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“In this day and age, there is NO excuse for not providing a hear tworm test as a standard practice. Dogs with hear tworms don’t show symptoms until the late stages of the disease. Shame on Loudoun County for cutting corners this way.” — kw1223, on Abandoned Leesburg Do g Finds New Home, But Tests Reveal Hear twor m Disease
Old Prog rams, Shaping New Ones
— RADIOGUY, on I-66 Toll Plan Faces Heavy Criticism
AS POSTED AT LEESBURGTODAY.COM
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Not A Person
Dear Editor: The Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case defined a corporation as a person. The history of this decision is based on the original interpretation found in English Law. At that time the old court in the 1890s had no guidance except the High Court in London. For many years this rationale was dormant until the Hobby Lobby brief opened this bucket of worms. Modern day corporate structures should
not be legally bound by outdated decisions. The court’s narrow decision stemmed by its interpreting the old precedent if Hobby Lobby the corporation now a person could require employees to accept certain covenants of the company’s religious beliefs that, if violated, could result in termination. I would hope that constitutional lawyers would brief this decision as a Friend of the People. We the people as individuals are certainly not a corporation registered to do business in interstate commerce. Bring back sanity to our legal jurisprudence. Norman Duncan, Ashburn
ww w. lee s burgt oda y. com • Thur sda y, O ct o be r 15 , 2 0 1 5
Dear Editor: It’s pretty cool that Loudoun County has once again become the source of some brilliant and courageous leaders who are determined to try to save the idea of America. The first time our county was the source of such leaders was during the American Revolu-
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Shaking It Up
Letters
The graveyard is not yet open to the public, but establishing visitor access to the site is a goal of the Freedom Center. The center also plans: • a visitor’s center with an interactive map that tells the stories of Loudoun’s historically African-American communities; • a Loudoun African Burial Ground to chronicle the stories and lead the charge to gather the remains of the slaves buried throughout the county; • the I Am Loudoun Genome Project that will offer personal genealogical studies to recover ancestral data using consumer genetics and to help identify familial health risks ranging from smallpox to Lyme disease; • a virtual DNA extraction laboratory to perform cheek swabs and extract DNA from human cells allowing residents to discover their ancestral history in Loudoun; • a research library and genealogy hub developed in partnership with Virginia schools and universities to house artifacts and documents that support the restorative work taking place through the Freedom Center; and • a Loudoun Freedom Chapel to be a place where visitors can reflect and meditate. To learn more about the Loudoun Freedom Center, contact Thomas at 703-298-0887 or at pastor@holyandwhole.org. n
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more activity the town manager is organizing breakfast information meetings to talk about what the town government is doing downtown. The public will be notified when he has finalized the times and place. Conversations can make people look at something differently. The third engagement will be held by the Leesburg Economic Development Commission. They are looking for positive actions that the businesses and citizens can participate in and support to shape the future of Leesburg. The results will become direction for both private and public solutions. When they have finalized the time and place for this meeting, it will be published The last part of this conversation must lead to enacting the solutions, whether they be upgrading buildings to serve new business, altering zoning or government processes or having a new advertising campaign to show off our town. These are but a few of the ideas the might come forward. The ideas that are selected must be realized by the appropriate party for this to work. I will champion this effort through business meetings, citizen exchanges and in the council chambers with my colleagues to the successful finish. And so began the conversation that Middleburg Bank, Palio Restaurant and the Town of Leesburg sponsored. I want to thank them all profusely. This effort started the ideas, which will generate the interest, which will bring forth the solutions. I am excited. Leesburg is on the verge of something big; get involved in the conversations and enjoy what Leesburg has to offer. Kelly Burk, Vice Mayor Leesburg Town Council
