The Editor’s Desk

I’ve been watching the Occupy movement with great interest. The bootstraps activism of the ‘60s is something I’ve always romanticized, on the one hand, and been haunted by, because I missed it.

I’ve always loved the movies, but I can’t remember the first one I fell for. Was it the trippy cartoon version of The Hobbit?

This week’s feature is about Vaughan Wilson, a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, our war in Afghanistan, which is 10 years old this month. It’s also about the fact that a decade of war has created a generation of men and women directly affected by its costs and that, as a country, we’re really only just beginning to learn what that means.

Food is the most direct connection between necessity and art in culture. Whether you are an Oglala who prizes a salted slice of raw kidney from a fresh kill, a Basque with a taste for reconstituted salt cod in pil pil sauce, or a Virginian with specific thoughts about Surry County ham, our cuisines show how we adapt and ultimately exalt the foods that keep us alive, and in the process create a shared identity.

I’ve led a pretty nomadic existence since my college graduation in 1997. In just under 15 years I’ve lived in 10 places––spending three months at the shortest stop, Eugene, and four years in the most permanent, Boston, where I still managed to bunk down in five different neighborhoods.

Growing up, we sang the Johnny Appleseed song before dinner. I don’t know where the tradition came from in our house. Since my mother was Catholic, I’d guess it came from my father’s side. Not that it makes a whole lot more sense theologically for Alabama Presbyterians to be singing a Swedenborgian anthem, but the hymn […]

Before I moved to Charlottesville, I already had a picture in my mind of the perfect place to live. It was a university town with a balance between culture and country.

 Women and war I liked the intro to the Perspectives on 9/11 piece in the September 13-19 issue of C-VILLE, but was disappointed, though not surprised, to see that none of the perspectives offered came from women. It seems that the narrative C-VILLE wishes to perpetrate is one devoid of women’s experience. Pieces like this […]

Not so nice A response to Chiara Canzi’s story “Making nice,” August 30, which looks at Charlottesville’s Democratic City Council candidates and their efforts to create a unified election ticket. Mr. Nix, Potentially skyrocketing water and power bills ARE an integral part of the big picture for a city whose home ownership numbers are below […]

 Mr. Wood Hopefully, the writer of the ugly article about Wendell Wood’s mansion [Best of C-VILLE p. 123] will live as long as Mr. Wood and have the health, energy, and initiative to keep working seven days a week. With that same perseverance, the writer may even earn enough money to build a mansion of […]