FREDLINES

Eve Evans, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Potomac Local News

Virginia Commission Orders Dominion to Develop Data Center Cost Plan

By Uriah Kiser

08/06/2026

Virginia’s State Corporation Commission has directed Dominion Energy to return this fall with proposed changes that could shift more transmission infrastructure costs to data centers and other large electricity users. The July 31 order gives the company 90 days to file amendments to its line-extension policy and 120 days to update regulators on a broader approach for assigning those costs when large-load customers drive the need for new grid infrastructure.

The directives came as part of Dominion’s annual Rider T1 transmission cost recovery case, with approved rates set to take effect Sept. 1. Gov. Abigail Spanberger called the decision a victory for ratepayers, saying it ensures data centers pay the full cost of the transmission infrastructure their developments require

Hot, Humid Weather Continues with Rising Severe Storm Risk

By Uriah Kiser

08/06/2026

Hot, humid weather will stick around through the weekend and into next week, with afternoon highs in the upper 80s to low 90s and heat indices reaching the low 100s. The risk of strong to severe storms, capable of producing damaging winds, is expected to increase, with the highest chances Friday and Saturday. The Bermuda High will keep hot and humid conditions in place into next week, with scattered showers and thunderstorms expected each afternoon and damaging winds the main threat from the strongest storms. Sunday may bring a short dry break before heat, humidity, and daily storm chances return Monday through much of next week.

The Free Lance-Star

Fredericksburg starts citywide sewer cleaning program (paywalled)

By Scott Shenk

08/05/2026

Fredericksburg has begun preventive maintenance on its wastewater collection system, cleaning sewer lines and inspecting infrastructure to catch problems before they become bigger issues. The current phase runs into October, starting in the Mayfield neighborhood and moving west, though the broader effort will continue for several years to cover the city’s entire sewer footprint. The work follows 13 sewage overflow incidents since February that released nearly 170,000 gallons of untreated wastewater, which drew citations from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (since closed). Residents near the work may notice gurgling pipes, temporary odors, or moving water in fixtures, and the city recommends keeping toilet lids closed during nearby work.

Judge to review plea withdrawal in serious sex crimes case (paywalled)

By Keith Epps

08/05/2026

David Robert Jackson, 63, who pleaded guilty June 1 in Fredericksburg Circuit Court to raping a child under 13 (a 2017 case involving a then-12-year-old girl) and faced sentencing this week on a charge carrying up to life in prison, is now seeking to withdraw that plea after his new attorney, Jason Pelt, argued the Public Defender’s Office had an undisclosed conflict of interest; prosecutor Kia Barrett has asked the judge to deny the motion, noting the victim’s identity was available to the defense beforehand and that Jackson admitted in a police interview to having sex with the girl, with a hearing set for Aug. 14.

Deputy faces charges of reckless driving and manslaughter (paywalled)

By Keith Epps

08/05/2026

For the second week in a row, a Stafford County deputy faces serious criminal charges: Sgt. Jeremy Hurt was indicted Monday by a Prince William County grand jury on involuntary manslaughter and reckless driving charges tied to an August 16, 2025, incident involving a chase and vehicle ramming that ended in a death, and he’s due back in Prince William Circuit Court Aug. 14 while remaining free on bond and on administrative assignment with the Sheriff’s Office. The charges follow last week’s arrest of Stafford 1st Sgt. Justin Forman on a federal child pornography charge, for which he was fired and remains held without bond.

Fredericksburg Free Press

Fredericksburg, Stafford and Spotsylvania counties to receive federal public safety grants

By Johnathan Hunley

08/05/2026

Fredericksburg-area localities will receive more than $83,700 in federal funding for public safety, U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced this week, part of $1.7 million awarded through the Department of Justice’s Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program to help law-enforcement agencies across Virginia through upgraded equipment, specialized training and enhanced emergency response capabilities. The breakdown includes $37,657 for the Stafford Sheriff’s Office to purchase an all-terrain vehicle along with equipment for disabled motorists and SWAT nighttime operations, $29,500 for Spotsylvania’s Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office to buy up to nine portable forensic laptops, and $16,552 for Fredericksburg to replace an all-terrain vehicle for the city’s watershed area.

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ADVANCE READS

Bruce Saller, Phil Huber, Michael Aubrecht

For Better and Worse, El Niño Arrives

Bruce Saller, ADVANCE CONTRIBUTOR

The hot tropical Pacific Ocean condition El Niño returned in June bringing us warmer and wetter weather. The wetter weather of June and July (8.8 inches of rain vs. 7.6-inch average) was very welcome since we had been in an extreme drought since August 2025, having only received 13.3 inches of rain vs. our 35.2-inch average.

The warmer temperatures were not as welcome, as June was 3.3 degrees above average, and July was 3.7 degrees hotter. So be prepared for higher July bills as we used more electricity for air conditioning, and Dominion raised their rates effective July 1. On the plus side, during the last El Niño in 2023-24, the winter temperature was 3.5 degrees above average, so we should see lower heating bills this winter.

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‘Everything I Am I Owe to My Mother’

By Michael Aubrecht, ADVANCE CONTRIBUTOR

[Editor’s Note: Mary Washington Heritage Museums and local tree activists have been working for several months on renovation and landscape design at the Mary Washington Monument and Caretaker’s Lodge, including protection and care of the famous Eskridge Oak, which Tree Fredericksburg President Anne Little discusses, above, in an interview with Ted Schubel for B101.5. With all that in mind, we thought it would be a good time to ask our resident Colonial-era (and Civil War-era) historian, Michael Aubrecht, to send over a refresher essay on the mother of the father of our country. Here’s Michael’s report:]

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Before We Build AI Gods, We Need AI Rules

By Phil Huber, ADVANCE COLUMNIST

If you can envision it, you can build it. Given enough money and time, nearly every powerful invention can also be weaponized. Artificial intelligence is no exception. It is already moving through our networks, our skies, outer space, and even into the human nervous system. It can watch, predict, persuade, and act at speeds no human can match.

The ancient Greeks imagined gods who could see everything, hurl lightning, and bend human fate. For thousands of years, that remained mythology. Today, AI is bringing parts of that myth disturbingly close to reality. The real question is no longer whether these systems can be built. It is who will control them, who will be protected from them, and whether democracy can survive if too much of that power gathers in too few hands.

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STATE OF THE STATE

VaNews/VIRGINIA PUBLIC ACCESS PROJECT

Spanberger op-ed: Why I’m intervening in the Dominion-NextEra merger

By ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, published in Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Virginia regulators are facing a decision that could shape energy affordability in the commonwealth for decades. NextEra Energy, a Florida-based utility company, has filed paperwork to buy Dominion Energy for about $67 billion, creating the largest regulated electric utility in the world. Virginia’s State Corporation Commission is the regulatory body tasked with reviewing the application, and the SCC’s commissioners will ultimately decide whether to approve, deny or impose new conditions on any potential merger. As a Virginian, I am deeply skeptical about whether selling our primary, state-regulated utility to an out-of-state company is good for the commonwealth. ... That is why I will be taking the legal step of “intervening” in this proposed merger, which means that as governor, I will formally request to be a party to the case.

Former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin launches new conservative policy group

By OLIVIA RINALDI, CBS News

Former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is launching a new conservative policy group, marking the first major move since Youngkin, a potential 2028 Republican presidential contender, left office in January. The group, called Empowering America’s Parents, will focus on expanding awareness about the Education Freedom Tax Credit, a federal scholarship tax credit that has been adopted in 30 states. Youngkin’s group plans to target the 20 remaining states that have not adopted the program with a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, according to a source familiar with internal planning. Among the targets are Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — all key battleground states that went for President Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

A Democratic civil war? Not according to Va.’s governor

By LAUREN FEDOR, Financial Times (Subscription Required)

Democrats must unite to address voter anxiety about affordability ahead of November’s midterm elections, Virginia’s governor has said, as she brushed aside suggestions of a civil war in her party. In a wide-ranging interview with the FT on Wednesday, Abigail Spanberger said Democrats needed to project a strong contrast between their party and Donald Trump and the Republicans heading into November. “The task before anyone who is now the [Democratic] nominee in their state, whether it is a Senate nominee in Michigan or any of our House nominees in Virginia, is that they have to focus on delivering for people,” Spanberger said.

Landmark DNA case is among Virginia executions being examined in review of Mary Jane Burton’s work

By DAVE CANTOR, WVTF-FM

About five years after abolishing the death penalty, Virginia has named the eight men executed between 1986 and 1998 whose cases will be reviewed as part of a broader reassessment of practices connected to former state forensic scientist Mary Jane Burton. Timothy Spencer’s convictions in multiple murder cases are among those being reconsidered. His case became the first in the country to use DNA in securing a capital murder conviction. It’s also the first instance in the U.S. of DNA being used to exonerate an individual who was wrongfully implicated when David Vasquez was cleared in one slaying.

Black lung rates in Appalachia are as high as the 1970s, with thousands of miners sick

By HOWARD BERKES AND JUSTIN HICKS, NPR

Respiratory therapist Marcy Freeman doesn’t need a research study to confirm for her a return to the dark days of coal mining. She finds evidence in a stack of more than 150 funeral programs, all for former patients at her pulmonary rehabilitation clinic in Norton, Virginia. “Each one of these represents a life that’s gone because of black lung,” Freeman explained as she flipped through the programs, recognizing names and images. “These are husbands. These are brothers. … These men were just hardworking men, and the only thing they did was go to work and provide for their families. And it cost them everything. … This is the aftermath of black lung.”

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Articles from newspapers throughout the Commonwealth and Washington D.C. Firewalls will block you from reading some, but you’ll at least have some idea about what’s going on from the headlines and summaries. CLICK HERE.

This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”

[Editor’s Note: Mary Washington Heritage Museums and local tree activists have been working for several months on renovation and landscape design at the Mary Washington Monument and Caretaker’s Lodge, including protection and care of the famous Eskridge Oak, which Tree Fredericksburg President Anne Little discusses, above, in an interview with Ted Schubel for B101.5. With all that in mind, we thought it would be a good time to ask our resident Colonial-era (and Civil War-era) historian, Michael Aubrecht, to send over a refresher essay on the mother of the father of our country. Here’s Michael’s report:]

Mary Ball Washington, the mother of the father of our country, was born in Lancaster County Virginia in 1708, one of many siblings in a combined family. Her father was a gentleman named Joseph Ball, and her mother the widow Mary Johnson. The first Ball family home was located at Epping Forest where Mary Ball’s grandfather, William Ball, had immigrated from England around the year 1650. Unfortunately, as often happened in Colonial times, both of Mary’s parents died when they were still young parents, leaving her fatherless at 3 and motherless at 12 or 13.

In accordance with the terms of her mother’s will, the orphaned Mary was placed under the guardianship of. George Eskridge, a local attorney and friend of the Ball family. For the next decade, she lived with the Eskridge family, along with her married half-sister Elizabeth Bonum. Although there are not many records on this part of her life, it is apparent that Mary was well cared for. She was educated, an avid reader, and a skilled equestrian.

By 1731, Mary had reached the age of 23, which was considered old-maid status by Colonial standards. Once again, fortune favored her as she met a strapping entrepreneur named Augustine Washington. Augustine’s family, much like Mary’s, had been in the colonies since the mid-1600s. He too was educated and had been schooled in England. Augustine was a well-established widower, 14 years Mary’s senior, with three children, Lawrence, Augustine, and Jane.

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Obviously there are no photographs of Mary Ball Washington, but there are several documented impressions of her as a young woman. She was considered to be tall for a female, and later said to resemble the man who would become her eldest son, George. Augustine’s son Lafayette was said to have likened Mary to a Roman matron, while a contemporary, Eleanor Parke Custis, described her as “remarkably plain in her dress.”

After a brief courtship, Mary and Augustine Washington were married Augustine filled the much-needed role of provider while Mary became a nurturer for his children.

When she married Augustine, Mary brought her inheritance, including over 1000 acres of land at Epping Forest, a plantation in Lancaster County, Virginia, and enslaved labor, which was typical for wealthy Virginia families of the time. Mary had inherited three slaves from her father. It is recorded that 57 enslaved men, women, and children served the family on the Washington farm.

The Washington family lived on a 150-acre plantation called Pope’s Creek, which was later renamed Wakefield, where they prospered and the family grew. The following February Mary gave birth to a son, the first of six children. They named him “George” after George Eskridge, Mary’s adopted father. Mary and Augustine eventually had six children altogether: George, Betty, Samuel, John Augustine, Charles, and Mildred, who died at 16 months. Remarkably, most of the entire Washington-Ball clan found success in their adult lives. Betty married Fielding Lewis and built the Kenmore Estate in Fredericksburg. Samuel served as a justice of the peace and a lawman in Stafford County. John Augustine founded the Mississippi Land Company. Charles helped to establish Charles Town in West Virginia. George, of course, went on to become the first president of the United States of America.

The Washingtons moved to Hunting Creek in 1736, which was later christened Mount Vernon, and in 1738 Augustine purchased what would later be named Ferry Farm in Stafford County to be closer to his iron business. Here was where the tall tales that would become ingrained in George Washington’s legacy originated: a young George confessing to chopping down a cherry tree, and throwing or skipping a silver dollar across the Rappahannock River. After settling at the new homestead, Mary kept busy with overseeing the day-to-day operations of the farm and tending to her children, while Augustine focused his energies on his other business interests.

