Month: March 2016

Categories
News

Malcolm Brogdon named to Wooden Award All-American Team

UVA's Malcolm Brogdon is an all-American all over the place. Photo: Matt Riley, UVA Athletics

Although Virginia’s basketball season has ended, senior Malcolm Brogdon continues to rake in the awards. Monday, Brogdon was named to the John R. Wooden Award All-American Team, one of college basketball’s most prestigious honors, along with nine other top-tier college players.

Of the 10 finalists for the Wooden Award, Brogdon is the only player who was also selected for last year’s all-American team. For this year’s recognition, he will be up against impressive athletes like Kansas’ Perry Ellis and Duke’s Grayson Allen.

That same day, he was also named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ first team, and by Thursday, the NABC selected him Division 1 Player of the Year. On a roll for the week, the Associated Press picked him for its all-American team, the first Cavalier to be chosen for the AP first team since Ralph Sampson in the early ‘80s.

Brogdon’s ever-growing list of accomplishments dates much further back than the most recent honors. In 2015, he was named a second-team all-American by the NCAA, as well as receiving All-ACC First Team and ACC Co-Defensive Player of the Year honors.

This season has been even more stellar for Brogdon, with the shooting guard becoming the first player in history to be named both ACC Player of the Year and ACC Defensive Player of the Year in the same season. He has also been listed as a finalist for the Naismith College Player of the Year Award, along with Kentucky’s Tyler Ulis, Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield, and Michigan State’s Denzel Valentine.

The winners of the Naismith and the Wooden awards will be revealed on April 3 and 8, respectively.

 

 

Categories
News

Legislator pleads guilty in hit and run

Delegate Matt Fariss was found not guilty of his breaching the peace charge. Publicity photo

Albemarle’s favorite delegate with a rap sheet, Rustburg resident Matt Fariss, R-59th, pleaded guilty to a hit-and-run charge March 25 in Campbell County, and claims the incident that sent his Dodge Ram pickup airborne happened when he dropped a bottle of Mountain Dew and attempted to retrieve it. At the same hearing, Fariss was found not guilty of breaching the peace, a misdemeanor charge stemming from a separate incident.

Fariss veered off Red House Road July 29 and was not charged until December 10. His 2014 Dodge Ram plowed into several landscaped shrubs, a mailbox, a highway sign and approximately 60 feet of fence, according to the Virginia State Police.

The News & Advance in Lynchburg reports Fariss struck a tree, went in and out of a ditch, and then went airborne. He left the scene and said he intended to fix the fence himself, but his tires were leaking. When he left a note the next day, the fence already was fixed. He was ordered to pay a $250 fine, and said he’d already paid for the fence damage.

Gladys resident Ralph Ramsey, who also lives on Red House Road, filed the breach of peace complaint against Fariss January 5 after a dispute about Fariss’ sons blocking Ramsey’s driveway, which is an easement through land upon which property owner Sam Dawson allows people to hunt. Fariss filed his own complaint January 8.

Both men said the other was being confrontational, and the judge said he could find neither guilty, according to the News & Advance.

Fariss, who represents southern Albemarle County, was first elected to office in 2011, amid media reports of three hunting charges, a 1997 DUI and a 2002 emergency protective order filed by a woman who said Fariss crashed through her back door when she told him to leave.

He won 53 percent of the vote, and ran unopposed in 2013 and 2015.

Diana Mead is one of Fariss’ constituents in North Garden, and she finds it “a little embarrassing that my Virginia state delegate has such a long rap sheet.”

Her more immediate concern is that Fariss has been invited to the annual League of Women Voters’ Legislative Luncheon since he was first elected, and has been a no-show every year. This year’s luncheon is April 7.

“This is the perfect opportunity for him to meet some of his constituents, who eagerly await the chance to make his acquaintance,” writes Mead in an e-mail. “As far as I know, he has still never ventured north of Lovingston, so he is missing out on getting to know an important part of his district.”

She offers to drive to Rustburg and pick him up if that would help get him to the Boar’s Head Inn event. “It’s time to represent!” she says.

Fariss did not return a phone call from C-VILLE. In a call to the Republican Party of Virginia, when asked about the hit-and-running delegate, Executive Director John Findlay said, “Oh gosh.” He then referred a reporter to spokesperson David Donofrio, who did not return a call. Nor did Fariss’ attorney, Mark Peake, who said in court Fariss accepted “full responsibility” for the fence-smashing incident.

