Paper 1/29 - Virginia Law Weekly
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<strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong><br />
“Freedom of religion, freedom of the press;<br />
freedom of persons under the protection of the<br />
habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially<br />
selected, — these principles form the bright<br />
constellation which has gone before us, and<br />
guided our steps through an age of revelation<br />
and reformation.”<br />
THOMAS JEFFERSON<br />
Around<br />
North Grounds<br />
This Saturday marks the Sixth<br />
Annual Super Saturday. SBA encourages<br />
ALL law students to assist<br />
in the effort to build bridges<br />
between the <strong>Law</strong> School and the<br />
greater Charlottesville community.<br />
If you are interested in participating,<br />
you can sign up today in<br />
Hunton & Williams Hall. Super<br />
Saturday will kick off with bagels,<br />
doughnuts and coffee at the <strong>Law</strong><br />
School. After the projects are finished,<br />
SBA will host a beer and<br />
pizza party for the volunteers.<br />
•••<br />
Feb Club kicks off this Saturday<br />
night at Alderman Road. Will<br />
you be the one who has what it<br />
takes to make an appearance at<br />
every party this year<br />
•••<br />
Be sure to purchase your tickets<br />
to Barrister’s Ball, which will<br />
be held Saturday, February 6. Tickets<br />
will be sold in Hunton & Williams<br />
Hall through Tuesday. Save<br />
yourself some bucks and buy them<br />
in advance.<br />
•••<br />
Need a little break Members of<br />
the <strong>Law</strong> Christian Fellowship are<br />
once again volunteering their<br />
babysitting services for law students<br />
with children who have plans for<br />
Valentine’s Day evening. If you are<br />
interested, please drop a note in<br />
Amy Ashton’s mailbox or e-mail her<br />
at aca9w. Please respond by<br />
Wednesday, February 10.<br />
•••<br />
<strong>Law</strong>yer joke of the week: What<br />
do you get when you cross a bad<br />
politician with a crooked lawyer<br />
Chelsea Clinton.<br />
•••<br />
Thumbs down to<br />
one member of the<br />
<strong>Law</strong> School Administration.<br />
The <strong>Law</strong><br />
<strong>Weekly</strong> was disappointed<br />
that while reporting this<br />
week’s story on scheduling, officials<br />
at Stanford and Chicago <strong>Law</strong><br />
Schools as well as the U.Va.<br />
Provost’s and Dean Scott’s office<br />
spoke with us, but this administrator<br />
was too busy to speak with us on<br />
short notice. ANG does not see how<br />
the administration of this <strong>Law</strong><br />
School can expect to communicate<br />
with the students if the administrators<br />
will not answer questions from<br />
the student newspaper. We urge all<br />
members of the <strong>Law</strong> School faculty<br />
and staff to take our calls when we<br />
have questions. We know you’re<br />
busy but the students want to know<br />
what’s going on.<br />
•••<br />
The Dillard Fellow tryout can be<br />
completed during any consecutive<br />
three-day period between Friday,<br />
February 5 and Monday, March 1.<br />
The tryout packet may be picked up<br />
from Phyllis Harris in WB 348a.<br />
The tryout is open to first-year and<br />
second-year students.<br />
•••<br />
Christmas in April needs your<br />
help! CiA is a volunteer organiza-<br />
see ANG page 5<br />
Bet You Don't Know<br />
...why we have classes on<br />
Martin Luther King’s<br />
birthday.<br />
For details, see page 3.<br />
The Newspaper of the University of <strong>Virginia</strong> School of <strong>Law</strong> Since 1948<br />
Vol. 51, No. 14. Friday, January <strong>29</strong>, 1999 Subscriptions Available<br />
<strong>Law</strong> School Set for Super Saturday<br />
by Don Cole ’00<br />
With the anticipation of the fast<br />
approaching Feb Club season, many<br />
U.Va. <strong>Law</strong> students will spend tomorrow<br />
giving something back to<br />
the Charlottesville community before<br />
immersing themselves in the<br />
shameless excesses of partying.<br />
file photo by J. Todd White<br />
Over 130 law students participated in last<br />
year’s Super Saturday.<br />
Tomorrow is the annual Super<br />
Saturday event, otherwise known<br />
as the American Bar Association’s<br />
“work-a-day” program. This is the<br />
sixth year that U.Va. has participated<br />
on the Saturday before the<br />
Super Bowl.<br />
Second-year event organizers<br />
Students<br />
Debut<br />
New CD<br />
by Doug Mintz ’99<br />
Many students often ask themselves<br />
“What Am I” during their<br />
three years at the <strong>Law</strong> School. When<br />
third-years Alex Ritchie, Ben<br />
Hadley, Vijay Shanker, second-year<br />
Scott Dangler and Keith Berets —<br />
the husband of Lenora Reynolds ‘98<br />
— asked themselves that question,<br />
they decided they were, in part, rock<br />
musicians.<br />
“The album title [What Am I] has<br />
nothing to do with <strong>Law</strong> School,” said<br />
Ritchie. “It’s the name of the first<br />
song, which is a song I wrote about<br />
relationships and what women<br />
want.”<br />
Nonetheless, over Winter Break,<br />
Momma Shanks released their selfproduced<br />
and self-published album.<br />
The group performed last night before<br />
a crowd of law students at “The<br />
Bomb Shelter,” a local bar.<br />
The law students in the band<br />
released the album at an unusual<br />
time: just a semester before they<br />
join the work force as attorneys.<br />
“We all had a bunch of songs we<br />
wanted to put together. And when<br />
we got together to play, the songs<br />
sounded good,” said Ritchie.<br />
The band expects the CD to serve<br />
more as a memory. “Assuming nothing<br />
happens with getting signed, I<br />
just look at it as…” started Ritchie<br />
before Shanker interrupted.<br />
“Something that will last forever,”<br />
said Shanker.<br />
Ritchie agreed, noting, “[It’s] more<br />
to have something to show our kids,<br />
than to become rock stars.”<br />
Yet law school scheduling could<br />
interfere with any chance of hitting<br />
it big over the next several months.<br />
see MOMMA SHANKS page 3<br />
Andy Wright and Mike Kalata expect<br />
<strong>Virginia</strong> to continue to have<br />
one of the highest rates of participation<br />
in the country. According to<br />
Wright, about 150 students are expected<br />
to participate this year, exceeding<br />
last year’s total of 130.<br />
Kalata was encouraged by these<br />
figures. “We’d like to see<br />
U.Va. continue to be<br />
among the leaders in participation<br />
and it appears<br />
that it is going to happen,”<br />
he said.<br />
The day kicks off with<br />
bagels, doughnuts and coffee<br />
in the Withers-Brown<br />
coffee lounge at 8 a.m. and<br />
concludes with a beer and<br />
pizza party in Ivy Gardens<br />
at 5 p.m. after the<br />
projects have been completed.<br />
This year’s projects provide<br />
students with a wide<br />
range of community service<br />
choices. “We have everything<br />
from a Habitat<br />
for Humanity home<br />
project to pet therapy with<br />
the elderly,” said Kalata.<br />
Many of the agencies<br />
students will serve this<br />
year have participated in the past.<br />
Wright believes that this reflects<br />
positively on the impression the<br />
law students have left behind. “The<br />
groups have been excited about<br />
having us back,” he said.<br />
The projects also serve many<br />
different groups in need. “We’ve<br />
tried to create an array of projects<br />
that deal with people ranging from<br />
the elderly to children to women’s<br />
issues,” said Wright.<br />
The agencies are not the only<br />
ones happy to see Super Saturday<br />
return. “I participated last year and<br />
had a great time. I am looking forward<br />
to [tomorrow],” said second<br />
year Ken Strachan.<br />
Student enthusiasm for the day’s<br />
events seems high. “It’s a great<br />
opportunity to get out and help the<br />
community,” said second-year Julie<br />
MacLaren.<br />
“It gives you a chance to work<br />
with people from the law school<br />
that you might not otherwise get to<br />
meet,” added second-year Todd<br />
Ellinwood.<br />
Most of the volunteers are simply<br />
looking for an opportunity to do<br />
something in the community. “It’s<br />
something we should do more often,”<br />
said first-year McKenzie<br />
Webster, project coordinator for the<br />
Riverdale Seniors Center.<br />
“We spend a lot of time studying<br />
and worrying about grades. It’s<br />
nice to spend a few hours doing<br />
something else,” she added.<br />
Other volunteers have a continuing<br />
interest in the organizations.<br />
First-year Amy Meyer volunteers<br />
with the International Refugee<br />
Committee (IRC), which recently<br />
opened a branch in Charlottesville.<br />
She will serve as the project coordinator<br />
for the Focus Women’s Resource<br />
Center project. The Center<br />
operates a flea market that supplies<br />
clothing to refugees in the area.<br />
“I’m encouraging all of the people<br />
by Sarah Ostergaard ’01<br />
It provides 40 percent of the <strong>Law</strong><br />
School’s budget and currently controls<br />
over $100 million dollars intended<br />
for use around the <strong>Law</strong><br />
School. It is the <strong>Law</strong> School Foundation,<br />
tucked away up on the third<br />
floor of Slaughter Hall, and it affects<br />
almost every corner of the<br />
<strong>Law</strong> School and all of its activities.<br />
Nearly all of the funds raised by<br />
the Foundation go to activities<br />
that touch the lives of<br />
law students every day. For<br />
instance, according to Executive<br />
Director of the <strong>Law</strong><br />
School Foundation David<br />
Ibbeken, the Foundation<br />
funds many professorships<br />
and scholarships in addition<br />
to supporting the law<br />
library.<br />
The most prominent recent<br />
expenditure of the<br />
Foundation was the renovation<br />
of the <strong>Law</strong> School,<br />
for which the Foundation<br />
raised approximately $30<br />
million.<br />
“We have paid all the bills<br />
[for the renovation], and we<br />
still have pledges coming<br />
in,” said Ibbeken.<br />
John Corse, Senior Director<br />
of Development for<br />
the Foundation noted the<br />
many special programs<br />
funded by the Foundation, including<br />
the Mary Parsons Ethical Values<br />
Seminars, the Oceans <strong>Law</strong> and<br />
Policy course, the Appellate Judges<br />
program, and the Public Service<br />
Center. Many of the newer <strong>Law</strong><br />
School programs are the result of<br />
directed donations from alumni.<br />
The Foundation has two major<br />
sources of income: donations from<br />
alumni and their friends and earnings<br />
from the Foundation’s endowment.<br />
Corse, Ibbeken and many of the<br />
primary fundraisers for the <strong>Law</strong><br />
School are graduates of the school<br />
themselves. These alums act as eager<br />
advocates for their alma mater’s<br />
various activities as they travel<br />
around the country to meet with<br />
other alumni.<br />
This extensive financial support<br />
of the <strong>Law</strong> School has not always<br />
on my project to donate clothes to<br />
the flea market,” said Meyer.<br />
Wright hopes that tomorrow’s<br />
events will serve as a springboard<br />
to greater law student involvement<br />
within the Charlottesville community.<br />
“There are many needs in the<br />
Charlottesville community beyond<br />
Super Saturday,” said Wright. “We<br />
hope to use Super Saturday as a<br />
means to get students involved in<br />
more activities sponsored by the<br />
SBA Pro Bono Committee throughout<br />
the year.”<br />
Super Saturday represents the<br />
culmination of weeks of effort on<br />
the part of Wright and Kalata.<br />
“Andy and Mike have done a<br />
fantastic job organizing Super Saturday,”<br />
said second-year <strong>Virginia</strong><br />
Quale.<br />
While most of the projects have<br />
been fully staffed by volunteers,<br />
there is space for some last-minute<br />
additions. “Many of the outdoor<br />
events such as the one at the park<br />
are expandable. If someone shows<br />
up looking to help, we can find something<br />
for them to do,” said Wright.<br />
In addition to those mentioned<br />
by Wright and Kalata, students will<br />
also be volunteering at these and<br />
other locations:<br />
