So, that is what the Writer’s Section under close supervision by our Attorney Amanda decided was a capture of the week’s news. You will notice what is not “in the news.”

Oh, wait. Of course you wouldn’t notice! We have been trying to follow fellow scribe Marlow’s advice from his Coastal Empire. “Get cleaned up in the morning. Try to remember to shave and comb what is left of our hair. Avoid the News.” We have tried, and report great success. But the two articles of news that could affect the old war-horses around the Fire Ring did not appear.

Just before bedtime last night a pal from one of the three-letter Agencies set a link to a strange story without words to characterize it. Clicking on the link led to a report that a US Army three-star general- only one short of the current maximum of “four stars” had been captured in Mariupol in Ukraine. He was reported to be with the Azov Brigade. If you have been better than us in avoiding the news, the Azov group has a reputation of being affiliated with some historical groups in Ukraine who are the “opposite of Communists.”

The other note we were looking for was widely publicized. It was the County Board of Supervisors meeting that was supposed to deny or approve the proposal to construct a $500 million dollar Amazon Data Center complex over on Virginia Route 3, in the very nexus of an event long ago that helped determine the course of a Civil War that took the lives of around 700,000 solders in its apocalyptic four-year course.

Good news first? The story about the American general being captured is false, at least according to the identity of the alleged captive. You can imagine what that story might mean if it was true. The reports of Russian war crimes would pale in comparison to a very senior American participating in operations against Russian liberation troops with Ukrainian fascists. Or at least you could spin it that way.

It is part of the swirl of almost unimaginable levels of information, some of which seems to be true and the majority the opposite. We tried to accommodate what we think might be truth in the Weather Report slide above. So, we are pleased we didn’t report it, though of course we are not 100% sure of what we did try to distill from the throbbing streams of information.

The other one was really personal. We have told you about the struggle over a spot-rezoning proposal to put a $500 million dollar ‘light industrial’ Amazon complex at the foot of Hansbrough Ridge where the Union 2nd Corps fought and spent the winter camped out recuperating from the start of General Lee’s advance on Gettysburg. There was a meeting of the Supervisors last night at 7:00Pm to approve or deny the project.

Headlines in the paper this morning included a nice color picture of the High school cast of the Spring production of the musical “Newsies.” We encourage you to attend if you happen to be in the County and need some entertainment. There was no mention of the Supervisor’s meeting. We searched for any mention on the world-wide web. Nothing.

Being inquisitive in nature, we abandoned the search and called one of the other citizens who prefer the development be placed, if necessary, in one of the zones already allocated for ‘light industrial’ development not directly in the line of sight of a place that affected everyone in a green and growing land.

We can report this: The Supervisors approved, four votes to three, a sprawl of buildings over a few hundred acres. They are modern-looking rectangles, four stories high, and humming with energy to preserve some of the digits we are using this morning to communicate. We could go on reporting the events, with thirty-odd citizens opposed to the location- not the idea- of the project. Apparently five spoke in favor, including two who actually own the property and will directly profit from the deal.

We will not go on, though we have a truthful account received over the digital phones we use, and which we may have originally purchased from Amazon. We understand the lack of reporting. It will take time to construct a narrative that will make this development seem appropriate and good. But having talked to a participant, it will take a few minutes to make this seem like a good idea. The guess is that it will involve “kids and schools” as a reason to ignore the zoning fight to keep the area rural based on its historic value as a historic attraction.

We will keep you posted on how that plays out. In the meantime, we can go back to worrying about things that are either happening or not happening. We are pleased our American General is safe, if in fact he was ever in danger. We are more confident about the status of the Data Centers just down the road. We are completely confident we were correct in our opposition to it, but we will see how they depict us in the approved reporting stream.

We might be evil on the scale of the Azov Brigade overseas. We will let you know if it is reported that way.

Copyright 2022 Vic Socotra
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