Browsing: Talking Points

Speculation is running rampant through this end of Chesterfield. It’s not an exaggeration. The Village News Facebook page could be that case in point. I was surprised to see our posting of the Matoaca Megasite story garnered 26,096 people. I think people are interested in what this will bring to Chester (not Matoaca). If you’re not talking about it now, you soon will be. Many locals are firmly against the facility that will be located on 1,675 acres along Branders Bridge Road. It’s with good reason. They are concerned with traffic, and the building of the East-West Connector that would…

In last week’s column, I explored the lingering legacy of the Civil War in terms of flags, statues and hurt feelings.   In our local and national discourse, we sometimes lose perspective on any topic that engages our emotions. There is a danger of losing track of timeliness in our debates: which topics belong to yesterday, today, or tomorrow? The Confederate battle flag now looks like an item of yesterday’s news.  It is separated from the present by 100 years of Jim Crow plus 50 years of growing equality for African Americans. It can linger for decades or centuries in yards…

Suddenly, one hundred and fifty years after Appomattox, the Civil War has become a hot topic yet again. Dylann Roof gets the blame for starting this. In the wake of his massacre of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church, we learned of his Confederate battle flag obsession. In a public reaction to his heinous act, the Confederate battle flag is under attack on state government flag poles across the South. We have been through similar controversies before. Long ago, the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors were induced by the Sons of Confederate Veterans to declare “Confederate Heritage Month.” This announcement polarized…

What brought you to Chesterfield? I moved here with my family in 1992. Like many others, we moved here because of the high reputation of Chesterfield schools and then never left. We seem to have been correct in our assessment of the school system, as both our daughters were  lateraccepted to and graduated from good Virginia colleges. But now the kids are grown, and the normal response to that is to take stock. Among our acquaintances in the local area are a couple of families who have moved out of Chesterfield and into Richmond. They told me that they moved…

Dramatic changes are on the way: it is going to get a lot hotter, and Hampton Roads residents will eventually have big problems. This is according to Stephen Nash, a visiting Senior Research Scholar at the University of Richmond, from his book, “Virginia Climate Fever.” This slim volume is filled with startling information, but Nash is not trying to dumbfound his readers; his actual goal is to foster an understanding of the ways in which global warming will transform our local cities, shorelines and forests from today to the end of this century. Carbon dioxide is invisible and odorless, so it is…