On the shortest day of the year, cultures in northern latitudes from Japan to Finland celebrate the return of light. It makes sense to recognize a thing so elemental in its absence, another paradox of human perception. Like you can’t have your cake and eat it too…
Editor's Note: Is college sports really about the degree?
Americans put a huge emphasis on sports. When I was 11, I missed a free throw to lose the Police Boys Club city championship game in Washington D.C. and cried my eyes out in front of 1,500 or so people.
Editor's Note: All politics is local
I knew a political operative in Chicago, since moved on to D.C., who used to get upset by the way people misunderstood and then misused O’Neill’s analect. For this guy, the advice wasn’t a warning to limit the scope of campaign messages, it was a simple reminder that to win elections, you have to start with a base at home and build out from there.
Danny Barrale
05/22/2013 9:00 pm Danny Barrale Fellini’s #9, Charlottesville VA
Editor's Note: A Thanksgiving message
This Thanksgiving, don’t forget to say thanks. No, really. Because with the planes, trains, and automobiles on Wednesday, the turkey and football on Thursday, and the dawn frenzy of Black Friday, it may be hard to get a quiet minute, much less make the connection that we are celebrating the bounty of the American continent.
Editor's note: the death of the American Dream
Since the Pew Research Center began unveiling a series of studies on income disparities in the U.S., I’ve been reading about the death of the American Dream.
Editor's Note: Our crisis is spiritual and political
I’ve been watching the Occupy movement with great interest. The bootstraps activism of the ‘60s is something I’ve always romanticized, on the one hand, and been haunted by, because I missed it.
Editor's note: War is expensive
This week’s feature is about Vaughan Wilson, a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, our war in Afghanistan, which is 10 years old this month. It’s also about the fact that a decade of war has created a generation of men and women directly affected by its costs and that, as a country, we’re really only just beginning to learn what that means.
Editor's Note: October 18
Food is the most direct connection between necessity and art in culture. Whether you are an Oglala who prizes a salted slice of raw kidney from a fresh kill, a Basque with a taste for reconstituted salt cod in pil pil sauce, or a Virginian with specific thoughts about Surry County ham, our cuisines show how we adapt and ultimately exalt the foods that keep us alive, and in the process create a shared identity.
October 11: Neighborhoods are human ecosystems
I’ve led a pretty nomadic existence since my college graduation in 1997. In just under 15 years I’ve lived in 10 places––spending three months at the shortest stop, Eugene, and four years in the most permanent, Boston, where I still managed to bunk down in five different neighborhoods.
10.04.11
Growing up, we sang the Johnny Appleseed song before dinner. I don’t know where the tradition came from in our house. Since my mother was Catholic, I’d guess it came from my father’s side. Not that it makes a whole lot more sense theologically for Alabama Presbyterians to be singing a Swedenborgian anthem, but the hymn [...]
/Fellini)
Read This First
I spent two years teaching high school English on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and the way I look at the world will never be the same
Mailbag
Women and war I liked the intro to the Perspectives on 9/11 piece in the September 13-19 issue of C-VILLE, but was disappointed, though not surprised, to see that none of the perspectives offered came from women. It seems that the narrative C-VILLE wishes to perpetrate is one devoid of women’s experience. Pieces like this [...]
Mailbag
Not so nice A response to Chiara Canzi’s story “Making nice,” August 30, which looks at Charlottesville’s Democratic City Council candidates and their efforts to create a unified election ticket. Mr. Nix, Potentially skyrocketing water and power bills ARE an integral part of the big picture for a city whose home ownership numbers are below [...]
Mailbag
Mr. Wood Hopefully, the writer of the ugly article about Wendell Wood’s mansion [Best of C-VILLE p. 123] will live as long as Mr. Wood and have the health, energy, and initiative to keep working seven days a week. With that same perseverance, the writer may even earn enough money to build a mansion of [...]
Your letters to the Editor
According to Supervisor Boyd, “We have to deal with the transportation issue in this county. We can’t just keep growing and not build any roads.” [“Albemarle road race,” August 2] For years his has been the loudest voice on the Board of Supervisors in favor of rapid and rampant development, with only a rare reference [...]
Mailbag
Bypass a bum deal “All the other communities along US 29 have bypasses [‘Albemarle road race,’ August 2]!” “All the other kids have needles sticking out of their arms!” Lemmings jump off a cliff too. Just because other entities are doing something stupid does not mean you should. VDOT should have bought up the rights [...]
Readers' respond to previous issues
So it saddens me to see a very basic confusion over what free speech actually is, in the form of this monument on the downtown mall
Readers respond to previous issues
Sweet release In regards to the recent publication of “The Sweetest Thing” [June 14], I would like to comment that I am in full agreement of the sugar ban. While I pack my child’s lunch daily with fresh fruits and vegetables and organic foods as much as possible, the appeal that cafeteria lunches be healthy [...]
Readers respond to previous issues
In Kluge’s defense J. Tobias Beard reports on Patricia Kluge’s failed wine business in the story “Patricia Kluge: Her fruitless bid for wine royalty” [May 24]. As one proceeds to read the story, however, one realizes that it is not about Patricia Kluge’s failed business venture at all; it is all about the contempt the [...]
Readers respond to previous issues
I am visiting for a few days in Charlottesville and by chance picked up the latest issue of C-VILLE.
Mailbag
Wheel life Caroline Laco’s 45-minute commute by bicycle that she says would be cut in half by the Meadow Creek Parkway [“Wheels Keep on Turning,” March 29] reminds us that the parkway does more than gobble up precious park land. Commuters’ time may not top concerns of parkway opponents, but what about the environment? We [...]
Mailbag
In response to your March 8, 2011 article “Cry for Help,” we would like to correct the statement that the community’s Safe Sleep program provides mothers with car seats to hold infants while they rest. The Charlottesville/Albemarle Health Department offers two separate programs—the Child Safety Seat program and the Charlottesville Area Safe Sleep program. The [...]