From today’s on-line edition of the Culpeper Star-Exponent:

OUR VIEW: Sacrificing history for the sake of convenience

STAFF EDITORIAL
Published: August 27, 2009

We are extremely disappointed in this week’s news that Walmart has been approved to build near the Wilderness battlefield.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 in the early morning hours Tuesday to allow a Walmart Super Center to be built across the road from the Wilderness Civil War battlefield.

It makes our stomachs churn.

Many Orange County residents pointed to the need for shopping outlets, new jobs and tax dollars that would remain in local coffers — all legitimate needs, just not at the expense of the hallowed ground where Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first met in a horrific battle that saw tens of thousands killed or wounded.

While it appears to be a done deal and construction could begin in a matter of months, we stand with local, state and national preservation groups whose new focus is to put pressure to Walmart headquarters to abandon plans for the store.

Will that work?

We can only hope.

Somehow, someone must convince the corporate giant to abandon this site and relocate a mile west, closer to the coveted population center at Lake of the Woods.

If Walmart proceeds with plans to build at the intersection of routes 3 and 20, however, we implore the company to keep its word and do everything possible to minimize sight lines.

Unfortunately, little can be done regarding traffic flow and the sprawl that will eventually overtake the serene battlefield area.

Kudos to Teri L. Pace, the only supervisor who voted no.

The folks from Culpeper County, who probably know and understand more about battlefield preservation than anyone else in Virginia, deserve kudos for taking this stand, which I obviously agree with wholeheartedly.

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I’m horrified to find myself in agreement with Microsoft on anything, but I actually find myself completely aligned with Microsoft on the issue of the Google Books settlement. Below is the reason why:

The Proposed Google Book Search Settlement: Fact vs. Fiction

FICTION: The proposed settlement agreement merely resolves private litigation between private parties, which is a good thing.

FACT: The deal far exceeds the bounds of a typical legal settlement. It would tread directly on Congress’ jurisdiction, privatizing important copyright and public policy decisions historically made by Congress. It abuses class action procedure to create an exclusive joint venture between Google, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Authors’ Guild, strengthening Google’s dominance in search and creating a cartel for the sale of digitized books. It would bind nearly every copyright owner of every book published before 2009 throughout the world, and thus create, as the U.S. Register of Copyrights said, “a compulsory license for the benefit of one company.”1

FICTION: Google is paying copyright owners an enormous sum of $125 million for the use of their books.

FACT: In fact, the deal would give a handful of lawyers involved $45 million, the same amount that will be spread in small amounts to the millions of copyright owners whose books were copied by Google. Authors and publishers would get only 1/3 of Google’s outlay, paid at $60 per book only if Google has already scanned the book into its database. Google would pay nothing under the settlement for any scanning done after January 2009.

FICTION: The proposed settlement is “non-exclusive” and would create a Books Rights Registry (BRR) to license books to Google’s competitors.

FACT: The deal would create a de facto exclusive license for Google because the deal grants no rights to the BRR to license books to competitors — copyright owners will have to license Google’s competitors voluntarily, while Google gets an involuntary, virtual compulsory license through class action process. As a result, only Google receives a license to “orphan books”, whose owners won’t show up to license competitors and which comprise an estimated 70% of books. In short, the settlement all but guarantees that Google would have permanent competitive advantages around comprehensiveness and cost. This is one reason why the Department of Justice is investigating the proposed deal and numerous non-profit organizations, academics and other stakeholders have condemned it.

FICTION: Google Books is about finding old books and making them available – it’s not about web search.

FACT: Google’s copying activities were initially focused on feeding its search engine. That continues to be its primary motivation. The proposed settlement would provide Google enormous benefits by using books to improve the artificial intelligence (AI) behind all of its services, including its dominant web search and advertising, via valuable “non-display” uses. Under the proposed settlement, authors and publishers would get paid nothing for any of these uses. As one Google engineer explained, “We’re not scanning all those books to be read by people. We’re scanning them to be read by *our+ AI.”2

FICTION: Congress can fix any problems with the proposed settlement by passing orphan works legislation.

