George,

Will we live in chalkboard heaven?

Charlottesville is about to get an 8' x 65' slate chalkboard on the mall outside city hall where anyone can write what they choose.

This is being presented as a Great Step in free speech by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Freedom of Expression which proposed it and is footing the bill to build it. Taxpayers will maintain it.

Encouraging passers-by to write on a wall for public consumption sounds like a response to a graffiti problem. No. Charlottesville has no particular graffiti problem. This is purely an outlet for our pen ... er, chalk.

According to the invitation to come chat about this with city council tonight, anyone would be allowed to write what they want; anyone would be allowed to erase what they objected to. The wall would be cleaned regularly.

Ok, I think this is a monumental piece of idiocy. Center Assoc. Dir. Josh Wheeler who's behind this says:

"Imagine if we had this monument standing during the last election. Do you know how much debate we would have had on the monument itself from both political parties? It would have been wonderful."

(My ballot had 6 candidates that I can remember and probably more, not 2 parties, but nevermind.)

What in chalkboard heaven's name is wonderful about the public being able to write what they choose on a wall? What is wonderful if the public is allowed to erase what others write?

This is a giant step below voting in futility, but it sure coincides with the mission of the TJ Center. "Make a little rustle occasionally but for god's sake don't try to make a difference."

For those who don't know, the TJ Center was started in 1990 with donations by media heir Tom Worrell ($3.5 mil,) the NYTimes ($500,000) and the American Publishing Co. ($100,000) to provide a golden exit visa for a short-term Univ. of VA president.

President Robert O'Neil was a fine guy but not a successful choice to lead UVa. Worrell, a member of UVa's Board of Visitors and a quality guy himself, arranged the golden exit visa.

It's not quite true that the Center does virtually nothing. It just comes to nothing. For these 11 years they may as well have been writing on an erasable chalkboard for all the impact the Center has had on the nation or the world.

What would be wonderful is get ideas generated around Charlottesville on how the TJ Center could become a force in free expression, a serious force.

As things stand, concepts on the level of Americans having the right to have their opinions erased is absurd.

Rey Barry (electronic mail, February 5, 2001).