Tornado Hits Hampton, Virginia

It was a crazy evening last night as a tornado touched down here in Hampton, Virginia.  The photo above is a shot taken from Chesapeake Avenue (our street) of the water spout/tornado headed across Hampton Roads harbor towards Hampton.  The twister came ashore further to the east on Chesapeake Avenue in the Merrimac Shores neighborhood and proceeded from there through the area of the Hampton Yacht Club where it did extensive damage and then through a residential area called Little England (named after a colonial era estate) which has some of the most beautiful old homes in the city and then into downtown wreaking havoc on the pirate themed weekend festival that had kicked off yesterday afternoon.

Our home and the boyfriend's salon in downtown Hampton came through unscathed (a friend drove by the salon to check it out and said other than some debris in the parking lot it was OK) but some friends (who texted us to say they were safe) who live in the Little England area probably were not so lucky.  The owner of the women's apparel and home furnishings store called "Cricket" that leases the first floor of the salon building reported that her home on Park Place in Little England had lots of large tree limbs down and that a boat of unknown origin was sitting in her front yard.  She said a neighbors Mercedes had a tree on it. Reports are that several homes have been condemned due to damage.  The photo below shows the storm approaching downtown with the Virginia Air and Space Museum in the center of the photo in front of the approaching funnel cloud.  Behind that are the Hampton Yacht Club where a number of friends keep their boats and the Little England neighborhood. 

The first video below shows some of the damage at the Yacht Club.  The second is filmed in front of our friend's home in Little England.  I will post more as additional information is available.

Witnesses describe tornado sighting: wavy.com

More Deaths Due to an Ongoing Message of Hate

Just as the homophobia that is constantly marketed by professional Christians can be seen to has a direct tie to hate crimes against gays, the message of paranoia and hatred towards liberals put out by the likes of the NRA and the faux news folks at Fox News likewise has proven to lead directly to violence. A case in point of this latter phenomenon is the tragic murder of three Pittsburgh police officers by an apparent skinhead member who believed the message that whites are under assault and that there is a conspiracy to take away guns from law abiding citizens. It is note worthy, of course, that the shooter, Richard Poplawski 9at left), used an assault weapon - not exactly the type of weapon a law abiding citizen would need for hunting or to "protect his home." The common message behind all such violence is that those who are different are a threaten and that they deserve to die. And it is usually "God fearing" Americans who market the message and usually inflict violence on others. Not exactly what Jesus would do, but then these folks have utterly perverted the Gospel message. Here are details from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Poplawski's rampage:

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Accused cop-killer Richard Poplawski spent hours posting racist messages on an extremist right-wing Web site, decrying blacks and Latinos and warning of forthcoming economic collapse fueled by the "Zionist occupation" of America, an expert in political extremism has determined. Earlier, he had praised the "AK" rifle as his ideal weapon.

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An account kept on Stormfront, a gathering place for racial extremists and others from the far-right show Mr. Poplawski's increasing belief in a coming economic and political collapse in the days leading up to the time of the deadly standoff in which he is charged with killing three Pittsburgh police officers.

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Details of Mr. Poplawski's extreme racial and political views came to light today when the top researcher at the Anti-Defamation League delved into his postings at Stormfront, a white supremacist Web site run by a former Ku Klux Klan leader in Florida.

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On March 13, according to the site, Mr. Poplawski wrote a lengthy post predicting economic collapse, engineered by a Jewish conspiracy. "The federal government, mainstream media, and banking system in these United States are strongly under the influence of -- if not completely controlled by -- Zionist interest," the post declares. "An economic collapse of the financial system is inevitable, bringing with it some degree of civil unrest if not outright balkanization of the continental US, civil/revolutionary/racial war . . . This collapse is likely engineered by the elite Jewish powers that be in order to make for a power and asset grab."

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"When the police and the military attempt to come for the guns, which they're going to do, it's not going to go well." He also complained that his views were being conflated with extremists that recruit people with legitimate concerns reflected on his own site and program.

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Mr. Pitcavage today said Mr. Poplawski's comments bear out a growing concern by extremist-watchers in the wake of the election of President Barack Obama.
"We've been concerned about the possibility of an upsurge in right-wing extremist violence due to two possibilities: the vitriolic reaction of the extreme right to the election of Barack Obama and the severe economic recession that the country is in," he said.