“We love Hip Hop as much as you do, but yoo-hoo it’s me the Wahoo,” rhymes rapper Blue Black of the group Unspoken Heard on the underground classic “Soon Come,” which was released on the 7 Heads album in 2001. Blue Black, known to most people as Rob Jackson, along with alumnus Gabe Benn, form one of the most respected groups in Hip Hop known as the Unspoken Heard.

In addition to members of the Unspoken Heard, University alums, Wes Jackson and an MC known as Forge of Little Egypt are also involved in the hip hop scene.Jackson is the man behind the 7 Heads label, home to artists such as former Artifact member El Da Sensai and Richy Pitch while Forge of Little Egypt, opens for groups such as Jurassic 5 and Fat Joe, and is gearing up for an August tour in Brazil. University alums, however, are not the only ones who can be found in the Hip Hop scene.

Hip Hop has always been an active force at the University, whether in the form of artists making music or DJ’s spinning it at parties and on local radio stations.The newest outlet for hip hop around Grounds, however, is the LMNTal crew, the University’s official Hip Hop organization.

LMNTal is the brainchild of graduate Lamar Glover and rising fourth-year Chris Rodriguez. When Rodriguez was a first-year in 2000, he founded a club known as the OAHHC, or Organization for the Advancement of Hip Hop Culture. The club was unsuccessful, but the next semester, however, Rodriguez met Lamar and LMNTal was born–in the form of a TV show on WHOO-TV. The show started off small, but the group received coverage and exposure, with live footage from performances around Grounds.

After receiving preliminary exposure on WHOO-TV, LMNTal released a compilation album, featuring contributions from most members in the group. Rodriguez, however, who goes by Excel Da Myriad, is the most accomplished MC in LMNTal. Besides holding it down on the Boombox’s 91.9 Thursday night radio show slot, Rodriguez is also a part of OutDaFace Productions, his crew from home in Queens, New York.

Currently, LMNTal maintains the WHOO-TV. show, releases a newsletter, The Main L.M.N.T., and records music.

At the beginning of last semester, Glover handed down his reins in the organization, but LMNTal continued to succeed, obtaining official status as a C.I.O.

Firmly established at the University, LMNTal spent the semester traveling and interviewing, as well as providing entertainment through free-style rapping on Grounds.

This past semester, coverage of LMNTal on WHOO-TV provided an array of material within the Hip Hop arena.Exclusive footage of a Tribeca concert, an artist signed to Major League Entertainment that gained fame with his song “The Life,” a freestyle session with Manifest Destiny, a two-man crew from New Jersey and a road trip to James Madison University to see and interview MC’s Mr. Lif and Akrobatik reveal the diversity of activities the club provided students with, all within one music genre.

Besides the show, LMNTal staged a lot of ciphers, or freestyle sessions, onGrounds. When Mahogany, a University ensemble that performs African and African-American dance, had their show at the Student Activities Building in the spring, LMNTal was there, right outside the door, rhyming until the show started.

The group also invited a local crew known as Foul Sound, to do a bus cipher. After getting on the bus outside of the Castle, passengers were entertained with the group’s infectious beat.

This year LMNTal sponsored the first hip hop forum on Grounds entitled “Don’t Let the Money Change Ya.” Kevin Powell, one of the nation’s top Hip Hop scholars spoke in front of students in Ruffner Hall about the current state of Hip Hop. Rob Jackson also spoke at the forum, as well as noted spoken-word poet Samantha Raheem and University Professor Corey Walker. The forum allowed LMNTal to analyze Hip Hop in a serious academic setting. The forum allowed students to probe the new Hip Hop craze as more than just a passing fad.

LMNTal will be working next year to keep the organization growing. The group hopes to build off of the past semester while simultaneously finding news ways to bring Hip Hop to the University through live shows, film screenings and original music.

Artist Emilie Brzezinski’s wooden sculptures, which have been on display in museums throughout Europe, began arriving at the University of Virginia Art Museum Tuesday. The exhibit opens Saturday, June 28 and will run until Sunday, September 7. The massive pieces were lifted into place by crane.

The Rutherford Institute filed suit in federal district court yesterday against the city of Charlottesville. The suit was filed on behalf of Harry Weinschenk, owner of Express Car Wash on Route 29 north, who, according to the Rutherford institute, was unjustly deprived of income when his business was shut down due to drought-induced water restrictions last fall.

The Rutherford institute is a civil liberties organization that provides free legal services in cases involving constitutional or human rights issues.

