A Virginia town has canceleda visit, organized by its parks-and-rec department, to the The Ark Encounter and Creation Museum after a complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The town? Christiansburg, of course. Taking the towns name a little too literally, arent you, folks?

A round of applause,please, for legislation in Virginias General Assembly that would give the Board of Corrections the authority to investigate jailhouse deaths. Even more applause if lawmakers can figure out how to prevent more of those deaths in the first place.

During a stopin Fredericksburg Wednesday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello won us over and lost us again in a single sentence. He said vetoing bills that create gerrymandered legislative districts would be the single most impactful thing I will do as governor. The gerrymandering part sounds swell. But impactful? Thats just disgustful.

We at The News Virginian wonder if use of the word impacthas increased in situations where effect is the more accurate word choice because fewer people know the difference between affect and effect and dont want to be caught using the wrong one. Some say that is indeed the case. We cant be sure, but for the record, affect is the verb, effect is the noun (in the context of our discussion here at least.) One thing affects the other. One thing also has an effect on the other.

Speaking of bureaucratese, we also have a suggestion for Merriam-Webster: Banish the word utilize from the English language. Please. It has got to be the most superfluous word in the English language, perhaps any language. There is no context in which use cannot take the place of utilize. It is a word used almost exclusively by politicians and bureaucrats to make themselves sound smarter or better informed than they really are. The next time you hear someone using the word utilize (or the even worse utilization), consider taking whatever it is theyre saying with a large grain of salt.

Outrage over the possiblerepeal of Obamacarehelps prove an enduring point: A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away.

This week an Israeli soldierreceived a prison sentence for unnecessarily shooting a wounded Palestinian attacker in Hebron. Palestinian authorities, on the other hand, often erect monuments to, and otherwise glorify, terrorists who kill Israelis. But go ahead, keep pretending the Middle East could have peace if Israel just gave up some more land.

Sigh.There is no inherent standard of English,is the official policy of the wait for it writing centerat the University of Washington at Tacoma. Standards and rules and things like that are racist, goes the thinking (if you want to call it thinking). So the staffvows toemphasize the importance of rhetorical situations over grammatical correctness in the production of texts. OK. But if its racist to believe some ways of writing are better than others, then there seems to be no point in having a writing center in the first place. Maybe everyone there should just quit.

Stephen Schwartz, U.S. ambassador to Somalia,recentlygavea Make Somalia Great Again ball cap to Somali president Mohamad Abdullahi. We are not making this up.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch and The News Virginian

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