Just north of Monticello lies a relic of one of the less illustrious aspects of Charlottesville’s not-too-distant past. The Blue Ridge Hospital housed tuberculosis patients until 1978, but has since gone into disrepair as it has passed through the hands of a number of organizations, all unsure of what to do with the 142-acre property. […]
A National Research Council report released this month says that by 2020, less than 2 percent of the United States’ total carbon emissions would be offset by wind energy development. Rick Webb, a senior scientist at UVA’s Department of Environmental Sciences, contributed to the report. He thinks wind energy’s negative impact may far outweigh its […]
I met Dan Trub on Halloween night, 2005. He was wearing a 2-year-old’s pumpkin costume. I think he might have tried to make me wrestle him. The next time I saw him, a mutual friend begged Dan to do his signature trick, and after a few minutes of reluctance, Dan gave in and started singing […]
To most of Charlottesville, last Thursday may have seemed like a beautiful, sunny day. But inside UVA’s Zehmer Hall, it was like something out of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie: Dams were stressed to the bursting point. Bridges were washed out. Six-foot-deep puddles dotted the soaked landscape. And then there was the propane tanker explosion. It […]
Preserve the coal tower? It’s a hard sell. Coran Capshaw has plans to develop it, but until that gets underway it remains the sort of place where a squatter can go unnoticed for months until he lashes out violently at trespassers, as happened six years ago. That’s when Craig Nordensen murdered two people after a […]
“He’s a comedian; he’s very funny.” This was the description of Jon Stewart I overheard a ticket-taker giving a pleasant-looking older couple as they entered the John Paul Jones Arena last Saturday. I had to wonder how they ended up there without a clue as to who Jon Stewart is. Whatever, by the time Stewart’s […]
“When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” may be a bumper sticker-ready bit of NRA rhetoric, but there is a certain logic to it: If the law prohibits gun ownership, only people who disregard the law (presumably some nasty characters) will own guns. Thing is, in Virginia at least, this is all just […]
music “Inauspicious start” was the first phrase that came to mind when opening act The Press took the stage at the Satellite Ballroom on Thursday night. A bunch of guys hopping around, looking like they’d come straight from “The Late Night With Conan O’Brien” writers’ room and announcing enthusiastically, “We’re from New Hampshire!” was just […]
In the most exciting academic standoff since the Noam Chomsky-Christopher Hitchens cage match of ’02 (Chomsky felled the sodden neo-con with a folding chair), residents of UVA’s
music In the world of indie and experimental music, bands of unclassifiable weirdness end up on lo-fi legend Michael Gira’s tiny imprint, Young God Records. And Akron/Family is unclassifiably weird. The evening at Satellite Ballroom started with Richmond transplants The Great White Jenkins, who sound something like Harvest-era Neil Young filtered through a more melodic […]