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In 1743 tragedy repeated itself in the life of Mary Ball Washington, as her husband passed away unexpectedly at the age of 49, making her a widow, with five children, at 35. George was only 11 at the time of his father’s death. In accordance with Augustine’s will, Mt. Vernon was left to George’s half-brother Lawrence, while the 600-acre family farm across the river from Fredericksburg was left to George. Provision was made for Mary to receive the benefit of the crops for five years and possession of the property until George came of age. Various portions of other land holdings and personal property were divided among the all of the siblings, including the slaves.

Although there were tumultuous years that followed, Mary was said to have remained a vigilant parent. Historians over the years have traced George’s epic honesty and fortitude to the influence of his parents, some even crediting his mother alone with his rise to greatness.

Mary remained in mourning and lived in Fredericksburg for more than 45 years after the death of her husband. She never remarried, which could be viewed as a testament to her constitution and strong will. She was, by all accounts, a self-supportive woman, although she was obliged, once George came of age, to rely on his generosity for financial support. As George’s military and political career prospered, his mother continued to be manage the land that her husband had purchased at Ferry Farm.

Years passed, and the relationship between Mary and George was said to have deteriorated. Although Mary was by no means poor, she regularly complained to outsiders that she was destitute and neglected by her children—much to George’s embarrassment. This led to an animosity between mother and son that persisted for years. Despite the strain on their relationship, George remained in contact with his mother and made it a point to send her correspondence while deployed on military affairs. One preserved letter, dated 1755, followed a military engagement early on in his career and was meant to reassure Mary of his safety. George concluded his letter with the phrase “Your most dutiful son.”

At 64, Mary became too old to run the farm, and in 1772, George purchased a home for her in downtown Fredericksburg, where she lived for the remaining 17 years of her life. When the War for Independence began, General George Washington took command of the Continental Army in June of 1775 and didn’t see his mother again for nearly 10 years. During this time Mary remained in town and rarely visited the family farm.

It was recorded that Mary’s stubbornness began to rear its ugly head. She requested that the Virginia House of Delegates—formally the House of Burgesses—provide her with an allowance, since she was, after all, the mother of the Continental Army’s supreme commander. She then petitioned for a state pension, and also to have her taxes lowered. None of her requests were granted.

Despite their rift, Mary’s proudest moment may have come during a visit by her son to Fredericksburg in February 1784. After being awarded the honors of the town, George responded with a declaration honoring “My reverend mother by whose maternal hand, early deprived of a father, I was led to manhood.”

George continued to pay Mary’s rent for the livestock and enslaved workers at Ferry Farm, and in 1787 he strongly urged her to move in with one of her children. It was thought that she might live with her son John, however John died soon after, and she never agreed to go elsewhere.

Two years later, in April 1789, President-elect George Washington, en route to New York for his inauguration, paid his last visit to his mother at the house in Fredericksburg—four months before she died. It was reported that the two were reunited and repaired their relationship.

Mary Ball Washington died at 81 from cancer during George’s first year in office. She was buried at Kenmore on the Lewis plantation, a few steps from what became known as Meditation Rock, her favorite retreat for reading, prayer, and meditation. A plaque laid at the base of the rock reads, “Here Mary Ball Washington prayed for the safety of her son and country during the dark days of the revolution.”

In the 1830s, the women of Fredericksburg banded together to raise funds for a monument dedicated to Mary’s memory. The following year, the prominent Silas Burrows, a successful New York merchant who also owned an international shipping business, offered to pay for it himself. In laying the cornerstone, then-President Andrew Jackson said this about the mother of the father of the country:

“Mary Washington acquired and maintained a wonderful ascendancy over those around her. This true characteristic of genius attended her through life, and she conferred upon her son that power of self-command which was one of the remarkable traits of her character. She conducted herself through this life with virtue and prudence worthy of the mother of the greatest hero that ever adorned the annals of history.”

Mary’s first marker was destroyed during the Civil War, but another one was placed in 1893, formally dedicated by President Grover Cleveland in May of 1894 and featuring an inscription that paid tribute to what may be considered her greatest accomplishment.

It reads, simply, “Mary the Mother of Washington.”

But it was George himself who most fittingly summed up the life of Mary Ball Washington when he later wrote, “My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw.

“All I am I owe to my mother.”

***

Michael Aubrecht is a historian, author, documentarian, and lecturer. You can find out more about his work, including his new book project on Virginia Loyalists During the Revolutionary War, at his website The Naked Historian.

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If you can envision it, you can build it. Given enough money and time, nearly every powerful invention can also be weaponized. Artificial intelligence is no exception. It is already moving through our networks, our skies, outer space, and even into the human nervous system. It can watch, predict, persuade, and act at speeds no human can match.

The ancient Greeks imagined gods who could see everything, hurl lightning, and bend human fate. For thousands of years, that remained mythology. Today, AI is bringing parts of that myth disturbingly close to reality. The real question is no longer whether these systems can be built. It is who will control them, who will be protected from them, and whether democracy can survive if too much of that power gathers in too few hands.

From Olympus To Orbital AI

On the military side, AI-enabled weapons can coordinate drone swarms, identify targets, optimize attacks, and run cyber operations at machine speed. The most dangerous versions could include autonomous weapons and AI-assisted chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear systems. The risk is not only deliberate misuse. It is accidental escalation. Software can act on incomplete, biased, or misunderstood information before human judgment has time to intervene. A conflict that once unfolded over hours or days could accelerate in seconds.

AI is also transforming surveillance. Systems that combine location data, communications, financial transactions, purchases, and social media can reconstruct a person’s life in extraordinary detail. They can identify dissent, predict behavior, and tailor propaganda to specific fears and vulnerabilities. Deepfakes and microtargeted messages make it possible to manipulate not one audience, but millions of individuals at once. The Greeks imagined gods who could see and judge every human action. Modern AI offers governments and corporations something uncomfortably similar, but with far fewer moral limits.

Now add space. Satellites are no longer passive cameras or relay stations. They increasingly use onboard AI to decide what data to collect, where to point sensors, and when to transmit. In October 2025, an AI agent performed a complete attitude maneuver on a satellite in orbit. Governments and companies are also exploring orbital AI infrastructure: computing centers in space, powered by sunlight, cooled by the vacuum, and connected by laser. If we build an intelligent shell around the planet, controlled by a small number of actors, we will have created an Olympus of steel, code, and permanent observation.

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Control Inside the Nervous System

It would be comforting to believe this power stops at the edge of the body. It does not. Neuralink has already implanted brain-computer interfaces in human patients. The medical promise is real. A person with paralysis may be able to move a cursor, operate a robotic arm, or communicate by thought. That could restore independence and dignity to people who have lost both.

But the architecture matters. A brain-computer interface does not end at the implant. It connects the nervous system to software, networks, and platforms. Musk has spoken of high-volume production and largely automated surgeries, with early trials potentially reaching hundreds or low thousands of patients in the late 2020s. Broader medical, and perhaps nonmedical, uses could emerge through the 2030s.

The danger is not the medical breakthrough. The danger is the system that may grow around it. If the same companies control the implants, the AI models, the cloud infrastructure, and the satellites, surveillance and influence are no longer merely over our shoulders. They begin to reach inside our heads. The technical question is whether the devices can work. The political and constitutional question is who will own them, regulate them, and stop them from becoming tools of coercion.

A Timeline We Can See

None of this is centuries away. Brain implants already exist. AI has already controlled spacecraft in orbit. Companies are openly planning space-based computing systems, with pilots and early deployments aimed at the late 2020s and early 2030s. Many AI researchers also believe there is a real chance that human-level or transformative AI could arrive between 2040 and 2060.

That means the pieces are appearing within the lifetime of people already voting, working, and raising families. Chips in brains, AI in orbit, autonomous weapons, and increasingly powerful models on the ground are not separate stories. They are parts of a larger structure. We are building systems that can see more, decide faster, and reach deeper into human life than any government, military, or corporation in history.

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Why the Promise Makes the Danger Greater

AI can do enormous good. It can help doctors spot disease earlier, assist people with paralysis, tailor education to individual students, improve emergency response, manage traffic and energy use, and reduce repetitive work. Properly governed, it could expand access to knowledge, strengthen public services, and give people more time for care, creativity, and civic life.

That promise is precisely why the stakes are so high. Technologies that become indispensable are hard to challenge. Once hospitals, schools, militaries, banks, and governments depend on the same systems, the people who control those systems gain influence that may be difficult to reverse. AI does not have to become evil to become dangerous. It only has to become essential while remaining unaccountable.

Enemies Today, Partners Tomorrow

We are often told that the United States must move faster because China is moving faster. There is truth in that concern. Democracies should not hand advanced AI capabilities to authoritarian governments. But a race between great powers does not guarantee protection for ordinary people. It may instead produce a compact among the few who control the chips, models, satellites, cloud systems, and networks.

Rivals often cooperate when it serves their shared interests. Governments and corporations could eventually agree on standards for surveillance, borders, information control, and access to computing power. The benefits would move upward to those who own the infrastructure. The risks—job displacement, biased policing, misinformation, and lost privacy—would move downward to everyone else. The gods would stop fighting and begin managing their estate.

An FAA for AI

We already know how to govern complex, high-speed systems that can kill people when they fail. We do it in aviation. The Federal Aviation Administration classifies airspace, certifies aircraft and equipment, sets operating rules, tests new technologies, investigates failures, and insists on human oversight.

AI needs a similar model. An “AI FAA” would classify systems by risk. It would impose the strictest rules on weapons, policing, elections, healthcare, education, and critical infrastructure, while using lighter rules for low-risk applications. High-risk systems would require testing, documentation, certification, independent review, and clear lines of accountability before they could be deployed at scale.

The principle is simple: safety first, rights first, speed and profit second. No company should be allowed to write its own rules for systems that can shape elections, make life-and-death decisions, or monitor whole populations.

Keeping the Gods’ Chair Empty

The goal is not to create a benevolent AI ruler. It is to ensure that no person, corporation, agency, or nation can occupy that position at all. At home, that means binding rules for transparency, accountability, nondiscrimination, and human control. It means public oversight of high-risk systems and a meaningful role for states and local communities in regulating effects on labor, energy, the environment, and civil rights.

Internationally, we have taken the first step. The Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law is the world’s first binding AI treaty. It seeks to ensure that AI is developed and used in ways that respect human rights, democracy, and the rule of law—placing principles like transparency, accountability, and non‑discrimination at its core. The world will need arms-control-style agreements for autonomous weapons, surveillance AI, and cross-border platforms. If nuclear weapons required global rules, then systems capable of reshaping militaries, information, and human behavior require them too.

Here Is My Ask

Do not treat this as science fiction. Treat it as a political agenda. Ask every elected official and every candidate who wants your vote one question: What will you do to ensure AI remains accountable to democracy?

Ask your city council and school board. Ask your state legislators. Ask your members of Congress. Ask the President. Right now, policy is moving toward concentrated, unaccountable AI power, sold to us as innovation and national security.

The architecture is already rising around us—in our phones, our workplaces, our skies, in orbit, and now inside the human nervous system. We still have time to govern it, but we should not assume we always will.

The Greeks feared their gods because no one could challenge them. Democracy was founded on the opposite belief: no one should possess unlimited power. AI may become one of humanity’s greatest achievements. It may also become the greatest concentration of power we have ever built.

The question is no longer whether someone can build the gods’ chair. The question is whether we will stop anyone from sitting in it before the chair becomes a throne.

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Phil Huber is a retired Army Reserve colonel, federal civil servant and consultant who writes on civic education. He lives in Fredericksburg.

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The hot tropical Pacific Ocean condition El Niño returned in June bringing us warmer and wetter weather. The wetter weather of June and July (8.8 inches of rain vs. 7.6-inch average) was very welcome since we had been in an extreme drought since August 2025, having only received 13.3 inches of rain vs. our 35.2-inch average.

The warmer temperatures were not as welcome, as June was 3.3 degrees above average, and July was 3.7 degrees hotter. So be prepared for higher July bills as we used more electricity for air conditioning, and Dominion raised their rates effective July 1. On the plus side, during the last El Niño in 2023-24, the winter temperature was 3.5 degrees above average, so we should see lower heating bills this winter.

Unfortunately, this El Niño is predicted to be the hottest ever, which will have some long-lasting effects. 2024 was the hottest year in recorded history, and 2026 is predicted to be even hotter. The amount of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is at a record low, which allows for more solar heat to reach the planet.

The higher temperatures are causing increasing melting of the glaciers and ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere, increasing the rate of sea level rise. Global sea levels rose .23 inches during the last El Niño, which was much higher than the expected .17-inch rise. We may see an even larger rise this year. Sea levels are rising by different amounts around the world, with the highest increases, unfortunately, in the Gulf.

The sea level at Tampa, Florida, has been rising an average of .24 inches per year during the last 30 years, which is twice the global average of .12 inches per year. So, we will see more flooding during high tides, and more damage during tropical storms/hurricanes.

What can we do to help? You might consider installing solar panels to reduce your electric bills and help protect the environment. The Solarize Virginia campaign runs through August 15, providing you with vetted installers and negotiated lower prices. As an alternative, there is another state initiative, Switch Together Virginia, providing low group rates. There are lease and purchase options available. There is no obligation to buy, and you typically recover your investment in less than ten years, so please check out these programs.

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Bruce Saller is a retired systems engineer with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science.

