Florida Courier - July 24, 2015

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JULY 24 – JULY 30, 2015

VOLUME 23 NO. 30

THE NRA – FRIEND OR FOE?

Billing itself as ‘America’s longest-standing civil rights organization,’ the National Rifle Association has been missing in historical action as far as ‘Negroes with guns’ are concerned.

Mystery clouds Bland’s death Cops question mental health

BY MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE, MICHAEL MUSKAL AND CHRISTINE MAI-DUC LOS ANGELES TIMES /TNS

HOUSTON – Sandra Bland, who died in a Texas cell three days after her arrest during a traffic stop, told jailers that she had previously tried to commit suicide by taking pills because she had lost a baby, according to booking documents released Wednesday.

The documents were made public as officials investigated whether Bland killed herself July 13 in the Waller County Jail, where she was being held on a felony charge of assaulting a state trooper who had pulled her over in Prairie View, Texas.

Family objects

AP PHOTO/SAL VEDER

The Black Panther Party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, Calif., was formed to keep the residents safe from police abuse.

BY KARSCEAL TURNER SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

O ‘NEGROES WITH GUNS’ PART 3 Editor’s note: The title of this series is taken from the 1962 book titled, “Negroes with Guns” by Robert F. Williams, a North Carolina native and Marine Corps veteran who advocated armed self-defense by African-Americans.

n May 2, 1967, a group of 30 young Black men and women, dressed in black leather jackets, berets and dark glasses, and armed with shotguns, approached the entrance to the California state capitol building in Sacramento. They were careful to keep the weapons pointed toward the sky.

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, were frustrated by the limited gains of the Civil Rights Movement. They were convinced that the government, especially local police, would not protect the lives and property of Black Americans. They urged local residents to legally arm themselves pursuant to the Second Amendment for their own protection.

Former Black Panther Party head Elaine Brown explained the group’s philosophy of self-defense in a 2013 interview.

“We did not promote guns, but rather, the right to defend ourselves against a state that

FAMU trustees clash with latest president

BY MARGIE MENZEL THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Little more than a year into her job, Florida A&M University President Elmira Mangum on Tuesday faced criticism from some of the university’s trustees as they evaluated her performance.

A presidential evaluation-committee meeting was tense, reflecting the gap between Mangum’s belief that she should have dayto-day control of Elmira the university and Mangum board chairman Rufus Montgomery’s move to place her on a “performance im-

ALSO INSIDE

provement plan.”

“Ninety percent of our problems go away when our one employee acknowledges that we are her employer,” Montgomery said.

“We need to assert a level of accountability.”

Won’t return calls Montgomery has repeatedly complained about Mangum’s hiring decisions and her failure to promptly return calls and emails from trustees. His suggestion of a performance-improvement plan remained just that, however, pending an Aug. 5 meeting of the full board.

Tuesday’s meeting also reflected a gap between the trustees’ evaluations of the president and her own assessment of her performance. The 13 trustees found

was oppressing us with guns. There were innumerable incidents in which police agents kicked in our doors or shot our brothers and sisters in what we called red-light trials, where the policeman was the judge, the jury and the executioner. We called for an immediate end to this brutality, and advocated for our right to self-defense.

“Today, the brutal police murders of Sean Bell in New York and Oscar Grant in Oakland are just two examples of how little has changed. The gun-control discussion could result in policies that further criminalize and target Black people.”

Reagan runs As the Black Panthers crossed the lawn to the building’s steps then-Governor Ronald Reagan – who was speaking to a group of schoolchildren nearby – and his security team caught sight of the armed group. Reagan and his security team turned and ran.

Still marching in tight formation in a disciplined manner, the group reached the

that Mangum “does not meet” expectations in four of 10 categories – organizational management, internal relations, board and governance relations, and personal characteristics and values.

Two trustees, Spurgeon McWilliams and Robert Woody, found that Mangum had not met expectations in any of the categories.

See GUNS, Page A2

Mangum also noted that when she was hired, FAMU was still dealing with the fallout from the 2011 hazing death of Marching 100 drum major Robert Champion. Also, a legislative plan to separate the joint FAMU-Florida State University College of Engineering – “two separate schools in unequal units,” she said – surfaced during her first week as president in April 2014.

And since 2002, Mangum added, the university had had two Defended herself presidents and three interim Mangum asked to speak ear- presidents. ly in Tuesday’s meeting, defended her record and reminded the Rocky start trustees of FAMU’s status at the The president’s relationship time she was hired.

“When I arrived on campus with the trustees, however, has last year, Florida A&M was strug- deteriorated almost since she begling to emerge from years of tur- gan.

When trustees voted 11-2 to moil due to problems with fishire her, McWilliams and Glen cal responsibility,” she said. “It Gilzean, Jr, who has since left the wasn’t a surprise when FAMU board, were the lone holdouts. At missed out on millions of dollars the time Montgomery voted for from the state last year after scor- Mangum, he called her “exceping last in benchmarks that were See FAMU, Page A2 tied to performance.”

Her family and friends have insisted that that the 28-year-old Illinois woman was upbeat about getting a new job in Prairie View and would never have taken her own life.

The family lawyer, Cannon Lambert, told reporters at a televised news conference Wednesday that there is no evidence Bland had ever attempted suicide or been treated for depression.

Texas officials were trying to shift the focus away from the contentious arrest on July 10 that started the chain of events that led to the discovery of Bland’s body in the cell three days later, he said.

Cops filled out forms Law enforcement officials had briefed local lawmakers about the jail documents Tuesday, and the substance was reported in the local press. On Wednesday, the county prosecutor’s office released the documents after inquiries from the media.

Question 14 asks if the woman being arrested had ever attempted suicide and if so, when, why and how. Bland responded to the screening officer that she had attempted suicide “in 2015, lost baby, by taking pills.”

The form also notes that Bland did not seem confused, preoccupied, sad or paranoid when she was interviewed.

The documents make no mention of any special monitoring arrangements or suicide watch.

Bland was given a security designation of “medium assaultiveescape” two steps below a “high” security designation and one step below “close custody.”

See BLAND, Page A2

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

Bill keeps pastors from marrying gay couples NATION | A6

Obama’s dad looms over trip to Kenya TRAVEL | B4

Cuba travel could impact rest of Caribbean

COMMENTARY: BILL QUIGLEY: MORE REASONS BLACKS AND THE POOR ARE INCARCERATED | A4 COMMENTARY: HBCU DIGEST: ALUMNI MUST TAKE UP GEORGE COOPER’S WORK | A5

A2

FOCUS

JULY 24 – JULY 30, 2015

Medical weed petition moves forward

BY DARA KAM THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Supporters of a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize medical marijuana this week sent 100,000 petitions to county elections supervisors, one of the first steps in getting the proposal before voters next year.

It’s the second shot for United for Care, the committee behind the petition drive, to get the pro-

posal on the ballot. A similar plan received 58 percent of the vote in November, just shy of the 60 percent required for passage.

Local supervisors of elections have 30 days to validate at least 68,317 petitions to trigger scrutiny by the Florida Supreme Court, which signed off on the previous version last year on a 4-3 vote.

United for Care needs 683,149 validated, signed petitions to get “Use of Marijuana for Debilitating Medical Conditions” on the

November 2016 ballot.

Backers changed the name of the proposal as well as some of its language to address concerns expressed by the Supreme Court and used by opponents of the measure, including the Florida Sheriffs Association, to dissuade voters from approving it last fall.

The revamped measure clarifies that doctors cannot order medical marijuana for children without their parents’ approval.

The sheriffs railed about the is-

BLAND

The dash-cam video in Trooper Brian T. Encinia’s car, originally released Tuesday, showed an angry, escalating confrontation after the officer initially pulled Bland over for failing to signal a lane change.

By the time it was over, Bland was roughly removed from her car, handcuffed on the ground and arrested on suspicion of assaulting a public servant, a felony charge.

In a statement mailed to reporters Wednesday morning, Tom Vinger, press secretary for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said the dash-cam video was unedited and blamed the glitches in the original video on technology.

from A1

Inconsistencies in forms Sharon Cooper, Bland’s sister, told CNN she was unaware of any suicide attempt by her sister and questioned the jail documents. “I have a hard time dealing with the inconsistencies and that seems to be the theme of the last few days here,” she said.

“There are even more questions that have come out of Texas than when we went down there,” Lambert said at a televised news conference Wednesday afternoon.

“We take issue with the notion she was suffering from depression,” said Lambert, who also discounted reports that Bland was suicidal or was taking medication for physical or emotional conditions. “Everybody has hills and valleys. There is no medication, no epilepsy.

“Her medical history is not the issue,” said the lawyer. “It is an attempt to divert attention from the real issue. This happened because an officer was overzealous.”

‘Don’t trust it’ LaVaughn Mosley, 57, of Prairie View, knew Bland for years, hosted her during her visit, spoke to her by phone at the jail before she died and said he never heard her mention the previous suicide attempt.

“I don’t trust it,” Mosley said of the documents. “Why is it coming out now, when it fits their story? It’s fishy.”

He noted that Bland had been living in the Chicago area, so he wasn’t sure what she had been through during the past year. But if she had previously attempted suicide, “that doesn’t mean she killed herself, even if it’s true.”

“And if she did check that, why wasn’t she on suicide watch?

Why were they not checking her carefully? She was in the custody of the jail,” he said.

GUNS from A1

steps, faced the crowd, and listened attentively as Seale read Executive Mandate No. 1 of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense to the startled audience.

The mandate, addressed to “the American people in general and the Black people in particular,” detailed the “terror, brutality, murder, and repression of Black people” as practiced by “the racist power structure of America,” and concluded that “the time had come for Black people to arm themselves against this terror before it was too late.”

‘Don’t shoot!’

After those statements, the group proceeded into the building, made a wrong turn, and stumbled onto the California State Assembly chamber floor, then in the middle of the debate over the Mulford Act – legislation aimed at prohibiting citizens from carrying loaded firearms on their persons or in their vehicles.

Chaos ensued as legislators dove under desks, screaming, “Don’t shoot!” Security guards hurriedly surrounded the Panthers, grabbing at weapons and herding everyone into the hallway.

During the fracas, one man asked the group of disciplined, armed Black men and women, “Who are you?”

Sixteen-year-old Bobby Hutton replied, “We’re the Black Panthers. We’re Black people with guns. What about it?”

Strange bedfellows Reagan – now lauded as one of the founding fathers of the modern conservative movement – signed the Mulford Act into law in 1967 as part of a Republican

sue last year, raising the specter of “a joint in every backpack.”

The new language also clears up ambiguity about what diseases would make patients eligible for medical marijuana treatment, another major point of contention for the law enforcement opponents of last year’s measure.

The Florida Sheriffs Association is reviewing the revised plan and does not yet have a position on it.

Two sides clash

The investigation of Sandra Bland’s death has just begun.

“My questions won’t be answered until we find out what happened here in Waller County,” he said.

Earlier Wednesday, Lambert dismissed actions by Texas officials, including the release of a corrected dashboard video of the arrest.

Video ‘glitches’ On Tuesday, the Texas Department of Public Safety had posted a video containing glitches, prompting questions about whether the video had been altered or edited. Texas officials denied any editing and blamed the glitches on problems uploading the video.

The new video is about three “law and order” agenda. A key organization that supported Reagan and approved gun control laws at that time was the National Rifle Association: the NRA. The Mulford Act jumpstarted the NRA’s intensive lobbying efforts that, almost 50 years later, have ironically prevented gun control efforts even in the aftermath of the 2012 Sandy Hook murders of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school.

The moral of the story? Second Amendment rights should be as broad and as unrestricted as possible for every American – except “Black people with guns.”

Couldn’t shoot straight Almost 150 years have elapsed since the creation of the National Rifle Association in 1871. According to the organization’s website, U.S. Army veteran Col. William C. Church was dismayed by the poor gun marksmanship of federal troops. He and General George Wingate formed the National Rifle Association in 1871.

The primary goal of the association was to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis,” according to a magazine editorial written by Church.

A charter was granted by the state of New York on Nov. 17, 1871, and Civil War Gen. Ambrose Burnside, who was also the former governor of Rhode Island and a US senator, became the NRA’s first president.

Armed and ready History reveals that after the Civil War, just as the NRA was being founded, newly empowered Black citizens were arming themselves. Southern Blacks who had long been denied access to firearms were finally able to procure them during the war.

