After caucus participants have been certified as eligible to participate, all participants will be asked to assemble into caucuses, with one caucus for each filed Congressional candidate, a “No Candidate” caucus, and an “uncommitted” caucus.

A delegate candidate or alternate candidate may indicate a preference for a filed Congressional candidate on his or her filing form, or he or she may file as a “No Candidate” delegate or alternate or as an “Uncommitted” delegate or alternate. If a delegate or alternate candidate fails to indicate a preference on the filing form, the committee shall list such persons as “uncommitted”.

The Temporary Rules Committee shall prepare the pre-printed ballot, which shall be on white paper and which shall contain the names of all filed candidates for Congress as well as the option of selecting "No Candidate".

Julia Kudravetz (!) sent this great blurb along:

Tonight’s the beginning of a new monthly reading series in town.

Jesse Dukes, the guy you think is in Tunisia when he’s actually running down Market Street and vice-versa, will read something awesome like this,  or in this vein.  Jesse works for Backstory Radio, and is also a VQR Contributing Editor. I once saw him limbo under a red-hot burning stick, and that’s the least interesting thing that happened to him that day.

Laura Kolbe is going to read poetry while on a brief leave from saving lives in the UVa Emergency Room. She’s a med student and an all-around renaissance woman. Shakespeare and radiation right here.

There will also be classy snacks and free wine. I am on my way to Trader Joe’s right now. Free wine.  It’s at the Bridge 7-8 P.M.Free wine.

Additionally, the reading will be followed by a free concert of “Original Old Time Country Protest Spiritual Folk Rock Punk Funk.” A Venn Diagram of awesome right there.

If for some awful reason you would need any more details, event page is here (but why would you need any more after that fantastic blurb??)

1.  “Mean Girls,” 2004

Based in part on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman, this 21st-century classic defined the middle school years of a generation of current 20-somethings. Part social commentary on female high school cliques, part Tina Fey, Lindsey Lohan and Rachel McAdams at their best (and cattiest), “Mean Girls” is the quintessential story of girls behaving badly. The real message of the movie, however, is the value of friendship and the understanding that words do hurt. Cady Herron’s transformation from home-schooled transfer student to “mean girl” to finally finding her identity leads her to discover how far being kind to one another truly goes—a lesson we could all stand to learn.

2. “New Girl,” TV Series, 2011-2012

Who doesn’t love Zooey Deschanel’s slightly annoying, slightly dorky, completely adorable leading lady, Jess, on Fox’s “New Girl”? The sitcom follows a group of five friends as they navigate the ups and downs of adult life and the responsibilities of the late-20s, early-30s set. From getting fire to break-ups  to complicated roommate relationships and finding love where you didn’t think it was possible, “New Girl” simultaneously approaches those tough parts of young adulthood while also finding the comedy in the dark side of “growing up.”

3. “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” 2009

Originally a book by Stieg Larsson, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is not for the faint of heart. Rated R for some explicit content and grisly images, the film is meant to leave viewers white-knuckled as they anticipate the plot. “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” makes it on this list because the female protagonist, played by Noomi Rapace, in this version of the film, is a young, gifted computer hacker. Given the lack of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematical fields (check out the statistics from the National Girls Collaborative Project), this makes her pretty awesome in my book.

4. “Miss Representation,” 2011

“Miss Representation” is a documentary produced, filmed and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newson that explores the lack of women in powerful or influential positions in America. The documentary offers a fresh take on this long debated topic by examining the impact of the mainstream media—and the portrayals of women in such media—on the way women are perceived (or, conversely, deemed unworthy) as potential authority figures. Several high power women lend their voices to the film, including Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi,and UVa’s own Katie Couric. Points for a “punny” title. Double points for drawing attention to the under-representation of women in power and starting a dialogue to change it.

5. “Scandal,” TV series, 2012

Despite recent criticism that “Scandal” has become too soap-like, overly emotional and too convoluted to follow, Olivia Pope in Seasons 1 & 2  is the ultimate bada** woman. Her trademark long, leather gloves, her fabulous wardrobe of outerwear and her ability to remain calm and collected in the face of national crises make her totally role-model worthy. Her penchant for red wine and popcorn makes her relatable. What is truly awesome about Pope, besides her stellar outfits and viewer-friendly snack habits, is her powerful and compelling nature. She can be bossy, and at times a little dramatic, but when it comes down to it, Pope is a woman who gets things done.

