At some point, rock icons are recognized as much for what they say as what they sing. Think John Lennon or Bob Dylan. Of course, by the time rock stars become quotable they’re usually dead or real old. Or they’re Dave Matthews. (more)
Central Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode, who was now returned over $90,000 in campaign contributions, might wish he’d never heard of Mitchell Wade. The former CEO and owner of defense contractor MZM, Inc., Wade admitted to bribing former California Congressman “Duke” Cunningham as part of a series of guilty pleas to (more)
According to a front page story in today’s Daily Progress, the Louisa County Commissioner of Revenue had the nerve to demand $1.6 million for land her own office had assessed for just $55,900. (more)
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Recently, the moniker “6NO south side” turned up on the tarp covering the free speech wall at the east end of the Downtown Mall. So is this the name of a Charlottesville gang? According to Charlottesville police detective, Brian O’Donnell, it is.
O’Donnell says it’s the name for the gang located in the 6th Street South East, Friendship Court area. Just last night, Charlottesville hosted a Gang Identification and Prevention Forum, where experts told the 100-plus audience to stop denying that gangs exist and that gang activity was increasing in Virginia. In fact, O’Donnell says the local 6NO south side moniker recently started turning up in Harrisonburg. According to one forum expert, graffiti is a way to stake out territory or send messages to other gangs. Other Charlottesville gangs include the PJC (project crud) in the 10th and Page Street area, and PSpect from the Prospect area.
Anyone who’s been to Maymont, the bucolic park, mansion, and petting zoo near the Fan district in Richmond, has likely craned their necks looking to spot the two resident black bears inside their enclosure. Yesterday, both bears were euthanized less than a week after one of them bit a four-year-old boy who (more)
The gigantic development headed for the farm best known as “Biscuit Run” is headed to the Albemarle Planning Commission on March 7. The work session will explore whether developer Hunter Craig– who recently paid $46.2 million for the 1,365-acre tract on Old Lynchburg Road south of (more)
Despite a big Loretta Lynn fundraiser last summer, the building that houses Live Arts and Second Street Gallery still needed to raise $1.1 million to complete its building Campaign, finish portions of the building, and provide maintenance funds. Enter Dave Matthews Band’s Bama Works Fund. The band’s charitable giving arm, the Fund announced today that it’s pledging $550,000 to (more)
Starr Hill Music Hall has developed a great reputation for hosting jam bands. But here comes hip-hop in the form of GZA. In an online exclusive, the Hook interviews GZA. (more)
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The big belts are coming! After years of planning and about $131 million in construction spending, the John Paul Jones Arena will open with… drumroll… World Wrestling Entertainment, formerly known as WWF. But while that’s the first event listed on today’s press release from SMG Management, the company booking these entertainment riches, spokesperson Anne Hoof says that wrestling is just a taste of (more)
Charlottesville Parks & Recreation wants to ditch the pools at McIntire, Forest Hills and Meade parks and replace them with much cheaper “spray grounds.” City Council approved the re-allocation of $1.85 million in capital funds last night. The public is invited to learn why spray grounds are better for the city than pools.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos calls the charges against the four teens who allegedly plotted to blow up WAHS and Albemarle High “serious”— but they all will be tried as juveniles March 8. Camblos declined to provide any details about the evidence against them. Police have said they’ve confiscated two shotguns, three computers and other, undisclosed items.
Three of the youths were in court today, and they’ll continue to be held in custody while further assessments are made.
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It’ll be nearly three months before masked assailant Kurt Kroboth learns his fate. This morning, Albemarle Circuit Court Judge William Shelton agreed to continue sentencing until May 9 to allow Kroboth time to round up character witnesses and documents in support of a lighter sentence. This is the second time Kroboth’s sentencing has been postponed, and Commonwealth’s Attorney Cynthia Murray argued that Kroboth’s victim (more)
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Thursday is NBC29 early morning anchor Beth Duffy’s last day. Friday, we might as well sleep in.
Oops, Duffy’s last day is Thursday, March 2. Enjoy the reprieve.
The Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville wants a mall crossing, and it wants it now. Undeterred by the Planning Commission voting down a 4th or 5th Street crossing January 10, the mad merchants will be beseeching City Council to open a 4th Street crossing for a one-year trial run at a City Council public hearing February 21.
It’s a question that has confounded men throughout the ages: what’s the best way to comfort my wife? Flowers? Understanding conversation? Diamonds? A shopping spree? Well, a new scientific study has the answer: handholding.
University of Virginia psychologist Jim Coan tested the brains of 16 wives to see if handholding with their husbands calmed their nerves. Using magnetic resonance imaging, Coan administered a mild but threatening electrical shock to the women’s brains, then measured brain activity when they held their husband’s hand and that of a stranger. According to Coan, wives experienced “immediate relief” from stress when holding their beloved’s hand. The study also noted that women with healthier marriages were soothed even more.
