Since first winning election in 1996, Rep. Virgil Goode (R) has proven an unbeatable incumbent, easily winning re-election in each of his last five campaigns. Now, a UVA professor believes he’s the man who can prevent it from becoming six.

Today, history professor David Shreve tells the Hook, “I am seeking the Democratic party nomination in the Fifth District.”

A scholar specializing in fiscal and monetary policy, Shreve says he’s in the race because of (more)

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Western Albemarle High School senior Daniel Redinger crept his way into the Washington Post over the weekend with a scant 104 words. The column, “Life Is Short,” asks readers to submit short vignettes that give insight into their lives.

Redinger recaps an experience he had while traveling in Germany in which he ran afoul of airport security– over what he claims was an ordinary package of Gummi Bears.

Redinger submitted the piece (more)

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Hip hop superproducer Timbaland is apparently still flying high as a result of his double-platinum collaboration with Justin Timberlake. Last year’s FutureSex/LoveSounds LP practically had as many vocals from ‘Land as from ‘Lake, and the two are currently touring together, with Timbaland spinning the beats behind Justin’s choreographed performances and even doing a short set of his own material. Obviously, he’s itching for a solo outing.

It’s no surprise, then, that the Norfolk native recently announced that he’ll be rolling out an album entitled “Timbaland Presents Shock Value” on March 27th, about a week and a half after the JT tour brings him to the John Paul Jones arena. It will be his first (more)

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UVA Law professor Robert Turner was one of five witnesses who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday to try to sort through the ramifications of President Bush’s pronouncement that decisions about war policy are his domain, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

Four out of five of them testified that Bush had overstepped his bounds, leaving Turner as Bush’s only supporter. And not afraid to use a famous Bushism.
“In the conduct of war and foreign affairs, the president is, in fact, the decider,” said Turner. “Once Congress raises an army, it’s his to command.”

In the near future, Congress is expected to consider (more)

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Eight months after CBS News correspondent and UVA grad school grad Kimberly Dozier was injured in an roadside explosion in Iraq, she is now well enough to visit with her former colleagues. On Monday, January 29, Dozier arrived in the New York newsroom where she was greeted and applauded by approximately 100 of her coworkers, according to a story posted on cbsnews.com.

“Last May we had Hell open on us. That’s when I found out what this place was really like. People I didn’t know reached out to me, to my family, and also reached out to the families of Paul and James,” said Dozier according to the story.

Dozier, 40, who earned a masters in foreign affairs from UVA in 1993, was critically wounded May 29 as she and her crew (more)

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A new report by the 10 assorted scientists in the greenhouse gas working group at the State Advisory Board on Air Pollution, a division of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, concludes that global warming may be on the verge of wreaking havoc on Virginia’s ecosystems, tourism industry, and general well being.

“A particular concern is sea level rise,” says the 90-page document released January 5. “[International Panel on Climate Change] scenarios suggest a 3.5 to 34.6 inches (0.09 to 0.88 meters) rise by 2100, but accelerated polar ice melting may increase this.

“Sea level rise,” the report continues, “can cause coastal inundation, beach loss, salt water intrusion into fresh water supplies, increased vulnerability of coastal areas to storms and substantial stresses on Virginia’s agricultural and other resources.”

It declares Virginia is not a leading state in promoting energy efficiency (more)

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UVA professor of Architecture and past Charlottesville mayor Maurice Cox spent Monday out in Detroit helping officials plan the future of the city’s downtown district.

Cox’s suggestions took into account Detroit’s unique identity, including development plans in which its sports teams and musical history were crucial components. Hopefully they’ll take them to heart, as Cox’s accomplishments as both architect and as a politician give him significant experience on both sides of the red tape.

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In yet another Dave Matthews/Coran Capshaw success story, the duo’s ATO Pictures wowed the audiences and the studio fat-cats at the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, January 27 with their feature film Joshua, staring Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga. In fact, by Monday, ATO had inked a deal with Fox Searchlight Pictures for $4 million.

“We found out we got into Sundance the Tuesday before Thanksgiving,” says ATO executive producer Temple Fennell. “Then we found out we got the 8:30 Saturday night screening…which was the perfect time.”

Joshua, an original script by novelist David Gilbert and director George Ratliff, tells the story of a brilliant and precocious 9-year old, played by Jacob Kogan, who wreaks psychological havoc on his family, especially his father (Sam Rockwell) and mother (Vera Farmiga), after the the birth of a new sister. As one online reviewer describes it, “it’s a total horror film in the vein of The Omen, but without the supernatural elements, it’s all very realistic and plausible.

“Not to spoil too much, but you should expect to see many poisoned animals, parents being driven to the point of insanity, and many attempts at killing a baby. This is the film to show your wife or girlfriend if you want to convince her to never have children. It’s frightening as all hell, but also a wonderful drama about a child feeling neglected and dealing with it in the most evil bizarre way.” (more)

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The father of one of the teens imprisoned last year during the Albemarle school bomb scare plans to testify tomorrow in Richmond in support of a bill that would ensure that all juveniles interrogated without a parent get a video of the session.

