THE FXBG ADVANCE TUESDAY 7/21/26 READS
The Alcoholist. Why No Date for the Night Link Wray Invented the Power Chord? Nobody Knows. Fredericksburg Mayor DeLanding in Florida? Speculations Fly. State of the State.
The Alcoholist
By Kirk Evans, ADVANCE FOOD COLUMNIST
My father was an accomplished alcoholic, ticking all the boxes: Ruined family? Check. Ruined career? Check. Lost friends and the respect of everyone he loved? Check. He had a drinking career that went uninterrupted for about 50 years, until he finally kicked the habit for good when I was about 10.
I started drinking when I was about the same age as my dad was when he started drinking: 14. I remember my first beer: a cold can of Tuborg Gold, given to me by the father of a middle school friend at a party thrown by his daughter. I remember my first serious drunk, too—that same night when I began to make retching sounds while seated on the velvet couch in the living room of his Dupont Circle brownstone. He pointed his drink at me—it was a vodka gimlet; I know this because he’d made me one as well—and said, “Get that boy out of here.” A group of seniors picked me up and carried me like a rolled-up carpet out the front door and held me so my head was over the cast iron stair railing as I vomited into the street.
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Why No Date for the Night Link Wray Invented the Power Chord? Nobody Knows
By Steve Watkins, ADVANCE EDITOR
Cardinal News Founding Editor Dwayne Yancey has written a terrific story about Rock & Roll legend Link Wray that everybody with an interest in Fredericksburg history should read—and that I’ll link to at the end of this article.
The prosaic headline, which doesn’t do justice to Yancey’s prose, is “Virginia approves historical marker to the song that inspired a generation of rock stars.”
The subhead explains the local connection: “Link Wray’s ‘Rumble’ used power chords and distortion. It came to life accidentally at a sock hop in Fredericksburg in 1957.”
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Fredericksburg Mayor DeLanding in Florida? Speculations Fly
By Drew Gallagher, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
Mayor Kerry Devine is leaving Fredericksburg for DeLand, Florida. She says it’s just for the weekend.
An actual text message received by this reporter from the mayor (a fellow Mary Washington College alum) Monday afternoon:
I think this info went out/will go out to news sources, but I’m heading to DeLand, Florida on Thursday. Spending the weekend there to see all the good things we were up against in the Garden & Gun competition. Just a heads up.
Devine’s curious text was followed on Tuesday by a press release from the city with further explanation, posted below, but it’s doubtful anybody’s buying it.
As readers may remember, Fredericksburg defeated DeLand this past April in a battle for Best Small Town Main Street in Garden & Gun magazine. Fredericksburg “eked out” a victory, in the words of the magazine’s editors, who described the competition as “the most hotly contested final matchup ever.”
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State of the State
VaNews/VIRGINIA PUBLIC ACCESS PROJECT
1st District Democrats escalate dispute with state party over primary neutrality
By MARKUS SCHMIDT, Virginia Mercury
Six Democrats seeking their party’s nomination in Virginia’s 1st congressional district have escalated their dispute with the Democratic Party of Virginia, arguing newly disclosed federal campaign finance records undercut party leaders’ claims that they have remained neutral in the crowded primary field. In a new letter sent Monday to DPVA Chair Lamont Bagby, members of the party’s Steering Committee and other top Virginia Democrats, the candidates point to Federal Election Commission filings showing the state party participating in the Shannon Taylor Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee created while early voting was still underway in the Aug. 4 primary election.
Virginia couldn’t stop Sterling data center’s 24-hour diesel generator use, regulator says
By ERIC FLACK, WUSA-TV
Greg Pirio knew something was wrong before he saw anything. He felt it in his lungs. “When they’re going off, I know when they’re going off, not only because it’s even louder, it’s because my lungs start hurting me,” Pirio said. “That’s what we’re living with here.” What was going off, starting around 8:15 p.m. Thursday, were the emergency backup diesel generators at the Vantage VA2 data center campus next to his Sterling neighborhood. In a statement to WUSA9, Vantage Data Centers confirmed a critical power failure at the on-site power plant that runs the facility knocked out its gas turbines, forcing the campus onto backup generators for nearly 24 hours.
Va. boys’ schooling gaps wider than nation’s, study shows
By DAVE RESS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Subscription Required)
The usual gaps between boys and girls when learning to read are wider than the national average in Virginia, the legislature’s new Virginia Boys and Men Advisory Commission heard on Monday. The commission, the first of its kind in the nation, aims to look at factors that mean many young men feel they don’t see much future for themselves, said Del. Josh Thomas, D-Prince William, the commission’s chair.
Trump Gutted Civil Rights Agency, Stifling U.S. Scrutiny of Workplace Bias
By CORAL DAVENPORT, New York Times (Metered Paywall - 1 to 2 articles a month)
Federal investigators were working in early 2025 to wrap up a two-year inquiry into claims of pervasive sexual harassment and discrimination at a company that makes weapons, vehicles and cybersecurity tools for the Pentagon. The investigators had found, among other things, that some male managers at a Norfolk, Va., Navy shipyard had demanded oral sex and other sexual contact from female employees in exchange for promotions and overtime pay, and that Black women had been paid less and promoted less frequently than men, according to three people with knowledge of the findings. The government was zeroing in on a resolution to propose to the company, BAE Systems: to make seven-figure payouts to workers and to adopt reforms — or risk losing its roughly $8 billion in annual federal contracts. Then, the inquiry was suddenly halted.
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