Monthly Archive for September, 2005

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UVa Preservationist Named MacArthur Fellow

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 20, 2005 in UVa. Closed

UVa rare book preservationist Terry Belanger has been named a 2005 MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. This is perhaps better known as receiving a “genius grant.” He’s one of 25 who will receive $500,000 over the next five years to spend however they like, no strings attached, in recognition of his talent, dedication, and “extraordinary originality.” Belanger is the creator of the Rare Book School, a non-profit within UVa that gives students hands-on experience with early bookmaking and the study of the history of the written word.

The last local to receive a MacArthur fellowship was UVa epidemiologist Janine Jagger, back in 2002, described at the time by the foundation as “a leader in the design and dissemination of means and strategies to protect health care workers from the transmission of bloodborne disease.”

Melanie Mayhew has the story in today’s Daily Progress.

Radio IQ Expands Coverage

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 18, 2005 in Meta News. 8 Comments

WVTF‘s RadioIQ — which I listen to just about all the time in my car since my iPod died — has expanded their coverage area in C’ville. The BBC news/ NPR talk station used to broadcast just on 89.7FM, and the signal dropped off any distance outside of Charlottesville. With their new transmitter, at 91.5FM, they’ve expanded their coverage, and now I can, happily, listen at home.

Experimenting with Blogads

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 18, 2005 in Site News. 3 Comments

I never put ad banners or popups or any of that nonsense on this site, firstly because the site costs virtually nothing to run and secondly because they’d be useless to people. Since I created the text ads system recently, I’ve seen that advertising can be a useful service, both to those placing the ads and those reading them. I’ve had several folks tell me that they’d find it helpful to be able to advertise more fully on cvillenews.com. Also, as the site has become more popular over the years, hosting the site on my home server over a DSL has become less reliable, and made the site pretty slow — I’d like to start paying to have it hosted properly. To that end, I’ve gotten set up with the Blogads service.

Blogads is a self-service advertising system, allowing businesses to create a text-and-graphic advertisement through a web-based interface. Once I approve the ad, it runs for a week as the only ad being shown. I’ve started at the base rate of $10/week, which is pretty cheap. I figure it amounts to something like $0.015 per unique individual who will see the ad, which isn’t bad.

Anyhow, take it for a spin, if you want to advertise. If it’s a useful service, I’ll keep it. If it’s not, I’ll drop it.

Post on UVa Racism

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 17, 2005 in UVa. 28 Comments

UVa’s annual bout of racism has earned it coverage in the Washington Post today:

Just a few weeks into the school year, U-Va. has had at least nine racist incidents — slurs shouted from cars, ugly words written on message boards, a racist threat scrawled on a bathroom wall. And students, parents and alumni are demanding change.

[…]

The university has had a troubled racial history, and reaction to the recent incidents — all directed at black students — has been stark.

M. Rick Turner, dean of African American affairs, said the climate is the worst he has seen in his 18 years with the university. “I call it racial terrorism — it’s gone beyond racial incidents.

Ladies and gentlemen, the always-helpful Rick Turner, deescalating the rhetoric.

Swensen on Progress Life

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 16, 2005 in Business and Meta News. 17 Comments

Daily Progress veteran Eric Swensen, who left in 2002 to cover local government for the Greensboro News & Record, writes this week’s “Vexed in the City” column, their regular feature on “being young and single in the Triad.” His topic: life at the Daily Progress.

I worked for a newspaper in Charlottesville, Va., that often resembled college with a paycheck every two weeks. Many of the reporters were fresh out of college, and we’d generally roll in to work about 10:30 or 11 a.m. and stay until whenever the job was done. Sometimes that was 6:30 p.m., sometimes 10:30 p.m. Not quite an all-nighter but basically the same concept.

Despite making a little more than $20,000 a year, we’d eat out almost every day for lunch and sample nightlife four or five nights a week, having put our reporting skills to work to scope out drink specials around the city.

Nobody becomes a journalist for the money. But it’s amazing that the Daily Progress is as good as it is with wages like that.

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