uesday, July 13
Media General seeing green
Media General, the media conglomerate that owns The Daily Progress and Boxerjam, today announced a second-quarter earnings gain of 5.9 percent compared with the same period in 2003. But earnings fell short of analysts’ predictions, knocking the company’s share price down slightly. Richmond-based Media General, which owns more newspapers in the southeast than any other company, posted quarterly revenue of $225 million. It owns The Tampa Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 26 TV stations and more than 50 Web ventures. Company officials said TV ads, including political spots, were big boosts, while earnings from Media General’s share in a newsprint company were disappointing. In a mid-year report, Media General said Boxerjam—the local website featuring games, which the company purchased in June 2002—is signing up 700 new users daily. But company figures show that Boxerjam only earned about $216,000 in the first five months of 2004.
Wednesday, July 14
God gets the call
About 100 anti-abortion activists today formed a prayer circle in the Albemarle County Office Building to protest the impending Planned Parenthood office on Hydraulic Road, reports David Dadurka in The Daily Progress. Demonstrators drummed up support on a website, www.charlottesvillefamilyforum.com, which says, “We are determined that Planned Parenthood not have a ‘free walk’ in opening such a large facility, dedicated to performing abortions and promoting their ‘safe sex’ agenda to our children.”
Thursday, July 15
Holland hangs it up
UVA today announced that Terry Holland, former men’s basketball coach and athletic director, will leave his current job as a special assistant to UVA President John Casteen III at the end of August. Holland has been raising funds for the $129 million basketball arena that will replace University Hall. During his stint as the head b-ball coach (1974-1990), Holland racked up a 326-173 record—the most successful run in Cavalier hoops history, according to a UVA press release.
Friday, July 16
Fifth District forks it over
The campaign of Rep. Virgil Goode Jr., who represents Charlottesville and the rest of the Fifth District in the U.S. House of Representatives, today said it had $585,563 on-hand at the end of June, according to The Daily Progress. Goode’s coffers are almost 10 times deeper than those of Democratic challenger Al Weed, who has $60,000. However, Goode outpaced Weed in fundraising by a narrower margin in the second quarter, reeling in $166,742 to Weed’s $110,000, according to the DP.
Saturday, July 17
Another football arrest
A week after the UVA football team announced that Ottawa Anderson, its top returning wide receiver, was off the team due to off-field discipline issues, one of the team’s running back recruits is in trouble with the law. The incoming freshman, Ahmad Bradshaw, was arrested early Saturday and charged with underage alcohol possession and obstruction, reports The Daily Progress. Bradshaw allegedly fled the arresting officer, and struggled briefly while being apprehended at the Rotunda.
Sunday, July 18
No rest for Van Yahres
With the day-of-rest fiasco now resolved by a General Assembly special session last week, Virginia business owners could today rest easier that employees would not opt out of work to honor their religious right to a day off. The General Assembly voted 79-1 on Tuesday for the legislative remedy, with the lone dissenter being Charlottesville Del. Mitchell Van Yahres. In a press release, Van Yahres said the day-of-rest flurry was a rush to judgment in which lawmakers leapt to the defense of businesses without considering the facts or the potential impacts on employees. “All I hear is conjecture about how the day-of-rest provision might be abused, how employers will suffer and how the sky is falling! The response to this situation has sometimes bordered on hysteria,” Van Yahres said in the release.
Monday, July 19
More on embryos
Jonathan Moreno, director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the UVA Health System, has been appointed co-chairman of a new National Academy of Sciences committee on stem cell research. Moreno and 10 other scientists and bioethicists will devise a set of guidelines for stem cell research, The Daily Progress today reports. Moreno drew headlines in January 2003, when he refused to join a similar bioethics committee that the Bush Administration had assembled. At the time, Moreno told The Washington Post, “This administration cares about finding any way they can to advance their platform on the protection of embryos, in general, and on stem cell research, in particular.”
Love letters
Wireless generation flirts via text messaging
wireless companies are constantly adding gimmicky capabilities such as video games or cameras to their phones. Among the more entrenched of these seemingly superfluous add-ons is text messaging, the ability to type out little notes, usually within a 160-character limit, to then beam into other phones.
“Texting” is huge in the United Kingdom, Japan and many other countries. In China, the government has begun censoring billions of text messages, according to The New York Times. The move might not be an act of mere paranoia, as the masses of text messagers—tagged the “thumb generation” by a Spanish newspaper editor—helped spur the 2001 ouster of the Filipino president and rally support for the recent election of Spain’s Socialist prime minister.
However, most textsters, including those among the 166 million wireless subscribers in the United States, veer away from political upheaval and toward the tawdry. Millions of fans have texted votes for their favorite “American Idol.” And text messages have made a high-profile cameo in one of the biggest media stories of the year: the Kobe Bryant trial.
