Thomas Jefferson

We reached out and touched Thomas Jefferson ... at least my wife and I felt we did when we entered his world on a recent driving tour of Virginia's Jefferson country. We discovered that the state where this extraordinary American was born, raised and passed his last years is so rich in structures and landscapes associated with him that he is a presence here still. Seeing his world in three dimensions made him seem even more real to us than did the commendable Ken Burns' television treatment of his life.

Ocean City Winterfest of Lights Head to Ocean City for the opening weekend of the annual holiday lights extravaganza, which features a train ride through lighted holiday displays, including the 12 Days of Christmas. The event also has a heated pavilion with hot chocolate and an opportunity for the kids to take a picture with Santa. The festival runs from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Nov. 15 - Jan. 1 at Northside Park.

WE CELEBRATED Thomas Jefferson's 250th birthday last week with the respect due a monument of our history: the author of the Declaration of Independence, a president who with his friends Madison and Monroe made a 24-year Virginia dynasty in the White House.But in his day Jefferson was a highly controversial figure, widely feared and reviled. He was in fact one of the first objects of the paranoia that has gripped American politics from time to time, most recently in the form of hysteria about communism.

Mitt Romney says that those who advocate redistribution of wealth are un-American, so I guess the following historical extract is un-American, too: "It should seem then that it must be because of the enormous wealth, which places them above attention to the increase of their revenues, that I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but [that] the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.

Thomas Jefferson was a slaveholder who believed passionately in the equality of man. He pushed for a weak central government, yet without asking Congress or anyone else spent $15 million (more money than was in the U.S. Treasury) to double the size of the country. He campaigned hard to become '' president, yet once said the country needed a revolution every 20 years or so -- hardly the words of a national leader.Some would label Jefferson an opportunist at best or a base hypocrite. Ken Burns calls him America's soul and, for the next two nights on PBS, does a pretty fair job of explaining why."

Dressed in a Colonial style suit with coat, waistcoat, ruffled shirt, knee breeches and stockings, a dignified Thomas Jefferson talked to students of North Harford Middle School on Thursday and shared with them "a few recollections" from his lifetime as statesman, scholar and patriot."

Charlottesville, Va. -- Buckled shoes clacking on the pavement, a tall redheaded stranger in a green velvet jacket, ruffled jabot and knee breeches strides through the darkened grounds of the University of Virginia.He knocks on the door of the faculty club, gets no answer and asks two passing students if there's another entrance. They tell him how to navigate a back passage through a garden, and then one says almost as an afterthought as they continue on their way:"So, like, you're supposed to be Thomas Jefferson?"

IMAGINE HAVING LIVED SUCH an accomplished life that on your tombstone you neglected to mention that you had been ambassador to France, secretary of state, vice president and president of the United States. But then, how many of us are Thomas Jefferson? And how many cities can claim not only a Jefferson, but a Madison and Monroe as well? I suspect that people would love Charlottesville, Va., even without the multi-presidential connection, particularly in the fall, when morning mists cling to the hills and enshroud the two-lane roads that wind past vineyards and horse farms.

ELKTON - A New York manuscript expert needed all of 30 seconds yesterday to declare that a letter found in a Cecil County historic home, purportedly written by Thomas Jefferson, is indeed authentic and worth $700,000. "Essentially, I knew it at a glance," said Chris Coover, who works at Christie's auction house in New York. He pointed out the paper's watermark from J. Whatman, the finest English writing paper of the time, and the distinctive Jefferson script. "The handwriting is unmistakable," Coover said.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Say you work for the president. You admire the guy, spend a lot of time in his house and like to think you know him as well as anybody. Sure, you've heard the rumors about his sex life, but there's no definitive evidence, and so that's what you tell people. Some take your word; some accuse you of hiding something, but you're telling the truth as far as you know it -- what else can you do?And then -- just your luck, it's a weekend -- the news breaks. DNA evidence indicates a sexual relationship.

Marissa Dorsey , of Mount Airy, has been named to the dean's list for the spring 2011 semester at Thomas Jefferson University, in Philadelphia. She is studying occupational therapy. Georges Rizk , of Sykesville, participated in the Summer Scholars Program in Biology and Biomedical Research at Washington University in St. Louis. Rizk, who was one of 24 Summer Scholars this year, will be a freshman at the university this fall. The seven-week Summer Scholars program offers students the opportunity to get a head start on scientific research and their college careers.

