Month: June 2006

Categories
Living

Capshaw back in Ten

When a rumor comes home to roost, it’s nearly as satisfying as a perfect cup of miso soup. For many a month, Restaurantarama has been hearing these whispers: Sushi this, Blue Light Grill that. It made perfect sense to us that Coran Capshaw’s restaurant empire, which is already six properties strong, would expand before too long, and the idea of a second-floor eatery above Blue Light seemed plausible enough. But we couldn’t get Capshaw’s restaurant director, Michael Keaveny, to spill the beans (cue movie-trailer voice)… until now.
    Keaveny: “The name will be Ten.”
    Oooh, we like it!
    Ten, Keaveny explains, is not the number of fingers used to roll nori; it’s a Japanese word meaning “celebration,” “heaven,” or “in the sky.” (Get it? It’s going to be on the second floor!) Ten will also be a “contemporary Japanese restaurant and sushi bar” that marries traditional Japanese food with modern presentation and (to judge from some architects’ drawings we got a peek at) very sleek décor. Tall upholstered booths and subtle colors will be a counterpoint to natural elements like bamboo, and possibly a traditional bar-top made from a huge slab of untrimmed wood.
    Keaveny sounds positively bubbly about the chef he’s hired to captain Ten: Bryan Emperor, whose last name seems rather apropos. Emperor’s last gig was opening a Japanese restaurant in China, which was “very highly acclaimed,” according to Keaveny. “Bryan is extremely educated on Japanese food,” he says. “It’s just amazing the knowledge he has.” We like thinking of Emperor’s resumé as one of those jokey bumper stickers: “New York. Tokyo. Beijing. Charlottesville.” The chef has already established contact with local growers—in fact, there’s actually some edamame being locally grown, specifically for Ten, as we speak. How very… New York.
    As is customary in Japan, the dining experience at Ten will be two-tiered: prepared food first, then sushi. “We just started doing some tastings. The first one went really well,” says Keaveny, with gusto. (All right, we admit it: We kind of want his job.) The fish will be flown in daily from all over creation for maximum freshness. And the shared-plate concept that seems to be taking the restaurant scene by storm—think Mas and Bang—will be in evidence, too.
    All in all, our appetite for rumor has, for now, been sated (unlike our hunger for tempura). But the lofty new place will be open later this summer—perhaps in August, Keaveny says—so we’ll bide our time until Ten. Er, then.
Hot, hot, hot
Back in April, we brought you news of X, the urban-style lounge coming online in the Glass Building on Second Street. The opening date at that time was set for late May, but it’s nearly July and X still looks like a work in progress, with a white tent out front attempting to corral construction debris. On the morning of June 19, the scene got even more chaotic when a pile of oil-soaked rags left in the space overnight spontaneously combusted.
    Several gigantic fire trucks later, all is well, says X spokesman J.F. Legault (who also manages the Clifton Inn). “We’re in a little state of chaos now in terms of cleaning,” he explains, but X is “still looking alive for a late June opening.”
    Never leave oil-soaked rags in a pile overnight, y’all. And never underestimate the weird mishaps that can push a restaurant’s opening date back. And back. And…

Got some restaurant scoop? Send your tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

Categories
News

Suit claims local mail facility favors African-Americans

An area man has filed suit against the United States Postal Service (USPS) for “favoring African-Americans over Caucasians for promotions,” according to a complaint filed this month with the U.S. District Court. Roger Walker, a presumably white Buckingham County resident who works for the USPS as a maintenance technician at their Processing and Distribution Center on Airport Road, alleges that “racial favoritism” kept him from either getting trained for, or promoted to, a supervisory position in October 2003. Walker also contends that management has retaliated against him for pursuing the matter by not considering him for other positions or giving him further training.
    “It’s news to me,” says Dawn Jenkins, the facility plant manager whom Walker alleges denied him the promotion. “I’m not familiar with [the suit]. We have a process in place for grievances.” Jenkins says that of the five maintenance department managers, four are white and only one is black.
    Walker did not return calls by press time. His attorney, Robert Dwoskin, had no comment.
Though the suit has been filed, it has not yet been served. In fact, the suit was originally filed last August, but was dismissed after 120 days because it was never served. On June 8, Dwoskin re-filed the suit, which asks for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages as well as court costs.
    As the suit has not been served, Postal Service spokesmen Dave Partenheimer could not comment on the case. Lois Miller, Richmond district communications coordinator, said that all employees have a right to go through either the USPS grievance process or the Equal Employment Opportunities process. Walker’s complaint states that he filed a complaint through the Postal Service’s compliance office.

