Tom McLaughlin

We need a new theory of general relativity to explain the wave of crazy in Halifax County and around the world.

It’s telling that amid all the complaints about how Virginia Democrats have violated citizens’ Second Amendment rights by ramming gun legislation through the General Assembly, no one has taken the meaningful next step in challenging these supposedly unconstitutional laws.

The single best description I’ve seen for COVID-19 comes from an Aug. 4 piece in The Atlantic by Ed Yong, who wrote that SARS‑CoV‑2 (the official designation of the novel coronavirus) “is something of an anti-Goldilocks virus: just bad enough in every way.”

In the newspaper business, you get to know your local post offices quite well. I’ve dealt with more postal workers that I can count — from wrangling with postmasters to dropping off the day’s paper at the loading dock before carriers set off on their morning rounds — and am indebted to each of them, for the dedicated service they provide in getting this newspaper to our subscribers.

Halifax County supervisors, following in the footsteps of countless elected officials before them, took the traditional approach to resolving the controversy over the Confederate statue standing at the courthouse square — on Monday night, they punted the matter to someone else, namely the county’s voters.

Fortunes have been made by those who zigged when the crowd zagged, confident in the power of ideas that no one believed possible, or thought to entertain in the first place.

What do you do about a problem like Jack Dunavant?

Why Confederate statues should come down now.

Here’s another data point to add to the conversation on what school should look like this fall.

Way back in April, to summon the memory of a time long ago, members of the Halifax County School Board were talking about the pandemic-era future of Halifax County Public Schools at their monthly meeting when Board Chair Todd Moser and ED-8 trustee Walter Potts offered almost diametrically opposite takes.