The Village’s Environmental Advisory Board held an education-focused meeting Dec. 8 at Village Hall, in which current and former Garden City High School and college students participated, discussing their interests environmental and life sciences. Caroline Flanagan is attending the University of Virginia. She was working on her final project for “Sustainable Energy Systems,” overseen by her college professor who is a subject expert who is in consulting work on gas utility lines and local projects.
It’s just more of the same, said University of Virginia swimmer Abby Kapeller, who was in Minnesota to spend the holidays with her family in Excelsior. “As athletes, we’re more cautious,” she said. “If you get COVID, the whole team shuts down. So, while I’m home, I won’t see friends who aren’t vaccinated. I don’t want to bring COVID to my team. It just feels like it never stops,” she added.
“We are standing in a park where the city is still refusing to address systemic issues,” Bryant, now a student at the University of Virginia, said the day of the removal. “... The work of removing the statues is only the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much work left to do to address affordable housing, to address policing [and] to address the wealth gap.”
Another Muscatatuck regular who has an established routine is Dave Carr. What he has done for years – and did so again this year – is travel from the University of Virginia, where he works, to southern Indiana to visit relatives over Christmas and then shoot over to the refuge. Carr is 40 years into his Muscatatuck ritual, but when the birders collected at 7:30 a.m., he wasn’t terribly optimistic about how well everyone would fare in the rain. “It is pretty disappointing,” Carr said of journeying a long way only to be partially stymied by poor weather.
During her inauguration week lecture, Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis discussed her research in Richmond and Charlottesville. Louis Nelson, a former colleague of McInnis at the University of Virginia, where he is currently vice provost for academic outreach and professor of Architectural History, sang her praises. She is “one of the most impactful social historians of the American South at work today,” said Nelson, who co-edited the book “Educated in Tyranny: Slavery at Thomas Jefferson’s University” with McInnis. Her “scholarship has forged a path toward the truth telling that...
(Commentary) In November, I heard Gary Gallagher, UVA professor of history emeritus, speak at the 158th commemoration of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address at Gettysburg National Military Park. Gallagher’s initial point was arresting: He’s wearied by people remarking that our current context is unprecedented and insufferable, and it’s not. Why, compared to the darkness of the Civil War, our darkness is a pittance.
National party leaders, operatives and analysts are watching closely for clues about what works and what doesn’t. “You could make the argument that Pennsylvania is arguably the most important presidential swing state now,” said Kyle Kondik, an election analyst at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia. With Florida, in many eyes, shifting reliably into the Republican column, Pennsylvania has the most electoral votes of any other battleground.
“I think the Republicans should be good in VA-05 at least for the early part of this decade,” said Kyle Kondik with the UVA Center for Politics. “If you have a pretty Democratic-leaning environment in a future election, the district may be competitive.”
Political analyst Larry J. Sabato, director of UVA’s Center for Politics, encouraged NASCAR to reject the plan. “‘Let’s Go Brandon’ is nothing more than a rude middle finger to President Biden by Trump supporters – and there’s no question NASCAR fans are disproportionately pro-Trump,” Sabato wrote in an email exchange. “For the most part, NASCAR has admirably tried to disassociate itself from partisan and racist nastiness, so let’s hope they do the right thing and nix this sponsorship deal. . . . This is not the image NASCAR should want to project.”
As a new governor with no previous political record, Youngkin begins with a blank slate, but observers already are making comparisons to past governors. “[Youngkin] seems like a throwback to old business governors like John Dalton, or a modern version is Bob McDonnell,” says political analyst Larry Sabato, director of UVA’s Center for Politics.
Those comments seem to suggest the state GOP is following the tenor of Youngkin’s campaign, says Larry Sabato, founder and director of UVA’s Center for Politics. “I can already tell from the comments that Todd Gilbert and others have made that [Republicans] clearly want to keep a lid on the crazier ideas,” Sabato says. “Youngkin got elected by corralling the crazy. My sense is they’ll adopt the most palatable agenda possible.”
“The nutty far-right (you know who) wants a ‘national divorce’, i.e., secession,” tweeted Larry Sabato, director of the UVA Center for Politics. “Pray tell, what will we do with the nuclear weapons? God forbid the loony right should get even one bomb.”
One political expert said Reid should get credit for a history-making political development. “Aside from his irreplaceable role in passing Obamacare, Reid’s biggest impact may have been in strongly encouraging Barack Obama to run for president,” said Larry Sabato, director of UVA’s Center for Politics.
“The public is increasingly judging Biden relatively negatively. His approval rating is underwater, and strong disapproval is significantly higher than strong approval,” Kyle Kondik, an analyst at UVA’s Center for Politics, said.
(Video) UVA Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato discusses the Democratic House members not seeking re-election next year and what it means for the party.
(Podcast) Marc Selverstone, chair of the Presidential Recordings Program at the Miller Center of the University of Virginia, explains the background of the LBJ tapes.
(Transcript) William Antholis, who heads UVA’s Miller Center, discusses the challenges that many presidents have faced in their first year in office.
“This kind of cap and trade regulation is now used all across the world,” says Bill Shobe, a UVA professor of economics. “It’s used in China, in the European Union, in New Zealand, and California is using a similar program to reduce its CO2 emissions.”
Although people have occupied Central Virginia for at least 11,000 years, Professor Jeffrey Hantman, anthropologist and former UVA professor, proposes that the Monacans became a recognizable, unique cultural group around 1000 AD.
Former VRS trustee Edwin Burton, the longest-serving trustee in the commonwealth’s history, said the new CIO should be reasonably knowledgeable about most of the fund’s asset classes, but not necessarily an expert in any of them. Burton, a University of Virginia economics professor and co-author of a book on behavioral finance, said someone with a background that strongly emphasizes one particular asset class will likely be biased toward that asset class when a balanced approach is needed.