Essays
25th time's the charm: An exuberant eye for the Film Festival
Published on Oct 25th, 2012
0 comments The 25th annual Virginia Film Festival will take place November 1-4.  I have been blessed to watch it from the beginning. On October 27th, 1988, The Virginia Festival of American Film opened in...
Spiraling down: Why the Bypass will wreck Albemarle
Published on Oct 19th, 2012
18 comments The Taxpayers for Common Sense, in an October report subtitled "Two trillion in common sense cuts to avoid the fiscal cliff," calls the Charlottesville Western Bypass a financial boondoggle: ...
Power viewing: The 10 best political movies
Published on Oct 9th, 2012
7 comments By Nathan Spicer Note: We picked this week's essay because Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are coming to the Virginia Film Festival to introduce the film of their Watergate scoops, All the President...
E pluribus me: I harbor hidden hordes
Published on Oct 2nd, 2012
4 comments I thought I was a rugged individualist. Turns out, I’m not even an individual. And any ruggedness I may possess doesn’t arise from me. While browsing around on science news websites a few days ago, I...
UVA June: Dragas just a tool in right-wing 'reform'
Published on Sep 26th, 2012
97 comments By Peter Gunter Three months after Teresa Sullivan was fired and rehired as President of the University of Virginia, concerned people are still searching for an explanation to what seemed like a rash...
Freezing eggs: The path to female reproductive equality
Published on Sep 14th, 2012
3 comments More and more women are waiting until they are older to have children. Why? Because they are building their careers and waiting for Mr. Right. But what if Mr. Right fails to come along before they...
Ayn Rand: Her detractors miss her stellar vision
Published on Sep 7th, 2012
31 comments Ayn Rand, the Russian-born writer and self-styled philosopher who died three decades ago, is back in the news as a favorite author of Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.

 In recent...
R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find out what it means to me
Published on Aug 31st, 2012
32 comments Girlfriend, we need to talk. These guys in your life– they’re no good for you. It’s time to cut them loose. Remember what Maya Angelou said about people like this? “When a man tells you who he...
Disturbing legacy: Race still affects Virginia's death penalty
Published on Aug 26th, 2012
7 comments By King Salim Khalfani and Stephen A. Northup According to the most recent polling data, public support for the death penalty is at its lowest level in decades. Four states have ended capital...
President Sullivan: Still getting bullied by Dragas
Published on Aug 21st, 2012
47 comments By J. Anderson Thomson University of Virginia president Teresa Sullivan has broken her silence on the controversy that consumed most of June and which continues to pervade the institution. She may...
Saving themselves: Teens practice abstinence... on driver's licenses
Published on Aug 14th, 2012
10 comments By Jim Motavalli The evidence is in, and it's not just my license-free 18-year-old daughter. The percentage of young people with licenses is definitely going down. Previous essays by this author...
Post derecho: I realize I'm the eco-catastrophe
Published on Aug 3rd, 2012
17 comments My name is Janis, and I’m an addict. No, not heroin or cocaine or meth. This is worse than a drug. With a drug addiction, you can tell yourself that the only person you’re putting in peril is...
The story: Why I'm still going to movie theaters
Published on Jul 22nd, 2012
9 comments “Oh, boy– you are in for a show tonight, son!” –older cop from The Dark Knight Rises   Also by this author: • a cover story about the renovated Jefferson Theater • an essay about...
Bottom dollared: Who can fix my chair?
Published on Jul 13th, 2012
12 comments By Sarah WolpowWho can fix my chair? My light, aluminum beach chair, with the wooden armrests, and canvas seat. My chair that, with a loud rip from its striped bottom, plopped me down on the sand in...
Shingle-hanging 101: The little philosophy shop that never was
Published on Jul 6th, 2012
20 comments “A philosophy course? Oh, that'll come in handy," he said. "Now all you have to do is open up a little philosophy shop. You’re all set!” After all these years, I can still see the smirk on that man’s...
