised the bill as a positive move towards instilling young athletes with solid Judeo-Christian values.

Perhaps the most annoying part of all this was that many parents made no bones about emailing multiple delegates, not even bothering to bcc the recipients. I need not make my point again, suffice it to say that I hope groups will take a lesson and conserve their meager time and resources. With this, I must give praise to a certain group. Now pay attention. This is the ONLY time this will ever happen on this blog......

Kudos to Equality Virginia for its great job of organizing its activists. They only email their General Assembly members. They only bring us their constituents. The group that I spoke with was polite and well-informed. I'll admit that there are some rogue agents who go out on their own and hunt everyone down, sometimes quite rudely. Also, they send invitations for their recpetion to everyone, but quite frankly, it's suicide for a Republican to show up. Seriously, they have people taking notes at these things. And we'll probably never agree on all the issues surrounding sexual politics. But at least I can tolerate listening to them, and at least I know they understand the principles of influence.

Even the state government could learn a lesson from them. We are flooded constantly with government reports and files. Do you know how many different ways you can read the budget? There's the popular version, the summary version, the line-item, etc. etc. We simply do not have the room to keep all of the paper that is generated each session. And for what? We don't keep things that are outside of our area of experise (for example, I don't think Allen Louderback kept too many reports from the Virginia Sentencing Commission), and even if we do need numbers, we can just call the agency up, or better yet, get the report off the net. Hopefully one day they'll learn.

But so it is. Lobbyists come and go. The pages toss the 20-page report from the Dr. Suess Memorial Commission, Division of Turtle Stacking on my desk. And I do my best to make sure my fellow citizens get a fair shake from their delegate, above all the sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Gay Marriage Amendment

I see from today's WaPo and RTD that the Virginia Senate has passed a gay marriage ban with identical language to the House version, essentially assuring that the measure will be the subject of a referendum.
Now that the ban seems all but a certainty, I'd like to raise a few questions that I think don't get enough time in the debate. However, let me preface these questions by saying that I'm glad to see states pursuing these avenues in the democratic process, rather than relying on litigation to try and resolve what is clearly a political question.
Now, the questions:
1) Why do we refer to a religious ceremony and the civil ceremony by the same name? That is, our belief that "marriage" is between a man and a woman comes from the Bible. Why don't religious conservatives object to the fact that two raving atheists can be married just like the same as those married before God?
2) Given that we allow two atheists to have their civil commitment called "marriage", how is letting two God-fearing women get "married" any different?
3) Assume, arguendo, that a bill was proposed to call only religiously recognized unions marriage, and all other unions "civil unions" -- do you think opposition to gay "civil unions" would be as strong?
4) Why do we care if two people of the same sex make contracts with each other? If "Adam and Steve" want to exercise power of attorney for each other, why do we care?

I'm actually genuinely interested in responses, since I've always sensed there was something about this debate I was missing. I mean, we've let Brittany Spears get married twice -- clearly the institution of marriage could use some work. How about we attach a marriage education plan to the gay marriage ban?

Starting to Buy into Coach Leitao

After tonight's 71-51 victory over Miami, UVA has won 4 out of its last 5 in ACC play, and could have won the 5th but blew a 5 point lead to Florida State with under two minutes to go. I didn't see the development early on in the year, but I'm convinced that Leitao is a spectacular coach. He has almost nothing to work with (besides spectacular point guard Sean Singletary, that is, who went for 29 tonight) and he has turned this team into a defensive juggernaut. Don't look now, but UVA is tied with one other team for second in the ACC standings 6 games into the conference season. Now I'm not optimistic that it will last, but Leitao has already exceeded expectations. In the last two weeks, I've become a fan of this man and his scrappy well-coached team. Such a dichotomy from Gillen.

Heath Shuler to run for Congress?

For all the Redskins fans out there who remember the true low point of the post-Gibbs era (I), even more terrible news. Heath Shuler is running for Congress from North Carolina. Fortunately, Redskins fans have begun the drive to keep him out of DC forever more. Remember how bad it was the first time? Think if he had some actual power.
(Oh, and the Stop Shuler website is fantastic. Read about Shuler's primary opponent.)

Kaine to deliver Democratic Response to State of Union

The Washington Post has confirmed that Gov. Kaine will deliver the Democratic response to President Bush's State of the Union address.
I give the Democrats credit on this selection. Picking an "Outside the Beltway" figure who had electoral success in a Republican state is a surprisingly smart move. Certainly it is better than allowing Sen. Biden to get on area and wander off into memories of college, or his son playing baseball, or whatever whim strikes him.
For myself, I'm torn. Much as with Gov. Warner, I particularly enjoy seeing Virginians do well, regardless of the circumstances. On the one hand, if we have to have a Democratic president, I would much prefer it be Warner than HRC. On the other, if the Democrats nominate Warner, he would have a pretty good shot at winning.
I guess the level of talent produced by our fine Commonwealth is both a blessing and a curse.

