State
White Fear, White Guilt, White Silence, White Paralysis
By Frank Blechman I used to think that white fear was the root problem of racism in America. As a white guy, I had some reason to believe that nonwhite people might not feel kindly toward us. White people could… Read More ›
Around the Novahood
PWC ESTABLISHES PUBLIC DEFENDER Virginia’s second-most-populous jurisdiction, and the only Virginia county that is majority-people of color, Prince William County, has lacked a public defender’s office. It relied, instead on a system of poorly compensated, court-appointed counsel to represent low-income defendants…. Read More ›
COVID Spawns Bipolar Political Behavior
The COVID pandemic is likely to have many, as yet unknown, long-term effects. In the short term, there appear to be a number of distressing political phenomena that can be head-scratching. Some extremes in response to the pandemic offer divergent… Read More ›
Is Seafood Brain Food?
VoxFairfax has previously posted on the concept of canards as threats to rational thought and discussion. It seems certain that at least once in your life you have heard that seafood is “brain food.” Indeed, a 2016 article in Forbes,… Read More ›
An Alamo State of Mind
By Frank Blechman In 2012, New York Times writer and columnist Gail Collins published a wonderful book entitled As Texas Goes, an examination of the outsized influence of Texas on American national politics and policies. In it, she reviews how… Read More ›
Electoral College Subverts Democracy
Editors’ Note: Sourced from The Washington Post, May 17, 2020. By E. J. Dionne Jr. A dangerous virus lurks in our republican democracy. It’s the electoral college. If you doubt this, please read the transcript of the Supreme Court oral argument last… Read More ›
Vacuous VPAP Visuals Vex Viewers
The business of politics is very often fraught with hurly-burly, i.e. noisy confusion, tumult. Facts are even more often elusive or, at a minimum, subject to multiple interpretations, or spin, and, even on occasion, to being declared “alternative.” The Commonwealth’s… Read More ›
VA Inmates: Engine of Prison Capitalism
Editors’ Note: Sourced in part from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 9, 2020. In 1871, the Virginia Supreme Court declared that prisoners were “slaves of the state.” That edict has been emulated across the nation throughout its prison systems. Recently, the… Read More ›
Beyond Reasonable Doubt
For nearly 300 years following its founding until 1909, Virginia’s capital punishment preference was hanging. Up to 1918, another 90 individuals were dispatched by lynching, sometime characterized by the euphemistic term “extra-judicial” procedure. In a race to lead, Virginia has… Read More ›