Photos from IMDB.com

Content by Adelyn Bender

01. Andrew Peterson – All Things New [0:00]
02. Andrew Peterson – Serve Hymn / Holy is the Lord [3:50]
03. Jill Phillips – All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name [8:02]
04. Andrew Peterson – High Noon [11:34]
05. Jill Phillips – Praise to the Lord the Almighty [16:01]
06. Jill Phillips – Hosanna [18:58]
07. Andrew Peterson – Hosanna [24:15]
08. Jill Phillips – Christ the Lord is Risen Today [28:28]
09. Jill Phillips – Fairest Lord Jesus [32:25]
10. Jill Phillips – Man of Sorrows [36:49]
11. Jill Phillips – Lamb of God [40:08]
12. Andrew Peterson – The Good Confession (I Believe) [45:09]

You can get these songs from the following albums, which are highly recommended:

Andrew Peterson – Love and Thunder

Andrew Peterson – Resurrection Letters, Volume II

Jill Phillips – Kingdom Come

Emma Rathbone, a Charlottesville local, is a successful writer although in person you may not guess it. She’s incredibly self-effacing, which means her growing writing portfolio is not going to her head. I had to quietly confirm with someone at a party, in the same hush you’d ask if a couple across the room were dating or just siblings: “Emma Rathbone…she’s kind of a big deal, right?”

Emma writes pieces for the Shouts & Murmurs section of The New Yorker as well as a weekly satire gig at the website the Global Post. Her first book, Patterns of Paper Monsters, was published in 2010 by Little, Brown to much critical praise. Emma has been focussing more on comedy writing as of late, so we sat down to talk the ins-and-outs of funny.

What are you working on right now?

I’m working on my second novel. It’s been fits and starts, now I’m making real progress. I feel like I’m always wrong about this, but I think, hopefully, I finally can see the finish line. I’m trying to make a few big pushes, or kind of one big push with that.

After I’m finished with that, I think I’d like to focus more on comedy writing. To that end, I’ve been writing pieces for The New Yorker. I also have this gig writing satire for the Global Post, which is a new website started five or six years ago. They’ve won a few awards for reporting and journalism. The tagline is, ‘America’s World News Site,’ so it’s global news for an American audience. They are trying to increase their Buzzfeed-y, social media side a bit so I’m writing one satire piece a week about world news. That’s an ongoing thing.

Those are my three main writing endeavors right now, along with about five hundred other recently started and not-followed-through projects [laughs].

Do you have a writing routine?

I think lots of writers find it’s more productive to write in the morning, I am also like that. I feel like my brain is the most focussed right when I wake up, and I’ve had just one cup of coffee, and I’m just ready to go. I try to wake up pretty early and get started.

It seems as though with the fiction, and then with The New Yorker and Global Post, there’s a distinctive stylistic difference. You can see the common voice throughout all of them, but it seems as though they have different functions, devices and vocabulary, in a comedic sense and in an authorial sense. Can you talk a little about that? How you distinguish the writing you do for different projects?

The New Yorker work, or any sort of short humor writing like that, allows a total freedom to use whatever voice, format or conceit you like. Probably there is some overlap–like you said–and you can see some similarities across the board.

But the Global Post prefer it to be in a news format, like The Onion or The Daily Show. It’s a satire headline, then a fake-y news piece, so there’s a little less freedom there. But that’s fun to try, I’m enjoying that. There’s that thing where a limitation can make something a little easier. You have something to get a toehold on: “This is what I have to do.” Then you work within that, and you’re not just staring at the howling abyss of possibilities of what you can write.

With my book, it’s a first person narration written in this girl’s voice. Nailing a voice–getting a tone right–keeping it consistent over hundreds of pages–is a challenge. It helps to put it down for a while, and then read it with some distance from it. When you’re so close to it, you can’t see all the little inconsistencies. But when you finally get some fresh air, to me that’s when I can see, ‘Oh, it’s been two or three weeks and i’m looking at this passage again and I can see i need to strike this or that–it’s not consistent with her tone or voice…She wouldn’t really say that.’

I think it would be hard to write in some sort of wildly different perspective, some really different vernacular. The character that I’m writing about is, you know, an extension or a version of me. So it’s really a tapping into an aspect.

On the one hand, there’s the fiction writing you do which is not explicitly comedic, it seems more about conveying that voice and experience and the comedic is sort of incidental. Then on the other hand, you’ve got the short humor writing. it seems to me in our culture now, comedians and comedy has been elevated to a higher cultural position. You always hear people talking about comedians being the ‘truth tellers’ in our country now, and it seems like a virtue that is really sought after, people like people more today who are funny, you know? I know this is a big question thing, and I know you probably have to think out loud about it a bit, but I’d love to hear your first thoughts about your sense of the contemporary public elevation of comedy.

