(This flag represented a group of about one hundred minutemen from Culpeper, Virginia. The group formed part of Colonel Patrick Henry’s First Virginia Regiment of 1775. Their unusual dress alarmed the people as they marched through the country. The word “LIBERTY OR DEATH” were in large white letters on the breast of their hunting shirts. They had bucks’ tails in their hats and tomahawks and scalping knives in their belts.)

I slept in this morning. The Farm does that to me. No football beckons this afternoon, so I will putter until I know whether I am going to have to make a stop at a specialty store in Opal on the way back up north to Arlington. I liked the pre-dawn. We got down below freezing in the night, but this is only going to be jacket weather today.

The Russkies were over last night for wine and dinner- tasty local produce, slow-cooked, and one of those delicious crusty loaves from Croftburn Farms. So much simpler here- though the local paper suggests otherwise.

I am burned out on trying to write gently ironic stories about the lunacy in Washington, and I am sure you are as tired about reading them. The Farm is a good antidote to the relentless fixation on things a single citizen can do little about. I did write the three elected officials (two Senators and that boob from Arlington) to whom I report a bilious morning note, and felt a little better.

So the local news is kind of a trip. There is a disturbance in the Police Force and something is going on down here. I mentioned that the Culpeper Clarion-Bugle is issued only once a week, mostly for advertising, but also for local activities. There have been some mind boggling ones, and as I slid the Panzer up next to the mailbox to collect the week’s refinancing solicitations and fliers my eyes widened at the headlines.

There are two crusading reporters down here- Anita Sherman and Ray Finefrock. Anita was all over the start of the trial of a former Culpeper town cop who shot an unarmed woman to death last summer. The former officer was on the stand this week, and Anita reported that he broke down in tears, after noting that the woman had been aloof and “off-putting,” which are new grounds for homicide. We wouldn’t even notice back in Arlington.

Ray, on the other hand, was deep into the scandal that has been swirling at town hall. The City manager got canned this week. Now, his story was below the fold on the front page, under the notification that the Ruritans are really going ahead with Culpeper Days festivities this May, settling a bitter controversy over parking with the Council.

The council has had a busy week, maybe busier than the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and Secretary Clinton. They got together and in a 5-2 vote after more than an hour of deliberations, fired the city manager, a determined young woman who had been on the job for only 17 months. She apparently got crosswise with the people who actually run things when she had the Sherriff investigated for some ugly conflicts of interest.

I don’t know why the Mayor and a councilman who used to be police chief sat out the vote. The Chity Information Officer who had abruptly resigned last week was swiftly re-instated in a coup de department.

Is there something going on? Is this related to the accusations against the former police Captain? Is the murder of an unarmed citizen the action of a rogue cop or is there more here than meets the eye?

I am going to rely on Anita and Ray to dig in to this. I will rely on them to unravel this story like Woodward and Bernstein. It is sort of cool to see crusading journalism in action. We haven’t seen much of that back up in Washington, where everything appears to be just fine.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com