By John A. Calhoun This week, our nation added Orlando to the roll-call of cities mourning the deaths of those who had no reason to die. They died because of our immorally irresponsible policies that allow anyone – anyone including those on terrorist watch lists, those convicted of hate crimes, […]

As hard as it may be to believe, 2016 is nearly half over already. July 1, 2016 is not only the mid-point of the year (and it’s not only my birthday) it’s also the day that all the new laws Virginia General Assembly passed and the Governor signed become law […]

For this Father’s Day, I’ll honor my old man by sharing some intimate information that he himself never knew. The late Keith Clark (1923-81) spent nearly half his life as an Arlingtonian (I count six addresses beginning during World War II). As an intelligence professional, he was comfortable with secrecy. […]

From a number of standpoints, we see both the inevitability and the benefit of hitting the “restart” button on the West End Campus Development Project in Falls Church. The proposal to abandon the current approach and to treat the two component parts – the educational and commercial – of the […]

A meals tax is one of the few additional revenue sources available to localities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Code of Virginia, 58.1-3833, defines a meals tax as a “tax on food and beverages sold, for human consumption, by a restaurant…not to exceed four percent of the amount charged […]

By Greg Cox Most Falls Church residents have observed groups of day laborers outside the U-Haul facility on Broad Street and across the street at the Staples shopping center. Undoubtedly there are different reactions to this, ranging from sympathy to anger. Seeking a solution that is responsive to multiple viewpoints, […]

One of the more rewarding compensations of arriving at late-middle age is an increased appreciation of the inevitability of certain historical trends. I’m not talking cosmic, here, or millennia, but certainly decades, even centuries. Say, from the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In this case, the trend I’m thinking […]

Like many parents whose kids have moved beyond the school system, I have faded in recent years from the PTA and school policy activism in which I once reveled. So I was pleased to get my feet wet again last month when I was asked to help judge college scholarship […]

Falls Church citizen Paul Allen, founder of Ancestry.com, recalled “As a boy, I watched ‘Roots’ on TV and was moved by that story. Alex Haley powerfully captured in his stories what he called the ‘hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage. We started Ancestry.com with the hope that every person in […]

A determination of prejudice and bigotry can never be subject to a popular vote, as the entire history of the civil rights movement attests. To argue that the name change of J.E.B. Stuart High School should be subject to a popular vote is flawed for just this reason. The same […]