Florida Courier - November 1, 2013

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NOVEMBER 1 - NOVEMBER 7, 2013

VOLUME 21 NO. 44

STAY FOCUSED As Democrats and Republicans fight about the Obamacare website, here’s information you should know if you have a health insurance policy not covered by an employer.

BY JULIE APPLEBY KAISER HEALTH NEWS / MCT

WASHINGTON – Republicans in the House of Representatives sparred with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday over the Obamacare website and health insurance policy cancellations.

No one knows how many of the estimated 14 million people who buy their own insurance are getting such notices, but the numbers are substantial.

Here’s a guide to help you understand the bigger picture, including why your

premiums and benefits are likely to change next year and what you should consider as you shop for a new policy.

Q: Why are these cancellations happening? The health care law targeted the so-called individual market because it didn’t work well for many people who don’t get coverage through employers, particularly those who were older or had health problems. The latter often were rejected for coverage, were charged more or had their conditions excluded from coverage.

Some policies provided only the barest of coverage

when someone did fall ill.

Starting Jan. 1, insurers no longer can reject people who are sick or charge them more than the healthy under the Affordable Care Act. They also must beef up policies to meet minimum standards and must add benefits such as prescripOLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/MCT tion drug coverage, materSecretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius appeared before the nity care and mental health House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday to answer questions services.

Doesn’t meet standards If you got a cancellation notice, most likely your plan didn’t meet all the new standards. One type of policy being discontinued by

about problems with the launch of the ‘Obamacare’ website.

Florida Blue, for example, didn’t cover hospitalizations or emergency room visits and paid a maximum of $50 toward doctor visits.

It’s possible that your

plan also had deductibles et maximum of $6,350 for and other potential expens- individuals or $12,700 for es – such as co-payments families. for doctors and hospital Some policies that fail to care – that exceeded the See ACA, Page A2 law’s annual out-of-pock-

Florida mothers speak

PINEY GROVE BOYS ACADEMY / FORT LAUDERDALE

From boys to men

Senators debate ‘stand your ground’

BY MARGIE MENZEL THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

The Piney Grove Boys Academy held a formal dedication of the new school on Tuesday after officially opening its doors on Aug.19. With an enrollment to date of 60 young boys, the academy is a ministry of First Baptist Church Piney Grove; Dr. Derrick J. Hughes, Sr. is the pastor.

Poor Black areas face supermarket ‘double jeopardy’

BY EMILY ALPERT REYES LOS ANGELES TIMES / MCT

Poor, mostly Black neighborhoods face double jeopardy when it comes to supermarket access, according to a study recently published by the journal Preventive Medicine.

That may not sound like news at all: Scholars and activists have long fretted that poor, non-White neighborhoods have worse access to supermarkets, which is tied to less healthy diets.

But researchers from Johns Hopkins University wanted to see how different neighborhood traits – poverty and racial makeup – were related to the problem. For instance, what did it mean to be in a poorer White neighborhood, versus a wealthier Black neighborhood?

Researchers compared access to supermarkets, smaller grocery stores, and convenience stores in largely Black, Latino, White and racially integrated neighborhoods in a national sample of more than 65,000 census tracts. Earlier research showed that convenience stores and groceries, which are smaller than supermarkets, stock foods higher in fat, sugar and salt.

hood presented “a double disadvantage” in supermarket access.

Unsurprisingly, poor Black neighborhoods had fewer supermarkets than wealthier Black neighborhoods.

But they also had fewer supermarkets than poor White neighborhoods, suggesting that race still played a role apart from poverty. In fact, the study showed that Black neighborhoods with little poverty had fewer supermarkets, on average, than high-poverty white areas.

See MOTHERS, Page A2

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

Food banks brace for cut in food stamps

Not just poverty “Our study found that it’s not simply an issue of poverty,” wrote Kelly Bower, an instructor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, in an email to the Los Angeles Times. “In fact, a racially segregated poor Black neighborhood is at an additional disadvantage simply because it is predominantly Black.”

Researchers wrote that the supermarket shortage appeared to be more severe in urban poor Black neighborhoods than rural ones, suggesting that strategies to improve access to healthy food should not be rolled out nationwide, but targeted at disadvantaged urban areas.

Jacobo: Long prison time for those who abused boy MARICE COHN BAND/MIAMI HERALD/KRT

Luwana Rauscher, a longtime Winn-Dixie customer, shops in the produce section at a store in Miami.

different for Latino neighborhoods: Though they had fewer supermarkets than White neighborhoods, Latino areas had more grocery stores, no matter their poverty level. Bower said that other studies suggest groceries in Latino areas may sell healthier food than Double disadvantage those in Black neighborhoods, The study found that living in Different for Latinos which means their health effects a poor, mostly Black neighborThe patterns were somewhat might be different.

ALSO INSIDE

A panel of U.S. senators Tuesday dissected Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” self-defense law with the help of the mothers of two young Black men shot to death in the state last year.

“The person who shot my son is walking the street today,” said Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, who was 17 when he was killed in Sanford in a case that roiled the nation. “This law does not work.”

“I face the very real possibility that my son’s killer will walk free, hiding behind a statute that lets people claim a threat when there was none,” said Lucia McBath, whose son, Jordan Russell Davis, also 17, was killed while sitting in a car during a dispute over loud music in Jacksonville.

Fulton and McBath addressed the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, which took up the implications of “stand your ground” laws at the behest of Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

The study also found that White neighborhoods generally had the most convenience stores, and Black neighborhoods the fewest. However, if White neighborhoods “have equally good access to supermarkets and high quality foods, they may not be as reliant on the convenience stores as a regular source of food,” Bower wrote.

NATION | a6

Winfrey to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom Rhimes on list of most powerful businesswomen

COMMENTARY: BRUCE A. DIXON: TOP 10 THINGS OBAMACARE GAVE US AND WE GAVE UP | A2 COMMENTARY: CHARLES W. CHERRY II: RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A FREE BLACK MIND | A4

FINEST | B5

Meet Marissa

FOCUS

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NOVEMBER 1 – NOVEMBER 7, 2013

Top 10 things Obamacare gave us and what we gave up What happens when opportunity knocks and you tell it to go away?

Back in the days when President Obama was still Illinois State Senator Obama, he was an advocate of single-payer health care (“Medicare for everyone”), famously telling audiences that all we had to do was elect a Democrat House and Senate, and put a Democrat in the White House to make it happen.

The electorate followed Obama’s advice, but the president went another way. What did we gain?

What did we lose?

1. We got a Swiss cheese system that exempts many large corporations from having to insure their employees. The only grain of truth in the mountain of partisan lies Republicans tell about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is that hundreds of large corporations have indeed been granted under-the-table exemptions from the obligation to provide health insurance to many of their workers, along with regulatory loopholes which let them to raise co-pays and deductibles to levels that will compel many of their low-paid workers to take their chances on the federal and state exchanges.

A single-payer system would have freed U.S. busi-

BRUCE A. DIXON BLACK AGENDA REPORT

nesses altogether from the crushing burden of providing health insurance for their employees, and left no one without health insurance.

2. We got a Medicare expansion that can be thwarted at will by current or future Republicancontrolled state governments. The only unalloyed silver lining of the ACA was its expansion of Medicaid, which the Supreme Court threw out – enabling state governments to selectively deny Medicaid benefits to millions.

Medicare has been settled law for 50 years. Hostile state governments have no say in any part of its funding or administration. Lowering the Medicare qualification age to include everyone would have been a Supreme Courtproof way of guaranteeing health care for everybody in every state. But we threw that away.

3. We got a chaotic and confusing ‘marketplace’ in which patients with little information are encouraged to conflate low insur-

ance premiums with lowcost quality insurance.

Many families of modest means will choose low-cost plans with deductibles and premiums so high and coverage so limited that these costs will remain significant barriers to getting medical care even though they are technically “insured.” Under a single-payer system, everyone is insured from the cradle to the grave. The experience of ‘shopping’ never happens.

4. We got an initially unworkable Internet front end for our chaotic and confusing “marketplace.”

The first day of single-payer customers would have to do exactly nothing. The Social Security system would already have your address and income data, with no confusing and predatory ‘marketplace’ to navigate.

5. We gave an ongoing river of cash to private health insurance companies. Millions more are now forced to buy their crappy product, with the premiums funded by billions annually in public subsidies.

Health insurance executives got massive salary increases since the passage of the ACA. Existing insurance company shareholders saw profits and stock prices spike, first with the passage of the ACA, then

with the onset of open enrollment. Anticipated ballooning profits have led health insurance companies to buy back as much of their own stock as possible. What else would you expect? Health insurance company lobbyists wrote the ACA. Single-payer would have created a quarter-million new good-paying jobs delivering actual health care to people, according to the National Nurses Union.

6. The ACA gives us little or no cost control over medical care and even bans most measures that would lower the cost of prescription drugs. With the substandard policies the most families will be able to afford, skimpy coverage, high co-pays and deductibles will continue to threaten hundreds of thousands annually with bankruptcy due to unpayable medical bills.

The U.S. is one of the few places in the developed world in which a family can lose its home, and its children their college educations, because of unpayable medical bills. We could have changed that.

But we didn’t.

7. ACA only covers about half the nation’s total uninsured. It leaves two-thirds of Blacks and single mothers, along with

ACA from A1 meet the law’s standards may still be sold if the insurer decides to continue them and if they’re “grandfathered,” meaning that you purchased one before March 2010 and neither you nor the insurer has made any substantial change since then.

Adjusting an annual deductible, which many people do each year to keep premiums down, is a change that could end grandfathered status.

Q: How are insurers picking the policies to discontinue? Insurers say they’re ending policies that don’t meet the law’s standards or weren’t grandfathered.

Q: My insurer says that if I renew before the end of the year, I can keep my current plan. What does this mean? In some states, insurers are offering selected policyholders a chance to “early renew,” meaning they may continue their existing plans through next year, even if they don’t meet all the law’s standards. If you choose this option, your premium might still go up, but the cause would be medical inflation, rather than the need to add benefits because of the health law.

Q: Why are premiums changing? Under the old rules, insurers could decide whether to accept you – and how much to charge – based on answers to dozens of medical questions.

OLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/MCT

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Marilyn Tavenner testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday about the troubled launch of the Obamacare website.

You no longer have to fill out those forms. Starting Jan. 1, insurers no longer can charge women more than men, or reject people who are sick or charge them more. They can charge older people only three times more than younger ones.

They’re also adding new benefits.

Under the new rules,

consumers “are not paying based on their own health status, but an average health status,” said Robert Cosway, an actuary with the consulting firm Milliman. “The positive side is that people in poor health won’t have to pay as much, but the way you get there is that people in better health have to pay more.”

