It’s Wednesday!
If you’re feeling saucy enough, ask me questions and I’ll answer them. Maybe you want my opinion on something. Or maybe you’re wondering my philosophical feelings on pie. I dunno, toss me a bone and let’s see what happens.
James Fallows at The Atlantic:
I am guessing that you will see no real-time TV reports from the Tiananmen Square area today, and little or no photography. This is based on personal experience there last night, China time, which also leads to personal advice for anyone in Beijing thinking of going there today.
During my time in Beijing over the past year and a half, I’ve often seen the square itself totally closed off to visitors, as it is at the moment. There are always plenty of security forces around — soldiers in green uniforms, various kinds of police in blue uniforms, and “plainclothes” forces who are pretty easy to pick out, like strapping young men in buzz cuts all wearing similar-looking “leisure” clothes. But I have not seen before anything like the situation at the moment.
Yesterday, Wu’er Kaixi, a former student leader during the Tiananmen Square Protests, tried to turn himself in to Chinese authorities after twenty years in exile. He was detailed by immigration officials at the airport in China’s Macao territory.
The history of China as a nation is hard to nail down. As dynasties changed through the years, each new emperor brought a rewriting of the nation’s history to best fit their familiy or their own legacy. And the people went along or didn’t know better, being largely rural.
As a steeply traditional nation, even while under Communism China has found its historical roots hard to leave behind. Some argue that Confucianism and its hierarchical system ingrained in the Chinese people a mindset that Communism was able to adapt to and co-opt as Maoism - a distinctly different form of Communism than found in the Soviet Union or even Cuba.
History is malleable in Chinese tradition. “Barbarian” Manchu became “Chinese” when they took control of the country - something that not only allowed them to rule but gave the Han justification to claim Manchuria as Chinese when the Qing Dynasty came to an end. Tibet is part of China now, thus has always been part of China. The Chinese Communist Party was able to not only embody Mao but also hold up Sun Yat-Sen, a Democratic reformer, as a hero.
Historically China has been able to change its past to define its present.
It allows China to recognize the 90th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement as a pivitol moment when Chinese stood up against foreign imperialsm in the wake of World War I. But now they take actions to ensure it doesn’t lead to another incident like the one twenty years ago. Part of those actions are to ignore Tiananmen.
It never happened.
China is able to forget Mao’s Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward and the millions who lost their lives either through outright slaughter or starvation. They remove it from history books. They don’t discuss it. It never happened.
Tiananmen is the same. Twenty years ago China was still emerging from under the shadow of Mao. Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms were turning China from a Communist economy to a more Westernized one, but still with restrictions and certainly with none of the political reforms that a free market invites. Some within the CCP wanted farther changes. They were purged.
Deng Xiaoping himself had faced purging from the CCP twice. Deng was a Long Marcher who had fought with Mao to help bring the CCP to power. In the late 60s during Mao’s Cultural Revolution Deng was sent to work in a factory in the Jiangxi province but was brought back into power in 1974 at the urging of then Premier Zhou Enlai. Zhou was a reformer, regularly running at odds to leaders within the CCP, including Mao himself. When Zhou passed away in 1976, public displays of mourning were brutally put down in the Tiananmen Incident. Deng would again be removed, put under house arrest. But with Mao’s death in 1976, Deng was able to solidify his backing within the CCP and rise once again within the party and China.
With Deng’s rise came economic reforms that pulled China out of the economic gutter and led to it becoming what it is today, an powerhouse on the world stage. Deng’s reforms were able to tap into the nation’s natural resources in ways Mao had never been able to. But with the loosening of economic restrictions came pushing from both sides.
Hardliners saw a weakening of the central authority of the CCP. Reformists saw an opportunity for political change in Beijing.
Deng proposed Four Modernizations: Agriculture, Industry, Technology, Defense. In 1978 Wei Jingsheng tacked The Fifth Modernization to a wall in Beijing calling for greater individual freedoms. Democracy Wall lasted a year before the CCP felt individual expression had gone too far in criticizing the Party.
But not everyone within party leadership was cracking down on demonstrations and individual expression. Hu Yaobang was another Long Marcher but also one who believed in Deng’s reforms. He was made Party Chairman in 1981 but was forced to resign in 1987 after being considered too tolerant of student demonstrations by leaders within the CCP. It would be his death on April 15, 1989 that would lead to Tiananmen.
