Stories for October 2013

Stories for October 2013

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Thursday, October 31

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Facing an Uphill Climb

Wakefield alum Hogwood is trying to improve school’s football program.

The Wakefield football team hasn't had a winning season since 1983.

Letter: Strongly Opposed to Cutting Food Aid

Last week, Elizabeth Berry wrote a letter expressing concern over a bill passed by the House of Representatives that would cut food aid for nearly 3.8 million people, and asked that I oppose this legislation. I strongly oppose it. The cuts recommended by the House would eliminate free school meals for 280,000 children and aggravate an already difficult situation for many families in Virginia struggling to put food on the table. We must protect nutrition assistance programs because it’s our responsibility to ensure the neediest among us have access to food when times are hardest.

Editorial: Vote Nov. 5 or Before

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.

For voters in Virginia, it is hard to overstate how important it is to go out and vote next week. All Virginia voters will see statewide races for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, plus one delegate race. In addition, there are a few local races in Alexandria and Arlington, a bond question in Fairfax County and a referendum question about the housing authority in Arlington.

Column: Excuse Me, Pardon Me, Excuse Me…

If it wasn’t a coincidence, it was the next thing to being one. What it was, was the hiccups; occurring after chemotherapy infusion number one and again after chemotherapy number two. The first episode lasted only a few days and annoyed my wife, Dina, way more than it annoyed me. The first hiccuping episode was fairly constant; however it was not exhausting – and I wasn’t having any trouble sleeping because of them. Nor was I making any disturbing sounds or having any difficulty breathing – when caught in mid-hiccup, and/or eating because of the herky-jerky movements/spasms of my diaphragm. In general, it was a fairly benign effect. In the big picture, it didn’t seem particularly important that it was the hiccups I was having, so I never called my oncologist. It was the hiccups after all. It might as well have been a skinned knee. Jeez. And sure enough, within a couple of days, I was “hiccuped out.”

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Making Voters Feel Welcome, No Matter Their Language

County election officials have stepped up outreach efforts and volunteer recruitment efforts.

“I was touched with the Korean community’s efforts to help us translate materials and provide volunteers. … And so we're trying to encourage other pockets. My next target is Vietnamese. We’ve also printed recruitment brochures in Farsi, Arabic, Chinese Korean, French, and Spanish.” — Cameron Quinn, Fairfax County’s chief elections officer

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Democrats Lead in Polls as Voters Head to the Polls for Election Day

Hotly contested race for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Democrats have the wind at their backs heading into Election Day next week, as Republican gubernatorial candidates Ken Cuccinelli struggles to overcome a deficit in the polls.

Wednesday, October 30

Brief: Police Launch @ArlingtonVaPD

The Arlington County Police Department has expanded its social media presence by joining Twitter. @ArlingtonVaPD will be a permanent tool for the department to share breaking news, stories, photos, crime tips and events.

Brief: Board Promotes Public Safety Communications in Construction

The County Board unanimously adopted a resolution on Oct. 22 to advance new public safety technology in construction within Arlington County. In recent years, new construction materials have degraded the ability of public safety personnel to communicate with radios within buildings.

Thursday, October 24

Classified Advertising October 23, 2013

Read the latest ads here!

Editorial: Halloween Party Safety Net

Make plans for a safe celebration; SoberRide safety net for those over 21.

Halloween is now a major holiday for adults, especially young adults, and also one of the major holidays each year that involve partying with alcohol and the risks of drinking and driving.

Wednesday, October 23

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Pumpkin Carving Ideas

Local experts offer their best tips for creating your jack-o-lantern.

Whether your goal is to carve and decorate the best pumpkin on the block or simply use this fall gourd for Halloween inspiration, local culinary experts offer pumpkin ideas that will keep the season festive. Before embarking on a pumpkin carving project, take a look at the condition of your knives. “Generally speaking, a dull knife is a dangerous knife,” said Christine Wisnewski, a culinary instructor at Culinaria Cooking School in Vienna. “And a pumpkin, because of its size and shape, can be a challenge, even if you have good knife skills. If you use a knife, make sure it is sharp and work slowly.” Wisnewski generally advises eschewing chef’s knives for a pumpkin carving kit, usually found in supermarkets and craft stores. “The cutting tools may look less impressive than your best kitchen knife, but they do work well,” she said. “The small blades are deeply serrated and make quick work getting through dense pumpkin flesh.” Pumpkin carving kits are also a solution to the safety issue. “If the kids do want to carve, no one’s fingers are at risk with these little carving tools,” she said. “Our family has managed to get many years of use out of the tools that came with our first kits.”