MOTHERS from A1 Focused on Florida Durbin said Florida had adopted the first “stand your ground” law, which was used as a model by the National Rifle Association and the American Legislative Exchange Council to get approval of similar measures in other states.

“The gun lobby wanted to spread Florida’s law across the nation,’’ Durbin said.

Now, at least 22 states have similar laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and Durbin said the laws go too far in sparking confrontations that lead to deadly violence.

Ranking Republican Ted Cruz of Texas questioned whether the scrutiny of “stand your ground” was part of a broader “political agenda” and said it is a longstanding principle that Americans have the right to protect themselves.

“Self-defense is a bedrock liber-

Sybrina Fulton

Lucia McBath

ty of every American,’’ Cruz said.

‘Castle’ expansion The 2005 Florida law expanded the traditional “Castle Doctrine,” which gives people the right to use deadly force to defend themselves in their own homes. It removed the duty to retreat for those who believe their lives are in danger and provided immunity from criminal prosecution or civil lawsuits.

Martin was walking through a gated community, on his way home from buying a drink and candy, when he was pursued by a neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman. Zimmerman, who claimed that Martin attacked him first, was acquitted

Older buyers or those who had above-average health problems – and whose former rates reflected those problems – may find their premiums going down. Younger or healthier people, on the other hand, may find premiums going up, sometimes sharply.

Q: I don’t qualify for a subsidy, and my premi-

in July, sparking a 31-day sit-in outside Gov. Rick Scott’s office at the state Capitol.

Zimmerman claimed he shot Martin in self-defense but did not use “stand your ground” to avoid being prosecuted. The law, however, spawned changes to jury instructions that at least one Zimmerman juror said resulted in the not-guilty verdict.

Since the day of his death, in February 2012, Martin’s case has sparked disagreement, and Tuesday was no different.

“Sadly, we know that some in our political process have a desire to exploit that tragic, violent incident for agendas that have nothing to do with that young man who lost his life,” Cruz said.

“We have seen efforts to undermine the verdict of the jury and more broadly to inflame racial tensions that I think are sad and irresponsible.”

Durbin responded by quoting Hilary Shelton, director of the Washington bureau of the NAACP, also in the hearing record: “These (‘stand your ground’) laws and their applications have sadly resulted in no

half the low-wage employed currently without health insurance, untouched.

8. We have to wait till 2016, when the Obama administration is on its way out of office, for all the provisions of the ACA to take effect. Back in 1965-66, it took only eleven months from the signing of the Medicare legislation to the sending out of cards to patients, in an era when computers were the size of boxcars.

9. Making health insurance and health care privatized commodities instead of human rights granted certain permanent rights to those profits under the currently popular conservative legal “takings” doctrine.

Conservative jurists believe that whatever profits corporations lose from future government action must be paid in perpetuity to those corporations.

They call this the “regulatory takings” doctrine.

ACA’s corporate welfare giveaway will make it enormously difficult to take this billion-dollar candy back from health insurance scammers. We gave up the human right to health care.

In exchange, we got the right of health insurance corporations to get paid.

10. ACA’s scheme of

privatized health insurance paid for by public dollars was originally devised by one arm of the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation, and is opposed today by another arm of that same organization. Before it was called “Obamacare” nationally, it was called “Romneycare” in Massachusetts when that state’s governor implemented it there. By embracing what was a short time ago a right-wing pipe dream as ‘health care reform,’ Democrats and socalled progressives have given Republicans encouragement to move further to the right, opposing ACA – even though it originated at the nation’s premiere right-wing think tank.

You can blame Republicans for blocking ACA implementation, but they’re only exploiting the opening Democrats gave them. The White House and Congressional Democrats made the decision to go for piecemeal private insurance reform rather than wholesale public health care reform.

um is going way up for what the insurer tells me is a comparable policy.

Why is that? Insurers base premiums on a number of factors, including medical inflation and the cost of implementing insurance rules. The biggest chunk of the increase was attributed to insurers being required to accept everyone, even those who are ill. That requirement polls well with the public. But it makes insurers nervous because they no longer can reject the costliest patients.

Q: I’m healthy. Why do I have to pay for people who are sick? Except for a fortunate few, everyone is likely to develop some kind of health problem or face an accident sometime in his or her life. Policy experts and regulators say insurance works best when it spreads the risk across a large group of people. Your house may not burn down this year, but you pay for insurance coverage just in case.

Q: I’m a single man.

Why do I have a plan with maternity coverage? Men may not need maternity care, but women don’t need treatment for prostate cancer and those costs are baked into the rates, too. “The whole concept of insurance is you can’t just pick and choose the benefits you want,” Praeger said.

If people – especially older ones – get premiums based solely on what they might need, she said, “it could cost a whole lot more.”

Q: What if it turns out they’ve charged too much for the new coverage? Under the health law, insurers

who fail to spend at least 80 percent of their premium revenue on medical care must issue rebates to consumers. Rebates for 2014 policies wouldn’t be seen until 2015, however.

Q: What should I do now that I’ve gotten a cancellation notice? Experts say people should scrutinize the terms of their soon-tobe-discontinued policies and compare them with what new policies offer.

The monthly premium is just one factor in cost. Also note the deductible. Finally, note the annual outof-pocket cap, which is the maximum you’d pay in deductibles and co-payments for medical care during the year.

An independent broker can show you plans from various carriers. You also can log onto or call healthcare.gov, the website serving the 36 states such as Florida that opted not to create their own marketplaces.

While consumers are having trouble creating accounts through the healthcare.gov site, it now allows shoppers to browse plans without creating accounts.

When browsing, however, be aware that the premiums are not actual quotes, because they don’t reflect your exact age. Nor do they show subsidies, although several online calculators – including some on state marketplace websites and another by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation – can give you a good idea of how much you might receive toward coverage, based on your income.

less than the murder of people who were doing nothing more than walking down the street.”

Blacks targeted Much of the debate centered on whether African-Americans are targeted by the “stand your ground” laws.

In Florida, Blacks comprise 16 percent of the population but 31 percent of those who invoked “stand your ground” as a defense, John Lott, Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, told the panel. And Blacks who invoked the statute were acquitted “almost eight percentage points more often than Whites,” Lott said.

The “stand your ground” laws create ambiguity, said David LaBahn, president and CEO of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, because they combine the presumption of self-defense with immunity from prosecution.

“Particularly in Florida, you’re put into that box,” he said. “Either it’s murder or it’s nothing.”

LaBahn also said that giving full immunity under the law is “crazy.”

Bruce Dixon is managing editor of BlackAgendaReport.com. Contact him at bruce.dixon@blackagendareport. com. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

“That’s not what it should be,” he said. “It should be an affirmative defense. And that has caused these problems...On behalf of prosecutors, these acts have caused us nothing but difficulty.”

Obama’s support Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, observed that the “stand your ground” laws have enjoyed support from both Republicans and Democrats nationwide – including then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

And Durbin pointed to efforts by state Sen. David Simmons, RAltamonte Springs, to work on a bipartisan approach to change the Florida law.

Simmons’ proposal, in part, strengthens language in the law barring aggressors from immunity under “stand your ground.”

But the controversy sparked by the Zimmerman verdict and the sit-in that followed also has prompted state House Criminal Justice Chairman Matt Gaetz, RFort Walton Beach to say that “not one comma” of the law should be changed.

NOVEMBER 1 – NOVEMBER 7, 2013

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FLORIDA

Food banks brace for cut in food stamps Cuts to SNAP set to kick in Nov. 1

BY MARGIE MENZEL THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Florida’s food programs are bracing for cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that kick in Nov. 1 – while watching warily as U.S. House and Senate conferees prepare to negotiate a federal farm bill, which could have much more far-reaching consequences for hungry Floridians.

Food banks and other programs that help Florida’s 3.6 million food-insecure residents have known for years about the cuts coming next week. The cuts were built into the 2008 federal-stimulus package that temporarily added money to SNAP, also known as food stamps, during the depths of the economic recession.

But that won’t make the cuts any easier, say advocates for the food banks and other supplemental programs. The cuts amount to $36 monthly for a family of four getting the maximum benefit of roughly $668.

Significant hit “That’s going to be a significant hit for families,” said Rebecca Brislain, executive director of the Florida Association of Food Banks. “We already know SNAP doesn’t last the whole month.”

“I don’t think a lot of people realize just how low the SNAP benefit is,” said Debra Susie, executive director of the anti-poverty group Florida Impact. “In the state of Florida, the SNAP benefit per person per day is about $4.60.”

And that’s before the monthly reductions that kick in Nov. 1.

The good news, said Brislain, is short-term: The state’s food banks have built their donor base and increased distribution since the recession began. Four years ago, they were collecting and distributing 72 million pounds of food a year; now, that’s up to 173 million pounds a year.

Just one crisis hurts But Brislain said the long-term problem is that Florida isn’t recovering from the recession fast enough, and the state’s many

EMILY MICHOT/MIAMI HERALD/MCT

The Food of Life Outreach Ministries hands out food to the needy in Homestead. Volunteers at the food pantry including Chris Laughlin, from left, Hattie Adams and Marquis Lawson, work on sorting canned goods that go into blue bags and then are handed out to those in line on Aug. 14. low-paying jobs don’t provide enough income to make ends meet.

“All it takes is what some people consider a small family crisis – a flat tire, someone in the family getting sick – anything can stretch the circumstances to the point they need extra help,” she said. “There’s no discretion on your rent. Food is the one area, unfortunately, that people can cut back on.”

Florida’s food hardship rate is more than 21 percent, meaning that one in five Florida households reported that in the past year they struggled to buy enough food for the family.

The state is one of the hardesthit for food security, with six urban areas in the nation’s top 25 for food hardship in 2011-2012.

Those areas are Orlando-Kissimmee, Lakeland-Winter Haven,

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, Tampa-St. PetersburgClearwater, Jacksonville and Cape Coral-Fort Myers.

conference on the bill Wednesday, while President Obama has vowed to veto cuts to SNAP that are too drastic.

Watching closely

Work requirements

From June 2011 to June 2012, Florida saw the nation’s secondhighest increase in SNAP use – a rise of 9.7 percent.

That fragility is why advocates for the food programs are watching nervously as the U.S. House and Senate prepare to negotiate further cuts to SNAP. Republicans contend the food stamp budget should be cut by as much as $39 billion, the amount the GOP-led House included in its version of the federal farm bill in September.

The Democratic-led Senate passed cuts of about $4 billion.

The two chambers went into

The House also passed the socalled Southerland amendment,

by U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., which includes work requirements. The House bill denies SNAP benefits to adults aged 18 to 50 who are not disabled, raising children, enrolled in training or working at least 20 hours per week.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Policies, the House bill would mean more than 400,000 Floridians could lose food assistance.

