I Was Wrong, and I Apologize

In my diary of Wednesday, May 14, 2008, I stated the premise that the McGuire VA Hospital was accepting socks for soldiers that would otherwise not have them. I also said that the government could not afford socks.

I am aware now that this isn’t the case. I have been in contact with someone from the hospital, and they have set me straight as to what the real needs are. I was wrong, and I apologize for ever giving the impression that these ‘facts’ I presented were true.

As I recounted in my diary, a local Farmville VFW member had written a letter to the editor concerning socks for soldiers. I understood the meaning of the letter to say that a shortage of socks existed, and that’s how I arrived where my diary did concerning this situation. However, the letter did say that the hospital could not afford socks. The letter’s purpose was to raise funds for socks.

My apologies also go to McGuire Hospital, since this has caused them bad publicity and confused the situation of what the soldiers’ true needs are. I know first hand how hard the people at that and all the Veteran’s Hospitals work to mend and repair the bodies and minds of our heroes. Being a veteran myself, I have been treated at this hospital, as has my dad, an Air Force veteran.

The person I corresponded with told me that there are lists, which I have now received. The original intent was to have a fun day with the socks thing, and I spoiled that in that I didn’t check my sources well enough when I wrote.

I have the lists, which, with my partners on this, if they want to work with me, will organize a drive for gifts to these soldiers in need of something to brighten their days.

Throughout this, I will keep you informed, and ask you to help as we show some true thankfulness for the sacrifices these soldiers have gone through.

This situation has brought something to mind, as it should for everyone. In my haste, I screwed up a good situation by trying to help. I will check my sources better and also research my stories better. I apologize finally to you, the reader.

Cumberland County Schools: $36m for New Schools; No Alternative Energy Features

In another short -sighted move, Cumberland County Schools are building new schools (middle and high schools) and have neglected to include any alternative energy features at all. In fact, the running joke here in the county is that the alternative energy feature of the new schools is a skylight.

The whole process of ramming these new schools down our throats has gone on now for over two years, during which the School Board at the time and the Board of Supervisors got together to run a propaganda campaign, including strongly coercing students to attend key meetings of the BOS while they were discussing the dump, which was supposedly dreamed up as a way to fund the new schools. Got that?

Through all of this, the BOS have been enablers. This question of new schools was rolled into the taking of property by the schools, land and buildings they themselves had sold only a few years earlier. At the same time, the BOS wanted to make sure a dump could be located in the county, but said the two issues were not connected. Every meeting I went to, every quote in the paper, and the actions of both the School Board and the BOS, pointed towards approving the dump as a way of paying for the new schools.

News comes today in the paper that the county has now decided to lease its own Administration Building back from the Cumberland IDA (Industrial Development Authority), where it will be vested as collateral for the $10m new loan to cover ‘expenses’ connected with the proposed Cobb Creek Reservoir project. The financing keeps going around and around, where it stops nobody knows.

Meanwhile, we are stuck with no alternative energy in our brand new school buildings, a decision that will cost the schools, and by extension, the citizens of Cumberland County, hundreds of thousands of dollars in the next 30 years in utility bills, not to mention the environmental impact of a facility heated by steam or propane or electricity.

The curriculum at our schools includes units on renewable energy, recycling, and other green technologies. What a shame the school they go to did not become an example for the students to study, and an example for those in the community that would follow that lead.

The last point for now is that this has happened contrary to the schools’ own policy, last revised in 1996:

ENERGY-CONSERVING CONSTRUCTION

FECBA

Use of energy-conserving construction shall be a high priority. The proposed project which contains the most efficient energy-saving plans within an acceptable budget shall have priority. Energy-saving designs shall be documented in the architectural evaluation and shall comply with educational specifications as determined by the State Department of Education and approved by the School Board.
A continuous study of energy problems and energy sources will be maintained by the administration for future planning in new construction.

