On Broadway

With the opening of Oscar®-nominated director John Madden’s film version of Proof this weekend (in limited release) and on September 30 (in wide release), I thought I would revisit my review of the play by David Auburn from three years ago.

Proof (the film) includes in its cast Gwyneth Paltrow (who appeared in the play on London’s West End and received her own Oscar® for her leading role in Madden’s 1998 movie, Shakespeare in Love), Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Hope Davis as the four principals. The screenplay, by Auburn and Rebecca Miller (daughter of Arthur Miller), adds at least another seven characters who do not appear in the stage version.

My take on Proof is incorporated into this review essay, which appeared in The Metro Herald on August 14, 2002. :

Heritage Rep’s Summer Season: Entertaining, Provocative

Charlottesville, VA — The Heritage Repertory Theatre’s 29th season has drawn to a close, after offering audiences a mix of comedy, music, and drama with professionalism and glimpses at the stars of the future.

The season opened with 10 performances of Anything Goes, the tried-and-true 1934 Cole Porter musical. Boasting many of Porter’s most familiar songs – “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “All Through the Night,” “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” and the title song, among others – this is one of those musical comedies for which the audience comes into the theatre humming the tunes.

Based primarily on the 1962 off-Broadway revival, this production of Anything Goes included songs interpolated from other Porter musicals, including “Let’s Misbehave” and “Friendship.” Director Robert Chapel captained this lighthearted musical with a light touch, bringing audiences an evening of entertainment in which (as the Emcee in Cabaret might say) they were able to “leave their cares outside.”

Most of the cast of Anything Goes also appeared in other shows in the rest of HRT’s repertory season, in dramatic, comic, or musical roles, and this classic gave them the jump-start they needed for the summer.

As a bookend to Anything Goes, the more recent revue Smokey Joe's Cafe consists of songs from the early rock-and-roll era, with no heavy message nor social significance. Made up entirely of songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (with other collaborators), Smokey Joe’s Café is a tribute to the Brill Building, New York’s headquarters for pop tunesters in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. The professional-quality cast was able to belt them out, doo-wop, and dance with athleticism, but only a handful of songs qualify as “classics” – notably “Spanish Harlem,” “Kansas City,” and “On Broadway” – leading to an entertaining but ultimately unsatisfying evening. The excellent set design by Tom Bloom deserves special mention, however, as do the costumes by Janine Marie. Director/choreographer Cate Caplin delivered what she promised, and most audience members were pleased with the result.

What came between these two was much more profound, however, particularly the two non-musical plays, Proof (directed by Douglas Sprigg) and Comic Potential (also directed by Chapel, who chairs the UVA Department of Drama).

Both these plays provided a platform for actress Sarah Dandridge to prove her mettle. In two very different roles, she was given a chance to demonstrate an amazing acting range. In David Auburn’s Pulitzer- and Tony®-winning Proof, as the late-blooming, emotionally adolescent 20-something daughter of a famous mathematician, Dandridge was brooding, introspective, shy, and intelligent. In Alan Ayckbourn’s Comic Potential, playing a robotic soap-opera performer – no, really, her character is an android, or “actoid” – she was able to eat up the scenery, a wild, unpredictable, furiously funny turn.

Her leading man in both plays, Jason Odell Williams, was also afforded an opportunity to show his depth as an actor. His role in Proof, as a young mathematician facing his limitations, was complex, in that we must like him while wondering whether he is ultimately trustworthy – a test also required of Dandridge’s character.

Proof is one of those great, recent plays about the life of the mind. (Margaret Edson’s W;t and Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love also fit in this category.) It expresses the passion that some people feel about their intellectual pursuits, passions so intense that they are inexplicable to outsiders – even to members of one’s own family. In Proof, the sharing of this passion – in this case, higher mathematics – is what resolves the play’s central conflict. Moreover, Proof asks us whether the line between genius and insanity can ever be defined, and whether, once defined, it is a barrier or not. It doesn’t answer this question, but it makes us ponder it.

Comic Potential gives all its actors a chance to show off their comedic abilities. Ayckbourn constructs a number of set-pieces that are impossible to describe in just a few words, but, in online-chat-speak, they leave you ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing). Set in the not-too-distant future, Comic Potential pokes fun at television executives, billionaires, Wellesian film directors, and, well, audiences, too. It makes us examine what is fundamental about our humanity and asks whether love is what separates us from even the most intelligent machine. It does in comedy what Steven Spielberg attempted to do in his film, A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

For a good date night, it’s hard not to recommend I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, a musical revue by Joe DiPietro (book and lyrics) and Jimmy Roberts (music). Still playing off-Broadway after more than six years, this production is directed by Jack Donahue, a University of Virginia graduate who is also a cabaret artist, actor, and singer.

