Opinion

Famous last words

AS I WAS driving and listening to the radio one day last spring, a girl called in to 94.3, "the Jersey shore's hit music channel," to exclaim enthusiastically: "I'm going to the mall today to see my girl JWoww!" Jennifer Farley, aka JWoww, is a cast member of the popular MTV reality series "Jersey Shore" and was at the mall in my town that day to sign copies of her book, "The Rules According to JWoww." Farley is not the only "Jersey Shore" star to have had a book published.

Managing the fourth estate

PLAGIARISM. Heard enough about it yet? Regrettably, it is a perennial subject at colleges and universities and apparently a perpetual topic in the media.

Saturday night rush hour

SATURDAY'S game against Georgia Tech was the perfect way to celebrate Homecomings weekend - you know, other than putting orange sashes around trees. The atmosphere on the hill as everyone waited to rush the field was positively electric and in that moment I felt remarkably unified with the hundreds of people crowded around me.

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Oh, the humanities

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced Tuesday it will provide a $2.9 million grant to the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences for the purpose of establishing interdisciplinary programs in environmental humanities and comparative cultures of the pre-modern world.

Legally bound

I am the coordinator of Montanans Against Assisted Suicide & For Living with Dignity. I disagree with Alex Yahanda that assisted suicide is legal in Montana ("The grateful dead," Oct.

Law, not choice

I am an attorney in Washington state, where assisted suicide is legal. I am also president of Choice is an Illusion, a nonprofit corporation opposed to assisted suicide.

A PSA for PSAs

As a retired urologist having practiced 35 years in Richmond, I am gravely concerned by the new recommendations of the U.S.

An offer you couldn

HERMAN Cain has recently burst onto the national stage of Republican presidential candidates, and for good reason.

Backs against the wall

THOUGH the protests have lasted for almost a month, the media still struggles to form a coherent narrative about the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York and elsewhere.

Editorial Cartoon

A better way

In a relatively unsurprising move, Gov. Bob McDonnell directed state government agencies earlier this month to draft plans for proposed spending cuts of 2 to 6 percent in preparation for his first two-year budget.

Mining our minors

Younger generations have led the fight in every major social issue for the past century. Their voices have collectively determined the outcomes of national and international events such as the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, thus solidifying their position as a dominant social force. Today, the young people of the world have brought the fight to the dirtiest form of energy: coal.

A clean coal-lective

Usage of the worst carbon dioxide emitter and overall polluter - coal - is still prevalent in our society in surprising forms.

Bringing Homecomings back

SPIRIT days, pep rallies, dances and competitions. The rich homecoming traditions of high school instill a strong sense of school pride and encourage students to feel connected to their school even after they graduate.

A multiple choice policy

I FIND it ironic that while the United States is a powerful nation with top military capabilities, we are struggling with something as simple as education.

The grateful dead

A PANEL of legal experts in Hawaii recently concluded there was nothing in preexisting state law that outlawed terminally ill patients from receiving aid in dying from their physicians.

Af-farm-ative action

TODAY the wide divide in the United States between the upper and lower classes is staggering. Although the wealth disparity separating these classes seems hard to alter, there are movements popping up around the country that are attempting to lessen this economic inequality. For me, the concept of supporting local businesses as a way of putting money back into local and state economies, thereby funneling money into the working middle class rather than the rich upper class, is definitely a start.

Editorial Cartoon

By the numbers

39,827: Announced attendance at last Saturday's home football game against Idaho, which the Cavaliers won 21-20 in overtime 61,500: Scott Stadium's capacity since a major expansion project lasting from 1997 until 2000 added 15,000 seats 5: Monthly fee, in dollars, that Bank of America will charge some customers for using their debit cards starting in 2012 299,792,458: Meters per second at which light travels, a speed which has long been regarded as the universe's upper limit 60: Billionths of a second by which a neutrino particle exceeded the speed of light in a recent test, according to CERN researchers 24,000: Number of people who attended the Virginia Film Festival last year, according to director Jody Kielbasa 0: Price, in dollars, that University students will have to pay to see most of the festival's films when it returns to Charlottesville Nov.