BY DON BERARD

In October, three alleged cocaine dealers snared by the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement task force picked up another felony charge for allegedly hawking their wares within one-fifth of a mile of a school. Virginia state law makes it illegal to sell drugs within 1,000 feet of a school— even if the dealer isn’t targeting children as clientele and even if the dealer has no idea the school is there.

Jose Cano, 26, from Woodridge and Jorge Rosales-Garcia, 26, from Fredericksburg were arrested October 20 behind Kohr Brothers Frozen Custard in the Woodbrook Shopping Center, according to Rosales-Garcia’s attorney, Jessica Smith. They were charged with possessing with the intent to distribute 4.5 ounces of cocaine within 1,000 feet of Woodbrook Elementary, a school that is not visible from the parking lot where they were busted.

The two men were in court November 19 for preliminary hearings, and the 1,000-foot charge was dropped for each, although for different reasons.

For Rosales-Garcia, the charge was nol prossed as the result of (more)

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Author and historian Robert M. Poole will discuss the subject of his new book On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery at the New Dominion Bookshop on Thursday, November 12 at 5:30pm. For a preview, you can watch a video of Poole discussing his book at Barnes & Noble Studio.

“Along Eisenhower Drive, as far as the eye could see, the grave markers formed into bone-white brigades, climbed from the flats of the Potomac River, and scattered over the green Virginia hills in perfect order. They reached Arlington’s highest point, where they encircled an old cream-colored mansion with thick columns and a commanding view of the cemetery, the river, and the city beyond. The mansion’s flag, just lowered to half-staff, signaled that it was time to start another day of funerals, which would add more than twenty new conscripts to Arlington’s army of the dead.”

So does Robert Poole describe a day like so many others in the long and storied history of Arlington National Cemetery. Created towards the end of our greatest national crucible, the Civil War, its story—as revealed in On Hallowed Ground —reflects much of America’s own over the past century and a half. The mansion at its heart, and the rolling land on which it sits, had been the family plantation of Robert E. Lee before he joined the Confederacy; strategic to the defense of Washington, it became a Union headquarters, a haven for freedmen, and a burial ground for indigent soldiers before Secretary of War Edwin Stanton made it the latest in the newly established national cemetery system. It would become our nation’s most honored resting place.

Robert M. Poole, former executive editor of National Geographic, is the author of Explorers House. He is a contributing editor at Smithsonian and has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Preservation. He lives in McLean, Virginia.

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Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University who is a leading specialist on mood disorders, and author of the An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, which tells of her own struggle with bipolar disorder, will speak on Thursday, October 29 at 1pm at UVA’s Newcomb Hall Theater. She’s just come out with a new memoir called Nothing Was the Same, the love story of her marriage to the late Dr. Richard Wyatt.

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A little primer for the upcoming Wordsmith Poetry Jam. Local actor and director William Rough help poets work on their deliveries. At the The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative. Wednesday, October 21 7pm to 9pm.

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FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Are Monticello guides snorting up lines in the fancy bathrooms of the new Visitor Center? Are the horiculturists secretly growing cannabis in Mr. Jefferson’s gardens? In short, has a major drug problem erupted at the internationally famous UNESCO World Heritage Site?

In a word, no, at least not as far as the Hook could discover, and a guffaw is the typical response when such questions are posed to current and past employees. Yet, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello, has begun implementing a “drug-free workplace policy” that randomly drug tests all (more)

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On Thursday, October 22 there will be a book launch at City Space on the Downtown Mall for Firewalkers: Madness, Beauty, and Mystery.  Firewalkers is an anthology of stories about seven women dealing with mental illness. Firewalkers is also part of a program sponsored by Vocal, a non-profit to redefine mental illness and help people recover.

“When we set out to create Firewalkers, we wanted people to know a mental illness diagnosis is not a death sentence,” says editor Cassandra Nudel. “It is not the end of the line or the last thing that will ever happen in your life. It is a strange and unexpected journey that most of us never asked for or ever wanted. But after walking through the fire, it has brought us somewhere. And for some of us, we could not go back. Even if we could. What is labeled “mental illness” can be a profound, turbulent, soiritual experience that has the power to enrick us, reveal unknown strengths, and transform our lives.”

The event runs from 6pm to 8pm. Contact Malaina Proore for more information at 434-243-7878, ext. 22 or malaina@vocalvirginia.org

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The Local Food Hub, a new distributor of locally produced foods, is hosting its first open house today from 4pm to 7pm at their Ivy warehouse. Their expecting about 100 people to show up, and there’ll be live music, good local food to sample, and activities for children. You’ll also have a chance to meet local farmers and others interested in the local food movement.