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What was once one of Charlottesville’s hot up-and-coming bands, Clare Quilty, says it’s playing its final show tomorrow night at Starr Hill Music Hall. Signed to the D.C.-based Dcide indie record label and touring occasionally, the band members in recent years have settled down to day jobs. Most notably, perhaps, in the day-job scene is former communist Mike Rodi. A man sporting distinctively sharp sideburns, Rodi has long managed Rapture restaurant and its new sister establishment, the R2 nightclub on the Downtown Mall, the latter of which Rodi envisioned and executed. The band changed its sound in recent years from pop to electronic, but the farewell concert is supposed to feature a mix of the morphing musicians. The show is Saturday, February 18th. Doors at 8:00, tickets $7.00.
Managing trust accounts, that high-fee business of investing the money of rich people who can’t or won’t do it themselves, brought Charlottesville-based Virginia National Bank $980,000 in income last year, nearly a third of its overall net earnings of $3,086,000. Further good news for the bank is that loan write-offs amounted to just $11,000 last year, according to the February 15 release from the bank. While the loan-loss amount is nearly double 2004’s loan losses of $6,000, both figures are microscopic in the banking world. (Consider that the other locally-operated bank (more)
Albemarle Police arrested another 13-year-old Jack Jouett student yesterday and charged him (or her?) with two felonies in the ever-expanding alleged plan to blow up Albemarle and Western high schools. The youth joins his/her alleged co-conspirators at Blue Ridge Juvenile Detention Center. In addition, the 16-year-old WAHS student has racked up another felony, this one to use an explosive to destroy a schoolhouse. Authorities have yet to release any details about the alleged plan.
Bill Emory telephoned. The well-known chronicler of life in Central Virginia was outraged. What might at first glance appear to be a simple transport mishap
, in Emory’s view, is another piece of evidence in an overwhelming indictment against the recent mistreatment of his Woolen Mills neighborhood. Emory has been railing against the rapid pace of development there, but the Valentine’s morning mishap has him ramping up his eloquent scolds against cut-through traffic and pointing out that Charlottesville is seeking a transportation engineer.
A story in the February 20 edition of People is the latest in a salvo of publicity in the 21-year old rape case that began at a University of Virginia fraternity house. As first publicly detailed in the Hook, the case erupted January 4 after police arrested the alleged attacker, William Beebe of Los Vegas. Last year, as part of his “12-step” recovery program, Beebe, a recovering alcoholic, had contacted Connecticut-based Liz Seccuro to apologize for the incident. In an emails between accuser and accused, Beebe confessed to raping Seccuro. Now facing life in prison, but free on $30,000 bond, Beebe is claiming his innocence. People readers get pretty much the same story the other media have reported, with the addition of glossy color photos of Seccuro, including a shot of her hugging her husband, Michael.
One of Charlottesville’s key non-profits is looking for a new executive director. The ARC of the Piedmont– ARC standing for Association of Retarded Citizens– must find a new leader due to the February 10 resignation of longtime director Christina Delzingaro, who has led the group for 12 years. “I have new opportunities that I will be pursuing,” Delzingaro said in a release. In the same release, the ARC board chair, Krissy Lasagna, said the board was “reluctantly” accepting the resignation. Delzingaro had become a cornerstone of the community, having held governor-appointed seats on state commissions, and she currently serves as president to JAUNT, the transporation service for disabled citizens. The ARC was founded in 1954 to assist retarded and otherwise disable citizens and their families.
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Our own Dan Jordan, head of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello, received a standing ovation in the Virginia House and Senate today after Senator Creigh Deeds and Delegate Robert Bell announced his selection as this year’s Outstanding Virginian. Jordan has headed the TJF since 1985, and is no stranger to big awards. He’s also received the U.S. State Department’s Public Service Award—it’s highest to a private citizen—for his contributions to historic preservation. Way to go, Dan!
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Kathy Griffin, who starred with Brooke Shields in NBC’s magazine sitcom Suddenly Susan and later went on win acclaim as the the obnoxious red-headed Jerry-hater on the long-running NBC mega-hit Seinfeld, brings her comedy routine to the Paramount Theater on Thursday, February 16. Surprisingly, the Charlottesville show will be taped for an episode of a new Bravo! network reality series called Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. As of this posting, tickets for the comedian’s Thursday 8pm performance are still available by calling the Theater at 434-979-1333.
The case of the male schoolteacher treated at the University of Virginia Medical Center for tumors that seem to have turned him into a pedophile back in the year 2000 is enjoying a new round of publicity. For starters, there’s an article on the tragic case in the January/February issue of Legal Affairs magazine. And today, a caller from a London-based documentary film company contacted the Hook for information. (We didn’t have much.) But it’s a scary story, according to a 2003 AP story because the man had a spotless record before, at age 40, suddenly (more)
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Whoda thought that UVA’s noted professor Julian Bond, a longtime leader for civil rights, would skip the funeral of that icon of the movement, Coretta Scott King? But skip he did, and he has his reason. It turns out that although the late Mrs. King’s own daughter, Bernice King, is a minister there, that the church rallies against gay rights, even going so far as to stage a march through the streets of Atlanta to call for a gay marriage ban. The Cavalier Daily obtained an email Bond sent explaining his decision and his belief that Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow was such a supporter of gay rights that he couldn’t be a church whose pastor would conduct such a march.
Incidentally, the NAACP chairman Bond has recently been in the news for controversial remarks he made February 1 at a North Carolina college speech. On Sunday, the Daily Progress published a nice overview of the retiring professor’s career.
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