“What we have done in this country is wrong,” Southerland said on the House floor last

month. “We have failed in introducing the blessing of work to able-bodied people who have the ability, who are mentally, physically, psychologically able to work, and we have robbed them of knowing a better life that they helped create for themselves and their families.”

The state has picked up some of the slack. The 2013 Legislature allocated $700,000 for supplemental nutrition programs – a 75 percent increase, said state Rep. Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula and chairman of the House Agriculture & Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee.

“I don’t pretend to understand a lot of the politics played in Washington,” Albritton said. “But in the Florida Legislature, we’re going to be working to help people in need, including programs like this.”

Report: Shutdown, debt ceiling debate harmed consumer confidence NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

The state’s consumer confidence fell sharply in October, exacerbated by the federal shutdown and talks of another debt ceiling debate in Congress, according to a University of Florida report.

On a scale that ranges from 2 to 150, confidence among Floridians went down seven points from September to a 71, the lowest reading since Dec. 2011.

The 2011 marks were heavily impacted by a debt-ceiling showdown that summer.

“Confidence among Floridians was already declining prior to any indication of a shutdown and debt ceiling debate,” Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, said in a release.

“However, there is no doubt

Esther Jacobo is the interim secretary of Florida’s Department of Children and Families.

Jacobo: Adults involved in boy’s death will spend ‘many years behind bars’ NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

After the death of a 3-year-old boy in Southwest Florida, the state’s child welfare chief predicted that adults accused of involvement in a bizarre form of punishment would be punished themselves.

“We are all mourning the tragic death of Michael McMullen,” Department of Children and Families Interim Secretary Esther Jacobo said in a statement Monday.

“In our work with law enforcement, we feel confident that those responsible will spend many years behind bars for the

horrible atrocity they committed against this innocent young boy.”

‘Willful torture’ of child According to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, 45-year-old Donella Trainor “had developed a method of discipline referred to as a ‘wrap.’ She would literally roll a child in a blanket and tie the ends down so as to prevent movement or escape.”

Trainor is accused of wrapping the toddler in a blanket Oct. 19 and putting him face down in a crib as he screamed to be released.

By the time she went to check on him, he was unresponsive.

Trainor and two other adults in the house, Gale Watkins, 56, and Douglas Garrigus, 21, were charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child. Trainor was also charged with aggravated abuse of a child “for the willful torture, malicious punishment or willful and unlawfully caging of Michael McMullen,” according to the sheriff’s office.

The child’s family was receiving services from child welfare officials at the time, and two caseworkers at the Children’s Network of Southwest Florida, which handles foster care for DCF, were fired.

that confidence in September took a hit as we replayed the events of August 2011, the last time the U.S. was precariously close to a default.”

Figures delayed Because of the federal shutdown, the release of the state’s jobless figures for September has been delayed until Nov. 22.

The university had to rely on national unemployment figures for its consumer confidence calculations.

The U.S. unemployment rate was 7.2 percent in September, down from 7.3 percent in August.

“While a decline is good it appears that job creation was tepid, particularly in leisure and hospitality, an important employment category for Florida,” the report noted.

Scott announces deal to add 600 aircraft jobs on Space Coast NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

The state is working on a deal that could add 600 jobs at Melbourne International Airport.

Gov. Rick Scott announced Tuesday that Embraer jet manufacturer has selected the Space Coast airport to build its Legacy 450 and Legacy 500 planes.

“This highly sought after expansion is especially important as it solidifies Embraer’s growing manufacturing presence on the Space Coast and will create additional opportunities for suppliers in the aerospace and aviation industry,” Secretary of Commerce Gray Swoope said in a news release from the governor’s office.

The deal, in which Embraer would spend about $28 million

in adding 250,000 square feet to its Space Coast operations, remains contingent on final approval of a partnership between the company, state and local officials, according to the release.

The package, which will require legislative approval, has yet to be finalized, said Sean Helton, a spokesman for Enterprise Florida.

The package must be approved within 180 days, Helton added. The company already employs about 250 in Melbourne, where the company’s Phenom 100 and Phenom 300 are assembled.

An additional 200 engineers are expected to be hired starting next year when the company’s $24 million Engineering and Technology Center opens.

EDITORIAL

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NOVEMBER 1 – NOVEMBER 7, 2013

Rick Scott, other GOP governors compared to George Wallace The Tea Party effort to torpedo health-care reform at the federal level has been repelled, but only after the campaign shut down the government, threatened default on the U.S. debt and cost the country billions.

But that victory should not blind us to how destructive the rejectionists have been at the state level. In the name of states’ rights, right-wing governors and legislators will leave some 8 million impoverished and low-wage Americans uninsured and ineligible for any assistance.

Expand Medicaid The reason is that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority resuscitated the pernicious doctrine of “states’ rights.” When they found Obamacare constitutional, the majority ruled that states had a “right” to refuse to expand Medicaid. Medicaid expansion was designed to cover the poorest half of those now

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

without health insurance.

Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid would be expanded to cover those with incomes at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level (now $19,530 for a family of three). The federal government would pay the full cost until 2016, when states would be asked to pick up only 10 percent of the cost of expansion.

Led by Republican governors and legislators, 26 states, including every state in the deep South (including Florida) outside of Arkansas, have thus far refused to support expansion of Medicaid, turning their backs on literally billions in federal subsidies to cover health-care costs for the unin-

sured (although recently Republi- ing against the best interests of can governors in Ohio and Penn- their own people and their own sylvania ended their opposition). states to keep people of color locked out.

Uninsured poor

This is the modern version of George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door to reject integration. The states rejecting Medicaid expansion have about onehalf the nation’s population, but over two thirds of the uninsured poor who’d be eligible under the law. The leading targets are people of color. Two thirds of otherwise eligible and uninsured poor African-Americans will be barred from getting affordable health care.

Once more, we see the harsh reality behind “states’ rights.”

From the Civil War to the civil rights movement, from slavery to segregation, the argument of states’ rights has been unfurled as the banner of those looking to punish black people. And once more, right-wing leaders are act-

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: FL REP. ALAN GRAYSON

RANDALL ENOS, CAGLECARTOONS.COM

Random thoughts of a free Black mind, v. 192 Homegoing, not homecoming – Rather than attending a football homecoming at either Morehouse College or BethuneCookman University, I traveled to New Orleans for the homegoing of my friend of 33 years, Jax native Sheila Hightower St. Etienne, who died after a toe-to-toe battle against colon cancer. You’ve read about her in the Florida Courier; we followed her and her family for six years when her home and businesses were destroyed by Katrina in 2005.

She was the toughest person I’ve ever known. How tough? According to cancer. org., only six percent of people survive five years or more with Stage IV colon cancer – the final and most serious stage. Sheila died more than six years after her diagnosis, and was texting me while watching a high school football game two weeks before she died. She willed herself to stay alive for her two kids, 17 and 15, until her body was too worn out to continue to fight.

I've been known to stick my finger in the air and walk to the front of the church to speak some quick parting words over a friend, even if I'm not on the funeral pro-

quick takes from #2: straight, no chaser

Charles W. Cherry II, Esq. PUBLISHER

gram. Sheila’s family allowed me to take my time. I'll share my remarks next week.

'Just wait till he's reelected!' – Bro. Prez is catching it: the ups and downs of Syria, Edward Snowden's continuous leaks, the Obamacare rollout, the shutdown, acknowledgment of high-tech spying on allies and U.S. citizens. Is Black 'leadership' happy that we all waited until the second term to press him on our disproportionate pain – criminal justice, economics, housing foreclosures, etc.?

Contact me at ccherry2@gmail.com; holler at me at www.facebook.com/ ccherry2 and ‘like’ the Florida Courier and Daytona Times pages. Follow the Florida Courier (@flcourier), the Daytona Times (@daytonatimes) and me (@ccherry2) on Twitter.

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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Charles W. Cherry, Sr. (1928-2004), Founder Julia T. Cherry, Senior Managing Member, Central Florida Communicators Group, LLC Dr. Glenn W. Cherry, Cassandra CherryKittles, Charles W. Cherry II, Managing Members Dr. Glenn W. Cherry, Chief Executive Officer Charles W. Cherry II, Esq., Publisher Dr. Valerie Rawls-Cherry, Human Resources Jenise Morgan, Senior Editor Linda Fructuoso, Marketing Consultant/Sales, Circulation Angela VanEmmerik, Creative Director Chicago Jones, Eugene Leach, Louis Muhammad, Lisa Rogers-Cherry, Circulation James Harper, Andreas Butler, Ashley Thomas, Staff Writers Delroy Cole, Kim Gibson, Photojournalists MEMBER National Newspaper Publishers Association Society of Professional Journalists Florida Press Association Associated Press National Newspaper Association

Whites suffering too They would allow poor Whites to suffer rather than allow the Black poor to benefit. These governors are not standing up for the Constitution. They’re playing the race-bait politics of division once more. And not surprisingly, this reversion to states’ rights is accompanied by systematic state efforts to suppress the vote.

Many of the same governors who’ve led the fight against health-care reform are pushing measures that make it harder for poor and working people — disproportionately people of color — to vote.

of states’ right to inflict racially poisonous policies, and that has been forceful federal intervention. It took a Civil War and constitutional amendments to end slavery. It took a civil rights movement and federal legislation to end apartheid in the South.

The Democratic governors who stood in the schoolhouse door against integration — George Wallace, Orval Faubus, Ross Barnett — are remembered in infamy.

Now the Republican governors who stand in the hospital door — Rick Scott of Florida, Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana — will surely end up in the same hall of shame.

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. is president/CEO of the Rainbow/ Federal intervention PUSH Coalition. Click on this Historically, there has only story at www.flcourier.com to been one remedy against the use write your own response.

Confronting the divineness of Whiteness In 1991, I read an editorial in the Richmond AfroAmerican newspaper commenting on a survey conducted by Professor Howard Schuman, a University of Michigan sociologist and research scientist.

“According to Dr. Schuman,” the editorial noted, “White Americans think of integration as meaning one Black in a group of 15 Whites where the Whites are in complete control. Black Americans, on the other hand, think of integration as meaning a ratio of 50 to 50 where either a White or Black person could be dominant.”

The editorial quoted Dr. Schuman as saying “It is not that survey respondents say one thing and secretly believe another. But, when White Americans say they favor integrated schools or neighborhoods, what they really mean is a few Black students or families in a predominately White environment.”