Some served in “colored” units of the Union Army, which allowed soldiers to take their

minutes shorter than the original footage released a day earlier.

It did not contain two key glitches which had prompted a flurry of speculation over the original video – footage that appeared to be missing or repeated at around minute 25 and minute 33.

Instead, it appeared to show a continuous record of the July 10 roadside encounter that preceded Bland’s arrest in the small town of Prairie View, northwest of Houston.

The video has come under intense scrutiny because the incident that began with a seemingly routine traffic stop ended with Bland’s death three days later in her jail cell. Sheriff’s officials have said her death was a suicide. weapons home as partial payment of back wages. Others purchased weapons in public marketplaces, which were inundated with thousands of guns produced for the war.

Many Blacks predicted accurately that those same weapons might be needed to defend themselves against racist Whites unhappy with the Confederacy’s defeat.

There is no record that the NRA supported the Second Amendment rights of formerly enslaved Africans after the Civil War. The organization sat silently by as Blacks throughout post-Civil War America were disarmed by punitive state gun control laws.

‘Italian’ violence The organization’s first major involvement with promoting gun laws was tainted by prejudice in the 1920s and ’30s. The NRA’s then-president, Karl Frederick, helped draft model legislation to restrict carrying concealed firearms in public.

Frederick’s model law recommended that only licensed citizens be permitted to carry concealed weapons, and that such licenses should be restricted to “suitable” people with “proper reason for carrying” a gun in public. This was in response to urban gun violence the NRA associated with Italian immigrants.

Thanks to the NRA’s endorsement, these laws were adopted in the majority of states.

In response to what it saw as repeated attacks on Second Amendment rights, the NRA formed the Legislative Affairs Division in 1934. Although the NRA did not lobby directly at this time, it did mail out legislative facts and analyses to members of Congress.

In 1975 – eight years after the Black Panthers’ armed visit to California legislators – the NRA formed its aggressive lobbying

The two videos and the flurry of questions added more confusion to a case that has already ignited passions on all sides.

Vinger noted the sensitivity of the dash-cam video and a second video showing the last hours in the Waller County jail where Bland was being held. There is no video of what happened inside her cell, but the jailhouse video depicts activity outside the cell and helps provide a timeline leading to discovery of the body.

“To eliminate any concerns as to the efficacy of the video, DPS previously requested the FBI examine the dash-cam and jail video to ensure the integrity of the video,” Vinger said.

The FBI in Houston on Wednesday said it is reviewing the case.

“We are coordinating with all of the involved agencies. At this time, we are monitoring the ongoing local investigation. Once the local process takes its course, the FBI will review all of the evidence to determine if any federal criminal laws may have been violated,” said a statement from the FBI’s Houston Division.

Staff writers Ryan Parker, Christine Mai-Duc and Christina Littlefield in Los Angeles contributed to this report. arm, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA).

A Black member Civilian firearms education is a key emphasis of the NRA. More than 55,000 certified instructors now train about 750,000 gun owners annually. Courses are available in basic rifle, pistol, shotgun, muzzle-loading firearms, personal protection, and ammunition reloading.

Certified weapons specialist Samuel Hayes III spoke from an insider’s perspective.

“The NRA…is the pre-eminent grassroots organization which goes toe-to-toe with politicians who threaten our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, through their ILA (lobbying arm).

But there is also a strong consensus throughout the Samuel firearms commuHayes III nity that the NRAILA can be a little soft when it comes to the defense of those rights, and are too willing to compromise. Some feel there should be no quarter given as ‘…shall not be infringed,’ as it is written in the Constitution, is clear,” according to Hayes.

Hayes thinks the NRA could be instrumental in removing what he sees as a “stigma” in the African-American community that justifies gun control.

“During the 1980s, the AfricanAmerican community became the target of the media’s ‘War on Guns’ and the myth of “Black-onBlack crime” was born,” he said.

Hayes believes the term “demonizes” the Black community.

“The myth is that crime in urban minority areas was caused by the presence of guns. It also gave crime a face, a Black face, to keep African-Americans oppressed and seen as a blight on

FAMU from A1

tionally qualified. … I believe she will be a change agent for the university.”

By the following month, however, he had joined McWilliams and Gilzean in a failed effort to reduce Mangum’s salary during contract negotiations. So had Kelvin Lawson, now the board’s vice chairman.

Black pols step in The situation reached a boil last month, when five lawmakers who are FAMU graduates sent a letter to Mori Hosseini, chairman of the state university system’s Board of Governors. They asked for an inquiry into the trustees’ actions and whether trustees were “improperly reaching beyond legally proscribed authority.”

The letter came from Senate Minority Leader Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa; Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Miami; Rep. Mia Jones, D-Jacksonville; Rep. Shevrin Jones, D-West Park; and Rep. Bobby Powell, DRiviera Beach.

“As we’re sure you are aware, the obligations of any university’s trustees are fairly straightforward, and are limited to policy,’’ the lawmakers wrote.

“They ought not and do not include involvement in the day-to-day operations of the institutions. … Evidently, Mr. Montgomery has enlisted a number of his fellow board members to join him as they attempt to directly interject themselves into such operations, and demand that President Mangum subvert her own authority by yielding to theirs.”

The inquiry is pending, and the situation was further inflamed when Mangum agreed to a new structure at the College of Engineering, making Florida State the college’s “fiscal agent” – among other changes.

Middle ground Despite the tension, however, both sides gave some ground Tuesday.

Mangum pledged that she and her leadership team would be more communicative with the trustees. And most of the trustees agreed to meet her halfway. society,” Hayes explains.

Won’t step in “The NRA has the resources to fight this stigma, and they should want to,” Hayes said. “It would increase their membership by including minority gun owners in their community. They could easily set up programs in urban neighborhoods to teach firearms safety, sport shooting programs, safety awareness programs as well as self-defense training classes. Yet, they don’t.”

Hayes says the NRA “could care less” about Blacks being a part of the gun-owning community.

“I avoided joining for a very long time up until I recently joined a gun club, where NRA membership was mandatory and included in the gun club membership,” he added.

“What is needed is an organization that addresses firearms ownership from a historical perspective and strives to educate African-Americans on firearm safety, and deprograms the negative stigma created by the media that has Blacks afraid of guns.

Right now, the NRA is NOT that organization,” Hayes concluded.

Numerous attempts were made to reach various representatives from the NRA – which does not release membership demographics – for comment.

None of the NRA representatives who were reached would comment for this series of stories.

Next week: An ‘urban gun enthusiast’ may be the NRA’s new Black face.

Karsceal Turner is an awardwinning independent journalist regularly covering Central Florida human-interest features and sports. Turner wrote this story for the Florida Courier.

JULY 24 – JULY 30, 2015

FLORIDA

A3 can and do refuse people who have been previously married.

They can just decide they don’t think you’re a good fit and refuse to conduct the ceremony.”

Changing landscape

STEPHEN M. DOWELL/ORLANDO SENTINEL/TNS

Hundreds of supporters gather during a party at the Hammered Lamb bar in Orlando to celebrate the U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing gay marriage nationwide on June 26.

Proposal keeps pastors from marrying gay couples State legislators to file bill that won’t force clergy to perform same-sex ceremonies

BY MARGIE MENZEL THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – In the wake of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, a proposal by Republican lawmakers dubbed the “Pastor Protection Act” could fuel a debate during next year’s legislative session.

Backers of the measure, which is expected to be filed by state Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, and Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, are already organizing on its behalf. The proposal is aimed at safeguarding clergy members from being forced to perform marriage ceremonies contrary to their principles, supporters say.

Plakon is collaborating with

the Rev. Chris Walker, pastor of the Cathedral of Power International Church in Clermont and the author of an online petition that has garnered more than 21,000 signatures since July 1.

“Church networks are being mobilized as we speak,” Walker said. “I am being asked to speak at a lot of churches and groups to mobilize this movement, and we’re going to be very vigilant about protecting our rights to preach the Gospel.”

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– Book review, School Library Journal • How low expectations of Black students’ achievements can get them higher grades; • Want a great grade? Prepare to cheat!

• How Black students can program their minds for success; • Setting goals – When to tell everybody, and when to keep your mouth shut;

Change.org petition Walker’s petition at change.org calls for a bill that will “be clear that religious leaders and houses of worship can’t be forced by the government to violate their faith where marriage is concerned. …

Religious leaders in the state of Florida must be absolutely secure in the knowledge that religious freedom is beyond the reach of government or coercion by the courts.”

But Nadine Smith, executive director of the advocacy group Equality Florida, said religious leaders are already protected by the First Amendment.

“They can and do refuse interracial couples,” Smith said. “They can and do refuse gay couples.

They can and do refuse people who have different faiths. They

Former Leon judge facing Bar suspension THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

A former Leon County judge removed from the bench after operating a private business from her chambers should receive a nine-month suspension from the Florida Bar, a Bar referee recommended Monday.

The recommendation by the referee, Senior Circuit Judge Julian E. Collins, will go to the Florida Supreme Court, which last year removed Leon County Judge Judith Hawkins from her position.

Judith Along with operating Hawkins the private business from her chambers, Hawkins was accused of deleting financial records while under investigation. The Supreme Court did not disbar Hawkins, who became a judge in 1996.

Senator given a clean bill of health A week after undergoing prostate surgery, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., was told by doctors Monday that he is free of cancer, according to a statement released by his office.

“Our prayers have been answered,” Nelson’s wife, Grace, said in the statement.

“The pathology report confirms Bill is completely free of cancer.”

Nelson, the only Democratic statewide

The proposed legislation, which is expected to be based on a new Texas law, is a reaction to last month’s Supreme Court ruling that same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry.

Plakon acknowledged that religious leaders are currently protected from performing marriages to which they object. But he said the landscape is changing so fast that additional protection is needed.

“Five years ago, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both believed in traditional marriage,” he said. “And (last month) the White House is lit up in rainbow colors.

The trajectory of this is moving so that there is a lot of concern about where it ends.”

Signers of Walker’s petition echoed concerns about where the debate will move in the future.

“The Christians in this country are being persecuted for not agreeing with Sin, yes same Sex relationship is a Sin, just like killing babies is a Sin,” wrote Maurice Szust of Miami.

“I’m signing because the United States of America says that we stand on the Holy Bible, but our government has pulled totally away from what they say they are founded on,” wrote another supporter of the petition, Kenyon Turner of Apopka.

‘Constant threats’ Walker has never been asked to perform a same-sex wedding. He said that while he wasn’t aware of any clergy member being sued for not doing so in Florida, “there are constant threats of it.”

Plakon said he hopes to keep the discussion at a “higher level” and has offered to meet with Equality Florida.

But Smith isn’t buying it.

“This is intended to be an ugly show of animosity toward gay people,” she said. “It has nothing to do with protecting religious freedom.”

Actions questioned “The actions of Ms. Hawkins, given both her years of experience as a practicing attorney and as a sitting county judge, simply strain the credulity, in all probability, of anyone who possesses a background similar to hers,’’ Collins wrote in the recommendation Monday.

“What was the origin of her apparent belief that she could begin and operate a separate, private business enterprise for her own personal profit within the court system, while simultaneously performing the various judicial responsibilities that were hers as a sitting judge, and for which she had been elected? And why did she think such actions could be permissible while using publicly owned instruments of technology, as well as the labor of her own judicial assistant who was, like the judge herself, a public employee of the state of Florida?”

Collins wrote that Hawkins and her attorney presented character witnesses during a hearing, including several ministers who had worked with her.

elected official in Florida, announced this month that he was having surgery for prostate cancer, which was detected in an early stage.

In the initial announcement, Nelson, 72, added that the diagnosis would Sen. Bill not affect his plans to run Nelson for a fourth term in 2018.

“Bill is raring to go but the doctors won’t let him out of the house for a few more days,’’ Grace Nelson said in the statement Monday.

• Black English, and why Black students must be ‘bilingual.’ …AND MUCH MORE!

www.excellencewithoutexcuse.com Download immediately as an eBook or a pdf Order softcover online, from Amazon, or your local bookstore ISBN#978-1-56385-500-9 Published by International Scholastic Press, LLC Contact Charles at ccherry2@gmail.com

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Duke Energy gets OK to buy Polk power plant Duke Energy Florida was given the go-ahead Tuesday by state regulators to continue plans to buy a power plant in Polk County. The Florida Public Service Commission approved the plan by Duke to buy the Osprey Plant from the Calpine Construction Finance Co., a subsidiary of Calpine Corp.