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FREDLINES

Eve Evans, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Potomac Local News

College Heights Neighbors Gather for National Night Out

By Uriah Kiser, 08/05/2026

Fredericksburg’s College Heights neighborhood held its National Night Out event Tuesday at Christ Lutheran Church, drawing 62 residents for games, snacks, and ice cream. Police Chief Betsy Mason handed out bracelets, Officer Anthony Farino let kids explore his cruiser’s lights and siren, and Mayor Kerry Devine and Councilor Susanna Finn stopped by while touring neighborhood events. Residents said they appreciated the chance to interact directly with police.

The Free Lance Star

Charge upgraded against man in fatal Stafford crash

By Keith Epps, 08/04/2026

A Stafford grand jury indicted Raymond Bond IV, 38, on a reckless driving charge Monday in connection with a June 30 I-95 crash that killed 9-year-old Davin Yap of Rotterdam, New York. Bond’s Kia Sorento struck a GMC Acadia carrying Davin and five others while changing lanes, triggering a four-vehicle chain-reaction crash; Davin died July 5 at VCU Medical Center after being freed from the wreckage. His initial traffic infraction for an unsafe lane change was dropped in favor of the reckless driving charge, which carries up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. No court date has been set.

Montross woman pleads guilty in fatal Spotsylvania crash

By Keith Epps, 08/04/2026

Kiana Charise Johnson, 30, of Montross pleaded guilty Monday to DUI-maiming in Spotsylvania Circuit Court, with an involuntary manslaughter charge dropped as part of the plea deal. Prosecutors said Johnson was driving up to 108 mph while intoxicated on Courthouse Road in the early morning of May 26, 2023, when her Dodge Charger ran off the road and crashed, trapping her and passenger Breauna Johnson, 27; Breauna died weeks later from a pulmonary embolism linked to injuries from the crash. Johnson remains free on bond and faces up to 10 years in prison at sentencing on Nov. 9.

Defense lawyers sues prosecutor, claims defamation

By Keith Epps, 08/04/2026

Stafford attorney Eugene Frost has filed a $2.35 million defamation lawsuit against prosecutor Ryan Frank in Stafford Circuit Court, alleging Frank damaged his reputation by publicly accusing him of dishonesty. The dispute traces back to a May case dismissal on speedy-trial grounds — upheld on appeal — after Frost represented a 19-year-old client facing rape and sodomy charges from an August 2024 house party incident. Frank had claimed Frost secretly agreed to the trial date and quoted him saying Frost hadn’t been “honest,” an accusation Frost says the court record contradicts and which Frank refused to retract. Frank has not yet responded to the suit, and no court date has been set.

Fredericksburg Free Press

Bert Mizusawa wins GOP primary to try to prevent U.S. Sen. Mark Warner’s fourth term

By Jonathan Hunley , 08/04/2026

\Retired Army Maj. Gen. Bert Mizusawa won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate Tuesday, carrying every locality in the Fredericksburg area and claiming 51% of the vote to David Williams’ 29% and Kim Farington’s 20%, with 96% of votes counted. He’ll face Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Warner, who is seeking a fourth term, in the Nov. 3 general election. Mizusawa also led in fundraising, raising $376,213 as of July 15. Virginia Democratic Party chair Lamont Bagby criticized Mizusawa as a “Trump loyalist” over his support for Trump’s policies, while Mizusawa attributed his win to being seen as the most electable candidate against Warner.

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ADVANCE READS

Ranjit Singh, Eric Bonds, Donnie Johnston, Hugh Lessig

The Corporate Environmental Blame Game

By Ranjit Singh and Eric Bonds, ADVANCE CONTRIBUTORS

Philosophically, Henry David Thoreau is as American as it gets. We’re all taught from childhood about the power of the individual to effect change. Curiously, when analyzing how big corporations speak to us, one might well think that they, too, swallowed Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobedience whole. Case in point: Remember the “carbon footprint calculator?”

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‘The Devil and Daniel Webster’ 2.0

By Donnie Johnston, ADVANCE COLUMNIST

Sometimes the truth leaps out at you like a lion from the bush.

Last Sunday I was preparing for church when I turned on the television and began flipping through channels to find something to bring background noise to a quiet house when I happened upon the movie The Devil and Daniel Webster, that 1941 classic taken from the story by Stephen Vincent Benet.

I picked up during the final half hour of the movie, and I had not been watching for two minutes before it hit me. This is a story we are living today. The names of the characters may have changed, but the tale is the same, as is the moral.

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Culpeper Resident Wins GOP Primary, Setting Up Clash with Vindman in the 7^th

By Hugh Lessig, ADVANCE MILITARY COLUMNIST

Republican Doug Ollivant easily won his party’s nomination in the 7^th Congressional District Tuesday and will face Democratic incumbent Rep. Eugene Vindman.

In a three-way race, the Culpeper County resident grabbed more than 56 percent of the vote. Entrepreneur Philip A. Harding from Prince William County tallied 31 percent. Coming in third was Ricky Smithers, who lived outside the district. His longshot bid netted him about 13 percent of the vote.

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STATE OF THE STATE

VaNews/VIRGINIA PUBLIC ACCESS PROJECT

Shannon Taylor to take on Rob Wittman in Virginia’s 1st

By JAHD KHALIL, VPM

Democrats in Virginia’s 1st Congressional District are putting forward Henrico Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor as their challenger to incumbent Republican US Rep. Rob Wittman, according to unofficial results Tuesday night. Taylor was on track to win over 50% of the vote in Virginia’s most crowded primary election. ... “With the help of our incredible law enforcement, we’ve made our community safer. But protecting our community from harm can no longer be just about stopping crime on our streets,” Taylor told supporters at an Irish pub in Henrico. “Now, our families are facing a new threat: a cost of living crisis caused by a culture of corruption in Washington.”

Luria wins Democratic nomination for Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, will face Kiggans

By KATE SELTZER, Virginian-Pilot (Metered Paywall - 2 articles a month)

Democrat Elaine Luria will fight to get her old seat back against Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans in the 2nd Congressional District after earning the party’s nomination Tuesday night. The Associated Press called the race at 7:30 p.m. for Luria. With more than half of precincts reporting, Luria had 81% of the vote. She beat out candidates Nila Devanath, Bill Fleming and Patrick Mosolf. ... “As I stand up here tonight, it seems eerily familiar to when I stood here in 2018 to accept the nomination,” she said, referencing the year she went on to topple Republican incumbent Scott Taylor to represent the district.

Perriello clinches Democratic nomination in 5th District, will take on McGuire in fall; Powers to face Griffith in 9th

By ELIZABETH BEYER, Cardinal News

Former Democratic Congressman Tom Perriello won the 5th District nomination and Joy Powers took the 9th District nomination in Democratic primary contests on Tuesday. Democrats will have a steep uphill battle if they are to win either district in November. Both are considered solidly Republican seats by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report and have been won by GOP candidates with double-digit margins. “For months, I’ve visited every corner of the district to hear from thousands of local families. Folks are struggling to make it to the next paycheck, and they are fed up with this Congress making everything more expensive, more corrupt, and just plain stupid,” Perriello said in a statement after he secured his party’s nomination.

SCC orders Dominion to develop tariff to assign more transmission costs to data centers

By SHANNON HECKT, Virginia Mercury

More of the cost to build the high-voltage transmission lines that serve as power highways across the state could soon be covered by data centers, after a recent decision by state regulators. The State Corporation Commission has ordered Dominion Energy to develop a policy to directly assign the cost of transmission infrastructure to data centers and other large-load users that connect to the facilities, “with the goal of finding an acceptable and symmetrical approach towards assigning costs in these circumstances.”

Regulatory filings reveal 1,400 MW of new data center plans across three Goochland sites

By SEAN JONES, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)

Two more data centers have been proposed for Goochland County, according to disclosure plans filed by Dominion Energy. One of the projects, a 1,200-megawatt campus, would require four new electric substations, according to testimony filed with Virginia regulators. The disclosures come as Goochland moves from preparing for potential data center growth to accommodating multiple large-scale projects along the Route 288 corridor. ... The newly disclosed projects would add 1,400 megawatts of potential electric demand beyond the already-public, 900-megawatt TRACT data center campus proposed in Goochland.

***

Articles from newspapers throughout the Commonwealth and Washington D.C. Firewalls will block you from reading some, but you’ll at least have some idea about what’s going on from the headlines and summaries. CLICK HERE.

This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”

Republican Doug Ollivant easily won his party’s nomination in the 7^th Congressional District Tuesday and will face Democratic incumbent Rep. Eugene Vindman.

In a three-way race, the Culpeper County resident grabbed more than 56 percent of the vote. Entrepreneur Philip A. Harding from Prince William County tallied 31 percent. Coming in third was Ricky Smithers, who lived outside the district. His longshot bid netted him about 13 percent of the vote.

The results are posted on the Virginia Department of Elections website and are considered unofficial until formally certified.

Tuesday’s results set up a showdown between two retired U.S. Army officers.

Ollivant is a retired lieutenant colonel who served two combat tours in Iraq and advised coalition forces in Afghanistan. He has taught at the United States Military Academy at West Point and served at a director level at the National Security Council.

Vindman served as an infantry officer and paratrooper, including assignments in the 82^nd Airborne Division. He transitioned to the U.S. Army Judge Advocate Generals Corps and was a legal adviser at the National Security Council. He retired as a colonel.

The 7^th is considered a battleground district. Vindman won the seat two years ago with 51 percent of the vote. He succeeded Abigail Spanberger, who went on to become governor.

Ollivant, who lives on the banks of Rappahannock River, said his background resonated with voters across the 7^th District.

“I live in Culpeper on the rural side of the district,” he said, “but I think my background, my resume, and my education spoke very well to the I-95 corridor.”

In an interview with the FXBG Advance before the election, Ollivant said he wanted to champion a “manufacturing renaissance” to lift small businesses and invigorate the area’s defense industrial base.

“I would love policies that promote small shops,” he said. “We need young Virginians to figure out how they can tie into the supply chains of these very large defense conglomerates.”

He supports an all-of-the-above energy policy that would include small, modular nuclear reactors and natural gas as well as other sources. He said a coherent energy policy is more urgent than ever as power-hungry data centers expand across the state.

He’s also emphasized the need for a healthy and continuous food supply, strengthening the link between farmers and consumers, and housing affordability.

Asked how he stacks up against Vindman, Ollivant said his opponent “has not been present for the district” and has made a token effort at constituent service.

He criticized Vindman for saying he would compete in a reconfigured 1^st District under a redistricting plan put forth by Virginia Democrats. That plan was later rejected by the courts.

In a statement issued after last night’s results, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee warned that Ollivant would march in lockstep with congressional Republicans who support the Iran war, reductions in healthcare and other unpopular cuts.

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Last Sunday I was preparing for church when I turned on the television and began flipping through channels to find something to bring background noise to a quiet house when I happened upon the movie The Devil and Daniel Webster, that 1941 classic taken from the story by Stephen Vincent Benet.

I picked up during the final half hour of the movie, and I had not been watching for two minutes before it hit me. This is a story we are living today. The names of the characters may have changed, but the tale is the same, as is the moral.

In case you are not familiar with Benet’s short story, the famed lawyer and orator Daniel Webster

defends New Hampshire farmer Jabez Stone, who has sold his soul to the devil—in the persona of a “Mr. Scratch”), but now wants to get out of that contract.

I immediately thought of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz, and all the other high-ranking Republicans who saw Donald Trump for what he was before his election, and publicly stated their fear of what he might do as president.

Then, Trump got re-elected and suddenly all these men and women who had condemned him came enthusiastically to do his bidding and worship at his feet. Why? Because he promised them power.

The Marco Rubios and the Ted Cruzes and all the others willingly sold their souls to the devil, not so much in exchange for wealth as was the case with Jabez Stone, but for power.

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Is Donald Trump the modern-day version of Mr. Scratch? Has he, like Mr. Scratch, succeeded in convincing his followers to sell their eternal souls for a short-lived taste of power?

Look at the face of defiance in the picture Trump has chosen to express his persona, and the orange hair whose color is reminiscent of the fires of hell.

Trump’s MAGA followers have likened him to the right hand of God, while his detractors have insisted that he is the antichrist, the sinister one who leads the world to Armageddon.

If we are going to attempt to explain Donald Trump in biblical terms, as both his loyal following and his opponents would like, then let’s go all the way and question whether the man is really Mr. Scratch—or Satan himself.

In The Devil and Daniel Webster, Webster tells the jury, composed of those who long ago sold their souls to Mr. Scratch, that their verdict could be an opportunity to save America “from going to the devil” and in the end they side with the 19^th century lawyer.

Maybe that’s where we are right now. Stone’s trial was at midnight in a darkened barn. Maybe our trial against the devil will be the first Tuesday in this coming November.

The jury will not be a dozen murderers and derelicts hand-picked by Mr. Scratch, but rather the voters of the United States who will decide the fate of those among us who have sold their soul to the devil in exchange for four years of unbridled power.

As Webster told his jury, we the people have a chance to break the Republican contract, to take back our country from the devil and his disciples.

If MAGA followers are determined to put the Trump era into a biblical context, remember that scripture says that the multitudes will bow down to the antichrist, aka Satan.

On the other hand, Daniel Webster argued that it is possible to break any contract with the devil and save our country from falling under his rule.

The first Tuesday in November is the trial date and you are the jury. This time you have been saddled with perhaps the greatest responsibility in the history of this great nation.

I think Daniel Webster would agree: the fate of American democracy may well be in your hands come November.

If we make the wrong choice, the psychic Edgar Cayce’s—and the Catholic Church’s—“three days of darkness” may be upon us.

But as of now, the door is still open.