Nurse practitioners: They'll save your life... and money
Published on Jun 29th, 2012
32 comments By Dorrie Fontaine At long last, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued its decision on Health Care Reform. And this, as they say, changes everything. But not nursing. Related: Doctor's orders: Spiked...
The 'incrementalist': UVA President Teresa Sullivan, translated
Published on Jun 28th, 2012
11 comments "I have been described as an incrementalist. It is true. Sweeping action may be gratifying and may create the aura of strong leadership, but its unintended consequences may lead to costs that are too...
Darden 101: What business schools really do
Published on Jun 21st, 2012
76 comments By Ron Wilcox To believe the common narrative of what happens in business schools you have to imagine professors teaching such courses as “How to Steal from Widows” and “Exploiting Loopholes in...
Unsaving the planet: Will our efficiencies lead to catastrophe?
Published on Jun 8th, 2012
3 comments By Clive Thompson We put a lot of stock in energy efficiency. It is regarded as the quickest and easiest way to reduce carbon emissions. Al Gore even ended An Inconvenient Truth with a plea for...
1964 epiphany: The day the curtain pulled back
Published on Jun 1st, 2012
81 comments The scales fell from my eyes one day when I was twelve years old, as I looked away from the priest, scanned the appalled faces of the girls seated around me and thought, “Oh, I don’t think so.”The...
Mitt-picking: Choosing Condi Rice a game changer
Published on May 25th, 2012
40 comments By Juan Williams Washington's favorite gossip game– speculating about the vice presidential pick– now gets serious. Now that Mitt Romney has a lock on the GOP's 2012 presidential...
American Wildways: Connecting wildlife and helping ourselves
Published on May 22nd, 2012
2 comments By Amy Mathews AmosLast year, conservation athlete John Davis left his job and spent 10 months covering 7,600 miles on an epic journey. Unlike Jack Kerouac, the 47-year old Davis traveled not by car...
Birth defects: When a 37 percent jump doesn't matter
Published on May 11th, 2012
8 comments Children conceived by means of some assisted reproductive technologies run a higher risk of being born with birth defects than do children conceived spontaneously, according to a new study in the...
Studies show.... Bypass to use Greer kids as guinea pigs
Published on May 4th, 2012
44 comments We teach our school kids to do homework.  Can we teach our county supervisors? Related: Fast track: Western Bypass shifts into overdrive $230 million: State board accelerates Western Bypass...
Slow but fit: What's right about 13-minute miles
Published on Apr 27th, 2012
15 comments Is this a dream? Am I six years old again? It feels as though I’m flying, zooming past fellow passengers in the airport corridor, overtaking travelers dragging suitcases and bewildered toddlers....
Morning napalm: The other side of the wine industry
Published on Apr 21st, 2012
11 comments By Robert Butler You've probably heard that iconic cinematic moment in Apocalypse Now from Robert Duvall's character, Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore. “I love the smell of napalm in the morning," he says...
Silly panic: The fuss over a 'minority white' nation
Published on Apr 13th, 2012
3 comments More by Ron Bailey • Gas, not water: A better fracking way to tap shale • Germ theory: What if disease causes autocracy? • How many? Numbers suggest a low terror deathcount "Whites will become a...
Junk science? Most preclinical cancer studies don't replicate
Published on Apr 6th, 2012
3 comments More by Ron Bailey • Gas, not water: A better fracking way to tap shale • Germ theory: What if disease causes autocracy? • How many? Numbers suggest a low terror deathcount When a cancer study is...
Excuses, excuses: Still fair to call farmers environmentalists?
Published on Mar 30th, 2012
20 comments By Michael Akey“Farmers are the original environmentalists.” That’s the phrase I heard several times during a recent state legislature committee hearing on a bill that would limit when farmers could...
Chipping away: True confessions of a juicer
Published on Mar 25th, 2012
19 comments Remember the chipper scene from Fargo? Frances McDormand is a cop investigating a homicide when she comes upon a man who is feeding, we are to believe, Steve Buscemi’s leg into a wood chipper.In...