View Across the Shenandoah Valley from Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, 29 June 20

View Across the Shenandoah Valley from Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, 29 June 2020.Beginning today I am no longer going to refer to the state where I reside as “ole Virginny.” Yesterday it joined the modern world. A breathtaking array of progressive new laws came into effect covering many aspects of life in the state from relaxation of abortion laws through making gun control much stronger to ensuring the right to vote by eliminating the photo id requirement and making absentee voting easier. Added to that is the movement now widespread in the state to remove the monuments of the Confederacy. That has been made easier by a new law allowing counties and cities to remove monuments and other memorials at their discretion. Fairfax County has established a group to review Confederate statues and place names. The county has already changed the names of several schools and will soon change the names of more schools and of roads and other places named for traitors and terrorists like Stonewall Jackson, John S. Mosby and the odious Robert E. Lee. A few of the changes are tinged with sadness. Among the despicable monuments on Monument Avenue in Richmond was, until it was removed this morning, one to Matthew Fontaine Maury. Maury, who was not a military leader, was most certainly a traitor and should be remembered as such, but unlike most of the others he did make some important and lasting contributions to the US and the world. He was one of the forefathers of modern oceanography and meteorology. Perhaps the Science Museum a few blocks from Monument Avenue can find a niche for his statue and place it in context, honoring Maury’s contributions to science even as it condemns his support of the Confederacy. -- source link

More pics about