White superiority If one knows the above, the reaction of many key party members and others who share their intense hostility toward President Obama is not surprising. This is especially nerve-wracking to

A. Peter Bailey TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

White males from working class and middle income backgrounds who have been told all their lives that they are superior to any Black man, no matter what his accomplishments, because of their Whiteness.

It explains the near-paranoid hostility toward the President by White males such as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ted Cruz, Larry Klayman, and others of their ilk. How can they explain a Black president to their sons and grandsons? It’s a flagrant violation of the concept that integration means a White person - preferably a White male - always being in charge.

This doesn’t mean that Hannity, Limbaugh, Cruz, Klayman and their cohorts will object if their brothers and sisters from another mother - Clarence Thomas, Shelby Steele, Walter Williams, Star Parker, Thomas Sowell, Allen West, and Dr. Ben Carson - live in their neighborhoods or attend their schools. That would be

cool as long as there aren’t too many of them and they accept the position that Whites must always be in charge.

Must organize It is abundantly clear that Black folks can’t negotiate anything with people with this mindset. What we must do is to organize in ways that will advance and protect our cultural, economic and political interests from the hostility and venom that comes from those who believe in the divineness of Whiteness.

The last two chapters of Chancellor Williams’ book, The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 BC to 2500 AD; the goals and objectives of the Organization of AfroAmerican Unity in the book, Malcolm X: The Man and His Time and sections of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? provide concrete guidelines on how to organization in such a manner.

Peter Bailey is editor of Vital Issues: The Journal of African American Speeches. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

Question Steve Harvey’s advice on having sex Entertainer, TV host and comedian Steve Harvey has gotten a lot of publicity about his book about relationships.

One of the things Harvey discusses is his idea that it would be good for women to wait 90 days before having sex when they meet a man worthy of their interest and attention. Well, there are two groups of men that should excel in that scenario, schoolkids and multimillionaires like Harvey!

In a capitalist society, relationships are impacted by money and schoolkids don’t have any and rich people usually have more money than they need.

Don’t get this column twisted, the “wait” is not the problem in considering desirable sex partners. I know guys that will wait 90 days or nine years to sleep with a woman they really want to sleep with.

No time limit But if you care about a person and feel love for that person, there is no time limit or time schedule to become romantic or intimate.

I just think if it is good for a woman to wait 90 days before considering becoming “close,” it may be good for a man to wait 90 days before spending money on that woman.

Pimping a man for 90 days is unacceptable and may cause more hate than love for a couple!

When men care about a woman they provide for her,

Lucius Gantt THE GANTT REPORT

they help her, they spend time with her, they talk to her, they listen to her, they protect her, they support her, they wine and dine her, they buy cards, flowers and gifts for her, they take her on cruises or other romantic vacations and they spend money on her.

Now if a guy just wants to play with a cat he thinks he likes he won’t hesitate to buy a dinner, pay for a movie or do other deeds a time or two. But he’ll kick that cat to the curb or send that cat to a shelter if the cat doesn’t want to act right.

Bad advice Sorry Steve Harvey but what has always been good for the goose has always been good for the gander.

Couples should never let comedians decide how they will relate. What seems fast for one couple may seem slow as snails for another.

Senior citizens especially don’t have time for relationship games. Most elders are reluctant about getting married but they do enjoy good relations with someone of the opposite sex that they care about. They know tomorrow is not promised so they try to get in what they can when they can.

What should a woman do

for a man she desires in the 90 days after she first meets him? Should she spend money on the man? Should she give him her credit card or loan him money? Should she feed him daily? Should she wash his clothes?

Should she pay for his haircuts? Maybe, but that’s not for a columnist or a comedian to decide.

Trust each other A man and a woman should do what they think is best for them! I think nothing should happen until a man and woman feel that they can trust each other. If they can go for a few days without lying to each other that is a good sign. If a call is promised but not made, be suspicious.

If a date is scheduled and not made, be concerned. If a cardinal rule is broken like “no drama,” “no messing around” or “no begging” is ignored, the honest partner should end the proposed relationship immediately.

I like Steve Harvey. He has done great things in entertainment and the community. However, his “90 Day Pimping” plan is unrealistic.

Couples have to do things together at a time that is best for the couple to stay together.

Buy Gantt’s book “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” online or at any major book store. Contact Gantt at www.allworldconsultants.net. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

NOVEMBER 1 – NOVEMBER 7, 2013

EDITORIAL

What you should know about Jeh Johnson Remember the scary Obama administration lawyer who claimed in sworn testimony before Congress in 2009 that his bosses had intended to imprison anybody they imagined was a terrorist even after those persons were acquitted of any and all offenses by a civilian court? That was Jeh Johnson.

Remember the well-connected administration official who justified the separate drone murders of a U.S. citizen and his son in Yemen, declaring that the president had the right to summarily execute anybody they declared a terrorist?

That was Jeh Johnson too.

Remember the wildly delusional Pentagon official who declared that if Martin Luther King were alive he would embrace the U.S. military as our defense against terrorism in this “complicated world”? That was also Jeh Johnson.

Jeh, (pronounced “Jay”) Johnson is a former federal prosecutor, Pentagon lawyer and a Morehouse man, class of 1979, who raised more than $200,000 for Obama’s 2008 campaign and was rewarded with the post of general counsel at the Pentagon.

President Obama has just appointed Jeh Johnson to head his Department of Homeland Security.

BRUCE A. DIXON BLACK AGENDA REPORT

day” meetings in the White House basement during which the chief executive and his honchos decide who to murder without accusation or trial each week, often on the basis of mere profiles.

Jeh Johnson is a Democrat, one of those they call a “progressive” because he used his leadership position at the Pentagon to champion the right of gay and transgender people to serve in the US military. That should be a comfort to Pvt. Chelsea Manning. But of course it’s not.

On the face of it, Jeh Johnson is a serial killer and Constitutional scofflaw who operates from the highest levels of U.S. government and corporate power. But he’s Black, and a Morehouse man, which should be enough for “progressive Democrats” members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and our larger Black misleadership class, whose entire claim to legitimacy is the notion that their glittering careers somehow lift up the fortunes of entire oppressed Terror Tuesday meetings communities of color. Of course According to the president, they do not.

Johnson has been a constant presence in the Obama situation room ‘Paradigm shifter’ Henry Louis Gates was on TV dealing with the ongoing threat of Al Qeda, which in plain lan- earlier this week calling the presiguage means that he was a regu- dent a “paradigm shifter.” We don’t lar at the president’s “Terror Tues- agree with Dr. Gates often, but this

time he’s nailed it. President Barack Obama swept into office on the delusions, eagerly sold to the American people by “progressive Democrats,” that he opposed the war in Iraq, would stand up for unions and the poor, address Black unemployment, rein in polluters and banksters, and deliver universal health care and a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants.

Instead, the first Black president increased the military budget, tried and failed to keep the troops in Iraq, doubled down on Afghanistan, and unleashed drone wars in Africa and Asia. The first Black president froze wages of federal employees and scapegoated unionized federal workers and public school teachers.

The first Black president quadrupled down on the Bush bankster bailout, and passed new legislation shielding mortgage fraudsters, telecom snoopers, war criminals, torturers and more. The first black president promotes gentrification, ignores Black unemployment.

He threw away his mandate for single payer health care and immigration reform to give us a blanket full of holes cynically misnamed the “Affordable Care Act” and deport 1.1 million people, more than any three or four previous presidents combined.

And now a Black man, a Morehouse man, a certifiable member of the Black misleadership class who invokes Dr. Martin Luther King as the patron saint of the U.S. Army in Afghanistan is in charge of

A5

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: HEALTHCARE COLD LINE

GARY MCCOY, CAGLE CARTOONS

the Department of Homeland Security, with its private prisons, its border walls, its “fusion centers” distributing unfounded rumors, illegal surveillance data and more on citizens to local cops and private security contractors. The paradigm has indeed shifted.

Black misleadership A Black man will take charge of hounding and profiling Latino immigrants, locking them up in privatized prisons. The black misleadership class are now certifiable junior partners in the business and more important, the culture of empire.

Their fortunes are as separate and distant from those of the Black masses as can be imagined. We have allowed our historic legacy as a people of struggle to be hijacked

in the service of empire.

If this is where being a “progressive Democrat” leads, maybe it’s time we looked in some other direction. If this is where Black leadership has led us, it’s time to hang our heads in shame for a minute or two, and resolve to lead ourselves in some other directions. It’s time for Black America to shed its Black misleadership class of “progressives” and throw up some new leaders, and some new models of leadership.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and a state committee member of the Georgia Green Party. He can be reached at bruce.dixon@ blackagendareport.com. Click on this story at www.flcourier. com to write your own response.

Blacks enjoy viewing programing on ‘cool devices’ Today, of course, when we talk about what we watch, that doesn’t necessarily mean just television or the big screen. We have the choice of watching content (e.g. movies, TV, shows and videos) on a number of our cool devices whenever we feel like it. We have the choice of watching this content on a number of cool devices whenever and at times wherever we choose.

We have our computers (African-Americans are 10 percent more likely to spend time on the internet searching for information on electronics than the total population); smartphones (71 percent of us own smartphones compared to 62 percent of the total population); and television of course (Blacks watch 37 percent more television than that of the total population, which is the most of any other group).

Although how we watch contin-

ues to evolve, what we watch remains consistent, as Nielsen’s latest report on Black consumers, Resilient, Receptive and Relevant: The African-American Consumer 2013 Report, details. We prefer shows and movies that star or feature people who look like us – even though they might not always act like the average Black person.

We’re loyal television fans. Our watch activity breaks down to seven hours and 17 minutes of viewing a day, compared to five hours and 18 minutes of viewing time a day for the total population. And, ladies, we watch more than the guys, especially those of us in the 18-49 age range.

It’s no surprise that Blacks prefer cable. Since many cable shows and casts offer more diversity than network programs, eight of our Top 10 TV shows air on cable networks. The two exceptions are ABC’s Scandal, starring, Kerry Washington, and FOX’s long-running singing competition variety show, American Idol.

Loyal TV fans

Blacks love Twitter

CHERYL PEARSONMCNEIL NNPA COLUMNIST

Marketers who want to reach African-American audiences and a piece of our $1 trillion buying power should be paying close attention.

Blacks love Twitter, with those of us between 18-34 spending 11 percent more time on the social chat site than 35-44 and 45-64 year olds combined. Twitter TV

conversations have grown since last year.

From the same period a year ago, there has been 38 percent more tweets related to live TV – 190 million tweets in 2012 grew to 263 million tweets in 2013.

There’s also been an increase in Tweeters as well – from 15 million in 2012 to 19 million in 2013.

By offering these metrics, Nielsen gives marketers yet another outlet to reach you in their campaigns.

