Macacaman

Stop the Presses column by Chris Graham
newdominion@ntelos.net

Virginia is going to have a vice-presidential nominee soon.

Just has to be in the cards.

I mean, Tim Kaine is all over the airwaves, for one.

Last week, the wife turns on “Fox News Sunday,” and there our governor is, Sunday morning, 9 a.m., sitting in studio. Read more

Recession … or slowdown?

Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

Listen to today’s “Augusta Free Press Show,” featuring an interview with UVa. economics professor Peter Rodriguez. Show Length: 11:36.

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University of Virginia professor Peter Rodriguez is avoiding using the word recession right now.
He’s one of the few people that I know of who is doing this, so I want to give him credit.
“My take would be that we have entered a slowdown,” said Rodriguez, a business-administration professor at UVa.’s Darden School of Business, in an interview with me for a story for our upcoming New Dominion Magazine, which is due out in stores and libraries on April 1. Read more

Forty feet - no problem

Story by Chris Graham
sportsdom@ntelos.net

Listen to today’s “SportsDominion Show,” featuring an interview with Eastern Mennonite University track star Chelsea Lawhorn. Show Length: 7:07.

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“I hope to hit 40 feet by the time I graduate.”

And so it is that Chelsea Lawhorn has thrown down the gauntlet.

The Eastern Mennonite University junior is already one of only 11 women in Eastern Mennonite University track-and-field history to pass the 37-foot mark in the shot put.

So give her credit for having done something special.

And she will take a league-leading throw of just under 38 feet into this weekend’s ODAC championships.

Let’s just say that 40 feet is doable for Lawhorn.

And actually, let’s say that anything is doable for a young woman who didn’t even think she’d throw a shot after high school.

Read more

It’s still a stupid stoplight

Stop the Presses column by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

I wrote a year ago or so about the Stupid Downtown Waynesboro Stoplight.
You know the one. Sits there at the intersection of Main and Wayne. Takes forever and a daggone day to cycle folks through.
Everybody I know who has to drive through downtown to get where they’re going goes out of their way to avoid it.
Heck, I live downtown, and I drive around it when I can.
It claimed its first victim the other morning. Read more

Spend ‘free time’ playing leap frog with a unicorn

Column by Jim Bishop

“Time . . . is on my side …
Yes, it is …”
- Rolling Stones (1964)

Every four years, it happens: We get an “extra” day on our calendars.
That’s right. Today, Feb. 29, is Leap Year Day.
I’ve often wondered when those born on Leap Year Day actually celebrate their birthdays. One such local person is Caroline Murch, born Feb. 29, 2004. The daughter of Jennifer and John Murch, she turned 4 yesterday (her first three birthdays were observed on the 28th). Jennifer said they’ve kidded Caroline that she just turned 1 year old.
So, how did you invest this “extra” day given us? Work? Call in sick? Watch daytime television? Clean out the attic or garage (I’ll bet!)? Volunteer for a service project? Read more

Cirque du Soleil comes to Charlottesville

Story By Erin Gutzwiller

Acrobats, dancers, and musicians are all a part of the contemporary circus known as Cirque du Soleil. This entertainment domain was founded in 1984 in Baie-Saint-Paul by two street performers and has grown rapidly throughout the world.
Cirque du Soleil Saltimbanco is in Charlottesville through Saturday night as it continues a year-long tour of North America. Read more

Landes provides updates on legislative activities in Richmond

Column by Steve Landes

This last week in Richmond was one of the busiest and most eventful of the session, as the General Assembly has now reached the home stretch in completing its work for 2008. In a week that began with a federal holiday and ended with my attendance at the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Capitol Square monument, what was most notable happened inside the Capitol. Read more

Help me pick the All-ACC women’s team

Best Seat in the House column by Chris Graham
sportsdom@ntelos.net

I have a vote on who gets named to the All-ACC teams.
Wanna help me fill out my ballots?
We have to do the women’s ballots first. That one’s due Sunday night at 9.
I have to tell you up front - I’m leaning toward having three in-state kids on my first team there, Brittany Cook from Virginia Tech (17.9 points per game) and Monica Wright from UVa. (17.4 ppg), the #1 and #2 leading scorers in the league, respectively, and Maryland point guard (and Harrisonburg native) Kristi Toliver, who’s third in the conference in scoring (17.3 ppg) and tops in assists (7.7 assists per game). Read more

Tuna embraces, satirizes small-town South

Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

Listen to today’s “Augusta Free Press Show,” featuring interviews with Greater Tuna stars Duane Hahn and Bob Wright. Show Length: 10:13.

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Thurston Wheelis and Arles Struvie want to welcome you to Tuna, Texas, the third smallest town in the Lone Star State.
What the fictional Tuna lacks in size, it needs to be said, it more than makes up for in its characters. You learn that from Thurston and Arles, disc jockeys for the town radio station, OKKK, right off.
Bringing them to life in the upcoming production of Greater Tuna being put on by the Wayne Theatre Alliance and the Waynesboro Players are local actors Duane Hahn and Bob Wright, who will have the fun of presenting 20 of Tuna’s more interesting characters to life at Fairfax Hall Friday night and Saturday night. Read more

The little movie theater that could

Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

Listen to today’s “Augusta Free Press Show,” featuring an interview with Visulite Cinemas owner Adam Greenbaum. Show Length: 13:10.

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This is the first year probably ever that I’ve even seen one of the movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, much less three of them.
For that I can thank Adam Greenbaum.
I first met Adam a few years ago when he had this wild idea to buy a decaying old movie theater in Downtown Staunton and fix it up with the notion in mind of showing the kinds of films that don’t make it to the mall or the cineplex.
It only cost him a few hundred thousand dollars and a few years of his time, but the feel-good part of this story is that he’s surprised everybody not named Adam Greenbaum by making Visulite Cinemas work.
“It always struck me early on - when the whole Visulite idea was an embryo. I was living in New York, and I had friends all over the country, and I would say, You have to see this movie, you have to see that movie. And I was always disheartened when people would say, I hadn’t even heard of that movie, it’s not even playing here. And not only in small towns, but in small- and medium-sized cities,” Greenbaum said in an interview for today’s “Augusta Free Press Show.” Read more

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