Author: will-goldsmith

Virginians across the state are talking about whether to vote “yes” or “no” on November 7 concerning the proposed amendment to the State constitution that would ban gay marriage and civil unions. But a fact often glossed over in such discussions: The amendment provisions are already explicitly written into State law.
    Marriage is a big part of the Code of Virginia—search the Code, which is the body of State laws, and you’ll find 362 references to marriage in a heap of contexts. The Code enumerates that you can’t become a bigamist out-of-state and come back. It informs you that celebrating a marriage without a license could cost you a $500 fine. And, as of 2004, it prohibits same-sex marriage and spells out that “a civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage is prohibited.”
    Yet nowhere in the State constitution is the word marriage itself even mentioned.
If these separate spheres of law seem so clearly laid out, why is an amendment necessary to put “marriage” in the constitution for the first time? “Activist judges,” says David Clementson, spokesman for State Attorney General Robert McDonnell, a Republican. In McDonnell’s official opinion on the ramifications of the marriage amendment (also known as the “Marshall-Newman” amendment), he writes that state courts in Vermont, Massachusetts, Hawaii and Maryland “have altered or struck down statutory definitions of marriage.” Clementson says that any Virginia judge with jurisdiction over a marriage case could strike down the statute. Therefore, only by enshrining marriage restrictions in the constitution can current law remain “protected.”
    McDonnell also says that, in his opinion, the amendment wouldn’t restrict the current legal rights of unmarried persons involving wills, contracts, advance medical directives or domestic violence. Yet others, including conservative federal judge J. Harvey Wilkinson, charge that the Virginia amendment’s vaguely worded second paragraph will take power from the legislature and hand it to none other than (potentially “activist”) judges. The final sentence of the amendment says that the Commonwealth shall not “create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.”
    “The amendment is written in very broad and sweeping language—it’s very ambiguous,” said UVA law professor Anne Coughlin at a recent Democratic breakfast on the topic. “That second paragraph—it’s a lawyer’s field day…We don’t know what it means.” On November 7, Virginia voters will determine if we ever have to.

Greene County Investigator Les Cash has conceived five ideas now put into law by State Delegate Rob Bell.

“It’s fair to say there are delegates who don’t have as many laws as Les Cash has,” said State Delegate Rob Bell at a low-key ceremony outside the County Courthouse September 25. Bell honored Cash, a Green County general investigator, along with 10 others for providing ideas that Bell has passed into law. This year, Cash took home three framed copies of the bills he inspired to add to two others he’s already received from Bell.
    All of Cash’s laws—and many of the others that Bell worked to get passed—concern small changes to facilitate law enforcement. House Bill 1345, for instance, allows investigators to obtain search warrants via video—already allowed for arrest warrants, according to Cash. House Bill 1338 stipulates that law enforcement must be notified of suspected abuse at a nursing home or other care facility. Other bills sponsored by Bell, a three-term Republican who represents parts of Albemarle County, make peeping a felony on the third offense, expand the definition of sexual battery, and take away a stipulation that police be able to show motorists speed readings when pulled over.
    Cash says the laws he inspired “benefit the citizens of Virginia equally, [allowing them] not to be victimized as much.” They stemmed from abnormal investigations where “certain little quirks in the case brought to light loopholes in certain laws that, to me and to others in law enforcement, made it seem just not right that they should be that way.” His relationship with Bell started at the Greene County Fair, and since then, Bell has made it a habit to call Cash every fall before the legislative session begins.
    So considering his prolificacy, does Cash have any interest in running for office? “No, not the least little bit,” says Cash, who describes himself as a politically inactive independent.

Cheri Lewis chairs the board of advisors for a new "workforce" housing fund that she says will "be in existence until infinity."