We are also like to watch movies. We go to the movies with the same frequency as every other consumer group, about 6.3 times a year. As with TV, we favor films with characters that look like us.

Action/adventure movies, however, are the exception. We tend to gravitate to that genre more than other groups, regardless of the cast’s ethnicity.

Receptive to ads Nielsen research shows that 51 percent of us are receptive to product ads that run in movie theaters and 87 percent of us are receptive to movie trailers and previews.

We’re almost finish breaking down this year’s report, but if you just can’t wait until the next column, look for a four-page copy of the report in this newspaper.

Or, download the report at www. nielsen.com. And, don’t forget, I want to hear from you! Talk to me and let me know what you think.

Let’s keep the conversation going.

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

Government not the problem Don’t repeat the shutdown On March 23, 2010, I was in the Capitol watching every move, listening to every speech (pro and con), trying to figure out what could possibly be objectionable about affordable health care for all who needed it.

It was clear that members of Congress were provided health care by us – the long-suffering taxpayers. What would be the benefit of denying millions of taxpaying citizens access to affordable health care when we pay for theirs? Are we any less worthy of the emotional security that accrues to those capable of weathering the financial storms of catastrophic illness opposed to falling over the “financial cliff” into bankruptcy?

I’ve finally figured it out. As Paul Ryan opined, “Some people are just takers.”

During his campaign for vice-president, he elaborated on “takers” and we thought that he was talking about poor people.

Now, the truth rings clear. Ryan was attempting to disguise the real intent of his colleagues who want things for themselves at the expense of those who really need help.

Overwhelming selfishness The problem is not the government. It’s the distortion of principles of governance by those so misguided that their selfishness overwhelms their failed commitment to public service.

Recently, we saw Utah’s Mike Lee, and other deniers of affordable health care, shift focus from the so-called damaging human impact of the ACA to finger-pointing at the technologically flawed launch of the program.

The fact hasn’t been lost that these miscreants created false equivalences on both sides of a single issue. They offer nothing to the public discourse except their destructive obsession to erase the historical fingerprint of the first Black President. More tragic is the reality that their shrill racist rants have found kindred spirits in a small, but vocal segment of the political right.

Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq. TRICE EDNEY WIRE

Examine motives The infamous Ted Cruz returned to Texas last week to a hero’s welcome because he played such a big part in shutting down the government to prevent those in need from having affordable health care — causing our economy to lose 24 billion dollars in the process!

Yet, he leads the folk who want to save the taxpayers from government! Upon examination, his tactics are like those of the homeowner who burns his home down because he thinks the kitchen needs remodeling! His self-serving, grand-standing is a prime example of our need to be more careful in examining the motives of those who present themselves to govern.

Speaker John Boehner was elected to lead the U.S. House of Representatives, but we saw everything except leadership from him during the recent shutdown crisis.

He could only lead 87 members of his caucus to vote with him to end the awful economic crisis; on the other hand, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi did not lose a single vote in her caucus. Hers sounds like real leadership to me. Speaker Boehner seems to need a bit more practice.

2014 gives us a chance to bring back sensible governance because the American people do need government. We just need to change some of those doing the governing.

Dr. E. Faye Williams is chair of the National Congress of Black Women, Inc. Contact her at www.nationalcongressbw.org. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

“Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.” Dwight D. Eisenhower After 16 days of a costly and unnecessary government shutdown, America is open for business again.

More than 800,000 furloughed federal workers are back on the job. Nutrition programs for low income women and children are back in service.

The CDC’s flu program and the FDA’s food safety efforts are back on track.

Head Start programs are reopening their doors. NIH is resuming clinical trials for children with cancer. Our National Parks and Museums have reopened. And financing for thousands of small businesses is flowing again.

We join all Americans in applauding the compromise deal crafted by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. But it is only a temporary fix. The bill passed by both chambers and signed by President Obama at 12:30 am on Oct. 17 only funds the government until Jan. 15 and extends the debt ceiling until Feb. 7.

Congress now faces a “90day sprint” to craft a balanced, responsible budget that works for the American people, maintains health care coverage for millions through the Affordable Care Act, and avoids another government shutdown.

MARC H. MORIAL TRICE EDNEY WIRE

Partisan rancor

economy and putting people back to work. The key to success will be finding common ground on the way to achieve those objectives.

We believe that any final agreement must put the needs of the American people first. We must protect programs that empower individuals and communities through good jobs, access to affordable housing and health care, and quality education.

As we move forward, we must avoid the kind of ideological rigidity that led to the shutdown. We are especially offended by the continued extremist comments of Representative Ted Cruz who has refused to rule out another government shutdown over his desire to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. We have a simple question for Mr. Cruz: How can you make the argument for spending cuts or rally against spending on a law that would actually reduce the deficit and ensure healthcare for all Americans and at the same time support a shutdown that cost the economy $24 billion…with nothing to show for it? Makes no sense.

We urge our elected leaders to put aside partisan rancor and get this job done.

They were sent to Washington to govern on behalf of all Americans and they have a special duty to prevent a repeat of a shutdown that cost our economy $24 billion and was especially damaging to middle class families, small businesses, the working poor and the unemployed.

A budget conference committee headed by Democrat Patty Murray in the Senate and Republican Paul Ryan in the House has now been formed to meet a December 13 deadline for a long-term budget agreement.

This won’t be easy, with the House majority arguing for extending the onerous sequester cuts to important safety-net programs and resisting any new taxes, while the Senate majority wants to make smart investments to spur job growth, grow the economy and maintain support for vital programs that assist millions of AmerMarc Morial is presiicans. dent/CEO of the National Urban League. Click on Common ground this story at www.flcouriBoth sides say they share er.com to write your own the goal of growing the response.

TOj A6

NATION

NOVEMBER 1 – NOVEMBER 7, 2013

Vivian, Winfrey to receive Presidential Medals of Freedom Four Blacks among 16 to be honored Nov. 20, the 50th anniversary of awards TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

President Barack Obama will award four of 16 Presidential Medals of Freedom to African-Americans upon the 50th anniversary of the awards.

The nation’s highest civilian honor, “presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” will be awarded Nov. 20 at the White House.

Among the recipients are the following: Civil rights leader Rev. Cordy Tindell, “C.T.” Vivian, distinguished minister, author, and organizer Civil rights activist Bayard Rustin (posthumous), advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Baseball Hall of Famer Ernie “Mr. Cub” Banks, former Chicago Clubs player, known as one of the greatest baseball players of all time Oprah Winfrey for creating her success-

C.T. Vivien

Bayard Rustin

Ernie Banks

ful talk show.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the executive order signed by President John F. Kennedy establishing the Presidential Medal of Freedom. According to the White House, “more than 500 exceptional individuals from all corners of society have been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom” since the inaugural awards to 31 people in 1963.

Clinton, Steinem included The other 2013 recipients are: Newsman Ben Bradlee; former President Bill Clinton; World War II Veteran/Former Congressman Daniel Inouye (posthumous); pioneering psychologist Daniel Kahneman; former Sen. Richard Lugar; music

OLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/MCT

Oprah Winfrey 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 on the National Mall on Aug. 28. She will be honored by President Obama this month. legend Loretta Lynn; environmental scientist Mario Molina; pioneering astronaut Sally Ride (posthumous); Arturo Sandoval; champion U.N.C. basketball coach Dean Smith; Renowned writer and activist Gloria Steinem; and revered appellate judge Patricia Wald.

“The Presidential Medal of Freedom

goes to men and women who have dedicated their own lives to enriching ours,” says Obama. “This year’s honorees have been blessed with extraordinary talent, but what sets them apart is their gift for sharing that talent with the world. It will be my honor to present them with a token of our nation’s gratitude.”

Black Press editor: ‘Redskins’ no longer acceptable Richmond Free Press no longer using team nickname in paper

BY HAZEL TRICE EDNEY TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

The editor-publisher of the award-winning Richmond Free Press has announced his paper will no longer use the name Redskins to describe Washington, D.C.’s professional football team because he says the name is racist, harkening to the historic torture and abuse of Native Americans.

“We want to make absolutely certain that the Free Press does not endorse or promote a totally unacceptable name. Also, it represents an opportunity to show that Washington, D.C. – the capital of the United States – is not riveted to the past and that Virginia is not riveted to the past. It’s an opportunity to move ahead and not to continue to encourage this take our nation back theme that the ultra conservatives have,” says Raymond H. Boone Sr. in an interview this week.

“We should never become acclimated to the outrageous. And the Free Press is leading the expunging of this name so that it will not be a cause for people to find an unacceptable, racist unpatriotic name acceptable.”

Called ‘racist and divisive’ Boone, who has a decadeslong reputation as a force against racism in Virginia, announced his decision to drop the name in an editorial published in the Oct. 17-23 edition of the Free Press.

He says the paper will only refer to the team as “the Washington professional football team.”

He wrote, “The Richmond Free Press is expunging the nickname of the Washington professional football team from its news and editorial columns. The reason: The nickname is insulting to Native Americans, racist and divisive. Plus, it promotes the spreading ugly Tea Party mentality that is growing in Virginia and the na-

In this May 2012 photo, Richmond Free Press Editor/Publisher Raymond H. Boone walks with Free Press photographer Sandra Sellars toward the entrance of the Virginia Supreme Court where she became the first Black newspaper photographer to cover an investiture in the Court’s 232-year history. The breakthrough came after a decade-long campaign by the paper. Boone has now waged the same type of campaign for the change of the name of the Washington ‘Redskins’.

tion’s capital.”

The editorial continues, “Our use of the depraved nickname would only serve to cause people to become more acclimated to the outrageous. It would give a cause for the regeneration of the despicable N-word and other derogatory names given to other racial groups.”

Owner won’t budge Daniel Snyder, the owner of the team, has vowed not to change the name, claiming that 90 percent of Native Americans, including many Native American students, do not want to change the name and view it as a source of pride.

However, the stance by the 21-year-old newspaper joins a rising chorus of voices against the name, from people and organizations that associate it with race hatred, bigotry and the “ethnic cleansing” mentality perpetuated by President Andrew Jackson and his Indian Removal Act of May 28, 1830 - among others.

Jacqueline Pata, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, a 69-yearold organization that promotes itself as the oldest, largest and most representative organization of American Indians and Alaska natives, also reframes from using the term, “Redskins.’’

JEROME REID/RICHMOND FREE PRESS/ TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

Morial: It will happen Speaking on an Aug. 26 panel, “No Lie Can Live Forever,” sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, Pata said her community calls the team, “The Local Team.’’

Pata added that her organization would be happy to create “a winning opportunity for the fans” by helping “to come up with a name that is heroic and honorary and that we can all stand behind.

I would love to be a part of that process and have an open invitation to do so.”

