Why not?

As you read this VCU basketball history has been re-written -- TWICE. Scarcely was the ink dry on the first Sweet Sixteen Ever t-shirt when the first Elite Eight cottons were rolling off the presses. To say the campus is excited, to say that Richmond is excited, is like saying Angelina Jolie is an OK gal.

Arthur Ashe, on Monument Ave.

VCU is surely playing with house money. Hell, just getting into the Big Dance was a surprise; winning a play-in game and then three more... the Rams could pick up their chips and come home as heroes right now. After all, look what they face now. Kansas is a giant in NCAA basketball, a team that won it all just three years ago, and a team that, in the last five years, has won more games than any team in history for that length of time.

Kansas is 35-2 up to here; VCU is, what? 27-11? Nobody really expects VCU to go any further. Well, maybe Shaka Smart does; maybe the Rams themselves do. And maybe, you?

A couple of thoughts. David really did beat Goliath, Sir Edmund Hillary really did climb Mt. Everest, and the Boston Red Sox really did beat the Yankees four straight to get into the 2004 World Series. And do you think the Richmond Spiders are telling VCU everything they learned about Kansas?

Sure, Kansas will probably win. That's just the way things are. But remember what Bobby Kennedy said about such things:

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?"

Go Rams! Monument Avenue needs a new statue!

Click the headline for more Richmond news.

Parking in Madison? Problem solved!**

Well, almost. First we have to convince our crack local government to swallow their pride and take another look at a creative, close-to-genius solution to parking that former mayor Woody Kerkeslager submitted two years ago.


Why his plan got tabled or rejected is a mystery, because similar projects are cropping up all over New York City -- and getting rave reviews.


The solution is called automated parking, a robotic system developed by a company called Automotion that effectively makes maximum use of minimum space. There are two spots in Madison where the system would work: Madison Green (the lot behind the Main Street stores that abuts the railroad tracks) and the space on the other side of Waverly Place, behind the Waverly restaurant and the two banks.


All you would see of either building would be the entrances and exits! Hell, the system's so pretty and high-tech you could put it in a third spot, the lot behind Rocco's, double the parking and have room left for a not-so-little park.


Check out how the system works -- just click on the headline of this article, or right here, too, for a competitive system -- and then call your council representative!


**Originally published 9/26/08 -- updates in gold

Dorothy Young, last surviving stage assistant of Harry Houdini & generous Drew U patron, dies at 103

Media-Newswire.com) - Dorothy Young, last surviving stage assistant of Harry Houdini and generous namesake of Drew University�s Dorothy Young Center for the Arts, passed away yesterday at the age of 103. Young was known on campus as a strong supporter of theater, music and fine art, and as the sister of legendary Drew professor and baseball coach Sherman Plato �Doc� Young. Her wider fame was due to her role as the �Radio Girl of 1950� in Houdini�s 1926 stage act and as an internationally acclaimed dancer.

Houdini's troupe. Ms. Young is second from right

With Dorothy�s passing, Drew loses more than just an extremely generous benefactor and friend,� said University President Robert Weisbuch. �The university has also lost a link to its past, someone who represents Drew in all its human richness.�

Read more �

and now... a cartoon entry!

The City of New Orleans

The song's been covered by just about every picker who ever heard it, but Arlo seems to have nailed the lead position. For those of us who remember, America used to have some first-class train rides.



Want to see New Orleans? Click the headline.

Making movies

A movie film is a collaborative piece of art. Hundreds, thousands of people work to stitch a story together for a viewing audience that is barely aware of maybe a dozen or so of those pieces.

An integral part of a film's patchwork quilt is its 'special effects,' cinematic trompe l'oeil that fools the eye into seeing something that didn't really happen. Even if all the other constituent parts of a movie blend together seamlessly, poorly planned and executed special effects can be a film's downfall. The best special effects, no matter how grand in scope and delivery, must be invisible to the audience. If a viewer says, 'Wow! how did they do that?' during a movie, the artistic spell is broken.

Here is an example of the creativity and precision of special effects, and how, when they're done well, the audience never thinks about them.


Crimson Tide Effects from Christopher Salazar on Vimeo.

Conversations with God**

Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly�s Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas? This paper, given by Edward Lorenz in 1972 to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., popularized the term �butterfly effect,� which purports to explain how a miniscule change in events can bring about large-scale catastrophe.

In my heart, I believe the butterfly effect. I like the helplessness of it, the morbid possibility that some insignificant action on my part is going to set off a chain of events that will ultimately spell my downfall. And when I appear to come close to fulfilling the theory, when something happens to make me think my world is coming unglued, I talk to God.

Read more �

Shaka gets Rams ready for Florida State!

We did give our readers advance warning, remember?

Go VCU!

It's only a movie...

... but this scene underscores the essential problem of the Middle East: Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the West has, for profit alone, ignored and even abetted the plight of the Arab people. We have ignored their culture and history and even used that culture to advance our industrial ends. We furthered their divisions and neglected their unity.  For oil.

Revolt is now rising throughout the Arab world, with the common people yearning for the civilized life of opportunity and equality that has been denied them for more than a century by their rulers and the complicit West.

And it is still about oil. We've learned nothing.

Spring

o what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

 Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)