Harrisonburg: WWLD?

Jim Bishop

Story by Jim Bishop For those who’ve asked, “What Would Lloyd Do?”, some possible answers to this not-so-rhetorical question are provided in a new play with music written by and starring Ted Swartz and Trent Wagler, that will premiere at Eastern Mennonite University’s fall homecoming and parents weekend. In the two-act, 90-minute play, a struggling…

Jim Bishop: When Life is Laced With Touches of Grace

Jim Bishop

Column by Jim Bishop The five o’clock traffic jam whistle has sounded – yabba dabba doooooo! – time to shut down the computer, turn off lights, lock up the office and welcome the weekend. Suddenly, I noticed the white ring around the fourth finger of my left hand where my wedding band should be. What…

William Owens Jr.: Obama’s speeches don’t talk much about history

AFP

Column by William Owens Jr. History is rarely reflected upon by Obama or included in his stump speeches unless it is biographical. Why? Obama thinks we need to redistribute wealth, and history has shown it does not work (just ask Eastern Europe). Should Obama cite Marx or any other socialist philosophers he subscribes to, history…

Waynesboro: An open invitation to Barack Obama

Chris Graham

Column by Chris Graham [email protected] So now the world knows how badly Waynesboro wants its Obama-Biden signs. I wasn’t aiming at getting coverage on the front page of the Washington Post’s Virginia section, but sometimes these little crusades that you start at 2 in the morning trying to post an item on what you assumed…

David Reynolds: Strong Mayors=Strong Cities

David Reynolds

Column by David Reynolds Last night, if you were able break away from the distant static of the presidential campaign, there was an opportunity to participate in another campaign, this one up close and civil. There was a forum held in Lexington to have the candidates for mayor and city council (all elected at large)…

Staunton: 73 New Americans

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] Dayanara Delgado Najarro came to America a few years back for the same reason that my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents did back in the 1730s. The operative word here is opportunity. “I’m trying to get a better education than what I had and a better opportunity than I would have in my country….

Ad Watch: Obama ad featuring Lilly Ledbetter

Chris Graham

Item by Chris Graham [email protected] The Barack Obama campaign released today a TV ad featuring Lilly Ledbetter, the Alabama woman whose fight for equal pay for equal work for women is featured in today’s Augusta Free Press. The ad is called “Need Education,” playing on comments made by John McCain made to explain his opposition…

Business and Politics: Equal pay for equal work

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] You’ve probably never heard the name Lilly Ledbetter, so you might think it unusual that Michelle Obama would go out of her way to talk about how “amazing” the retired grandmother is. “I know that there are many people here who didn’t know her story, didn’t understand the origins of…

David Cox: Highway to the low road

David Cox

Column by David Cox Among other things, I teach ethics at Dabney. That is why I’m all the more uncomfortable with the direction of this year’s political campaign. Ever since both presidential candidates promised, each in his way, a new form of politics, my discomfort, like the campaign, is growing worse. Yes, Barack Obama took…

Charlottesville: Michelle Obama talks change

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] It’s time for new solutions, Michelle Obama told a rally of 2,500 people on Grounds at the University of Virginia Wednesday afternoon, “because we know that the old ways just won’t do.” Obama, the wife of Democratic Party presidential nominee Barack Obama, and Jill Biden, the wife of Delaware senator…