FREE: The Mid-December edition of Warren County Report

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Enjoy our completely free print edition by clicking on the cover image above. Here are some highlights:

From ‘Reality TV’ fluff to a REAL state security scandal

National media frenzy follows White House ‘gatecrashers’ to Warren County (& us)

Tuesday, November 24 should have been a night about The United States and India, the latter a nuclear power of 1.1 billion people and the most populous democracy in the world. President Obama’s first White House State Dinner in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was a glitzy affair and the hottest ticket in the nation’s capital.

In attendance were two Linden, VA residents. Tareq Salahi, famous for a long-running feud with his mother over control of the family’s Hume, VA Oasis Winery and his wife Michaele, who is set to be a featured player in the coming season of Real Housewives of Washington, DC on the Bravo cable network and NBC-owned stations.

The big news story following the state dinner should have been about solidifying U.S. ties with a major player on the Asian subcontinent as regional political stability teeters outward from American-occupied Afghanistan into two nuclear-armed and traditionally hostile nations, India and Pakistan.

But that was not to be the case.

Salahis in court over unpaid lawn service debt

Warren County’s most famous socialite couple was in Front Royal on Friday morning for an event not likely to be found penciled in on their social calendar.

Rather than a state dinner for a foreign dignitary, on Dec. 4 White House State Dinner party crashers Tareq and Micheale Salahi were invited guests for the 9 a.m. docket of Warren County General District Court.

The couple faced legal interviews over non-payment of a year-old, $925 judgment against them for lawn care services at their Overlook Drive home in the Mosby Estates subdivision near Linden, in eastern Warren County. The couple’s total debt to A1A Home Improvement and Lawn Care Service is actually $2,063, including plaintiff legal fees, court costs and interest.

Jewelers deem Salahi watch a fake

A day after their own attempted ‘repo’ – watch valued at $100

An alleged Patek Philippe Geneve watch surrendered by Tareq Salahi to Warren County General District Court Dec. 4 has been deemed a fake by two jewelers asked to evaluate its authenticity. The watch was turned over to the court to be sold to satisfy a $2,063.35 judgment against the Salahis from a past due lawn maintenance bill.

Asked about the watch brand and value after the court seizure, Salahi attorney David Silek characterized it as making “a Rolex look like a Swatch.” As the watch seizure was discussed in court as a payment option to satisfy the unpaid judgment, Silek said his clients had informed him the watch’s value far exceeded the amount of the lawn service judgment against them.

Repo man says fled Salahis under threat of gun

Tareq to Michaele – ‘get gun’ according to court complaint

A 2006 Audi that got alleged White House State Dinner crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi an expired state inspection ticket while in an attorney’s office after a Dec. 4 court appearance in Front Royal caused even more headaches for the couple last year.

Documents show that Tareq Salahi was charged in 2008 with petty larceny for taking the keys of a tow truck driver who was sent to repossess the car because Salahi was over $5,500 behind on payments on an outstanding balance of $57,646.22. The monthly payment on the car is $1,771.39.

17-0 shutout cows Graham critics to silence (almost)

Three of kind can’t beat Front Royal Town Manager’s ‘Full House’

A move to oust Town Manager J. Michael Graham at the Nov. 23 Front Royal Town Council meeting died a nearly silent death in the wake of a public outcry of foul play and shameful behavior from a full house of town citizens at the Warren County Government Center.

“Petty and small minded personal agendas,” were among the assessments of motives for such a radical town personnel move offered by 17 of 17 speakers addressing council on the subject during the public concerns portion of the meeting.

Madden: Sayre still no conflict on FRLP

Facts as presented allow councilman’s ‘fair & objective’ participation

On Dec. 9, Warren County Commonwealth’s Attorney Brian Madden issued an opinion on a second request by Front Royal Town Councilman Tom Sayre on a potential conflict of interest regarding the Front Royal Limited Partnership rezoning proposal currently before council.

Madden has already issued one opinion, on Sept. 21, that Sayre did not have an apparent and irreconcilable conflict on the FRLP residential rezoning request impacting 149 acres of land west of, but not adjacent to his family home property. That initial inquiry involved the inclusion of an East-West Connector Road, a portion of which would run adjacent to Sayre’s property and serve as an entrance access to the proposed residential development of 320 units, in the FRLP proffer package.

A time for healing: 50 years beyond division

WCHS’s Class of ’59 recalls the hard times of ‘Massive Resistance’

On Dec. 1, 2009, a state Special Subcommittee on the 50th Anniversary of Public School Closing in Virginia convened for a work session and Town Hall meeting in the auditorium of the new Warren County High School. Joining local officials and state legislators were both black and white members of the WCHS Class of 1959, a class often referred to as the “Lost Class of 1959.”

