Month: September 2018

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News

Too broad: Judge dismisses August 11 charge against CVS shopper

John Miska was arrested for possessing the razor blades he'd just purchased at CVS. Photo Janis Jaquith

A judge today said the city’s lengthy list of prohibited items on the Downtown Mall over the August 12 anniversary weekend swept “far too broadly,” and he dismissed a charge against a disabled veterans activist for possession of razor blades that were purchased August 11 at CVS.

John Miska, 64, bought two cases of Arizona iced tea, a can of bug spray, lightbulbs, and a pack of razor blades, and was arrested outside CVS for possessing prohibited items in the downtown area, where access was limited to two entry points on Water Street. Citizens attempting to enter the mall had to have bags and wallets searched before they were allowed to enter—although Miska was able to open carry a firearm. Metal beverage cans, aerosols and razor blades were prohibited, although Miska was only charged for the blades.

Miska entered a not guilty plea and was represented by the Rutherford Institute, a local civil rights organization.

Virginia State Police Sergeant S.W. Johnson, one of the 700 state police in town for the weekend, testified that he’d been alerted to Miska’s plans to purchase the forbidden items because the vet “made certain statements about his intentions to go to CVS” to the checkpoint staff. Johnson stopped Miska when he came out of the store with his walker, which carried the cases of iced tea, and he said he could see the other alleged contraband in the plastic CVS bag.

“He said he had common items for household use,” said Johnson. “He said he likes tea.” Miska declined Johnson’s offer to help him take the items to his car, and the officer took him into custody, Johnson testified.

Other people on the mall were drinking out of cans in restaurant patio areas, but Johnson did not arrest them because they appeared to be “part of private establishments,” he said.

Judge Bob Downer ruled in favor of Miska’s motion to dismiss and seemed to take a dim view of the city’s ban of certain items while allowing businesses on the mall to sell those items, commenting, “If the city really wanted to prohibit these items, they should have shut down all the stores that sold them.” He also said the restrictions were “too much” and that the ban was too broad.

“This case—in which a dozen police swarmed a disabled veteran with a walker buying cans of iced tea and bug spray from a CVS—is far from the only example of a dysfunctional, excessive government that overreaches, overspends, and is completely out of sync with the spirit of the Constitution,” said constitutional attorney and Rutherford president John W. Whitehead.

Also heard in Charlottesville General District Court were five other cases of those arrested over the anniversary weekend.

Former C-VILLE Weekly contributor Toby Beard, who was charged with “obstruction of free passage” August 12 during a march from Washington Park to downtown, pleaded guilty to a lesser infraction of walking in the street when a sidewalk was available. He was given a $15 fine, which was suspended.

His attorney, Janice Redinger, said after the hearing that the commonwealth dropping the charge from a Class 1 misdemeanor to a traffic infraction “was an acknowledgement that no crime took place.”

Chloe Lubin was charged with assault and disorderly conduct, and was ordered to do 50 hours of community service by January 31 for each charge. An obstruction of justice charge was dropped, with the condition it could not be expunged, and a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon also was dismissed.

North Carolina resident Algenon Cain, who was charged with two counts of trespassing, did not appear in court. He was found guilty and fined $250 on the first count, with $200 suspended, and $250 on the second charge.

Veronica Fitzhugh was charged with misdemeanor assault and entered an Alford plea, which is a guilty plea that acknowledges the prosecution has enough evidence to convict but the defendant maintains her innocence. She was sentenced to complete 20 hours of community service by January 31.

Spotsylvania resident Martin Clevenger was charged with disorderly conduct following an encounter with Fitzhugh at Market Street Park. According to state trooper J.M. Hylton, who was standing behind a barricade in front of the Lee statue, Clevenger walked up to the statue and saluted.

“A female approached him and begin to scream and curse,” said Hylton. Clevenger “snapped and leaned over and shouted” at Fitzhugh.

Video showed Fitzhugh screaming “go home” and  “get the fuck out of my town” at Clevenger.

He replied multiple times, “If history is forgotten, you are bound to repeat it.” He also said that Fitzhugh was touching him and asked officers to arrest her. In the video, he stands saluting the statue while Fitzhugh continues to shout at him, until he suddenly turns to confront her, which, he testified, was because she insulted his father’s military service.

