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CoMMenTaRY: CHaRles W. CHeRRY ii: RandoM THoUGHTs oF a FRee BlaCK Mind | a4

CoMMenTaRY: ClaRenCe V. MCKee: THe Good, Bad, UGlY oF RnC in TaMPa | a5

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FAMU fights legal responsibility; state alleges lack of controls

COMPILED FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Here’s an update of the latest key events surrounding the killing of Flor-ida A&M University Marching “100’’ drum major Robert Champion, who was beaten to death by his band mates during a hazing ritual after the Flori-da Classic football game in Orlando on Nov. 19, 2011:

On Monday, FAMU filed a legal mo-tion asking a judge to permanently dismiss or defer ruling on the wrongful death lawsuit filed against the school by Champion’s parents. The school’s argument: Robert Champion is re-sponsible for his own death from haz-ing.

In a 23-page motion filed in an Or-lando-area circuit court, FAMU’s at-torneys essentially said that Cham-pion, an adult, allowed himself to be beaten to death when he decided to “cross Bus C,” as the band’s hazing rit-ual was named.

Attorney Rick Mitchell of the Gray-Robinson law firm of Orlando wrote that Champion knew the dangers of hazing. He signed an anti-hazing pledge with the university months be-fore he was beaten to death. He wit-nessed two other students submit to the hazing ritual immediately before him. And for several months previ-ously, Champion had debated with his friend and fellow drum major Ke-on Hollis about whether to go through with it.

“Respectfully, as a 26-year-old adult and leader in FAMU’s band, Mr.

BY MICHAEL PELTIERTHE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

A controversial list of 2,600 al-legedly illegal voters has been whittled to 207, Florida election officials said Wednesday after running the names through a federal immigration database.

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner said the names, about 8 percent of the initial list, would be forwarded to local election officials as early as next week.

The revised list was released the same day as an agreement was announced between the state and voting rights groups over efforts to remove non-citi-zens and other ineligible voters from the ranks.

‘Every vote counts’“We want every Florida vot-

er to be confident that their vote is protected and not hurt in any way by the illegal activity of oth-ers,” Detzner said in a statement. “We know that every vote counts, especially here in Florida where only 537 votes decided the presi-dential election in 2000.”

Wednesday’s announcement marks the latest development in a months-long battle be-tween voting rights advocates, state and federal elections of-ficials over Republican-led ef-forts to cull the ranks of voters and eliminate those not eligible to cast ballots.

Voting groups, which filed suit in federal court to stop the purge, said the new agreement would help prevent the target-ing of minorities, who dispro-portionately turned up on earli-er lists of questionable voters.

“The citizens of Florida have taken another step toward real-izing the right to vote, without any undue barriers imposed by the state,” said Penda Hair, co-director of Advancement Proj-ect, a plaintiff in the case.

At Scott’s requestAt Gov. Rick Scott’s urging,

state election officials last year began looking at whether ineli-gible voters were showing up in the rolls.

To find out, the state began comparing voting rolls with drivers’ license data, coming up with an initial list of 2,600 names

See FAMU, Page A2

See VOTERS, Page A2

CAMPAIGN 2012 / DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

MARGOT JORDAN PHOTOS

The Obama family (Michelle, Barack, Sasha and Malia) ended the DNC in Charlotte, N.C. last week, thus officially kicking off the sprint to the November presidential election. Read pages A4 and A5 for commentaries on the

Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

The race to re-election begins

UNDER ATTACK ON 9/11COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS

The U.S. dispatched an elite group of Marines along with two warships to Tripoli, Libya on Wednesday fol-lowing a mob attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.

U.S. officials are investigat-ing whether the violence – initial-ly blamed on an anti-Islamic vid-eo – was a terrorist attack planned to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11.

Building overrunLibya’s interior minister said

Wednesday that the U.S. ambassa-dor to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed when armed Islamists overran the U.S. consulate in Beng-hazi, Libya’s second largest city, in a day of rage that also struck the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, where demon-strators hauled down the American

flag, tore it to pieces and burned it.Originally, Obama administra-

tion officials believed that the in-cidents were sparked by outrage over the release of a movie trailer that conservative Muslims in both countries said denigrated Islam and its holiest figure, Mohammed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that as the likely cause in a statement.

“Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States de-plores any intentional effort to den-igrate the religious beliefs of oth-ers,” she said. “But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”

But a U.S. counterterrorism offi-cial told the Associated Press (AP) that the Benghazi violence was “too coordinated or professional” to be

See ATTACK, Page A2

On the same day America remembered the 2011 destruction of New York’s World Trade Center, a U.S. ambassador and three

others are killed and two American diplomatic buildings in the Middle East are attacked. Coincidence – or design?

Egyptian pro-testers climb

the walls of the U.S. Em-bassy while

others chant anti-U.S. slo-

gans during a protest in

Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday,

Sept. 11, 2012.

AP PHOTO/ NASSER NASSE

More fallout from Champion killing

SNAPSHOTSNATION | A3Major tribute toFrederick Douglass

FLORIDA | A6Black Women’s Roundtableconvenes in Florida

EVENTS | B2Jacksonville AKAs celebrate 70th anniversary

SPORTS | B5Olympic medalist sued by parents

FINEST | B5Meet Cybil

State voter purge list is less than 300 peopleMore than 92 per-cent of the names on the state’s original list of “illegal” voters were wrongly identi-fied, which would have prevented them from voting.

RICARDO RAMIREZ BUXEDA/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT

A2 SEPTEMBER 14 - SEPTEMBER 20, 2012FOCUS

Though absurd, it’s hardly sur-prising that an obscure Internet video depicting the Prophet Mu-hammad in a blasphemous light would incite ignorant Islamists to violent rage. Remember how mere cartoons of Muhammad in-cited fiery protests throughout the Muslim world a few years ago? These mindless Islamists are as embarrassing to all of my Muslim friends as they are incomprehen-sible to me.

What is surprising is that these religious lunatics would dare to vent their rage on U.S. embas-sies. Yet reports are that signif-icantly on September 11, they stormed the U.S. embassy in Cai-ro, Egypt and launched rocket-propelled grenades at a U.S. con-sulate in Benghazi, Libya, killing U.S. Ambassador Christopher Ste-vens and three others there.

Unfortunately, there is very lit-tle the United States can do to prevent such irrational attacks. Indeed, the wonder is that there aren’t many more.

Romney exploits tragedy Nevertheless, given that Repub-

lican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has predicated much of his campaign on painting Presi-dent Obama as just another feck-less Jimmy Carter, the impulse might’ve been for Obama to re-act with bravado in a misguid-ed attempt to prevent Romney’s caricature from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy (in the fickle minds of American voters).

And, by rushing to slam this president as an apologist/appeas-er in chief even before the cause and scope of these tragedies were known, Romney showed that he will not allow diplomacy, U.S. stra-tegic interests, or even respect for the dead diplomats to prevent him from exploiting these unfolding events for partisan political gain.

(For what it’s worth, Libyan au-thorities are blaming the attack on die-hard Gaddafi loyalists, while

some reports are pinning it on the coordinated hand of Al-Qaeda. If Al Qaeda was involved, one would have to wonder why kill Ameri-cans in Benghazi but only tear up American flags in Cairo.)

Whatever the case, Obama did not take Romney’s bait. Instead, after being fully briefed, he prop-erly condemned the “outrageous and shocking” Benghazi attack and vowed to bring the perpetra-tors to justice. But he insisted that this attack would do nothing to al-ter American values.

‘How could this happen?’Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

echoed his sentiments and added this instructive personal note: “ Today many Americans are asking, indeed, I ask myself, how could this happen? How could this hap-pen in a country we helped liber-ate, in a city we helped save from destruction? This question re-flects just how complicated and, at times, how confounding the world can be.

“But we must be clear-eyed even in our grief. This was an at-tack by a small and savage group,

not the people or government of Libya.”

Indeed, Libyan authorities im-mediately offered the kind of po-litically expedient apology we have become accustomed to hear-ing from U.S. authorities when-ever errant drone missiles kill in-nocent civilians in places like Af-ghanistan and Pakistan.

I told you soYet the vexing irony Hillary al-

luded to cannot be overstressed. What’s more, in February 2011, I warned it might be thus:

“With all due respect to the (Egyptian) protesters, the issue is not whether (Egyptian rule Hosni Mubarak) will go, for he will. (The man is 82 and already looks half-dead, for Christ’s sake!) Rather, the issue is who will replace him. And it appears they have not giv-en any thought whatsoever to this very critical question.

“The devil the Egyptians know might prove far preferable to the devil they don’t. Just ask the Ira-nians who got rid of the Muba-rak-like Shah in 1979 only to end up with the Ayatollah – whose Is-

lamic revolution they’ve regretted (and have longed to overturn) ev-er since...”

Obama’s not CarterMeanwhile, conspicuously ab-

sent was any reference by either Obama or Hillary to the storm-ing of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. But as they presented their joint statement on TV, the (Republi-can) elephant taking up much of the screen was the fearful sym-metry between Egyptians storm-ing the walls of the U.S. Embas-sy in Cairo this week and Irani-ans storming the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

Except that Obama has demon-strated that he’s no Jimmy Carter and, to complete the symmetry, Romney has demonstrated that he’s no Ronald Reagan.

Anthony L. Hall is a Baha-mian native with an interna-tional law practice in Washing-ton, D.C. Read his columns and daily weblog at www.theipin-ionsjournal.com. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

Obama’s no Jimmy Carter, and Romney’s no Ronald Reagan

Champion should have re-fused to participate in the planned hazing event and reported it to law enforce-ment or University admin-istrators. Under these cir-cumstances, Florida’s tax-payers should not be held financially liable to Mr. Champion’s estate for the ultimate result of his own imprudent, avoidable and tragic decision and death,” Mitchell wrote.

Family’s lawyer ‘shocked’

Champion family attor-ney Christopher Chestnut said Monday night that he was shocked at “the con-tents of their defense.”

“We cannot ignore the irony and audacity of an institution in blam-ing Robert for his death,” Chestnut said. “Blaming students for hazing allows the culture of hazing to become deadly.”

A dozen former mem-bers of the Marching “100’’ are charged with fel-ony hazing in Champion’s death. All 12 have pleaded not guilty to the third-de-gree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.

The judge in the law-suit likely will set a date to hear arguments on FA-MU’s motion. Meantime, the university’s legal team and Champion family law-yers are in the process of selecting a mediator and a mediation date – probably sometime next month –

during which they may try to reach a settlement.

Payment problemsOn Wednesday, state

investigators revealed that they found examples of fi-nancial mismanagement at FAMU, including per diem payments made to people who were not stu-dents when the band was traveling last year.

A total of 79 people – in-cluding elementary school students and alumni – re-ceived the unauthorized payments, the Florida De-partment of Law Enforce-ment concluded Wednes-day in its investigative re-port following a nine-month investigation.

The report indicates that a lack of internal con-trols and administrative oversight “substantially contributed to a systemat-

ic lack of regard for or ad-herence to university poli-cy and procedure.

“Neither FAMU nor then band director Julian White could provide an explana-tion of how and/or why this occurred,” investiga-tors wrote.

About two weeks ago, FDLE announced it had made one arrest as part of the financial investiga-tion, which grew out of a larger probe into Champi-on’s death.

FAMU Director of Spe-cial Events Tammy Ham-let was charged with eight counts of misdemeanor fraud for allegedly pad-ding her travel expense re-ports.

