Casteen touts diversity

In his “State of the University” speech on Friday, April 21, President John Casteen said the Living Wage campaign is “revolutionary” and “deserves to be understood and debated.” Circulated e-mails gave Living Wage activists strict orders not to disrupt Casteen’s speech, so about 40 or so activists clad themselves in “living wage” banners and covered their mouths with “$10.72” gags.

The 2006 Muzzle Awards

“Are you liberal or conservative?” This question seems to matter a great deal to people these days. Political affiliation colors our thinking on everything from global politics to family life—so much so that it seems every story has only two sides: left and right.    Robert O’Neil, president of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection […]

Stamped out

Dear Ace: How do the Downtown parking stamps work? Why do some businesses readily stamp the ticket you get when you enter one of our garages or lots and some do not? What gives? —Country Mouse in the City Dear Mouse: Firstly, I must commend you on learning to drive a car, what with your […]

Roger Burchett wants to change your channel

Few people get to work earlier than Roger Burchett. Bo Sykes and Whitney Holmes do, but as early-morning anchors of the live broadcast from the Charlottesville Newsplex, they have good reason to haul their tails to work by 2:00 in the morning. But Burchett, general manager of the operation that Gray Television established 18 months […]

ABC ya!

Dear Ace: I went to South Street Brewery for my usual Tuesday night of $2.50 drafts, only to be handed a slip of paper at the door explaining that such low, low prices could not be offered past 9pm, per ABC laws. Is this true? If so, how’d SS get away with it for so long? Or […]

Iraq: 3 years in

The survey included 944 military respondents interviewed at several undisclosed locations throughout Iraq. The survey was conducted January 18–February 14, 2006. The margin of error for this survey is +/-3.3 percentage points.It began with a bunker-busting missile barrage known as “Shock and Awe,” and now, three long years later, the war grinds inexorably on—no longer […]

Terminal curiosity

Dear Ace: Most every airport I’ve been to makes you go through security before you can sit at the bar or buy a magazine. How come Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport puts the convenience store before security?—Lee Vin Tomorrow Dear Lee: Thanks for the great question! That’s what we love: truly inspirational source material. Finally, a chance to […]

Of Maus and men

  Art Spiegelman would have been like any other adolescent comic fan, losing interest in the form at about age 13, but for the fact that right about that time he discovered something that hijacked his attention—ka-pow!—and turned him into a lifelong comics reader. For Spiegelman, that was Marvel’s trippy, mystical Dr. Strange series by […]

Stamped out

Dear Ace, I went to the 11th Street post office that’s near my house the other day to mail my boyfriend a mix CD as proof of my undying love and affection. However, when I got there the doors were locked, the lights were out, and the place looked empty. I was there well within […]

Mommies’ little helper

Q: Why don’t women need watches? A: There’s a clock on the stove. The old joke is a sure-fire way for a guy to earn a jab in the arm from his girlfriend. In the public realm, however, questions of gender are no laughing matter. With his 2004 book Taking Sex Differences Seriously, UVA politics professor […]