Essays
ESSAY- Not so 'fine': Suspending licenses hurts the poor
Published on Jul 10th, 2008
9 comments Do you believe that someone driving on a suspended license is dangerous? He or she may be, but chances are he's just a person who hasn't paid a fine for something as simple as a speeding ticket or...
ESSAY- '130 valuable Negroes': Learning from a Monticello auction
Published on Jul 3rd, 2008
1 comments Like Jefferson himself, his relatives didn't always keep families intact.COURTESY MONTICELLO This Fourth of July will find me at my job, guiding visitors through Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's...
ESSAY- Punctual U: How to solve that perennial lateness problem
Published on Jun 26th, 2008
0 comments No one ever plans to be late, but something always seems to come up. Last-minute chores keep us from stepping out the door. Or we don't do chores at all and can't find the car keys because the house...
ESSAY- Mr. Lucky: Obama's drug use could have sunk him
Published on Jun 26th, 2008
0 comments Barack Obama made history by becoming the first major party's presidential nominee with an identifying trait that once would have automatically disqualified him for the job. No, I'm not talking about...
ESSAY- Mr. Lucky: Obama's drug use could have sunk him
Published on Jun 26th, 2008
0 comments Barack Obama made history by becoming the first major party's presidential nominee with an identifying trait that once would have automatically disqualified him for the job. No, I'm not talking about...
ESSAY- Gideon's strumpet: The move to a room with no view
Published on Jun 12th, 2008
0 comments It's a standard part of the hospitality industry: to make guests feel pampered, cared for, at home on the road, hotel operators grievously overcharge them for hardcore pornography. The hotels make a...
ESSAY- I'll rite btr l8r: Or will I? Text messages ruining English?
Published on Jun 5th, 2008
0 comments The president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, is worried about the French language. As though he doesn't have enough to worry about with the economy, rising pâté and gas prices, and getting...
ESSAY- George Garrett: A fond-- if premature-- epitaph
Published on May 29th, 2008
0 comments George Palmer Garrett: 1929-2008FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO The following essay appeared in the Blue Penny Quarterly Review in 1996. Today, its subject matter seems eerily apt given the death over...
ESSAY- Barbie revolution: Drop dolls, not bombs, on Iran
Published on May 22nd, 2008
0 comments Despite Hillary Clinton's penchant for magnificently monochromatic pantsuits just a couple of epaulets short of colonel status in Michael Jackson's toddler army, the bellicose Democratic senator from...
ESSAY- No peak: Why oil prices will fall again
Published on May 15th, 2008
0 comments Oil prices have climbed to their highest level ever, flirting with $120 per barrel. And consumers are feeling this price spike at the pump, with gasoline averaging $3.61 per gallon in the United...
ESSAY- No holiday: McCain & Clinton, see the error of your ways
Published on May 8th, 2008
22 comments The writers of The Federalist Papers were right: our political system pretty much demands our candidates pander to our short-term, self-involved thinking. "Courageous" John McCain and...
ESSAY- Slow down! Asking questions to map our future
Published on May 1st, 2008
0 comments Who are you to decide how many children God will give you?    That was the prevailing attitude in the United States well into the 20th century. Contraceptives– even information about...
ESSAY- Frontline of freedom: Local reservist learns lessons in Afghanistan
Published on Apr 24th, 2008
9 comments Lee Payne with Afghan soldiersPhoto Courtesy Lee Payne Sal-lay now tan tabreek! Happy New Year!  March 21 marks the 1387th Afghan new year– 1,387 years since the Prophet Mohammed was...
ESSAY- Arms bared: Racist origins of the 2nd Amendment
Published on Apr 17th, 2008
49 comments Racial politics dominated the talk in Washington after Barack Obama called on Americans to stop ignoring the country's racist past and move forward. The message apparently didn't reach the U.S....
ESSAY- No chill: The myth of 'demographic winter'
Published on Apr 10th, 2008
0 comments Humanity will soon experience a "demographic winter" if we can believe a new documentary that recently premiered at the conservative Heritage Foundation. The demographic winter is supposed to result...