When the city instituted phase II water restrictions in September, they prohibited all car washing, both private and commercial. The city then warned Weinschenk against washing cars in violation of the city’s restrictions. As a result, Express Car Wash was forced to close for almost three months, losing approximately $60,000, according to the suit.

Other types of business were asked to reduce their water usage by 20 percent, but were not forced to close.

The law suit asks the court to declare the city’s restriction unconstitutional and to award compensation for the business Weinschenk lost.

According to Rutherford Institute president John Whitehead, the city’s restrictions amounted to unlawful taking of property and violated the tenets of equal protection.

It is unlawful “to punish car washes because of the unreasonable perception that car washes use more water,” Whitehead said, “The city should have researched this before enacting measures that almost put this man out of business.”

All of the car washes in Charlottesville together use less than one percent of the city’s water. Hotels and motels use four percent, he said.

The suit named the Charlottesville City Council, the City Manager, the Public Utilities Manager and the Director of Public Works.

Defendants hadn’t had a chance to look at the suit as of press time.

“We cannot comment on a law suit that we have not received,” City Director of Communications Maurice Jones said.

In a case with national implications, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld the University of Michigan’s right to consider race in admissions, but declared Michigan’s system of awarding admission points for race unconstitutional.

The court split its decision on the two raced-based admissions cases. In Grutter v. Bollinger, the court ruled, 5-4, that the University of Michigan Law School’s admission’s policies were constitutional. The majority opinion in that case said “narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body” is allowable.

In the other case, Gratz v. Bollinger, the court ruled that Michigan’s point system, which awarded 20 points to applicants in underrepresented minorities, violated the Equal Protection Clause. The court said that awarding one-fifth of the points required for admission based solely on race made race a “decisive factor” for all minimally qualified minority applicants. This, the court said, violated the court’s decision in Regents of the Univ. of Cal v. Bakke in 1978.

University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman called the decision “a tremendous victory for the University of Michigan, for all of higher education, and for the hundreds of groups and individuals who supported us,” in a statement Monday.

In a statement, University President John T. Casteen expressed his satisfaction with the court’s verdict. “The court has approved admissions practices that appear to be essentially those that we follow,” Casteen said. He added that the University would analyze the decision with the General Council to ensure continuing compliance with the law.

Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said the advice of his office over the last year also was in line with the Supreme Court’s decision.

“While there may be some compelling state interest in considering race in college policies, these rulings also make clear that all students, regardless of race, gender, ethic origin or economic background, have an equal opportunity to compete for and receive quality higher education. … From the outset, we have advised schools that race could not be used as the sole determining factor for college admissions policies or scholarship programs — indeed, the easiest course of action is to remove race or gender from consideration at all,” Kilgore said in a statement Monday.

After review requested by Kilgore and the attorney general’s assertion that race-conscious policies violated the Constitution, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors voted to exclude all consideration of race in admission in March. They rescinded the decision in April. James Madison University’s Board of Visitors tabled a similar action earlier this month.

Virginia Tech’s current policies are “likely in compliance with the court’s most recent decision,” Virginia Tech president Charles W. Steger said in a statement following the court’s announcement.

Since the Virginia Tech restored its race-conscious policy, it has altered 16 programs exclusive to blacks. The school has not decided to re-examine those programs in light of Monday’s decision.

The University has no immediate plans to change its programs in response to Kilgore’s earlier statements or the court’s decision. The University does review its programs through its general council as part of a normal evaluation process, said University spokesperson Carol Wood.

“We feel confident that all of our programs are in compliance,” Wood said.

Although race-conscious programs are admissible now, the court indicated that such programs would not be needed indefinitely.

“The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today,” Justice Sandra O’Connor wrote in the majority opinion of the court in the law school case.

Law School Dean John Jeffries agreed.

“The case for taking race into account is necessity,” Jeffries said. “Everyone hopes that eventually this will be unnecessary. How long that takes is anyone’s guess.”

A collection of eight pieces of the correspondence of Thomas Jefferson, ranging from a one-page note concerning payment to the contractor hired to build a greenhouse at Monticello to a letter discussing the Lewis and Clark expedition, was offered for auction by Sotheby’s in New York June 20th.

The papers were sold as part of a larger sale of fine books and manuscripts with an emphasis on Americana, Selby Kiffer senior vice president of books and manuscripts for the auction house said.

The letters, which fetched between $2,700 and $48,000 were sold anonymously to private American collectors he said.

The letters offer a valuable look into the diplomatic history of the young nation, History Prof. J.C.A. Stagg said.

“They’re all talking about the significance of the United States working out its neutrality in an age of war,” said Stagg. “They keep constantly bumping up against problems which threaten to involve them in war.”