White citedDr. Julian White, the

band’s longtime direc-tor who retired several

months ago, was partial-ly blamed for the theft of $30,000 to $40,000 in band dues several years ago, ac-cording to the report.

White failed to deposit the cash, checks and mon-ey orders into a university account, choosing instead to keep the money in a locked storage room. After it was discovered stolen, he did not report the theft for about three months. When he did go to the FA-MU police department, he reported that only $12,000 in cash was taken, the re-port said.

FDLE and universi-ty police investigations were unable to determine who took the money. And while campus police for-warded the incident to the school’s Division of Au-dit and Compliance for an investigation, no admin-

istrative review was ever done.

Other reviewsThe Board of Gover-

nors, which oversees Flor-ida’s public universities, is also looking into FA-MU’s internal controls – whether the administra-tion did enough to com-bat hazing in the months before Champion’s beat-ing death. A draft report of that investigation should be completed at the end of September or in early Oc-tober, said an official from the Board of Governors.

FAMU’s accrediting body – the Southern As-sociation of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges – is looking in-to problems related to, among other things, cam-pus safety and university finances.

Taking stepsThe university has made

a number of changes in re-cent months to fight haz-ing on campus, including launching a website re-cently that allows students to report hazing in real-time to the campus police department.

Starting in spring 2013, students will not be able to register for classes un-til they sign an anti-hazing pledge, FAMU announced last week.

Denise-Marie Ord-way and Stephen Hudak of the Orlando Sentinel (MCT) contributed to this report.

FAMUfrom A1

FLORIDA COURIER FILES

Though FAMU Drum Major Robert Champion was beaten to death, the school says that Champion was responsible for his own fate.

spontaneous. The official spoke on condition of ano-nymity because he was not authorized to discuss the incident publicly.

The FBI was sending evi-dence teams to Libya, a law enforcement official told the AP.

Jones involved againBackers of the movie in-

clude Egyptian Christian activist Morris Sadek and Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose burning of Qurans last year led to days of rioting in Afghanistan. They were unapologet-ic about the role their film may have had in triggering the violence.

Islam forbids any de-piction of Mohammed be-cause he’s seen as some-one whose greatness can’t be replicated. In documen-taries about his life, he’s often portrayed as a ray of light. That someone would mock the prophet is con-sidered blasphemous.

President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday con-demned the film, galvaniz-ing fears that his denuncia-tion could be read as a go-ahead to stage violent pro-tests.

A condemnation from Karzai was thought to have

inflamed passions in the spring of 2010, after Jones and his followers staged a Koran-burning. Nearly two weeks elapsed without any reaction in Afghanistan, until Karzai issued a call for Jones’ arrest and prose-cution. The next day, April 1, a mob descended on the U.N. mission in the north-ern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, killing seven foreign U.N. workers.

Fundamentalist takeover?

Even without the prov-ocation provided by the film, the violence fit a pat-tern of growing funda-mentalist ferment that has touched many of the coun-tries where governments have fallen in the past 18 months.

That trend has been es-pecially pronounced in Lib-ya, where in recent weeks conservative Islamists have leveled mosques and cem-eteries associated with the moderate Sufi strain of Is-lam, and car bombs have become increasingly fre-quent in Tripoli, the capi-tal, and Benghazi.

The administration, Clin-ton said, will continue sup-porting the Libyan govern-ment as it struggles to sur-mount serious insecurity in the aftermath of the civil war that overthrew strong-man Moammar Gadhafi.

‘Thank yous to Obama’

Stevens’ death marked the loss of one of the State Department’s best Libyan experts and threatened to mar relations between the United States and Libya’s nascent government. He was perhaps the most cel-ebrated ambassador in the Middle East, well known and respected among Lib-ya’s 6 million people.

Throughout Twitter and Facebook, popular Libyan sites first created during the uprisings mourned his loss and said that his death was no way to defend Is-lam.

“I’m shocked,” one Arab diplomat who knew Ste-vens said, asking that he not be identified by name because he was not autho-rized to discuss the issue. “Immediately after the col-lapse of the (Gadhafi) re-gime, there were U.S. flags everywhere and thank yous to Obama. But in one inci-dent, things have turned worse than before.”

No easy roadMiddle East analysts

warn of a tough slog ahead. The transition to democra-cy for any country is rarely without upheaval, said Al-len Keiswetter, a scholar at the Middle East Institute and a former deputy assis-tant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs.

“It’s going to take time for the Western idea of freedom of speech and re-ligious tolerance to take hold in these countries,” he said. Libya in particular, he noted, had no tradition of democratic governance. “Democratizing countries are among the most violent as they work through their systems,” he said.

Stabilization could take years “and as much as a generation,” said P.J. Crow-ley, a former State Depart-ment spokesman under Obama and a former spe-cial assistant for national security affairs under Pres-ident Bill Clinton.

“It was clear when Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown and the U.S. and NATO assisted in that effort that Libya was likely to be a very unstable place that radical Islamist ele-ments were going to ex-ploit,” said Ted Galen Car-penter, a senior fellow for defense and foreign poli-cy studies at the libertari-an-leaning Cato Institute. The Obama administra-tion isn’t the first to “barge into regions” without un-derstanding all the players and their motivations, he added.

Carpenter said he doesn’t believe it was clear that the administration “understood the probable consequences” of getting rid of Gadhafi.

‘Overly optimistic’“There’s been a tendency

both with the Bush admin-istration and Obama – and Clinton in the Balkans – to be overly optimistic about the probable aftermath of getting rid of obnoxious re-gimes,” he said. “There’s a significant risk that the sit-uation may become very chaotic and be worse than the status quo. You have deep divisions in that soci-ety; it’s still very much un-certain whether Libya will remain cohesive.”

Anthony Cordesman, a national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right think tank, warned in a blog posting

against drawing conclu-sions too rapidly.

“We in the West need to remember that the ‘Euro-pean spring’ that began with the French Revolu-tion (or 1848 depending on your choice of historians) triggered upheavals that lasted until at least 1914, and did not end in any-thing approaching stabil-ity,” he wrote.

The Associated Press as well as Lindsay Wise, Laura King, Lesley Clark, William Douglas and Nancy A. Youssef of Mc-Clatchy Newspapers con-tributed to this report.

ATTACKfrom A1

it sent to local officials earli-er this year. Election super-visors suspended the purge after it became clear that el-igible voters were incorrect-ly included in the non-voter list.

At the center of the contro-versy was a request by Flori-da officials to access a feder-al Department of Homeland Security database that tracks the status of non-citizens. State election officials filed suit to use the system to more accurately determine the sta-tus of registered voters.

Agreement signedUnder the agreement pen-

ned Wednesday, state offi-cials will advise local elec-tion supervisors to return to the rolls voters who were re-moved earlier but can’t be confirmed as non-citizens.

Voters who were incor-rectly removed from the rolls will receive letters telling them they are indeed eligible to vote. Also, voters whose names turned up on earlier lists would not be required to vote by provisional ballot.

“Any number of people who are registered to vote and who are not eligible is a serious problem, whether that number is two or 207,” said Howard Simon, execu-tive director of ACLU of Flori-da, in a statement. “But given the less-than-competent re-cord of state officials in voter purging over the years, Flo-ridians would be right to be skeptical of anything coming from this current purge.”

VOTERSfrom A1

CORRECTIONA photo that appeared on B2 of the September 7, 2012 issue of the Florida Courier identified the dancers as Bethune-Cookman’s 14 Karat Gold Dancers. They actually were members of Alabama State University’s dance team. We ask forgiveness for the error.

FLORIDA COURIER COLUMNIST

ANTHONY L. HALL, ESQ.

A3NATIONseptember 14 - september 20, 2012

Senate expected to soon approve measure that adds abolitionist to popular visitor center that includes MLK, Sojourner Truth

bY rICHArD sImONLOS ANGELES TIMES (MCT)

WASHINGTON – The District of Columbia is about to get a bit more respect, if not statehood, with Congress poised to approve the placement of a statue of aboli-tionist Frederick Douglass, a one-time district resident, in the U.S. Capitol.

The House on Monday voted to add Douglass’ likeness to the Capitol’s collection of statues, a popular tourist attraction that features statues of noteworthy figures from each state. The Sen-ate is expected to give its approv-al soon.

The move would help diversify a collection of more than 180 stat-ues and busts scattered through the corridors of the Capitol and visitor center that now includes only two African-Americans: the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sojourner Truth.

“I’m afraid that too many young people today don’t know the story of Frederick Douglass,” Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., chair-man of the Committee on House Administration, told colleagues Monday, suggesting that the stat-ute would generate new interest in the former slave’s story and his contributions.

Statue to be moved to center

The action comes as welcome news to the district, which has long complained about its lack of a vote in Congress, with license plates featuring “Taxation with-out representation” and calls for renaming Pennsylvania Avenue to perhaps Free D.C. Avenue, Let D.C. Vote Way or another name.

The district’s 600,000 residents pay federal taxes and can vote for president, but they have a nonvot-ing delegate in the House and no representation in the Senate. Leg-islation to provide for “the admis-sion of the state of New Columbia into the Union” has languished in Congress.

Under the legislation, a bronze statue of Douglass, created by Ste-ven Weitzman of Maryland and now in a D.C. government build-ing, would be moved to the Capi-tol Visitor Center’s Emancipation Hall.

The statue depicts the aboli-tionist, whose one-time home near the Capitol is a national his-toric site, standing next to a lec-tern delivering a speech while clutching a paper.

Received presidential vote 1888 GOP convention

Lungren, who joined Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s non-voting delegate in the House in sponsoring the legislation, not-ed Douglass was the first African-American to receive a vote in pres-idential convention balloting — at the 1888 Republican convention.

“I would repeat that, the Re-publican National Convention,” Lungren said.

“In considering the remarkable achievements of Frederick Doug-lass and his contributions to our rich history, his presence within the U.S. Capitol will honor this in-stitution and serve as testimony to this nation’s struggle for freedom and equality,” Lungren added.

bY bILL bArrOWASSOCIATED PRESS

ATLANTA – NAACP lead-ers on Monday again demand-ed the release of a Black man imprisoned after shooting a White man on the shooter’s property.

The activists said John Mc-Neil’s conviction was proof that self-defense laws, which McNeil cited in his 2006 trial, are not applied equally to all races in the United States. Mc-Neil is serving a life sentence for the 2005 shooting death of Brian Epp, whom he had hired as a contractor on his Kenne-saw home.

“Something is wrong here. Morally wrong. Legally wrong,’’ said the Rev. William Barber II, an NAACP national board member and president of the group’s North Carolina chap-ter. “And the only thing that will make it right is to free John McNeil.’’

Civil rights organizations have criticized the case since McNeil’s arrest almost nine months after the shooting. Cobb County District Attor-ney Pat Head pursued a mur-der charge despite the conclu-sion of Kennesaw police detec-tives that McNeil committed no crime. Head won a jury ver-dict that the Georgia Supreme Court upheld in 2008.

AG fighting appealA second appeal awaits ac-

tion by a trial court in Baldwin County, where McNeil was first imprisoned. He has since been moved to Macon State Prison in Oglethorpe.

A spokeswoman in the Geor-gia Attorney General’s office, which is fighting the second appeal, declined to comment, citing office policy not to talk about pending cases.

