Florida Courier - September 13, 2013

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SEPTEMBER 13 - SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

VOLUME 21 NO. 37

RELIEVED

BY DAVID LIGHTMAN MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU / MCT

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Many Americans figuratively started breathing again on Wednesday, relieved that the United States has avoided military involvement in Syria at least temporarily.

The reprieve – the opposite of the rally-round-theflag emotion common to such moments – suggested that the country is entering a new post-Cold War, post-9/11 era, reluctant if not openly hostile to armed intervention in faraway lands.

America exhales in relief over Syria airstrikes it didn’t want; President Obama avoids an embarrassing defeat in Congress.

strikes, President Obama tried this week to argue that it’s crucial, that allowing Syria to go unpunished for the alleged use of chemical weapons would invite aggression, hurt allies such as Israel and Turkey, and embolden rogue nations such Pros and cons as Iran. Yet, he did little to Even while he asked Con- reverse the trend against ingress to delay a vote on air- tervention, offering no new

argument for it and balancing his call for strikes with expressions of his own reluctance.

“Several people wrote to me, ‘We should not be the world’s policeman.’ I agree,” he said in an address to the nation Tuesday night that likely did little to win support for possible airstrikes.

“I’ve spent four and a half years working to end wars, not to start them,” he said. “Our troops are out of Iraq. Our troops are coming home from Afghanistan.

And I know Americans want all of us in Washington, especially me, to concentrate on the task of building our nation here at home: putting people back to work, educating our kids, growing our middle class.”

POOL PHOTO BY PAT BENIC/UPI/ABACA PRESS/MCT

President Obama, alongside Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, right, wipes his face due to the heat and humidity after his remarks at the 12th anniversary commemoration of the 9/11 terrorist attacks at the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Va. on Wednesday.

‘Liberal fantasy’ “International order is not maintained by some global police force, which only exists in a liberal fantasy,” said Senate Republican leader

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, seeking to portray past support for interventionism as ideological and ignoring conservative support for military missions in Grenada, Somalia, Afghani-

NAACP’s Jealous resigns

2013 U.S. OPEN

Still flying high

Will build links to the GOP

BY HAZEL TRICE EDNEY TRICE EDNEY NEWSWIRE

Benjamin Todd Jealous, announcing his resignation after five years as president of the NAACP this week, said he is leaving Dec. 31 in order to spend more time with his wife and two young children.

But he is also contemplating the leadership of another movement – to reconnect Blacks and the civil rights agenda with the Republican Party.

“The reality is that, you’ve seen it with my outreach to [Newt] Gingrich and [Gro-

stan and Iraq, all under Republican presidents.

The broad reluctance to strike now is a clear shift in the American mood. The See RELIEVED, Page A2

ver] Norquist and [Virginia] Gov. Bob McDonnell on criminal justice reform issues. The reality is that as a people, we were most effective in pushing our agenda when we had one agenda that was shared between Black members of both parties,” Jealous said in an exclusive interview with the Trice Edney Newswire this week.

“And so we’ve got to get back to civil rights having a beachhead in both parties and there being a common civil rights agenda that is shared and is held in common by Black Democrats and Black Republicans.”

‘No permanent friends’ “It has been very hard sometimes in these partisan times, but we have found allies in unlikely places,” he said. “Governor Deal in Georgia is helping to downsize prisons. So See JEALOUS, Page A2

OLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/MCT

In May, activists occupied one of the entrances outside the U.S. Justice Department as they participate in civil disobedience during a protest against Wall Street financial institutions accountable for damage to the U.S. economy.

Rich-poor biggest in 100 years J. CONRAD WILLIAMS JR./NEWSDAY/MCT

Florida resident Serena Williams celebrates defeating Victoria Azarenka during the women’s U.S. Open Tennis Championships in Flushing, N.Y. last week. It was Serena’s fifth U.S. Open title and her 17th major championship victory to date in her pro tennis career.

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

Democratic calls for Rouson to quit increase

ALSO INSIDE

NATION | A6

Lowering intoxication level stirs debate

E-cigarette use among US students doubled in one year

FINEST | B5

Meet the

cruisers

comes of the 1 percent grew 86.1 percent, while those of the 99 percent grew 6.6 percent, according to the study, based on Internal Revenue Service statistics examined by economists at UC Berkeley, the Paris School of Economics and Oxford UniverBY CONNIE STEWART sity.

LOS ANGELES TIMES / MCT The top 1 percent is defined as families with inIf you feel you’re falling comes above $394,000 in behind in the income race, 2012. it’s not just your imagination. The wealth gap be- Hit hard tween the top 1 percent and The Great Recession hit the bottom 99 percent in the United States is as wide the top 1 percent harder as it’s been in nearly 100 than other income groups, but the wealthy recovered years, a new study finds.

For starters, between See GAP, Page A2 1993 and 2012, the real in-

COMMENTARY: CHARLES W. CHERRY II: RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A FREE BLACK MIND | A4 COMMENTARY: JULIANNE MALVEAUX: Alternatives better than ‘limited action’ against Syria | A4

FOCUS

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SEPTEMBER 13 – SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

Jealous leaving NAACP may not mean much for Blacks Ben Jealous’ decision to leave the NAACP is one of those defining moments that lead us to reflect on the last five years, and what they’ve meant for Black people. They haven’t meant much.

There is no question that the NAACP is better off since Jealous took over five years ago. The organization has been prominent and is not as old, dusty and irrelevant as it was in 2007. Through some savvy business moves, the organization is now in the financial black, able to operate at a level that it could not before.

But we’d be naïve to somehow think that the success of the NAACP is highly correlated with the success of Black America in general. Even as the NAACP has filled its coffers and regained national prominence, the Black community has endured one of the darkest eras of the last 100 years.

While White unemployment has gotten markedly better, Black unemployment is as bad as it was when Doug E. Fresh was a teenager. In fact, Black unemployment right now is 30 percent worse than it was during the original march on Washington, back in 1963.

Personally, gay marriage was never a big issue for me, since I’ve never been proposed to by a gay man. But for some with roots in the church, there was no rush to embrace the liberal agenda at the pace that the Democratic Party demanded it.

Jealous’ kneejerk decision to stand with nearly every word uttered by the White House over the last four years was blatantly disrespectful to the rank-andfile membership of the organization. It also murdered his ability to stand as a conditional objector to the president’s policies if they were harmful to African-Americans.

Dr. Boyce Watkins GUEST COLUMNIST

‘Marriage of men’ Ben Jealous and the NAACP rode to prosperity on the back of the Obama presidency like Ed McMahon sitting on the couch next to Johnny Carson. If you’ll recall, Ed always laughed at Johnny’s jokes, and his job was to make Johnny look good on stage.

The alignment between Ben Jealous, Al Sharpton and the Obama administration has been so disgustingly tight that if they were a boy band, they would be called ’N Sync.

The result of this marriage of men is that the NAACP has worked harder on gay rights and immigration than they have on nearly any other issue affecting the African-American community. The group that includes tens of thousands of elderly Black people who go to church every Sunday is not the same one that would stand up and salute the president’s sudden commitment to gay marriage.

Money from thieves There is also the matter of Jealous’ decision to take money from Wells Fargo, the company that did more to steal the homes of Black people than the KKK ever did. As a result of the foreclosure crisis and predatory lending, Black home ownership is now at an 18-year low.

The NAACP chose to remain on the payroll of a company that should have executives going to prison for the billions they stole from the Black community. Paying off our leaders should not be

a get-out-of-jail-free card for every bank that decides to rip us off. As a person who watched his grandparents lose the home they’d lived in for over 50 years, I found this alliance to be deeply offensive.

I can’t really go much into the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, the event that even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself would probably not be invited to.

Dr. King spoke heavily on poverty and against the American war machine at the time he died, which caused him to be demonized by millions of Americans, both Black and White. Another scholar and man of God who has done the same, Dr. Cornel West, was not asked to participate in the march as well.

As men like Jesse Jackson and Julian Bond had their microphones snatched after two minutes, people like Nancy Pelosi and Cory Booker were allowed to bang away on their watereddown political agendas. Jealous was part of the circus of politicians who put together this event, which was like a group of fat people running a health food convention.

JEALOUS is Rick Perry in Texas. Gov. Kasich in Ohio is a big proponent of affirmative action for the business sector. Gov. McDonnell of Virginia has been proponent of second chances, both in employment and in voting.

“And the question is, if a Republican can stand for any of this anywhere, then why can’t they stand for all of this everywhere? So, I think it’s important that we get back to doing what [Congresswoman] Shirley Chisholm admonished all of us and that is, ‘We have no permanent friends, we have no permanent enemies, we just have permanent interests.’”

from A1 public has rallied around military missions in recent years, at least initially, and congressional votes have been wrenching but often not close. Such votes have responded quickly to attacks, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist incidents, or to presidents who built momentum by crafting coalitions and explaining American interests, as George W. Bush did in 2002 as he prepared to strike Iraq.

Any hint of isolationism was largely buried in the ruins of Pearl Harbor 72 years ago, rekindled only periodically after such disastrous moves as the Vietnam War and the intervention in Somalia, which led to an attack on U.S. forces dramatized in the book “Black Hawk Down.”

Still, since World War II, it’s been largely understood that the nation had an obligation to keep the world safe and to stand up to ‘rogue’ nations.

Changing circumstances At first, it appeared that Obama’s bid to launch a lim-

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a professor of finance at Syracuse University. Read his columns and weblog at www.boycewatkins.com. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response. came embroiled in the firing of Shirley Sherrod, an official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A doctored video posted by a right-wing website appeared to show Sherrod making racist remarks recounting how she didn’t help a White farmer as much as she should have.

Without reviewing the original video, Jealous backed her dismissal. He later viewed the full tape, retracted his initial statement, and claimed he had been “snookered.” The NAACP urged Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to give Sherrod her job back at the USDA. Sherrod accepted the NAACP’s apology and Jealous was able to put that incident behind him.

‘More sophisticated’

Political fundraising

RELIEVED

Ben Jealous didn’t lead the NAACP as a Black man. He led the organization as a passionate and unapologetic liberal. His unhealthy and unholy alliance with the Obama administration was to the detriment of the AfricanAmerican community, and reminds us that filling your pockets can also lead to the emptying of your soul.

I give Jealous tremendous credit for being, in some ways, a brilliant and motivated visionary. I also give him credit for overcoming our personal differences and signing the open letter to end the mass incarceration crisis that Russell Simmons and I sent to President Obama.

But I truly believe that, deep in his heart, there were a lot of decisions Ben made that kept him from sleeping at night.

Next week, Part 2: “The NAACP is not an organization for people like me.”

“We have to, as a civil rights community, really think deeply – not just about how we build bonds amongst each other – but how we, frankly, reintroduce civil rights to the Republican Party, which for a hundred years was the party of civil rights in many ways,” he told the audience at the Washington, D.C.based Newseum, where a civil rights forum was held.

from A1

Jealous, a Rhodes Scholar who in 2007 became the youngest person to ever lead the NAACP, pointed to this agenda as one of the possible goals of a political action committee (PAC) that he started with two friends six years ago in 2007 in order to help fund thenSen. Barack Obama in his primary stages.

In addition to a new teaching job at a university, he and those friends – whom he identified as Steven Phillips and Andrew Wong – will revisit that “Vote Hope” PAC with major questions in mind.

“Now is the time that we can finally create the equivalence of EMILY’s

Liberal, not Black

ANDRE CHUNG/MCT

NAACP President Ben Jealous speaks during the “Let Freedom Ring” ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on August 28.

List for people of color candidates with a real eye toward transformations that we think are possible in the South and the Southwest…breaking glass ceilings in those states in the former Confederacy and on out to California, and with progressives retaking the South perhaps permanently.” ited military strike against Syria neatly fit the pattern.

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime allegedly used chemical weapons on civilians outside Damascus on Aug. 21. Obama was ready to act.

The Syria mission, though, quickly proved too murky.

