If the jackals have hooked up your car and the wolves are howling at the door to take back your furniture and you’re still wired with the last of your cell phone minutes on a quick Home Shopping Network purchase, you may want to reconsider your relationship with money.

While Washington politicians figure out how to end the Iraqi conflict with peace and honor, the soldiers there and in Afghanistan are still fighting for their lives and those of others.

Walls make good neighbors, primarily because they can keep neighbors away, and, if there’s one thing we humans are good at, it’s social and psychological stone masonry.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but Christmas ain’t what it used to be.

Buildings washed to rubble. People sleeping in cars outside the ruined wreckage of their mud-filled, waterlogged homes. For Dan Matthews, the harsh reality of Hurricane Ike hammered home some valuable lessons.

Central Virginia-area Boy Scouts want you to join them today in doing a good deed by helping feed your neighbors.

For those riding the rails of the political fence, deciding for whom to vote can be a difficult thing.

Please accept my sincerest, heartfelt apologies for the inflammatory exclamations that recently pervaded our common area. It no doubt provided quite a start, as one does not often contemplate such delicate personal matters as those I addressed in the utterances made at such an extended volume.

Dee Proffitt searches for the right driver to get her off the first tee and within putting distance.

On Saturday, at 8:30 a.m., a bunch of guys will gather at the University of Virginia track to prove that what women have done, men can do in a similar, if not more competitive, manner.

The Snickers bars are in the bag with the Gatorade and pads, and the skates and sticks are in place, making it time for the newest political lobby to caucus.

The turgid coffeehouse ad evokes Rockwellian images of rounding out “the day’s first moments with a cup of coffee — expertly blended and roasted, offering flavors that mingle delightfully with your meal.”

It’s a weekend morning and Terri Petrovits offers up a family meal while the Barracks Road Shopping Center fountain bubbles nearby.

The harmonious verve of strongly sung gospel surges through the State Farm headquarters hallway leading toward the company cafeteria.

He came because the area was a good place to retire, and he stayed because he loved it.

If the weather-heads and their end-of-week predications are correct, Hanna is pouring on your personal, private parade even as you read this.

Sense it in the music, feel it in the video, hear it in the book; Derek Perkins wants the beat of his life, the tone of his philosophy to come through.

Seven deer — impudent impediments ignoring traffic’s horns — dined on carefully manicured landscape as the quick red fox sprang across the road, yipped a pup-squeak and disappeared into the brush.

The horn lies silent and the reeds are still, but LeRoi Moore’s music lives in the hearts of others.

If you can expect a seven-fold investment on your giving, the Epilepsy Foundation of Virginia has seen a return of truly biblical proportions.

They’ve been segregated, medicated, sedated, institutionalized, sterilized and demonized for nearly as long as people have claimed to be civilized.

Jim McVay has a problem with giving; he can’t stop.

From where Vaughn Wagnon stands — about five feet deep — the Germans don’t have a chance of taking the Elks Lodge.

When the milk of human kindness is curdled by a sour economy, nonprofits must scramble to get their message out and keep donations coming in.

Mama must have always liked Charlottesville best: In the continuing sibling rivalry with its sister, Albemarle continues to get second billing.

Back in May, more than 10,500 people walked into the Thomas Jefferson Food Bank in need of something to eat.

Wash the Volvo, put on your clean jeans and, for crying out loud, comb your hair. We’re having guests down from the nation’s capital.

A rural, agrarian-based cultural affair located in a community that’s becoming ever more urban and urbane must work hard to stay relevant.

‘Violating her trust’Like a boy with his dog, Andrew Neilson and Cookie the macaw have a bond that even a novice can notice. That bond was officially broken Friday when Cookie, and 30 other macaws temporarily housed at the Central Virginia Parrot Sanctuary, were inspected, documented and returned to their original owners.

When the fan’s hit, the trees are down and the power out, society divides into those who can help and those who need it.