Duke expects to close on the $166 million purchase in January 2017, with the deal contingent on the company’s ability to receive needed federal approvals.

Buying the 11-year-old natural gas facility in Auburndale is the utility’s preference over potentially building a new facility in Suwannee County.

“We believe this option will help meet our long-term energy needs and

the PSC has determined it is the most cost-effective option for our customers,” Duke spokeswoman Suzanne Grant said. “The plant is strategically located in Central Florida where we serve a growing population and will help support long-term growth and future energy needs.”

The Osprey Energy Center currently sells wholesale power to Duke, Seminole Electric Cooperative, Tampa Electric Co. and other utilities. Grant said Duke continues to advance plans for constructing the Suwannee facility as the Calpine deal still needs approvals from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Last year, Duke estimated that building a facility for two simple-cycle combustion turbine generators on 68 acres at its Suwannee Plant could cost about $197 million.

EDITORIAL

A4

JULY 24 – JULY 30, 2015

How to keep our Black boys alive The recent spotlight on systematic racial profiling and police brutality against Black boys and men has exposed a painful truth long known in the Black community: just about every Black male seems to have a story about being stopped by the police. All live daily with the understanding it can happen to any of them at any time.

Terrell Strayhorn is director of the Center for Higher Education Enterprise at the Ohio State University and a professor of higher education in the Department of Educational Studies in the College of Education and Human Ecology. None of these credentials mattered when Strayhorn was pulled over in his new car by a White police officer in June. “…So I’m in my car, in my good hard-earned money car, and then comes a blue light in my rearview mirror. … And I watched an officer who does not know me come up to my window and say, ‘Mister, I need to see your license and registration.’ And I got ready to reach for it, and he reached for his gun – and I said, ‘Oh, my God. I know how this ends…

‘Move now’ “I put my hands back and I

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN NNPA COLUMNIST

said, ‘Do I have permission to do what you just asked me to do?’

And the cop said, ‘Yes, you can now move.’” Only then did Strayhorn go ahead and pull out his registration and license, along with his university identification card, though the officer didn’t seem to care.

“He said, ‘Do you know why I stopped you?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Because you don’t look old enough to drive this car.’ It sounded like a compliment, but then I had to remind him – in my head, not out loud – that in this country actually, [when] you get a driver’s license, you’re free to drive any car.”

Recounting the story for the Children’s Defense Fund training for college-age students preparing to teach at CDF Freedom Schools, Strayhorn said: “When you are mistreated, deemed guilty before you are innocent, and oppressed by that form of

unbridled, misused power and authority, it is infuriating. It is offensive. It is enraging…The rage just started in my pinky toe and it climbed all up my body.

“But, thank God, I had what I’m going to say is the No.1 thing: if you’re going to teach [our children] anything – teach them literacy, teach them numeracy, teach them vocabulary, teach them history, teach them political science, but listen – teach them how to control their rage.”

Teach the language He continued. “…While we’re teaching them how to control their rage, giving them the language to have that conversation, they need words for that encounter with the police officer, that encounter with the neighbor. The reason why people fight is because words are not present for them to have the conversation.

Give them the literacy tools so they can have the conversation.

Teach them rage is natural; rage against this thing; rage against inequality – but control it in the face of authority that can take your life, because the end of the thing is we want them to live.”

The critical next step has to be channeling rage at deeply embed-

Clinton, Obama election-year posturing In July 2005, I wrote the following: “With under five percent of the world’s people, the US accounts for 25 percent of the planet’s prisoners. More than half its 2.2 million prisoners come from the one eighth of its population that is Black. Today, an astounding three percent of all African-Americans languish in prisons and jails, and nearly as many more are on probation, parole, bail, house arrest or court supervision... Right now, the shadow of prison squats at the corners of, and often at the center of nearly every Black family’s life in this nation.”

Last week, President Obama repeated some of these same figures, and they are pretty much the same. The president then announced the release of forty-some nonviolent federal drug offenders out of a total of about 70,000, and stopped in at a federal prison. The same day, ex-president Bill Clinton offered a half-hearted “apology” for his 1990s crime bills, which he admitted “set the stage” for state and federal governments to nearly double the US prison population.

Why? Why did President Obama wait 6 ½ years into his presidency to say the basic damning numbers and free a token handful of drug war prisoners? And how come Bill Clinton – fifteen years out of office – chose last week to publicly admit that Black mass incarceration was maybe not the best public policy?

Justifies Black pain BRUCE A. DIXON BLACK AGENDA REPORT

The short answer? Hillary Clinton is running for president.

She needs that big Black vote.

Barack and Bill are working hard to position Hillary as the lesser evil, so that a large Black vote can be mobilized for her.

We shouldn’t forget, however, that mass Black incarceration has been the joint and bipartisan policy of both Republicans and Democrats. The federal prison budget rose every year but one in the Clinton and Bush years. So far, the Obama years look about the same.

The First Black President approved new federal Supermax solitary prisons, and his Justice Department went to court to keep thousands behind the walls who should have been freed when Congress relaxed the crack-to-powder sentence disparity.

Why is Black mass incarceration the bipartisan policy of America’s rulers?

It’s not about a continuation of slavery or to get free prison labor; nine out of ten prisoners do no work at all. And it’s not because prisons are especially profitable. Apart from immigration prisons under Obama, privatization has never been big enough to drive the engine of mass incarceration at any time in the last three or four decades.

Black mass incarceration serves the vital purpose of morally justifying America’s viciously unequal and racist economic and social order. The prison state does this by creating mostly Black and Brown class of permanently stigmatized and “unworthy” poor who can be portrayed as not deserving decent housing, real educations, affordable health care, dignity or jobs at living wages and whose precarious lives and devastated communities can be blamed on anything except the failure of neoliberal capitalism to provide bread, education, housing dignity or justice.

The more unjust and unequal capitalist America becomes, the more it needs prisons, and that stigmatized class becomes defined by them. Their precarious lives are also a standing lesson to millions more with falling wages and rising debts to shut up and suck it up or this could be you.

We at Black Agenda Report have been talking about Black mass incarceration for ten years now. We’re glad that presidents Bill and Barack have rediscovered it – even if only just in time to get another Democrat elected – which for them is about all that matters.

Bruce Dixon is managing editor of BlackAgendaReport. com.

40 reasons Blacks and the poor are incarcerated Editor’s note: This is Part 5. Other reasons will be listed in upcoming weeks.

24. Poor people get jail, and jail makes people worse off. The poorest people, those who had to remain in jail since their arrest, were four times more likely to receive a prison sentence than those who got out on bail. There are tens of thousands of rapes inside jails and prisons each year.

The Department of Justice reports more than 4,000 inmates are mur-

BILL QUIGLEY GUEST COMMENTATOR

dered inside each year. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy told Congress recently, “This idea of total incarceration just isn’t working. And it’s not humane. We [society and Congress and the legal

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: OBAMA’S HURDLES

profession] have no interest in corrections; nobody looks at it.”

25. Average prison sentences are much longer than they used to be, especially for people of color. Since 1990, the average time for property crimes has gone up 24 percent, and time for drug crimes has gone up 36 percent. In the U.S. federal system, nearly 75 percent of the people sent to prison for drug offenses are Black or Latino.

26. There is about a 70 percent chance that an African-American man without a high school diploma will be imprisoned by the time he reaches his midthirties; the rate for White males without a high school diploma is 53 percent lower. In the 1980s,

TOM JANSSEN, THE NETHERLANDS

ded structural racism and blatant injustice into “impassioned enthusiasm” for the larger fight.

We must organize ourselves and provide our children positive alternatives to the miseducation in so many schools and the dangers on the street from law enforcement agents.

Strayhorn concluded, “We’ve got to pursue freedom and justice not just for Black people, but pursue freedom and justice for Latino folks, for Native American people, for gay people…for everybody.

Freedom and justice for all.”

The flag flap is just foolishness You can remove the Confederate flag from the flagpoles and grounds of political institutions, but you can’t take the Confederate attitudes from the hearts and minds of politicians and other conservatives!

Black people are oftentimes too symbolic. That is why many of us enjoy marches more than we enjoy movements. We enjoy holidays more than we embrace history. We appreciate political promises far more than we enjoy direct positive political actions!

I don’t want my tax dollars to fund anything related to Confederate flags, philosophies, values or any other negative idea, institution or remembrance of crimes and atrocities inflicted on Black people in America during slavery days or current days.

Doesn’t bother me On the other hand, however, when racists act racist or crave symbols of racism like flags, it doesn’t bother me. I’m not surprised when some Whites in America, in Germany or in other parts of the world become fond of symbols that reflect how they truly feel.

Just like the three-piece suitwearing African-American is called a “nigger” the same as the dashiki-wearing Black, the Confederate flag waver could be just as bigoted as the non-flag waver who hates you, but pretends to be the Black man’s friend, confidant, supporter and admirer!

So why are we so quick to rally around and about flags, street

there was only an 8 percent difference. In New York City, for example, Blacks are jailed at nearly 12 times the rate of Whites and Latinos more than five times the rate of Whites.

27. Almost 1 of 12 Black men ages 25 to 54 are in jail or prison, compared to 1 in 60 nonBlack men. That is 600,000 African-American men – an imprisonment rate of five times that of White men.

28. Prison has become a very big private business. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) owns and runs 67 for-profit jails in 20 states with more than 90,000 beds. Along with GEO (formerly Wackenhut), these two private prison companies have donated

Charles W. Cherry II, Esq., Publisher

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That’s the message every child of every color who is “different” must internalize to break the vicious cycle of deeply embedded cultural and structural racism that pervades so many American institutions – including those too prevalent in the criminal justice system that too often takes rather than protects lives.

Marian Wright Edelman is president and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund (www. childrensdefense.org).

LUCIUS GANTT THE GANTT REPORT

names, holidays and marches, but slow as hell to come together and fight for equal rights and justice?

Why can’t we rise up and tell the world that we will defend and protect our women, our children and our communities?

Why can’t we get together and unite on our own instead of waiting to get the signal from and the approval of our enemies that hate us the most?

Why do we only love the socalled Black heroes that the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy want us to love?

Love our own Every Black man and women doesn’t have to emulate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to be a good person. All of our ancestors (whether nonviolent or violent) that stood up and spoke out against the misrepresentations, mistreatment, exploitation, the beatings and the killings perpetrated on us by people with devilish intentions deserved to be recognized and honored!

Instead of wasting your time and energy on a Confederate flag protest, you could be honoring and displaying and flying flags that mean something to you and your ancestors, your heritage and your people!

Buy Gantt’s latest book, “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net.

more than $10 million to candidates and spent another $25 million lobbying, according to the Washington Post. They lobby for more incarceration and have doubled the number of prisoners they hold over the past ten years.

29. The Sentencing Project reports that over 159,000 people are serving life sentences in the U.S. Nearly half are African-American, and 1 in 6 are Latino. The number of people serving life in prison has gone up by more than 400 percent since 1984.

Nearly 250,000 prisoners in the U.S. are over age 50.

Bill Quigley is legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor.

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JULY 24 – JULY 30, 2015

EDITORIAL

HBCU alumni must take up George Cooper’s work Editor’s note: Dr. George Cooper, a long-time Historically Black College University administrator, died July 15. Cooper, a Florida A&M University alumnus and former president of South Carolina State University, was the primary liaison between the federal government and HBCUs.

HBCU DIGEST GUEST COMMENTARY

Presidents and supporters all around the country are mourning the death of White House Initiative on HBCUs Executive Director Dr. George Cooper.

Dr. Cooper held a unique distinction in HBCU culture; a front seat at some of the best and worst Dr. George Cooper scenarios for Black colleges we’ve seen in the last two generations.

As a policy administrator with the US Department of Agricul- Dr. Cooper saw the ture, Dr. Cooper helped to develop and monitor federal and state best and the worst of programs that positioned HBCUs as irreplaceable partners in delivHBCUs. To honor him, ering best practices and business building strategies to farmers and agriculturalists all over the coun- we should continue try.

Empowered students As a professor and academic executive, he helped to teach and create curriculum around these practices, empowering students to be career ready for jobs in the public and private sector in agriculture, the world’s strongest and most essential industry.

But for all of the hard work he put in as an administrator and advocate, most know him for his work in presiding over one of the most corrupt and controversial periods for any HBCU in history.

As president of South Carolina State, his board of trustees overspent budget, corrupted its own governance ability with bribes, political favors and alliances with certain faculty and alumni, and watched the school’s capacity to attract support through government funding and student enrollment dwindle to near-extinction.

