A better year come and gone

At this time last year, here was the headline on my column in this paper: “Good Riddance to 2006”. I claimed that 2006 hadn’t been anything to write home about.

The sour outlook at the time in Iraq colored much of my mood, and Virginia had just elected a dour Democrat to the U.S. Senate who forthwith made a clown of himself at a White House reception.

In contrast this year, things have begun going well for us in Iraq, area folks have elected mostly GOP candidates, and candidate Hillary looks vincible..

My published concerns this year have ranged from serious to goofy, just as you have come to expect.

The usual fare that kept surfacing included ridicule of global warming alarmists, apologists for illegal immigration and politicians who wanted us to surrender in Iraq.

“Newsman” Scott Pelley on CBS’s 60-Minutes show in September made me mad when he interrograted accused Marine Corps SSgt. Frank Wuterich. “Pelley verbally assailed him for being less than judicious in shooting at suspected Iraqi terrorists, a ‘crime’ in which Wuterich is the only remaining Marine directly charged in that so-called Haditha incident, with a court martial pending.” His buddies in the raid were all cleared.

In October I lampooned congressional “earmarks” to help fight global warming, including, “Two stupid examples: USDA is passing out $20 million in grants to study gas emissions from dairy cows” to determine their culpability, and “…[B]ureaucrats are spending $27 million to see if there really is a single ivory billed woodpecker, thought to be extinct, but perhaps still extant somewhere in Arkansas.”

June was when I waded in once more on illegal immigration. “In overcomingsuch past sins” (like slavery) “we’ve adjusted and assimilated. Now we must try to absorb even the illegal immigrants. It should be doable…[but]only if we cut off the inflow.”

I applauded Jamestown’s historic anniversary celebration last summer, quoting a piece in the New Hampshire Union Leader: “To the PC crowd, Jamestown is all disease, genocide, slavery and ecological devastation. To wiser heads, it represents the American values of hard work, self-sufficiency, entrepreneurship and community.”

Gasoline prices were of keen interest also. “And illogical. We pay exorbitant prices for bottled water while complaining about the high price of gasoline, which is way cheaper. We blame oil companies while preventing them from exploring for oil or building more refineries.”

Heavy stuff.

In a more serious vein, I claimed that last winter’s college football game in the Fiesta Bowl between Oklahoma and Boise State was the best ever. The underdog Idaho team pulled out an overtime victory that was stunning in its daring. This bowl season won’t match it or even come close, I’d predict. I’m rooting for Hawaii.

“Kilroy was here!” Proving that today’s slogans and icons aren’t so novel (such as the GEICO lizard and the Bill Slowskis, Comcast’s aging turtles), I introduced some readers of the younger generation to World War II’s favorite cartoon icon, Kilroy. Of course, Willie and Joe, cartoonist Bill Mauldin’s lovable GI’s in Europe, were wildly popular also.

Speaking of icons, how about Warren Buffett? The billionaire investor came in for ridicule of sorts last winter. That’s when he announced his huge gift to charities. My take: “…[G]overnment’s gross mismanagement may be one reason why billionaire Warren Buffett has allocated much of his huge estate to favored charities. They surely will spend his money more prudently than Washington, which otherwise would grab much of his wealth via estate taxes, but now won’t.” That hypocrite now thinks the rich should pay more taxes to the same government he has slighted via his own estate transfer. The Virginia Tech massacre elicited thoughts about lawyers and the ACLU. What if most confinements in mental hospitals had never been outlawed? Then the deranged killer likely would never have had the chance to go on his suicidal rampage. But he and the street people could not be “warehoused,” as critics of confinement successfully argued.some years back. So the street people linger and the shooters multiply.

We elderly folks came in for some ribbing when I wrote about communities catering to us “55-Plus” customers. Their proliferation was probably inevitable, given our lifestyles and bulging demographics. The elderly used to move in with the kids when they needed assistance, and nobody thought it strange. Today it is novel, thanks to social security and pension support. What should we do about Aunt Edna? Warehouse her, unless of course she’s certifiably wacky, then she could find a nice steam grate near the White House.

Finally, Aquia Harbour’s new Bark Park dedication gave me the chance to mention my award-winning Yorkie, Lollipop, once again. She’s aging more gracefully, obviously, than yours truly.

Save Old Glory, Crow’s Nest too?

When our Aquia District supervisor Paul Milde goes one-on-one in a conversation, he can be very articulate and personable. But when the young man talks to a crowd, he seems to come unglued.

I certainly know how that feels. I also got stage fright in my earlier years as a government spokesman, so I can sympathize with Paul’s plight. The good news is he’ll most likely outgrow it. I did--that is, until I got a lot older.

