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Mai El Gasim
Year: Senior
Major: Premed
Home state: Arizona
What’s in your backpack? Coat that she borrowed from a friend, Arabic 202 grammar and reading packet, agenda, class notebook, velcro wallet, key ring from first-year orientation, pink second-generation iPod nano, three pencils, two pens (one broken), one pink highlighter, cell phone, eraser, mints, spare change, stick of gum and paper clip.
I’m sure Wade Tremblay has many good points and qualities, but if actions speak louder than words, what his business has done to Wertland Street and other areas around UVA demonstrate that his goal is to maximize his number of student rentals at any cost [“Housing authority readies for redevelopment,” Government News, January 22, 2008]. He ought to spend more time thinking about where the many residents of Westhaven are supposed to go, when he applies his scorched earth tactics to one of the last places in Charlottesville where poor people can live. It is too easy and too flip for him to state that Westhaven was “flawed when it was built.” If he were to read the history of that era more carefully, his thinking process might go a little deeper than “let’s just tear it all down and let the white developers get hold of this choice and centrally located piece of land.” He reminds me of the businessmen of that time, the white civic leaders and chamber of commerce types, the movers and shakers, who convinced the city to go ahead with the Vinegar Hill demolition (which incidentally passed by only a hundred votes or so in a citywide referendum). A quick look around that area today, 40 years later, shows how little planning and true need there was for that land. Except for Ridge/McIntire Road, which has become a vital link, the hodge-podge of giant parking lots and random, undistinguished and unrelated faceless buildings is a pretty meagre legacy and a poor trade-off for the damage that was done on many levels to the local black community. The fact is that today, as in 1960, the poor African-American enclaves are a hindrance and a nuisance to developers. Please, let’s do a little more planning before we start warming up the bulldozers.
Jeremy Caplin
Earlysville
I was appalled to read your advice to Emile E. Post, whose wife prefers to “creep” into an intersection (under a green light) in preparation for a left-hand turn [“Virginia creeper,” What’s up with that, C-VILLE?, January 29, 2007]. In your answer, you state the opinion of a Driver Education Teacher (for Albemarle County) that such a maneuver is “illegal.” Excuse me? If you wish to reference law in your response, why not consult a lawyer? Or even more simply, look up the Virginia code on the matter.
I could find no codes that make the practice illegal. Two codes do apply: http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000 +cod+46.2-833 and http://leg1.state.va.us/ cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+46.2-825.
Neither of these codes prohibit “creeping” into the intersection. On the contrary, they advise traveling into the intersection under a green light, while making sure to yield to vehicles already in the intersection (this is an important point, notice below).
It has always been legal to enter an intersection under a green light. Naturally this would include entering an intersection for the purpose of making a left-hand turn. At many intersections, you would NEVER be able to make a left-hand turn—in busy daytime traffic—unless you entered the intersection under the green light, and then waited near the middle of the intersection for your chance to turn. Many intersections are too large to allow a safe turn from behind the stop line, given the voluminous oncoming traffic and the long distance to go. (There are times when one should NOT enter an intersection under a green light, such as when the way ahead or to the left turn is blocked by jammed up traffic).
What’s interesting about the Virginia code is that it clearly states drivers must yield to vehicles already in the intersection before proceeding under a green light. Such vehicles in the intersection are often cars that have been waiting to make a left turn, where “their” light has now turned red. In other words, the code specifically protects “Virginia Creepers” from cross traffic that has received a green signal, and thus by my interpretation gives its blessing to the practice.
Speaking to the social task of driving, I’d like to suggest to Mr. Post that he is doing his fellow motorists a disservice by not “creeping.” Often I am stuck in traffic behind drivers who are “hanging back,” consequently who will not soon have a chance to turn left. The result is fewer cars getting through the intersection on any given cycle of the light, and if you multiply this effect throughout the street grid, traffic delays increase significantly for everyone. I believe it is every driver’s duty to keep the traffic flowing as best as possible, and setting up properly for a speedy and safe left hand turn is part of that obligation.
Thus Mrs. Post’s preference to “creep” remains the polite solution to a nettlesome traffic problem.
Boris Starosta
Charlottesville
Dear Ace: There were some errors in your column on leaf collection [“A dirty story,” Ask Ace, December 18, 2007]. You wrote that the leaves are collected, compacted in 20′ cubic masses (then what? Off to the landfill, and somehow that’s green). Actually, it’s the plastic bags that are compacted into cubic masses. The leaves themselves are taken to Panorama Farms, where they are composted and sold to the public as mulch.