Categories
News

Every kid’s worst nightmare: mixing candy and history

Chocolate may be an aphrodisiac, but now, thanks to Mars, Inc., it has another, more educational function: history lessons. To sweeten the deal, the company (which, according to the release, “has played a sweet role in American history”) even incorporated our very own Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s third president, into the gooey mix.
    The famed chocolate giant announced Friday, June 23, that it was making a $100,000 donation to the Piedmont Environmental Council, which helps preserve Montalto (a.k.a. Brown’s Mountain), the mountain overlooking Monticello (and other important historical areas). As of Friday, Monticello will now become one of five historical sites to sell American Heritage Chocolate—a unique line of chocolates made from historically authentic recipes (sounds appetizing, right?). Mars, Inc., and the Colonial Chocolate Society hope to expose Americans to the chocolate of our ancestors—so go ahead and bite off a chunk of a “colonial chocolate stick” and enjoy. One warning, however: Colonial recipes were primitive, at best, when compared to the technological wonder that is the modern chocolate bar. But hey, apparently TJ bought 23 pounds of the stuff, so it can’t be all bad. I mean, we all know what a huge chocolate-lover he was.

Categories
Arts

Full reviews

Nacho Libre
PG, 100 minutes
Now playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

In Nacho Libre, Jack Black has turned himself into a sight gag. His hair permed, a mustache crawling across his upper lip, he cavorts about the screen in one of the most ludicrous outfits since Howard Stern fouled the air as Fartman. There’s a pair of stretchy pants, over which Black’s capacious gut pours like lava. There’s a cape, for that superhero je ne sais quoi. And there’s a cover-the-entire-head mask that makes him look like an escapee from a bondage-and-discipline convention. But if that still isn’t enough to get you rolling in the aisles, throw in a dirt-cheap Mexican accent, which Black wields like a weapon, slaying the audience before it’s had a chance to ask whether any of this is working. Oh, and a brief look at Black’s butt cleavage. Chris Farley, where are you when we need you?
With his ability to disappear into that fat-guy persona, Farley might have made something out of Ignacio (Spanish for “ignoramus”?), a Scandinavian-Mexican friar/cook who longs to be a luchador (which is like our professional wrestlers, only even less professional). And Black certainly has his moments, as when he launches into a mariachi serenade straight out of the Tenacious D songbook. But the movie seems to think that the audience will be sufficiently amused just watching Nacho get clobbered, in and out of the ring, by a succession of midgets, giants and every size in between. Determined to make it in a field for which he seems supremely unqualified, Ignacio keeps coming back for more, accompanied by his string-bean tag-team partner, Esqueleto (Héctor Jiménez). And that’s pretty much it for plot.
Director and co-scriptwriter Jared Hess got by with even less plot in his first movie, Napoleon Dynamite, which alerted an entire generation to the pleasures of tater tots. But Jon Heder’s Napoleon, a geek’s geek who refused to hide under the bleachers all day, seemed like the real deal—that guy who sat next to you in math class, drawing pictures of unicorns. Black’s Ignacio, on the other hand, seems a little forced. The movie itself—which was shot in Mexico with a number of Mexican actors, both amateur and professional—has a pleasantly strange vibe, like one of those East European comedies where the local customs would baffle an anthropologist. But the scriptwriters haven’t figured out how to fully exploit this milieu. Pinned against the ropes while being relentlessly pummeled, Black ends up being all dressed up, with nowhere to go.