• Ronald McDonald House: preparing<br />
a meal for the residents and<br />
repairing an old phone booth.<br />
• Shelter for Help and Emergency:<br />
cleaning rooms and playing<br />
with guest children.<br />
• Venable Elementary School:<br />
beautification and improvement of<br />
school park.<br />
They Show Us The Money: The<br />
<strong>Law</strong> School Foundation<br />
courtesy of the <strong>Law</strong> School<br />
David Ibbeken<br />
been the province of the Foundation.<br />
Ibbeken explained the changes<br />
he has seen in the 20 years since he<br />
came to the Foundation.<br />
“When I came in 1979, we were<br />
providing roughly 5% of the budget,<br />
said Ibbeken. “Now, with all of the<br />
private resources, we provide about<br />
40% of the budget. What we are able<br />
to provide is no longer what Hardy<br />
Dillard called ‘the margin of excellence;’<br />
it is lifeblood support for the<br />
<strong>Law</strong> School.”<br />
There are a number of reasons<br />
for the Foundation’s growing significance<br />
to the <strong>Law</strong> School budget.<br />
“Part is the declining funding from<br />
the state, and part is that our alumni<br />
have been very receptive,” said<br />
Ibbeken.<br />
The Foundation targets gifts over<br />
$100,000 and other such “leadership<br />
gifts” from alumni and institutional<br />
donors such as large law<br />
firms blessed with a strong representation<br />
of U.Va. alumni among<br />
their numbers.<br />
As the <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> previously<br />
reported, on September 4 the<br />
Foundation officially reached the<br />
$100 million mark in funds under<br />
management, joining only four<br />
other law schools in the country<br />
in controlling that much money.<br />
The original goal of $50 million<br />
was passed very early in the Capital<br />
Campaign, which will continue<br />
through December 2000, Corse<br />
explained.<br />
In 1952 the <strong>Law</strong> School Foundation<br />
was created to receive a<br />
$24,000 gift, and by 1968 the<br />
Foundation had over $2 million<br />
under management. When<br />
Ibbeken came in 1979, over $5<br />
million was under the<br />
Foundation’s management.<br />
With such a successful record<br />
of continuously increasing<br />
fundraising, the Foundation’s hope<br />
to raise between $125 and $150<br />
million by the end of the Capital<br />
Campaign appears to be realistic.<br />
The Foundation is also receptive<br />
to the opinions of current students.<br />
“It is important that the students<br />
understand what we’re here for,<br />
what we’re trying to achieve, and<br />
what we do,” said Foundation Treasurer<br />
Elizabeth Wharton.<br />
Printed on<br />
recycled paper
2 Editorials<br />
<strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> Friday, January <strong>29</strong>, 1999<br />
Super Saturday: It’s Fantastic<br />
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that this weekend<br />
is Super Bowl weekend.<br />
You might not know that it’s also Super Saturday weekend.<br />
Super Saturday, to the uninitiated, is the <strong>Law</strong> School’s day of service<br />
— a day when law students fan out into the greater Charlottesville area<br />
to give back to our host community.<br />
A number of different projects are planned, including: recording<br />
projects for the blind and dyslexic, meal cooking at the Ronald McDonald<br />
House, and the traditional Habitat for Humanity event.<br />
It’s one of the few times that law students get together to do<br />
something for others, especially those outside of our close-knit grounds.<br />
UVa has traditionally had one of the highest participation rates for<br />
events of this kind among U.S. law schools, and judging by the sign-up<br />
sheets in Hunton & Williams Hall, this year’s extravaganza promises to<br />
be no exception.<br />
The day is, justifiably, a source of pride for the <strong>Law</strong> School and one<br />
of the more meaningful events on the annual calendar.<br />
What’s disappointing, though, is that for too many law students, their<br />
service to others begins and ends on Super Saturday.<br />
Everyone already knows that we as law students tend to isolate<br />
ourselves from the rest of the University.<br />
We’re our own little world up here, and we don’t even see Darden<br />
students all that much (not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, of<br />
course).<br />
However, we also tend to ignore Charlottesville itself, unless it’s to<br />
complain — about the traffic, the small size, the lack of social options,<br />
etc.<br />
It’s telling that an event like Super Saturday receives so much<br />
attention every January. The reason that it does so is that we don’t really<br />
do much the other 364 days of the year.<br />
To be sure, there are some notable activities in which law students<br />
are involved that strive to reach out to our neighbors, but these are few<br />
and far between.<br />
The overall level of true service to others is strikingly low.<br />
This isn’t to knock Super Saturday. But it is a chance for all of us to<br />
get more involved in this little town we call home for the better part of<br />
three years.<br />
At the risk of sounding too much like a cheesy holiday greeting card,<br />
the spirit of Super Saturday should remain strong throughout the entire<br />
academic year.<br />
Everyone should feel encouraged to get involved tomorrow; there’s a<br />
tremendous satisfaction that comes from helping others in need. There<br />
are many worthy projects that could use our talents, creativity and<br />
sheer manual labor. And it doesn’t even have to be for the entire day or<br />
morning: several projects have very manageable time slots.<br />
The point, however, is that the helping shouldn’t stop there. U.Va.<br />
students should also use tomorrow as a springboard into other activities<br />
and into getting involved with the “rest” of Charlottesville itself.<br />
After all, if we want the town and county to think of us as a welcome<br />
presence and a good neighbor, we really should do our part to earn their<br />
admiration and respect.<br />
Editorial Policy<br />
The <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> publishes letters and columns of interest to the <strong>Law</strong> School and the legal<br />
community at large. Views expressed in such submissions are those of the author(s) and not necessarily<br />
those of the <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> or the Editorial Board. Letters from organizations must bear the name, signature,<br />
and title of the person authorizing the submission. All letters and columns must bear a handwritten<br />
signature and be submitted by 5 pm on the Monday before publication, in hardcopy and on disk, in<br />
accordance with the submission guidelines posted on the door to the <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> office in Rooms SL277<br />
& SL279. Letters over 500 words and columns over 750 words may not be accepted. The Editorial Board<br />
reserves the right to edit all submissions for length, grammar, and clarity. Although every effort is made<br />
to publish all materials meeting our guidelines, we regret that not all submissions received can be published.<br />
Staff<br />
<strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong><br />
Editorial Board<br />
Ben Fox<br />
Executive Editor<br />
Kristina Dell<br />
News Editor<br />
Marc Cohn<br />
Photography Editor<br />
Associate Editors<br />
Ben Block<br />
Associate News Editor<br />
Amy Collins<br />
Associate News Editor<br />
Andy Lippstone<br />
Associate Features Editor<br />
Doug Mintz<br />
Editor-in-Chief<br />
Mandeep Dhillon<br />
Managing Editor<br />
Sarah Shalf<br />
Production Editor<br />
Leah Warnick<br />
Associate Production Editor<br />
Jennifer Leong<br />
Features Editor<br />
Erica Bachmann<br />
Columns Editor<br />
Ryan Farney<br />
Copy Editor<br />
Harrison Clay<br />
Associate Columns Editor for Reviews<br />
Ryan Coonerty<br />
Associate Features Editor<br />
Tina Sismanis<br />
Associate Production Editor<br />
CONTRIBUTORS: Don Cole<br />
COLUMNISTS: Ryan Farney, Don Cole, Amy Todd (SBA Notebook), VANGUARD.<br />
REVIWERS: Harrison Clay, Bart Epstein, David Stuckey, Doug Mintz, Priya Sopori, Kirk Susong,<br />
Scott Matthews, Andrew Oliver, Billy Palmer, Jami Wyatt.<br />
Published weekly on Friday except during holiday and examination periods and serving the <strong>Law</strong> School community<br />
at the University of <strong>Virginia</strong>, the <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> (ISSN 0042-661X) is not an official publication of the<br />
University and does not necessarily express the views of the University.<br />
Any article appearing herein may be reproduced provided that credit is given to both the <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong><br />
and the author of the article, excepting DICTA articles, for which advanced written permission is required. Advanced<br />
written permission of the <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> is also required for reproduction of any cartoon or illustration.<br />
Entered as second class matter at the Post Office at Charlottesville, <strong>Virginia</strong>. One year subscriptions are available<br />
for $25.00. Subscriptions are automatically renewed unless cancelled. Address all business communications to the<br />
Managing Editor. Subscribers are requested to inform the Managing Editor of change of address at least three weeks<br />
in advance to insure prompt delivery.<br />
Mailing Address: <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong>, 580 Massie Rd., University of <strong>Virginia</strong> School of <strong>Law</strong>,<br />
Charlottesville, <strong>Virginia</strong> 2<strong>29</strong>03-1789<br />
Phone: (804) 924-3070 Fax: (804) 924-7536<br />
Internet E-mail Address: Va-<strong>Law</strong>-<strong>Weekly</strong>@<strong>Virginia</strong>.edu<br />
Printed on recycled paper by the<strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> and the University of <strong>Virginia</strong> Printing Office.<br />
© 1999 <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong><br />
Save The Planet: Recycling in the <strong>Law</strong> School<br />
I know you are busy — we<br />
all are. But please, take two<br />
minutes to read this article.<br />
Recycling is an easy way to<br />
protect the environment, and in<br />
this article, I tell you just<br />
how simple it is to do<br />
your part. I am a 3L, and<br />
this year I am the<br />
recycling coordinator for<br />
the Environmental <strong>Law</strong><br />
Forum (ELF). This letter<br />
will describe some of the<br />
recycling opportunities at<br />
the <strong>Law</strong> School<br />
Cans & Bottles: The<br />
blue recycling bins around<br />
the <strong>Law</strong> School collect<br />
cans and bottles. You may<br />
place aluminum, steel, or<br />
tin cans in the cans bins,<br />
as well as aluminum foil.<br />
In the bottles bins, you may place<br />
any color glass bottles or jars, but<br />
no pyrex or plate glass. You may<br />
also deposit numbers one or two<br />
recyclable plastic — look for the<br />
triangle on the plastic for the<br />
number. Please remove all lids<br />
before recycling plastic or glass<br />
bottles.<br />
Please don’t put garbage in<br />
these bins — someone will<br />
eventually have to fish out every<br />
piece of trash you deposit. Finally,<br />
please place only EMPTY cans<br />
and bottles in these bins —<br />
leftover soda makes a huge mess.<br />
<strong>Paper</strong>: The easiest way to<br />
recycle paper is to place it in one<br />
of the four “mixed paper” bins<br />
near the student mailboxes in<br />
Hunton & Williams Hall. Note<br />
that these bins are now “mixed<br />
paper” and thus can accept almost<br />
any kind of paper. However,<br />
please don’t put paper ream<br />
wrappers, paper towels, plastic, or<br />
garbage in these bins.<br />
The other big paper recycling<br />
program is especially important<br />
Welcome back to the New Year!<br />
Your SBA hit the ground running<br />
in 1999 with the following projects<br />
Amy Todd, a thirdyear<br />
law student, is<br />
SBA President.<br />
and initiatives:<br />
Sixth Annual Super Saturday:<br />
Pro Bono Chairs Mike Kalata<br />
and Andy Wright have gone above<br />
and beyond the call of duty working<br />
to organize this event. Tomorrow,<br />
January 30, known nationally<br />
as the American Bar<br />
Association’s “work-a-day” program,<br />