But questions about leaves remain unanswered. Ace, why does the city do this? Why don’t they mandate composting of leaves on all property where space allows? Why this fetishistic passion for mowing in the first place and the renaming of grass as lawn? Why does the city spend $400,000 a year aiding and abetting this unhealthy obsession? Why do lawn sizes remain unlimited? Why isn’t grass allowed to grow to its mature stage so we can admire how it sways and whispers in the wind? Why are people penalized and stigmatized if they allow their grass to grow? Why don’t urban meadows fit into our civilized utopia?
Additionally, aren’t people aware that in drought conditions, such as we episodically suffer, tall grasses will conserve more moisture than short grass? Do they realize lawn mowers lack pollution control devices, and chemical weed killing treatments threaten the potability of our wells and groundwater? Have they heard about the gases released into the atmosphere from the cut grass?
Are we incapable of change, Ace? Or have we evolved into a race of self-indulgent children, as some have hinted at? Out in the drought-ridden West, people are being paid by the square foot to tear up their lawns and replace them with something more sensitive to earthly referent. The referent here was woodland. Will it take something epic to allow for the possibility of change?
Also, Ace, when responding, could you avoid using the phrase “The news isn’t all bad”? I want some genuinely good news, Ace, untainted by caveats, exceptions and grim footnotes.
Sky Hiatt
Charlottesville
Ace replies: Ace is green with envy for the amount of interesting questions you’ve come up with, Sky. If he could produce as many insightful queries as you have, his readers would no longer feel the need to write in—every week would be yet another column about the nuances of turning “green.” And, as thought-provoking (and vital!) as that topic is, many related questions are more rhetorical than answerable. For example, “Are we incapable of change?” is certainly one question Ace has an opinion on (not to mention his ex, who may have a few bon mots on the topic), but perhaps it’s better left swaying and whispering in the wind. Something Ace does need to address, however, is his mistake. While he wrote that the leaves were compacted into cubic masses, he really meant to say “bags.” With recycling, just one person can make a difference. With writing, the difference in meaning may be just one word.
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Your piece on the LDS community was really interesting [“When the Latter-day Saints come marching in,” January 29, 2008]. They sound fairly hip and open-minded and I really like a lot of the LDS students who I know here at UVA. I’ve been a bit shy to ask my classmates where they stand on LGBT issues though. Mitt Romney was governor of the only state to pass gay marriage, but has been vocal in his criticism of the practice. It would be interesting to hear how some of the local folks who you interviewed feel about homosexuality.
Jennifer Carnahan
Charlottesville
Even though I do not know the facts of the case, I don’t doubt that something happened [“Overinflated?” Courts & Crime News, February 5, 2008]. These inflatable forms of recreation seem to be popping up everywhere (no pun intended). As a safety professional, I see many cases where they are not properly set up and are not properly staffed and users not properly instructed.
Ken Martin
Amusement Ride Safety Consultant
Richmond
“And they lived happily ever after.” Unfortunately for the young couple featured in C-VILLE Weekly’s Lawsuit of the Week [“Taken to the cleaners?” Courts & Crime News, January 29, 2008], a fairy tale wedding was followed by a nightmare—thanks to Brown’s Cleaners. Last May I attended the wedding of a beautiful young couple. The bride was a sight to behold in her elegant dress; however, Brown’s Cleaners lost her wedding dress shortly after the wedding. This dress, a quite expensive custom-fitted gown, was a wedding present to the bride from her maternal grandmother. Upon returning to Brown’s to pick up the potential heirloom, the young husband was told by the attendant that they did not have the dress and had no record of its ever being brought in. The young husband, exhibiting the claim ticket he had received from Brown’s, protested vigorously. In spite of the ticket, all of the employees with whom he spoke stuck to the story that the dress had not been left there.
Incredulous and broken-hearted, the couple finally took the receipt for the gown and the claim ticket to small claims court, certain that justice would be served. The Brown establishment, with the help of an attorney, was able to convince the court that the claim ticket, in their words, “meant nothing.” Any such expensive items would have been entered in a special record book and there was no record of the dress. That’s like a bank robber being found innocent because he didn’t write about the robbery in his diary!
