Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Metro columnist Dan Casey: The Danos prove to be lightning rod
Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
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@roanoke.com
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Dan Casey
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The end of 2009 brought in a lot of mail. Some came from readers who were less than enamored by the tongue-in-cheek Dano Awards for exceptional stupidity.
One was Jim Lucas, who says he lives in "the People's Republic of Roanoke County."
In some rather graphic prose, Lucas suggested the Dano statuette should have had my glamorous physique twisted into a position that puts my head where the sun never shines.
"Try as I may, in vain I read on to find the 2009 Dano Award for most trite, banal, arrogant & predictably redundant local columnist," Lucas added.
Ouch!
My apologies, Jim -- I thought I covered that base by naming the award after myself. But I promise to make the point more perfectly clear at the end of this year. There will be ample justification, no doubt.
Frank Peck, also from Roanoke County, was most offended at the "Land Grab Dano" award to Jay and Stephanie Burkholder, the couple that owns 3 acres on Reserve Avenue now undergoing condemnation.
Peck wrote that he found that award "offensive, petty, and small," adding "Dan must be a small-minded, greedy, and angry person."
He closed with a zinger: "Dan should give himself 2 'Danos' and use that as his rationale for a raise. I bet he gets one."
Boss, did you catch that part about the raise?
Roanoke sculptor John Wilson loved the Dano Award concept so much that he offered to cast a statuette that I could bestow upon the winners at a future awards dinner.
"I would use rubber so they can't hurt themselves with them, you know, how bright they are," Wilson wrote.
The only problem might be, Wilson noted, "what if you gave a dinner and none of the honorees came?"
A great point.
Many thankful readers wrote and called about the Christmas Eve column and update about Joe Kennedy, the retired writer for this newspaper who suffered a vision-damaging stroke early in 2009.
If those messages prove anything, it's that A Cuppa Joe's position as most beloved Roanoke Valley columnist remains secure -- even though he's no longer writing.
"When he wrote, that was always the first order of the day to read it as soon as I got the morning paper," writes Ama Reid of Salem.
"Thanks for keeping us informed about Joe Kennedy's progress," wrote Sally Harris of Christiansburg. "If you get a chance, would you tell him I said, 'Hello,' and am glad to read of his progress and hope he continues to improve?"
"I hope and pray that Joe will continue in his recovery," Frances Gordon of Stewartsville said in a Christmas Eve voice mail. "He's such a saint of a man."
Readers, I've forwarded all of your messages to Joe.
Last but not least were e-mails and blog posts about plans for a bust of the unsaintly Soviet dictator Josef Stalin at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford. Readers came down on both sides of that issue.
Michael Ramsey of Roanoke sees an educational purpose in showcasing the bust, despite the ugly feelings he has for Stalin and other power-mad despots "who ruined (or ended) the lives of people who just wanted to work, raise families and go [to] their homes in the evening for a meal and a rest," he wrote.
"That animosity does not keep me from wanting to learn from their treachery, and I hope the bust at the D-Day Memorial will cause others to discuss and learn from the murderous butcher, Stalin."
But Anne Soukhanov, who lives in Bedford, fears the bust will turn her beloved city into a laughingstock.
"To my knowledge, Bedford will be the only place in the entire USA to have a sculpture of Stalin if [National D-Day Foundation President] William McIntosh gets his way. And if the bust goes in, we certainly won't deserve the superlative "Best" anymore," she wrote.
Instead, she added: "Bedford is fast making Boones Mill look boring, yes?"
Perhaps, Anne. But Bedford still has a long way to go.