is a day of service given by<br />
the students of <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> to the<br />
Charlottesville community. Student<br />
volunteers traditionally perform<br />
projects for charitable and<br />
community service organizations<br />
on the Saturday of Super Bowl<br />
weekend.<br />
Some of this year’s projects include<br />
pet therapy for residents of<br />
Jefferson Eldercare, painting facilities<br />
at Hilltop Child Care Center,<br />
working with kids through<br />
Charlottesville parks and recreation,<br />
preparing a meal at the<br />
Ronald McDonald house, working<br />
on low income housing construction<br />
with Habitat for Humanity,<br />
and cleaning facilities and visiting<br />
with residents of the Shelter for<br />
Help in Emergency.<br />
This is the Sixth Annual Super<br />
Saturday, and for the past five<br />
years, <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> has had one of<br />
Letter to the Editor<br />
for law school staff and student<br />
organizations. Certain rooms<br />
around the <strong>Law</strong> School, like SL<br />
126 and 263, have been<br />
photo by Marc Cohn<br />
<strong>Law</strong> students can help save the<br />
environment by recycling.<br />
designated recycling rooms.<br />
These rooms have shelves with<br />
small specially marked boxes on<br />
them.<br />
Please fill these boxes with<br />
paper and put them on the shelves.<br />
University Recycling empties<br />
them weekly. There are two<br />
boxes, one for revenue paper and<br />
one for non-revenue paper. The<br />
labels on the boxes explain what<br />
may be recycled in each.<br />
I highly recommend this<br />
program to every student<br />
organization at the <strong>Law</strong> School,<br />
especially the journals. Keep<br />
recycling boxes in your office and<br />
put them in the recycling rooms<br />
when they are full.<br />
Books: When you have<br />
books to recycle, like old text<br />
books you can’t resell, use the<br />
boxes in the recycling rooms<br />
mentioned above. Place softcover<br />
books in any of the boxes with<br />
non-revenue paper labels. For a<br />
hardcover book, rip the covers off<br />
and throw them in the garbage,<br />
then put the rest of the book in<br />
any of the boxes with non-revenue<br />
SBA Notebook<br />
the highest participation rates in<br />
the country. We hope to continue<br />
the tradition this year, but to do so<br />
we need YOUR help! We sincerely<br />
encourage all of you to assist in<br />
this tremendous effort to build<br />
bridges between the <strong>Law</strong> School<br />
and greater Charlottesville communities.<br />
The event will occur tomorrow<br />
and will likely span a significant<br />
portion of the day, with various<br />
projects beginning and ending at<br />
different times. We will kick off the<br />
day with bagels, doughnuts and<br />
coffee at the <strong>Law</strong> School. After the<br />
projects are finished, the SBA will<br />
host a beer and pizza party for the<br />
volunteers. If you are interested in<br />
participating and did not sign up<br />
on the posted lists, please call Andy<br />
Wright or Mike Kalata at 979-6285.<br />
We hope to see you out there! (Many<br />
thanks to Andy Wright and Mike<br />
Kalata for contributing this section<br />
of the SBA Notebook this<br />
week.)<br />
SBA / BLSA Book Exchange:<br />
The Black <strong>Law</strong> Students Association<br />
provided the resources to run<br />
the book exchange for students this<br />
semester. Thanks to Dana Williams,<br />
Carlos Brown, and Melanie<br />
Hart, among many others, for your<br />
long hours and hard work providing<br />
a service that saves students a<br />
substantial amount of money.<br />
Barrister’s Ball: Co-Chairs<br />
second-year Hillary Cherry and<br />
third-year Carine Saddy are pulling<br />
together yet another rip-roaring<br />
law school prom, planned for<br />
the night of February 6 at the Omni<br />
labels.<br />
Beyond these specific tips, be<br />
conscious of what you use and<br />
how you use it. Reduce the<br />
amount of garbage you generate<br />
by purchasing products with<br />
minimal packaging. Also, please<br />
avoid plastic or styrofoam<br />
products that are neither reusable<br />
nor recyclable.<br />
Your efforts can make a<br />
difference. In 1997, U.Va.<br />
students recycled over 31 tons of<br />
aluminum and steel, 2.6 tons of<br />
plastic, 52 tons of glass, and<br />
almost 1000 tons of paper. One<br />
ton of recycled paper saves 3,700<br />
pounds of lumber and 24,000<br />
gallons of water. Recycling cuts<br />
down on landfill, as well.<br />
Lastly, I wish to make three<br />
specific recommendations. First,<br />
volunteer next year to help<br />
monitor and empty the recycling<br />
bins at the law school. One hour<br />
for the entire year is all it takes.<br />
Second, this spring ELF will<br />
be looking for someone to be<br />
recycling coordinator for next<br />
year. This job is really pretty easy.<br />
Call me at (804) 556-6628 or<br />
email me at rwh7s@virginia.edu if<br />
you are interested.<br />
Third, if you have any<br />
recycling questions or suggestions,<br />
please call me or email me at the<br />
number or address above, or<br />
contact the University’s Office of<br />
Recycling and Environmental<br />
Information at 982-5033.<br />
Finally, thank you to the<br />
almost this 50 volunteers who<br />
signed up this year to help monitor<br />
and empty the blue recycling bins<br />
around the law school.<br />
Sincerely,<br />
Bob Hughes<br />
ELF Recycling Chair<br />
Hotel. If you haven’t bought your<br />
tickets yet, be on the look-out for<br />
more ticket sales in Hunton-Williams<br />
Hall today and this coming<br />
Monday and Tuesday.<br />
Yearbooks, Yearbooks, Yearbooks!<br />
Yearbook Co-Chairs Ronit<br />
“Can’t Beat Ronit” Gechter and<br />
Jim “Woody” Woodward have been<br />
distributing the 1998 Yearbooks<br />
during the past week.<br />
If you have pictures that you<br />
would like to see in the 1999 Yearbook,<br />
be sure to place them in the<br />
cardboard box in Hunton-Williams<br />
Hall! Ronit and Woody are also<br />
looking for your suggestions on<br />
making a new and improved,<br />
memorable yearbook this year, so<br />
if you have any ideas, be sure to let<br />
them know.<br />
Thanks to Cortland Kelly<br />
and the Students Records Staff:<br />
Returning to law school for the<br />
semester can often be a traumatic<br />
experience, especially in light of<br />
the need to return our bright fluorescent<br />
form to the Student Records<br />
office before 5 P.M. or risk being<br />
dropped from our classes.<br />
Dean Gillette and the records<br />
staff, along with the help of Good<br />
Samaritan Cortland Kelly, made<br />
every effort to get in touch with<br />
students who were running close<br />
to the deadline, including making<br />
phone calls and circling the <strong>Law</strong><br />
School building in search of tardy<br />
students. Due in large part to their<br />
efforts, less than five students were<br />
dropped from their classes this semester<br />
– thanks for looking out for<br />
us!
MOMMA SHANKS<br />
continued from page 1<br />
At a lunch meeting, Shanker and<br />
Hadley determined they each had<br />
class on the “B” weekend schedule,<br />
while Dangler has class on the “A”<br />
schedule. As a result, a member<br />
has class on every Friday and Saturday<br />
of the semester.<br />
“We’ll have to go to class tired,”<br />
said Shanker.<br />
Playing in a band while attending<br />
<strong>Law</strong> School has created some<br />
other unusual moments for the<br />
band.<br />
Dangler recalled working on his<br />
journal tryout while waiting for a<br />
show to begin last spring. “I was<br />
doing the journal tryout backstage<br />
at Trax [a local club],” Dangler said.<br />
“They set up the equipment on the<br />
stage while I was trying to read all<br />
those cases.”<br />
Hadley feels that the band members’<br />
status as future lawyers hurts<br />
their reputation as musicians. One<br />
band for whom Momma Shanks<br />
opened a show last year “gave off a<br />
weird vibe” when they found out the<br />
members were law students. However,<br />
Ritchie said the band told him<br />
Momma Shanks was the best band<br />
they played with on the tour.<br />
Nonetheless, the band members<br />
agreed with Hadley’s assessment<br />
that “the fewer people [outside the<br />
<strong>Law</strong> School] that know we’re law<br />
students, the better.<br />
<strong>Law</strong> school, however, has provided<br />
inspiration for at least one of<br />
the songs on the album. Ritchie<br />
wrote “Waste Away” after taking<br />
Professor Ken Abraham’s first-year<br />
Torts exam. “The song comes off as<br />
a cynicism of higher education in<br />
general,” said Ritchie.<br />
Some of the lyrics from “Waste<br />
Away”: “Waste away, sleeping night<br />
and day; teacher says your future’s<br />
bright; loans and loans I hope they’re<br />
right; get it out — your money.”<br />
Despite the rigors of coordinating<br />
law school and a band schedule,<br />
the members hold hope of achieving<br />
some success this semester.<br />
Hadley has<br />
worked to distribute the<br />
CD throughout the region.<br />
“We’re trying to<br />
get our CDs to college<br />
[radio] stations anywhere<br />
in the mid-Atlantic,”<br />
said Hadley.<br />
“We’re sending them as<br />
far west as Tennessee<br />
and as far north as<br />
Ohio.”<br />
Hadley jokingly<br />
added, “We’re huge in<br />
Belgium,” before noting<br />
the band has also attempted<br />
to send the CD<br />
to an “independent label<br />
in [Washington,]<br />
D.C.” Hadley has also<br />
distributed the disc to<br />
university fraternities, which has<br />
“required us learning a whole new<br />
group of [cover] songs.”<br />
Finally, Hadley said his sister<br />
“used to work as a publicist for Spin<br />
magazine in New York,” and that<br />
she is helping with the band’s publicity.<br />
The band hopes to play more<br />
dates after last night’s show. “We’d<br />
be willing to travel anywhere in the<br />
SEC [Southeastern Conference]<br />
area,” said Hadley.<br />
Despite all of Hadley’s work to<br />
promote the band, the members<br />
recognize the limitations that their<br />
future careers place on any potential<br />
success. “It’s hard to set longterm<br />
goals when we only have one<br />
semester left,” said Ritchie. “It’s<br />
kind of like, ‘how lucky can we get in<br />
one semester’”<br />
Despite the narrow window for<br />
success, if the band hits paydirt this<br />
semester, at least one member who<br />
did not want to be named said he’d<br />
“quit [his law firm job] in a second.”<br />
The other members were not so<br />
certain they would give up their<br />
careers so quickly.<br />
News<br />
<strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> Friday, January <strong>29</strong>, 1999 3<br />
From top left, clockwise: 2L Scott Dangler,<br />
3L Alex Ritchie, Keith Berets, 3L Vijay<br />
Shanker, 3L Ben Hadley are Momma<br />
Shanks<br />
Dangler, who will not graduate<br />
until 2000, has other plans for next<br />
year. “I’m going to start a ’70s funk<br />
band.”<br />
Those who have seen Momma<br />
Shanks play at their local performances<br />
will recognize the band’s<br />
unique sound. However, the members<br />
did not want to identify any<br />
particular influences on the band.<br />
“We don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves,”<br />
said Shanker.<br />
“It’s much better for the listener<br />
to tell us what they think it sounds<br />
like,” said Hadley.<br />
Ritchie believes the band can’t<br />
be pigeonholed because each of the<br />
band members brings a different<br />
sound to the mix. “Keith brought in<br />
one song and [Vijay] added a drum<br />
part and [Scott] added a U2-guitar<br />
part,” said Ritchie.<br />
“It’s a compilation of different<br />
sources,” said Dangler of the band’s<br />
sound.<br />
<strong>Law</strong> students may purchase the<br />
CD directly from the members of<br />
the band or from Courts and Commerce<br />
in the <strong>Law</strong> School for $10.00.<br />
Holidays and the J.D.<br />
by Amy Collins ’01<br />
Martin Luther King Day, Labor<br />
Day, Veterans Day, Columbus Day,<br />
Presidents’ Day: what do these holidays<br />
have in common<br />
They are all public holidays the<br />
U.Va. School of <strong>Law</strong> busily ignores.<br />
This semester began on Lee-Jackson-King<br />
Day, in a refusal to hold<br />