 

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: Madama Butterfly

The Met broadcasts Madama Butterfly live at the Paramount on Saturday afternoon. Photo: Publicity photo

No opera season is complete without a production of Madama Butterfly. Composed by Giacomo Puccini in three acts, the opera tells the tale of a young geisha who devotes herself to a U.S. naval officer, resulting in heartbreak and tragedy. The Met Live in HD broadcast is every bit as dramatic, colorful and exotic as when the story was first introduced in 1904.

Saturday 4/2. $18-24, 12:55pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 979-1333.

Categories
Opinion

President Clinton: Get used to it, folks

OD_©Ron Sachs CNP via ZUMA Wire

Okay, we’re calling it. As of this moment, it is virtually guaranteed that Hillary Clinton will be the 45th president of the United States. She has an almost insurmountable delegate lead over her Democratic opponent Bernie Sanders, and even if she should lose every remaining primary and caucus, the Dems’ lack of winner-take-all states makes the chances of Bernie overtaking her in pledged delegates vanishingly slim.

And then, of course, there’s the ongoing disaster that is the Republican primary race. The elephants basically have three choices right now: run with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket and lose; deny Trump, the highest vote-getter by far, the nomination at a contested convention, run somebody else and lose (with The Donald mounting a third-party bid) or break the GOP in half by supporting a “moderate” third-party candidate and lose. There are seriously no other options, and anyone who thinks otherwise hasn’t been paying sufficiently close attention.

And now that we’ve got that settled, we can focus on the more interesting question. Namely, what does a Clinton victory look like, and how will it affect the other races on the ballot, both in Virginia and nationwide? If the Republicans completely surrender to Trump (a distinct possibility) and offer only token resistance before giving him the keys to the Grand Old Party, the result could be a wave election that upends the balance of power both in the U.S. Senate (already a likelihood) and the U.S. House of Representatives (until recently an unthinkable turn of events). If, on the other hand, the Republican establishment explicitly rejects Trump, and allows vulnerable Congress-critters to run against him, they might still salvage their majorities in both chambers.

But it sure ain’t gonna be easy. And making things tougher is the fact that, with the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, conservatives have lost an important bulwark in their fight for electoral dominance. This became exceedingly clear last week during oral arguments in  Wittman v. Personhuballah, the Supreme Court case focused on whether Virginia’s 3rd District was drawn by the Republican majority in 2012 to dilute the black vote in surrounding districts.

The answer is yes, without a doubt. But with Scalia on the court this case could have gone either way. Without him, the balance of power has shifted, and it appears likely that the court will either deadlock on the issue—which would mean the district court ruling that found this “racial gerrymandering” unconstitutional would stand—or even muster a 5-3 vote against the practice.

The practical effects of this ruling will mean that Representative Bobby Scott, currently the only black congressman from Virginia, will probably be joined by another Democrat on Capitol Hill, and Republicans will find their sizable majority decreased by two.

Now, considering that the donkeys need to flip a total of 30 seats to retake the House, one might not seem like that big a deal. But with all of the stars seeming to align against the elephants heading into the general election, it’s small defeats like this that could build into a tsunami of electoral misery.

And trust us: Every step Donald Trump takes toward securing the Republican nomination is one more step toward President Clinton beginning her term with both houses of Congress firmly under Democratic control.

Odd Dominion is an unabashedly liberal, twice-monthly op-ed column covering Virginia politics.

Categories
Arts

April First Fridays Guide

Photo: Martyn Kyle

Ever since local artist Allan Young can remember, he has been taking things apart to figure out what makes them tick. One day he was tinkering, and created a clock from an old computer hard drive, thus his eclectic approach to constructing time pieces was born. Young has made clocks from a wide range of materials, from various computer pieces to recycled bicycle parts and even record players (below). He finds a certain joy in repurposing stuff that others might consider junk—he acknowledges the beauty of the history that every item holds. “Every clock I make is an original with a history that we can only imagine,” he says. “Every ding and dent tells a story.”

See Young’s exhibit, “Time Never Stands Still,” starting April 1 at C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery.

First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com. 

First Fridays: April 1

The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. “White Flags,” featuring embroidery works on linen by Aaron Fein. 6-9pm.

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St. “Time Never Stands Still,” featuring eclectic time pieces by Allan Young. 6-8pm.

City Space 100 Fifth St. NE. The Living Sky Foundation group show, “Art in the City,” featuring experimental, innovative and uncensored art. 5-8pm.

The Garage 100 E. Jefferson St. “The Tom Welling Tribute,” featuring gouache paintings by Hank Ehrenfried. 5-7pm.