Four performers take on various roles in this revue, which follows male-female relations from first date through marriage and children to widowhood and retirement. It consists of songs and sketches that any couple (married, divorced, or someday-to-be-married) will see reflective of real life. I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change is one of those shows that has moments for everyone to say, “I know him!” or “I did that!”

A lot is demanded of the four performers in this show – Geno Carr, Nathan Moore, Kiira Schmidt, and Nancy Snow – especially considering that all four of them also appeared in Anything Goes (with Moore, Schmidt, and Snow in principal roles in that show!). They all deliver nicely. Carr has a rubbery face made for comedy, Moore seems able to handle anything thrown at him, Schmidt is both a terrific dancer and a natural comedienne, and Snow has a lovely voice. We’ll be seeing them all again, doing big things.

Special mention should be made of Jack Donahue’s one-man show, Summer Songs, which played for one brief week at the beginning of HRT’s season in the intimate Helms Theatre. Donahue, who is based in New York, has spent the better part of the past year at his alma mater, teaching theatre and directing the University Drama Department’s production of Cabaret last spring. Donahue is one of those young singers who values the standards – he has a special affinity for the songs of Johnny Mercer, but he delivers with equal aplomb the works of Rodgers & Hart, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Henry Mancini, Hoagy Carmichael, George Gershwin ... the giants of 20th-century popular music. If you have a chance to catch Donahue’s cabaret act – in New York or elsewhere – don’t pass it up. You’ll end the evening with a smile on your face and a song in your heart – more than one song, actually.

The Heritage Repertory Theatre performs each summer in the University of Virginia’s Department of Drama Building, using both the large Culbreth Theatre and the smaller Helms Theatre for its shows.

The Heritage Rep knows how to hold on to its performers. This year Geno Carr starred as Applegate in Damn Yankees, which Kiira Schmidt choreographed, and he and Nancy Snow performed together in a revue of Frank Sinatra songs, My Way, along with Perry Medlin (who does a mean, and I mean mean, if spot-on, impersonation of Liza Minnelli) and Ashley Hunter -- a production also choreographed by Schmidt.

Proof is by no means the first play to explore the interplay and dividing line between genius and madness, nor is it the last. One recent example of the genre is The Highest Yellow, written by John Strand with music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa. The Highest Yellow, which focuses on the strained relationship between Vincent van Gogh and his doctor, premiered last year at Signature Theatre in Arlington. It featured Marc Kudisch as van Gogh, Jason Danieley as Dr. Felix Rey, and Judy Kuhn as Rachel, the prostitute to whom van Gogh presented his severed ear.

An Actor's Life

This weekend's opening of the film version of David Auburn’s award-winning play, Proof (which had an outstanding production at the Heritage Repertory Theatre in Charlottesville a few seasons ago), sent me searching for an article I wrote about the movie’s co-star, Anthony Hopkins, when he appeared at the Virginia Film Festival in 2000.

Proof is the story of a young woman who is unsure whether she has inherited her genius father’s mental instability as well as his talent. Hopkins told Conan O’Brien on tonight’s program that he took the part of the math professor in Proof because it was the sort of role “that I became an actor to do, a very meaty part.”

Here is the piece on Hopkins, which appeared in The Metro Herald on November 3, 2000:

Sir Anthony Hopkins Receives Virginia Film Award
Rick Sincere
Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

Oscar®-winning actor Sir Anthony Hopkins was the recipient of the Virginia Film Award at a ceremony last Saturday, October 28. The award was presented on behalf of the Virginia Film Festival by Gayle Vale, president and CEO of the Virginia Tourism Corporation, who thanked him “for playing this great role in making Virginia one of Hollywood’s favorite places to make films this year,” mentioning the actor’s two most recent films, Hannibal and Hearts in Atlantis, which just completed filming in the Commonwealth.

Anthony Hopkins at the Virginia Film Festival, October 2000

Prior to the ceremony, Hopkins took part in several events at the Virginia Film Festival, speaking to drama students in a private meeting at that Helms Theatre; introducing a screening of The Silence of the Lambs at the neighboring Culbreth Theatre; and being interviewed by film critic Roger Ebert about his career after a screening of Titus, designer-director Julie Taymor’s provocative (if unsuccessful at the box office) rendering of Shakespeare’s “bloodiest play,” Titus Andronicus.

Hopkins also made himself available for a press conference in the Helms Theatre. For almost an hour, he fielded questions about acting, the film industry, his personal life, and his past and future career. The Metro Herald was there.

To Hopkins, acting “is a job. I do stand by that. It’s a pretty good job,” and “they pay me quite well to do what I do.” He continued: “I am not my job. Acting is what I happen to do.”