Obama realized that the public was weary of wars after drawn-out conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and confused about who was fighting whom in Syria. Politicians from the left and right, now adept at using social media as a megaphone to make themselves heard, protested.

Constituents also balked.

By 48-38 percent, Americans don’t think the U.S. has an obligation to punish regimes that use chemical weapons, according to a National Journal Congressional Connection poll taken last Thursday through Sunday. A McClatchy-Marist poll taken Saturday and Sunday found that while a majority saw Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons as a threat to America, 58 percent opposed airstrikes. The same poll found that just 38 percent approved of the way Obama was handling foreign policy, the lowest of his presidency.

If the country was skeptical of the president’s pitch

Both parties EMILY’s (“Early Money Is Like Yeast”) List is a PAC founded in 1985 with a goal of electing pro-choice Democratic women to public office. Jealous says the PAC he envisions would include Republican and Democratic candidates.

In recent history, the Democratic Party has been

able to claim an overwhelming majority of the Black vote, consistently more than 90 percent in presidential elections.

While Democrats are largely credited with civil rights gains, Jealous says many of the major gains of the 1950s and ‘60s came about because of bipartisan cooperation because of Blacks in both parties.

Poll: U.S. is not the world’s cop Does the U.S. have an obligation to punish governments that use chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to kill civilians?

No

48% Yes

38 Depends

9 Don’t know/refused

5 Source: United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection poll of 1,002 adults, Sept. 5-8, 2013; margin of error: +/-3.6 percentage points Graphic: Judy Treible © 2013 MCT

for support for airstrikes, it likely welcomed his request to put off a vote while he explores a possible diplomatic solution.

‘Not yet trust’ “The bottom line is we’re all going to try to work together. There is hope but not yet trust in what the Russians are doing,” said Senate Democratic policy committee Chairman Charles Schumer of New York. A few members of Congress made speeches Wednesday to empty chambers, and by midafternoon

“And I believe that if we, in the next fifty years, would get a little bit more sophisticated about how we work our politics, if we in the next fifty years could be a little bit more inspired, quite frankly by our grandparents and lessons that they understood very well; if we can get back to a place where civil rights is a little bit less partisan, then we can move forward even faster than we think is possible.”

Although he believes civil rights must be universal, he says Blacks will have to initiate the movement.

“I think, quite frankly, the first courageous step is going to have to be with us saying that we’re going to have the hope to even talk to the other side of the aisle,” he told the forum audience. “Because right now we reinforce the isolation of our own agenda in ways that may be expedited in the short term, but detrimental in the long term.”

Pleased with accomplishments Jealous also said that he is pleased with his accomplishments.

“What I’m most proud of is that I leave the organization bigger, stronger, more powerful and more financially sustainable and with a clear set of priorities for the next half-century,” he said.

“Yes, like every NAACP leader, I leave here passing a baton on to the next person to help finish a race that will go on for a very long time. But I leave here knowing that we are better prepared to finish that race than we have been in a very long time.”

Sherrod debacle

George Curry of the NNPA Newswire contributed to this report.

Jealous’ tenure was not without its problems.

In 2010, the NAACP be-

the Senate had shifted into an energy debate.

“A negative vote would make it less likely we’ll be able to get Russia and Syria to get rid of these weapons,” said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich.

The notion of a vote to authorize a military strike remains tempting, but its current value is more as a threat.

“It is that prospect that has focused the minds of Russia and Syria,” said Levin.

Talks continue Private talks among senators from both parties continued Wednesday, aimed at some kind of legislation that would OK a strike but only after specific diplomatic steps have been exhausted.

It’s a new world where muscle gets less support, and Obama is struggling to cope.

When he met Tuesday with Senate Republicans before the address, Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., noticed that the president seemed different.

He often appears more casual and confident, but this time, Heller said, Obama sat with his hands crossed. “I’ve never seen that,” Heller said.

Obama’s message, said Heller, was clear.

“He said, basically, give him room,” the senator said.

“That’s all he asked.”

The rich and the rest The income gap between high-income U.S. households and the 99 percent grew to its widest point since 1928 last year, when the top 1 percent held nearly 20 percent of total earnings.

Declining wealth of the rest Annual percent share of household income, 1920-2012 99 percent of households* 100

Bottom 90 percent*

2012

1928 80.4%

80.7

80 60

1928 53.9 40 1920

’30

’40

’50

2012 51.8 ’60

’70

’80

’90

2000

’10

*Top 1 percent had incomes above $294,000 in 2012; top 10 percent, above $114,000 Source: “Striking it Richer:The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States,”

by Emmanuel Saez, University of California Berkeley © 2013 MCT Graphic: Pat Carr

GAP from A1 quicker too. From 2009 to 2012, as the U.S. economy improved, incomes of the top 1 percent grew more than 31 percent, while the incomes of the 99 percent grew 0.4 percent — less than half a percentage point.

“This implies that the top 1 percent incomes captured just over two-thirds of the overall economic growth of real incomes per family over the period 1993-2012,” economist

Emmanuel Saez of UC Berkeley writes.

The 1929 stock market crash that preceded the Great Depression, followed by World War II, reduced an earlier national income gap for decades. But it began to grow again in the 1970s, and has widened since.

Saez attributes the trend not just to technology and job outsourcing, but to the reduced power of progressive tax policies and unions, along with “changing social norms regarding pay inequality.”

SEPTEMBER 13 – SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

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FLORIDA

Democratic calls for Rouson to quit increase members, who can look forward to – or dread – two more weeks of behind-thescenes lobbying and conjecture before they formally meet again face-to-face.

BY DARA KAM THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Pressure for incoming House Minority Leader Darryl Rouson to step down from his leadership post is building, even as the St. Petersburg Democrat shut down a campaign committee that sparked calls for his ouster.

Rep. David Richardson, D-Miami Beach, sent an email to Democratic caucus members last asking them to sign onto his demand that Rouson resign and, if not, that current House Minority Leader Perry Thurston have a caucus meeting within the next two weeks to hold a vote of confidence about Rouson.

Without giving details about what troubled him, Richardson said in the email that he scrutinized copies of campaign checks before speaking with Rouson over the weekend.

“This is a very serious matter,” Richardson, an accountant, wrote. Richardson, a freshman, nominated Rep. Mia Jones, D-Jacksonville, in a fierce leadership race against Rouson earlier this year. Rouson defeated Jones by a single vote, but only after a first match resulted in a tie.

‘Step aside’ Rouson needs to “step aside for the betterment of our party,” Richardson wrote Saturday. “We need to get our house in order.

We need to put this behind us as soon as possible.”

House Democrats are expected to hold a private caucus meeting Sept.

23, when the Legislature will be in Tallahassee for

Keeping cool

FLORIDA COURIER FILES

State Rep. Darryl Rouson, far left, stands with the Florida House’s Democratic leadership during happier times. committee meetings. No votes are expected because leadership elections are held during public caucus meetings.

Rouson shut down his campaign account last week and said he was sending about $137,000 in contributions to the Florida Democratic Party, the traditional warehouse for House campaign funds.

Staffers fired Two weeks ago, House Democratic caucus members learned about Rouson’s “Florida House Democratic Caucus Affiliated Party Committee” from party leaders. State party Chairwoman Allison Tant fired two staffers – including veteran fundraiser Jeff

Ryan – linked to Rouson’s fundraising efforts.

On Monday, Rouson said he wants a chance to explain to his colleagues in person why in August he secretly launched the committee – a type of account Democrats, including Rouson, voted against three years ago – instead of using the traditional Democratic Party account.

“I’m asking, before a person be judged and convicted in a rush to judgment, for the opportunity to appear in front of the caucus and lay out the strategy,” Rouson said Monday.

Critics call the committees, directly controlled by lawmakers, slush funds easier for officials to abuse than regular campaign accounts. Lawmakers revived

the committees in 2010 over Democrats’ objections, but then-Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the bill. The GOP-controlled Legislature overrode that veto in 2011.

Dems divided The news about Rouson’s committee and the firings jolted the 44-member caucus, more than half of whom are freshmen and who were bitterly divided over the Jones-Rouson leadership battle.

“It’s frustrating to learn things from press reports and third-party emails,” said freshman Rep. David Kerner, a Lake Worth Democrat who supported Rouson in the February election.

Kerner would not say whether he believes Rou-

son can weather demands for him to bow out.

“I think some significant explaining needs to occur.

I am concerned about the level of transparency about this. And the biggest concern I have is the constant discord between our party leadership and our caucus leadership,” he said. “We’re all looking forward to coming to Tallahassee to sort through some allegations and mend fences and focus on our work.”

Kerner and others are also troubled by allegations that Rouson had deposited checks intended for the Democratic Party House Victory fund into his campaign account.

The kerfuffle ignited emails, texts and telephone calls between the caucus

Family drug courts help parents clean up and families reunite

BY MARGIE MENZEL THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

Senior leadership members are trying to keep a lid on the publicity and warning freshmen reps to stop sending emails that wind up in the news.

Thurston, D-Fort Lauderdale, said he expects the flurry of activity to die down after Rouson closed his campaign account and transferred the money to the party. But he was reticent about whether Rouson needs to bow out.

“I don’t want to put the cart before the horse. I don’t know what he can say but I’m willing to listen to whatever explanation he has before forming a final opinion,” Thurston said.

Rep. Janet Cruz, also part of Thurston’s leadership team, is among the few publicly calling for Rouson to resign from the leadership post.

“I think it’s for the good of the caucus. I think we just need to get back to the business of electing more Democrats to the House.

We need to stay focused on that and not be sidelined by this,” Cruz, D-Tampa, said.

Rep. Joe Gibbons, another leader who is termed out in 2014, said pressure is on Thurston and other senior members to clean up the mess.

“How do we stop the bleeding and sew this thing up so we have a strong, healed wound going forward? What does our leadership look like? That’s the hard decision,” said Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach.

State gambling rules could get rewritten

BY JIM SAUNDERS AND DARA KAM THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

It’s been a maxim at the Florida Department of Children and Families that if there were no substance abuse or mental illness, the agency could shut its doors.

But with substance abuse still threatening to overwhelm child-welfare systems like Florida’s, officials are looking at drug courts for troubled families as a way to address the problem.

Even as lawmakers wade into a major debate about the direction of gambling in Florida, regulators said last week they would start rewriting rules that play a critical role in the operations of racetracks and jai-alai frontons.

“In their current form, the laws regulating the industry are unclear and do not define many standards necessary to ensure the continued integrity of pari-mutuel wagering,’’ the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation said in a news release. “ The draft rules are designed to clarify terms and maintain traditional pari-mutuel standards.”

Major factor

Gambling reconsidered

Substance abuse is usually a factor in child abuse and neglect cases – from 60 percent to 80 percent of them.

And most methods of reuniting families after parents lose custody of their children due to drugs or alcohol aren’t very successful.

“People are hungry for therapeutic interventions that are going to help families and children,” said MiamiDade Circuit Judge Jeri-Beth Cohen, who presides over dependency drugcourt cases in the 11th Judicial Circuit.

“And what we’ve been doing for many years in this state and across the country hasn’t worked.”

Cohen, who started a dependency drug court in Miami-Dade in 1999, said most substance-abuse treatment programs only succeed in reunifying families about 15 percent of the time.

For dependency drug courts, more than 50 percent of participating parents clean up and regain custody of their children.

“In Florida we know that very few of these families can get reunified with their children and stay reunified,” Cohen said. “And the only thing that seems to be working in this arena is drug court.”

Interested crowd As an indication of the interest in the issue, a workshop on drug courts for troubled families drew a standingroom-only crowd last week at a DCF Child Protection Summit in Orlando.

Child abuse and neglect also has been a high-profile issue in recent weeks after a series of child deaths.

Cohen warned that dependency drug courts don’t work without intensive monitoring and support services.

