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Alexandria Appetite: A Taste of Ethiopia Near Home
Alexandria boasts several Ethiopian restaurants well worth your time and money.
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Alexandria: Zarek Honored for Service with The Twig
Starlet G. Zarek of Alexandria was honored last month for her 25 years of service to The Twig, the junior auxiliary of Inova Alexandria Hospital.
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Alexandria: First Alexandrians
Alexandria celebrates its 266th and 13,000th birthday.
While many Alexandrians celebrated the city’s 266th birthday on July 11, in truth, residents have lived and commuted here much, much longer. No one at the festival could trace their roots to the first Alexandrians, and little to no written history remains to give detailed accounts of their lives, but historians at the Alexandria Archeology Museum examine flakes of stone tools and broken pottery to piece together what life was like for American Indians living in what is today Alexandria before colonists arrived.
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Alexandria: Hunting Point is Trading Park For Clubhouse
Hunting Point plan reduces open space, raises community ire.
Following approval from the Alexandria Planning Commission, Hunting Point Apartments is moving forward with a plan to construct an 8,000-square-foot residential amenity building between the two apartment towers. But the new amenity comes with its own share of hidden costs, and not everyone at Hunting Point Apartments is happy with the addition.
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Alexandria: Mourning Loss of Sydney-Chanele Dawkins
Filmmaker, arts advocate dies at 47
Sydney-Chanele Dawkins, an award-winning filmmaker, film festival producer and former chair of the Alexandria Commission for the Arts, died July 8 at her home in Alexandria of complications from breast cancer. She was 47 years old.
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Weekend Fun in Fairfax County - July 17-26, 2015
A roundup of entertaining things to do this weekend.
A roundup of fun things to do this weekend in Fairfax county.
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Alexandria: Backpacks for All
Thousands of students will begin school this fall at a disadvantage; help now so they have the basics.
The first day of school each year is fraught with anticipation and anxiety. Many local students will be concerned about what they wear, who they will see, what it will be like. They’ve already had multiple shopping trips, online and otherwise, to be sure they have the supplies and extras they need. We live in an area where many if not most families have the means and desire to do almost whatever it takes to give their children the best chances for success.
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Alexandria: Helping a Model Citizen
Eve’s a homeowner who lives in a historic, beautiful home that was built in 1893. This fits Eve, a former model and caterer who is gracious, poised, and looks 20 years younger than her 77 years. Originally from Michigan, Eve came to visit D.C. in the 1960s and was taken with its charm. She finally moved in to Old Town in 1996. She loves the compliments the city receives. She worked at Mt. Vernon for 11 years, and often heard visitors from around the country say: “This town is so great I want to live here!” Even her son in law who lives in Connecticut regularly comments: “You live in the most charming city in the United States.” And she agrees.
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Letter: Historic Lessons
Letter to the Editor
To the Editor: Regarding “Learn from History” [letter, July 9], the writer makes a case that, quite frankly, appalls me. Maybe he should take a little more time to seriously look at history in regards to the Civil War. He states that a “small fringe” of flag adherents use it as a racist hate symbol while the “vast majority” regard it as a symbol of other things. Not sure where his support for this statement comes from. A significant problem I have with this interpretation is that he is suggesting that all of the factors he names, “family/ancestral heritage, rebellion against central authority, local anatomy, hierarchical rather than (Marsian) egalitarianism, social order, resistance to abuse of power, etc.” should deserve equal status.
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Letter: One Nation ... Indivisible
Letter to the Editor
To the Editor: I was surprised at a letter last week [“Learn from History”], but then I realized that writer must be a young man. Those of us who lived through the ‘50s and ‘60s lived through the history of the Confederate flag being used as a symbol of defiance to the Supreme Court decisions on equal rights and desegregation as well as the Federal Government’s use of force to enforce these decisions. The Confederate flag did not fly over the South Carolina capitol building until that time, and I remember clearly the searing images of policemen in the south wearing the flag on their helmets, white supremacists using the flag as a clear symbol of opposition to what was happening, and simmering racism boiling over into the streets in many locations.
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Letter: Disappointing Coverage
Letter to the Editor
To the Editor: I was disappointed that your July 2 cartoon pictured Miss Dixie, gazing at the Confederate flag, disrespectfully with her hoop skirt billowing up to show her undergarments. This was an unnecessary attack on a lady; she could have been portrayed in a more dignified posture. Or was this an attempt to put humor into the drawing? Of the adolescent variety if that. How does this drawing prove modern cultural superiority to that of the 19th century South?
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Letter: Quantrell Avenue?
Letter to the Editor
To the Editor: As the city considers what to do about street names and monuments honoring the Confederacy, let me suggest that a good place to start is with Quantrell Avenue in the city’s West End. In 2011, the Office of Historic Alexandria pretty much confirmed what I had long suspected.
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Alexandria: New Season Focuses on Symphonic Traditions
Where have all the symphonies gone? To the Silver Screen! Contemporary symphonic film composers are carrying on the tradition of Wagner, Tchaikovsky and Puccini by writing music that accompanies theatrical genres.
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Letter: Preserve History
Letter to the Editor
To the Editor: The Military Order of the Stars and Bars at its convention held on July 10, 2015 in Alexandria passed the following resolution: Resolved that: History should not be abolished or wielded in the pursuit of vengeance. It is a tool that is to be used to build a better future. The Confederate heritage community acknowledges that the battle flag has been inappropriately used and abused by certain hate groups. We will not surrender to hate, or abandon our heritage.
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Alexandria and Mount Vernon: Keeping Guns from Criminals
Focusing on private gun sales.
What are you going to do about gun safety and gun violence? These were words I heard over and over again from constituents last year when I first ran for Congress. They couldn’t understand why in the world I would want to be part of a Congress they largely viewed as dysfunctional. And the next words out of their mouth would be an impassioned plea, dysfunction be damned, to reach across party lines and find a compromise — any incremental step — that would begin to make our society safer from horrific shootings.
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Arlington Author Shifts from Screenplays to Novels
Matthew Sullivan’s “The Orphans” launches a trilogy.
When author Matthew Sullivan decided two years ago to write his debut book, “The Orphans,” it wasn’t the first time he had crafted a story for the public.
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Letter: Solemn Sentiment
Letter to the Editor
Calls to take down the statue of the Confederate soldier at the corner of Washington and Prince streets may be understandable, but ultimately misguided. In the wake of the Charleston shootings, the efforts to remove the Confederate battle flag from state houses, license plates and other venues is completely justified. The flag had been captured by racist elements and made deeply offensive to many Americans.
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Great Falls: Seneca Hill Animal Hospital Hosts Dog Days 2015
On a hot summer day, there’s nothing quite like a barbecue and a swim to relax and have fun. That’s exactly what happened at Seneca Hill Animal Hospital, Resort and Spa last Sunday – except that this one was for the dogs.
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Great Falls Sixth Graders Visit Japan
Japanese Immersion class meets Japanese Prime Minister, U.S. Ambassador.
Great Falls Elementary School’s (GFES) sixth grade Japanese Immersion Program (JIP) participants returned from their cultural exchange trip to Japan on July 9.
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Centreville Roundups for Week of July 16
Meeting on Route 28 Safety Study Residents are invited to attend a public inormation meeting at Centreville Elementary School, on Monday, July 20, 6:30-8:30 p.m. to learn about the results of a traffic operational and safety study to identify short-term recommendations to improve traffic operations on Route 28 (Centreville Road) from south of I-66 to Liberia Avenue. The study analyzed traffic data to identify locations where low cost improvements may be made to the corridor.