FACT: The deal would usurp the role of Congress and grant special rules for Google – and only Google – to use orphan works that are very different and much more advantageous to Google than the rules contained in the orphan works bills considered last term in Congress. Orphan works reform can only be enacted through legislation, not class action fiat, and must be made available to all potential users – educational, non-profit and commercial institutions alike.

FICTION: Authors and publishers can tell Google not to use their books in Google Books, so their copyright rights are preserved.

FACT: An author’s right to remove her book from Google’s database expires in 2011. Given the millions of absent and orphan rights holders, and the fact that the commercial service may not even launch by then, many rights holders will be unaware of this irrevocable loss of control over their copyrights. Finally, if Google does not comply with an author’s instructions, she is limited to bringing arbitration over Google’s “best efforts” and will have forfeited the ability to file a copyright infringement lawsuit.

FICTION: Copyright owners who don’t like the settlement can simply opt-out of the class action and preserve their rights against Google.

FACT: The deal would establish Google as the new superpower in the online book marketplace, leaving those authors who opt-out at a substantial commercial disadvantage.

FICTION: The proposed settlement is limited to the United States and doesn’t affect foreign authors, publishers and other stakeholders.

FACT: The deal would dramatically impact copyright owners around the world, as it would give Google a license to use nearly every foreign book ever published, even books that have never been published in the United States. While Google could only sell and display those books to U.S. customers, many foreign owners are unaware of how their rights are being involuntarily licensed in the important U.S. market. Moreover, the deal would license Google to use the foreign book data to improve its dominant web search and advertising services that can and will be offered worldwide.

The PDF where this information came from can be found here. The Open Book Alliance consists of Amazon, Yahoo, Microsoft, and a bunch of library associations. For more on this issue, click here.

This is why I have opted out of the settlement and oppose it actively. I encourage any of my readers who are authors to join me in opposing it.

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Mary Koik, Deputy Director of Communications of the CWPT, sent along a link to an extraordinary letter from the presidents of every group that makes up the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition to the CEO of the Great Satan….oops, Wal-Mart. That letter can be found here, and I commend it to you. I hope it has some influence, but if Wal-Mart ignored the Governor of Virginia and two influential U.S. Senators, I doubt that it’s going to pay much attention to this letter. However, we can all hope…..

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It’s my unfortunate duty to announce that the Orange Count Board of Supervisors voted to approve the construction of the Wilderness Wal-Mart last night. I wish I could say that I’m surprised by this, but I’m not.

Here’s the press release from the CWPT regarding this vote:

Orange County Supervisors Approve Wal-Mart Superstore on Wilderness Battlefield

COUNTY REJECTS NATIONAL AND LOCAL VOICES URGING PROTECTION OF BATTLEGROUND AND NATIONAL PARK

(Orange, Va.) – The Orange County Board of Supervisors today approved a proposal to build 240,000-square feet of big box retail on the Wilderness Battlefield. James Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT), issued the following statement in the wake of the vote:

CONTACTS
Jim Campi, (202) 367-1861, ext. 7205
Mary Koik, (202) 367-1861, ext. 7231
TAKE ACTION
Protect the Wilderness

BATTLEFIELDS
The Wilderness

“I am deeply disappointed by today’s vote. The Orange County Board of Supervisors had an opportunity to protect the battlefield by embracing a reasonable compromise approach to the Wal-Mart superstore proposal. Instead, they ignored rational voices on the national, state and local level encouraging them to work with the preservation community and local landowners to find a more suitable alternative location.

“Today’s vote is not just a setback for preservationists. Orange County residents are losers as well. If the county had embraced the preservation planning process first proposed by the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition in January, there would have been an opportunity to mitigate the transportation and development impacts of the proposal. Instead, the board voted to repeat the mistakes made by other localities, who are now struggling to address the problems created by similar piecemeal development and rampant sprawl.

“The ball is now in Wal-Mart’s court. Wal-Mart better understands the nationwide anger generated by its proposal to build on the doorstep of a National Park. It is in the corporation’s best interests to work with the preservation community to find an alternative site. After all, building a big box superstore on the Wilderness Battlefield would belie recent attempts to portray Wal-Mart as environmentally sensitive. We are optimistic that company officials will see the wisdom of moving elsewhere.