out just one more day in honor of<br />
Lee, Jackson, and King.<br />
The office of <strong>Law</strong> School Dean<br />
Robert E. Scott said the University<br />
has created the policy of keeping<br />
the school open on holidays.<br />
The University remains open<br />
on holidays so that it can comply<br />
with guidelines set by academic<br />
certification bodies. “We are the<br />
same as most of our sister schools<br />
in the region,” said Associate Provost<br />
for Academic Support Shirley<br />
Menaker.<br />
Menaker said that if the<br />
Univeristy closed for a holiday it<br />
would require ending each semester<br />
later or starting each semester<br />
earlier.<br />
“It’s like the snow days for the<br />
kids in elementary school,” said<br />
Menaker.<br />
However, research shows that<br />
U.Va. is one of few comparable law<br />
schools with an academic calendar<br />
scheduled without regard for these<br />
public holidays. The University of<br />
Michigan, Stanford <strong>Law</strong> School and<br />
Harvard <strong>Law</strong> School all observe<br />
Martin Luther King Day.<br />
George Mason School of <strong>Law</strong><br />
(also in <strong>Virginia</strong>) does have school<br />
on Lee-Jackson-King day, but honors<br />
Labor Day, Columbus Day, and<br />
Memorial and Independence days<br />
during their summer session.<br />
<strong>Law</strong> schools vary greatly in the<br />
number of holidays and the selection<br />
of holidays observed.<br />
According to the Stanford <strong>Law</strong><br />
School’s Registrar’s office, the only<br />
holiday Stanford observes in addition<br />
to Martin Luther King Day is<br />
Presidents’ Day, and Harvard<br />
WIN A TRIP TO WINTERGREEN!<br />
boasts a unique holiday approach,<br />
granting Columbus Day and Veterans<br />
Day holidays only for first-years.<br />
However, the entire school is closed<br />
on Martin Luther King Day.<br />
According to Jennie Pavesic at<br />
the University of Chicago’s<br />
Registrar’s office, the law school<br />
there does not observe any holidays<br />
besides Thanksgiving.<br />
The standards put forth by the<br />
American Bar Association shed<br />
some light on the situation. According<br />
to Standard 304(a) of the American<br />
Bar Association, each law student<br />
must take not fewer than 1,120<br />
class hours to receive a J.D.<br />
Like Stanford, U.Va. requires 86<br />
credits for graduation, and each<br />
semester is 14 weeks long. Therefore,<br />
the graduating U.Va. law student<br />
has taken 1204 hours, exceeding<br />
the requirement by 84 hours.<br />
However, ABA Standard 304(b)<br />
requires that a school year be no<br />
less than 140 days (not counting the<br />
exam period). If the law school closed<br />
for a holiday, it would have to schedule<br />
an additional day for classes,<br />
even though the minimum hour<br />
requirement would still have been<br />
met.<br />
Further, students are reluctant<br />
to relinquish the lengthy winter<br />
break, which is longer than comparable<br />
breaks at Michigan, Stanford,<br />
Harvard, and the University of<br />
Chicago.<br />
“It would be nice to have some of<br />
the national holidays off, but if it<br />
means cutting short the winter<br />
break I would rather leave the schedule<br />
the way it is,” said first-year<br />
Christy Noneman.<br />
“I really enjoyed the winter break;<br />
it was much longer than the breaks<br />
I had as an undergrad,” said firstyear<br />
Catherine Morgen.<br />
Some students, however, would<br />
prefer a slightly abbreviated winter<br />
break and a couple of shorter weeks<br />
during the semester.<br />
JUST FILL OUT YOUR BALLOT FOR THE BEST OF CHARLOTTESVILLE AND RETURN IT<br />
TO THE LAW WEEKLY’S MAILBOX BY FEBRUARY 3, 1999 TO ENTER.<br />
Best Services in Charlottesville:<br />
Best Radio Station:<br />
Best TV Station:<br />
Best Cleaners:<br />
Best Men’s Clothes Store for Interviews:<br />
Best Men’s Clothes Store for School:<br />
Best Women’s Clothes Store for Interviews:<br />
Best Women’s Clothes Store for School:<br />
Best Shoes:<br />
Best Video Store:<br />
Best CD Store:<br />
Best of the <strong>Law</strong> School:<br />
Best Food in Charlottesivlle<br />
Best Restaurant When Someone Else Pays:<br />
Best Restaurant When You Pay:<br />
Best Bar for Hanging Out:<br />
Best Bar for Watching Sports:<br />
Best Bar for Bar Review:<br />
Best Coffee Shop:<br />
Best Pizza:<br />
Best Hamburger:<br />
Best Coffee:<br />
Best Ice Cream/Yogurt/Smoothies:<br />
Best Sandwiches:<br />
Best Professor:<br />
Best Class:<br />
Best <strong>Law</strong> School Employee (not professor):<br />
Best Product Available in Book Store:<br />
Best Product Available in Cafe North:<br />
Best Place to Study:<br />
Name ____________________________<br />
Year<br />
Phone ____________________________<br />
Email ____________________________<br />
Best <strong>Law</strong> School Bathroom:
4 Features<br />
<strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> Friday, January <strong>29</strong>, 1999<br />
Gearing Up for Super Sunday<br />
Predicting What Could Be the Best Super Bowl in Years<br />
by Brian Wise ’00<br />
Unfortunately, the <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong><br />
wouldn’t pay for me to fly to Miami<br />
and cover the Super Bowl for the<br />
<strong>Law</strong> School. Instead, like the rest of<br />
you, I will watch what could be the<br />
best Super Bowl in years on Fox.<br />
The Falcons How could this<br />
team be in the Super Bowl Most<br />
memories of the Falcons involve<br />
Jerry Glanville, a run-and-shoot<br />
offense, and a team that just stunk.<br />
Atlanta was respectable last year,<br />
mostly because of a strong defense,<br />
but few picked them to go to the<br />
playoffs this year and most assumed<br />
that they would have a forgettable<br />
7-9 or 8-8 season.<br />
Instead, Atlanta finished 14-2 in<br />
the regular season and subjected us<br />
to the “Dirty Bird.” Dan Reeves’s<br />
quiet leadership, a great defense,<br />
and a lot of Jamal Anderson have<br />
propelled the Falcons to the verge of<br />
a world championship.<br />
By contrast, almost all the preseason<br />
pundits picked the Denver<br />
Broncos to return to the Super Bowl.<br />
Terrell Davis rushed for 2,000 yards<br />
(only the fourth player ever to reach<br />
that plateau). John Elway was John<br />
Elway. Those two and an opportunistic<br />
defense propelled the Broncos<br />
to a 14-2 finish.<br />
Now, this team could be the first<br />
back-to-back champion since the<br />
Dallas Cowboys of 1991-92. Coach<br />
Mike Shanahan guided the team in<br />
pursuit of a perfect season until flat<br />
performances against the Giants<br />
and the Dolphins forced the team to<br />
forget about history and concentrate<br />
on returning to the Super Bowl.<br />
The Broncos are seven-point favorites<br />
in Vegas, and many predict<br />
an AFC blowout. Below are three<br />
reasons why this won’t be the case.<br />
A Good Falcons Defense<br />
The Falcons have shown all year<br />
that they can stop the run. They<br />
have accomplished this, not with a<br />
big, physical defense but a quick<br />
one that relies on good linebackers<br />
and overachieving defensive tackles.<br />
The secondary is on the old side,<br />
but they have a lot of experience<br />
which helped shut down Randy<br />
Moss and company in the NFC<br />
championship game.<br />
However, they will have their<br />
hands full with Terrell Davis and<br />
the receiving corps of the Broncos<br />
(especially Shannon Sharpe). Nonetheless,<br />
the defense should keep the<br />
game close.<br />
Jamal Anderson<br />
The big back of the Falcons has<br />
proven all year that he can take the<br />
hits and eight-man fronts that defenses<br />
have thrown at him and still<br />
get the job done for the Falcons. In<br />
the regular season,<br />
he rushed for<br />
1,300 yards and<br />
was selected to the<br />
Pro Bowl team.<br />
If Anderson<br />
finds success in<br />
the game, he will<br />
be accomplishing<br />
two important<br />
goals for the Falcons.<br />
First, his<br />
runs have keyed<br />
the Atlanta offense<br />
and made<br />
Chris Chandler<br />
much more effective<br />
at quarterback. Second, he will<br />
also keep off the field the potent<br />
Denver offense.<br />
A Very Average Broncos<br />
Defense<br />
Unless the Broncos score several<br />
times very quickly, their defense<br />
can be exploited. Much of their success<br />
this year has come when the<br />
Denver offense put up a lot of points<br />
and forced other teams to pass a lot.<br />
Free from the threat of a running<br />
game, Denver then blitzed to protect<br />
their vulnerable secondary.<br />
When games were close this year,<br />
Denver tended to give up more<br />
points and found themselves susceptible<br />
to runs up the middle and<br />
passes in the middle of their zone.<br />
Chris Chandler, if given time, can<br />
exploit such a defense as long as<br />
Denver is not up by 14 points or<br />
hitting his injury-prone body.<br />
Prediction<br />
The Falcons score early and prevent<br />
the Broncos from controlling<br />
the clock and blitzing fragile Chris<br />
Chandler. Still, both sides are able<br />
to score points and the game will be<br />
tight heading into the fourth quarter,<br />
24-24.<br />
Then the game will turn to the<br />
kickers. Denver’s Jason Elam or<br />
Don’t miss the big game Sunday<br />
from Miami<br />
Atlanta’s Morten Andersen Elam<br />
booted a 63 yarder this season and<br />
Andersen won the NFC championship<br />
game with his 38-yard overtime<br />
kick. I’ll go with experience<br />
and Andersen. Dan Reeves gets his<br />
first Super Bowl win 27-24 with a<br />
collection of mostly unknown players.<br />
Let’s all hope that he and Mike<br />
Shanahan can shake hands afterwards<br />
no matter who wins.<br />
Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow<br />
Looking back, I should have realized<br />
that it would never last. At the<br />
end, it is clear ours was a relationship<br />
doomed from the start. But<br />
back then in August, well, it all<br />
seemed so right…<br />
It started innocently enough. At<br />
the time, I was sort of seeing this<br />
Ben Block, a firstyear<br />
law student, is<br />
a <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong><br />
columnist.<br />
girl Ally, usually on Mondays. She<br />
was a lawyer and I think she had<br />
eating issues, but for the most part<br />
I was content. I met my new love on<br />
a Sunday, but really didn’t think<br />
much of it. I’d call this stage the<br />
preseason. Yet, even though I<br />
wasn’t that attracted at first, we<br />
kept seeing one another.<br />
By Labor Day, things had heated<br />
up. We spent that whole weekend<br />
together, lounging on my sofa, eating<br />
doritos and swilling Mountain<br />
Dew. I had never felt so comfortable;<br />
I could spend the entire day in<br />
my pajamas with nary a complaint.<br />
Unfortunately, I was too giddy<br />
about my new companion to realize<br />
that I could wind up getting hurt.<br />
School had started, and at first<br />
it threatened to drive a wedge between<br />
us. Friends warned me I<br />
didn’t have time for a committed<br />
relationship, but I ignored their wellintentioned<br />
advice. We were growing<br />
closer and closer.<br />
The demands for my attention<br />
became greater; we went from<br />
spending just Sundays to whole<br />
weekends, then Thursdays and<br />
Mondays. I stopped seeing Ally. I<br />
stopped watching the news. I<br />
stopped bathing, and didn’t care<br />
(though people next to me did).<br />
We went everywhere together:<br />
watching the Moon in Seattle, running<br />
barefoot with Moss in Minnesota,<br />
and dancing the “Dirty Bird”<br />
in Atlanta.<br />
We saw a Snake in Arizona and<br />
rode with Cowboys in Dallas. We<br />
talked of going to Cleveland, but<br />
decided to wait until next year.<br />
We watched our friend Peyton<br />
struggle in Indy while the Leaf blew<br />
in San Diego. We saw toothless<br />
Bengals, Lions and Panthers (oh<br />
my!) get destroyed by fearsome Jaguars.<br />
School work was neglected in<br />
lieu of fantasy (statistics) and overtime<br />
ecstasy.<br />
My parents threatened to write<br />
me out of the will if I didn’t get a<br />
grip, but I convinced them of the<br />
true extent of my love by explaining<br />
to them how the zone blitz works.<br />
We slowed down not at all through<br />
finals. Breathless talk of the playoffs<br />