Years ago while giving a really effective speech despite nervousness to a group of fellow bureaucrats—after working hard on its preparation—I came to a seminal point I wished to make and impress the heck out of them. All of a sudden a loud beep erupted from the small tape recorder I had placed on the podium to capture my words. It kept clanging to warn it had stopped. I jumped like I’d been shot, and my audience roared with laughter. I tried to join in the frivolity, but then completely lost my train of thought. I shortly sat back down, utterly frazzled.

Nowadays, my problem increasingly is that I often get stuck in trying to remember the right word to say, even in casual conversations. I suspect, alas, that it has to do with the creeping dementia that most older folks seem to experience eventually.

None of this is meant to detract from young Paul’s development as an effective county supervisor. Indeed, the last time we met by chance the other day, for conversation in Stafford Market Place’s Starbucks, he did a good deed, in addition to fondly petting my sidekick Lollipop. the award-winning Yorkie. She undoubtedly remembered him from our mutually enjoyable days at Gargoyles before it closed in Aquia Towne Center. But I digress.

I did have a personal axe to grind with him, namely getting something removed for good: That faded and tattered old American flag flying so disgracefully and for so long above our equally bedraggled Aquia Towne Center. Voila! Paul got on his cell phone, had a short conversation, and within two or three days a beautiful new Old Glory was flying in place of the old..

But now I have a larger, public point to make with Paul. You may recall this paper published a longish column of his this fall. In it, he argued that the county should approve the big new development proposed off of U.S 1.near the dump.

The main reason, if memory serves, is that the developer would cough up lots of cash proffers to get the go-ahead. And with approval, that substantial gift to the county could be used to help buy up the big tract called Crow’s Nest (you know, the pristine, environmentally sacrosanct treasure that would be just beastly to ever disturb) that nestles very near where Paul lives.

Well, that may be what he and many others would like to have done with the bounty. But I suspect some folks would rather see it added to the budgets of the schools, the fire and rescue squads and other county priorities instead of wasting it on such a non-economic, overpriced historical treasure, however spiritually uplifting. We've got plenty of them, in case you have noticed.

It may have been especially difficult during budget time next spring to swing such an esoteric deal. For Milde and his fellow supervisors will undoubtedly be burning the midnight oil anyway, in trying to keep outlays level with those of the past year, given the fact that property values are still heading way south hereabouts. Reassessment time will surely be testy, to say the least.

Thus, to put it bluntly, would you rather save Crow’s Nest or avoid a huge hike in our real estate tax rates? By now, you may well be reacting to this two-bit budgetary analysis of mine, especially since the deal on that big new development has recently collapsed anyhow. Considering the ongoing downturn in the housing market, what else would you have expected?

So there goes those proffered goodies. But ironically, come to think of it, a buyout of Crow’s Nest itself might be more affordable than before. Who would want to build vacant homes there?

By now, you may suspect that my take on the situation hasn’t been honest-to-Pete objective. However, as columnist Virginia Postrel wrote recently, “….[G]ood journalism in fact requires trained judgment: about what's important, what's interesting, what's worth telling. Good journalism includes story telling and analysis, even in straight news stories and all the more in features or analytical pieces. Mistaking fairness or accuracy for ‘objectivity’ only confuses journalists, their audiences, and their critics.”

So there.

Remembering Pearl Harbor.....

Here’s a memory jog for older readers: Where were you on December 7?

Specifically it was the one date that will live in infamy, as President Roosevelt labeled it the next day in 1941, following Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that launched America’s involvement in World War II.

In Brooklyn, N.Y., six-year-old Tom Kenavan watched in awe as his family’s older members reacted with rage in their home over the radio’s terrible news of the devastation. The very next day, he says, his dad and uncles all went and enlisted in the military. Years later, in 1952, Kenavan would also enlist. He subsequently served in Vietnam and elsewhere overseas before finally becoming a permanent Staffordian.

In pre-war Stafford, hometown boy Joe Duffey, having been uprooted when his family had to relocate because of the Quantico Marine Corps expansion westward in the county before the war, was working on the post as a power plant operator when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Then, facing the draft in 1944 he joined the Navy. On a mine-sweeper, the USS Prince AM 279, Duffey says his crew’s hazards extended beyond the surrender of Japan in 1945 in trying to free up shipping lanes. He took some shrapnel in one mine’s explosion, he recalls. The ship’s service ranged from Okinawa and Formosa to mainland Japan and beyond, he says.

One longtime resident of Stafford’s Aquia Harbour, the late Bill Carpenter, saw first-hand what happened on that fateful day. A newly commissioned Ensign out of the Naval Academy, Carpenter had secretly married—contrary to rules at the time—and had spent the night of Dec. 6 with his wife in Honolulu. He rushed back to Pearl Harbor the next morning to see his ship, Battleship Oklahoma, lying devastated at port from the surprise attacks.