“The Civil War Preservation Trust and the other member groups of the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition will now carefully weigh options for continued opposition of this misguided proposal. This battle is not over yet.”

Among those who urged Orange County to chose another location for the proposed Wal-Mart were Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.); Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (D) and House of Delegates Speaker Bill Howell (R); actors Robert Duvall, Richard Dreyfuss and Ben Stein; and more than 250 historians, including Pulitzer prize-winning authors David McCullough and James McPherson and acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns.

Since a Wal-Mart superstore on the Wilderness Battlefield was first publicly announced in June 2008, CWPT has been one of the leading voices against the proposal. Earlier this year, the organization identified the Wilderness Battlefield as one of the most endangered battlefields in the nation because of the Wal-Mart plan. CWPT is a member of the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition.

It would appear that construction will begin in 6-12 months, once all site work and planning is done, and the plans for the suburban blight are completed. I hope that this fight is not lost, but I fear that it is.

As of today, I am boycotting Wal-Mart. I will never set foot in a Wal-Mart store again.

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Between us, Susan and I probably have 3000 books. When we bought this house, we had less than half that number. When we bought the house, we had 24 linear feet of floor-to-ceiling bookcases built into one of the five bedrooms. Between us, we filled it.

However, in 14 years, we’ve both bought a lot of books. Before long, I had squeezed Susan out of the room. Then, I filled the built-ins completely and commissioned a couple of custom bookcases. And then all of that was filled. We were supposed to move a couple of years ago, and, in fact, had broken ground on a new house that would have had 65 linear feet of floor to ceiling bookcases. However, Susan got laid off from her job, and we suddenly couldn’t qualify for the financing any more, and we stayed here.

For the past two or three years, I’d just been allowing new books to pile up on the floor because there was nowhere to put them. When it got to be a couple of hundred books that took up pretty much the whole floor of my home office, I realized we had to do something about it. Susan started by reorganizing her books, which, in turn opened up shelf space. I brought home two bookcases that were previously in my office and started moving stuff around yesterday. I worked in all of the new non-Civil War books yesterday as I was moving things around. I was surprised to learn that I now have 3.5 shelves worth of books on the Revolutionary War.

That, however, leaves the Civil War books. I bought a ton of books when we were working on One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863, and I likewise have bought a bunch of books for my other pending projects, such as Monocacy. Without counting them, I would guess that I probably have somewhere between 150 and 200 new books to work into my existing library. That means wholesale moving around of books, which is hot, sweaty work albeit a good and cheap workout.

Last night, after finishing moving the non-Civil War books around, I told Susan that I think that there’s a reasonably good chance that there won’t be room for all of them in my home office, which means some of them will spill into another bedroom. There are bookcases in virtually every possible spot in the house, and they’re all pretty much full at this point. We have room for only two more bookcases around this place, and then I don’t have any idea what we’re going to do. It’s a major dilemma.

At least we’re not my wife’s stepmother. Her personal library, constantly growing, is about 18,000 volumes, which is a truly awesome collection; I can only imagine how much money she’s invested in building that library of hers. My father-in-law had to build a house around Marlene’s library. We’re not THAT bad, but it’s plenty bad around here…..

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From Jim Campi of the CWPT today comes some very good news:

Planning Commission Recommends Against Special Use Permit, But Threat to Battlefield Remains

Last night, the Orange County Planning Commission voted 4-4 against recommending approval of Walmart’s special use permit at its rescheduled public hearing. Although a tie, the vote is functionally the same as a denial, since it was not approved by a majority of the commissioners. The vote is a reversal of what occurred in July, when the commission prematurely approved the application 5-4.

It is now more critical than ever for supporters of the Wilderness and historic preservation to attend Monday’s Board of Supervisors hearing, as it is important to remember that the Planning Commisison is a non-binding advisory organization. The Board of Supervisors has final authority in this matter and Monday’s hearing represents the last opportunity to tell them that the Wilderness Battlefield is no place for big box sprawl. If you live within driving distance, please attend this final hearing and urge the county to find another location further from this hallowed battleground.

The hearing starts at 6:00 p.m. on Monday, August 24, 2009, in the Orange County High School Auditorium, 201 Selma Road, Orange, Va. CWPT will have an information table set-up one hour before the hearing, and we encourage all who attend to arrive early. Click here for directions and a map of the school.

