Tag: Chris Long

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Living

Taste of victory: Markets of Tiger Fuel names sandwiches for football greats

Ready, set, snarf! The Chris Long Special is made with rotisserie chicken, avocado, sprouts, tomato, cheddar cheese, and chipotle mayonnaise on a brioche bun. Photo: Tiger Fuel

With the UVA football team on an early winning streak this season, The Markets of Tiger Fuel—a favorite for game-day grub—look like marketing geniuses with the introduction of new sandwiches named for head coach Bronco Mendenhall and former University of Virginia and NFL star Chris Long. The service-station deli trend isn’t new in Charlottesville, but Tiger Fuel now works its made-to-order magic at five locations (tigerfuelmarkets.com). The Bronco Buster—turkey, pepper jack cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and hot pepper relish on a seven-grain roll—is already on the menu, with a $1 game-day discount. Long’s eponymous sandwich—rotisserie chicken, avocado, sprouts, tomato, cheddar cheese, and chipotle mayonnaise on a brioche bun—debuted on Monday, October 7. A buck from each sale goes to Long’s charity, Waterboys, which works to deliver clean water to communities in need.

 

Artist Georgie Mackenzie’s work will be on display at Milli Coffee Roasters beginning with the exhibit opening, 5-7pm, October 12. Photo: Courtesy Milli Coffee Roasters

Cool beans

“Machines don’t make coffee, people do.” Those words of wisdom from Milli Coffee Roasters founder Nick Leichtentritt have guided new owner John Borgquist, who has carried on Milli’s tradition of building community with caffeine since Nick passed away unexpectedly earlier this year. A longtime customer and friend of Leichtentritt’s, Borgquist officially took the reigns June 1. Now, along with Leichtentritt’s sister, Sophia Milli Leichtentritt, Borgquist is taking things to the next level with a state-of-the-art new roaster that will enable Milli’s to expand its small-batch offerings. “It has a round drum and looks like an old-school locomotive, but in stainless steel,” Borgquist says. “I’ve kept with [Nick’s] philosophy, though it’s great to have the new tool.” The shop—which also offers Belgian waffles, panini, and wine—will use the roaster to produce an organic, fairly traded Guatemalan coffee grown at high altitude in Huehuetenango. (“It’s pronounced way way ten-ango, which I call ‘Hue-Hue All the Way,’” Borgquist says.) Another Milli’s tradition, displaying work by local artists, will carry on beginning October 12, from 5-7pm, with a show by UVA student/painter Georgie Mackenzie. The shop/gallery is at the corner of Preston Avenue and Ridge McIntire Road. millicoffeeroasters.com

Nuggets

In a run-up to National Vegan Day, on Friday, November 1, Charlottesville’s pizza-and-trivia haven Mellow Mushroom is celebrating with Meatless Mondays, on October 14, 21, and 28. Everyone likes a nice gooey pie, so the pizza joint has teamed up with innovative plant-based food producer Follow Your Heart to make its popular Veg Out Pizza fair game (oops, sorry) for vegans, using a non-GMO, soy-free mozz alternative. Prepared on a 10-inch platter of gluten-free dough, the pie is made with red sauce and fresh veggies like spinach, green peppers, mushrooms (not magic ones), sweet onions, black olives, and—oh, you get the picture. No pepperoni, capiche?! The price is $10.99, a savings of about $8, according to a press release. • Looking for a cool way to ease into the weekend? The Wine Guild of Charlottesville welcomes London-based writer Wink Lorch—author of Jura Wine and Wines of the French Alps: Savoie, Bugey and beyond—for a tasting and book signing from 5:30-8:30pm, Friday, October 11. In addition to having one of the best bylines ever, Lorch is a leading authority on wines of the French Alps and Jura, a little-known viticulture region on the border of France and Switzerland. Email wineguildcville@gmail.com to reserve a spot at the tasting, and indicate which book you’d like Lorch to inscribe for you. Book and tasting $40-45, tasting only $10-15. 221 Carlton Rd. wineguildcville.com • The UVA-developed technology that led to the launch of Ian Glomski’s Vitae Spirits is about to bear fruit again with the debut of another local boutique liquor producer, Monte Piccolo Farm and Distillery. The tech, which aids in identifying and quantifying flavor compounds in fruit brandy, has paved the way for Robin Felder, UVA professor of pathology and associate director of laboratory medicine in the School of Medicine, to produce an eau de vie-style pear brandy with his big copper still in Albemarle County. Monte Piccolo grows its own fruit to make the hooch, and Felder says he’s finalizing his bottling, labeling, and packaging for brandy that will be available soon. “With over 4,000 pounds of pears this year, I’ll certainly have enough pear eau de vie-style brandy to sell!” Felder says. montepiccolo.com

