City business license applications are up 14% over this time last year. #
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Monthly Archive for July, 2009
Elisha Strom has been arrested for stalking undercover Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement detectives, WSLS reports. She’s been maintaining a blog dedicated to making public the identities of JADE members, where she describes stakeouts of their stakeouts, posts photos of the officers leaving their homes, provides dozens of surveillance photos of the detectives, and relates stories about how she goes about stalking them. It’s obsessive and creepy. It’s the photo of the officer leaving his home that’s gotten her charged.
Strom argues that the information that she’s provided is all a matter of public record, which is true, but stalking is itself a crime, and that’s because the components of stalking are all otherwise legal. None of this explains what Strom’s deal is with JADE members—it’s clear she’s trying to intimidate them, but there’s no telling why.
You’ll remember Strom for her husband, Kevin Strom, the pedophile, white supremacist and erstwhile cvillenews.com troll. He was arrested in early 2007, sentenced to two years in prison in April of last year, and released just a few months later. It was his wife who turned him into the police, accusing him of physically assaulting her to keep her from testifying against him.
07/30 Update: Lisa Provence provides a whole lot more information and analysis in The Hook.
I adore the Albemarle County Fair. It’s my favorite time of year, which is to say this time of year—its six-day run started this evening. There are livestock displays, dozens of competitions, rides, loads of wildly unhealthy foods, and musical acts. (Plus great people watching opportunities.) A short drive south of town on 29, it’s open from 4 PM-11 PM during the week, 10 AM-11 PM on Saturday, and 1 PM-6 PM on its closing day, Sunday. Admission is $7 for adults and $3 for kids (free for kids aged six and under).
My only complaint about the fair is that they somehow fail to attract the very people who would enjoy it the most—basically the folks who shop at farmers markets, want to raise chickens in their backyards, and are just starting to reap the benefits of this year’s tomato crop. My fellow Tech alumni appear to outnumber UVA grads, if clothing is any indicator. If accents are any indicator, attendees are mostly local. This is the year in which that audience should expand. A group named Backyard Revolution is providing free (with admission) classes in all sorts of Virginia homesteading skills: rainwater harvesting, orienteering, urban chicken keeping, arrowsmithing, seed saving, blacksmithing, building a batteau, knitting, composting, spinning, cider making, wall building, log cabin making, and dozens and dozens of other deeply cool things. I want to go to all of these things. There’s a dedicated area in the fair set aside for these things, with both classes (first come, first served) and displays that will remain up for the duration of the fair.
Visit the fair, check them out on Facebook, tell us about the highlights here, and take pictures & post them to Flickr
My brother is running a deer-hunting class for locavores and foodies. Ain’t nothing as local as your back yard. 07/30 Update: CBS-19 has picked up on the story. #
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