Liberals like to think, conservatives like to have their opinions thrown back at them,” said cartoonist and writer Ted Rall during his speech to a packed auditorium in the Albemarle County Office Building on Wednesday, March 26. The wild cheering that followed this proclamation, however, seemed to contradict Rall’s claim.
The Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice and C-VILLE Weekly invited Rall to deliver a live version of the vitriolic anti-Bush essays regularly printed in this paper’s AfterThought section. Rall has made a career of stirring up controversy, first as a cartoonist skewering modern life and, more recently, as a journalist reporting on America’s activity in the Middle East and Central Asia. His fury has escalated with Bush’s invasion of Iraq, and last week the alternative weekly newspaper New York Press placed Rall second on its list of “50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers.”
Rall’s talent for irritating the hell out of people partially explained the presence of two uniformed Albemarle County Police officers eyeing the crowd as it gathered for Rall’s talk. But nothing more deviant than the happy munching of crackers and brie broke out before Rall’s talk, as the crowd of 200 sipped organic green tea from paper cups and admired the witty protest pins and bumper stickers that read, for example: “Join the Army. Travel to exotic distant lands, meet exciting, unusual people and kill them.”
Indeed, the cops didn’t have much to worry about. Most of Rall’s speech, which framed the Afghan and Iraq war as a Bushie ploy for oil, met with universal applause. The audience cheered loudest not when Rall made a good point, however, but when he got personal––and Rall seemed to take Limbaughian pleasure in appealing to the lowest common denominator. “Bush is a drooling, inarticulate buffoon,” said Rall. The crowd went wild.
The only tense moment came when an obviously agitated speaker stomped down a side aisle toward Rall. “What is your definition of terrorism?” he shouted, pacing and gesturing as he spoke. He took issue with Rall’s flippant use of the word “shit” to describe people and architecture––as in, both the U.S. Army and Al Qaeda “blow shit up.” One officer moved slowly toward Rall, and the crowd began to heckle the speaker, who apparently left the auditorium.
To answer the question, Rall said he believed “terrorism” was a bogus concept. “George Washington and Thomas Jefferson used terrorist tactics,” he said. “When you win, they call you a freedom fighter. When you lose, you’re a terrorist.”
At his best, Rall, who has traveled widely in the Middle East, delivered little-reported facts: That Bush met with the Taliban between January and July 2001 to lobby for Unocal, an energy company that wants to build an oil pipeline between the Caspian Basin and the Persian Gulf; that key U.S. appointments in Afghanistan, including President Hamid Karzai and special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, worked for Unocal; that Afghanistan after its American “liberation” is just as brutal, repressive and undemocratic as it ever was.
For all his well-informed criticism, however, Rall offered no constructive ideas of his own and frequently indulged in profane insults that appealed to the emotions––instead of the intellects––of some audience members and seemed to bore others. After the presentation, one woman chastised him for his use of the word “pussies” to describe both mainstream media and Democrats.
“My New Year’s resolution was to cut down on profanity,” says Rall. “But when I get in front of a crowd, I can’t help it.”
––John Borgmeyer
Weapons of mass distraction
Sperry protest sparks anti- and pro-war sentiments
Route 29, outside the brick walls of Sperry Marine, was a spectacle the morning of Friday, March 28. Police cars, police and protestors. I asked four children who had joined the protest what the company did here. “Build weapons of mass destruction,” they answered.
Yes, civil disobedience had struck again. Blocking Sperry’s entrance, chained to a cement barrel, five anti-war protestors lay dead, at least seemingly so—a visual reminder of casualties in the United States-led war on Iraq.
Sperry Marine is a division of Northrop Grummon, which manufactures, among other things, attack targeting pods for F-16s and radar for “fire and forget” Longbow Hellfire missiles. The local Sperry facility has recently won multi-million dollar contracts for attack submarine radar systems, navigational systems for Iroquois naval destroyers and surveillance systems for Kuwait patrol boats.
The protestors see a significant link between Sperry’s weapons systems, what they deem as an “illegitimate” war on Iraq, and the bloodshed that has ensued.
Shelly Stern held an American flag boasting the message: “There’s no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” Stern sees a rational, moral argument for such anti-war tactics. “These five people are standing in solidarity with 4.5 million human beings in Baghdad who have no choice but to suffer.”
Not everyone agrees. Across Route 29 from the dozens of anti-war protestors stood 10 pro-war protestors, many of whom came from the nearby military recruiting center. “I think they’re the village idiots,” said one. He supports their right to free speech. “I just don’t like what they’re doing…I think they should pack their bags and get in my truck and I’ll drive them out of the country personally.”
Their reasons for backing the war seem equally rational, citing the hypocrisy of the United Nations, the involvement of Russia and U.S. benevolence. “We’re giving the oil back,” said one. Is the Iraq war related to September 11? “It’s got something to do with it.”
By most accounts, the police handled the disruption admirably. “We don’t want anybody to get hurt,” said police media liaison officer Earl Newton. “I’d prefer that they would move on. They’ve made their point. They can get on with their lives and we can get on back to doing what we’re supposed to be doing.” However, in the protestors’ minds, business as usual will just perpetuate more bloodshed overseas.—Brian Wimer
Creative differences
Heading west, local director leaves the comfort zone
On April 5, Teresa Dowell-Vest will be the keynote speaker for the Third Annual Black Women’s Leadership Conference: Express Yourself! Black Women and Creativity. It will take place at the Darden Business School. This appearance will be one of Dowell-Vest’s last in Charlottesville—at least for a while.
Although she’s graced local stages with her play Vinegar Hill, directed such works as Seven Guitars and The Darker Face of the Earth, the onetime Charlottesville High School drama teacher and lifelong resident Dowell-Vest has decided to take her show on the road.