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Marymount Gears Up for 19th Annual Halloweenfest

University offers safe and festive Halloween celebration for disadvantaged children.

Local college students are working to ensure that some underserved area school children have a festive Halloween this year. Students at Marymount University, in Arlington, are turning their resident halls into themed wonderlands that run the gamut from Disney princesses to superheroes. The celebration is part of Marymount’s 19th annual Halloweenfest, scheduled for Friday, Oct. 25, 3:30-7 p.m. “Each year, Marymount University opens its doors to disadvantaged children in the area to provide a safe and fun place to celebrate Halloween,” said Ashley Wells, community outreach coordinator at the school’s Office of Campus Ministry. During Halloweenfest, children receive free Halloween costumes and take tours through the resident halls where they trick or treat for candy donated by students, faculty, staff and community members. After trick or treating, they spend time participating in activities on the basketball court of the university’s Rose Benté Lee Center. “The gym is completely decorated and children have a blast as they visit over 35 tables with different activities … like face painting, crafts and games,” said Wells. “A dinner … is provided for each guest.”

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Sheltering Animals & Families Together

Initiative promotes domestic violence shelters that accept pets.

Did you know that approximately 2.3 million people, primarily women, are victims of partner violence? Did you know that over 62 percent of the American households have, at least, one pet? Approximately 48 percent of abused women do not leave an abusive situation because they will not leave their pets behind. Pets are likely to be victimized by the household abuser. The abuser’s animal cruelty is used to force compliance from the victims. “What I do to the dog is what I can do to you” is the message the abuser sends, according to Allie Phillips, founder of Sheltering Animals & Families Together [SAF-T]. “As a prosecutor in Michigan, I saw women who stayed with their abusers to protect their pets,” said Phillips. “If they leave, the abuser will turn his anger on the pet. The pet usually is the primary target used to control the victim. “I created the safety program to help get these women out of their abusive homes.”

Tuesday, October 22

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W-L Volleyball Earns ‘Statement’ Win Over Madison

Generals come from behind to win five-set thriller.

Washington-Lee extended its winning streak to nine matches.

Creating a Spooky Halloween Dinner

Local culinary experts offer ideas for turning an ordinary meal into a ghoulish adventure.

Halloween dinner in Christine Wisnewski’s Vienna home is often a balancing act between healthy and sugary. On the sweetest holiday of the year, for example, the mother and culinary instructor at Culinaria Cooking School, also in Vienna, prepares a wholesome dinner for her eager trick-or-treaters, managing candy-induced sugar highs and inevitable post-confection lows.

Friday, October 18

Arlington Home Sales: September, 2013

In September 2013, 207 Arlington homes sold between $2,965,000-$80,000.

Arlington Home Sales: September, 2013

Thursday, October 17

Editorial: Don’t Let Negatives Keep You From Voting

Choices are stark; think about what principles should guide governance in Virginia for the next four years.

Every Virginia voter will have the option to cast a ballot for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and their member of the Virginia House of Delegates. While much of the coverage and advertising at the top of the ticket has been negative in the extreme, it will still matter who is governor. Don’t turn up your nose, hold your nose if necessary, and go vote. You can vote on Nov. 5; most likely you can vote before that.

Classified Advertising October 16, 2013

Read the latest ads here!

Wednesday, October 16

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Battleground Northern Virginia

What role will the region play in the election?

For many years, Northern Virginia has been written off by both parties as a Democratic stronghold — a place where Republicans simply try to cut their losses while they focus on the rest of the commonwealth. But this election cycle may be different. All three of the gubernatorial candidates are from Fairfax County. And recent statewide candidates have not been able to win without picking off selected jurisdictions in Northern Virginia. "As you look at Northern Virginia that's further from Washington, you see a more Republican area — Prince William, western Fairfax, Fauquier," said Stephen Farnsworth, professor at University of Mary Washington. "That's where the real action is in Northern Virginia politics." As Election Day draws closer and television becomes a virtual battlefield for attention, a real battle is brewing on the ground here in Northern Virginia. Candidates and their advisors are looking at the path to victory back in 2009 for Republican Bob McDonnell, who won Prince William County, Fairfax County and Fauquier County. Although this race is likely to be closer than 2009, the importance of Northern Virginia is looming larger than ever.