Through a spokeswoman, Head said Monday, “As far as we are concerned, this case is

over and done.’’ Barber and his Georgia

counterpart, Edward DuBose, said Monday that the case has gained new urgency because McNeil’s wife, Anita, has been diagnosed with cancer. The case also has reclaimed the spotlight since the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida.

McNeil never denied that he shot Epp, but told Kenne-saw police that the victim was belligerent and, after wielding a knife during an altercation with McNeil’s son, charged at the elder McNeil. Investiga-tors found a knife on Epp. An eyewitness testified that he saw Epp charge McNeil but did not see a knife. The eyewitness confirmed McNeil’s account that he fired a warning shot.

NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous said his organi-zation questions “stand-your-ground’’ laws that do not re-quire a person, regardless of their location, to retreat from a perceived threat if they have an opportunity. But, Jealous said, “we have no qualms about the Castle Doctrine,’’ which gov-erns threats that occur on per-sonal property.

McNeil’s conviction in the face of that doctrine, Jealous said, means that in Georgia, “When it comes to protecting your home and your family, there is no law that can protect a Black man from a biased sys-tem of justice.’’

Jealous said he is reaching out to gun-rights organizations – he declined to name the Na-tional Rifle Association or any other group – to build public support for McNeil outside the civil rights community. “Any defender of gun rights and property rights should care about this case,’’ he said.

US House approves putting Douglass statue in Capitol

NAACp seeks freedom for man convicted in shooting death on his property

QFRC10070000_AA_10_EasyHome_BW_FloridaCourier(10x10).indd 1 8/22/12 10:38 AM

Frederick Douglass died on Feb. 20, 1895 at age 78.

september 14 - september 20, 2012A4 EDITORIAL

As clear as their schemes are to me, there are thousands of un-scrupulous individuals who mis-represent their intentions to take advantage of unsuspecting and trusting people. How they take advantage of the unsuspecting is varied, but the victims are usual-ly “taken” for large sums of mon-ey, real property or other items of value.

Although the process may be different, a common ethic among those who take advantage of oth-ers is that they take as much as they can. They’re known by many names – flim-flam men, scam art-ists, grifters, but the one with the closest name to the reality of how they conduct themselves is con men.

Artistry at workThe confidence artist/con man

creates a level of confidence and

trust that makes his/her victims the last to believe that the con man would do anything untrust-worthy. That is the artistry in their work. They convince their victims to willingly separate themselves from their wealth.

Few people can explain a Ponzi scheme or give details of what Bernie Madoff did, but most know that his scheme separated thou-sands of hard-working, honest citizens from their money to the tune of billions of dollars.

Better known, but still misun-derstood, are the schemes that convince hundreds of hapless

victims that they are the recipi-ents of lottery winnings in lotter-ies they never played, beneficia-ries of insurance policies of peo-ple they do not know or that they have received a bequest from a long-lost, unknown relative who resides somewhere overseas.

How these victims are con-vinced to send money to pay for something they believe they have won or been given is a mystery to me, but it happens.

No firm positionAn even greater mystery to me

is how Mitt Romney, Paul Ry-an and the Republican Party can convince so many Americans to join them in their attempt to seize the White House. I am perplexed by their ability to undermine so many of the fundamental princi-ples of our government and usurp many of the rights essential to ba-

sic principles of personal free-dom.

Having moved from position to position and taken no firm proac-tive stance or position on almost any subject, Romney has con-vinced a large number of Ameri-cans that he is the answer to their frustration with the current ad-ministration.

The only thing he has made clear is his commitment to re-ducing the tax obligations of the wealthy. In the process, his plan will place increased financial bur-dens upon the middle class.

To believe or not to believe

The Ryan Budget, endorsed by Romney, will turn Medicaid in-to a block grant and Medicare in-to a voucher plan. The expected outcome is that insufficient funds

will be allocated to each program resulting in limited or no care for the Medicaid recipient and a sig-nificant out-of-pocket cost to the average Medicare recipient.

To create the best chance for success of their plans, they’ve tried to convince the public its best interest is served by laws lim-iting access to the vote. Laws that serve no logical purpose than to suppress votes are being sold as necessary to the preservation of voting sanctity.

The con only works if it’s be-lieved or if no one complains. Do you believe the Republican con and will you quietly accept it?

Dr. E. Faye Williams is na-tional chair of the National Congress of Black Women, Inc. Click on this story at www.fl-courier.com to write your own response.

Republican con quietly being accepted

Charles W. Cherry, Sr. (1929-2004), Founder Julia T. Cherry, Senior Managing Member, Central Florida Communicators Group, LLC

Dr. Glenn W. Cherry, Cassandra Cherry- Kittles, 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 Lynnette Garcia, Marketing Consultant/Sales Linda Fructuoso, Marketing Consultant/Sales, Circulation Angela VanEmmerik, Creative Director Chicago Jones, Eugene Leach, Louis Muhammad, Lisa Rogers-Cherry, Circulation Jenise Morgan, Senior Editor Starla Vaughns Cherin, Karin Davis-Thompson, James Harper, Andreas Butler, Ashley Thomas, Staff Writers Delroy Cole, Kim Gibson, Photojournalists

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THE CREDO OF THE BLACK PRESSThe Black Press believes that Americans can best lead the world away from racism and national

antagonism when it accords to every person, regardless of race, color or creed, full human and legal

rights. Hating no person, fearing no person. The Black Press strives to help every person in the firm

belief...that all are hurt as long as anyone is held back.

Random thoughts of a free Black mind, v. 153

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: CODE EASTWOOD

Christopher Weyant, the hill

FAMU response to Champion lawsuit – The Rattlers may end up winning the lawsuit battle against Robert Champion’s parents and end up losing the public rela-tions war by refusing to accept corporate responsibility.

The Marching ‘100’ is to FAMU what football is to Penn State. Both schools are more concerned about the revenue and notoriety such extracurricular activ-ities provide. Top management at both schools, including their respective boards of trustees, turned a blind eye to warnings they received about illegal activities, i.e., hazing and child abuse.

FAMU lawyers seem to sneer at Cham-pion’s death in their legal documents, im-plying that Champion was a criminal who knew that his ‘imprudent’ behavior could get him killed, but that FAMU wasn’t ‘om-nipotent’ enough to see it all coming. What BS! That’s FAMU’s ‘Sergeant Shultz’ defense: “I know NOTHING!”

But the problem for the Champion fam-ily is that FAMU may be right – legally. That argument may fly in front of a judge, but it damn sure won’t fly with parents like me when I start thinking about whether I’ll send my brilliant, soft-spoken, beautiful, clarinet-playing daughter to FAMU – per-haps to try out for the ‘100’ – if FAMU com-pletely abdicates its responsibility for her safety.

Seems to me somebody with a brain in Tally would have sat down with the Cham-

pion family to work something out before the lawsuit was filed, especially since the total amount FAMU could pay is $300,000, which was former FAMU President James Ammons’ salary for one year...

America in Libya – In 1963, Malcolm X said that President John F. Kennedy’s as-sassination was a case of America’s “chick-ens coming home to roost” after America had botched a number of attempts to as-sassinate Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Malcolm’s point was that America can’t play God, kill sovereign leaders at will, or develop Fran-kenstein monsters like Osama bin Laden (we armed him to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan), and not expect violent re-taliation when our foreign policy interests collide with those of our enemies or for-mer attack dogs...

Contact me at ccherry2@gmail.com; holler at me at www.facebook.com/ccherry2; follow me on Twitter @ccher-ry2.

PUBLISHER

ChARLEs W. ChERRy II, Esq.

quICk TAkEs fROm #2:sTRAIghT, nO ChAsER

Inevitably, the Democrat-ic Party fest in Charlotte, N.C., has been compared to the Republican gather-ing in Tampa. The speech-es by Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama have been contrast-ed with those of Republican nominees Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney.

The Republican conven-tion was marked by patri-otic rhetoric, Horatio Alg-er tales of upward mobil-ity and a diverse lineup of speakers presenting to the overwhelmingly White, old-er and affluent delegates.

Democrats are not lacking for patriotic salutes, uplift-ing tales and diverse speak-ers. They addressed a crowd that is younger and more diverse than the Republi-can crowd. But the starkest contrast was drawn by Pres-ident Obama and Vice Pres-ident Biden as they offered the one thing absent from the Republican convention – truth-telling.

For example, Romney opened his speech by de-scribing our expectations when Obama was elected. Families, he said, wanted to “get ahead a little more,” small business owners want-ed “the best years ever” and our nation was expecting to “start paying down the na-tional debt.” What planet was Romney on?

Economy was in freefall

On the day Obama took the oath of office in Janu-ary 2009, he inherited an

economy that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statis-tics, lost 779,000 jobs that month. The world teetered on the edge of financial col-lapse and global depres-sion.

Workers were laid off, took pay and benefit cuts, swallowed furloughs with-out pay. Home values plum-meted, wiping out the lead-ing source of wealth for ev-eryone outside the very few. Contrary to Romney, we weren’t expecting a walk on the beach; we were looking for help in a brutal storm.

Similarly absent from the Romney and Ryan speeches were mention of the Bush-era policies that drove this economy off the cliff. These included tax cuts largely for the rich, deregulation of big banks, organized assault on unions, record trade defi-cits, jobs sent abroad, re-cord budget deficits driven by not paying for the tax cuts or two disastrous wars — all of which were championed by Ryan in Congress.

Romney’s truth will hurt

Romney and Ryan couldn’t mention these be-cause that would be an in-dictment of their agenda. Obama and Biden could benefit by laying out this

simple truth.Romney expressed con-

cern for the poor, but his budget would throw many more children into pover-ty and inflict savage cuts on the limited support we offer those in need.

He spoke of his concern about the costs of college, but his budget would slash support for Pell scholarships for deserving students. The Bible says you judge a tree by the fruit that it bears, not the bark that it wears. The president and vice presi-dent might remind people of that simple truth, too.

Romney and Ryan spoke eloquently about the rights of Americans, but didn’t mention voting rights. Per-haps that’s because the Re-publican Party is driving the worst assault on vot-ing rights since the days of Jim Crow, cynically limiting early voting and demand-ing costly new forms of of-ficial ID designed to make it harder for the poor, minori-ties and young to vote.

As the president and vice president gave their con-vention speeches, they ob-viously considered do-ing what their Republican counterparts failed to do. And that is to tell the truth.

The Rev. Jesse L. Jack-son, Sr. is president and CEO of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. Click on this story at www.flcouri-er.com to write your own response.

GOP countered by truth-telling at Democratic Convention

TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

REv. JEssE L. JACksOn, sR.

There’s time for Republicans to flip flop to DNC

If the election of the pres-ident of the United States was based on oratorical skills, Barack Obama would win his re-election bid by a landslide.

A dynamic and memo-rable address by the Com-mander in Chief at the Dem-ocratic National Convention was prefaced by a slew of hard-hitting attacks on Re-publican Party politics and Republican Party candi-dates. It’s about time!

Democrats finally respond

The biggest problem Democrats have had in the 2012 election year has con-stantly been the Democrats failure to respond to the forked tongue attacks by rac-ists, sexists, imperialist and conservative individuals and groups. But at the con-vention, Democrats begin to fight back by pointing out the clear and obvious differ-ences between helping the rich and wealthy and help-ing the poor and exploited.

If Obama and the Dem-ocratic Party can convince their supporters to go to the polls on Election Day and vote, the coalition of mid-dle-class voters, Black vot-ers, women voters, Hispanic voters and disgruntled vot-ers that hate “trickle down” politics pushed by econom-

ic vampires and financial criminals, Obama will be hard to defeat. My advice to the smart Republicans is if you can’t beat Obama, join him!

