I certainly picked a good day to check up on my “local” news…
3 minute read
October 10, 2007, 8:08 PM
On my lunch hour today at work, I took some time to read about what’s going on in Stuarts Draft. I went over to The News Virginian and The News Leader‘s sites, and took a look around. By the way, Target’s now open at the site of the former Outlet Village.
But the story that really caught my eye was in the Staunton paper, about a man who is suing the Staunton city government over their swear/spam filtering system – a program called MailMarshal. According to the article, Dr. Adrian Riskin, a mathematics professor at Mary Baldwin College, filed papers in general district court seeking to obtain the list of words that triggers the software, after the city denied an earlier request for the list. The city denied his request on the grounds that it was proprietary information, and therefore was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. Riskin argued that if the city edited the list, it is no longer proprietary. Additionally, Riskin is quoted as saying, regarding an unmodified list, “it cannot possibly be proprietary since the software vendor provides it for a free download from their Web site.”
Continue reading…Categories: Virginia local news
As a former RA myself…
< 1 minute read
April 29, 2007, 7:26 PM
Since the shooting spree at Virginia Tech, I’ve been doing my usual rounds along the AM dial, catching all the different talk show hosts. And one thing that was mentioned time and time again was that the second victim was Ryan C. Clark – an RA at West Ambler Johnston Hall, who was killed in the line of duty, while responding to the situation. I consider that something of a heroic death, as a former RA myself.
You know what Tech ought to do? Name a building in honor of Mr. Clark. And considering the situation, it needs to be a dormitory building. Not necessarily Ambler Johnston, where he was killed, but possibly the next new dormitory to be constructed, or one that isn’t already named after a person or group of people.
If nothing else, it’s a nice thought, and it would certainly be a fitting tribute to someone who ultimately gave his life in the performance of his RA duties for the school.
Categories: Radio, Virginia local news
I feel like a kid on a snow day…
2 minute read
February 7, 2007, 1:24 PM
Categories: Virginia local news, Winter weather
I found an article for the incident on U Street
< 1 minute read
December 19, 2006, 9:06 PM
I Googled it, and indeed I did turn something up. It turns out that what was going on over by the 7-Eleven at the corner U and 12th Streets was about a 51-year-old man shooting another 51-year-old man on the street.
What gets me is that at the time the incident took place, it was broad daylight, and U Street was bustling with people. Therefore, lots of witnesses around. I think I can attest to that considering there were a lot of civilians (as in non-cops) right there. I did not witness the actual event, just to make that perfectly clear. I didn’t see the shooting, and I didn’t hear the shooting. The closest I got to the action was the 13th Street entrance to the U St/African-Amer Civil War Memorial/Cardozo Metro station, which was nearly a block away. Police and ambulance units were already on the scene when I came out of the station.
Categories: DC area local news, DC trips
That ship looks vaguely familiar…
2 minute read
December 14, 2006, 2:09 AM
Take a look at this editorial cartoon by Jim McCloskey, the editorial cartoonist at the Staunton News Leader:
Categories: Ships, Virginia local news
Photos of mine, printed ABOVE the fold…
2 minute read
August 28, 2006, 7:51 AM
How often can you say that your photos end up on the front page of the local newspaper? And above the fold, no less. If you look at the August 28, 2006 edition of The News Virginian, you will see two photos anchoring an article about the Skyline Parkway Motel, which, you may recall, had been abandoned for some time, and then was torched in 2004. Both of them are tagged with “Photo courtesy of BEN SCHUMIN”. Here are the photos that the newspaper ran:
Categories: Afton Mountain, Skyline Parkway Motel, Virginia local news, Wikipedia
Memorial Day weekend…
2 minute read
May 28, 2006, 11:07 PM
One thing you just have to love is Memorial Day weekend. People come in and buy hamburgers, hot dogs, buns, and beer. And some people are nice to their dedicated Wal-Mart cashiers who have to work the entire holiday weekend, while they’re eating and boozing it up. And then some people are crabby. The crabby ones are the ones you just want to strangle, because they make an unpleasant weekend even worse. Add to that the fact that I have a crummy schedule for the next three bloody weeks, and it’s just not fun. I have NO early mornings all three of these weeks. The earliest I come in is 9 AM. My usual schedule is coming in at seven, and out by four.
