The Dirt, a publication of the American Society of Landscape Architects, on Tuesday published a long-form interview with Kristina Hill, who chairs the landscape architecture department at U.Va.’s School of Architecture, on her ideas about managing the effects of climate change. It’s an interesting read.
Hill notes that Americans — and by extension, their political leaders — seem to be less concerned about the effects of climate change than Canadians and Europeans, and suggest that preparations to mitigate those effects may be lacking.
Seung-Hun Lee, an assistant professor of physics at U.Va., is among the authors of a report that disputes the “official” account of the sinking of a South Korean warship, the Cheonan. While the report of the Joint Investigative Group blamed the sinking on a North Korean torpedo, Lee and colleagues say that it could not have happened the way the JIG report described.
You can read a summary of the controversy here. Lee and others held a press conference in Tokyo today to discuss their findings.
Most of us learned “We hold these truths to be self-evident …” many years ago. But have you ever read Thomas Jefferson’s entire Declaration of Independence? National Public Radio started a tradition 22 years ago of having its hosts read aloud the whole text in honor of the Fourth of July; you can listen to this year’s reading here, and follow along in the text below (after the break).
(For the uninitiated, “BackStory with the American History Guys” is a history-focused public radio show produced by the U.Va.-affiliated Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. It is hosted by three current or former U.Va. history professors.)
Sherrill, a non-scholarship player who attended the prestigious Phillips Andover Academy in Massachuetts — not heretofore known as a hotbed of ACC basketball talent — is perhaps the most unlikely U.Va. basketball contributor since former bartender Raleigh Harbour saw action in 13 games for Pete Gillen’s first undermanned team during 1998-99 season. Nonetheless, Sherrill has seen acrtion in 11 of the team’s first 12 games, and has been in the starting lineup for the last five.
The Cavaliers open ACC play Saturday at noon when they travel to face North Carolina State. Check your local listings for TV information.
iTunesU now has 26 tracks of audio from the NAACP 100th Anniversary Symposium, held at U.Va. last month. You must have iTunes on your computer; click here to access the audio.
U.Va.’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership annually holds a Candidate Training Program, in which it offers political training for candidates for office in Virginia — be they Republicans, Democrats or independents, running for local or state offices. The idea is to teach them how to run a positive, issues-oriented campaign.
In the wake of yesterday’s elections, the institute’s leaders are crowing a bit: 27 of the 49 Sorensen grads on the ballot yesterday appear to have won their elections (based upon unofficial results). The winners included 10 Republicans, 14 Democrats and three independents. Five were elected to the General Assembly, including four grads of this year’s program.
In the Virginia governor’s race, Republican Bob McDonnell (pictured at right) bested Democrat Creigh Deeds by a margin of 51 percent to 44 percent, with the rest being write-in votes (those kids!). If that result repeats itself in the real voting tomorrow, it would end a run of two straight Democratic governors.
In the New Jersey governor’s race, Democrat Jon Corzine breezed to an easy win over Republican Chris Christie and independent Chris Daggett. Corzine claimed 45 percent of the vote, to 33 percent for Christie and 12 percent for Daggett. The remaining 10 percent was split among nine other candidates. (Speculation: the large field must have resulted from a lot of unemployed candidates looking for work and a low barrier to getting on the ballot in New Jersey).
In all, 313,000 votes were cast in this year’s only national student poll.
U.Va.’s Miller Center of Public Affairs has pulled together a series of excerpts from its Presidential Recordings Project that featured Sen. Edward Kennedy, who died late last night.
Ted Kennedy was a graduate of U.Va.’s School of Law.
The story discusses an upcoming reunion of descendants of one Paul Jennings. Born into slavery, Jennings served James and Dolley Madison during the time they were the first residents of the White House. He later became “the first person to put his White House recollections into a memoir,” according to the Times, a rare glimpse into the lives of presidents’ slaves.
The descendants are to gather at the White House on Monday, which promises to be a poignant moment, given the mansion’s current occupant.
In detailing what is known about Jennings’ life, the Times article prominently mentions research by Holly Shulman, editor of the Dolley Madison Digital Edition and a research professor in the Studies in Women and Gender program, and her then-student, Julie Doxsey, who graduated in 2008 but continues to work with the project from her home in Maine. Under Shulman’s supervision, Doxsey uncovered accounts in abolitionist newspapers of Jennings’ time with the Madisons. (Jennings was later liberated by Sen. Daniel Webster.)
That’s the opinion of Will Sherrill’s high school coach, according to 
U.Va.’s 
In the Virginia governor’s race, Republican Bob McDonnell (pictured at right) bested Democrat Creigh Deeds by a margin of 51 percent to 44 percent, with the rest being write-in votes (those kids!). If that result repeats itself in the real voting tomorrow, it would end a run of two straight Democratic governors.
An article in Sunday’s New York Times