When not working, Hopkins retires to his home in Pacific Palisades, California, where he plays piano and reads voraciously. “I have a quiet, normal life,” he said, “and it suits me. My friends are not actors.” Hopkins said that he wishes he “could read and devour books faster. I’m fascinated,” he added, “by the new physics,” noting that he is currently reading a new book about “the nature of time” and a recent biography of Richard Nixon that was sent to him by director Oliver Stone.

Asked about the movie industry and the Hollywood culture, Hopkins said, “I love the movie industry. Hollywood has been very kind to me.” He revealed that he is himself impressed by celebrities, saying that he likes attending the Academy Awards ceremony because it gives him a chance to meet actors he admires. In his opinion, he said, American actors are the best in the world because “they make it look easy,” mentioning names like Spencer Tracy and Gary Cooper as models for “simplicity” in the acting craft.

At the same time, he said, “actors need tough directors like Oliver Stone.” Stone, Hopkins asserted, “puts the pressure on – not in a cruel way, but it is a pleasure to work for him.” (Stone directed Hopkins in the biopic Nixon.) On Richard Nixon himself, Hopkins said he studied the former president through film documentaries, photographs, and television interviews. “There is a great element of tragedy in Nixon,” he said. There was a greatness in him, so misused.”

Chris Sandlin, a reporter from The Collegian, the newspaper of the University of Richmond, noted that Hopkins had filmed his two most recent projects in Virginia – in and around Richmond and Charlottesville – and asked the actor what he liked about making movies in the state. Virginia, he answered, “is beautiful, especially at this time of year” and it has “good restaurants, too.”

The Metro Herald posed this question to Hopkins: His first major film role was as Richard the Lionhearted in The Lion in Winter. Would he ever consider doing that script again, this time as King Henry II (the role played in that film by Peter O’Toole)?

Hopkins seemed surprised, and almost perturbed, by the question, but he answered it directly. That very role had been offered to him within the past two years, he said, but “I didn’t want to do it. Why remake it?” he asked. “Peter O’Toole already did it definitively. It’s like remaking Casablanca – an exercise in futility.”

Asked why he comes to events like the Virginia Film Festival, Hopkins said, “I enjoy talking to people. I started off as a hopeless student, but” because of a chance meeting with fellow Welshman Richard Burton in his hometown of Cardiff, he made a determination to become an actor, just like Burton. Since then, he said, “magical things have happened to me, synchronistic things . . . I feel very grateful.” He added that he hopes some of that magic might rub off on the students and others who attend film festivals in search of inspiration.

Sometimes, at major events like the Cannes Film Festival (“a nightmare”) or the Berlin Film Festival (“an even bigger nightmare”), the paparazzi can become bothersome. But, Hopkins said, “I’m not Brad Pitt (I wish I were, but I’m not)” so he is not so much the target of the more virulent strain of tabloid journalists.

Hopkins gave the impression of a man comfortable in his own skin, who views his acting career as just one part of a well-balanced life, who is grateful for the opportunities he has had, and who has not grown an inflated ego on account of the many accolades placed upon him. His calm affability makes him, one participant noted, “the kind of man you’d like to have in your home for dinner.”

One has to wonder if the offer made to Hopkins to play Henry II in The Lion in Winter was eventually accepted by Patrick Stewart, who played the role opposite Glenn Close on Showtime last year; or was it by Laurence Fishburne, who played the role on Broadway opposite Stockard Channing?

When I Found You, Part 3

Once again, here are some of the wacky, disturbing, and incomprehensible search strings that brought people to this blog over the past three weeks or so. In some cases, the question is, How did you get from Point A (the search terms) to Point B (here)? In any case: Enjoy!

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Pearl of Africa

Americans who have reached a certain age will remember a radio commentary by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian broadcaster quite well-known in his own country.

In 1973, when the United States was torn apart by the Vietnam War and as the Watergate scandal was emerging as a major impediment to confidence in government, when inflation was swirling and we were on the verge of the first energy crisis, Sinclair reminded the world -- and Americans -- of the good deeds that emanated from this country:

The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French, and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971, and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous, and possibly the least-appreciated, people in all the earth.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Well who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did, that's who.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges, and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Mississippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan, and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. And I was there -- I saw that. When distant cities are hit by earthquake, it is the United States that hurries into help, Managua, Nicaragua, is one of the most recent examples.

So far this spring, fifty-nine American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

The Marshall Plan, the Truman Policy, all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. And now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, war-mongering Americans.

Sinclair continued:

I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name to me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They'll come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they're entitled to thumb their noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians.