With as many as 63 percent of American teenagers sending text messages, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Industry Association, text messages are increasingly part of a flirt’s repertoire.
Walt McGough, a rising senior at UVA, says many of his friends regularly send text messages. Though McGough is not a fan of texting himself, he hazards a theory for its use in dating, saying text messages are for people “who don’t want to risk having an actual conversation.”
In a text message, one can be witty and discreet, whipping off a good line without hazarding a potential faux pas. In addition, it’s not as forward as a phone call, giving the object of affection the option of gracefully ignoring the texter.
Andrew Leahey, also a rising senior at UVA and a C-VILLE editorial intern, says his ex-girlfriend recently tapped into the agenda-controlling potential of text messaging to contact him. Leahey’s ex, whom he hadn’t heard from in three years, was swinging through Charlottesville, and let him know of her visit with a text message.
“She used it as a way of contacting me without actually contacting me,” Leahey says. Though Leahey calls text messaging “the coward’s way,” he grudgingly admits that “it works.”
To better convey a message with a max of 160 characters, texters often get creative with their shorthand, as do chat room and instant message aficionados. The message, “got to go, at work” can be compressed to g2g @wrk. The lingo is part of “a whole slang language that’s evolved,” says UVA graduate and texter Mike Megliola.
Text messages have also proved to be an ideal means of communication among the cheating set. The most famous display of texting infidelity came when British soccer star David Beckham, the studly hubby of Posh Spice, allegedly exchanged explicit text messages with his sultry personal assistant. An extreme example of this sort of impropriety is a D.C.-residing friend of this reporter, who would often furtively write several ladies from his cell phone—his fingers tapping with the speed of a Japanese teenager—sometimes even while in the company of his girlfriend. The privacy and discretion of text messaging was tailor-made for his form of sleaze.
Charlottesville residents, however, may be less inclined than most to use cell phones for such nefarious purposes. This is because, according to well-placed observers such as Jamey Barlow, the sales manager at Digi-Tel Communications on Seminole Trail, and to informal polling conducted by C-VILLE Weekly, text messaging is not very popular locally.
“People don’t really use it that often,” Barlow says of the text messaging option.
UVA grad Megliola says he used text messaging while studying in Lyon, France, in 2002. But when he got back to the United States, he chose a phone that can’t even send text messages.
“Life’s a little too short to be pushing buttons all day long,” Megliola explains.—Paul Fain
Energy crisis
Local activists say no nukes is good nukes
Thirty years ago, Elena Day protested America’s first foray into nuclear power. She sported buttons, handed out fliers, marched on the Capitol. She still takes her message to the streets—the green bumper sticker on her car reads “No New Nukes at North Anna.”
In 1979, a near-catastrophic meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island galvanized public opposition to nuclear power. “It appeared the battle had been won,” says Day. “But people have forgotten about it again.”
Now Day is back on the “no nukes” beat, trying to rouse public opposition to the Bush Administration’s plan to build 50 additional nuclear reactors in the United States—including, perhaps, two new reactors at the North Anna nuclear power plant in Louisa County. This time around, however, the battle could be much more difficult.
According to Bush’s 2001 National Energy Policy, nuclear fission is poised to become a “major component” of the nation’s power supply. Nuclear fission occurs when an atom, typically uranium or plutonium, is split into two or more parts, releasing a huge amount of energy. Billing nuclear power as an “environmentally sound” power source, the document proposes streamlining the permitting process and adding a litany of federal perks to encourage construction of new plants, which could cost more than $1 billion.
“It’s a pretty expensive way to boil water,” says Day.
In 2002, Richmond-based Dominion, parent company of Dominion Virginia Power, became one of three companies to get in line for the government’s atomic largesse. Dominion is currently seeking an “early site permit” from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that would clear its way to build two new nuclear reactors on the shores of Lake Anna in Mineral.
Perhaps anticipating controversy, Dominion seems to be hedging its bets. While Dominion spokesman Jim Norvelle says the company has made “no commitment” to building the new North Anna plants, he also notes that the site permit would be good for 20 years, and that Dominion is also seeking federal licenses to build and operate two new plants.
There are already two nuclear reactors at Lake Anna, one dating to 1978 and the other to 1980. Both were originally licensed to operate for 40 years, and each license has been extended an extra 20 years.
To fight Dominion, Day joined her friend, Abhaya Thiele, in a new activist group called People’s Alliance for Clean Energy. PACE has joined the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and Ralph Nader’s group, Public Citizen, in opposing the plants.
In December, Dominion will likely apply to the Louisa Board of Supervisors for permission to expand Lake Anna’s nuclear-waste storage capacity; also around December, there will be a public hearing with the NRC in Louisa, where people can comment on Dominion’s site-permit application.
There are plenty of reasons people should oppose the new plants, says Thiele—enormous construction costs, possible water pollution, dangerous waste and the potential for accidents or terrorist attack.
