Commentary
America is in the middle of a labor mobilization moment
By John Logan Labor Day 2022 comes smack bang in the middle of what is increasingly looking like a pivotal year in the history of American unions. The summer has seen a steady stream of workforce mobilizations. Employees at Trader Joe’s locations in Massachusetts and Minneapolis both voted to unionize. Meanwhile, restaurant chain Chipotle saw […]
There has never been a better time to fence cattle out of streams
By Bobby Whitescarver My wife and I are beef cattle farmers in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Two years ago, we enrolled in Virginia’s Agricultural Best Management Practice Cost-Share Program. We used this state funding to fence our cattle out of the streams and develop a rotational grazing system. The program opened a huge door […]
No solution, but gun buybacks can be a small part of overall crime prevention
They’re easy to sponsor and hold. They allow residents, especially in crime-ridden communities around the commonwealth, to feel encouraged. They take a handful of tools of murder off the streets. Many localities in Virginia have sponsored gun buybacks this summer. They include Richmond, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Roanoke. The town of Dumfries adopted an ordinance paving […]
A new passenger rail corridor could connect Hampton Roads to Blacksburg and beyond
The drive between Richmond and Charlottesville takes a little over an hour. However, to take a train for the same trip requires eight and a half hours. The picture is similarly bleak for travelers between Norfolk and Roanoke: the four-and-a-half-hour drive takes nearly four times as long via train — 16 hours. The Commonwealth Corridor, […]
Under new management
From The New Yorker: “When private equity takes over a nursing home: After an investment firm bought St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged, in Richmond, Virginia, the company reduced staff, removed amenities, and set the stage for a deadly outbreak of COVID-19.”
Virginia heads into the fall as a barometer for U.S. House control
If you are determined to stay awake until you know which political party will control the U.S. House of Representatives next year, you will be sleepless throughout the long night of Nov. 8 and possibly past dawn on Nov. 9. Or, if you want a pretty good idea how things are going to go, just […]
Innovative partnership for Petersburg shouldn’t be judged by politics
Few cities have boosters as effusive as Yvette Robinson of Petersburg. The longtime resident attended this week’s unique, wide-ranging partnership announcement by Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Petersburg Mayor Samuel Parham to bolster the struggling community. Robinson was so pumped by the announcement she wanted EVERYBODY to know it was time to jettison negativity and work […]
Crossing the Delaware, 2022
From The Virginia Mercury: “Among Balow’s criticisms of the draft standards was their use of the word “succession” instead of “secession.” She also referenced the removal of the “Father of our Country” title for George Washington and “Father of the Constitution” title for James Madison, which the Department of Education has said was done in error.”
RGGI funds have been a game-changer for many low-income homes
By Chelsea Harnish As Congress passes historic climate legislation for the first time in decades, Virginia has already been combating climate change via the commonwealth’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a market-based carbon-reduction program. RGGI auctions provide vital funds for flood resiliency and low-income energy efficiency programs, improving the health and safety […]
Football must address brain trauma to survive
Tomorrow, the first rituals of fall and a fresh school year will renew themselves as boys (and some girls) across Virginia snap the chin straps to their helmets, dig their cleats into the turf and start a new season of high school football. For me, the nostalgia gets so thick I could spread it with […]
Blacks, others shouldn’t have to obliterate their presence to receive fair home value
Another case of likely racial discrimination in housing appraisals has cropped up, this time in Baltimore. The New York Times recently reported a Black husband and wife first received an appraisal of $472,000. After they “whitewashed” their home – removing family photos and having a White colleague stand in for them as the “owner” – […]
Charlottesville is more than Unite the Right. But many Americans won’t see it that way.
Selma. Kent State. Both are known to history, at least on first blush, as loaded euphemisms for notoriously violent upheavals, characterizations that blemish the goodness of those places and their people. Just over five years ago, another city joined the list of those that need no state name, datelines that stand alone in implied infamy. […]