Crowds gathered and the Party got nervous. Deng Xiaopeng, thought to be sympathetic to the student protesters, had his hand forced and on May 4th the CCP cracked down on demonstrators. The rest, as they say, is history.
But not in China.
The Chinese government viewed the Tiananmen Protest as anti-revolutionary and a threat to their power. While some attempts have been made to rehabilitate Hu’s image, at no point has the Party ever entertained reevaluating what happened at Tiananmen. Chinese youth are not taught what happened, it’s passed over in favor of lessons on economy and globalization.
Yet in this era of the Internet and access to information world wide in an instant, China is having a hard time rewriting its history as it used to. Now it is not just a simple matter of burning all old histories in the Forbidden City and writing new ones. Information is now in the hands of everyone, no matter how big the Great Firewall of China may get.
But does it matter?
Bao Tong worked for Zhou Ziyang, reform minded CCP General Secretary who was forced to resign in the wake of Tiananmen:
Mr. Bao believes that an official reassessment of Tiananmen is crucial for China’s long-term stability. “You have to say it clearly: It’s not a good system, it’s a bad system. It has to be stated that the people who were killed [on June 4] were good people, and they shouldn’t have been killed. . . . We must announce that Tiananmen was a criminal action. That soldiers, from now on and forever, cannot oppose the common people. This gun cannot be pointed at the people.” He holds his fingers up in the shape of a gun and takes aim at the coffee table.
So is there a potential for another student uprising? Mr. Bao doesn’t think so. Although today’s economic turmoil is much more painful for China than the inflation of 1988-89, he believes the threat to the government’s stability is much less.
He first cites China’s tight grip on political discourse today, compared to 1989: “At that time, people could say Mao Zedong was wrong. Today, they can’t say Deng Xiaoping was wrong.” Although Chinese citizens have more ways to communicate today — especially via the Internet — these technologies won’t necessarily lead to calls for change. “The spread of the Internet is a good thing, but it is also a bad thing. Because in the hands of the government, it becomes a tool for brainwashing.” He sees government meddling behind online flare-ups of antiforeign sentiment.
Mr. Bao thinks the real key to Beijing’s control over its citizenry, however, is economic leverage.
As long as the CCP provides for its people, or allows its people to provide for themselves, it is in good standing. Deng’s policies were ten years old in 1989 and China was still just emerging economically. Now it is the second largest economy in the world. Its people are arguably much better off now than they were twenty years ago, certainly compared to thirty years ago before Deng’s policies began.
The next protests China sees may not be political but economic. And they may be in the countrysides more than in the cities. Because it’s easy to be concerned about politics when you don’t have to worry about where your next meal is coming from. Rural China may be disproportionately impacted by a global recession. This is something the CCP can’t block by firewall or by rewriting their history books.
By hiding Tiananmen from the people the CCP can hope to avoid the tough questions behind the events that led to the massacre. But they feel they can not afford to allow protest and criticism for fear of losing control over the country.
“Every four minutes there is a protest with more than 100 people.” Mr. Bao cites a report that estimates China sees 100,000 protests per year, up from 80,000 three years ago.
Bao calls these “Little Tiananmens”. And they impress upon the people exatly what the government wants them to forget.
The only freedom they have is what the Chinese Communist Party allows them to have.
Tiananmen may have never happened in the eyes of the CCP. But every day, every four minutes they have another one, somewhere else. And the Chinese people see it, feel it, know it first hand.
The CCP is holding onto the idea that history can be written by those in power. But the people are starting to write their own histories and, with that, they are clamoring to have a hand in their own futures. And without reevaluation of Tiananmen and the policies and events that led to the massacre, the Chinese Communist Party may find itself written out of history.
Geoff Livingston over at The Buzz Bin makes a great analogy - Newspapers Are Like Department Stores:
For department stores, many chains found their death in a trojan horse — the mall. With the rise of the mall, department stores were asked to anchor these megaplexes. But inside the smaller stores were more nimble, better competitors who specialized in deeper lines of products. Electronics, women’s shoes, hardware, whatever it was, from big box to pretzels chains took shoppers away from many department stores.
Ironically, like the mall, the Internet was supposed to be the future of newspapers. But for some reason the 90s passed and the opportunity was never realized. Perhaps that crack known as print advertising was just too good to give up. Or maybe, change was really that hard.