The terms may not sound sexy—gap funding, down payment assistance, no-interest loans—but for many who have contemplated buying an area home, those concepts have an immediate attraction. Such home-buying vocabulary was on everyone’s lips September 28 at the official launch for the Thomas Jefferson Community Workforce Housing Fund. It’s the latest effort to address “affordable housing” issues for the middle-income earners, those with yearly household incomes roughly between $40,000 and $70,000.
    “[Affordable housing] is a multiheaded monster that we need to address in many different ways,” said Cheri Lewis, who chairs the fund’s board of advisors, on the steps of Venable Elementary School—chosen, she said, to symbolize the workers who will be helped by the fund.
    The new “workforce” housing initiative takes over and expands a fund run by Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors (CAAR). Their fund, started in 2004, assisted only teachers, nurses, firefighters and police officers; the new fund will assist any local worker with a yearly household income that approximates area median income.
    A private-public partnership, the fund takes money from City government, Coun-ty government, businesses, nonprofits and any other source that wants to donate. Qualified homebuyers would go through a counselor at Piedmont Housing Alliance (PHA), a local nonprofit. PHA will help them qualify for a loan and assess what funding assistance is available. When the buyer sells the home, a percentage of the equity would return to the housing fund.
    In two years, CAAR’s fund assisted seven families. Concerning the new fund, Lewis says, “We’re going to be in existence until infinity, so whenever we say how many we’d want to help in a year—I’d love to help hundreds and hundreds. In our first year, I think 20 is a really good goal.”
    Local government leaders voiced their support at the launch. “This is not a city issue, it’s not a county issue—it’s really a big community issue,” said Charlottesville Mayor David Brown. “I’m really pleased it’s being seen that way.” Dennis Rooker, chair of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, also praised the joint effort.
    Dave Norris, a City Councilor whose election campaign featured afford-able housing, likes the fund but says, “It’s not for the working poor, certainly…. We can’t stop here
—this is one piece of an overall effort to address the affordable housing challenges that go far beyond the needs of certain classes of professionals.”

Virginia ranks dead last in the nation for pay for court-appointed attorneys, but, thanks in large part to the threat of a lawsuit, local public defender Jim Hingeley thinks that soon will change.
    “I usually go into the budgeting season feeling encouraged…but then when the budgeting season is over and the legislature adjourns, I’m discouraged,” said Hingeley, speaking at the September 22 meeting of the Citizens Advisory Committee for the Charlottesville-Albemarle Public Defender Office. “At the risk of repeating that cycle, I do want to say that I think this is different.”
    Public defender offices represent clients who can’t afford to pay. In those places where there are no public defenders’ offices—or where those offices are too backed up or there is a conflict of interest in representing co-defendants—lawyers are court-appointed.
    Hingeley is serving on a task force set up by Governor Tim Kaine to improve indigent defense, and he’s hopeful that this time, they will up wages. The task force has discussed drastically raising (or even abolishing) caps on how much court-appointed attorneys can get paid per case, as well as increasing pay, number of positions and other aspects of State public defender offices.
    During the meeting, Hingeley alluded to many of the woes that come from receiving such paltry pay in comparison to compensation for prosecutors. Turnover rates have been relatively high and the office handles 50 percent more cases than it should, according to Hingeley.
    But he says with the new governor, attorney general—and pending lawsuit—he’s encouraged. “We should be an equal partner at the table,” said Hingeley, “but, at least if not being seen as an equal partner, I think we’re at least sitting in the back seat now, instead of running along behind the car.”

