Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

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Albemarle Bans Panhandling

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 7, 2005 in Law and Justice. 12 Comments

At last night’s Albemarle Board of Supervisors meeting, they unanimously barred solicitations of contributions by anybody standing on public roads or in a highway median, Annie Johnson reports in today’s Daily Progress. After Charlottesville enacted such a ban a couple of years ago, beggars moved just outside of the city lines, working traffic on 29 N. and 250, on Pantops.

I wonder what this means for the fire department’s fundraising efforts? [Update: Turns out the firefighters can ask permission to carry on.]

Back in March, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission took a survey of the 175 homeless people in Central Virginia, finding that only 5% had ever panhandled.

Tornadoes in Town?

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 5, 2005 in Weather. 4 Comments

The talk around town is that the nasty storm that just pushed through town (which didn’t touch me, here in the Southwest Mountains, oddly) dropped a few tornadoes along the way. Sarah Barry has a story on the Progress‘ website about the storm which repeats the existence of tornado sightings.

In the past few years, C’ville has become tornado country. In 2003, 2002, and 2000, we had tornadoes, which is quite a difference from the years previous.

Did anybody spot anything?

07/06 Update: Via cvilleblogs.com, I see that Bill Emory has some great photos of the aftermath.

Thomas Rogers Dies

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 3, 2005 in General News. Closed

The Daily Progress reports that a mighty interesting fellow by the name of Thomas Rogers died at his home, here in Charlottesville, on June 24. Rogers was born in 1918 and worked at a speakeasy as a kid — he ended up working in advertising for the bulk of his adult life, in which time he invented Charlie the Tuna, the Keebler Elves, and Morris the Cat. He just moved to Charlottesville in 1997, but his obituary says that he became “a fixture on the downtown mall,” working out at ACAC, eating at Sal’s, and buying books at Read It Again, Sam.

We sure have some interesting characters here.

July 5 Update: Kate Andrews has a full-on story in today’s Progress.

New Feature: Text Ads

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 1, 2005 in Site News. 7 Comments

People are forever asking me to use this site to announce events and fundraisers and the like, and, frankly, life’s too short. I don’t want to open the floodgates by announcing some, so I announce none. That’s problem #1. Problem #2 is that my washing machine died a few weeks ago, and I can’t seem track down a used one to buy for a few bucks.

Solution: cvillenews.com text ads. If you’re looking to buy something, selling something for $100 or less, want to freecycle something, or announcing some kind of a community or non-profit event, you can take out a free little ad that will appear on every page on the site. Just fill out the little form, and your ad will start appearing once I OK it.

This is thoroughly experimental. If it’s not useful to anybody, I’ll get rid of it and we’ll make like it never happened. If it’s wildly successful, I may enhance it in any number of ways. When bugs appear, maybe I’ll fix ’em. Give it a whirl.

So… About that washer?

DMV Guard vs. Unruly Customer

Published by Waldo Jaquith on July 1, 2005 in Crime. Closed

Check out Liesel Nowak’s crazy story about the DMV guard and the unruly customer in today’s Daily Progress. Pepper spray was unleashed, a gun was drawn, there was a standoff, blood was spilled…it was a bad scene. The only side of the story that the Progress got was the customer’s. Presumably, this will get even weirder once the guard’s side of things come out.

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