Another North Stafford resident, Gunter Buhrdorf, remembers those days quite differently. As a teenager, he and his family had been regularly bombed in Bremen, Germany, by Britain’s Royal Air Force. He enlisted in the German navy just before the Pearl Harbor attack a world away. He enlisted to avoid being sent as a soldier to the Russian front. Gunter’s unit then surrendered at war’s end in Europe. He emigrated to America, joined the U.S. army and served as a forward observer in combat in the Korean War. And for the whole time, on three continents, he “never got a scratch,” he says.

In Texas, a national guardsman too old to mobilize with his unit was driving home on that Sunday from his farm listening to the car radio's terrible news (with his uncle, Eb Compere, and me). His unit, the 131st Field Artillery of the 36th Infantry Division, was heading to Java to help ward off Japanese incursions in the area. Later known as the Lost Battalion, the men would soon be captured and spend the rest of World War II in death marches and prison camps. Meanwhile, Roscoe Blankenship would head the local draft board and lead civil defense effort and fundraising drives in his hometown of Abilene.

Ken Burns, in his PBS television series, The War, noted many great moments of memorable battles, but no date endures like December 7, 1941, which launched America’s decisive entry and victorious conclusion less than four years later.

Is Old Virginny Turning Blue?

As Barbra Streisand famously opined in the movie Funny Girl, “ I’d rather be blue, thinking of you….

…than to imagine our beloved Virginia in danger of becoming (hide the kids) a wacko Blue state. But we may as well face up to the sorry facts of the matter, friends. For a year from now we could well be one of them, sloshing right alongside the likes of the New Yorks and Jerseys. That’s when old John Warner’s GOP seat in the U.S. Senate becomes young Mark Warner’s, a cunningly popular and rich Democrat who’s currently predicted to waltz into Washington, along with fellow president-elect _____________. That is, whoever runs for the Dems (except Kucinich); it will turn the whole country Bluer than a blue-tick hound.

How shocking. Or delightful, depending on your political coloration. A few years ago, in the long tradition of rock-solid Redness, we Virginians were a proud leader of the Old South and a huge national majority. State Republicans were riding high on the coattails of Gov. Gilmore and his “no-car-tax” banner.

Noted commentators were brooding over the national prospects of a permanent conservative political majority. Sen. George Allen was eyeing the White House. The maps depicting GOP victories were virtually all Red, with the Blue ones—either by county or state tabulations—appearing like occasional fly-specks on a large, beautiful canvas.

One analyst was happily adding to the mantra of permanence. You see, he explained, Republicans’ families are larger and typically more traditional. They aren’t fractured like the Democrats and their kids grow up more like their parents and adopt healthily conservative views, unlike the wild things spawned in drugged stupors by leftist radicals who forgot to abort them.

Alas, those latter slackjaws have turned out to vote, at least for now, Why? basically I suspect it’s because many Americans truly have come to be a teensy bit unhappy with George Bush

I’ll say. Here’s former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan, a staunch conservative, commenting the other day on George Bush’s administration: “No one wants to have worked for the biggest embarrassment in modern American political history.”

Such stuff is hard to swallow but perhaps true. I could do a little piling on myself, criticizing for instance his blown chance of addressing our illegal immigration problem by first closing the border, or his sucking up to alternative energy nuts like those promoting ethanol and windmills.

However, lest we start writing his obituary prematurely, consider a not totally novel development that might unfold further over the rest of Bush’s term in office.

I’m talking about the war in Iraq. Not many in the mainstream media seem lately to be still digging its grave. Perhaps it’s the dog that doesn’t bark, as a clue to what’s happening there. It’s no stretch to envision we’re reaching a true tipping point now or pretty soon,when it becomes clear that we are succeeding in Iraq.

Out of the question? Not at all. And if that becomes obvious to all—except the antiwar dingbats-- before next Inauguration Day that Bush and the Pentagon actually got it done, then his presidency will have been judged a success. I’m not predicting it, but certainly not ruling it out. Wouldn’t that be something?

Then maybe Virginia’s recently acquired Blue tinge might again become foot-stomping Red before long. And follow Stafford County’s example? Why not? After all, we remain mostly Red, despite the switch of a few county supervisors.

Here those supervisors’ labels don’t mean much anyway. For example, in the previous election in the Griffis-Widewater district, incumbent Jack Cavalier had been depicted as a raging liberal by his conservative Republican opponent, and narrowly won. This time, he was painted as a crusty conservative, and narrowly lost.

Why did he get beat this time? And last time, why did Democrat Kandy Hilliard in the Aquia District similarly get beat? In both cases, labels meant little. To wit: Democrat Bob Woodson beat Cavalier and Republican Paul Milde beat Kandy for the same reason. Both winners had tirelessly knocked on every door they could find in their districts.

But I digress. Beyond the supervisors, all the county’s constitutional officers, all Republicans, again swept, plus our two State delegates, State senator, Sheriff, States attorney, Clerk, Treasurer, Revenue Commissioner, and maybe even the dogcatcher for all I know.

Here’s betting it will happen next time, too, although Stafford might become just a Red speck in a bloody Blue Commonwealth.