If MAGA is determined to speak of the Trump Administration in biblical terms, his apostles need only to turn to the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 8, verse 36.

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Henry David Thoreau believed mightily in individual acts of conscience. For instance, here’s Thoreau on the topic of slavery, which he vehemently opposed:

I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name — if ten honest men only — aye, if one HONEST man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this co-partnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefore, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done for ever.

Philosophically, Thoreau is as American as it gets. We’re all taught from childhood about the power of the individual to effect change. Curiously, when analyzing how big corporations speak to us, one might well think that they, too, swallowed Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobedience whole.

Case in point: Remember the “carbon footprint calculator?”

In 2004, global oil giant BP unveiled this device for measuring one’s daily impact on climate change. A brainchild of the PR firm Olgivy & Mather, the calculator asked questions in order to help people assess their culpability in effecting climate change. The idea was that by making a few changes to our lifestyles, we could all move forward and bring this disastrous problem to heel. Consume less, travel less, buy smarter.

BP invested huge sums in the PR campaign. It tweeted an ad for the calculator decorated with pictures of bicycles and broccoli and cute sayings like “Eat Local” and “Feed Tums, Not Bins.”

In fact, BP’s massive campaign made “carbon footprint” the household term it is today.

Going back in time, older folks may recall the 1971 ad where a dignified Native American man shed a tear after seeing trash tossed out of a car window. Over stirring music, a stern narrator informed us that “People start pollution. People can stop it.” The ad showed a New York mailing address you could write to for a list of “71 things you can do to stop pollution.”

The “Crying Indian” ad won prestigious advertising awards (even though the actor wasn’t really Native American). One of your coauthors recalls firsthand how that guy’s single tear wreaked havoc on the mind of a child. He felt guilty for every gum wrapper he’d ever tossed aside.

What ties these two influential ad campaigns together? A very simple deception.

They put the responsibility for solving big problems on us, the little people.

BP’s products, along with those of other oil giants like Chevron, Exxon, and Shell, have been responsible for 10 percent of global carbon emissions just in the period from 1965 to 2022. According to the environmental action group ClientEarth, just 100 companies like BP are responsible for 71 percent of all global CO2 and methane emissions.

And Coca Cola, a major funder of the “Crying Indian” ad campaign, has been deemed the “World’s Biggest Plastic Polluter.” Fifty-plus years after the ad appeared, the Center for Biological Diversity estimates that Coke produces 134 billion single-use plastic bottles every year. The iconic anti-litter ad’s other backers included Pepsi and Anheuser Busch. It’s their plastic bottles and packaging that are filling up the oceans.

Clearly, nothing we as individuals ever do will in any way heal the environment compared to what these global corporations could do, if they were serious about it.

But they don’t want you thinking that. Their way of doing business is immensely profitable. So, they point the cannon at you.

Decades after we tallied our carbon footprint and cried with the “Indian,” climate change and pollution remain basic problems. But environmental threats change over time, too. Today, no issue flummoxes our region more than the rapid proliferation of data centers.

The data center boom has hit Virginia harder than any other state. Logically, many residents worry about its effects, which makes the industry nervous. So now we’re being carpet-bombed with pro-data center ads on TV and online. Virginia Connects, the voice of data center supporters like Amazon, The Data Center Coalition, and the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce, produces many such ads.

Filled with optimism, Virginia Connects’ ad campaign pushes a distinct message: Data centers are here to help people shoulder their responsibilities.

This cheery ad is titled “Virginia’s Data Centers Are There For You.” Which begs the question — for you to do what?

“We help your family conserve energy and live more sustainably,” the narrator answers over the kind of anodyne, upbeat music one associates with modern electoral campaigns.

You ARE doing that, aren’t you, dear reader? Conserving energy and living sustainably? Because the data centers are here to help you.

Certainly, the industry knows how much you’ve already helped them. But its PR campaign is more evasive about that. Another Virginia Connects ad, titled “Businesses are Rethinking Data Centers: Tax Revenues,” tells viewers that “[Data center] businesses are rethinking about how data centers are built. That means paying for every watt of energy they use…”

“Rethinking?” What a nice admission that they haven’t been getting an electric bill like everyone else’s, but rather one that funnels costs to ratepayers like us.

And what the ads won’t even touch is that we’ve also been paying for the expanded energy infrastructure needed to support this handful of uber-wealthy corporations, even though most of what’s being built for them today has nothing to do with current individual consumer demand. There’s plenty enough data center capacity out there to meet our needs on “the cloud.” What they’re doing now is speculating on the future importance of AI — a prospect many Virginians find disturbing in terms of surveillance, lost jobs, etc.

We’ve done enough already. Yet the whole industry pushes you to do more. The Director of Sustainability at NTT Global Data Centers (an IT consulting firm) advises each of us to manage our emails more efficiently, turn off our video cameras, and better organize our digital folders. No behavior modification is too small — for you to make.

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Such PR campaigns artfully place data center owners and developers in unobtrusive roles when it comes to spiking prices, rising infrastructure demands, and depleting resources. Throughout, they imply that data centers aren’t the cause of anything bad.

We know this misdirection to be utterly disingenuous. According to the World Resources Institute, data centers impact their communities in many ways, including:

They consume massive amounts of energy. “A single modern AI data center can use as much power as 100,000 homes; many of the larger ones now being built are expected to consume up to 20 times that amount.”

They consume massive amounts of water. “Mid-sized facilities can use up to 300,000 gallons of water a day, while large facilities can consume as much as 5 million gallons daily — comparable to what a small town uses.” [Some data centers use “reclaimed” rather than potable water, but with evaporation most of that water escapes, depleting local water supplies by reducing replenishment. As the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy observes, water is a finite resource, and “what goes unacknowledged, from a natural systems perspective, is that all water is local.”]

They significantly add to air pollution and climate change. “Many facilities rely on gas-fired generation for routine operations alongside diesel generators for emergency backup. Both come with climate and health risks.”

Energy and water consumption, air pollution, climate change, and health risks. You’re doing something about that, right?

Indeed, many of us do answer the call. When we keep our home thermostat a few degrees warmer in summer, or take shorter showers, we lessen our personal impact on the environment.

But let’s not fool ourselves.

Serious environmentalists know that focusing on individuals is an incredibly inefficient way to fix big problems. Elizabeth DeSombre, author of Why Good People Do Bad Environmental Things, writes:

If you think about the number of people one would have to individually persuade to change behavior (and how many behaviors each would have to change), in a country of millions or a world of billions, it’s easy to see how a solution that focuses on changing individual behavior has no hope of creating change as quickly as ecological conditions require.

What would produce real change? DeSombre concludes, “The best way to change a lot of behavior of a lot of people reasonably quickly is for that change to be structural or systemic.”

Which is to say — contra Thoreau — that if one Virginian pledges to consume less energy — aye, if ten thousand commit to such a pledge — it would not have anywhere near the impact of a single piece of good legislation. Legislation that, for example, demands all developers pay the costs associated with building a clean energy infrastructure, or slaps stringent emissions standards on every data center built in our state.

Or pauses data center construction until we have a handle on things.

Be assured that the data center owners and operators know all this. And systemic change via public-minded legislation is precisely what they don’t want to see. It might hurt their bottom lines.

So, Virginia Connects and the actors behind it want you worrying about your consumption habits, not theirs.

Luckily, we citizens have choices.

First, please continue to recycle plastics. Maybe even wear that musty old jacket for one more season. But don’t let corporate jiu jitsu trick you.

As one of us recently wrote, “Let’s not expect the IT and digital infrastructure industry (and the billionaires behind it) to act like angels.” These are people like Jeff Bezos, who spent $46-56 million on a single wedding. Climate change and our region’s air and water quality aren’t keeping them up at night. In the name of profit, their data centers will visit far more lasting environmental harm on our region than any of us ever could. So choose not to be fooled.

Second, the fact remains that the data center industry needs our representatives’ permission to build in our region. And we don’t need angels to fix our problems.

We need elected officials and city and county administrators who will protect our air, water, and land — the fundamentals of our children’s futures. They have to ask tough questions, view every data center claim with skepticism, and deliver strong legislation that minimizes environmental harm.

Corporations put the onus of a healthy environment on us as individuals. Confound them, and do exactly that — vote for leaders who see through their deceptions.

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Ranjit Singh teaches in the Department of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of Mary Washington. He’s also an active environmentalist. His “No Lines in Nature” Substack blends history, science, and philosophy to explore our relationship with the natural world world. You can find it HERE. Eric Bonds is a professor of Sociology at the University of Mary Washington where he studies climate change and environmental inequality in Virginia. A version of this essay was first published in No Lines in Nature.

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ADVANCE READS

Steve Farnsworth, Special to The Advance, Dewey Turner, ACLU

BREAKING NEWS

Families Sue King George School Board for Blocking LGBTQ+ Student Organization

American Civil Liberties Union

The ACLU of Virginia and Potomac Law Group have filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of two students who were denied the opportunity to form a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) at King George Middle School (KGMS) even as other noncurricular student groups were allowed to operate.

“King George County Schools cannot move the goalposts to prevent an organization that promotes respect and equality for LGBTQ+ students from existing just because school board members disagree with its message,” said ACLU-VA Staff Attorney Julia Kahn. “The First Amendment and Equal Access Act protect all students, and the school board cannot pick and choose who the rules apply to. Why this club, and not others?”

When students at KGMS followed the official process to start a student club during the 2025-2026 school year, the King George County School Board tried to block the GSA by proposing new rules to make it harder to form a club. After the ACLU of Virginia sent a letter to the school board warning that such a policy would violate federal law, the school board adopted a new policy banning all “noncurricular organizations” from forming at the middle school level – effectively barring the GSA from KGMS.

Yet despite the policy’s passage, King George County Schools have continued to allow multiple noncurricular student groups to operate at the middle school level, including an outdoor club that has students making fishing lures and skinning squirrels. In fact, KGMS has attempted to define “curricular” to encompass every single club but the GSA club.

“Student clubs help students build community, find belonging, and thrive, and when schools offer those opportunities, the law requires that they be available on equal terms to all students,” said Mary Rohmiller, partner at Potomac Law Group. “But King George County Schools appears to be applying a double standard to the GSA at its middle schools. The students at the heart of this case are not asking for special treatment – they’re asking for equal treatment.”

“There’s nothing more important to us than our child’s wellbeing, safety, health, and education, and GSA clubs have positive impacts on every one of those,” said plaintiffs and parents of Z.J.W., Teresa Catoe and John Wheeler. “If a club gets students excited about school and makes them want to participate and do their best, then we want that club to exist, and that’s why we gave our permission for our child to participate. Why wouldn’t the school board want to offer kids the opportunity to join groups where they feel included and supported rather than singled out?”

“I’m not interested in the culture wars fueling the King George County School Board’s decision – I’m interested in what’s best for my child,” said plaintiff and parent of A.A.P., Susan Park. “And what’s best for my child is to feel valued and supported at school by participating in a club that follows every rule set out for it. I would expect the school board to be just as interested in that as I am.”

Z.J.W. v. King George School Board was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and asks the court to issue forthcoming preliminary and permanent injunctions requiring the district to allow the GSA to form and operate on the same terms as other student organizations, as well as to prohibit the district from enforcing club policies that discriminate against student groups based on their viewpoint or retaliating against anyone who supported the GSA club.

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Virginia Belongs at the Front of the Democratic Presidential Primary Line

By Stephen J. Farnsworth, ADVANCE COLUMNIST

Virginia has tentatively been offered sixth place in the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination calendar: an improvement over its usual Super Tuesday location, but far less than it deserves. Virginia should be first in line.

Why should Virginia move ahead of the other proposed early states of South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Michigan? Let me count the ways.

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Goolrick’s To Reopen Friday After Four-Year Restoration

SPECIAL TO THE ADVANCE

Goolrick’s, home to America’s longest-running soda fountain, reopens Friday, Aug. 7, after a four-year restoration of the 1808 building at 901 Caroline St. Goolrick’s has served Fredericksburg since 1869 — through fires, floods, and rebuilds. Its lunch counter returns with the original tin ceilings, hand-laid tile, and a chef who came from Michelin-starred restaurants in Chicago to head the kitchen at a 157-year-old institution.

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Book Signing by Advance Columnist to Be Landmark Occasion at Local Tap Room

By Dewey Turner, ADVANCE LITERARY CORRESPONDENT

In an historic first, J. Brian’s Tap Room at 200 Hanover Street has agreed to host author Drew Gallagher for the first book signing in the 32-year history of the Fredericksburg landmark restaurant on Friday, August 7^t from 5-6:30 p.m.

Gallagher will be selling copies of his recently published Funny for Nothing, a collection of dozens of award-winning-adjacent humor columns from the FXBG Advance.

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FREDLINES

Eve Evans, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

The Free Lance Star

Fredericksburg area near top in Virginia data center growth

By Scott Shenk, 08/04/2026

Richmond has 132 approved or planned data centers, the second-most in Virginia, while Northern Virginia’s Sterling (88) and Manassas (63) also outpace the Fredericksburg-area market’s 59, according to Datacentermap.com, which groups Fredericksburg with Stafford, Spotsylvania, Caroline and King George counties. Fredericksburg has an agreement with STACK Infrastructure and The Silver Companies to build 8-12 data centers by right in its Technology Overlay District. Spotsylvania has approved several large projects, including the 1.9-million-square-foot Cosner Tech Campus and up to 2.6 million square feet at Carters Store, while Stafford’s approved projects include the 5.8-million-square-foot Stafford Technology Campus and several smaller campuses along Centreport Parkway and U.S. 1.