The Lake House
PG, 105 minutes
Now playing at Carmike Cinema 6

Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock emote up a storm—well, a light drizzle, anyway—in The Lake House. But it was the house I fell in love with: It’s one of those all-glass pavilions on stilts that only a movie star could possibly afford. So gracefully does it hover over the water, both spoiling and enhancing the view, that you keep being distracted from the holes in the movie’s plot. An epistolary novel set in the age of You’ve Got Mail, The Lake House asks us to believe that Reeves’ architect/developer and Bullock’s doctor have occupied this crystal palace in separate years, and are only able to communicate with each other via snail mail from their respective time periods. Can their blossoming love break the bonds imposed by the space-time continuum? Can they meet at The Shop Around the Corner? Somewhere in Time? An Internet café?
Reeves and Bullock met in Speed, of course, but that little piece of hell-on-wheels wasn’t known for its romantic subplot. Here, director Alejandro Agresti (Valentin) slows things down considerably, and he goes for a more somber mood, with the sun rarely peeking through overcast skies. Reeves is bummed because his father (Christopher Plummer), a world-class architect who designed the house at the lake, is also a world-class bastard. Bullock is bummed because… Well, it’s not quite clear why she’s bummed, but she’s quite clearly bummed. Overall, the actress shows little of the warmth that usually offsets that slight chilliness in her screen presence (except in Crash, of course, where she was pure frozen tundra all the way). Agresti, who’s Argentinian, takes a chance by allowing these two sad sacks to wallow in their own self-pity, and you know what? It pays off.
Pays off eventually, I should say. As in Sleepless in Seattle, our romantic leads spend most of the movie apart, and neither of their stories is especially compelling—but they accumulate power as they go along, culminating in a scene where, plausibility be damned, they meet briefly at a party. I would never have thought Reeves could pull off such a scene; he’s the Al Gore of actors, earnest and dull, especially when trying not to seem so earnest. But he’s starting to settle into his stiffness, and occasionally even convert it into gravitas. And his line readings have gradually become looser, more real. Bullock maybe takes the dour thing too far this time (she’s relentlessly downbeat, except for the ugh moment when she plays chess with her dog), but it’s the movie’s dourness, its refusal to let gray skies morph into blue, that makes it such a refreshing weepie. After all, who wants their tears glistening in the sunlight?

Categories
News

Riding Along With Local Health Program

When Selena Garcia began working with the Jefferson Area Comprehensive Health Investment Program (CHIP), public health nurse Amy Chenoweth “became part of the family.” Along with a family support worker, Chenoweth helps Garcia with appropriate health information and resources for her sons, 6-week-old Caíson and nearly 3-year-old Cesar.
During her visits, Chenoweth interweaves questions about the children’s health in a conversational, casual method. “I don’t want the visit to seem like an examination by pulling out a checklist,” says Chenoweth. Yet she finds discreet ways to find out how the children have been eating and sleeping, about their dental and medical care. Cesar even gives her the opportunity to test his motor skills when he brings out a ball to play.
It’s not just about the kids, though. “Amy’s been getting on me to get my GED,” says Garcia, who is 20 years old. While Caíson is an infant, Chenoweth will come to visit with the family every two weeks at their home in Southwood, an Albemarle County trailer park just south of the Charlottesville city line. Recently a reporter was invited to tag along to watch the home-visitation program in action.
Home visits and face-to-face interactions are at the core of CHIP, a State program started locally in 1991 to serve children under 7 whose families are within 200 percent of the federal poverty line, or $40,000 annually for a family of four. Every child is assigned both a nurse and a family support worker, who work together to ensure that the child is getting appropriate health care, and that the family is receiving available benefits. Currently CHIP serves approximately 380 children in the Jefferson Area (Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna and Louisa) with its staff of 11 family support workers and six nurses, on a roughly $1 million budget. For the past two years, the program has had a waiting list, now approximately 40 families long.
As a voluntary program (unlike many interventions by the Department of Social Services), CHIP works to build an ongoing, consistent relationship with families to help make them self-sustaining—a goal that Director Judy Smith admits can be hard to quantify.
Despite that difficulty, the State legislature deems the Jefferson Area CHIP worthy enough to receive a $46,000 increase in funding. The increase is due to the program’s high performance, which is measured through criteria like the number of face-to-face interactions (5,568 last year).
“Almost all of our families want to be good parents,” says Smith. “But they have difficulty either accessing resources or simply knowing what the resources are. They may be five minutes away from where you live, but if you don’t know how to make it work for you, it’s not accessible.”
“Change is often slow in this program,” says Chenoweth. “But change happens. And it’s terrific when you get to see it.”—Will Goldsmith

