Monthly Archives: January 2012

This Council Race Is On.

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At last week’s Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association meeting, David Gammino announced he was challenging Marty Jewell for his 5th District Council seat.

The Times Dispatch is now reporting that Jewell has failed to account for his fundraising.

From the article:

While he said he doesn’t plan to make it an issue, Gammino said Jewell’s “inability to file election campaign disclosures and reports speaks to his organizational skills or lack thereof, and his transparency, or lack thereof.”

Gammino said he has been working to build relationships in the district’s South Side precincts, where a challenge by Woodland Heights civic leader Lee Shewmake split the vote in a three-way race with Jewell and Randolph neighborhood businessman Mark Brandon.

Climate Reality Project Visits VCU On Wednesday, Green Scare On Thursday, RVA EFF This Weekend

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This Wednesday at 8 pm at the VCU Commons Theater, VCU’s Green Unity will have its second meeting of the semester. It will feature a presentation about climate crisis (70 degrees in February, folks!) from the Climate Reality Project. Click here for the Facebok event page.

Then, Thursday night, the Richmond Anarchist Black Cross is hosting an event at the Flying Brick Library. Click here for the Facebook event page.

This presentation will discuss the current and ongoing repression of environmental/animal rights activists and liberators by efforts of U.S. government agencies and private sector groups; in particular the “terrorist”/”eco-terrorist” designation.
We will examine the history, goals and tactics of earth/animal defense groups, and focus more intensely on the increasing legislative/legal backlash – what has become punishable or consequential, how that has developed, and what those consequences are – and what this means for these folks as well as the broader spectrum of activists.

This may or may not be a good precursor to the RVA Environmental Festival, which is happening this weekend at the Byrd Theater, hosted by the Falls of the James group of the Sierra Club and the James River Film Society.

Historic Tredegar To Expand To Remind People Of The Civil War

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Excerpt from Times Dispatch article:

Richmond’s fiery last days of the Civil War will immerse visitors in a new interactive version of history at the American Civil War Center when an $8 million fundraising campaign is complete.

The campaign announced today has already secured pledges of $6.3 million from board members and riverfront neighbors of the center at Historic Tredegar.

A total of $4 million in contributions will come from NewMarket Corp. and Bruce C. Gottwald, chairman of both the Tredegar board and NewMarket’s executive committee.

MeadWestvaco has made a $500,000 commitment.

The most obvious change to the museum property will be a $3 million building connecting the current exhibition space with administrative offices.

A 100-seat theater within the new building will present a $1.2 million production tentatively called “Richmond on Fire,” said Christy S. Coleman, president of the Civil War center. The 12- to 15-minute immersive experience, “where scholarship meets showmanship,” will involve all the senses, she said.

“It will tell the story of those harrowing days at the end of the war (when the waterfront was set on fire by departing Confederates) with the purpose of exploring how the nation got to this point. We want the visitor to … have a greater emotional connection when they go into the exhibits.”

A $450,000 working model of Tredegar Ironworks in 1865 will be built in an area where the Richmond Folk Festival has children’s activities. Other improvements in interpretation at the center will include $300,000 in exhibit upgrades and $200,000 for outdoor interpretation through mobile devices.

In partnership with the National Park Service and the Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, the campaign also will provide $350,000 to create a Gateway Orientation Center in the Pattern Building.

One of the smile-producing additions will be a cannon made from the same mold that Tredegar used, said board member S. Buford Scott.

“We are hoping to fire this cannon at noon every day and remind Richmond we are the gateway of the Civil War and a place to visit,” Scott said.

Gottwald, in an announcement of the campaign, said people need to remember that Richmond was the focal point of a war that cost 625,000 American lives. “A substantial part of this disaster occurred right here, right within earshot of our city.