Sinclair's commentary swept this country. According to the University of Delaware Library,

This address was so popular that it was inserted into the Congressional Record 23 times in 1973, sometimes with portions deleted or added. It was recorded in 1974 by Byron MacGregor with the title "The Americans: A Canadian's Opinion" and was played on top 40 radio stations. According to The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, it spent 4 weeks at chart position 24, starting 1/26/74. . . . The address has also been printed in the Congressional Record in subsequent years.

Sinclair's commentary came to mind because, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, foreign countries are, in fact, coming to the assistance of Americans.

At a State Department press briefing yesterday, the department's executive secretary, Harry K. Thomas, reported:

95 countries have offered us assistance, close to a billion dollars in cash.* Eleven flights landed yesterday in Little Rock. We expect another 11 today. But our greatest -- the greatest challenge we have is to match the generous offers with the needs of the American people. The last thing we want is someone to offer something that is wonderful, but can't really be utilized. Some countries, for example, Russia, has made offers to us. We haven't refused them, but what we told the Russians was, "We need MREs" and they sent us MREs. We did the same thing with Germany. We took the MREs. The first thing we took, because we're echoing what the President said, but more importantly, it was easiest to manage was cash. And the cash donations came in and quickly went out to Red Cross and others.

Some of the contributions have been huge. South Korea, for instance, which has the third-largest deployment of troops in Iraq in support of the United States and Great Britain, has promised more than $30 million in cash and in-kind assistance. According to the Korea Times in Seoul:

South Korea pledged on Sunday to send $30 million in humanitarian aid to help the United States recover from the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

The government will also dispatch 50 rescue workers to assist the evacuation of thousands of people in New Orleans and surrounding areas as part of a government task force led by Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik.

The assistance package, which includes emergency relief supplies, was announced following a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan.

"The government will cooperate with the civilian sector and the Red Cross to raise the funds needed for the aid," Lee Kang-jin, spokesman at the Office of the Prime Minister, told reporters.

South Korea is providing the fourth-largest amount of disaster aid, following on pledges of $100 million from three oil-rich Arab states, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. But even far less affluent countries are providing aid:

Other commitments have come from Armenia, Bahamas, Cyprus, Djibouti, Georgia, Hungary, the Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal and the Organization of American States, who are donating sums ranging from 5,000 to 100,000 dollars.

Azerbaijan, Australia, Bahrain, China, Gabon, India, Iraq, Ireland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway and Saudi Arabia groups and Taiwan are down for half a million to 7.6 million dollars.

In fact, one of the countries I work for (in my professional life), Uganda, has pledged $200,000. This news release was distributed this morning by the Ugandan Embassy in Washington:

The government of the Republic of Uganda has pledged $200,000 toward relief and rebuilding efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Ugandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Sam Kutesa said the money will be donated to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, led by former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. “The Government of Uganda extends its sympathies to the people affected by Hurricane Katrina,” said Minister Kutesa.

“We know that, under the guidance of the two former presidents, money collected by the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund will go where it is needed most and where it can be used best,” said Kutesa, who is in Washington on previously-scheduled business.

President Yoweri Museveni said that “the United States has been generous in responding to natural and humanitarian disasters all over the world, including in Africa. Uganda has more than once been the beneficiary of this generosity, and justice requires us to aid the people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama who have lost their homes and loved ones.”

President Museveni added: “We appreciate that, as elder statesmen, Presidents Bush and Clinton are devoting their leadership skills to raising money to help the suffering.”

Minister Kutesa noted that the $200,000 contribution will be transferred to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund immediately.

It took more than 30 years, but Gordon Sinclair's plaintive pleadings are finally being met with a positive response. The sad thing is that such a horrific series of events had to transpire to bring about this result. The ironic thing is, this gave me an unanticipated opportunity to add more Canadian content to this blog -- in addition to news about the Moffatts and Canadian baby names.

On the Radio

One of my clients has been instrumental in keeping emergency communications on the air in the territory affected by Hurricane Katrina. ShipCom LLC, which normally provides ship-to-shore radio communications to pleasure craft and other boats and ships traveling in and near U.S. waters, diverted most of its telecom capacity toward assisting the Coast Guard in search and rescue operations during and after last week's hurricane.

ShipCom issued this news release this morning:

ShipCom Assists Coast Guard in Emergency Communications, Rescue Operations

(Mobile, Ala.) — ShipCom LLC, which operates radio station WLO for ship-to-shore communications, made its facilities available during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath to the Coast Guard and other emergency agencies.

