A Boston elementary school prohibits sale of holiday-related items.  Well, yeah, it prohibits sales of items related to ALL holidays. But we all know it's directed a Christmas. That's the only REAL holiday next month, right? Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly joins the 2009 war with this incident.

Meanwhile, the Catholic League has declared a victory of sorts in the wake of Frankfort, Kentucky's efforts to call their tree a "Holiday" tree. Gov. Steve Beshear has decided to call the state tree a Christmas tree. So take that, you holiday diversitists!

Max Blumenthal, who everybody knows is a Jew, writes in Who started the War on Christmas? about the anti-Semitic and white-separatist roots of the folks who started complaining about the "War."

Amelia, Ohio cancels its Christmas Holiday parade. After the private group that was sponsoring it for 28 years lacked the money to put it in this year, the mayor said the village would pay for it. But on advice of its attorney, the village called it a "Holiday" parade. That enraged local churches, who stepped forth with criticism (but no money to sponsor the thing). So the mayor basically said, "To heck with it -- ain't worth the trouble."

Towns all around the country, meanwhile, went on with plans to stage their parades.

The U.S. Postal Service curtails its "Letters to Santa" program because last year one of the volunteer answerers turned out to be a Maryland registered sex offender. Oops! Never mind. They reinstated it.

And there is your weekly roundup!

Charles Alexander Diez / Asheville Citizen-Times

We last looked at the case of Charles Alexander Diez, the firefighter/gunslinger back in July, when he stopped his car to threaten a bicyclist.

When cyclist Alan Simons tried to walk away, Diez aimed his pistol at Simons' helmet and pulled the trigger -- in front of the Simons' 3-year-old son, who was riding with him.

Diez hit the helmet, but the bullet missed Simons' skull by an inch.

Thursday, with 30 supporters in an Asheville courtroom with him, Diez pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. A judge sentenced him to 120 days in jail.

Diez lost his job in August.

The verdict/sentence has sparked bike-blogger outrage across the land.

Abusing The Privilege says Diez has been a concealed carry permit holder since 2007.

Big Jonny at DrunkCyclist fired up a fine froth of eloquence and anger:

This time, Diez chose to pull over, he chose to wrap his hand around the grip that firearm, he chose to point his gun at Simon, and he chose fire a round at Simon’s head.

Right in front of the man’s family.

You’d think at this point the motorist has really crossed a line. That he has clearly attempted to kill another man. You might also think that society cannot tolerate such behavior. That this man should be punished for his action, for the choices he made that day, the choices that very nearly left a young boy fatherless.

You might think that, but you’d be wrong.

Bull City Cycling weighed in with a tongue-twisting string of unkind (and hyphenated!) nicknames, and added this:

There's only one reason that Diez shot Simons: Simons was riding a bike, and Diez therefore saw him as less-than-human, so much so that Diez didn't think twice about discharging his deadly weapon at the man.

Sorry to bring you down folks, but it gets worse: by failing to punish him to the full extent of the law, the judge affirmed this belief, essentially saying: "yes, it was bad what Diez did, but can't we all understand?"

Meanwhile, xena at the DC Tri Club Forum jumped in with a succinctly headlined post: Cars don't kill cyclists. Guns kill cyclists.

Erik Ryberg at Tucson Bike Lawyer noted:

I often have to tell my clients that bicyclists are basically hated by a large segment of the public, and must not expect the same treatment by juries, judges, arbitrators, and insurance adjusters that a motorist would receive. If you get hit from behind while on a bike, for example, you are going to be declared to have swerved in front of the vehicle until proven otherwise. Not so if you are a motorist.

And it seems that if you are shot in the head by a firefighter, you shouldn’t expect sympathy either.

In Nashville, Green Fleet Messengers put it this way, under a post headlined: Motorist Shoots Cyclist for his own Good:

Here is another reason to wear a helmet … in case someone shoots at you!!!

Yesterday a motorist shot at a cyclist in Asheville, North Carolina.  Reason for shooting?  The shooter was “upset” because the cyclists was biking on a busy road with his child.  (the kid was in a kiddie seat).   What a humanitarian.

Last but not least, You are the Engine takes U.S. gun laws to task:

Now, I don’t want to say that gun laws in the US are totally f***ed (read: gun laws in the US are totally f***ed), but Diez was recently sentenced to just 120 days in prison.  You read that correctly.  He shot at a man’s head with a child right beside him, plead guilty to “assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill,” and he will go to jail for 4 months.

Like I said, insane. And f***ed.