“I was there peacefully protesting,” said Clevenger. “You can see her spitting at me. That’s assault.” He said he acted in self-defense when she disparaged the “honor of my father.”

Downer said the case is one of the most difficult to decide because of the latitude required by the First Amendment. But he said  “the conduct of Ms. Fitzhugh certainly provoked” Clevenger’s reaction, and found Clevenger not guilty.

Outside the courthouse, anti-racist activists followed Clevenger into the Market Street Parking Garage and shouted at him and the police officers there. Clevenger sped out of the garage on a motorcycle.

Miska was screamed at with shouts of “fuck you racist” as he left the courthouse with his attorney, Elliot Harding.

Said Miska, “Perhaps we’ve shown the screaming meemies there is a way to protest government overreach within the system.”

Veteran John Miska was called a Nazi as he left the courthouse. Staff photo

Updated October 1 with comments from Whitehead, Redinger and Miska.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Arts Uncategorized

Making magic: Jack Black and Cate Blanchett cast a spell

Jack Black starts in The House With A Clock In Its Wall. Image: Universal Pictures.

Halloween season is off to a solid start with the pleasant surprise of the kid-friendly horror/fantasy/comedy The House with a Clock in Its Walls. Everything about this movie should be working against it. The marketing makes it seem like another expository, self-contained “adventure” that uses the fact that it’s for children to cover up inconsistencies and stale gags. Plus, the presence of Jack Black will automatically draw comparisons to Goosebumps. But with an inspired script based on the novel by John Bellairs, great visuals, a committed cast, and director Eli Roth, The House with a Clock in Its Walls is fun whether you’re a horror pro or a spooky newcomer.

After losing his parents in a car crash, Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) is taken in by his estranged uncle Jonathan (Black) who lives in a bizarre house full of clocks and seemingly sentient furniture. It doesn’t take long for Lewis to realize his uncle is hiding something from him (and the rumors at school about his house don’t help), so Jonathan and his neighbor/collaborator Florence (Cate Blanchett) bring his nephew into the world of real magic. Yet amidst all the fun, a clock hidden in the walls of the house by Jonathan’s deceased magic partner, Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan), portends something terrible, if only they could find it or figure out the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death.

The secret to House’s success is that it truly believes in the value of its storytelling. It is definitely a movie for kids, but it does more than dangle figurative keys in front of their eyes for 90 minutes (though a literal key is crucial to the story). And though this is light entertainment, Roth respects children enough to avoid pandering to them. Children live in the same world as adults—it’s just a matter of perspective—so why not treat the things that scare them with the same regard?

Many movies with superficial similarities to The House with a Clock in Its Walls are bad. This one is good. Its jokes land, its visuals pop, and its story excites. The chemistry between Black and Blanchett is so strong it’s a wonder no one has thought to pair them before. MacLachlan is his breezy best, channeling how Cary Grant might have played an evil wizard. On a personal note, I can’t speak to whether those who grew up reading the book will be satisfied, but I was curious enough to order it the moment I left the theater.

The House with a Clock in Its Walls/ PG, 105 minutes

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

Playing this week z Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 377 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056 z A Simple Favor, Bad Reputation, Crazy Rich Asians, Fahrenheit 11/9, Life Itself, The Predator, White Boy Rick

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213 z A Simple Favor, Alpha, Assassination Nation, Christopher Robin, Crazy Rich Asians, Fahrenheit 11/9, Life Itself, The Meg, Mission Impossible: Fallout, Night School, The Nun, The Predator, Searching, Smallfoot, White Boy Rick, The Wife z Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000 z

A Simple Favor, Assassination Nation, Bad Reputation, BlacKkKlansman, Crazy Rich Asians, Dark Money, Fahrenheit 11/9, Juliet, Naked, Life Itself, The Predator, Pick of the Litter, White Boy Rick

Categories
News

Foy fired: Longtime WINA morning host given the boot

Jane Foy’s new job is to set up a regional survey pool that she hopes will be a national model to measure community opinion. Virginia Hamrick

 

Regular listeners to WINA’s “Morning News” may have noticed the absence this week of co-host and producer Jane Foy, but they were not given a reason why.

Foy, who had been on vacation and was coming back to work Tuesday, only learned in a phone call the night before that she was no longer on the show on which she’d worked since 2001, at the station where she’d worked for almost 20 years.