I understand that this is not the only wedding gown that has been “lost” at Brown’s Cleaners. Fortunately for another couple, who had the same experience, the gown that supposedly didn’t exist miraculously reappeared some weeks later.
I sincerely hope that there is a fair and impartial judge in this vicinity that will hear this case when it is appealed. Meanwhile, I suggest that we all use caution before leaving any valuable clothing with this unscrupulous company that has replaced a couple’s happiness with angst.
Geraldine Kruger
Albemarle County
When contacted by C-VILLE, Toby Brown, the owner of Brown’s Dry Cleaners, said he had “no comment” on the suit or this letter.—Ed.
Thao’s songs are refreshingly not all about angsty break-ups. Instead, she writes about family and presents the everyday with new significance as she says, “You can’t build cathedrals out of finger steeples,” and “We don’t dive, we cannonball.” A year and a half ago, Thao was in the Satellite Ballroom, opening for Laura Veirs. The crowd was all ears and she was audible. She could be quiet and comfortable onstage. She wore jeans and a T-shirt. Instead of the brass featured on the new recording of “Feet Asleep,” it was a guitar-and-handclap affair. And she was one name. Maybe now her simpler, more-folk-than-rock sound seems old in the face of the newly-named band.
 Thao brought her new band, The Get Down Stay Down, and a more raucous sound to Miller’s on Saturday night. |
Saturday night at Miller’s, The OK Bird (Adam Thompson, the most recent addition to Thao’s band) took the stage solo for a bit as the opener. Thompson’s vocals range from shouting to singing to something like yodeling, all with intermittent squeaks that sound like a clarinet in the hands of a fifth-grader. It’s undeniably experimental and would be perfect for those who prize music that an exclusive few have heard. Not many people were listening; Thompson threw comments into the audience with little response. But the bar crowd is a hard crowd.
Thao opened with “What About,” the closest thing to a title track from Like the Linen, her first album. A bouncy song from the start, it fits well into the new sound, the more-rock-than-folk that seems to have come along with The Get Down Stay Down. But the band name is too many syllables long, and in some cases the music distracts from and overpowers the lyrics. The band itself struggled to be heard Saturday in the jumble of loud bar conversations. Where at Satellite, Thao just stood, strummed and sang, at Miller’s she jumped around with her shiny black guitar and yelled to be heard. Towards the end of the set, Thao played “Moped,” one of the beautifully sparse songs from Like the Linen. On the album, it was just guitar and vocals, but live, with an entire band backing it, all I could hear was percussion and shouting. Other songs, like “Bag of Hammers” (from the new album, We Brave Bee Stings & All), are built more loudly—“Shake the frame of this house / Distress the wood, make it shout”—and can hold the band’s sound without being washed out by it.
Two girls, probably in their early 20s, get in the line that has formed in front of the concession stand. It is past 6pm on Saturday evening and all of the big-money Dems have been escorted to the floor of Richmond’s Alltel Pavilion, where they are no doubt enjoying a dinner of steak and salmon right now. The girls look over the menu—popcorn, nachos, hotdogs—usual basketball-game fare. Now that the moneyed and old have been seated, it’s almost nothing but Barack Obama supporters up here, as far as the eye can see.
 Where the streets have a new name: In Richmond, young Dems spell out their support for the Illinois Senator. |
| Links to video from the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner:
Previous coverage of Obama and Clinton in Virginia: Obama packs Pavilion Pro-Health care, anti-war: Obama Rocks Pavilion [with video] Clinton packs Paramount, raises dough Obama, where art thou? |
Both Obama and Hillary Clinton will speak shortly, three days before the Virginia primary’s 103 delegates go up for grabs. Even now, a week past Super Tuesday where the race is still anyone’s, it is hard to say what the major differences are between Clinton and Obama. They are relatively alike on most main policy issues: the war, economy, energy, environment and the perpetual idiocy of the sitting president.
While it became easy to pick out male Clinton supporters in the money crowd by their superfluous amounts of hair gel, so too did it get easier to distinguish Obama supporters later by their youth, and at times, orthodontic braces. (Though what to make of the Obama man in the ascot, three shirt buttons undone?) Surely, the thinking goes, if there were a real difference in the candidates, one would be able to find it among their supporters.
The girls turn away from the menu. The first one, straight black hair, smallish features and quiet, says she’s for Obama. The second, black party dress and pearls, is more aggressive.