Unfortunately, he was fired, rehired and then resigned in a whirlwind of confusion, secrecy and infighting amid board members who have long since retired or recently been fired by South Carolina legislature.

White House job Fortunately, because of his quiet nature and gentle spirit of collaboration and trust, the White House named him as its executive director for the Initiative on His-

his work in making the best of our schools a standard of operation and respectability, for generations to come. torically Black Colleges and Universities.

Dr. Cooper was to be the antiJohn Silvanus Wilson, the brash former executive director who offended HBCU presidents, harassed Department of Education staffers and officials to the point of being the subject of several lawsuits and EEO investigations, misrepresented his relationship with President Obama to hush complaints from HBCU officials during the 2012 reelection campaign, and who silently conceded while the Obama administration gutted HBCUs nationwide with changes to the Pell Grant and PLUS Loan programs to the loss of more than $300 million and thousands of students.

Dr. Cooper became caught between an administration which did not want – and did not politically understand how – to reverse its own damage to Black colleges, and a healthy contingent of HBCU leaders who are behind in re-

Sandra Bland video – Here’s what I saw After watching the Sandra Bland traffic stop video: • What happened to Sandra Bland when the police officer pulled her in Waller County, Texas can happen to any citizen regardless of race, gender or religion. We all should be outraged any time any officer exceeds the limits of his or her position.

• Was Sandra Bland right to express her belief that she maintained a right to not get out of her car just because a clearly enraged officer demanded her to? Absolutely! Generally and historically speaking, officers must have a warrant to effect a search. But in the case of Terry v. Ohio in 1968, the United States

CHUCK HOBBS, ESQ. GUEST COLUMNIST

Supreme Court created an exception to the warrant requirement that allows officers to briefly detain people for investigative purposes when there is a reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal activity. Such stops are known as “Terry stops.”

How it works: if an officer has some reasonable suspicion that the person may be armed and dangerous, the officer may per-

Massacre shows NRA is lone wolf’s best friend In what is becoming the new normal, another “lone wolf” opened fire on a military recruitment center in Chattanooga last week, killing four Marines and one midshipman.

No doubt you’ve seen politicians of every stripe all over TV since then, betraying fecklessness and disingenuousness in equal measure, as they waxed indignant about what law enforcement needs to do to prevent such attacks.

But it’s an indication of the influence and immunity the NRA has purchased that no politician dares to mention, let alone condemn, the role it plays in facilitating such attacks.

ANTHONY L. HALL, ESQ. FLORIDA COURIER COLUMNIST

Can’t prevent attacks It is self-evident that there is nothing law enforcement can do to prevent lone-wolf attacks.

What’s more, all of the media profiling and psychoanalyzing that invariably follow them only incentivize and embolden other lone wolves to follow fashion.

Which is why I refuse to publish their names. Am I the only one who sees the foolhardy and

A5

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: MASS SHOOTINGS IN AMERICA

defining their own missions and standards to compete within a new financial and socio-political model for American higher education.

But he went about working with presidents and chancellors to direct them to any funding sources or programs that made sense for their campuses. And he did that until his body was no longer able to match what his commitment for so long had willed it to do.

Searching for answers With his death, Cooper leaves behind a devoted family and a nation of advocates searching for answers on how to make the nation and our state governments deal justly with historically Black colleges. Students from his former school have followed the example of alumni and students in Maryland in filing a federal lawsuit against the state for inequitable funding and program duplication between its public historically Black flagship and its predominantly White colleges.

In Louisiana, Grambling and Southern are under the direction of two first-time presidents whose administrations will be shaped by force exerted on these offices

by Gov. Bobby Jindal, and the appointees on the respective system boards who do his political bidding.

In Florida, legislative influence has created a firestorm of controversy among the Florida A&M University Board of Trustees, President Elmira Mangum, and President Emeritus Frederick Humphries. Just over a year into her appointment, Dr. Mangum finds herself in the middle of a war between power wielded by Gov. Rick Scott over the FAMU board, power wielded by Dr. Humphries over FAMU alumni, and the usual growing pains associated with being a first-time president of one of the nation’s most important public flagship Black colleges.

In Alabama, Alabama State University President Gwendolyn Boyd remains embroiled in quiet battles with her board and pressure from Gov. Robert Bentley to reframe the school’s mission within political contexts. And for good measure, Bentley appears to also be seeking to damage the reputation of Alabama A&M President Andrew Hugine, who has successfully built brand and capacity at the school since his arrival.

In North Carolina, talk of merg-

George Cooper saw all of these things firsthand, and in the last months of his life, grew to know the frightening details of what lies ahead for many HBCUs. And unfortunately, there is no optimism that his work and quiet leadership will be replaced.

A slate of retirements and resignations in the White House Initiative has left the office well below capacity – essentially reduced to no more than three employees, including Deputy Director Ivory Toldson.

If Dr. Toldson is to appropriately continue the critical work of the office, the Department of EdKeep up with what’s happenucation must make it an immediate priority to restaff the office, ing on HBCU campuses by logto have serious discussion with ging on to www.hbcudigest.com.

form a brief “pat-down” of the person. This pat-down is known as a “frisk.”

Separately, the United States Supreme Court held in Arizona v.

Johnson that once a law enforcement officer has conducted a valid traffic stop, the officer is justified in conducting a frisk of the person for weapons if the officer reasonably suspects that the person stopped is armed and dangerous.

See the commonality between both? The officer must reasonably believe that the person is armed and dangerous. Sandra Bland was neither armed nor dangerous.

An officer during even a routine stop for a traffic violation may develop facts that lead him or her to order a driver or passenger out of the car. For example, the smell of burning weed, the sighting of other drugs in plain view, the sighting of a weapon, or the extreme belligerence of the driver could

allow for such a request to get out of the car for officer safety. In Sandra Bland’s case, however, none of these factors was present.

What Sandra Bland was, in this officer’s eyes, was “uppity.”

From time immemorial, certain racist Whites have detested any Black person they consider to be a smart ass or “uppity.” From time immemorial, the penalty for being uppity either included a beating – which Bland received immediately – or death, which it appears Bland received eventually.

To that end, it is awesome that the Bland family has retained its own medical examiner for autopsy purposes. And it is good to know that this officer’s stop has already been deemed improper and that Bland’s death is being investigated as a homicide and not a suicide.

• Would Sandra Bland still have been alive had she not questioned the officer? May-

self-defeating nature of this kind of media attention? It clearly does nothing to prevent other attacks.

On the other hand, it is equally self-evident that there is something politicians can do to limit the carnage such attacks cause.

That ‘something’ can be summed up in two words: gun control.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has perpetrated a brazen and unconscionable fraud on the American people by pretending to be arch-defenders of their right to keep and bear arms. The NRA is just the lobbying arm of gun manufacturers. Its sole mission is to ensure that those manufactures have the right to sell as many guns of every type to as many people as possible.

had access to a handgun, instead of the assault rifles he used, there would have been no “gunfire … in rapid bursts, too many shots to count.” The Marines would have had a chance to duck and run for cover.

Unfortunately, the words “gun control” have become as sacrilege in American politics as the words “democratic freedoms” have become in Russian politics.

Only this explains why – even in the wake of the December 2012 lone-wolf attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School, which killed twenty children and six adults – President Obama could not even get Congress to pass legislation requiring universal background checks on all firearm sales, let alone legislation banning the sale of assault weapons.

Reduce deaths

STEVE SACK, THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

er still surrounds its public HBCUs, specifically at Elizabeth City State University. In a few weeks, students will again take up the public fight for voting rights in the state, and one of the brightest spots in HBCU culture – North Carolina Central University – has been the target of that familiar political weapon against Black leadership: the public audit.

In Georgia, Fort Valley State and Albany State are the constant subject of merger among state higher education officials, so much so that many on both campuses it is no longer a question of if the schools will be merged with PWIs – but when.

In Pennsylvania, Cheyney University continues to mull options for preserving its future through lawsuit and judicial remedy. With debts high and the hopes of legislative allies low, prospects for the school’s survival appear to be less than positive.

Saw it all

In this case, if a ban on assault weapons and limit on magazine ‘Protecting’ recruiters clips were in effect, the death toll Hence, the manifest absurdity might have been one instead of of Marines at military recruitment five. After all, if this lone wolf only centers – who are prohibited from

the president’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs about programmatic funding and student support goals, and to generate interest from all federal agencies in utilizing Black colleges to advance industrial and economic objectives for the country.

Time to work But more than this, HBCU students and alumni must hasten the cause of HBCU excellence to state and federal government agencies.

We must begin the work of writing letters non-stop, calling nonstop, assembling non-stop, and giving non-stop to our schools to see that their better days are truly ahead of them. Nothing for Black colleges will come without our assistance or insistence. They are not bodies that will magically heal with our best wishes and minimal giving.

If we can’t give back monetarily, we should volunteer to recruit at local high school fairs, or to return to campus to volunteer in doing clerical and administrative work to ease department workload that can make innovation and implementation a full-time duty for faculty and staff. If the list of states and campuses with very serious implications for the future of HBCUs does not move you, then likely, very little else will.

Dr. Cooper saw the best and the worst of HBCUs. To honor him, we should continue his work in making the best of our schools a standard of operation and respectability, for generations to come.

be. It depends. This question reminds me of something my late father often said, which is that there are a whole lot of “right” Negroes in the cemetery.

But was Sandra Bland not an American? Does she not have a right, especially as a woman, to feel safe in her own vehicle? Of course she does.

Former Leon County Judge Don Modesitt, a man who served as state attorney prior to becoming a judge, once told an officer in a case I was prosecuting that “Your hurt feelings does not make probable cause.” It is unfortunate that too many officers, both good ones and bad ones, do not understand this simple truth.

Chuck Hobbs is former prosecutor who is now a Tallahassee-based defense attorney in his own firm, the Law Office of Charles Hobbs II. Contact him at chuck_hobbs@yahoo.com.

bearing arms – having to worry now about some psycho legally purchasing assault rifles to hunt them down like sitting ducks.

That’s an absurdity made farcical by redneck vigilantes now showing up at these centers – bearing military-style assault weapons and vowing to protect the unarmed recruiters.

The American people accept gun violence these days as readily as American politicians accept NRA donations. Therefore, it seems pointless to get too emotionally or politically exercised about the growing scourge of mass shootings – whether perpetrated by ISIS sympathizers or American psychos.

Anthony L. Hall is a Bahamian native with an international law practice in Washington, D.C. Read his columns and daily weblog at www.theipinionsjournal.com.

TOJ A6

NATION

JULY 24 – JULY 30, 2015

Obama’s late father looms over trip to Kenya President has been asked to visit family during trip to Africa on counterterrorism efforts

BY LESLEY CLARK MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU/ TNS

WASHINGTON–Barack Obama is defined in many ways by something he never really had.

A father.

He quizzes golf partners and friends about their dads. He leans in when he talks with troubled teens about the absence of a father in his own life. The loss shapes his role as a father and drives him to try to help others escape what a close friend calls “the voids in your life.”

His late father, thus, looms large when Obama visits Kenya next week for the first time as president. He may not visit the village where his father lived. He may not go to see the gravesite freshly decorated just in case.

But his Kenyan father will be very much on his mind, as always.

The father Obama scarcely knew was born in Kenya in 1936 and died there, mostly a stranger to his son, whom he left as an infant. But there’s little doubt that Obama has been indelibly shaped by the vacuum.

“It motivated him to want to do better,” said Valerie Jarrett, a close friend and Obama’s senior White House adviser. “His message to young people is you don’t have to be defined by the voids in your life.”

How parents met Obama points to his father and his unrealized potential — he died at 46 — as a source of his ambition.

“Every man is trying to either live up to his father’s expectations or make up for his father’s mistakes. And I suppose that may explain my particular malady,” he wrote in his 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope.”

Now Obama returns to his father’s homeland, his ambition elevating his family in one generation from a tiny village in Kenya to the White House.

The elder Barack Obama came to the United States in 1960, part of a scholarship program to educate young Africans eager to slip the bonds of British colonial rule.

He met Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, a White woman from Kansas, at the University of Hawaii in 1960. They married and welcomed a son, born in Honolulu in August 1961.

Fatal car crash The senior Obama left when the future president was 2, heading to Harvard University and then to Kenya. His son, raised by his mother and her parents in

PETE SOUZA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS

Then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama emerges with his grandmother, Sarah Hussein Obama, from her house in his family’s village of Kogelo, Kenya on Aug. 26, 2006.