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News

In brief: PACmen and women, Pharrell weighs in, Long checks out, and more

Michael Bills is narrowing his political focus to candidates who don’t take donations from Dominion with his Clean Virginia PAC. Submitted photo

Special interests

If you’ve got an agenda, you’ve gotta have a PAC. A political action committee is the device of choice for individuals, corporations, developers, teachers, and many others to further their interests by funneling money or other support to political candidates. While a PAC is limited by state and federal law on how much it can directly contribute to a campaign, because it’s not run by a political party or individual candidate, on its own it can spend an unlimited amount of money on elections. Charlottesville is home to several PACs that have raised— and contributed—millions for causes ranging from electing progressive candidates to keeping Delegate Rob Bell in office. Here’s our roundup:

Progressives for Cville

Founded in 2018 by UVA prof and Black Lives Matter organizer Jalane Schmidt and Jefferson School African American Heritage Center staffer Olivia Patton, Progressives for Cville wants small donors to support candidates who will work for affordable housing and against racial inequity. The PAC supports City Council candidate Michael Payne.

Progressive Change Campaign Committee

Charlottesville native Stephanie Taylor and UVA Law grad Adam Green co-founded Progressive Change in 2009, the largest locally founded PAC, with a million-member grassroots organization that’s raised $29 million. Its website is boldprogressives.org, and this national PAC was a fan of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s platform long before she became a presidential candidate.

Virginia First PAC

House Minority Leader David Toscano’s PAC has donated more than $1 million to help elect Democrats to the House of Delegates.

Clean Virginia Fund

Investor Michael Bills has poured over $2 million into state elections. Last year he founded a PAC to promote clean energy and thwart the influence of Dominion Power on the electoral process by supporting candidates who refuse to accept money from utilities they would regulate. Bills has put $205,000 into the PAC, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, and donated $166,000 to candidates.

Road Back/Democratic Road Forward PAC

The late delegate Mitch Van Yahres, who held the 57th District seat for 24 years, founded the Road Back PAC in 2002 to help other Dem candidates. The PAC was dormant for several years after his death in 2008, and was reborn as the Democratic Road Forward PAC in 2013 to train Democratic hopefuls and their staffs. “We don’t give them money,” says former vice-mayor Meredith Richards, but this year 19 candidates the PAC schooled in fundraising and fieldwork are running.

Virginia’s List

Former Charlottesville School Board chair and 17th Senate District candidate Amy Laufer’s PAC has raised almost $125,000 since 2015 to support Democratic women running for state office, according to VPAP.

Virginians for Rob Bell

This committee was formed in 2012, ahead of Bell’s unsuccessful run for the GOP attorney general nomination in 2013. It’s received $560,000 in contributions, and is currently sitting on $294,000, says VPAP.

Forever Albemarle

Maintaining the county’s rural areas and supporting farmers is the goal of Forever Albemarle, which donated to Republican  Board of Supervisors candidates Duane Snow and Rodney Thomas in 2009. The PAC has been less active since then, but it made a $545 donation to the White Hall Ruritans in 2017, according to Virginia Department of Elections.

Quote of the week

“To me, any legitimate conversation about reparations starts with education.” —Pharrell Williams, May 17 at UVA’s Valedictory Exercises

In brief

Trick-or-treat

Police Chief RaShall Brackney asked City Council on May 20 to repeal the 57-year-old ordinance that prohibits kids over the age of 12 from knocking on neighbors’ doors and demanding candy on Halloween. She’s also calling for a 10pm curfew on October 31, and council will vote on the matters in June.