“Obama is inspiring,” she says. “Hillary Clinton is more in it for the politics. He’s in it for the real change.”
She goes back to the menu, but then whips around.
“If Hillary wins the nomination,” she says, “I won’t vote for her.”
 Clinton told the crowd that the GOP had selected “more of the same” with McCain, a criticism that was leveled at her, too, by Obama’s backers. |
This is a surprising sentiment, especially since this is the 2008 Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, the annual shindig for the Virginia Democratic Party. But it’s one that I’ll hear throughout the night as I wander the halls outside the arena, searching for random and anonymous Clinton and Obama supporters to ask, What is the biggest difference between Clinton and Obama?
A UVA English major sporting a Clinton sticker says about Obama, “I’ve heard a lot of talk. But there’s nothing really behind it.” It’s hard to find men her age that are for Clinton. As I turn to walk away, she tells me, “I’m also majoring in Women’s Studies.”
The common refrain from Clinton supporters concerns her experience, her years in the White House as the First Lady, her lost scrum over health care reform, her current tenure in the Senate. That’s what two 20-somethings in floral-print dresses, holding Clinton signs, cite when asked about why they chose Hillary. It is what a thin, curly-haired woman from UVA says she likes about Clinton: a direct, one-word answer. “Experience.”
Then she looks down at the Clinton sticker on her shirt. “I came here with the Hillary Club,” she says, maybe a bit sheepishly. “I’m still undecided.”
An hour later, Clinton herself takes the stage amid screams and applause to tout her experience. And she wastes no time in launching broadside attacks at George Bush. For seven years, Clinton says, “we have missed seizing opportunities and addressing our problems.” And, “We cannot get serious about the economy and security until the two oil men leave the White House.”
Clinton gets downright pugilistic about John McCain, now seen as a lock for the Republican nominee. About the Arizona senator she says, “The Republicans have chosen more of the same.” After pointing out that she is the only candidate left—Democrat or Republican—with a health care plan that will cover everyone, she leaps to the attack. “You don’t have to worry that I’ll get knocked out of the ring,” she says and the applause and cheers swell. “I’m ready to go toe-to-toe with McCain wherever and whenever.”
This is precisely the kind of combative stance that Obama supporters say they want to turn away from. A girl in her early 20s, wearing a tie-dyed Obama t-shirt, says that the biggest difference she sees is Obama’s ability to unify and inspire. This, like Clinton’s experience, is the theoretical backbone of what one Obama supporter called “a movement.”
The Obama t-shirt girl shakes her head. “There’s not a single Republican on the planet who will support Clinton.”
And if some of Obama’s supporters who made the trip to Richmond are to be believed, there is a significant number of Democrats who will turn away from Clinton if she does win her party’s nomination.
About 20 minutes before Clinton takes the stage, two girls in party dresses have kicked their high heels off and are leaning against a window, tearing into pretzels and Gatorade. One describes herself as a “more right-leaning moderate.” She says she is voting for Obama simply to keep Clinton out of the national race. She’ll vote for McCain before she votes for Clinton.
“You wouldn’t believe how many people are doing this.”
This is a political conundrum. Obama, according to many pundits, is actually seen as the more left-leaning candidate. But here is Ms. Right Centrist, getting behind “the movement” if only for a chance to tank Hillary.
A man easily 20 years older than most of the Obama supporters scurrying around the hall says Clinton lost him when he heard what he called a “sub-message” in the New Hampshire campaign to “vote white.”
“That was it for me,” he says as he walks away. Perhaps a bit of guilt catches him, and he stops and turns around. “I believe in misogyny,” he says, tongue in cheek. “What can I say?”
Obama is clearly the favorite of the Virginia Democratic machine. Governor Tim Kaine was one of the first public figures to endorse him last year, and former governor L. Douglas Wilder supports him. Only one of the former governors that will speak tonight, Mark Warner, hasn’t come out in favor of Obama. Warner’s got his own U. S. Senate race to worry about, he says. But backing the wrong candidate could work against him in gaining national exposure later.
When Kaine introduces Obama, who won’t take the stage until a little before 10:30pm, supporters drown him out three full times with chants—chants that Kaine joins, smiling like a boy. If the supporters I’ve talked to tonight are backing Obama because of his ability to unite and inspire, then they’ve chosen the right candidate.
