Letter: About ‘Building On History’
To the Editor: Contrary to the impression made by the article [“Building on History,” The Gazette, March 14] on the house being built along Ft. Hunt Road, the bulk of the property involved is an abandoned Clarence Gosnell parcel that was deemed unbuildable during the development of Riverside Gardens by Gosnell’s company in the mid-60s. It was an outlot because the trolley right of way divided it from the rest of the neighborhood.
Editorial: Say Yes to Health Coverage
Governor, state panel must accept coverage for 400,000 Virginians without health insurance.
More than 140,000 residents of Fairfax County have no health insurance. That’s more than 13 percent of the slightly more than 1 million people who live in the wealthiest county in the nation. Arlington and Alexandria have similar percentages of uninsured.
Column: Just Wondering
Having never attended medical school (and not really having had the grades or commitment to do so), and having only completed 10th grade biology and freshman year astronomy, and rarely even driven by a medical school growing up, my understanding and/or instincts regarding how a medical professional plans and/or prepares for his day is as foreign to me as sugar-free chocolate (if I’m going down, I’m going down swinging; in truth however, considering the anti-cancer, alkaline diet I’m following, I do need to swing a little less frequently).
Column: Writing What Four
As far as anniversaries go–and I hope this one “goes” a lot further; acknowledging, dare I say celebrating my four-year survival anniversary from “terminal” stage IV (inoperable, metastasized) non-small cell lung cancer, a diagnosis I initially received on Feb. 27, 2009, along with a “13-month to two-year prognosis” from my oncologist, is certainly column-worthy.
Editorial: Hybrid Hijinks
Discouraging innovation in high-tech Virginia.
Consider this as a possible scenario (although perhaps we should have saved this for April 1): Fewer people are smoking, and many of those who do are smoking less. Virginia’s cigarette tax, the lowest of any state at 30 cents a pack, is a declining revenue source. Higher cigarette taxes are proven to reduce smoking. Under current logic in the commonwealth, there would be two courses of action to raise revenue: a) cut the cigarette tax, and b) charge non-smokers a fee to make up the difference and to compensate for the fact that they don’t pay cigarette taxes.
Letter to the Editor: Broken Compromise
During the final week of the General Assembly Session this year, the Virginia State Senate Democrats worked with Gov. Robert McDonnell to reach a compromise to pass a transportation plan — a plan that is funded in part by funds not yet appropriated from Congress — funds unlikely to ever materialize for Virginia.
Column: 2013 General Assembly’s Mixed Record
Now that the 2013 session of the General Assembly’s work has been completed, except for the April 3 veto session, I will continue my report on several measures.
Column: E-male
My oncologist is a man. He has e-mail. He works for an HMO that encourages/advertises its connectivity and responsiveness – electronically, to its members. If I want to get medical answers in a reasonable amount of time – save for an emergency, typing, “mousing” and clicking is the recommended methodology. No more phone calls, preferably. Though pressing keys on a keyboard rather than pressing buttons on a phone might have felt counter-intuitive at first as a means of receiving prompt replies, it has proven over these past few years to be a fairly reliable and predictable information loop. Not in minutes necessarily, but more often than not during the same day – and almost always by the very next day. In fact, I’ve received e-mails from my oncologist as late as 9:18 p.m. (time-stamped) after a sometime-during-the-day e-mail had been sent.
Column: State Budget Advances on Medicaid
Last week, I wrote about the transportation legislation that passed the General Assembly. The other major policy change this session was the expansion of Medicaid. This was especially critical for the 44th District.
Letter to the Editor: Civil Rights Complaints Filed against Police
Recently the Virginia Citizens Coalition for Police Accountability, Inc. (CCPA) sought to determine if the Alexandria City, Arlington and Fairfax County police departments were the subject of citizens claiming their civil rights had been violated.
Column: U.S. 1 Funding Secured and Transportation Deal
This week, the General Assembly ended with a budget and two major policy changes — a historic transportation bill and a Medicaid expansion process that I will discuss next week.
Column: Transportation Agreement and Medicaid Expansion
The Virginia State Senate passed a transportation plan after Gov. Robert McDonnell agreed to sign off on a Medicaid expansion conference committee to come up “with a concept to ensure that significant reforms are attained prior to any potential expansion of Medicaid.”
Column: A Tough Transportation Vote
The 46-day legislative session drew to a close on Saturday, Feb. 23. As you know, transportation dominated the debate this session.
Column: Definition of “Slippery Slope”
Figuratively speaking, of course. That definition being: a late stage cancer patient/survivor previously characterized as “terminal” awaiting the results of their most recent diagnostic scan. A scan that will indicate whether the tumors have grown, moved or God forbid, appeared somewhere new. If your life hung in the balance before the scan, waiting for results of this however-many-months-interval-scan will most assuredly loosen your figurative grip on your equilibrium and your most literal grip on your sanity. This is a domain, unlike the one referred to in one of the more infamous Seinfeld episodes, that one cannot master. To invoke and slightly rework Dan Patrick’s “catch” phrase: You can’t stop it, you can only hope to contain it.
Letter to the Editor: Litter Poisons Environment
Michael Pope’s recent article [“Carts Clog Creek,” Feb. 14] brings needed attention to the problem of the shopping carts that end up in Little Hunting Creek.