Graves International Art 306 E. Jefferson St. “Roy Lichtenstein & Company,” featuring drypoint etchings, screen prints and lithographs by Roy Lichtenstein, Sam Francis, Erte, Jacques Villon, Jim Dine, John Chamberlain, Paul Cesar Helleu, John James Audubon, Philip Pearlstein, Richard Merkin, Pierre Bonnard and Edgar Degas. 5-8pm.

Indoor Biotechnologies 700 Harris St. “Portrayed,” featuring oil paintings by Terry Lacy. 5-7pm.

The Loft @ Freeman Victorius Gallery 507 W. Main St. An exhibit featuring plein air landscapes by Julia Lesnichy. 5-8pm.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St,. NW.”The Great Chain,” featuring oil paintings by Kelly Lonergan in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “Developing a Language,” featuring oil paintings by Margaret Embree and “Fluid,” featuring oil paintings on linen by Lee Christmas Halstead in the Lower Halls and mixed media works by David Borszich and watercolor paintings by Marcia Mitchell in the Upper Halls. 5:30-7:30pm.

New Dominion Bookshop 404 E Main St. “Oak and Locust,” featuring select works on paper by Kendall Cox. 5-7pm.

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St., SE. “In Creative Unity: A Golden State,” featuring mural and graffiti by four Los Angeles artists. 5:30-7:30pm.

Welcome Gallery @ New City Arts 114 3rd St., NE. “Would,” featuring mixed media, sculpture, printmaking, and drawing wood works by various artists. 5-7:30pm.

WVTF & Radio IQ Studio Gallery 218 W. Water St. “Stations,” featuring works on paper by Alyssa Pheobus Mumtaz. 5-7pm.

Yellow Cardinal Gallery 301 E. Market St. “Woman and the Ghost,” featuring oil paintings by Jane Goodman. 4-6:30pm.

Other Exhibits

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Struggle…From the History of the American People,”featuring paintings by Jacob Lawrence; “Richard Serra: Prints,” from the collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his Family Foundation; “Fish and Fowl,” featuring sculptures, paintings and prints; “Navajo Weaving: Geometry of the Warp and Weft,” featuring textiles; and “Two Extraordinary Women: The Lives and Art of Maria Cosway and Mary Darby Robinson.”

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “The 1963 Danville Civil Rights Movement: The Protests, The People, The Stories,” featuring documentary portraits by Tom Cogill and text panels by Emma Edmunds, through April 9.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Works on Paper,” featuring mixed media works by Christophe Vorlet. Closing reception April 10 from 3-5pm.

Categories
Arts

Film review: Batman v Superman is all about the future

Ben Affleck dons the Batman mask to challenge Henry Cavill’s Superman in a battle to set up the sequel. Photo: Warner Bros.

We’ve reached, it seems, a place in our relationship with comic book movies that the particulars of an individual plot matter less than the promise of future installments. The parts of Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice that work are those that are almost completely devoid of meaning to the movie around them, but suggest that future installments of DC’s johnny-come-lately extended universe may not be altogether insufferable.

The rest of the movie is quite another matter. When it’s not deafening, it’s pretentious. When it’s not pandering, it’s confusing. When it’s not loudly broadcasting its obvious plot twists, it’s throwing in sheer randomness and calling it world-building.

As burdensome as the title Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice seems, there really is no other way to encapsulate what this dull-colored beast of a movie is here to do: pit two iconic heroes against each other and lay the foundation for a Justice League movie to make any sort of sense. Everything that happens is in service to these two goals at the expense of what could have been a thematically rich story, as conflicts between the two heroes have often been in the past.

Superman represents hope for the future and the quest to always live to a higher moral standard, while Batman dwells in his own trauma and uses “justice” to salve his injured, raging id. They are often fighting the same bad guys but have found themselves at odds in the comics; this is particularly true of Kingdom Come where Bruce Wayne allies with the villains, and The Dark Knight Returns, from which Batman v Superman draws visual cues but retains none of the emotional weight or subtext.

Summarizing the plot beyond this would be futile given that it’s all contrived around the titular outcome, but it goes something like this: Following the devastation of Metropolis after Superman’s (Henry Cavill) confrontation with Zod (Michael Shannon), the world is struggling to arrive at a consensus about this alien visitor. Some view him as a savior who stopped Zod’s evil scheme, while others are wary of his lack of accountability and point to the destructive battle as evidence. Batman (Ben Affleck) is one of those who views Superman with suspicion, leading to conflict as they both investigate the illicit activities of billionaire CEO and insane genius Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg). Wonder Woman (Gal Godot) shows up and is awesome, but you knew that already, and that’s all she does.