If lost they were, it was because in that tumultuous school year of 1958-59 students found themselves embroiled in the middle of the Virginia State Government’s attempt to avoid U.S. Supreme Court upheld and federally-ordered racial integration of the nation’s public school systems.

Locals join statewide call for health care reform

Pro reform advocates say the true atrocity is business as usual

Despite the threat of a pending nasty wintry mix of precipitation, on Dec. 1, locals joined others demonstrating for meaningful Health Care Reform across the Commonwealth of Virginia.

If it is not clear to those in the U.S. Congress or the White House what is at stake for the average American, they needed to only listen to the stories told by citizens gathered on Front Royal’s Main Street and other literal or figurative Main Streets across Virginia.

Callahan plans appeal of brandishing conviction

Neighborhood dispute leads to 4 misdemeanor firearm convictions

On Dec. 9, a woman accused of brandishing a firearm at several people gathered near a garage she has claimed they are using for illegal commercial vehicle repairs, was convicted on four of the five misdemeanor counts stemming from an Aug. 21 incident.

Contacted on Dec. 10, Patricia Callahan said she plans to appeal the General District Court convictions. She has 10 days in which to file an appeal. She declined further comment on advice of her attorney, John Bell.

What now? – Town loses round one of corridor case

Judge Hupp rules for restaurants on basic challenge of meals tax fees

Where do we go from here? – was without a doubt the focal point of a Dec. 3 Closed Session of the Front Royal Town Council.

The 7 p.m. Closed Session “to consult with the Town Attorney on the lawsuit styled Applebee’s Restaurants, etc., et als v. Town of Front Royal, Virginia” was added to council’s list of things to do on Tuesday, Dec. 1, not coincidentally we would imagine, one day after Judge Dennis L. Hupp dropped the first bombshell in what has become commonly known as “the corridor lawsuit.”

Brooks urges county support of town corridor stance

Former mayor urges county to see mutual interest in preserving fees

The day after an initial summary judgment went against the Town of Front Royal in its defense of the inclusion of its meals tax in calculating fees attached to 522 North Corridor utility bills, former Front Royal Mayor and Town Councilman Stan Brooks urged the county to stand with the town as the case proceeds.

“This agreement will fall to pieces if this [meals tax component] is taken out,” Brooks told the Warren County Board of Supervisors during the Public Presentations portion of the 9 a.m., Dec. 1 meeting. “How will the town survive” the loss of one of its primary revenue sources enabled by the now challenged 1998 Route 522 Corridor Agreement? Brooks asked county officials.

Athey describes ‘bleak’ state economic outlook

Delegate promises fight for continued state commitment to regional jail

“Bleak would be an understatement,” 18th District Del. Clifford L. “Clay” Athey told the Warren County Board of Supervisors of the state’s economic outlook during a Dec. 1 Legislative Report on the coming session of the Virginia General Assembly.

Athey said that the past two budget years as the U.S. plunged into what has been described as its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s, were the first time within his experience that the commonwealth had faced year-to-year reductions in state revenues. Athey said the legislature’s focus would be on enabling core services to be provided – “after that there will be substantial cuts,” he said.

Goodbye Kevin King

Kevin King was a fixture in my professional life here since my first go-round at The Warren Sentinel beginning in 1992. Even during my first hiatus from local journalism in the late 1990’s due to a family illness, I would run into Kevin on either visits to the newspaper’s office, or on the street as he was making his weekly circulation rounds.

When I finally parted ways with the Sentinel in 2006 and began this endeavor with Dan McDermott, the pattern of unplanned connections continued, often over our dueling circulation duties at our respective papers. As with most staff at the Sentinel, our journalistic competition remained friendly and good natured. We’d often trade papers out of our vehicles – hey, WCR wasn’t always free – and compare notes. If our schedules allowed we’d sit down and revisit old times or new over a cup of coffee.

Remembering My Friend ‘Chigger’

The shows all sound different without him now. We started out together sometime in 1992. He was playing the drums then. I wasn’t to sure he was going to work out on the drums. He was a rock drummer and I was looking for more of a country drummer. He said he didn’t know that much about playing country music. Chigger began collecting a lot of country music and started learning quickly. – Man, he was like that. Once he set his mind to it, he was going to do it. I’d say within a couple of months, we had enough songs down that we could start going out to play. We had Dean Smith on Bass/Vocal, Mark Calhoun on piano, Chigger on Drums and myself on Lead Guitar/Vocals, known as From the Heart. That was the name I came up with because of Chigger.

Town, Barros set to butt heads over Afton Inn?

In the wake of a perhaps ironically dated Dec. 7 work session, the Front Royal Town Council appears poised to drop a communications “bomb” on Afton Inn owner and Northern Virginia developer Frank Barros.

