A conservative’s take on the Fifth
Former candidate blogs, talks up congressional race
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Republicans can knock off freshman Fifth District Congressman Tom Perriello in November, but it won’t be easy.
The assumption among some on the right is that Perriello won in 2008 on the coattails of Barack Obama, but as Internet-radio host Bradley Rees points out, John McCain beat Obama in the presidential voting in the Fifth by a healthy margin, “and yet Tom Perriello still won by 727 votes.”
Rees is a former candidate for the GOP nomination in the Fifth who is now devoting his energies to covering the race as a blogger and podcaster with a right-of-center perspective. A focal point for Rees, as he detailed in an interview on The AFP Show podcast on Monday, is moving the Republican Party nomination race to the right, a tall task with moderate State Sen. Robert Hurt appearing to be in the driver’s seat at this point. Read more
$10 Blackfriars tickets this week
Staff Report
News tips: freepress2@ntelos.net
The American Shakespeare Center announced today that it is offering $10 tickets for every performance this week of the three productions now playing at the Blackfriars Playhouse: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, and The Alchemist by Ben Jonson.
This special promotion is the ASC’s response to the snowy weather that has hit the mid-Atlantic region in the last few weeks and has kept theatre patrons and retail shoppers home.
“For our patrons who can make it safely to the Blackfriars Playhouse, we’re offering a reason to dig out of their snow bunkers and come enjoy a show,” said ASC Artistic Director Jim Warren. “We also want to help boost business for local hotels, restaurants, and shops that count on the Blackfriars to bring folks out to enjoy a night on the town.” Read more
The Rant | Mark Warner for president
Video Essay by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
The country could use somebody in charge in Washington who knows how to get the job done.
Virginians will remember somebody who is in Washington now who when he was in charge of things in the State Capitol could get things done there.
Mark Warner, we need you! That’s Chris Graham’s message in today’s Rant. Read more
Harrisonburg-Rockingham Real Estate Report
Column by Scott Rogers
www.harrisonburghousingreport.com
January 2010 sales (45) topped January 2009 sales (38). Furthermore, each of the preceding three months (Oct ’09, Nov ’09 and Dec ’09) showed equal or greater home sales than the same month in 2008.
Could it be that the pace of our local real estate market is finally picking up again? Read more
Health Desk: Wednesday, Feb. 10
- RMH lifts visitor restrictions
- Home Instead announces CAREGiver of the Year
- Free, not fee, the way to go in obesity, smoking cessation counseling
- Study reveals a need to evaluate and regulate ‘electronic cigarettes’
- Nutrition initiative
Edited by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
RMH lifts restrictions on visitors under age 18: Due to the decrease in the incidence of H1N1 influenza, RMH has lifted its restriction on visitors age 18 and under.
Healthy children and youth are now allowed to visit in the hospital. However, if there is an increase in the incidence of H1N1 or other influenza, the restriction will be reinstated.
Visitors are still limited to two per patient. Exceptions may be granted for those visiting patients who have life-threatening conditions.
RMH continues to screen visitors at hospital entrances for flu-like symptoms. Protective face masks and hand sanitizer are available at hospital entrances as well. Read more
Letters to the Editor
- An open letter to state leaders
- Out of touch
An open letter to state leaders
Submit letters: freepress2@ntelos.net
As a new decade begins, this letter is sent to the leaders of the executive and legislative branches of Virginia government with best wishes for success in addressing the difficult issues facing the state and its citizens in 2010 and beyond. The economy, jobs, education, the budget, and transportation among other issues make up a daunting agenda for Virginia. As witnessed in the nation’s capitol this year, one or two complex and controversial issues can dominate the agenda and divide the parties, resulting in gridlock. With your leadership we believe that Virginia can avoid the problems and pitfalls of the Washington scene and make this legislative session a success for our state and all of its citizens.
In that context, we bring to your attention an issue that has plagued the General Assembly and the state for many years and that is the issue of predatory lending. Unfortunately, Virginia is a state that has been a perennial haven for predatory lending of all stripes including payday, car title, and open-ended lending. By any other name, predatory lending is legalized usury and in practice means annual interest rates of 400% or more along with devious schemes to trap the borrower in a cycle of debt leading to bankruptcy, foreclosures, and financial ruin. Read more
HeartThrobs: Love’s got everything to do with it
Column by Jim Bishop
Submit guest columns: freepress2@ntelos.net
“The Fourteen of February every year
It happens all over this planet,
For on this day love melts the heart
That’s usually taken for granite.”