Hawaii and Indonesia, would see his father just once more, for a month. He was 10.

Brilliant but troubled, the elder Obama became an economist in Kenya, which gained independence in 1963. After early promise, his life “ended up being filled with disappointments,” the Barack younger Obama Obama Sr. has said. A descent into alcoholism ended with a fatal car crash in Nairobi in 1982.

Obama made his first pilgrimage to Kenya in 1987, seeking to reconcile his own racial identity as he searched for an understanding of his father.

Though his mother spoke positively of his father, Obama found his story more complicated. His father had children with several wives, was an alcoholic and a womanizer who “did not treat his children well,” Obama told Newsweek in 2008.

‘Luo-American’ This trip, built around a summit in Nairobi and meetings with Kenyan officials, will be Obama’s fourth to the country. Expectations are considerable: The government plans to spend 1 million Kenyan shillings — about $16,000 — to spruce up his father’s and grandfather’s graves in the family’s village of Kogelo, a seven-hour drive from Nairobi, according to The Star newspaper.

“Kenyans don’t think of (Obama) as African-American, they think of him as KenyanAmerican,” EJ Hogendoorn, deputy program director for Africa at the International Crisis Group, said at a Washington briefing on Obama’s trip. “They think of him as Luo-American,” a reference to his Obama’s father’s and grandfather’s tribal roots.

It’s unclear whether Obama will visit the remote town as he did on previous trips, or meet with family members who include aunts, uncles, step-siblings and his Kenyan step-grandmother, known as Mama Sarah.

Invitation from ‘Granny’ The third wife of Obama’s paternal grandfather, Mama Sarah lives in Kogelo and has asked Obama to visit “to pay respect to his father’s grave,” AFP reported.

She’s vowed to cook a traditional Kenyan meal for her grandson: “It does not matter whether Barack is a senator or a president,” she said. “He will have what I have prepared for him.”

Though not related by blood, Obama called Mama Sarah “Granny” in the memoir that resulted from his first trip, “Dreams From My Father.” Published in 1995, the book would serve as a source for voters wanting to understand Obama’s heritage, and as fodder for conspiracy theorists who sought to portray Obama as foreign born.

Obama said a bit wistfully this week that visiting Kenya as a private citizen was “probably more

meaningful to me than visiting as president, because I can actually get outside of the hotel room or a conference center.”

Counterterrorism focus Obama said he hopes the visit, beyond being “symbolically important,” demonstrates that the U.S. sees itself as a partner with Kenya and other sub-Saharan countries.

He said he expects a focus on counterterrorism efforts as the Somalia-based terrorist group, al Shabaab, continues to threaten Kenya and neighboring countries, including Ethiopia, where Obama also will visit.

Obama said he plans to address corruption in Kenya, which ranks as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, placing 145 out of 175 on Transparency International’s corruption index. The U.S. wants to “continue to encourage democracy and the reduction of corruption inside that country that sometimes has held back this incredibly gifted and blessed country,” he said.

‘Hole in a child’s life’ As president, Obama has spoken candidly about growing up without a father, saying he’s made an extra effort “to be a good dad for my own children.”

He’s admitted to drug use in high school and warned that children who grow up without a father are more likely to live in poverty, drop out of school, end up in prison or abuse drugs and alcohol.

“I say all this as someone who grew up without a father in my own life,” Obama said at a Father’s Day event at the White House in 2010, calling it “something that leaves a hole in a child’s life.”

Obama’s remarks on fatherhood and responsibility, often aimed at African-Americans, have not always been well received.

Criticized for comments The Rev. Jesse Jackson charged in 2008 that Obama was “talking down” to African-Americans. Essayist Ta-Nehisi Coates accused Obama in a 2013 Atlantic magazine piece of being tougher on Black audiences than White, calling him “singularly the scold of ‘Black America.’ ’’ Obama makes no apologies.

“I am a Black man who grew up without a father and I know the cost that I paid for that,” he said in May at a poverty summit. “I also know that I have the capacity to break that cycle, and as a consequence, I think my daughters are better off.”

That same month he announced he would make permanent the My Brother’s Keeper initiative he launched in the wake of several racially charged deaths of young men.

“A mission for me and for (first lady Michelle Obama) not just for the rest of my presidency, but for the rest of my life,” he said.

Wilson keeping up pressure to free Nigerian schoolgirls

BY CHRIS ADAMS MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, who has pushed for months to pressure the Nigerian government to help free girls taken hostage by the Boko Haram organization, renewed her call on the day that country’s new president was scheduled to visit Congress.

In a Tuesday afternoon news conference, Wilson — a Democrat from Miami Gardens — both offered a welcome to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and urged him to be proactive in rooting out the terrorist group Boko Haram.

“Those who are still missing, we pray for them on a daily basis,” she said in a Capitol Hill press event on the girls, who were abducted more than a year ago. “And until someone can show me a mass grave where all of them are buried — or show me proof that they are gone forever — we will continue to tweet, every day, ‘Bring back our girls.’ ”

Most still missing About 275 schoolgirls from Borno State in northern Nigeria were kidnapped by the militant group in April 2014. While some of the girls escaped, most remain missing or in captivity, despite efforts by the United States

and other nations to free them.

Their plight has spurred the ongoing #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign and other worldwide efforts to publicize the issue and to pressure the Nigerian government.

Wilson has been a leader in a campaign to help free the girls, prodding her colleagues in Congress into action.

Buhari’s March election win was regarded as free and fair. He beat the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, on pledges to clamp down on Boko Haram and to root out corruption.

Bahari, Obama meet On the House Triangle patio by the U.S. Capitol, Wilson joined other lawmakers, African advocacy groups and members of civil rights and other groups.

She was also joined by one of the girls who escaped and is now living in Virginia.

Buhari met with members of Congress on Tuesday evening.

President Barack Obama met with Buhari on Monday, and the two leaders talked about the Nigerian’s goal to combat terrorism and other extremists.

“Since taking office, President Buhari has received international praise for making this goal a top priority for his administration, which my colleagues and I wholeheartedly support,” Wilson said in a statement before

DIAN ZHAG/MCCLATCHY DC/TNS

On April 15, the one-year anniversary of the Boko Haram kidnappings of nearly 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, center, greets Saa, second from left, and Patience, right, in Washington, D.C. The girls were just some of the ones who escaped. the afternoon event.

“We hope to learn after his visit to Capitol Hill that he also has a very clear agenda to secure the return of the 219 Chibok girls who are still missing after their abduction by the terrorist group last April.”

‘Deserves more news’ As for her role, Wilson said after the event that while she thinks the new Nigerian president is more responsive than the previous one, she would not let up her pressure: “I’m not a person to not pressure,” she told McClatchy.

“And I just think it deserves more news,” she added. “I think it deserves more notoriety, in the mainstream press. And I’m determined to keep it at least on social media. That’s the best I can do. I don’t own a newspaper or a radio station. But I do know how to tweet.”

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IFE/FAITH

JULY 24 – JULY 30, 2015

How to keep dogs safe in summer heat See page B3

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

A review of Harper Lee’s new book See page B5

SOUTH FLORIDA / TREASURE COAST AREA

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WWW.FLCOURIER.COM

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CAPTURING

HARMONY AND HATE

IN SOUTH CAROLINA

PHOTOS BY DUANE C. FERNANDEZ SR./HARDNOTTSPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

Top: An Imperial officer of the Ku Klux Klan from Kentucky holds his Confederate flag at the July 18 rally in Columbia, S.C. Above: A Black officer has to help keep the peace at the KKK rally. The Klan spewed plenty of racial slurs to Blacks protesting against the rally.

Courier photographer visits Emmanuel A.M.E. Church and attends KKK rally

BY DUANE C. FERNANDE SR. FLORIDA COURIER

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Above: Blacks watch as the KKK rally at the State House.

Right: A Klan member gives a Hitler salute.

Below left: While the KKK rallied in Columbia, the scene at Emmanuel A.M.E. was quiet and peaceful.

Below right: The church continues to draw plenty paying their respects.

ast weekend, I took a road trip from my home in Daytona Beach to South Carolina to photograph the KKK rally in Columbia.

For years, I’ve captured scenes of civil unrest in Florida and the nation’s capital, photographing everyday people, civil right leaders and law enforcement. From the Trayvon Martin rallies in Sanford to the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, I had to be there.

Capturing those images is important.

It is history and I need to record it.

Even though I had heard about the hate and racism against Blacks, I didn’t experience that while growing up in Hartford, Conn. Since moving to the South in 2008, many of the images I’ve seen through my camera lens have been quite disturbing.

Paying respect My trip to the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) rally at the State House in Columbia started out peaceful. My first stop was in Charleston to visit the Emanuel A.M.E. Church on Calhoun Street. As I arrived at my destination, I could see the memorial in front of the church. There were hundreds of people visiting the memorial and paying respect to the nine African-Americans who were killed on June 17 as they worshiped in church.

The outpouring of banners, signs and flowers was a humbling and overwhelming experience as I read and viewed each sign and banner. While the public and I were paying respect to the victims of this hate crime in Charleston, there was a group of hate mongers gathering in Columbia.

No more hoods The KKK’s rally on Saturday, July 18, at the State House in Columbia was to protest the July 10 removal of the Confederate flag in front of the South Carolina State Capitol building. I made the 115 miles west to Columbia to see this rally for myself.

What an eye-opening experience. If I hadn’t experienced this for myself, I wouldn’t have believed it.

The white hoods and sheets were no more. KKK members were mostly in black attire, some that looked like uniforms, proudly waving their Confederate flags. One telling sign even touted the KKK as “The Original Boys N the Hood.’’

Racial slurs aplenty Tensions were high. I didn’t see the reported clash between KKK members and the Black Panthers or the arrests reported on the national news. However, I was expecting it to get much uglier than it did.

To the African-Americans who stood by in protest of the rally, the KKK directed a barrage of racial slurs – “nigger’’ and “spook’’ – to Blacks and constantly “flipped the bird’’ (gesturing with the middle finger) to any nearby protesters who disagreed with the hateful words they were spewing toward minorities.

Officers everywhere Law enforcement was thick and officers had parts of the Capital roped off.

There were snipers on the roof of the building and many officers were armed with assault rifles and riot gear.

With the number of police shootings recorded recently of Black males, for me, an African-American male, this scene still was not all that comforting.

As I drove home, I reflected on the experience of that day and pondered the future of this country. And while I’m hopeful, I expect that I’ll be capturing many more images that show the reality of race relationships in America.

CALENDAR

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JULY 24 – JULY 30, 2015

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FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Riverview: Dr. Reba Haley, a pastor and psychologist will host a one-day women’s conference on Aug. 15 at Covenant Family Church. Haley recently released her second book on marriage titled “I Only Have Eyes for You. More information: Rebahaley@ outlook.com.

information: www.mominclf.org.

Pompano Beach: The Blanche Ely High School class of 1965 is celebrating its 50th reunion July 25-31. More information: Call Bettye Allen Walker at 954-8490980.

Orlando: D.L. Hughley, George Lopez, Cedric the Entertainer, Eddie Griffin and Charlie Murphy are scheduled to be part of the Black and Brown Comedy Get Down on Aug. 7 at Amway Center.

Tampa: Catch the neon-soul duo Floetry on Aug. 5 at the Straz Center and Aug. 6 at the Ritz Theatre & Museum in Jacksonville.

Tampa: An Injustice & Inequality in Tampa’s African American Community in the Buckhorn Era, the first in a Community Conversations series, is 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Aug. 1 at the HOPE Center, 4902 N. 22nd St. Register by calling 813-420-1177 or email.

Free admission.

St. Petersburg: Tickets are on sale for a July 25 show with Kenny “Babyface’’ Edmonds at the Mahaffey Theatre.

Orlando: Catch reggae artists Beres Hammond and Tarrus Riley on Aug. 22 at Hard Rock Live Orlando.

Miami: Janet Jackson’s Unbreakable World Tour stops at AmericanAirlinesArena on Sept.

20, Orlando’s Amway Center on Sept. 23 and Tampa’s Amalie Arena on Sept. 24.

Hollywood: Smokey Robinson takes the stage July 25 at Hard Rock Live Hollywood for an 8 p.m. show.

