Guest Editorial: Virginia’s Easy Access to Guns
A parent asks why background checks aren’t better.
How do you respond to a 7 year old when she comes home from school and says “we did our bad man drill today Mommy, but don’t worry it was just for practice, no one really came into our school to shoot us”?
Column: “Mor-Tality” or Less
Meaning, in my head anyway, the future and what there is left of it. More specifically, I mean life expectancy. When you’re given a “13-month to two-year” prognosis—at age 54 and a half, by a cancer doctor, your cancer doctor—the timeline between where you are and where you thought you’d be when becomes as clear as mud.
Commentary: In Search of Affordable Housing
Challenges for Residential Studio Units and the need to address them.
Fairfax County’s Planning Commission will hold two workshops on Wednesday, Sept. 25 and Oct. 2 to expand the discussion about the proposed residential studio unit (RSU) amendment to the Zoning Ordinance. There will be a staff presentation on Sept. 25, and questions submitted online by citizens to the Planning Department will be answered in the second workshop on Oct 2. The plan is for both workshops to be televised on the county’s cable station.
Editorial: Vote
It will matter who is elected governor.
To vote on Election Day, you must be registered at your current address no later than Oct. 15, 2013. You can check your registration status online by visiting the State Board of Elections website at www.sbe.virginia.gov. There you can also download a voter registration form and mail or fax it to your elections office address.
Column: A Study in Contrasts
The decision for yours truly to participate in a Phase 1 Study at N.I.H. or Johns Hopkins (depending upon availability and qualifications) discussed in last week’s column has been put on hold, temporarily. It seems that my oncologist was thinking about me over the holiday weekend and called me on Wednesday following Labor Day to say he had a diagnostic idea concerning me: a 24-hour urine collection (a “Creatinine Clearance Study”) which would provide a more accurate reading (than the regular lab work I have; from blood) of my kidney function.
Column: A Peculiar Existence
I’m not exactly pretending that I don’t have stage IV lung cancer (non-small cell, to be specific), but ever since my hospital admission on August 2nd, I have been treatment-free; no I.V. chemotherapy, no oral medication, no targeted treatment, no nothing. And during this sabbatical (I use that term loosely; being off chemotherapy has been as much about recovering from surgery and recuperating from my hospital “stay-cation” as it was anything necessarily intended), I have progressed from feeling crappy and being short of breath—while being infused previously, to where I have become relatively asymptomatic, breathing normally and for the nearly eight week treatment-free interval mentioned, have felt mostly OK.
Editorial: Addressing Virginia’s Economy
Ending gridlock in Congress and supporting health care reform would be huge steps in supporting economic recovery in Virginia.
The strength of Virginia’s economy, especially Northern Virginia’s economy, comes significantly from federal spending. So while the governor and other elected officials claim that Virginia’s success is because Virginia is a low-tax state with fewer regulations, it’s worth considering that the sequester and continuing gridlock in Congress threaten Virginia’s most important resource, federal spending.
Letter: Joining Forces to Prevent Homelessness
You can prevent homelessness, you can end chronic homelessness, you can move people rapidly out of homelessness. What you cannot do is stand aside and let people fall. This simple belief—that together we can change the rate and severity of people losing their homes—brings together nonprofits, for-profits, civic leaders and government staff. We each play a special role, depending on our location and mission. For United Community Ministries (UCM), prevention is the key.
Column: Now This is What
Do nothing (no more treatment) and live life to the fullest (for as long as I’m able, and right now, I’m extremely able); start another chemotherapy protocol – with an I.V. chemotherapy drug which, according to my oncologist, has not been proven in any clinical setting to be better than the patient doing nothing; or, try to get into a Study (Phase 1, 2 or 3) at either N.I.H. (National Institutes of Health) or Johns Hopkins (in Baltimore) and let the treatment chips fall wherever experimental/research medicine takes them. This is what my oncologist discussed with Team Lourie at my most recent appointment, my first appointment with him since my hospitalization and subsequent release.
Opinion: Dangers of Failure To Act
Our current and future standing in the international community is on the line.
President Obama has sought Congressional approval to carry out limited surgical strikes in Syria against the regime of Bashar al Assad in response to his use of chemical weapons to attack Syrian civilians, which killed 1,429 people, including 426 children.
Editorial: Later Start Times for High School
It’s past time to act; let this year be the year.
Tuesday morning, Sept. 3, the first day of school in Fairfax County, Dr. Karen Garza began her official day at 6:30 a.m. at Chantilly High School. While Garza was making herself available for interviews before the first class started at 7:20 a.m., many students were already on the school bus.
Column: Indeterminate Sentence
And no, that’s not another made-up phrase by yours truly describing my occasionally cluttered/run-on prose with which many of you extremely patient regular readers are all too familiar. No, it has to do with how I perceive my future now that I’m post-hospital and sleeping in my own bed. Instead of nurses, respiratory therapists, X-ray technicians, doctors and miscellaneous other hospital staff too numerous to list, I have one wife and five cats to do my bidding. And though they’re not nearly as attentive as the hospital staff, I know that they all have my best interests at heart.
‘Shared Work:’ A Win-Win-Win Solution
Preventing layoffs, maintaining the well-being of employees and their communities and keeping businesses competitive.
How do we mitigate the devastating effects of layoffs on employees, employers and their communities? Is there a "win-win-win" solution?
Column: From Weak to Week
Eight days and seven nights. Not exactly the vacation I was planning. Nevertheless, admitted to the hospital on Friday, August 2nd. Discharged on Friday, August 9th: that was my hospital “staycation.” Though I definitely improved as the post-surgical week went on, the process itself – specifically, nearly four days in S.I.C.U. (Surgical Intensive Care) with round-the-clock monitoring, nursing and doctoring – was hardly restful. In fact, if you read the following prose, you’ll presumably develop an understanding of the cons.
Letter: Pulled Back to 18th Century
I read with interest Del. Barbara Comstock’s piece [“Investing in 21st Century Industries and Jobs,” Connection, August 21-27, 2013]. If Ms. Comstock really wants to make Virginia a welcoming destination for new businesses, she should stop voting for socially repressive and discriminatory legislation. Tax breaks and open land are not the only factors that companies consider when deciding to make a move. Top executives also consider traffic problems and education, both issues whose solutions Ms. Comstock has failed to support.