Ruther Glen man who killed teen sentenced to 10 years

By Keith Epps. 08/04/2026

Kenneth J. Watson, 20, of Ruther Glen was sentenced Monday in Spotsylvania Circuit Court to 10 years in prison (25 years with 15 suspended) after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter, unlawful wounding and two firearms charges. Watson fired a shot at another teen during a scuffle at a September 2024 party on Spotswood Furnace Road, missing his target but killing 19-year-old bystander Christian Whalen, who was acting as a peacemaker. Judge Ricardo Rigual’s sentence exceeded state guidelines, which recommended a maximum of about four years, though Whalen’s family said the punishment still felt inadequate.

Other Local News

Fredericksburg City Public Schools Increase Driver Pay, Institute New Safety Initiative

Fredericksburg City Public Schools has announced they’re hiking bus-driver pay to match Stafford County’s starting rate, which is $24.26 an hour. The City is also launching a new student transportation badging system for the 2026-2027 school year. Students will scan their school-issued ID badges when boarding and exiting school buses, providing drivers with an accurate, real-time record of student ridership while helping improve route efficiency, accountability, and student safety. The system also provides additional support for substitute drivers by securely displaying student identification information when needed. FCPS is currently accepting applications for school bus drivers. For more information go to www.fxbgschools.us/careers.

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STATE OF THE STATE

VaNews/VIRGINIA PUBLIC ACCESS PROJECT

Proposals to move Virginia’s odd-year elections die in surprise vote

By DAVE RESS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)

In a surprise move, a General Assembly move to align Virginia’s odd-year elections with federal presidential and congressional votes has died. The joint House of Delegates and state Senate panel charged with studying the issue could not agree on whether to recommend any action to the General Assembly. “I was surprised. I was a touch surprised,” said state Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, the joint subcommittee chair.

Virginia girds for data center-focused House races

By KINNIA CHEUK AND AMELIA DAVIDSON, E&E News

Virginia lawmakers defending their House seats this fall face growing pressure to weigh in on the growth of data centers in a state with the highest concentration of them. Concerns over energy affordability and water resources are mounting, and House candidates in Virginia who once punted the issue of data center construction to state governments and localities are being asked to take a clear stance on how to control their costs and environmental impact. “Most things in America, you’re trying to build a new road, it takes six or eight years. Data centers are going up in a matter of months, and that’s freaking people out,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) told POLITICO.

Vindman: State should reject Dominion-NextEra merger

By PETER CARY, Fauquier Times

U.S. Rep. Eugene Vindman is calling on state regulators to reject Dominion Energy’s proposed merger with Florida-based NextEra Energy, claiming the move would hike electricity bills and reduce Virginians’ trust in their utility. The Woodbridge Democrat sent a letter to the Virginia State Corporation Commission, which regulates public utilities, listing his concerns over what he called a “backroom deal” and imploring the agency “to do everything in your power to block this merger.” “I’m strongly opposed to the merger between NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy,” Vindman said in an interview Friday. U.S. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, whose 10th District includes Fauquier County, voiced concerns about the merger in May.

The hidden cost of Trump’s Dulles overhaul

By CUNEYT DIL, Axios

One of the biggest unanswered questions about President Trump’s $22.5 billion remake of Dulles Airport is how it’ll be financed. Industry experts say airlines could pass at least some of the project’s costs on to travelers. One figure already stands out: the airport’s projected cost per enplanement — the average cost airlines pay the airport for each departing passenger. Currently, Dulles’ is around $10. But according to the renovation plan, acquired by D.C. travel writer Edward Russell, that figure jumps to $90.64 by project completion in 2035.***

Articles from newspapers throughout the Commonwealth and Washington D.C. Firewalls will block you from reading some, but you’ll at least have some idea about what’s going on from the headlines and summaries. CLICK HERE.

This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”

In an historic first, J. Brian’s Tap Room at 200 Hanover Street has agreed to host author Drew Gallagher for the first book signing in the 32-year history of the Fredericksburg landmark restaurant on Friday, August 7^t from 5-6:30 p.m.

Gallagher will be selling copies of his recently published Funny for Nothing, a collection of dozens of award-winning-adjacent humor columns from the FXBG Advance.

“We’ve never hosted a book signing before and we are excited to do it,” said owner Mike Mansfield. “The author Ken Burns once signed a book here, but he only signed one of his books that we made him sign while he was eating in the dining room.”

Mansfield added: “We get busy on First Fridays around 7 p.m., so can you make sure the book signing is over by then and we have all of our tables available?”

The historic agreement was not without conflict as Gallagher, a first-time author and longtime FXBG Advance columnist, demanded that Mansfield, a New York Mets fan, admit that the Boston Red Sox were the better team in 1986, and the Mets’ World Championship was a fluke. Mansfield scoffed at the demand, and told Gallagher that he could go cry like Calvin Schiraldi did during Game 6.

Gallagher subsequently retracted his demand.

“My top priority in agreeing to this book signing of Funny for Nothing was the safety of all those involved,” he said. “Whether the Red Sox were the better team in 1986—which they obviously were—was secondary to my concern for the citizens of Fredericksburg. I want to ensure that we do not have a crush of book buyers and a repeat of the Who concert in Cincinnati from 1979, which was why I reached out to Fredericksburg’s Chief of Police to alert her to the potential for a mob at 200 Hanover Street between 5 and 6:30 on Friday, August 7.”

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Fredericksburg Police Chief Betsy Mason confirmed that Gallagher had contacted her, but stated that there would be no extra security—or any—for the event.

“As with all book signings in the city’s limits, we will monitor the situation closely and respond as the need arises,” she said.

J. Brian’s will offer drink and dinner specials during the hours of the book signing. All pizzas can be made into flat breads for $7, and Guinness draughts will be only $5 with Vienna Lagers at $4. There will also be wine and rail drink specials from 5-6:30.

“Our happy hour specials run from 4 to 7 Monday through Friday, so these prices have nothing to do with the book signing,” said Mansfield.

Gallagher will be on hand to sell and sign copies of Funny for Nothing until the First Friday crowds arrive around 7 p.m.

Some customers have expressed concern that Gallagher may run out of books at the signing, while others, mostly the author’s cheap friends, have expressed concern that they may have already been wheedled into purchasing signed first edition copies of Funny for Nothing. The always helpful Gallagher has provided a list of merchants who carry the book and encourages worried readers to buy copies ahead of time to avoid missing out on these rare first editions:

Novel Bookstore, 212 William Street.

Liberty Town Arts Workshop, 916 Liberty Street.

Wren & Sparrow, 807 Caroline Street.

The Card Cellar, 915 Caroline Street.

Laudenbach Brewing, 45 Centreport Parkway, Unit 101.

As for those customers who have already purchased a signed copy, Gallagher had the following suggestion:

“Just get it signed again. Put it this way, if you had a Brooklyn Dodgers yearbook from 1955, would you want one signature from Jackie Robinson or two? Or just buy another copy of Funny for Nothing for $15 and have that one signed as well.”

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Goolrick’s, home to America’s longest-running soda fountain, reopens Friday, Aug. 7, after a four-year restoration of the 1808 building at 901 Caroline St. Goolrick’s has served Fredericksburg since 1869 — through fires, floods, and rebuilds. Its lunch counter returns with the original tin ceilings, hand-laid tile, and a chef who came from Michelin-starred restaurants in Chicago to head the kitchen at a 157-year-old institution.

Jarrell Properties Inc., the family-owned development company behind the restoration, will host a ribbon-cutting before doors open at 11 a.m. The first 50 guests in line will receive free Goolrick’s merchandise. Regular hours will be Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The building’s history dates to 1808, when it was constructed as a residence before transitioning to a tailor shop in 1822. In 1869, the building was purchased by W.B. Goolrick, marking the beginning of the Goolrick family’s 104-year ownership of the business. The soda fountain, for which Goolrick’s is best known, opened shortly after; however, the property’s first business filing as Goolrick’s Modern Pharmacy came in 1910.

Over the past four years, Jarrell Properties Inc. and a team of local contractors specializing in historic properties have worked through extensive structural repairs and restoration of original fixtures, including restored tin ceiling tiles, recreated hand-laid tile flooring, and barstools designed to accommodate the building’s slanted floor

The main dining room now seats up to 50 guests at the building’s lunch counter, high-top seating, and banquettes. At the back of the building, the owners have added a revitalized retail area that will sell Goolrick’s merchandise alongside products by local artisans from in and around Fredericksburg.

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“We’re incredibly excited to finally reopen the doors of Goolrick’s and welcome back our neighbors in the Fredericksburg community,” said Joseph “Jeh” Hicks. “Generations of Fredericksburg folks have lifelong memories tied to Goolrick’s, and a major focus throughout this project was honoring this landmark’s history while restoring the space to a standard that ensures Goolrick’s is here for many generations to come.”

The kitchen will be led by Executive Chef D’Andre Sykes, who began his career in 2017 at Fredericksburg’s Fahrenheit 132 before cooking in Nashville and Chicago, including at Michelin-starred Elske and the acclaimed Korean restaurant Jeong. The soda fountain menu at Goolrick’s will still feature Chicken Salad, Egg Salad, and Grilled Cheese sandwiches served on white or wheat bread with chips and a pickle spear, and milkshakes and malts, served in metal tins.

Sykes will be the chef in a separate dining room, Section 7—named for the provision of the Volstead Act that permitted pharmacies like Goolrick’s to dispense medicinal whiskey. Section 7 will open downstairs later this year, according to the new owners, with “no legacy menu, no inherited recipes, in a room that has not served the public in over a century.”

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Virginia has tentatively been offered sixth place in the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination calendar: an improvement over its usual Super Tuesday location, but far less than it deserves. Virginia should be first in line.

Why should Virginia move ahead of the other proposed early states of South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Michigan? Let me count the ways.

First, the Democratic party officials should prioritize states where voters have shown them love lately. For decades, Virginia was a reliably red state in presidential elections, but it has voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in the past five elections. South Carolina, the proposed first state in the Democratic nomination calendar, hasn’t given its electoral votes to the party since Jimmy Carter ran in 1976.

Three of the five states ahead of Virginia on the proposed early state list – South Carolina, Michigan and Nevada -- helped make Donald Trump president two years ago. Why should the Democratic party reward them?

New Hampshire, traditionally the first primary state, has been loyal to Democratic presidential candidates for one election cycle longer than Virginia – the party won the Granite State’s Electoral Votes in 2004 and in every contest since. But the party loyalty question there remains problematic: Republicans in Concord control the governor’s office and both chambers of the state legislature, a sharp contrast from the Democratic legislating trifecta in Richmond.

Furthermore, New Hampshire’s overwhelmingly white electorate looks far less like America than most states. And when one considers the even greater diversity of the national Democratic primary electorate, the state looks even more out of place at or near the front of the line.

To be sure, the new proposal offers up five early states with more diverse electorates than the traditional kick-off states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Latinos are particularly prominent in Nevada and New Mexico and African Americans are particularly prominent in South Carolina and Michigan. Also, many Asian American voters live in Nevada.

Virginia, the other diverse early state, boasts high levels of Latino, African American and Asian American residents. Democrats say they are looking to create greater ethnic and racial diversity in their presidential selection process, and Virginia offers one-stop shopping for that key consideration.

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The case for Democrats to push Virginia into the lead-off position in the 2028 presidential nomination calendar extends beyond favorable demographics and growing partisan loyalty. In many ways, the Commonwealth is like the United States in miniature. In Northern Virginia, we see a version of the ideologically liberal Northeast as well as a replica of high-tech Silicon Valley on the West Coast. The Commonwealth has its own Sun Coast and an industrial heartland in Hampton Roads. Other parts of the state are populated by farming communities and small towns that call to mind the Midwest, a region where Democrats have struggled to win voters.

In addition, many of today’s Virginia voters came here from other states, adding an exceptional geographic diversity to the state’s electorate—another reason Democrats would be well served by putting the Old Dominion at the head of the line.

Though it wasn’t part of the design, the Democratic proposal also would offer greater opportunities for Virginia Republicans to be heard in their own presidential process, as Virginia’s lawmakers will likely schedule both party’s primaries ahead of Super Tuesday.

The new proposal is still subject to further consideration by the Democratic National Committee in the coming weeks, providing time to amplify Virginia’s influence for 2028.

The problem with landing in sixth place is that the nomination may be secured before Virginia can be heard. In most recent presidential nomination cycles, few candidates make it past the first state or two, and some would-be nominees don’t even last until the first caucus or primary.

Virginia’s voice is too valuable to be muffled by the less-deserving states proposed to be closer to the front of the line.

***

Steve Farnsworth is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Mary Washington and the author or coauthor of nine books and dozens of research articles on U.S. and Virginia politics.

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ADVANCE READS

Steve Watkins, Shaun Kenney, Phil Huber

Four City Council Members Say Hard No to 1500 Gateway Data Center in Fredericksburg

By Steve Watkins, ADVANCE EDITOR

The majority of Fredericksburg’s City Council members have announced that they oppose the Penzance Development company’s recently announced plans to seek permits for a million-square-foot, two-building, 75-foot-high data center at 1500 Gateway Boulevard in an 84-acre wooded area in the city known as the Hylton Tract.

“Simply put, it’s the wrong location for a project such as this,” Ward I Council Member Matt Rowe said in an email to The Advance. “It’s too close to existing residential development, and the power lines that would be necessary to accommodate this project would need to be routed just behind Hugh Mercer ES or loom over all of Cowan Boulevard from Route 1 to 1500 Gateway.”

