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archives push me to post webmail :: xenii mail the hive :: for trading and raiding polymorph :: a cosmographia universalis chrisnelson.ca :: chiefwagonburner has a blog fortune cookie distro :: x's distro
Ms Speck, the horrible violence of this existence never ceases to amze me. But especially the violence of people against other people seems brutal and senseless. I am very sorry to hear of the violence recently visited upon you and your friends. Here in Richmond, just the other day (last weekend), during a local black festival (sorry to sound so white, but I don't even know what it is about except it's a big weekend where many people come out and party in the streets), called BET (after the Black Entertainment Television channel?), a person was shot in the head while sitting in a car. This happened right outside a friend's apartment. He discovered the police taped-off scene when he returned from our usual "guy's night out." He didn't see the body, but exprerssed a great amount of disturbance, at least at the thought that this happened right outside of his apartment. A side note, Richmond has a weird love affair with violence and inner city urban blight. In past BET festivals there has been other violence, often leading to the deaths of more than one person. There are large neighborhoods (some actual projects and some not limited to, nor predominantly black) which are known to have a high precentage of drug abuse and drug related violence. In the 70's and 80's Richmond's downtown dried-up, and little has been done to revitalize it. Now referred to as the "wig district", little other than wig shops, nail salons, record stores and check cashing businesses trive downtown. And the empty shops out number these. One other business has been entrenched downtown for years, art galleries. The irony there doesn't escape me. It seems intentional to stage art shows among the otherwise bleak landscape. I'd speculate that it is also near VCU (a fairly highly acredited art school), and it's cheap to lease a store space downtown. But I'd like to think that the artists, or at least the art gallery owners, mean to bring culture back to the area. Of course urban blight has often been a subject of the arts. It's ironic to see a display of photos or paintings of rundown buildings, while walking around in what recently was one. ====================== This next area has been recently edited... Richmond's city council has been rife with scandals and scams. Gwen Hedgepath (sp?) was one recent example of a council member receiving prison time for taking bribes in exchange for their vote on the council. Chuck Richardson recently was rearrested for growing pot plants in his basement and for possession of heroin (?). He origianally was removed from city councilmanship for being charged with dealing crack and, or heroin. He is also known as a user and has been in rehab a few times. Then there's the guy with the arabic sounding name (Saad Amin (sp?)), who was also charged with taking moeny and I believe tax evasion. A mayor, Leonitus Young (?) was also involved in a scandal, taking money for favors. A City Manager, Chevas(?) was charged (though I don't know if he was convicted), with tax evasion in his trucking business. And a lady, "cop lover", named Reba something (the only white member of Richmond city government yet mentioned) was removed for inappropriate behaviour having to with her involvement with local law enforcement agents. She, the only as yet mentioned white person of Richmond city government, got a job locally among law enforcement. Our city government is predominately black, which represents the demographic. It makes one think, "Do they want us to accept corruption as good soap opera?" I may have misquoted a few charges and, or misspelled a few names, sorry, I'm not a big follower of local news. But this cruption takes place amongst the very blight that has made downtown Richmond less than desirable to many shoppers and businesses. Then there's the annual race controversy. It's a war fought over city government, landmarks, monuments and other proposed construction. A recent city vote was on whether our heretofore city council appointed mayor, become an elected position. On the outside this seems harmless enough, vote by the people for the people. Problem is the big white money was pushing to have the elections. It seems they are often twarted by the predominantly black city government. With an elected mayor, the white money had a better chance of swaying voters, or so one might believe to hear them talk. I don't believe the measure passed. As downtown is slowly reclaimed (near-in areas are being rennovated and resold for $$$!), proposed monuments and construction plans frequently fall into nationally scrutinized controvery. The Arthur Ashe statue, should it be on Monument Avenue, a predominantly Confederate