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Everyone's Got a Story To Tell

Third annual festival brings together storytellers to share films and inspire change.

It's a very simple premise: there's something powerful, almost magic, about stories. Whether it's the friendship formed between a pilot of antique planes and an Indiana farm family, or the struggle for respect for African American soldiers following World War II; an unlikely meeting of a man with nothing left to live for and one struggling to continue; or a family's fight to stay in their home, stories are the common way in which humans relate to and learn from each other. Starting next Wednesday, the Washington West Film Festival strives to not only share tales from around the world, but to create new ones. Brad Russell, president of the festival, said the inspiration for the festival was the surprising lack of one in this area. "I saw a need or opportunity for a great, prestigious film festival," he said.

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Metro Improvements Six Years in the Making

$50 million project was delayed by global financial crisis.

The high-speed elevators and new mezzanine at the Rosslyn Metro station were six years in the planning, a process that was delayed when developer JBG Properties was unable to move forward with a development that was supposed to be constructed concurrently. But when the global financial crisis dried up funding for the development, Arlington leaders decided to press forward anyway. Now commuters at one of Virginia's highest ridership stations in the system have three new high-speed, high-capacity elevators, a new fare mezzanine, a separate set of gates, a separate manned kiosk and a new emergency stairwell. "This project has a huge life-safety benefit, not only for the 36,000 people who use the station today everyone on the Orange Line and Blue Line and future Silver Line in that it enables us to get emergency response teams down into the station," said Dennis Leach, deputy director of Transportation and Development. "It also allows for an orderly evacuation in the event of an emergency either in the station itself or in the tunnel under the river."

Letter: Risk to Public Health

Just before the government shutdown, the EPA announced proposed limits on carbon pollution from newly built power plants — a major breakthrough for our public health, the fight against global warming, and a clean energy future. However, the ongoing impasse in Congress has severely hampered progress on the issue, leaving Americans more vulnerable to the devastating effects of global warming and unmonitored pollution from dirty power plants.

Yorktown High To Present ‘The Widow Ranter’

Performances begin Thursday.

The curtain rises this Thursday evening at 7 p.m. in the Yorktown High School auditorium for the first of two community performances of “The Widow Ranter.” Written in 1675 by Aphra Behn, one of the world's earliest professional female playwrights and among the least-known writers of Restoration comedy, “The Widow Ranter” is set in the New World, a contemporary account of the real-life Jamestown uprising known as “Bacon's Rebellion.” While this historical-fictional adventure includes many invented subplots (romantic and comedic), it is also a document of Jamestown's true character, with its outlaws, American Indians, opportunists and individualists.

Local Band To Perform

Calder & Pugh at Four Courts on Saturday.

Enjoy a night out in Arlington and a trip down memory lane at Ireland’s Four Courts as the local band Calder & Pugh headlines the stage on Saturday, Oct. 19, at 9 p.m. with a set of songs ranging from ‘90s hits to some of today’s hits to some of their own original music. “[It’s a] young crowd,” said Matt McIntyre, the band’s lead vocalist and guitarist. “The kind of music we play is geared towards that crowd because they grew up with that music.”

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Celebrating First Year in Business

Trade Roots offers handmade, fair trade goods from around the world.

When Lisa Ostroff's children were big enough that they didn't need her home full-time anymore, she decided to focus on a way to implement her college degree in international relations. However, she had a rather unusual idea in mind: Opening the first and only store in Arlington to offer fair trade goods, many from women in small villages. Now, her store, Trade Roots, is celebrating its one-year anniversary, and Ostroff is content. "I love the products, but it's more than that," she said from a tiny desk in the store, each nook and cranny filled with colorful earrings, scarves, house wares and stories. "I love the concept." She purchases all the items she sells in her store through the Fair Trade Federation, a network of wholesalers and retailers that purchase hand- and artisan-made goods from around the world in an effort to help small, typically women-owned, businesses earn a fair price for their work.

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What’s in a Name?

Virginia legislators work with Korean American groups to push for “East Sea” in textbooks.