Categories
News

Terminated employee files suit

Former UVA employee Dena Bowers has filed a lawsuit in Charlottesville Circuit Court against the University of Virginia and several staff members for her firing last November. The suit, filed June 19, alleges Bowers’ firing was done without proper notice and violated her free speech rights.
    In October 2005, Bowers, who is active with the NAACP, sent an e-mail to a friend, Katherine Hoffman, also a UVA employee and NAACP member. Bowers used her University e-mail account to send NAACP documents that were critical of the University’s so-called “charter initiative.” When it takes effect July 1, the initiative will give UVA increased autonomy from the State. Hoffman forwarded the e-mail, and it was later forwarded by another employee to the entire classified staff of UVA’s College of Arts and Sciences.
    Bowers, a 17-year employee, was questioned by Yoke San Reynolds, UVA’s chief financial officer, and her supervisors in the human resources department, Nat Scurry and Lucinda Childs-White. All three are named in the suit. Bowers was fired November 22, the suit states, after she refused to answer questions about the source of the NAACP information. UVA also wanted Bowers to say that she had not sent the information in her official capacity with the University, but had distributed it personally, other media sources have reported.
    The suit also names University Vice President Leonard Sandridge for his supervisory role in her firing.
    Bowers’ attorney, Deborah Wyatt, sums up the suit thusly: “Shame on them. You’re a prestigious university, you know the First Amendment. You’re in Charlottesville. Don’t do things like that.”
    The suit claims that Bowers violated no e-mail policy, and that Bowers had a right to express her personal views through e-mail. Bowers is seeking $750,000 in compensatory damages and $250,000 in punitive damages.
    Wyatt says UVA will probably fight the suit. “Never say never, but often when you have an infinite pocket, there doesn’t seem to be the same incentive to settle as private people have,” she says.
    Wyatt says UVA knew that the suit was coming. In late November, about 75 University and community members who believed that Bowers was targeted for her position against the charter plan rallied in her support. Many at that time suggested a lawsuit was to come.
    The suit is currently being processed, and papers have not yet been served to the University. UVA representatives did not return calls by press time.

Categories
Arts

Shorter reviews

The Break-Up (PG-13, 106 minutes) Peyton Reed’s “anti-romantic comedy” about a mismatched couple (Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston) is often funny, sometimes uncomfortably so. Vaughn plays a guy’s guy, the kind who’d like to put a pool table in the living room, and Aniston is a version of her sweet, spunky character from “Friends.” (Kent Williams) Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

Cars (G, 116 minutes) Pixar blows us away yet again with an animated story of a NASCAR hotrod (voiced by Owen Wilson) who needs to take the “I” out of “TEAM.” Only by the amazingly high standards set by Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles does the movie come up a little short. (K.W.) Playing at Regal Seminole Square Cinema 4

Click (PG-13, 86 minutes) Adam Sandler is a harried family man (welcome to the realm of Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin, Mr. Sandler) who finds a magical remote control. Get this: With it, he can pause stuff and fast forward it and mute it. Why he could fast-forward a fight with his wife or slo-mo that jogging girl with the big boobies. My god, that plot is clever enough to be a light beer commercial! (Devin O’Leary) Playing at Carmike Cinema 6    

The Da Vinci Code (PG-13, 149 minutes) Ron Howard’s movie version of Dan Brown’s religious-mystery novel, in which a Harvard professor (Tom Hanks) and a Parisian cryptographer (Audrey Tautou) try to track down the Holy Grail while being pursued by a crazed albino monk (Paul Bettany), fails to get a decent spook going, à la The Exorcist or The Omen. Howard has illustrated the book beautifully, but he hasn’t wrestled with it, made it his own. (K.W.) Playing at Regal Seminole Square Cinema 4

