Old yellers

Dear Ace: I’m confused. UVA’s mascot is the cavalier, but the students are all called “hoos,” which, to me, seems to have more to do with a big-eyed nocturnal animal than some dude on a horse. What’s up with that?—Lee Harvey Owlswald   Lee: It’s quite natural to be confused. Ace has always said, confusion […]

Oh, you'd better watch out…

Next March will see the release of Watchmen, a movie that comic fans have been both anticipating and dreading for 20 years. Anticipating because Watchmen is arguably the most important comic work of the modern age: a turning point for the industry that proved that comics could be literate, thoughtful, and certainly not just for […]

Wrong time to cut capital spending?

There’s at least one good thing about the current recession from local government’s point-of-view: cheaper contracts. With contractors growing hungry for work, more of them are competing for bids. Moreover, they tend to trim expenses to make their proposals more attractive. Bids for the Downtown Mall rebricking project, for instance, came in at least 10 […]

A veces, la policía y Latinos hablan español

A group of local police officers, guns pointed, raided a migrant home in search of a homicide suspect. After securing the house, they entered the bathroom. An officer threw back the shower curtain, found a man curled in hiding, and said, “Feliz Navidad!” It was the only Spanish that he knew. Lt. Todd Hopwood, spokesman […]

Your tax dollars, at work

Richard Wiggans Job title: Director of finance for Albemarle County Resides in: Crozet Has worked for the county for: 5 years Best of times: The opportunities to help people directly. “Much of what the financial department does is administrative, so those times that we get to render a direct service is nice. Raising funds for […]

Buy, buy, love!

This is the time of year when we plough through magazines and websites looking for that Perfect Something. What’s Oprah giving to her studio audience this year? What’s Angelina putting in the kids’ stockings? How will I afford the Rolls Royce that Jay-Z is giving Beyoncé on Christmas morning? You won’t, and I’ll tell you […]

Correction

Due to a proofreading error, in last week’s Arts picks, the write-up for the play The Santaland Diaries [“Holiday freakin’ cheer”] was printed twice. As much as we approve of the extra promotion of such a great production at the American Shakespeare Center, we greatly regret that it resulted in the exclusion of the write-up […]

Students study city SRO sites

Undergraduates’ typical culminating class products—hastily scribbled exams, papers slapped together with a lot of caffeine and little sleep—are destined for the dustbin. But the nine seniors in Betsy Roettger’s community design studio put together plans that will help a nonprofit build housing for Charlottesville’s homeless. Single Resident Occupancy housing (SRO) is the next step up […]