Essays
ESSAY- Food fleece: Biofuels are eco-bad and people-bad
Published on Nov 29th, 2007
0 comments Sigh. Another day, another inane strategy to fight global warming. The bee in my bonnet this time is biofuels. They're nothing new, but governments and corporations are pushing biofuels with a...
ESSAY- 80% solution: Swinging a hammer in New Orleans
Published on Nov 22nd, 2007
0 comments Already, it felt like I'd pretty much used up the muscles in my right arm, and I'd only been swinging the hammer for three hours. We had five more hours until quitting time.  Woody Allen said...
ESSAY- Secret Santa: Why don't athiests peddle <i>their</i> junk?
Published on Nov 15th, 2007
4 comments Every year at this time, as visions of non-denominational sugar plums dance in our heads, Christmas derives great spiritual power from candy-cane bagels, reggae versions of "Silent Night," and...
ESSAY- Renewable? Water woes require drastic measures
Published on Nov 8th, 2007
0 comments It has been said that water is a renewable resource, but whether that statement is true depends upon the whims of Mother Nature. Weather is not predictable. We can't assume rain will come; it's quite...
Roger & Me: Seeing films through the master's eyes
Published on Nov 1st, 2007
0 comments   Ebert discusses Citizen Kane at the Jefferson Theater in 1992. FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER Filmmakers and film lovers are flooding into Charlottesville, and the Virginia Film Festival will...
ESSAY- Blame game: Let's all stop pointing fingers
Published on Oct 25th, 2007
7 comments As we surge into yet another orgy of finger pointing, perhaps it's time to remember that the nature of humanity is to screw up. Yes, General David Petraeus has some debatable opinions. Yes, Hillary...
ESSAY- Secret wealth: It's in your skills and systems
Published on Oct 18th, 2007
0 comments A Mexican migrant to the U.S. is five times more productive than one who stays home. Why is that? The answer is not the obvious one, that this country has more machinery or tools or natural resources...
ESSAY- Dist<i>herb</i>ing: Rifle turns rage to reconcilation
Published on Oct 11th, 2007
0 comments "I have a gun, you know." The intruder dismisses me with a glance and goes back to helping himself to my property. We got the gun in June, husband Harry and I, and our son Jackson spent an afternoon...
ESSAY- Musical legacy: Lynyrd Skynyrd blessed my marriage
Published on Oct 4th, 2007
5 comments In a lodge of wood and stone up in the Rocky Mountains, my new wife held her bouquet of roses with both hands and asked, "Do we have to hear only Lynyrd Skynyrd songs at our wedding reception?" "Yes...
ESSAY- Bad mommy? Taking aim at Elizabeth Edwards a bad idea
Published on Sep 27th, 2007
0 comments Here we go again. Why is it always that women and their parenting, or alleged lack of it, get center stage in the tedious debate about kids and political campaigning? Where are the men in this...
ESSAY- College censors: Why they deserve a big fat 'F'
Published on Sep 20th, 2007
0 comments The one that got Grant Woolard yanked and two others that created less massive firestormsCAVALIER DAILY A few years back, when staffers at Baylor University's student newspaper published an...
ESSAY- Flocking together: Making unexpected intruders welcome
Published on Sep 13th, 2007
0 comments We were worried, my sisters and I, about leaving the house vacant. What if burglars came in the night and walked off with our family treasures? In the midst of this worry, we received a report of a...
ESSAY- Bad memories: The perils of keeping them buried
Published on Sep 6th, 2007
0 comments I was running in bed, knees pumping. I panted and groaned– or so my roommate told me. She'd been telling me this every morning for weeks. I remembered nothing, knew only that I was exhausted,...
ESSAY- Sports rules: Why Vick should have beaten a woman
Published on Aug 30th, 2007
7 comments National Football League superstar Michael Vick is in trouble, serious trouble. Federal prosecutors charged the Atlanta Falcons' quarterback with animal abuse for his role as the alleged leader of a...