While that bomb won’t be delivered on Pearl Harbor Day, Dec. 7, it should come within four to six weeks, at one of council’s regularly scheduled January meetings.

Wagner Shelter gets perfect score from state vet

Chairman Archibald Cox of the Warren County Board of Supervisors and Vice Mayor Bret Hrbek of Front Royal congratulated the Julia Wagner Animal Shelter staff at an open house November 21 on obtaining a 100% compliance report from an unannounced annual inspection by the state veterinarian’s office just 48 hours earlier. The state inspector stated to director Jane Johnson that “the shelter had never looked better or been more organized.”

Johnson later elaborated on the parameters of the inspection.

Area youth perform ‘A Christmas Carol’

With the holiday season upon us a group of local children are working hard to bring joy to our community. This Saturday and Sunday the theatre troupe who call themselves, The Kings Players will perform a version of the classic, “A Christmas Carol” on stage at the Strasburg Theater.

After months of practicing, these children have put together an incredible performance. The main character, Uncle Scrooge, is played by 11 year old Aiden Dowell of Stephens City, who leads a phenomenal show. Aiden’s mom Jennifer Dowell reported, “This was the first play he’s ever been in, and he was brave enough to accept the lead role.”

AUDIO: A discussion of coyotes, eagles, bats and owl banding on The Valley Today.

Publisher Dan McDermott was guest hosting a talk show today. Dan and WZRV afternoon DJ Lonnie Hill discussed the Friends of Shenandoah River State Park and some critters that populate our favorite river destination.

Here is the Audio. (Left-click to play or right-click to Save-As and play from your computer.)

More about Friends of Shenandoah River State Park.

Hudson River crash and glider skills

Andre Gerner, former Commandant of the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, spoke at the Skyline Soaring Club annual safety meeting on Feb. 7 Gerner also lauded the role of glider flying in developing general aviation skills. Photo by Roger Bianchini.

‘Stick & rudder’ experience with powerless flight crucial for all pilots

By Roger Bianchini
Warren County Report

Did powerless flight skills honed at small general aviation airports such as the one here in Warren County, Virginia, help US Airways Pilot Chesley Sullenberger bring his commercial passenger jet down safely in the Hudson River on Jan. 15, saving the lives of all 155 people aboard in the process?

A trio of members and participants in the Skyline Soaring Club’s annual safety meeting held Saturday, Feb. 7, at the Front Royal-Warren County Airport (FRR), as well as their host, Airport Manager Reggie Cassagnol, believe Sullenberger’s experience with glider flight was a contributing factor in his ability to safely guide his US Airways Flight 1549 “Airbus” to a safe “off-field” landing within two minutes of losing all engine power just after takeoff from New York City’s LaGuardia Airport.

While a career-long focus on the wide parameter of airline safety procedures was noted, Sullenberger’s experience as a glider pilot was singled out as a crucial part of the skill sets utilized that day to save an untold number of lives in the midst of heavily populated midtown Manhattan. The primary reason is a glider pilot’s constant focus on what to do if the thermal lift upon which gliders are dependent is lost. For while it was a powerful commercial jetliner bound for Charlotte, North Carolina, Sullenberger piloted on Jan. 15, his sudden loss of power after a collision with a flock of birds put him in essentially the same position glider pilots regularly find themselves in – improvising a landing site.

Cassagnol points out that when gliders are forced to land short of a return to their airport point of departure, it is not termed an accident or even incident, but rather simply an “off-field landing.” And land off field is essentially what pilot Chesley Sullenberger accomplished with his commercial passenger jet on the Hudson River in the middle of New York City on Jan. 15.

Cassagnol, who is a Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) certified safety instructor, said he recommends his CassAviation flight students take at least a couple of glider instructions “to illustrate the point that when the engine stops it’s not over; and to improve their general flying skills.”

‘The Right (Glider) Stuff’

“When you’re flying a powered aircraft, one of the things you’re always asked, especially when you’re a student, is ‘Okay, if the engine fails now, where would you go?’ And it is something [Sullenberger] had rehearsed many times, because in a glider every landing is an emergency landing – they’re all engine out. So you’ve got to make it count. You can’t go around and do it again,” Andre Gerner told us after his own safety presentation to the Skyline Soaring Club. “In terms of developing pure stick and rudder skills, and getting out into the air and finding lift, and there are different forms of lift – glider flying, really I think, makes you keenly aware of what’s going on around you.”

Gerner called himself “an avid proponent” of glider flight as an instructional tool for powered flight in a previous position he held. That position was as Commandant of the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base from 2005-2007. It is a position he noted, that has been held by, among others, Chuck Yeager and “Buzz” Aldrin. Yeager’s legendary reputation in the test pilot world was immortalized in the book and movie “The Right Stuff;” and Aldrin was the second man to walk on the moon, behind fellow Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong.