was much more interesting to<br />
me than any criminal law or tort<br />
lecture would ever be. We agreed to<br />
spend the entire break together.<br />
I was definitely in love. I made<br />
plans. I bought a satellite dish. We<br />
would always have each other, football<br />
and me.<br />
Yes, I was so happy that I never<br />
thought it would end. And then,<br />
shortly after New Year’s, I realized<br />
that our days were numbered.<br />
Our meetings grew less frequent,<br />
though more intense. After Sunday<br />
in Miami, it will all be over. I know<br />
that I should just walk away now,<br />
but I am too far gone.<br />
I’ll spend the whole day with my<br />
beloved remote, waiting for that last<br />
kickoff. When the final gun sounds,<br />
someone will have lost a game, but<br />
I will have lost much more.<br />
I can write this now without breaking<br />
down, but rest assured that it still<br />
hurts. It feels as if my whole life has<br />
just been ripped away. But, I know<br />
that there is nothing I can do except<br />
wait until next fall. In the meantime,<br />
maybe I’ll start seeing Ally again…
<strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> Friday, January <strong>29</strong>, 1999 Columns 5<br />
Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things<br />
I was watching Teen Idols Week<br />
on VH1 the other day (“Tonight:<br />
The Don Cole Story”) when it struck<br />
me that a lot of things in this world<br />
are only around for a very short<br />
time.<br />
This wasn’t a particularly earthshattering<br />
realization, mind you,<br />
but it got me thinking about a lot of<br />
other things that (more or less) have<br />
some sort of relevance to us here at<br />
U.Va.:<br />
Ryan Farney, a<br />
second-year law<br />
student, is a <strong>Law</strong><br />
<strong>Weekly</strong> columnist.<br />
Any chance of getting an IHOP<br />
where Shoney’s used to be…<br />
I miss doughnuts at the Dean’s<br />
Tuesday coffee…<br />
STRESSED Release it…<br />
’80s music: Overrated— “Take<br />
On Me” (A-ha). Underrated— “And<br />
We Danced” (The Hooters)…<br />
Grade of... no grade assigned…<br />
“You will be logged off shortly…”<br />
Do all oldies radio stations have<br />
the slogan, “Good times and great<br />
oldies”…<br />
Summer birthdays really get the<br />
shaft…<br />
What will they call it if Notre<br />
Dame becomes the 12th member of<br />
the Big Ten…<br />
Why are there “quiet zones” in<br />
the library Isn’t the whole library,<br />
technically, a quiet zone…<br />
Of course, there are some<br />
libriarians who don’t observe any<br />
quiet zones, but that’s another<br />
story…<br />
BMG: Tempting, but there’s that<br />
annoying catch of actually having<br />
to buy one CD…<br />
Anne Geddes prints: Does anyone<br />
else find pictures of babies<br />
dressed up as vegetables disturbing…<br />
“You will be logged off shortly…”<br />
Whatever happened to the<br />
American Gladiators…<br />
Farmer Jack: The light that<br />
burns brightest, burns briefest, and<br />
yours shone oh so bright…<br />
I miss the Withers-Brown map…<br />
On that note, what’s up with all<br />
the new artwork in the library…<br />
ISIS: It’s an automated system.<br />
It doesn’t require humans. So why<br />
does it become non-operational at<br />
night…<br />
What happened to all those<br />
scarves the law women always<br />
seemed to be wearing last year…<br />
An ad for skin cream created a<br />
sweet new euphemism for wrinkles:<br />
“Fine Lines…”<br />
Are there still “no good men” at<br />
U.Va. law…<br />
Question Presented by Greg Lastowka<br />
Don’t Like What You<br />
Read<br />
Get Involved.<br />
Join the <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> staff<br />
immediately.<br />
Be a writer, an editor, a columnist,<br />
or just help out.<br />
We especially need help from people familiar with<br />
Pagemaker and willing to help just two hours/week.<br />
For more information, contact Doug Mintz or leave a note in the <strong>Law</strong><br />
<strong>Weekly</strong> mailbox.<br />
Or come to our Monday meeting at 6 p.m. in SL 279.<br />
Forget a playoff system. Keep<br />
the college bowl games…<br />
Did anyone else discover that<br />
ABA Visa card with six months of<br />
no interest charges…<br />
You know you’re in the South:<br />
At bagel breakfasts, the last thing<br />
remaining is the lox spread (or<br />
salmon spread as they call it<br />
here)…<br />
Generally, men wear clothes;<br />
women wear outfits…<br />
Can we get a Slurpee machine<br />
in Cafe North…<br />
“You will be logged off<br />
shortly…”<br />
First-Year Job Frenzy<br />
by Mel Keppel ’01<br />
The big question that returning<br />
first-years usually ask classmates —<br />
after the cursory “How was your<br />
break” — is “Have you had any<br />
interviews” or “Did you find a job”<br />
Some people cleverly fashion euphemisms<br />
such as “Do you have plans for<br />
the summer yet”<br />
The first-year job search began<br />
December 1, when many first-years<br />
mail merged and sent their resumes<br />
to numerous law firms hoping to get<br />
a response or two. Others decided to<br />
focus on grades and postponed the<br />
gargantuan task until after exams.<br />
So what do first-years have to say<br />
about their experiences thus far<br />
On the public service side, firstyear<br />
Jason Trujillo has had luck in<br />
receiving employment offers, but has<br />
confronted timing problems. “Some<br />
offices will extend you an offer and<br />
expect a reply before other offices<br />
have even finished accepting resumes.<br />
It puts you in a difficult situation<br />
because you really have to gamble:<br />
am I going to play it safe and take this<br />
job or hope for a better one”<br />
Trujillo recently turned down a<br />
job offer because he is holding out for<br />
an interview with the Manhattan<br />
District Attorney’s Office. “I got an<br />
offer from the Eastern District [of<br />
New York] and they wanted an answer<br />
in five days, and the Manhattan<br />
office probably won’t contact me until<br />
April,” said Trujillo.<br />
First-year Julia Yachmenev had<br />
several law firm interviews in New<br />
Orleans. Yachmenev said that her<br />
biggest lesson learned was “not to put<br />
anything in the ‘Hobby’ section of<br />
your resume that you can’t talk about<br />
for a good ten minutes.”<br />
“I listed Russian literature as an<br />
interest and it was just my luck to<br />
interview with a partner who doubled<br />
as an expert in the subject,” said<br />
Yachmenev. “The interviewer proceeded<br />
to test my knowledge of<br />
Tolstoy’s War and Peace in minute<br />
detail.”<br />
Around North Grounds<br />
(continued from page 1)<br />
tion that rehabilitates the houses<br />
of low-income homeowners, particularly<br />
the elderly and disabled<br />
who are unable to cover the costs of<br />
home repairs. A fundraising drive<br />
will be conducted at the <strong>Law</strong> School<br />
between February 2 –5. Donations,<br />
can be placed in Howard Bayless’<br />
box.<br />
•••<br />
The Family <strong>Law</strong> Section of the<br />
American Bar Association is sponsoring<br />
the 1999 Howard Schwab<br />
Memorial Essay Contest. The contest<br />
is open to second- and thirdyear<br />
students. Cash prizes are<br />
awarded: $700 for first prize, $500<br />
for second, and $300 for third.<br />
Deadline for entries is April 2. For<br />
more information, e-mail<br />
familylaw@abanet.org.<br />
•••<br />
An unusual thumbs up to the<br />
new parking meters near D-20, by<br />
the bookstore parking<br />
spaces. Why not<br />
thumbs down<br />
Think about it. The<br />
D-20 spaces sold for<br />
$2.5 million at auction.<br />
Now you can park for a quarter,<br />
albeit for 30 minutes.<br />
Hmmm….<br />
•••<br />
Thumbs up to the first-year class<br />
for an outstanding service idea.<br />
All first-year sections<br />
will be competing<br />
to amass the<br />
most service hours<br />
over this semester.<br />
Prizes will be<br />
awarded for sections and individuals<br />
with the most hours.<br />
•••<br />
Congratulations<br />
to Marissa Marriott<br />
’99 and Lt. M. Heath<br />
Henderson who<br />
were married on<br />
January 2.<br />
Students who have not yet had<br />
interviews but want to hone their<br />
interview skills may join the mock<br />
interview sessions held by Career<br />
Services on February 5.<br />
The Career Services Office initiated<br />
this new program at the request<br />
of the SBA. The program includes<br />
both public and private sector employers.<br />
“We have been incredibly<br />
successful in getting premiere firms<br />
to come down,” said Assitant Dean<br />
for Career Services Steve Hopson<br />
Hopson expressed optimism at the<br />
likelihood of first-years garnering jobs<br />
for the coming summer. Hopson offered<br />
statistics from the Class of 2000<br />
first summer, noting 49% of firstyears<br />
worked in law firms, 23% in<br />
public sector jobs, 19% for professors,<br />
5% for judges and 4% for corporations.<br />
“The first year market is going<br />
along pretty well,” said Hopson of this<br />
summer’s job search. “I am seeing it<br />
in the number of on-grounds interviews<br />
from the private sector.” Hopson<br />
counted more than 40 firms scheduled<br />
to interview here this spring<br />
noting, “This is the first time since the<br />
eighties we have had that many.”<br />
The news is good from the Public<br />
Service Center as well. The Center<br />
will host four other <strong>Virginia</strong> law<br />
schools at a job fair on February 12.<br />
The job fair will include both interviews<br />
by hiring organizations and<br />
informational sessions by agencies<br />
such as the FBI and Health and Human<br />
Services.<br />
Public Service Career Counselor<br />
Allyson Manson-Davies described the<br />
job fair as “Exactly like the private<br />
sector job search.”<br />
Students sign up on CASE, are<br />
prescreened and chosen for interviews<br />
with various organizations. Manson-<br />
Davies added, “The good news is<br />
employers are extremely interested<br />
in UVa students.”<br />
She speaks from experience.<br />
Manson-Davies spent her first-year<br />
summer working for an organization
6 Features<br />
<strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> Friday, January <strong>29</strong>, 1999<br />
Social Events in<br />
February<br />
by Jennifer Leong ’00<br />
Returning to <strong>Law</strong> School after a<br />
much-needed four-week hiatus has<br />
surely been no easy task. While<br />
getting back into the academic swing<br />
of things may take a little time and<br />
effort, getting back into the social<br />
scene has been made quite easy for<br />
law students this semester.<br />
Two major upcoming events can<br />
help make the transition effortless<br />
by providing a chance for you to<br />
mingle with old friends, make new<br />
ones, and forget that last semester’s<br />
grades are almost in.<br />
Feb Club: Tomorrow marks the<br />
official beginning of the <strong>Law</strong> School’s<br />
traditional Month of Debauchery,<br />
affectionately known as Feb Club.<br />
Each year, the NGSL organizes Feb<br />
Club in an attempt to provide a<br />
social event for every night of the<br />
month.<br />
This year, third-years Michelle<br />
Sheridan and Andy Johnson are in<br />
charge of making sure Feb Club<br />
gets off to a roaring start. Their<br />
primary job is to gather the names<br />
of those who have volunteered to<br />
host parties and put together a<br />
calendar so everyone knows where<br />
to go, when to go, and what to wear.<br />
“We just set the calendar, and then<br />
it’s up to everyone else. I don’t have<br />
to do anything — except go,” said<br />
Sheridan.<br />
In planning the calendar,<br />
Sheridan says there is some strategy<br />
involved. “Of course first-years<br />
are encouraged to host parties. But<br />
if they live at Ivy Gardens, we try to<br />
give them dates earlier in the week,<br />
due to the size of the apartments,”<br />
said Sheridan. The weekend parties,<br />
which tend to be bigger, are<br />
reserved for those students who are<br />
able to accommodate a large number<br />
of guests.<br />
Traditionally, Feb Club kicks off<br />
by Andy Lippstone ’01<br />
OK, you’re safely back in<br />
Charlottesville. You just navigated<br />
through Greene County’s infamous<br />
Rt. <strong>29</strong> speed traps, tele-wrangled<br />
with ISIS, deposited those loan<br />
checks, and put $400 worth of new<br />
