Trending at Hallandale Beach Blog: WBAL-TV's Lowell Melser's consistently crisp, thorough & detailed reporting at the George Huguely V murder trial in Charlottesville of Cockeysville native Yeardley Love

WBAL-TV News, Baltimore video: Breaking News: Correspondent Lowell Melser reports on the details surrounding the jury in the George Huguely V trial handing down a 26-year sentence in Charlottesville, VA for the Second-degree Murder of Yeardley Love. February 22, 2012.


Trending at Hallandale Beach Blog: WBAL-TV's Lowell Melser's consistently crisp, thorough & detailed reporting at the George Huguely V murder trial in Charlottesville of Cockeysville native Yeardley Love.

Whether detailing the ins-and-outs of the voir dire process, the Huguely defense team's strategy -and even the health of the defense attorneys- the emotional and evidentiary highs-and-lows of each day before a judge who works long hours and expects as much from the 12-member jury, or revealing the heartbreaking testimony of the Love family, Lowell Melser's reporting from the hometown of UVA, the school my niece currently attends and the one that Yeardley Love had grown-up dreaming of playing for, and as a young woman had grown to love representing for four happy years, has been first-rate and exemplary, a real credit to WBAL.

I've watched Melser's reports since before the trail started, which is of such great interest to me as well as to folks in the greater Baltimore community for the myriad reasons I've mentioned here in my February 6th post, titled, Yeardley Love in our thoughts: UVA & Charlottesville, extended UVA family & U.S. Lacrosse community are bracing themselves for the graphic details/photos that'll emerge in George Huguely V's murder trial starting Monday
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/yeardley-love-in-our-thoughts-uva.html


I had really hoped to have been able to post a few days worth of Melser's stories each weekend of the trial here for you to see, but logistically, that just wasn't going to work out, given how often Google Chrome has been crashing at the worst possible times, making what should've otherwise been a 20-30 minute operation take 90 maddening minutes, instead.
Sorry about that.


Ashley Robertson in The Cavalier Daily in Charlottesville captured the gaping hole in the souls of Yeardley's family about as well as you could, something you probably never saw in whatever TV news story you saw about the verdict or sentencing, but which is important to know:

Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman called Love’s mother Sharon and older sister Lexie to testify about the impact of Yeardley’s death on their family.

Few eyes in the courtroom stayed dry and multiple jurors needed tissues as Sharon Love described losing her daughter just five years after the death of her husband.

“Every year that goes by, I’m afraid I’m forgetting little pieces about her,” Sharon Love said between sobs. “[The pain] never goes away. You just pick yourself up and try to do the best you can for Yeardley.”

Lexie Love’s testimony also evoked tears as she described the emotional pain she suffered from losing a sister she talked to “at least once a day.”

“I’ve never wanted something so bad in my life as to see her again… it physically hurts,” Lexie Love said. “It’s like something’s missing — there’s a huge hole that will always be there and nothing’s going to fill it.”

It just breaks your heart all over again.
At least it did mine.
Yeardley Love and her family are still in our thoughts.


See the whole article here:


The Cavalier Daily 
The Verdict
By Ashley Robertson, Section Editor 
February 24, 2012
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2012/02/24/the-verdict/


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http://www.wbaltv.com/index.html 


One Love Foundation: http://www.joinonelove.org/

MSM's 'Mirror, mirror on the wall' news approach: Earthquake in VA? Send resources to Times Square to interview pretty tourists -but nobody in VA!

My screenshot of Fox News Channel joining in the fray to the lowest common denominator -not explaining what really happened, but rather, what do people in New York City think about it?

Like the worst immature behavioral excesses of a teenage girl constantly looking to catch her own reflection in any passing mirror and a clueless dog who persistently chases after its own tail, we saw the American Mainstream Media in all their collective unsophisticated glory this afternoon, as an unusually large earthquake with its epicenter in Louisa County, about 40 miles NW of Richmond, Virginia's capital, hit around 1:51 p.m.