It is not unusual for po-litical people to adjust their thinking, change their phi-losophies, switch their alle-giances and reconsider their past support of exposed politicians. Some say Mitt Romney is the best political gymnast in history because he has flipped and flopped more times than gold medal winner Gabby Douglas.

Obama’s election to lose

The Republican Par-ty can’t beat Obama, but the president can lose if he can’t put together a nation-wide team that can deliver his supporters and Demo-cratic voters to the election booths.

In recent history, Demo-cratic Party field operatives have been a political dis-grace.

Democrats lucked outInstead of hiring politi-

cal operatives that were ex-perienced, that were smart or operatives that were suc-cessful, Democrats chose to employ political charlatans that the Democratic Party could control.

Who can deliver was not a question Democratic Par-ty leaders would even con-sider when selecting people to pay millions of dollars to get the president re-elected and other Democratic can-didates elected.

This year the Democratic Party lucked out. God gave them Republican presiden-tial and vice presidential candidates that couldn’t tell the political truth if their po-litical lives depended on it. Any Republican flip floppers that read this column may want to flip over to the other party before it’s too late.

Excerpts from Gantt col-umns are now posted ev-ery week on The Gantt Re-port’s Facebook page; be-come a fan. Buy Gantt’s latest book, “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

LuCIus gAnTT

THE GANTT REPORT

DR. E. fAyE WILLIAms, Esq.

TRICE EDNEY WIRE

A5EDITORIALSEPTEMBER 14 - SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

The good, bad, ugly of the Tampa GOP convention

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: FLORIDA’S ‘HURRICANE SEASON’

Another Republican Nation-al Convention, and the same old question: “Why so few Blacks?”

Republicans, especially Black Republicans, can be proud of for-mer Secretary of State Condoleez-za Rice, Saratoga Springs, Utah Mayor Mia Love, and former Ala-bama Democratic Congressman Artur Davis.

These outstanding leaders, and others like Reps. Allen West, R-Fla., Tim Scott, R-S.C.) and Flori-da Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, were elected either statewide or come from White majority districts. Some Blacks say that, since these Black Republicans were elect-ed from White majority districts, they do not push for issues im-pacting Black people. The same can be said of Obama who has been criticized – by Black Demo-crats – for advocating White, gay and Hispanic causes over those for Blacks.

Catching hellOne reason for the lack of

Blacks in the GOP is that few want to take the condemnation and ug-ly attacks that are heaped upon Black Republicans by Black Dem-ocrats and their allies in the lib-eral media, including some Black journalists.

They will launch the same at-tacks on Love and Davis as they have in the past on Rice, West, Herman Cain and other Black Re-publicans. In fact, within hours

of her speech, Love’s Wikipedia page was vandalized with racist and sexist epithets.

Don’t hold your breath wait-ing for the NAACP, National Or-ganization of Women, or the Con-gressional Black Caucus to con-demn this vicious assault. In fact, 14 CBC members sent a letter to Davis accusing him of everything but being a traitor for switching to the GOP.

No toleranceI have not heard or seen His-

panic Democrats demeaning His-panic Republicans. Or Democrats of Indian ancestry calling Repub-lican Govs. Bobby Jindal and Nik-ki Haley “traitors” because they are Republicans. Or Jewish Dem-ocrats calling Jewish Republicans disgusting names. Or racist or ethnic jokes, cartoons or vicious comments about Hispanic or Jew-ish Republicans in the media.

Why? It’s because these groups are respected in the political are-na. Blacks are not. My father once told me, “If you don’t respect yourself or your own people, no one will respect you.” That’s a good piece of advice for Black

Democrats as well.

That brings me to the second reason why Blacks are so scarce in the GOP: “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” There is no sign outside of the Republican Party saying, “Blacks need not apply.”

My message to Blacks• If you want to continue having

no political leverage, stay with the Democrats.

• If you want to be in a par-ty that supports abortion on de-mand, partial birth abortions and Planned Parenthood where Black babies are killed at what some have called “genocidal rates,” stay with the Democrats.

• If you want to be in a party that has tolerated deplorable Black graduation rates; joined with teachers’ unions in fighting ac-countability, vouchers and choice for parents whose children are trapped in failing urban schools; stay with the Democrats.

GOP also responsibleBlacks are not alone in being

responsible for the low participa-tion in the Republican Party. The party also bears some responsi-bility.

Black outreach, as it was prac-ticed during the Reagan/Bush, and Bush/Cheney eras has all but disappeared. There are few, if any, “Jack Kemps” who preach in-

clusiveness for Hispanics as well as for Blacks. Republicans should take a page out of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s playbook of in-clusion and outreach as he prac-ticed in word and deed during his terms as governor.

As Black columnist and political consultant Raynard Jackson re-cently wrote, “...even more alarm-ing than the lack of Blacks as con-vention attendees, delegates or Mitt Romney staff members is the lack of Blacks in the pipeline to be future party operatives...I am embarrassed at the lack of diver-sity at this convention. Have the Republicans not noticed the de-mographic changes that are tak-ing place in this country? Numer-ically, there are not enough old,

White, balding males to win a na-tional election.”

There’s less than 60 days left for the Romney-Ryan campaign to develop a meaningful message to get at least 5 percent more Black votes than McCain. If Reagan got 11 percent in 1980 against Carter in similar economic conditions – Obama’s race notwithstanding – they at least should fight for 9 or 10 percent.

Clarence V. McKee is presi-dent of McKee Communica-tions, Inc., a government, po-litical and media relations con-sulting firm in Florida. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

JEFF PARKER, FLORIDA TODAY AND THE FORT MYERS NEWS-PRESS

The only speaker whose performance I watched at the Republican National Convention was that of for-mer U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

I actually laughed when she said that though her fa-ther couldn’t take her to the local movie theatre because of Birmingham’s stern-ly enforced Jim Crow laws, he did convince her that if she worked hard she could one day be president of the United States. The more hip among the over 90 percent White audience may have shouted, “You go, girl!”

Not funnyHowever, it was no laugh-

ing matter when Ms. Rice spoke glowingly of how America had faced up to the challenge of White suprem-acy/racism and that, along with her hard work, led to her success. The statement reminded me of an astute response made by Kathleen Cleaver when asked about her attitude towards a book on the Black Panthers. The book, said Ms. Cleaver, was full of “whole truths, half-truths, half-lies and whole lies.”

Ms. Rice’s position that America facing up to a chal-lenge and her hard work are the main reasons for her success is a whole lie that she and others of her ilk have been propagating for quite some time.

In 1963, in her Birming-

ham, Ala., hometown, sev-eral thousand Black young-sters – some of them just a couple of years old than then 9-year old Condoleez-za Rice – were putting their lives on the line confronting Eugene “Bull” Connor’s fire hoses and snarling police dogs. The determined chil-dren were knocked down in the streets by water from the fire hoses. Some were bitten by the police dogs. Yet they refused to back down.

The headquarters for the marches and demonstra-tions was 16th Street Bap-tist Church. On Sunday Sep-tember 15, 1963, White ter-rorists bombed that church and killed 11-year old Den-ice McNair, 14-year old Cyn-thia Wesley, 14-year old Car-ole Robertson and 14-year old Addie Mae Collins. That was the 21st bomb exploded by White terrorists in 8 years in what became known as “Bombingham.”

Six killedThat same day, other

White terrorists shot and killed 13-year old Virgil La-mar Ware and the police shot and killed 16-year old Johnny Robinson whom they claimed refused to stop throwing stones at cars driv-

en by White people. That’s a total of six Black children killed in a single day by cold-blooded defenders of White supremacy/ racism.

It was over 30 years lat-er before anyone was pun-ished for those vicious crimes. Meanwhile, the federal government insist-ed it had no power to inter-vene in such cases. Eventu-ally it was forced to do so, as photos of the attacks were shown around the world.

The whole truth is that the courage and commitment of those children and many other Black people (and a few Whites) provided the op-portunity for Ms. Rice and others like her to advance their career goals. White sup-porters of the terrorists and those others who sat by in silence as the terrorists ex-ploded their bombs, didn’t just wake up one morning and say, “We have been do-ing wrong in allowing racism to flourish. Now we must do the right thing.”

As journalist/historian Lerone Bennett Jr. said of President Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, the coun-try was “forced into glory” by the persistence of the op-ponents of racial oppression and Cold War propaganda needs.

Contact A. Peter Bailey at apeterb@verizon.net, or 202-716-4560. Click on this story at www.flcouri-er.com to write your own response.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would be beyond dev-astating for the African-American community.

They would build an ad-ministration based on the same failed policies that forced our nation into a great economic recession. They have vowed to cut ed-ucation funding and to re-peal the Affordable Care Act that would disproportion-ately affect African-Ameri-cans in Florida who are still recovering.

President Obama under-stands that too many of us have been hurt by declining wages and unemployment over this past decade. From growing our economy, to providing more opportuni-ties for our children to re-ceive a better education, the Dream Act, to Obama-care, President Obama has demonstrated a commit-

ment to African-Americans and to the future of our community for generations to come.

More work to doTogether, we’ve accom-

plished a lot, but there is much more work to be done. This is why it is crucial that we make it a priority to register to vote by October 9 and support the re-election of President Obama.

Through the Minori-ty Business Development Agency, the Obama admin-istration helped African-American clients secure

more than $929 million in contracts and financing in 2009 and $2.4 billion in 2010. And by signing the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, more capital was put into the hands of minority-owned businesses.

Aside from helping to grow our economy, the president also has focused largely on higher educa-tion opportunities that have helped African-Amer-ican students. Forty-six per-cent of African-Americans in undergraduate programs receive Pell grants. Without these scholarships, college for many of us would sim-ply be a dream.

Mitt Romney would elim-inate the president’s col-lege tax credit, slashing Pell Grant scholarships for nearly 10 million students. Meanwhile, President Obama is working to pro-

vide hundreds of thousands more grants by 2020.

His contributions to the African-American commu-nity don’t stop here. By sign-ing the Affordable Care Act, 41 million Black Americans witnessed a reduction of health disparities. And now, nearly a quarter of African-Americans will no longer be denied access to health in-surance because of pre-ex-isting conditions. This will change under a Romney administration that wants to take away the healthcare and benefits many of us de-pend on to live a healthy and sustainable life.

Cutting programsMitt Romney and Paul

Ryan have vowed to cut the programs that are crucial to the benefit and upward movement of the African-American community. With

just five weeks left before the voter registration deadline, we have to take advantage of every day and educate our-selves on these facts and get our community registered and to the polls on Novem-ber 6. We’ve come too far to turn back now.

For our community, the right to vote was not sim-ply handed out, but won through hard-fought bat-tles. To continue this fight, we have got to not only reg-ister everyone we know, but we have to vote!

The 2008 presidential campaign brought us a his-toric election and record participation of African-American voters. More than four million more Af-rican-American and Latino voters cast ballots in 2008 than they did in 2004. Such high levels of civic partici-pation are cause for cele-bration as well as a clarion call to “shock the world” again and show how much we are invested in our own

progress.

Get registeredIf you want to vote on Nov.

6 but are not registered, log on to www.GottaVote.org. The site is part of President Obama’s voter-protection program that provides mil-lions of people with the in-formation they need to reg-ister to vote.

