| Name-Calling
Hurts Election |
| The recent arguments concerning the election for the Reston
Association Board of Directors have become so personalized,
vitriolic and lacking any decorum or courtesy that The Reston
Observer, since the beginning of March, declared an end to
letters to the editor concerning the RA candidates. |
| The election has become a battle of personalities with little
or no discussion over the issues that concern Reston. Could
it be that there are no issues? I doubt it, but you won't
find them in the letters that I have seen. If I find a letter
that addresses the issues, I will gladly publish it. |
| The Reston Observer has received, since the first part of
March, perhaps 40 or 50 letters praising this candidate and
bad-mouthing that candidate. The only difference between the
letters is the name of the person who wrote the letter. They
all sound like a Napster copy of the same song and dance. |
| It's not only the candidates who have taken their licks,
but newspaper editors as well. A hand-delivered letter to
me this week complained about the ..."cruel, unsubstantiated
remarks about..." a certain candidate. "As a result," the
letter writer wrote, "I must call into serious question the
motives and veracity of those who have written such statements™including,
perhaps, one of our newspaper editors." |
| I'm not sure which of several newspaper editors the writer
is complaining about. I just know he doesn't work at The Observer. |
| But, alas, I have said enough. The RA election, thankfully,
will soon be history. |
| My only question is: Will we ever know what the issues are? |
| |
| A
Raid on Herndon |
| A man was shot in downtown Herndon this weekend. He lay
on the cold, wet ground for the better part of an hour. Men
in uniform walked around him, and a woman bent down to check
him as her pet dog licked the man's face. The dog barked a
whimpering lament. |
| A large crowd gathered around, and after all was said and
done, the crowd dispersed with better things to do on a warming
Saturday afternoon in Herndon. |
| It was at that point the dead man arose, dusted off his
clothes, and left the downtown to join his friends. |
| It was, for those who had not heard, the reenactment of
Col. John Singleton Mosby's raid on Herndon Station, an event
which happened during the Civil War. Mosby, leading his rag-tag
group of soldiers on horseback, stormed the Herndon railroad
depot. Some of his men were dressed as Union soldiers to fool
those who were guarding the depot. The Union men thought the
marauders were their relief. |
| It worked. One Union man was killed, the others taken prisoners.
In Saturday's reenactment, 2,000 to 3,000 people watched the
action. The horses stormed down Lynn Street while guns blasted
away. Gun smoke filled the street as Mosby's men made short
order of the fray. |
| There were many people involved in Saturday's educational
reenactment, but none more than Richard Downer. Even his wife,
Linda, got into the act by dressing up like a Civil War woman.
Richard donned an erstwhile civil war hat, but his orange
and yellow safety vest gave him away. Even the Union troops
weren't fooled. |
| The Observer Newspapers (are you hearing the horns blaring?)
got into the act by sponsoring an insert in the newspaper
and throwing in some much needed cash, as did HRI, Richard
Downer's business. There were dozens of others who helped,
including the volunteers from Elden Street Players and HCTV. |
| One thing was for certain: The war still isn't over. Some
of those standing around me referred to Mosby and his men
as "our men." Visitors from the north cheered on the Union
men. For a while I thought a new war was ready to break out. |
| I guess we're all waiting for the fat lady to sing. |
| |
| The
Census |
| According to 2000 census figures published in The Observer
last week, it would seem that only nine white people moved
into the Town of Herndon over the past decade, while there
were 1,638 more Asians and 503 more blacks. |
| At first glance the figures just don't make sense. A net
gain of only nine whites, while the entire population of the
Townof Herndon grew by 5,526 people? |
| The answer to this oddity is that people had more choices
in 2000 of how to answer the question of race™about 63 choices,
it is reported. Many of those 12,526 who chose "white" in
1990 probably changed their choice to something closer to
their race. In 2000, 1,152 people, or 5.3 percent of the total
population, identified with two or more races. |
| As an example, a friend of mine, who is Indian, 10 years
ago picked white as his choice. In 2000 he chose Asian-Caucasian. |
| Meanwhile, Herndon's Hispanic population grew by 264.5 percent,
to 5,643 in 2000 from 1,548 in 1990. |
| It is important to remember that Hispanics can be of any
race, including white, Asian, black, and even Native American.
That's also why the census numbers don't always add up. |
| This isn't all that different from the early 1900's when
new immigrants identified themselves as Irish, German, French,
Irish-German, French-Irish, Italian, Italian-German and any
number of other classifications. |
| In the end, we're all Americans, All of us have a rich ancestry
which only adds to the brilliant quilt of life in these United
States. |
| And that's Our Town this week. |