A big part of the reason why they work is that they use frequent drug tests and sanctions for failed tests. A 2007 study showed that participants who were subjected to more frequent drug screens remained in treatment longer and were more likely to complete it. And parents who completed

WALTER MICHOT/MIAMI HERALD/MCT

A group of residents from the House of Hope appear in Judge Michele Towbin Singer’s court in Fort Lauderdale. treatment were five times more likely to be reunified with their children.

That’s important for the children of addicted parents for many reasons – even beyond the desire of most youngsters to be with their mothers and fathers.

Impacts kids According to the Child Welfare Information Gateway, “Maltreated children of parents with substance use disorders are more likely to have poorer physical, intellectual, social, and emotional outcomes. They are at greater risk of developing substance use problems themselves. They are more likely to be placed in foster care and to remain there longer than maltreated children of parents without substance use problems.”

Additionally, substance abuse is often accompanied by domestic violence, brushes with the law, drains on the family finances and heightened stress for parents already struggling to function.

Often, child-welfare professionals are racing the clock to help families reunify. The federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 requires that a hearing to decide a child’s permanent placement be held 12 months after he or she enters foster care.

“People in child welfare feel an urgency to find interventions, to find programs, to find collaborations that work well in prescribed timelines, because we only have 12 to 15 months to reunite families,” Cohen said.

There are 350 family drug courts and 2,500 criminal drug courts nationwide.

Cost-effective Supporters also say family drug courts have proven to be cost-effective – thanks to a reduced reliance on foster care and the criminal justice system.

The costs for family drug courts range from $7,000 to $14,000 per family, depending on the services, and save from $5,000 to $13,000 per family.

Florida families struggling with substance abuse will also get better support when the Florida Safe Families Network is fully up and running in the next few months, according to DCF Assistant Deputy Secretary for Operations Pete Digre. The computer network will enable child-welfare professionals to have access to the latest data about families with whom they work.

Digre said DCF has used family-intervention specialists to work with child-protective investigators and case managers to get families into substance abuse treatment, but that approach has often failed.

“We had a problem of ships passing in the night,” he said. “The family would not cooperate with the family intervention specialist, and because the loop was not closed, the child-protective investigator and the case manager wouldn’t know. The family would drop out and nobody would be the wiser.”

Soon, Digre said, the computer network will be notifying frontline childwelfare professionals when a family doesn’t follow through on substanceabuse counseling.

“At that point we have to take action, and we’ll have plenty of grounds to file a court petition either to get an in-home court order or to shelter the child because the addiction is just not getting dealt with,” he said.

The announcement came as state lawmakers are expected in 2014 to debate high-stakes gambling issues, such as a possible expansion of slot machines and allowing “destination resort” casinos in South Florida. The Senate Gaming Committee on Friday announced it would hold four workshops across the state in October and November to take public input about the issues.

Meanwhile, the Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering will hold the first in a series of rule-development workshops Oct. 16 in Fort Lauderdale.

The issues expected to be addressed include performance and jockey requirements; general rules for tracks, races and jai alai; and qualifications of horses, according to the news release.

Regulators have faced repeated scrutiny after signing off on a series of controversial gambling practices that have further fractured the pari-mutuel industry. Several of the decisions are being challenged in court.

Racing loopholes?

This year, an administrative law judge ruled that the department erred in granting a rodeo-style barrel-racing permit, the first in the country, to a facility in Gretna, west of Tallahassee. The barrel races opened the door for a lucrative card room.

The department and Marc Dunbar, a lawyer for the facility who is also part-owner, signed a consent order allowing the Gretna facility to keep its permit by running “flag-drop” races that feature only two horses. DBPR also approved a “flagdrop” race for Gulfstream Park, another client of Dunbar’s.

The agency also flipped its stance on quarterhorse permits based on a new interpretation that required zoning to be in place prior to permits being issued.

And regulators approved one-time races this year at Tampa Bay Downs and Gulfstream Park in Broward County that gave track operators the ability to offer year-round simulcast races.

Overall, the patched-together gambling laws give regulators too much leeway in interpreting the statutes, some critics argue.

A recent study for the Legislature by Spectrum Gaming Group called the state’s gambling laws “convoluted” and said they led to agency decisions that allowed “what critics call an ‘exploitation’ of current gaming laws.”

EDITORIAL

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SEPTEMBER 13 – SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

Alternatives better than ‘limited action’ against Syria President Obama stepped on a big limb when he threatened “limited action” against Syria because the country allegedly used chemical weapons against their own people. There are international bans against the use of chemical weapons, with Syria one of few countries not supporting the ban.

Chemical weapons allegedly killed more than 1,400 Syrians, and the ongoing civil war may have killed as many as 100,000.

President Obama announced his willingness to act on Syria’s domestic chemical intrusion before Labor Day, but he has now backpedaled and asked for congressional input in his decision.

DR. JULIANNE MALVEAUX TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

President Obama is finally listening to the sentiment of the American people, who, according to several polls, do not support action against Syria.

Have we learned the lessons of Iran, Afghanistan, and Vietnam?

In the last case, “simple” military action led us into a war that lasted for nearly a decade, and the loss of tens of thousands of lives. The “end” of that war was hardly decisive, with a withdrawal that didn’t so much save the day as salvage Ready to go Reportedly, U.S. troops in the the our nation’s bruised ego.

Middle East were ready to follow the orders of the command- Line crossed If allegations against Syria are er-in-chief before they got orders to slow down any action. Perhaps true, they have clearly crossed a

line. Still, it is not clear that unilateral action from the United States is the solution. While the United Nations is not always as effective as it might be, I’d prefer United Nations concurrence to United States leadership in this matter.

From Iraq, we must remember that verification of the use of chemical weapons is key to any action. I’ll never forget Secretary of State Colin Powell holding up a small container and saying, “this could be anthrax.” Turns out it wasn’t. Based on that display, we stepped up our action against Iraq.

A decade later, we are still there.

What will we do if Syria chooses to respond to our “limited” military action? We aren’t ready for war! We’ve got existing military commitments, and an alreadychallenged budget.

lar territory. Meanwhile Congress and the president are on a budget brink. Government could shut down at the end of the fiscal year unless unlikely compromises are made.

Will President Obama be forced to offer budget concessions in order to get Republican votes to support limited action against Syria? If he does, what implications will that have on the domestic budget, especially in the face of budget austerity?

President Bill Clinton reportedly supports military action against Syria, and regrets that the United States did not get involved in the massacre in Rwanda that claimed nearly a million lives. With Rwanda, though, a bipartisan group of legislators pushed Clinton to take the case against Rwanda to the United Nations; he did not. PresBudget brink ident Obama has not suggested Depending on escalation, we United Nations cooperation but could easily end up in billion-dol- instead insisted that it is time to

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: OBAMA AND SYRIA

GARY MCCOY, CAGLE CARTOONS

Random thoughts of a free Black mind, v. 186 Syria – Bro. Prez should be thankful he’s got old Black women praying for him unceasingly. That’s the only way that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin rode to his rescue, allowing Obama to save face by delaying a congressional vote authorizing military action in Syria.

Last week, I wrote, “Only Russia (and China) can force Syrian leader Bashar elAssad to the table with Syrian 'rebels’ (including al Qaeda) and the moderate Syrian Free Army…What's Assad's motivation? The United Nations Security Council can vote (with Russia and China's OK) to authorize military action if Assad won't negotiate. And America could still strike.

It’s good cop (Russia and China) vs. bad cop (America).”

That’s exactly what’s happening. But let’s talk about American hypocrisy.

At the UN, the U.S. is to Israel as Russia is to Syria. America moans about Russia’s and China's vetoes of criticism against Syria, at the same time America constantly vetoes the mildest criticism of Israel.

Why is Obama disrespected internationally (and he is)? Because he's constantly speechifying, "talking loud and saying

quick takes from #2: straight, no chaser

Charles W. Cherry II, Esq. PUBLISHER

nothing," in the words of James Brown, on the tough international issues.

I was naively hopeful that Bro. Prez’s worldwide stature as a signature historical figure, and his outreach to Middle East Muslims, would give him the spine to stand against the powerful Israeli lobby with regard to Palestine. That’s the key to peace in the Middle East. In his first term, Israel tested Obama by building housing settlements on land claimed by Palestinians. Obama didn’t say a mumbling word.

What hope?

Chickens do come home to roost. Still, I hope we stumble into peace in Syria.

Contact me at ccherry2@gmail.com; holler at me at www.facebook.com/ ccherry2; follow me on Twitter @ccherry2.

Opinions expressed on this editorial page are those of the writers, and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of the newspaper or the publisher.

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take action.

Alternatives Where is the peace movement?

Are they shying off their traditional anti-war stance because President Obama, not President Bush, is in the White House? Once, you could count on groups like Code Pink to lift their voices against military action. Their silence speaks volumes.

There are alternatives to “limited military action” in Syria; those alternatives have yet to be explored. We shouldn’t involve ourselves in what might be a multibillion dollar action just so President Obama can sell wolf tickets (or bragging rights) and count on Congress to cash them.

Julianne Malveaux is a DC based economist and author.

Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

Destroying Syria’s leader won’t make a difference Public opposition is rising in regards to President Obama’s proposed military strike on Syria.

To me, evidence of Syrian government use of chemical weaponry is fool’s proof!

Americans were fooled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and it appears as though the government is trying to fool people about chemical weapons use in Syria.

Why do I think that? Because one lie leads to another.

The government lied already about the people fighting in Syria. The U.S. government says people opposing the Syrian government were “rebels” and the Syrian government said people shooting at Syrian soldiers were terrorists.

They all look alike to me just like some say Black people look to them. But it has been proven that Al Qaeda terrorists are in Syria.

Lucius Gantt THE GANTT REPORT

aware of video showing the Syrian government attacking citizens with chemical weapons.

Yes, I’ve seen video of people showing injuries and symptoms that may have been a result of exposure to chemicals. But I have not seen proof that the chemicals were Syrian government chemicals.

If you really want to know why a U.S. military strike on Syria would be bad, history is the best teacher. Recent interventions in foreign countries and foreign conflicts by the United States has not exactly gotten the results that were articulated before any U.S. invasions.

Iraq is still unstable. Libya is now full of terrorists.

Egypt is on the brink of civil Terrorist rebels Many terrorists are trained war. The Taliban remains in fighters, but so-called “reb- control of huge areas in Afels” are untrained. Terrorists ghanistan. have access to high-powered weapons that can damage “Lords of war” tanks and, in some cases, The only ones that I’m reach helicopters and other sure have benefited from aircraft, and most “rebels” U.S. invasions in foreign do have that capability. countries are the “lords of And video has surfaced war” that run the world milthat shows terrorists shoot- itary industrial complexes ing unarmed Syrian soldiers that sells guns and bombs to in the head, but I’m not the highest bidders and the

world’s beast bankers that loan money to both sides of warring parties to buy guns and bombs.

U.S. involvement in foreign wars does not bring about peace, democracy, civilization or any of the other catchphrase results that the government uses when they decide to use Predator drones and missiles to attack a country that can’t attack back.

The bottom line: Americans want American money spent on Americans.

Citizens last American voters put the president and members of Congress first. When it comes to spending tax dollars, the president and the Congress love to put United States citizens last!

President Obama, I guess, is a good guy. But President “A-bomber” is no friend of mine, no friend of American taxpayers and no friend of the world!

If the U.S. bombs Syria, in the end America will end up sleeping with the military enemy. This policy of destroying any country’s legitimate leader that the West can’t control must be stopped!

Buy Gantt's book "Beast Too: Dead Man Writing" online or at any major bookstore. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

Obama’s anti-Black rant It was bad enough that a sitting president and key members of his administration occupied positions of prominence, and in fact stole the show, at the anniversary of the March on Washington.

But what issued from Barack Obama’s mouth were premeditated insults to Black Americans and their history. The First Black President gave a very good standup impression of a racist White man.

Obama chose to expand his remarks beyond the early sixties period, past the triumphs of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, to give a mini-lecture on what went wrong, in his estimation, with the Black Freedom Movement.

