Local Publications

[notwaldo]

Crunch:
If you want to send a note to the Rockbridge Advocate, I suggest you send it to the R.A. I don't believe the paper has much of anything to do with this forum. But the headline on the article should have tipped you off that if anything, one can assume the editor does not exactly approve of this shameful and long-neglected part of Virginia's history. He didn't make this stuff up, and from what I can tell the words are almost entirely from records and official letters he managed to unearth. The question and answer part you refer to is, as the article makes clear, a transcript of a trial. So if it sounds like a interrogation — it was. Perhaps when the series is done the people of Irish Creek will get a long overdue apology from the state. History hurts sometimes, but ignoring it doesn't make it go away.

[crunch]

Notwaldo,
I agree history does hurt sometimes but the people in this community in present day deserve respect. We all have a history some good, some bad but don't link a questionable history to the good people in the here and now.

[Uji]

he still suits up, shows up, and stays on course. He is head and shoulders above and miles ahead of the rest. I'll take a "witch hunter" of an adversarial journalist like Doug Harwood any day of the week. Here's to a banner year for The Rockbridge Advocate and its Editor and Publisher in 2009!

I second the motion.

[Wise One]

Yer gettin' me Irish up.

And I'm pure Irish - there is not one drop of sense here.

PS. A Willis Robertson, decades ago when he was still blustering about Lexington all the bigshot senator, heard that my father had once traveled to the Soviet Union. Thereafter, he always referred to my Dad as "that communist," and he was not kidding.

What an asshole. Son's no better.

I remember vividly attending an assembly at Lexington High School at which Robertson spoke. A student had the temerity to suggest that maybe Virginia should not pursue its "massive resistance" effort to block integration, the new law of the land. The asshole, intending to embarrass the kid before his peers, asked the audience loudly "Well, how many of you want to go to school with Niggras?!"

He expected the student to be mortified as the lone 'oddball.' But, as I rose to indicate my 'yes', I was delighted that about 1/4 of the students joined me. That was revolutionary in that day, and I was pleased to see a look of shock partly obliterate his smirk.

[notwaldo]

Crunch:
I'll be damned if I have the foggiest idea of what you're talking about. How can a story show disrespect for the living when it is about something that happened nearly 100 years ago and involves people who are all dead?
If anyone should be embarrassed that the story has finally appeared, it ought to be Pat Roberston.

[Uji]

I'm with you, NotWaldo. The only way one could take the article as an insult to Irish Creek is to consider that the accusation of mixed blood is insulting.

And WiseOne, I wish you'd write up that wonderful account of your experience at Lexington High and send it to the advocate. It would be wonderful to read about all the many folks there must have been (though still a minority, alas) who saw through the Robertson's of their era.

[Wise One]

WiseOne, I wish you'd write up that wonderful account of your experience at Lexington High and send it to the advocate. It would be wonderful to read about all the many folks there must have been (though still a minority, alas) who saw through the Robertson's of their era.

Thanks for your kind compliment on my observations. All was not "Happy Days" in the past, notwithstanding the sentimental attachment and selective memory most of us have for bygone days. I think Doug may peek at this Forum from time to time so I'm fairly confident he'll see it. Besides, he knew my Dad personally, admired him, and may even have heard this story before.

[fangz1956]

in re: Pat Robertson

Where Fiction is Fact

[Sam]

He is a butt head. Someone needs to tape his mouth shut for ever.

[Uji]

in re: Pat Robertson

I'm beginning to think that this sort of thing -- representing point-of-view as fact -- should be actionable. We have liable laws, we have defamation laws... How is it that anyone can get on international TV and promote such insane delusions as fact with impunity? I don't care if it's Pat Robertson or Rev. Wright: Your opinions are not facts, I don't care how strongly or sincerely held.

This is the Trojan Horse that religion (whether Methodism, Communism, or any other faith-based -ism) brings with it to the table of public discourse: When irrationality is accepted, even embraced, though seemingly benign, it leads inevitably to the likes Pat Robertson -- or Hugo Chavez or Dick Cheney or _____________ (fill in the blank).

What sort of insane society is this? Why does what this lunatic say even rate discussion? We are clearly all crazier than he is. And, judging from the Irish Creek series in the advocate, we've been willing to pay attention to the rantings of this particular polluted gene pool for a long time.

[coondog]

You can blame it on Walter Cronkite, Al Gore and George Bush 41.