Directions: (more)

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Eugene Williams has been fighting for civil rights for over 50 years, and even when City Council apologizes for past wrongs, he reminds them that the battle isn’t over.
PHOTO BY WILL WALKER

A public apology for the racial discrimination that closed public schools doesn’t go far enough, according to one man whose family was on the front lines of the struggle.

Charlottesville City Council approved a resolution October 5 that apologizes for its predecessors’ role in thwarting integration in the 1950s.

Civil rights activist Eugene Williams says the apology to the 12 African-American students who were denied admission to Venable Elementary and Lane High School in 1958 should include their parents and the parents of the more than 1,400 white students whose educations were interrupted by segregation as well.

“It affected the parents of 1,415 students,” says Williams, citing the number of white students displaced, (more)

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Maya chef Christian Kelly champions locally grown food and spirits.
FILE PHOTO BY LINDSEY BARNES

In a effort to educate local folks about sustainable agriculture and local foods, and to serve up a tasty meal, Maya on West Main is hosting a special Local Food & Spirits Night on Monday, October 5 at 6pm. The event will feature special guest speakers and food and wine from Polyface Farms, Barboursville Vineyards, and The Food Hub. According to Maya’s owners and chef, this could be a regular monthly event.

“Although we have always supported local farms and use local foods on our menu, we’ve been inspired recently by the books of Michael Pollan and the movies Fresh and Food Inc.,” says owner Peter Castiglione. “Our goal is to bring local farmers, growers, and spirit producers together once a month to share their knowledge, ideas, and produce with the community.”

Contact Maya to make your reservations.

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Literary figures like Oscar Wilde become screensavers on Kindle, explains new Darden student Joe Chard.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Joe Chard just started the MBA program at Darden business school, and he just got a Kindle, Amazon’s electronic reader.

“I had it on the coffee table, and my wife put a cup of coffee on it,” says Chard. “I said, ‘No– it’s expensive.’ She thought it was a book.”

And with Darden-emblazoned leather “jackets” on the test Kindles, they do look like slender volumes.

Chard is one of 60 (more)

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Thornton didn’t see herself as one day being in space as she watched the Apollo 11 astronauts walk the moon in 1969.
FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

As one of the millions watching July 20, 1969, as astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first to walk on the moon, Kathryn Thornton was awestruck.

“I remember seeing them walk on the moon and walking outside and thinking people are up there,” Thornton says. “It was a pretty amazing moment.”

Despite her excitement about the moon landing, Thornton didn’t see a future for herself in space.

“At the time it wasn’t an option (for women),” Thorton says.

Just over 20 years after that first moonwalk, Thornton was in orbit (more)

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Rebecca Kinney was among the last to attend St. John.
PHOTO BY GORDON BLOCK

The architectural restoration isn’t quite complete, but an upcoming alumni reunion for a long-closed school is already evoking memories as well as opening a window on Albemarle’s segregated past.

“There’s a lot of history here, and it’s important to know where you come from,” says 63-year old Rebecca Kinney, one of the last students to attend tiny St. John Elementary, located in the eastern Albemarle village of Cobham.

Kinney recalls (more)

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Three years after Sprint-Nextel spun it off to focus on wireless, landline carrier Embarq has been purchased by CenturyTel in an $11.6 billion deal. The two carriers will become CenturyLink, headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, and serve 7.5 million customers in 33 states, according to a release. (And we remember the days when the local carrier was called Centel!)

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Congressman Tom Perriello (D-Ivy, left) declined a request for federal funds for Larry Sabato’s Youth Leadership Initiative. Now Senator Mark Warner (D-VA, right) is lobbying his colleagues to save it.
HOOK FILE PHOTOS

Few political scientists are as tapped into the ways of Washington as the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato. For his encyclopedic knowledge and predictive acumen, he has be come the go-to-guy for the national media seeking political analysis. Now, after decades spent watching Capitol Hill, Sabato needs an act of Congress to keep his brainchild alive.

“If we do not receive federal funds,” says Ken Stroupe, chief of staff of Sabato’s UVA Center for Politics, “we do not have a sufficient endowment to continue to operate this program.”

The program is the Youth Leadership Initiative, a national civics education program founded by Sabato in 1998, providing free teaching tools to 50,000 social studies teachers of all grade levels nationwide. Every two years, the program runs mock elections with students voting on the same candidates their parents will on Election Day, making for what the Center for Politics says is the nation’s largest mock election.

Since its inception, the Youth Initiative received most of its funding from a federal earmark introduced annually into the House of Representatives by Congressman Virgil Goode (R-Rocky Mount). After (more)

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