“As I was saying earlier, the four tier-one military schools would be the Air Force Test Pilot School (Edwards), the Naval Test Pilot School at “Pax” River, the Empire Test Pilot School in England, and Epner, which is the French Test Pilot School,” Gerner said. “Then there’s also the National Test Pilot School, which is civilian, that’s in Mohave, California, and then Brazil and India both have test pilot schools. Those are the major schools in the West – but the point I wanted to make is all four of those [military] schools use gliders in their curriculum because it’s considered important to expose students to that unique portion of the envelope.

“I would require every student to come in and get a commercial glider [license]. I’m just a big fan of that. I think its very effective training. It’s pure flying, flying in its purest sense – stick and rudder, you’ve got to move everything and you’re more in tune with what’s going on,” Gerner says of glider pilot’s relationship to his flight environment.

A first in the jet age

Another glider pilot and safety expert we spoke with at FRR on Feb. 7, pointed to the entire set of flight skills Sullenberger brought to the table to accomplish what he called a first in the age of jet flight.

“I think glider training is valuable. It helps a pilot with certain skills. But nobody’s ever ditched an airliner full of passengers in the jet era without loss of life,” Steve Wallace observed of emergency landings at sea. “In my view the more incredible aspect of this story than setting the airplane down in tact in the river, was getting everybody off it alive in the cold water. The plane didn’t break up; the captain and the whole crew, I think, did a brilliant job. I personally am not surprised that he was able to set that airplane down in the river in tact. I am surprised everybody got off it alive.”

Wallace’s credentials in the aviation community include being a part of the team that officially reviewed the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster. In fact, Wallace pointed out he had presented a talk on the Columbia disaster at FRR, where one of the astronauts killed on that flight, David Brown, used to fly in on his way to visit his parents in Washington, Va. (but that’s another story for another day)

“I would say [glider flight] is a part of Sullenberger’s background which was tremendous. He was a military pilot as well. And he was also well known in the aviation community for participating in various safety issues, the pilot’s union, national investigations and different things like that. So this was a guy who was well beyond this is the job I’ve got from 9 to 5,” Wallace says.

“He would be the type of person, who in his head, would be – as we talked about on safety issues today – inclined to constantly think in terms of what would I do if this happens and turn over those what-if scenarios. That scenario was beyond anything in a training simulator. That was Sullenberger – what’s my best option? I’m going to put the plane down there,” Wallace said of the man who became a national hero overnight with his quick response to a set of potentially fatal variables.

General Aviation’s value

“Because of increasing automation that you find on airliners, there’s fewer and fewer opportunities for manually flying the airplane – stick and rudder time – because a lot of our philosophies and procedures and practices now are based on using automation,” Skyline Soaring Club member and Sullenberger’s fellow US Airways commercial pilot Curtis Wheeler told us. “There’s a lot of benefit to that, but also it causes a loss of skill in just hand flying the airplane. So what you can realize in an operation like we have here in Front Royal, is we have the opportunity to fly airplanes that don’t have any automation at all. And that gives us a better understanding of just the process of doing that.

“In the landing in the Hudson, you had an airliner being landed in the river right down the middle of a big city. That’s a place where an airliner never goes. I don’t know how current Captain Sullenberger was in flying gliders, but he had, had enough exposure to that circumstance and environment where he had some familiarity with what to expect.”

As for commercial pilot training for flight emergencies, Wheeler added, “We have a lot of training events that we have to cover in our simulators, which are mandatory. But we can’t cover every possible contingency in a simulator because we have a finite amount of time in there. And US Airways has already acknowledged that there isn’t a simulator event for ditching that’s done. We study it. We read about it. We mentally prepare for it. But it’s considered a remote possibility and receives a lower priority in the training hierarchy than a lot of the more likely things that could happen, like engine failures – not that they’re likely but they are more likely than ditching,” Wheeler explained of industry-wide training priorities.

“I think that the best pilots look at all the available resources in aviation to try to prepare themselves – and I think most pilots do this – just to take advantage of all the different resources that general aviation provides in order to give some awareness to these hand flying scenarios, different scenarios that are not routine in airline flying. We’re flying around small airports, closer to the terrain than we would be in any circumstance in an airline operation.

“There’s not a good understanding in America today about what general aviation is doing for people, and we’d like to try and promote that,” Wheeler said of his glider club and its host facility. “We need a lot of help keeping an airport like Front Royal Airport open and operational because it brings economic value to the community. In the case of our soaring club here, we come out to Front Royal, we patronize local businesses for lunches and things like that … It gives access for medivac flights. We’ve had law enforcement that’s operated out of this airport, all kinds of utility that comes from having a General Aviation airport – not to mention the stick and rudder skills that can be honed in a relaxed and recreational environment for both amateur and professional pilots – and that was a big payoff that day in New York City.”