“It was a surprise,” says Foy. “You always know it’s coming because it’s the nature of the business, but you’re always shocked when it’s your time.”

The morning show is being “retooled,” Foy says she was told. The 6am to 10am drive time slot will lose an hour and go down to one host (her former co-host Rick Daniels).

“It’s just a programming change,” says Charlottesville Radio Group’s general manager Mike Chiumento. “The show with Rick and Jane hasn’t changed in 11 years.” The new version will have more features from CBS and be “more like the ‘Today Show,’” he says.

“It was extremely difficult to think about and execute,” says Chiumento. “She’s just a stellar part of the community.”

Before and after: Foy was still on the WINA website Wednesday, but by Thursday Rick Daniels was shown solo.

“I don’t know how I’m going to wake up every morning,” says regular listener Mary Miller. “Jane’s program was centered on local events. I appreciated her ability to keep us in touch” with news around town.

“I never like hearing this stuff,” says Joe Thomas, who hosts the morning show at competitor WCHV and says he once got fired on the way to a public event. Foy’s abrupt ouster, he says, “unfortunately is way too common in corporate radio.”

Charlottesville Radio Group includes ESPN Charlottesville, 106.5 the Corner, 3WV, Z95.1 and Country 92.7, and is owned by Michigan-based Saga Communications, which purchased the locally owned Eure Communications in 2004.

“I feel for her as somebody who’s committed this much time and effort in the community,” Thomas says. “She brought a great professionalism in journalism from the storied stations she’d worked with.”

A Pittsburgh native, Foy, 70, started her career in broadcast at a television station there nearly 50 years ago, doing film editing, public relations, and promotions. One day, a general manager at a local radio station called to ask what she thought of a show. She described it as “yawn radio,” which must have been the right answer. He hired her to take over the program and become the first female AM talk show host in Pittsburgh, at age 24.

Foy’s colleagues at WINA declined to comment, including Rob Schilling, who himself was dropped by the station 10 years ago. He’d filled in as Foy’s cohost on the “Morning Show” after Dick Mountjoy, another staple of local radio, died in 2008, and then Schilling was given his own show.

After Saga pulled the plug, Schilling’s fans launched a campaign to bring the conservative host back, which it did in January 2009.

State Senator Creigh Deeds was surprised to learn Foy is off the air and calls her “a voice that everybody knows and an essential part of everyone’s morning.” He’s been appearing on her show since he was first elected to the Senate in 2001, and says she’s a tough interviewer. “I know I wasn’t going to get softball questions.”

When reached on the phone, Foy sounds upbeat, and says her severance agreement was “very satisfactory.” Another bright side: She won’t be getting up at 4am and going to bed at 8:30pm.

And despite being the full-time caregiver for her husband, who has dementia, she says she will be looking for another job and hopes to do some volunteer work as well.

She’ll still be hosting the Walk to End Alzheimer’s on October 20–only this time it won’t be as Jane Foy of WINA.

 

 

 

Categories
Arts

Album reviews: Anna St. Louis, Peel Dream Magazine, Connan Mockasin, and Noname

Noname makes a big impression on her new album Room 25. Publicity image.

Anna St. Louis

If Only There Was a River (Woodsist)

Woodsist calls this the “debut” of Kansas City native Anna St. Louis— odd, since they also released her First Songs full-length last year. Maybe they want us to grade her on the “beginner” scale, but the truth is that If Only There Was a River doesn’t represent much of a leap from First Songs—it’s another set of hushed, spare, acoustic fingerpicking with occasional bass or cello, and it’s all really pretty. But St. Louis’ croon, restrained almost to the point of indifference, provides diminishing returns, as her tonal consistency makes the album less a river and more a comely pond.

https://annastlouis.bandcamp.com/album/if-only-there-was-a-river-4

Peel Dream Magazine

Modern Meta Physic
(Slumberland)

