An indictment is not a conviction or indicator of guilt
A story I wrote in last week’s Floyd Press — about the indictment of a female member of Floyd County’s rescue squad on four sexual abuse charges involving a 16-year-old boy — generated a lot of comment and public debate in Floyd County. Customers at Express Mart in Floyd cornered owner Roger Hollandsworth — a [...]
Misquoting, misinterpreting and misappropriating the Constitution
In many ways, the U.S. Constitution is like the Bible. It is all too often misquoted, misinterpreted and misappropriated to serve a particular political agenda or bias. When opinions are presented as facts and propaganda is substituted for truth, democracy and freedom are not served.
National Music Festival abandons Floyd and heads to Maryland
The National Music Festival, the two-week classical music series that drew much praise in its debut season in Floyd County this past summer will stage its second season in Maryland. In August, the Festival announced it was in the black and told The Roanoke Times it had expanded its board to include Floyd County notables [...]
The misinformation super highway
The dangers of pulling misinformation off the Internet and using it in a public venue surfaced Tuesday at the regular monthly meeting of the Floyd County Board of Supervisors. A county resident who spoke during the public comment period presented the supervisors with a printout from a web site that she said proved that the [...]
Bye-bye Borders
Borders died quietly last month, closing the last locations of the once-giant retail chain that dominated the bookstore business. The demise of Borders went largely unnoticed in these parts because we didn’t have Borders stores in either the Roanoke or New River regions. But Borders was already a big deal when it opened a store [...]
When politics overwhelms friendships, we all lose
Lunch last week with two friends who approach life from opposite ends of the political spectrum: Fred First, Floyd County’s “first blogger” and Jim Connor, a relatively-recent addition to the area’s population of bloggers and diverse characters. Fred — for the most part — is an unabashed liberal, an ardent environmentalist with a passion for [...]
Coal, wind and environmental irony
Stopped by the Floyd Country Store Thursday night to watch The Electricity Fairy, a 2010 documentary on the battle over approval and construction of a coal-fired power plant in Wise County. While the 52-minute film by director Tom Hansell has a clear anti-coal point of view, it presented a reasonably-balanced account of the years-long fight [...]
Abandoned towns and shattered dreams
Any tour of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky or West Virginia seems like a trip through a fading past. As I cruise the back roads and byways of our region, the rumble of my Harley’s exhausts too often echo off abandoned buildings, empty shells and remnants of long-lost prosperity and shattered dreams. On recent rides, [...]
Lots of hot air in the wind generator debate
If we could harness all the hot air emanating from the loud and sometimes raucous debate over proposed wind generator farms in Floyd County we might just find energy salvation through geo-thermal electricity production. Many incredible claims and so much misinformation emerged from a 43-minute public comment session before the Floyd County Board of Supervisors [...]
Losing the War in West Virginia
You know a community is in trouble when even the police department and jail is closed and boarded up. War, West Virginia, calls itself the southernmost city in the state but like so many communities where coal was once king, War has seen better days. Discovered War by accident while riding West Virginia 16 on [...]