The result was a brief but vicious slew of slurs against African-Americans – the kind of slander you expect to hear on FOX News, or from a half-drunk White guy at a country-western bar.

the president should say so, and open up a discussion of who the real criminals and assassins were, in the late sixties and early seventies.

Obama bemoans that, at some unspecified point in the Black struggle, the “transformative message of unity and brotherhood was drowned out by the language of recrimination.” Who was recriminating against whom, Mr. President?

Since Obama was lecturing Black people – and we know he never lectures White people – he must have been talking about Black militants of some sort.

But he won’t say, preferring to leave his meaning to the audience’s imagination.

Another lecture

Big slapdown

According to Obama, Black folks lost their way when “legitimate grievances against police brutality tipped into excuse-making for criminal behavior.” What the hell does that mean?

Which particular incidents is he referring to in which Blacks used police brutality to somehow mask criminal activity? If he means the Black Panther Party, which I suspect, then

Then Obama moved in for the big slapdown: “What had once been a call for equality of opportunity,” said Obama, “the chance for all Americans to work hard and get ahead, was too often framed as a mere desire for government support, as if we had no agency in our own liberation, as if poverty was an excuse for not raising your child and the bigotry of others was reason to give up

GLEN FORD BLACK AGENDA REPORT

on yourself.”

In that one, long sentence, Obama resurrects Ronald Reagan’s phantom armies of “Welfare Queens”; he appears to be taking a cheap swipe at calls for Black reparations; and he once again joins with his real soul mates on the White Right in blaming Black culture for the disparities in U.S. society.

Progress stalled?

In fact, Obama puts the onus squarely on Blacks for destroying the promise of racial harmony. He says it quite plainly: “All of that history is how progress stalled.

That's how hope was diverted. It's how our country remained divided.”

That’s right: Obama blames Black people for messing up his America, which very much resembles Ronald Reagan’s America, a place that was put on the wrong track, as candidate Obama said back in 2008, by “all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s.”

Barack Obama went to the March on Washington anniversary and spoke like an angry White man. He governs like one, too. Doesn’t that tell you something?

Contact Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford at Glen.Ford@ BlackAgendaReport.com.

Click on this story at www. flcourier.com to write your own response.

SEPTEMBER 13 – SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

Digital, social outlets attract advertisers There are multiple options when it comes to how consumers watch their favorite programs or other video content.

In corner No. 1, we have TV – still the reigning champ for advertisers who want to reach audiences, with the ability to attract viewers across multiple demographics. The average U.S. consumer watches more than 156 hours of TV a month. African-Americans watch, on average, more than 190 hours a month on TV – more than any other group.

In corner No. 2, we have social media, proving to be a powerful contender with multi-platform advertising, and I am specifically referencing Facebook.

Did you know that Facebook has more than one billion members around the globe? That’s almost one-seventh of the world’s population. And because we love our social media, Blacks are more likely to visit social networking sites like Facebook than other demographic groups.

CHERYL PEARSONMCNEIL NNPA COLUMNIST

tote their smartphones, tablets (a new requirement in some schools) and laptops around with them.

Other Nielsen insights show that even though students use their devices for research (51 percent), reading books (42 percent) taking notes (40 percent) and completing class assignments, (30 percent), the latest data shows that connected device-owning kids in school 13 and older, spend about 25 percent of their time social networking (not just on Facebook).

On Facebook specifically, kids ages 12-17 are checking in during the day at 19 percent and that’s the least amount of time spent among younger demographic groups.

Young adults between the ages of 25-34 top the FB daytime chart at 55 percent, followed by the 35-44-year-old group at 52 percent and 18-24-year-olds at 50 percent.

Facebook reaches 47 percent of the 45-54 daytime crowd and 42 percent of those 55-64. In addition, don’t discount our most senior consumers because they are on Facebook too, with a 30 percent daytime reach among the 65 and over demo.

en Online Campaign Ratings and Nielsen Cross-Platform Rating.

This information keeps marketers informed and gives them even greater insight into crafting crossplatform campaigns to reach consumers. Insights from a Nielsen TV/Internet/Mobile Data Fusion panel show that Facebook is leading in online reach, especially among younger consumers.

In a new Nielsen study commissioned by Facebook, the social networking site’s reach was measured against four TV networks. During the weekday daytime hours, Facebook achieves a higher reach than the TV networks for every age group for people younger than 55, while during primetime hours, each of the four TV networks achieves a higher Innovative services reach than Facebook in each age With more than 212 million group except for people ages 18computer internet users in the U.S. and a smartphone penetra- 24.

Multitasking tion of 62 percent (69 percent in Primetime is a different story. our community), Nielsen mea- Social networking This budding school year is in Not surprisingly, during primesures consumer behavior with two, innovative services: Niels- full swing. Tech-savvy students time, the study shows TV cap-

EDITORIAL

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VISUAL VIEWPOINT: OBAMA’S SYRIA SPEECH

DARYL CAGLE, CAGLECARTOONS.COM

turing the most reach with more consumers than Facebook (except among 18-24 year olds).

But remember, many of us have become pros at multitasking – checking our phones, tablets and computers while watching our favorite programs.

This leads to overlap. This duplicate reach gives marketers a golden opportunity to develop effective, integrated plans to reach their audiences both online and on TV. For instance, Nielsen’s Facebook study showed that during primetime, the site contributed a 36 percent duplicated reach among consumers in the 25-34 age group.

So even though there are multiple viewing outlets, each have

their own special features that consumer enjoy – all reasons why marketers should understand the cross-platform approach to get the maximum success from their advertising campaigns.

If you are not active on social media, I encourage you to get active to keep up with these speedof-light-pace journeys new technologies take us on daily.

And please click the “like” button on the Nielsen Community page on Facebook.

Cheryl Pearson-McNeil is senior vice president of Public Affairs and Government Relations for Nielsen. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

Poor Blacks, Whites working together is solution Three hundred years before a multiracial coalition stormed Washington's National Mall to demand equal rights and economic justice, the working men of Gloucester County, Va., made a stand of their own based on class, not race.

We often ask whether Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would recognize the world in 2013, but it is equally valid to ask whether he would have recognized the world of 1663, when Black and White children of slaves and servants did play together in the tobacco fields.

One of the forgotten landmarks of civil rights history occurred 350 years ago Sunday: Sept. 1, 1663.

This day marks the first recorded instance of African slaves and European indentured servants standing together for justice against the ruling elite.

Standing together The Gloucester County Conspiracy took place at a time when Virginia tobacco growers relied on both slaves and indentured ser-

BEN JEALOUS TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

vants to farm tobacco. Management treated their workers with cruel abandon, regardless of color.

Unwilling to accept their fate, a group of Black and White workers met in secret to plan a revolt. After securing weapons and a drum, they would "march from house to house" until they reached the mansion of Royal Governor Sir William Berkeley. They would demand their freedom, and resort to force if necessary.

Though the plot failed, the landowners recognized the power that the Gloucester rebels possessed when banded together. Over the next several decades, they sought to breed racial contempt between the White and Black members of the underclass.

On the plantation level, they gave Whites nominal control in the field. On the colony level, they allowed Whites to join the militia and carry firearms. As historian Edmund Morgan writes, the landowners used racism as a device for control.

On this 350th anniversary, the Gloucester rebellion can teach us as much about our character as the March on Washington.

Race relations The rebels in Gloucester recognized what King memorialized in his famous remarks: we are, by our nature, capable of great things when we judge one another solely on the content of our character, not by the color of our skin.

The original state of race relations in America is one of shared struggle, not mutually assured destruction. It is ultimately the introduction of an outside variable - money, power, or the desire for control - that tends to alter that natural state.

U.S. is the biggest user of chemical weapons in history Outside the bubble of ignorance and unreality that corporate media and corporate rule impose on the U.S. public, the world is horrified and aghast not at the alleged use of nerve gas against Syrian civilians, but at the notion that the United States claims the right to bomb Syria supposedly to “protect” its people.

Agent Orange From 1961 to 1972 the U.S. military executed the biggest and deadliest chemical warfare operation in history. It was Operation Trail Dust, in which more than 20 million thousands of tons of blended dioxon and other poisons, the most famous known as Agent Orange, were sprayed across 10 percent of the land area of South Vietnam, along with big tracts of Laos and Cambodia.

The objective was to kill the lush triple canopy jungle in which Vietnamese fighters hid and through which they transported supplies, and to kill the animals and crops of Vietnamese peasants in areas the U.S. and its puppets could not control, driving that population into its cities and so-called “strategic hamlets.”

Many of the estimated 2 million war Vietnamese dead perished from the short-term effects of U.S. chemical warfare, while Vietnamese and

There are treaties banning chemical weapons, but none of them authorize any nation to launch BRUCE or punitive A. DIXON “preventive” strikes against those who BLACK AGENDA REPORT do. Most Arabs, most of the world knows, and so other doctors verify that do more than a few Amersince then an estimated icans, including much of half-million children have the so-called left. been born with major impairments. To this day, Hypocrisy lives The foremost practithe U.S. has never accepted any responsibility for cioner of chemical warthis ghastly and ongoing fare in human history is about to bomb a country atrocity.

Even if we stick only to one-fifteenth its size, for western Asia, the U.S. re- its alleged use of chemical cord on chemical weap- weapons.

If the Bush-Cheney ons used against civilians gang were still in power, is unprecedented. we might see Melissa Harris-Perry and Rachel MadIran-Iraq war dow reminding us of this During the 1980s Iran- awful record. But there's Iraq War, the Pentagon a Democrat in the White provided Saddam Hus- House, so the hypocrisein with satellite intelli- sy detectors have been gence so he'd know where turned off and the history to fire his nerve gas at Ira- teachers silenced. nian troop concentraThis is what U.S. policy tions. makers mean when they In its two Gulf Wars, the talk about their “right to U.S. littered Kuwait and protect” civilians in other Iraq with radioactive de- countries. pleted uranium munitions which continue to Bruce A. Dixon is poison countless civil- managing editor at ians today. Hospitals in Black Agenda Report, places like Fallujah report and a member of the skyrocketing numbers of state committee of the radiation-induced birth GA Green Party. Contact defects. And during the him via this site's conObama administration tact page, or at bruce. the U.S. winked at Israel's di xon(at)bl ack agenuse of ghastly white phos- dareport.com. Click on phorus made in the USA this story at www.flcouagainst Palestinian civil- rier.com to write your ians in Gaza. own response.

It turns out that 2013 is a perfect year for this lesson. The fight for voting rights is making its own 50th anniversary curtain call, in the form of the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder and countless voter suppression laws that affect African-Americans but also Americans of all colors, ages and incomes.

The failed War on Drugs continues to destroy families in Black inner city America, and, increasingly, White rural America.

Poor organizing Finally, 45 years after King was killed in the midst of his Poor People's Campaign, low-wage workers of all hues are organizing across geographic and demographic lines to demand a higher minimum wage.

Politics is a lot like physics. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and objects in motion eventually return to their original state. As we tackle these challenges, let us consider that the

original state of race relations in America may be one of unity – and that the possibility of moving beyond our nation's legacy of racism is obtainable.

In his 1869 speech "Our Composite Nationality," Frederick Douglass wrote about the unique phenomenon and mission of America. On this anniversary, let us remember his words: "Our geographical position, our relation to the outside world, our fundamental principles of Government ... our vast resources, requiring all manner of labor to develop them, and our already existing composite population, all conspire to one grand end, and that is to make us the most perfect national illustration of the unity and dignity of the human family, that the world has ever seen."

Benjamin Todd Jealous is the president and CEO of the national NAACP. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

The Affordable Care Act: Attainable coverage for small businesses America’s 28 million small businesses are the backbone of our economy, creating two out of every three net new jobs and employing half of America’s workforce.

From mom-and-pop stores and restaurants, to hightech startups and productive manufacturers, nearly 400,000 small businesses are helping to drive the Florida economy and create jobs in our local communities.