Another A12 lawsuit

Bill Burke came to Charlottesville in August 2017 with a plan to protest a white supremacist rally, and left with a string of mental and physical injuries from being hit by James Fields’ car. Now, in a federal lawsuit filed in his home state of Ohio, he’s asking for $3 million in compensatory damages.

Free advice

The Charlottesville Albemarle Bar Association and Legal Aid Justice Center have hired their first pro bono coordinator. Kristin Clarens has already racked up “countless hours” of pro bono work on immigration, human rights, and refugee resettlement, according to a press release.

Long goodbye

Two-time Super Bowl champion with deep Charlottesville roots Chris Long is hanging up his helmet after 11 NFL seasons. The UVA and St. Anne’s-Belfield grad chosen as the league’s 2018 Walter Payton Man of the Year is also known for his humanitarian work: Since starting his Waterboys charity, he’s funded approximately 60 wells (and counting) in Africa.

Body found, arrest made

Police say 24-year-old Cody Jason Cappel, whose body was found on the Rivanna Trail behind Peter Jefferson Parkway May 16, was shot multiple times. He appeared to have been living in a tent along the river near 49-year-old Allan Ray Via, who has been charged with second degree murder and possession of ammunition by a convicted felon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signs of change

Vincent Kinney was the first black student to graduate from Albemarle High. staff photo

Despite the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which found public school segregation unconstitutional, Albemarle County didn’t integrate for another nine years.

In 1963, 26 black students enrolled in three county schools for the first time: Stone-Robinson Elementary, Greenwood, and Albemarle High. And on May 17, county administrators unveiled new signs at each location that honor the first black attendees  of those schools.

Superintendent Matt Haas thanked local historian and filmmaker Lorenzo Dickerson, who spearheaded the project.

In attendance at the unveiling were multiple members of the Albemarle 26, including the first black AHS graduate Vincent Kinney, who donned his cap and gown in 1964.

“I get a little bit of angst at things like this because it focuses attention on us and it does not emphasize the fact that we were overcoming something in the community,” said Kinney. “By the time I came to Albemarle [High], I had already been scarred…by the white privilege that existed and still does to a lesser extent today.”

When students see the new sign, he says he hopes they don’t take it for granted.

Adds Kinney, “I hope they see that the level of near equality that’s shared by all now has been fought for.”

Categories
News

In brief: Gubernatorial scandal, history of blackface, Long’s good deeds and more

The 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook spread that torpedoed Governor Ralph Northam. Eastern Virginia Medical School/TNS via ZUMA Wire

Ralph Northam’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

Up until a week ago, Governor Ralph Northam had great approval ratings. Then last week hit, and with the fallout from a photo of a person in blackface beside someone in a KKK robe on his page in the Eastern Virginia Medical School 1984 yearbook, we’re not sure whether Northam will still be in office by the time this paper hits stands.

January 30: Northam, a pediatric neurologist, discusses on WTOP a bill that would have eased restrictions on late-term abortions, which he said are rare and occur when there are severe fetal abnormalities or the pregnancy is nonviable. His comments about how those cases are handled drew accusations that he was advocating “infanticide”—and may have enraged a medical school classmate, who tipped off far-right website Big League Politics, according to the Washington Post.

February 1: Big League Politics publishes a four-paragraph story about Northam’s yearbook photo. That’s followed by a report that while at VMI, Northam’s nickname in that yearbook was “Coonman.”

February 1, 6:10pm: Northam releases a statement apologizing for the photo. “I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now.”

11:15pm: Virginia House Democrats call for Northam’s resignation.

February 2, 9:58am: Delegate David Toscano, “with the heaviest of hearts,” says, “It is now clear that while the governor has done many good things in his career, and has been fighting for those most in need throughout his public life, he has lost the moral high ground at the core of his leadership.”

10:31am: The Democratic Party of Virginia says Northam should resign immediately.

12:20pm: City Councilor Wes Bellamy, who faced condemnation in 2016 for offensive tweets he’d made during his early 20s, says on Facebook he knows “firsthand what it feels like for something that you said in your younger years to come back and haunt you,” but he says Northam should resign.

