WINA Dumps Howard for O’Reilly

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 11, 2005 in Politics. 7 Comments

dsewell writes: WINA is announcing that starting Monday the 14th, Bill O’Reilly‘s “Radio Factor” show will replace Clark Howard‘s consumer affairs program. A phone call to the station confirmed that Howard’s show is being dropped entirely rather than moved to a different time slot.

I was going to bill this as the first post-Eure programming move on WINA, but in fact the sale of the station to Saga Communications has not (to my knowledge) been completed yet. So I have no idea whether it’s related to the sale.

Whatever the underlying reason, to my mind it’s an ominous move. Clark Howard is one of the few nationally syndicated AM talk radio hosts who is humane, reasonable, and capable of listening to callers rather than using them as rhetorical stepladders. I have no idea what his politics are, except that he is consistently on the side of honesty and fairness in business and the rights of the little guy in consumer transactions. Bill O’Reilly, on the other hand, is the apotheosis of what talk radio has become: a mean-spirited, pugnacious self-promoter.

Silver lining: WINA is removing the only reason not to listen to Diane Rehm and “Talk of the Nation” on Radio IQ during the 1-3pm time slot. That’s too bad. I quite like Clark Howard’s show.

Purnell’s Letter to Griffin

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 10, 2005 in Education. 24 Comments

There’s a whole kerfuffle over a letter circulating via e-mail, allegedly written by Charlottesville Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Laura Purnell, as James Fernald and Josh Barney report in today’s Progress. Purnell wrote a nasty criticism of beleaguered Charlottesville Superintendent Scottie Griffin, and ended up writing a letter of apology to Griffin. Griffin released the letter of apology publicly, but would not release the letter that made the apology necessary. To that end, keep reading to see the original letter in question, thanks to pseudonymous submitter “DumpHer.”

Continue reading ‘Purnell’s Letter to Griffin’

Library Wifi Disconnected

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 9, 2005 in Politics. 8 Comments

silkyzephyr writes: The Jefferson-Madison Regional Library has been forced to suspend its Wifi service. According to one of the reference librarians, a hacker used it to break in and vandalize their computer. The library hopes Charlottesville’s information technology office can devise safeguards. That office is currently overburdened with the changeover to the new Citylink software, however. So it seems unlikely the library can restore Wifi service any time soon.

Bummer. Hopefully, they’ll plug in a $50 hardware firewall to partition off their public network from their private network to prevent that from happening again via WiFi or the computer lab. 02/11 Update: It seems that something got lost in the game of telephone. It was system trouble, but non-malicious, that disconnected the WiFi. They decided to leave it down, as it is just a pilot project, until they could fix the system problem permanent-like to bring the connectivity back. Thanks to library prez John Halliday for the info. Mea culpa.

City to Spend $1.5M on Meadowcreek Parkway

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 8, 2005 in General News. 10 Comments

VDOT has allocated $1.5M to Charlottesville, to create engineering plans for the Meadowcreek Parkway, and Council has decided to send out a bid request for consultants to do just that. The expense is the largest relating to the Parkway in quite some time. It must be determined if the Parkway will have a full interchange with 250 and McIntire, or if it will meet up with the two in a stoplighted, 17-lane intersection, which would do virtually nothing to alleviate traffic. Engineering plans should be done in 2.5 years, followed by securing an estimated $25M funding. Neighborhood Development Services director Jim Tolbert figures that funding should be available by 2027. Gentlemen, start your engines. John Yellig has the story in today’s Progress.

Turner: Griffin Victim of Sexism, Racism

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 3, 2005 in Education. 19 Comments

Responding to criticism of the rather unorthodox proposals of new Charlottesville school superintendent Scottie Griffin, the always-calming UVa Dean Rick Turner declared in a speech at the Rotunda yesterday that “she’s being dragged through the mud because she’s black and female,” helpfully pointing out that he doesn’t “think white people in Charlottesville will do anything for black folks.” Turner believes that, if Griffin were a white man, everybody would be fine with her proposal, which would cut five student-contact positions and replace them with four administrators. Kate Andrews has the story in today’s Progress.

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