That’s a good point. I think it’s maybe a few things factoring into that phenomenon of comedy being raised to a certain level, with people such as Jon Stewart being considered the major ‘truth tellers.’ Perhaps it’s having something to do with being informed but entertained at the same time? I think things go down easier when there’s a little, witty spark to it. Maybe that’s too easy of an answer, though, that everyone is so media entertainment saturated we have to be spoon-fed this news sugarcoated with humor. But it doesn’t seem ludicrous that’s part of it.

This isn’t quite to your point, but I think comedy is a startling form of telling the truth. Making people see things from a left side, or at a kind of slant. It brings something into contrast, makes you see it in a new way. I think that makes it an effective delivery system for truth, or to make a point, or to show something about the world. But why it’s more now than ever, I don’t know. I think it’s a really good point, I’m just not sure why.

Do you think people are kind of hip to newscast formatting and all those formal things? It’s very clear what a professional news article looks like and there’s something particularly hilarious about it being tweaked in a certain way.

I’m sure it does. The Onion and The Daily Show are very satisfying for that reason. There’s so much about the regular news establishment to parody, like 24-hour cable news cycles and, you know, the media being beholden to economic demands and all of that stuff. So I think that maybe there is a little bit of mistrust in the regular media that makes the parody ones more effective, or seem more legitimate, in a way.

So there’s that one aspect you’re talking about–people being vulnerable in comedic situations and being exposed to something they might be very jaded to in other arenas. What about it as a pressure valve for people understanding what’s wrong with the world, but not knowing what to do about it? Being so glad to just be able to laugh at it?

That’s a good question, too. Sometimes I struggle with that while writing for the Global Post. I mean, there’s so much that’s not funny, that’s impossible to make something funny about. I’m not comfortable tackling some issues like the Malaysian airline thing, for example. There are people who think that their relatives are still alive, you know what I mean? It’s heartbreaking.

Then there’s another aspect to it where you can write something really trenchant that highlights hypocrisy or injustice. But then there’s this aspect of it too where everyone gets a little bit of a laugh, and everyone gets a wry kick out of it and they’re like, ‘I’m on that side because I got this.’ But you’re not doing anything. Now, I don’t think I should have to do something about everything or people that write comedy about the news should have to, I think the point is to make these things visible so people know what’s going on. At this moment, though, in our culture there is a slight thing where people are like [haughtily] Ha! I’m part of this tribe and I get it…kind of smugly, as though we’re on the right side, you know? And that that’s enough and we keep going on with everyday life. I don’t know what else to say about that, I’m guilty of the same thing, you know.

I feel like your voice as a writer comes from an analysis of self, then articulating that analysis clearly in different ways. How do you cultivate that? How do you process that analysis in a way that then people can relate to?

I think it’s a really fine line, a very fragile thing. I’m not sure if I’m speaking exactly to your question, but it makes me think about how sometimes comedians sometimes go off a little bit, you know? You have someone like Robin Williams, who had a heyday, and just struck the zeitgeist and it just chimed with everybody’s weird sensibility at the time and now it’s not quite the same. His kind of comedy–it doesn’t quite work anymore.

This is something that is terrifying to think of as a comedian–number one, the idea that you could have a schtick even though you didn’t think that you did; and, number two, that atmospheric levers could just turn a little way in the culture and suddenly your material is not hitting the same way. It is sort of a fragile, alchemical thing, where there’s something in the voice or the way you present something or the way you channel something that for whatever reason chimes with a larger mentality or consciousness. But, that thing can go off. And it’s a fine line. It’s such a matter of precision. I have not started pursuing comedy until quite recently, although I always secretly wanted to. I’m learning a lot as I go on, and something that I feel like I have learned is when you’re writing a joke or a piece, the difference between something that works and doesn’t work can be within the space of a word.

How that relates to channeling your sense of self, it’s kind of scary because obviously there is a lot of me in my work. It feels great when people respond to that, but it also feels terrible when I write something and it falls flat. Sometimes, you just write a dud, that’s a different thing. Sometimes I write something that I thought was hilarious and it doesn’t feel different from something I wrote that was successful. It’s like not being able to see what you’re doing right or wrong and knowing that it is this very fragile conglomeration of weird factors that you don’t quite understand, it’s frustrating sometimes.

People talk a lot about Jerry Seinfeld writing at a desk, working on a joke for hours, and that always blew my mind. It’s like you’re saying, it’s like a sculpture, there’s all this precision, there’s all this stuff in the way.

That’s a good way to put it. I’ve been doing research on humor writing and, for late night shows, people write a hundred jokes a day, more than that, just to get one. And it just is…it’s hard. It’s a hard thing to do. Just speaking to that sense of sculpting it and find the exact right turn or swivel that makes it funny. I guess one way to think about it is, if a joke is funny–if it’s truly funny–will it always be funny? Or will it only be funny in the era or the moment, or this sort of like time-period in which someone says it? I don’t know, I don’t know the answer to that.