And he’s right. Department stores for decades was the jack of all trades families turned to for one-stop-shopping. But then malls came along, inviting specialist stores who then competed within feet of one another for foot traffic and business. Department stores couldn’t compete - sure J.C. Penney’s has a shoe department, but it’s no Foot Locker when it comes to selection, brands and sometimes price (well, maybe not price, but still).
Specialization and one-stop-shopping met at the mall.
For over ten years now that’s been happening with the news on the internet: newspapers have come to anchor media coverage online but other operations have set up that specialize and do some things better than those aiming to do all things. Sure the New York Times has a sports section, but ESPN is just a dot-com away.
So it’s adapt or die. But how to do that?
“Cover what you do best. Link to the rest. inkheart dvdrip download “
This changes the dynamic of editorial decisions. Instead of saying, “we should have that” (and replicating what is already out there) you say, “what do we do best?” That is, “what is our unique value?” It means that when you sit down to see a story that others have worked on, you should ask, “can we do it better?” If not, then link. And devote your time to what you can do better.
As I linked to in March (Newspapers: Adapt Or Die), Newsweek is already doing this
:Newsweek is about to begin a major change in its identity, with a new design, a much smaller and, it hopes, more affluent readership, and some shifts in content. The venerable newsweekly’s ingrained role of obligatory coverage of the week’s big events will be abandoned once and for all, executives say.
“There’s a phrase in the culture, ‘we need to take note of,’ ‘we need to weigh in on,’ ” said Newsweek’s editor, Jon Meacham. “That’s going away. If we don’t have something original to say, we won’t. The drill of chasing the week’s news to add a couple of hard-fought new details is not sustainable.”
If you can’t make it your own, focus on what you can make your own and hat tip others for the rest of it.
For some that may not be enough. Sarah Lacy has advice at TechCrunch that’s a bit more aggressive but sounds like a perfect business model for succeeding online and off:
There’s an obvious option for these magazines, and I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about it: Ruthlessly collapse the print and online staffs, run everything online as soon as they write it, except one or two cover-length, long-form glossy pieces. Those will anchor the print issue, rounded out by the best stories from online. Then cut the money spent on trying to court new subscribers, shifting the entire marketing budget to promote the Web or real-life conferences and branded events. You could even use reader comments to flesh the online pieces out more for the print edition, driving more engagement in both the print and online versions. Voila! One publication, not two pretending to be one. And guess what? One publication is a hell of a lot cheaper, even if it’s printed on dead trees.
Give them something online many times a day, save the meat for the print and utilize your audience for filler when the magazine/paper comes out. Now a reader can participate and have a vested interest in the success and invest in the media accordingly.
Not only does this allow media to remain relevant but also supports newspapers and magazines doing what they can do better than most any other blogger out there: WRITE ACTUAL ARTICLES. Real meat, investigative pieces that take up 5-10 pages and really involves some journalism the reporting that they are better trained, equipped and financed to do. Get a handful of kids fresh outta college to do your online content for $25-30k a year a starting, pay a couple veterans the bigger bucks to deliver the meat, groom the kids to eventually be able to do the same, and suddenly you have yourself a working paper on the relatively cheap.
This isn’t the way newspapers have worked, nor is it how they’re adapting. Instead they’re cutting the bigger bucks veterans, stocking up on prospects on the cheap, and leaving them with no one to learn the real ins and outs of journalism from. At some point its unsustainable, the kids don’t know how to provide any real meat and the hemorrhaging of money continues without anyone with the know how to stick their thumb in the dike.
Papers are going to keep failing. Even if some make the harsh adjustments, it may be too little too late. Just as many department store chains are now long and gone, so will many papers. Others will survive, linger on as a shell of their former selves, or maybe convert and become something different, something better.
1:00pm UPDATE:
David Simon, creator of The Wire, gets it wrong:
Simon told the Senate Commerce Committee today bloggers don’t go to city council meetings, or know what the hell is going on if they do — a clichéd, out of touch refrain common among newspapermen who can’t be bothered to do any reporting on the assertion. The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed from a Newark Star-Ledger columnist to this effect:
Don’t expect that Web site to hire somebody to sit through town-council meetings… a lot of bloggers will be found gasping for breath under piles of pure ennui. There is nothing more tedious than a public meeting.