textbooks on the Plastic FunCard.<br />
What to do now that you’re settled<br />
Leave. Hit the road. While purists<br />
and scholars may cringe at the<br />
thought, the simple truth is that<br />
the first weeks of the semester are<br />
the ideal time to rekindle your relationship<br />
with the open road. That’s<br />
right – there’s no better<br />
time than now than to indulge<br />
immaturity and take<br />
a road trip.<br />
True, the ink on the seating<br />
chart is barely dry. But<br />
consider this: the first weeks<br />
of the semester may be the<br />
only time this spring when<br />
law students have both the<br />
time and the money to explore.<br />
“There’s just not that<br />
much work to do right now,”<br />
said second-year Greg Vogel.<br />
“All the loan money is in,<br />
everyone has cash, and no<br />
one has sat down to think<br />
how they’ll make it last through the<br />
semester.”<br />
If that wasn’t enough, consider<br />
the simple matter of aesthetics.<br />
Central <strong>Virginia</strong>’s breathtaking fall<br />
scenery has long since given way to<br />
something pallid and cheerless — a<br />
perfect backdrop for a Sucrets commercial,<br />
if not for long days holed up<br />
in the library.<br />
So it’s clear — time to move for a<br />
change of venue. But where to go<br />
While Charlottesville isn’t as centrally<br />
located to major cities as those<br />
colleges in the mid-Atlantic, there<br />
are dozens of reachable destinations<br />
on January 31 with<br />
a New Year’s Eve<br />
Party. However, due<br />
to the scheduling of<br />
the Super Bowl, this<br />
year’s inaugural<br />
party will be held tomorrow,<br />
January 30.<br />
In all, there will<br />
be 26 parties, each<br />
with its own distinctive<br />
theme. Each<br />
host will post fliers<br />
with the address and an explanation<br />
of their theme. If the theme<br />
involves wearing certain attire, all<br />
attendants are encouraged to come<br />
in appropriate costume. Although<br />
beer has historically been the beverage<br />
of choice, hosts are encouraged<br />
to come up with creative concoctions<br />
as well. For example, one<br />
of the more popular parties last<br />
year was “Motown Margarita Madness.”<br />
Sheridan says she hopes Feb<br />
Club will bring the law school community<br />
together in a non-academic<br />
setting. “It’s a good way to meet<br />
people, especially for first-years<br />
who spent most of their first semester<br />
with their section,” Sheridan<br />
said. “It’s a chance to run into people<br />
you don’t normally see in class.”<br />
Barrister’s Ball: Mark your<br />
calendars for Saturday, February<br />
6, because it’s time for the SBA’s<br />
annual Barrister’s Ball. Secondyear<br />
Hillary Cherry and third-year<br />
Carine Saddy, event co-chairs, have<br />
been planning Barrister’s Ball since<br />
September. They hope to build on<br />
the success of last year’s Ball, which<br />
had an attendance of more than<br />
800 people.<br />
Because of the huge success of<br />
last year’s event, Cherry and Saddy<br />
decided not to make any drastic<br />
changes this year. The only major<br />
perfectly suited for a weekend road<br />
trip.<br />
The closest of these are two area<br />
ski resorts, Massanutten and Wintergreen.<br />
Both are in central <strong>Virginia</strong>,<br />
and less than an hour away.<br />
While “neither is very large as compared<br />
to out west,” conditions are<br />
excellent in the late winter months,<br />
said Donna Havens, a sales manager<br />
at Freestyle, a local ski shop.<br />
“One is about as good as the<br />
other,” says Havens. “They’re very<br />
similar as far as terrain goes.” If<br />
you’re seeking a more challenging<br />
skiing experience, she suggests West<br />
<strong>Virginia</strong>’s Snowshoe Mountain, a<br />
three-hour drive. “There’s much<br />
more mountain, and a longer season,”<br />
she says.<br />
If cold, soaked, and injured isn’t<br />
you’re cup of cocoa, perhaps an urban<br />
expedition might be the right<br />
escape. To the south, Raleigh is a<br />
four-hour drive; to the north, Philly<br />
and New York can be reached in five<br />
and six-and-a-half hours, respectively.<br />
For a slightly more surreal experience,<br />
Atlantic City — New Jersey’s<br />
garish monument to corporate<br />
change was in booking the band.<br />
Last year’s band, Liquid Pleasure,<br />
was a big hit but unfortunately were<br />
already booked. Cherry promises<br />
this year’s band, Time for Change,<br />
will be just as entertaining. Rest<br />
assured they will belt out some of<br />
your favorite tunes, including<br />
Motown classics and top 40 hits.<br />
The Ball will again be held at the<br />
Omni Hotel, located near the downtown<br />
mall, from 9:00 p.m. to 2:00<br />
a.m.. There will be an open bar<br />
available from 10:30 p.m. to 1:30<br />
a.m. Hospitality Suites will also be<br />
set up this year by different organizations<br />
in hotel rooms. “They’re for<br />
after the ball is over, and you can<br />
get more drinks and snack food,”<br />
Cherry said. Those hospitality suites<br />
are open to everyone.<br />
All law students are encouraged<br />
to attend, and Saddy and Cherry<br />
emphasize that you don’t need a<br />
date to attend the event and have a<br />
good time. “Every year a ton of people<br />
go with a group of friends. There’s<br />
no reason just because you get<br />
dressed up that you need a date,”<br />
Cherry said.<br />
SBA will be selling tickets to<br />
Barrister’s Ball today, Monday,<br />
February 1 and Tuesday, February<br />
2, for $27 each. If you wait to buy<br />
tickets at the door, they will cost<br />
$30 per person.<br />
On the Road Again: Taking a<br />
Trip Far Away<br />
photo by Marc Cohn<br />
Roads Where we’re going, we don’t need<br />
roads.<br />
photo by J. Todd White<br />
Mary Quagliano ’98 and Joy Taylor ’98 enjoy<br />
last year’s Barrister’s Ball<br />
greed, urban inequality, and the<br />
most enjoyable wages of sin – is a<br />
mere five-and-a-half hours away.<br />
Rooms aren’t as cheap as Vegas,<br />
but thank God the drinks are still<br />
free. If you go now, you’ll be less<br />
tempted to walk on the boardwalk,<br />
which is a good thing, because<br />
muggings are considerably more<br />
rare in the lobby of Trump’s Castle.<br />
If you want a change of climate<br />
as well as scenery, you’d better be<br />
willing to really travel. The more<br />
exotic environs of Miami and New<br />
Orleans can indeed be reached on a<br />
long weekend; on the<br />
downside, they’re each<br />
more than 15 hours away.<br />
On the upside, they<br />
have much recommending<br />
them – not the least of<br />
which are spring break and<br />
Mardi Gras, both within<br />
the next two months.<br />
“New Orleans is definitely<br />
doable,” says firstyear<br />
Tyson Gorrie, who’s<br />
expecting to receive his<br />
new Saturn this week.<br />
“Three guys, six-hour<br />
shifts, we could make it.”<br />
If he doesn’t take a trip<br />
to New Orleans, Gorrie, a<br />
native of Manitoba, Canada, would<br />
like to go to the beach. “There are<br />
beaches around here, right” he<br />
asks.<br />
Vogel drove non-stop to Mardi<br />
Gras last year with three other<br />
friends from home, and lived to tell<br />
about it. “I would definitely do it<br />
again,” he says. “It’s tough to do, but<br />
the memory [of the drive] has faded.”<br />
But is anyone up to the challenge<br />
of an 18-hour car ride “Since it’s<br />
the beginning of the semester, I<br />
wouldn’t feel that guilty,” says firstyear<br />
Julie Harter. “It’s definitely<br />
more likely now than later.”<br />
Feb Club: Go the<br />
Distance<br />
February approaches. Will anyone<br />
make it to all the Feb Club<br />
parties this year<br />
Adrienne Johnson,<br />
a second-year law<br />
student, is a <strong>Law</strong><br />
<strong>Weekly</strong> columnist.<br />
I’m not sure why I decided to go<br />
to all the Feb Club parties last<br />
year; I know I assumed that I’d be<br />
one of many who would give it a<br />
shot.<br />
I recall reading in one of those<br />
Guide to Picking the Right <strong>Law</strong><br />
School tomes: “At U.Va. the law<br />
students celebrate the shortest<br />
month of the year with a party for<br />
every single night of the month of<br />
February,” and I was intrigued.<br />
Later I learned that NGSL Commissioners<br />
orchestrate Feb Club,<br />
and everyone from the most reclusive<br />
1L to the rowdiest 3L is invited<br />
and encouraged to attend every<br />
party.<br />
Feb Club is a U.Va. <strong>Law</strong> institution;<br />
it’s been around for decades.<br />
Legend says that in years past, during<br />
crazy economic booms when the<br />
job search was easy as pie, many<br />
students would attend all the parties<br />
— some even going the distance<br />
and attending all the parties all<br />
three years.<br />
Such inspiring revelry faded with<br />
the recession and students’ corresponding<br />
angst about<br />
grades and<br />
jobs. I asked<br />
around last<br />
year, and to<br />
my dismay I<br />
found that no<br />
one had made<br />
it to all the<br />
parties in several<br />
years —<br />
and nobody<br />
even remembered<br />
the last<br />
time someone<br />
did.<br />
Four of us,<br />
all 1Ls at the time, went to<br />
all the Feb Club parties last year.<br />
Starting out as a rag-tag band of<br />
social people, we unified into a Party-<br />
Team, and celebrated the spirit of<br />
Feb Club thirty days in a row, from<br />
the January 31st “New Year’s Eve”<br />
party, through the 28 parties in<br />
February, before indulging in a final<br />
party on March 1st in celebration<br />
of our triumph.<br />
Doing Feb Club wasn’t always<br />
easy, but it was definitely worth it.<br />
I encourage everyone to give it a<br />
shot and strive for that sense of<br />
accomplishment when it’s all over.<br />
For me, the secret to doing Feb<br />
Club was support and organization.<br />
Unless you are one of the heartiest<br />
of partiers, you’ll need support<br />
to be successful in going the distance<br />
with Feb Club.<br />
If you can get a friend to pledge to<br />
do Feb Club with you, then you can<br />
drag each other out if you feel like<br />
giving up. On the other end of the<br />
“support” spectrum – you may need<br />
a friend to carry you down the<br />
stairs from a lofty law student<br />
apartment after an unexpected losing<br />
spree at drinking games.<br />
So get your friends/housemates<br />
together (1Ls, get your sections together)<br />
and make Feb Club a group<br />
effort.<br />
I personally was unable to completely<br />
blow off school for a month.<br />
I wasn’t prepared to give Feb Club<br />
a shot unless I kept up with my<br />
schoolwork.<br />
Although some of the hard core<br />
partiers may question my priorities,<br />
I think a lot of potential Feb-<br />
Clubbers feel the same way.<br />
There really are enough hours in<br />
the day to go to all the parties and<br />
do what you need to do: attending<br />
class, studying, working out, eating,<br />
sleeping, etc.<br />
You have to be disciplined to get<br />
work done in the morning and during<br />
breaks between classes. If you<br />
stay an hour at every party, then it’s<br />
only really taking an hour and a<br />
half out of each day (one hour for<br />
partying and half an hour for getting<br />
ready to go out and travel time).<br />
You are actually doing yourself a<br />
favor by learning to balance social<br />
responsibilities<br />
with hard<br />
work. This is<br />
your chance to<br />
learn in a<br />
structured environment<br />
how to balance<br />
work time with<br />
play time, to<br />
minimize any<br />
potential<br />
“Where did my<br />
social life go”<br />
effects that<br />
come after law<br />
school when<br />
working long<br />
hours for a firm.<br />
The more proficient we become<br />
at balancing work and play, the<br />
happier and more productive we’ll<br />
be.<br />
May I remind you that second<br />
semester rocks Take this opportunity<br />
to go the distance with Feb<br />
Club and show your classmates<br />
what you are made of.<br />
Third-years – it’s your last<br />
chance. Second-years – the job<br />
search is over and it’s time to find<br />
out what happened to your friends.<br />
First-years – you made it through<br />
first semester, so relax and come<br />
out.<br />
February is so early in the semester,<br />
even if you fall behind you’ll<br />
have time to catch up by May.