Thomas Jefferson must be spinning in his grave at the action of the five activist, hypocritical Supreme Court justices who dealt a crippling blow to Jefferson's concept of the separation of church and state. Justice Kennedy's majority reasoning that the cross on federal land honoring U.S. heroes was specious at best. That the cross was covered in the First Amendment as a right of expression is a dishonest constitutional interpretation. Robert A. Steinberg, Baltimore

Where: Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest, near Lynchburg, Va. When: 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. April 14. Poplar Forest is open six days a week, Wednesday through Monday, now through November. Guided tours of Jefferson's octagonal house begin at 10 a.m. and run every half-hour, with the last tour at 4 p.m. What: Celebrate the anniversary of Jefferson's birth (April 13, 1743) at Poplar Forest, the Founding Father's secluded plantation retreat. The event includes cake and a performance by the Jefferson Forest High School Symphonic Band.

Burwell Colbert was the only person who could understand Thomas Jefferson when the former president was on his deathbed. James Hemings and his sister, Sally, could have sued for their freedom in France when they accompanied Jefferson to Paris in the 1780s, but instead returned with the statesman. And Peter Fossett later said he didn't realize he was a slave until the day, at age 12, when he was put on the auction block. Theirs are just some of the voices of enslaved men, women and children that become audible in "Answering the Bell: Working in the House at Monticello," a tour that runs each February at the Charlottesville, Va., home of the third president.

On January 31, 2010; Thomas Jefferson Wilson Jr. On Today, friends may call V aughn reene uneral er

When Thomas Jefferson left the U.S. presidency 200 years ago this spring, no one needed to build a library or memorial to commemorate him. Jefferson already had a memorial in the form of Monticello, the mountaintop estate he created near Charlottesville, Va., long before he became the nation's third president in 1801. Jefferson felt so completely at home at Monticello that he almost never left the grounds from the spring of 1809 to the day he died in 1826. "I am as happy nowhere else and in no other society," he wrote in 1787, "and all my wishes end where I hope my days will end, at Monticello."

It was judgment day at the University of Virginia. Michele Cooley, preparing to defend her dissertation before a panel of professors, glanced at the bust of Thomas Jefferson in the school's historic Rotunda. From his image, she drew strength -- for reasons someone looking at her might never have imagined.As a successful African-American earning her third degree at U.Va., Cooley had made a natural choice for her Ph.D. thesis: She had probed the factors responsible for black students' success.

Scores of well-wishers, curiosity seekers, relatives and friends constantly tramped through Thomas Jefferson's house and over the grounds at Monticello. One lady even poked out a window with her parasol for a closer look inside the mansion. Jefferson longed for "the solitude of a hermit," and a retreat free of distractions. He fulfilled his wish at Poplar Forest, his estate 90 miles southwest of Monticello near Lynchburg, Va. When his wife, Martha, died in 1782, Jefferson inherited the 4,812-acre plantation in Bedford County, Va., from his father-in-law.

Series Ghost Whisperer: : Melinda (Jennifer Love Hewitt) tells Sam (Kenneth Mitchell) about her gift and is surprised by his reaction. (8 p.m., WJZ-Channel 13) Everybody Hates Chris: : Rochelle (Tichina Arnold) orders a copy of her birth certificate and discovers she is a year younger than she thought. (8 p.m., WNUV-Channel 54) Friday Night Lights: : The skills of the new star quarterback (Jeremy Sumpter) are put to the test against a major rival. (9 p.m., WBAL-Channel 11) Bill Moyers Journal: : Economist Robert Johnson helps decode the bank bailout, with a hard look at the international ramifications of the plan and a discussion about why nationalization has become a flash point.

Catonsville's Shamika Williams is as adept at heaving a full-court pass to a teammate who has gotten behind the opponent's defense as she is at driving through a crowded lane for a layup. Williams' versatility was the difference in the ninth-ranked Comets' 53-28 victory over Dunbar yesterday in the 22nd annual Holly & Hoops Holiday Tournament at Mount de Sales. Williams scored a game-high 15 points with 10 rebounds and five steals to help the surging Comets improve to 6-0. "We stepped it up and calmed down a little bit," said Williams, who has committed to UMBC.