We cannot stop at the election of President Obama. It is imperative that we send him back to the White House with a Demo-cratic Congress. If we want to see anything accom-plished in Washington, we need a Congress that has the president’s back.

Let’s make history on Nov. 6 and keep moving this country forward!

Alcee L. Hastings repre-sents Florida Congressio-nal District 23. Click on this story at www.flcouri-er.com to write your own response.

Every year, the Pew Research Center publishes a survey that consistently dem-onstrates that Black people are the most religious group in the United States. This is not surprising, considering that the Black liberation movement has been influenced by spirituality, particularly Christianity.

The historical and contemporary reli-giosity of Blacks leads many to incorrect-ly assume spiritually/religion has been at the center of the Black movement. Histo-ry tells a different story. In every stage of the Black movement you can find athe-ists, agnostics, skeptics or people better known as “freethinkers.”

For example, while a Southern mis-sionary in the 1830s, AME minister Dan-iel Payne stated enslaved Africans “scoff at religion itself…Yes, I have known them to even question [God’s] existence.”

From our experiencesToday, young Black people question a

God who would allow the persistent vio-lence in their communities or huge dis-parities in wealth between poor Black and affluent White communities. There-fore, contrary to popular opinion, athe-ism is not a Eurocentric or “White thing,” but is an indigenous intellectual develop-ment that organically emerges out of the Black experience.

Lastly, this challenges the common held assumption that faith in God was necessary to survive the horrors of slav-ery, sharecropping, and segregation. Sev-eral Black political leaders and intellectu-als have been critical of the Black church; some have completely rejected faith. An example is Black atheist W.E.B. DuBois.

DuBois is known as the first African to attain a PhD from Harvard University and arguably the most revered Black intellec-tual of the 20th century. He boldly assert-ed, “I do not believe in the existence and rulership of the one God of the Jews” and “Death is the end of Life.”

DuBois praised the Soviet Union for re-moving religion from public education. In his eyes, the Black church defended the oppression and exploitation of Blacks and

a lack of free thinking. Although Dubois is one of the most read

Black thinkers in history, his atheist views have been overlooked. Other Black lead-ers who were also freethinkers include A. Philip Randolph, Langston Hughes, and Howard University’s own Zora Neale Hur-ston, to name a few.

Opposed civil rightsTo an extent, the Black church has had

better propagandists than Black freethink-ers. Most know of the contributions of the church to the civil rights movement, but what about the obstacles it has posed?

For instance, at the 1961 National Bap-tist Convention, the largest Black reli-gious group in the U.S., progressive min-isters such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. attempted to have the organization sup-port civil rights. The idea of supporting Black human rights was so controversial, that a physical fight ensued and one min-ister was killed at the convention! Lord have mercy, chile!

In conclusion, although everyone is en-titled to their own personal belief or lack thereof, the Black movement should be secular. Whether it was the independence movements in Africa or the Black Panther Party in the U.S., spirituality was, at best, a secondary factor.

As a Black skeptic examining this in-formation, I ask, “Do we need spirituality or religion in order to build and sustain a mass movement?” I doubt it.

Benjamin Woods is a PhD candidate at Howard University, and an organiz-er of Students Against Mass Incarcer-ation (S.A.M.I.) Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

Condoleezza Rice should tell the whole truth

Obama vs. Romney is progress vs. reversal

Not believing in God isn’t a ‘White thing’

GUEST COMMENTARY

BENJAMIN WOODS

CLARENCE V. MCKEE

GUEST COMMENTARY

U.S. REP. ALCEE L. HASTINGS

GUEST COMMENTARY

TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

A. PETER BAILEy

TOjA6 FLORIDA sepTember 14 – sepTember 20, 2012

SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

A coalition of African-Ameri-can women convened the Black Women’s Roundtable last month at St. Petersburg’s Center for Community and Economic Jus-tice.

Melanie Campbell, national president and CEO of the Nation-al Coalition for Black Civic Par-ticipation, collaborated with 30 organizational heads from across Florida in a dialogue emphasiz-ing the continuing economic and problems facing Black youth.

Prominent among the present-ers was Jessica Brown, National Coordinator of Black Youth Vote, who traveled from Washing-ton, D.C. for the summit, as did Campbell.

The Black Women’s Roundta-ble was held Aug. 29, during the time of the Republican National Convention. A similar one was held in Charlotte, N.C., during the Democratic National Con-vention.

Mission of summitOrganizers say the mission of

the summit was to help focus the presidential contestants on sub-stantive issues rather than on the divisive distractions, which con-tinue to pre-empt job creation and training solutions; juvenile justice system reforms; poverty reduction and the obstructions to Black wealth creation; dispro-portionate impacts of the hous-ing-market implosion and fore-closures; non-violent offenses’ sentencing reform; and voter suppression practice.

Headlining the summit was Barbara Arnwine, executive di-rector of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, who also traveled to St. Peters-burg from Washington, to pro-vide a tutorial for Black women leaders on voter suppression tac-tics, to help them educate their constituents, organizations and community members in coun-tering the rampant Black voter disenfranchisement in Florida.

The women leaders related

suppression experiences ob-served or reported during the campaigns and at the voting booths in their communities.

‘No excuse’Chloe Coney, district director

for Congresswoman Kathy Cas-tor of Tampa and Shahra Ander-son, regional director for Senator Bill Nelson in Orlando, partici-pated in the summit and provid-ed additional tools for strength-ening Black voter participation.

They also advised that effective volunteerism during the presi-dential campaign and election can stimulate voter participation and turnout.

“Everyone has the opportunity and the obligation to enlist their church leaders and their social organization leaders in getting out the vote. There is no excuse for silence in an election where so much is at stake for the fu-ture of our priorities and of our youth,’’ said Campbell.

Also co-conveners for the sum-mit were Salandra Benton, Chair, Florida Coalition for Black Civic Participation, based in Kissim-mee; Dr. Yvonne Scruggs-Left-wich, president/CEO of the Cen-ter for Community and Econom-ic Justice, Inc., the venue for the event; Gypsy Gallardo, founder/publisher, Power Broker Maga-zine; and Dr. Elsie Scott, presi-dent and CEO, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

Black Women’s Roundtable summit takes on youth, voter suppression

pHOTOs bY KerrY COLLIer/CeNTer FOr COmmUNITY AND eCONOmIC jUsTICe

The Black Women’s Roundtable attracted women from Florida and Washington, D.C. The summit convened last month during the time of the Republican National Convention.

The importance of the 18-25 year-olds votes in previous elec-tions was emphasized by National Black Youth Vote Coordina-tor Jessica Brown while Dr. Scruggs-Leftwich made notes during the summit.

Oct. 9 is the deadline for Flo-ridians who want to vote in the Nov. 6 presidential election.

GottaVote.org is a website set up by the Obama-Biden cam-paign that provides facts on vot-ing, reminders for key dates and

deadlines, and alerts on the sta-tus of voting rights in Florida.

Residents also should check with their county’s supervisor of elections office for voter registra-tion information.

Registration deadline nears for Nov. 6 election

The battle so farMost political experts say the presidential election will be decided by 10 swing, or toss-up, states. How the states stand:

There are a total of 538 electoral votes; the number of electors for each state is proportional to its population; 270 votes

are needed to win the presidency

Counting electoral votes

Democrat

Source: Real Clear PoliticsGraphic: Judy Treible

NOTE: Alaska and Hawaii are not to scale© 2012 MCT

RepublicanToss-up

221

Solid

Obama/Biden126

Toss-up191

Romney/Ryan

Likely/leaning Likely/leaning Solid

Nev.

142 12679 115 76

Colo.

Iowa

Wis.

Ohio

Va.N.C.

Fla.

N.H.

R.I.Conn.

Del.D.C.

Mich.

NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

A woman who used her hus-band’s email password to read all his emails and then changed the password so he couldn’t get into his account isn’t guilty of cyber-stalking or domestic violence, a

state appeals court said Tuesday. A court issued a domestic vi-

olence injunction against Cher-yl Young of Alachua County and the lower court judge in the case suggested her actions amounted to cyberstalking.

Young not only read her hus-

band, Michael Young’s emails, but also used substantial infor-mation from those emails in a divorce proceeding. The 1st Dis-trict Court of Appeal, in revers-ing the injunction on Tuesday, noted that cyberstalking is de-fined in law as communication

of “words, images, or language by or through the use of electron-ic mail or electronic communi-cation, directed at a specific per-son, causing substantial emo-tional distress to that person and serving no legitimate purpose.”

The court found that Young’s

acts were “improper” but didn’t constitute domestic violence by stalking, “because they were not electronic communica-tions by her of ‘words, images, or language . . . directed at’ Mr. Young.”

Court: stealing husband’s emails not domestic violence

The Gamma Rho Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority celebrated its 70th anni-versary on Aug. 25 with a luncheon and pro-gram at Hyatt Regency on East Coastline Drive in Jacksonville.

More than 300 sorority members and guests gathered for an anniversary luncheon celebra-tion themed “Platinum and Pearls: Celebrating 70 years of Timeless Service.”

“We are blessed to have the foresight and wisdom of ten charter members and to have this opportunity to celebrate, reflect on our past and visioning for our future. Without their fore-sight and strong shoulders, we would not be the chapter we are today,” said Mary L. Brown, president of the chapter.

10 charter membersThe Gamma Rho Omega chapter was char-

tered in Jacksonville on June 23, 1942 by 10 young women who were Alpha Kappa Alpha members on various college campuses.

Of the original 10 founders, Louis Gardner-Sheffield is the oldest living member. She and the chapter’s oldest living president, Ruth C. Solomon, served as 70th anniversary honorary chairs.

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., is an inter-national service organization founded Jan. 15, 1908 on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C. It is the oldest Greek-lettered organization established by African-American college-educated women with membership that exceeds 260,000 in both graduate and un-dergraduate chapters in the United States, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Caribbean, Canada, Ja-pan, Germany, Korea and on the continent of Africa.

Alpha Kappa Alpha sorors in jacksonville celebrate chapter’s 70th anniversary

FAmU named one of Forbes’ top collegesSPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

TALLAHASSEE – Florida A&M University (FAMU) has been named one of Forbes mag-azine’s America’s Top Colleges in the nation in the publication’s annual ranking of the top colleges.

FAMU also made Forbes’ lists for “Best Re-search Colleges.”

“This is truly an honor for Florida A&M University to be recognized as one of Forbes Magazine’s Top Colleges in the nation,” said FAMU Interim President Larry Robinson.

“This ranking strongly supports that FAMU is a premier institution that has a distin-guished faculty and outstanding students who are challenged to excel in and out of the classroom.”

Some of the other univer-sities listed included Princ-eton, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Georgetown, Duke, Univer-sity of Florida, Florida State University and Morehouse College.

The Forbes America Top Colleges rankings are based on upon five categories: post-graduate success; student satisfaction; debt; four-year graduation rate and competitive awards.

The rankings are prepared exclusively for Forbes by the Center for College Affordabili-ty and Productivity, a Washington, D.C. think tank founded by Ohio University economist Richard Vedder.