The documents repeatedly refer to United States’ ambition to remain neutral in the face of European conflict, as in a 1793 letter to a French diplomat warning him that French Privateers’ attempts to bring British ships into American waters to have their cargo’s distributed would result in “submission to such prosecutions and punishments as the laws may prescribe may prescribe for the case.”

Additionally, the letters show the difficulties inherent in implementing federalism in the new country, Stagg said.

“[The letters] also show that it’s a problem of working out the jurisdiction between Federal and State governments,” Stagg said.

The situation described in a letter dated July 12, 1792 from then Secretary of State Jefferson to the United States Attorney General Edmund Randolph, in which Jefferson directs Randolph to inform state governments that their agents must act in accordance with international standards of diplomatic immunity reveals a post constitutional shift in power from state to national governments, Stagg said.

“I suspect the real significance of this is indicated by its happening shortly after the adoption of the constitution,” he said.

Jefferson’s task “was to get Americans to understand the implications of federalism for diplomacy” Stagg added.

While the papers presented at last weeks auction are illuminating, they are not particularly rare, said Kiffer.

“Since the year 2000 roughly 45 letters [authored by Jefferson] have sold at auction of varying degrees of importance and value,” he said.

For a collector who wants only an example of Jefferson’s signature, the availability is even greater, he added.

“Signed items are less valuable but still collectible,” he said.

Though several of the letters failed to sell, including a lengthy letter describing the Lewis and Clark expedition that was expected to bring $400,000-$600,000, Kiffer said it was not indicative of a lessened interest in Jefferson artifacts, noting that a similar letter sold in December of 2002 for $1,439,500 setting a new auction record for any American presidential letter.

On Monday, June 23, out-going Editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review Staige Blackford died after his vehicle was struck broadside by another vehicle.

“His wife was making a left turn onto Arlington Boulevard from Emmett Street when the car was struck by a vehicle moving south on Emmett,” Secretary of the Board of Visitors and friend Alexander Gilliam said.

Gilliam and Charlottesville native Blackford began a friendship during their undergraduate years.

“He was president of the Raven Society and received the Raven Award,” Gilliam said.

The two men continued their friendship professionally when they both worked for former Governor Linwood Holton.

“Staige was the press secretary and speech writer and I was a special assistant,” Gilliam said.

Holton took a bold stance on integrating Virginia and Blackford was a key ally of his, College Dean and VQR Advisory Editor Ed Ayers said.

“He was very much an activist in the civil rights movement,” Ayers said. “He helped Virginia to develop more enlightened policies with race.”

Blackford sparked discussion on integrated schools early, when he wrote a controversial article for the Cavalier Daily while he was an editor in 1952, Gilliam said.

“For a long time he was a really well known personality at the University that everyone knew and admired,” Ayers said. “He was hilarious with a great sense of humor and he was very knowledgeable.”

Blackford graduated from the University in 1952. He was a Rhodes Scholar and member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

In addition to speechwriting, Blackford edited an internal publication at Time Magazine and a history encyclopedia and wrote for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. Under his nearly 30 years of leadership, the VQR was one of the America’s preeminent literary publications.

Ayers remembers his former editor fondly.

“I came to know him because I found I could write a review for the VQR and pick up a book for free,” Ayers said. “He befriended me and I wrote several long essays for the VQR.”

“He was a very distinguished and readily changed the character of the Quarterly Review,” Professor emeritus and friend David Rubin said.”He opened the Quarterly to articles on politics and history, particularly southern. That really changed the character of the Review.He was a very scrupulous, conscientious, innovative editor.”

Blackford was survived by a wife, two daughters, a sister and two grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Thursday, July 3 at St. Paul’s Memorial Church at 11 a.m.

During the June meeting of James Madison University’s Board of Visitors, the Board did not discuss the signatures students gathered in protest of the Board’s April 18 decision to discontinue dispensing emergency contraceptive pill on campus.

The April decision by the JMU Board came in response to pressure from State Delegate Bob Marshall, who also campaigned for the University and other state schools to stop offering the pill at campus health centers. The decision met opposition from many students.

“Some 3,000 students signed a petition asking that the decision be revoked,” JMU Director of Communications Fred Hilton said.

The decision was not revoked, and the Board did not comment on the signatures.

“The students asked that the signatures be brought to the Board,” Hilton said.

“The Board received the report but they did not take any action to reverse the original decision.”

JMU Board member Mark Obenshain said he knew the signatures were not going to receive the attention the students desired.

“It was not on the Board’s agenda,” Obenshain said.

