4BETTER OR WORSE- The week in review

Published online 9:00am Thursday Feb 7th, 2002
and in print issue #0101 dated Thursday Feb 7th, 2002

Worst attack story: UVA students are beat up in three separate incidents in attacks believed to be racially motivated.

Most timely sleuthing by police: Six are arrested for the attacks.

Worst case of misguided youths: The attackers of the white (or white looking) UVA students are young, African-American students at Charlottesville High.

Worst ending to a local landmark: UVA announces that it will buy and raze Trax, where the Dave Matthews Band used to perform regularly, and Max, the mecca for country music fans, especially since Katie's closed.

Best $1.2 million a land-strapped university ever spent: UVA will use the half-acre Trax/Max property as a construction storage site to stage an expansion project for the hospital.

Best news for victims of the redevelopment that wiped out the Vinegar Hill neighborhood in the ‘60s: City officials announce that plans to sell Jefferson School to developers are on hold, largely because of community activism to save Vinegar Hill's last African-American landmark.

Worst news for Jefferson School: It's still going to cost millions to renovate the aging structure.

Worst news for Broadslate customers: The high-speed Internet provider announces it's closing and laying off 38 employees at its Albemarle County headquarters.

Best news for DSL.net: Broadslate is transferring 267 of its Virginia customers to DSL.net.

Worst disappointment of the week: The public viewing of a sex-ed video, "The Rubber Glove of Love," is canceled after Albemarle County School Superintendent Kevin Castner overrules his staff and withdraws it from curriculum consideration. We hear it was the whipped cream that doomed this 18-minute film.

Best reason for sleeping better at night: The Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement agency expands its mission to fight terrorism.

Worst news for sweatshops: UVA has adopted a code of ethical conduct that prohibits, among other things, forced labor for those licensed to manufacture UVA merchandise.

Best trend for citizen involvement, part 1: Local youths protest on the Downtown Mall a federal ban on hemp foods and plead the nutritional value of hemp burgers.

Best trend for citizen involvement, part 2: 19 applicants seek seats on the Albemarle County police oversight.

Worst news for University Press of Virginia: The Thomas Jefferson Foundation signs an exclusive agreement with the University of North Carolina Press to distribute its 15 publications in the UNC catalog.

Best news for City property owners: City real estate is worth at least 10% more.

Worst news for City property owners: Your taxes are going up.

Best weather for January: Temperatures hit 80 degrees last week as residents whipped out shorts and sandals.

Worst aspect of sunny, dry days: Rainfall is down for the entire mid-Atlantic and a continuation of last summer's drought seems likely.

Best results from a no-doubt biased poll: Cvillenews.com asks whether people will read The Hook or C-ville Weekly and 56% say they'll read The Hook, 8% say they'll read C-ville and a resounding 6% say "read the what?"