The Devil Wears Prada (PG-13, 106 minutes) Lauren Weisberger’s insider fashion industry exposé goes Hollywood with Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries) taking on the role of a naive young woman who moves to New York and gets a hellish day job as an assistant to one of the city’s biggest and most ruthless fashion magazine editors (played with snobby glee by Meryl Streep). Think “Sex in the City” with a cuter star and a more cynical outlook. (D.O.) Coming Friday; check local listings

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (PG-13, 104 minutes) Vin Diesel, having long lost any level of relevance to this fast-moving film franchise, is here replaced by Lucas Black, the kid from Sling Blade. But, really, who cares which humans are involved so long as you’ve got a tricked-out Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX to ogle? Black plays a troubled teen who heads to Tokyo to live with his military uncle officer. There, he falls into the world of underground street racing. The film is rated PG-13 for “reckless and illegal behavior involving teens.” In other words, it’s gonna be a huge hit with high schoolers. (D.O.) Playing at Carmike Cinema 6 

Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties (PG, 85 minutes) You have no one to blame but yourself for this, people. Garfield goes to England where a case of mistaken cat-identity has him inheriting a castle. There, he runs afoul of the scheming Lord Dargis (played by a no-doubt embarrassed Billy Connolly) who wants the estate all for himself. I realize you spent $75 million on the first movie, America, but I’m confident you regret that now. Think of this as a bad first date you’re embarrassed you slept with. Just avert your eyes as you pass the theater and pretend you can’t see it. (D.O.) Playing at Carmike Cinema 6

The Lake House (PG, 105 minutes) Reviewed on page 47.  Playing at Carmike Cinema 6

Mission: Impossible III (PG-13, 126 minutes) J.J. Abrams (the guy behind “Alias” and “Lost”) takes over as director for this third outing. Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Keri Russell, Billy Crudup and Philip Seymour Hoffman (doing bad guy duty) make up the impressive cast list. Unfortunately, it’s scripted by the guys who wrote The Island. As in previous Impossible outings, the plot is baroque to the point of nonsensical. The explosions look pretty, though. (D.O.) Playing at Regal Seminole Square Cinema 4

Nacho Libre (PG, 100 minutes)  Reviewed on page 47. Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

The Omen (R, 95 minutes) The 1976 shocker The Omen is really just a slasher film dolled up in Biblical raiment. But it’s still a damnably entertaining movie. Naturally, we required no remake; but we’ve got one anyway, once again documenting a clueless Washington family who seems to have given birth to the Antichrist. The cast (including Liev Schreiber, Julia Styles, Mia Farrow and Pete Postlethwaite) takes things seriously, and the direction is notably slick. Still, the script apes the original almost note for note, making this feel like a cover album of your favorite band—good if only for of the familiarity, but not nearly as memorable as the original. (D.O.) Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

Over the Hedge (PG, 96 minutes) An all-star voice cast (Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Nick Nolte) lends its talents to this CGI toon adaptation of the popular newspaper comic strip. Willis plays a mischievous raccoon who helps his forest buddies adapt to the encroaching sprawl of suburbia. The animation is fluid and the writing has a bit more spark than most of the recent computer toons we’ve been subjected to (The Wild). From the director of Antz. (D.O.) Playing at Regal Seminole Square Cinema 4

A Prairie Home Companion (PG-13, 105 minutes) In Robert Altman’s cockeyed salute to Garrison Keillor’s radio program, Keillor (who wrote the script) lumbers on and off the stage of the Fitzgerald Theater, launching into one shaggy-dog story after another. Despite some amusing performances from the likes of Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin and Kevin Kline, the movie never quite gels, feeling more like a rough draft than a finished work of art. (K.W.) Playing at Vinegar Hill Theatre

Superman Returns (PG-13, 157 minutes) Director Bryan Singer, who gave life to the X-Men movies, tries his hand at reviving the Superman franchise. The result is a magnificently entertaining throwback to yesteryear. The film functions as a visually and tonally perfect follow-up to the first two Superman movies. Turns out Supes (newcomer Brandon Routh) has been missing from Earth for the last five years. Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has moved on, gotten engaged and had a kid. Lex Luthor (a great Kevin Spacey), meanwhile, has gotten out of jail and is hatching a nasty revenge plot against our hero. The film is lengthy and lingers far more on the romance angle than on the action. Still, the action that does show up on screen is epic and hugely cinematic. (D.O.) Coming Friday; check local listings