At the beginning of each regular City Council meeting, members of the public have the opportunity to speak for three minutes per person on anything they want. In the past, when the speaker was finished, the councilors just nodded their heads, the mayor might have said, “Thank you,” and the speaker would shuffle away. But City Council recently decided to abandon the silent treatment and formally responded to public comment at their September 18 meeting.
    The people brought opinions on issues both local and global. Kay Slaughter, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, attacked proposals for the Meadowcreek Parkway interchange, which is planned to connect McIntire Road to the Meadowcreek Parkway when it is built. Also addressing that interchange was activist and former UVA professor Rich Collins, speaking on behalf of Sensitive Transportation Alternatives to the Meadowcreek Parkway, who asked Council to “take the aggressive and necessary step of telling these consultants that we are going to design this if it’s going to be built at all.”
    Four members of Cville Peak Oil came before the board to warn them that when international oil supplies climax, the world is in for a whole lot of pain. “Our lovely, cushy lifestyle won’t last much longer,” said Nancy Hurrelbrinck.
    Ida Lewis spoke on behalf of the Jefferson Alumni Association, pledging that they will do their part to raise funds for Jefferson School renovations and asked Council to prioritize that project. John Pfaltz took on traffic that will be generated by Biscuit Run, a County development just south of Charlottesville. And Peter Kleeman asked Council to look at the “state of the pedestrian way.”
    Councilors generally selected one topic for response. David Brown and Kendra Hamilton took up the Meadowcreek Parkway theme, while Dave Norris and Julian Taliaferro addressed Biscuit Run, a County project. “I think it’s time for the County to step up to the plate and build some connector roads,” said Taliaferro. Kevin Lynch hoped that Peak Oil would turn out much like the Y2K problem, when he thought preparation ensured that apocalyptic worst-case scenarios weren’t realized.
    But the Council didn’t confine their remarks to the end. As Pfaltz finished speaking, he told Council that he will be back. Brown took the opportunity to quip, “I hope you’ll come back and offer some solutions next time.”

When the City expanded the road that runs from Main Street to Cherry Avenue years ago, it didn’t anticipate it would remain with the cumbersome name “9th-10th Street Connector.” But at long last it has a new name: Roosevelt Brown Boulevard, as approved by City Council at their September 18 meeting. The biggest advocate for that change has been John Gaines, a resident of the 10th and Page neighborhood and former NAACP president, who has been petitioning the City since 1999 to name the road for Brown, an acclaimed football player.
    “It was a little discouraging at times, but I don’t give up easy,” says Gaines. He presented Council with roughly 150 signatures of those who support his cause.
    Why Roosevelt Brown? “Why not?” replies Gaines. “To me, it was fitting, because he’s the only Charlottesville native in the National Football League Hall of Fame. He came along during the days of segregation and he excelled.”
    Brown was an offensive tackle for the New York Giants from 1953 to 1965, and is reputedly one of the best linemen ever to play the game. He died in 2004 at age 71.
    Gaines says that, though imposing, Brown was small compared to the players today, relying on his foot speed to make up for size. When he was in high school, Gaines says he used to watch Brown train at Washington Park, when Brown was playing college ball at Morgan State, in Baltimore. “We didn’t have ACAC then—matter of fact, we didn’t have the planes and buses that carry players around. Roosevelt rode to the games in a truck.”
    Before Council finalized Roosevelt Brown Boulevard, they heard a request from Fifeville resident Herb Porter to name the street for Sally Hemings. “It’s not that she was the mistress of the third president,” said Porter, explaining that she was an American ambassador while with Jefferson in Paris. Porter observed that only one other city street, West Street, is named for an African American.
    City officials say new signs have been ordered and will be put in place during a small ceremony in the coming month.

Even though it’s just an advisory board, the County Planning Commission wields significant influence over many major development projects, suggesting which can move forward—and how they will look upon completion. So we caught up with the most recently appointed commissioner, Duane Zobrist, who replaces departing Jo Higgins. “I’m not the kind who says, ‘I’m here, I don’t want anybody else,’” says Zobrist, who practiced law in Southern California for 35 years before buying a Crozet farm in 1998—following a two-year search for the ideal place to live. Here’s more of what he had to say.

C-VILLE: Was Crozet a good spot for a designated growth area?
Duane Zobrist: Well, it’s got to be somewhere. The Board of Supervisors made a very wise decision a number of years ago that they were going to push the bulk of growth in the growth areas and they were going to retain the county as rural as possible. I think the jury is still out on what Crozet is going to look like. Certainly Crozet being designated a development area implies a large change in the future.
    I think the community of Crozet is doing a very good job of speaking for themselves. There are concerns of unrestricted growth—that’s a concern I would voice as a resident owning a farm there.

