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Talking with Charlottesville Young Professionals

Who lives and works here in Charlottesville? Answering that question is one of the goals of the work we post here to the site. To that end, we bring you essays from people like Deepak Singh, and podcast community radio programs like the Sunday Morning Wakeup Call. The idea, we think, is to help expand the public square by giving people a forum to be heard.

With that in mind, we thought we’d start by attending a party thrown by a group that was created in 1999 to help people in their twenties and thirties find a reason to stay in town. Ever since, the Charlottesville Young Professionals has held hundreds of social events to give people the chance to meet each other. On a recent evening in late August, I drove to McIntire Park where the group was holding its annual membership party, and first spoke with the group’s outgoing president.

This podcast is sponsored by Jim Duncan of Jim Duncan Real Estate. Get insights on the Charlottesville housing market by reading Jim’s blog on Central Virginia real estate.



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Homecoming Part Two: An essay on returning to India

A Major intersection in Lucknow

CPN correspondent Deepak Singh recently got back from a trip to Lucknow, and is still settling in to his life back here in Charlottesville. Late last month we brought you his first essay which described his first few moments back in the country. This week, Deepak tells the story of what it was like being back in India, a place that has changed rapidly since he left two years ago for Charlottesville. Follow Deepak Singh on Facebook and Twitter.

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An Interview with Ralph Chester, New Orleans Refugee

It’s been a week now since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, but the mass exodus of people from New Orleans and other afflicted areas continues, and will continue for months to come as many in Louisiana are told to stay away from their homes for at least a month. Ralph Chester is one of this new diaspora, on the road since Sunday with his wife and two teenage boys. The family’s home is three miles outside of New Orleans in an area called River Ridge, in Jefferson Parish, but they’re not going to be back any time soon. So, they’re settling in as temporary residents of Charlottesville, along with 87 special status students at the University of Virginia, as well as other families and individuals with a connection to Central Virginia. I spoke with Ralph on September 5 in the CPN studio. He says this isn’t the first time he’s had to evacuate his family in the face of what he describes as “a bowling ball thrown by God.”

Now, how can you help?

The Starlight Express luxury bus will be taking at least one of its buses to a refugee staging area in Mississippi on Tuesday, September 6. If you hear this before then, call Starlight at 295-0782, 434-295-0782. They’re looking for donations of all kinds of things, and also might be looking for places for people to stay. Call 295-0782 when you hear this to find out how you can help.

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Political Blogging in Virginia

Blogging is fast becoming an important way for many Virginians to get detailed news and opinion about politics in the Commonwealth. Visit the Virginia Progressive, or the Commonwealth Conservative, and you’ll come across thoughts from across the political spectrum, from both the site’s authors and the reading public.

But the websites have raised many questions about the ethics of blogging: For instance, is a blogger who advocates the election of a certain candidate really producing a political advertisement? Well, on Saturday, August 27, 2005, the Sorensen Institute on Political Leadership at the University of Virginia convened the state’s bloggers together for the first ever Summit on Blogging and Democracy in the Commonwealth. Sean Tubbs attended as a reporter for Virginia public radio stations and the Charlottesville Podcasting Network.

This report from the Summit is 23 minutes and 39 seconds long. In order to help you navigate through this file, we provide this rundown of the various people who were interviewed for this report:


00:00 – 01:00 Introduction
01:00 – 03:10 Former Delegate Barnie Day, Bacon’s Rebellion
03:10 – 04:10 Kenton Ngo, 750 Volts
04:10 – 8:30 Chris Piper with the State Board of Elections
08:30 – 10:45 Jay Hughes
10:45 – 14:45 Frosty Landon, Virginia Coalition for Open Government
14:45 – 18:52 Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, Change Servant
18:52 – 19:19 Kenton Ngo, 750 Volts
19:20 – 20:41 Chris Piper with the State Board of Elections
20:41 – 22:35 Sean O’Brien with the Sorensen Institute
22:35 – 23:38 Conclusion



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Virginia Talkers: A Call From Hurricane Katrina

David Duncan and his sister Sara

Over this past weekend, David Duncan’s sister Sara was in the path of Hurricane Katrina as it stormed through Miami en route to the Gulf Coast. David called her Friday night to see if she was okay, and the University of Miami student reported that all was well. The call was recorded, and we bring it to you now as part of David’s Virginia Talkers’ series.

This file is now off-line. If you would like to hear it, please contact us…

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Wakeup Call: Pie Dumas, Life Coach

Pie Dumas

What exactly is a “life coach?” A look on Wikipedia describes this relatively new profession as someone who aids “clients with transitions in their personal life.” Pie Dumas is a life coach and self-described ‘survior of life’ who appears this week on WNRN’s Sunday Morning Wakeup Call. Rick Moore is somewhat skeptical about life coaches, and asks if these type of people are helpers or hucksters. A lively discussion ensues.