He attributes the students’ hope for discussion of the signatures to a misperception of standard Board meeting procedures.

“I had no expectation that it was going to be revisited and if people did they misunderstood the process,” Obenshain said.

Despite criticism, Obenshain maintains his position on banning the pill.

“I don’t retreat from my view one bit,” Obenshain said. “I understand [the students] different views, but I support the Board’s decision.”

The April 18th decision banned the sale of the emergency contraceptive drug, but not its prescription.

“The JMU Health Center is no longer allowed to distribute the pill, due to a 7-6 vote by the Board of Visitors last April,” JMU Women’s Studies Professor Dr. Elizabeth Ihle said.

The Board first heard a motion to stop prescribing the pills, but the motion failed, Hilton said.

“The ban is currently in effect, but women who are given the prescription can get it filled locally,” Ihle said.

Students say they believe banning the pill on campus will increase pregnancies, especially among freshmen who are not allowed cars on campus.

“By banning the morning after pill, they are making it so that it’s more likely there would be a pregnancy,” JMU rising senior Holly Medeiros said. “I think it will discourage students from getting the pill. Freshmen are very restricted to campus because they don’t know what is off campus. No one has friends who have cars because they just arrived, and not all the buses go to the doctor’s office.”

Ceasing the sale of the pill will not have a financial impact on JMU.

“There has been no impact financially,” Hilton said. “The pill was sold to students at $15 a dose, which is how much the pill cost them. They broke even so there is no difference.”

One University student expressed concern about similar decisions being made at the University.

“U.Va. is very conservative, we will probably have to deal with similar issues soon,” rising fourth-year college student Nikkyia Mines said.

The University’s Board of Visitors did not discuss ECP at its June meeting.

The Cavalier Daily and the University both lost a great friend on Monday. Staige D. Blackford, a 1952 graduate of the University and former editor-in-chief of The Cavalier Daily, served as the editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review up until his death. Throughout his accomplished life, Blackford was a Rhodes Scholar, served in both the Air Force and the CIA, wrote for Time Magazine and the Virginian-Pilot, worked with the Southern Regional Council, a civil rights group, and served as the press secretary to Gov. Linwood Holton.

Mr. Blackford served as both a mentor to many staffers at The Cavalier Daily, and as an active member of the Cavalier Daily Alumni Association.His selfless service and unflagging dedication to the University will be sorely missed.

With the creation of the new marching band, the Athletics Department announced the end of last semester that the Pep Band would not be allowed to play at athletic events. This has left those in the Pep Band searching for acceptable venues at which to play. Possible alternative venues stemming from discussions have included playing at community events, as well as at tailgates before football games.

The creation of a marching band is a welcome change, particularly in light of the potential expansion of the ACC to include football powerhouses Miami and Virginia Tech — to say nothing of the rise in stature that our football program has enjoyed. However, one cannot overlook the significant contributions the Pep Band has made to the University, serving smaller sports that receive much less attention than football or basketball. The policy of the Athletics Department ultimately should be altered to allow the Pep Band to play at limited athletic venues.

Granted, the Athletics Department has legitimate concerns with allowing the Pep Band to play at athletic events. While a full marching band will not be in place until the fall of 2004, a core band will be set up this coming year, and likely will be in place for the basketball season. The development of the new band is vital, and the Athletics Department is right to try to protect its interests. Deference should be given to the new band, of course. In its year of development, the core band should be allowed to explore all athletic venues it wishes to, to find its niche in the University community. Having two competing bands at athletic events would no doubt be a recipe for disaster.

But there’s no compelling reason why the Pep Band, which has demonstrated an admirable enthusiasm for lesser known sports, should be prevented from going to all events. Doing so may effectively kill the program, as its lack of stature in the community leads to increased difficulty of the Pep Band to recruit members.

Hopefully, the marching band and the Pep Band will be able to play side-by-side at athletic events in the years to come. In the meantime, however, it is in no one’s interests for the two bands to be engaged in turf wars at athletic events. But while the Athletics Department is right to protect the new band, it should still look for ways to accommodate the existing one.

QUICK, who are the nine front-runners for the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination? Stuck on Joe Lieberman and John Kerry? That’s not too surprising considering the laundry list of no-name candidates running for the nomination of the no-identity party. With Howard Dean as the latest candidate to officially throw his hat into the ring for the 2004 nod, it is becoming downright difficult to keep track of the rag-tag group consisting of current and former U.S. senators and representatives, a former governor and a New York reverend. To put your mind at ease, here’s a quick introduction to each of the nine candidates.