Should developers be held responsible for providing funding for transportation for their projects?
Developers tend to be pretty willing to step forth and help vitiate the impact on a county vis-a-vis infrastructure, schools, etc. when they come into an area. The biggest problem in development I’ve seen, both in California and when I came here, is that infrastructure tends to follow development instead of the contrary. I think the Board of Supervisors is trying to balance that out.

How does your experience on the West Coast inform your views on development?
Urban sprawl is the real problem. What we’re doing here is forcing development into certain areas for your more extensive development, and I think that’s really, really good.
    I think we should do everything we can to encourage conservation easements and come up with a system of trading development rights. Say there are a certain number of development rights in the county—and I don’t know what that number is. If someone wants to build a Biscuit Run, they want to build 4,000 houses—well, let them go acquire those 4,000 rights from people. That’s was the exact process we followed in Los Angeles with the air rights. It gives all landowners the opportunity to participate in the growth without being prejudiced by it.
    I’m a market capitalist, I believe the market will resolve this stuff. I think it’s unfair to the guy who’s sitting on 500 acres in White Hall, who’s a mile out of the development area, to have somebody who’s inside the development area get $1 million for his land.

Glossary of Terms
Don’t understand the beer gibberish the author is yammering about? See if this helps.

Abv Alcohol by volume (percentage alcohol). Most beers are 4-5 percent abv, though some, like the Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA, exceed 20 percent abv.

Ale One of the major classifications of beer, ales are brewed with top-fermenting yeasts at warmer temperatures, resulting in a more full-bodied beer than your lagers.

Beer A delectable concoction consumed by mankind for the last 6,000 years. Its four essential ingredients are water, malt, hops and yeast.

Bock A type of strong lager, with a higher abv (6-7 percent) and more malty characteristics. Double bocks (a.k.a. dobblebocks) are even stronger in both alcohol and flavor.

Dobblebock See “Bock.”

Hefe-weiss German for “yeast-white,” because of the pale coloring of this style of beer. Hefe-weiss (also called “hefeweizen,” which actually means “yeast wheat”) is made with a predominantly wheat malt —not the usual barley—that yields the golden colors. It’s also often cloudy, as the yeast is left unfiltered.

Hops The flowering cone of a vining plant, hops are used as an herb to season beer, providing the bitterness to balance the sweetness of the malt.

IBU International bitterness unit, this measures the degree of bitterness. Generally, the hoppier the beer, the higher the IBUs. A domestic lager measures 5-7 IBUs, while an IPA is generally greater than 40 IBUs.

IPA Stands for India Pale Ale, a heavily hopped style of beer developed by the colonial British in order to withstand long voyages to India.

Lager One of the major classifications of beer, lagers are brewed with bottom-fermenting yeasts at cooler temperatures, producing a cleaner, crisper taste than ales.

Malt Refers to the malted grains, usually barley. The grains become malt when they’re allowed to germinate, breaking down their starch into sugars and giving beer its substance and sweetness.

Triple A complex Belgian-style beer, triples are so-called because they use up to three times the malt of a typical Belgian. Often fruity or spicy in aroma with a sweet finish, they also generally have a high alcohol content, at 7-10 percent abv.

Yeast The microorganism used to ferment the malt, converting sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. In general, top-fermenting yeasts are used to make ales, while bottom-fermenting yeasts are used to make lagers.