LAMMAN RUCKER & JUDGE GLENDA HATCHETT The National Black Chamber of Commerce will host its 23rd annual conference Aug. 5-8 at the Hilton Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood, Fla. It will feature a business competition for young entrepreneurs. Celebrity guests during the event will include actor and entrepreneur Lamman Rucker and Judge Glenda Hatchett. Complete details: www.NBCCNOW2015.org.

LILLETTE JENKINSWISNER

Jacksonville: The comedian Sinbad performs Aug. 7 at the Florida Theatre Jacksonville.

Orlando: The Opal Network Alliance’s South Florida Women’s Summit is Oct. 28-29 at the at the Bonaventure Resort & Spa in Weston. More information: www. onatoday.com.

Legendary concert jazz pianist Lillette Jenkins-Wisner, 91, also known as “Queen of the Keys,’’ gives what’s being called a farewell performance Sept. 10-13 at Ruth Eckerd Hall. The concert will feature Jade Simmons.

St. Petersburg: Catch Jill Scott on Aug. 8 at Hard Rock Live Hollywood or Aug. 9 at the Mahaffey Theatre in St. Petersburg.

Clearwater: Mothers of Minors (M.O.M.) will host the «Showers of Love» Community Baby Shower from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Clearwater MLK Jr. Neighborhood Center, 1201 Douglas Ave. More

Tampa: Candy Lowe hosts Tea & Conversation every Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. at 3911 N. 34th St., Suite B. More information: 813-394-6363.

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Above are members of the Sigma Beta Club based in Tampa.

Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity’s Tampa youth group wins top award at Conclave SPECIAL TO THE COURIER

The youth organization of the Tampa chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity received the Southern Region Outstanding Chapter Award at the fraternity’s Conclave (international meeting) held July 15-19 in Little Rock Ark. Jamel Jackson, a junior at Jefferson High School in Tampa, also won the Outstanding Member Award.

The fraternity presented

Jackson with a scholarship.

The Sigma Beta Club, made up of 25 boys 13-18, is the non-profit arm of the Gamma Eta Sigma Chapter (Tampa alumni) of Phi Beta Sigma. The boys in the Sigma Beta Club have an average 4.5 grade point average on the 5.0 scale.

In the early 1950s, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity developed the youth auxiliary group under the direction of Dr. Parlett L. Moore, who was the fraternity’s

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National Director of Education. Moore was concerned about the changing needs in communities and recognized the important role that Sigma men could play in the lives of youth.

On April 23, 1954, the first Sigma Beta Club chapter was organized in Montgomery, Ala. The Sigma Beta Clubs’ principles of focus emphasize culture, athletics, social and educational needs.

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‘Falcon’ in flight at Disney World it’s not

Actor Anthony Mackie, who portrays “Falcon’’ in the new “Ant-Man’’ movie, takes flight on July 20 on the Astro Orbiter at the Magic Kingdom Park in Lake Buena Vista. Mackie was vacationing with his family at Walt Disney World Resort.

Read All About Black Life, Statewide!

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JULY 24 – JULY 30, 2015

HEALTH

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How to keep dogs safe in summer heat

Heatstroke signs

Dehydration, heatstrokes can happen with pets in extremely hot climates

An overheated dog risks going into heatstroke, a condition that could rapidly advance into a lifethreatening situation.

For that reason, all dog owners should know the warning signs of heatstroke, said Tim Morton, a veterinarian and assistant director of the city of Fort Worth Animal Care and Control center.

Signs of heatstroke in dogs include excessive panting, appearing disoriented, lethargy, feeling very warm to the touch, nausea, bloody diarrhea and seizures.

“For a pet experiencing heatstroke, there is need for immediate attention from a veterinarian,” said Morton.

On the way to the vet, the dog can be wrapped in cool — not icy — towels so the body can begin cooling.

Vets work to further cool down the pet’s body temperature to prevent the organs from shutting down, Morton said.

BY TERI WEBSTER FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM/TNS

Soaring temperatures and the blazing sun can spell trouble for dogs left outside in the heat. And with 100-degree days playing out in some parts of the country, that means it’s time to take extra care to keep your dog comfortable and healthy, experts say.

Mostly, experts say, be smart.

Walk your dogs or take them to dog parks during the early morning or late evening hours, when it’s cooler. If the pavement is hot to your touch, it’s probably too hot for your dog’s paws. And never leave them inside a vehicle.

“Dogs left outside must have access to water, food and adequate shelter,” said Whitney Hanson, director of development and communications for the Humane Society of North Texas. “In the summer months, it’s crucial that the shelter includes shade, and if possible, some kind of breeze.”

Dogs don’t sweat Without adequate shade and water, dogs can experience dehydration or heatstroke, conditions that are life-threatening if left untreated. Other problems associated with warmer weather are parasites, sunburned skin and hot pavement. The good news is that all of these things are preventable.

The bad news is that dogs don’t sweat, which means they can quickly become dehydrated.

“We sweat as humans and dogs don’t,” said Lori Bierbrier, a staff veterinarian with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals national office in New York. “While they’re panting, they’re also losing fluid, and they can become dehydrated, as well.”

High humidity levels also make it more difficult for dogs to cool themselves.

Brachycephalic dogs — those

Mosquitoes and fleas RODGER MALLISON/FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM/TNS

Sasha, a 2-year-old German Shepherd, gets a cool drink of water after playing with owner Janet de Oliveira at Tipps Canine Hollow Dog Park on July 11 in North Richland Hills, Texas. with flat or short snouts, such as pugs, bulldogs and Boston terriers — have an increased risk of heat exhaustion because their nasal passages do not allow an ample flow of air, Bierbrier said.

Use sunscreen Besides the temperature, other factors to keep in mind are a dog’s age, tolerance to heat and existing health conditions, Bierbrier said.

What if your dog loves the outdoors, even in the blistering heat?

“You can purchase a baby swimming pool with just a little bit of water in it,” Hanson said.

“But it’s not a substitute for having shade. You can take a jug of water and freeze it and leave it in the dog’s shelter area so he can lean up against it and keep cool.”

Similar to people, dogs can get

sunburn from too much direct exposure to sunlight. Using sunscreen is a good idea, especially for white-haired or other fair dogs, said Hanson. Be sure to ask your vet for a recommendation on which sunscreen product to use, she added.

No hot cars Heat-related problems can even happen indoors. Turning off the air-conditioning or keeping it too low can cause a pet to become uncomfortable or overheated.

“Definitely, it can get really hot inside,” Bierbrier said. “Keeping it at a cool temperature is necessary for the safety of the pet. If it gets really hot, it can unfortunately cause trouble.”

Leaving a dog in a car on a hot day is one of the most dangerous

things a pet owner can do.

If the temperature is 95 outside, the inside of a car can reach 114 degrees in 10 minutes and 129 degrees in 30 minutes. So the time it takes to go to a grocery store can become very uncomfortable — and in some cases, deadly — for a dog left in a hot car.

It’s safer to just leave pets at home, said Hanson.

“It’s rarely intentional abuse or cruelty,” said Hanson. “It’s really a form of overconfidence. No one thinks it will happen to them.

They think they’ll just run into the store for five minutes, and then five minutes turns into 15 minutes. Within that time, the temperature inside the car has skyrocketed, even if the windows are cracked.” allow researchers to better understand how the human brain functions, approaches to treatment are following suit.

“There’s a growing recognition, both with scientists and patients, that depression is a brain problem — a problem with chemicals in our circuitry,” said Dr. Paul Croarkin, a psychiatrist with the Mayo Clinic. “The fact that we’re soon going to have more and more offerings in that regard is a positive thing.”

30 clinical trials

RANCY PENCH/SACRAMENTO BEE/TNS

Nicholas O’Madden, who suffers from anxiety and depression, is prepared for a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) treatment by technician Cyndra Robbins at TMS Health Solutions on July 2 in Sacramento, Calif.

New treatment for depression involves magnetic currents

BY SAMMY CAIOLA SACRAMENTO BEE/TNS

15 seconds during the 50-minute session.

Depression lifted from Nick O’Madden’s life like a set of foggy glasses being wiped clean.

Earlier this summer, O’Madden, 31, felt he was living in a distracted haze, sprinkled with nighttime panic attacks.

Now, after undergoing an emerging high-tech treatment involving magnetic currents, he said he’s literally seeing the world in a new light.

“Colors are brighter,” said O’Madden, a mental health therapist who lives in Elk Grove, Calif.

“Last night, I was looking at the moon, and it just looked clearer and brighter and more beautiful ... It’s almost kind of scary to see that at first, it’s so new to me.”

He described the changes from a reclined medical chair at TMS Health Solutions, a treatment center in Sacramento’s Campus Commons area that specializes in transcranial magnetic stimulation. With a metal coil positioned near his forehead, he spoke between bouts of jackhammeresque pulsing that erupted every

Excites cell activity The “train pulses,” as technicians call the strings of sound, are actually the back-and-forth flexing of the metal coil as the device sends out a 2-tesla-strong magnetic current. The coil creates a magnetic field that reaches 2 to 3 centimeters into brain matter to stimulate the dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortex, the poker chipsized area responsible for regulating mood, memory and decision-making.

An estimated 7 percent of American adults suffer from clinical depression, which can cause lethargy, indifference, moodiness and other symptoms that interfere with day-to-day functioning. Researchers have found that the prefrontal cortex is often underactive in people diagnosed with the illness.

The TMS technology uses electric currents to excite cell activity in that part of the brain, theoretically helping neurons better communicate with one another

and increasing blood flow to the tissue, which promotes healthy brain function. The federal Food and Drug Administration has approved the treatment, but for limited use given that it is relatively new. Physicians can administer it only to patients who haven’t responded to at least one prescription medication for depression.

‘A brain problem’ Advocates of the treatment refer to it as revolutionary; there hasn’t been a major development in procedure-based depression treatment since the advent of electroconvulsive therapy. Unlike that treatment, which applies electricity directly to the skull to invoke a brain seizure, the magnetic TMS procedure has not shown negative impact on memory or cognition.

TMS, and other new treatments that focus on physical stimulation of specific parts of the brain, signal a departure from traditional methods of treating mental illness, such as talk therapy and prescription drugs. As advances in medical technology

As with many emerging medical treatments, practitioners and insurers hesitate to embrace new procedures without a solid track record. Though the FDA approved the nation’s first TMS device in 2008, major health insurance companies have only begun covering the treatment in the past few years.

Dr. Richard Bermudes is principal owner and medical director of TMS Health Solutions and president of the nationwide Clinical TMS Society. By his estimate, about 700 TMS devices are in use in the United States.

The treatment has been the focus of about 30 randomized clinical trials in the United States, and in most of those, a statistically significant portion of patients were determined to have benefited.

But some researchers caution that the improvements could be the result of a placebo effect, and have called for longer-term studies.

Good response A 2012 study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry showed that half of the patients involved in that trial responded to the treatment within six weeks, and 25 percent went into remission. Still, guidelines from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Department of Health and Human Services state that evidence is “insufficient to evaluate the ability of (repetitive) TMS to maintain response or remission.”

On the upside, the therapy has not been shown to cause wholebody side effects, such as weight gain or fatigue, as an oral medication might, said Dr. Guohua Xia, a clinical associate professor at University of California-Davis and medical director of Brainefit, a mental health institute offering a form of TMS services. That means it can be especially helpful for pregnant women and elderly people who may experience problems with standard depression drugs.

Heavy rainfall creates ideal conditions for breeding grounds for mosquitoes and fleas, which pose another danger to pets.

“The mosquitoes are out in full force,” Hanson said. “It only takes one mosquito bite for your dog to get heartworms.”

In the long run, it is much cheaper to give your dog a monthly heartworm preventative medication.

“There is a heartworm treatment, but it is very hard on your dog’s body,” Hanson said. “Left untreated, heartworms are deadly.”

Fleas are another issue. They can cause an infestation not only on your dog, but also in your home.

“Animals that are allergic to fleas can get major skin infections and it’s very uncomfortable for them,” Bierbrier said. “They can also transmit tapeworms. And if the fleas are on your dog, they’re also getting into your carpet and bedding.”

Sutter Health is the only hospital system in Sacramento to offer the treatment. Dr. Theodore Goodman, director of interventional psychiatry for Sutter Health, said TMS has resulted in improvement for about 60 percent of patients during the two years it has been offered at the Sutter Center for Psychiatry.

Health-care issues He expressed frustration at insurance companies not covering the treatment long term. TMS is currently approved only as a treatment for acute clinical depression, meaning patients are in the throes of symptoms.

