Charlottesville Podcasting Network
Lectures, radio shows and more available on-demand
These are speeches and presentations put on by people in the Charlottesville area. Some of them may be mere excerpts, some of them may be complete.
| Ronald Collins, co-author of The Trials of Lenny Bruce, and attorney Robert Corn-Revere discuss the free speech trials of comedian Lenny Bruce, including their successful effort to earn Bruce the first posthumous pardon granted by the State of New York. The presentation was sponsored by the Thomas Jefferson Center as part of the 2007 Virginia Festival of the Book. |
 The Orphanage and School at Grison-Garde, Haiti |
Haiti is the topic for the March 2007 Charlottesville-Albemarle Democratic Breakfast.Several doctors routinely travel to the island nation to work at the Tovar Clinic in the rural community of Grison-Garde. There’s also an orphanage there, administered by Dr. Ray Ford. Ford’s son Mike spoke about the region, and was followed by Dr. Mike Dickens, a Charlottesville pediatrician who describes the conditions of many of the patients served by the clinic. |
On March 6, 2007, the Free Enterprise Forum hosted a luncheon at the Omni Hotel in Charlottesville, Virginia. Jim Bacon was invited to discuss the political realities of transportation policy as well as the links between economic opportunity and mobility in Virginia. Mr. Bacon is the publisher of the online newsletter Bacon’s Rebellion which he launched in 2002. Prior to that he was Publisher and Editor in Chief of Virginia Business magazine. Mr. Bacon, who lives in Richmond, is among the most prominent and well respected of the new media writers providing insights on Virginia public policy issues and the Virginia General Assembly. [Read more on Charlottesville Tomorrow’s blog]
 Photo: George Loper |
Congressman Bobby Scott of Virginia’s third district recently spoke at the University of Virginia, having been invited by the U.Va Democrats. He spoke about the federal budget, and described how he thinks the Republican party cannot be trusted to manage the economy.
To see the charts, take a look at our presentation that incorporates Congressman Scott’s PowerPoint with this audio. Let us know what you think, and if you’d like to see more of these kinds of presentations. We’re working to make them available as downloads. |
Global warming has become such a mainstream concern that it’s attracting the attention of several local groups. The League of Women Voters in Charlottesville/Albemarle chose the topic for its February meeting, with a discussion on what local governments can do to respond to the phenomenon.
The two speakers are former Charlottesville Mayor Maurice Cox, and former Albemarle County Supervisor David Bowerman.
Bowerman served on the county planning commission in the nineteen-eighties before joining the Board of Supervisors in 1989. He chaired the Local Sustainability Council from 1994 to 1998. Maurice Cox served on the Charlottesville City Council for eight years, ending his term in 2004 after a two-year stint as Mayor. He came to Charlottesville to teach architecture at the University of Virginia. He focuses on urban design issues in his teaching, and is a frequent speaker across the nation, extolling the virtues of the city’s downtown pedestrian mall.
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In April 2003, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court William H. Rehnquist provided the fifth annual lecture of the Henry J. Abraham Distinguished Lectureship Series. Sponsored by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, the series was created and funded by the former students of Professor Abraham to honor his outstanding career as teacher and scholar of constitutional law at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Chief Justice Rehnquist addressed the history and propriety of Supreme Court Justices serving in other public roles while they were seated on the Court. |
The first discussed the possible paths Charlottesville may follow. Will housing prices lock out middle class workers as has happened in the resort and retirement community of Aspen, Colorado? Or can the private sector, local governments, and the University of Virginia come together on an economic development strategy to produce a community attractive to emerging technology companies? VPTC Chair Gary Henry says he thinks the region could do so, and Katie Bullard of Austin-based AngelouEconomics makes a thorough comparison.
Click the arrow button above to hear the event, or download the mp3 here.
Brian McNeill writes about the event in the Daily Progress, and Brian Wheeler has an excellent and detailed post about this on Charlottesville Tomorrow. Carry on the conversation there and let us know what you think about Charlottesville’s future.
Are electronic voting machines vulnerable to computer hackers? That’s the topic of the January Charlottesville Albemarle Democratic Breakfast. A panel of speakers discuss serious software issues as well as recent controversies. Errors in counting, confusing displays and lack of documentation, and discuss possible paths forward.
The moderator is Jim Heilman, a former registrar in Albemarle County. Panelists include David Evans of the U.Va Computer Science Department, Charlottesville Electoral Board Secretary Rick Sincere and Will Harvey, Secretary of the Albemarle County Electoral Board. The event is introduced by Russ Linden, the co-chair of the Charlottesville City Democratic Committee.
If you’re organizing an event for the public and you’d like to have it recorded for posterity and podcast, we’re always looking for more events to post. Please contact us to be considered for inclusion.
The General Assembly is set to convene next week for its winter session. Legislators all across Virginia are meeting with constituents in forums sponsored by non-profits groups. One such event in Charlottesville was sponsored by the Jefferson Area Board of Aging, the Intergenerational Advocacy Council, and the Community Partnership for Long Term Care. After introductions from various speakers, Senator Creigh Deeds and Delegate David Toscano took questions from the crowd. Dick Lindsey served as moderator.
“This particular meeting occurs at a time when the country is on the threshold of an aging explosion, an explosion that many of us feel we are ill-prepared for,” says Lindsey during his introductory comments.
The legislators took questions on all manner of issues related to aging, but warned the audience not to expect too much in a session that is sure to be dominated by transportation. Deeds referred to the roads issue as “sucking the air” out of Richmond. One man asked how oxygen could be restored to get senior needs on the table. Toscano suggests that advocacy groups get involved with the legislative process by making their voices heard.
Every winter, homeless men and women die from exposure because they don’t have a place to sleep. Their deaths are marked on the longest night of the year in an event called National Homeless Person’s Memorial Day.
This year, Charlottesville joined the list of cities that hold a service. About sixty people gathered around a makeshift altar next to the Community Chalkboard on the downtown mall. They lit candles and listened as the Reverend Liz Emrey of New Beginnings Christian Church conducted the memorial service.
In this edited recording of the service, you’ll hear from Dave Norris of PACEM, the Reverend Jim Bundy from Sojourners United Church of Christ, Dr. Mary Washington of the Thomas Jefferson Coalition for the Homeless, and Police Chief Tim Longo. There’s also a couple of songs, as well as testimonies for the dead.
If you’re reading this in an RSS reader or on cvilleblogs.com, click here to download this file.
The Virginia Department of Health is beginning a public awareness campaign to to educate people and organizations on what to do if a pandemic flu should come to the United States. Sean Tubbs covered a press conference today for WVTF Public Radio, and prepares this podcast of the press conference. The panel consisted of Lilian Peake of the Thomas Jefferson Health District, Albemarle County Chief Executive Bob Turner, Assistant Charlottesville City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney, and Dr. James Turner of the U.Va Student Health Department.
House prices may be falling across Virginia, but Charlottesville continues to have a shortage of affordable houses. Many service workers have to commute long distances because of high prices. But, at least one new home will be kept at a reasonable cost, thanks to a new partnership between the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors and the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center, in collaboration with Church Hill Homes and the Piedmont Housing Alliance.
I took a tour of the new house, and recorded comments from CAAR’s Dave Phillips, Jeff Gaffney of the CAAR Workforce Housing Fund, and Darah Bonham, the director of CATEC. This nine minute piece features some of what they had to say in their own words.