It’s early on a Friday night, we’ve got a town to paint, and Tex recommends we go to a Corner bar that shall remain unnamed. I put down my Tröegs Hopback Amber Ale in protest.
Enough. No more drinking just to get drunk, no more dubiously mixed drinks, and definitely—definitely—no more discussions of Pinot Noir.
     “No way, not tonight,” I snap, fixing my evening’s companions, Tex and Straightedge, with a withering stare. Tex gets off the couch, starts walking toward the kitchen. “If you’re going to the fridge—stop. Don’t open up another can of stinkin’ Miller, Tex. We’re going out, and I’m going to preach to you some real goddamn beer.
    “What we ain’t gonna do is head out to the same old standard-issue Corner bars to chill with frat dudes whose drinks resemble cat piss and taste like water. We ain’t going to those upscale, trendier-than-thou joints around Downtown—and we ain’t havin’ top-shelf liquor or overpriced Chardonnays shoved down our throats.
    “Oktoberfest is upon us, boys! We’re going out to find some real beer here in Charlottesville.”
    And so I have my mission: Initiate two novices to the real brew, the fine stuff, the beers with bouquets that remind you why the hell you are alive on this godforsaken planet, with hop-and-malts that make you dismiss, however temporarily, global warming and broken ambitions, cyclical poverty and misbehaving children, or whatever else it is that keeps you up at night. That evervescent alcohol that could, if only they both drank, fuel brotherly conversation between George Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
    “Prepare yourself, boys—we ain’t stoppin’ for no red wines tonight.”

Hammering down the basics
Cue the German folk music. Considering the season, our first stop is a no-brainer: the lounge at Ludwig’s, a Bavarian restaurant on Jefferson Park Avenue that specializes in German beers. The lounge is decorated in every tourists’ stereotype of an Oktoberfest bar: fake kegs built into the walls, beers served in large glassware, paintings of the iconic Bavarian castle Neuschwanstein. Tonight it’s relatively quiet, all the better to instill some beer basics.
    A former Lone Star linebacker, Tex looks about as cornfed as you can get. His parents raised him on Schlitz and Michelob Ice starting in high school, and he’s progressed relatively little since then. Straightedge, a gangly 6′ 4" kid who recently graduated from UVA, earned his nickname in high school, when, like a certain sect of punk rockers, he abstained from chemicals (forever shaming his Irish ancestry). When his father took him to a pub for his first Guinness at age 18, Straightedge had a few sips and couldn’t stomach any more. He’s into wine now.
    Tex orders the Oktoberfest special, a hefe-weiss that’s a play on the traditional Märzen-style lager. Straightedge, who calls himself a light beer drinker (an oxymoron to me, but I try not to give him too much hell), takes up a pilsner from Jever.
    When I see Franziskaner on the menu, I can’t resist. I discovered Franzy back when I was still drinking on a fake ID, and their hefe-weiss dunkel (a dark wheat beer) marked my shift toward pursuing beer drinking with passion, rather than just passionately pursuing a buzz.
Our beer is served (O Franzy! Your golden hue reminiscent of golden youth: eager, earnest, naïve!), and Tex raises his glass, ready for a resounding cheers and a huge chug. Straightedge raises his pint to join him.
    “Steady, boys, steady!” I caution. “First, we gotta know what we’re dealing with. Tastin’ beer ain’t too different from the process of tasting anything, from wine to whisky. First, take a good, strong look at what you got in yer glass. Hoist it up in front of you. Is it cloudy or clear? What’s goin’ on with yer head—is it thick and resilient? Quick to dissipate, what? Take in that beauty, top to bottom.
    “All right, let’s move on to the nose. I like to take a first whiff, then agitate the sucker a little to open up those aromas and take another whiff. Get those flavors lodged in yer nostrils.
    “Only now are you ready to put it in yer mouth. Pay attention to how the tastes hit you, what the mouth-feel is like, how the aftertaste pans out. How does it match up to what you were smelling?”
    Tex is grouchy because I stopped his toast; Straightedge looks scared to touch his beer. Hesitantly, they stick their noses over their glasses. Satisfied, I begin my own ritual, only to observe Tex taking a long sip while I’m still sniffing. Sigh.
    “Whatcha got, boys?”
    “I’m used to throwing back beers,” says Tex, who demonstrates by throwing back a huge gulp. “This one’s weird, ‘cause it’s not all that crisp—it’s sweet at the front of my mouth, but then I get nothing at all.”
    “It’s a bit more bitter on the sides of the tongue,” says Straightedge. “A bit more body than I’m used to.”
    We move on to Ludwig’s most popular selection, the Cambonator. A doppelbock with a daunting 8 abv [that’s alcohol by volume—for more, see “Glossary of Terms”], it serves with an unsubstantial head, a heavy caramel flavor—which matches its tawny color—and hits with malty sweetness and a feeling of alcoholic potency on the finish.
    “This is amazing,” says Tex, after a hearty slurp. “It’s creamy, and less bitter.” Straightedge says he likes it, finds it surprisingly light.
    I’m a little worried Straightedge is just telling me what I want to hear. He’s too uptight. He’s stressing about giving me right answers, rather than just digging his drink. It’s time for…