Brief commercial message

For information on scenic glider or powered flights over the Northern Shenandoah Valley, as well as flight instructions offered out of the Front Royal-Warren County Airport, call the airport at 540 635-3570.

Economic postscript

Perhaps of particular interest in the current economic climate, other than improving basic flying skills, former Edwards AFB Test Pilot School Commandant Gerner pointed to a side benefit of glider flight to jet pilot training – cost. That cost effectiveness calculates to $60 to $70, including tow plane expenses, per glider flight, to what Gerner estimated is now between $5,000 to somewhere under $10,000 per hour of powered jet flight, even for the low-cost T-38 trainer.  – “And when you get into an F-15 or F-16, the number gets even bigger,” Gerner points out of the huge cost of jet flight. “But the glider, that’s $26 an hour plus the tow.”

Virginia legislator: ‘My War with the Eastern Box Turtle’

(U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department photo)

Dear Friend

“What do you have against turtles?”

Today I did something I never imagined I would have to do when I was elected to serve in the Senate of Virginia. I spoke and voted against legislation to make the box turtle as our state reptile (passed 24-15). That has led to some asking me, “What do you have against turtles?” It’s not a question I anticipated being asked this session, but it’s one I’ve heard more than a few times in the last few days.

For the record, I don’t have anything against the Eastern Box Turtle or terrapins in general, so there’s no need to speculate.

No, I don’t object to turtles; I object to wasting time on trivialities while seriously contemplating pushing back the budget for some later date. I have nothing against the Eastern Box, but I do have a problem with the amount of time we’ve spent this session on bills that have nothing to do with making our Commonwealth a better place, to say nothing of getting our economy back on track. This bill is just one isolated, albeit absurd (okay, even slightly amusing), example of a larger trend.

Is designating a state reptile really worth our time? We already have a state beverage, state insect, and a state gold mining interpretive center – presumably to distinguish it from the pretenders. We even have a state fossil, an extinct scallop.

I concede that Virginia trails other states in designations. We don’t have a state shrub, a state grass, or even a state donut. But if we’re to pick a state reptile, how to choose? Sure, the Eastern Box Turtle is a fine choice, but there’s something to be said for the endangered stinkpot turtle, too. And who doesn’t have a soft spot for other reptilian species, like the yellow-bellied slider, the common five-lined skink (and, of course, some would undoubtedly suggest politicians and lawyers)?

You know, we have a state shell as well. Increasingly, though, I think our state shell should be the one some in government are hiding under they we wait for the economic ill winds to pass us by. One of the counties I represent has an 11.7% unemployment rate, and they’re not alone. People are struggling to make ends meet across the Commonwealth, and they need the General Assembly to redouble its efforts to promote economic recovery, not ignore the problem in the hopes that it will just go away.

So nothing against the turtle – but if I had my way, he’d have to get in line.

Mark Obenshain
Virginia State Senator

Free complete print edition: Mid January, 2009

Click here to open

Inside this issue:

• Front Royal, VA woman loses finger in domestic dispute
• Browntown Road shooting
• Additional charges filed in Warren County, VA house ramming incident
• Two arrested in Papa John’s Pizza robbery
• Be on the lookout for Daniel Eli of Bethlehem, PA
• Driveway scams
• Openings for Citizens Police Academy
• R-MA teacher honored
• State River Park attendance down
• New Linden, VA trash site opens
• Town of Front Royal, VA approaches liaison: Let’s talk – just not about ‘that’
• Warren County, VA approves 5-pronged January liaison agenda
• Capt. Richard H. Furr makes it official – applying for Front Royal, VA police chief’s job
• Del. Clay Athey’s Report from Richmond, VA
• Neighbors point fingers (not guns) during shooting debate
• ‘Pawsitive Pup’ makes dog grooming more convenient
• NFL playoffs – Still Cheering Purple Pride
• Activities & events in Front Royal and Warren County, VA
• Opinion: The Gaza Holocaust
• Letter: History’s Revenge
• Front Royal/Warren County, VA Chamber of Commerce news
• Entire issue is free here.