“Shortly after the worst of the storm passed us on Monday afternoon, we received a telephone call from the Coast Guard’s ATC [Aviation Training Center] Mobile, informing us that the roof was damaged over their operations center and they had lost all communication capability with their assets,” reported ShipCom president Rene Stiegler. “In response, ShipCom prepared a VHF radio, power supply, and emergency antenna , transporting it to ATC Mobile. With this radio, ATC could communicate with ShipCom.”

Using ShipCom’s advanced interoperability systems, Stiegler said “we took over all communications for over 24 hours, relaying hundreds of messages from aircraft back to ATC Mobile,” which had been chosen as the main staging site largely because it was the closest suitable facility to the worst of the storm-stricken area.

ShipCom was able to provide these services to the Coast Guard and other agencies despite sustaining substantial damage to its own facilities. “We lost 50 percent of our antenna field,” said Stiegler, “and part of our roof is damaged. We lost 70 to 80 percent of our capacity but we repaired it sufficiently within 24 hours to be able to stay on the air throughout the crisis.”

Stiegler noted that ShipCom “devoted most of our normal capacity – the channels usually reserved for our ship-to-shore clients – to the Coast Guard’s emergency communications.”

“Some of the messages we received were chilling,” said Stiegler. “Reports of bodies floating near the Superdome, and of rescue aircraft being fired at, raised the hairs on the back of our radio operators’ necks.”

As search-and-rescue operations grew, Stiegler said, “ShipCom relayed coordinates of victims stranded on rooftops to the rescue aircraft and relayed reports of their rescue back to the ATC command center. The vastness of message traffic that passed through our radios is too large to describe in detail.”

In addition to ATC Mobile, ShipCom also established communications links for the command center in Alexandria, Louisiana, and with the NCS (National Communications System) SHAred RESources (SHARES) High Frequency (HF) Radio Program.

Rene Stiegler is available for media interviews. He can be reached by email at info@shipcom.com. For more information about ShipCom LLC, visit www.shipcom.com.

On the Trail

By unusual coincidence, the Charlottesville Electoral Board and the Charlotteville City Council both had pre-scheduled, public meetings today. I presided over the Electoral Board meeting and spoke during the public comment segment of the City Council meeting.

The purpose of my remarks was to bring the Council's attention to the Electoral Board's views of some recent controversies. New readers may wish to refer to earlier articles on this blog, including "Preserving Election Integrity Through Federalism," "Clinton-Boxer Election Bill: So Bad in So Many Ways," "Washington State Vote Fraud Extends to Virginia," "Interesting Election Law Blog," "Carter, Baker Start Election Mischief Commission," and especially "(It's Only a) Paper Moon," "What's the Buzz?," and "Don't Be Cruel."

Mayor David Brown was kind enough to expand the time at the beginning of the City Council meeting meant for public comment so that all the people who signed up could be accommodated. I was, he said, "last but not least." Still, because of the 3-minute time limit on comments, I had to truncate my prepared remarks when I delivered them orally. Here are my remarks as I had prepared them:

Prepared Remarks of
Richard Sincere
Chairman, Electoral Board, City of Charlottesville
before the Charlottesville City Council
Tuesday, September 6, 2005

(These remarks were delivered on my own behalf and on behalf of my two colleagues on the Electoral Board.)

If we were to look back forty years ago, Virginians lived under a state Constitution that virtually and intentionally disenfranchised more than 90 percent of those people whom we would now consider to be “eligible voters.”

Poll taxes and literacy tests were only the most visible obstacles to voter registration and voting itself. While African-Americans were the main targets of these policies, poor whites, recently naturalized citizens, and others were also barred from voting.

Virginia was a one-party state in which the Byrd machine and the “courthouse crowds” in each city and county controlled the elections apparatus. The system was rigged from top to bottom. As few as 15,000 voters statewide could determine who the governor was, not to mention other statewide officeholders. Political scientist V. O. Key called the Virginia of that era a “museum piece” that preserved a political system controlled by the 20th century equivalent of plantation owners and their Jim Crow-era political cronies.

A lot has changed since then. An amendment to the U.S. Constitution ended poll taxes. The Voting Rights Act removed literacy tests and other barriers to registration and voting. And the rise of a two-party, competitive political environment led to major reforms that transformed our state’s electoral system.

Today Virginia has a national reputation for clean elections. While every congressional and presidential election brings with it anecdotes and reports of voter fraud from all over the United States, very seldom does one hear such a report from Virginia. They are not completely unknown, but they are so rare as to be noteworthy and universally condemned.

Here in Charlottesville, we have been on the cutting edge in making the local electoral system efficient, effective, and responsive to the needs and wants of voters.

Charlottesville was one of the first localities in Virginia, for instance, to allow a “split-shift” system of morning and afternoon poll workers, something that has allowed us to expand our pool of election officials so that each polling place is fully staffed on every election day.

