Beware the Cyclops

I’m struggling to take a charitable view of Neil Williamson’s Opinionated [May 29, 2007]. But I will try, because the participation of business interests is vital to exploring the information and public involvement preliminary to adopting an optimum population element in the county’s comprehensive plan. But I must observe that The Free Enterprise Forum, described […]

Jerry’s kids

Though we may be a few weeks late to the party, it just wouldn’t feel right if we didn’t take a moment to reflect on the man who did more than any other single individual to make

Sordid boon

It is probably no coincidence that Charlottesville High School’s Freshman Academy got more love from administrators after the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2001. Arguably the most influential—and maligned—federal education act since the 1964 Civil Rights Act pushed public school integration, NCLB uses test scores to measure “school accountability” and sets annual […]

A good number is hard to find

This year’s graduating class of 261 had 451 students in ninth grade—which means the dropout rate should be huge, right? Try 3 percent. That’s the official number for the Charlottesville City Schools division from 2005-06, a number derived by the number of students who drop out in a year divided by the total number of […]

Four Virginia Artists

art With Charlottesville turning its collective eye to photography via the Festival of the Photograph, the UVA Art Museum devotes a small space to a related exhibition that gives just a taste of four Virginia camera artists. This is a disparate quartet of heavyweights: fine artists and top-notch journalists including Sally Mann, Sam Abell, Emmet […]

“The Walking Dead, Book 2”

comics You can always count on zombies for a good time. Those irascible brain-munchers have been pop-culture staples since at least Colonial times, trading on race/class fears to give the upper crust a little something to fret about at night. Zombies have been best used in film, from George Romero’s Living Dead movies to the […]

Old Times

stage One measure of a dramatic production is its success in bringing out qualities not apparent to a reader. On seeing director Francine Smith’s Old Times, I realized I had overlooked much of the play’s humor amid the ominous stares, pregnant silences and coded commonplaces that were expected features of Harold Pinter’s 1971 script. Such […]

Beer-serving parents to serve time

Two parents who were convicted of providing alcohol to minors, and who tried to take their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, will be forced to serve a 27-month sentence.

Shooting suspect unfit for trial

Police now have three people in custody who, they suspect, fired bullets into a crowd of youths on Prospect Avenue on March 2, seriously injuring a 16-year-old Charlottesville High School student. One suspect is in custody at the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail. Another is still in New York City, where he was picked up by […]