Civil War hero venue? I'm happy to say that eventually it did get approval and now stands a little beyond those other southern gentlemen, on Monument Avenue. There was a proposal to put a sculptured face of General Robert E. Lee on our flood wall. Again a big local deabte, and big news nationwide. That one was cancelled, thank you. And a similarly inappropriate proposal for a statue of Abraham Lincoln, in a downtown tourist area. What was that supposed to be about? I doubt if the man ever visited Richmond, and if so, it was likely after the Union burned it during the Civil War. And local controversy often erupts over new corporate construction proposals, in what is otherwise a rundown, but nevertheless historic district. Several areas of great old houses and some beauty spots of river views, have been destroyed and, or marred by industrial and corporate construction. Money talks; parks and historic districts fall. Anyway, this has meandered far enough off topic to deserve a return. Richmond still is fighting to free its inner city. And at the same time the powers that be, seem determined to keep things as they are. I know, where-ever you are there are similar controversies. It's just that in Richmond it's more black and white than some places. And though it often appears to be black on black, the Uber Whites don't let you see their manipulations leading to this explosive situation. The urban blacks see little way to escape their drug-infested, rundown neighborhoods, and the suburban whites feel all vindicated for moving out of the city because of all of the violence. A large part of Richmond doesn't want to change. There are solutions, and some things have improved. But it is so slow a change as to be ineffectual for those who live through these times. For all of its good, Richmond is one messed-up town! I doubt that this has helped much Ms Speck. Please know I am deeply moved and would wish that no such violence would ever happen again. It appears to be a human condition. Whether we can change as a species is unknown to me. I wish that we would. Peace All! Awwa \A/
Aw Herr Awwa, send me your Art.e.Morphs! I'll post them to polymorph.  Also, per your language idea, check this out: http://www.zsl.org/news/n_0000001461.asp. Seems they need volunteers to use chimp language in the workplace. They're hoping it will help people get along better.
jimmy I'm sorry, Sarah. Both things are horrible.
chiefwagonburner That's so horrible. I'm so sorry to hear that. I don't know how the world could be this way. It doesn't make sense. How anyone could do that to another person doesn't make sense. I'm sorry, sarah.
jimmy what the hell is going on? seems like impending doom in the world... I just talked to Cutty and one of his cousins that lives in Vegas got stabbed 40 times last night and died. God, it's terrible. The poor guy - he was only like 24 or something and was really a nice guy - I just met him a few weeks ago when he was here visiting and we were supposed to go see him in June. What a horrible violent thing to happen. The world is such a fucked up place. How can someone do that to another person?
Miss Speck and the Giant Librarians well, I googled "speed wild" but didn't come up with anything good. That's what I call my downstairs neighbor who is either crazy or has a penchance for speed and doesn't sleep a lot and therefore sounds are REALLY loud for him. He pounds on my floor or comes up and yells at me for making a "racket" when I do terrible things like sweep my floor at 7pm. He's freaky and harrasses me a lot and used to just kind of threaten me, but then last night he came up and threatened to shoot me at 11pm while I was ironing. So I called the cops and my building manager is working on evicting him, but not fast enough in my opinion. The dude is a loose cannon and I'm not gonna live above someone that is so incensed by me walking around my apartment that he wants to kill me. They said he doesn't have a gun, but I'm not so sure and that's not really the point anyway. There's a lot of damage you can do to a person without a gun, so I want to get the fuck out. It sucks though because I've lived there for 5 years (he's only been there 2 months) and I really like my place, but if they can't tell me that he'll be out by the end of the month then I will be. ugh. anyhoo.
Miss Speck and the Giant Librarians Coop, charlotte = cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute (although i'm sure you've heard it many times before, but it can't be helped! her cuteness power is off the richter scale, as the black eyed peas like to say) the best thing to do when you're wicked bored is to go to google.com and type in names of people you know, or the most random phrases ever. here is what i get when i type in jeffron:  oh, how about jimmy  or giant librarian?  or i love cheese!?!?!?!?!? 
x 
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