National Urban League President/CEO Marc Morial, also on the Kellogg panel, predicts the name change is inevitable.

“It will happen. It needs to hap-

pen. It’s time for it to happen,” he said. “When I watch the team, it goes through my mind, ‘Has the time just come for this image and for this name to be changed?’

This is the nation’s capital and its institutions – and the football team here is an institution need to be standing with what’s best for the future of the nation. I think it’s just that simple.”

President Obama recently told the Associated Press that he would “think about changing” the team’s name if he was the owner.

Successful campaigns The Free Press has made state-

wide and national news on numerous occasions with its campaigns against racism, including a successful 1992 campaign to remove Confederate flag emblems from the planes and uniforms of the Virginia Air National Guard.

More recently, he waged a successful campaign to open the door for photographers from Black newspapers as a part of the official press core of the Virginia Supreme Court.

The tone of his editorial hints he will not blink: “…The football team’s current nickname is the modern-day version of the Washington football team’s white supremacist mentality,” he writes.

“Most of its stars are African-

Americans who hold a slave status, reporting to the team’s ultraconservative owner, Daniel Snyder.

“He vows he will ‘never’ change the rotten name … a name that stems from the scalping and butchering of Native Americans by bounty hunters.”

He concludes with another call for the name to be changed. “In the meantime, the Free Press, along with a growing number of opponents of the racist nickname, will not print it.”

Editor’s note: Hazel Trice Edney, the writer of this article is a former reporter for the Richmond Free Press.

Three Black women make Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business list TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

Three African-American women were among those featured in Fortune magazine’s annual “50 Most Powerful Women in Business,” released in late October.

Ursula Burns, CEO and president of Xerox; Rosalind Brewer, CEO and president of Sam’s Club; and Shonda Rhimes, creator of the hit shows “Scandal” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” are among the top movers and shakers in business, according to the magazine.

Editors chose the finalists based on four criteria: the size and importance of the woman’s business in the global economy, the health and direction of the business, the arc of the woman’s career including past and future potential achievements, and social and cultural influence.

Ursula Burns

Rosalind Brewer

Shonda Rhimes

At a glance The 55-year-old Burns ranked 13th for having “successfully transformed” Xerox, according to her Fortune profile: “Over half its $22 billion in revenue comes from services such as customer care and IT outsourcing.” Burns’ ranking was a drop from her No. 7 ranking last year, perhaps be-

cause of Xerox’s failing fortunes — the traditional document business saw an 8 percent fall in profits last year.

Brewer, 51, came in at No. 15. As head of Wal-Mart’s warehouse Sam’s Club, which boasts $56.4 billion in revenue, Brewer runs a major segment of the retail giant’s business. Brewer, who is also a board member for Lockheed Martin, drove Sam’s Club sales up 5 percent, and operating income up 6 percent, and has been building its online business, Fortune noted.

Rhimes, 43, is a newcomer to the roundup of female power players, and was chosen because of her profound impact on popular culture. “Her shows are mini-empires — and major moneymakers — for Disney’s ABC,” Fortune wrote. “We bet Disney CEO Bob Iger returns her calls.”

Winfrey drops off Other notable women who made the list included Indra Nooyi, the chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, at No. 2; Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating office of Facebook, at No. 5; and Marissa Mayer, president and CEO of Yahoo, at No. 8.

And for the first time ever, one woman who has always made Fortune’s MPW list dropped off: Oprah Winfrey. Her cable network, OWN, seems to have overcome its startup struggles and is drawing bigger audiences, but the business isn’t big enough to put Winfrey, number 50 last year, on the 2013 list.

This story is special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper.

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IFE/FAITH

AKAs mourn death of former president See page B2

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

November 1 - November 7, 2013

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

Jackson doctor reportedly seeking book deal, show See page B5

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Darrell Wallace Jr. is the first African-American to win a NASCAR race in 50 years

Another historic win for Blacks in sports

BY JIM UTTER THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER (MCT)

FAST FACTS ABOUT WALLACE

M

ARTINSVILLE, Va. — It was a historic day for NASCAR in Victory Lane on Saturday, Oct. 26.

It was a busy one on pit road as well.

With drivers bumping and wrecking behind him, Darrell Wallace Jr. stayed clear and out front on a restart with six of 200 laps and held on to win the Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia.

The victory is Wallace’s first in the Truck Series and he became the first AfricanAmerican driver to win a race in one of NASCAR’s three national series – Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Trucks – since Wendell Scott’s victory in Jacksonville in 1963.

‘Emotional’ win The coincidence of the location of the win – about 30 miles west of Scott’s hometown of Danville, Va., was not lost on Wallace.

“This is an emotional one for me, especially to do it in Wendell Scott’s backyard,” said Wallace, who was a graduate of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program. “I love to come in here to Martinsville. “It’s always good to me, and it finally paid off.”

Wallace, 20, has been competing full time in the Truck series this season for Kyle Busch Motorsports. His previous best finish this season was fourth at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Bowmanville, Ontario, last month.

“We congratulate Darrell Wallace Jr. on his first national series victory, one that will be remembered as a remarkable moment in our sport’s history,” NASCAR Chairman Brian France said in a statement.

Darrell Wallace Jr., right, is a graduate of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program that was formed in 2004 to help multicultural and female drivers advance from the grass-roots series. Wallace, 20, made his Nationwide Series debut in late May, driving the No. 20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing at the Iowa Speedway. He ran in the top ten for most of the event, finishing ninth.

Birthdate: Oct. 8, 1993 Hometown: Mobile, Ala. Residence: Concord, N.C. Racing history: Started racing at age 9 and often had to deal with racism from other competitors.

Favorite sports team: University of Tennessee Hobbies: Photography, video games, paintball, basketball Family: He’s the son of a Black mother and White father.

‘Drove like a hero’ Congratulations poured in for Wallace on social media shortly after he took the checkered flag. Veteran Mark Martin posted the following message on his Twitter account: “You drove like a hero.”

When told of the comment after the race in the media center, Wallace got tears in his eyes.

“I look up to Mark a lot,” Wallace said.

“He’s the old one of the group. He’s out there fighting for it each and every lap and that’s awesome.

“That’s cool to have the bigger guys watching down on the younger series and one day, hopefully, I’ll be racing with them.”

Wallace’s victory was helped in part by a fierce battle in the final 10 laps between Kevin Harvick and Ty Dillon, grandson of the owner of Harvick’s Cup series team, Richard Childress.

On Lap 188, Dillon tried to nudge Harvick, who was running second, out of the way. Instead, Dillon ended up turning Harvick’s truck in an incident that also collected series points leader Matt Crafton.

Once the caution came out, Harvick slammed into Dillon’s truck, and then Dillon spent nearly a lap trying to hit Harvick again.

Harvick eventually drove to pit road and parked in Dillon’s pit. Dillon’s crew grew incensed and one member threw a sledgehammer at Harvick’s truck while it sat on pit road.

Above: Rapper T.I., left, visits the NASCAR Sprint Cup Garage with NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Darrell Wallace Jr. at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach on Feb. 13. JEFF SINER/CHARLOTTE OBSERVER/MCT

Left: Darrell Wallace Jr. is shown with his mom, Desiree, who has told him to “avoid confrontations with other drivers who used (racial) slurs. Just go win.”

CALENDAR

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NOVEMBER 1 – NOVEMBER 7, 2013

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FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR

BLACK UHURU

Jamaican reggae group Black Uhuru is scheduled to perform on Nov. 9 at the State Theatre in St. Petersburg.

Orlando: The University of Central Florida’s Homecoming events will include a show by Craig Robinson with Mark Normand at the CFE Arena at 8 p.m. on Nov. 6.

Tampa: Kanye West’s The Yeezus Tour with Kendrick Lamar makes a stop at the Tampa Bay Times forum on Nov. 30.

St. Petersburg: “The Chocolate Nutcracker’’ is now “The Nutcracker Twist.’’ The performance is Dec. 31 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at The Mahaffey Theater.

Jacksonville: SaltyLight Productions will present the Jacksonville Community Unity Festival, a family reunion-style atmosphere, on Nov. 16 at Brewster’s MegaPlex from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. Sponsors, volunteers and vendors are needed. For more information, visit www. theCOREtour.org or call 904610-5426.

St. Petersburg: Cedric the Entertainer will be at The Mahaffey on Nov. 8 for an 8 p.m. show.

Jacksonville: The Kinfolks’ Seventh Annual Soul Food Festival in Jacksonville on Nov. 30 at Metropolitan Park.

Visit ilovesoulfood.com for more information or call 888695-0888.

Orlando: The monthly meeting of the Central Florida Chapter of the Afro-American

AVANT

A show featuring Brian McKnight, Musiq Soulchild and Avant Is scheduled Nov. 8 at Hard Rock Live Hollywood.

JANELLE MONAE

Catch the popular performer at Hard Rock Live Orlando on Nov. 22 for an 8 p.m. show.

Historical and Genealogical Society is Nov. 9, 10 a.m., at the downtown Orlando Public Library, 101 E. Central Blvd., Orlando. Topic: Blended Families: Native Americans in African-American Families.

More information: 407-5272109 or 386-253-1516.

Clearwater: John Legend and Tamar Braxton are scheduled at Ruth Eckerd Hall on Nov. 4.

St. Petersburg: Tickets are on sale now for Rick Ross at The Mahaffey Theater on Nov. 22.

Miami: A concert with Drake, Miguel and Future is set for

Nov. 5 at the AmericanAirlines Arena.

Miami: The African American Performing Arts Community Theatre (AAPACT) will present its production of

“Fences,’ written by August Wilson, through Nov. 3 at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, 6161 NW 22nd Ave. Show times and more information: www.aapact.com.

MCT

The Classic rivalry resumes Nov. 23 The nation’s largest HBCU rivalry returns to Orlando on Saturday, Nov. 23. The Florida A&M University Rattlers take on the Bethune-Cookman University Wildcats for the 68th time and the 34th time as part of the Florida Blue Florida Classic. FAMU Marching 100 returns for the McDonald’s Halftime Show and their traditional showdown with B-CU’s Marching Wildcats. Tickets to the game start at $15.

For details about the Florida Classic weekend, visit www.floridaclassic.org.

Former Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority president Julia Purnell dies FROM WIRE REPORTS

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority is mourning the loss of its 16th International President, Julia Brogdon Purnell, who died Oct. 21 in Michigan. She was the sorority’s leader from 1962-1966.

Speaking on behalf of Alpha Kappa Alpha’s 260,000 members worldwide, International President Carolyn House Stewart praised Purnell for her steadfast devotion to human rights and women’s rights, for being a stalwart in the war on poverty, and for her particular focus on cultivating youth leaders.