The monochrome album cover depicting bored, beautiful youth comes straight from the classic Belle and Sebastian playbook, and unsurprisingly, Peel Dream Magazine sounds like the Glaswegian touchstones, albeit without the grief and guilt. PDM also sounds like Stereolab, albeit without the politics—and once you throw in Joe Stevens’ British vocalisms (he’s a New Yorker), Modern Meta Physic quickly establishes itself as a stylish album of comportment, above all. The strummy “Anorak” and swirling “Due to Advances in Modern Tourism” have some life to them, but most of Modern Meta Physic breezes by without making much impression. You know you won’t miss anything if you go brush your teeth, and the album itself conveys a muted, domesticated quality, a weekend soundtrack for sweater season.

https://slumberlandrecs.bandcamp.com/album/modern-meta-physic

Connan Mockasin

Jassbusters (Mexican Summer)

New Zealand eccentric Connan Mockasin’s last album was 2013’s Caramel—indulgent and charmlessly louche (see the five-part suite “It’s Your Body”), it was a comedown for many fans of his 2011 single “Forever Dolphin Love,” an epic, affecting stroke of tone and timbre. The much-anticipated Jassbusters is a concept album linked to Bostyn ’n Dobsyn, a five- part “absurdist melodrama” film Mockasin will screen on tour. Despite the suggestion of Art, there’s isn’t much going on—Jassbusters sounds like a tossed-off set of lounge funk demos interspersed with cringe- worthy excerpts of the film dialogue. Meanwhile, Mockasin takes the piss out of various vocal personae, from the torch singer of “Last Night” to the seducer of the cheesy-and-sleazy ’70s sex jam “Charlotte’s Thong.” Jassbusters isn’t unpleasant, but Mockasin’s disregard for his own talent kind of is.

https://connanmockasin.bandcamp.com/album/jassbusters

Noname

Room 25 (Self-released)

Chicago rapper Noname (née Fatimah Warner) caught attention as a featured guest on Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap, and her self-released mixtape, Telefone, wound up on various year-end best-ofs in 2016. Still, it’s thrilling to hear how assured and accomplished her new album Room 25 is, musically, lyrically, and tonally. That last item is the neatest, most subversive trick: Noname sounds like a girl next door, or that sweet kid at the bus stop, her voice always smiling, which makes her sexually-frank, politically charged vignettes hit that much harder, as with her white-cop  ventriloquizing on “Prayer Song.” The effect is strengthened by relentlessly blue-skied tracks full of loose musicality—elegant, open piano chords on “Montego Bae,” a gorgeous string passage on “Window,” and Noname’s relaxed-but-intricate flow throughout. Radical without even sounding rebellious, Room 25 is a stunner and a keeper. (And you can name your own price on Bandcamp, so why not actually keep it?)

https://nonameraps.bandcamp.com/album/room-25

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News

‘Order over justice’: Community further criticizes school board

Lisa Woolfork, an associate professor at UVA, said the Albemarle County School Board’s decision to have protesters arrested at its last meeting was a “complete embarrassment, and a moral failure.” eze amos

“You can jail revolutionaries, but you can’t jail the revolution,” were the words scrawled on a giant white sign held by a man in sunglasses.

It was the first meeting of the Albemarle County School Board since the August 30 one where six anti-racist activists were arrested and hauled off in handcuffs for allegedly being disruptive, and where one was sent to the hospital after a police officer knocked him to the ground.

This time, things were more peaceful—board chair Kate Acuff only threatened to have one community member removed for clapping.

Activists with groups such as Hate-Free Schools Coalition of Albemarle County have put intense pressure on the board for over a year to make county schools more inclusive and safe for all students—by, among other things, banning Confederate imagery currently permitted in the school division’s dress code. In response, a panel of nine volunteer students has been tasked with writing an anti-racism policy that will be implemented at all county schools, says school spokesperson Phil Giaramita, and a re-examination of the dress-code policy could happen subsequently.

Albemarle County School Board Chair Kate Acuff threatened to have one community member removed for clapping at the September 18 meeting. eze amos

That response has not satisfied activists, who want Confederate imagery banned now, and who have been outraged at the school board’s aggressive attempts to limit dissent.

Tension was high at the September 18 meeting, and Superintendent Matthew Haas, perhaps hoping to set a new tone, began with a statement declaring that county and city schools will join together to end racism and discrimination in their hallways, and close opportunity gaps.

“Discrimination against diverse people of color is still deeply ingrained in American culture,” he said. “Whether we call it racism or systemic bias, it results in inequitable opportunities for African American and Latino students.”