Marriage Amendment On Track

In the vast African plains of the which roam with Republican state senators, SJ 92 (companion to HB 101), which will amend Virginia's constitution to keep marriage between a man and a woman is on track. The Senate Privileges and Elections Committee reported it out favorably, with only 3 arch-liberal Democrats who sit on the committee (Janet Howell, Benny Lambert, Mary Margaret Whipple)opposing. With moderates like Ken Stolle and Jeannemarie D. Davis on board this train will be arriving on your ballot and mine in November 2006.

On the house side of things, I'm a little surprised by a few of the votes on Friday by some of our newly elected Democrats. Shannon Valentine and David Bulova (replacing "yea" votes of '05 Preston Bryant and Chap Petersen) are voting to the left of their district by standing in opposition. The same can be said of Chuck Caputo and David Poisson, but their election as "moderates" meant comparing them to Chris Craddock and Dick Black (so you could argue that they went after the gay vote so hard they had to risk reprisal from their otherwise pro-marriage amendment districts). Marsden ducked the vote, which may be good fodder for those on both side of the aisle who are looking to put up a fight with him next time around. Sophomore Vienna Delegate Steve Shannon, the lone member of the Northern Virginia Democratic delegation to vote for the final passage, probably made the wisest move, that is, voting for all attempts to delay and amend the bill before finally consenting.

Did they all really sign?

This is my favorite commending resolution so far... and here's where you can count for yourself.

Kaine announces support for slowing growth

I knew from the rhetoric on the campaign trail that Kaine was considering this, but his speech on Monday makes it clear that the Kaine administration will be supporting strong curbs on new development:
"In a 37-minute speech to the General Assembly, Kaine (D) proposed giving local governments more power to slow growth, require traffic studies and coordinate with transportation planners. Reprising a popular line from his 2005 campaign speeches, he said money alone would not clear roads."
As one who grew up in Northern Virginia, and will be returning there soon, I have to admit I'm of two minds about allowing localities to limit growth, which I'll try and lay out below:
PRO:
Traffic in Northern Virginia (and recently, Richmond and Norfolk) is a mess. New housing fast outpaces road construction, and barring the miraculous construction of mass-transit, a curb on new development is necessary until the road system can catch up with at least current development. To the extent that counties like Arlington and Alexandria, which are somewhat effectively served by Metro, wish to allow more dense housing close-in, that's fine. But when one lives 15 miles outside DC (Reston, Great Falls, McLean, Springfield, Vienna) and the commute can stretch over an hour, something has to be done.
CON:
Idealogically, I'm not thrilled with the idea of government telling business what it can and can't do as property owners. More realistically, I'm worried that a cap on new housing is going to exacerbate the problem of too little affordable housing. No matter what they say, localities are always going to welcome in high-cost housing, because the increased tax base more than supports the costs of additional schools, etc. as well as drives up median income figures, supports businesses, and the like. But those same counties are much more likely to disallow higher density housing, which would create more traffic on less land, and might be a net drain on county financial resources. People are commuting into DC and NoVa from West Virginia already -- can we afford to make it any worse?

They should've lost this one at Roanoke....

Under any circumstances. Don't. Just don't. I don't care how good it may look in those previews. Hell, I caught a glimpse of the HBO making of the other night. It was 10 times as entertaining, so don't be fooled!

I felt lucky enough to get a chance to see the very Commonwealth -centric Terrence Malik flick at a screening in Richmond courtesy of the Virginia Film Society. The movie stars Collin Farrell as John Smith, Christian "Waiting for the next Batman movie" Bale as John Rolfe, and the gorgeous young Q'Orianka Kilcher as Pocahontas. The movie which clocks in at over 3 hours is a non-stop subdued introspective look at events through the eyes of the main "characters." The term is loosely applied, as these actors are really just portraits of characters. And that almost sounds like how I describe the acting and development in one of my favorite films, Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, but believe me when I say you can only take so much of your spoken dialogue in a hushed montone incomplete sentence-structure voice over. Go watch the Disney musical and enjoy the fun songs rather than have anything to do with this awful movie. Don't go see it.

By the way, it was shot completely inside the Commonwealth except for a few scenes in England, including the one where Pocahontas says "Did you find your Indies, Captain Smith" and then Phone Booth looks back at her and says wistuflly "I think I may have sailed past them."

Northern Virginia ignored again...

As Chad notes, Gov.-elect Kaine's inauguration is scheduled for Saturday, and promises to be a good event, if you could get tickets.
BUT, further showing their scorn for Northern Virginia (said with tongue firmly in cheek) and its many Redskins fans, the Inaugural Ball is scheduled for 6 PM. For those of you keeping track, that is smack in the middle of the Redskins game on Saturday.
Shame, Gov.-elect Kaine, Shame!


UPDATE: Of course, those of you who choose the Ball will miss the Redskins advancing to the NFC Championship, assuming Brunell doesn't die of old age in the middle of the game. Go Skins!