“About 50 percent of patients will relapse over a year’s time,” he said. “The way you avoid that is maintenance treatment, but insurance won’t pay for that. It’s a horribly unenlightened viewpoint.”

While NeuroStar, the model used at Bermudes’ clinic, was the first TMS device approved on the market, other brands go even further into brain matter and have been used to target other conditions, including migraines.

At TMS Health Solutions, the recommended treatment plan is four to six weeks of daily TMS sessions, at a cost of $5,000 to $7,000. Since opening clinics in El Dorado Hills, Calif., in 2007 and Sacramento in 2010, Bermudes said, he has used the technology to treat hundreds of patients and currently sees about 20 TMS patients a day.

He said he recently changed the clinic’s name — from Mindful Health Solutions — specifically to highlight the treatment.

Blogging about it O’Madden said that, for him, improvement came after three weeks of treatment, though technicians say results can take longer. Before his physician suggested TMS, O’Madden said, he was having trouble sleeping and focusing, and struggled to control anxiety and obsessive thought patterns.

He said he’s now feeling more focused and active, with a renewed passion for boxing. He recently started a blog to document his recovery.

“I want people to become more aware of (TMS), and I also want mental health to be less stigmatized,” he said. “I want people to see me as a person: I’m a father and a husband, but I suffer from a mental health disorder, and I’m seeking help ... and other people can do the same thing.”

TRAVEL

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JULY 24 – JULY 30, 2015

STOJ

How Cuba’s tourism could affect rest of Caribbean Loss of visitors to other countries a major concern

BY MIMI WHITEFIELD MIAMI HERALD/TNS

Cuba is poised to become the new darling of Caribbean tourism and its good news could be the region’s bad news.

Caribbean tourism officials are fearful that if the United States allows free travel to Cuba by Americans, it will result in a significant loss of visitors to the rest of the Caribbean if the region’s countries — including Cuba — don’t find ways to work together to increase the Caribbean tourism pie.

In a position white paper released in June, the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association said that “the biggest and most disruptive pebble to be dropped into the Caribbean pool in 50 years will arrive with the opening of travel to Cuba for United States citizens.”

But Frank Comito, chief executive of the CHTA, said he prefers to view the potential Cuban tourism juggernaut as an opportunity rather than a threat.

“It’s a wake-up call,” he said, but also presents an opportunity for the Caribbean to begin working together on improving marketing, offering dual destination visits, easing barriers such as cost and ease of travel, sharing best practices, and using tourism more effectively as an economic development tool.

Lifting restrictions About 70 percent of Caribbean visitors come from the United States, Comito said. “If we don’t make the pie larger, when we’ve inserted this big player, the pie gets smaller for all of us.”

Currently the United States doesn’t allow Americans to travel to Cuba on vacations, but purposeful travel is permitted in 12 categories such as peopleto-people tours and educational and humanitarian visits. Cuban Americans may travel freely to the island on family visits.

Since the United States and Cuba planned to renew diplomatic relations and open respective embassies on July 20, there is increased pressure to lift all Cuba travel restrictions.

Cuba is already the second-largest tourism destination in the Caribbean, surpassed only by

JOSE GOITIA/SUN SENTINEL/TNS

An Old Havana 17th-century home is one of the last surviving examples of architecture from that period in Cuba. the Dominican Republic.

Last year, Cuba received 3,001,968 stopover visitors — a 5.3 percent increase — and during the first quarter of this year the Cuban Tourism Ministry said it received a record-breaking 1.14 million travelers.

No commercial airlift Not all of those are U.S. travelers, of course. Excluding visits to Cuba by Cuban Americans, the number of U.S. travelers is relatively small. There also is no commercial airlift from the United States to Cuba, and Americans traveling directly from the U.S. must rely on charter flights.

But the Cuban government estimates that if there were unrestricted travel from the United States, annual trips by Americans would increase by 1.5 million, generating an extra $2 billion in revenue.

Those countries that have felt little competition from Cuba for U.S. visitors in the past and “might have been lulled into believing that Cuba is a greenhorn at tourism, will be surprised at how sophisticated and effective the Cuban mar-

keting machine has become,” said the CHTA paper.

But it emphasized: “Cuba’s development in tourism should not be to the detriment of the rest of the Caribbean.”

Partnership proposed To avert that, the CHTA has a single proposal: creating a Caribbean Basin Tourism Initiative similar to the Caribbean Basin Initiative, a public/private partnership with the United States that began during the Reagan administration to encourage manufacturing and investment in the region.

Expanded in 2000, CBIrelated legislation now provides duty-free access to the U.S. market for most goods from 17 beneficiary countries.

(Some Caribbean leaders don’t see a negative impact if Cuba opens up fully to Americans. “We really believe we’re not going to be hurt by it,” Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said recently during a panel on Caribbean issues at the Toronto Global Forum. Mitchell, who

stressed that Caribbean leaders have long called for normalized relations between the U.S. and Cuba, said growing arrivals from Asia and elsewhere will make up for any loss to Cuba. “The region, as a whole, will be enhanced,” Mitchell said.)

Focus on tourism In the early 1980s, there was an effort in Congress to have the tourism industry added to CBI trade concessions and tax incentives. But the only nod to tourism ended up being an allowance for U.S. citizens attending Caribbean Basin conferences to write off their expenses as they would if attending a conference at home.

However, countries had to negotiate a tax information exchange agreement with the United States before the tax-break provision would be operative.

“Tourism is an export product — although it certainly wasn’t viewed as that in the 1980s,” said Comito.

The idea for a Caribbean Basin Tourism Initiative would be similar to the CBI, but instead of promoting manufacturing

it would focus on tourism “to strengthen the region’s economies and stimulate trade and investments within the Caribbean and with the United States,” the paper states.

“We recognize that the opening of Cuba to American tourists will have an impact on both Cuba and the region and want to maximize the positive benefits for all stakeholders and, at the same time, set a tone for a new era of cooperation among Caribbean nations,” said Emil Lee, president of CHTA and a St. Maarten hotelier.

Positive response Such an approach would require congressional approval, and Comito said CHTA is in discussions on how to push the agenda forward with CaribbeanCentral America Action, a Washington-based organization that promotes private sector economic development in the Caribbean Basin.

The paper calling for a collaborative approach to Caribbean tourism development has been distributed to regional government and business leaders

and was presented to the U.S. International Trade Commission for its consideration, said Comito said.

“We’ve gotten a very positive response from the private sector and our members,” said Comito.

The CHTA also has made overtures toward Cuba and hopes to get a response, he said. “It’s both to their advantage and our advantage that we work together and learn from each other.”

Comito said the CHTA was preparing its white paper at the same time the ITC had asked for comment for an investigation it is doing on the economic impact of U.S. restrictions on trade with and travel to Cuba. It sent the paper and a letter to the federal agency in that context. ITC is expected to deliver its report to the Senate Committee on Finance by Sept. 15 but it will not include policy recommendations.

In the letter, Lee raised concerns that with U.S. tour, airline and cruise executives so focused on the potential of long-forbidden Cuba, there might not be a level playing field for the rest of the Caribbean.

Orlando Science Center the place to learn all about mummies

BY DEWAYNE BEVIL ORLANDO SENTINEL/TNS

Mummies are people, too.

That’s the underlying message of “Mummies of the World: The Exhibition,” which opened last month at Orlando Science Center. Among the displays are dozens of mummified bodies — human and animal — which date back thousands of years.

Although the first sight is an elaborate Egyptian sarcophagus, the golden casing most associated with mummies in pop culture, the exhibit includes specimens from around the world. Some are from the wrapped-tightly camp, created intentionally by their survivors. Others are more accidental, transformed into mummies by weather or extraordinary burial conditions.

To be considered a mummy, the body must have kept some of its soft tissue, such as skin or muscles, according the American Exhibitions Inc., producer of “Mummies of the

which might have been caused by malnutrition during the Thirty Years’ War, researchers say.

World.” In mummification, the natural decaying process is derailed, usually from a lack of moisture or oxygen.

Somber and dark

Flat on their backs There’s a lot of history involved in these cases, but the exhibition also covers the modern-day science element. Since 1977, CT scans have been used to examine mummies without unwrapping them or using invasive techniques. Using data from these exams, we can now know things such as cause of death, their last meals and if they, perhaps, walked with a limp.

These details are posted near the mummies and help, well, bring the characters back to life.

The bodies are arranged simply and individually in temperature- and humidity-controlled chambers.

Unlike the famed “Bodies” exhibitions, the mummies are not arranged in active poses. The majority are flat on their backs as if looking toward the heavens.

Among the displays is Baron von Holz, who died

AMERICAN EXHIBITIONS, INC/TNS

Known as tsantsa (pronounced “SANT-sa”), this shrunken head, consists of skin, hair and plant fibers which was likely made for sale to tourists or collectors, not as a victim trophy head of the tribe’s enemies. Part of the process of creating shrunken heads entails sewing the lips, eyes and mouth shut, as well as polishing the skin with powdered charcoal. On loan from the Buffalo Museum of Science. in the early 1600s. He has his boots on. He was found in a family crypt beneath a church. He and four other bodies were unearthed in 1806. The scans of the baron’s mummy revealed no cause of death, but did discover that he had 207

bones — one more bone that most people. He had an extra vertebra in the lower back.

Accompanying him in the crypt and in the exhibition is Baroness Schenck von Geiern, who had severe curvature of the spine,

Elsewhere in the exhibit are three members of the Orlovits family, who were found in a crypt near Budapest, Hungary, in 1994.

Analysis shows that the mom, Veronica, had severe tuberculosis. In the exhibit, she is next to her husband, Michael, and infant son, Johannes. The crypt contained 265 mummified bodies. The deaths of about half of those individuals were recorded in church records.

“Mummies of the World” is set up in the large hall on the second level of Orlando Science Center. Its design is somber and dark, and otherworldly-but-soft music helps maintain a reverent tone. The exhibition is set up in segments, which encourages exploration. It also discourages children from carousing among the corpses.

There are a few handson displays, such as a light-

up board of where mummies have been discovered globally. There’s also a tactile demonstration called “What do mummies feel like?” (If the mummy has been in a bog, the texture is like “tanned leather,” it says.)

Just a little gross Along the way, there are fascinating details, such as a tattoo of the coat of arms for Pope Pius II and a cat mummy. (“Animals were mummified as food for the dead,” the display reads.)

The ick factor is relatively low, but there were young bodies — some with “artificial cranial modification” or with organs exposed following an autopsy.

Among the non-mummy elements are shrunken heads (and cheap knockoffs), charms and disembodied hands and feet that were, at one point, considered souvenirs.

“Mummies of the World” is included in Orlando Science Center admission. It’s open daily and will be in town through Nov. 29.

STOJ

JULY 24 – JULY 30, 2015

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

Meet some of

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Think you’re one of Florida’s Finest?

E-mail your high-resolution (200 dpi) digital photo in casual wear or bathing suit taken in front of a plain background with few distractions, to news@flcourier. com with a short biography of yourself and your contact information. (No nude/ glamour/ fashion photography, please!) In order to be considered, you must be at least 18 years of age. Acceptance of the photographs submitted is in the sole and absolute discretion of Florida Courier editors. We reserve the right to retain your photograph even if it is not published. If you are selected, you will be contacted by e-mail and further instructions will be given.

jas royale

Hairstylist Jas Royale of Marietta, Ga., has been modeling for while completing her certification for Paul Mitchell schools. She enjoys fashion photographyas well as bathing suit and lingerie. She also does promo and print work for many companies.

Jas can be reached at Jnicole135@gmail.com or www.facebook.com/jasroyale.

cristopher Born in Jamaica, Cristopher Rhoden has been living in America for years in the St. Petersburg area. His goal is to enter the U.S. Air Force.

Contact Christopher at mongotree16@hotmail.com.

Harper Lee’s new book reveals a darker side of Alabama town

BY DAVID L. ULIN LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

It would be a mistake to read Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman” as a sequel to her 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Yes, it takes place a generation after the earlier book, involving a visit from Scout Finch — now 26 and using her given name, Jean Louise — to her hometown of Maycomb, Ala., from New York, where she has gone to live. Yes, Maycomb has changed: Scout’s older brother, Jem, we learn in the opening chapter, is dead, victim of a congenitally disordered heart, and her father, Atticus, has not only grown old but also darker and more compromised.