But why interview someone who was near where it happened -you know, in Virginia- when you can just send a network crew over to Times Square and interview pretty tourists, or have Wolf Blitzer stand out side near Union Station?

In going back and forth from one cablenet channel after another for an hour, I NEVER once saw a local Richmond TV station affiliate's live feed picked up as is usually the case. Why?

Why would I possibly care what people in NYC think?

Above, my screenshot of CNN's Wolf Blitzer reporting LIVE from 95 miles away from where something actually happened.

Get someone from The Brookings Institution on, stat!

Above, my screenshot of Fox News Channel brings us views of New York City's underpaid, sexually-harassed female office drones walking the pavement while they Tweet their mundane thoughts to their four "Followers" while walking across the street, and checking to see what California-based celebs they "Follow" think about what is happening thousands of miles away in Virginia.

Soon afterwards, Fox anchor Megyn Kelly makes her needless cryptic remark about receiving a message from a LEO about the possibility of The Washington Monument "leaning."

Nice going, reporting something before it's actually confirmed.

Why don't you report LIVE from underneath it? LOL!

The perpetually-indignant Kelly is the one Fox News personality I really dislike!

Usually, I mute her, but since my back was turned to her while I was on my computer reading reports from people who know what they're talking about,

http://www.usgs.gov/

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/

http://www.1140wrva.com/main.html

I left the volume turned up.

My mistake, since it only confirmed what I think about her -not much.

Above, my screenshot of MSNBC -refraining from blaming Tea Party supporters for a few minutes- shows The National Mall in Washington, on the left, looking west towards The Washington Monument, and at right, Times Square in NYC.

No doubt there were moviegoers in The Village seeing matinee performances of The Sorrow and The Pity who were forced to evacuate and, unfortunately, leave their organic food smuggled into the theater in their seats, as they lined up outside like lemmings, as eager liberal petition workers immediately descended upon them to sign up to protest something or another.

Oh, the agony of the news patriarchy!

Per the article below by The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder,

whose posts I receive via email every day, I'm posting about

this because it should have a lot of resonance for those of

you who held Obama events at your house.

Even when I disagree with what Ambinder has written,

hs writiing is always a pleasure to read.

My comments follow his:

"When Terry McAuliffe was the chairman of the DNC, his

staff used to joke at his expense that any number he

uttered -- usually a brag about some fundraising goal

or field accomplishment -- had to be reduced by about

a third in order to comport with reality. Dana Milbank,

writing in the Washington Post, suggests that the current

DNC regime is overboasting, too, about the number of

Obama budget pledges it received..."

To read the rest of the piece go to

Washington with Marc Ambinder

The DNC's Pledge Hedge?

April 2 2009

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/04/the_pledge.php

As you probably know, former DNC head Terry McAuliffe,

so beloved of Hardball's back-scratching Chris Matthews,

is running for governor of Virginia.

Most of my friends back there, even ones who are much

more liberal than DLC me, can't quite stomach the idea

of voting for someone for governor who, throughout his

career, has always been so preternaturally shallow

intellectually, so plain about his money-grubbing ways

and happy to an example of crony capitalism at its

absolute worst, with involvement in all sorts of sweetheart

business deals that most Democratic voters would never

have entree to, and to which many of my friends and I

feel were never thoroughly investigated before he became

DNC Chair.

Worst of all, though in a state that takes history very

seriously -almost to comical lengths at times- his

personal history shows him to be someone who has

zero genuine connection to the state, much less,

the "real" Virginia that's far, far away from the affluent,

comfortable and moderate Northern Virginia suburbs

I lived in for 15 years.

He's no Mark Warner, that's for sure.

Not that you'll read about any of that in the upcoming

national media stories on his campaign before next

month's Democratic primaryv, which will almost entirely

focus on his ability to convince average Virginians he

actually has -gasp!- principles and is connected to

their daily concerns.