Monologue No. 1: Beer versus wine
“Even though I just said this is like wine tasting, it isn’t, thank God. If it was, we might have to talk about noble grapes and French regions and the weather in 2003. Beer drinking has a layman’s feel to it—we’re casual, relaxed.
    “Don’t get me wrong. You can get pretty geeky about lager yeasts and dark malt and other such technicalities. But beer drinking isn’t purely an exercise in subtlety like wine drinking is. Wine tasting requires you to suss out the complex differences in a relatively small span of flavor. Some beer flavors—a pilsner and a chocolate stout, for instance—they don’t even come close to each other.
    “No beer drinker will ever be as insufferable as a wine snob—that type of cat who’s looking down his nose at you while you’re sipping one of 10 small samples of identical-looking wines. Those are the guys you really have to be worried about.
    “Beer experts, they love a dude coming in to check out the beers. They love recalling their own fondness for certain beers. And they’re open to admitting they haven’t before had a beer that you might mention. You don’t go into beer loving if you’re the pretentious type.
    “Where the hell do you get trained for this sort of stuff? You don’t. You just drink, thank God—and then, one night, you find out that you can tell the difference between a Yuengling and a Bud Light. Go to Barnes & Noble, you’ll find a bookcase and a half on wine—but not even a full shelf on beer. I started writing beer reviews as a sort of joke, doing blind taste tests of cheap domestic brews like Old Milwaukee and Schaeffer.”
    I take a self-congratulatory sip of Cambonator, feeling my brain expand from the good-natured brew and my own speechifying. But I look over at Straightedge, and he’s still a deer in headlights. Tex raises his glass.

Getting monked
We pound up a flight of stairs and join the din of revelry at Michael’s Bistro. Not all Corner bars are created equal—Michael’s features one of the best beer lists in town, particularly since we’re here for the Belgians.
    “It’s time for some real complexity, boys—it’s time for flavor enigmas engineered by true craftsman, often by monks whose souls may belong to God, but whose palates belong to Epicurus.”
    At first stab, we go for a variety of popular Belgians: St. Bernardus Prior 8, Chimay Grande Réserve, and, for some contrast, Victory Golden Monkey, a Belgian-style triple brewed in the U.S. Our bartender wanders to some back chamber where the ambrosia is kept, returning with appropriate snifter glassware, to help concentrate the nose.
    A stranger sitting next to Tex leans over and sniffs the Golden Monkey. “It smells like rotting grass clippings.”
    Tex: “I would drink this until I got really drunk.”
    Straightedge: “Frankly, I’m at a point where I can be very easily duped.”
    For our next course, I order for us a 22 oz bottle of one of my favorite styles: A double India Pale Ale, this one from Left Hand Brewing Company, with a whopping 9.6 abv.
While our bartender struggles to open the corked bottle, we quiz her about local drinking habits. “I’m always perplexed with the Bud Light people,” she says. “It’s weird. I don’t want to stereotype people, but the guys usually drink pilsner and the chicks usually drink white wine. That’s kind of how it goes down.” She watches me scribbling. “Definitely not a lot of note taking.”
    As soon as I can get a filled glass to my nose, I’m howling like a maniac about the virtue of the hop.
    “Smell that, boys! That delicious floral hop bouquet hovering above a powerful blend of beer’s best elements, the delectable odor of hop’s ying balancing malt’s yang.” Straightedge dutifully takes a whiff and nods. Tex just shakes his head at my lunatic ravings.
But I won’t be daunted: “Without hops, what do you have? Some overly sweet liquid that, more’n likely, will make you vomit after a few swigs. But craft it with hops—Cascade hops, Bavarian hops, hops for aroma, hops for flavor, whatever—you throw in the hops, and it’s… it’s a revelation!” I take a smell and a taste, eyes closed in ecstasy. “Hops clarify, they preserve, and God! They give us that wonderful, wonderful smell.”
    At this point, I’m fairly certain my words are wasted on my companions, so I wander off and strike up a conversation with Button Down, a clean-cut fellow with a touch of Virginia gentility who seems to want more beer knowledge.
    Button Down: “I don’t have the vocabulary, or really the knowledge, to tell the difference all the time.”
    Me: “Forget the vocabulary. Can you hear what your taste buds are telling you?”
    Button Down: “I can tell what I like and what I don’t like.”
    Me (arm on his shoulder): “That’s it, man! That’s it. That’s all you need to get going. Now just pay attention to what you’re drinking and ask questions when you can.”
We talk about the beer he’s drinking, a Golden Carolus Triple. After getting carried away in more rhetorical flourishes concerning the vibrancy of its aroma, I remember my journalistic day job and ask him why, prey tell, he wants to know more about beer.
    Button Down: “Part of it’s the kind of place Charlottesville is—it’s a town that likes to be sophisticated. But also, I really feel there is a deeper social aspect to going out for a beer with a friend. I don’t think I would ever, you know, just go out for a glass of wine.” Score one for the good guys.
    Here his cohort, The Bearded Wonder, breaks in. “I think all levels of society combine around a glass of beer. It’s a common ground. The ground is level at the tap.”