While Clinton’s speech leaned heavily on voters’ disgust with Bush and the tough battle ahead, Obama takes the stage and begins by staking out that coveted Democratic turf: that of the underdog. Kaine had just announced minutes earlier that Obama had won all three of the day’s primaries. The Obama crowd in the bleachers resembles a student section at a basketball game. They chant and pump their signs in rhythm. They stand throughout his speech.
“We’ve become cynical,” says Obama. “Our standards have dropped.” He waits a beat, then says. “Not this time.” The crowd’s reaction is explosive. When you talk about hope as much as he does, every speech you give can’t help but come off as some sort of celebration. He has just won three states. By the end of the weekend, he’ll add Maine, making it four.
And maybe that’s what the Obama supporters are talking about. Easily the loudest of the two groups, they waved signs, sported t-shirts (“I rock for Barack”), chanted his name and generally made a feel-good ruckus. Tonight may well have been the first time that the JJ Dinner has seen The Wave during dessert and coffee.
Minutes before Obama took the stage, a middle-aged couple walks the nearly empty hall holding hands. They both wear Obama t-shirts.
“Obama is the best chance to unite America,” says the woman. “It’s a vote for the future, no offense to Hillary.”
She smiles at the man, who says, “It’s time for a change. Hillary Clinton would be the same that we’ve had for the past too many years.”
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
 Mitch Van Yahres |
Charlottesville lost one of its longtime public servants on Friday, February 8, when Mitch Van Yahres, 81, died in the Martha Jefferson Hospital of complications after surgery to remove a tumor in his lungs. As mayor and city councilor, Van Yahres cast a crucial vote to create the Downtown Mall in 1974. A Democrat, he went on to a 24-year career as Charlottesville’s representative in the state House of Delegates, retiring in 2005. “Mitch was the original progressive,” UVA Politics Professor Larry Sabato told The Daily Progress.
 Dayna Awkard |
Worked for Albemarle County for: 18 years come March 15
Resides in: Waynesboro
Job title: Deputy Clerk. She started working as a deputy clerk straight out of Fluvanna High School after her mother noticed an ad for the job. “She knew I loved typing and office stuff,” Awkard says. Although she initially resisted taking the job, she says she now loves it. “I couldn’t see myself anywhere but here. I’ve been here for so long.” Still, she says that one day she would like to be a lawyer, “since I know a little about the law and everything, the codes and how you do this and how you do that. Me and the attorneys get along great.” When Awkard’s not filing or attending to the other aspects of her day-to-day gig, she rushes home to her new son, born seven months ago. “I love to spend all my time with him,” she says. “I can’t wait for the summer to get here so we can do things.”
Best of times: “Doing the new suits because I love typing. There’s never a dull moment here.”
Worst of times: “We deal with the public all day long and they can be a pain in the you-know-what, and they can be mean as you-know-what. They come up here, especially when trying to get a divorce, and they don’t understand that we have no forms, we can’t tell you how to do it, we’re not attorneys, we just work here. They don’t want to hear that.”
Strangest moments on the job: “Nowadays, nothing surprises me at all. It all plays out. For example, divorce files that go on and on and on with no children, and we’ll have, like, five boxes for one file. They’re fighting over the property, or a dog. That’s strange. From 1997-2008? C’mon now. Somebody got to agree on something. Move on.”
If her job were done by a superhero, it’d be: “The Incredibles, all of them. I can stretch my arm out and get this and get that. They do all kinds of stuff.”
A few weeks ago on the Downtown Mall, there was an unusual performance: Jim Tolbert, the city’s director of Neighborhood Development Services, strummed an electric guitar hooked up to an amp in front of Snooky’s Pawnshop, with a couple of cops milling about. Had Tolbert, a known jam band fan, been pushed over the edge by rezonings and proffers to pursue his true calling to panhandle on the Mall? Was he perhaps inspired by a few rounds of the videogame “Guitar Hero”? Could he have transgressed against City Manager Gary O’Connell, who punished him with a form of public humiliation not unlike the stocks of yore?
 Floyd the banjo player probably won’t violate the proposed ordinance, but those busking with amps or drums very well might. |
As it turns out, none of those hypotheses are true. In fact, Tolbert was testing the volumes appropriate for a new city noise ordinance, slated for discussion at City Council’s next meeting on Monday, February 17.