Also, 2008: The Year in Review

• 2008 – It wasn’t that great: From bad weather to a lousy economy – good riddance
• Inventor John Kovak: Childhood machine could be key to clean energy production in Front Royal, VA
• CPV, Dominion Power make it official – the ‘buy’ is on
• Paying for our own noose? Front Royal, VA debates the true price of power – 50 years of coal
• Loss of father, two young children mourned at Candlelight Vigil
• Town of Front Royal, VA approves corridor, EDA resolutions  – Threat of litigation by Riverton Commons restaurants hovers over passage
• First Crooked Run Center tax revenue estimates in
• Town, FDR Services settle water-sewer rate war – Two years of litigation ends with compromise, 15-year service contract
• Should the Dow be at 3,000? Up a grand, down a grand – Great Depression 2.0?
• Show me the money – Brooks calls out EDA financing – EDA’s reduced municipal funding request opens a fiscal can of worms
• Town move on EDA assets likely futile – Virginia state law protects autonomy of economic development authorities
• Town to EDA – ‘Pretty please with sugar on top’ – Town rephrases effort to gain control of millions in EDA assets
• Abusive driver fees’ hit the dustbin of legislative history – Refunds included in ‘civil remedial fee’ repeal signed into law by Virginia governor
• Virginia Governor Tim Kaine cites importance of dialogue in state government
• Va. Supreme Court rules against NVTA road taxing – Local plaintiff, delegate weigh in on decision, state funding responsibilities
• Questions remain about Virginia state trooper collision – Public’s right to know at issue as accident investigation continues
• Humane Society board recalled under contentious circumstances – Accusations fly over membership voting eligibility, animal care priorities
• Wagner Shelter two weeks later – ‘a remarkable change’; In the wake of contentious board recall, humans & animals move on
• Monk murder mystery – A personal remembrance of a soul in wonder
• Entire issue is free here.

The Gaza Holocaust (Op-ed)

Photo by Bilal Mirza

Israeli dissent: ‘Israel is like the abused child who grows up to be the abuser.’

By Elizabeth Molchany

The 1967 war between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria was born of a lie that Israel had to wage a pre-emptive attack to defend itself, much as George Bush said the US had to wage a pre-emptive attack against Iraq because it had weapons of mass destruction.

Declassified documents in recent years of statements by Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan reveal the contrary. Since then, in violation of more than 100 UN resolutions and the Geneva Conventions, not to mention the international standard of unlawful aggression the US held Iraq to as justification for the first Gulf War in 1991, Israel has retained control of the Occupied Territories it captured in 1967 and committed numerous atrocities reported in its own media, to which the US is complicit in its American-made, Americanpaid DC9 Caterpillars, F16s, and Apache helicopters, among other weapons.

Home made placard from Melbourne protest December 30, 2008 about Israel’s attack on Gaza. Photo by Takver taken on Swanston Street towards the back of the march.

The Occupied Territories includes the Gaza Strip, a small 25 x 6 mile area bordering the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, inhabited by 1.5 million Palestinians, 20 percent of whom and their forefathers have lived there for centuries. Eighty percent are refugees created when 750,000 Palestinians were forced or fled in fear from their homes in what is now Israel in April 1948, before the first Arab-Israeli war. They and their forefathers had lived there for 1600 years since the 7th century.

For 42 years, Israel has had tight control over Gaza, making it the world’s largest prison. No one may leave or enter without an Israeli permit. When its troops left in 2005, Israel left 44 acres of massive rubble when it demolished Jewish-only housing rather than leave it for the Gazans to use as an act of good faith since it had illegally occupied the land so long.

But Israel retained control of Gaza’s air, land, and sea, and the money they earn on produce and other products, and imposed a blockade on food, fuel, water, electricity, medicine, even ink and paper and parts and supplies necessary for a viable economy.

Because of this, thousands of Palestinians are starving, hopeless, and helpless. It is the middle of winter, they are freezing and without fuel, food or money. In an open and democratic election in 2005, Hamas was elected.

Hamas has refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist based on Israel’s refusal to accept the existence of a Palestinian state and their rights to human dignity, freedom and security. Despite this, Hamas immediately offered Israel a 10-year ceasefire and acceptance of a 2-state solution if Israel would agree to return to the 1967 borders. Israel refused. Hamas abided by its own 18-month unilateral truce.

In June 2008, Hamas and Israel agreed to a 6-month truce during which Israel was to relax its blockade.

Israel immediately breached that part, and would not even allow Gazans to fish within 3 miles of their own coast without a permit, stringently enforced.