Julia “Julia Brogdon Purnell was the ultimate Brogdon humanitarian,” stated Stewart. “Her acPurnell tion-oriented resolve was mirrored in the programs she inspired that were dedicated to eradicating poverty, promoting democracy, crusading for civil rights and living up to Alpha Kappa Alpha’s commitment to service.

“With her commanding presence and eloquence, she was a catalyst for change. She was much admired and revered and her courage, perseverance and indomitable re-

solve represent her ever-lasting legacy. She was an international treasure who will be sorely missed.”

President of Links too After her term as international president ended, the Louisiana resident continued to leave her imprint as an agent of change. In 1978, she was elected president of Links, International, making her the first woman to serve as the chief leader of two notable organizations.

She graduated from Allen University at Columbia, S.C., and earned a master’s degree from Atlanta University and launched her career as a teacher. She was a professor of education at Southern University in Baton Rouge and retired from this position in 1984. Prior to this, she was a teacher at Avery Institute in Charleston, South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, and Morris College in Sumter, S.C.. She also was the recipient of nine honorary doctorate degrees.

Service on Nov. 2 She was the widow of Clifton A. Purnell, Sr., longtime athletic director at Capitol Senior High School in Baton Rouge. She is survived by one son, Clifton, Jr. and two grandchildren.

On Nov. 1, Mrs. Purnell was to lie in state at Gamma Eta Omega Sorority House, 1605 Harding Blvd., Baton Rouge, La. Members of the sorority will honor her in an Ivy Beyond the Wall ceremony that will be held on Nov. 2 at Southern University’s F.G. Clark Activity Center’s “mini dome” beginning at 9:30 a.m. A memorial service will immediately follow the ceremony.

Read All About Black Life, Statewide!

Visit us online at flcourier.com

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NOVEMBER 1 – NOVEMBER 7, 2013

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SPORTS

Gov. Scott’s re-election campaign gets boost from Jaguars owner Shahid Khan donates $250,000 to governor’s ‘Let’s Get to Work committee

BY JIM TURNER THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – The committee raising funds for Gov. Rick Scott’s re-election campaign posted more big numbers as the clock wound down on September.

The biggest score came from Shahid “Shad” Khan, the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Khan dropped $250,000 into the rapidly growing coffers of the Tallahasseebased “Let’s Get to Work” committee, which is backing the governor’s re-election effort.

The contribution was posted on the committee’s website Sept.

Shahid 30, three weeks ‘Shad’ Khan after Scott hosted Khan at the Governor’s Mansion for a Sunday

night meeting about unspecified economic-development opportunities.

Khan has expressed interest in developing land known as the Shipyards near EverBank Field along the St. Johns River.

A spokesman for Khan, who made his money with the Illinoisbased auto-parts maker Flex-NGate and owns a home in Naples, has described the Sept. 8 meeting as “outstanding.” Spokespeople for the governor have only noted the generic topic of the get-together.

PAC by Ross Khan isn’t the first billionaire from the luxury boxes to get behind Scott.

Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has set up his own political action committee, Florida Jobs First, which has helped raise money for Scott.

The PAC was created by Ross after he all but declared war against House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, because of the House’s failure to support upgrades to Sun Life Stadium earlier this year.

JIM RASSOL/SUN SENTINEL/MCT

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross talks on the sideline before Miami’s game against the Buffalo Bills at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens on Oct. 20.

Khan’s Sept. 30 contribution was among $1.34 million that churned into the “Let’s Get to Work” account the final week of September.

The money put the committee’s intake for September at $3.65 million.

More money Scott has lagged in polls behind potential Democratic candidate Charlie Crist, the former governor who left the GOP. But those poll numbers haven’t discouraged business interest for Scott.

The money in the final week of September included $140,000 from contributors with construction and real-estate ties, $227,759

from the health-care field, $53,000 from the insurance industry, and $362,000 from banking and finance.

Another $60,000 was chipped in by gaming interests.

The Buffalo, N.Y.,-based Delaware North Gaming & Entertainment and several of its affiliates, including the Daytona Beach Kennel Club and Poker Room, collectively gave $50,000 at the end of September.

Melbourne Greyhound Park gave $10,000.

Betting on Scott The money put down by gaming interests was in addition to $540,000 in gambling-tied money that rolled in during the first

part of the month, as the Legislature prepares for a major debate during the 2014 session about Florida’s gaming future.

Earlier in September, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, approaching an end to a key part of its exclusive gambling compact with the state, dropped $500,000 into the committee, while Missouribased Isle of Capri Casinos, which owns Isle Casino Racing Pompano Park in Broward County, and Calder Race Course in Miami-Dade County each gave $20,000.

Since the start of the year, the “Let’s Get to Work” committee has raised $13.25 million, of which $1.2 million has been spent, mostly on consultants.

Ayanbadejo reshaping LGBT advocacy in sports world Since retiring from football, the straight and married dad has focused on ending discrimination

gay rights. He recently acted as guest editor of a special sports edition of the Washington Blade, an LGBT newspaper.

“He’s one of those folks who is highly educated, who’s taken the time to educate himself on a topic that he feels is important,” said Fernandez, who advised Ayanbadejo on his website design. “Some athletes who haven’t necessarily done that have tried to talk about something, and they find themselves just putting their foot in their mouths.”

BY KEVIN RECTOR THE BALTIMORE SUN (MCT)

Growing up as a mixedrace kid in Chicago and in his father’s native Nigeria, where he really stood out, Brendon Ayanbadejo became attuned to issues of identity from a very young age.

By his midteens, while living with his family in a dorm for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students at the University of California, Santa Cruz — his step-father was the dorm’s headmaster — he thought no differently about LGBT people than he did straight people.

“I learned people are just people,” the former Baltimore Ravens linebacker said.

Ayanbadejo, now 37, has turned those early lessons into an expanding role as a gay-rights activist. After first announcing his public support for same-sex marriage in 2009 — rare and groundbreaking for a sports star at the time — he has continued his advocacy through the Ravens Super Bowl victory last season and beyond.

“It’s just one of the pieces of me,” Ayanbadejo said, when asked about his commitment to the cause since retiring from football. “It’s just something I do. It doesn’t take up all of my time, but it’s something I live and breathe.”

Chicago Bears Dante Wesley and Brendon Ayanbadejo (right) are shown during Media Day at Dolphin Stadium in Miami on Jan. 30, 2007.

Speaks on bullying, equality

Semi-taboo subject

The straight, married entrepreneur with two kids and a second career as a sports analyst frequently finds time to take stages around the country, speaking to young students about bullying or to corporate executives about equality.

He’s also helping to craft a campaign for Athlete Ally, a nonprofit focused on ending discrimination against homosexuals in sports, ahead of the 2014

Principle 6

JIM PRISCHING/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/MCT

Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where an anti-gay propaganda law has drawn widespread attention.

Ayanbadejo appeared last month before a couple of hundred students at McDaniel College in Westminster, Md., to talk about knowing gay people all his life and wishing that the NFL would take more of a stand for LGBT rights.

The NFL is “not lollygagging, but they’re kind of hesitant to pull the trigger” to really stamp out discrimination, he told the crowd. “I’d like to see them do more.”

Robert Gulliver, the league’s chief human resources officer, said in a statement that the league has already stepped up anti-discrimination efforts, impressing last spring on all general managers and head coaches the importance of diversity, including the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, and incorporating those ideas into rookie training.

The NFL has “proactively formed partnerships with LGBT organizations in active dialogue on LGBT diversity,” Gulliver said.

Many credit Ayanbadejo for his early advocacy on a still semi-taboo subject — after all, NBA player Jason Collins just became the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport in April.

“He took this stance before the topic really became any kind of controversy, before the Jason Collinses of the world came out and said they are openly gay,” said Anthony Fernandez, a sports marketing and branding consultant who has worked with Ayanbadejo in the past.

“The key is having authenticity behind that, and he’s shown that authenticity by continuing to make it a point to talk about these topics.”

Getting paid Outspoken, and with commanding stage presence, Ayanbadejo is on a circuit of speakers hired to talk about LGBT equality in

sports. The three-time Pro Bowl selection has spoken at places including Harvard University, ESPN and Google.

Longtime Baltimore sports agent Ron Shapiro said such honorariums for top-flight athletes can be as much as $10,000, but that’s “the exception, not the rule.” Far more often, he said, honorariums cover only transportation and hotel costs.

Fernandez, who does work with AthletePromotions, a sports celebrity marketing and booking agency, said the demand for athletes who can speak to LGBT issues “has probably quadrupled” in the past year.

Still, Ayanbadejo has never been about the money and doesn’t always require a fee, he said. “His fee is incredibly reasonable compared to what we have seen for athletes of his level of demand, which is incredibly unusual,” Fernandez said. “He just wants to spread his message as wide as possible.”

New career aspirations He said one of his proudest moments was seeing same-sex marriage pass in Maryland, after campaigning for it alongside Gov. Martin O’Malley.

The first paragraph of the biography on Ayanbadejo’s personal website, brendonayanbadejo.net, says, “Ayanbadejo, former Baltimore Raven and member of the Super Bowl XLVII Champion team, is a man who understands both the pain of discrimination and the gain of personal joy that comes from embracing an unwavering belief in equal rights for all.”

Since leaving football, Ayanbadejo has taken on new career aspirations. He has become a Fox Sports contributor and plans to open a chain of gyms in California in November. At the time he was cut from the Ravens’ roster, he was due a $940,000 base salary, entering the second year of a three-year $3.2 million contract.

At the same time, he has expanded his efforts for

Sam Marchiano agreed.

She’s a founding board member of Athlete Ally, led by former University of Maryland wrestler Hudson Taylor.

Ayanbadejo became involved in the two-year-old organization early on, Marchiano said, and then did something surprising: He kept becoming more involved.

“He grew and grew and grew with our organization,” Marchiano said.

“That his commitment was so big and he was so involved, it was like, ‘Oh wow, this person is a potential board candidate.’ “ Ayanbadejo was named to the board in July, she said. And he’s not only attending board meetings but has been working on strategy for the coming Winter Olympics, focusing on a tenet of the International Olympic Committee’s charter that bans discrimination, known as Principle 6.

After Ayanbadejo’s talk and Q&A at McDaniel, students said he had an impact with them.

“The points he made were really, really good. I didn’t realize how difficult it was to be in the NFL and have a politician come in and say, ‘You need to be quiet,’” said senior communications major Elyssa Bidwell, 21.

“He’s putting his reputation on the line talking about this stuff,” said Matt Kammer, 19, a sophomore business major. “I thought it was cool he was willing to do this.”