Waist Deep (R, 97 minutes) In this inner-city thriller, an ex-con (Tyrese Gibson, 2 Fast 2 Furious) gets tangled up with a gang after his car is jacked with his young son inside. When a nasty criminal kingpin (rap star The Game) demands a ransom for the boy’s release, our anti-hero teams up with a street-smart hustler (Meagan Good of You Got Served) for some hip-hop Bonnie and Clyde action. From the director of Glitter. (D.O.) Playing at Regal Downtown Mall 6

X-Men: The Last Stand (PG-13, 104 minutes) The third installment in the Marvel Comics franchise delivers the goods, with moments of sublime pathos and mystic power. With a cure in the offing, society’s untouchables—mutants with superhuman powers—must once again choose between reform or revolution. (K.W.) Playing at Carmike Cinema 6

For movie times, call 817-FILM (817-3456)

Local Movie Houses

Carmike Cinema 6    973-4294

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6    979-7669

Regal Seminole Square Cinema 4    980-3333

Vinegar Hill Theatre    977-4911

Categories
News

Albemarle County wants you

Summer is here, and with it comes a host of jobs offered by your local government.

    Maybe you want to switch careers, or maybe you just want to expose your teen to actual sunlight. Fortunately for eager job seekers, Albemarle County and Charlottesville have dozens of open positions for part- and full-time workers of every stripe.
    If your brand-new Hummer still leaves you feeling…inadequate, why not compensate by driving something even bigger? Luckily for you, the County is currently hiring school bus drivers! And you can even park your ginormous new vehicle right outside your home (a fact listed by the County as one of the benefits of the job). Imagine how impressed the neighbors will be with that bright-yellow beast nestled in front of your crib.
    And even if that country club you had your eye on still won’t let you in, your fantasies of torrid affairs with desperate housewives need not die. Why not be a tennis instructor for Charlottesville’s Recreation Department? The ladies do so love a tennis pro, don’t you know.
    Speaking of fantasies, here’s one for all of the masochists out there. Looks like the City’s Treasurer’s Office is seeking customer service representatives. (Extremely high tolerance for existential pain a must.)
    Still not sure what to do with your life? Don’t worry, neither are most high school students. And looky here! Western Albemarle High School needs a guidance director. At over $50K a year, this gig looks pretty sweet. Oh, hold on… it requires “considerable tact and diplomacy.”

Well, it looks like this writer, for one, won’t be switching jobs this season.

Categories
Living

Splendora’s

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, most civilized nations are sleeping. Since we live in America, however, we have to consume stimulants and power right through those afternoon doldrums like the dedicated capitalists that we are. A cappuccino and a cookie from Splendora’s made one recent afternoon a little less woozy. As we chewed, we wondered idly how they’d gotten so many chocolate chips in there, and experienced a fuzzy moment of pleasure over the cookie’s friendly 75-cent price tag. Then the caffeine kicked in, and we got back to work.

Splendora’s  n  317 E. Main St.  n  296-8555

Categories
The Editor's Desk

Letters to the editor

A matter of degrees

In reviewing the National Research Council’s rankings, I would like to clarify a statement I made in response to a question during the Board of Visitors meeting on Friday, June 9, and that you included in your recent article on graduate student funding [“Grad student funding not up to snuff,” UVA News, June 13].
    In the article, you noted, “While 35 of approximately 100 graduate departments at University of California-Berkeley rank in the National Research Council’s Top 10, UVA scored only five out of 50, a measly 10 percent.” A more pertinent statistic relates to the number of Ph.D. programs ranked by the NRC. In 1995 the NRC ranked 41 different programs. Of those 41 programs, UC-Berkeley offered degrees in 36 of the areas. Of those 36 programs, 35 (97 percent) were ranked in the Top 10 of the NRC rankings.
    The University offered degrees in 32 of the NRC areas. Of those 32 programs, five (16 percent) were ranked in the Top 10 of the NRC rankings.
    Thus, while both the University and Berkeley offered far more degree programs than those above, not all were included in the NRC rankings.

