Editors’ Note: Reposted with permission from the Virginia Mercury, March 24, 2022. https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/03/24/we-must-do-something-to-stem-this-wanton-bloodshed/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=c75058e2-2b46-4209-bc66-e7dbf0589cda By Roger Chesley Please make them stop. I’m talking about the wanton, reckless firearm slayings that happen too often in Virginia and around the country. The victims… Read More ›
POLICING
Beyond Our Border
OKLAHOMA A line from the title song of the musical relates that “You’re doing fine, Oklahoma; Oklahoma, OK!” The Sooner State received its nickname as settlers in 1889 lined up at the border to make claims to Native American lands… Read More ›
The Crime of Being a Child–Especially a Black Child
It is becoming increasingly evident that, just as driving while Black and walking while Black have become “crimes” that often draw police attention almost anywhere in America, simply being a Black child in a public school can likewise get one… Read More ›
Outside the Novahood
CAN’T FLOAT THIS BOAT IN YORKTOWN In the wake of a controversial entry into this year’s Yorktown Lighted Boat Parade (see photo), the Yorktown Foundation issued a statement saying that the polarizing messaging of one entry was overtly political and… Read More ›
Around the Novahood
1 LIBRARY FINES NO MORE Fairfax County has joined neighbors Alexandria City and Loudoun and Prince William counties in eliminating fines for overdue books and other materials. Experiences in the other jurisdictions has shown a marked increase in the return… Read More ›
War on Children, Chapter 6
Editors’ Note: This is the final chapter of a six-chapter expose by ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit “newsroom” that produces investigative journalism “with moral force.” The treatment of children in Tennessee reported here, of whatever race, by local officials, is almost… Read More ›
Around the Novahood
OUTFOXING THE CRITTERS Many traditions represent nostalgic calls to remember cherished moments or events of the past. Some traditions, however, are prized by the few and evoke sentiments of a type of noblesse oblige of past class structure. Out of… Read More ›
The Itinerant Vigilante
Don Quixote was not a vigilante in the literal sense of the term. His self-appointed mission was essentially to revive the romantic qualities of medieval chivalry as a knight errant wandering in search of adventures. An ideal knight represented a… Read More ›
No Honor, No Decency
It is something of a general maxim that political leaders rely upon the short term memory of the public to continue in their roles, even after exposure of horrendous behavior. Faith, however, in the collective sensibility of that Great Unwashed… Read More ›