Charlottesville was the first locality to use high-school students as pages in polling places on election day, a reform adopted after we lobbied for permission to use these eager teenagers who are not yet old enough to vote and therefore ineligible to be election officials. We are now finding that former pages are joining the ranks of election officials, something most welcome since the average age of election officials in Virginia is about 73.

Even before the problems associated with the 2000 presidential election in Florida made headlines, Charlottesville was on its way to replacing outmoded punch-card voting machines with modern, easy-to-use, voter-friendly equipment manufactured by Hart Intercivic. The machines we use are known as eSlates, and we have used them in seven consecutive elections, beginning in May 2002.

Charlottesville voters have been quite happy with the eSlate system. We receive few complaints and, when we do, we see what can be done to solve the problems voters identify. For example, after the May 2002 election, we discovered that some voters thought the type-size on the eSlate ballot was too small. Working with Hart Intercivic, we found a way to make the fonts bigger and more readable in subsequent elections.

Charlottesville voters are confident in the security and integrity of our voting system. The Electoral Board has received no complaints about the lack of a so-called “paper trail,” except from an extremely small number of voters who have also carried their concerns to the General Assembly in Richmond.

There is a nationwide debate about this topic – the Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail, or VVPAT – and it is clear that the lines are drawn between election officials, who know a great deal about the security measures and other policies that work toward guaranteeing the integrity of the electoral process, and a few self-described “computer experts” who seem to know little about the electoral process and a lot about fanciful scenarios involving hacking and software bugs.

At today’s meeting of the Electoral Board (September 6 2005), my colleagues and I discussed plans to increase the physical security of our voting equipment, which will include upgraded alarm and monitoring systems in the space where equipment is stored.

We also adopted, unanimously, a policy that states, in essence, that until certain technical and fiscal issues regarding VVPAT technology are addressed, we will not support legislative efforts to mandate untested VVPAT technologies in Virginia.

The Electoral Board also unanimously adopted a policy that says that, if Virginia law is changed to require the use of VVPAT with current voting equipment, we want Charlottesville to be a test site before such equipment is certified and implemented statewide. We want to be a part of the process of working out all the kinks – of which there are many – before such systems must be implemented statewide.

This issue is not going away. The debate is taking place all over the country; the General Assembly's study commission, chaired by Delegate Tim Hugo, will be meeting again in November to consider the options available to Virginia and make recommendations based on the testimony it has heard; and certain members of the Charlottesville City Council seem to have opinions that differ from the Electoral Board in regard to what should be required by state law. Stay tuned.

Celebration!

Today I received a news release from the Kennedy Center announcing this year's recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors:

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced the selection, by its board of trustees, of the individuals who will receive the Kennedy Center Honors of 2005. Recipients to be honored at the 28th annual national celebration of the arts are: singer Tony Bennett; dancer and teacher Suzanne Farrell; actress Julie Harris; actor, director and producer Robert Redford; and singer Tina Turner.

“We honor five extraordinary American artists whose unique and abundant contributions to our culture have transformed our lives,” said Kennedy Center Chairman Stephen A. Schwarzman. “Tony Bennett is a brilliant musician and singer’s singer whom even the great Frank Sinatra called the best there is; Suzanne Farrell’s profound artistry has inspired the creation of masterpieces and is teaching ballet to a new generation; for half a century, the enchanting Julie Harris has been one of this country’s most acclaimed and revered actors; Robert Redford is an actor/director whose extraordinary support of independent film has had an immeasurable impact on filmmakers and audiences alike; and Tina Turner’s sizzling talent and indomitable spirit has made her one of the world’s best-loved entertainers.”

The annual Honors Gala has become the highlight of the Washington cultural year. The 2005 Honorees will be saluted by stars from the world of the performing arts at a gala performance in the Kennedy Center's Opera House on Sunday evening, December 4, to be attended by the President of the United States and Mrs. Bush, and by artists from around the world.

The President and the First Lady will receive the Honorees and members of the Artists Committee, who nominate them, along with the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees at the White House prior to the gala performance. The 2005 Kennedy Center Honors Gala concludes with a supper dance in the Grand Foyer.

The Kennedy Center Honors will be bestowed the night before the gala on Saturday, December 3, at a State Department dinner, hosted by the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

The Honors Gala will be recorded for broadcast later in December on the CBS Network for the 28th consecutive year as a two-hour prime time special.

George Stevens, Jr., who created the Honors in 1978 with Nick Vanoff, will produce and co-write the show for the 28th year. The Honors telecast has been honored with five Emmy’s for Outstanding Program as well as the Peabody Award for Outstanding Contribution to Television.