“We’re living proof that it really made a difference,” says the boy’s father, who says he believes the interrogation video shot by Albemarle police was key in convincing a jury that his son had no knowledge of any conspiracy.

“They kept trying to lead him, kept trying to get him to admit something, to say what the other child said was real when he knew it wasn’t real,” says the father.

Unlike at least two of the other three defendants, who ultimately accepted some (more)

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Lawyers in Greene and Madison counties gave a thumbs up to Charlottesville General District Court Judge Robert Downer to succeed Albemarle Circuit Court Judge Paul Peatross, who retires tomorrow. That makes the second bar endorsement Downer has snagged.

In early January, the Charlottesville Albemarle Bar Association picked Downer and former prosecutor Cheryl Higgins as “highly qualified” for the judgeship out of seven candidates that include Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos.

The latest endorsement emerged from the January 22 meeting of Madison-Greene Bar Association, which sent its unanimous endorsement of Downer, 58, to the delegates and senators representing the 16th Judicial Circuit. Whether those legislators (more)

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In just over a week, the noise level in the normally serene confines of UVA’s Darden School of Business will rachet up a decibel or ten when CNBC’s catchphrase-coining, prop-loving, chair-throwing stock analyst, Jim Cramer, comes to Charlottesville for a broadcast of his hit show, Mad Money, the latest stop on his “Back to School” tour. The bulls-and-bears-fest happens at the Abbott Center Auditorium on February 7.

Known for his hyper-animated persona and trademark quips like “booyah!” and “Other people want to make you friends, I just want to make you money!” Cramer is (more)

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Local fans of iconic blues guitarist B.B. King had reason for panic. The legendary musician, who has a sold out show at the Paramount Theater coming up on February 18, was hospitalized last Thursday due to a bout with the flu — which, at 81 years old, is nothing for the Grammy award winning maestro of vibrato to mess around with.

King was admitted to the University of Galveston hospital in Texas, causing him to miss his Thursday and Friday night performances at a Galveston concert hall. The venue’s manager noted that King was intent on playing at all costs until a doctor ordered him to take the night off. He was released on Saturday afternoon and will resume his tour on Tuesday in Fort Worth with the doctors’ blessings.

“He is still going to play the 18th of February,” says Jamie Sisley, an executive with Starr Hill Presents, the Charlottesville-based promoter of the performance, a sold-out benefit for the Jefferson Area Board for Aging. Opening act is wunderkind Eli Cook.
King has a well-known history of hypertension and diabetes. He starred in a series of television commercials for LifeScan blood glucose monitors several years ago. Family members were particularly worried because of complications that might have arisen from those conditions.

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There’s a new star discovery. Is it Schuyler Fisk? Eli Cook? Or maybe woman-on-the-verge Sarah White?

Actually it’s the offspring of fledgling Charlottesville astrophysicist Michael Kuhn and beta Crucis, the small but bright star that forms the left tip of the Southern Cross — you know, the drunken sister of Cassiopeia that appears on the Australian and Brazilian flags and was immortalized in the 1980 Crosby, Stills, and Nash song.

Kuhn, currently a senior at Swarthmore, works for associate professor of Astronomy David Cohen, whose team of researchers unveiled the discovery of the previously undetected and as-yet-unnamed heavenly body (more)

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The fine young men from 1998 indie rock sensation turned 2004 MTV sensation Modest Mouse have announced a new album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, due out March 20.

Bassist Tom Peloso was a founding member of local bluegrass act The Hackensaw Boys up until they landed an opening slot on the Mouse’s expansive summer 2004 tour, which took them to the far corners of the globe in support of their mainstream breakthrough album Good News For People Who Love Bad News. Peloso and the rock band hit it off so well that he decided to leave the Hacks, who took it in stride thanks to their legendary tolerance of rotating lineups

Peloso’s exit from the Hackensaws is not yet forgotten, but his status as the freshest blood in Modest Mouse dissipated rather quickly in August, when it was announced that guitarist Johnny Marr, formerly of generally dysfunctional 1980’s angst rockers the Smiths, had also joined the band.

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With the popularity of shows like American Idol and Project Runway, reality competitions are now springing up on the web. Keswick writer Jenny Gardiner is a finalist in the American Title III contest to receive a publishing contract for her “chick lit” novel Sleeping with Ward Cleaver.

The competition began with ten finalists competing for online votes for the best first line, best heroine, and best summary. With two rounds left, Gardiner, who pens slice-of-life humor essays for the Daily Progress, appears to have a one-in-four chance of getting published. You can vote in round four for the best dialogue scene until February 4.

“In this climate for authors, writing is only half the battle, and publicizing your manuscript is the other half,” says Gardiner. “Most published novels receive no publicity from their publisher, you have to (more)

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As documented in Rob Sheffield’s recent memoir about his late wife, Love Is a Mix Tape, one of Ren�e Crist Sheffield’s favorite artists was the underappreciated ’80s power popster Marshall Crenshaw. Now, a week after the Hook remembered her life in a cover story, Gravity Lounge has announced that Crenshaw will grace its stage on February 23 at 8pm.