Palestinian men bury the body of 4-year-old Lama Hamdan at Beit Hanoun cemetery in the northern Gaza Strip December 30, 2008. Lama and her sister were reportedly riding a donkey cart Tuesday near a rocket-launching site that was targeted by Israel. Photo by Amir Farshad Ebrahimi

On November 4, Israel again breached the truce by entering Gaza, killing 6 Palestinians, and sealing the borders, denying food and all necessities, foreign journalists and dignitaries, including President Carter. On Dec 27, Israel launched its massive assault despite the fact that not one Israeli had died during the past year from a Qassam Rocket. Hamas responded with its only weapons, Qassam Rockets, killing 4 Israelis. Since Israel’s attack with American weapons, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, 3,000 wounded, and their entire infrastructure destroyed or seriously damaged, including homes, the American school, the university, dormitories, stores, markets, fishing boats, the Gaza mental heath center. This massacre, planned six months in advance, is not about Hamas or rockets but about Israel’s upcoming elections and denying the right of a Palestinian state. On January 14, nine Israeli human rights organizations issued a letter stating that “This kind of fighting constitutes a blatant violation of the laws of warfare and raises the suspicion, which we ask be investigated, of the commission of war crimes.” http://www.btselem.org/English/ See its accompanying report on “The Humanitarian Collapse in the Gaza Strip.”

Had Israel wanted peace, it would have returned the occupied territories to the Palestinians, the rightful owners under international law; it would have accepted the Saudi peace initiatives offered in 2002 and 2007, which all 21 Arab states signed, recognizing Israel and offering it permanent peace in return for an Israeli withdrawal from lands captured in 1967, establishing a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and a just solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees.

Each time, Israel said no, contradicting the notion Israel alone seeks a just and peaceful solution to regional issues. http://tinyurl.com/SA2007PlanHaaretz and http://tinyurl.com/JPAcceptInitiative

Please do not rely on the mainstream US media – you will not find the truth there. Research the alternative media on the Internet and other sources, such as Link and Free Speech TV’s “Democracy Now” daily news show, online sources such as Jewish Voices for Peace, the Electronic Intifada, or England’s print media The Independence and The Observer, which are also available online, as are the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, and Israeli organizations such “Gush Shalom,” “B’tselem” and “Breaking the Silence: Israeli Soldiers Talk About the Occupied” – the latter at www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp

As one Israeli conscientious objector recently stated in a “Democracy Now” interview after being released from prison, “At least in Israel there is debate over the actions of the right-wing government, in the US you don’t even get that.”

Elizabeth Molchany is an attorney in private practice in Front Royal, VA. Ms. Molchany is a long-time student of the crisis in the Middle East. She can be reached at: emmolchanylaw@embarqmail.com

Op-Ed: Should Google buy The New York Times?

By Dan McDermott
Warren County Report

Veteran PC Magazine columnist and “Cranky Geek” John C. Dvorak recently started a discussion on his blog about rumors reported by Dealscape that Google should or might purchase the New York Times. John said that this might be a good idea. I think he is right.

A newspaper is simply one means of delivering news content.

But there is more.

Ten or twenty years ago I would have said:

The difference between print and broadcast is often the depth and length of stories–and usually the quality. When the TV news covers something at 6 or 11 it is often a 30 second version of the basic facts. Then its on to the “Wednesday’s Child” segment featuring the cute kid of the week. The longer version of the same story that appears in the next day’s paper usually has a much stronger and more lasting impact.

Today there is the Internet–which is bringing far more readers around the world to newspapers’ content but in an unprofitable way–and many cable news outlets which sometimes offer long-form in-depth coverage and analysis which traditional broadcast media outlets–CBS’ 60 minutes aside–would never have the resources or viewers’ attention span to cover. The problem is that these same cable news outfits often give undue attention to a story because it is “breaking” than it really deserves. A helicopter following a car chase that will never be mentioned again after its conclusion is an obvious example.

Print media is very, very expensive to produce and distribute. This newspaper has a circulation of over 9,000 and about 20,000 readers. It costs about $2,000 per issue just to print and distribute. This website has every issue we have ever produced available–so it has all the same content. It costs about $100 per year.

Here is the problem.

All of the past competition newspapers have historically faced and weather offered arguably lower quality content. Radio, TV & early cable news outlets by their nature offered less time per story and thus lower quality for the end user who wanted all the facts. You can print as many pages in a paper as budget and content allow. You can’t add more minutes into an hour. So the newspapers stayed strong and profitable.

The Internet is completely different. It has all the advantages of print publications (and now even their content) and is portable, usually free and allows for random access to any article rather than having to leaf through a paper or wait through a radio or TV program. It’s an increasingly ADHD consumer’s dream.

So the risk for us all is that if all of the papers go down, who will have the money to pay for the Woodwards and Bernsteins of the future? Who will have the resources to pay a reporter or team of reporters to study and investigate the Walter Reed scandal? That story was around since 2004 but never hit traction until a series of front page stories were printed in the Washington Post after an expensive years-long investigation by their permanent investigations unit–ironically started by Bob Woodward who has the luxury of being able to stay on at the Post for $1 per year.

I’m not arguing that we bail out the industry or that dinosaurs should be kept on life support in perpetutity. I do think that someone will figure this whole mess out and find away to allow the high quality content that some of the big papers have produced to survive in this new age–and help protect democracy in the process.