ESSAY- Yumm: All-local ice cream worth some screams
Published on Apr 3rd, 2008
0 comments "You had me at 'ice cream.'"  My husband was trying to talk me into a detour on our way from Charlottesville to Roanoke last week, saying there's a new ice cream joint, Perfect Flavor, right on...
ESSAY- At home: You teach your child to drink
Published on Mar 27th, 2008
0 comments Research shows that there are fewer alcohol-related car accidents in countries with a drinking age of 21. But America's 21-year-old threshold– which no European country emulates–...
ESSAY- Book time: <i>Not Reading Lolita</i> in Charlottesville
Published on Mar 20th, 2008
2 comments Young and old, black and white, 29 adults stare aimlessly in Charlottesville's juvenile court waiting room. Two infants sleep in parent's laps, and two toddlers suck their thumbs. I put down my book...
ESSAY- Hotel history: Book recalls when strangers weren't welcome
Published on Mar 13th, 2008
0 comments For the women of the mid-19th century, a fine hotel was a perilous place to be. Not only did respectable gentlewomen run the risk of consorting with prostitutes (a popular book of etiquette advised...
ESSAY- Polaroid shuttered: The end of the little white square
Published on Mar 6th, 2008
0 comments It looks like instant film photography is set to go the way of the VCR and cassette player, another commercial casualty of the digital revolution. The last wheeze of analogue photography was audible...
ESSAY- Choices, choices: Who'd you rather peer at over the pillow?
Published on Feb 28th, 2008
0 comments "Well, you overlook a lot of things."  That's the wisdom my mother once shared with me when asked to define the key to a happy marriage. Of course, what I would overlook might not be what you...
Early and often: When voting machines need fixing
Published on Feb 21st, 2008
0 comments We voted in primaries on February 12. How can we be sure our votes were properly counted? We can trust and hope, but we cannot be certain. Charlottesville uses DRE (directly recording electronic)...
ESSAY- Tough question: Figuring out who's the real you
Published on Feb 14th, 2008
0 comments Worried about the future? One of the perennial concerns of some bioethicists is that some portion of humanity will rush– to their detriment, say the conservatives– to adopt various...
ESSAY- Tooting Charlotte's horn: NC example bodes well for new train
Published on Feb 7th, 2008
0 comments On November 19, a ribbon-cutting ceremony opened the Blue Line of Charlotte's Lynx light rail operation. Charlotte's mayor, Pat McCrory, called the event a "monumental moment" in the city's history....
ESSAY- What if... Obama wins? Will Europe quit its carping?
Published on Jan 31st, 2008
1 comments Charlottesville voters reached out to Obama in October. FILE PHOTO BY TOM DALY I was recently asked to write a story about Barack Obama for a newspaper in my native Ireland. I was surprised at the...
ESSAY- Affluenza: When it's time to stop wanting it all
Published on Jan 17th, 2008
0 comments Lying on the built-in lounger about 10 yards from the swim-up bar at Puerto Vallarta's Grand Velas Resort, the middle-aged bottle blonde was reading, oddly, a softcover textbook. She splashed a...
ESSAY- Can it: Chemicals in plastics wreak havoc
Published on Jan 10th, 2008
0 comments I'm standing in my kitchen, hand poised over the trash. The cover is open, the wastebasket awaits my decision: are you going to toss that thing in here or what? But it's so pretty, this polycarbonate...
ESSAY- Unclaimed baggage: One traveler's loss is another's bonanza
Published on Jan 3rd, 2008
5 comments Spend any time at an airport baggage claim, and it won't be long before you spot a solitary suitcase going round and round on an otherwise empty carousel. Ever wondered what happens to that suitcase...
ESSAY- Now's the time: Take politics out of redistricting
Published on Dec 13th, 2007
2 comments Is Creigh Deeds tired of driving over the mountain?FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO For weeks before the November elections, news media all over the state touted the fact that all 140 seats in the...
ESSAY- Forensic monopoly: Who decides who gets the samples?
Published on Dec 6th, 2007
0 comments America's forensics system, the part of our criminal justice system responsible for scientific examinations of crime-scene evidence like fingerprints and DNA, is rife with errors. Some mistakes, like...