Essays
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...
ESSAY- Unthinkable? Who really destroyed the towers?
Published on Sep 7th, 2006
11 comments Maybe we all need counseling.  When my family sits around the dinner table, as we did a few weeks ago at my birthday party, we talk about nearly anything: current events, scientific...
ESSAY- Bible beating: Let's lay homophobia to rest
Published on Aug 31st, 2006
0 comments In November, Virginia citizens will vote on a proposal which, in effect, bans "gay marriages." Because this event is reviving the ugly spectre of homophobia, I suggest that we examine the roots of...
ESSAY- Zygote-to-go: Taking orders for custom-designed babies
Published on Aug 24th, 2006
0 comments The Abraham Center of Life, an adoption and infertility service company in San Antonio, Texas, run by Jennalee Ryan, is offering made-to-order embryos through the mail. The Center's name evidently...
ESSAY- Pants on fire?: Tips for telling the truth
Published on Aug 17th, 2006
0 comments "I didn't see you at my gallery opening," says a friend I've stumbled on while out shopping. "What happened?" Truthfully? I got engrossed in a rerun of The Daily Show. (I know, I know, I‘m a...
ESSAY- WWJB: What would Jesus bomb?
Published on Aug 10th, 2006
0 comments "Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power and with its plea for the weak." —Dietrich Bonhoeffer As bombs explode...
ESSAY- Write on: Who do they think they are?
Published on Jul 27th, 2006
0 comments "Who do think you are?" That's the snide little voice that writers hear when we sit down to work, our pens hovering over paper, our fingers poised above keyboards. Who cares what we have to say? Okay...
ESSAY- Rich was a pain
Published on Jul 20th, 2006
0 comments Barbara Rich has written a most appalling piece [July 13 essay: "Terminal? More than breath required for life"]. Were she anything but totally self-absorbed, she would have gotten her butt out of her...
ESSAY- Terminal? More than breath required for 'life'
Published on Jul 13th, 2006
0 comments It's a good thing I'm not Irish, because if I were, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for me to ever again celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Not after what happened to me this past March 17, after...
ESSAY- Terminal? More than breath required for 'life'
Published on Jul 13th, 2006
0 comments It's a good thing I'm not Irish, because if I were, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for me to ever again celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Not after what happened to me this past March 17, after...
ESSAY- Webster's wedgies: <span class="s1">When silly pranks go respectable</span>
Published on Jul 13th, 2006
0 comments It's a high water mark for linguistics when a time-honored childhood practice is officially recognized by such an esteemed reference work as Webster's New World College Dictionary. The new edition...
ESSAY- Police state: Has common sense taken leave?
Published on Jul 6th, 2006
0 comments A culture of meanness has come to characterize many aspects of the nation's governmental and social policies. "Meanness today is a state of mind," writes Nicholas Mills in his book, The Triumph of...
ESSAY- Marriage problem? Yes, but it's not same-sex unions
Published on Jun 22nd, 2006
0 comments In 1992, then-Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the producers of the popular TV sitcom Murphy Brown for portraying the show's lead character "mocking the importance of a father, by bearing a child...
ESSAY- Thanks but...: Anti-gay sermon offer falls on deaf ears
Published on Jun 15th, 2006
0 comments I must say that I'm becoming a very popular fellow, at least in some circles. Just this week I received an offer of several free sermons from some group (I don't recall their name and have never...
ESSAY- Bring it on: Grocery delivery's time has come
Published on Jun 8th, 2006
0 comments If you can bear to watch a woman with Attention Deficit Disorder reduced to a babbling, twitchy wreck, come with me as I schlep through the supermarket, attempting to keep track of grocery orders for...
ESSAY- Father's day: You sound just like him
Published on Jun 1st, 2006
0 comments "You must be his son. You look just like him." My father lies propped up in the hospital bed, arms outstretched and palms up, as if he had passed out in an act of supplication. Chin on chest, mouth...
ESSAY- Thinking cap: Put it on thrice weekly
Published on May 25th, 2006
0 comments Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 1130, my calendar noted an unmovable meeting. It lasted only half an hour, but my assistant knew that on no account could it be moved or cancelled. And so,...
ESSAY- Tomcatting: A jet tail across the ocean
Published on May 18th, 2006
0 comments There's nothing quite like the roar of waves crashing on the beach to wipe away the cobwebs– unless it happens to be the scream of a US Navy F-14 Tomcat overhead. Whichever was loudest appears...
ESSAY- Sam's new club: You can bank on Wal-Mart
Published on May 11th, 2006
0 comments Wal-Mart wants to start a bank. Well, not exactly a bank. Wal-Mart says all it wants to do is provide customers with its own credit-card service on Wal-Mart sales, so it can trim costs on the...
ESSAY- Missing person: Wrangling with the mystery of death
Published on May 4th, 2006
0 comments At night, the two of them would lie back in the hot tub on their deck and look up at the stars. As they settled into the steaming water, the question was, Who would be the first to find the...
ESSAY- Times a-changin': UVA students see poverty's reach
Published on Apr 27th, 2006
0 comments It's Friday, April 14, I'm working my way down an ever-expanding to-do list when I get a call from Joe Szakos, director of the Virginia Organizing Project, with the news that 17 students are sitting...
ESSAY- Disaster tourism: Viewing the misery of others
Published on Apr 20th, 2006
0 comments In the days leading up to Mardi Gras a couple weeks ago, I fielded some strange questions from camera-clutching visitors to the city of New Orleans, where I've lived off and on the for past year-and...
ESSAY- Turn it off: The plug-in drug is killing us
Published on Apr 13th, 2006
0 comments In a doctor's office recently, I was the only one of 22 adults who wasn't glued to the 27-inch screen hanging high in a corner of the waiting room. A cute little girl in a pink skort set and corn...
ESSAY- Last man standing?: Techie ex-gov has lead
Published on Apr 6th, 2006
0 comments On a recent "Meet the Press," Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware explained why he deserves his party's nomination for president– and proved he can speak rather succinctly. I won't...
ESSAY- Undies-cover story: Ban leers from the bra aisle
Published on Mar 30th, 2006
0 comments Men should be banished from lingerie departments and intimate apparel stores everywhere. Well, no, not completely banished, just limited to shopping on a specified day of the week. Mondays perhaps....
ESSAY- Hillary in '08: Flying generically to a win
Published on Mar 23rd, 2006
0 comments The Republican Party appears to be coalescing around the happy assumption that, while Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, she cannot be elected. So– the self-delusive logic says...
ESSAY- Far from home: Where's our wizard when we need him?
Published on Mar 16th, 2006
0 comments Think of the house you grew up in. Close your eyes and picture it: you walk up the driveway and feel a twinge in your stomach– so much of who you are is embodied in that house. There's the knob...
Far from home: Where's our wizard when we need him?
Published on Mar 16th, 2006
0 comments   Think of the house you grew up in. Close your eyes and picture it: you walk up the driveway and feel a twinge in your stomach– so much of who you are is embodied in that house. There's...
ESSAY- Heart attack: All's well that ends well
Published on Mar 9th, 2006
0 comments My 48-year-old doctor-spouse chalks up the pain in his shoulder to post-golf muscle strain and blames his indigestion on the 19th hole chili-dog. As both complaints are side-effects of a sport I...