If there is any outfit that has shown the creativity, intelligence and innovative skills to reform the New York Times–and show the rest of us in the industry the way, it might well be Google.

It certainly won’t be “Wednesday’s Child.”

As for the arguments of the editorial slants of various media outlets, it is nothing new. People on the right see Fox News as “mainstream” and hate the New York Times and MSNBC. People on the left see the inverse. Good. Our diversity makes us stronger. That’s what the first amendment is all about. It’s all about equal access to the system. If Matt Drudge can start the most influential news website in the world single-handedly while sitting in his pajamas in his living room with no advertising then so can you.

Dan McDermott is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Warren County Report Newspaper in Front Royal, VA: editor [at] warrencountyreport [dot] com

Journey into the dark past of America

Toni Morrison’s first novel in five years. A Mercy, is a beautifully timed book that takes place in America’s earliest days as a land carved up by slave-owners.

Her point here, as ever, is that at the heart of this new land of liberty lies enslavement and brutal racism – a legacy perhaps broken only by Tuesday’s election. It’s the 1680s and Jacob Vaark arrives in America from Holland, stumbling his way through primitive settlements and wild lands to a smallholding in Virginia. Slavery is in its infancy and Vaark finds it distasteful.

Historian: The Strong Wind at His Back

Barack Obama’s victory reflects not only the evolution of American society but, says historian Robert Brent Toplin, the momentum of a revolution begun 45 years ago.

By Robert Brent Toplin
History News Service

Well, the pundits were wrong. White voters didn’t change their minds in the voting booth. Barack Obama’s victory proves that some analysts gave too much weight to race, not only in gauging today’s opinions but also in judging how the American people’s attitudes have been taking shape for decades.

Polls released in October suggest that Obama’s recent political progress may have changed some ideas about race in America. A New York Times/CBS poll showed that nearly two-thirds of the people asked said that whites and blacks have an equal chance of getting ahead in today’s society (a dramatic increase over about half who said so just three months before).

Of course, there were holdouts. The October poll found 14 percent of Americans surveyed said that most people they knew would not vote for a black candidate. Yet that figure had dropped considerably over several months. As Americans got to see and hear Obama and learn more about him, they became more comfortable with the notion of his leadership in the White House.

Evidently, many voters were willing to make the “dream” that Martin Luther King Jr. described in a memorable speech 45 years ago a current reality. In his 1963 address, King looked hopefully to a day when blacks like his children would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” A lot of Americans seem to have done just that when they judged Barack Obama’s character on November 4.

The polls reveal, too, that America’s younger generation was more open to the idea of a black man running for president than the nation’s older generation. If the only people allowed to vote this year had been Americans under 30, Obama’s candidacy would have been locked up quickly. A USA Today/MTV/Gallup Poll released in October showed that the under-30 group favored Obama over John McCain by a whopping 61 percent to 32 percent.

As a group, older Americans tend to be more resistant to voting for a black candidate, partly because they had experiences in their early years different from today’s younger generation.

Whites who are now over age 60 did not see many blacks in prominent positions of leadership in their younger years. During the 1950s and early 1960s African Americans lived segregated lives in the South and faced limited opportunities in the North. When whites encountered blacks directly in those times, they often saw them principally as janitors, elevator operators, or cleaning ladies. It was difficult to imagine an African American as president.

White Americans who are now between the ages of 18 and 29 tend to have had much more personal contact with African Americans, and they have had much greater exposure to blacks in positions of influence and authority. Lots of them have developed friendships with blacks in school and college. They have watched movies featuring Will Smith and Denzel Washington as super-heroes. A few decades ago black movie star Morgan Freeman was playing a slave, a convict, and a driver for a rich lady. In more recent films he has played the president of the United States (in Deep Impact) and even God (in Bruce Almighty).

Today’s younger white Americans look up to Tiger Woods, and they cheer African-American sports figures in football, basketball and baseball. In recent years they have seen two blacks serving as U.S. secretary of state, and they have watched many blacks delivering the news on CNN or commenting on television about the recent elections.

The transformation towards black integration in American life has been an evolutionary process. Yet in view of all that has changed since Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “Dream” speech forty-five years ago, the shift appears revolutionary. Barack Obama, a talented candidate, got momentum in his race to the White House from the winds of that revolution.

Robert Brent Toplin, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, has published a dozen books and is a writer for the History News Service.

Kaine: Va. ready for vote

Governor confident, but state faces hearing today on voting-rights lawsuit

Ahead of today’s federal court hearing on the NAACP’s voting-rights suit, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine appeared on four network television broadcasts and said Virginia is ready for a record turnout on Election Day.