Good Southern Food,<br />
Slow Southern Service<br />
Dixie has a reputation throughout<br />
the rest of the United States<br />
for having a slower pace of life.<br />
Spanish moss hangs from stately<br />
old oaks, which sit imposingly over<br />
C’ville Dining<br />
in a Nutshell<br />
by Billy Palmer<br />
elegantly dressed men and women<br />
sipping iced tea and mint juleps on<br />
the porch of a white walled mansion.<br />
Meanwhile, in the adjacent<br />
trailer park, Bubba and Lucille<br />
suck back Miller High Life, smoke<br />
Vantage Lights and debate the<br />
age old question of Ricki vs. Sally<br />
Jesse. The South is a land of many<br />
contrasts and, quite appropriately,<br />
so is Charlottesville’s own Southern<br />
Culture.<br />
Walking in the front door at<br />
Southern Culture is like walking<br />
into someone’s house. Screen door<br />
banging behind us, we bypassed<br />
the rather crowded bar area for a<br />
seat in the downstairs dining room.<br />
The décor is upscale, but unmistakably<br />
Southern— pink painted<br />
walls, white trim. The tables are<br />
small but stylish,<br />
all with<br />
candles; one<br />
seating area<br />
downstairs is<br />
actually four<br />
sofas around<br />
a coffee table.<br />
The interior<br />
has a very<br />
comfortable<br />
feel.<br />
We began<br />
our meal with<br />
an order of<br />
Gator Bits<br />
(breaded fried<br />
pieces of gator<br />
meat with<br />
ranch-style<br />
dipping<br />
sauce- $6.95)<br />
and a Crawfish Quesadilla (crawfish<br />
and cheese inside, fresh salsa<br />
and guacamole outside – $5.95).<br />
The gator was interesting — of<br />
course it tasted like chicken, but<br />
was considerably chewier. The<br />
sauce was nothing special; in fact,<br />
it detracted from the dish. The<br />
quesadilla was very good — fresh<br />
and both the salsa and guacamole<br />
were excellent. Both are highly<br />
recommended.<br />
For entrees, we had the Louisi-<br />
“I didn’t mean to kill anybody.<br />
I just shot him in the head. Him<br />
dyin’ was between him and God.”<br />
— R.L. Burnside<br />
These lyrics make it clear that<br />
R.L. Burnside is not the sort of<br />
blues musician that has typically<br />
been successful in the crossover<br />
markets.<br />
Burnside is to B.B. King what<br />
gasoline is to buttermilk. His<br />
blues are born of anger, not despair.<br />
He plays with an intensity<br />
and edge that call to mind the<br />
fables of dark bargains struck at<br />
midnight where some county<br />
road crosses Highway 61.<br />
Most of us have never heard<br />
anything like it. Burnside, in<br />
short, is the real deal — a whiskey<br />
swilling, juke-joint thrashing<br />
practitioner of the rawest<br />
form of Mississippi Delta Blues.<br />
Now in his mid-sixties, he is<br />
ana Short Stack (crabcake-style<br />
patties with shrimp, crawfish and<br />
fish — $11.95), served with<br />
ratatouille and black-eyed peas,<br />
and Jerk Pork Tenderloin (slices<br />
of pork tenderloin marinated in<br />
jerk seasonings and oven roasted<br />
– $9.95), also served with<br />
ratatouille and greens. The short<br />
stack was delicious — fried up but<br />
not greasy or oily. Each bite was<br />
outstanding; the table next to us<br />
didn’t eat all of theirs and we were<br />
tempted to take it for ourselves.<br />
But cooler heads prevailed.<br />
The accompanying side items<br />
were also excellent. The ratatouille<br />
was very fresh and the black-eyed<br />
peas were clearly not canned. The<br />
pork was good, but not great. It<br />
tasted a little undercooked, but<br />
there was no apparent pinkness<br />
in the meat.<br />
Also, the jerk seasoning was<br />
underapplied. The meat, although<br />
not bad, needed a little pick-me<br />
up. The accompanying greens were<br />
tasty and not oversalted — an often-made<br />
mistake.<br />
Dessert was a piece of Southern<br />
Culture’s pride and joy — Sweet<br />
Potato Pie topped with homemade<br />
vanilla ice cream. No complaints<br />
here – sweet, not too rich and very<br />
flavorful. The ice cream was a fine<br />
accompaniment.<br />
Southern Culture also boasts a<br />
modest wine selection and is one<br />
of the few restaurants in town<br />
where you can get Dixie Beer,<br />
straight from Louisiana. The bar<br />
area is very popular — similar to<br />
Continental Divide — for grabbing<br />
a beer or mint julep and meeting<br />
friends.<br />
Yet, gentle reader, recall the<br />
<strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> Friday, January <strong>29</strong>, 1999 Reviews 7<br />
photo by Marc Cohn<br />
one of the last of a dying breed; a<br />
living link to the roots of American<br />
music.<br />
In past years,<br />
Burnside has garnered<br />
significant<br />
notoriety, releasing<br />
two albums, “Ass<br />
Pocket of Whiskey”<br />
and “Mr. Wizard”,<br />
which have cracked<br />
the top ten on the<br />
college music<br />
charts.<br />
The success of<br />
these records, along<br />
with the signing of<br />
other blues greats<br />
such as Junior<br />
Kimbrough, The<br />
Jelly Roll Kings,<br />
and Elmo Williams,<br />
has made<br />
Burnside’s label,<br />
Fat Possum<br />
Records, the most<br />
influential player<br />
in the modern blues scene.<br />
And now, with Burnside’s latest<br />
album, Come On In, both<br />
Burnside and Fat Possum have<br />
Christmas Singles<br />
You Get What You Give: The<br />
New Radicals sound vaguely<br />
like the old band World Party.<br />
Their paean to young rock<br />
dreamers (and all dreamers)<br />
might inspire you to quit law<br />
school and pick up a guitar.<br />
What It’s Like: For those<br />
who don’t know, Everlast is<br />
the old lead singer (or rapper)<br />
from House of Pain (of “Jump<br />
Around” fame). The song is<br />
pretty interesting, but<br />
Everlast’s performance on Saturday<br />
Night Live was disappointing.<br />
One () Hit Wonders<br />
Every Morning : Sugar Ray<br />
proves they are more than one<br />
hit wonders with their followup<br />
to “Fly.” Of course, Men<br />
Without Hats had two hits as<br />
well.<br />
opening paragraph – a restaurant<br />
of contrasts. Despite the general<br />
fine quality of our food, it was<br />
marred by horrible service. We<br />
waited almost 15 minutes between<br />
when we finished eating<br />
dinner and asked<br />
for dessert, and another<br />
20 minutes between<br />
when we finished dessert<br />
and received the<br />
bill (after asking our<br />
waitress for it twice).<br />
She was also slow in<br />
our drink orders and<br />
forgot one of them.<br />
Granted, our server did<br />
have several other<br />
tables to take care of,<br />
but her efforts took<br />
“Slow Southern Style”<br />
to an entirely new level.<br />
But yes, of course, she<br />
still received her 15%.<br />
Overall, a mixed<br />
meal. If the food had<br />
been bad, it would have been a<br />
disastrous two hours. If the service<br />
had been good, it could have<br />
been a wonderful two hours. Before<br />
making your decision to get a<br />
taste of Southern Culture, figure<br />
out which is more important to<br />
you. Y’all come back now, y’here-<br />
I’ll think about it.<br />
Southern Culture is located at<br />
633 West Main Street,<br />
cattycornered from the train station<br />
parking lot.<br />
taken blues in a new direction.<br />
Alec Empire, the techno-whiz<br />
behind Empire Records, and his<br />
cronies step in on several tracks<br />
and transform Burnside’s traditional<br />
music into a sinister mixture<br />
of guitar riffs, sampling and<br />
I went to a see “Shakespeare<br />
in Love” Saturday night with a<br />
woman who knows all the lines<br />
to “Dirty Dancing” by heart and<br />
sometimes watches the movie<br />
while mouthing the lines along<br />
Movie Review<br />
by David Stuckey<br />
with the actors.<br />
Suggesting that this might not<br />
simply be another sign of the<br />
apocalypse, in this movie depicting<br />
the “true story” behind<br />
“Romeo and Juliet,” Viola<br />
(Gwyneth Paltrow) sneaks into<br />
royal audiences of 16 th century<br />
drama, and does the same thing<br />
as my date.<br />
Desperate to be an actor herself,<br />
and frustrated by the prohibition<br />
against women on the<br />
Elizabethan stage, Viola disguises<br />
herself as a man, Sir Thomas<br />
Kent, and manages to gain<br />
an audition.<br />
Little does she know that the<br />
Bard of Avon is sitting in the<br />
pews, and he, startled by her<br />
unusual and emotional reading<br />
of his lines, believes Kent to be<br />
just the actor he needs for his<br />
new play, “Romeo and Ethel, the<br />
Pirate’s Daughter.”<br />
Unfortunately, Shakespeare<br />
himself is at a low point in his<br />
career.<br />
The young writer is creatively<br />
blocked and struggling for money<br />
and inspiration.<br />
In addition, his theater is on<br />
the verge of being closed due to<br />
its outstanding debts, and his<br />
actors are made up of stutterers<br />
and amateurs.<br />
He needs something to jumpstart<br />
his life and his pen, and he<br />
needs to recapture his winning<br />
touch to recapture the public eye<br />
from his more popular rival, the<br />
earnest and humorless Christopher<br />
Marlowe.<br />
“Shakespeare in Love” being a<br />
romantic comedy of sorts,<br />
Shakespeare soon discovers<br />
Kent’s feminine side, and he and<br />
Viola fall in love.<br />
The couple spend their nights<br />
making “the beast with two<br />
backs” (Shakespeare wrote it, so<br />
I can use it) and their days turning<br />
his play from an uninspiring<br />
comedy into a powerful romantic<br />
tragedy.<br />
Soon the threat of an arranged<br />
marriage to an unpleasant and<br />
driving dance beats. Although<br />
these songs provide an interesting<br />
change of pace, the heart of<br />
Burnside’s work is<br />
still the ample<br />
amount of straightahead,<br />
one-man-anda-guitar<br />
blues.<br />
The album opens<br />
with “Been Mistreated,”<br />
an oldschool<br />
blues standard<br />
that has been<br />
sampled only for a<br />
short introductory<br />
minute here.<br />
A live version of the<br />
title track, recorded<br />
at the Rhythm Room<br />
in Phoenix opens the<br />
album in earnest, and<br />
makes it clear that despite<br />
his advancing<br />
age Burnside’s vocal<br />
and guitar virtuosity<br />
are still intact.<br />
“Let My Baby<br />
Ride,” perhaps one of the most<br />
famous Burnside tunes to date,<br />
follows, features R.L.’s son,<br />
Cedric, on drums.<br />
unsympathetic man is hovering<br />
over Viola, and the potential closing<br />
of Shakespeare’s theater is<br />
hanging over him.<br />
Their fates begin to close in on<br />
their happiness, and their<br />
struggle to remain together and<br />
produce the play raises the<br />
movie above the ordinary.<br />
It’s a fine movie, with romance,<br />
humor, passion, swordfights,<br />
sadness, and, as befits a<br />
film attempting to depict the<br />
world’s greatest poet, beauty and<br />
drama.<br />
It also does a wonderful job of<br />
conjuring up the London of 1593,<br />
with its filthy and over-crowded<br />
streets, its contrasting earthiness<br />
and luxury, and the expectations<br />
and obligations of the two<br />
genders in a culture where escaping<br />
the roles assigned to them<br />
is virtually impossible.<br />
At the same time, however,<br />
the film manages to capture the<br />
timeless nature of Shakespeare’s<br />
vision and language, and depicts<br />
the writer and actors as familiar<br />
figures, with similar insecurities<br />
and foibles as their counterparts<br />
today.<br />
Whether this is anachronistic<br />
or accurate is irrelevant; it’s fun.<br />
While the entire cast is to be<br />
commended, two actors stood out.<br />
Joseph Fiennes is a believable<br />
and intense Shakespeare, full of<br />
fire and passion.<br />
Judy Dench, in a smaller role<br />
as Queen Elizabeth, is sharper<br />
and more likable than the imposing<br />
matriarch first appears.<br />
In addition, Ben Affleck plays<br />
Ned Alleyn, the engaging and<br />
charsmatic star of the age who<br />
does the world the great favor of<br />
suggesting the alternate title to<br />
the play.<br />
Gwyneth Paltrow shows that<br />
she deserves some of the great<br />
P.R. she’s been getting lately as<br />
an interesting and independent<br />
Viola.<br />
Movies playing “what if” with<br />
historical figures and facts have<br />
to be really good to succeed, and<br />
“Shakespeare in Love” follows<br />
“Amadeus” in pulling off the<br />
trick.<br />
“Shakespeare in Love” is funnier,<br />
more poetic and heartfelt,<br />
and better written than I expected<br />
it to be.<br />
It’s hard to see how any movie<br />
could be a much better “date<br />
movie.”<br />
After all, would you rather<br />
watch “Dirty Dancing” once<br />
again<br />
Come On In and Hear Mississippi Delta Techno-Blues<br />
Music Review<br />
by Jami Wyatt and<br />
<strong>Law</strong>rence Deas<br />
Better Than Dirty<br />
Dancing<br />
On the next three tracks, Empire<br />
and his techno junkies take<br />
the reins by sampling guitar and<br />
harmonica riffs, along with<br />
Burnside’s vocals, and mixing<br />
them over base and drum lines<br />
reminiscent of ’70s vintage Parliament-Funkadelic.<br />
The first song on the album to<br />
reach the national airwaves via<br />
alternative radio stations is a<br />
remix of “Rollin’ Tumblin’,” a<br />
classic Burnside tune which most<br />
effectively brings Burnside’s old<br />
and Empire’s new together.<br />
This track standing alone<br />
proves the blues-techno experiment<br />
successful. The result is a<br />
sound at the same time soulful<br />
and infectious, a musical treat<br />
alone worth the price of the disc.<br />
Fat Possum, based in Oxford,<br />
Miss., gambled that the forced<br />
coupling of these two divergent<br />
genres would produce an offspring<br />
people wanted to hear.<br />
They were right. Diehard fans of<br />
both the blues and techno music<br />
will find this album worth a listen.<br />
Let down your guard, check<br />
your expectations at the door,<br />
and Come On In.