“The new proposal provides for 24-7 regulation on the Mall,” says Tolbert. It would regulate volumes exceeding 75 decibels, a level loud enough to carry on a normal conversation 30′ away and which can be heard clearly at 125′, according to Tolbert.
While current ordinances protect the eardrums of those in residential neighborhoods, the city’s increasing amount of residential apartments stacked on retail space has nothing that regulates noise, except on the Mall. There, loud sounds can only violate after 12am Saturday and Sunday, or after 10pm the rest of the week.
The new ordinance means that those setting up a full electric band on the Mall at 3pm on a Friday could be setting up for a parlay with police. The singer-songwriter type with an acoustic, however, probably won’t violate the 75 decibels.
“We’ve been getting tons of complaints and the city attorney’s office finally helped us find one that can work,” Tolbert says.
It’s not just the Mall, however, that would have these restrictions imposed. The new ordinance would also apply to restaurants and bars. Outback Lodge, for instance, could be subject to violations for exceedingly loud performances that leak out into the neighborhood.
“With most of these [music venues], if they keep the doors closed, they don’t exceed,” Tolbert says. “What they do is open the doors up for fresh air.”
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
One day after appearing on CBS’ “60 Minutes” with Katie Couric—one of UVA politics professor Larry Sabato’s first students—Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton sat before a whole class of Sabato’s, in a nearly full auditorium at Old Cabell Hall. With only a day to go until Virginia’s primary the New York senator was here to rally the college vote. “Politics is good,” Clinton initially explained from her seat beside the professor. “We have to get back to believing in our mission as Americans.”
 Hillary Clinton answered questions from Larry Sabato’s American Politics students in Old Cabell Hall on Monday. |
As this was first and foremost a class session, Clinton then submitted to the queries of students, most of which touched on familiar themes, such as universal health care, biofuels, and, of course, bringing the troops home. “I’m thinking of ending the war in Iraq,” she said to applause and laughter. Of hydrocarbons, she endorsed the use of corn ethanol fuel but only for the time being. “We need to move to more efficient biofuels,” she said, citing the use of sugarcane in Brazil. “I’m willing to make a new energy future a centerpiece of my administration.”
As FOX News and CNN cameras whirred from their perch, Clinton revealed that the most influential person in her political career was Nelson Mandela who taught her to “give up whatever hate you have.” As for her faith and religion, she was raised a Methodist, and is still a praying person. Still, “I believe totally in the separation of church and state,” she said to whoops and hollers from the crowd.
How will she fare against Republicans? “I know what it will take for any Democrat to win,” she said, pointing to her support among women and Latino voters. No stranger to war with the other party, Clinton argued that her experience would pay off. “I can withstand that better because I’ve been through it.”
Of course, her experience in fighting the “Republican machine,” as she calls it, has been her trump card over the younger Obama, but as of this weekend Clinton’s chief rival was 16 points ahead in one state poll and a FEC report showed he has had greater success raising money in the region. “We are the result of all of the changes that have occurred for several generations,” she said, a tight smile at the corner of her lips. “Both of us have made a great contribution in changing [what] people around the world think about the American presidency.”
By the time this is published, Clinton will already be in another state trying to make her case for the Democratic nomination. “Running for president of the United States is the most demanding political undertaking in the world,” she said as she neared the end of her hour with Sabato’s students. If the whirlwind of constant campaigning is getting to her, it did not show except perhaps in a moment of vulnerability when she admitted earlier that she never foresaw herself running for office. Yet, she was always “fascinated by this lumbering American democracy” and wants us to return to our chief objective as a nation. “Our common purpose is progress,” she said.
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
Brendan Fitzgerald also writes Curtain Calls, C-VILLE’s weekly arts column. Read this week’s column here.
Former Del. Mitch Van Yahres has endorsed Barack Obama from the dead, reports Bob Gibson of The Daily Progress today on his blog. The Democrat and former Charlottesville mayor died Friday after complications from surgery for lung cancer, but Van Yahres’ family members placed this note in his obituary: “His friends, who nearly included everyone who met him, are asked, in lieu of expenditures on flowers and the like, to make a healthy and significant contribution to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama or, if they insist, the charity of their choice.”
“I knew Mitch well and discussed his support of Obama with him last month,” writes Gibson, “but this still is a surprising endorsement from a guy who slipped up to heaven three days ago.”
 Mitch Van Yahres |