Also on this show: Buying a car is different now that gasoline prices are higher. In his weekly monologue, Rick asks why some vehicles are excluded from fuel economy standards, and expresses gratitude to the person who nearly wrecked into his car this week.

This program is no longer being offered. If you would like to hear it, please contact us.

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An Interview with Sean O’Brien on the Virginia Blogging Summit

Sean O’Brien is the Executive Director of the Sorensen Institute at the University of Virginia

By now, mostly everyone knows that media coverage of Virginia politics is changing because of the blog – web logs run by anyone with an opinion about politics in Virginia. More of these blogs are being added every day, and the form is developing into an important tool to spread dialogue on the important issues that face our state and nation. Because of their increasing influence, the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia is holding a Summit On Blogging and Democracy in the Commonwealth. This week I stopped by the Institute and spoke with Sean O’Brien about the one-day event.

This file is now offline…

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WVIR to air story on podcasting

This podcast is filed under the shameless promotion category. I’ll be part of a package on NBC 29’s 6:00 newscast on podcasting. Reporter Mark O’Brien stopped by the studio last week to interview me for a story on this crazy new fad. He and his camera man spent quite a while discussing how to depict the story visually. And because this was television, we had to spice up the visuals slightly by flooding the place with light – not easy to do in a basement studio. This podcast is a behind-the-scenes look at being on the news.

We’ve got some interesting shows coming up this week. While me on tape will be appearing over the airwaves, me in the flesh will be attending the Charlottesville Young Professionals membership party tonight at McIntire Park. I’ll be roaming the crowd, asking what their concerns are about the future of Charlottesville. I’ll be compiling a podcast of what I heard later on this week.

In the meantime, here’s the link to the text of the NBC 29 story.

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Homecoming: An essay on returning to India by Deepak Singh

A major intersection in Lucknow

The end of summer is here, which means a new crop of programs here on CPN. We’re returning to an old theme this week with a new piece from Deepak Singh, our reporter for the South Asian community here in Central Virginia. Deepak spent this summer back in Lucknow, the first time he’s been back to India in two years. Here’s the first of two essays from Deepak about returning home, only to find that he was beginning to miss Charlottesville. Follow Deepak Singh on Facebook and Twitter.



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WNRN’s Wakeup Call: Properly Walking for the Makindu Children’s Centre

On this week’s installment of WNRN’s Sunday Morning Wakeup Call, Rick gives the news of the week and talks with two men who are in Charlottesville this week to discuss their recent walk for charity across Kenya. Michael Farley discusses taking “A Proper Walk in Kenya,” a term used to describe the massive journeys he often takes around the African nation to get to know it better. Farley has organized two “proper walks” for charity. Jeff James is a wildlife photographer who accompanied Farley through The Valley of the Black Death. Both men are campaigning to raise money and awareness for a children’s center in a village called Makindu. Their story will be told in the September 2005 edition of National Geographic Adventure magazine.

This file is now offline…

WNRN’s Wakeup Call is heard every Sunday at 11:00 AM.

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An Interview with Poet Gregory Orr

Gregory Orr

Gregory Orr’s life could have been spent mired in tragedy. He shot and killed his brother during a hunting accident when he was 12. His mother died two years later when his family was on a missionary assignment in Haiti. To escape a sense of despair and anguish, Orr became involved in his late teens with the Civil Rights Movement and traveled from upstate New York to Mississippi in 1965 to serve as a volunteer. He was quickly imprisoned for breaking various laws
set up to deter protestors, and was subsequently beaten by police officers.

The University of Virginia poet often recalls these events in his poetry, but it wasn’t until 2002 that Orr wrote about the experiences in prose. That was in a memoir called The Blessing. Sean Tubbs spoke with Orr in his office last month for a conversation about his career, the difference between poetry and prose, and about the time he spent in Mississippi forty years ago this summer.



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About Wordcast Productions

Wordcast Logo

Wordcast Productions was formed in February of 2005 to help companies, non-profit organizations and individuals reach new audiences through podcasting.

Podcasting represents a major shift in how Americans consume radio and audio material. Wordcast can help you prepare your content for delivery across multiple digital platforms, including the iPod, the next generation of mobile phones, and digital radio.

The venture builds on the production skills and experience of President Sean Tubbs, a veteran of area public radio and creator of the Charlottesville Podcasting Network. The site launched in April 2005 as a public affairs website dedicated to expanding the public square through podcasts of local speeches, press conferences and other events that have previously not been available in local media.

Companies spend a lot of time and money organizing high profile events, and we offer an affordable way to capture these important occasions. Wordcast will help your institution gets its message out to the public, be it a conference, a speech, or a conference call.

Wordcast is available to record meetings, conference calls, interviews or any other type of message you’d like to target to a dedicated audience. We’ll help you with develop an idea for a podcast unique to your organization, record and produce it for you, and then we’ll take care of the hosting and recommend and implement suggestions for distribution.

Contact us at wordcast@gmail.com to get started.