2:30pm: Northam holds a press conference and says it wasn’t him in the photo—but that he did use shoe polish to appear as Michael Jackson in a dance contest in San Antonio in 1984, in which he moonwalked. He says he didn’t understand that blackface performances were offensive until a campaign staffer in 2017 told him they were, the Post reports.

3:30pm: Residents of historic African American community Union Hill denounce Northam’s commitment to racial justice, noting that he removed two members of the Air Pollution Control Board who had questioned Dominion’s plans to build a compressor station in their town. (The permit was later granted.)

6:44pm: Current U.S. senators and former Virginia governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, along with Congressman Bobby Scott, say it’s time for Northam to go.

February 3: Northam attends his Eastern Shore church, the predominantly black First Baptist Church Capeville. That evening, he meets with his cabinet.

February 3, late evening: Big League Politics turns its sights on Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, who would take over if Northam resigns, claiming he sexually assaulted a woman in 2004, an allegation Fairfax denies.

February 4: Protesters demand Northam resign.

A brief history of local blackface

UVA Glee Club photo session, 1917. Ralph Holsinger albert and shirley small special collections library

Blackface has a long history in America, and especially in Virginia, as Rhae Lynn Barnes, a Princeton University professor of American cultural history, pointed out in the Washington Post this week. A sampling of our city’s not-so-proudest moments:

1886: University Minstrel Troupe donates proceeds of a minstrel show to build the UVA Chapel.

WWI: A university-sponsored minstrel show takes place on the steps of the Rotunda.

1924: A Charlottesville Elks minstrel show runs ads ridiculing black soldiers (the same year the Lee statue is erected).

1970s: A Charlottesville Lions Club minstrel show is so popular it is recommended in city guidebooks.

2002: UVA’s Zeta Psi and Kappa Alpha Order fraternity members co-host a Halloween party where at least three students show up in blackface.

 

Quote of the week

“For all the evils in the world, I think apathy is the most dangerous.”—St. Anne’s-Belfield and UVA alum/Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Chris Long upon receiving the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award for his charity work

In brief

A12 going forward

City Council approved a resolution to commemorate the tragic events of August 11-12, 2017, on the second weekend in August with Unity Days. Events will take place on the Downtown Mall, Market Street, Court Square, and McGuffey parks, and on Fourth Street (conveniently making it impossible for any other group to try to hold a rally in those places on the anniversary).

Parole denied

For the 14th time, convicted murderer Jens Soering learned last week that he’d been denied parole. He’s been locked up for nearly 30 years for the 1985 slayings of Derek and Nancy Haysom, though his supporters say recent DNA evidence proves he isn’t responsible. In a new episode of the podcast “Wrongful Convictions,” Jason Flom interviews John Grisham and Sheriff Chip Harding, who believe Soering is innocent.

Charlottesville 12 death

Regina Dixon, one of the first 12 children to integrate Charlottesville schools following Massive Resistance in 1958, died January 27 at age 66. Dixon was 7 years old when she started school in 1959 at Venable Elementary, where a historic marker commemorates the event. She died following a five-year battle with cancer, according to her obituary.

Preston Avenue deux

In December, City Councilor Wes Bellamy called for a new moniker for Preston Avenue, which was named after Confederate soldier and slave owner Thomas Lewis Preston, UVA’s first rector, who met with Union generals and kept Charlottesville from being torched. City Council unanimously voted February 4 to rename the street—to Preston Avenue—for Asalie Minor Preston, a black educator who taught in segregated schools in the early 1900s.

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News

In brief: Fried chicken, flinging the mud, Long on Nike, and more

A Trump-coifed inflatable chicken caused Albemarle County to say a state of emergency is still in effect for the city. Staff photo

County boots Trump chicken

Albemarle County said the state of emergency declared for the August 11-12 weekend was still in effect after Indivisible Charlottesville brought an inflatable chicken with a Trump-like coif to its August 28 Flip the 5th demonstration in front of the County Office Building. Police declared the lawn off limits and parking restricted. No word on when the supes plan to lift the emergency orders used against protesters.