According to Sheffield’s book, Crist would often play Crenshaw songs on her Thursday 2-4pm WTJU program “Ground Rule Double Dutch.” Despite having such champions as Crist, (more)

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A white male with short dark hair, described by two would-be sexual assault victims as “weak,” is being sought in attacks on women last night in the Corner district. While Police are not certain that the same man perpetrated both attacks, the similarities in description and chronology suggest with a “high degree of probability” that it was the same man.

Charlottesville Police responded to one report by a 21-year-old UVA student that she had left a party at the Satellite Ballroom on University Avenue around 12:30 this morning nd was walking home to her apartment in the 1200 Block of Wertland Street. As she was opening her apartment door, a man grabbed her “in a sexual manner” and tried to force his (more)

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With a score of 400 to 330, the team from Monticello High School won the Pop Quiz championship over Woodberry Forest School. The finale to the 25th season of the academic showdown came in a live broadcast from 5 to 6pm yesterday on public television station WVPT.

The winning MHS team– which edged longtime contender Charlottesville High School by ten points in the semi-finals– included a junior and three seniors. “Three of the four team members have been around for several years and have gotten quite a bit of experience,” said coach Barry Keith.

WVPT, based in Harrisonburg, began (more)

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According to the Virginia Piedmont Technology Council, a local non-profit business collective, the city of Charlottesville is at a crossroads.

Their “Technology Town Hall” event, which was held at the Omni Hotel on January 23, set up a comparison between the two cities and urged citizens and area businesses to keep it in mind when guiding our fair city’s growth. Though it focused specifically on technology-heavy industries, the comparison did bring up a some interesting general points about local development, including the pronounced income disparities between different economic strata and the lack of viable job prospects for recent UVA graduates. Austin, Texas appears to have been upheld as the more desirable model due to its support for the local workforce, whereas Aspen was portrayed as a town economically designed exclusively for the upper class.

A follow-up meeting is planned for February 22.

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The Daily Progress is reporting this morning that one of UVA’s biggest-ever pledges has expired, throwing the prospect of a 1,200-seat concert hall on Emmet Street into turmoil.

The 2003 pledge of Carl and Hunter Smith to donate $22 million would have also created a black box theater, instructional spaces, and would have housed the marching band, which the Smiths launched through a separate $1.5 million gift.

The Smiths are perhaps best known for kicking off the $100 million rehab of Scott Stadium with (more)

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U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon laid down the law on Thursday to 6 of the 20 Augusta and Rockingham County dealers accused of distributing more than 50 pounds of methamphetamine, the Harrisonburg daily paper reports.

All of them pled guilty, except the still-unapprehended leader of the pack, Ismael Alvarado Cervantes. Sentences ranged from 5 years and 10 months in prison to over 16 years, and some of the perps also forfeited thousands of dollars worth of drug-money fueled assets to the government.

Attorney John L. Brownlee seemed particularly disturbed that some of the drugs were sold to high schoolers. The case took off in (more)

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On Friday, renowned Chicago Cubs second baseman and Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg was the featured speaker at the UVA baseball team’s 2007 “Step Up To The Plate” event, an annual shindig at Mem Gym comprising a dinner, auctions, and– of course, autograph sessions.

Ol’ #23 played for the Cubs between 1982 and 1997, and was inducted into Cooperstown in 2005. He now manages the Peoria Chiefs, the minor-league little brother to the Cubs.

He wasn’t the only pro player in the house: major league UVA alumni Ryan Zimmerman of the Washington Nationals and Javier Lopez of the Red Sox also attended. Past guests have included Tommy Lasorda and Cal Ripken, Jr.

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Virginia is on the verge of significantly expanding the pool of criminals eligible for the death penalty after a flurry of activity in the state legislature earlier this week.

The new inductees include judge killers, court witness killers, and — perhaps most surprisingly — accomplices. Previously, the death penalty was limited to only the lowlife thugs who actually delivered the fatal blow, a clause called the “Triggerman Rule.”

Now, the lowlife thug driving the getaway car could find himself on death row (more)

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Southern Accents magazine, a kind of “Better Homes and Gardens” written exclusively for the Dixie set, is carrying a feature story about Jefferson-area vineyards.

“The Barboursville estate has aged well in its three decades,” says writer Logan Ward, “It now draws visitors from all over the world.” He goes on to name-check C&O, Vavino, and Barboursville Vineyards, among others.

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Ski resorts are smiling again. With the recent run of cold temperatures, Wintergreen Resort now has 17 of 25 runs open. And with 25″ of natural snow in less than two weeks, Snowshoe in West Virginia (whose picture is shown here), has opened 50 runs including its famous Cupp Run.

Up near Harrisonburg, Massanutten– which like Wintergreen actually closed for a few balmy days in normally chilly January– now has 10 of its 14 runs open.

Thanks to its battery of snowguns, Wintergreen has had its black diamond Highlands section open for over a week now. But it’s (more)

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