Wednesday Morning Rundown

Columns

by Karen Goff May 28, 2014 at 8:00 am 17 Comments

So Long To A Lake Anne Staple — Friends and colleagues of Lakeside Pharmacy owner Larry Cohn held a goodbye party after the store’s sale to an investor closed last week. Cohn is retiring. [Restonian]

Saving A Satellite — Reston space enthusiast Keith Cowing is part of a group that crowdfunded more than $150,000 to take control of a satellite no longer needed by NASA. The money will pay for programming, hardware, and use of radio telescopes. All the new data would be open to anyone so they can make their own discoveries about solar weather patterns or how a spacecraft ages. [WUSA9]

Virginia Sees Sharp Rise in Children in Poverty — A new University of Virginia study says nearly one-third of children in Virginia are living in poverty. [Cooper Center]

Register Now, Swim Later — Goldfish Swim School, slated to open in Reston later this year, is now taking pre-registration. [Goldfish Swim School]

Ben

Just what he wants, more and more people dependent on the govt
- Adrian Havill
  
  Ben is obviously not well. I forgive him.
Ben

Must be an “ob*ma” filter so no one can badmouth your socialist leader? maybe this will work… its the Presidents Fault!
Ben

Bigger issue here is you not allowing open discussion or comments you do not agree with… real journalism huh? At least there aren’t any grammar mistakes today
- Karen Goff
  
  What do you mean? Anyone can comment. You just did.
Karen Goff

The comments were caught in a filter queue in Disqus. They have all been found and approved. Please stop accusing me of censorship.
Karen Goff

Your comments, along with those of several others, were caught in our Disqus software for no apparent reason. they have been found and posted right here. Now please stop questioning my politics and professionalism.
Karen Goff

Give it a rest already. PS- half my family died this year. So no way would 10 family members be on the site!
FULL TIME BOJANGLER

Thanks for clarifying the reason the comments were not showing up. Let’s steer the discussion away from computer software towards the headline about more children in poverty. Substantially more children in poverty since 2011. If it is not Obama’s economy, what could be the cause? Educate me.
- UberSkeptic
  
  Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s not one of the study’s conclusions (that there are substantially more children in poverty since 2011). This is not a longitudinal study.
  - Karen Goff
    
    That may be my fault. The 2011 number has been taken out of the link. That’s what it said in the release I got, but Uberskeptic’s formula digs into it more. The bottom line, “new study says one third of children are living in poverty in VA.”
    - UberSkeptic
      
      Thanks Karen. It’s an interesting study. Think about this: The median family income in Reston is around $90,000 per year. Think about a family of four in Reston living on less than one third of the median, $29,000 per year. That includes income from social (-ist; hahaha) programs. Even the top of the study’s “near poverty” line, $43,000, for a family of four, sounds difficult.
      
      Then think about what this means for the children in those families. $55 for the team bathing suit for swim team? Probably not. A couple/few thousand dollars for summer camps? Nope. Tutoring for the SATs or AP classes? Doubtful.
John Hunter

Ben if you don’t like the site then just stop visiting it. Sheesh
UberSkeptic

Re: Children in Poverty. This study does *not* state that the number of children in poverty is “up from 13 percent in 2011” to one third today. It states that if you use the Virginia Poverty Measurement (VPM; income under $29,000 for a family of four) *alone*, the number in 2011 was 13 per cent. But if you include those under the VPM plus those at “near poverty”, which the study defines as those below about 150% of the VPM threshold, about $49,000, then, in 2011, that adds up to one third. Big difference.

So before you go ascribing an increase in poverty to any single factor, you really should make an effort to understand what you’re talking about.
Brenda Louis

Personally I think you’re the one that unreal. I think the John Hunter is right- if you and Ben don’t like the site then leave. You add nothing to the discourse and your criticisms are pretty lame.
- FULL TIME BOJANGLER
  
  Brenda,
  You do not know what you are talking about. I like the site and think that differing opinions are helpful and interesting. It appeared that my comments were being censored. Karen later explained that a computer glitch jammed up some comments. You add nothing to the discourse by saying “leave if you don’t like it”. I’d like to see the site improve and not go the way of Reston Patch and the other Patch sites.
UberSkeptic

The explanation is even simpler than you think. When an economy goes through a massive financial crisis, the number of people who qualify and receive government aid goes up. Don’t think of it as the Obama years that exploded the welfare state; think of it as the hangover from a drunken macroeconomic financial binge, which pre-dates the Obama administration.

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