Essays
Manners matter: Lessons from the 'school of ma'am'
Published on May 10th, 2007
0 comments Years ago, a new-to-Charlottesville co-worker asked me not to refer to her as "Ma'am." "It makes me feel old," said the twenty-something. At the time I didn't know how to respond to that near-...
Gundamentalists: Talk to the armed law students
Published on May 3rd, 2007
15 comments In the week following the Virginia Tech tragedy, I read articles in two daily newspapers and the Sunday New York Times about gun control in the United Kingdom and heard quotes from shooting victims...
ESSAY- Unrivalled: Why we're all Hokies now
Published on Apr 26th, 2007
0 comments Before an apparently isolated, mentally ill gunman slaughtered 32 students and professors on April 16, the big Hokie-'Hoo issue was barely worth crowing about. In late March, a fiberglass Tech...
ESSAY- Friend of Bill: Growing up in Blacksburg
Published on Apr 19th, 2007
0 comments Last time: Morva trial slated for SeptemberAccording to the Roanoke Times, a Montgomery County jury last month recommended that William Morva serve 38 years in jail for his role in the 2005...
ESSAY- Jeepers creepers: Where have all the peepers gone?
Published on Apr 12th, 2007
0 comments Living in my home above the Rivanna River in the Woolen Mills neighborhood, I awaken these spring mornings to the sound of Canada geese honking and beating their wings on the water. A Carolina wren...
ESSAY- Pants on fire: Can you tell when someone's lying?
Published on Apr 5th, 2007
4 comments Evolutionary psychologists suggest that human cooperation is the result of evolved brain mechanisms that enabled our ancestors to detect cheaters. Broadly speaking, cheaters are people who accept a...
ESSAY- Moniker madness: What's in a (middle) name?
Published on Mar 22nd, 2007
2 comments Just days after Barack Obama first mused about running for president a few months back, Republican strategist Ed Rogers winged the senator on Hardball. "Count me down as somebody who underestimates...
ESSAY- Echo's boom: From GW and TJ prez perfidy reigns
Published on Mar 15th, 2007
0 comments The naming of 17 presidents in the Atlantic Monthly's Top 100 Americans of all time may slow condemnation of George W. Bush's legacy. He's doing what virtually all of them have done. Atlantic names...
ESSAY- Sound check: Ian Stevenson and my grandson
Published on Mar 8th, 2007
0 comments Every afternoon, when classes were over for the day, the conductor would stride though my commuter train out of Boston, hollering, "Wedgemere! Winchester! Wilmington! North Billerica and Lowell!"...
ESSAY- Just playing (on!): Could a reality show pump local theater?
Published on Mar 1st, 2007
0 comments When it rains it pours,When it snows you sled,When nothing happens that's been predicted,You sit and scratch your head.-bh On February 1, my event for Play On, Charlottesville's newest community...
Trouble in Arcadia: Development, traffic threaten TJ's dream
Published on Feb 22nd, 2007
1 comments The Arcadian tradition so clearly represented in the architecture of UVA– and other designs by Thomas Jefferson– contains an inherent contradiction that's headed for a major controversy...
ESSAY- Anna Nicole: How TV has failed us
Published on Feb 15th, 2007
16 comments "She was entropy porn at its finest."—Cintra Wilson, Salon You would think that Mother Teresa had just died (again) the way the media– especially television– is covering every...
ESSAY- Q&A primer: Tips for guys facing tough questions
Published on Feb 8th, 2007
0 comments My husband and I are taking a walk when we pass a rather large woman. She's bent over, revealing an even larger rear end. Without missing a beat, Bill turns to me and whispers, "...and no, your butt...
ESSAY- Pete Seeger's last war
Published on Feb 1st, 2007
0 comments Nearly three years ago, on the day Ronald Reagan died, an atypically modest tribute to the patriarch of the right appeared at the foot of a veteran's monument in Wappingers Falls, a quiet town in...
ESSAY- Snow job: Talking truth to VDOT power
Published on Jan 25th, 2007
5 comments It was that sick, twisty feeling you get in the pit of your stomach, the feeling that says, I totally screwed up. That's how I felt on December 1 as I flipped on the light in the basement of the Free...