When the plot isn’t trudging along at a slow, yet distracted pace like a sloth with ADD, it’s introducing the supporting characters and in-universe logic of the upcoming sequels. These moments are a great relief from the unrelenting gloom of the main story, yet they are so shoehorned in that the movie has to completely drop what it’s doing for five minutes, get the teases out of the way, then resume. These asides suggest great movies (that won’t be helmed by Zack Snyder, thank Rao), but suggest is all they do. They are of no real help to the movie they’re in, and only serve to highlight its problems.

The backlash against the announcement of Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman was misguided; Affleck is totally serviceable in the role and could actually excel in future installments, including a standalone film by the Academy Award-winning director himself. He isn’t the problem; Snyder is. Just as he did with Watchmen and even Man of Steel, Snyder draws visual inspiration from the comics yet smothers all literary value from them. The light vs. dark undertones do not carry when everything is so glum. Pretending as though the gleefully catastrophic climax of Man of Steel was part of intentionally setting up this film is transparent retcon. Most damning of all, the only moments of genuine inspiration come from when it gets distracted from its own proceedings.

See it if you want to understand the upcoming films, but do not expect anything. Here’s a suggestion for an alternate title: Superman v Batman: Well, Now That That’s Out of the Way….

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

PG-13, 151 minutes

Violet Crown Cinema and Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Playing this week

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213

10 Cloverfield Lane

Allegiant

Deadpool

London Has Fallen

Miracles From Heaven

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The Young Messiah

Zootopia

Violet Crown Cinema

200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000

10 Cloverfield Lane

Allegiant

Deadpool

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Zootopia

Categories
Living

Living Picks: To-do this week

Drop by the book sale to benefit JMRL, appreciate the art of Bach & beer at Three Notch'd and run the Charlottesville Marathon in this week's Living Picks. Photo: Jack Looney

Nonprofit

Friends of the Library book sale

Leaf through thousands of books and other media at the 51st annual spring book sale to benefit the special programs and projects of Jefferson-Madison Regional Library.

Saturday, April 2-Sunday, April 10. Free, 10am-7pm. Gordon Avenue Library. 1500 Gordon Ave. 977-8467.

Health & Wellness

Charlottesville Marathon

Dubbed “one of the top destination marathons in the country” by the New York Times, the Charlottesville Marathon is here just in time for blooming magnolias. The event features shorter races as well: a marathon relay, half marathon, 8K and Kids K.

Saturday, April 2. $20-115, 7am. Historic Court Square. 410 Jefferson St. 218-0402.

Festival      

Wild and Scenic Film Festival 

Join Wild Virginia for its annual festival that showcases a selection of films about our planet, the beautiful wildlands and the people of the community who care for and defend them.

Tuesday, April 5. $11-32, 6:30pm. Violet Crown Charlottesville. 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. 971-1553.

Food & Drink

Bach & Beer

Cellist Steuart Pincombe and brewmaster Dave Warwick collaborate to create a night of Baroque music and brews.

Sunday, April 3. $10-15, 7pm. Three Notch’d Brewing Company. 946 Grady Ave. 293-0610.

Categories
News

Alleged man with gun frightens Venable community

This was the scene for parents arriving at Venable Elementary this morning. Photo Alex Kent

Imagine you’re a parent driving up to your child’s elementary school and seeing it swarming with police cars. That was the scene this morning for moms and dads dropping off their kids at Venable Elementary School after a school employee spotted a man walking down Gordon Avenue with what appeared to be a shotgun.

Charlottesville Police got the call around 7:38am, immediately set up a perimeter and searched the school, nearby Lugo-McGinness Academy and the surrounding neighborhood, according to a release.

Alex Kent lives directly across the street from the school playground and he could hear police sirens as he was waking up. “About 20 feet away I could see a police officer with what was clearly an AR-15-style rifle,” he says. “It was a pretty surprising sight.”

He could see a second officer on the far side of the playground, also with a rifle, but saw nothing that looked like an active threat. “The officers were allowing people to walk by on the sidewalk and traffic was still moving as usual on 14th Street,” he says.

For Lindsay Neal, a police car went racing by her at the light at 14th Street and Grady Avenue as she headed to drop off her 6-year-old daughter, Ellie, a kindergartener at Venable. At the school, a teacher opened the car door and said, “Everything’s okay. We’re getting the kids in the classroom,” says Neal.

“I’m freaked out,” she says. “I kept seeing my daughter walking up the sidewalk into the school.” And she overheard a teacher say, “Are we on lockdown?”