Virginia’s gubernatorial candidates Ken Cuccinelli (R) and Terry McAuliffe (D) may be light years apart on most issues, but on one issue they’ve reached a consensus. Last month, they both pledged support to Virginia’s growing population of Korean Americans to use the dual names of “East Sea” and “Sea of Japan” to denote the body of water between Korea and Japan in Virginia’s textbooks. Koreans view the “Sea of Japan” designation as a legacy of Japanese colonial rule. Currently, more than 2.5 million Korean-Americans reside in the U.S. and nearly 150,000 of them live in Virginia. “As governor, going forward, I will wholeheartedly support the effort … to have our textbooks and other teaching materials reflect the concurrent names as we pursue education excellence in Virginia,” Cuccinelli wrote in a Sept. 16 letter to the Korean Community of Virginia. “As governor, I will ensure that as new texts are purchased or downloaded, they reflect this important historical truth …,” McAuliffe wrote to the Korean Community of Virginia on Sept. 25. For the past year, state Sen. Dave Marsden (D-37) has been leading Virginia’s legislative efforts to add the “East Sea” in public school textbooks.

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Reading About Halloween

Local literature experts recommend their favorite Halloween books for children.

Mark Burch, who lives in Oak Hill, recently browsed through the children’s Halloween book section at a library near his Washington, D.C., office. He had his three children in tow and an armload of books with covers that included carved pumpkins, willowy ghosts and witches in black hats. “We’ve got about 15 books,” he said. “I think the limit of books you can check out is 50 and we might reach it.” Children’s literary experts say the month of October is a perfect time for children to explore their imagination, address their fears and have fun reading with their parents. In addition to traditional Halloween favorites, local booksellers say this season brings forth new offerings in children’s Halloween literature.

Friday, October 11

Editorial: Get a Flu Shot, Register to Vote

Getting a flu shot has never been easier.

Thursday, October 10

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A Fiery Exercise

A full-scale emergency-preparedness exercise brought organized chaos to Reagan National Airport on Saturday, Sept. 21. The FAA mandates that a full-scale exercise be held every three years. Nearly 150 people volunteered to role play victims for the event. They were made up to simulate injuries that might be sustained in a plane crash. More than 50 emergency vehicles participated in the exercise.

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Honoring AWLA

State Sen. Barbra Favola (D-31) presented Neil Trent, president and CEO, Animal Welfare League of Arlington and Patricia Ragan, chairman of AWLA board of directors, with a resolution on Sept. 3 on behalf of the Virginia Assembly.

Classified Advertising October 9, 2013

Read the lastest ads here!

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Goodwill Fashion Show at Artisphere

Designer Tu-Anh Nguyen selects used clothing from Goodwill stores.

Arlington’s Artisphere featured the Fashion of Goodwill Runway Show and Gala on Tuesday, Sept. 24, which raised about $155,000 for the cause. With the theme “The Art of Fashion,” Vietnamese designer Tu-Anh Nguyen of Fairfax created the show from hand-selected items found at Goodwill of Greater Washington’s 15 retail stores.

Mapping County’s GIS Bureau

Location is everything.

A small staff in the county office building knows where to find everything in Arlington, down to the square foot.

A Bike Trip Through History

The Center Hiking Club hosts this season’s final historic marker bicycle tour.

Now that last weekend's heat wave is over and things are back to feeling fall-like, it's time for the last historic marker bicycle tour of the season, led by Bernie Bern of the Center Hiking Club.

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Circle of Stars

USO honors top corporate donors.

The USO of Metropolitan Washington honored its top corporate sponsors Oct. 4 at the 10th Annual Stars and Stripes Night gala, naming 37 corporate donors to its 2013 Circle of the Stars.

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Joining Harvest for Hope

Fundraiser to benefit programs for people with disabilities.

Volunteers of America (VOA) Chesapeake will hold its 4th annual Harvest for Hope Benefit Breakfast on Thursday, Oct. 10 at The Sheraton Pentagon City from 8-9:30 a.m.

Wednesday, October 9

The Arlington Players Presents ‘A Chorus Line’

Talented cast of 24 actors reveal their souls through song and dance.

Under the direction of Susan Devine, 56, of Fairfax, The Arlington Players is staging the iconic dance-musical “A Chorus Line,” through Oct. 12 at the Thomas Jefferson Community Center off Glebe Road in Arlington. The complex show features a cast of 24 actors, singers and dancers on a bare stage with only a wall-length mirror during their audition for a musical. The director Zach, played by formidable real-life director and actor Blakeman Brophy, moves freely through the audience, while running the auditions and putting actors through their paces. As the play progresses, Zach gets them to reveal their souls through song (“What I Did for Love,” and “I Can Do That”) and dance. Devine wanted to convey the feeling of Zach directing from an empty auditorium — even though he was moving around the audience. She said, “I wanted to make this feel like this was as real an audition as possible.”