ESSAY- How rude! Comebacks for any occasion
Published on Jan 18th, 2007
0 comments We've all been asked questions we'd rather not answer; questions that are, in fact, so insensitive or inappropriate as to make you wonder just what goes through some people's heads. Next time,...
ESSAY- UnDismal future: Purging the lingering stench of Malthus
Published on Jan 11th, 2007
0 comments The majority of human beings are living in cities for the first time in history. Hurray! As the Renaissance Germans said, "Stadtluft macht frei," or "City air makes you free." But not everyone is...
ESSAY- Don't believe it: The 'boy crisis' is pure bunk
Published on Jan 4th, 2007
0 comments The "boy crisis" is now a major media trend. It's been on the cover of Newsweek, featured in People magazine, and examined by a PBS documentary. It's also the central issue in a suit filed by a high...
ESSAY- Machiavellian: How to fight corruption of money
Published on Dec 14th, 2006
0 comments What is to be done about the influence of big money on the American political system? Judging from a recent Supreme Court decision that ruled Vermont's highly restrictive campaign-finance laws...
ESSAY- Bully pulpit: A tale of two churches
Published on Dec 7th, 2006
0 comments "Neutrality and silence in the face of oppression always aids the oppressors. American pulpits must not cower from speaking truth to power."—The Rev. Ed Bacon, All Saints Episcopal Church On...
ESSAY- Victims of success: Colleges reject Asian-Americans
Published on Nov 30th, 2006
0 comments In most contexts on college campuses, Asian-Americans are "people of color," a stripe in the multicultural rainbow. But when it comes to elite-college admissions, Asian-Americans put a strain on the...
ESSAY- Going insane: How Allen turned into Gore
Published on Nov 16th, 2006
0 comments During the dark, long– well, not that long– days of total Republican dominance over Washington, reasonable people wondered if the Democratic party would ever pull itself together. The...
ESSAY- Filling the gap: Medicare keeps oldsters solvent
Published on Nov 9th, 2006
0 comments Some people nervously paced the room, others had magazines open on their laps as they stared past the pages, lost in thought. I sat in the corner, gnawing on my thumbnail and scanning the headlines...
ESSAY- 'Good' enough? Hiring a hen to guard the foxes
Published on Nov 2nd, 2006
0 comments If I'm moral enough, you might see my smiling face when you cast your ballot Tuesday. But right now that question is hanging in the balance. It seems that to be an election official in Albemarle...
ESSAY- Rights fight: Who wins in speech v. property?
Published on Oct 26th, 2006
0 comments "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech..." "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for...
ESSAY- Forgive 70- x 7: Amish do what Jesus did
Published on Oct 19th, 2006
0 comments The blood was hardly dry on the bare-board floor of the Nickel Mines School when Amish parents sent words of forgiveness to the family of the killer who had executed their children.  Forgiveness...
ESSAY- Cancel: Divorcing the daily paper
Published on Oct 12th, 2006
0 comments After 37 years of subscribing to the daily newspaper, I wrote "cancel" on the last bill and sent it back. Since I've been subscribing for nearly four decades, it's obvious I am not a member of the...
ESSAY- </span>Crushing a Beatle: The U.S. vs. John Lennon<span class="s1">
Published on Oct 5th, 2006
0 comments In December 1971, at a concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan, John Lennon took the stage, and in his usual confrontational style belted out "John Sinclair," a song he had written about a man sentenced to 10...
ESSAY- Jiffy feud: When the wars hits home
Published on Sep 28th, 2006
0 comments The man storms into the tranquil waiting room of Jiffy Lube where everyone is drinking coffee and quietly checking vehicular maintenance off to-do lists. He is a blur of Polo and chinos, rage pumping...
ESSAY- Hidden fees: Getting rich fooling customers
Published on Sep 21st, 2006
0 comments The printer: It's one of the most common peripherals in the computer age and so cheap– at first blush, anyway– that stores often give them away when you buy a PC. Yet how many people...