Just give them a ride

Jennifer Behrens is a social worker with the Charlottesville Department of Social Services (www.charlottesville.org). One of her cases, an elementary-age boy who entered the foster system, needed a new place to live that would take him out of his home school district. Local schools are usually flexible—State legislation passed in 2005 says they can let […]

Protecting the salt of the earth

Fresh out of college, newly wed Teresa Tapscott went looking for a job in 1979. She hasn’t had to look for one since. “Sometimes I compare it to being a professional athlete, that they actually pay me to do something that I love to do so much,” says Tapscott, executive director of the Albemarle Housing […]

29N fire station breaks ground

After mutual words of thanks between some County Supervisors and the County’s Department of Fire Rescue, the group of men gathered behind the podium on Lonesome Pine Lane picked up their shovels—each labeled with a sharp “Fire Rescue” logo—and dug into the Hollymead ground. By next fall, Lonesome Pine Lane will be replaced by an […]

Flurry of activity

Dear Ace: The kids’ so-called winter break ended recently, and it got me wondering about snow days. No, not will we ever see the frosty precipitation again (I saw An Inconvenient Truth!), but, in the event that it’s coming down outside, who decides when to call a snow day and how do they make the decision?—Cab N. Fevre

Art and consomme

It is a Saturday morning in early January and Will Richey is making breakfast. He arrived at Revolutionary Soup, the restaurant he owns on the Downtown Mall, a little before 8 …

Thom Pain (based on nothing)

stage “Do you like magic?” Thom Pain asks the audience on three occasions during Will Eno’s dramatic monologue, now playing in Charlottesville one year after the close of its first New York run. The question is emblematic of the play, for Thom Pain (based on nothing) is all about magic, in the sense of a […]

The Virginia Quarterly Review

words There are other places in the world to worry about besides the Middle East. No one knows that better than the folks at The Virginia Quarterly Review. They’re determined to keep Africa in our hearts and minds. Last year, they presented a series of articles on widespread AIDS in Africa. And now, in the […]

George Strait, with Ronnie Milsap, and Taylor Swift

music “Anything but country” is a common sentiment among music snobs, as in “I love Radiohead and the Wu-Tang Clan…really, anything but country.” In Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman hogties this statement—fans of most music genres can find something to appreciate in songs about trucks and dogs. But Klosterman never addresses the other […]