Alleged 911 ringleader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Except for the fact than I'm unalterably against capital punishment, I don't have a dog in this hunt.

But some folks who comment here, such as Will,  have requested a Gitmo trial vs. New York City trial thread ... or something like that. I don't understand the issue, except that some people want to make hay about it.

Here are the questions:

1) Should the Gitmo prisoners face trial in New York City, and why or why not? Please tell us what has informed your opinion.

2) If not, what should happen to them?

3) Bonus questions:

a) Is torture ALWAYS bad when it happens to U.S. citizens/armed forces? Please explain your answer

b) Is torture EVER bad when U.S. citizens/armed forces practice it on enemy combatants? Please explain your answer.

Note: In the same way WHFS ushered in the weekend with this tune each Friday afternoon back in the 80s, I'm going to begin doing the same thing on this blog. That's why you see it here now. It'll be up each Friday afternoon for the foreseeable future.

--dan

Happy Friday the 13th, everybody!

I doubt  that many of you spent much time around the Washington, D.C. media market in the 1980s. But if you did, and if you liked "alternative" FM music, there was one station, and one station only, that you likely listened to: The legendary WHFS.

It's hard to describe, and to do any justice, to this revolutionary Bethesda-based rock music station (they later moved to Annapolis). It was founded by a radio innovator named Jake Einstein. They were low power from Bethesda and didn't have a lot of reach, but had many, many diehard fans in that densely populated area.

WHFS was distinctive in many ways. It invented, at least in the DC market, the album-oriented or alternative format. Rarely, if ever, did it play any TOP 40. They were the only local radio station that played recordings by local artists, such as Root Boy Slim and The Slickee Boys, and the station had live  interviews and performances with rock stars who visited town -- they were always eager to sit down with DJ Damian (Einstein's son) or Weasel (Jonathan Gilbert)  or Bob Here or Cerphe (pronounced Surf) or some of the others.

Here's a nifty, live-in-the-studio duet of "Willin' " by Lowell George and Linda Ronstadt the station broadcast back in 1975.

None of the WHFS deejays had the smooth, slick-sounding radio voices you heard on regular stations. Damian, who had been crippled in a car crash years earlier, often slurred his words. He sounded drunk, but it was actually due to the disability he suffered as a result of that accident. Weasel had a voice like Alvin the Chipmunk, only just a little lower -- no lie. Bob Showacre ("Bob Here") had a laid-back and easygoing voice that sounded like an announcer on National Public Radio (who had just smoked a joint). These guys often made public appearances at local clubs to introduce D.C. musical acts. They were DC-rock-scene celebrities.

In short, WHFS was the anti-station of Washington D.C. radio.

Einstein ultimately sold WHFS to a corporation that took it in a more commercial direction. Years later, it changed into a Spanish-language station. But he bought another station, rechristened it WRNR and repeated the formula -- and it worked again. WRNR is still on the air, broadcasting from Annapolis. (Einstein, who died in 2007, sold the station in 1998 to Annapolis-area resident and "Wheel of Fortune" host Pat Sajak.)

Okay, here's the point of all this: Every Friday afternoon at 5 p.m. WHFS always played the same set of 4, 5 or 6 songs (I can't remember exactly how many it was). It started with Joe King Carrasco's "Party Weekend," moved on to The GoGos "We Got the Beat." It included a Dead Milkmen song, "Instant Club Hit (You'll Dance to Anything)" and some others as well.

You'd be heading home from work, stuck in D.C.-area traffic, tired after a hard week, and that set would come on the radio and change your mood and your energy level and get you bopping and ready for anything that was going on that weekend.

So here's the lead-off tune, folks. Have a great weekend!

Marion G."Pat" Robertson / AP

As promised, here is part 3 of my little serial about Pat Robertson, his great big house up on Warm Springs Mountain, and the day his bodyguard pulled a gun on me.

If you haven't read them yet, please read Part 1 and Part 2 first. This will make a lot more sense with those under your belt.

Below is the actual story that ran in The Roanoke Times & World News on Sunday, Jan. 8, 1995 -- without the million-dollar photo that Stephanie Klein Davis shot of that house.

As I've mentioned before, I can't find that picture of the house in The Roanoke Times files. But you can find it yourself with Google Earth. Here are the coordinates: Latitude 37°54'48.95"N; longitude  79°51'46.36"W.

Pat named this place Higher Ground.

And by the way folks, I learned some years ago that Pat had this place on the market. It's entirely possible that he sold it, and that I'm unaware of that transaction. So he may not be the owner anymore.