…
I found this argument odd, because as a newspaper reporter who spent a few years covering a town much like Baltimore — Oakland, California — I often found that bloggers were the only other writers in the room at certain city council committee meetings and at certain community events. They tended to be the sort of persistently-involved residents newspapermen often refer to as “gadflies” — deeply, obsessively concerned about issues large and infinitesimal in the communities where they lived.
The whole Gawker piece by Ryan Tate is good and has some fine examples of citizen journalism.
Tomorrow is the first WordCampRVA and it’s gonna be great. What is WordCamp?
WordCamp is a conference type of event that focuses squarely on everything WordPress. Everyone from casual end users all the way up to core developers show up to these events. These events are usually highlighted by speeches or keynotes by various people.
A look at the schedule can give you a good look at what types of topics are going to be covered and it really is a bit of something for everyone. Of note, not a whole lot of WordPress specific stuff. I don’t know if that’s usual for WordCamps, but I like that: WordPress is what brings us together but does not define us.
I will be heading up a Journalism Blogging Panel that will discuss the use of WordPress and blogging by citizen journalists to cover news and happenings from neighborhoods to nationally. The panel will include:
John Murden - godfather of community blogging (see Church Hill People’s News)
Ross Catrow
- one of the hydra heads behind RVANews and RVABlogs
Jim Hoeft - EiC/Publisher/Head guy of perhaps the best political blog in Virginia, Bearing Drift
I’ll try and have a wrap-up not only of the panel but the day’s events after the weekend. If you’re heading out, see you there. If you’re intersted, there are a handful of ticket still available as of 10am so get them while the getting is good
.And kudos and thanks to Matt Walters for making this happen. He put a lot of work into this and I’m sure he’ll be glad when it goes off awesomely.
Jeff Jarvis challenges Journalists to ask themselves a tough question:
Journalism can’t afford repetition and production anymore.
Every minute of a journalist’s time will need to go to adding unique value to the news ecosystem: reporting, curating, organizing. This efficiency is necessitated by the reduction of resources. But it is also a product of the link and search economy: The only way to stand out is to add unique value and quality. My advice in the past has been: If you can’t imagine why someone would link to what you’re doing, you probably shouldn’t be doing it. And: Do what you do best and link to the rest. The link economy is ruthless in judging value.
The question every journalist must ask is: Am I adding value?
It’s a hard thing for a journalist or a media outlet to face. In this age of infotainment presentation has become everything while the actual meat of the story takes a backstage for the sake of flash and bang and ratings. But if you’re not adding anything of merit to the conversation it won’t spread, it won’t go very far and it’s hardly news.
This comes back to the continuing argument I make about newspapers as they continue to hemmorage subscriptions: specialization is key. Do what you do well, leave the rest to the experts. If you are able to cover something better than everyone else, if you’re really able to add value to the conversation, people will pay and reward you for it.
As Jarvis points out:
Bloggers have had to learn that, too. Just linking to and commenting on others’ reporting won’t get you much attention. Every blogger who does original reporting and tells the world something it doesn’t know but wants to know learns that this is how to get links and audience. Arianna Huffington told Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger in London months ago that she was hiring reporters because their stories get more traffic; it’s enlightened economic self-interest. This is a lesson we teach our journalism students at CUNY, when we have them add reporting to the conversations that are going on online.
Whether you’re a blogger or a new form of news organization, you’re going to have to ask with every move whether it will add value to the news ecosystem. If it doesn’t, you shouldn’t do it.
Metablogging (feeding links left and right) will only get you so far. If you can bring something to the table, a take, some information, something that adds to the story, you’re in. If you’re just passing folks along you’re nothing but a tollbooth on the way to something worthwhile.
Also see Jarvis’s “Cover what you do best. Link to the rest.“
OK, so it’s not Wednesday but so what. Ask me a question and I’ll give you an answer! Good times!
So I just finished my first novel length read using Stanza on the iTouch and the experience wasn’t too bad. Stanza is a free ebook application for the iTouch/iPhone. The layout is pretty straight forward and given that it’s on the iTouch the resolution is great. The portability off the iTouch was pretty useful and allowed me to read whether I had a half hour or only a few minutes of spare time, something a dedicated ereader like the Kindle doesn’t lend itself to so well.
download pink panther 2 online
But even with the portability the actual cost of ebooks is prohibitive. If this one hadn’t had been free I’d have never read it on here.