It’s hammered time!
Speaking of taps: We’ve moved on to Mellow Mushroom, home to the widest selection of beers on tap in town. And at this point, things start getting a little sloppy.
    Like most great addictions, beer drinking doesn’t start off easy. Few of us liked it when our fathers (or mothers, or cousins) allowed us a sip at some tender young age. There is an early time in virtually every beer drinker’s life when beer is not a beverage with intrinsic value unique to itself, but simply a convenient vehicle for alcohol. Early Beer Drinker imbibes to get drunk alone, for whatever reasons those may be—Later Beer Drinker gets drunk only because he wants to keep drinking good beer. Such is tonight’s story.
    I’m pretty sure that Straightedge orders some Flemish sour ale, Tex gets a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and I go with a some tasty beverage from Stone Brewing Company—but my note taking is seriously breaking down. Tex has managed to pick up some brunette law student. They start a mini-dance party when “One More Time” comes on.
    I escape to talk to a bartender about drinking habits at Mellow, which aren’t particularly surprising—before 10pm, you get some guys who want to talk beer and try different stuff, and afterwards you get the Bud Light-drinkin’ student crowd. But I’m at the point where everything seems interesting. Patrons are screaming in the background like spider monkeys being dissected alive.
    In an effort to make our final destination before it closes, I make Tex kiss his law student goodbye, pull Straightedge from his seat, and drag our motley crew out the door. Still delighting in my microbrewed servings, I begin…

Monologue No. 2: The American Beer Revolution
    “Almost unarguably, in 2006, we’re in the best time to drink beer since before Prohibition. At long last, we’re not in the grips of a handful of breweries. Coors and Miller and Anheuser-Busch—they’re finally starting to lose market share to the small dogs. In 1983, there were only 80 breweries in the U.S. We’ve come a long way.”
    “Numbers are still down. Once upon a time, in 1873, you could find over 4,000 breweries in this great land that made 9 million barrels of beer. Nine million! Today we’re only back to 1,500 breweries making roughly 6 million barrels of beer.
    No one is listening—Tex is mad because I robbed him of his damsel, and Straightedge is having a hard enough time putting one foot in front of the other—but I cannot be stopped.
    “But the microbrew movement is pushing the giant to change his formula! Taste is back. Anheuser-Busch has finally increased the hop content in their Budweiser recipe—after decades of reducing the hops to try and meet the American drinker at the most common, most watered-down, least bitter denominator.
    “Taste has returned! Long live taste!”

