Charlottesville, Albemarle: we are certifiable!

If there’s one thing the green movement isn’t short on, it’s talk. At first glance you might think that the certification of Charlottesville and Albemarle as “Green Governments” by the Virginia Municipal League is another example of hot air tinged green, but I think it’s probably a little more substantive than that.

I got the post-election greens

The campaign in which the environmental conversation largely amounted to “Drill, baby, drill” is over. I’m definitely glad about the results, but I did wish for more concentrated talk about environmental issues.

November 08: Bringing up backyard

When you walk up to the front door of Melissa Wiley’s Belmont house, you’re struck by a sense of tidiness: old railroad ties are stacked into low walls, well-tended plants are arranged just so, and the grass is lush. Walk through the house’s central hallway, with its checkerboard paint job, and keep going out the […]

November 08: At the bend in the river

A decade ago, Brynne and John Potter were house-hunting and showed up at a certain Locust Grove property with little enthusiasm. “We didn’t like it on paper,” Brynne remembers. Upon walking in the ranch house’s front door, the couple were greeted by thick carpets that had absorbed the effects of long-term smokers and multiple cats. […]

Buses on the loose!

The humble bus seems to be gaining in popularity as a political instrument. Tomorrow, October 31, you’ve got not one but two chances to see how the big, lumbering vehicles are becoming surprisingly nimble as symbols of various issues. Depending who’s driving, of course.

Passing leafy time

For several years, I’ve known Tamra Harrison Kirschnick as a painter of tangled plant life. The pieces of hers I’ve seen in the past have been large, single canvases, so it was a pleasant shock to enter her current solo show and find that it consists of arrangements of smaller paintings. In each of the […]

Yes, Virginia, there is a climate problem

Interesting phenomenon, climate change: Most people agree that it’s happening, but as soon as you get past that basic consensus and start talking about what the hell we should be doing about the problem, people revert to their usual partisan ways.