www.roanoke.com

Lowell's Restaurant and Lounge, home of the best homemade pound cake in Roanoke, is no more.

The can't-miss landmark yellow building in the 2300 block of Melrose Avenue is still there. But it has a new name: JB's Restaurant & Lounge.

Stark Jones bought the business six years ago. But he and business partner Bernard Basham decided recently the place needed some changes. So the restaurant has a new name, an older crowd on Friday nights and a few new, healthier items on the menu.

Read more »

For those of you who couldn't wrap your minds around my contention that Sarah Palin should be judged for tolerating bigots (or to use Kin's kinder, gentler word, idiots) last week in Florida, consider John McCain's actions Friday in Minnesota:

McCain took the microphone from a woman who said Obama is an Arab. McCain said, "No, ma'am," and he called Obama "a decent, family man."

Read more »

A dark mahogany, butter-soft leather sofa beckons visitors into the homey room just inside the door of Roanoke's Blue Ridge Women's Center.

A throw blanket is casually draped across the back of the sofa; it's the same color as the cranberry red pillows perched on nearby leather upholstered chairs. The warm mocha walls are bathed in soft lamp lighting, and a television perched overhead is barely audible.

The sitting room at the Christian-based, pro-life women's center on Williamson Road is comfortable, cozy and welcoming.

The room at the Blue Ridge center is a different side of a movement often typified by attention-seeking protesters outside abortion clinics or in human chains along busy roads.

Read more »

You betcha Sarah Palin doesn't like Barack Obama "palling around with terrorists," referring to his occasional association with Bill Ayers, a member 40 years ago of the Weather Underground.

According to Sarahcuda, America can't trust this Barry Obama guy for the company he keeps, right? UnAmerican, isn't it? Nevermind that Barry was 8 when Ayers was with the group.

Well, Sarah Sweetheart, since arrows are being slung, what about your adoring throngs in Clearwater, Fla., earlier this week? According to Dana Milbank of The Washington Post:

Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

We can imagine what the racial epithet was.

So since McCain & Crew wants America to judge Obama by the company he keeps, does America judge them by the bigots with whom they "pal around?" Sure, people get excited in the heat of the moment, but that's the kind of heat McPalin needs to extinguish -- quickly.

s

This is not the column I had hoped to write about Beth Brown.

And it certainly isn't the one her family, friends and admirers wanted to read.

Brown, whose childhood fascination with space exploration led to her career as a NASA astrophysicist, died Sunday. Preliminary reports indicate the cause of death was a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot affecting the lungs.

Read more »

Anyone catch the piece in today's paper about a 10-year-old driving as fast as 90 mph before he rolled a van? Seems the kid was pulling designated-driver duty because the old man was riding shotgun, after downing 15 beers. Another passenger, a woman, was popping pills like candy when deputies arrived at the accident scene.

My immediate response was outrage--OUTRAGE, I say!---until I remembered that I began driving when I was 11. Of course, I wasn't doing zero to 60 in six seconds in the family wheels, either. And I was (mostly) confined to cruising quiet neighborhood streets near our house. Besides, the only "holics" my parents could plead guilty to being were WORKaholics.

Fortunately no one was hurt in the Blountsville, Tenn., accident. When arrested on a slew of charges, the male adult (and I use the term loosely) was wearing a T-shirt that said, "Buy this dad a beer."

s

OK, I couldn't help but tune in and watch the opening of Saturday Night Live. This skit pokes fun at all players of last week's veep debate: Gwen Ifill, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

If your skin is thin, and you have no sense of humor, dont click on the following link.

On a related note, the McCain campaign's strategy to go after Barack Obama on "character" issues strongly suggests desperation. Sure, character is important, when the matter is related to the candidate's ability to serve as president. But Palin came off looking silly questioning Obama's patriotism because he serves on a board with Bill Ayers. Obama was 8 when Ayers was doing his thing, as distasteful as it was. Shouldn't the campaign focus on the issues of war, economy, health care, etc.? If I were held accountable for things my associates did 40 years ago, heaven help me.

s

As black people, we try to pray away our demons rather than treat them.

Mental illness carries a stigma in this country. But especially in the black community.

Suicide? We don't do that. Counseling? Pray harder.

Laverne Williams of the Mental Health Association in New Jersey visited Roanoke on Thursday to speak about mental illness and call on churches to take the lead in helping black members break down barriers to emotional and mental well-being.

"We know a lot of people are rushing up to the altar, and it ain't the Holy Ghost," Williams said during a breakfast sponsored by Mental Health America of the Roanoke Valley. "Something else is happening."

Read more »

O.J. Simpson couldn't have really thought he was going to get away this time.

Some 13 years to the day after being acquitted of killing his ex-wife and her boy-toy, the Juice was convicted on 12 counts in a robbery trial.

The New York Times noted that many have seen the robbery trial "as a proxy for those unsatisfied by that 1995 outcome." Gee, ya think?

Sarah Palin did what she set out to do: Reverse her slide toward being a Republican embarrassment and reinvigorate her base.

Frankly, the folksy, "aw shucks" schtick got a bit old for me, but I'm not her base. She wasn't seeking my blessing. She reached who she needed to reach, and reasonable minds would agree on that.

She still lacks depth on the issues that matter to most Americans, but to use Kathleen Parker's line, my "cringe reflex" wasn't exhausted. Let's just say Tina Fey won't have as much material to work with this week.

BTW, what's up with McCain conceding my home state of Michigan!? That stuns me. Macomb County, a Detroit suburb, is supposed to be the pivotal county in a pivotal state. And it is chock full of Reagan Democrats, which means it's ripe for McCain. Any thoughts?