Otherwise, my birthday is this Tuesday. This year, I’m taking it kind of nonchalantly. No huge celebrations, but then again, I’m not rebelling against it this year like I did in 2005, where I wanted nothing to do with it at all. The only celebrating that I want is to go to dinner, and I haven’t even picked the restaurant yet.
I do know one thing, though – it’s not going to be T-Bone Jacks in Waynesboro. There was a fire there in the wee hours of Saturday morning, which basically gutted the place, and caused the roof to collapse in one place. They say it’s not arson, according to news reports. They say it started as an electrical fire in a back office. Most you can see from Lew Dewitt Boulevard is yellow caution tape all around the building and lots of smoke damage. Smoke seems to have come out of every possible opening based on the marks on the building. It even came out in between the individual sections of wood on the side. I figure when you consider the damage to the building, they’ll probably demolish the building and rebuild at the same location. I just hope they had insurance.
Categories: Birthdays, Holidays, Virginia local news, Walmart, Waynesboro
Lee High in Staunton lost their state championship, and it serves them right.
2 minute read
March 12, 2006, 6:41 PM
I read today in the Staunton News Leader about the whole to-do about Lee High losing the state boys’ basketball championship, after having won it the past two years. Many people were hoping for a “three-peat” of the state championship, which was against Martinsville, and played at VCU in Richmond. Schools in Staunton were even dismissed early on Friday, to facilitate those traveling to Richmond to see the semifinals. Elementary schools in Staunton closed at 11:50 AM, Shelburne Middle School at 11:00 AM, and Lee High at 11:25.
Lee got to the final championship game, and they lost. And I have to say, it serves them right. And it serves them right because the school district took the bold step of officially putting athletics ahead of academics. Of course, realize that academics are what the whole purpose is of having a school system and such in the first place. But instead silly games get the spotlight. And my experience in high school was that athletics really were king, but they just never said so. And they certainly never cancelled school.
It just really bothers me for schools to be dismissed early for an athletic event. Especially with all the big to-do with high stakes testing related to Virginia’s “Standards of Learning” program and the federal “No Child Left Behind” program. Especially since, by having school and serving lunch, the day is considered “official”, even though school only lasted three hours and change. That’s barely even worth showing up for, and a waste of a day, if you ask me. If they’d cancelled school outright, then they would have to make the day up (I don’t know if Staunton had any built in snow days or not). That would be less offensive to me, because of the need to make the time up.
All in all, I think that the early dismissal jinxed them. Serves them right.
Categories: Virginia local news
“I nearly passed out when I heard you defending George Bush…”
2 minute read
January 22, 2006, 4:39 PM
As anyone who’s been around this Web site knows, I am very anti-George W. Bush. Thus why, when discussing a letter to the editor in the Staunton News Leader with some of my coworkers on my lunch hour, I surprised a few of them in that my response defended Bush. One coworker actually said, “I nearly passed out when I heard you defending George Bush.”
The letter was as follows:
I thought we fought the Revolutionary War years ago — the Boston Tea party included. Now President Bush has decided to make Washington, D.C. a smoke-free city. The Boston tea Party will turn into a smoke-in at the White House. Poor people enjoy a few things. One thing is a cigarette; another is an ice-cold beer.
Shame on you George Bush!
Ellen Edgar
Staunton
Categories: Virginia local news
What “abandoned former Wal-Mart sites”?
2 minute read
January 21, 2006, 11:17 PM
In the Staunton News Leader‘s January 21, 2006 house editorial, they discussed about the Frontier Culture Museum’s plan for using some of its property fronting US 250 and Frontier Drive for retail in order to help fund the museum’s programs (the museum itself is back and out of sight from the front of the property).