Stanza uses a number of services that offer book downloads but many mainstream titles still cost $10 or more, some pricing out as much as if not more than the cost of the paperback of the book itself. It’s hard to justify spending so much on a digital copy of something I can find available in hardcopy as a bargain book or online for under $10. It’s the same stance I take with digital music through iTunes, at $10 an album I’m really better off dropping the extra few bucks to get the real CD and ripping to my computer.
I’m a very huge fan of actually having a book or disc in hand. Not only does it look impressive on my shelf (except maybe for the graphic novels, those only impress my dork friends), but they last. My library is something I can lend to friends or pass down to my children. I can’t do that with a digital ebook that I never really own thanks to DRM or locking it to a platform like the Kindle.
What Stanza does provide is access to free downloads of public domain books. Among the services it links to is Project Gutenberg, giving anyone access to thousands of classics that one can read for class or pleasure. Other services offer free short stories or full works from authors and publishers willing to give them away. You won’t find a lot of mainstream authors or titles, but you can find some good stories you might otherwise miss.
Perhaps more of this will happen as ereaders and ebooks become more heavily used: authors and publishers giving some things away as a tease to buy more. But the price point has got to come down if it’s going to be successful, or a rental model will develop to turn an ereader into more of a digital library a la Netflix instead of a digital bookshelf ($30 a month, unlimited ebooks, access to two at a time, patent pending).
UPDATE: Well, surprise, surprise. On Monday the New York Times reported that Amazon bought Lexcycle
, the company that made Stanza. From the Lexcycle blog:We are not planning any changes in the Stanza application or user experience as a result of the acquisition. Customers will still be able to browse, buy, and read ebooks from our many content partners. We look forward to offering future products and services that we hope will resonate with our passionate readers.
This comes hot on the tail of Amazon releasing a Kindle application for the iTouch with the release of the Kindle 2. The app was interesting but not quite as straightforward as Stanza, nor did it link to any services other than Amazon. It did allow syncing between Kindle purchases and the iTouch, but as someone who didn’t have a Kindle and already had and used Stanza that really didn’t matter to me. Here’s hoping Amazon doesn’t break Stanza.
In response to a question regarding illegal aliens and undocumented workers, John Brownlee said he strongly supports “the use of the U.S. government’s E-Verify system.” Brownlee supports making the use of E-Verify mandatory for all employers in the Commonwealth, including the state government, in an effort to reduce the number of illegal aliens in Virginia. E-Verify is a proven and effective resource for employers to verify citizenship / residency status and screen out illegals who are seeking employment. In a response to the same question, State Senator Ken Cuccinelli said he opposed requiring private employers to use E-Verify, suggesting the system was too flawed to be reliable.How do their stances measure up to other states in this fine nation?
Currently, three states - Mississippi, South Carolina and Arizona - require all employers to use the E-Verify system. Seven more states require state agencies and government contractors to use the system, and two other states (including neighboring North Carolina) require all government agencies to use it. Legislation requiring the use of E-Verify is under consideration by four other states, and as of July 1, all federal government contractors and subcontractors will be required to E-Verify their newly hired workers.Nine states agree with Cuccinelli’s assessment as opposed to three following Brownlee’s take. During a time of economic crisis and increasing burdens on private businesses to pay their bills and put food on the table of their owners and employees, John Brownlee feels the power of government should be to create a greater financial burden on said businesses. And to what end?