Frankly, that's still an open question, even among folks

in D.C. who know him whom you'd naturally expect

to be favorably disposed towards him.

He is actually quite engaging according to folks I know

who are on friendly terms with him.

But he still tends to rub a lot of people the wrong way,

since he seems to be part of that political class that

imagines that talking about something is the same

thing as having actually done something about it.

It's not, of course, a distinction he has to hope

Virginia voters don't consider too strongly.

Personally, I feel that despite all the migration to

Northern Virginia from the northeast, I don't believe

he's an electable candidate, but the whole DNC

infrastructure tried to clear out the field so he can

spend some of his millions in his gubernatorial election,

so they can spend their funds elsewhere.

That didn't work, though, and I suspect and hope that

Brian Moran will emerge as the Democratic nominee

after next month's primary.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033103728.html?sub=AR

In case you didn't know, because of the way the Virginia

Constitution was written, most of the power resides with

the state legislature to a degree that's hard to imagine or

appreciate here.

The most obvious way this shows itself is the prohibition

on governors: one term and out,

Naturally, that's the way the veteran pols like it.

Besides having lived there for so long and one of my nieces

now attending Washington & Lee University in Lexington,

I have a tangible connection to the state of Virginia and

its history.

One of my ancestors was former U.S. Rep. Phillip Doddridge,

a very interesting fellow who died in 1832, though that's not at all

apparent in this short Congressional bio.

He lost his first two attempts to get into the House of

Representatives, served in both the Virgina Senate and the

Virginia House of Delegates.

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=D000391

Among other things, he apparently argued many cases successfully

before the U.S. Supreme Court, and SCOTUS Justices attended

his funeral, which was actually his second one.

His first funeral had to be postponed after he woke up!

He later had it written into his new Will that a certain period

of time must elapse before a death could be announced and

a funeral scheduled.

I hate when that happens!

My paternal grandmother Anna was born in the panhandle

area of West Virginia, not far from the County named for

Phillip Doddridge in 1845, which was Virgina before the

Civil War, albeit an area of the state that was economically

and socially far removed from genteel and relatively affluent

Richmond and Williamsburg, where Phillip had served in the

state legislature.

Once upon a time, back when people in the colonies really

thought that Virginia extended west until it reached the

Pacific Ocean, this particular area was known as

West Augusta.

This area had been professionally surveyed for the largest

land owners: Washingtons, Fairfaxes, Lees and many others,

who, according to some sources, had it in mind as the 14th

American Colony, before the oncoming American Revolution

made that pretty much a moot point.

Phillip and his brother, The Rev. Dr. Joseph Doddridge,

arrived in Wellsburg, VA -now Charleston, W.V.- in 1795,

a year before the county was formed.

The Doddridge branch of the family is the one that was,

apparently, well-educated, heavily involved in the community

and very religious.

I'm sure they'd have been bloggers!

One of Phillip's ancestors was Obadiah Holmes,

(http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~sam/obadiah.html

and http://www.geocities.com/baptist_documents/holmes.obadiah.encyclopia.html )

who was the second pastor of the First Baptist Church

in the American colonies, in Newport, Rhode Island,

after the first minister, John Clarke, died not long after

it'd been built.

I only became aware of this fact within the past eight

years or so, and was quite pleased to discover that

the church is still there all these years later.

As it happens, the Doddridge family once lived in Salem, MA,

long before the Witch Trials there in the 1690's, and

SouthBeachHoosier daily attended the 1997 Marv Albert

trial/media circus in Arlington, VA while living there.

Ah, sweet symmetry!

Perhaps that explains why, years ago, I always had a

warm spot in my heart for actress Melissa Joan Hart

-Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

I ask you, how can you not smile at an adorably cute

witch with a cat named Salem?

http://www.tvloop.com/sabrina-the-teenage-witch/show/photos/top10/2

http://www.tvacres.com/horror_witches_sabrina.htm