June 16th, 2011 issue #1024
June 16th, 2011
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Fast track: Western Bypass shifts into overdrive
It had been a long, politically charged night in Lane Auditorium. Inside this main room of the Albemarle County Office Building, there were accusations of "socialism" vs. "flat earth" in a standing-room-only environmental debate. Those of us who departed after five hours of that acrimony, however, missed the biggest news of the evening. Maybe the biggest news of the year.Twenty-one years after its route was plotted, the U.S. 29 Western Bypass roared back to life.
4Better Or Worse
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The week in review
Longest mile: The Meadowcreek Parkway has obtained all its permits and VDOT is good to begin construction after City Council declines to block road building last week, ac...
The Dish
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Batesville Store: Another history chapter comes to a close
According to the current owners of the historic Batesville Store on Plank Road, state agents showed up unannounced on Friday, June 10 and gave them "no option except to clo...
Essays
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Song butchers: Let's 'play ball' with the original
You love to sing this part, I know you do: “O, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” I don’t care whethe...
Question of the Week
Real Estate - $old
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A second foreclosure in Townwood
5/9/2011 Michael & Lynn Gaffey to Thomas & Jennifer McGuiggan, 610 Fairgrove Avenue, $385,000 (Albemarle) PNC Mortgage to Stephen & Elizabeth White, 4327 Chris...
Real Estate - On the Block
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Da bomb: '50s Cape spans decades with style
Address: 2108 Morris Road, Charlottesville Neighborhood: Lewis Mountain Asking: $599,000Assessment: $705,1...
Real Estate Property auctions
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Property auctions
June 21 at 11am at the Albemarle County Courthouse Property: 8073 Chestnut Grove Road, Esmont Debtor: Diane L. Rush Amount owing: $63,000 Bidder brings: $5,000 Info: Necta...
Art Features
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Past blast: Goldin likes to look
During a recent tour of the UVA Art Museum’s show, “Excavating New Ground: American Art in the 1970s,” curator Andrea Douglas observed that what may be radical and ex...
DR. HooK
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Face off: Missouri tornado spawned scary fungus
Faces define people the most (well, unless you’re Representative Anthony Weiner). Makeup can completely transform a person. Tabloids always flash pictures of celebrities ...
Movie Reviews
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Simpler time: 'Super 8' a nostalgic thriller
With its night skies filled with mystery, its kids racing around town on bicycles and its flashlights forming visible beams in the air, Super 8 has the visual signatures of...
News
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'Not appropriate' Dance crackdown continues at Jefferson Memorial
You can dance if you want to, but you might want to leave your friends behind– unless you plan on spending a night in jail. That's what happened in 2008 when a group ... -
Cynthia Neff takes on Boyd for supe seat
Democrat Cynthia Neff, a retired IBM executive, announced her plans to challenge incumbent Kenneth Boyd for the Rivanna District seat on the Albermarle County Board of Supe... -
Dede Smith joins crowded Council field
A sixth Democrat has announced a run for City Council, and she's the second Dem to oppose the plan to build a controversial mega-dam and cross-county waterpipe. Saying that... -
Fire ruins CAT bus
A Charlottesville Area Transit bus appears to be a near-total loss after a Thursday morning fire. News reports indicate that nobody was injured in the June 2 blaze which co... -
IRS yanking: Over 150 non-profits lose tax status
This year, you probably won't get a tax deduction for donating to the Bologna Foundation. That local charity, along with the IBM Club, the Save the Fireworks Foundation, Ch... -
Library wanker gets off on Alford plea
The man accused of publicly masturbating in Clemons Library, Anthony Daniel Landram, pled guilty to charges of obscene sexual display at the Albemarle General District Cour... -
No felony: Victim wants tougher penalty for crotch invasion
Caitlln Mahoney was walking out of a Charlottesville nightclub last fall when she made an unpleasant discovery: a man's hand up under her skirt. In court May 31, a judg... -
Norwood announces Board of Supervisors run
Jim Norwood announced on Thursday that he plans to seek the Republican nomination for the Scottsville Board of Supervisors, a position currently held by Lindsay Dorrier. Bu... -
Parkway shooter sentenced
The man who fired upon two strangers and terrorized the Blue Ridge Parkway in April 2010 was sentenced June 9 in federal court in Harrisonburg. Ralph Leon Jackson, 57, prev... -
Performance art? Amtrak stops for allegedly berzerk rider
The man whose alleged actions brought an Amtrak train to a halt in the Nelson County village of Shipman on the morning of June 9 will be spending nearly a week in jail. Bar... -
VQR's Genoways: Did bully defense lead to code offense?
After last summer's suicide of Virginia Quarterly Review managing editor Kevin Morrissey, the Hook obtained a series of emails from editor Ted Genoways that revealed "poiso...
On Architecture
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Socialite renovates Social Hall
Former U.S. Senator George Allen knows when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. The savvy former senator, who has begun campaigning for his old federal job, appears to have m...
The Brazen Careerist
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It's only $10: Hire an assistant for the scutwork
Your to-do list is dragging you down. Why do tasks that don't inherently enhance the quality of your life when you could pay someone $10 an hour to do them?I learned this w...
Sports Doctor
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Withdrawal: Pass the summer with boxing, golf
If you're tired of dissecting LeBron James’ fourth-quarter performances, you’re not the only one. While James uses the summer to lick his wounds and come up with new wa...
Strange But True
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Gone fisin': Kids hear better than they speak
Q. Is there much difference between what young children hear and what they can say? Asked another way, have you ever heard of the FIS phenomenon? –J. FarielloA. This was ...
Online only
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Parkway panic: Rooker vexed as Dorrier rekindles Bypass
Taking the reins from the late Charlotte Humphris, Dennis Rooker built his political career on fighting the Western Bypass, a much-maligned planned freeway that would rip t... -
Property transfers
10/18Gary S. and Wendy L. Yarno to Robert Neal and Susan Spessard Comstock, 154.562 acres at 3100 Gilbert Station Road, $870,000.Edge Valley Preservation LLC to Joseph P. a... -
Snap: The Kona Ice man cometh
With June 1 temperatures pushing past 90 degrees and humidity like a high school locker room, the Kona Ice truck cruised through Crozet with a welcome blast of cool ice and...
Facetime
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Southern skeletons: Author Thompson intensifies his history
John Milliken Thompson admits with a laugh that he writes “mainly coffee-table books,” including several titles for National Geographic. But now the Charlottesville aut...
Letters
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Fresh helmets won't hurt you
The points raised by Mr. Ballance and the Hook in the May 24 article on bike helmets ["More risk? Safety engineer slams proposed helmet law"] are not valid arguments agains...