But the nearly 20 community members who had signed up for public comment wanted to talk specifics.

After a warning that any sounds of support or non-support could result in ejection from the meeting, a retired Henley Middle School teacher of 25 years stood up to speak.

Margie Shepherd said she had successfully argued before the board a decade ago that students using hate speech should be disciplined, and now the same conversation has resurfaced.

Because those who agreed with her weren’t allowed to cheer, or even snap, they silently waved their hands in support as Shepherd said Confederate symbols “make schools less welcome and less safe for our students of color.”

Matthew Christensen spoke next, and criticized the board for not being open to two-way communication, which it promises in its code of conduct.

“Each and every one of you needs to think very long and very hard about who you are and what you want to represent to this community,” Christensen said.

School board members are aware of the danger they’re putting students in by allowing such “traumatizing imagery” in schools, he claimed.

“And yet you do nothing,” he said. “You pretend to care about our children. You pretend to care about our community, and yet, you have shown over and over again that you don’t.”

Lisa Woolfork, an associate professor at UVA, called the board hostile, and said its decision to have activists arrested was a “fetishization of order over justice,” a “complete embarrassment, and a moral failure.”

While the board made no apologies for the previous meeting’s arrests, school board member Graham Paige, a retired teacher of 30 years, stayed back to talk with some of the remaining activists. “A dress code and anti-racism policy that benefits all of our students is really the mutual goal of Hate-Free Schools and the board,” he said.

The board will next meet September 27. And the activists have promised they’ll be there, too.

Categories
Arts

Creativity comes naturally to the Rivanna River at FLOW 2018

A celebration of art, music, song, and dance takes place at the Rivanna river on Saturday, September 29. Publicity photo.

Harmony is difficult to come by amidst the traffic jams, loading screens, and other small annoyances of daily life. Deborah McLeod makes her escape through a union of art and nature. And FLOW 2018 holds the door open for others into the world of the Rivanna River.

FLOW is a festival that gathers the artists and environmentalists of the community to express their passion for nature, sponsored by Chroma Projects Gallery and Albemarle County Parks and Recreation. Their partnership is one that still grows; the collaboration began only a year ago with talks of the first annual festival.The event is more than just an information session; it’s an exhibition of the visual and performing talents of Charlottesville, aiming to inspire attendees to evaluate their own role in nature.

McLeod is one part of the whole behind FLOW as the founder of Chroma Projects Callery.

“[The festival] is not unlike seeing the world anew through the eyes of a child,” says McLeod. “I think in a way that artists actually are like children – they tend to keep that sense of wonder and possibility throughout their lives, and point others to it.”

This year’s FLOW festival hopes to push the message even more, featuring new and returning artists. Previous attendees may remember Ed Miller’s towering sculpture made completely from the river’s resources, a clay man reaching for the sky; others may think of Dorrise Aha’s performance on the natural world. Other names include Renee Balfour, the Love Army Ukulele Brigade, Richard Crozier, and others.

FLOW also intends to educate the public about the river. The Rivanna Conservation Alliance, the Rivanna River Company, and the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center are prepared to speak on the challenges facing the Rivanna today, and what efforts they’re taking to protect it, through workshops and stations.

FLOW is also an opportunity to connect to nature, with what McLeod describes as the “restorative pleasure of being in nature and by the water.” Visitors will have the chance to participate in workshops and competitions, such as crafts sponsored by the McGuffey Art Center and the FLOWtilla Spontaneous Art Boat Parade.

Certainly, FLOW is a time to enjoy the work of passionate individuals–a “balance between art and nature,” says McLeod–but she and her partners ultimately strive to restore an appreciation of the Rivanna River.

“Suffering in silence beneath but giving us its dynamic force and sparkling surface,” says McLeod, “a river really stands as a witness.”

FLOW takes place on September 29 at 11am at Darden Towe Park and boat ramp. —Adriana Wells

Categories
Arts

Goodbye, Summer: A season in the life of our city

Categories
News

What’s in a name? UVA buildings bear names of white supremacists

A wing of UVA’s hospital is named for Paul Barringer (left), who was fundamental in the university’s eugenics movement. Alderman Library bears the name of Edwin Alderman, a white supremacist and eugenicist who was the school’s president from 1904-1931.