Many small business owners consider their employees to be part of their family, and providing benefits such as health care is one important tool they have to help retain their talented workforce and compete for skilled employees. But even though many businesses want to offer their workers’ health insurance, in the past they have often been unable to afford it, for reasons like steadily climbing rate increases and limited coverage.

Better options

CASSIUS BUTTS GUEST COMMENTARY

fect in the next several years, it’s important for small business owners to stay informed about what they need to do to comply with and take advantage of the Affordable Care Act.

SHOP marketplace First, starting January 1, 2014, small businesses with generally up to 50 full-time equivalent employees will be able to purchase health insurance through the online health insurance marketplace for small businesses, known as SHOP. The SHOP Marketplace will offer employers a choice of qualified health plans from different private health insurers and make it easier for employers to make side-byside comparisons between these plans, based on price and benefits.

SHOP also offers employers and their employees access to health insurance plans that must include a package of “Essential Health Benefits” like coverage for doctor visits, preventive care, hospitalization and prescriptions.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is committed to giving small business owners the resources they need to start and grow a business –including access to critical information about how the Affordable Care Act is opening up better healthcare options for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Under the Affordable Care Act, small employers will have more options than ev- Tax credits Any many small employer when it comes to health insurance. As these provi- ers may be eligible for tax sions continue to go into ef- credits of up to 50 percent of

their premium costs if they choose to purchase coverage through SHOP. Enrollment starts on October 1 for coverage beginning January 1, 2014.

The Affordable Care Act calls on all employers that are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (generally, those firms that have at least one employee and at least $500,000 in annual dollar volume of business), to notify their employees about the coverage options available to them through the health care marketplace, whether or not the employer currently offers health coverage. Employers are required to provide this notice to all current full-time and part-time employees by October 1, 2013, as well as all new employees at the time of hire beginning October 1.

The Affordable Care Act allows small employers to offer health coverage in a way that makes sense for their business and works for their bottom line, and the SBA is committed to leveraging our resources and federal partnerships to connect you with the facts and resources you need to understand the law.

Cassius Butts is an SBA regional administrator.

Go to www.sba.gov/vets or contact the North Florida District Office at (904) 4431900 for more information on SBA’s services and programs for veteran entrepreneurs. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

TOj A6

NATION

SEPTEMBER 13 – SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

Lowering intoxication level stirs debate At the core of concerns about moving it down to 0.05 is the tricky issue of when alcohol impairment becomes criminally negligent

BY TED GREGORY CHICAGO TRIBUNE (MCT)

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Timothy Brown has put hundreds of drunken drivers behind the wheel.

In the research center where he works, the drivers ingest vodka or 151-proof alcohol and get behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Malibu mounted in a metal pod about the size of a two-car garage. Then they take a spin in what’s considered the world’s most sophisticated driving simulator, while Brown and his colleagues gather data.

Brown is using that data to better understand the difference in driving abilities of someone who is sober, someone who has had a few drinks and someone who has had a few more drinks. That work has been made especially timely by a controversial National Transportation Safety Board recommendation to lower the legal limit of intoxication to a blood alcohol content of 0.05 from 0.08.

Shedding light Brown, senior research associate at the $100 million National Advanced Driving Simulator in Iowa, is looking to isolate the precise differences in driving performance with no alcohol in the blood and at a level of 0.05. His work is expected to shed light on the national debate.

“My heart doesn’t tell me anything,” Brown said when asked for his best guess on whether 0.05 was serious impairment. He acknowledges that diminished performance happens at 0.05 but would not elaborate “because I’m a researcher and the data drives me.”

What constitutes dangerous driving is once again up for debate.

What’s reckless?

Calling impaired driving “a national epidemic,” NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman made the 0.05 recommendation in May. It was one of several proposals that include high-visibility DUI enforcement, expanded use of alcohol-sensing technology and ignition interlock devices, and more DUI treatment courts.

Research suggests that lowering the legal limit of intoxication to 0.05 could save 500 to 1,000 lives a year.

But many safe-driving advocates are conspicuously silent on the issue of whether 0.05 is high enough impairment to merit criminal charges.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving is standing down, as is Illinois Secretary of

State Jesse White. The venerable Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which notes that it never takes formal positions on policy, said police will have trouble enforcing 0.05.

At the core of concerns about 0.05 is the tricky issue of when alcohol impairment becomes criminally negligent. How does slight alcohol impairment differ from impairment caused by drowsiness, cell phone use, medication, aging or other conditions?

Is it reckless to get behind the wheel after two glasses of wine at a dinner party? A large beer at a hockey game? A couple of cocktails at a reception?

Sleep or drunk?

Research on the topic is voluminous — and resembles a weaving car.

The National Sleep Foundation states that drowsiness is very similar to alcohol impairment and “can impair driving performance as much or more so than alcohol,” according to a report on the topic. Being sleepy can slow reaction times, limit vision and create lapses in judgment and delays in processing information, the foundation states.

“In other words,” the foundation reports, “driving sleepy is like driving drunk.”

A 2003 study by University of Utah showed that motorists who talk on cell phones — hands-free or not — are as impaired as drivers at a 0.08 BAC. Study participants drove slower and hit the brakes and accelerated later than those driving undistracted.

Drunken drivers drove slower than cell phone users and undistracted drivers but more aggressively.

They also followed more closely and hit their brakes more erratically, the research showed.

Examining the data As to whether such a thing as responsible drinking and driving exists, some research shows that lane deviations and attention lapses occur at a BAC as low as 0.001. MADD and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism recommend no one drive after drinking.

But the American Beverage Institute, which represents restaurant and bar owners, calls the 0.05 recommendation an effort to “criminalize perfectly responsible behavior,” saying that less than 1 percent of traffic fatalities in the U.S. are caused by drivers with a BAC from 0.05 to 0.08.

The organization points to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data showing that 70 percent of

CHUCK BERMAN/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/MCT

Driver impairment study research assistant Catie Johnson, at the University of Iowa National Advanced Driving Simulator, shows what the volunteer driver sees on the 360-degree street simulation in the NADS-1 driving simulator on Aug. 20 in Coralville, Iowa. The study tests impaired driving.

Driving under the influence Though the number of 2011 U.S. deaths tied to drunken driving dropped slightly from the year before, more than 9,000 people died in crashes in which the driver was impaired with a level over the legal limit of a 0.08 blood alcohol content. There were 1,154 fatalities in 2011 in crashes in which the driver had a blood alcohol level from 0.05 to 0.08.

Number of drivers involved in fatal crashes by blood alcohol content, 2011

BAC of drivers in fatal crashes, 2011 As a percentage

500 400 300

Alcoholimpaired (BAC 0.08+)

200

9,878

All other

22,489

By age 11% 8%

6 a.m. to 5:59 p.m.

41 36

By sex Male

.03

.05

.07

.09

.11

.13

.15

.17

.19

.21

.23

.25

.27

.29

.31

.33

.35

.37

.39

.41

.43

.45+

0.05

0.08 Legal limit

0.10

0.15

Decline in tracking of a moving target and ability to perform two tasks at the same time

Reduced coordination, ability to track moving objects and response time; difficulty steering

Loss of concentration, short-term memory, speed control, information processing and perception

Reduced ability to maintain lane position and brake appropriately

Substantial impairment, diminished attention and necessary visual and auditory processing

Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Graphic: Chicago Tribune

drunken driving deaths involve a driver with a BAC of 0.15 or higher.

Making the case In making its recommendation in May, the NTSB noted that more than 100 countries, including many in Europe, have set 0.05 as the legal limit of intoxication and experienced significant drops in traffic fatalities after doing so.

Drunken driving accounts for nearly 10,000 traffic fatalities a year in the U.S. “The research clearly shows that drivers with a BAC above 0.05 are impaired and at a significantly greater risk of being involved in a crash where someone is killed or injured,” the NTSB’s Hersman said in recommending the lower level.

Sarah Longwell, managing director of the American Beverage Institute, contends the NTSB research lacks context. The significantly greater risk that the NTSB points out is no different than the risk that accompanies listening to a loud car radio or having a passenger talking to

the driver, she said.

Emphasizing other countries that set their legal definition of intoxication at 0.05 is “an apples to oranges comparison” to the U.S., Longwell said. Many of those countries have “vastly different” driving, mass transit and drinking cultures, she said. In addition, the countries imposed “other draconian measures,” including random breath testing, that contributed to the decline in traffic fatalities and would be unacceptable in the U.S., Longwell added.

“We’re going to stand by 0.08 as the law,” she said.

Beyond hangovers Clarifying alcohol’s effect on the body can be tricky.

Generally speaking, the liver, brain, pancreas and stomach break down and eliminate alcohol through enzymes that convert the substance into water and carbon dioxide, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports.

During that conversion, one of the enzymes metabolizes into “a highly toxic substance and known

© 2013 MCT

10

65-74 37

Motorcycle

What research does show is that alcohol can slow communication between chemical neurotransmitters that carry messages between the brain’s estimated 100 billion neurons.

Some research indicates that acetaldehyde may contribute to that impairment. Lab animals that received acetaldehyde exhibited impaired coordination

17 14

55-64

2 1

Range of factors

24 21

45-54

25 21

carcinogen,” acetaldehyde. That substance and an alcohol-metabolizing enzyme known as cytochrome contribute to the development of cancers in the respiratory tract, liver, colon or rectum and breast, Health and Human Services research shows.

Alcohol’s effect on the brain is considered harmful but somewhat uncertain. In its 24-page “Beyond Hangovers: Understanding alcohol’s impact on your health,” even the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism states, “There still is much we do not understand about how the brain works and how alcohol affects it.”

28 24

35-44 27 24

Light truck

34 30

25-34

16 14

By vehicle type

Large truck

37 32

21-24

28

Car

0.02

24 20

16-20

24

Female

Effects of alcohol on driving

11% 8%

Under age 16

6 p.m. to 5:59 a.m.

100

BAC .01

0.08 and higher

0.01-0.07

By time of day

Traffic fatalities in 2011 Total 32,367

Impaired

Total 10,910

29

8 7

75+ 5

and memory and sleepiness, according to research published in 2006 in the journal Alcohol Research & Health.

Brain regions most vulnerable to alcohol include the cerebellum, which controls motor skills; the limbic system, where memory and emotion are centered; and the cerebral cortex, which connects to the nervous system and deals with the ability to think, plan, remember, solve problems and interact socially.

The metabolism of alcohol varies based on genetics, including variations in those enzymes, and environmental factors such as the amount a person drinks and his or her diet, the Department of Health and Human Services states.

“Regardless of how much a person consumes,” a department report notes, “the body can only metabolize a certain amount of alcohol every hour,” an amount “that varies widely among individuals and depends on a range of factors, including liver size and body mass.”

E-cigarette use among US students doubled in one year E-cigarettes Electronic cigarettes – technically battery-operated nicotine inhalers – are becoming increasingly popular, but the jury is still out on the health risks they may yield.

Electronic components Include control circuits, pneumatic airflow sensor

Light Simulates cigarette glow, indicates when device is ready for use and works as battery indicator

Vaporizer Atomizes the nicotine smoking liquid in the liquid container

Nicotine liquid container

Battery

Inhaler Electronic cigarette One e-cigarette 100 6-24 mg.

E-cigarette with 24 mg of nicotine 0.16 mg/puff Source: E-Cig

Comparison

Regular cigarette

Equivalent

6-7 cigarettes

Puffs per cigarette Nicotine level Nicotine per puff

15 0.6-2.4 mg.

Cigarette with 1.8 mg of nicotine 0.16 mg/puff © 2013 MCT

Public health experts troubled by new report from CDC

BY KAREN KAPLAN LOS ANGELES TIMES (MCT)

LOS ANGELES — One out of 10 American high school students used e-cigarettes in 2012, along with nearly three in 100 middleschool students, according to a new federal report.

That’s about double the rate of e-cigarette use in 2011.