I hope we can count on your continued support in this fight to protect the Wilderness Battlefield. If you have any questions about the upcoming hearing please feel free to contact me personally at 202-367-1861 ext. 7205.

Thank you,
Jim Campi

P.S. For the latest information on the hearings, please visit CWPT’s Wilderness Walmart homepage.

Let’s hope that the Board of Supervisors follows suit and also does the right thing…..

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I got three cases of my biography of Ulric Dahlgren, Like a Meteor Blazing Brightly: The Short but Controversial Life of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, today. I have actually held a copy in my hand and can confirm that the book exists. 🙂

To those who helped me along the way, your copies will follow in the next week or so. For those waiting to buy it, just be patient a bit longer and your Amazon orders will be filled.

Finally!

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As I have mentioned here previously, my book manuscript on the Battle of Brandy Station is complete and is in the hands of the publisher. A couple of days ago, the publisher advised me that the book will released right around Memorial Day 2010, in time for the anniversary of the Battle of Brandy Station on June 9. Stay tuned. More details to follow.

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I received an e-mail from CWPT President Jim Lighthizer today, announcing another battlefield preservation victory, this time at Davis Bridge, Tennessee:

Dear Friend,

It gives me great pleasure to report to you that CWPT has successfully closed on 643 acres at Davis Bridge, Tennessee, helping to create one of the largest Civil War state parks in the state!

As you may recall from our appeals earlier this year, the Battle of Davis Bridge, sometimes known as Hatchie’s Bridge, was fought on October 5, 1862, the final significant action of the operations around Corinth, Mississippi, one of – in my humble opinion – the most neglected theaters of the entire war.

CWPT was able to purchase this important 643 acres for $1,979,000, utilizing a federal battlefield preservation matching grant of $948,600, and a grant of $864,000 from the Tennessee Heritage Conservation Trust Fund. Plus, generous CWPT members “dug deep” despite the bad economy and donated just enough for us to put in our required portion of the match – $166,400 – meaning that we saved this pristine battlefield with a $12-to-$1 of your donation dollar. CWPT will hold the land until the state of Tennessee is ready to assume it from us.

Thank you again for all you have done to help advance the cause of battlefield preservation, and I look forward to accomplishing even more before this astounding year draws to a close.

Sincerely yours,
Jim Lighthizer
President

This is a terrific result, and one that was accomplished through some brilliant usage of government grants for land acquisition. Kudos to all involved.

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The following letter to the editor appeared in the August 14, 2009 edition of the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star:

In the July 31 article titled “Orange schedules Wal-Mart do-over,” the author indicates that the proposed Wal-Mart site, while not on National Park Service land, is “in an area designated for study for possible historic significance.”

In fact, the area in question has been accepted as part of the battlefield since the early 1990s.

In 1990, a Congress concerned with the rapid private development of historic battlefield land appointed a blue-ribbon commission of Civil War scholars and educators to study the conditions of and threats to battlefields across the country.

As part of its study, the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission mapped the “maximum delineation” of more than 350 battlefields nationwide, including the Wilderness. The commission called this boundary the “Study Area.”

The Study Area, or maximum delineation of the battlefield, contains terrain and resources known to contribute to the battle and the intervening landscape that connects them.

This concept of battlefield includes areas where troops maneuvered and deployed; where they established command centers, communication posts, and medical services; the routes troops took from one location to another; and of course, locations where they fought.

Historical accounts, military terrain analysis, and on-the-ground feature identification informed the delineation of the Study Area.

The parcel Wal-Mart proposes has fallen within the Wilderness Battlefield Study Area since 1993.

The commission’s Study Area boundary also included the National Park Service’s lands. The commission designed the Study Area to be a planning tool that would inform federal, state, and local decisions about grants, development, and land protection.

Paul Hawke

Washington

The writer is chief of the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program.

All the more reason to fight the Wilderness Wal-Mart. I don’t know that there’s much of anything further that can still be done, but I would encourage all of you to write to Wal-Mart and to the Orange County supervisors and let them know that you’re opposed to this blight being built on the battlefield.

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