I have a nephew named Ben Titus who’s seeking his Phd in marine biology at Ohio State. He’s the son of my sister Jeanne and the business professor in this column. Ben has put together the video below in a crowd-sourcing effort to raise money to fund a research trip to the Florida Keys.

It looks like a pretty interesting subject. Who knew that sea anemone-cleaner shrimp symbiosis helps keep Caribbean fish like grouper and snapper healthy, for future good eating? Not me.

I can tell you this, if Ben ever bombs out as a marine biologist, he might have a future as a headline writer/copy editor.

He could have done a lot worse than Sexy Shrimp and a lot of Tentacle Love!

Maybe he’s got the old newsroom genes. . .

Loren Kantor, self portrait

Note from Dan: The other night out of the blue I got an email from a writer and artist in California. His name is Loren Kantor and that’s him on the left — his woodcut self portrait. He sucked me in with a pitch to look at two others he’s produced — of American writers Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski, authors whose work I admire. That started a minor email exchange. With his permission I’ve cobbled together this guest post from those emails and some stuff on his blog, Woodcuttingfool. Enjoy!

By Loren Kantor

Dan,

I’m a woodcut artist living in Los Angeles. I recently carved original woodcut prints inspired by Jack Kerouac & Charles Bukowski. I thought you might be interested.

I fell in love with woodcuts in the 80s when I attended a German Expressionist art show at the Los Angeles County Museum.  The exhibit featured the work of Kathe Kollwitz, George Grosz & Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.  I was mesmerized by the stark lines and brusque images. The images were simple yet immensely powerful. Read more »

Calif. House Majority Leader Toni Atkins, who grew up in Roanoke, stopped by the Texas Tavern during a visit here to see her sister for Thanksgiving. TT owner Matt Bullington is in the background, on the right. | Shot by Dan

You already know there are many political differences between Virginia and California. Allow me to highlight just one.

In Virginia, the House of Delegates this year refused to confirm an impeccably credentialed lawyer as a lower court judge — because he’s gay. They had a big and ugly fight about it.

In the California Assembly, meanwhile, the majority leader is a married lesbian, one of two wedded gay lawmakers in that state. Her name is Toni Atkins. She grew up in Roanoke’s Old Southwest neighborhood. She’s a 1980 graduate of Patrick Henry High School.

Atkins, 50, was here last week with her spouse, Jennifer LeSar, visiting Atkins’ twin sister Tina Phillips for Thanksgiving. I learned this Wednesday night in a call from my brother John, who lives in Sacramento, Calif. A few minutes later, I was on the phone with Atkins, arranging a Thanksgiving morning meeting. Read more »

Doug Thompson | Photo by Dan

Doug Thompson hit a cow while riding his Harley Super Glide (which he rode a lot) on U.S. 221 in Roanoke County night the night of Nov. 10. He was on his way home from a Floyd County High football game. Details of the accident are here.

On Friday (Nov. 17) he was  in critical serious but stable As of Tuesday afternoon (Nov. 27), Doug was listed in good condition at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, and he needs all the thoughts and prayers he can get.

Various news accounts have described Thompson, 64, as the blogger behind Blue Ridge Muse and a former reporter for The Roanoke Times. All that’s true but there’s a lot more to him than that.

Doug worked at the paper for awhile back in the late 1960s and/or early 1970s, and then he landed a job as a reporter in Illinois. Eventually he found himself working on Capitol Hill, first as a congressman’s press secretary and later as a  chief of staff. Here’s his bio.

But he ended up as a lobbyist, working for the National Association of Realtors. He also founded Capitol Hill Blue, which bills itself as the oldest political site on the Internet. That went online in 1994, in the infancy of the World Wide Web, and it’s still around. He’s still listed as their editor and publisher. Read more »

Elizabeth Daniels, 92, in her Salem apartment, where she keeps scores of picture of her large family. This election will be the first time the 92-year-old has ever voted.

Elizabeth Daniels is a feisty 92-year-old who lives on a tight budget in a small apartment in Salem. One of 11 children, she grew up on a farm in Meadowview, about 6 miles this side of Abingdon.

She’s raised four children, outlived two husbands, worked for 16 years in a grocery store on Colorado Street, and also at another one in Vinton. Daniels has seven grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.  She still gets around and her mind is sharp.

She attributes her long life and good health to never having smoked, or even tasted wine, beer or  whiskey. She’s never had a cup of coffee. Her only vice is Diet Coke.

There’s one more thing Daniels has never done: voted in an election. This year she will.

A week from today, her son Bobby Weaver will pick up his mom and drive her to the polls at the Salem Civic Center. There, Daniels will cast a ballot for the very first time, in a state that has a good chance to decide the next president of the United States.

This raises many questions, most of which we will get to.

The first is, wasn’t she eager to vote when she came of age? Daniels told me it didn’t seem that important.

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.

Photo by Dave Perry

In case you hadn’t heard the news, River Laker has resigned his position as resource development coordinator for Roanoke Public Libraries effective Sept. 24.

This follows a long and ultimately losing battle Laker fought over a less-than-favorable job evaluation he received.

