The May 2021 issue of WestVirginiaVille.com features a lot of folks speaking up, singing out, and asking, if not demanding to be heard. Here's an overview of the issue's content.
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COVERSTORY: Lady D, In Her Own Unfiltered Words
You might say Doris A. Fields, better known as Lady D, is having a well-deserved moment. Several, actually. We check in with one of West Virginia's finest singer-songwriters on the occasion of the release of her new CD, the heat-seeking "Disturbing My Peace."
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ART/WORK: A video gaze at new work by Sharon Lyn
You wouldn't think Twitter would be a place to watch an artist's development. But that would be the case with West Virginia artist Sharon Lyn. Here's a video of some of her striking newest work.
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RE/PRINT: Consuming Blackness in ‘progressive’ West Virginia
"White women were laughing and grabbing for bites of sushi off a human body. That imagery doesn't fade. Instead, it continues to enrage me. It stands as both a metaphor and real evidence of oppression and silence."
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SHORT/STORY: ‘I can see clearly now’
What happened one day out near the Beautiful River while I was pondering whether my father's was right when he got angry and said: 'People are no damn good!'
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RE/PRINT: Community Seeks Police Reform After Shooting On Charleston’s West Side
On April 30, Charleston Police officers shot a 33-year-old Black man, while attempting to make an arrest on Charleston’s West Side. The incident has left many in the community wondering why police resorted to shooting the man who had brandished a knife.
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ARTIFACTS
In the debut of 'ARTIFACTS,' an occasional, fluffy feature showcasing oddball ephemera with a West Virginia connection, we explore the intersections of David Bowie. "I Dream of Jeannie" and Chuck Yeager.
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SPOTLIGHT: Who is saying what as the Opioid Trial begins
If the first day of a landmark trial involving the nation’s three largest opioid distributors is any indication, a lot of fingers will be pointed elsewhere by those distributors in the coming weeks.
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EDITORS/NOTE: A ‘ninety-something’ issue
It was only after I got this issue's "5 QUESTIONS" answers back from a 90-something Buddhist monk in the West Virginia outback I realized I was running an inadvertent theme issue with the April 2021 edition of WestVirginiaVille.
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COVERSTORY: CHARACTERS: “When Earl Went to War”
American men of Earl Goodall's generation are famously not forthcoming about their psychological states or what it's like to go to war, people dying in front of and beside you. But this Korean War vet communicates all you need to know about that 'Forgotten War.'
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CLIMATE: “Why do you care about the climate crisis?”
The West Virginia Climate Alliance is a recently formed umbrella group that includes many key players and groups in West Virginia on the front lines of addressing climate change. So, why care about the climate crisis, anyway?
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SPOTLIGHT: To do or not to do? What the 2020 WV Legislature passed—or didn’t
The West Virginia Legislature has concluded its 60-day session after passing nearly 300 bills. What were they doing — and not doing this session? Erin Beck of Mountain State Spotlight details what got done and didn't.
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5 QUESTIONS: Bhante G on meditating via ZOOM, daily mindfulness and facing death
It is perhaps not as well known as it should be that a much-beloved, 93-year-old global figure in Buddhism has called West Virginia home since 1985. We check in with him on ZOOM meditating and more.
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IN MEMORIUM: Giancarlo DiTrappano
Recalling "Tyrant" book editor, "bad boy" of publishing, and Charleston, West Virginia native Giancarlo DiTrappano.
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SOCIAL/MEDIA: Recalling a life ended too soon in WV’s capital city
The shooting death of an 18-year-old student-athlete killed April 7, cast a pall over West Virginia's capital city, as yet more senseless gun violence robbed a family and community of a bright light.
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PHOTO/EDITORIAL: Springtime for a Supermajority in W.Va.
The desire to bust out of a politically benighted, often colonially run, and depressed-in-every-which-way state has a long and storied past. Where I am right now on the 'fight/flight/freeze' syndrome that comes with living in West Virginia.
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Overdose deaths soar amid pandemic in West Virginia, which already had the highest rate in the U.S.
Drug overdose deaths are up more than 40% in West Virginia, an increase likely driven by the coronavirus pandemic. "People are dying at mass rates," says one Boone County administrator.
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NATUREGRAM: Cleanup needed at the Huntington Museum of Art trail
I normally post photographs and videos of Nature in all its solitudinous glory, when sickened by social media junk food and needing more wholesome nourishment. But our dear Mother is not always picture postcard perfect when we seek her aid.
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SPOTLIGHT: Of Black Hair & Confederate History in the WV Legislature
Legislation is moving quickly to allow Confederate monuments to remain on the West Virginia Capitol grounds while the Crown Act to ban Black hair discrimination stalls.
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POETICS: The Art of Being West Virginia’s Poet Laureate
We sit down — digitally — with longtime West Virginia poet laureate Marc Harshman and quiz him about his "Dispatch From the Mountain State" in the NYTimes and the obligation of a poetry to be the sort of "political being" described by W.H. Auden.