***

Blame Trump as a Symptom of the Times, but Until Institutions Address Their Own Sins, The Worst Is Yet to Come.

By Shaun Kenney, ADVANCE COLUMNIST

Donnie Johnson writes on the back and forth over stolen elections, particularly with regard to Trump in 2020 without exactly mentioning the hue and cry of the political left in 2016 where Russia stole the election. Both of these hyperbolic claims have been proven demonstrably untrue by serious minds, yet the myth continues and perhaps for no small reason than our culture is indeed soaked in a mindset that when Americans lose we are somehow cheated of victory.

***

The Misdirection Frame Game

By Phil Huber, ADVANCE COLUMNIST

Turn on the evening news long enough and the script starts to sound familiar. A Republican spokesman often will not begin with roads, wages, childcare, housing costs, or grocery prices. Instead, the message comes wrapped in warnings about schools, gender, immigration, religion, crime, “wokeness,” socialism, communism, or even “TDS.” The goal is to make you look here and not there.

That is political framing. It pulls attention away from the problems people live with every day and points it at an emotional target. A kitchen-table issue becomes a cultural panic. A policy debate becomes a moral fight. An argument about government becomes an argument about fear, identity, and belonging.

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FREDLINES

Eve Evans, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Fredericksburg Free Press

Virginia votes Tuesday: Everything you need to know about the 2026 primary elections

by Markus Schmidt. Virginia Mercury, 08/03/2027

Virginia holds its delayed 2026 primaries Tuesday, pushed back nearly two months after this year’s congressional redistricting referendum created uncertainty over which district maps would apply. More than 30 candidates are on the ballot statewide, including a contested three-way GOP Senate primary—featuring Kim Farington, Bert Mizusawa and David Williams—to challenge Democratic incumbent Mark Warner, plus competitive congressional primaries in seven districts. In the 7th District, which covers Fredericksburg and Stafford, three Republicans (Philip Harding, Douglas Ollivant and Rick Smithers) are vying for the chance to face unopposed Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman. Polls run from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., voters must show ID or sign an identity confirmation statement, and since Virginia doesn’t register by party, voters may choose either party’s ballot but not both.

Virginia senators request special session to act on ’deeply alarming’ groundwater report

By Shannon Heckt Virginia Mercury, 08/01/2026

A newly released 117-page Virginia DEQ report finds groundwater east of I-95 is “constrained,” with declining availability that would make it difficult to support major new industrial withdrawals—including data centers—without risking saltwater intrusion and threatening drinking water supplies. In response, Sens. Russet Perry and Richard Stuart sent Gov. Abigail Spanberger a letter urging a special legislative session, arguing that the report’s months-late release, past the legally required deadline, deprived lawmakers of critical information before this year’s session and budget decisions. The senators want the General Assembly to act on the report’s recommendations, including updating the 1992 Groundwater Management Act to let DEQ deny permits that would drop aquifer levels too low and requiring local growth plans to account for groundwater limits. The push adds to mounting pressure on Spanberger, who received a separate special-session request last week from Sen. David Suetterlein and Del. Joe McNamara over the proposed Dominion-NextEra merger.

Potomac Local News

Heavy Thunderstorms Pose Flash Flood Risk This Afternoon

By Uriah Kiser, 08/03/2027

Scattered showers and thunderstorms are expected tonight before clearing, with a low around 68, followed by a mostly dry Tuesday reaching a high near 86 and only isolated storms south of the Staunton-to-Fredericksburg line. An active, humid pattern returns Wednesday and persists through the weekend, bringing daily afternoon and evening storms, a heightened flooding risk, and possible severe weather from Thursday onward. Heat indices could near 100 degrees by late week, though some models hint at drier air arriving early next week.

The Free Lance Star

Deputy accused of possessing child pornography for 3 years

By Keith Epps, 08/02/2026

A former Stafford County Sheriff’s Office first sergeant, Justin Thomas Lee Forman, 37, was fired and arrested this week on federal child pornography charges after an FBI investigation found he had been receiving child sexual abuse material since at least mid-2023. Federal court records allege Forman used Bitcoin to purchase illicit content via Telegram and detail multiple videos involving young children, including an infant, that were sent to his account. The FBI seized 16 electronic devices from his home during a search executed Thursday, and Forman is being held at the Truesdale Adult Detention Center in Alexandria ahead of his Monday arraignment in U.S. District Court.

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STATE OF THE STATE

VaNews/VIRGINIA PUBLIC ACCESS PROJECT

Virginia senator calls for data center moratorium

By TYLER ENGLANDER, WRIC-TV

Sen. Glen Sturtevant (R-Colonial Heights) wants to hit the pause button on the approval and development of data centers in Virginia. Virginia is the data center capital of the world, as it has the highest concentration of these high-tech developments globally. “Every one of us in our electric bill pays for the generation and transmission lines that are needed for these data centers,” Sturtevant told 8News. “And now we’re also learning about the impacts on our waterways and our water resources.”

Grid operator warns of 6,800 MW shortfall as data center growth outpaces new power

By SEAN JONES, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)

The operator for the electric grid serving Richmond and much of Virginia says the region is on track to come up thousands of megawatts short of the electricity it expects to need within the next two to three years. PJM Interconnection, which manages the power grid for 67 million people across 13 states and the District of Columbia, says the region is projected to be about 6,831 megawatts short of the capacity it needs by its 2028-29 planning year. Put into perspective, that is roughly the output of seven to nine large power plants ...

Virginia politics: It’s big business, and business is good

By DAVE RESS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)

Politics in Virginia is a big — and fast-growing — business. The hundreds of millions of dollars that businesses and individuals earn getting candidates elected to state offices and then lobbying them to enact laws have outpaced inflation and the growth of the state economy, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found. Some of those firms and individuals are also the ones who run political hopefuls’ fundraising efforts, creating an even more feverish chase for funds based on the argument that money wins elections.

More lobbyists in Va., making more money — and more law

By DAVE RESS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)

Walk the hallways of the General Assembly Building, and you’re sure to run into lobbyists stopping by a state senator’s or delegate’s office. And although the more spacious hallways seem less crowded with lobbyists than the narrow, twisting passages in the Pocahontas Building that housed legislative offices before 2024, there are more of them — just over 1,100 — as clients spend more money than ever. Spending on lobbying is up 72% over the past three gubernatorial and House election cycles, from the 2017 to 2025 cycles, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis of state Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commission data found.

As Trump Promotes Critical Mineral Mining, a Company Eyes the Seafloor in Coastal Virginia

By CHARLES PAULLIN, Inside Climate News

When Katie Dawson’s deckmates measure a black sea bass that’s too small, she asks to return it. ... Dawson has cared for the black sea bass, and the broader ecosystem they’re a part of in coastal Virginia, for 40 years. She runs a commercial fishing business with her husband on a vessel named Salacia, the name of the Roman goddess of saltwater. She’s worried that the ecosystem that supports her livelihood could be in jeopardy: A company wants to mine almost 2,500 square miles of the seafloor, an area larger than Delaware, between three and 64 miles east of the Delmarva Peninsula and just south of Dawson’s home.

As $43 million for Southwest flood relief remains unspent, residents who can’t afford to fix their homes wait for help

By ELIZABETH BEYER, Cardinal News

David Cruey hadn’t slept well — he woke up in the middle of the night gasping for air. The power had gone out briefly. The four box fans and the window air conditioning unit circulating air throughout the trailer home had turned off, along with his oxygen machine. When that happened, as it had many times before, everything needed to be turned back on; otherwise, the air in the home would become heavy with mold and mildew. That made it difficult for Cruey to breathe, a condition that has worsened since last year’s flood caused mold to bloom in the home. State funds meant to help repair Cruey’s home have yet to arrive. Even if they do, because Cruey lives in a mobile home, the help will likely cover little of the cost to repair.

***

Articles from newspapers throughout the Commonwealth and Washington D.C. Firewalls will block you from reading some, but you’ll at least have some idea about what’s going on from the headlines and summaries. CLICK HERE.

This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”

CONTACT ME HERE

The majority of Fredericksburg’s City Council members have announced that they oppose the Penzance Development company’s recently announced plans to seek permits for a million-square-foot, two-building, 75-foot-high data center at 1500 Gateway Boulevard in an 84-acre wooded area in the city known as the Hylton Tract.

“Simply put, it’s the wrong location for a project such as this,” Ward I Council Member Matt Rowe said in an email to The Advance. “It’s too close to existing residential development, and the power lines that would be necessary to accommodate this project would need to be routed just behind Hugh Mercer ES or loom over all of Cowan Boulevard from Route 1 to 1500 Gateway.”

He added, “Constituents that I have heard from have been virtually unanimous in their opposition to a data center complex at this location as well. I’m impressed by Penzance’s tenacity to make this project happen, but at some point you need to accept ‘no’ for an answer.”

Penzance has come to the city twice in the past two years with proposals for a data center campus that would have been twice the size and height of the current project. Their most recent application was shot down in February 2025 by the city Planning Commission in a unanimous vote against recommendation.

An affiliate of the company has since launched a PR campaign in advance of the new proposal, with a postcard blitz, a supporter-packed Council meeting in May, and recent announcement of a Project Labor Agreement—and the promise of hundreds of construction jobs—with the Baltimore-DC Metro Building Trades Council.

Penzance is promising to only use non-potable water for cooling, and to a create a mostly wooded buffer zone of 20 acres between the data center campus and the nearest neighborhood. Among the proffers are $18 million to the city’s capital improvement plan, $20 million to the city school system, $1 million for sewer improvements, $500,000 to the city’s career and technical program, and $455,000 to the city’s public safety fund—on top of an estimated $200 million in tax revenues over the first 10 years of operation.

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Ward 3 Council Member Susanna Finn says despite all that, she’s another no.

“While I believe that data centers have the potential to be economically advantageous, I have concerns about the 1500 Gateway Project and its siting outside the TOD,” she said. “I’m just not confident the City has the space or infrastructure for two centers, and do not plan to support this item, should it come to Council.”

A year and a half ago, City Council created a Technology Overlay District, or TOD, to accommodate a massive “by-right” data center development that will be going up in Celebrate Virginia South. That action came at the end of a contentious five-and-a-half-hour Council session where dozens of residents spoke out against the plan after the city’s Planning Commission had voted against recommending it.

At-Large Council Member Will Mackintosh says he still supports approval of the TOD, but won’t be getting behind the Penzance project.

“I don’t think a data center makes sense on this site,” he said.

“I am proud of the process that we undertook back in late 2024/early 2025 that led to the creation of the Technology Overlay District in Celebrate Virginia,” he added in an email to The Advance. “I think we as a city got out ahead of the data center issue and decided on our own terms how many data centers we wanted, where they should be in the city, and what kinds of environmental restrictions should be placed on them if they want to locate here.

“It’s a tough issue, but I think we struck the best balance we could. Since this project isn’t in the TOD, I think we have already answered the question about whether we want a data center there or not, and I think the answer is no.”

Jannan Holmes, another at-large council member, echoed McIntosh, and said she had already spoken publicly at a Fredericksburg Democratic Party meeting about her opposition.

“When we voted on the TOD, I said that one TOD was enough for Fredericksburg and I would not support other data center projects in the city,” she said. “Council has not seen the final proposal from Penzance, other than the glossy mailers they have sent to residents. Though I do not want my above statements to be seen as ‘voting,’ which can only happen in an open meeting, I am true to my word, and will not be supporting the 1500 Gateway Data Center Project.”

The Advance sent queries to, and is waiting for responses from, the three other members of Fredericksburg City Council—Mayor Kerry Devine, Vice-Mayor and Ward 4 Member Chuck Frye, and Ward 2 Member Joy Crump.

***

Steve Watkins is editor of The FXBG Advance.

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Turn on the evening news long enough and the script starts to sound familiar. A Republican spokesman often will not begin with roads, wages, childcare, housing costs, or grocery prices. Instead, the message comes wrapped in warnings about schools, gender, immigration, religion, crime, “wokeness,” socialism, communism, or even “TDS.” The goal is to make you look here and not there.

That is political framing. It pulls attention away from the problems people live with every day and points it at an emotional target. A kitchen-table issue becomes a cultural panic. A policy debate becomes a moral fight. An argument about government becomes an argument about fear, identity, and belonging.

The word “stars” comes from a simple image: a magician tossing bright stars into the air to make the audience look one way while the real trick happens somewhere else. The star is a shiny object. It grabs the eye, stirs emotion, and pulls attention away from the policy question or governing failure that should have been the focus all along.

Republicans use this approach because it works. Culture-war issues are easier to repeat than tax, health, labor, or budget policy. They fit into a short television clip, a campaign ad, a fundraising email, or a social media post. It is much easier to say “protect the children” or “stop the radicals” than to explain what a party would actually do about wages, insurance costs, housing shortages, or childcare.

It is also easier to attack than to answer. It is much easier to say “Democrats are socialists” than to debate taxes, wages, health care, or public investment. It is easier to say “You suffer from TDS” than to answer criticism on the merits. These are not really arguments. They are shortcuts meant to stop thought, stir emotion, and push the audience back into familiar camps.

Democrats have message stars too, but they usually point in a different direction. Their language often centers on protecting democracy, lowering costs, reproductive freedom, gun safety, civil rights, and climate action. Whether readers agree or not, those messages are usually framed as calls to protect rights, solve public problems, or lower burdens on everyday people. That difference in intent matters.