Walter taught us to believe what we saw on the news. The 1st Gulf War, with it's video feedback of explosions and such got people interested in 24 hour news programs. Gore's invention of the internet (a series of tubes) allowed crackpots from all corners of the globe to convey, on an equal footing, the most warped degeneracy imaginable in visual and audio form.

In the old days, you'd have to tune into the 700 Club to hear this sort of tripe. Now it comes at you wherever you are.

Heck....Brother Pat is just a local boy gone bad. Insane jibberish is everywhere....from Fox News to the Opinion page of the News Gazette.

Intellectualism is dead. Personal integrity is lacking. Reason and logic have left the building. Centralized banking is robbing us blind. The internet, for good or ill, has us all by the nads!

Coondog

Vacationing in Haiti

[Anonymoose]

Kudos to Doug Harwood and the Rockbridge Advocate. Doug knows the role of a good journalist and does his job extremely well.....a labor of love one might say. And in spite of being branded a "witch hunter", he still suits up, shows up, and stays on course. He is head and shoulders above and miles ahead of the rest. I'll take a "witch hunter" of an adversarial journalist like Doug Harwood any day of the week. Here's to a banner year for The Rockbridge Advocate and its Editor and Publisher in 2009!

No question, The Advocate is The News, and, they can spell and actually edit their material, and don't repeat an article IN THE SAME ISSUE :) Applause all around.

Coming in late (and not reading through all the posts) am I understanding that Pat Robertson is descended from Rockbridge stock? Say it ain't so. Somebody fill me in, please. Am I understanding that the "Mr. Robertson" in the Irish Creek series is an ancestor of PR? If so, I gotta move.

[Anonymoose]

Intellectualism is dead. Personal integrity is lacking. Reason and logic have left the building. Centralized banking is robbing us blind. The internet, for good or ill, has us all by the nads!

Coondog, you're the reason I rarely post here anymore. You pretty much read my mind and say it so much better!

[Wise One]

am I understanding that Pat Robertson is descended from Rockbridge stock? Say it ain't so. Somebody fill me in, please. Am I understanding that the "Mr. Robertson" in the Irish Creek series is an ancestor of PR? If so, I gotta move.

Alas, it is so. A Willis Roberston and Pat Roberson are father and son. Between the two of them, combined, they had almost half a brain.

We wish you the best in your new place of residence ... drop us a line from time to time.

[Anonymoose]

Alas, it is so. A Willis Roberston and Pat Roberson are father and son. Between the two of them, combined, they had almost half a brain.

We wish you the best in your new place of residence ... drop us a line from time to time.

Ha Ha! I won't believe it until I see the sign "Welcome to Rockbridge County, birthplace of Pat Robertson." Heck, we brag about everything else.

[Glendale]

Congratulations to the two weekly papers for printing stories, one of them hysterically opinionated and the other straightforward, about the governor's screwing Buena Vista for defaulting on the golf course bonds. The Advocate scooped them both, and as I read it, the news was about three weeks old when the Advocate printed it. Scooped them on a bunch more, like the reason a charming assistant prosecutor is no longer employed. The paper really ought to brag about itself a little more.

[rockinrobin]

Muckraker. Not necessarily a bad thing. But he shades the truth to make points. That's bad. As long as you realize you are gossiping. Poor Doug. I guess at some point he wanted to be real journalist instead of editing a gossip rag. Or maybe this is what he wanted to do all along!

[fangz1956]

Muckraker??? Gossip rag?????

I hardly think so..........not by a long shot.

I suppose some people just can't stomach the truth....they would rather have some candy-coated version of the world. They would rather support "news" papers who are lap dogs of bureaucrats and are afraid of printing a single controversial word. Heaven forbid that they dare would print something that would provoke thought and intelligent discourse!!

It takes a person of integrity and grit to print the truth......and stand and take the heat for it. Kudos to Mr. Harwood for being just such a person.

[Lukewarmwater]

rockinrobin, here is one thing you need to know. The Advocate and Doug Harwood keep folks honest in this town. He doesn't put much truck in hiding the truth from his readers. Every town needs such a brave man.

[Amy Probenski]

Every time, and I mean every time, I go through the week's local publications I see a picture of Dabney S. Lancaster Community College Dr. Richard Teaff appearing in public for yet another photo opportunity.

He may be a great guy doing good work, but he is giving an unfortunate impression that his single goal in life is to appear in the press. Too much of a good thing is, well, maybe a not-so-good thing sometimes.

Oh Jeez, I just gave him some more press right here on the Rockbridge Forum.