The sharp increase has public health experts worried. Electronic cigarettes contain nicotine, an enticing flavor like mint or chocolate — and often cancercausing compounds called nitrosamines, according to a 2009 analysis by the Food and Drug Administration.

“The increased use of ecigarettes by teens is deeply troubling,” Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement.

“Many teens who start with e-cigarettes may be condemned to struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine and conventional cigarettes.”

Young as sixth grade The study, published last week in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, is based on data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey. It found that 1.1 percent of students in grades 6 through 8 were using e-cigarettes at least once a month, as were 2.8 percent of students in grades 9 to 12.

Among these regular ecigarette users, 76.3 percent

also smoked traditional cigarettes. But the report’s authors — from the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products and the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health — seemed most concerned about the 20.3 percent of middle-school students and 7.2 percent of high schoolers who had used e-cigarettes but not yet tried conventional cigarettes. The researchers estimated that 160,000 students across the country fell into that category.

“The risk for nicotine addiction and initiation of the use of conventional cigarettes or other tobacco products” among these students is a “serious concern,” they wrote.

Setting limits Electronic cigarettes are not regulated by the FDA,

though the agency has said it plans to bring the batterypowered devices under its jurisdiction.

In the meantime, some cities are setting limits on their use.

If the idea is to nip ecigs in the bud before they take off with consumers, it’s probably too late. One tobacco industry analyst from Wells Fargo Securities predicts Americans will spend $1.7 billion on e-cigarettes this year.

That means experts at the FDA and CDC should get busy, the study authors wrote: “Given the rapid increase in use and youths’ susceptibility to social and environmental influences to use tobacco, developing strategies to prevent marketing, sales, and use of e-cigarettes among youths is critical.”

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Arsenio Hall says he’s starting all over again See page B2

September 13 - September 19, 2013

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

Green beans are no longer a plain side dish See page B4

SOUTH FLORIDA / TREASURE COAST AREA

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www.flcourier.com

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remembering 9/11

I saw the Twin Towers FALL Editor’s note: This is one story of an occasional Florida Courier series entitled ‘Survivor’s Stories, First Person.’ We highlight the lives of Floridians who have survived life-changing events, as described in their own words. Ed Hashey, formerly the Florida Courier’s creative director, survived the September 11 attacks, and for five years he was silent about what he saw. He spoke about 9/11 for the first time exclusively to the Florida Courier in 2006.

BY ED HASHEY SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

I

’ve had some tough experiences. But nothing prepared me for what would be one of the worst days in my life.

Still, I’m humble enough to know I can’t complain. I am alive, and lucky – and I feel somewhat guilty about that fact.

For the last five years since witnessing that horrible event up close and personal, I have not complained. I remained silent out of respect for those who suffered and died, along with the anguished families they left behind.

I thank God for every day given to me, no matter how bad it gets sometimes. I know inside that it will never be worse than what unfolded in front of me on September 11, 2001.

Calm before the storm This story actually begins in 1999. I am a graphic designer and illustrator, and I was immersed in a freelance project to redesign the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) newspaper. This took me around the world, starting with the WSJ Europe publication in Brussels, Belgium in 1999, then to the Asian WSJ in Hong Kong in 2000, then finishing up at the WSJ’s New York office in 2001.

Their headquarters are – were – located in the upper floors of 1 World Financial Center, directly across the street from what were the World Trade Center towers.

It was my sixth visit to Lower Manhattan. I decided to ask my wife Jeanne if she wanted to join me this time, as my birthday is September 13. We wanted to celebrate it together, especially since we didn’t see much of each other due to my busy schedule.

We flew in on the afternoon of September 9 into Newark, N.J., and stayed at a hotel in Times Square. The following Monday was a normal opening workday.

I took the Number 1 and Number 9 subway lines from Times Square to the WTC station at Cortland Street.

The weather was perfect outside. It was the typical WSJ workday; eight hours of work and a typical lunch at one of the hundreds of local restaurants.

After finishing my workday, it was back up to Times Square to spend the evening with Jeanne.

We dined at a simple pizza joint.

She told me she walked up and down Fifth Avenue all day, and her feet were killing her.

After asking her what she was doing for the next day, she said the hotel concierge gave her a bunch of coupons, including one for free admission to the observation deck of the World Trade Center. I replied, “Great.

You can go up to the towers in the morning and do lunch with us after that. I can show you where I work.” We decided to get to bed fairly early, and leave around 7:30 a.m. on September 11 for 1 World Trade Center.

A normal day We woke up to a beautiful Tuesday morning, got breakfast, gathered our belongings and headed out for the day.

We got about halfway to the subway station; Jeanne had a confession.

“I don’t think I can make it today,” she said. “My legs are killing me from all that walking yesterday.”

So I escorted her back to the hotel and she prepared a hot bath and turned on the ‘Today Show.’ She felt bad for bowing out at the last minute. I told her not to worry, and that we could try again tomorrow. I then headed back to the subway.

I was reading a book about the Red Sox/ Yankees rivalry and listening to my iPod. It takes about 20 minutes to get down to Lower Manhattan from New Jersey. I looked at my watch; it was 8:40 a.m., and my stop at Cortland Street was next.

Leaving the train, I walked up to the street exit, and right as I saw daylight, I heard a huge explosion and then many pieces of falling debris, some the size of car hoods, started falling around me and the large crowd of people with me at the station.

The noise hurt my ears and I could feel the heat from the fireball above. I fell down twice as the large crowd began to scramble for safety. What happened?

Witness to hellish destruction

JIM WATSON/US NAVY NEWS/MCT

and to this day I cannot get the image of this one man in a plaid, outdated suit, orange or brown in color. He was bald, maybe 50 years old or so.

It is true what they say about shock. Everything in your brain starts playing in slow motion. This whole time I felt helpless, as if I was in a trance waiting for some logical end to the whole thing.

Second tower hit

TODD PLITT/KRT

“Two men next to me argued whether the first object coming down was a body; after about three seconds, the argument was over.”

The mass of people in the train station responded by frantically reversing course and heading back into the train station, but there were too many people trying to exit.

Many of us squeezed against the side of the World Trade Center complex, trying not to be hit by the falling debris. After about a minute, the debris stopped falling. I looked up and saw smoke and flames; the distinctive smell of kerosene lingered in the air.

There were several parked limousines and cars damaged from the debris.

Broken shards of glass were everywhere, and some pedestrians were injured. A few paramedics arrived and began administering first aid. Police began setting up barricades, while firemen started driving up and pulling out fire hoses.

I decided to cross over Liberty Street. I looked up and saw the first tower engulfed in flames that quickly turned into thick black smoke. Eyewitnesses said a plane had crashed into the building.

From our perspective, we were thinking it was a small plane, but I remember one man saying it was a jet. This made sense, as the explosion was huge. I knew this was the north tower, the one with the big antenna on top.

I decided to cross back over the street closer to Tower Two. Police arrived and instructed us to clear the area.

People die All of this time, my eyes were fixated on the damage above. To my horror, I started seeing people jump to their deaths. I have always wondered three things with respect to dying: first, what it would be like to die in a plane crash; second, what it would be like to die falling as we all have dreamed about; third, if we die before we hit the ground. But I never wanted to bear witness to any of it.

As each person fell, I started praying. Two men next to me argued whether the first object

coming down was a body; after about three seconds, the argument was over. We were not sure where to go or what to do. People in the crowd screamed and gasped in horror as each person fell to their death. Police and firemen alike were scrambling for cover. Chaos ruled.

Bodies were landing on awnings, on the cement pavements, on the shrubbery. Each time a body hit, it made a sound similar to that of a sack of flour hitting the ground. There is no time to look away in a situation like this. There were mists of blood in the air each time a body landed.

Almost every person was alive before they made impact, some kicking and screaming, others calm and choosing to land on their backs. Others were smoldering and unconscious. Most poignant was a brave couple that jumped together and obviously wanted to somehow be in control of their own fates. I remember the clothes they wore,

Then I heard a loud noise of an aircraft. A rapidly moving shadow was visible in the sky. I looked up and remember seeing another large airline jet smash into the second tower.

This explosion seemed much closer. You could hear the jet engines throttle up just before impact, and it slammed into the building so fast, it was just a blur. I fell to the ground again, feeling the heat of the huge fireball that grew from the explosion directly above me.

The markings on the aircraft were distinctly that of United Airlines. Then it became clear to me that this was no accident. This was terrorism.

A wave of panic soon hit me. Were there more jets coming in? Will the towers collapse and kill us all? Are there bombs on the ground?

How big is this attack?

Survival instinct I felt a rush of adrenaline as I ran into an entryway of a bank across the street. Flying debris destroyed the windows all around us. Cops and firemen were among the large crowd of people running for their lives.

I ducked behind some tables and waited for debris to stop falling, and I heard the distinctive sounds of metal and broken glass ricocheting everywhere.

The police regrouped and used bullhorns to give evacuation orders to either go up Broadway or go over the Brooklyn Bridge. I starting walking briskly up Liberty Street, and as I passed the entrance area to Tower Two, I saw a fireman coming out with a very large Black woman on his shoulders.

She was moaning. He stood her up against a round shrubbery pot, and I saw that her Please see 9/11, Page B2

CALENDAR

B2

SEPTEMBER 13 – SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

S

Bondi reschedules Gore’s execution date; conflicts with campaign fundraiser

Lionel Richie

Lionel Richie is scheduled to perform Sept.

18 at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood.

BY JIM TURNER THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Miami: A concert featuring the English-born Scottish recording artist and singer Emeli Sande is Oct. 11 at the Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater.

Miami: J. Cole What Dreams May Come Tour makes a stop at the James L. Knight Center on Sept. 10.

The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Wale also is scheduled to perform.

Hollywood: Lionel Richie is scheduled to perform Sept. 18 at Hard Rock Live.

Fort Lauderdale: Live jazz, blues,

pop and everything in between along Hollywood’s signature 2.5 mile Boardwalk is every Friday of every month. More information: 954-9242980.

Miami Beach: Tickets are on sale for a concert with John Legend will be at the Fillmore Miami Beach at Jackson Gleason Theater in Miami Beach on Nov. 3.

Boca Raton: An open mic night for 18 and up featuring comedy, poetry and music is held every Monday at the Funky Biscuit in the back of Royal Palm Plaza, 303 SE Mizner Blvd. Sign up is at 8 p.m. The show begins at 8:30 p.m. More information: Richy Lala 561-512-8472.

Tampa: The Isley Brothers with Kem and Nephew Tommy will be at the University of South Florida Sun Dome on Oct. 5 at 8 p.m.

Miami: Miami-Dade County hosts a Downtown Harvest Market every Friday from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Residents and visitors have the opportunity to purchase seasonal produce directly from Miami-Dade growers at the Stephen P. Clark Center’s Courtyard, 111 NW 1st St. More information: www.earth-learning.org.

St. Petersburg: Tickets are on sale for a concert at the Mahaffey Theater with Maze featuring Frankie Beverly. The show has been changed to Sunday, Sept. 27.

Daytona Beach: A Southern Soul Blues Concert featuring Mel Waiters, Sir Charles Jones and Bigg Robb is scheduled Oct. 5 at the Mary McLeod Bethune Performing Arts Center.

TALLAHASSEE – Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday she should not have requested an execution be rescheduled from the night of her “campaign kickoff” fundraiser.

Bondi’s statement came after Gov. Rick Scott said he was unaware that the waterfront Tampa fundraiser, scheduled for Tuesday, was the reason she had requested the delay in the execution of convicted murderer Marshall Lee Gore.

“As a prosecutor, there was nothing more important than seeing justice done, especially when it came to the unconscionable act of murder,” Bondi said in a release. “I personally put two people on death row and, as attorney general, have already participated in eight executions since I took office, a role I take very seriously.”

“The planned execution of Marshall Lee Gore had already been stayed twice by the courts, and we should not have requested that the date of the execution be moved,” Bondi added.

