Potpourri: Aug. 13, 2012
COMMUNITY leaders of East End Main Street want Charleston's Urban Renewal Authority to ban several "undesirable" businesses - including gun shops. Wait a minute: West Virginians voted in a landslide (343,000 to 67,000) for the right-to-bear-arms amendment letting nearly everyone carry loaded pistols. Doesn't that imply that most Mountain State folks think guns are highly desirable, instead of undesirable? Or do people have contradictory feelings about deadly weapons?
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What's important at West Virginia University? The football coach just got a six-year contract adding up to $20 million. That dwarfs the pay of WVU's historians, physicists, philosophers, geologists, political scientists, artists, archeologists, chemists, biologists, writers, sociologists, mathematicians, psychologists, engineers and other scholars. Evidently, WVU considers them less significant.
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Surely the most infantile political ad is the Bill Maloney campaign spot showing little children looking gloomy under Democratic government, but beaming happily under Republicans.
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Bearing arms in West Virginia: Nearly a decade later, Shawn Lester finally admitted guilt in at least one of three 2003 sniper assassinations in the Charleston region (just after he gave a long TV interview declaring his innocence).
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Clarification: We gave a "Smile" to the ECA Foundation for a generous gift to Read Aloud West Virginia, but some details were unclear. The gift was for $75,000 the first year, with a possibility of renewing the grant four more years, depending on Read Aloud's performance. Good luck, Read Aloud.
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Randall Terry is a fiery social activist. He has been arrested more than 40 times for obstructing abortion clinics and leading other protests. He ran as a Republican for Congress in New York and for state senate in Florida. Now he has moved to the Eastern Panhandle and delivered 13,000 signatures to get on the presidential ballot in West Virginia.
COMMUNITY leaders of East End Main Street want Charleston's Urban Renewal Authority to ban several "undesirable" businesses - including gun shops. Wait a minute: West Virginians voted in a landslide (343,000 to 67,000) for the right-to-bear-arms amendment letting nearly everyone carry loaded pistols. Doesn't that imply that most Mountain State folks think guns are highly desirable, instead of undesirable? Or do people have contradictory feelings about deadly weapons?
***
What's important at West Virginia University? The football coach just got a six-year contract adding up to $20 million. That dwarfs the pay of WVU's historians, physicists, philosophers, geologists, political scientists, artists, archeologists, chemists, biologists, writers, sociologists, mathematicians, psychologists, engineers and other scholars. Evidently, WVU considers them less significant.
***
Surely the most infantile political ad is the Bill Maloney campaign spot showing little children looking gloomy under Democratic government, but beaming happily under Republicans.
***
Bearing arms in West Virginia: Nearly a decade later, Shawn Lester finally admitted guilt in at least one of three 2003 sniper assassinations in the Charleston region (just after he gave a long TV interview declaring his innocence).
***
Clarification: We gave a "Smile" to the ECA Foundation for a generous gift to Read Aloud West Virginia, but some details were unclear. The gift was for $75,000 the first year, with a possibility of renewing the grant four more years, depending on Read Aloud's performance. Good luck, Read Aloud.
***
Randall Terry is a fiery social activist. He has been arrested more than 40 times for obstructing abortion clinics and leading other protests. He ran as a Republican for Congress in New York and for state senate in Florida. Now he has moved to the Eastern Panhandle and delivered 13,000 signatures to get on the presidential ballot in West Virginia.
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