Independent voters matter here too. Many are less tied to party language and more open to persuasion. They often hear the same stars without the party loyalty that makes people automatic believers. They are often the audience both parties are trying hardest to reach, and they are more likely to notice whether a message is solving a problem or merely changing the subject.

So, the political game becomes a game of substitution: see this, not that.

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See school boards as battlefields, not as places to talk about teacher shortages, class size, literacy, or school safety. See immigration as invasion, not as a labor, legal, and humanitarian challenge. See gender as a cultural emergency, not as a question of privacy, dignity, and equal treatment. See race as division, not as a conversation about fairness, history, and opportunity. See religion as persecution, not as the continuing American duty to protect freedom of conscience for everyone. See socialism and communism as scare words, not as a way to avoid talking about wages, health care, and public investment.

That is the trick: The framing tells the audience what to notice and what to ignore.

There is another reason to pay attention to these stars. They can hide how much common ground exists. Studies from the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation have found that Republicans, Democrats, and independents often agree on far more public issues than our politics suggests when they are given real choices, balanced information, and time to think.

That matters because democracy depends on compromise, and compromise depends on recognizing common ground. Compromise is not weakness. It is how free people with different views live under the same Constitution. No party gets everything it wants for very long, and no movement can govern a large and diverse country by treating every disagreement as betrayal.

The stars push in the other direction. They are built to divide us, deepen distrust, stir chaos, and make fellow citizens look like enemies instead of partners in self-government. They reward outrage over understanding. They make compromise look weak, and they make democratic habits harder to practice. Over time, that does real damage.

This list can be turned into a simple game. There are 22 Republican stars on the full list, but only 7 are shown here to start. Copy the table, keep adding lines, and see who gets to 22 first. Later columns will mention the other 15 stars in my list.

There is a reason this pattern lasts. It can pull together people who may disagree on taxes, trade, or deficits but can unite around identity and grievance. A cultural message gives activists a cause, donors a story, and candidates a ready-made script. It also lets leaders avoid questions where their answers may be weak or unpopular.

This is why cultural politics often feels repetitive. The same arguments return because repetition is the point. If a party can keep the public focused on emotional flashpoints, it can reduce pressure to deal with harder questions of daily life. Meanwhile, voters still face the same bills, the same housing squeeze, and the same frustration with institutions that seem more interested in performance than results.

That is where the stars game comes in. Each day, count the stars seen in speeches, interviews, headlines, ads, social posts, and cable segments. A star is a moment when a politician or commentator tosses out a bright distraction—a culture-war cue, a fear label, or a symbolic outrage—to pull attention away from what else is going on.

You can count Democratic stars too. That helps readers compare not just how often each side uses message stars, but what each side is trying to make people notice. Independent voters may find that comparison useful because it helps sort persuasion from distraction.

The game is simple. Which Republican stars show up the most on a given day? Which ones fade? Which new ones are added? Which Democratic stars show up in response? Which messages deal with real governing problems, and which ones mainly keep the conflict alive?

It also makes the news cycle easier to read. Some days, the stars will be everywhere. Other days, they will be fewer. The point is to learn how framing works and how often common ground is buried under noise.

The larger lesson is simple. Democracy works better when voters can tell the difference between a real problem and a manufactured distraction. If the public keeps rewarding the people who shout the loudest about symbolic enemies, the real issues—cost of living, health care, education, infrastructure, public trust, and effective government—keep getting pushed aside.

So, the next time the news comes on, count the stars. Count the culture-war flashes. Count the fear labels. Count the moments when someone is trying to make the audience look left while the real issue sits on the right. Then ask one more question: what problem did that message actually solve?

That question helps reveal whether the speaker is trying to govern or trying to distract.

***

Phil Huber is a retired Army Reserve colonel, federal civil servant and consultant who writes on civic education. He lives in Fredericksburg.

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By Shaun Kenney, ADVANCE COLUMNIST

Ah yes, the doldrums of summer. Where few things are going on and controversy—the common font of the journalistic and opinion writer’s ink—is about as dry as Virginia’s topsoil in an El Nino season.

Just in case you would like to shed a tear for my tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, dried up pea vines whose color mimics that of our post-apocalyptic Canadian wildfire smog, geraniums, my poor lavender plants (don’t ask), my tobacco plants (also, don’t ask), sage, even my marigolds—and I seem to be the only Virginian who cannot grow marigolds to save my life other than through intentional neglect by throwing the seeds on the ground and leaving them to God and the birds and the devil—all struggle in the Piedmont where three million years of geology laughs contemptuously as I attempt to improve a soil well worn out by tobacco, corn, and finally given up to either pasture or forestry.

Did I mention that my tiller is kaput? Or that my tractor has been practically abandoned next to the shop where it is supposed to be fixed but isn’t because hell if I know but here I am whining about it in the shop for the last five years? Or that despite a drought that weeds also want a drink?

Musonius Rufus was a Roman stoic philosopher who argued that any good philosopher must also be a laborer and particularly a farmer, which not only feeds my previously held prejudices but also exposes a certain hypocrisy we see in the world today whenever a question of import arises. Make it a problem of the courts and we all become legal experts. Make it a problem of agriculture and we all become farmers. One can easily imagine the litany of if/then scenarios which inevitably bring in the chickenhawk fallacy—namely that in order to have a valid opinion, one must participate in the thing. Only teachers can have opinions on education, only law enforcement professionals can have opinions on crime, only those who are involved are entitled not just to care but to have opinions that matter—so goes the disease of our time.

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When Institutions Become Too Resilient for Democracy

Donnie Johnson writes on the back and forth over stolen elections, particularly with regard to Trump in 2020 without exactly mentioning the hue and cry of the political left in 2016 where Russia stole the election. Both of these hyperbolic claims have been proven demonstrably untrue by serious minds, yet the myth continues and perhaps for no small reason than our culture is indeed soaked in a mindset that when Americans lose we are somehow cheated of victory. Consider sports—how many times has Big Referee (TM) cheated our favorite teams of our well-earned victories?

Consider too our politics. Our noble civic groups against evil corporations and evil government bureaucrats all conspiring to make a buck while the rest of us struggle to afford groceries, rent, and higher energy bills. It is so easy to blame a person or a political apparatus, but far more difficult to focus on solutions in a sea of people who—like it or not—seek to make a buck off of others by hook or crook.

Pace Donald J. Trump.

If you haven’t read Phil Huber’s excellent piece regarding our institutions in the pages of this publication, it is well worth a cup of coffee and your time. Excellent because I quibble with his argument and conclusions, but excellent nonetheless because Huber and Johnson both give us something to chew upon while reflecting on how national trends impact local conversations.

We should open with the categorical truth that despite the myth, our vote—and your vote—doesn’t matter. Statistically it matters about as much as a gnat fart in a hurricane, and while we entertain the notion that every voice matters and every vote matters, the simple fact is that those who argue this use the line are utilizing the fears of a great many people about whether or not their lives do matter for temporary advantage and temporal gain.

Give the Democratic Socialists of America this much—how many times do they have to vote for Medicaid for All only to have their core issues pushed to the shadows? One can almost hear the complaint of many a Tea Party conservative as they vote for one thing and their elected officials do another.

Huber’s penultimate concern is encapsulated as follows:

Weaker institutions reduce accountability. Reduced accountability makes corruption easier to normalize. Polarization discourages compromise. Distrust makes expertise easier to dismiss. Fiscal weakness limits future choices. Reduced investment damages competitiveness. Alliance uncertainty complicates every major international decision. Each problem reinforces the others.

Herein lies my agreement and simultaneous disagreement with the notion that strong institutions keep bad politicians at bay. In one sense, they keep certain politicians at bay. They might even keep bad politicians at bay. Yet sometimes they keep good politicians at bay or worse they keep other politicians at bay—reformers, the opposite political party, radicals, and those who would remove power away from institutions and into the hands of the people themselves.

Yet the problem of strong institutions also entails a resistance to democratic change—not just in the sense when it benefits those who rail against Trump in defense of Our Democracy! (TM) but when it locks out those who disagree with the bureaucracy, disagree with City Hall, and disagree with the influence and direction of the institutions themselves.

The hubris of strong institutions can at times insulate us from incorrect opinions. Yet when mere disagreement is twisted into hate speech, when differing values are caged as dangerous to democracy, or more simply put—when concerns become obstacles to the thing we want—that’s when democracy yields to demagoguery.

That is precisely how you get Trump. Failure to live up to the values of democracy invites the demagogues whose sole virtue is “winning” rather than discourse. This is by no means a disease on the right—Trump populism is warmed over Clinton-era triangulation in more than one aspect.

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The Deadwood of the Institutions and How We Got Here

Yet on the flip side of the equation on this, Trump was not an inevitability nor was he the solution to strong institutions seeking to knuckle the other half of humanity under their boots. Many Republicans—and I count myself among them—are horrified at the rise of so-called postliberalism.

There is an element of choice here that should not be ignored. Republicans in their rush to choose a fighter rather than a statesman were begging for a strongman to break through to institutions attempting to break them. In like turn, Democrats worked assiduously to cage the definition of what a Republican was—selfish, narrow, demanding, obtuse, sexist, racist, bigoted, Christian nationalist (though how one struggles to see how Trump is emblematic of that so-called trend—I reject the idea it even exists), or white supremacist (whose values seem to overextend into commonalities such as politeness, manners, punctuality, and respect for others). Demonizing one’s opponents might seem like a great way to win a debate, but it hardly gets to the core of the thing-at-hand—namely that too many Americans were locked out of the institutions or found their careers shipped overseas and were told to “learn to code” by cubicle dwellers with degrees and lattes.

Thus the Clinton Democrats did what the Reagan Democrats did before them and found a politician sympathetic to their values.

The question as to whether Trump was the accelerant is an interesting one, but this ignores the backdrop which Trump adroitly takes advantage of each time he does something outrageous to avoid criticism on something substantive. The question as to whether or not Trump is the spark that set off the deadwood aggregated by the institutions held in thrall to the political left is interesting as well, though it also seeks to avoid blame.

There is a hubris within our institutions which argues that because their world sees the world a certain way, that the world must be that way. Did anyone within academia see Trump winning in 2016? Much less winning again in 2024? How’s about the government bureaucracy which tried to destroy Trump for the better part of a decade?Or in K-12 education which forced a whole series of DEI protocols on parents without their consent? Or in entertainment where hating Trump was just what polite people did at parties? Or even in religion where merely linking the words Christian and nationalism entitled critics to diagnose and dismiss others? Or the media—whose power over the American imagination has by and large dissolved—who barely tried to withhold their contempt for the unwashed mob whose cardinal sin was disagreement?

The accelerant here isn’t Trump but rather a series of brittle and sclerotic bureaucrats, middlemen, educators, administrators, and professionals who refuse to admit that their critics, co-workers, co-religionists, peers, and the whole host of human beings with entirely different lives and experiences just might have defensible and even valid viewpoints worth not just considering but changing one’s mind about. That there are entire swaths of the population who do not agree with the policy of peer pressure and shaming and find it to be downright un-American to do so. Who see the sexualization of everything and recoil. Who see jobs shipped overseas and entire communities wiped out. Who welcome immigrants but respect the rule of law as a precondition. Who believe in the defensible value of each and every human person no matter how small or how old. Who believe that the things we care about—health care, education, transportation, academia—belong to the common good and should not be leveraged to enrich those who see them as a private good. Who believe that marriage and family have long-standing definitions that are tinkered with at our own expense. Who see fatherless homes as the source of many of our social ills. Who believe in opportunity and excellence over the mediocrity of equal outcomes. Who believe and still see lawmaking as an inherently moral process where we approve of moral laws, reject immoral laws, and routinely ask lawmakers to discern between the two. Where effort is admirable, but achievement valuable. Who see the first business of America as business.

Obviously, this is an extraordinary broad coalition with much to attack and pick apart.Yet there is also much in this that is admirable, American, and yes to be defended against a host of Fabian operators striving for their utopias no matter where you are on the political spectrum.

The accelerant here is a familiar one. In the grasping for power, the Greeks would see the inevitable rise of nemesis—balancing. If left unchecked, this is what invites hubris or arrogance, and we have most certainly seen the arrogance of the institutions at play. This inevitably leads to polemos or conflict—which unfortunately is where we find ourselves at present. If we abandon the political to the strongmen, if we continue in a Shakespearian vein allowing one fire to fight one fire, the end is kratos (brute force) then biae (overpowering force) and finally stasis—civil war.

The solution for such things was restraint. For ourselves, we might call it the secular virtues of toleration, inclusion, and diversity—but do we really mean these things when conservatives are locked out of the institutions? Surely it is not liberals who remain locked out. Do we really mean these things when pluralism is discarded in favor of laicization or worse? Do we really mean these things when we see our cities burn in protests, conservatives being assassinated, and violence as the exclusive privilege of the left? When law enforcement is demonized in the enforcement of our laws approved of in democratic process, yet law breakers turned loose on our communities as a sop to social justice?

Trump As Symptom; True Democracy As Cure

I have a good number of friends on the political left whom I enjoy talking with about ideas, culture, books, sports, concerts, family, and all the good things in life. Yet too often, I find myself nodding at times as my friends on the left scold the world, looking at those who aren’t precisely held in thrall to the same opinions as they raise a pint and an eyebrow, knowingly tilt their head, and let them go.