Pat Robertson's hideaway

Summary: A PRIVATE RETREAT is how TV evangelist Pat Robertson describes the house. With 11,000 square feet, it has given Bath County folks a lot to talk about.

They say faith can move mountains. If the Rev. Pat Robertson is any example, perhaps it also can build mansions on top of them.

When he grows weary from feeding the hungry, saving souls, collecting millions for his Christian ministry and charting a conservative political course for the future, the nation's leading televangelist unwinds in a stately mountaintop villa high over U.S. 220 in Bath County.

Read more »

In advance of Sarah Palin's visit Sunday (you'll have to skip Sunday services if you want to be there) here's an 8-minute gem from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

It quotes McCain calling parts of the book "wrong" and one of his top aides, Nicolle Wallace, trashing other sections of 'Going Rogue' as "fiction."

Watch the clip!

Sarah Palin

Barnes & Noble is distributing a little "cheat sheet" of rules surrounding Sarah Palin's appearance at the Valley View Mall store Sunday. Because I know that many of you care deeply about this, I'm republishing them here.

Man, you'd think Ronald Reagan or Elvis or the Pope himself would be there, with all the crowd-control and revenue-pumping measures they're taking.

Those tricky folks at Barnes & Noble have designed a wristband system to ensure that nobody who doesn't buy Sarah's book from their company will get even a chance to schmooze with her.

Below are "the rules," followed by my handy translation of them.

"We are expecting a very large crowd for this book signing, and in order to accommodate as many people as possible, we ask that you note the following:"

Read more »

Violent crime that strikes the Roanoke Valley usually occurs in the abstract.

Victims usually are "other people," you know? Rare is the day when it slaps you in the face.

Which is why what happened to Brenda Hale on Sunday sounds shocking when you hear her tell the story.

Hale, 63, is the Roanoke branch NAACP president, and she's no stranger to violence.

At age 7, she witnessed her father fatally shoot her mother in their home in the Hurt Park neighborhood.

Hale came face to face with it as a nurse in the military. And as president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she has endured taunts that she should be lynched from self-styled Nazis.

Despite all that, she was still unnerved late Monday afternoon.

She hadn't slept a wink, Hale said, since she found herself involved in a wild car-to-car shooting that ended with one of those cars smashing into hers.

Read the rest of the column here.

Colin Goddard was one of the survivors of the Virginia Tech massacre. After graduation, he worked as a volunteer for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and he's now a paid staffer there.

This past summer, Goddard took a little trip to four gun shows in four states, where he and/or an associate purchased handguns and semiautomatic rifles from unlicensed sellers with no background check, no ID.

The resulting video is rather eye-opening: guns for cash with few questions asked.

The video is part of the Brady Campaign's efforts to close the so-called "gun show loophole," in which licensed sellers are required to perform "instant" background checks on handgun buyers, but unlicensed individuals who sell firearms there are not.

As others on this blog have already noted, some person-to-person gun transactions already happen that way. (Depending on the state, often those transactions are supposed to require ID and a minimum age).

Goddard isn't the only Virginia Tech survivor who's taking an activist stance on the proliferation of guns.

Last week, survivor Elita Habtu wrote a column in the Collegiate Times about how easy it is to get a concealed-carry permit in Virginia. Even if you've never touched a gun.

Wikimedia Commons

I am asking for your help, regulars and newbies, in writing my Thanksgiving Day column.  It will be your answers to the following broad question:

What are you thankful for?

Please write something from your heart, rather than from those liberal/conservative/atheist/fundamentalist/cynic/sexist/hunter/animal-rights activist/sarcastic, etc parts of your head.

Please DON'T tell us why you are happy that a Democrat is at long last in the White House, or why you're thankful that the GOP has reasserted itself in Virginia elections, or because abortion is legal or that you're thankful for Virginia's upcoming concealed weapons in bars legislation or any of those other like things.

A couple of notes:

1) Keep your entries to 50 words, give or take a few, and post them as comments to this blog, or in private emails to me at this link. Or, at dan(dot)casey(at)roanoke(dot)com with the subject line Thankful.

2) At the end of your 50 words include your first and last name and locality and state, like this: Dan Casey, Roanoke, Va. (I will not publish stuff in the column without a full name & locality.)

I will sort through these beginning Friday Nov. 20 and cull a wide-ranging bunch of heartfelt stuff for the column that appears on Thanksgiving.

I'll tell you one thing I'm thankful for: That I have a bunch of earnest and passionate readers of this blog who will help me write that day's column.

Cheers, and let's see the thanks pour in!

--dan