Larry Robinson

LIFE | FAITH | HEALTH | MONEY | EVENTS | CLASSIFIEDS | ENTERTAINMENT | SPORTS | FOOD

www.flcourier.com

BSHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE | SECT ION

HEALTH | FOOD | TRAVEL | SCIENCE | BOOKS | MOVIES | TV | AUTOS

LIFE/FAITHT

A roundup ofHBCU football See page B2

SuN coAST / TAmPA BAY

September 14 - September 20, 2012

Beyonce, Jay-Z plan fundraiser for Obama See page B5

BY ASHLEY THOMASFLORIDA COURIER

When Jamal Cherry graduates from Cornell University in 2014, he will be armed with a degree in civil engineering and a four-year

education that will put him on a path to one of the world’s high-demand, non-traditional technical ca-reers.

After graduating from the prestigious Ivy League re-search institution ranked as one of the world’s top 15 universities, the Tampa native plans to pursue a career in the energy sector specializing in petroleum engi-neering.

Cherry, a junior civil and environmental engineer-ing major at Cornell, is one of a growing number of Af-rican-American students seeking highly challenging, non-traditional careers in science, technology, engi-neering and math (STEM).

According to 2010 U.S. Census numbers, African-Americans comprise 12.6 percent of the U.S. popula-tion, but are only five percent of the engineering work-force.

STEM opportunitiesAccording to the Huffington Post, a University of

Southern California study published in the June issue of Research in Higher Education followed more than 1,000 minority college students majoring in STEM sub-jects.

The study, which was conducted by researchers at

the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, followed Asian and Pacific Islander, Latino and Black students over a period of nine years in an ef-fort to determine the profitability of STEM degrees and help bridge the gap of minorities in those fields.

Among the students surveyed, those who majored in STEM subjects earned at least 25 percent more than their peers who majored in humanities or education-al fields. In addition, those who pursued jobs related to their STEM majors earned at least 50 percent more than their humanities and education counterparts.

Few African-American studentsAs a member of Cornell University’s College of Engi-

neering, Class of 2014, he’s one of two African-Ameri-can undergraduate students from Florida majoring in civil and environmental engineering at Cornell. The other student, Hercules Stancil, is from Lakeland and attended Bartow High School.

According to Cornell’s Fall 2011 statistics for its se-nior class, there were 59 students seeking civil and envi-ronmental engineering degrees, including two African-American males, six Asians and three Hispanics. There were a total of 491 men enrolled in all undergraduate majors in the College of Engineering and 230 women. Of those numbers, nine were African-American males and four were African-American females.

Basketball and oilAlong with a rigorous engineering curriculum, Cher-

ry is a member of the Cornell Men’s Varsity basketball

team. A 2010 graduate of Tampa Preparatory School with a 3.7 grade point average on a 4.0 scale, Cherry was a standout all-state and all-academic player, where he helped to lead his team to a 27-5 record during his senior year before losing the Class 2A state champion-ship final to Jacksonville Providence.

“Hopefully, I will be picked up by an oil company for an internship this upcoming summer which will give me hands on experience in the field,” Cherry told the Florida Courier. “I’m interested in drilling reservoirs and figuring out ways to get the oil out of the ground and cut down the risks of oil spills,” he added, referenc-ing the catastrophic 2006 BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. “I’d like to almost completely remove the risk.”

On-the-job training toward an engineering career began in earnest this year for Cherry, whose interest in the industry began early. As a child, he enjoyed “build-ing with Legos and solving technological problems around the house.”

Interned in AfricaThis summer, Cherry traveled to Ghana, West Africa

where he worked at the country’s main generator and supplier of electricity, the Volta River Authority (VRA). As a VRA intern, he was exposed to various processes of renewable energy and worked on using biogas as a sustainable energy source that turns solid waste into energy.

The VRA produces electrical power for industrial, commercial and domestic use for 60 percent of Gha-na’s population and supplements the electrical needs of the neighboring countries of Togo, Benin and Burki-na Faso. The VRA’s energy portfolio includes hydro-electric and thermal power generation capacity as well as ongoing projects to add solar and wind energy.

“I researched certain aspects of some of the proj-ects. One aspect I was concerned with was figuring out a solution to limit a landfill while creating energy at the same time,” Cherry explained.

Cherry’s solution for minimizing the landfill includ-ed “a mechanical-biological treatment plant. This plant would contain a combination of mechanical sorting while adding a biological side of decomposing organic matter, in turn creating a biogas.”

Athlete-engineerBefore Cherry’s summer internship in Ghana, he met

Kweku Awotwi, president and CEO of the VRA, who traveled to America last year and attended an Amateur Athletic Union basketball tournament in Orlando.

Awotwi, a native of Ghana, is a Yale University-trained engineer who earned a Master of Business Ad-ministration degree from Stanford University. He was impressed with Cherry’s story of how he manages his engineering studies and passion for basketball

Cherry told Awotwi that walking on to a strong bas-ketball team like Cornell in 2010 – which had just won the Ivy League basketball title – was not for the faint-hearted. But he would not have done it any other way.

“I knew it would be difficult (playing basketball and majoring in engineering). A lot of people told me I would have to switch out, but I’ve been able to manage my time. I have a great support system at Cornell and at home. People want to see me succeed,” said Cherry.

During his time in Ghana, Cherry conducted free basketball clinics for the local youth at the VRA’s Com-munity Center in Akuse, a small town that is the site of one of the VRA’s hydroelectric dams.

Lessons from basketballHe believes that discipline, ability to take construc-

tive feedback and teamwork from basketball has strengthened his character, work ethic and time man-agement skills – all traits that keep him focused and will pay off after college. As for basketball, he simply loves the game and contributes however he can to the team. He hopes that Cornell wins the Ivy League title again before he graduates.

Cherry also is a recipient of Cornell University’s John McMullen Scholarship, which recognizes undergradu-ate students with potential for exceptional success at Cornell in the field of engineering. The scholarship is named for John McMullen, former president of the At-lantic Gulf & Pacific Dredging Company.

In addition, Cherry is a member of the National

See CHERRY, Page B2

COURTESY OF JAMAL CHERRY

ABOVE: Jamal Cherry (#25, first row, third from left) is now in his third year of varsity basketball. He maintains a 3.05 (of 4) grade point average in engineering. BELOW: In June, Cherry worked as an intern with Ghana’s Volta River Authority, one of Africa’s largest suppliers of electricity.

EYES ON ENERGY

Cornell University

student-athlete Jamal

Cherry’s STEM

(science, technology,

engineering, math)

training is providing

him with the opportunity

to launch a world-

changing career.

“I’m interested in drilling reservoirs and figuring out ways to get the oil out of the ground and cut down the risks of oil spills. I’d like to almost completely remove the risk.”

– Jamal Cherry

TSPORTS & CALENDAR SEPTEMBER 14 - SEPTEMBER 20, 2012B2

COMPILED BYANDREAS BUTLERFLORIDA COURIER

Morehouse runs past Edward Waters

David Carter ran for 208 yards with three touch-downs to lead Morehouse College past Edward Wa-ters College 39-18.

Carter became the Morehouse Maroon Tigers’ all-time leading rusher with 3,848 career-rushing yards as he past John Da-vid Washington (2002-05), who had 3,669.

Edward Waters (1-2) tied the game at 7-7 on Ralph Shuler’s 14-yard touch-down run with 11:06 to play in the first quarter.

Morehouse (1-1) re-sponded with 21 straight points behind two Donnay Ragland rushing scores and another from Carter to lead 28-7 in the second quarter.

Shuler finished with 123 yards for the Tigers of Ed-ward Waters. Morehouse ran for 414 yards com-pared to 283 for Edward Waters. Shelton Hamil-ton added 118 yards rush-ing for the Maroon Tigers. Phillip Teamer added 72 yards rushing and Brandon Turman 106 total yards for EWC.

Tony Goodman led the Tigers defensively with 14 total tackles while team-mates Chris Maxwell had 11 and Bertrand Belfour had 10 with an intercep-tion.

South Carolina State falls to B-CU

Bethune-Cookman came from behind to beat South Carolina State 27-14.

South Carolina State (1-1, 0-1) led 14-0 in the first quarter after touchdown runs from Asheton Jordan and Jalen Simmons.

Bethune-Cookman (2-0, 1-0) tied the game at 14-14 after Isidore Jackson’s four-yard score with 7:23 to play in the second quarter.

B-CU took a 17-14 lead on Sven Hurd’s 28-yard field goal with 2:01 to play in the first half. The Wild-cats never trailed again.

Jackson led B-CU with 81

yards rushing and a score. Simmons led South Caro-lina with 73 yards rushing with a score.

Jackie Wilson added 125 yards passing, Rodney Scott 42 yards rushing with a touchdown, David Black-well contributed 60 yards receiving and Dion Hanks had two interceptions for the Wildcats.

Richard Cue added 60 yards rushing and 62 yards passing for the Bulldogs.

Oklahoma blows out Florida A&M

Oklahoma eventually put away Florida A&M with a 69-13 win in front of 84,852 fans in Norman, Okla.

The FAMU Rattlers, who compete in the Foot-ball Championship Series, competed with the fifth-ranked team in the larger Football Bowl Subdivision.

Damien Williams ran for 156 yards with four touch-downs to lead Oklahoma.

Oklahoma (2-0) got a pair of touchdown runs from Williams in the first quarter to jump out to a 14-0 lead.

Florida A&M (0-1) got on the board with a 41-yard field goal from Chase Var-nadore in the second quar-ter to make it 14-3.

Damien Fleming con-nected with Travis Harvey for a 75-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter to get FAMU within 28-10.

The Sooners respond-ed by scoring 28-points to put the game out of reach at 56-10.

Fleming threw for 133 yards with a touchdown and an interception while Harvey had four catches for 118 yards with a score for FAMU.

Landry Jones also threw for 252 yards with two touchdowns for OU.

Norfolk State rallies past Liberty

Big plays in the second half helped Norfolk State come from behind to beat Liberty 24-17.

Brandon Reddick ran for 153 yards with three scores

to lead the Norfolk Spar-tans.

Liberty (0-2) held a 17-7 advantage at halftime with 235 yards of total offense. The Spartans’ defense held the Liberty Flames to 107 total yards of offense in the second half.

Norfolk State (2-0) took a 19-17 lead on Keith John-son’s 83-yard punt return touchdown with 10:03 to play in the third quarter.

Liberty retook the lead at 24-19 on Kevin Fogg’s 77-yard punt return with 6:07 to play in the peri-ods. Norfolk then took over the lead at 25-24 after Rid-dick’s two-yard score with 12:45 remaining.

Marcel Coke’s 41-yard fumble return put the Spar-tans up 31-24 with 3:30 to play. Nico Flores also ac-counted for 138 total yards for the Spartans.

Norfolk is ranked the No. 1 team in all the HBCU polls and is ranked No. 24 in the FCS polls.

Brian Hudson threw for 144 yards with a touch-down, Aldreakis Allen ran for 130 yards, and Pat Kelly had 75 receiving yards for the Flames.

Alabama A&M tops Arkansas Pine Bluff

Kendarius Lacey ran for 124 yards and two touch-downs to lead Alabama A&M to a 14-10 win over Arkansas Pine Bluff.

Arkansas Pine-Bluff (1-1, 0-1) led 7-0 in the first quarter after C.J. Branch’s one-yard score.

Alabama A&M (2-0, 1-0) took the lead at 14-10 on Lacey’s 43-yard touchdown run in the third quarter.

The Alabama Bulldogs took the lead for good on Lacey’s 43-yard touchdown run in the third quarter.

The Golden Lions were stopped by the Bulldogs’ defense on their final four possessions, including a fourth and short failed run conversion and an inter-ception by Alabama’s Ju-lian Williams.