Pro bono council defense

National law firm Jones Day will represent city councilors Wes Bellamy, Kathy Galvin, Mike Signer, and former councilor Kristin Szakos after Judge Rick Moore ruled they did not have immunity for their votes to remove two Confederate statues. Jones Day has assigned 15 attorneys to represent the councilors pro bono, according to a release from plaintiff Buddy Weber.

Rent-a-cop

Confederate monument-loving Virginia Flaggers posted an appeal for donations to hire off-duty cops from a private security firm to patrol Market Street and Court Square parks to keep an eye on the Lee and Jackson statues over the Labor Day weekend after protesters in Chapel Hill toppled Silent Sam.

Golf cart sentence

Peter Parrish and Tyler Sewell on the beach at Bald Head Island. Photo Pete Clay

Ivy resident Tyler Sewell, 52, pleaded guilty to one count of felony death by motor vehicle August 27 for the August 3, 2017, golf cart accident on Bald Head Island that killed his friend Peter Parrish six days later. Sewell was given a 51- to 74-month suspended sentence and placed on supervised probation, according to Brunswick County, North Carolina, Assistant District Attorney Jason Minnicozzi.

Labor Day issue

Albemarle’s Chris Greene Lake was closed on the September 3 holiday because of an “unforeseen staffing shortage,” the county announced after C-VILLE tweeted the closing. 

UVA settles

Former assistant vice provost Betsy Ackerman’s gender and pay discrimination lawsuit against the university was dismissed August 24 and UVA declined to disclose the settlement, according to the Cav Daily.

 

Quote of the week

“There is no way to describe this, except to call it what it is—a legislative impasse.”—House Democratic Leader David Toscano on the futile August 30 General Assembly special session to redraw 11 district lines a federal court has deemed unconstitutional.

5th District mudslinging

Clergy members and Congregation Beth Israel’s Rabbi Daniel Alexander have refuted claims that 5th District congressional candidate Leslie Cockburn has spread anti-Semitic propaganda.

A month after 5th District congressional candidate Leslie Cockburn accused opponent Denver Riggleman of being a “devotee of Bigfoot erotica,” the Republican Party of Virginia has fired back at her with an image much more sensitive to the folks in the district it’s vying to represent.

A mailer sent out last week superimposed an image of Cockburn above one of the angry white men who marched with lit torches across the University of Virginia on August 11, 2017, chanting “Jews will not replace us” along the way.

The mailer accuses Cockburn of spreading anti-Semitic propaganda in her 1991 book Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship, and says it has been “praised by white supremacist groups.”

Her supporters, including many clergy members and Rabbi Daniel Alexander of Congregation Beth Israel, quickly rushed to combat the claims against Cockburn.

“It is deeply dismaying to see Virginia’s Republican party follow the debased example of the current occupant of the White House by engaging in ad hominem attacks and appeals to fear,” Alexander said in an August 26 statement posted to Democratic news site Blue Virginia. “Leslie Cockburn stands against all of that and that is why I enthusiastically stand with her.”

On Twitter, Cockburn called the attack “disgusting and ludicrous,” and says, “I am deeply grateful to members of the clergy who stand with me against the abhorrent use of the Unite the Right Rally to fling mud. Virginia Democrats are not fooled by dirty tricks.”

However, Democrats used similar images in last year’s gubernatorial race, affixing Republican candidate Ed Gillespie’s photo to those of the torch-carrying mob.

And Cockburn’s campaign continues to call former Jason Kessler associate Isaac Smith, who attended a Riggleman event, a white supremacist, despite Smith’s disavowal of Kessler and the alt-right.

Chris Long defends Nike campaign

Charlottesville native and now Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Chris Long weighs in on the campaign Nike launched over the weekend, which stars football free agent Colin Kaepernick.

If you don’t watch football—or read the news—Kaepernick has been in the spotlight since 2016 for kneeling during the national anthem on NFL sidelines for games in which he played for the San Francisco 49ers. He took a knee to protest police brutality, and now some people who criticized Kaepernick are protesting the mega sportswear brand.

“Nike is a huge business,” said Long on Twitter on September 3. “They’ve calculated risk. They may even have reason to believe this will make the brand more popular which means the guy burning his white Air Monarchs is in the minority. Bitter pill to swallow, I’m sure. Good luck with the protest. Bet they anticipated it.”