Donald Luzzatto

Editor has been thinker, challenger, teacher

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Dennis Hartig doesn't talk with his hands nearly as much as you might imagine. It's the force of his ideas and their expression that gives you the impression that he's always moving, even when he's sitting at a table, eating lunch, trying to explain The Virginian-Pilot to a skeptical job prospect.

Amid our own fretfulness, charities still need us

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:02:05 -0500

It might not seem like it right now, but these dark days will eventually end. Like you, I don't know when. I don't know how. I'm not even sure it'll be in time to save the institutions we usually count on to save us. In a few years, perhaps we'll wake up back in the places we've always known, in the houses we bought years ago, working our current jobs, going to the churches we've attended.

Hoover’s legacy frightens today’s fiscal overseers

Kerry.Sipe — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:03:43 -0500

Nobody wants to be Herbert Hoover.

The 31st president is often considered — when he’s considered at all — among the nation’s least effective presidents, the do-nothing do-gooder who dithered while the Great Depression raged.

Nobody asked, but I won't serve

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:00:00 -0400

It was an early fall Sunday, and Dad and I were at RFK, Section 513, our corner of the end zone, so high that we missed more than an occasional catch along the sideline.

Green greed keeps World Series at night

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Given how badly Major League Baseball is managed, how cravenly, it's not hard to surrender to the conspiracy theory that it is, in fact, run by the NFL. Maybe by Nintendo. At the very least, the schedule for the World Series is proof that the postseason is brought to us by men and women who actively hate the game. Also, I suspect, children, puppies, apple pie and the entire East Coast.

30-minute travel cushion about to get worse

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:34:40 -0400

I scheduled the interviews on the hour, in part so I could keep them straight on my calendar, and in part because it provided a place to start and end each one. I somehow managed to get to the office early, to go over the questions and prepare for the day. Then the phone rang. It was 9:30 a.m., and the first victim was waiting downstairs. A half-hour early.

Contemptible comments have consequences

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:19:52 -0400

You can hide behind a fake Internet identity and phony e-mail address. You can pretend you're a man, a woman, animal or random collection of numbers. You can write any fool thing you want, just to inspire outrage. But you will be held responsible for what you say and do, if not here and soon, then sometime and someplace.

Charity appears at the corner of Main and Wall

david.putney — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:09:32 -0400

What do I owe you? What do you owe me? And what do we all owe the people who come next?

Help wanted: Just send in the green

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:40:39 -0400

The Republican Party of Virginia owes me money and an apology because, like everyone these days, I'm outraged. Outraged! By everything!

Youth shouldn't be served

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400

No matter who wins this presidential race, somebody far too young is going to have a hand too close to the nuclear button, the economy toggle and the dial that I imagine sends hurricanes toward Cuba. Barack Obama turned 47 last month. Sarah Palin is a child by comparison; she doesn't turn 45 until a few weeks after the inauguration.