Follow Emma on twitter: @emmarathbone 

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

The post CCAC Recap 4-14-14 – Growth, no growth, misinformation and high hopes appeared first on RealCrozetVA.

William Van Doren, MAKE-UP TEST. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on Arches, 17 x 23.

So, I was out in the field sketching the sunset on Tuesday for around 20 minutes, and the sky could be described as this gray, that gray, another gray, plus ... gray. The difficult decision many evenings is when to stop looking; I decided it wasn’t going to change. A while later I get a text from Laura, my wife, as she's headed home from town: “Gorgeous sunset!” WHAT???! Apparently, I missed a spectacular change that sometimes happens with multi-layered cloudy skies at twilight. OOPS. But, based on my notes and things Laura told me, I've made up for missing the sunset ... by making it up.

i have a bunch of fittings this afternoon so i’ve been real busy, but wanted to throw up a quick, no media post about tonight’s events.

Contrary to tea bazaar’s twitter feed, New Boss, Sharkopath and Typefighter show is happening TONIGHT. Sharkopath is a nice, metal rock band, reminds me of a more-instrumental Queens of Stone Age, from the c-ville. New Boss is Order of the Dying Orchid by another name. Yall know both these bands. Typefighter is garage rock from D.C.

Show starts at 9pm and is $7.

—-

Also tonight, down Market Street, at the Woolly Mammoth (formerly Black Moto) is the Big Blue Door Jam–Charlottesville’s version of the Moth. I think the line-up is already set, so don’t go thinking you can perform unless you already know you’re performing and your hands are real sweaty. Starts at 8pm at Woolly Mammoth, where Carleton Rd. meets Market Street (way down there). I think it’s suggested donation?

okay, sorry for the lo-fi post but i gotta hustle back to work!

xoxo

Photo by Alison Kuhn
U.Va. hosts a conference on big data ethics, law and policy with keynote speaker, Danah Boyd, who provided insight into social media.

U.Va hosted the first National Conference on Big Data Ethics, Law, and Policy on April 11, to facilitate a discussion of how to address the quickly growing collection of data we are witnessing today. Danah Boyd, the keynote speaker for the event, provided significant insight into the understandings teens have of privacy when engaging with social media networks.

The conference began with opening remarks from Deborah Johnson, co-director of the Center for Data Ethics, Law, and Policy, Don Brown, director of the Data Science Institute, and Siva Vaidhyanathan, co-director of the Center for Data Ethics, Law, and Policy. Don Brown and Deborah Johnson noted that the Center was a new venture for the Institute, having begun this past September. Don Brown said that data science is the integration of many fields and it cannot be done without recognizing issues of ethics, policy, and law. Vaidhyanathan introduced the keynote speaker for the morning, Boyd, calling her a “pioneer of empirical research” in how people use digital media in their every day life.

On Big Data, Boyd said, “Big data has nothing to do with bigness, and rarely has anything to do with data. It is in many ways a set of mythologies surrounding a phenomenon. And that phenomenon has to do with the way that we have the possibility of transforming society through different network technologies.”

Given this, the focus of Boyd’s work relied on demystifying some of the phenomenons we see occurring within these networks. She interviewed teens in 16 states, attending high school football games and rallies, among other typically “teen” spaces, with the hopes of eradicating the major myths about teens in regard to their use of digital media, particularly social media. These social media platforms generate spaces, which simultaneously become spaces where people gather, fostering a network of people through which an understanding of “public” emerges: the idea of an imagined community.

The public rhetoric concerning teen usage of social media typically contends that teens don’t care about privacy and thus the data that they leave on these social media sites should be fair game. Boyd’s research and presentation focused on teens understanding of privacy on social media sites.

She began a discussion of privacy, by comparing interactions in an unmediated environment (face-to-face interactions) to those in a mediated environment, namely social media sites. Those face-to-face interactions, despite occurring in a public place or sphere, are private by default. It takes effort, Boyd says, to share that conversation or gossip. In these mediated environments on social media networks, however, the idea is flipped. The effort becomes far greater to find the privacy settings on your social media account and change those settings, than to adhere to the default public setting. Thus these interactions become “public by default, private by effort.”

Privacy is not simply the control over information, but the control of a social situation. However, when entering into social media spaces, this ability to control your social situation becomes limited. Through Boyd’s numerous interviews with teens that engage with social media, she came to know the ways in which teens navigate this “default” public space.

She gave several examples of the ways teens shielded their accounts from public intrusion. One young girl consistently deleted the comments she and her friends posted onto Facebook statuses, not long after they were posted. Another young girl would deactivate and activate her account every time she logged in, as to hide her profile from adults trying to view it, making a concerted effort to only log in after 7p.m., when she believed those adults would no longer be concerned with her actions on her profile.