Delta Air Lines, the official airline of the Kennedy Center Honors, will provide transportation for the performers and television crew that will be coming to Washington for the Honors Gala. Boeing is proud to underwrite the Kennedy Center Honorees’ Luncheon and special events throughout the Kennedy Center Honors weekend.

The Honors recipients are recognized for their lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts: whether in dance, music, theater, opera, motion pictures or television. The primary criterion in the selection process is excellence. The Honors are not designated by art form or category of artistic achievement; the selection process, over the years, has produced balance among the various arts and artistic disciplines.

Members of the Kennedy Center’s national artists committee, as well as past Honorees, made recommendations of possible Honorees. Among the artists making recommendations were: Jane Alexander, Christine Baranski, Angela Bassett, Harolyn Blackwell, Dave Brubeck, Glenn Close, Barbara Cook, Renee Fleming, Larry Gelbart, Rosemary Harris, Paloma Herrera, Bill Irwin, Joseph Kalichstein, John Lithgow, Patti Lupone, Rob Marshall, Terrence McNally, Sherrill Milnes, Christopher Plummer, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Marian Seldes, Meryl Streep, Frederica von Stade, Pinchas Zukerman. Previous Kennedy Center Honorees Julie Andrews, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Angela Lansbury, Paul Newman, Harold Prince and Joan Sutherland also made nominations.

Michael M. Kaiser, President of the Center, expressed the national cultural center’s gratitude to the many individuals involved in the success of the Honors program. “In addition to recognizing our most treasured artists, the Kennedy Center Honors also extensively support the many performing arts initiatives, education and public service programming, and national outreach effort, Performing Arts for Everyone, that make the Center’s presentations accessible to all.”

After the Ball

I showed up at the party on time, but I am a bit late arriving at the post mortem.

I speak, of course, of last weekend's conference for Virginia-based bloggers sponsored by the Sorensen Institute.

Others have already given their own reports of what transpired. Some thought that the discussion didn't really achieve anything. That may be so, but this was the first such meeting of this kind in Virginia, and it was meant to begin a dialogue, not come to any conclusions. Most important, for me, was the opportunity to come face-to-face with many people with whom I have known only through email correspondence, especially those bloggers who have been kind enough to link to my posts here, and also to meet those with whom I was previously unacquainted, particularly bloggers whose political leanings are unlike my own.

It was a pleasure to meet Chad Dotson (aka John Behan), Steve Minor, Norm Leahy (whom I had known years ago when we were both involved in the term-limits movement), Jon Henke, Kenton Ngo (who was, at 14, by far the youngest blogger there), Ross Catrow, North Carolina's Martin Johnson, and others too numerous to mention. I was fortunate to sit at lunch -- when we were assigned a small-group task of discussing specific questions -- with Bob Gibson of the Daily Progress and Mike Shear of the Washington Post. (Shear reported on the conference in Thursday's weekly Virginia section of the paper.) Laura Bland of Media General was also at our table, and the three of them offered a journalist's point of view of the blogging world. Our conversation was enhanced by Claire Gastanaga, who used to be a high-ranking lawyer in the Virginia attorney general's office, and Eileen Levandoski, who is doing what she can to unseat the embarrassment of the General Assembly's Republican caucus, Delegate Dick Black.

Oddly enough, the bloggers' conference also became the largest gathering of members of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Virginia in at least two years. Besides myself and Jon Henke, Spotsylvania GOP chairman Shaun Kenney was there, as was Jay Hughes (who is now inactive in politics but as a firebreathing libertarian Republican really, really should be a part of the RLC) -- and there were probably a few others there, too, whose names escape my grasp and whose forgiveness I request.

There were, of course, some familiar faces: Waldo Jaquith, who along with Chad Dotson came up with the original idea for the conference; his mother, Janis Jaquith; 57th House of Delegates District candidate Tom McCrystal; and Arlington taxpayer activist Tim Wise.

The conference also provided me with my first chance, in nearly six years of living in Charlottesville, to speak at length with Tucker Watkins, the GOP's Fifth Congressional District Chairman and Senator George Allen's eyes and ears in Southside Virginia. So far as I know, Tucker was the only non-blogging political operative at the conference, and his presence there showed once again what an astute political activist he is.

In a long post-conference conversation with me and Jon Henke on the porch of the Guadalajara restaurant at Greenbrier and Seminole Trail north of Charlottesville, Tucker offered a tour d'horizon of Virginia politics, and Jon and I engaged him on the 2008 presidential contest as well. I was impressed by Tucker's sophisticated take on Virginia's electorate, the key issues that will decide various races this year and next, and his breadth of knowledge of both national and state politics.

