Brief Cases will be published occasionally to update information on previously published articles and/or to add comment upon them. Sometimes the content will be new, particularly as we deem the material to be of note. FISHY STORY REDUX: VIRGINIA MENHADEN… Read More ›
State
Electoral Turnout Dynamics
As the above VPAP visual illustrates, turnout was all-important in last month’s election. It was the highest it’s been in the past 20 years, 7 percentage points higher than the next-highest level, in 1999. The Commonwealth records 5,628,989 registered voters… Read More ›
Why We Have Not Killed All the Lawyers
The Industrial Revolution in the United States spawned vast wealth, manufacturing regions, and an array of commercial processes and products the envy of the rest of the world, as well as customers across the globe. Industrialization brought millions of immigrants… Read More ›
Death Be Not Proud
Death be not proud: the opening words to Holy Sonnet X by the English poet John Donne (1572-1631) are generally interpreted by literary scholars as a prelude to the balance of the sonnet’s theme, asserting that death is truly powerless in… Read More ›
New Voters Turned Virginia Blue
Editors’ Note: An insightful analysis reposted from The New York Times, November 9, 2019. By Sabrina Tavernise and Robert Gebeloff SOUTH RIDING, Va. — Not long ago, this rolling green stretch of Northern Virginia was farmland. Most people who could vote had grown up here. And… Read More ›
VA 2019 Elections and Tea Leaves
By Frank Blechman Because I work in political campaigns and have been doing so since 1960, I am often asked, after an election, “What do these results mean?” I am then supposed to make some prediction for the future based… Read More ›
Fairfax County Police: A Brief History
In 1930, the population of Fairfax County was a bit over 25,000. By 1940, it was nearly 41,000, inflated by the post-Depression economy and the proliferation of the federal workforce and military. The Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD) was created… Read More ›
THE SUBSTITUTION ORDER by Martin Clark: A Review
Reviewed by Jim McCarthy The author is a retired circuit court judge having served 27 years on the bench in Virginia. The Substitution Order, the latest of four works, was recently reviewed in The New York Times Book Review, catching this reader’s… Read More ›
Eating their Own: Gunfight at the Waples Mill Corral
A gunfight at the Waples Mill Corral, a/k/a the National Rifle Association, has resulted in an unknown number of wounded individuals in recent days, none related to the Hatfields or McCoys, although the brouhaha had the earmarks of a deadly… Read More ›