According to Boyd, the most popular way teens are able to maintain privacy on these otherwise public platforms is through restricting access to meaning, rather than content. She provided an example of a young girl whose mother constantly posted on her Facebook and expressed incessant concern for her daughter through these comments. When the young girl found herself in the middle of a break-up, she posted the song lyric, “Always look on the bright side of life,” as a way to signal to her friends that she was upset by way of a Monty Python reference. Yet by choosing this specific lyric, she was able to express her sorrows in a hidden manner, so as to avert any concern from her mother.

Teens are making very specific choices when posting to social media sites in order to restrict access to the meaning of their messages. Using pronouns rather than names is another common occurrence Boyd found in her study. The inner-circle, the close friends of the person posting, knows exactly “who” that pronoun refers to. Yet those on the margins, parents and teachers, have no clue.

Boyd’s findings show that teens are invested in maintaining privacy online. It is simply that those data mongers, wishing to profit from the data these teens provide, are on the margins. They do not see the ways in which teens today are navigating social media sites, very much concerned about keeping their space private. Teens are “hiding in plain sight” on these networks and are doing so effectively.

By: Alison Kuhn

Photo from: http://www.freelanceglobalmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/michelle_obama_daughters_election_night.jpg

For many, feminism has an ugly connotation, though I suspect much of the ugliness originated in false accusations, hurled by people who felt threatened by change. In the media, I saw the raging feminist who discredits the stay-at-home mom, ridiculing her for baking cookies. I also saw the “go-getter” feminist who was running the corporate law firm, putting dinner on the table, while being sexy the whole time, without somehow falling short. These are two examples of usual icons we as a culture have collectively bought into.

I bring this up because it is a controversial issue, infamously dubbed the “mommy wars” — a debate between moms who work outside of the home and stay-at-home moms. No job is better or more important than the other, but the debate persists. It’s also an issue that has historical and racial undertones that makes it all the more complicated due to the nature of intersectionality.

This concept was addressed in the BSA’s annual “Black Lives Matter Teach-In Series” in early April. The three-day teach-in series embarked on an exploration of different ways in which past and current national structures have consistently undervalued black life. Though the events spearhead specific topics, the series aims to critically engage with greater systemic establishments, insofar as garnering a holistic understanding— in order to work to more readily identify and combat these sources of injustice.

The talk I attended was “Nothing A J. Crew Cardigan Can’t Fix: The Radical Re-Styling of Michelle Obama” given by U.Va. English graduate student Shermaine Jones. Jones considered the restyling of Michelle Obama as the Black Jackie Onassis and the politics of this aesthetic turn, as well its implications for black feminism and black women’s expressions of discontent.

One sub-topic of discussion I was most intrigued by was about motherhood and the criticisms First Lady Michelle Obama received during the 2012 Democratic National Convention when she said her most important role is being the “mom-in-chief.”

“[There are] tensions within Black feminism and White ‘liberal’ feminism in the notions about what is an acceptable position” when it comes to motherhood because “calling yourself mom-in-chief is somehow not being progressive enough; it’s relegating yourself backwards,” Jones said.

Much criticism about her statement and “lack of a stance” on controversial issues (veteran’s benefits, reproductive rights, etc.) spoke to critic Michelle Cottle’s disappointment.

In Cottle’s article, “Leaning Out: How Michelle Obama became a feminist nightmare,” she said, “Her Ivy League degrees, career success and general aura as an a**-kicking, do-it-all superwoman had some women fantasizing that she would at least lean in and speak out on a variety of tough issues. It was not to be.”

For First Lady Obama to publicly say her No. 1 priority is raising her two daughters (ages 15 and 12) is radical in itself. When it came to who had the privilege of being a stay-at-home mother, history shows for many women of color, especially black women, this was not an option. Black women have almost always had to work outside of the home.

According to the report, “Historical Changes in Stay-at-Home Mothers: 1969 to 2009” by Rose M. Kreider and Diana B. Elliot, “There is evidence that married black women have always been employed outside of the house in large numbers […] Even black mothers with young children were in the workforce following World War II, when many of their white counterparts had withdrawn from the labor force.”

Dr. Camille Charles, a Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, brings up another point in “Stay-at-home motherhood not an option for most black women” saying, “Women usually have better success getting jobs than black men do. So if you’re talking about a two-parent household, she’s more likely to end up being the one to pick up the slack because historically the women have been more employable and more desirable employees because of the gender stereotypes we have as African-Americans.”

