The bang that made Homer Hickam famous

AFP reports here that at Virginia Tech, NASA scientist and author Homer Hickam "is not known for his personal and professional exploits as much as he is for his work in the early 1960s on the cannon that has been used in the years since to signal when the home football team puts points on the scoreboard."

Ooh, that '98 game

AFP has this fun article with a few short tales from the radio men for Virginia Tech and Virginia with recollections of Virginia-Virginia Tech football games.

We're No. 7 in deer-car accidents

According to this article in the Lynchburg paper, Virginia is ranked seventh in the nation by State Farm in the number of auto accidents involving deer.

RLUIPA case in Portsmouth?

The Norfolk paper reports here on a case before Judge Doumar of the E.D. Va. under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person Act, having to do with the city's decision to prevent a 100 year-old church building from reopening as a church.

The article says the judge scoffed at the city's arguments that the case involved purely zoning issues, and suggested that the parties ought to settle. Judges often say the parties should settle, but sometimes what that means is that the judge thinks one side or the other has got nothing.

One judge's views on how to improve the Virginia court system

In this commentary in the Richmond paper, Judge Robert Humphrey of the Virginia Court of Appeals expresses some ideas about how to improve the court system in Virginia.

The only idea in there that I can say I support wholeheartedly is that mediation should be cheaper.

Virginia now one of ACC's too many bowl-eligible teams

With the win over Georgia Tech, Virginia joins six other ACC football teams as bowl eligible (Miami, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Boston College, Georgia Tech, Clemson), and Maryland might soon join the list.

The ACC has only six bowl tie-ins this year, as reported here in a Washington Post which says one of the other possible destinations for an ACC team is the Liberty Bowl in Memphis.

American Heritage takes on Nat Turner

This interesting article in American Heritage looks at the confused history of Nat Turner, who led a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831.

On MADD's monitoring of drunk driving cases at the Beach

The Norfolk paper has this editorial that says Mothers Against Drunk Driving should cut a Virginia Beach judge some slack, even thought she made some mistakes in the non-public manner in which she handled a particular drunk driving case.

The Millionaire

I love this story of the guy who won a million dollars throwing a football at the Clemson game.