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Opinion

  • Discretion is not a dirty word

    Zero-tolerance policies remove discretion from the decision-making that leads to discipline. Everybody gets the same punishment.

    The problem is that such policies remove judgment - and sometimes common sense - from the equation.

  • Buckle up before you start the car

    Taking two seconds to strap on a seat belt indisputably saves lives.

    Yet researchers from Old Dominion University found that more than a fifth of drivers still refuse to make that life-saving click.

  • Road money debacle part of a pattern

    Local transportation planners found out recently that some of the cash they were counting on to build roads had disappeared.

    Almost $60 million worth.

  • Congress destroys postal service

    The U.S. Postal Service has bled cash for so long, and on such a massive scale, that drastic action is required immediately to move it back onto solid financial ground.

    All that is really necessary is for Congress to let the postal service’s leaders steer the organization without politicians micromanaging business decisions.

  • Texting ban should be law

    After years of unsuccessful efforts, safe-driving advocates finally secured a victory in this year’s General Assembly session when lawmakers approved a measure to impose steep fines on drivers caught texting while behind the wheel.

  • Public workers, tax delinquents

    Nobody enjoys paying taxes. But there is something especially irksome about federal workers and retirees who’ve been paid for their work with tax dollars but failed to pay their own taxes.

  • Playing politics with healthcare

    In the final hours of this year’s legislative session, Gov. Bob McDonnell gave his written support for a plan giving a commission authority to sign off on a Medicaid expansion to cover uninsured adults.

  • Check your credit reports

    A study conducted by the Federal Trade Commission underscores the importance of keeping track of your credit report to ensure that it does not contain errors.

  • Tribute honors farmers

    Americans admire the farmer. You might even call it love.

    Fighting the elements to produce the world’s richest yield only to be paid pennies compared to the retail dollar value of his goods, the American farmer is part scientist, part conservationist, part businessman and all laborer.

  • Mail may still go through

    While the U.S. Postal Service has announced that it plans to eliminate Saturday mail delivery beginning in August, whether it actually gets to move forward with that plan will depend on what, if any, budget plans are adopted by Congress in the coming months.

  • Transportation plan needs repairs

    For weeks, Gov. Bob McDonnell has insisted that his plan is the answer to the commonwealth’s transportation-funding crisis.

    It has received nearly all the attention, high marks in an initial public-opinion poll and glowing praise from an array of special-interest, business and union groups.

  • Stop the hate

    No one likes a bully.

    It’s an old expression, but a campaign at Central Hardin High School (Ky.) is delivering it in new ways.

  • National temperature increases...

    The jump in average U.S. temperature in 2012 should serve a wakeup call to those who deny pollution has an impact on the environment, as well as those who claim environmental conservation efforts are unneeded or too costly.

  • Horoscope, Jan. 16

    WEEK OF JAN. 14, 2013

    ARIES (March 21 to April 19) You might be hurt by a colleague’s harsh criticism. But don’t let it shake your confidence in what you’re trying to do. A more positive aspect starts to appear by week’s end.

  • Six weeks to make Virginia better

    When lawmakers gathered last Wednesday at the Capitol for the start of the General Assembly, they’ll have fewer days to finish their work - 46 instead of 60 - than last year.

  • Country's chaos merely...

    The only deal worse than the fiscal bargain Congress approved over the New Year's holiday would have been no deal at all.

    Nevertheless, the hardened partisanship that substitutes for statesmanship in D.C. these days left no deal at all a possibility right up until last Tuesday's vote concluded.

  • Schools need to assess and improve...

    Protecting students’ safety comes first, even when that means Friday night football and basketball games and the accompanying rituals move to another time.

    The Dec. 14 massacre in Connecticut brought that tenet into sharp relief.

  • It's past time for road fix

    House Speaker Bill Howell told a Fredericksburg business group last week that he’s not sure the General Assembly will have time in its 2013 session to address the state’s transportation funding needs.

    “The whole idea of doing something has just sprung up in the last two weeks,” he said in a Free Lance-Star article.

  • Dollar coins mean change for better

    The U.S. mint is expected this month to suggest new metal compositions that would make dollar coins a viable and much less expensive alternative to paper bills.

    It’s time we made the switch.

  • An overhaul for state’s road-...

    As gas tax revenues dwindle, the commonwealth is becoming dangerously dependent on public-private partnerships negotiated by governors with little public transparency or oversight. And term-limited executives can’t always be depended upon to make good deals for Virginians who will have to live with the consequences for decades.