UVa Bans Signs at Sporting Events

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 4, 2008 in Sports and UVa. 18 Comments
Dry Erase Sporting Sign
By Erika A., CC license.

UVa’s new no-signs rule at sporting events is getting national attention, in the form of Rick Reilly’s article for ESPN Magazine. It was all started by people holding up signs demanding that coach Al Groh be fired. Confusingly UVa isn’t saying what a “sign” is. Could I wear a “Fire Al Groh” t-shirt? How about a “Keep Al Groh” t-shirt? Or a “Nike” t-shirt? As Reilly asks, if UVa can censor students at the stadium, why not on the Lawn? The tradition of saving signs at sports events goes back decades, and UVa banning them is awfully strange. Reilly proposes bringing blank signs, or signs that read “This Is Not a Sign.” I like it. (Via Scott Jolly)

Winneba, Ghana: New Sister City?

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 3, 2008 in General News. 14 Comments

Charlottesville’s looking to add a fourth sister city, Jennifer Black reports for CBS-19, and the proposed place is Winneba, Ghana. The fishing town has the same population as Charlottesville, and is the home of the University of Education, which has about the same number of students as UVa. Our three existing sister cities are all European: Besançon, France; Pleven, Bulgaria; and Poggio a Caiano, Italy.

Mayor Dave Norris is shooting to take action on the proposal by May, which is when the city holds their annual game hunting festival. The Aboakyir Festival, awesomely, pits two warrior groups against each other to see who can catch an antelope bare-handed. The antelope is a stand-in for a leopard, which used to be the target, but so many people died each year that they recently moved to less dangerous game.

Progress Raises Prices to $0.75

Published by Waldo Jaquith on September 3, 2008 in Business and Meta News. 5 Comments

The Daily Progress has raised their newsstand prices by 50%, Hawes Spencer writes for The Hook. The paper was $0.50 for some years, but on Monday it went up to $0.75. The Richmond Times-Dispatch, which is likewise owned by Media General, also raised their price to the same level on Monday. The narrative of the Progress over the past few years has been continuous spending cuts, often in a form negatively impacting the quality and quantity of reporting. This time, at least they’ve found a way to increase profit without cutting quality. And I can’t complain: like most people, I read the Progress online.

Sign Spam Bounty Proposed

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 27, 2008 in Government, Law and Justice and Taxes. 27 Comments
Old School Spam

By Tom Taylor, used with permission.

I despise sign spam, those wireframe-cardboard signs illegally (§18-4.15.7) stuck up along roadways. Anecdotally, the scourge of these eyesores has increased quite a bit in the past year or two. One needs only spend a few minutes driving on secondary roads in northern Virginia to know how really, really bad things could get if nothing changes. So I’m glad to see that Albemarle and VDOT are considering teaming up to solve the problem, paying a $25/sign bounty to folks who pull them up and turn them in. VDOT imposes a $100 fine against the advertised business for each sign posted illegally, so the math works out on this. Here’s hoping that the Board of Supervisors (and City Council!) has the wisdom to make this happen. I’ll be the first in line to collect on it, my car piled high with signs.

09/02 Update: This story just isn’t true. Keep reading for the explanation and the correct story.

Continue reading ‘Sign Spam Bounty Proposed’

Fourth Area Brewery Opening

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 25, 2008 in Business. Closed

A fourth brewery is being built in the area, Brian McNeill writes in the Progress today. The Devil’s Backbone brewery is preparing to open near Nellysford, complementing Afton’s Blue Mountain Brewery and Farm, Charlottesville’s South Street Brewery, and Crozet’s Starr Hill Brewery. This newest brewery intends to offer a Helles, a Vienna lager, a hefeweizen and an IPA. We’ve got lots of folks drawn to the area in part to visit wineries, so the prospect of beer tourism is certainly an attractive specter, and that’s precisely what local breweries are planning.

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