Brownlee added that by implementing E-Verify and reducing the number of illegals coming to Virginia, both businesses and taxpayers will save money and reduce costs.By increasing the burden of government on businesses and the people you can decrease the burden of people on government. Isn’t that a little backwards for a Conservative to argue? Isn’t the more Conservative argument to limit the size of government so it is a less burden on the people? Does E-Verify reduce the costs by preventing the government from spending thousands upon thousands of dollars busting up small businesses to ensure they are using an electronic surveillance system to track citizens… er, ILLEGAL ALIENS? Is Brownlee taking the Bloomburg approach on small businesses? We already know from the AG debate at the advance that Brownlee’s in favor of price controls. What else does the government get to check? This isn’t leading the fight against illegal immigration. It’s leading the fight against small businesses, entrepeneurship and limited government. Brownlee’s full text available after the cut. 4/28 UPDATE: Ken Cuccinelli responds to Brownlee’s accusations:
For the record - I do not oppose any effort to verify the status of someone’s legal residency. Unlike John Brownlee, I have a proven record in the State Senate opposing illegal immigration. No where in my comments did I say I opposed E-Verify. But don’t believe me - long time party activist, VFRW member and party leader Helen Blackwell was there - and this is what she said:Cuccinelli’s full response is after Brownlee’s full text. Read the rest of this entry »“No where in Ken’s comments Saturday did he say he opposed E-Verify. In fact, he recited his record supporting E-Verify in the State Senate. Ken said that they have not yet been able to get E-Verify out of Committee in the State Senate, and he suggested that an approach he would support would be to have the state government go first, then require private employers to use E-Verify. Ken said generally that he believes that the government should first impose requirements on itself before imposing those requirements on business.”
Amazingly, John Brownlee’s lack of research has missed an important point. Working with then Attorney General Bob McDonnell, I actually PASSED legislation REQUIRING that all state government contractors hire only legal residents of the United States and for the first time, giving the Commonwealth the ability to FIRE contractors not in compliance. As simple and straight forward as that sounds - this was an enormously difficult bill to pass in the Senate. John didn’t mention that in his email. Another case of false rhetoric versus the actual record.
President Obama is asking the Cabinet to cut $100 million over the next 90 days. RealClearPolitics has a video of reporters taking the administration to task for hailing the $100 million dollar cut as significant after dismissing criticism of an $8 billion appropriations bill several weeks ago. Gibbs mentions how $100 million is a lot of money and to folks like you and me (assuming billionares don’t read J’s Notes) it most certainly is. $8 billion is a heck of a lot more, though, and pales in comparrison to the $787 billion bailout. Both of those are paltry compared to Obama’s proposed 2010 budget. The Heritage Foundation has a handy graphic to put it all in perspective:
It is disengenious to try and tell the American people that you are saving them millions when taking them and their children and grandchildren to fiscal task for TRILLIONS.
That’s like saying “buy $3.69 trillion dollars worth of government, save 0.00271%! The more you buy the more you save!” Obama’s 2010 budget is nearly $12,300 for every man, woman and child in America, while his budget cut saves each and every single American an amazing $0.33. Thanks!
(Graphic via Tertium Quids)
BookSwim aims to do for the book market what Netfilx has done for DVDs. For $19.98 a month you can rent up to three books at a time, free shipping to and back. Why not just go to a library?
The company’s answer includes these main points: no late fees, 24-hour browsing, a wider selection, less waiting for popular titles, and no need to leave home.
I’m not persuaded by all of these reasons. I don’t believe BookSwim’s selection is as wide as a major city library. The Martin Luther King Jr. Library here in San Jose claims a collection of over 1.5 million items. And its catalog can be searched online, like most libraries these days. BookSwim’s selling points probably mean more to customers who don’t have a big library nearby.
I suspect the waiting-list and convenience issues will favor one side or the other, depending on the customer and the books they’re reading.
The page also says this about BookSwim’s selection: “Can’t find a book on BookSwim.com? Let us know and we’ll buy it!”
The concept is interesting but I wonder whether or not it’ll really take off. Most avid readers like to keep their books and build an impressive library (like me) and usually know where to find deals on their books that make the $20 price point not such a great deal, especially when you can find a lot of books used through Ebay or Amazon or just trade for them through services like PaperBack Swap.
But you may be hard pressed to find the newest releases cheaply, so the immedeate satisfaction of having a new book or best seller for a few days for a quarter of the cover price does have its appeal.
In the first quarter filing for 2009, Democratic nominee for Attorney General Steve Shannon reported receiving $272,644 in cash and in-kind contributions from 248 individuals, organizations and businesses, more than double the $105,205 raised by the top Republican AG nominee, John Brownlee. Admittedly that is an awful lot of money, but is it representative of Shannon’s connection to Virginia or to moneyed interests?
A look at Steve Shannon’s filing shows 207 contributions over $100 for $269,500, well over $1000 per donor on average. But much of that money came from himself, out of state litigators, unions, PACs, and interests that don’t have the best interests of Virginians’ at heart. Read the rest of this entry »