Says Neal, “I didn’t know what to do.” She called her husband and circled around the block. The scene was chaotic, and she says she didn’t want to contribute to the confusion. Then she saw a cop near the parking lot in back of the school with a large rifle.

“That’s when I called my husband crying on the phone, saying, ‘It’s real,'” she says. She pulled over and called the school. After being put on hold, she talked to a counselor who was very reassuring. “He said, ‘This is very precautionary. There’s a police presence inside and out.'”

Neal says she felt confident in the staff at Venable. “I trust [Principal] Erin Kershner,” she says. “I trust her wholeheartedly.”

She says the school called her twice before noon with general updates.

Police say they’ll continue patrols around Venable and around other city schools.

Neal still wants to know about the man with the gun. “That’s so scary to me,” she says. “I had to really fight my instinct to go get my daughter.”

*The article’s original title was changed at 1:52pm March 30.

 

 

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: Nora Jane Struthers

Nora Jane Struthers & The Party Line performs raw, honest and insightful songs from the new album, Wake, at the Southern on Thursday. Photo: Publicity photo

Roots rock musician Nora Jane Struthers’ Wake is perhaps her most mature album to date. Described as lyrics “set to a soundtrack that resonates with the warm uplift of the first day of spring,” the record is a coming-of-age project from the former Virginia girl, who sings about falling in love, lessons learned and entering a new stage of life. Mariana Bell opens.

Thursday 3/31. $10-12, 7pm. The Southern Café and Music Hall, 103 S. First St. 977-5590.

Categories
News

Plea deal: JADE snitch gets misdemeanor charge

Working as a confidential informant and setting up addicts helped Taylor Magri, right, get his own felony charges reduced to one misdemeanor. He heads to court with his attorney, Rob Bell. Photo Cara Salpini

A Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force confidential informant, who set up at least nine people on drug buys, had his own two felony drug charges reduced to one misdemeanor pot possession charge in Albemarle Circuit Court March 23.

Taylor Magri, 23, was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and possession of cocaine April 10, 2014, according to court documents.

In a heroin distribution jury trial earlier this year, Magri was a witness against Ryan McLernan, whom the jury acquitted, citing entrapment. In that case, Magri said he’d signed a contract with JADE and set up 10 people, buying from each two to three times, in exchange for having his own charges lessened.

Magri testified that he came to Charlottesville from Florida to “get clean.” After he was arrested and was working for JADE, he’d say anything to get people to sell him drugs, he said in court, including sniffling to indicate he was going through withdrawal.

McLernan admitted his own addiction, but said he had never sold heroin before and only did so at Magri’s behest. McLernan was getting treatment at a methadone clinic when he was arrested six months later for the single sale. That $50 deal would have given him a prison sentence of between five and 40 years if he had been convicted.

Prosecutor Elliott Casey said that in a 2014 JADE raid at Magri’s residence, officers found 286.2 grams of marijuana—around 10 ounces—and a bag of white powder in his room.

Judge Edward Hogshire accepted the plea that reduced the felony pot charge to misdemeanor possession, which means a 12-month suspended sentence and a suspended driver’s license for six months, and dismissed the cocaine charge. Magri was given 90 days to pay his court costs.

In sharp contrast to the leather jacket and longish hair Magri wore to court in January, he donned a sport jacket and had a high-and-tight haircut for his most recent appearance.

Magri’s lawyer, Delegate Rob Bell, who is running for attorney general next year, said, “We’re not going to comment.” Casey also refused to comment.

Janice Redinger, who was McLernan’s lawyer, sat in court for Magri’s hearing. Afterward, she said that all the people she was aware of whom Magri set up were addicts, and they all ended up with more severe punishments than he did. “All wound up being felons,” she said. “He got off with a misdemeanor.”

She says the problem isn’t that Magri tried to extricate himself from “major, major” charges. “The problem is a system that gets people to turn on others,” she says. “We’re using drug dealers to use addicts to get out of trouble.”

She cites another JADE sting that set up prostitutes and johns, and offered them the opportunity to buy drugs to have those misdemeanor charges dropped. “What is wrong with us?” Redinger asks. She says the whole system of using confidential informants is “horribly wrong” and is making people criminals and sending them to prison.

Magri’s plea came a week after a young Charlottesville woman died of an overdose. Betsy Gilbertson, 25, had been arrested twice for heroin possession, according to court records, and went through withdrawal while she was in jail, her mother said. She was released January 8, and her family and friends believe the fatal dose she took that led to her death March 14 was the first time she’d used since getting out of jail.