Deonte Mason added 97 yards of total offense and Justin Billings ran for 68 yards for the Bulldogs.

Brandon Anderson threw for 189 yards and ran for 80 while Tyler Strick-land kicked a 36-yard field goal for the Golden Lions.

Clark Atlanta edges Lane

Charles King’s one-yard touchdown run with 4:55 remaining lifted Clark At-lanta University over Lane College 20-17.

The win snapped an eight-game losing streak for Clark.

Clark (1-1) led 14-3 after King found David Grace for a 31-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter.

Lane (1-1) took a 17-14 lead when Chris Ri-ni hooked up with Er-ic Knowlton for a 38-yard touchdown pass with 10:55 to play.

Lane outgained Clark in total offensive yardage 352-236. King led the Pan-thers with 111 yards pass-ing with a touchdown and an interception.

Rini paced the Drag-ons throwing for 232 yards with two scores and an in-terception. He also was the teams leading rusher with 77 yards.

Antonio Ford added 83 yards rushing with a touch-down and Willie Clark caught five passes for 57 yards for Clark.

Hollis Moore also had 10 catches for 129 yards with a score while defensively Corey Jones had 16 total tackles and Paris Hopper with 11 for Lane.

Other scoresRutgers-26, Howard-0,

North Carolina A&T-77, West Virginia State-0; Buf-falo-56, Morgan State-34; Elon-34, North Carolina Central-14; Old Domin-ion-45, Hampton-0; Florida State-55, Savannah State-0; Texas Christian Universi-ty-56, Grambling-0; Ten-nessee State-38, Jackson State-12; Alabama State-29, Mississippi Valley State-7; James Madison-42, Alcorn State-3; North Texas-34, Texas Southern-7; La-mar-31, Prairie View A&M-0; Delaware-38, Delaware State-14; Bowie State-28, Benedict-14; Winston-Sa-lem State-30, Concord-20; Miles-28, Shaw-15; West Liberty State-14, Virgin-ia State-13; Delta State-26, Elizabeth City State-7; Bowie State-28, Bene-dict-14; Wingate-37, Al-

bany State-9; North Caro-lina Pembrooke-31, Fay-etteville State-21; VMI-24, Chowan-17; Virgin-ia Union-34, Brevard-14; New Haven-24, St Augus-tine’s-21; Catawba-49, Liv-ingstone-7; Kentucky Wes-leyan-13, Kentucky State-6; Valdosta State-62, Fort Val-ley State-14; Tuskegee-35, Johnson C. Smith-14.

This week’s top games

Hampton (1-1, 0-0) at Florida A&M (1-1, 0-0): It is the MEAC opener for both teams coming off loses. Both want to win for early positioning in the confer-ence race.

Bethune-Cookman (2-0) at Miami (1-1): The Wild-cats played the Hurricanes tough for three quarters last year. Can they improve and pull off upset? Miami lost big to Kansas State last week so they should be fired up.

Edward Waters (1-2) at Livingstone (0-2): The EWC Tigers will have to generate more offense and play bet-ter defensively if they want to beat the winless Division II Blue Bears on the road.

Howard (1-1, 0-0) at Nor-folk State (2-0, 0-0): Anoth-er key battle in the MEAC as Howard is on the rise and Norfolk is on top as the defending champion. This one could be a good one.

Prairie View (0-2, 0-1) at Alabama A&M (2-0, 1-0): The Bulldogs are playing great defense. Can they keep it up? The Panthers are badly in need of a win.

Alabama State (1-1, 1-0) at Grambling (0-2, 0-1): The two SWAC Divi-sion defending champions meet again. The last time they played Grambling won the SWAC champion-ship. Both teams are again favored to win their respec-tive divisions so this could be a classic.

Plenty of excitement during first week of football actionHBCU FOOTBALL

ROUNDUP

COURTESY OF FAMU ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT

Travis Harvey gets away from a University of Okla-homa defender to score a 75-yard touchdown.

Learning opportunities by and for older adults

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

Fall Open House • Tues., Sept. 18, 9:30 a.m. Tampa Museum of Art, 120 W. Gasparilla Plaza, Tampa

Call 813-974-8036 or email ollivol@gmail.com to reserve space. Find out more at www.usfseniors.org/06

USF is an EO/EA Institution Ad 2562

Hands-On Computer Training• Small Classes• Individual Attention

Liberal Arts Courses• Engaging• Enlightening• Entertaining

Lecture SeriesSocial Events

Jacksonville: Jennifer Holiday will perform at Edward Waters College dur-ing its 11th Annual Fine Arts Scholarship Benefit Concert at the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts Oct. 14 at 8 p.m.

Orlando: Frankie Beverly & Maze will be at the House of Blues Orlando Oct. 5 for a 7:30 p.m. show.

Jacksonville: Aaron Bing will perform at the Jackson-ville Performing Arts Center Sept. 15.

Orlando: Senator Gary Sip-lin will host a free housing workshop titled on Sept. 29 at the Pine Hills Commu-nity Center, 6408 Jennings Road. Registration is limited to 100 participants. The pre-

registration deadline is Sept. 21. Onsite registration will be available. More informa-tion: 407-207-2071.

Ocoee: The City of Ocoee’s Human Relations Diversity

Board will host its Third An-nual Fiesta de Colores Sept. 15 from 11:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. at Bill Breeze Park, 125 North Lakeshore Drive in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month offering

fun for the entire family including Latin cuisine, salsa dancing, vendors, games, bounce house, face painting, door prizes and more. More Information: www.ocoee.org or 407-905-3100.

Orlando: The National Black Female Photographers Day will be held in 15 cities nationwide on Sept. 15. Photographers interested in participating in a photo walk in Downtown Orlando can meet at 630 W. Central (Pintura Project) at 10 a.m. There is no cost to attend the walk. More information: http://blackfemalephotographers.com/events.

Orlando: Comedian Sinbad will be at the Hard Rock Live Orlando Oct. 12 for an 8 p.m. show.

Jacksonville: Comedian and actor Kevin Hart will be at the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts Oct. 12 for a 7 p.m. show.

Jacksonville: The Price is Right Live! presented by The Artist Series will be held Sept. 25 at the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts. The

interactive stage show will give contestants pulled right from the audience the chance to “come on down” to win prizes. Todd Newton will be the host. Tickets start at $32 and can be purchased by call-ing 904-632-3373 or visiting www.artistseriesjax.org.

Jacksonville: The Jackson-ville Tattoo Convention featur-ing live tattooing by some of the nation’s top artists as well as contests, seminars, giveaways and more will be held Sept. 14 -15 at the Wyndham Riverwalk Hotel Convention Center. Price: $15 day pass- $35 weekend pass, tickets may be purchased at the door.

St. Petersburg: First Fridays are held in downtown St. Pe-tersburg at 250 Central Ave. between Second and Third Avenues from 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. More information: 727-393-3597.

FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR

MARVIN WINANS JR. The Great Gospel Showcase featuring Belinda Womack, Marvin Winans Jr. and other gospel choirs will be held Sept. 15 at the Straz Center, 1010 North Maccines Place. Proceeds benefit A Brighter Community Preschool & Family Support Program. Tickets: $22.50 for adults, $12.50 for children. More information: 813-748-3712.

MADEATyler Perry’s “Madea Gets a Job’’ makes a stop at the UCF Arena in Orlando on Nov. 8 and the American Airlines Arena in Miami Nov. 9-10.

SUGAR HILL GANGThe Freestyle Legends Tour returns to the Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee for its fourth flashback into the ’80s and‘’90s Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. The old-school lineup features Lisa Lisa, Sugar Hill Gang, Sweet Sensation, Brenda K Starr, C&C Music Factory, Trinere, Charlie Rock, Debbie Dee, Clear Touch, Nayobe, Noel, Corina, Soave and Giggles. Tickets go on sale Sept. 14.

Society of Black Engi-neers, the Society of Petroleum Engineers and Epsilon Chapter of Sigma Phi Society.

Diversity recognized by Obama

Even with the rela-tively small number of Black students studying engineering, Cornell’s Di-versity Programs in Engineering was honored by President Barack Obama last year.

Lance Collins, dean of the Col-lege of Engineering at Cornell, said last year about the honor: “What the

work the Diversity Programs in Engi-neering is doing to build and sustain the pipeline of outstanding women and underrepresented minority stu-dents will impact our profession for decades to come. I could not be more pleased with their success.”

Rick Allmendinger is associate dean for diversity, faculty develop-ment and mentoring for the College of Engineering.

“Here at Cornell, we see diversity as an opportunity, not an obligation. We have to leverage an increasing-ly diverse pipeline of students if the university – and the country – is to re-main competitive, and as engineers we firmly believe that a diverse pop-ulation leads to better, more creative solutions to the problems we face.”

Energy independenceCherry, who started taking STEM

classes in middle school, believes his

Cornell experience in athletics and academics will assist him in achiev-ing his dream of helping establish en-ergy independence for developed na-tions like the United States as well as for developing countries like Ghana.

“Mr. Awotwi once told me that ‘En-ergy is the global currency,’” Cherry explained. “That means I can work anywhere around the world. I’d never have this opportunity if I didn’t have the STEM training and education I got before coming to Cornell.”

CHERRYfrom B1

Lance Collins

The Florida Courier will profile other African-American students who are high achievers in science, technology, engineering and math. Please send information on a student you may know to news@flcourier.com.

B3TECHNOLOGYtO SEPtEMBER 14 - SEPtEMBER 20, 2012

BY CASSANDRA SPRAtLINGDETROIT FREE PRESS (MCT)

It’s Tuesday evening Bible class at Apostolic Church in Auburn Hills, Mich., but it feels a lot like a Sunday church service.

The praise team has sung spirituals, and the pastor, the Rev. Steve Warman, is wrapping up his lesson.

As he builds toward the climax of his message, he refers to “the word of God” and holds up the text to which he is referring. But that’s no Bible in his hand: It’s an iPad.

During Bible study, sev-eral people read e-pads and a few look up verses on their smart phones, while others flip through the pag-es of a bound book.

Not too long ago, the sight of someone using an electronic device during a worship service might lead an observer to assume that

person was not fully en-gaged. But not anymore. Reading the Bible used to mean reading a book, but increasingly, people are getting the Word on smart phones, iPads and other electronic devices.

Reign of printed Bible over?

So then, what will hap-pen to the printed Bible? The last word has not been written on that, but experts speculate that its unchal-lenged reign is over.

“The Bible is sort of the flagship of the printed book culture,” said Timo-thy Beal, author of “The Rise and Fall of the Bible” (Mariner, $15.95). “The printed word is losing its place as the dominant me-dium for reading.”

He pointed to the tradi-tional family Bible — once commonplace in many

homes — as evidence of the decline in printed Bi-bles. “Most families don’t have them anymore,” he said. “The family Bible as we know it is already a thing of the past in most families. What was once a perfect product during its time has become kind of an artifact.”

Hotels going from hardcovers to Kindles

Hardcover Bibles are no longer always found in ho-tel rooms worldwide, ei-ther. Last month, a hotel in Newcastle, England, re-placed the hardcover Bi-bles in all 148 guest rooms with Amazon Kindles, pre-loaded with Bibles.

It’s exploring doing the same in all 44 hotels the InterContinental Hotels Group owns worldwide.

