A UVA-produced video warning students of the perils of showing their nutty sides on the web has won an award from the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group for University and College Computing Services.

The 70-second video stars drama graduate student Ryan Stinnett and was written and directed by Scott Crittenden, a systems analyst in UVA’s Information Technology and Communication division. “We created this video to get our message across to students in a humorous, to-the-point way,” Crittenden said in a release.

Other videos and advisories created for the “Who’s Watching Charlottesville?” campaign to promote cyber security awareness can be seen at whoswatchingcharlottesville.com.

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To commemorate the 6-month anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings and protest what they see as lax gun laws, a group of 32 demonstrators gathered on the South Lawn at the University of Virginia last night. The number of participants represents both the victims killed that day and the daily number of lives taken by guns in the U.S.

The “lie down” took place over a mere three minutes, the amount of time it takes someone, and it is said to have taken the Tech shooter, to purchase a gun in America.

As the protesters moved to the ground one by one, dressed in black and wearing ribbons bearing the Tech colors, they made a poignant display of the unity that can come even in the wake of tragedy. The last representative to lie down was Randa Samaha, the sister of one of the 32 victims.

“I am here in honor of my sister Reema,” she said. “Federal governments need to be proactive in limiting gun permits.”

Andy Goddard spoke on behalf of his son who was shot four times in the incident but survived. He praised those who attended the Tuesday, October 16th demonstration.

“I want to speak to the reasonable and law-abiding gun owner and urge them to go through the checks system by providing a medical and mental history,” said Goddard who ended on an urgent note.

“Become advocates. Write to your senator for safer gun laws before something happens to you or your family that forces you to take a stand.”

The last demonstrator to speak was Abigail Spangler, the founder of www.protesteasyguns.com. She began the 32-person “lie down” movement by e-mailing friends and staging a protest at the City Hall in Alexandria, Virginia immediately following the April 16 massacre.

“After the first protest in Alexandria, Virginia I thought that if 80 percent of Americans want tighter gun laws, then why isn’t this reflected in legislation?” Spangler asked. “Then I realized that maybe people just don’t know how to get involved.”

So far, there have been 30 demonstrations across 12 states. The UVA lie-in joined Carleton College, site of a student demonstration earlier that day, as the first college locations for the lie-ins. More are scheduled in coming months.

Organizers noted how easy it was to mobilize forces. A protest in New York City’s Times square attracted the attention– and attendance– of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“We got together on a Friday, and I said I want to stage a demonstration in Times Square. The following Thursday we went,” Spangler recalls.

Dillon Hauptfuhrer, the head organizer of the UVA protest, also found very little red tape when planning the protest. She got 32 people to commit under 2 weeks, and received an immediate response from the Dean and event planner on how to coordinate the event. “I was worried about finding numbers, or getting permission to do the protest - but it has really moved me how willing people were to help,” Hauptfuhrer said.

The immediate goal of Spangler’s group, www.protesteasyguns.com, is to close the gun show loop hole in Virginia, which allows people to buy guns with no background checks. The group is also seeking to ban high-capacity ammunition cartridges such as the one that the assailant used in the Virginia Tech shootings.

Spangler has recently been awarded Redbook Magazine’s “Strength and Spirit Award” for her work. In her closing remarks before lying down to symbolize one of the 32 victims, she declared, “Today we lie down in protest to secure a better future for our children, our police, and our fellow americans.”
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A month after rape apologizer William Beebe left the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail after serving six months for a 1982 fraternity house sexual assault, he has settled in Chesterfield County just south of Richmond. Finding a place to live wasn’t hard: he moved in with the friends who have stood by him from his arrest in January 2006 through multiple hearings, his guilty plea, and subsequent sentencing. But finding employment– a required condition of his probation– has proved more troublesome.

The Hook has learned that the 42-year-old, who worked as a real estate agent and massage therapist in Las Vegas before his arrest in January 2006, was hired by the Richmond Smoothie King franchise in late September but was fired almost immediately.

“He worked here about a week,” says a manager (more)

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Tommy Jr., the robotic car set to compete for the $2 million prize in an upcoming Defense Department competition in California, can be tracked on the internet on his way to the big race (he just passed through Little Rock). Presumably, Tommy– who got a Starr Hill send-off on October 6– is currently driven by a human as he utilizes the Interstate Highway system. That’ll change in California!

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In the face of a continued dry spell and a forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that drought conditions are likely to “persist or intensify” in this area, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority has announced it will continue the current “drought warning” status and advise citizens to continue to conserve water.

“I wish we had better news,” says RWSA executive director Tom Frederick, “but based upon our current analysis of the overall situation, we are asking our community to maintain its efforts to conserve our supply wherever possible.”

The main concern for the water supply is not the coming winter, when plants aren’t taking moisture out of the ground; what has Frederick and others on alert is (more)

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The six-month anniversary of Virginia Tech massacre will be commemorated tomorrow on the UVA Lawn as 32 students lie down in protest.
The participants represent the fallen students and teachers whose lives were taken in Blacksburg on April 16. The amount of time they remain still on the ground represents the short period organizers allege it takes for a citizen to obtain a gun in this country.
Though the group began as 32 women from Alexandria voicing their disbelief over the magnitude of the shootings at Virginia Tech, it has motivated local campus leaders, such as the principal UVA organizer of the demonstration, Dillon Hauptfuhrer, who feels deeply affected by the incident because it hit so close to home.
One UVA student whose life was particularly touched by the tragedy is Randa Samaha. Among those lying down tomorrow, she will be honoring her late sister, Reema Samaha, one of the massacre victims.
“Federal and state governments should be proactive in closing mental health and gun-show loopholes,” said Samaha in a release. “There may be a cost to doing so, but it is a small price to pay compared to the lives of our sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers and other valuable members of society.”
Two weeks after the killings, governor Tim Kaine closed one loophole which allowed the gunman to get his hands on a handgun despite his history of mental illness.
The student demonstration is actually part of a wider effort started by a group, called protesteasyguns.com which has already staged over 30 “Lie Downs” across the country in major cities and at various universities to raises awareness and ultimately push tighter gun control laws.
Tomorrow’s lie-in begins at 5pm in front of Old Cabell Hall.

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