With a wing named for him since 1936, the UVA hospital honors a man who was fundamental in the university’s eugenics movement, and perhaps best known for his popular address titled “The American Negro: His Past and Future,” in which he argued that African Americans benefited from slavery.

A group of local activists wants his name—Paul Barringer—off the building.

“We are at a critical time in UVA’s history, where we must acknowledge our past, but also make deliberate decisions about which values and names we elevate,” says Lyndsey Muehling, a member of Cville Comm-UNI-ty, a civic engagement and science education nonprofit made up of university and community members.

She adds, “I believe that Paul Barringer doesn’t represent the values and vision of UVA today, or its direction for the future.”

The hospital’s website calls Barringer a medical school faculty member instrumental in the hospital’s founding, and while that may be true, today some of his beliefs smack of white supremacy.

The man who also served as the university’s chairman of faculty from 1895-1903 taught several students who went on to have key roles in the famously unethical Tuskegee Study, in which poor black men were denied treatment for syphilis without their knowledge or consent, according to Muehling, an immunology doctoral candidate at the university.

“Barringer himself had previously suggested that syphilis infection in the black population was highest due to genetic inferiority,” she adds.

Muehling wasn’t aware of Barringer’s history until she attended an event at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center on July 8, 2017—the same day the Klan came to town.

“That really gave me a shock because, although I do not work in the Barringer wing, I had worked on a project in that building and had never heard anything about him,” she says. She also credits her knowledge to research by Preston Reynolds, a physician-historian at the university, whom she heard speak about eugenics at a post-August 12 event.

In a recent collection of essays by UVA faculty called Charlottesville 2017: The Legacy of Race and Inequity, Reynolds says that during Barringer’s tenure, blacks were denied medical services and subjected to racist scientific investigations.

“Barringer’s solutions to the ‘Negro problem’ were to segregate blacks (moving them into neighborhoods further away from whites), to restrict interaction between the two races through Jim Crow laws and regulations, and to transfer education at all levels from black teachers to white teachers,” writes Reynolds, adding that Barringer believed blacks shouldn’t be educated beyond their roles as laborers and artisans, and that he once said, “every doctor, lawyer, teacher, or other ‘leader’ in excess of the immediate needs of his own people is an antisocial product, a social menace.”

Muehling says she and other Cville Comm-UNI-ty members will soon write an open letter and petition to remove Barringer’s name, and then will perhaps take aim at other figures with ties to the university and controversial histories.

UVA Health System is aware of the community concerns, and spokesperson Eric Swensen said the health system will address the issue. “The university is updating its naming policy; once that update is complete, we plan to follow the new process and seek Board of Visitors approval to change the name,” he said.

Another once-celebrated, now-controversial figure, as reported recently in the Cavalier Daily, is known white supremacist and eugenicist Edwin Alderman, the university president from 1904-1931, and namesake of Alderman Library.

“The term ‘white supremacy’ did not have the pejorative ring it has today,” says UVA assistant history professor Sarah Milov. “White supremacy was so mainstream, especially in Alderman’s milieu, that nobody would have thought twice about using the term. Indeed, it would have been a tremendous scandal if Alderman had been a secret integrationist or even an egalitarian.”

Milov says Alderman was a “progressive segregationist” who believed in “absolute social separateness” to facilitate social advancement for whites and blacks.

Alderman held similar views to Barringer on education, and believed poor African Americans should be educated for physical labor, while middle-class blacks could be educated as teachers, doctors, and nurses for other black people, according to the historian.

UVA became a leader of eugenic education under Alderman, who hired many prominent eugenicists, says Milov.

“Alderman embodies the duality and contradiction within a lot of UVA’s history, starting with Jefferson,” she says. “UVA is a place that has advanced education and scholarship, but for much of its history has done so in a way that upholds and solidifies race hierarchy.”

In an upcoming renovation of the library, Milov hopes the university will also consider changing its name. UVA is already reckoning with its history, and the planned President’s Commission on UVA in the Age of Segregation will continue the work of coming to terms with the difficult aspects of the university’s past, says commission co-chair and assistant dean Kirt von Daacke.

As for Charlottesville’s recent white nationalist events and the August 11, 2017, tiki-torch march across Grounds?