What worries me is that while it is okay for Democrats to behave like Democrats, there is an insistence growing on the right that Republicans should start behaving like Democrats as well. After all, January 6th is no magic word to undo three dozen riots in America’s cities in 2017 and again in 2020. After all, President Trump has had two near misses in assassination attempts. CEOs are being murdered. Charlie Kirk just wanted to talk—and was murdered for it. Democratic socialism is on the rise within the Democratic Party. God forbid that is mirror image ever visit itself within Republican circles.

Until the political left recognizes its own hubris, it will continue to be met with nemesis. Until we start living up to the values of pluralism and intellectual diversity, until we start arguing to understand rather than debating to win, until the Aristotelians start winning the argument against the Nietzscheans—we are in for a bumpy and rocky decade indeed.

For myself, I don’t believe our local politics much less our state politics should reflect any of where national drivers of the public discourse seem to want things to go. Virginians gave America our idea of ourselves and we should jealously defend those principles even if they came to us from imperfect men.

Trump is merely a symptom of the problem. Until we start addressing cures, expect the same symptoms to continue to crop up. Like so many weeds in a garden, we have a moral duty to encourage one another to work for the common good—not our own version of the highest good—but for the common wealth of us all and especially the weakest and most defenseless among us for whom our institutions should (but presently do not) protect.

Otherwise? Expect democracy to fall victim to the demagogues. What we intend to pass down to our children and grandchildren is a decision we make every day when we treat our neighbors as enemies to destroy— r as opportunities to learn more about a thing we may not understand ourselves.

Choose carefully. America depends on it.

***

Shaun Kenney is a co-founder of The FXBG Advance and editor of The Republican Standard.

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Hey Dewey,

What’s the best literary quote about memories you’ve read lately that sounds as though it could have been written by John Prine, only it wasn’t?

Just Wondering

Dear Just,

This, from Lorrie Moore’s novel I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home:

“When I go back to the places of the past, nothing is there anymore, as if I have made the whole thing up. It is as if life were just a dream placed in the window to cool, like a pie, then stolen.”

***

Hey Dewey,

Speaking of John Prine and memories, what’s the title of that memory song from John’s final album, Tree of Forgiveness?

Just Wondering. Again.

Dear Just,

“I Remember Everything,” co-written with Pat McLaughlin—the last song John recorded before he died. I cry every time I hear it. There’s also a wonderful Peace Through Music cover you should listen to after that and add both to your infinite playlist.

***

Hey Dewey,

What about “Summer’s End”?

Just Wandering

Dear Wander,

Check out this short documentary for the haunting story behind the story of the music video of “Summer’s End,” and then listen to John Prine and one of his sons sing and play it all the way through, and THEN go kick back and listen to this cover by Phoebe Bridgers and Maria Taylor.

***

Hey Dewey,

Any chance John Prine ever did a thing with then-U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser 20 years ago at the Library of Congress to talk about his life and songwriting—his meaning John Prine’s, not Ted Kooser’s, though I’m sure Ted’s a hell of a great guy, too, and a hell of a poet, being from Iowa and all.

Still Just Wandering

Dear Still,

Here you go. Skip to 10:40 to get to the good stuff. Starts with John Prine singing “Fish and Whistle.”

***

Hey Dewey,

Is it true what the bumper stickers say, that Donald Trump killed John Prine?

One Last Question

Dear Last,

John Prine’s not dead. I’m listening to my favorite song of his right now.

***

Dewey Turner spent much of his childhood in Polk County, Florida, and has been trying to leave ever since. But like James Joyce, self-exiled from Dublin, he keeps returning in one way or another. He reports—with some consternation but no real surprise—that a great number of the kids he knew when he was a boy grew up to become Florida Man. If you’d like to get in touch with Dewey for questions or anything else, you can email him at deweyturnerdsm@gmail.com.

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The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons is experiencing an unprecedented level of cultural popularity. No longer is it relegated to parent basements with virginal players clad in sweatpants and Rush concert t-shirts from the Moving Pictures Tour of 1981. It is, dare we say, finally cool, and it only took 50 years to get there.

This turn from dorky to dope has been helped by the vehicle that first gave birth to the world of 20-sided dice and Half-elves: imagination. One new trend has seen D&D used in political fundraising, with politics tapping into a desire by voters to not only be influenced but entertained when being solicited for their votes and their money, not in that order. Fundraisers advertise games in which opponents, or any unpopular figureheads, are the villain, and the quest a vibrant public spectacle focused on them being properly and savagely smited. Add a dragon and a cadre of orcs and you have political cover for running your opponent through with a broadsword.

So mote it be.

The fundraising aspect comes into play as politicians and their adventure party rise or fall from fortune’s favor via the rolling of the bones. You might not be convinced that your candidate’s press secretary, who recently graduated from UVA and wears a sweater vest, is going to be able to handle himself as a magician in a pitched battle against the forces of evil, so you pledge $50 to make him wiser and give him a longer beard because only Billy Bob Thornton can pull off a soul patch. For an additional $50 he can get a better wand that will not break every time he casts the Acid Arrow spell.

Or say an historically unpopular president is hiding deep in the Mines of Mar a Lago, sitting on a pile of treasure that he refuses to share with the peasants who elected him to the throne. He only emerges from his lair to play rounds of golf around his fiefdom where he’s surrounded by dire bodyguards with earpieces and sunglasses. He’s been gifted a golden eagle by the Kingdom of Qatar which he uses to accumulate more wealth, and if he’s allowed to continue in this unfettered fashion, his empire will know no bounds and the world as we know it (the D&D world, anyway) could cease to exist. For $1,000 you can be part of the quest to save the world from this tyrant. Your donation also gives you access to a VIP open bar and a meet and greet with a candidate for the state senate.

As one who played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons in Chris Malinowski’s kitchen when we were kids, I am heartened by the new role the game is playing on the world’s stage. It reminds me of a scientific study I once conducted in an effort to dispel some of the stigmas that were attached to playing a fantasy game without a board—instead of, say, going to the movies or feeling the touch of an actual woman.

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And yes, women do play D&D, just as women can also be fans of Rush. But you don’t have to be a statistician to see that lines to the men’s room at a Rush concert are a lot longer than the lines to the women’s.

For my study, I contacted a number of people who I knew from my Dungeons & Dragons days, a great many of whom were none too excited that my lone memory of them was that they too had once played D&D. One even protested that he’d only played a couple of times during middle. He also claimed that Bill Clinton never inhaled.

The survey consisted of nine questions:

Are you a virgin? If not, have you ever yelled “Huzzah” during sex?

Number of Renaissance Faires you’ve attended?

Did you ever own a sword or light saber?

Favorite song by Rush?

Number of marriages?

Number of pairs of sweatpants you currently own? (This includes track pant.)

Did you earn a varsity letter in high school that was not for band or a non-sports-related activity?

Were you ever a member of any of the following high school clubs: AV, chess, math, debate, quiz bowl?

Do you remember any of your D&D character’s names? If so, what were they, and how did they come to be?

The responses were surprising, and proved that Dungeons & Dragons, despite public perception, has indeed been a gateway to success in life and in the bedroom.

Though respondents were explicit in their demands that their identities be kept confidential. As my friend Rich in California said, “With anonymity, I would be happy to participate, although I did not get very far with my chaotic neutral dwarf.”

(For those concerned that “Rich in California” is not truly anonymous, I should point out that there are thousands of people in California named Rich, and if you do an internet search for “Gallagher Humorist” and “Rich in California” together you’ll get a clip of the comedian Gallagher smashing watermelons.)

Almost all my respondents noted that they started playing D&D before or during middle school, and though they’d been virgins back then, now, as grown adults, most had children which should serve as proof of their virility, even if they did attend a Renaissance Faire or owned a light saber at some point in their past. On a disappointing side note, none admitted ever yelling “Huzzah” either during or after sex.

Another surprise from the survey was that some of the respondents admitted that not only did they not own Rush concert shirts, but said they action didn’t like the band at all. In fact, Craig from Florida appeared to be offended by the question: “I’m a huge Yes fan, and you can’t like both Rush and Yes,” he wrote. “Just like you can’t like both Messi and Ronaldo.”

My overall takeaway is that people who played Dungeons & Dragons are creative types as well as athletes who even played sports at the college level—if intramurals count. Many of those surveyed could recall the names of their favorite D&D characters more readily than the names of their second cousin’s kids. One character’s name, Jojoba, was pulled from a bath soap dispenser, while another, Proteus the Elf, came from a medical textbook. Llabesab was just “baseball” spelled backwards.

Dungeons & Dragons deserves this moment. A lot of fake blood was spilled getting here, and Jojoba, Proteus, and LLabesab need to know that they did not die in vain. Also, for a mere $500, your local candidate for school board can help you resurrect the three of them to fight another day against their opponent who wants to ban sweatpants in the county’s proposed new school dress code.

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Ten days before the start of school.

The lack of sunshine on my doorstep troubles me this morning. The sea of rain we got last week leached away all of the color out of the front yard, while the back is still littered with puddles of mud. That makes my dog Rocky happy, but it’s irritating trying to get it off of him.

Well, irritating for my father, anyway. I’m not about to volunteer to chase Rocky around the house to clean him off. That’s Dad’s job, and it’s hilarious to watch.

Rocky’s like that—always using something annoying to make me laugh. The first time I took him home in the car, he tossed up his lunch my lap.

We’ve always gotten along great.

My weather and dog thoughts this morning are interrupted by a text notification about picking my parking spot for the upcoming school year.

It reads: “2027 SENIORS: August 5th, Parking Spot Permits @9AM.” The notice stops me in my tracks, because how can summer possibly be coming to an end already?

I feel as though I’ve wasted away the entire season, which, looking back on it, I didn’t. I was basically on vacation the entire month of July. So what can I possibly be moping about?

Maybe I’m just anxious about the upcoming year. Twelfth grade has always seemed like Armageddon. Twelve years of schooling, relearning arithmetic, memorizing grammar rules, then finding out that even math has letters? And now it’s here, and condensed into the approaching two semesters. All my friends are wondering what their college essays will be about, and where they’ll apply. As if 18 years can be crammed into a handful of application forms.

At least my application process will be different than my peers’. I already committed to play field hockey at Christopher Newport University, which just means that though I don’t have to worry about finding the perfect college in such a short time, I’ll have the added stress of working out like crazy all year and next summer too so I’ll be in the best shape for my new team.

Still, I’m lucky to have found my school so fast, and I can tell in conversations with my friends that the pressure of college is eating at them.

Not that I have it much easier. The anticipation of college and the ramifications of every choice I make senior year are central points of discussion between my parents and me.

How are we going to pay?

What major will I choose?

Scholarship this, scholarship that.

Meanwhile, the only questions I want to focus on are: A) What will I paint my senior parking spot? and B) What in the world am I going to wear the first day of school?

I know what you’re wondering: Am I the kind of privileged kid who brushes off her parents for trite concerns such as parking spots and clothes? I don’t think I am. It’s just, the idea of preparing for the future really rattles me, and if I can focus on something menial instead, maybe take baby steps, then the idea of senior year seems… slightly less bad.

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Not that I think it will all be bad. Going back to school means reuniting with friends and teachers, people I wouldn’t get to see without Chancellor High. The relationships I’ve built there mean so much to me, and I take pride in being a good friend to my friends.

Sure, sometimes there’s drama. Sometimes it’s about a boy, sometimes a girl, sometimes just teammates being teammates. I really really try to avoid all of that, but all too often I seem to end up in the middle of things. Sometimes it’s my fault. Sometimes—well, I’ll think more about that later. And anyway, conflicts may be hard, but without them, the necessary growth in the transition from childhood to adulthood doesn’t happen.

Maybe that’s why I’m so nervous for this year. We truly are on the brink of graduation, but as I write this it’s thankfully not for another 297 days. I keep telling myself there’s plenty of time left, and that as seniors, our focus doesn’t need to be worrying on those application essays—it should be on enjoying the lasts in our final year of being a kid:

One last parking spot.

One last Homecoming.

One last Prom.

One last season with my teammates.

All added up into the final moment of our student careers.

Graduation.

The future won’t become terrifying out of nowhere. That tension has been with us since middle school. But we know we can manage the nerves and the fear because we’re all going through it together, one senior year day at a time.

So yes, the senior parking spot notification shook me, but maybe that’s just another one of those last things. It doesn’t mean I’m walking across the stage tomorrow; it just means I get to experience something that leaves my mark on the school. My own personally-painted parking spot.

And just because the sunshine isn’t here this morning doesn’t mean it won’t be here for the rest of the year. Sometimes you just have to stop looking at the clouds and realize there are plenty of bright days ahead, even if Rocky still manages to track mud into the house. By the time we walk across that stage, I imagine I’ll miss worrying about painting my spot and picking my first-day outfit. And I’ll definitely hate saying all those goodbyes.

But for now, I’ll just look forward to saying hello to the sunshine.

***

Hailey Waurio is entering her senior year at Chancellor High School in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. She’ll be writing about this coming school year periodically for The Advance.

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· Introduction of New Editor of The Advance

· How Vietnam War Literature Class Connected Families

· Adapting Teaching After 9/11: Trauma and Healing

· From “The Blab” to Civil Disobedience: Early Journalism

· How Journalism Has Changed Over the Last 30 Years

· Deep Dives and Multi-Partisan Journalism at The Advance

· Why Accountability and Community Involvement Matter in Journalism

· The Art of Storytelling: Details, Research, and Authenticity

· Learn Your Craft: Patience and Persona in Journalism

· The Debate: Mary Washington College vs. University Status

· Guests Share What They’re Reading

***

Steve Watkins is editor of The Advance. You can contact him HERE, and find his author website HERE.