Hollywood < > Hollywood Sci Fi Fantasy

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I meant to post this earlier- Richmond Magazine writer Harry Kollatz Jr. explaining how Pixar’s latest connects to a Richmond cemetery mausoleum, or how the American Civil War met Mars, or how…well, here’s an excerpt (but you should really just *click here* to read his entire post on John Carter craziness):

In Burroughs’ telling, a telegram of March 4, 1886, summoned him to the Hudson River cottage of his uncle, Capt. John Carter, in New York state. But Burroughs learned that Carter, the direct descendant of Robert “King” Carter (1663-1732) of Shirley Plantation and a Confederate cavalry officer, had died that morning. Burroughs discovered in the cottage’s safe his uncle’s will, a hefty manuscript and detailed burial instructions. In accordance with these, Burroughs writes, he removed the body to the “strange mausoleum in the old cemetery at Richmond.”

Among Richmond’s “old” graveyards were Shockoe Hill at Hospital and Second streets, opened in 1822, and Hollywood, laid out in 1848. Hollywood is the likely candidate for a “strange mausoleum.” (And the name is prophetic, considering that John Carter has finally gone Hollywood.)

The burial directions included that Carter be laid in an open casket and that “the ponderous mechanism which controlled the bolts of the vault’s huge door be accessible only from the inside,” as Burroughs wrote in 1918.

(My guess is that none of these details are in the film; maybe if it had been adapted by a cable network and shot like a Merchant-Ivory production or the 1984 release Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan of the Apes.)

Weirder than Carter’s elaborate last wishes, though, were the papers he’d entrusted to Burroughs. The narrative within described 10 years of adventuring on Barsoom — otherwise known as Mars — fighting for and against four-armed green men and, after numerous battles, marrying “the ever beautiful Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium,” not to mention becoming the great friend of Barsoomian warrior Tars Tarkas. Carter became a prince of the house of Tardos Mors and jeddak (emperor) of Helium on Barsoom.

Burroughs, a failure in almost every pursuit, began submitting “edited portions” of Carter’s writings as serialized fictionalized shorts in pulp magazines in 1912. These stories accumulated into 11 books published between 1917 and 1964.

Cue the movie trailer:

5th Annual Spaghetti Dinner Benefit For William Byrd Community House

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From announcement:

How about dinner for a great cause? Join us at Perly’s Restaurant (111 East Grace Street – Richmond) on February 16, 2012 from 5:30 – 8:30 pm for a great spaghetti dinner and at the same time support William Byrd Community House. Eat-in or takeout options available.

Tickets are $15.00 per person and are available for advanced sales only. If you are not able to attend, maybe you would consider a donation so that a child from one of our programs could have great meal. Checks are to be made payable to William Byrd Community House.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Bolton

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From findagrave.com:

Birth: Jan. 24, 1843
Richmond
Richmond City
Virginia, USA
Death: Dec. 6, 1922
Charlottesville
Charlottesville City
Virginia, USA

Civil engineer; During the Civil War, Bolton served the Confederacy by helping to lay out defenses around Richmond, supervising and constructing the Piedmont Railroad from Danville, Virginia, to Greensboro, North Carolina, and constructing and subsequently destroying a pontoon bridge over the Potomac River following the retreat from Gettysburg; Following the war, he designed a 600 foot railroad tunnel under Gamble’s Hill in Richmond (1866-1867) and a 4000 foot tunnel under Church Hill (1872-1873). From 1876 to 1879 he was in charge of constructing a canal around the cascades of the Columbia River in Oregon, and in 1907 supervised construction of two railroad tunnels in the Rocky Mountains in Montana.

VCU IHOP Express Adds Security

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According to a story in the VCU student newspaper, the Commonwealth Times, security has been tightened at the new IHOP Express restaurant.

After a fight that attracted the attention of six police cars on Jan. 20 in the IHOP Express at Laurel and Grace Place, Dining Services’ recent decision to check student IDs might make more sense to students.
In last Tuesday’s TelegRAM, VCU announced that the IHOP Express will be increasing security on Friday, Saturday and Sunday after 1 a.m, when they stop taking swipes.
VCU students will be asked to show their ID in order to access the dining facility. They are allowed to have a maximum of three guests.

The eatery was opened this past year as part of new Grace Street parking deck construction.

In more positive news, students can use the Cabell library more as open hours have increased, and there is a student petition that asks the VCU administration to focus more on student needs and less on construction and expansion of the Monroe campus. (ed.- No surprise here).