After putting this history into perspective, I began to understand how a decision like this was personal but also political. Now, I do not see professional women who have decided to give up their careers to raise their families as throwing away their success and erasing progress which past generations worked to achieve through hard fought battles.

The First Lady does not have to live up to high expectations and be a “superwoman.” She is being the best woman she knows how to be for herself and her family. What many have failed to realize is the absence of black women in national conversations about parenting in positive ways, tracing back to the Reagan era’s welfare queen — the myth of single black mothers who saw their numerous children as nothing more than taxpayer-subsidized paychecks.

With her personal declaration of the title “mom-in-chief,” the First Lady is illustrating how women should be living their lives on their own terms. No woman should be made to feel like their decision to stay at home and raise their children is a “waste” of their education.

I have re-evaluated my own prejudices about motherhood and being passionate about your convictions. Feminism to me also means having a right to choose your own ambitions. It means not having either/or propositions: You can be a career woman, and you can be a mother.

 By: Breeonna Reed

The post “Why Is My Face So Red?”: Two Common Skin Problems appeared first on UVA Health System Blog.

That’s right folks, we’re expecting our first baby!!!!!!!!!!

If you’ve seen our House Hunters episode, you know that a big part of our decision to buy this farmhouse was because we wanted to have a family homestead where we would spend our lives creating memories with our kids.  Similarly to my grandparents, who bought a 1792 fixer-upper back in 1936 with no idea what they were doing, David and I aspire to make this house a relaxing home to share with our children and maybe even grandchildren one day if we’re lucky.  Our future family has always been the inspiration behind our move to Charlottesville, our decision to buy this house, and our goals for all the renovations we’re doing.

So it is with that in mind that I am happier than I have ever been in my life.  We can’t wait to meet this little baby!  We’re due in late August and are waiting until the baby’s born to find out if it’s a boy or a girl.  Thus far, pregnancy has had its ups and downs but I’ve been lucky that the ups have far outweighed the downs (although I might not be singing the same tune in the heat of the summer!).  I love being pregnant in a place like Charlottesville with so many other young families (and expecting couples) everywhere I turn– I haven’t had to lift a grocery bag or touch a door especially since I started showing– and I know it will be an amazing place to raise our little one.  :)

Related posts:

1. Inspirational Bloggers
2. HOUSE HUNTERS!!!!
3. Blogger Meets World

The post First Amendment Clinic Profiled in New York Times appeared first on Thomas Jefferson Center.

John Grant, co-founder of the fine art publishing group “Thomasson- Grant”, experiments with new technological tools and techniques in his photographic practice. He is represented by Chroma Gallery in Charlottesville, as well as Getty Images worldwide. He has exhibited internationally and is perhaps best known for his photographs that have been used as the cover of the Twilight books.

You can bid on this unique artwork at Spring For The Arts! An annual celebration of your local arts council and an important source of support for PCA’s programs year-round, Spring For The Arts takes place on Wednesday, April 23 at CitySpace, 5:30-8:00pm.

The evening’s festivities will include an open bar, hors d’oeuvres by Harvest Moon Catering, live music from winners of PCA’s Arthur C. Greene Rising Star Award and a silent auction. Purchase your tickets online today and support your local arts council!

PCA thanks the following sponsors for their generous support:
Harvest Moon Catering, Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar, Gropen, INDOOR Biotechnologies, T&N Printing, Crutchfield, City of Charlottesville, Virginia Commission for the Arts, and the Office of the Provost & the Vice Provost for the Arts.

The post Floyd Abrams Speaks About Life “On the Front Lines of the First Amendment” appeared first on Thomas Jefferson Center.

In an insta-minute, I recalled that another big blogger had gotten divorced. Or permanently separated. Or something.

And then, of course, there was the gag-worthy “conscious uncoupling” of this dubious online presence.

Still at dinner with Trish, I turned to her and said, rather un-calmly, “DO ALL BLOGGERS GET DIVORCED?!”

And we discussed it and yes, of course that’s silly, and I didn’t get divorced because I BLOGGED, of all things. Jeez.

But this, I think is true: writers sometimes have trouble with relationships. And sometimes writing is an outlet for a troubled relationship. A kind of therapy for people going through something they can’t work out in other ways. So if it’s a chicken–>egg thing, the egg may very well be before the chicken. See?

In any case, I’m in a wonderful relationship now. I have loved writing since I was four and could wrap my hand around a pencil. Discovering a quick and easy way to self-publish was such a gift for me — thank you, Internet, Al Gore, Easter Bunny and baby Jesus — me, never having the patience for the Self Addressed Stamped Envelope and the waiting for replies to hopeful manuscripts.

Blogging works for me. Always has*.  So yeah, I’m sure if you bumped into the ex somewhere and asked him if we divorced because I was a blogger, he’d give you a funny look. Tell him I said hi!