So what else is ode? That’s a poem that isn’t new.
Johnny Tillotson crooned his way to the top ten in 1960 with “Poetry in Motion” . . . “see her gentle sway. A wave out on the ocean could never move that way.” Aaah, they don’t express lyrical sentiments like that anymore (thank goodness, you say?).
The Playmates inquired, “What is Love?” in 1959 and suggested it was “five feet of heaven and a pony tail.” Neigh . . . how many people today even know what a pony tail is or what a hairstyle has to do with love?
I do know that my first personification of love, in third grade, had freckles and strawberry-blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail. I had no idea she even liked me until one fateful day on the school bus she told me she wanted to tell me a secret, and in front of astonished peers planted a kiss on my pristine cheek. Read more
Making the correct decision
Column by Bruce Sallan
www.brucesallan.com
One of the many things that we try to teach our children is how to make a good decision. Sometimes the problem can be that we may not always make good decisions ourselves or we may allow emotions to influence our choices. I found this to be true in a recent argument I had with my older son and a latter discussion about an important choice he wanted to make.
The argument was about his last-minute decision to back out of his promise to come skiing with me over Winter Break, preferring instead to stay home with his friends (and girlfriend). I got angry as he made this decision days before we were supposed to leave, thus leaving me high and dry with little time to find a friend to come in his place. My wife and other son were already scheduled to go on a very special trip to Japan and Hong Kong. Read more
Basic skills
Column by Leanne Ely
www.savingdinner.com
Basic kitchen skills translate into meal making, a crucial component to running a home. Now before you start to panic, please know that doesn’t mean you need a degree from Cordon Bleu in order to make dinner for your family! You need skills—that is all. That and a good recipe or two. (I can help you with that!)
Cooking skills fall into two different categories: preparation and actual cooking. Preparation involves getting the food ready to be cooked, using skills such as chopping, dicing, and other fun stuff with a knife. All of this translates into preparation, or prep work as we Dinner Divas like to call it.
The cooking part (this is where you dispense of the knife and start using the heat) can be a little tricky, but mostly it’s because the cook doesn’t know the stove. Getting to know your own stovetop is as essential as understanding concepts like preheating (don’t put the food in until the oven is heated to the indicated temperature), broiling (food cooked under the heat source), and my favorite, grilling outdoors on a barbecue grill. Read more
The man behind the whistle
Spears recounts 32 years at the Waynesboro YMCA
Story by Chris Graham
www.waynesboroymca.com
You just assume that John Spears was always the John Spears that we all know and love – the basketball coach who knows how to get the most out of his players, the high-school and college referee who can bring a hostile gym or arena to silence or an uproar with a single whistle.
It all started because Spears got hooked on noontime basketball at the YMCA 32 years ago.
“I was working second shift at the Howard Johnson’s, and somebody told me about noon ball at the Y. I came down, and I got hooked, and the rest is history,” said Spears, the director of youth sports at the Waynesboro YMCA. Read more
Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing
Howard Dean, Tim Kaine, Vince Lombardi, and a guy named Phil Bengston
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
When the football team starts losing games, the fan base tends to start getting antsy, and when the losses compound into a losing season, you can start hearing calls for the coach’s head.
Politics isn’t unlike football in that respect, which brings us to the curious case of Tim Kaine, the former Virginia governor who was tapped by Barack Obama in January 2009 to head up the Democratic National Committee, a playoff team at the time, to borrow from the football analogy.
The coach that Kaine was replacing was former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who pulled himself up from having been the frontrunner who couldn’t in the 2004 Democratic Party presidential nomination race to basically being the man responsible for rebuilding the DNC from the ashes of two stinging White House defeats on the wings of his controversial 50-state strategy. In the process Dean established himself as a sort of Vince Lombardi of the Democratic Party, the party’s triumphs in the 2006 midterms and the 2008 Obama win in the presidential race being his back-to-back Super Bowls. Read more
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The Rant | Talk to the hand
Posted on February 9, 2010 · 5 Comments
Video Essay by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
What’s so bad about crib notes, Graham asks, especially when you’re trying to remember important points that you want to make?
The answer: absolutely nothing. Read more
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with AFP.com News, augusta free press, chris graham, sarah palin, sarah palin crib notes, sarah palin notes hand, sarah palin talk to the hand, Sports & Blogs, the augusta free press