Howard Dean: A former Vermont governor who most notably told CNN shortly after Gulf War II ended that “we don’t know yet” if it was a good thing that Saddam Hussein was removed from power. Perhaps Dean is also still pondering whether the invention of penicillin was also a “good thing.” In a recent interview, Dean said he would like to more than quintuple renewable energy (solar, wind etc.) use in the US by 2010. It’s a rhetorical question to ask what kind of car Dean drives. Naturally, an SUV.

John Kerry: Kerry currently represents Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate. He’s affectionately known as “Mr. Flip-Flop” on the Iraq issue. In 1997, Kerry warned of the “ominous implications” associated with Saddam Hussein obtaining and stockpiling biological weapons. He called for a “strong U.N. military response” or even the “United States acting alone” if push came to shove. In 2003, however, Kerry claimed that President Bush had “misled Americans” in waging the war against Hussein and Iraq and called for a “regime change” in this country. In 2000, Democrats ran a former Tennessee senator masquerading as a northeastern liberal against Bush, and he lost. Somehow they think running an actual northeastern liberal will produce a different outcome. Oh, and according to the Center for Public Integrity, Kerry is worth between $200 and $800 million. That always goes over well with the middle-class working American.

Dick Gephardt: The Missouri congressman has struggled to find his niche, or more importantly, airtime, in his bid for the nomination. He lost the 1988 nomination to Michael Dukakis and then in an encore performance between 1996 and 2002, Gephardt as House minority leader failed to lead Democrats to a majority in four straight national elections. Maybe Gephardt should have played for the Buffalo Bills.

Dennis Kucinich: Best known as the “boy mayor” of Cleveland in the late 1970′s, Kucinich does have one claim to fame: He led the city of Cleveland into financial default in 1978, the first time a major U.S. city defaulted since the Great Depression. Anti-War Coalition take note; in July of 2001 Kucinich introduced legislation (H.R. 2459) that would establish a Cabinet-level Department of Peace.

John Edwards: Edwards is a U.S. Senator from North Carolina who used to make a living as a “trial lawyer.” Trial lawyers generally rank between repo men and Enron executives on a chart of most admirable professions. Edwards should receive credit for spinning the trial lawyer gig into a nifty campaign slogan: “I want to be a champion for the people I have fought for all my life — regular people.” Because all “regular people” are unaware of the fact that McDonald’s coffee is hot and smoking tends to be hazardous to your health.

Bob Graham: Florida Senator Bob Graham, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has the best ability of the nine to stand up to Bush on national security. For all the liberals who complain about Bush and the economy, they should take a peak at the economic skeletons in Graham’s closet. Between 1978 and 1986 as governor of Florida, Graham increased spending an astounding 83 percent. Graham also managed to receive the grade of “F” the last five years from the National Taxpayers Union for fiscal responsibility.

Carol Moseley Braun: Braun, a former Illinois senator booted from office in 1998, is a former law professor and staunch gun control advocate. That didn’t stop her from owning a .22 caliber handgun in Chicago for many years however. She’s generally considered to share the “lower tier” with the aforementioned Kucinich and Rev. Sharpton.

Joe Lieberman: Lieberman, everyone’s favorite “conservative Democrat” from Connecticut, apparently had an identity problem when it comes to party affiliation. He professes to be a Democrat but supports the death penalty for minors, favors a missile defense shield and investing social security payroll taxes in small markets, and signs off on billions for new F-22 fighters and Blackhawk helicopters. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Democratic Whip in the Senate, ought to take him out back and slap some sense into this confused member of the Democratic Party.

Al Sharpton: Saving the best for last, we have the Reverend Al Sharpton. Sharpton’s biggest problem is that he doesn’t realize the reason Americans don’t want him as a president isn’t because of his race. Rather, it might be due to the fact that he has never held public office or because of some of the ridiculous things he’s said over the years. In 1995, Sharpton called a Jewish storeowner in Harlem a “white interloper” and in 1991 on a trip to Israel after the Crown Heights race riots, Sharpton declared, “I’m in hell already. I’m in Israel.”

Whomever the Democrats decide to run against President Bush (currently Kerry and Lieberman lead in most polls) it will in the end be a let-down. The one candidate Democrats would love to see run, and the one candidate Republicans would love to see Bush beat more than any other, recently confirmed that she won’t be running. Stay tuned until 2008, if the junior senator from New York and the governor of Florida both decide to run — did someone say Bush vs. Clinton II?

(Joe Schilling is a Cavalier Daily columnist. He can be reached at jschilling@cavalierdaily.com.)