FXBG Advance Sunday, June 14, 2026
A Problem With Military Time. Literary Confessions. SNAKES! All the News That, Well, You Know.
If He Had Been There on Time…
By Drew Gallagher, Advance Columnist
When I heard that founding father Marty Davis was leaving The Advance I was surprised and saddened. Mostly saddened because I was concerned about the fate of this column. Not so much about the fate of local journalism. Publisher Leigh Anne Van Doren came to me in this time of trouble, and said something that didn’t infringe on any Beatles copyright laws in assuring me that The Advance would continue in Marty’s absence, and that she would find a capable leader to shepherd us into a new era of journalistic excellence.
That leader of shepherding turned out to be Dr. Steve Watkins, my arch nemesis.
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Literary Confessions
By Steve Watkins, Advance Editor
Literary Confession #1: A lot of the books I wrote so knowledgeably about on my preliminary exams for my Ph.D. I only knew from Masterplots, those massive tomes they had in the reference section of Strozier Library at Florida State University. I promised myself I would go back and read them for real when I had time, but hardly ever did, even the short ones. It’s OK if they want to revoke my degree. I’m done with it anyway.
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Book ‘em, Danno: Reviews, Author Interviews, and Literary Events in the D.C. Area
Washington Independent Review of Books
Observing the way people cuddle dogs and cats but recoil from snakes — despite all three animals being kept as pets — I’ve often thought that familiarity breeds comfort rather than contempt. It’s not uncommon to hear people opine that reptiles have no personality, no warmth, no sense of companionship, but is that true, or are they simply more alien (and therefore more frightening) than their furry, domesticated counterparts?
In Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World, Stephen S. Hall makes a compelling case for the individuality, social nature, and fascinating biology of our scalier friends. He explores everything from the mind-bending physics of the sidewinder (“nocturnal denizens of the desert Southwest [who] have a unique form of locomotion that defies logic and compass”) to the complex mechanics of snake reproduction and the explosive phenomenon of the Florida Burmese python.
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Scoop? Here It Is: Yesterday’s News Today
VaNews/Virginia Public Access Project
Stories 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, which, let’s be honest, are all many of us have time to read anyway.
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