tionary War. Historians tell us that our leaders back then stepped up to save the idea of America by providing the grain needed to sustain General George Washington’s Continental Army in the quest for independence from the tyranny of Great Britain. Those leaders earned for Loudoun County the nickname “Breadbasket of the Revolution” by providing, in effect, the “grain power” needed to win the war. Today, three leaders with ties to Loudoun County have emerged to try to save the idea of America, this time by providing not the “grain power” but rather the “brain power.” The three leaders to which I refer are Donald Trump, Mark Levin and Ben Carson. Mr. Trump is tied to Loudoun County by virtue of his owning a successful business here, Mr. Levin is tied to Loudoun County by virtue of his living here, and Dr. Carson is tied to Loudoun County by virtue of his being the first 2016 presidential candidate to visit here. Businessman Trump, Radio Host and Author Levin, and Dr. Carson—each in his own brilliant and courageous leadership style—are all shaking up the political world by exposing the soft tyranny and incompetence of the Obama Administration, the dishonesty of the powerful mainstream media, the lethargy of the current U.S. Congress, the impending irrelevancy of our state and local governments, and the weaknesses in our immigration, educational, moral, and cultural systems. Most importantly, they all are offering viable solutions to these issues in order to save the idea of America. No one but a loyal sycophant can dispute the fact that the idea of America—both at home and abroad—has suffered under President Obama, thanks to the support of the Democratic U.S. Senators and Congressmen who have voted in lockstep to support his policies and the Republican U.S. Senators and Congressmen who have inexplicably declined to use their constitutional power of the purse to try to curtail his policies. Let’s hope that more of our leaders who have the bully pulpit will emulate the brilliance and courage of Mr. Trump, Mr. Levin, and Dr. Carson by providing the brain power to try to save the idea of America once again. Mike Panchura, Sterling
place for people to meditate. Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce President Tony Howard helped lead a formal ribbon cutting as part of the service. Phillip Thompson, the Loudoun NAACP branch’s president, praised Thomas as a “powerhouse” in her dedication to the project, particularly in her effort to persuade Toll Brothers of the importance of allowing a foundation to take over stewardship of the land. “These people worked for free and helped make Loudoun County what it is today,” Thompson said of the slaves buried at the site. Thomas said the life of the slaves would serve as inspiration to future generations. “God did not bury you here, he planted you here,” she said. Along the marching path from the Harris Teeter parking lot in Lansdowne to the graveyard, historian Eugene Scheel provided a history of the two plantations in the area. Coton Plantation, named for the Lee family’s ancestral home in England, was owned by Thomas Ludwell Lee, and Belmont was owned by Ludwell Lee. Both families were among the county’s largest slave owners, with records showing Thomas Lee, Thomas Ludwell Lee’s father, then serving as Virginia’s governor, owning 61 in 1749, and Ludwell Lee owning as many as 44 slaves. At the peak of slavery, Loudoun had between 5,000 and 6,000 slaves, one-quarter of its population in the decades prior to the Civil War. In 1852, the Coton property left the Lee family ownership and was divided into East Coton, today’s Lansdowne, and West Coton,
L if e s t yle s
Letters
Leesburg Today/Norman K. Styer
Nondescript fieldstones mark gravesites at the Belmont Slave Cemetery.
Sports
“NOVA drivers have been smacked with high tolls for decades and they have gotten way out of hand. Yet it takes years to get the most basic highway needs met while the politicians ‘struggle to find funding’ for highway improvements. Every voter should be furious.”
Bu s in e s s
— AnnoyingOrange, on School Board Candidates Focus On Restoring
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“Taking care of kids already in the system needs to take priority over full day kindergarten. High school classes are overcrowded with 30 or more in lab science classes so not everyone gets to participate! We have elementary schools in Brambleton where kids get bused to other schools because of overcrowding. Yet we are going to spend millions on full day kindergarten?”
where the Howard Hughes Medical Institute research campus is located. Ludwell Lee—co-founder in 1817 of the Loudoun Chapter of the American Colonization Society, which advocated sending freed slaves to Liberia—sold Belmont to Margaret Mercer in 1836. The daughter of Maryland Gov. John Francis Mercer and cousin of U.S. Rep. Charles Fenton Mercer, the founder of Aldie, Margaret Mercer created a Christian school for women on the property. In addition to being a strong supporter of colonization, Mercer taught her freed slaves to read and write, actions against the law at that time. Scheel noted that the grave markers at the cemetery were simple fieldstone without inscriptions, most likely because the slaves could not read or write. The name of each person believed to be buried in the cemetery was read aloud during the ceremony, each called only by a first name or nickname.
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