Out there: A conversation with extraterrestrial expert Dr. Steven Greer
I discovered that there was no department anywhere dealing with the fact that we’re being visited, and that there ought to be some sort of diplomatic outreach. CSETI is our global attempt, and now we have several thousand teams who are learning these protocols that are very controversial…
Living in America: Shabazz Palaces clears the way for Seattle’s new music royalty
In 2011, Sub Pop, the indie record label that first signed Nirvana and almost single-handedly sold grunge to the world, released Black Up, the first full-length album from Shabazz Palaces, one of Seattle Hip-Hop’s biggest stars.
Brothers: How four young black men found their mission to change our city, starting now
The Tonsler Park Recreation Center is busy at 4:30pm on a Wednesday. The long, L-shaped main room bustles with games of pool and chess, people coming and going past the old school Ms. Pac-Man game and the foosball table. Adults watch the T.V. on the wall, or sit and talk in small groups. You get [...]
Across 30 years and an epidemic, Charlottesville’s gay and lesbian communities came out together
In early 1986, Hospice of the Piedmont needed help with a patient who had less than a month to live. The organization’s purpose, then and now, is to care for terminal patients, but this patient had AIDS, and AIDS patients were different. By the end of 1984, there were 10 reported AIDS cases in Charlottesville, [...]
What does George Huguely’s sentence say about the way we punish killers?
In Norway last Friday, Anders Breivik was sentenced to 22 years in prison for killing 77 people and wounding 242. Six days later I sat in court and watched as George Huguely’s jury-recommended sentence of 26 years for the murder of one woman, Yeardley Love, was reduced to 23 years. American prison sentences start big [...]
The wonder years: How real estate and gentrification changed Belmont for good
“One big problem is change. [The older residents] don’t understand change is happening and why it’s happening, and sometimes I don’t understand it myself.” – Jimmy Dettor, lifelong Belmont resident. From the documentary, Still Life With Donuts. When she arrived in Charlottesville in the summer of 1976, Joan Schatzman didn’t think of herself as a [...]
Meet the man who’s quietly bringing ancient Tibet to Charlottesville
Gyaltsen Sangpo Druknya was born in the northeast corner of the Tibetan Plateau in a region called Amdo, a land of arid grasslands, huge blue lakes, and deep, pine covered valleys. Three of Asia’s most famous rivers—the Yangtze, the Yellow, and the Mekong—have their beginnings in the snow-covered mountains that ring the area. Amdo is [...]
A biography of Charlottesville’s coal tower
A partly cloudy day, late March, unseasonably warm. Two men look up as I step into a small clearing in the woods beyond the coal tower. “Hope I’m not bothering you.” “It’s cool,” one of them says. He moves over on the makeshift bench so I have room to sit down. “I saw you taking [...]
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Being Thomas Jefferson: Reenactors impersonate the past, speak to the present
Rob Coles (above right), a direct descendent of THomas Jefferson, has played his eminent ancestor nearly 120 times per year for the past 36 years. Coles’ career as an impersonator has taken him to 48 states in addition to Italy, Poland, and France, where he has offered reflections on subjects like Jefferson’s time as ambassador [...]
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Town & Country: Big Fun, Scottsville punk, and Charlottesville in the ’90s
Sometime in the late ’90s, while searching online for information on getting high via over-the-counter drugs, I stumbled across a bizarre website detailing the adventures of a bunch of punk rock kids living in a big house in the country, right outside my hometown of Charlottesville.
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A small glimpse into the local horse world
Woodberry Payne (pictured) says that certain places make good horses. But mostly, he said, what makes a good horse is something intangible inside them. It’s about a horse’s desire, what’s in a horse’s heart. (Photo by Carissa Dezort) The spring race at Foxfield is Saturday, April 28, and Woodberry Payne will be there as usual. [...]
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When all is said and done about the George Huguely trial, what have we said and done?
We wait in the sunshine, in the unexpected warmth of a late February day, for a sign from inside the courthouse that a verdict has been reached. The word verdict means, in it’s original Latin, “to say the truth,” but a legal verdict is the synthesis of 12 opinions into a single pronouncement. Commonwealth’s Attorney [...]
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Huguely Trial Blog, Day Eleven: Because I Do Not Hope to Turn Again
At 6:30pm, after nine hours of deliberation, there was a verdict.
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Searching for universal meaning in the George Huguely trial
During jury selection, the prosecution asked each prospective juror if he or she would feel comfortable judging someone, a question that’s harder to answer than you might think. It’s in our nature to judge others, their hair, their clothes, how good looking or smart they are, we judge and convict people for a million minor [...]
Huguely Trial Blog, Day Ten: Oh, Mama, Can This Really Be the End?
We watched as the last cars of the defense team’s train went careening off the rails.
Huguely Trial Blog Day Nine: You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory
A morning filled with the bizarre and the inconsequential, but ending with a flashback.
Huguely Trial Blog, Day Eight: On Spectral Evidence
In actuality, only three people have seen the crime scene.
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Huguely Trial Blog, Day Seven: The Natty Light Can is a Red Herring
Thoroughness is, of course, to be desired in a lawyer, but Chapman is taking it to another level.
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Understanding the first week of the George Huguely murder trial
The Charlottesville Circuit Court opens at 8:30am, but the Huguely trial usually starts at 9:30. The first hour is taken up with other business, like Thursday’s drug court. Men and women, a clear majority of them African-American, file in to meet with their court appointed attorneys and plead their cases. Judge Edward Hogshire hears updates [...]
Huguely Trial Blog, Day Six: Body of Evidence
On day six of the trial, more descriptions of things we can’t see, including photographs of two bodies.
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Huguely Trial Blog, The Relationship: Living at the bar
The Huguely Trial Blog picks up tomorrow with a recap of Monday’s day in court. Look for more detailed analysis of the evidence and arguments used in the first week in Tuesday’s print edition of C-VILLE Weekly. Here’s a preview…
Huguely Trial Blog, Day Five: A Knife in One Hand, A Wound in the Other
On Friday, the jury watched an hour-long tape of Huguely’s interview with the police the night he was arrested.
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Huguely Trial Blog, Day Four: The Wild, the Innocent, & the 14th Street Shuffle
The seventeen witnesses who testified on day four covered pretty much every aspect of the case.
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Huguely Trial Blog, Day Three: The Burden of Truth
If the defense team has one advantage, it’s that the burden of proof lies with the prosecution.
HUGUELY TRIAL: Malice aforethought
UVA Law Professor Anne Coughlin spoke to students about the legal intricacies of Virginia’s homicide law in an effort to prepare them for the upcoming trial of former UVA student George Huguely.
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Huguely Trial Blog Day Two: I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus
Charlottesville is unused to media circuses. Media county fairs are more our speed.