Roseanne Ford
Associate VP for Research &
Graduate Studies, UVA
Charlottesville

Information overload

I had to laugh when I read Region Ten’s explanation of why they had failed to respond to our neighborhood association’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, as reported by Meg McEvoy [“Neighbors sue Region Ten for documents,” Courts & Crime News, June 20]. While our neighborhood was able to submit the request, petition the court when we received no response, take the case to court and finally have Region Ten judged in violation, all without an attorney, Region Ten claims that it simply did not understand how to respond to a FOIA, even with the assistance of an attorney paid with taxpayer dollars. Really? The truth is, as documents now obtained show, Region Ten specifically wishes to avoid questions being raised about their plans and does not want a public hearing or Planning Commission review to take place. They prefer to act behind closed doors. And they wonder why they have lost the trust and confidence of the Little High Area neighborhood?
 
Mark Haskins
President, Little High Area Neighborhood Association
Charlottesville

Grapes of wrath

The fatuous ex-Mrs. Kluge is so transparent in her self-serving schemes [“Where the wealthy things are,” June 13]. Her goal is to have a free source of labor from PVCC toiling in her vineyards. How pathetic. My grandmother always said that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. That best sums up her and her desperate attempts for validation and respectability.

Betsy M. Watson
Charlottesville

Consumer nation

I’ve been waiting to write about trash and recycling for the right moment, and it finally arrived in the last issue. The Ask Ace column [June 13] about those omnipresent plastic bags (decorating our trees, roads and landfills) provided the perfect forum to bring these matters to light. While it is commendable that people want to recycle their bags, I find it agonizing that the otherwise intelligent Ace overlooked two important matters.
    Ace never mentions the most obvious solution, which is for folks to bring their own grocery bags. I guess he (or she) is ignorant of the first two words in the mantra “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” In the interest of reducing waste, and providing an example for other unaware shoppers like Ace, canvas and mesh (or other material) bags are widely available. Of course people can fill backpacks and old store bags as well.
    If the venerable Ace is indeed “an avid recycler” as proclaimed in the article, then the author may have noticed how popular the McIntire Road facility is among the well-to-do consumers of everything in
the area. Has it ever crossed the all-knowing mind of Ace that the easiest solution
to the mass of recycling that is drown-
ing the hard-working folks on McIntire Road would be to implore all of our friends and family to simply stop consuming so much?
    Seems like a simple solution, rather than massaging the collective conscience by recycling, to just reduce the amount we consume. Is it that hard to refuse a plastic bag next time you go get one or two small items? Or can folks try to drink water from a filter rather than wasting resources, energy and money by buying bottled water, soda and juice? When will the community realize the solution is always as easy as we make it?
    I know that is a tall order in this wealthy area, where people judge one another’s status by how much they have and spend, but after reading Ace’s column, I felt strongly moved to write. Think of all you recycle, and then about 10 thousand times that much going to the landfills (for the people who still throw everything out), and perhaps we can begin to imagine the sea of trash just in this community alone. No one ever thinks about the world drowning in our waste, but it is happening now, and only our children and theirs will be left to deal with the situation.

Kai Safran
Charlottesville

The editor replies: Ace is on your side, Kai. His answer on June 13 began, “First off, Ace reminds you that you can always reuse your bags.”

CORRECTIONS

Due to an editing error, the Get Out Now listings in our June 13 issue omitted the June 14-16 run of All My Sons at Live Arts. We sincerely regret the oversight.

Last week’s profile of Sean Tubbs, the podcaster who was profiled among the 2006
C-VILLE 20, misstated his relationship to Charlottesville Tomorrow, a local website dedicated to development issues. Though Tubbs and Charlottesville Tomorrow often collaborate, Charlottesville Tomorrow is “responsible for its own podcasting,” in the words of Executive Director Brian Wheeler. C-VILLE regrets the error.
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Letters to the editor should be exclusive to C-VILLE Weekly and may pertain to content that we have published. Letters are not to exceed 400 words and may be edited for clarity and length. We accept letters via post or e-mail. To be published, letters must be signed. Please include a phone number for verification.