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Decorating for Fall

Local designers offer suggestions for bringing the harvest into your home.

The colors of autumn are all around as pumpkins and squash fill produce stands and leaves change from green to orange, red and yellow before falling from their branches. Local designers and tastemakers are unveiling home accents that bring the warm hues of the season into the home. Whether using pillows, throws or flowers, adding the colors and textures of fall requires less effort than one might expect. “Emerald green, orange and turquoise are three of the biggest color trends we’re seeing,” said Marcus Browning of European Country Living in Old Town Alexandria. “Throws and pillows are a given, but you can also tie in traditional and modern accessories with rugs, stained glass lamps with modern or intricate designs.” Small trays provide a canvas for highlighting color and adding functionality to a room, says Marika Meyer of Marika Meyer Interiors in Bethesda, Md. “Color and pattern are in right now,” she said. “I just purchased the C. Wonder (http://www.cwonder.com) navy and white chevron tray for my home. It adds a punch of color and freshness to a room. Preppy is back in a big way, too, offering lots of patterns.”

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Style Meets Function

A local designer creates a stylish and functional master bathroom in an Alexandria home.

Once a modest room reserved for bathing, the bathroom has become a showcase for cutting-edge design and luxurious materials. One Alexandria family discovered this when they decided to remodel the long, narrow master bathroom in their colonial home. “Our old fixtures were wearing out,” said homeowner Pat Smith. “Also the bathroom layout was choppy and dark. There was plenty of square feet, but [the space] was inefficient.” The family hired Arlington designer Allie Mann of Case Design/Remodeling Inc. to transform the disjointed, utilitarian space into an oasis with a larger shower and additional areas for storage. “The client’s request for the bathroom remodel was a more open, connected plan,” said Mann. “Before the vanity space didn’t feel connected to the rest of the bathroom … and the [entire] space felt disconnected. The client wanted dual vanities … and a more modern feel.”

Negative Campaign

Candidates appear at minority business forum, attacking each other.

Local and statewide candidates for office appeared at an unprecedented forum in Northern Virginia last weekend, a collaboration of minority business groups of blacks, Hispanics and Asians. But as candidates arrived at the Annandale campus of the Northern Virginia Community College for a Sunday afternoon forum, voters realized that the tone of the campaign would remain unrelentingly negative. "All three of the Republican candidates are Tea Party right wing extremists," said Del. Ken Plum (D-36), who is running unopposed. "Look at their records and their stands on the issues." Plum attacked Cuccinelli's lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act as well as his investigation into a University of Virginia professor studying climate change. The longtime delegate also said the Republican attorney general candidate Sen. Mark Obenshain (R-25) has a similar record, including a bill that would have required women to report abortions to police. Together with the candidate for lieutenant governor, Plum said, the ticket is Tea Party from top to bottom.

Monday, October 7

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Advocates for Affordable Housing In Arlington Battle Over WIsdom of Ballot Initiative

Green Party advocates take issue with opposition from Democrats.

Arlington County is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis, a sweeping demographic change that has wiped away more than half of affordable housing units for the poorest residents in the last decade according to a recent report.

Friday, October 4

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Building International Bridges

Ukrainian Group spent 10 days here learning about business development, cultural opportunities.

They arrived as strangers but left filled with optimism and ideas for how to improve their own home, half a world away.

Classified Advertising Oct. 2, 2013

Read the latest ads here!

Thursday, October 3

Guest Editorial: Virginia’s Easy Access to Guns

A parent asks why background checks aren’t better.

How do you respond to a 7 year old when she comes home from school and says “we did our bad man drill today Mommy, but don’t worry it was just for practice, no one really came into our school to shoot us”?

Senior Volunteers Stay Active

Fifty percent of Mount Vernon RECenter’s volunteers are senior citizens.

The Mount Vernon RECenter is known for its ice skating rink, massive indoor swimming pool and fitness center with spa and sauna. It has 46 volunteers who help greet guests, clean up the fitness room, landscape the grounds and assist people with adapted swimming and ice-skating. Exactly half of them are retired senior citizens over 50 who want to stay active while giving back to the community.

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Choosing a Home for the Golden Years

Many options for retirement communities in the region.

