Is that the breast you can do?

Is that the breast you can do?

As fairly regular advertisers in the C-VILLE Weekly, we were stunned and dismayed by your choice of cover for the June 26 issue [“Why doesn’t Charlottesville have a strip club?”]. As responsible educators we protest the use of a cover that, at the least, sends mixed messages to children and young people about acceptable and appropriate dress and behavior for males and females. You don’t need to resort to soft porn to entice readers to pick up your magazine, already enjoyed by area residents for its alternative and sometimes edgy presentation of local news and events. If this cover is indicative of a new direction in taste and judgment for the C-VILLE editorial staff, the Charlottesville Waldorf School will spend its advertising money elsewhere.

Vivian Jones-Schmidt, Enrollment Coordinator
Lara Fine, Development Coordinator
Alice Gore, Administrator
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The true provincial sphincter

I understand that above and beyond last week’s letters of indignation about the strip club cover [“Why doesn’t Charlottesville have a strip club?” June 26, 2007], you also fielded telephone calls and even an office visit from among my oh-so politically correct brethren. Sigh. It’s just this sort of inane backlash that belies the true provincial sphincter tone lurking within an energetic effort to be the world’s most sophisticated little city. Lighten up, guys! I bet I can peg your demographic equation to the tee. The cover was merely a conservative spoof of that very long ago, racier version of the James Bond movie poster. A reliable source told me the guy who went to your office was ranting about the implication of the poor nerdy guy beholding the woman’s bare breasts. Bare breasts?! Without even a sliver of cheek showing in the rear? Gee, that’s quite a mental stretch. The fact is, the woman is depicted as the empowered predator, what with her holding a deadly weapon while in the classic hands-on-hips, open stance of triumph. Indeed, what seems lost in the emotional watershed of indignation is that your article wasn’t soliciting strip club site construction bids, but merely serving an alternative newspaper’s central function of provoking the populace. Moreover, the notion of a strip joint was only one of 14 other equally-weighted possibilities. In this New Age, high-end erotic dancing clubs are tightly supervised business establishments that provide an outlet for customers and a job with better pay and often less abuse than waitressing for young ladies who freely choose to work there. Hmmm. Your July 3, 2007 cover [“Celebrate your independence”] is provocative as well, yet in a form politically immune to overt griping. Alas, for no doubt many a “daughter-siring” son of the new multicultural confederacy feels equal offense at the image of fair-haired, pink-cheeked lassy’s bare belly being pawed by the descendant of slaves.

Matthew Bowen
Charlottesville
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Better than a strip club

In regard to Kyle Daly’s article [“Why doesn’t Charlottesville have a strip club?,” June 26, 2007], Rob Craighurst’s Ghosts and Murder Tour is an hour and a half of fascinating facts about Charlottesville. Do you know the location that is now Gravity Lounge used to be a storage area for coffins? Have you seen Charlottesville’s historic landmark jail? Come join the fun on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night at 7 or 9pm in front of York Place Mall.
 
Gayle Floyd,
Retired Certified Master Guide, Washington D.C.
Charlottesville
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Absolutely nothing about strip clubs

Thank you for your ongoing reporting on the land deal between the federal government and Wendell Wood. Why is it against the law for a federal government official to inform a private party about the appraisal value of a piece of property in negotiations for purchase? Isn’t that a form of negotiation that is a standard business practice? Please continue your coverage of this transaction, and you have my best wishes.

Gary Westmoreland
Charlottesville
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The liberal’s liberalism

I’ve finally decided that you must really like irony. I can’t find any other explanation for your publishing of the tirade by J. Bruce Eckert [“Not a Goode citizen,” Mailbag, July 3, 2007], with its gratuitous obscenity, its abusive attack on your reporter, Dan Catalano, and its delusional fears.

I have no intention of wasting time on the latter. However, if Mr. Eckert truly believes Virginia is about to be invaded and occupied by some foreign power, I hope he has alerted the Department of Homeland Security.

Based on his letter, it seems highly likely that Mr. Eckert would fail the INS Citizenship Test. First, he implicitly equates good citizenship and patriotism with an unquestioning acceptance of everything done by his congressman, his President and his country. That is chauvinistic apathy, and the complete antithesis of the active participant role the Founding Fathers had in mind for citizens when framing the Constitution. Second, he refers to the need to “practice what our Founding Fathers stood for” and denounces liberals “who want to destroy the values of this great country”. He seems to overlook the fact that the Founding Fathers stood for liberalism, with its pesky ideals of freedom and liberty for all, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, government by the consent of the governed, individual rights, the rule of law, equal opportunity, a free market economy, etc. In other words, the Founding Fathers were true liberals, and it is Mr. Eckert, with his advocacy for religious totalitarianism and limits to free speech, whose values they would not recognize.

Heather Rowland
Charlottesville
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“Inaccuracies” fuel complaint

Fuel Co. was a labor of love for Patricia Kluge and Bill Moses [“Restaurantarama,” July 10, 2007], and it was a concept they embraced. Due to the growth of Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard and the ramping up of Vineyard Estates, as well as their extensive charity work, it became difficult to give the restaurant the 100 percent attention it needed and deserved. After much thought, last week it was decided that the time was appropriate to close the doors.  Fuel Co.’s chef, Thomas Abrahamsson, will remain on staff with the Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard Farm Shop. 

It is a shame that the only quotes about Fuel Co.’s closing were attributed to an apparently disgruntled former employee. Please allow me to clear up some inaccuracies and misconceptions: The restaurant has had three chefs in its nearly four years of operation, as well as one consulting chef in the interim between two full-time chefs. Turn-around is not uncommon in the restaurant business, or in the advertising business: I have had four ad reps at C-VILLE Weekly since I started advertising for Fuel Co.

Lastly, efforts were made to contact Mayor Brown and we are very apologetic that wires crossed and his party had to dine elsewhere.

Kristin Moses Murray
PR and Advertising Director, Kluge Estate & Fuel Co.
Charlottesville

The editor replies: In fact, Kluge’s New York PR representative was contacted for a comment and declined to address the remarks of Ken Wooten, a former Kluge employee quoted in Restaurantarama. Rather, she directed us to a prepared statement that we reprinted in full. As to the number of chefs, our reporting points to two interim chefs, in addition to the three that Ms. Murray references and the one consultant, for a total of six. If in fact there were not two “interim chefs,” we apologize for the mistake.
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Hot over Lake Anna claims

In Elena Day’s commentary, “Lake Anna’s in Hot Water” [Opinionated, July 10, 2007] she rails against Dominion because a potential third reactor would raise the temperature of the lake.

I take exception to that.

As a result of environmental concerns that were raised by various groups, individuals, and state agencies, Dominion has elected to spend an additional quarter of a billion dollars or so to add alternate cooling methods to the design of a potential third reactor. This success is an example of democracy at its finest!

But despite this success, groups such as PACE will still make false claims that an additional reactor will heat up the lake.

As for the ecology, before Lake Anna was built by Dominion, it was a creek that was virtually devoid of life, often drying up in the hot summer months. Today, Lake Anna’s popularity has attracted thousands of full-time residents and its warm waters harbor a thriving ecosystem that are often regarded as the best fishing in the state. I should know. I fish there.

Michael Stuart
Beaverdam

Letters to the editor should be exclusive to C-VILLE Weekly and may pertain to content that we have published. Letters are not to exceed 400 words and may be edited for clarity and length. We accept letters via post or e-mail. To be published, letters must be signed. Please include a phone number for verification.