*Blogging since 2003. Writing online since the late 1990s. I’m old.

Photo courtesy of Mary Nilan
U.Va. fourth-year student Mary Nilan poses with mother, Mary Ann Wasil, founder of the Get In Touch Foundation at a brunch in California.

Fourth year UVa religious studies major Mary Nilan was in middle school when her mother, Mary Ann Wasil, was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Interestingly enough, it was not Mary Ann’s doctor that diagnosed her or even suggested that she get a mammogram—she took the initiative on her own.

The fact that a woman can self-diagnose breast cancer at such an early stage seems miraculous, but to Mary Ann and her family it seemed second-nature because of how comfortable she was with her own body. Since then, Mary Ann has made it her mission to teach not only her two daughters but also girls all over the world about the importance of breast health and breast self-exams beginning at a young age.

At the end of all her treatments, Mary Ann Wasil sat down with family friends to figure out some way to educate girls and women about the importance of breast self-exams. After talking to the local school nurses in their hometown of Milford, Conn., Mary Ann realized that no such education program existed and decided to start a non-profit organization called the “Get In Touch Foundation.”

Mary describes her mother’s teachings about breast exams as a way to make girls feel comfortable with their bodies, to understand “what feels normal and what doesn’t” and to “get into really good habits at a young age.” Though Mary has lived with her mother’s diagnosis and teachings since middle school, she still acknowledges that there is always more to learn about your body.

Three years ago, her mother found that the cancer came back and is metastatic, meaning that it will be in her body forever. Mary said that this experience taught her that breast tissue extended farther into the shoulder than she thought and that being aware of all parts of your body is an important element of self-exams. She also stated that because of the foundation and the amount of time and energy her family has spent dedicated to education about breast cancer and breast health, she realized that “being able to talk about it is a blessing and being able to create a dialogue with people my own age is awesome.”

For the Get In Touch Foundation the primary method of fundraising is the “Pretty In Pink Brunches.” The first brunch was held in their hometown of Milford, and since then has branched out all over the country. A few weeks ago, Mary went out to Los Angeles, Calif. to be a part of the first brunch there.

At the end of March, Charlottesville hosted its second annual Pretty In Pink Brunch honoring Janet Herman, a professor in the Environmental Science Department who has been very active in breast cancer awareness before and after her diagnosis.

Mary and her older sister, Betsy, who graduated from UVa in 2013, are both founding board members of the Get In Touch Foundation. Mary spoke a lot about how inspirational her mother is to her, but the feeling is clearly mutual. As Mary Ann puts it, “Their fingerprints are all over its creation and its success…When you educate a girl, you educate the world. My daughters are the embodiment of this simple, yet powerful phrase, and I could not be more proud.”

By Emily Lloyd

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Changes the motion picture production income tax credit by (i) increasing the percentage of qualifying expenses eligible to be claimed from 15 percent to 20 percent, and from 20 percent to 25 percent for productions in an economically distressed areas, (ii) increasing the total biennium cap for all such credits from $5 million to $25 million, and (iii) having the credit expire on December 31, 2023. The bill also requires the Department to publish information regarding the credit regardless if it does not prevent the identification of the taxpayer claiming the credit. The bill is effective for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2014.

called the bonanza of states offering production tax credits a “race to the bottom,” as competition sees governments sweetening the pot to try to lure movies and TV shows within their borders.

“These tax credits and tax incentives are a zero sum game,” he said in an interview last week. “They don’t create a single new job. They just move jobs around, and they rob the states of the money they need for education and infrastructure.”

According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, every independent study of film tax credits has found that the credits are money-losers for the states. Arizona's Department of Commerce calculated that Arizona made back 28 cents in tax revenue for every $1 it “invested” in film tax credits. Connecticut's Department of Economic Development estimated that the state earned 7 cents in tax revenue for every $1 it lost. State agencies in Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico and even Pennsylvania's Legislative Budget and Finance Committee found that state coffers received less than 30 cents for every dollar they paid out in film tax credits.

If film production is such a great cash cow, why aren't venture capitalists lining up for a piece of the action? The problem is that the film industry wants special treatment. It wants someone else to shoulder the risk of investment while it keeps the profit for itself. No investor would agree to such a deal, and that is why the film industry has turned to our state government.

Filmmakers know the state can force taxpayers to invest in something taxpayers would never choose on their own.