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FOOD

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NOVEMBER 1 – NOVEMBER 7, 2013

Easy Chicken Parmesan

FAST-FIX DINNERS Easy family meals in under a hour

FROM FAMILY FEATURES

Family schedules can get hectic, but it doesn’t have to be hard to make time for a great family dinner. Whether it’s a hearty dish of Bolognese or lighter vegetarian fare, quality ingre dients and easy recipes can help you get a great dish on the table in no time.

The whole family will love the Latin-inspired flavors found in Chorizo Bolognese. Ground beef, chorizo, sliced olives and adobo seasoning are cooked in tomato sauce and poured over pasta.

Look for canned tomatoes and sauces, like those from Hunt’s®, which are 100 percent natural and free from artificial preservatives. Hunt’s uses hot water to peel their tomatoes with FlashSteam® instead of being peeled with harsh chemicals like other leading brands. When you’re taking the time to prepare homemade meals for your family, it’s important to use quality ingredients.

Another crowd pleaser is Easy Chicken Parmesan.

Start by combining grated Kraft® Parmesan cheese with diced tomatoes flavored with basil, garlic and oregano. Coat each chicken breast with the delectable sauce and place it in the oven. While it bakes for 30 min utes, you can help the kids with their homework or enjoy a little time to yourself.

For those looking for a meatless option, try the Vegetarian Lasagna Skillet with a pre-prepared Alfredo sauce to help save you time. Combine the creamy white sauce with pasta, zucchini, beans, fire roasted tomatoes and part-skim mozzarella cheese and it’s ready in just 30 minutes. For more delicious signature recipes, visit www.hunts.com.

While visiting the website, choose an easy weeknight Hunt’s Signature Recipe with Kraft cheese and you’ll receive a valuable coupon. Share your favorite recipe with friends on Pinterest, Facebook or email and you will receive the chance to win one of several prizes, including $5,000 to host your own party with Chef George Duran. For recipes, official rules, complete details and a chance to win, visit Hunts.com.

Easy Chicken Parmesan Servings: 6 Prep time: 10 minutes Total time: 45 minutes 1 (15-ounce) can Hunt’s Tomato Sauce 1 (14.5-ounce) can Hunt’s Diced Tomatoes with Basil, Garlic and Oregano, undrained 6 tablespoons Kraft Grated Parmesan Cheese, divided 6 small boneless skinless chicken breasts (1 1/2 pounds) 3/4 pound spaghetti, uncooked 1 1/2 cups Kraft Shredded Mozzarella Cheese Heat oven to 375°F. Pour tomato sauce and undrained tomatoes into 13-by-9-inch baking dish. Stir in 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) Parmesan.

Add chicken; turn to coat evenly both sides of each breast with sauce. Cover.

Bake 30 minutes or until chicken is done (165°F).

Mean while, cook spaghetti as directed on package, omitting salt.

Top chicken with remaining cheeses; bake, uncovered, 5 minutes or until mozzarella is melted.

Drain spaghetti. Serve topped with chicken and sauce.

Chorizo Bolognese Vegetarian Lasagna Skillet Servings: 6 Prep time: 30 minutes Total time: 30 minutes �8 ounces dry bowtie (farfalle) pasta, uncooked �2 tablespoons Pure Wesson Canola Oil �2 cups quartered, sliced zucchini �1 (15-ounce) can Great Northern beans, drained, rinsed �1 (16-ounce) jar light Alfredo pasta sauce �1/4 teaspoon garlic salt �2 (14.5-ounce) cans Hunt’s Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes, drained well �1 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese Cook pasta according to package directions, omit ting salt.

Meanwhile, heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat.

Add zucchini; cook 5 minutes or until tender, stirring occasion ally.

Add beans, Alfredo sauce and garlic salt to skillet; heat until hot and bubbly.

Add cooked pasta to skillet; stir to combine.

Add drained tomatoes; toss to combine. Top with cheese.

Reduce heat; cover and cook 2 to 3 minutes or until cheese melts. Sprinkle with Kraft Grated Parmesan Cheese.

Vegetarian Lasagna Skillet

Chorizo Bolognese Servings: 6 Prep time: 25 minutes Total time: 25 minutes �8 ounces dry fettuccine pasta, uncooked �1/2 pound ground chuck beef (80% lean) �6 ounces fresh pork chorizo (Mexican-style) �1/4 teaspoon adobo seasoning blend �1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper �1/2 cup chopped yellow onion �1/4 cup sliced stuffed green olives �1 (15-ounce) can Hunt’s Tomato Sauce Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt. Meanwhile, heat large skillet over medium-high heat. Add beef, chorizo, adobo seasoning and pepper to skillet; cook 3 minutes or until meat begins to brown, stirring once.

Add onion and olives; cook 2 to 3 minutes more or until meat is crumbled and no longer pink. Drain. Stir in tomato sauce; reduce heat and simmer 5 to 7 min utes, stirring occasionally. Serve sauce over pasta. Sprinkle with Kraft Grated Parmesan Cheese.

STOJ

NOVEMBER 1 – NOVEMBER 7, 2013

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

Meet some of

FLORIDA'S

finest

South Florida native Marissa Robinson is the eldest of five children and considers family and the love of God the first priority in her life. The 25-year-old model is a graduate of the University of Tampa and says her most important goal in life is to one day open an adult facility catering to the geriatric community.

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.

marissa

Perrish Googins, 23, is a 2012 graduate of the University of South Carolina where he studied Information Management and Systems. While at USC, he participated in track and field, and was a cheerleader. He’s a personal trainer and coaches track, cheer, and song and dance. The actor/model enjoys playing the violin. His goals are to compete in the Olympics and to own a business.

Contact Perrish at www.facebook.com/ pharohgogg.

T I Photography by Phil.

perrish

GOP official ousted for ‘lazy Blacks’ comment on the ‘Daily Show’

BY MEREDITH BLAKE LOS ANGELES TIMES (MCT)

NEW YORK — Don Yelton, a Republican official in North Carolina, has been forced to resign following an appearance last week on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” in which he made a series of racially charged remarks.

On Oct. 23, correspondent Aasif Mandvi traveled to North Carolina to look at the effect of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. There he met with Yelton, a precinct chairman in Buncombe County and an advocate of the state’s strict new voter ID laws which, according to some, disproportionately target minority voters.

In the segment, Yelton denied that the laws were in any way racist. But when it Don came to his own views, he was less adaYelton mant. When asked point-blank if he was a racist, Yelton took a long pause then replied, “Well, I’ve been called a bigot before.”

AL SEIB/LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT

Dr. Conrad Murray listens to testimony in his involuntary manslaughter trial in Los Angeles Sept. 30, 2011.

Report: Jackson doctor now seeking book deal, reality show

Standing behind comments

FROM WIRE REPORTS

From there he continued to dig an even deeper hole, telling Mandvi “one of my best friends is Black,” repeatedly using the N-word and saying he favored the state’s new laws because “if it hurts the Whites, so be it. If it hurts lazy Black people that wants the government to give them everything, so be it.” (He also admitted the new regulations were politically motivated — or, as he put it, “The law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt.”)

So unguarded were Yelton’s ramblings that Mandvi asked Yelton, “You know that we can hear you, right?”

The segment quickly went viral on Oct. 24, with New York Magazine calling it “the most baldly racist ‘Daily Show’ interview of all time.” Yelton did not do much to help his case, telling the Mountain Xpress in a follow-up interview that “the comments that were made, that I said, I stand behind them. I believe them.”

Now that he’s free, ex-con Conrad Murray is looking to get paid – fast.

According to TMZ, the man accused of killing Michael Jackson with propofol has written a large portion of his biography and time with the King of Pop while locked up in L.A. County Jail.

The website claims a big chunk of the Jackson story casts blame on others and justifies his conduct in Jackson’s treatment.

Additionally, Murray is open to some sort of reality show that would follow his life after jail reports TMZ. “We’re told he does not have a publisher for the book. We don’t know if any reality show producers have expressed interest, but you can bet they’ll come a calling,” TMZ stated.

‘Offensive, uniformed’ comments By that afternoon, the Buncombe County Republican Party asked Yelton to resign from his post via a press release on Facebook.

“Mr. Yelton’s comments are offensive, uniformed, and unacceptable of any member within the Republican Party. In no way are his comments representative of the local or state Republican Party,” said Buncombe County GOP chair Henry Mitchell, who also emphasized that Yelton did not seek approval from party officials before speaking with “The Daily Show.”

The state GOP also called for Yelton to resign and condemned his remarks as “outrageous.”

Yelton apparently obliged, telling Pete Kaliner, host of “The Pete Kaliner Show” on WWNC-AM, that he’d resigned.

Two years in jail Murray was released from L.A.’s Men’s Central Jail at 12:01 a.m. Monday, authorities confirmed.

Upon his release, Murray, who served two years behind bars for the 2011 involuntary-manslaughter conviction, eluded a waiting scrum of TV cameras and die-hard Jackson fans.

The 60-year-old was sentenced to

the maximum four-year term for his role in Jackson’s death on June 25, 2009.

Under state sentencing rules, Murray was eligible for parole well in advance of the end of his sentences, but he has nonetheless has endured a long ordeal since Jackson’s death, said his attorney Valerie Wass.

“They didn’t release him one minute early,” she said, speaking outside the jail early Monday. “I’m just happy he’s finally out.”

er’s health problems, struggles with drugs and fateful attempt at a comeback tour. The issues in court included who was responsible for hiring Murray and overseeing his treatment of Jackson.

Wass’ claim that Murray has a contingent of “loyal” patients garnered heckling from a cluster of fans who had hoped to give Murray a piece of their minds as he walked free.

Conviction challenged

Wass turned to face the pop star’s supporters.

“Do you guys mind?” she asked, her voice rising. “This group of fans isn’t respecting [Jackson’s] legacy.”

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore, who briefly addressed reporters early Monday, offered few details about Murray’s exit, except to say that he was released to “representatives,” and that such releases are allowed on a “case-by-case” basis to ensure certain inmates’ safety and security.

The covert release riled Jackson supporters who said Murray received undue “special treatment.”

Wass implored members of the media to respect Murray’s privacy as he reacclimates to his life. His first priority was seeing his family, she said.

She added that she believes Murray will one day practice medicine again.

He has challenged his conviction, and that effort will continue in the state Court of Appeal, Wass said. He is seeking to have the verdict overturned because of insufficient evidence. Wass also appealed to undo the conviction on other grounds.

A Los Angeles jury this month found that concert promoter AEG Live was not liable in Jackson’s death, capping a marathon civil trial that laid bare the troubled sing-

Release riles Jackson fans

This story was compiled from a report by Eurweb.com and the Los Angeles Times.

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