Essays
Lost connection: Why no one visits anymore
Published on Mar 2nd, 2006
0 comments   When the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks met at the Super Bowl in February, they treated Americans to more than just the nation's most famous football game. They also provided a...
ESSAY- Energy rhubarb: Biofuels lead to biofeud
Published on Feb 23rd, 2006
0 comments Give your car a drink, save the planet, and end dependence on foreign oil. That's more or less the plan George W. Bush unveiled during his State of the Union message, in which he also declared his...
ESSAY- Blog begins now
Published on Feb 16th, 2006
0 comments Lots of people get all their news online now. And why shouldn't they? After all, it's here, and you steer, so get over it. Well, we got over our objections to giving away content when we started the...
Blog begins now
Published on Feb 16th, 2006
0 comments Lots of people get all their news online now. And why shouldn't they? After all, it's here, and you steer, so get over it. Well, we got over our objections to giving away content when we started the...
ESSAY- Wean thyself: Personal vehicles mean public disaster
Published on Feb 9th, 2006
0 comments The president's admitted it. We're addicted to oil. Our governor's admitted it. We can't get anywhere because everyone is trying to get somewhere at the same time in the same way– all alone in...
ESSAY- Act two: Mom starts over at 87
Published on Feb 2nd, 2006
0 comments "I'm nineteen and my life is just beginning." That line from John Irving's novel, The Hotel New Hampshire, has been sliding around inside my head since the day I first read it in 1981. It feels as...
Act two: Mom starts over at 87
Published on Feb 2nd, 2006
0 comments   "I'm nineteen and my life is just beginning." That line from John Irving's novel, The Hotel New Hampshire, has been sliding around inside my head since the day I first read it in 1981. It...
Back to school: Support state sales tax break
Published on Jan 26th, 2006
0 comments   Delegate Ben Cline of Amherst [R-Rockbridge] has proposed a bill to establish a sales tax holiday in August for the purchase of school supplies and clothing. Other members of the Virginia...
Death marches: Warner leaves healthy legacy
Published on Jan 19th, 2006
0 comments   My brother-in-law, Pete, thinks Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jane Fonda were the worst products of the 1980s. Because of them, Pete's taking walks everyday– walks he...
Average American: Charitable or chintzy?
Published on Jan 12th, 2006
0 comments 2 IN 3 American households say they give to charity, at an average of $1,262 a year. But only 1 in 3 households report charitable deductions to the IRS.   IN 2002, Americans deducted $654...
Space patrol: Keeping the Beloved at arm's length
Published on Jan 5th, 2006
0 comments Can any relationship survive a broken foot? I think not. Love is based fundamentally on one's ability to walk away from the beloved and then return when the beloved has stopped ranting. As it says in...
I will: New Year's Resolutions
Published on Dec 22nd, 2005
0 comments My resolution for 2006 is... David Slutzky: "To justify the support and confidence the Rio District voters showed me on Election Day. Robert Harllee: "To go to Italy again... and again, and again...
Office party dilemma: Have fun or have a job
Published on Dec 15th, 2005
0 comments There you are, standing awkwardly in a circle, nibbling on a pretzel, sipping cheap Chardonnay and making polite conversation. Under your breath, you're still furiously reciting the well-rehearsed...
Putty in my hands: Most precious gift goes awry
Published on Dec 15th, 2005
0 comments There's a scene in Miracle on 34th Street where Natalie Wood is feeling glum because Santa Claus didn't bring her what she really wanted: a house. On the way to visit Mr. Kringle in the old-folks...
Think again: Kaine should revise tax stand
Published on Dec 8th, 2005
0 comments On November 8, Virginia voters elected a new governor. They chose between three candidates who presented sharply contrasting views on many issues. Yet on one important issue, Virginia voters had no...
Katrina's lesson: If you don't own it, let it go
Published on Dec 1st, 2005
0 comments Now that everyone is preaching their Lessons of Katrina, let's conduct a little thought experiment with variables. The laboratory stretches from ground zero in Louisiana hundreds of miles up the East...
Shopper, beware: The eBay profiteer is lurking
Published on Dec 1st, 2005
0 comments So you didn't wait three cold days outside an electronics store to be one of the first to fork over $300 for Microsoft's new Xbox 360? Never fear. eBay is here. This year's hottest holiday commodity...
Say what? What we mean when we talk
Published on Nov 24th, 2005
0 comments "American women don't wear knickers­ they're not in style." I was standing on a sidewalk in London, outside our apartment, chatting with my English neighbor. Her eyes opened wide at what I'd just...
President Warner? Kaine victory adds to his clout
Published on Nov 17th, 2005
0 comments Governor Mark Warner tried to make the case that experience with domestic policy can translate into expertise in foreign policy and national security when he met with Democrats around the country in...
Pet policies: Protecting Fido in a crisis
Published on Nov 10th, 2005
0 comments For years, I've been wondering when pets would enter the realm of policy discussion and political debates. The news media generally treats this subject as a business story because Americans now spend...
The Beatles: How they started a revolution
Published on Nov 3rd, 2005
0 comments It seemed to me a definite line was being drawn. This was something that never happened before.–Bob Dylan To celebrate its 100th anniversary, Variety– considered the premiere...
Horrors! Grounded on Halloween night
Published on Oct 27th, 2005
0 comments My oldest son has always been a real life actor. This is the kid who, when he was not much taller than the kitchen table, insisted on clomping around in a big old pair of cowboy boots and a 10-gallon...
Outdoing LBJ: Lame duck; big spender
Published on Oct 20th, 2005
0 comments In a recent New York Observer column, Richard Brookhiser argues that if George W. Bush "is now a lame duck, it is by his own hand." Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina, says Brookhiser, was doubly...
Risky business: Get married, tempt fate
Published on Oct 13th, 2005
0 comments It was wicked dark. My hand clutched the splintery railing, and I lowered one foot warily, searching for the next step in the long staircase down to the beach. I looked up. Not so much as a...
Brass tax: Reasons to bring back Pep Band
Published on Oct 6th, 2005
0 comments As I prepare to button up my sweater and head off to Scott Stadium to watch our own Cavaliers in action, I suppose I should be used to the fact that the Pep Band no longer plays at the games. But I'm...
Lancing the boil: New Orleans' guilt is ours
Published on Sep 22nd, 2005
0 comments Each day has its own pictures: bumper to bumper traffic two states long a frenzied mob in a domed prison rising water the hungry pushing carts out of looted stores rooftops in a lake as vast as the...
Delta blues: <I>Hook</I> writer reports from the flood
Published on Sep 8th, 2005
0 comments Former Hook music editor Mark Grabowski was just beginning graduate school at Tulane when Katrina intervened with plans of her own. I moved to New Orleans for graduate school in the beginning of...
Not welcome: <I>Neighborhood </I>should have aired
Published on Sep 2nd, 2005
0 comments Let me get this straight: A reality TV show exposing prejudice is killed after liberal groups fighting prejudice pre-judge the show as bigoted. How ironic. How Hollywood. I am, of course, referring...
Irish sting: Learn lessons from I.R.A.
Published on Aug 18th, 2005
0 comments More than 30 years after firing its first shots, the Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army has ordered its members to dump their arms.   When will Osama bin Laden, or his successor,...
What's enough? Let the rich keep $3 million
Published on Aug 11th, 2005
0 comments The Senate will soon take up the question of whether the estate tax should be permanently repealed. Before it was cut in 2001, the estate tax allowed a couple to pass up to a million dollars to their...