Kennedy's questioning of Alito

I know he's not going to, but it would make the rest of my year if, in answering Kennedy's "questions" about recusal re: Vanguard holdings, Alito made some kind of subtle reference about Chappaquiddick like:
"Senator, after realizing I had a pontential conflict in the case, I vacated the decision and had it reheard by a different panel. I would have done so earlier, but I was a 'jumble of emotions', and my conduct was 'inexecusable'" (a not-so-subtle reference to Kennedy's professed reason for not reporting the accident)

UPDATE (1): Does anyone know how many times Sen. Kennedy failed the bar? Because I've never heard one man so mischaracterize the law in my entire life. I'm not sure Kennedy has ever heard of "qualified immunity", and even if he has, he clearly skipped that entire section of the law in law school and since.

Political Correctness run amok

From today's Washington Post, further proof that political correctness has (a) run amok and (b) gotten truly ridiculous:
"CHEAP SHOTS: To avoid insulting native American heritage, the Seattle Times decided to limit severely the use of the term Redskins in the paper -- even if a team with that name will dominate news coverage this week. The Times will not use the moniker in headlines or captions. Reporters can use it only once, as a first reference, in all stories. The Redskins will be referred to almost exclusively as Washington -- which could get a little confusing for local readers who also live in that state."
My favorite part is the "one use only" rule. Will there be a penalty for a second use? If so, what? Attend sensitivity training over the weekend instead of watching Washington's team play the Seahawks?

Cantor to be new Majority Whip?

The National Review online is reporting that Congressman Cantor appears to have the necessary 116 votes to be the Majority Whip.
Given the increasingly bad press the GOP caucus has been getting over the Abramoff scandal, I'll be suprised if Blunt is able to hold on to the post, given his close ties to DeLay. The real question is: What moves can Cantor (and whomever is elected Majority Leader take to help distance the majority of the caucus from the few bad apples ruining it for everyone?
Either way, congratulations to another rising star from the Commonwealth.

Family Foundation on Senate Ed & Health

The Family Foundation is urging everyone to contact Senators Wampler, Stosch, and Chichester regarding the changes on the Senate Education and Health committee. Though we won't know what happens to Sen. Potts until session gets underway, we know now that Senators Bolling and Mims will need replacements. These are two pro-life votes and we need to make sure they stay that way.

Wampler is the Chairman of the Committee on Committees.

UPDATE- The link up before was from a forwarded email. Go to the Family Foundation website to get plugged into their grassroots system.

http://www.familyfoundation.org

Kaine Lies Again

According to an email from the Kaine team I received a few minutes ago, The Beach Boys will be headlining at Tim Kaine's inaugural concert on Friday January 13th at the Kaplan Arena at William and Mary Hall.

What he really means is Mike Love, replacement member Bruce Johnston, and nameless stand-ins will be headlining. I'd never felt any problem seeing Love use the Beach Boys mantle. Though often lampooned for the way he prostituted himself on numerous episodes of Full House and other formulaic family sit-coms in the 1980s and 1990s, he was a principle lyricist on some of the band's most popular hits, and a lead vocalist. You could argue that all the mistakes he made getting in the way of Brian Wilson's musical growth were in what he perceived to be Brian and the band's best interest.

But last month, he stepped over the line. He's filing suit against Wilson for the 2004 release of Smile. Smile was the follow up to Good Vibrations (1966) had it been completed. Wilson's personal demons and Love's fear that the sound was too far removed from their musical roots shelved the album in 1967. Wilson, in a great story of redemption and personal triumph, finished the album and released it in 2004. Love claims that the Beach Boys' imagery and iconography was used to promote the album. Love claims Wilson "shamelessly misappropriated Mike Love's songs, likeness and the Beach Boys trademark, as well as the ‘Smile' album itself."

Which would all be fine and good if Love didn't tour to this day as "The Beach Boys" knowing full well that he owes so much of his personal success to his genius cousin. Until Love relents, I will therefore, refuse to acknowledge him as a Beach Boy.

Not like anyone asked me, but still.

3rd House, 4th Senate Up for Grabs Today

The Times Dispatch outlines what's at stake today at the polls in two special elections, with another special election coming next Tuesday and a few more in the foreseeable future.

Here's hoping for some Republican victories. Get out there and vote if you are in those districts...every vote will count.

Thrilled About the Skins

The playoffs have been a long time coming, but the Skins' victory over the Eagles today was exciting to watch, especially since the Skins had to gut it out and it was not an easy win. The defense looked very poor at times in the first half but it was amazing in the second half despite losing several players in the secondary.

On an another note, great seasons for both Tiki Barber (1,860 yards rushing, 530 yards receiving) and Thomas Jones (1,334 yards rushing). Good to see Cavalier running backs who I loved watch in college representing the school well...Barber finished second in the NFL in rushing...barely, and Jones finished in the top ten as well.