Skunked
Perhaps the sour ale shoved Straightedge out of bounds. As we’re walking to South Street Brewery, to compare the evening’s foreign brews to the local craftsman’s, Straightedge begs leave to leave. He’s polite, but when I look at him, his haggard, lowered face shows his misery. I rage that he can’t give up now, with but a 10-minute walk to more delectable pints—Satan’s Ponies and Porter’s Porters await! Broken, shattered, mustering his most agreeable tone, Straightedge caves.
    We are not fair to South Street and can’t even pretend to do it justice. There are few other patrons, and I quickly score a round of Hogwaller Kölsh, J.P. Ale, and Satan’s Pony. For Straightedge, more than just his palate is exhausted, and he cringes in his seat, glassy eyed, waiting for me to demand words about the beer in his paws.
    After several minutes of anemic conversation, I relent, and off Straightedge goes, disappearing into the gloom.
    If this were New York or New Orleans, Tex and I would head out to another bar, in another part of town where folks stay out ‘til they can’t stand up. But, with no other options—and Tex pondering his potential law-school conquest much more than the brew—we’ve lost our zeal, anyway.
    I sip my J.P. Ale, suddenly feeling the bitterness of the hops. I’ve failed. Straightedge, clearly, will not remember this night with fondness, dooming whatever might have been delicious about it. Tex has clearly liked the booze, but perhaps not enough to change his habits in any significant way: I have a feeling he’ll be killing a case of PBR at a tailgate tomorrow.
    Pint finished, tab paid, bar closed, I head out into a soft rain and hope only that I still have a Hopback left at home.

The Charlottesville Planning Commission might not have liked everything about the upcoming South Lawn Project as presented at the September 13 meeting, but they had no power to do anything but voice complaints, and some praise, to UVA officials.
    The Planning Commission used their only official opportunity to examine the project to level criticism large and small. The “three-party agreement” among City, County and University allows the City to review, but not alter, UVA’s plans.
    “At a moment in which we as a city are asking developers to think creatively about mixing uses in buildings,” said Commissioner Craig Barton, also a UVA architecture professor, “I’m disappointed this is a monoculture in some ways… It misses an opportunity to essentially take on the challenges the University has, which is to marry tradition and innovation and provide a model for development.” Barton, like many commissioners, also complained that the pedestrian network didn’t link adequately.
    The South Lawn Project takes a 350-car parking lot and turns it into a 110,000 square foot building to address what Dean of Arts and Sciences Ed Ayers calls a 300,000 square foot deficit of office and classroom space at UVA. To connect to the main campus, UVA will construct a bridge across Jefferson Park Avenue (JPA), covered with a second “Lawn” that will stretch from New Cabell Hall to the new structure.
    Commission Chair Karen Firehock requested that the design make sure to minimize the “tunnel feeling” of the JPA overpass. And commissioners asked that UVA help complete the JPA sidewalk from Emmet Street up to the project’s western edge. The cost of retaining walls needed to put in a sidewalk make the price too exorbitant for UVA to bear alone, says David Neuman, architect for the University. (UVA is, however, in the midst of a $3 billion capital campaign and has already raised $1 billion.)
    Other City officials, notably Mayor David Brown, picked up on a public comment that asked UVA to increase bridge height to 19′ in case Charlottesville ever gets a streetcar. Current plans have the bridge at the regulation height of 17’6".
    The project earned praise from some commissioners, particularly for UVA’s willingness to work with the Jefferson Park Avenue neighborhood, as well as for its goal to win Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for the building, ensuring it is energy efficient and otherwise “green.”
    City Councilor Kendra Hamilton lauded the inclusion of a monument to the Catherine “Kitty” Foster family home site and nearby burial ground, which will be the first tribute solely to African Americans on UVA’s campus. Kitty Foster was a free black woman who purchased the land in 1833, her home part of the 19th century community called “Canada.”
    According to Neuman, this phase of the South Lawn Project is on budget and ahead of schedule. Plans call for the start of construction early next year, with the hopes of completion by fall 2010.