When they gave me tenure at the university I flew out to Wyoming to give my mother the good news face to face. I knew she’d appreciate that, and it had been a while, quite a while in fact, since I’d seen her. It was not the easiest time for such a trip. My new book was just coming out, with all the last-minute changes and all the obligations that involves. But I was able to grade student papers on the plane. And I needed the change of scene. Even my familiar boyhood home constituted read more

I’m an assistant D.A., a lawyer in other words, and people don’t think too highly of us. But let me tell you something: the rest of society doesn’t seem, from a lawyer’s point of view, to necessarily have its act together either. Maybe it takes a lawyer to get an honest picture of things, without any prettyfication. I mean, we encounter all types from the worst angle. We’re presented with every conceivable, or at least every conceived, perversion. Let me just give read more

“The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature.”

Emerson said that. He also said that if superior men departed on a voyage in chains, one could be sure that the chains would be on the captors by the end of the voyage. From what I am about to tell, it may appear that I bring this up in order to claim superiority. I do not. Rather, I wish to point out a particular case read more

January, 1999
When Woody Allen was accused of child molesting, a TV interviewer asked him if he had done it. Instead of answering, Woody pointed out the improbability that if he were going to do such a thing he would have chosen to do it at an unusually inconvenient time in a house full of people (as was alleged). Whether or not Woody is innocent, I think he is smart. If he had responded as the interviewer probably wanted him to, saying, “I would never do that! This is my daughter read more

Do you want to learn Italian? You can do it without any audio help, and without any expense, by using the following course. I will include exercises here, but exercises can easily be had. The important thing is to get the basic rules where you can reach them. Vocabulary can be increased with a dictionary or any sample of the language. Those can be had in soc.culture.italian

With very few exceptions, Italian words are pronounced according to simple consistent rules. There is no need to learn every read more

In recent months

This is the third in a series of articles about the Rappahannock River.

On Tuesday the Board of Supervisors voted to schedule a joint informational meeting with the
Department of Conservation and Recreation to address the public and hear concerns about DCR

This is the fourth in a series of five articles on the
Rappahannock River.
Some local residents concerned with the future of the
Rappahannock River are taking an interest in a public
hearing set for next Wednesday on a wastewater treatment
plant the county has proposed that would discharge into the
river.

Culpeper County applied to the State read more

Doctor Clara Eden, 41, has closed the medical practice
that she operated for seven years on Piedmont Street, and
many of her approximately 2,000 patients believe they will
be unable to find anyone to take her place.
As often as not they have to speak through tears when
asked about this loss. Eden herself can’t refrain from
crying when discussing her decision.

read more

Joel Tate, 58, a Germanna professor who has lived in
Culpeper since 1976, tells the story of a day in one of his
sociology classes when a student he calls Mr. Computer
read aloud a short story he’d written.
The story was about a middle-class couple who ran
into a boy on the street. Mr. Computer had written it after
reading read more