Norvelle says he won’t respond to PACE’s contentions point by point. Instead, he summarizes, “We have a very safe track record.”
PACE hopes to rally public opposition while there’s still time to defeat Dominion’s application. Their best hope may lie not in marches, however, but in the voting booth. According to Public Citizen, the three companies that stand to benefit the most from the Bush Administration’s heightened interest in atomic power—Dominion, Entergy and Exelon—contributed nearly $1 million during the past three election cycles to standing members of the Senate Energy Committee.—John Borgmeyer
Hidden treasures
Sex toy parties for the “pleasure button” crowd
Twelve folders in primary colors and an open bottle of 2003 Coteaux du Lange rest on the coffee table in the living room of a small brick house near Downtown. Inside each folder is an order form and catalogue. Fifteen well-dressed, well-spoken, unmarried women in their mid-20s to early 30s lounge about on shabby chic décor.
By the mantle stands Amanda, a 27-year-old “Romance Enhancement Consultant” for Tasteful Treasures, a Virginia Beach-based company that sells sex toys through representatives who make house calls to women only. Known as, excuse me, “fuckerware parties,” these gatherings are Tupperware parties for the post-Samantha Jones age.
Dressed in a black t-shirt, Amanda has blond hair, sports the shag cut Meg Ryan made famous, and prefers to be known simply as “Amanda.” Waiting for her partygoers to quiet down, she bounces a purple dildo with a head at both ends (“for double entry,” she explains) against her blue jean-clad thigh.
Fuckerware parties popped into national headlines last November with the arrest of Joanne Webb, a Texas-based consultant for Passion Parties (a Tasteful Treasures competitor) who was arrested on an archaic technicality for selling a vibrator to two undercover cops. The parties are especially popular in Bible Belt states where they are pitched as ways to strengthen the sexual relationships of committed, heterosexual couples—not as toys to enliven the sex lives of singles.
Amanda, who had no prior interest in sex toys and wouldn’t describe herself as a “sexpert,” began consulting for Tasteful Treasures in April. She had been looking for a part-time job she could keep while working full-time, and sex toy consultant fit the bill. She hosts three to four of these a month.
The party starts as Amanda instructs the women to come up with sexy names for themselves. “I’m going to be Always Ready Amanda.”
The results—Creative C., Pleasing P., Wild W., Crooked C., two Kinky K.s, Available A., Easy E., Anal A., Nubile N., Even Easier E.—are relatively tame. Like Amanda, the women prefer anonymity. They have come for various reasons: curiosity and a good “hahaha,” and “to discuss with…friends the things everybody does but nobody talks about,” says Creative C.
The icebreaker is 24 sex-life questions. Question No. 8: “Have you ever done position ‘69’?” Question No. 12: “Have you ever used whipped cream [or] chocolate syrup…during sex?” Question No. 18: “Have you ever had sex while you or your partner is driving?”
“Actual sex?”
“Actual sex. As in intercourse,” clarifies Amanda. “Like the interstate. At night. Cruise control.”
Tonight’s special is the Crystal Dancer, a vibrator with ball bearings rotating inside it, on sale at $89, down from $99. “Unit” is Tasteful Treasures’ euphemism for “penis”; “pleasure button” is code for “clitoris.”
First out, Hearts of Fire, a cream that’s “good for the pleasure button or the unit” during “oral favors.” Nymph Cream, also for the “pleasure button,” Amanda recommends, “if you like to ride horses or…motorcycles.”
Not Yet cream elicits the most curiosity.
“Use your finger and rub this on the main vein and he will last longer,” instructs Amanda.
“Like his erection will last longer or he just won’t come so quickly?” asks Kinky K.
“Both, both.”
“Both?”
“Yes.” Pens scribble hopeful marks on the order forms.
After a 15-minute break, out comes the Waterproof G-Spot Dolphin. Demonstrating on herself, Amanda shows how the vibrator’s curved nose is shaped to hit you right “there.” The Dolphin, the Chocolate Dream, the Ultimate Beaver and the French Tickler make their rounds and the room is abuzz. Literally.
“Now close your eyes and hold out a hand,” instructs Amanda. A succession of shrieks break out like The Wave around the room: The Pirate’s Cove is for him.
“’Honey, I’m tired tonight. I got a Hungry Man in the fridge for you and a Pirate’s Cove in the bedroom!’” jokes Creative C.
But the Pearl Butterfly, a white vibrator, with a pearl-filled shaft and a fluttering butterfly for the “pleasure button,” is the pièce de resistance.
“It’s so pretty,” the women “ooh” and “ah,” as Amanda retreats to another room to take orders in private. The chocolate pie and 2003 Coteaux have been demolished. “What are you gonna get?” is the question on everyone’s mind.—Nell Boeschenstein