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Thursday, November 30, 2006

WV in the Movies

According to IMDb, the following is a complete listing of movies that fall under their keyword heading of "West Virginia" (number to the right are the ratings out of 10 from IMDb members):

1. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) 8.6/10
2. The Night of the Hunter (1955) 8.2/10
3. The Big Clock (1948) 7.8/10
4. Matewan (1987) 7.7/10
5. October Sky (1999) 7.6/10
6. Medium Cool (1969) 7.3/10
7. Hawkins on Murder (1973) (TV) 6.9/10
8. When Willie Comes Marching Home (1950) 6.6/10
9. Silent Hill (2006) 6.5/10
10. The Mothman Prophecies (2002) 6.4/10
11. Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933) 6.2/10
12. Gods and Generals (2003) 5.9/10
13. West Virginia, the State Beautiful(1929) 5.7/10
14. Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004)
15. Special Investigations: Mothman (1996)(V)3.1/10
16. Princess of the Dark (1917)
17. Out of the Storm (2001)
18. We Are Marshall (2006)
19. Crossing Time: The Wheeling Suspension Bridge (2002) (TV)
20. Correct Change (2002)

I am not familiar with all of them, and of those I have seen, I'd put Matewan #1, Lambs #2, October Sky #3 and Gods and Generals in a vat of boiling acid.

I am sure We Are Marshall will crack the top 4 in short order.

Monday, November 27, 2006

I Weep for the Future....

This video was taken at large private university around the last Congressional election.



Look, I was a college student not too long ago, and I and my friends were all reasonably informed about public affairs and we voted.

If these self-indulgent twits can't be bothered to inform themselves and vote when they are students, what will happen when they work 40+ hours weeks and have a family?

While youth maybe wasted on the young, idiocy rarely is.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

OPEN THREAD-I Should Have Been Home Yesterday

For those of you not currently living in WV, like me, use the comments link to tell me what you miss most about living there.

We Are ALL Marshall . . .At least for one day

All joking aside, the Marshall plane crash is of course one of the saddest events in American sports. I cannot begin to imagine how it felt to be a student, professor, or family member in Huntington on that awful day. The rise of that program after such an event is a tribute to the power of sports to transcend itself and to the determination of the greater West Virginia Family.

The We Are Marshall Trailer:

Pat White Makes Fun of the Pitt Panther "Growl"

Friday, November 17, 2006

WV not as bad as you might Think

West Virginia is not nearly as bad as you might think

When you grow up in a very rural, backward area of the Mountain State, you get a skewed view of what being a West Virginian means.

I come from a town so bereft of enlightenment that it once voted down an essentially free public library. It was so economically depressed that my family, which by any other standard would have been considered merely stable working class, was considered "wealthy" because we could speak well, had good manners and had decent clothes because my parents didn't blow their money on Jim Beam, muscle cars and over priced hunting equipment. The community values were so out-of-whack that our neighbor and my uncle, who raised at least a hundred chickens for cock fighting, made sure that is best birds had indoor air conditioning before his family did.

So you might imagine that I grew up with a low opinion of what West Virginia could be, unil I went to WVU and got a better idea of what was possible and that not everyone in our state was backward or ignorant.

But until you live outside the state as an adult, you really can't appreciate the positives of our state.

1. Our DVM really isn’t that bad. Having recently moved to OH I had to deal with their “BMV.” I had to register my car ($12.50) at one building (in Youngstown, decorated in the Late American Slum period), then drive 10 blocks to pick up my new plates ($55.00), then drive 10 miles to take a driving test, that drive back 10 miles to the previous office to get my drivers license ($27.50). Back home in Mercer County, I could have done all of that in one building for less money. Did I mention that these offices did not accept bank cards? Barbarians.

2. Our public school funding, while flawed, isn’t as awful as Ohio, which is using WV as a model for reforming their own system. In the OH, school districts are tiny, based on towns, villiages, cities and townships, and over reliant on periodic tax levies so that exceedingly poor districts and extremely wealthy district exist side by side with no mechanism for the redistribution of funds.

3. There are parts of OH that will match any part of WV for absence of civilization or abundance of ignorance, yet it is WV which has the bad reputation. While there are still plenty of yahoos who wave the Confederate flag in good ole’ WV, in OH I have seen at least two public high schools use it as their official athletic logo. This is something that I feel confident in stating would never happen in WV or in most points south.

4. Nor have we had as crooked a governor as Ohio currently has since Shelley Moore Capito’s daddy was in office. From Wikipedia:

“Taft was elected governor of Ohio in 1998, defeating Democrat Lee Fisher 50-45 percent, and was reelected in 2002, defeating Democrat Tim Hagan 58-38 percent. Then in 1999, Taft issued an executive order mandating four hours of ethics training for his cabinet directors, assistant cabinet directors, and senior staff every two years. During his tenure, Taft offered seats in the governor’s box at The Ohio State University football games and invitations to the governor’s mansion in exchange for secret contributions to the Ohio Republican Party. In the wake of convictions for ethics violations (see "Criminal charges", below), Gov. Taft's approval rating bottomed out at 6.5%, according to a late November, 2005 poll by Zogby, giving him quite possibly the lowest polled approval rating ever by a United States politician.[2] A SurveyUSA poll that same month gave Taft a rating of 18%. A late-2005 article in Time Magazine named him as one of the three worst governors in the country.

On August 17, 2005, Taft was charged with four criminal misdemeanors stemming from his failure to disclose golf outings paid for by lobbyists, as well as some undisclosed gifts. The Associated Press reported the total value of the undisclosed gifts as about US$5,800; they included:

  • book and artwork from the consulate general of the People’s Republic of China worth $100
  • a book, autographed football and pottery from then-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge valued at $128
  • a photograph and framed medal from the Defense Supply Center worth $85
  • a $125 framed photograph from Murphy Beading Designer Portraits of Zanesville
  • an $87 stuffed bear from Meigs County commissioners
  • a portfolio and clothing worth $119 from the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.

This was the first time an Ohio governor has ever been charged with a crime while in office.”

5. Finally, Ohio State Sucks.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

WVU's Slaton Featured in "The Onion"

From the Onion:

Heisman Candidate Promises Voters Free Health Care, Lower Taxes
November 9, 2006 | Onion Sports


MORGANTOWN, WV—With his stock falling and his projected share of the vote expected to be smaller with every passing week, Steve Slaton (RB-West Virginia) has begun making extravagant promises late in his Heisman campaign. "A vote for me is not only a vote for a gutsy all-purpose back who can run, catch, and block, but for free health care for all Americans, greater access to continuing education to those who qualify, and lower taxes for the American middle class," Slaton said Tuesday in an announcement approved by West Virginia's sports-information director. "Troy Smith may be a fast quarterback with a rocket arm, but he does not share your interests and does not believe in distributing the wealth as well as he distributes the ball." Heisman voters remain unmoved, saying that Slaton's two recent fumbles against Louisville prove that he is weak on national ball security.

Link