What made my ears perk up while reading this was this paragraph about the facility that anchors all this development:
Remember too that the retail leviathan that anchors the area is an aging Wal-Mart. Those who recall all the other abandoned former Wal-Mart sites around Staunton can attest that this chain is not the most faithful.
I question the accuracy of this statement. I am not even going to touch the issue of how “faithful” Wal-Mart is, because it’s immaterial to the discussion.
Categories: Staunton, Virginia local news, Walmart
I read an article that troubled me…
6 minute read
November 6, 2005, 10:31 PM
I was reading this past Saturday’s News Virginian, and an article on the front page of the paper troubled me. The article was called “Dilemma of threats on Internet”. Here’s a link to the article.
The basic premise of the article was about students’ reactions in their own online journals to an incident at Riverheads High School in Augusta County, where a 15-year-old student was given an “indefinite suspension” by school officials for an October 1 entry in his online journal hosted by xanga.com where he contemplated “a massive systematical killing of people at rhs for the soul purpose of saying that i can”.
First of all, I will be the first to say that posting such things in a public space (which the Internet basically is) was not the best thing to do. But, to avoid dwelling on should-have-dones in that situation, let’s assume that what’s done is done. It’s posted, and that’s all there is to it.
In addition, I do not take issue with the principal’s encountering the material in question in the first place. These online journals are accessible to the general public without a password, and thus I consider the principal to be well within his rights to look at these online journals. When someone posts to an online journal that is publicly accessible, including this one, that means that anyone can look at it, and I do mean anyone. To make my point, I had no trouble finding AnothrDmBlnd’s Xanga site, whose November 2 entry was the source of one of the comments mentioned in the article.
Categories: School, Security, Virginia local news
Mom got into the newspaper…
< 1 minute read
September 2, 2005, 4:38 PM
It’s an article in The News Virginian on Friday, September 2 about SOL writing testing in middle schools, and how the middle schools in Augusta County made the mark for the most part.
And here’s the picture with the caption:
Lauren Campbell and Clay Agee, sixth-graders at Stuarts Draft Middle School, read stories they wrote for a homework assignment to language arts teacher Jane Schumin. (Rosanne Viscuso/Staff)
And here’s a link to the News Virginian article: Middle schools make mark
It’s really neat seeing your mother’s name and photo in print in the newspaper. And in her room at SDMS, no less.
Categories: Family, Virginia local news
If only I’d known about it ahead of time…
2 minute read
August 29, 2005, 5:18 PM
The talk in both local newspapers (the News Leader and the News Virginian) this weekend was about two political demonstrations on back-to-back days in Staunton in front of the Augusta County Courthouse.
On Friday at noon, an anti-war demonstration went on. The group was demonstrating in support of Cindy Sheehan’s demonstration in Crawford, Texas. According to this article in the News Leader, about 25 people demonstrated in front of the courthouse. The demonstration was sponsored by the Virginia Anti-War Network. The Augusta Coalition for Peace and Justice was also represented there.
At Friday’s demonstration, there was a group of four people across the street carrying Bush campaign signs. These were the counter-protesters. According to the same article, James Waltz, a recent Riverheads High School graduate, and one of the counter-protesters, said that the anti-war demonstrators are “really on the fringes.”
Categories: Anti-war, Virginia local news
What is wrong with this picture?
2 minute read
July 24, 2005, 10:35 PM
What is wrong with this picture from the Sunday, July 24 edition of the Staunton News Leader?
Categories: Amusing, Virginia local news
Wal-Mart in Roanoke – the place for desperate singles to meet and greet?
3 minute read
July 17, 2005, 5:58 PM
You know what’s so special about this store?
This is the Wal-Mart on US 220 near Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke, Virginia. They have introduced Singles Shopping, which, according to The Roanoke Times, is “an opportunity for singles to meet while stocking up on milk, underwear, snacks and small appliances.”
Categories: Myself, Roanoke, Virginia local news, Walmart