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The wind, the sun and the summer of 2020
For a while now, but especially in the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about “The North Wind and the Sun.” If you know your Aesop, you’ve read the fable. The Sun and the North Wind engage in a contest to see who can get a traveler to remove his cloak. The Wind goes first, […]
Why do we know more about a rabid raccoon attack than COVID-19 outbreaks in Virginia?
In March, the nation watched in horror as refrigerated trucks appeared outside hospitals in New York City to handle the overflow of bodies of people who died from COVID-19. In July, more than four months after the pandemic was declared, Texas and Arizona were among states requesting the morgue trucks and it was hard to […]
Delays, legal challenges allowed the curtain to be pulled back on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
They might as well have said “Ding-dong, the witch is dead!” The news releases, statements and tweets were coming in hot and heavy Sunday afternoon after Dominion Energy and its partner, Duke Energy, announced that the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline was toast, undone by a string of successful legal challenges that stripped it of permits, […]
‘I was in a gang. It’s called the police.’ It’s time to change American policing.
At the time, I laughed. Nearly 13 years later, amid the protests convulsing American cities over police brutality and racism, it doesn’t seem like a joke. I was writing profiles of the candidates vying to replace a longtime south Louisiana sheriff and Godfrey “Doc” Buquet, a retired chief of detectives who looked more than a […]
Protests over George Floyd’s death spread to Virginia
Protesters in Richmond and Hampton Roads blocked highways and started fires Friday night as unrest that has gripped the country following the death of George Floyd during his arrest by police in Minnesota spread to Virginia. In Richmond, at least one car, a Dumpster and a GRTC Pulse bus were set afire. Protests continued in […]
Fix FOIA: The pandemic is throwing Virginia’s public records shortcomings into stark relief
Last month, as it was becoming apparent that Virginia was lagging other states in testing capacity and struggling to procure enough protective gear for long-term care facilities, first responders and hospitals, Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration announced it had reached a deal with global consulting firm McKinsey and Company to shore up those aspects of the […]
The spiteful horns of the unhelpful
They came. They honked. They went. A few hundred protesters, in a demonstration that appears to be linked to a conservative push to make some political hay out of stay-at-home orders and social distancing shutdowns and egged on by cynical Virginia politicians and President Donald Trump, cruised around the Virginia Capitol Wednesday, laying on their […]
Lawmakers delay minimum wage, maintain election schedule in extraordinary session
Protesters in cars honked endlessly as they circled the Capitol. The Speaker of the House collapsed on the dais as she led a floor session. A lawmaker cast votes from a Plexiglas enclosure. The typically sleepy reconvened session of the Virginia General Assembly on Thursday fully reflected the bizarre world into which we’ve all been […]
Gallery: Images from a reconvened session like no other as lawmakers return to Richmond
Lawmakers were back in Richmond Wednesday for the reconvened, or veto, session, when they act on gubernatorial vetoes and amendments. But, given the pandemic, it was one like no other, drawing right wing protesters opposed to Gov. Ralph Northam’s stay-at-home order and other social distancing restrictions. To keep be able to keep their own distance […]
Adventures in social distancing
The sales clerk craned her neck to the right, squinting as she peered past about a hundred yards of aisles. “I see a pallet back there. You should probably go check it out,” she said. Standing six feet away on a large red circle (a social distancing aid) installed on the floor, I had asked, […]
In a maelstrom of mistakes, failing to learn from this pandemic would be the gravest error
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about an interview I did on a bleak day in December of 2016 in Buchanan County. In the gravel lot of a maintenance yard for coal-bed methane machinery, a 68-year-old heavy equipment operator was showing me his truck — festooned with Trump and “Hillary for Prison” stickers — for […]
Rate review bill lands on Senate committee docket with little time to spare
A much-watched bill that would restore the ability of the State Corporation Commission to review Dominion Energy’s base rates has been placed on the docket for the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee’s Monday meeting. The bipartisan legislation by Del. Jay Jones, D-Norfolk, and Del. Lee Ware, R-Powhatan, cleared the House on a 77-23 vote but […]