That came months after he stripped on stage at a benefit auction at 202 Market in February 2011. That gag landed the restaurant before the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.

In his job at the library, Laker successfully promoted many local artists and authors. He’s also engaged in many side projects.

Before he built an identity as the Trouserless Twit with the 202 Market incident, Laker was the “Carless Brit,” a public exercise in which he walked, cycled or used public transportation for months. After the stripping incident, he formed a band. He also tried living for awhile purely by bartering, instead of using money.

Laker announced his departure in a press release this morning that was very gracious to the library system and its director, Sheila Umberger. He said he wished the libraries and its staff the best. The release doesn’t indicate whether or not he plans to stay in Roanoke.

So what do you think folks? What should River Laker do next?

Barnie Day on his farm in Patrick County | roanoke.com

Next week a bunch of Caseys, and some others from far and wide, will make an annual pilgrimage to an old moonshiner’s lair in Patrick County, where we’ll camp in the yard of a country gentlemen we’ve come to know, admire and love.

His name is Barnie Day, and he’s a jack of just about everything: politician, banker, farmer, country store operator, bureaucrat, columnist, novelist and lots of other things. Most of all he’s a friend.

Barnie and his wife Debbie have been hosting this informal, 4- or 5-day soiree for a bunch of years now. Some of the faces change annually, but the fun, laughter and togetherness around the campfire or in the lake or on the porch remain the same.

Barnie’s a graduate of the University of North Carolina, and the university recently paid him a high compliment: an article in the current issue of the Carolina Alumni Review by veteran newspaperman Jack Betts.

The article does a fine job capturing the guy. Of course, with an extraordinary character like Barnie, there’s lots of material. Betts easily could have filled 10 more pages and then some.

Below is one of many great passages.

The Virginia House [of Delegates] put Day in his element. “I had good luck in the General Assembly. I loved parts of it — love floor debate. Except for whiny constituents and raising money and going to meetings, I loved politics.”

He learned how to pull the levers of power. Once he wanted something for a community college in his district, but the state education bigwigs resisted.

So Day filed a bill that would require every member of the State Board of Education to pass the eighth-grade standards of learning examination in history. Suddenly, opposition to his community college proposal evaporated. “I got what I wanted.”

Want to read more? You can do it here.

Dave 'Mudcat' Saunders, during a previous appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show

Roanoke’s own Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, the chief strategist for the Democrat trying to unseat House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Richmond, will be on the “Rachel Maddow Show” tonight.

It’s on MSNBC at 9 p.m.

Here’s a column I recently wrote about my old pal, who’s one of the more interesting political figures ever to emerge from our neck of the woods. And here’s some video of his appearance this year on the Colbert Report.

Maddow has previously described him on the show as “one of my favorite people in the world.”

Mudcat is working for the campaign of Wayne Powell, a Richmond lawyer and retired Army colonel who is way way way outmatched by the millions in campaign cash Cantor has raked in.

Don’t miss the show tonight.

Dave Asbury, 55, grows tomatoes among other fresh vegetables and plants in his 4,000 sq. ft. garden and his greenhouse along Yellow Mountain Road in Roanoke County, just over the city line. Asbury restocks his self-serve trays that sit under a Box Elder tree in his driveway shaded by a big green umbrella. | By STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS | The Roanoke Times

Monday after work I drove out Yellow Mountain Road, just a little ways past Garden City, to see if I could snag some mouth-watering, organic heirloom tomatoes from Dave Asbury, who I wrote about in this column back in 2009.

Alas, the self-employed stone mason is not selling his delectable treats yet. But his dozens of plants are big, strong, and loaded with maters. He expects to be selling them — on the honor system, as always — by the end of this week.

Asbury’s been growing tomatoes for 11 seasons now. He told me this year may be the first in which he believes he has successfully staggered his crop. He hopes that means he’ll be selling them all the way through October.

You don’t want to miss his tomatoes, folks.

To get there:  From Roanoke Memorial Hospital, head out of town on Yellow Mountain Road. Asbury lives on the right side of the road about a half-mile past Garden City Boulevard.

Natalie Mundy, with one of the silk scarves manufactured by "the Silkies." | The Roanoke Times | File

Natalie Mundy never dreamed that her Peace Corps stint in a mountainous village of Madagascar would result in a globe-spanning business in prized, hand-woven silk scarves.

Or that it would attract the attention of an internationally known filmmaker, who would set out to make a documentary about it.

The first is a reality; the second is close to done. It was the reason for a reception and cocktail party last week at the Roanoke County home of her father, Marshall Mundy, and his wife, Monika Mundy.

Natalie, 26, got out of the Peace Corps in May. She’s pursing a graduate degree in international development and is engaged to a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, Dan Branch. They met on the plane that took them to the island nation, 300 miles off the southeastern coast of Africa.

But the silk export business she left behind in the town of Sandrandahy (pop. about 1,000) is thriving, and bringing significant revenue to Federation Sahalandy, a collective of 91 people, almost all women, whom Natalie refers to as “the Silkies.”

(Click the link above to take a look at offerings from “the Silkies” or to buy some of their wares. You can contact Natalie at Natalie(dot)Mundy(at)gmail.com).

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.