Jim Harkin, 81, and his wife, Phyllis, 80, have little free time these days. Jim spends his days protecting and photographing wildlife on the 60-acre campus at The Fairfax, a Sunrise Senior Living Community, in Fort Belvoir. He helped build, refurbish and maintain more than 20 birdhouses on the grounds, including homes for tree swallows and purple martins.

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Active Seniors Compete for Glory

fter 11 days of more than 50 events held Sept. 7-19, the Northern Virginia Senior Olympics finished with a golf event at Forest Greens Golf Course in Triangle, Va. Other events ranged from cycling, swimming and pickle ball to Mexican train dominos and Scrabble.

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Diverse Needs, Desires Drive Mobility Solutions

Seniors increasingly seek innovative plans that embrace both the present and the future.

Russ Glickman was a traditional full-service remodeler until the late 1990s when he abruptly added a host of accessibility certifications to a long list of building industry credentials. The service extension was less about opportunity than a personal call to apply what he’d learned from personal experience in helping his son, Michael, who was born with cerebral palsy.

Column: “Mor-Tality” or Less

Meaning, in my head anyway, the future and what there is left of it. More specifically, I mean life expectancy. When you’re given a “13-month to two-year” prognosis—at age 54 and a half, by a cancer doctor, your cancer doctor—the timeline between where you are and where you thought you’d be when becomes as clear as mud.

Residential Studios Put on Hold

Supervisors establish committee, plan additional public outreach.

At the recommendation of Chairman Sharon Bulova (D-At-Large) and Supervisor Michael Frey (R-Sully), the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday deferred its Nov. 20 public hearing on a proposed residential studios (RSUs) amendment to conduct additional community outreach.

Now What?

Fairfax County braces for “domino effect” of federal government shutdown.

“We live in a ‘company town’ and the company is the federal government, so most of us have family and friends who are federal employees or contractors impacted by this shutdown,” Long said in a memo emailed to county employees Tuesday. Long said his biggest concern was the “domino effect” the shutdown will have on the local economy, and “the short-term uncertainty that will impact business decisions.”

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Social Justice Matters

SALT forum gives candidates a chance to tell voters where they stand on social justice issues.

But one group also thinks voters should know where candidates stand on social justice issues when they go to the polls Nov. 5. “Our elected officials have a great deal of influence on the common good, so it’s reasonable that we find out where candidates stand on these issues,” said John Horejsi, founder of SALT (Social Action Linking Together), a non-partisan, faith-based advocacy group started in 1983.

Leadership Fairfax Honors Community Leaders Who Make a Difference

Leadership Fairfax (LFI) has chosen the 2013 Northern Virginia Leadership Awards (NVLA) recipients via a panel of community and business leaders evaluating nominations submitted by Leadership Fairfax alumni and the general public. The award recipients will be honored at the Northern Virginia Leadership Awards luncheon on Thursday, Nov. 7, at Westwood Country Club in Vienna.

Minority Chambers of Commerce to Host Candidates’ Forum

The recently formed alliance of Northern Virginia Minority Chambers of Commerce will give members of the fast growing minority business community the opportunity to meet with the commonwealth’s gubernatorial and statewide candidates at the first-ever joint Candidates’ Forum, Sunday, Oct. 6, from 4 to 6 p.m. at Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Campus.

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On the Job and Hot on the Trail

Finding people is fun for new, police bloodhound pups.

“We’ll get them out here and acclimate them to the noises — gunfire, [vehicle] brakes and birds,” said Masood. They’ll also be exposed to airplanes, wind, rain, heat, car horns honking, plus obstacles such as fences. And they’ll learn how it feels on their paws to walk in the woods, through brush, on cement, carpet, tile floors, etc. That way, said Clarke, “When they get out on the street, when they’re almost a year old, they’ll be ready.”

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National Park Service Shutters Mount Vernon Trail Amid Budget Crisis

Parts of trail are barricaded;; parking lots closed/ Park Service Police issue parking tickets.

Woody Guthrie observed "This Land is Your Land." But that apparently does not apply to federal land during a government shutdown.

Wednesday, October 2

The Taste of Fall

Local chefs and nutritionists offer healthy recipes for tasty fall dishes using seasonal ingredients.

When the temperature starts to drop and leaves begin to turn red and orange, you can often find chef Susan Limb meandering through local farmers markets, sorting through rough-textured, knotty sweet potatoes; tough, waxy butternut squash; and dusty, rose-colored apples.