Story by Chris Graham
Jim McCloskey had had the same feeling after 9/11.
How could you possibly come up with a cartoon that could measure up to the horror that we were all seeing on our TV screens?
 

“As a cartoonist, that was the real challenge that I had,” says McCloskey, an editorial cartoonist at The News Leader [...]

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Story by Erik Curren
Civil War battlefields and horse farms, or Tysons Corner and subdivisions - which comes to mind when you think of Northern Virginia?
Your answer will most likely determine your attitude to a controversial plan by Dominion Virginia Power to build a $243 million high-voltage power line over a 65-mile stretch of half-a-dozen counties [...]

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Story by Theresa Curry
When Front Royal author Christine Andreae needed a plot device to begin her wildlife thriller, Grizzly, she introduced a corpse. Skinned, and minus its heads, hands and feet, the body kicked off a murder investigation, until the forensics lab reported the gruesome body was that of a male bear.
“This was a grizzly, [...]

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Story by Chris Graham 
If any of the four moderate-conservative Republican senators being challenged for their party nominations was thought to be vulnerable, it was Emmett Hanger.
Go figure, then, that Hanger, R-Mount Solon, was the one incumbent who didn’t have to sweat much the night of the June 12 primaries.

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Story by Chris Graham
I’ll be the first to say that I wish that more restaurants prohibited indoor smoking - I mean, seriously, I have asthma and can barely breathe as it is without somebody blowing unfiltered Winston or Marlboro into my lungs.
But that said, do I think restaurants should be required to ban indoor smoking?
The [...]

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Story by Chris Graham
You’ve heard this story before - a former Virginia governor known on the national scene is making a run at the White House.
It’s Mark Warner, right?
No.
That’s right - he dropped out.
George Allen?
Oh, yeah - he lost his Senate re-election bid last fall.
Don’t tell me - Jim Gilmore?

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Story by Chris Graham
One way to look at the 2006 midterms is to view it as being about the war in Iraq, about voters’ frustrations with the Bush administration, about Republicans letting themselves get caught up in too many scandals, about Democrats finally finding some middle-of-the-road candidates to carry the flag for them.
University of Virginia [...]

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Column by Quentin Kidd
V.O. Key, the great scholar of Southern politics, once said of Virginia’s political class: “(It) demonstrates a sense of honor, an aversion to open venality, a degree of sensitivity to public opinion, a concern for efficiency in administration, and, so long as it does not cost much, a feeling of social responsibility.”
Key, [...]

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Story by Chris Graham
When someone with the Q rating that Jerry Falwell built for himself from his humble beginnings as a small-time Lynchburg pastor to having the ear of the most powerful man in the free world dies, you can almost bet that the words that are said in remembrance are going to be positive, [...]

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Story by Chris Graham
I didn’t know why I was there.
I mean, I had long since given up on the idea that I was going to somehow land an audience with the Queen.
Oh, I had harbored that illusion early on - specifically back late last year, when word made its way from across the pond that [...]

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Story by Theresa Curry
White House and Virginia chefs chose springtime as the menu theme for Queen Elizabeth’s May visit, highlighting products at their peak in early May.
As Her Majesty noted in her formal address, times have changed since her last visit. The food world has changed, too: The best American chefs don’t try to dazzle [...]

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Story by Chris Graham
“Who’s Pedro?” Eddie Garcia says to me - only I don’t know it’s the radio DJ that I’d interviewed on the phone a week earlier that I’m talking to, because he’s not in radio-DJ character, as he was then, and otherwise I only know him from his diary on the liberal website [...]

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Story by Chris Graham
Tim Leaton was able to meet Isaac Mwesigwa because of that video camera that he got for Christmas in middle school.
Go figure, right?
“One of the main reasons that I brought my camera over was the purpose of showing the church where their money was going, and how much it was helping these [...]

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »

Story by Chris Graham
That was just - just wrong.
That poor guy - Howard Bryan, I think his name was, though I’m half-afraid to go back and look to make sure - he didn’t deserve that fate.
Nobody deserves that fate.
The guy got, you know, flambéed, right there in front of his cousin Yule.
And - by what, [...]

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue | No Comments »