On Aug. 13, Scott had scheduled Gore’s execution for 6 p.m. Sept. 10. However, less than a week Pam later, Scott advised Florida State Prison Warden John Bondi Palmer that he was moving the execution to 6 p.m.

Oct. 1 “at the request of the Attorney General.”

Speaking to reporters Monday outside the Capitol, Scott said he was simply complying with a request from a state Cabinet member when he rescheduled the execution.

“Her office contacted my office and asked for a postponement, and that’s what we did,” Scott said. “No, I did not know (the reason).”

When the execution date was rescheduled, a spokeswoman for the attorney general said the event conflicted with another previously scheduled event. On Friday, a different spokeswoman for Bondi confirmed that the Tampa fundraiser is the event that had been scheduled before Gore’s execution was set for the same night.

“We set the date, the attorney general’s office asked for a postponement, so we went along with that,” Scott responded when asked Monday if he thought the reason for the delay was proper.

“We try to comply with when other cabinet members ask for something. We try to work with them.”

Bondi has yet to receive a challenger to her 2014 re-election.

Gore, whose sanity has been the focus of efforts to block the execution, was convicted of killing two women in 1988 in Miami-Dade and Columbia counties.

Gore’s death warrant is for the murder of Robyn Novick, whose nude body was found in March 1988 in a rural area of Miami-Dade.

Leaving the city

Smoke pours from the Pentagon Building in Washington, D.C. minutes after a hijacked airliner crashed into the southwest corner of the building, during the 9/11 terrorists attacks.

9/11 from B1 polyester suit was melted to the back of her body.

Pieces of melted clothing and burnt flesh were falling off her. The fireman collapsed in exhaustion.

Then, about two dozen of his colleagues went running into the building in heavy gear. I had a real bad feeling that they were all in grave danger.

I realized I needed to get back to Jeanne to assure her I was safe. So I start running north up Broadway. I kept trying the phones but nothing worked; all circuits were busy.

I tried getting on the subway, but electrical power had failed and the subway system was on lockdown. So I ran to my Times Square hotel room, which took about 30 minutes.

clinic. Was he OK? Eventually, I did make contact with everyone, including colleagues at the Wall Street Journal. And we were all lucky.

I was sad, angry, nervous, and happy to be alive, but humbled and completely overwhelmed by others’ deaths that day. I can’t stop seeing the visions of bodies falling. I still pray for their families.

And then there is fate.

What would have happened if my wife decided to visit the World Trade Center’s observation tower that morning? For this, I have to believe there are guardian angels. They certainly had too much to cope with that day.

New York City was a ghost town that afternoon.

No whir of traffic, only the constant wail of sirens heading south to the horror downtown.

It took us two days to get out of Manhattan. Luckily, Jeanne’s college roommate lived in Montvale, N.J. Our journey home started with a long walk to Madison Square Garden with our luggage, then taking the PATH subway train to New Jersey. The train stopped abruptly just before the Newark stop, and we had to evacuate due to a bomb threat.

We finally got picked up after a round of cellphone tag and arrived at our friend’s home, only to learn that four families on the block had family members missing. This humbled me quickly. The next day we drove back home to Sarasota, ironically the same place President George Bush was when he was notified of the attacks.

How 9/11 affected me I first thought this event would make me an angry, bitter person filled with hatred. But actually the opposite has occurred. I have a higher level of compassion for people, but with a resolve not to put up with nonsense or ever let my guard down. We live in a dangerous world, but we must live free.

I have come to terms

paramedic cradling an elderly man who was bleeding from his head, comforting him. And most of all, I remember how compassionate people were in general, helping each other out despite the panic.

I have always felt that people’s true colors come out in times of crisis. I am a witness. The people of New York City shined that day, and continue to do so.

They are all my heroes, and my heart goes out to anyone who was a victim of that day.

Ed Hashey, a Sarasota resident, now teaches fifth grade at Wilkinson Elementary School in Sarasota.

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Reality hits When I arrived back at the room, Jeanne was in tears. I gave her a big hug, and she felt me trembling.

Then we watched on the television in disbelief as the first tower collapsed.

Two thoughts came to my mind: What happened to those firemen? Did they get all the people evacuated in time?

I lay down on the bed and so many emotions flowed over me. I learned that Washington, D.C. was under attack. My brother worked as a Navy corpsman in the White House

with the reality that this will never leave my mind.

Almost every day, something triggers a memory; the sound of a jet, anyone crying, movie trailers, etc. But I am more acutely aware of how precious everyone’s lives are, and will never take life for granted.

Even in the midst of the evil that happened that day, I saw all much good.

There were storeowners handing out flip-flops to women who abandoned high heels in panic. There were firemen and policemen who after several disruptions, kept regrouping and kept on trying. Many made the ultimate sacrifice. I remember an Asian

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TOJ

SEPTEMBER 13 – SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

B3

HEALTH

Taking a stand against old policy Nonprofit Banned4Life fighting FDA ban on gay men donating blood

BY KATE SANTICH ORLANDO SENTINEL (MCT)

ORLANDO — When Blake Lynch went to donate blood last spring, hoping to help a friend with sickle cell anemia, he was turned away.

Not because he is feeble.

Or sick. But because he’s gay.

“I was embarrassed. It’s a very personal question on this questionnaire they give you: ‘From 1977 to the present, have you had sexual contact with another male, even once?’ ” said Lynch, 22, a nursing student at Seminole State College. “You go into the blood center, and you see all these signs about how they need blood. And you hear about blood drives all the time.

But I had never heard of this policy.”

Neither had his partner of 2 1/2 years, Brett Donnelly, nor most of their friends, nor even some of Lynch’s nursing school instructors.

On March 1, the two men decided to launch a campaign devoted to overturning the federal Food and Drug Administration’s decades-old policy.

Through their Banned -4Life nonprofit, they’ve gathered 25,000 signatures from supporters across the country; hosted a series of educational blood drives; spoken at churches and events from Los Angeles to Miami; and sent a representative to testify before Congress.

Their mission has some hefty supporters. In recent years, the lifetime ban — adopted in the wake of the nation’s AIDS crisis before more reliable blood-screening tests were available — has been lifted or modified in countries from Australia to Canada.

Nationwide push In 2010, the American Red Cross issued a joint statement with the nation’s two other main bloodproduct associations urging the FDA to change the policy “based on scientific data.”

In June, the American Medical Association went a step further, saying the ban is “discriminatory and not based on sound science.”

Across the nation, advocacy groups, mayors, town councils and a few state legislators have appealed for change, too. Even the Blood Safety and Availability advisory committee established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services labeled the current ban “suboptimal.”

“The FDA’s primary responsibility with regard to blood and blood products is to assure the safety of patients who receive these lifesaving products,” agency spokesman Curtis Allen said. However, he noted, the FDA “continues to reevaluate the scientific basis for its blood donor deferral policies.”

Pilot study?

In March, the government announced it was considering a pilot study on potential blood donations from gay men. The blood would be quaran-

tined and not actually used for transfusions, but so far officials are still reviewing the matter. They have yet to approve a study.

The delay makes Emmy Derisbrun furious. At 34, she has dealt with sickle cell anemia all her life.

About five times a year, the hereditary condition — which affects the shape of her red blood cells and so their ability to transport oxygen — causes her to be hospitalized. Then she needs transfusions.

When she met Lynch in nursing school in August 2012, the two became fast friends. And Lynch got an expedited lesson in sickle cell disease and the importance of blood donation. Then he discovered the ban.

“What bugs me is that they claim the policy isn’t discriminatory because it doesn’t ban gay men; it bans men who have had sex with men,” he said. “So, theoretically, a 16-year-old who knows he is gay but hasn’t had sex yet could donate. But, really, let’s look at the bigger picture.”

Still some risk With Donnelly’s skill as an artist, photographer and website designer, the two came up with a provocative name and image: a young, muscular man with his hands bound and a large red “X” in their logo and on their T-shirts. With Derisbrun’s support, the three became sort of media darlings, featured in Men’s Health magazine and discussed on air from NPR to Fox News.

Since 1999, blood banks have conducted dual screening tests for HIV, the

JOSHUA C. CRUEY/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT

Brett Donnelly, from left, Emmy Derisbrun and Blake Lynch pose at Seminole State College in Altamonte Springs on Aug. 28. virus that causes AIDS. But the process still isn’t 100 percent foolproof. The FDA estimates that the risk of contracting the virus from a unit of blood is about 1 in 2 million.

It’s about the same for hepatitis.

Susan Stramer, president of the AABB (formerly the American Association of Blood Banks) and executive scientific officer at American Red Cross Biomedical Services, said the nation’s monitoring protocol is “robust.”

“We have systems in place to safeguard the transmission of those (infectious) agents,” she said.

Since the dual HIV-testing procedures began 14 years ago, there have been no more than six cases of recipients being infected.

Her organization is among those that believe the policy should change.

Promoting drives Local blood banks — including OneBlood, the nonprofit organization that collects and provides blood throughout most of Florida — typically defer comments to AABB. Susan Forbes, OneBlood’s designated spokeswoman on the issue, would say only: “We welcome the opportunity to work with any person, group or company that wants to help promote the need for blood and introduce new eligible people into the donor pool.”

And Banned4Life is doing that. Rather than protesting blood drives, as some groups have, Lynch and Donnelly promote them, even out of state.

They use the events to raise awareness of the ban, collect petition signatures and publicize the need for blood donors.

Kathleen Boniface of Portland, Ore., has orga-

THE WORST DAY AT WORK BEATS THE BEST DAY IN FORECLOSURE. SEEKING A SOLUTION FOR THOSE SEEKING JOBS

With job loss responsible for up to half of all mortgage delinquencies, getting people back on their feet became our focus. But the economy and the job market have changed.

People desperately looking for work need help. Which is where Fifth Third Bank and NextJob, a nationwide reemployment solutions company, came in.

Last year we initiated a pilot program that provides mortgage customers up to 39 weeks of job training – including live coaching, job search training and software – fully paid for by Fifth Third Bank. Participating Fifth Third

customers at risk of defaulting on their mortgages had experienced, on average, 22 months of unemployment. After six months of reemployment assistance, nearly 40% of participants had secured meaningful employment.

BUSINESS AS UNUSUAL

Our commitment to reemployment continues to grow with the signing of a multiyear contract with NextJob, which allows us to move the program out of the pilot phase and incorporate it into the way we do business. Curious behavior for a bank? Maybe. But we’re proud to be the first financial institution to offer such assistance and hope we won’t be the last.

Fifth Third Bank. Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender .

nized a blood drive each year since her son, 29-yearold Cody Hermeling, was in a horrific car accident.

Three years ago, another driver crossed into his lane at 90 mph. Hermeling needed 187 units of blood in the first 24 hours alone.

Boniface, a businesswoman, had always thought the ban discriminatory, but after her son’s life depended on transfusions, she began to research the issue.

That’s how she found the Banned4Life website and contacted its founders.

“I thought, ‘Wow, what great young men and what a wonderful way to educate people without being aggressive,’ ” she said. “And I feel it’s my duty to help.

When they saved Cody’s life, I asked the doctors how I could repay them.

And I’ll never forget one of Cody’s trauma surgeons looking me in the eye and saying, ‘Get people to donate blood.’ ”

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FOOD

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SEPTEMBER 13 – SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

FROM Family Features

Green beans are no longer a plain side dish for dinner. Here are some fun, kidfriendly recipes to try at home to help encourage your kids to eat a healthy serv­ing of green beans.

“Florida green beans are great with a dip.

Try them with hummus, ranch or any of your favorite dressings,” suggested Justin Timineri, Executive Chef and Culinary Ambassador, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

You can find more delicious recipes for Florida green beans at http://bit.ly/flsnapbeans.

The Power of Green

Chef Justin Timineri

Green beans are a flavorful way to eat healthy all year around.

• They are a good source of dietary fiber.

• Green beans contain vitamin C and folic acid.