Says Milov, “Alderman would likely agree with some of the white supremacist race theory of someone like Richard Spencer. However, Alderman valued order above all and would not have appreciated open flames on campus.”

Categories
News

Arbitrate this: Clause for concern kills car sale

Attorney Deborah Wyatt decided to buy her new Audi in Richmond rather than sign an arbitration agreement in Charlottesville. eze amos

Devoted Audi owner Deborah Wyatt was set to buy her third car from Flow Automotive in Charlottesville in August—until she was presented with a separate arbitration agreement after signing the sales contract.

Arbitration agreements, which are more often part of banking or credit card terms, are usually designed to block your ability to sue in the event of a problem. As soon as Wyatt, who happens to be a lawyer, saw the title at the top she refused to sign. “The finance man made a face rather indicating he thought it was going to be required, but I felt certain it couldn’t legally be, since it wasn’t part of the contract,” Wyatt says. “It had never before been mentioned.”

The salesman let Wyatt drive the new car home, even though it wasn’t yet officially hers. When she returned the next day, again the arbitration agreement was presented.

She ripped it in half, gave back the car, and had to ask for a ride home.

“If it isn’t part of a purchaser’s agreement, it isn’t legal to then require a purchaser to basically waive the right to go to court,” says Wyatt, who has experience as a consumers’ rights attorney.

Most arbitration clauses prevent people from joining a class action lawsuit, instead requiring them to bring an individual claim against the company and to settle it outside of court with an arbitrator. Consumer agencies say this favors businesses rather than the consumer, because companies know that people almost never spend the time or money to pursue relief individually, especially when the amounts at stake are small.

Local consumer protection attorney Edward Wayland says most of his cases that involve car sales are disagreements over warranty terms. If a car dealer does insist on arbitration terms, Wayland says, “I think it would create big problems for consumers,” who could not sue, appeal, or join class-action suits, depending on the terms.

Remar Sutton, president of the Consumer Task Force for Automotive Issues, has urged consumers not to buy vehicles from any seller requiring a mandatory binding arbitration agreement. Why would consumers need to be able to sue an auto dealer? In a piece on autoissues.org, Sutton gives such examples as a dealership that buys wrecked vehicles then sells them without disclosing damage, one that forges your credit statement to give you a loan you could never afford, or even a dealership that trades in your old car but does not pay off the loan on the old car, which leaves you open to a suit from a financing company.

Flow Automotive manager Shawn Ayers didn’t wish to answer questions about the mandatory arbitration agreement, and referred a reporter to Flow Automotive Companies, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Several calls to the headquarters office were not answered. However, a call to a different Flow Automotive dealership in Statesville, North Carolina, confirmed that other Flows are using the arbitration agreement, which is separate from the sales contract.

At Umansky Toyota in Charlottesville, a finance department employee says the arbitration wording only applies to leased vehicles, and is not part of sales contracts.

Wyatt says that, by not including the arbitration agreement in the purchase contract, Flow possibly was violating the part of the Virginia Consumer Protection Act that says you can’t add terms to a contract. But she thinks signing to allow arbitration in a vehicle sale, whether in the purchase agreement or not, is a bad idea.

Savvy consumer Wyatt didn’t give up. She purchased the Audi she wanted from Audi Richmond, which did not require an arbitration agreement. In fact, she spoke with Audi USA, “which assured me there was no such Audi requirement” for arbitration. She called other Audi dealers to see if they would require this, and Roanoke didn’t either.

Despite the clause for concern, Wyatt is not done with Flow Charlottesville. She says she will continue to get her new Audi repaired there because she likes the service department.

Categories
Arts

Band together: Wild Common’s music knows no constraints

Wild Common (L to R) Brennan Gilmore, Davina Jackson, Nate Leath, Atreyu Jackson, Dhara Goradia, Rob Hubbard, and Bryan Holmes, plays a 5:30pm set at Tomtoberfest on Saturday, September 29 at IX Art Park. Photo by Carla Kasun

In the yard of Brennan Gilmore’s farmhouse outside of town, a jagged line of trees lie on their sides, torn from the ground by a recent tornado, chunks of red dirt still clinging to the roots. In the distance, mist settles in over the mountains, and the whole scene feels quintessentially Virginia, a feeling underscored by the arrival of Gilmore’s Wild Common bandmates to practice.

