Tuesday, July 4
No surprise: fatal crash on the Fourth
The Fourth of July weekend is usually an ugly one, traffic fatality-wise, and this one was no exception. In Staunton, a crash on Independence Day took the life of a 37-year-old Verona woman and left her 8-year-old daughter in critical condition. The cause of the accident was something that unfortunately happens every day of the year: A teenage driver got distracted by his cell phone. The young man veered into oncoming traffic and struck the car in which Kathy Sue Hildebrand was a passenger, killing her and injuring her mother, daughter and son. Twenty-one total deaths during the holiday weekend made it Virginia’s deadliest July 4 since 1997.
Wednesday, July 5
Tangled Webb woven
The U.S. Senate race between Republican George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb has been nothing if not vitriolic. The exchange of fire continued today when Webb’s campaign issued a press release condemning Allen’s response to Webb’s response to George Bush’s July 4 address. (Got that?) Webb’s corner accuses Allen’s campaign manager, one Dick Wadhams, of “misrepresenting Webb’s prophetic warnings about the war and its aftermath.” Allen says Webb is a flip-flopper on Iraq; Webb says Allen is glossing over the whole issue. Meanwhile, as of today, www.iraqbodycount.net estimates that there has been a minimum of 38,839 Iraqi civilian deaths since the war began.
Thursday, July 6
The fog of war
Today, former Army private Steven D. Green pleaded not guilty to charges that he raped a young Iraqi woman (as young as 15, according to some reports) before killing her and three of her family members. The incident took place earlier this year; Green was arrested June 30. He had been honorably discharged from the Army in mid-May because of an anti-social personality disorder. At first, there was some confusion as to whether Green would be tried by the military or in federal court. UVA military law professor Robert F. Turner weighed in on the question in USA Today, pointing out that a military jury can actually be better than its civilian equivalent when it comes to seeing through a flashy, high-priced defense. Ultimately, it was revealed that Green will be tried in federal court and defended by public attorneys.
Friday, July 7
Local ghosts in print
Turns out that Albemarle’s reputation as a home to society’s luminaries (some of them rather batty) isn’t just a recent phenomenon. Charlottesville author Donna M. Lucey has a new book out from Crown, Archie and Amélie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age, that delves into the real-life romance of onetime Albemarle residents John “Archie” Armstrong Chanler (heir to the Astor fortune) and Amélie Rives (granddaughter of Robert E. Lee). Articles on Lucey’s latest work have been showing up in places like The New York Times and USA Today. The peculiar pair were star-crossed lovers whose antics included writing a scandalous bestselling novel, The Quick or the Dead? (Amélie) and breakfasting on roast duck with vanilla ice cream (Archie). They eventually divorced.
Saturday, July 8
UVA basketball courting NoVA; JPJ still cavernous
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports today that UVA head basketball coach Dave Leitao was, in part, attracted to his newly hired assistant coach, Bill Courtney, because Courtney grew up in Northern Virginia and coached at George Mason for nine seasons. Under the gun to fill the 15,000+ seats in UVA’s brand-new John Paul Jones arena, Leitao, according to the Times-Dispatch, “knows he needs to raise his program’s profile” near the nation’s capital. Translation: The Washington area offers millions of butts to fill Leitao’s seats, and he thinks a NoVA native courtside will make the drive down Route 29 more palatable to Beltway denizens. Not that we’re desperate here, or anything.
Diploma mill at Fork Union?
Fork Union Military Academy is among 22 prep and Christian high schools whose academic standards the NCAA will investigate, according to today’s Daily Progress. The academy’s president hotly denied that the school is a “diploma mill” and said NCAA officials have never even visited the school. Athletes from 16 other schools were barred outright from competing in NCAA programs.
Sunday, July 9
Love and the brain
Virginia Tech professor Nancy G. Love is biking through the Richmond area today as part of a 400-mile trip across the state to raise money for awareness of a brain condition she bested, arteriovenous malformation (AVM). Gamma-knife radiation treatments at UVA cured Love’s condition after she was diagnosed three years ago, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch; the money will fund a website offering sufferers clear information, which Love says is lacking. The same article quotes UVA professor of neurosurgery Neal F. Kassell describing AVM as resembling “a bag of worms in the brain.”
Monday, July 10
Sabato to Congress:
You’re nothing
Today’s Boston Globe opines that the U.S. Congress has its work cut out for it if it wishes to leave a mark on history during the 2006 legislative session, which resumes today. It seems lawmakers just haven’t gotten much done so far this year, other than renewing the Patriot Act and extending $70 billion in tax cuts. Hard-to-impress UVA prof and pundit Larry Sabato is quoted in the article as follows: “Historically, this is certainly not a Congress that will be remembered. There is just not much there.”