She will relocate to Los Angeles, where she hopes to pitch her idea for a TV show called “Black Faces,” featuring a black theater company based in a small Southern town. She recently discussed her plans with C-VILLE. An edited transcript of that conversation follows.
Kathryn E. Goodson: What will your role be in the upcoming Black Women’s Leadership conference?
Teresa Dowell-Vest: I will be stressing to these women that change can be brought about through creative means. I’ll be looking back into history, focusing my attention on women of color in Virginia who have literally changed the world through the arts—Ella Fitzgerald, Pearl Bailey, Maggie Lena Walker, who was the first woman in the U.S. to become president of a local bank, and Irene Morgan, who refused to give up her bus seat to a white person 11 years before Rosa Parks.
It takes a creative person to accomplish just about everything, including public speaking, education, even banking. Your creative self makes you that much more dynamic and powerful in every way.
You’ve been a drama teacher, a playwright, CEO of The Dowell-Vest Communications Group and program director of the African American Heritage Program with the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. Has it been hard to settle down creatively in Charlottesville?
I think it gets tough when the services you have to offer are just not that badly needed. The creative things I had envisioned doing, I soon realized Charlottesville was not the market for them. That’s when you find yourself shaping your creativity around the market.
Charlottesville is a comfortable, nestled place. If I wanted to just do community theater, then I’d stay. I need another step forward.
You describe Charlottesville as not being very receptive to black females in the arts. How?
The community is set in its ways, comfortable. It needs cultivation. For example, if beyond myself, there’s only one other African-American theater director in Charlottesville, you can get worn out in that respect. You’re proud of the work you do as a black female storyteller, until someone needs you to be a black woman storyteller. In the name of tokenism, it’s a very fine line to know why exactly you’ve been called upon.
In a general sense, Charlottesville could be a lot more nurturing in building up the Latino, gay and African-American communities in the way of the arts. Now, how is that done? I don’t know.
I would challenge the City to find ways to support the community theater and arts organizations, to attend the shows and submit to them what they would like to see performed there.
Have many people questioned your choice to leave instead of staying and serving the arts community?
Absolutely, so many. But this is not the market for the work I want to do. I’m not film director Tim Reid or Sissy Spacek, I cannot just open doors instantly.
It is a huge struggle for me personally though, whether I should leave and service my own personal goals, or stay and try to cultivate my town in the arts. That’s the point I find myself questioning—my own allegiance.—Kathryn E. Goodson
Funding Fridays
Who’s to blame for the CDF’s six-digit deficit?
Weeks after Charlottesville Downtown Foundation touched off a public outcry with its announcement that it would charge an entry fee of up to $5 for its popular Fridays After Five music event, which has been free to the public for 15 years, the group’s president continues to insist that collecting at the gate will be necessary to offset plummeting sponsorship dollars. Additionally, CDF President Michael Cvetanovich says, the non-profit group intends for the Fridays’ revenue to subsidize other CDF-sponsored community events. But at least one critic familiar with the inner workings of CDF scoffs at the notion that charging a fee is the only way to fill in a budget shortfall.
Finding additional sponsorship money is “not impossible, you just have to get creative,” says Karen Thorsey. She was events coordinator and an “unofficial fundraiser” for CDF for two years ending in 2001.
Cvetanovich characterizes CDF’s sponsorship drive as a struggle in recent years. From a high of about $150,000 two years ago, sponsorship pledges have declined to the $30,000 range this year, he says, leaving a deficit of as much as $120,000 to produce the live music shows at the Downtown Amphitheater. While staffing at CDF in recent years is easily characterized as a revolving door and some Downtown merchants—the organization’s major membership base—privately gripe about CDF management, Cvetanovich blames the poor economy exclusively for the declining sponsorship trend.
Thorsey agrees the current political and economic situation has made it harder to find sponsors, but says the story doesn’t end there. The CDF board comprises volunteers with full time jobs, she says, meaning they don’t have the time to devote to effective fundraising. A “lack of staff, direction and planning” contributed both to the loss of former sponsors and the dearth of new ones, she says.
As to the question of the “creative” sponsorship efforts that Thorsey says CDF lacks, Cvetanovich says the group is currently “discussing strategies to increase sponsorship.” CDF plans to form a committee to deal with it, he says, although he gave no further details.
Leaving aside the matter of how CDF got in the hole, there are other questions pertaining to exactly how much money CDF needs to make and why. According to CDF’s website, Fridays “attracts over 150,000 people to the Downtown Mall each season,” indicating that CDF could reap in excess of $500,000, more than three times its Fridays budget, from the $3-5 gate fee. Cvetanovich says the website is “way out of date” and that the cited annual attendance figure is “probably a gross exaggeration.” He puts attendance figures at closer to 100,000, which would still presumably generate a surplus for CDF. That extra revenue, according to Cvetanovich, would fund other, non-revenue generating CDF events such as the Dogwood Blues Festival and Court Days. Cvetanovich did not disclose the budget for those events.
Adding to CDF’s woes, the City responded to the fee-charging plan by raising rental and security costs for the event to $4,500 per week from about $650 when Fridays After Five was a free event. Oddly, although the City charge adds $92,400 to CDF’s financial burden during Fridays’ 24-week season, Cvetanovich says the additional cost is “not a significant problem.” He would not clarify if the City’s charges are included in this year’s operating budget for Fridays or if the $92,400 will accrue on top of the current budget.
With Fridays set to commence on April 25 with a performance by CC & Company, Cvetanovich and CDF seem short on time to pursue new sponsorship ideas, if they develop any. His best plan, apparently, is to hope and expect locals will sympathize with CDF’s plight. “We really didn’t want to add a gate charge,” he says.—Josh Russcol