On Sunday morning, Congressional candidate Al Weed and I were the guests on Rick Moore’s “Wake Up Call,” a weekly hour-long talk show on WNRN. The topic was the growth of the University of Virginia, and the tension that it creates in the community. UVa’s growth goes essentially unchecked, because they don’t have to answer to Charlottesville or to Albemarle County. Because they’ve just announced some big new plans, there’s been a lot of discussion and debate over what their role ought to be in the community. Of course, that’s the very problem — UVa doesn’t care what their role ought to be in the community, because they don’t need to care. They can do whatever they want, and they’re right in thinking that there’s not a bloody thing that we can do about it. Anyhow, that was the topic at hand. Unfortunately, the host was unable to find somebody that was able to represent a rah-rah go-UVa perspective that was available, so the dialogue remained relatively shallow. But it’s good that the show happened, because it’s helping to create some public dialog about the problems of growth, and because Al and I enjoyed ourselves.