Somewhere in Waynesboro’s pulsing West End, a firehouse will rise bearing a similarity to the plain-faced efficiency of that section’s anchor, the Wal-Mart Supercenter off Lucy Lane.

History, as philosopher George Santayana admonished, is instructive in what to avoid, but replication is not always a bad thing.

THIS WEEK’S OPINION MARKETPLACE

Tracy Pyles goes on the offensive again, this time over supervisors’ travel.

Going to nonprofit status would strip newspapers of independence.

Conquering the recession isn’t worth surrendering our future.

On the still-sparkling campus of the Augusta Medical Center, set in Fishersville facing the Blue Ridge Mountains, the residue from the battle that preceded the hospital’s opening 15 years ago long since has been swept away.

THIS WEEK’S OPINION MARKETPLACE

Ambivalence is a trait rarely displayed in the political repertoire of President Barack Obama, a man whose views tend toward a level of absolutism disdained by people of his ideological kind, unless, of course, it behooves them.

Fittingly, state Republican Party Chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick begins an electronic missive to 2,000 GOP members with the greeting, “Dear Republican Friend,” the singular noun being roughly proportionate to his partisan support.

Barack Obama, among other things, is the president who will throw open the sash and let in the light. He hailed while campaigning for the job he now holds the coming of a “new era of open government.”

America is in danger of losing the spirit of self reliance that forged this place as a bastion of liberty and greatness.

THIS WEEK’S OPINION MARKETPLACE

With the supervisors having failed to act as they ought, the Augusta County reassessment battle shifts to the courtroom. Will supervisors fail again, this time in lowering the tax rate?

Here’s what the Waynesboro City Council’s majority faction and at least one local merchant apparently cannot bear: the lure of people downtown.

Tonight is the night of nights for Augusta County’s swelling legions of reassessment protesters, who are expected to descend on the Government Center in Verona as though it were a French beachhead.

A city official knocks on doors, makes telephone calls, pesters and persists.

THIS WEEK’S OPINION MARKETPLACE

It has been suggested in circles right of center that Barack Obama reflects and replicates Jimmy Carter, the peanut peddler who climbed from oblivion to the presidency then vanished after a single term.

Wendell Coleman says what he cannot believe.

Perhaps hearkening to whispers turned to gleeful shouts about old Republican formulas ceasing to produce desired effects, namely winning elections, Bob McDonnell on Monday began his campaign for the state’s highest office by going “centrist,” according to a front-page headline in The Washington Post.

Perhaps hearkening to whispers turned to gleeful shouts about old Republican formulas ceasing to produce desired effects, namely winning elections, Bob McDonnell on Monday began his campaign for the state’s highest office by going “centrist,” according to a front-page headline in The Washington Post.

A reporter recently fielded the sort of question that flows freely to editors: Why all the bad news?

THIS WEEK’S OPINION MARKETPLACE

A pocketful of motor oil is easier to grasp than Sen. Mark Warner’s position on legislation that would halt secret ballots for union elections.

Where Augusta County property owners wade and supervisors spare one refuse to go, Dan Onorato has ventured before to results decidedly mixed.

Skipping along a path well-worn by a friend in Virginia, President Barack Obama pledges that by term’s end he will reduce by half the mammoth deficit he inherited and initially plans to compound.

In addition to teaching the mechanics of running through the woods, Fort Defiance High School cross-country coach Ron Witherow is seeking the duties of head salesman on behalf of the program.

Nestled amid rocky hills and thick woods on a 1-acre plot in Craigsville are a chicken coop and rickety house built in 1876.

THIS WEEK’S OPINION MARKETPLACE