City approves master plan for east side of McIntire Park

It’s been over a year in the making, and City Council finally voted on it: the master plan for the eastern side of McIntire Park. Citizens have shown up for meeting after meeting to express concerns about golf, gardens, soccer fields, and skate parks, and after several presentations and revisions, Tuesday night Council adopted a […]

Yoga U: Is the Contemplative Sciences Center the answer to UVA’s ‘reputation gap,’ or an expensive New Age sideshow?

On April 10, the University of Virginia announced that billionaire alum Paul Tudor Jones and his wife Sonia had donated $12 million for the creation of the Contemplative Sciences Center (CSC). Set to begin this fall, the center will be dedicated to the study of meditation, yoga, and mindfulness training and how these practices can […]

Live From the DNC: From the streets to the nosebleed seats

An eventful day here in Charlotte. For me, it started with a Planned Parenthood rally at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Yes, this is probably the first time in history that those two organizations were mentioned in the same sentence. A human pillpack led the proceedings: Rush Limbaugh’s favorite slut Sandra Fluke was on hand […]

ARTS Pick: Zammuto at The Southern

Wednesday 9/5 Workbook Being innovative is exhausting work. Nick Zammuto could have decided that, after a prolific stint with cellist Paul de Jong as The Books, he’d coast with the street cred he got for experimenting with what he calls “collage-pop music.” Instead he takes up the loop and synth mantle with an eye towards layered sound, building the […]

Live From the DNC: Soggy Labor Day Slog

Remember what I said yesterday about getting around easily? Forget it. The bus route I’d mastered practically ceased to exist, thunderstorms pounded the city, and the sidewalks were packed. At one point, I slipped in behind a guy pushing a cart full of ponchos just to get through the crowd. I wound up waiting out […]

PEC works to turn backyards into native wildlife habitats

Who doesn’t love looking out the kitchen window at all the feathered friends Central Virginia’s backyards have to offer? Unfortunately, due to declining grassland and shrubland areas in the region, a number of native Virginia bird species, like the bobolink and bobwhite quail, are in danger of becoming extinct. The Piedmont Environmental Council’s James Barnes, […]

Neighboring counties differ on approaches to school consolidation

Ongoing discussions about rural county schools have raised one question over and over: Are small schools worth preserving for the sake of community, even if it means spending more money? This summer the Albemarle County School Board voted in favor of funding renovations to keep three small elementary schools open, a decision widely supported by […]

Convention check-in: Enduring the parties’ parties

Well, here we go again. With the Democratic party spending this week in North Carolina celebrating the re-nomination of President Barack Obama, and the Republicans still cleaning up from their hurricane-shortened coronation of Mitt Romney in Florida, we are once again forced to endure two weeks of tightly scripted, substance-free political theater that combines the intellectual […]