It never ceases to amaze how often our small community becomes part of the national conversation – in ways both good and bad.

Whaddaya say to a roundalay?

If Frank Ruff actually had a day job, I’d advise him to stick to that rather than try his hand as a columnist. Not that I feel like I have some kind of monopoly over the craft, but just as the Supreme Court justice once was called upon to decide what is and what isn’t pornography, I know bad when I see it.

It may have earned its nickname, “Tiger Beat On The Potomac” — for that priceless little jab, you can thanks Esquire blogger Charlie Pierce — but Politico, the on-line news magazine that keeps tabs on what the cool kids in Washington, D.C., are up to, published a very interesting piece this week on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s work to develop new regulations for coal ash.

Everything that Gov. Terry McAuliffe said during a Tuesday forum at Halifax Regional Hospital to promote Medicaid expansion made sense to me, but the real stars of the show were the doctors who spoke up about what the change in Virginia’s program would mean for many of our friends and neighbors here in Halifax County.