There are references to a trial from the past, during which Atticus defended a Black man against charges of raping a White woman: “Consent was easier to prove,” Lee writes, “than under normal conditions — the defendant had only one arm.”

‘Mockingbird’ reference Such a description recalls Tom Robinson, whose trial for a similar offense is at the center of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” “His left arm was fully twelve inches shorter than his right,” the author explains in that novel, “and hung dead at his side. It ended in a small shriveled hand.”

And yet, those two trials come to very different outcomes; Tom was memorably convicted in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” even with no evidence against him, whereas in “Go Set a Watchman,” Atticus “accomplished what was never before or afterwards done in Maycomb County: He won acquittal for a colored boy on a rape charge.”

That’s just one of many points of divergence or overlap between the novels, which are related in a complicated way.

More about Maycomb According to numerous accounts, “Go Set a Watchman” is the earliest version of the man-

uscript that became “To Kill a Mockingbird,” acquired by Lippincott in 1957 and subjected, under the guidance of editor Tay Hohoff, to what Smithsonian Magazine once called “a title-on-down revision.” What does this mean for us as readers? That we can’t help but engage with “Go Set a Watchman” through a filter of comparison.

Lee introduces us to Maycomb, its history and inconsistencies, as if we have never been here before. We learn, in a passage virtually identical to one in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” of the town’s origin as county seat, after a tavern keeper named Sinkfield “made the surveyors drunk one evening, induced them to bring forward their maps and charts, lop off a little here, add a bit there, and adjust the center of the county to meet his requirements.”

We encounter Atticus’ evenhandedness: his insistence on “always (trying) to put himself in his client’s shoes.” In “Go Set a Watchman,” however, this is not a marker of his moral dependability but rather of his moral corruption.

criticism, it’s because, although “Go Set a Watchman” comes marketed as an autonomous novel, it is most interesting as a literary artifact.

How did Lee take the frame of this fiction and collapse it to create “To Kill a Mockingbird,” finding a narrative fluency only hinted at within this draft? How did she refine her language, her scene construction, discover a way to enlarge what are here little more than political and social commonplaces, to expose a universal human core?

Why now?

Harper Lee is author of the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning book “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the recently published “Go Set a Watchman.” to sharpen with her discovery, among her father’s reading materials, of a racist tract called “The Black Plague.” “The one human being she had ever fully and wholeheartedly trusted had failed her,” Lee writes, “the only man she had ever known to whom she could point and say with expert knowledge, ‘He is a gentleman, in his heart he is a gentlemen,’ had betrayed her, publicly, grossly, and shamelessly.”

That’s a vivid setup, and it indicates the promise Hohoff recognized in this draft nearly 60 years ago. Promise, however, remains the operative word, for “Go Set a Watchman” is an apprentice effort, and it falls apart in the second half.

A racist Atticus Not Corruption? Yes — for this is not the Atticus of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In “Go Set a Watchman,” he has turned a treacherous corner, aligning with the citizen’s council and the Ku Klux Klan.

“Now think about this,” he tells his daughter. “What would happen if all the Negroes in the South were suddenly given full civil rights? I’ll tell you, there’d be another Reconstruction. Would you want your state governments run by people who don’t know how to run ’em? ... We’re outnumbered, you know.”

This is the conflict of the novel, Jean Louise’s struggle to come to some accommodation with a father who is not who she believed he was.

Throughout the first part of the book, Lee builds the tension, drawing us in slowly, revealing the Maycomb her protagonist thought she knew. We visit Finch’s Landing, experience flashbacks to

BOOK REVIEW

Literary artifact

“Go Set a Watchman: A Novel” by Harper Lee; Harper (278 pages, $27.99)

Despite its potential for drama, Lee develops her story through long dialogue sequences that read less like conversation than competing arguments. There is little sense of urgency, and key aspects of the narrative — Jean Louise’s naïvete, for one thing, her inability to see Maycomb for what it is — are left largely unresolved.

If I’m hesitant to level such a

her childhood with Jem and Dill (although not Boo Radley) and meet her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Henry Clinton.

The pace can be, at times, meandering, but the focus appears

Regardless of the answers, “Go Set a Watchman” shows where she began. It is a starker book than “To Kill a Mockingbird,” more reactive to its moment; a common theme involves what its characters regard as the overreach of the U.S. Supreme Court, which at the time Lee was writing had recently ruled on school desegregation in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka.

Most interesting, however, is the glimpse it offers of Jean Louise as an adult, her desire to stake out a territory of her own.

It is difficult, knowing the history of both this novel and its author, not to read those longings as belonging to Lee herself, the reasons for her own long New York exile, her silence in the wake of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” That too raises questions we can never answer about why “Go Set a Watchman” is being published now.

‘Not their blood’ Certainly, it changes — as it must — our sense of Atticus, although that is complicated by this being not a follow up but instead an early version of the book. At what point did Lee soften her portrayal? And what does it mean to read this version of him now?

In the end, it suggests a vivid set of contradictions, as much between the author and the character as between the character and himself.

“Hell is eternal apartness,” Lee writes. “What had she done that she must spend the rest of her years reaching out with yearning for them, making secret trips to long ago, making no journey to the present? I am their blood and bones, I have dug in this ground, this is my home. But I am not their blood, the ground doesn’t care who digs it, I am a stranger at a cocktail party.”

FOOD

B6

JULY 24 – JULY 30, 2015

STOJ

New mash-ups and recipes your family will love FAMILY FEATURES

From classic recipes passed down through generations to new creations you wouldn’t expect to find on grandma’s table, there’s no shortage of ways to pack peanut butter into deliciously diverse dishes. Celebrate your enduring love for this sticky staple with these winning entries from Southern Peanut Growers’ annual “PB My Way” recipe contest showcasing PB lovers’ all-time favorite peanut butter dishes.

Find more inspiration for cooking with peanut butter at www.peanutbutterlovers.com.

Grand Prize Winner Darlene Buerger, Peoria, Arizona PEANUT BUTTER NOODLE NESTS WITH SPICY ORANGE SHRIMP 1 tablespoon Sriracha sauce 1/4 cup orange marmalade 2 tablespoons soy sauce 1 tablespoon rice vinegar 1 tablespoon grated ginger 8 ounces shrimp, peeled, de-veined 1/4 cup onion, diced 1/4 cup red pepper, diced 2 tablespoons peanut oil 2 cloves minced garlic 1/4 cup coconut milk, plus extra 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter 1/4 cup island teriyaki sauce 2 teaspoons crystalized ginger 1 teaspoon hot pepper flakes (or to taste) 2 tablespoons brown sugar

Family Favorite Winner Janice Elder, Charlotte, North Carolina SPICY PEANUT BUTTER GLAZED SALMON SKEWERS WITH WARM RICE SLAW 1 (20-ounce) can pineapple chunks in juice, divided 1 1/2 pound salmon fillet, skin removed 2 tablespoons soy sauce 1 1/2 cups packaged broccoli slaw mix 2 cups hot cooked rice Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter 2 tablespoons Asian chili sauce (such as Sriracha) Juice and grated zest of 1 fresh lime 1/4 cup chopped salted peanuts Fresh lime slices, cilantro leaves and chopped peanuts, for garnish Drain pineapple chunks, reserving juice.

Cut salmon into 1-inch cubes.

Festive Holidays Winner Helen Fields, Paradise, Texas PEANUT BUTTER SALTINE BRITTLE 1/2 cup butter 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter 1 cup granulated sugar 1 sleeve (4 ounces) regular saltine crackers 2 cups milk chocolate chips 1/2 cup peanut butter chips 1/2 cup roughly chopped, dry-roasted, salted peanuts Heat oven to 400°F. Line 10-by-15-by-1-inch pan with aluminum foil. Spray foil with butterflavored nonstick cooking spray; set aside.

Put butter, peanut butter and sugar in heavyduty, 1-quart saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly until butter and sugar are melted; bring ingredients just to a boil. Boil mixture 3 minutes, stirring frequently.

Place 1/4 cup pineapple juice into bowl with soy sauce; add salmon, tossing to coat. Let stand about 15 minutes.

Gently stir 1/4 cup pineapple juice and broccoli slaw into hot rice, blending well.

Season to taste with salt and black pepper, then cover and keep warm.

Whisk peanut butter with remaining pineapple juice, chili sauce and lime juice, and zest, blending well. Set aside.

Heat oven broiler; place oven rack 6 inches from broiler element. Line broiler pan with foil and spray with nonstick spray. Thread salmon cubes and pineapple chunks onto 8 metal (or soaked bamboo) skewers, dividing equally.

Place on broiler pan.

Cook 2 minutes, then brush with peanut butter mixture. Repeat brushing and broiling until salmon is flaky, turning as needed to brown evenly, about 8 minutes total.

Divide warm rice mixture evenly among four serving plates; top with skewers. Sprinkle skewers lightly with chopped peanuts and serve while warm. May be garnished with additional lime slices and cilantro leaves, if desired.

While mixture cooks, lay saltines in single layer on prepared pan.

Pour cooked mixture evenly over saltines.

Place in oven and cook 5 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over top. Let cool for 3 minutes, then spread chocolate completely over top of saltines.

Sprinkle peanut butter chips evenly over top of chocolate. Return pan to oven for 1 minute to soften chips. Pulling tines of a fork through softened chips, partially cover chocolate.

Sprinkle peanuts over top and gently press peanuts down.

Let cool on rack for about 15 minutes, then place in freezer for 3 minutes. Remove from freezer and break into pieces. Store in airtight container.

2 (12-ounce) packages ramen noodles, cooked according to package directions 1 cup coleslaw mix Peanuts and scallions, for garnish In medium bowl, combine Sriracha, marmalade, soy sauce, vinegar and grated ginger. Stir to com­ bine and add shrimp. Refrigerate 20 minutes.

In large skillet over medium heat, saute onion and pepper in peanut oil until tender.

Add garlic and cook an additional minute. Reduce heat and add coconut milk, peanut butter, teriyaki sauce, crystalized ginger, hot pepper flakes and brown sugar. Simmer sauce 2 to 3 minutes, adding additional coconut milk as needed. Pour off 1/4 cup of sauce and add ramen noodles to remaining sauce.

In large skillet over medium heat, cook shrimp 2 to 3 minutes on each side until tender. Move shrimp to outer edge of pan and cook coleslaw mix in center just until it starts to wilt. Add wilted slaw mix to ramen sauce mixture.

Divide ramen among four plates and top with 4 or 5 shrimp. Garnish with reserved sauce, peanuts and scallions, if desired.

Dreamy Desserts Winner Sally Sibthrope, Shelby Township, Michigan ORANGE-KISSED PEANUT BUTTER BUNDT 6 tablespoons butter, melted 1 cup creamy peanut butter 1/2 cup orange juice 1 tablespoon orange zest 2 cups brown sugar, packed 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup buttermilk Frosting: 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter 3 tablespoons orange juice 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar 1/2 cup whipped cream Chopped peanuts, for garnish Heat oven to 350°F. Generously grease and flour Bundt pan.

Set aside.

In large bowl mix together butter, peanut butter, orange juice and orange zest until well combined and creamy. Beat in sugar, eggs and vanilla.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt, then stir half into peanut butter mixture.

Stir in half of buttermilk. Add remaining flour and buttermilk, mixing until just blended. (Don’t overmix or cake will be tough.)

Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake 45–50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for about 5–10 minutes, then remove cake from pan and let cool completely.

For frosting, beat all ingredients together to pourable consistency. Pour over cake, and sprinkle with chopped peanuts.

Breakfast or Brunch? Winner Christine Yang, Garnerville, New York NUTTY MONKEY GRANOLA 2 cups old-fashioned oats 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 cup coconut flakes 1/3 cup chopped peanuts 1/4 cup sunflower seeds 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds 3 tablespoons ground flax 2 tablespoons chia seeds 1 banana 1 egg white 1/4 cup peanut butter 1/3 cup dried cranberries 1/4 cup chocolate chips Heat oven to 375°F and line large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine first 8 ingredients in large mixing bowl.

Use blender to combine banana, egg white and peanut butter until smooth. Pour peanut butter mixture over oat mixture and stir until incorporated. Pour mixture in even layer on baking pan.

Bake until crisp (about 20–30 minutes), removing from oven and stirring every 10 minutes to allow granola to brown evenly and break up into smaller pieces. When granola is golden and crisp, remove from oven and stir in cranberries and chocolate chips (chocolate chips should melt a little).

Allow to cool completely before storing in air-tight container.