Other arguments against incentives hold that they don’t help the states that offer them. In March, the Massachusetts revenue commission issued a scathing report on the state’s tax credit program, which stated that two-thirds of the total $175 million awarded in 2011 went to out-of-state spending. “The critique is that while they appear to bring in short-term temporary activity to a state or community, a lot of those benefits flow to the production companies,” says Eileen Norcross, a senior research fellow at George Mason U. “The people who are hired locally tend to be (in) more low-wage service industry jobs. It provides a temporary economic blip on the radar, and then it’s sort of fleeting.”

finding that it is barely worth the lost revenue. A recent report by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue found that of the $44 million in tax credits awarded in 2011, two-thirds of the $175 million in spending generated due to economic activity went to out-of-state workers, and 47 percent of the wages generated, or $53 million, went to those earning over $1 million.

On net, Massachusetts' film credit program is costing the state more than it delivers. After subtracting payments to out-of-state residents and the budget reductions required to fund the credits, only $39 million in state economic activity resulted. The findings have prompted Governor Deval Patrick to cap the state's program to $40 million in annual credits.

North Carolina's Legislative Services Office analysis shows their film credit program realizes even less impressive returns. In 2011, the state awarded $30.3 million in film credits – reimbursing productions that spent over $250,000 up to 25 percent for qualifying expenses. Yet, the program could only claim about 55 to 70 new jobs. Based on their model, the report claims that if instead North Carolina's business taxes had been reduced across the board by $30.3 million, between 340 and 450 jobs and $14 million in personal income would have materialized.

place after place has discovered these things are rife with corruption and they don't deliver the returns that they expect. But there's always another politician or another city that's willing to be seduced by Hollywood glamour.

If the “open rate” for my monthly note is only 2% yet it generates this kind of response, I’ll be happy. I’ll lead with “thank you” to the reader who took a great deal of time to email me this response, and for the three stories her response has generated.

Part 1 of 3 …

This month I asked what you (consumers) would change about the real estate process.

A reader responded – (bolding mine)

I wish house listings included a floor plan, even if it were a rough, not-to-scale, sketch. We’d be able to understand better if a house would or would not work for us if we knew the relationships of the rooms to each other. If the agent/photographer is good, we can sometimes get this from the photos — if they are presented in a rational, spatial sequence, and include the transitions from one space to the next — but the quality of the photos is many times misleading (if they look good) or downright awful.

(It amazes me that owners allow their agents to post pictures that are dark, out of focus, include inadvertent selfies in mirrors, or show clutter and junk that could have been picked up and moved out of the field of the photo for 30 seconds.)

Look – providing floor plans isn’t a difficult task; it’s not inexpensive, but neither are houses.

I noted the advent of affordable floor plan technology in 2010. I hand sketch floor plans all the time – just Saturday I drew for a client a house I’d seen a few days’ prior. From memory on a piece of scrap paper, and it worked (maps are useful when combined with verbal descriptions). I don’t know my older daughter’s phone number (which she’s had for 5 years) but can typically recall the layout of a property I saw five years ago.

I’ve written many, many times (and so have my clients!) – since at least 2007 – about real estate photos. The only thing that will change poor photos being used is for consumers to demand more. I send the photos to my seller clients before using them on anything – I want to make sure they both approve and feel good about how we’re marketing their homes.

I’d love to be able to provide recent examples from the Charlottesville MLS of head-smashingly bad photos – photos so bad I wish I could call the seller and ask them what they’re thinking. In one example, I know the agent consistently takes bad photos, and the seller would have known that if they’d spent 30 seconds researching. That the seller permits these photos to be used is confounding, but there you go.

Floorplans – yes, they cost money. So do professional photographers. So do professional Realtors’ services.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCentralVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

The Price of Weakness

Russian elite special forces have seized police stations and city halls all across Eastern Ukraine, while 40 thousand Russian regular troops, with tanks and attack helicopters, mass on the Ukrainian border.  

Following exactly the same script as the one used to seize Crimea, Russia is plainly preparing to annex large parts of a neighbor, using the pretext of protecting Russian speaking residents from a “fascist   Ukrainian government” backed by the West.  A Russian warplane buzzed a US Destroyer in the Black Sea for ninety minutes, daring it to shoot him down.

President Obama has told Russian President Vladimir Putin that “there is still time for a diplomatic settlement”, as if there is any reason to seek one.  And his fearsome press secretary Jay Carney, who looks like a kindergarten teacher in his ill fitting suit and oversized glasses,  warns that “there will be costs” if Russia continues its actions.  

Another red line, perhaps?  Like the one Syria crossed when it gassed its own people (and did so again by dropping chlorine gas on innocent civilians just this weekend?)

Russia had taken Obama’s measure, and is convinced that  he is afraid to act.  Our European allies are much more concerned with their business relationships with Russian oligarchs and their supplies of natural gas than with naked aggression against a neighboring sovereign state.  

 If I were the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, I’d be practicing up on my Russian…