One by one, cars ramble down the dirt driveway and musicians amble through the doorway, greeting each other with handshakes and hugs, grabbing beers from the fridge and filling glasses of water from the tap. A couple of hounds trot around, collar tags tinkling high over instrument cases being unclipped and unzipped.

There’s master fiddler Nate Leath, who won the adult bluegrass fiddle contest at the Galax Old Fiddlers’ Convention when he was just 11 years old; soul, funk, and reggae singer Davina Jackson, who used to sing backup for The Wailers; Jackson’s son, Atreyu Jackson, a rapper and the latest addition to the band; keyboardist Bryan Holmes, and jazz bassist and composer Dhara Goradia. Drummer Rob Hubbard, who’s played everything from bluegrass to reggae, can’t make it—he had a dentist appointment earlier in the day that sounds like it required a lot of drilling.

The band’s big enough for practice to feel like a party.

Wild Common first came together in this very farmhouse about a year ago, when Gilmore, Davina Jackson, Leath, and Hubbard convened to work out some songs to play at a rally for then-gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam. Northam’s people called Gilmore, who’s had careers in both music and politics, to put together a bluegrass band for an October 19, 2017, rally at the Richmond Convention Center, where former President Barack Obama would be on hand to endorse Northam.

Cover art by Madeleine Rhondeau

But bluegrass “is not the most diverse music out there,” says Gilmore, and for this rally, he wanted to put together a band more representative—musically, socially, racially—of a diversity he knew would be reflected in the rally crowd.

Gilmore, Jackson, and Leath recall that first gig well. Thousands of people crowded toward the stage to get the best view of Northam and Obama, while the band warmed up in a corner of the auditorium. When Jackson sang the first line of “A Change is Gonna Come”—“I was born by the river in a little tent”—the crowd shifted toward the sound.

A few people gasped, says Gilmore, “and everybody shut up and listened to Davina sing. That’s the power she has over a room.”

Jackson pauses while setting up her music stand to recall the memory—she grins, raises an eyebrow, and nods slowly at the thought.

After the gig, the group convened at a Richmond bar to talk about turning the act into an actual band. They needed a bass and keys, and Goradia and Holmes, respectively, came to mind immediately. “We purposely tried to find as diverse a group as we could, from different musical and cultural backgrounds, with the idea that we would have these songs, and then all of us would bring in our own traditions, our own styles, musical genres, and then see what came out of it,” says Gilmore.

Wild Common thought about dubbing itself an “Afro-Appalachian” act but even that felt too constricting. After all, genre doesn’t actually mean anything; it’s more limiting than it is descriptive. And so band members are quite satisfied when someone approaches them after a show to say, “I don’t know what to call your music.”

Ultimately, what matters most is the individual musician and the chemistry among them—“those unclassifiable elements of music that express from someone’s personality,” says Gilmore.

Wild Common plays songs about life and about love (“Downhill Specialist”), some of them told through the perspective of Daniel Leek, a young Sudanese refugee Gilmore met in Africa. Songs like “Mama Played the Snare Drum” and “The New Sudan” consider what it was like for the halcyon days of Leek’s youth to be interrupted by war.

Cover art by Ken Horne

The songs typically begin in a Gilmore- devised melody and chord progression, maybe some lyrics, too. From there, each band member puts his or her own fingerprint on it.

“It’s challenging, but it also feels very natural,” says Goradia of the resulting sound that’s a little bit of many things—bluegrass, country, jazz, folk, rock ‘n’ roll, reggae, funk, and soul.

It’s “a nice bed to walk through and see what happens,” says Leath, “and it’s always a lot of fun.”

Perhaps most importantly, adds Jackson, “everybody gets along,” and that’s evident from the way the band’s pre-practice banter oscillates between complimenting and teasing.

“That’s the biggest thing right there,” says Leath, nodding with enthusiasm as the Jacksons page through lyric sheets, Gilmore picks out a melody on his guitar, Goradia thumps a quiet line on her bass, and Holmes taps out something twinkly on the keyboards.

In Wild Common, everyone has their say. It’s the best kind of party, one where everyone’s invited.

Wild Common plays a 5:30pm set at Tomtoberfest on Saturday, September 29, at IX Art Park.