Essays
Martha Jefferson: The hospital that ate my neighborhood
Published on Aug 11th, 2011
11 comments The countdown is on: Martha Jefferson Hospital is moving to its Pantops site, scheduled to open August 28. And while employees agonize over suspended vacations– six weeks before and four weeks...
Slowing postal: Free Union and the place we won't let go
Published on Jul 28th, 2011
34 comments The United States Postal Service– who needs it? Our whole society has gone electronic. With the availability of email, iPads, and smart phones, you need paper mail delivery about as much as you...
Toxic assets: Moldy houses are another housing crisis
Published on Jul 21st, 2011
0 comments The next time someone tells you that capitalism is efficient, remember the mold houses. I used to be a banker. Some of my customers had trouble making their loan payments. We usually had recourse to...
All in the family: To all the gays who loved before....
Published on Jul 14th, 2011
0 comments "I can't go that far; that's the year 2000! Negroes [and whites], okay. But that's too far!"–President Richard Nixon on gay marriage, speaking in August 1970; quoted in John Ehrlichman,...
Wide stance: Weiner's, Craig's expressions unscandalous
Published on Jul 7th, 2011
0 comments If slavery was America's original sin, Puritanism was its original curse. In recent years, the United States has made significant strides towards greater equality and freedom. Racism, sexism, and...
Germ theory: What if disease causes autocracy?
Published on Jun 30th, 2011
1 comments Greater wealth strongly correlates with property rights, the rule of law, more education, the liberation of women, a free press, and more social tolerance. The enduring puzzle for political...
Weinergate: No victim, no sin
Published on Jun 23rd, 2011
1 comments Should Anthony Weiner have resigned? Aside from the obvious pleasure that we derive from wallowing in salacious revelations about the rich and powerful, the Weiner sexting controversy provides a...
Song butchers: Let's 'play ball' with the original
Published on Jun 16th, 2011
0 comments You love to sing this part, I know you do: “O, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” I don’t care whether your bumper still sports a McCain...
Curse or blessing? I'm a fount of useless information
Published on Jun 9th, 2011
3 comments I love pop culture– television, film, music, history, live entertainment, literature– and the people involved. For years, friends and co-workers have known this and use me like a search...
Gas, not water: A better fracking way to tap shale
Published on Jun 2nd, 2011
0 comments In a major energy security speech in March, President Barack Obama had some nice things to say about a new technique for extracting domestic natural gas deposits: "Recent innovations have given us...
Memorial Day: Drive now, RideShare later
Published on May 26th, 2011
1 comments As Memorial Day dawns, an AAA survey indicates that the number of people reporting they will drive more than 50 miles from home this weekend has dropped 100,000. Forty percent report that...
Liberal's lament: Seduced by the bad boy of 'Whole Paycheck'
Published on May 19th, 2011
0 comments I admit it: I have drunk the Whole Foods Kool-Aid. I am besotted with the place.I know, I know, it’s a big-box chain whose founder and CEO is the controversial John Mackey, a right wing guy who is...
Ultimate victory: Bin Laden got exactly what he wanted
Published on May 12th, 2011
0 comments The assassination of Osama bin Laden was masterfully orchestrated to appeal to American media consumers. But it will play poorly overseas. President Obama's announcement on Sunday May 1, timed to...
Drone instincts: What's wrong with the war effort?
Published on May 3rd, 2011
22 comments While Americans may be celebrating the death of “the most infamous terrorist of our time,” seeing it as a fitting act of retribution for the innocent lives lost on 9/11, the war effort is far from...
Atlas mugged: What's wrong with Ayn Rand
Published on Apr 28th, 2011
0 comments More than half a century after publication, and after years of talk about an Atlas Shrugged movie project, Ayn Rand's best-selling novel finally hit the big screen– met with indifference by...
Predictions: The ones about the future are tricky
Published on Apr 21st, 2011
0 comments The price of oil will soar to $200 per barrel. A bioterror attack will occur before 2013. Rising food prices could spark riots in Britain. The Arctic Ocean will be ice-free by 2015. Home prices...
Grounds swell: When anguished parents go campus-hopping
Published on Apr 14th, 2011
0 comments Ah, springtime. Forget robins. The true harbingers of spring in Charlottesville are the clusters of distressed families on The Lawn. They are enduring The College Visit. Potty training and driving...
Shine on: How long will it last?
Published on Apr 7th, 2011
0 comments Oh, that was one wicked big moon, wasn’t it? Like a mass hallucination. I stood by my car that magical Saturday evening, not wanting to get in and drive. I wanted to soak up the moonlight, inhabit...
Shaken ground: Sendai left deep impressions
Published on Mar 31st, 2011
0 comments We arrived in Sendai in June. It was early summer, not too hot, and this city of a million welcomed us in its own way. Quietly, people helped my husband and me find an apartment, a recycle shop for...
EPA and NRC: Abolish both to really protect public safety
Published on Mar 24th, 2011
0 comments The New York Times recently revealed that as long ago as 1972 the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (precursor to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) knew of fatal design defects in the General Electric...
Will books survive? Yes... but not on your shelf
Published on Mar 17th, 2011
0 comments Borders Books and Music, which once employed 30,000 workers at more than 600 stores, is bankrupt. Those numbers have been halved. And even after these massive cuts, analysts say, Borders is...
Rome burning? Then it's time for the impossible
Published on Mar 10th, 2011
0 comments Economist M. Scott Taylor and actress Emily Blunt– or rather the character she plays in The Adjustment Bureau– are peas in a pod. Recently, while The Adjustment Bureau was arriving in Charlottesville...
Twain's Huck: Racist and anti-racist at different places
Published on Mar 3rd, 2011
0 comments What's new about Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Stephen Railton, an English professor in the University of Virginia's College of Arts & Sciences, has just published a new edition...
Going viral: New law could criminalize your sharing
Published on Feb 24th, 2011
18 comments “Eww! You’ve got cooties!” Sound familiar? Admit it: You had cooties a few times back in elementary school. Of course, anyone you touched after that pronouncement also had cooties. The affliction was...
Those kids! The roots of 20-something inter-generational anger
Published on Feb 17th, 2011
14 comments People in their mid-to-late-20s seem to have a bigger problem with today’s teenagers and college students than any other detractor of youth culture. Baby Boomers, Generation X-ers, Republicans...
ESSAY- In paradise: And on the path to hell
Published on Jan 27th, 2011
0 comments Here we are, in the dead of winter, and there I was, in shorts, hiking on a skinny trail that rims a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Waves crashed far below on rough volcanic rocks, sunlight...
ESSAY- Typical shooter: Tucson man gave few public clues
Published on Jan 20th, 2011
3 comments "Students of assassination in the U.S. have generally seen assassins and attackers of political leaders either as possessing ‘political' motives or as being ‘deranged,'" notes a 1999...
ESSAY- E.T., stay home! Why extraterrestrial silence is golden
Published on Jan 13th, 2011
1 comments If extraterrestrial civilizations exist in our galaxy– and there are good reasons to think they do– it's probably a good idea to mind our own business and hope they do the same. There...
ESSAY- Penny reign: Lincoln's disc is hard to kill
Published on Jan 6th, 2011
0 comments Someday, probably within your lifetime, the one-cent coin will go away. The penny, the first coin minted in the United States, was obviated by inflation before most members of today"s work force were...
ESSAY- Thrifty and green: Enjoy Christmas... without wasting cash and carbon
Published on Dec 16th, 2010
2 comments Don't know about you, but I haven't thought much about green gifts for the holidays simply because there's not much green to begin with... as in cash. What I did think about was how to stretch what...