Senator Allen is lucky to have him on staff, and Tucker's long record of success in transforming the Fifth District from a predominantly Democratic to a largely Republican (or at least competitive) territory speaks for itself.

I told Sean O'Brien, the new executive director of the Sorensen Institute, that the day of the conference was the most productive day I had spent all summer. It was true: the day was packed with intelligent conversation, exchanges of views, and stimulating ideas. It would have been easy to spend that Saturday as I do so many others, just sitting around the house listening to NPR from morning to midnight. What I did that day was far more valuable in the long run, and I am glad that Waldo and Chad had the original idea for the bloggers' conference and that Sean and the Sorensen Institute took the idea in hand and made it a reality.

Besides that, I also learned from Bob Gibson's daughter that it is legal to keep chickens as pets in the City of Charlottesville. You can even eat the eggs they lay.

I should add that we Virginians are not the only people who are beginning to take blogging seriously enough to discuss it in public fora. At the upcoming convention of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) later this month, there will be at least three panel discussions on blogging and the blogosphere. The first one, moderated by Beth Callahan of PlanetOut, is described in the pre-conference program like this:

Are Blogs the New Frontier in LGBT Media?

Blogs are new to the LGBT media landscape, and they’ve turned some people’s websites into independent journalism outlets. Established media entities also are getting in on the game with blogs that augment traditional news coverage. Some offer investigative work not found in other places, others are more like daily commentary. Where should they fit in the LGBT media world? Are there journalistic standards being applied to such blogs? Find out firsthand from bloggers on this panel.

Wayne Besen, author of Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth, will be the featured speaker for that session.

The second, moderated by Joshua Jennings Moss (formerly of the Washington Times, now a managing editor with Fox News), is a plenary session -- with lunch, too:

Journey to the Blogosphere!

For many readers, blogs are a must read, places where they can find news and gossip tailored to their interests. But for some in mainstream journalism, blogs have become a fearful presence. Bloggers drove the CBS “Memogate” scandal, flaps over White House press access and the outing of a conservative congressman. Where will the bloggers go next and how will the rest of us deal with it?

Besides Moss, that panel will include John Aravosis of AMERICAblog; Wayne Besen; Geraldine Sealey of Salon.com; and Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune.

The third panel discussion will be moderated by Cliff Edwards of Business Week:

The Rise of Blogs: Tips & Advice on Covering a Rising New Medium

This panel will examine how blogs increasingly are becoming a force for companies around the globe. Now, many CEOs are actually starting up their own blogs, disseminating information more frankly than they do in public, and employees are often delivering tips on potential stories.

That panel will feature Martha Irvine of the Associated Press; free-lance journalist
Karen Hawkins; and Stephen Baker, who is also with Business Week.

The NGLJA convention is being held September 22, 23, 24, and 25 at the Palmer House in Chicago.

By the way, I am not the only one with a late report on the Virginia bloggers' conference. The Richmond Times-Dispatch didn't get around to publishing anything about it until today, in a piece by Pamela Stallsmith. (Jeff Schapiro was at the conference, but I haven't seen anything he's written about it.)

Stormy Weather

Here is a list of charities accepting donations for assisting the recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Thanks to New York-based syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock, a senior fellow at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia, for compiling this list and distributing it to the newspapers that carry his articles.

American Red Cross
Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund
P.O. Box 37243
800-HELP NOW

America’s Second Harvest
800-344-8070

Blood donations:
800-GIVE-LIFE
http://www.givelife.org

Catholic Charities
800-919-9338

Clothing donations:
Goodwill Industries of Houston
5200 Jensen Drive
Houston, TX 77026

Operation Blessing
800-730-2537

Salvation Army
"Disaster Relief"
P.O. Box 4857
Jackson, Mississippi 39296
800-SAL-ARMY

United Way
800-272-4630

In his column appearing today in the Nashua Telegraph, Murdock writes:

The good news is that Americans in and out of uniform already are being generous and compassionate to Katrina’s victims.

A Mississippi man waded into alligator-filled waters to pry an elderly couple from their sidelined automobile.

When one New Orleans hospital’s emergency generators lacked fuel, staffers siphoned now-precious gasoline from their own cars’ tanks to keep medical equipment running.

Harry Connick Jr., Wynton Marsalis and other entertainers plan fundraising concerts and telethons.

So far, Americans have donated $27 million to such charities as the Red Cross (1-800-HELP NOW/www.redcross.org).

It is a long time since Americans have seen such a deadly and widespread disaster -- perhaps the 1927 Mississippi floods are the closest equivalent. As in all such circumstances, Americans come together in little platoons -- actually, some big platoons, too -- to pitch in and overcome adversity.