ESSAY- Station take: Valley Net radio station under death watch
Published on Aug 23rd, 2007
0 comments Interstate 81 snakes along the Valley side of the Blue Ridge, far from major population centers, yet choked with tractor-trailer traffic grinding against the frequent steep grades. The route cuts...
ESSAY- Police state: Local agents armed to the teeth
Published on Aug 16th, 2007
7 comments Two years ago, in an article entitled "It Can't Happen Here," Congressman Ron Paul cautioned, "We're not yet living in a total police state, but it's fast approaching." A lot can happen in two years...
ESSAY- Thanatourism: Can 'dark travel' offer illumination?
Published on Aug 9th, 2007
1 comments Not long ago, I went to Dubai, where mega project after mega project competes for the world's headlines. There I stood in the shadow of the Dubai Sunny Mountain Ski Dome– just a metal tube from...
ESSAY- Hammerin' Hank: Bonds can never match Aaron
Published on Jul 26th, 2007
0 comments "When I was in the ballpark, I felt like I was surrounded by angels and I had God's hand on my shoulder." –Hank Aaron When I was growing up in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s,...
ESSAY- Repeat offender: Barker would face stiffer penalty today
Published on Jul 19th, 2007
3 comments At the time of the landmark Polly Klaas murder case in California in 1993, I was practicing forensic clinical psychology in the San Francisco area. In that capacity I evaluated numerous child sex...
ESSAY- Gussie up the clam shell
Published on Jul 19th, 2007
3 comments Beautifying the Downtown Pavilion by using the canopy as a canvas for artistic displays [OnArchitecture, "Pavilion projections: An art work waiting to happen?" July 12] is very close to an idea I've...
ESSAY- Rapidan garden: Nature teaches as much as books
Published on Jul 12th, 2007
1 comments Once the academic year ends, I trade in my teaching clothes for shorts and t-shirt, and set aside my backpack 'til September. Neighbors and acquaintances greet me with the same line, "So, are you off...
ESSAY- In a flash: The day my toddler slipped under water
Published on Jul 5th, 2007
0 comments Her hair, that's what I noticed first: the long golden mane floating above her head like seaweed. In one of those enduring nanoseconds– a mental snapshot that lasts a lifetime– I...
ESSAY- Too much: Is it time to erase our Google caches?
Published on Jun 28th, 2007
0 comments On the Internet, somebody does know you're a dog. Google, to be exact. And it has the pictures to prove it. The ominously helpful high-tech giant has introduced a service called Street View in Las...
You played: Why can't your kids shoot 'em up?
Published on Jun 21st, 2007
0 comments I was playing a round of Gears of War, trying to redo a level on "insane" mode, and the walls were painted with guts. I slaughtered my way to the boss, revved up my chainsaw, and sliced into his...
ESSAY- Built to bust: How long's that iPod good for?
Published on Jun 14th, 2007
0 comments Good for you. The lesson of how VHS made Betamax obsolete in the '80s is still part of your folk memory, so you didn't buy a Blu-ray or HD DVD player last December. As a video refusenik, unsure which...
ESSAY- Baby, I'm amazed: Modern life's magical amenities
Published on Jun 7th, 2007
0 comments I missed the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy when it aired, even though I have Tivo. (Another show with an extended running time for its season finale had a higher priority.) I was bummed for...
ESSAY- 'Pepper' plus 40: When the Beatles were gods
Published on May 31st, 2007
3 comments ALBUM COVER "I declare that the Beatles are mutants, prototypes of evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with a mysterious power to create a new human species." –Dr. Timothy Leary The...
ESSAY- Walls of silence: Memorializing the heroic fallen
Published on May 24th, 2007
0 comments They gaze at me from my newspaper, the young men and women fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan, 153 of them this month. Their eyes meet mine, smiling, proud, intent on bright futures now forever...
ESSAY- Scribo, ergo sum: Everybody's got something to say
Published on May 17th, 2007
0 comments Hummingbirds? Here? I'd never seen one. And then, on a Sunday afternoon, my husband came home with a hummingbird feeder. He filled it with sugar water dyed red, hung it up on the porch, and within...
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-...