• They are also an important source of potassium and many micronutrients.

• One cup of cooked, fresh green beans has only 30 calories and no fat, sodium or cholesterol.

When choosing beans, look for plump, crisp beans that are reason­ably well shaped. The beans should have even color with fresh blossom ends and snap readily when broken. Many people prefer smaller beans, which are usually more tender.

Green Bean Stir-Fry Yield: 4 servings 1 tablespoon olive oil 3 cups fresh green beans, ends trimmed 2 cups sweet bell peppers, sliced 2 cups zucchini, sliced thin 1 cup carrot, sliced thin 2 tablespoons honey 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce 1 tablespoon black and white sesame seeds Preheat large sauté pan or wok over medium high heat. Add olive oil to preheated pan. Care­fully add all vegetables to preheated pan. Cook vegetables for 4 to 7 min­utes or until desired doneness. Add honey and soy sauce to pan and stir to combine.

Serve stir-fry with rice and garnish with sesame seeds.

Chef’s tip: Add favorite vegetables in place of the ones listed in recipe.

Kids can: Snap green beans and help measure honey and soy.

Green Bean and Potato Salad with Yogurt Dressing Yield: 8 to 10 servings 1/2 pound fresh green beans, washed, ends trimmed and cut into thirds 2 pounds potatoes, washed, peeled and diced large 1/2 cup low-fat yogurt 2 lemons, juiced 1 cup fresh parsley, chopped fine 1/4 cup olive oil Sea salt to taste Fresh ground pepper to taste Fill large sized stock pot 3/4 of the way full and lightly salt water. Bring lightly salted water to rolling boil over medium-high heat. Fill medium-sized mixing bowl halfway with ice and water.

Add trimmed and cut green beans to boiling water and let cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Using hand strainer, remove green beans from boiling water and place them into ice water to stop cooking. The green beans should be crisp-tender and vibrant green. After green beans have cooled down, remove from ice water and set aside.

Carefully add cut potatoes to same boiling water greens beans were cooked in. Cook potatoes in boiling water for around 15 min­utes depending on size.

The potatoes should be slightly firm, yet tender to the bite. Using colander placed in the sink, drain potatoes and run cold water over them to cool off and stop cooking.

In large mixing bowl, combine yogurt, lemon juice, parsley and olive oil. Stir yogurt mixture to combine. Taste potato salad and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Keep potato salad cold in refrigerator and stir before serving.

Kids can: Help combine ingredients for dressing.

Green Bean Poufs Yield: 4 servings 1/2 pound green beans, trimmed 1 can prepared crescent roll dough Fill large sized stock pot 3/4 of the way full and lightly salt water. Bring lightly salted water to rolling boil over medium-high heat. Fill medium-sized mixing bowl halfway with ice and water.

Add trimmed and cut green beans to boiling water and let cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Using hand strainer, remove green beans from boiling water and place them into ice water to stop cooking. The green beans should be crisp-tender and vibrant green. After green beans have cooled down, remove from ice water and set aside.

Dry blanched green beans with paper towel. Open tube of prepared crescent roll dough. Cut each dough roll into strips. Wrap bunches of 3 green beans in spiral manner and place on cookie sheet.

Continue process until all dough and green beans are used. Bake wrapped green beans until the dough is cooked and golden brown. Let cool and serve.

Kids can: Wrap dough around the green beans.

Mini Green Bean Casserole Yield: 4 servings 1 pound green beans, ends trimmed 2 cups cheddar cheese, grated 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs 1 tablespoon olive oil Fill large sized stock pot 3/4 of the way full and lightly salt water. Bring lightly salted water to rolling boil over medium-high heat. Fill medium-sized mixing bowl halfway with ice and water.

Add trimmed and cut green beans to boiling water and let cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Using hand strainer, remove green beans from boil­ing water and place them into ice water to stop cooking. The green beans should be crisp-tender and vibrant green. After green beans have cooled down, remove from ice water and set aside.

Preheat oven to 370°F. Divide blanched green beans evenly into four mini casserole dishes. Add an even amount of cheese on top of green beans.

In small bowl, combine panko bread crumbs and olive oil. Mix ingre­dients to combine. Sprinkle bread crumb mix­ture on top of green beans and cheese. Place mini green bean casseroles in oven and bake until bubbly and golden brown. Let cool before serving.

Kids can: Add shredded cheese to the top of green beans.

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SEPTEMBER 13 – SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

Meet some of

FLORIDA'S

finest

submitted for your approval

B5

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.

Florida Courier photojournalists were onboard Royal Caribbean ships with thousands of “Tom Joyner Morning Show” fans on the Fantastic Voyage 2011 and 2012.

We’re featuring some of the “Finest” cruisers.

Photos by DELROY COLE/FLORIDA COURIER and TONY LEAVELL/FLORIDA COURIER

Ryan Gentles

Arsenio Hall says he’s starting all over again COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS

LOS ANGELES – The launch of “Arsenio” on Sept. 9 isn’t Arsenio Hall’s first foray into the talk show world. He turned the format on its ear in 1989 with a brash younger perspective on the chat world, a hipper approach to booking artists and a group of followers known as the Dog Pound.

“Arsenio” is one of the syndicated shows purchased by local television stations to fill in the time slots between their local and network programming. Hall joins a group of new talk shows launching this fall – including those hosted by Bethenny Frankel and Queen Latifah – to go along with a host of returning talkers.

Late-night only Hall’s show was only sold into late-night hours, which puts him up against network and cable talk shows by Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O’Brien.

Because he’s going to face established competition, Hall knows the first week is Arsenio important.

But Hall having been on the air before, Hall says, isn’t giving him an advantage in landing guests.

“I was really a big part of making Mariah’s (Carey) career but when we contacted her people about being on the show, they told us that they wanted to wait and see how things go,” Hall says.

Hall knows one of the big names he could try to land would be Hillary Clinton. During the 1992 presidential campaign, candidate Bill Clinton made an appearance on “The Arsenio Hall Show,” where he chatted and played the saxophone. Political analysts credit that appearance with helping give Clinton a much larger profile with young voters.

Hall would love to see Hilary Clinton walk out, carrying a saxophone, as a way of launching her own White House campaign. That would be the boost he needs as he re-enters the talk show arena.

“What I have done in the past means nothing,” Hall says. “I am starting from the bottom. Any suc-

‘THE ARSENIO HALL SHOW,’198994 MEMORABLE MOMENTS

COURTESY OF DAILYMOTION.COM

This 1994 interview with Min. Louis Farrakhan was a factor that led to the end of “The Arsenio Hall Show” later that year. cess I have will have to be earned all over again.” And he will have to earn it differently.

Was ‘new kid’ When Hall started, he was the new kid on the block and young TV watchers responded. Hall’s approach then was to pick up those viewers who thought Johnny Carson was too old for their TV tastes. Now, its Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon who attract young viewers.

“One of the biggest challenges for all of us, as late-night hosts, is to get people to even make an appointment to watch TV and not say, ‘I’ll watch Fallon yodel tomorrow,’ because you have that ability to Google anything and find anything that’s been on,” Hall says.

“The challenges are gigantic now.

“Your biggest fan doesn’t watch you every night. You hope for three nights. And two nights they’ll be watching other people. Sometimes you’ll get one night. But you hope you do a good, funny show and you assert a unique personality that’s not there so that you can just be in the game. I’m trying to be in the game. I just got to be better than one guy that’s there.”

Cleveland native Born in Cleveland 57 years ago, Hall early found an aptitude for magic, debate – and comedy. After graduating from Kent State University, he headed west – first to Chicago, then Los Angeles, in search of a stand-up career, and landed at West Hollywood’s Comedy Store, one of the premiere venues for budding and estab-

lished comics.

That landed him gigs on TV – including a voice on the animated kid hit “The Real Ghostbusters” – and ultimately Fox’s “The Late Show,” where he was the show’s last host before it was canceled in 1988. While there, he established some of the latenight trademarks, notably the audience’s “woof woof” arm pump, that were to become signatures of his next late-night show. (The dog pound – comprising particularly enthusiastic woofers on the stage near the house band, the Posse – came later.)

Fox wanted him to stick around, but after “Late Show,” Hall signed a deal with Paramount to star in Eddie Murphy’s “Coming to America.” After that, Paramount created his late-night syndicated vehicle, which Hall was prescient enough to secure an ownership stake in.

• Candidate Bill Clinton plays “Heartbeak Hotel” on his sax during the 1992 presidential campaign. It was followed by a thoughtful Q&A about voter apathy, and a discussion of the deep-seated problems of South Central Los Angeles, parts of which were still in ruins after recent riots.

• Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan appears on the show • Hall berates representatives of Queer Nation, who, as audience members, shouted out questions over why he did not have gay guests on the show. “Now, this ain’t Merv (Griffin),” he shot back. “I ain’t gonna run from it…You think I didn’t have someone on the show because they’re gay?

What’s wrong with you, man?

I’m Black.”

• Hall interviews Muhammad Ali, while Sugar Ray Leonard and Mike Tyson make surprise appearances. Who, Hall asks Ali, would have won had Tyson and Ali stepped into a ring? Ali points to Tyson.

• Magic Johnson, in his first late-night TV interview shortly after revealing he was HIVpositive, appears in 1991.

Hit show “The Arsenio Hall Show,” which launched Jan. 3, 1989, had brought an urban beat and party-everynight vibe to a moment of the TV day that been dominated by Carson for nearly three decades.

About 4 million tuned in every night, denting Carson’s “Tonight” ratings. Hall’s show didn’t feel like an alternative as much as a movement, to bring Black culture into an all-White club. Studio audiences loved it. So – for a time – did audiences at home.

Hall embraced Black culture, especially rap, which secured its most important TV venue, after “Soul Train” and “American

Bandstand,” to date. Salt-N-Pepa, Arrested Development, Queen Latifah as well as Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Cypress Hill, Tupac Shakur and Ice T were all frequent guests.

For a brief moment, the show was believed to be Paramount’s most financially successful TV venture, a $40-million-a-year machine.

Then, things shifted. CBS, which launched Letterman’s show in ‘93, pulled “Arsenio Hall” off some of its own big stations for the new venture. (Fox did the same with many of its stations for “The Chevy Chase Show” in the fall of ‘93.) “Arsenio Hall” ratings, which already had been drop-

ping, plummeted.

Relations with Paramount went from bad to worse, and hit bottom when Hall booked Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan for a full hour in February 1994. Paramount execs were incensed, and Hall, as the relationship fell apart, was embittered.

Then, on May 27, 1994, the party ended. Hall now insists there was “never anything negative” in the split, but that he told Paramount, “I needed balance in my life. Not only personally, but professionally. I wanted to try other things.

“I’m from Cleveland. I grew up down the street from Jim Brown.

He left while he still could play.

That was cool to me as a kid. So leaving and not being canceled, yeah, that sounded good.”

Another shift Jay Leno will leave “Tonight” in February, while the future of “Late Show With David Letterman” – though certainly secure for now – is a question. Audiences tend to check around when hosts change; that was true in the early ‘90s, and it still holds true.

As Hall said recently, “Obviously, back in the day, I was trying to take anything that was left over on Carson’s plate. It’s a huge challenge this time to bring people to the television. But I know that everybody doesn’t have a late-night host.”

Still working It’s been almost two decades since Hall was a regular part of nighttime TV, but he hasn’t fallen out of the public eye. Along with film, radio and TV appearances, Hall was the 2012 winner of the NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice 5.”

By the time he was on the reality show, Hall had been thinking about a new talk show for years.

“Being in late night is very much like running for an office,” says Hall. “Basically, what I do is just assert my personality, and you hope people will hang with you a couple nights a week.”

Check your local TV listings to see when “Arsenio” airs in your area.

Rick Bentley of the Fresno Bee; Meredith Blake of the Los Angeles Times; and Verne Gay of Newsday (MCT) all contributed to this report.

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SEPTEMBER 13 – SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

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