8 <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> Friday, January <strong>29</strong>, 1999<br />
V ANGUARD<br />
O F D E M O C R A C Y<br />
Back In Town Again<br />
VG’s got no time to waste on<br />
mindless introductory paragraphs,<br />
so let’s get to it.<br />
Feb Club Preview<br />
Top Nine Reasons to look forward<br />
to Feb Club ‘99:<br />
9. Barrister’s Date. It’s January<br />
<strong>29</strong>th, and you’re starting to sweat<br />
the fact that you’re currently sans<br />
escort for the February 6th fiesta.<br />
Don’t dash over to the House of<br />
Theta just yet — you’ve got a whole<br />
week of Feb Club to work your<br />
magic.<br />
8. New Year’s Eve Full Moon.<br />
Yes, Mother Nature promises to add<br />
a dash of cosmic nuttiness on January<br />
31st, which means that anything<br />
can happen. If you tend to<br />
suddenly get really hairy and howl<br />
on nights like this you are particularly<br />
encouraged to join the party.<br />
7. Cheap buzz. For the mere price<br />
photo by Marc Cohn<br />
Lovely Rita, Meter Maid.<br />
of showing up (or hosting a party of<br />
your own), you earn yourself an<br />
entire month’s worth of free booze.<br />
Okay, if you’re not a big Natty Light<br />
fan you can always pocket your favorite<br />
microbrews, and it still costs<br />
less than getting drunk at Rapture.<br />
6. Look funny and be cool at the<br />
same time. It’s way cooler to don<br />
theme party attire (pj’s, bellbottoms,<br />
toga...) than to dress normally. Otherwise,<br />
it’s just you, me and Natty<br />
Light — and VG can wait until<br />
March for that.<br />
5. <strong>Law</strong> students get drunk and<br />
act stupid. Which not only makes<br />
for endless day-after entertainment,<br />
but also makes VG’s job a helluva<br />
lot easier.<br />
4. 40 oz. Jammy Jam. VG sincerely<br />
hopes for a three-peat of this<br />
unbeatable combo. There’s something<br />
about drinking malt liquor in<br />
pajamas that makes VG feel like all<br />
is right with the world ... or at least<br />
the law school.<br />
3. The Profs are forewarned. Don’t<br />
be bashful about stumbling late to<br />
class, or even foregoing class, during<br />
the month of February. They<br />
understand.<br />
2. You know where 3L C.W. will<br />
be hanging out. No need to specu-<br />
January<br />
30 Super Saturday <strong>Law</strong> School Volunteer<br />
Day. Sign up in Hunton<br />
Williams Hall.<br />
30 RCA Jewish Traveling Band. 8<br />
p.m. The <strong>Law</strong>n.<br />
February<br />
1 Feb Club Begins<br />
6 Barrister’s Ball. Omni Hotel, 9<br />
p.m.-2 a.m. Tickets available in<br />
Hunton Williams Hall through<br />
Feb. 2 @ $27 per person. Tickets<br />
available @ $30 per person<br />
at the door.<br />
6 Waitangi Day (New Zealand)<br />
late, or hope, or try to get word<br />
through the grapevine. Just check<br />
the calendar. It’s that simple.<br />
1. The chance to get a little closer.<br />
Feb Club reminds us that, in the<br />
immortal words of former 3L T.T.<br />
— friendship, and maybe more, is<br />
only a Thunderbird away.<br />
Barrister’s Ball:<br />
Each year, VG watches the law<br />
school’s finest and not so fine ponder<br />
the big question: “Should I take<br />
a date” Even though we’d all love<br />
to go to “The Prom” with that perfect<br />
someone, students often mask<br />
their fear of rejection by either (1)<br />
calling the event childish and refusing<br />
to go; (2) fooling themselves<br />
into believing that going stag with<br />
a bunch of other losers is actually<br />
cool; or (3) saying, “The hell with<br />
Barrister’s and the SBA, I’m throwing<br />
my own damn party!” [Insert<br />
3L AR].<br />
This year VG wants things to<br />
be different. While VG doesn’t<br />
believe you have to have a date<br />
to have a good time, an increase<br />
in the number of actual dates is<br />
desired. So to save some the embarrassment<br />
of asking, we’ve decided<br />
to match a few people up.<br />
There are some couples in the<br />
<strong>Law</strong> School that are together so<br />
much, it makes you wish they’d<br />
hook-up and get it over with.<br />
Wouldn’t you love to see these<br />
lovely couples come strolling<br />
through the doors of the Omni<br />
3L J.K. and 2L M.R.; 3Ls R.G.<br />
and A.P.; 3Ls R.R. and R.E.; 2Ls<br />
K.P. and K.S.; 3Ls J.J. and C.W.;<br />
2L A.S. and 1L A.M.; 3L P.E.<br />
and 1L M.W.; 3Ls S.T. and J.H.;<br />
3Ls M.H. and J.B.<br />
Better yet, VG would love to<br />
see 3Ls giving romance another<br />
chance during the ball. Imagine<br />
the joy of seeing the following<br />
couples from first year coming together<br />
for one last chance at love<br />
as the song “Reunited” plays on.<br />
As the list indicates, some students<br />
will have to alternate between<br />
numerous dance partners.<br />
B.B. and C.K., C.K. and C.M., C.G.<br />
and J.B.; J.B. and B.M.; B.M. and<br />
K.L.; K.L. and J.W.; T.R. and M.W.;<br />
R.R. and N.M.; G.A. and S.J.; M.R.<br />
and J.S.; J.A. and D.R.; T.C. and<br />
K.E.; M.S. and P.E.; and K.H. and<br />
T. “Bushy” S.<br />
Softball:<br />
Lastly, the NGSL would like to<br />
alert you to the 16th Annual NGSL<br />
Softball Tournament on April 10-<br />
11.<br />
If you know law students at any<br />
other schools who want to come get<br />
their ass whipped, uh … we mean<br />
come enjoy friendly competition,<br />
please drop a note in the NGSL<br />
mailbox containing the name and<br />
number of a contact person.<br />
VANGUARD OF DEMOCRACY is an<br />
independent column of the<br />
North Grounds Softball League<br />
and does not necessarily represent<br />
the views of the Editors of<br />
the <strong>Virginia</strong> <strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong>.<br />
The Docket<br />
12 Public Interest Job Fair<br />
14 Valentine’s Day<br />
16 Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras)<br />
17 Ash Wednesday<br />
17 Clint Bolick from the Institute<br />
of Justice will speak on “School<br />
Choice & the Future of Education.”<br />
Professors Wax and<br />
Ryan will serve as commentators.<br />
4:15, Location TBA. Sponsored<br />
by the Federalist and<br />
Hayek Societies.<br />
March<br />
12 MPRE Test<br />
13-21 Spring Break<br />
Top Ten Things You<br />
Hate about the First<br />
Week of School<br />
(as submitted by the Sec. Reg.<br />
Posse)<br />
10. “Sign in or die” registration<br />
policy.<br />
9. Rebuilding the stamina to drink<br />
ten beers per night.<br />
8. Laptops.<br />
7. <strong>Law</strong> students.<br />
6. Chumps who don’t turn in their<br />
cite checks over break and make<br />
their articles editor work the<br />
whole first week.<br />
5. <strong>Law</strong> professors.<br />
4. Rebuilding the stamina to sit on<br />
your ass five hours a day with<br />
your eyes open.<br />
3. “How was your break”<br />
2. $100 books.<br />
1. Teachers who pass a seating<br />
chart on the first day.<br />
By Ryan Coonerty ‘01<br />
A couple of years ago, J.R.,<br />
owner of a classic pool hall named<br />
Lucky’s, took a moment to “educate”<br />
a group of us Gap-wearing,<br />
light beer drinking, college boys<br />
while we waited for an open table.<br />
My buddies and I had been coming<br />
to Lucky’s almost every night<br />
for about three months, yet J.R.<br />
had barely acknowledged<br />
our existence beyond<br />
grumbling how<br />
much we owed for beer.<br />
The only other meaningful<br />
interaction we<br />
had with J.R. was him<br />
barking at my friend<br />
Dan to stop whistling<br />
or motioning at me to<br />
get out of the way of one<br />
of his regular customers.<br />
The “regulars,”<br />
without exception, had<br />
first rights to the stools<br />
at the bar and the pornographic<br />
magazine<br />
rack, not to mention the<br />
table.<br />
Nevertheless, on this particular<br />
evening, J.R. (either bored or<br />
inspired), explained to us that he<br />
could tell everything you needed<br />
to know about a man’s character<br />
and history by the way he shot<br />
pool. (Women, although welcomed<br />
in Lucky’s, were a subject for another<br />
night.)<br />
We sat mesmerized as he<br />
photo by Marc Cohn<br />
“That Bascom’s Folly sure is a funny horse!”<br />
photo by Marc Cohn<br />
Jena MacLean, Melissa Davis and Elizabeth Gladden and Happy<br />
Action Fun Time at Cafe North<br />
8-Balls and Thai Food, Playing Pool<br />
in Charlottesville<br />
17 St. Patrick’s Day<br />
31 Passover begins at sundown<br />
April<br />
1-3Libel Show<br />
4 Easter<br />
The Docket is the official calendar<br />
for <strong>Law</strong> School students.<br />
Please include your organization’s<br />
events by submitting entries for<br />
The Docket in either the envelope<br />
on the bulletin board outside the<br />
<strong>Law</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> office or to Jenny<br />
Leong, Features Editor, at the <strong>Law</strong><br />
<strong>Weekly</strong>, by Tuesday at 5 p.m. for<br />
the following Friday’s issue.<br />
Shootin’ Dirty Pool in Charlottesville<br />
worked his way through the patrons.<br />
First, he pointed to the “posers.”<br />
Those who walked too confidently<br />
up to the next shot, only to<br />
miss and demonstrate they didn’t<br />
have the skills to back up their<br />
facade of confidence.<br />
Next he fingered the suckers.<br />
Those guys that didn’t respect the<br />
game but were simply there trying<br />
to look cool for their buddies, a<br />
girlfriend, or an anonymous opponent<br />
who had just offered a game<br />
and maybe a small bet “just to<br />
make it interesting.”<br />
His insights went on and on,<br />
but ever since then pool has been<br />
more to me than merely sinking<br />
the 8-ball first.<br />
Searching for a place like<br />
Lucky’s in Charlottesville has met<br />
with mixed results. Initial quests<br />
turned up nothing but sports bars<br />
such as BW-3 (1935 Arlington<br />
Blvd.) and The Greenskeeper<br />
(1517 University Ave, on the “Corner”),<br />
offering little more than a<br />
chance to shoot stick as strangers<br />
try to slip past you on the way to<br />
the restroom.<br />
Katie’s Country Music Restaurant<br />
(on <strong>29</strong> North across from<br />
Fashion Square Mall) had a few<br />
more tables but very little character.<br />
It appeared to be a Denny’s<br />
decorated with pool tables.<br />
The J.R.s of the world and their<br />
pool halls seemed to have disappeared.<br />
But, after several fruitless<br />
trips up and down <strong>29</strong>, we found<br />
two acceptable places, Orbit and<br />
Rapture, both of which are solid<br />
places to play and watch pool.<br />
Rapture (103 E. Main Street),<br />
a new bar/restaurant on the downtown<br />
mall, offers almost everything<br />
a pool player out for an<br />
evening could desire — good beer,<br />
six tables, and a great funky urban<br />
atmosphere.<br />
More upscale than any pool hall<br />
I have been to, it offers<br />
Thai food, wraps and<br />
falafels, as well as many<br />
imported beers and micro-brews<br />
on tap. The<br />
red and purple pool<br />
tables, although a break<br />
from the traditional<br />
green, are popular with<br />
the patrons.<br />
The clientele is surprisingly<br />
diverse, considering<br />
the rather high<br />
prices for beer and pool.<br />
Hippies, locals, and the<br />
super-hip are all abun-<br />
photo by Marc Cohn dant, despite having to<br />
pay $10-12 per hour for<br />
a table and at least another<br />
$9 for meals. However, Rapture<br />
does offer specials such as<br />
half-price pool on Monday nights,<br />
rendering it more studentfriendly.<br />
The retro-decor (particularly<br />
the red leather booths and street<br />
lamps) and good beer make Rapture<br />
an excellent place to ponder<br />
life over the geometric calculus of<br />
a pool shot.<br />
The “Corner” version of Rapture<br />
is Orbit Billiards and Café<br />
(102 14th Street). While considerably<br />
more downscale, both in atmosphere<br />
and menu (which is bare<br />
walls and burgers and fries, respectively),<br />
Orbit has many attractive<br />
features.<br />
The smoky air and lower prices,<br />
which range from $4 to $12 an<br />
hour, depending on the time and<br />
night of the week, add a certain<br />
authenticity to one’s pool experience.<br />
Orbit has an excellent jukebox<br />
with a broad array of music, from<br />
alternative to the blues. However,<br />
Orbit’s best feature may be a number<br />
of couches that offer a particularly<br />
cool place to rest after a<br />
strenuous game.