The week in review

Best boost for Virginia’s upscale wines: Patricia Kluge appears on CNBC touting wines from the Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard that start at $80. Host Liz Claman registers surprise by calling it “an interesting price point.” (Award-winning Virginia wines typically max out around $20.)

Worst news for spring gardeners: Mandatory restrictions on water usage could be 30 days away if there’s no major precipitation between now and then.

Worst news for those playing down the race card in the recent attacks: The Anti-Defamation League, a national group that has long fought anti-Semitism, joins David Duke’s white rights group in calling for prosecution of the attacks on UVA students under Virginia’s hate-crime provisions.

Worst news for GOP Rep. Eric Cantor: Democratic House veteran Ben Lewis Jones— who played Cooter on The Dukes of Hazzard— says he might run in Cantor’s 7^th District.

Best news for Charlottesville voters who hate to see the City Council election a shoo-in for the Democrats: Republican Rob Schilling tosses his hat into the ring. [See story on page xx.]

Worst news for Charlottesville’s burgeoning theatrical fundraising needs: Developer Gabe Silverman hints that his newest acquisition, Mt. Zion Baptist Church, could involve community arts or theater groups.  

Best stance in the fight against mindless zero-tolerance policies: A February 25 Daily Progress editorial defends “Mary Jane for Pain,” a 13-year-old Californian’s medical marijuana science project that featured marijuana muffins and pot-steeped rubbing alcohol. 

Worst news for Meriwether Lewis Elementary children who live at some of the county’s better addresses: No matter how the middle schools are redistricted, some Meriwether kids will be sent to Jack Jouett Middle School, rather than joining their classmates heading to Henley Middle School.

Best example of a slow news day: In the March 2 Daily Progress, Brian McKenzie devotes an entire column to his dismay over finding a used condom hanging from a tree branch.

Best front-page, top-of-the-fold Daily Progress story that incorporates both Dave Matthews and the Kluge names: “Matthews purchases former Kluge property.”

Worst news for the Center of the Study of Southern Culture in Oxford, Mississippi, and the Center for the Study of the American South in Chapel Hill, North Carolina: UVA and Virginia Tech jump on the Southern culture bandwagon with the South Atlantic Regional Center based at the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities in Charlottesville, and funded with a $379,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Best news for those packing heat in government buildings: The Virginia House of Delegates overwhelmingly passes a measure barring localities such as Alexandria from forbidding guns in city buildings, according to a Washington Post story.

Worst news for grandpa: Five elder care centers will lose a total of $746,694 in Medicaid funds in the Virginia budget for 2003, including Crozet’s 60-bed Windam Home. Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville are subsidizing Windham to keep it from going bankrupt, according to Mitch Van Yahres’ weekly report to his the 57^th District constituents.