Adopted: January 9, 1995
Revised: September 9, 1996
_________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________
Legal Refs.: Code of Virginia, 1950, as amended, sections22.1-70, 22.1-78, 36-97 to 36-119.1
- Uniform Statewide Building Code
CUMBERLAND COUNTY

Oh well, another day in Cumberland County, the Land That Time Forgot^TM

McGuire VA Hospital in Richmond Can’t Afford Socks for GI’s

I was reading the local paper last week, and a letter to the editor sprang up at me. In it, a volunteer for the VFW chapter in Farmville wrote that the Veteran’s Hospital in Richmond does not have enough socks for their patients, many of them long-term care patients. The injured soldiers’ feet get cold due to the limited activity most of them can stand. Their feet get cold, hence the socks.

I can’t relate to you how upset this has made me. In fact, that is why I have waited to write about it. It was said that the VA hospital ‘couldn’t afford’ socks. I wonder if somewhere in the multi-billion dollar war budget there might be room for some socks. Everywhere you look, facilities are falling down. National Guard units can’t do their jobs (Katrina) because their equipment is being used in the war. At one point a few years ago, I read that the soldiers in a particular Guard unit were expected to share one pistol among them for target practice. Will we be protected? Will our soldiers be treated humanely?

I welcome today’s news that Virgil Goode has signed on late to the GI Bill measure that our Senator, Jim Webb has authored. Now let’s see if we can afford some socks for the men and women who will never be the same, who are bedridden by their injuries and who deserve socks woven with gold thread for the job they do and did for us.

This is just disgusting. Call your Congresspeople and your Senators to get some action on this. It is a national disgrace.

Virgil Goode Signs on to End In Vitro Fertilization

At a great blog called “That’s My Congress”, there is a story about Georgia Republican Paul Broun and his ‘Sanctity of Human Life Act‘ (HR-4157) that is right on the money. Let’s find out about the bill itself, shall we?

H.R. 4157, which Representative Broun refers to as the Sanctity of Human Life Act, might more accurately be entitled the Zygote Political Enfranchisement Act or the Anti-Fertility Act. The legislation has been written by Congressman Broun in order to define a human egg created in the United States from the moment of fertilization, through its development into a fetus ready to be born, as a complete person with full legal rights and constitutional protections equal to that of any other American citizen.

Under Broun’s proposed law, this award of full legal protections to all fertilized eggs, even one created just one minute ago, would be given regardless of the ability of the fertilized egg to implant in a womb and grow to become a baby. H.R. 4157 states this very directly:

“the life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.”

A fertilized egg must be given all the legal protections of a person, irrespective of health, function or disability? That means that even if a fertilized egg or blastula (a tiny hollow ball of human cells post-fertilization) is somehow determined to have a terrible genetic disease, it would nonetheless have to be given full medical treatment in order to make sure that it survived to be born. If that treatment was not given, its parents could be criminally charged with child abuse or neglect.

Wait, it gets better.

In the Fifth District, we have a lot of problems that need to be addressed. Not once have I heard anyone say, “Gosh, I think I want to mess up couples’ ability to conceive and have children.” However, we do have a Congressman who is either too dense, or too ideologically bent to recognize the effect of this bill.

Yes, Virgil Goode signed on as a cosponsor for this bill. So did the following people, all Republicans:

Todd Akin Rodney Alexander Rob Bishop John Boozman Dan Burton John Carter Steve Chabot Michael Conaway David Davis Mary Fallin Tom Feeney Randy Forbes Luis Fortuno Trent Franks Scott Garrett Phil Gingrey

Virgil Goode Jeb Hensarling Wally Herger Bob Inglis Sam Johnson Walter Jones Steve King Jack Kingston John Kline Doug Lamborn John Linder Donald Manzullo Kenny Marchant Michael McCaul Patrick McHenry Jeff Miller

Marilyn Musgrave Randy Neugebauer Ron Paul Mike Pence Charles Pickering Joseph Pitts Rick Renzi Harold Rogers Peter Roskam Bill Sali Jean Schmidt Christopher Smith Tom Tancredo Terry Lee Todd Tiahrt Tim Walberg Zach Wamp David Weldon Lynn Westmoreland

You owe it to yourself to go read the whole article. It is well reasoned, and makes a lot of sense. These kinds of bills make me wonder if this isn’t dog whistle behavior for the Republicans? So they can say they are doing things their constituents want?

In any case, this is one House Bill that needs to be held in committee until dead.

And call your congressman or woman and tell them hands off your reproductive rights and your body. Yes, that includes men and women.