Another hotel — the Damson Dene, in England’s Lake District — replaced Bibles on nightstands with the popular novel “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

The Rev. Michael Nabors, pastor of New Calvary Bap-tist Church in Detroit, has at least 20 hardcover Bibles in the office of his eastside church. He recently began using an iPad during Bible study, but sticks to a hard-cover version in the pulpit. He doesn’t think many of his older members would appreciate him using his iPad.

“What if he’s up there preaching and the battery

dies or something like that? I hope he has a real Bible next to him, so he can look up what he needs to look up,” said Isabella Howard, 62, of Detroit, a longtime member.

Impractical for some services

She wouldn’t trade her hardbound Bible for any e-version.

“I feel closer to God with this,” she said referring to her Bible. “I don’t have to plug up anything. All I have to do is open it up and read it.”

For others, there are more liturgical reasons to shun e-Bibles during worship.

For example, a represen-tative of the Catholic Arch-diocese of Detroit said it would be impractical for a priest to use an e-read-er during mass because the Holy Book is held high, carried down the aisle and placed for display on the al-tar as part of the opening of the service.

For some occasions, the book is perfumed with in-cense.

(Though the book is viewed as a Bible by many Catholics, it is actual-ly called the Book of Gos-pels.)

“It would be really strange to process an iPad down the aisle and place it on the al-tar,” said Dan McAfee, di-rector of Christian Worship for the archdiocese.

“E-Bibles are great for personal study, but they

can’t be used for liturgical books,” he said. “The Bible is a sacred book — a one of a kind — not just a file among many files in an iPad.”

Bible maker: Sales good, growing

Bible publishers guard sales figures closely, but America’s largest Bible publisher, Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Zondervan, said sales have been good and growing. The company produces electronic Bible versions, too.

“Today, every time we re-lease a print volume, we re-lease a digital version,” said Chip Brown, a senior vice president and publisher.

Zondervan offers about 800 different Bibles for adults and children.

Additionally, it offers ap-proximately 80 e-Bibles, according to Zondervan spokeswoman Tara Powers.

During the last 12 months, sales of digital Bi-ble products increased four times over the previous 12 months, Powers said.

Brown said e-Bibles are not a threat to the printed volumes.

“Just as TV came along and didn’t’ kill film or radio, I don’t see digital versions killing the bound volumes. This is just a different way people are engaging (with) the Bible.”

In a sense, e-formats have made the Bible more accessible to more people, Brown said.

“Today, there are two

things you don’t leave home without. One is your car keys. And now, no one leaves home without a phone or some kind of digi-tal device. So we will quick-ly get to the point where everybody has their Bi-ble with them at all times,” Brown said.

Pastor: Message comes across the same

Some e-versions of the Bible offer opportunities to explore the book in ways printed versions cannot. For example, many e-ver-sions have maps that pop up to show the area written about; some allow read-ers to compare translations side-by-side, and some of-fer audio and video ren-derings of Scripture.

Warman, pastor at Ap-ostolic Church for 18 years, said he began using an iP-ad in the pulpit about two years ago for practical rea-sons. His sermons and les-sons are written on his iP-ad. He contends e-devic-es do not distract from the message.

“My wife and I have been married 20 years. She might enjoy a card that says, ‘I love you.’ She would also enjoy a text, an e-mail or a phone call. The mes-sage is the same no matter how it is delivered.

“The Bible is really God saying, ‘I love you.’ Howev-er it comes, we get the mes-sage.”

JARRAD HENDERSON/DEtROIt FREE PRESS/MCt

Jacques James, and his wife, Christa, follow along with their Bible iPad app during Bible study at Apostolic Church in Auburn Hills, Mich., on July 24. Several mem-bers of the congregation use their iPads to follow along with the pastor on Sundays and in Bible study.

Delivering God’s word via iPadDigital version of the Bible are popping up in more pews, pulpits

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STOJTOJB4 SEPTEMBER 14 – SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

THE ROLEThe term “first lady” was first used by

Rutherford B. Hayes in reference to his wife in his 1877 inauguration speech.

The first spouse promises nothing, and his or her role is not defined in the Constitution. In the early 19th century, the first spouse was expected to help with the White House’s social events.

EMERGING ROLE

Though spouses have appeared with presi-dential candidates on the campaign trail, that role became more pro-nounced in 1960.

Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy ran for office with his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kenne-

dy, appearing with him at campaign events.“They were a young, attractive family,

and the TV era was just starting,” noted Di-anne Bystrom of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa

State University. “From that point on, the role of spouses on

the campaign trail and in the White House just evolved.”

ROLE TODAY

A spouse can help a candidate reach

more voters and raise campaign dollars.

“The candidate’s spouse becomes

a surrogate for the candidate” when a candidate “can’t be in two places at the same

time,” Bystrom explained.Consider:Hillary Rodham Clinton: Now secretary

of state, and formerly a Democratic senator from New York, she helped her husband, Bill Clinton, run for president in 1992 and 1996. She reflected on the ’92 cam-paign in her autobiography, “Living History”: “The 13-month presiden-tial campaign was a revelation. ... We were unprepared for the hardball politics and re-lentless scruti-ny that comes with a run for the presidency.” Hillary put that campaign experi-ence to use in 2008, as she ran, unsuc-cessfully, for the

Democratic presidential nomination. Michelle Obama: The current first la-

dy has been referred to as “the closer” for her ability to seal the deal with voters. Her emotional speech during this year’s Dem-ocratic National Convention drew tears and cheers. “The first lady (is) not hitting

a home run, but probably a grand slam,” said CNN host Wolf Blitzer.

Ann Romney: Wife of Repub-lican presidential nominee

Mitt Romney also is on the campaign trail stumping for her husband this year. She made her national debut with a big speech at the Re-publican National Conven-

tion.“Ann Romney did a near

perfect job tonight human-izing Mitt Romney, as only

the key character witness can,” Republican consultant Matt

Mackowiak said to Reuters.

THE FIRST SPOUSE

Carol Moseley Braun

SarahPalin

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Michele Bachmann

6 women currently hold cabinet or cabinet-level offices H 3 women on the Supreme Court H 90 women serving in Congress H 17 women in the U.S. Senate (12 Democrat, 5 Republican) H 73 women representatives in the U.S. House (49 Democrat, 24 Repub-

lican) H 6 women U.S. governors (2 Democrat, 4 Republican) H 217 women mayors of cities w/ population over 30,000 H 12 women mayors of the 100 largest U.S. cities

BY THE NUMBERSWomen make up: 16.8 percent of Congress H 23.7 percent of state legislatures 23.3 percent of statewide elected offices H 50.8 percent of the U.S. population

Year of the woman? War on women?

No matter how you slice it, the ladies are getting a lot

of attention this election cycle — from both sides of the aisle.

Whether they are office holders themselves or

giving high-profile speeches to rally support for their husbands, the women

have the floor.

Michelle Obama Ann RomneySOuRcES: u.S. cEnSuS BuREau; cEnTER fOR aMERican WOMEn and POliTicS; iMdB.cOM; fREE PRESS RESEaRch

By caROl cain, dETROiT fREE PRESS; McT; illuSTRaTiOnS By chRiS WaRE, lExingTOn hERald-lEadER

And why not? Women make up al-most 51 per-cent of the U.S. popula-tion. But the country has never had a female president or vice president.

Six women currently hold cabinet or cabinet-level offices. Remember: Until the suffrage amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, wom-en were denied the right to vote in national elections.

ROAD TO WHITE HOUSE

Women currently in the political stream are better po-sitioned to run for president. Consider:

Governors: Four of the last five presidents were gover-nors. There currently are six female governors.

Veeps: Four of the last eight presidents were vice presi-dents. No woman has held that title.

Congress: Five of the last nine presidents also had con-gressional experience. Today, 17 percent of senators and 16.8 percent of House members are women.

SOME HISTORY1872: Victoria Woodhull, a stockbroker and publisher,

becomes the first woman to run for president as the candi-date of the Equal Rights Party. Ulysses S. Grant won.

She said then: “What may appear ab-surd today will assume a serious aspect tomorrow. I am content to wait until my claim for recognition as a candidate shall receive the calm consideration of the press and the public.”

1920: The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, giving women the right to vote.1964: Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican senator from Maine, runs for the Republican presidential nomination in 1964 and loses to Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater.1972: Shirley Chisholm, a Democratic U.S. House mem-ber from New York, becomes the first black woman to seek the presidency. She loses the nomination to Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota.1984: Geraldine Ferraro, a U.S. House member from New York, becomes the Democratic vice presidential running mate to Walter Mondale. She is the first woman to run on a major party’s national ticket. They lose to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.2004: Carol Moseley Braun, a former Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois, ends her bid for the nomination after failing to win a primary.2008: Hillary Rodham Clinton, then a U.S. senator from New York, ran a close, but ultimately unsuccessful race against Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton, now the secretary of state, is the wife of former President Bill Clinton, and the only first lady of the United States ever elected to public office.2008: Sarah Palin was governor of Alaska when she was tapped as the running mate for Republican nominee

John McCain. She is the second woman vice-presidential nominee from a major U.S. party and the first Republican woman nominee for the vice-presidency.2012: Michele Bachmann, congresswoman from Minnesota, was a candidate for the Republican nomina-tion for president early in the 2012 race. She withdrew from the race after a disappointing showing in the Iowa caucuses.

ON FILMA study of the top-100 grossing movies of 2011 found

93 percent of all political and government leaders were played by men, according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film. Despite the numbers, there are several notable females playing politicians in both television and film.

MARQUEE POLITICIANSH Julia Louis-Dreyfus as vice president in HBO’s

“Veep” (2012).H Sigourney Weaver as secretary of state in the USA

Network’s “Political Animals” (2012).H Kate Burton as vice president in “Scandal” (2012).H Cherry Jones as president in Fox’s “24” (2008-10). H Mary McDonnell as president in “Battlestar Galac-

tica” (2004-9).H Geena Davis as president in ABC’s “Commander in

Chief” (2005-6).H Joan Van Ark as vice president in “Loyal Opposition:

Terror in the White House” (1998).H Glenn Close as vice president in “Air Force One”

(1997).H Joan Rivers as president in “Les Patterson Saves the

World” (1987).H Maria Charles as president in “Victor/Victoria”

(1982).

MADAM PRESIDENT

B5FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT SToJ SEPTEMBER 14 - SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

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

FLORIDA'Ssubmitted for your

approval

Meet some of

finestMore than 4,000 cruisers joined

nationally syndicated radio talk show

host Tom Joyner on the 13th annual Tom Joyner Foundation

FantasticVoyage 2012 aboard Royal Caribbean’s

“Navigator of the Seas,” one of

the world’s largest cruise ships.

Featured in April 2012, the FloridaCourier spotlights some of the best-looking people on

board.

Will, who lives in Chicago, was on

his first Tom Joyner cruise.

Cybil, a Houston resident, was on her

sixth Tom Joyner cruise.

Olympic gold medalist being sued by parentsFROM WIRE REPORTS

The parents of Olympic gold medalist Tian-na Madison are suing her after she allegedly called her parents selfish and accused them of misman-aging her financially.

Robert and Jo Ann Madison of Ohio filed a li-bel, slander and defamation lawsuit last week in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in Cleve-land. They said they’ve been loving, supportive and generous parents.

The parents are claiming that the athlete has re-peatedly made and published false and defama-tory statements about them. Tianna Madison has told news outlets that her parents mismanaged her finances and knowingly allowed a boy who had molested her previously to be in her presence

at their home. Tianna Madison was on the winning 4x100-me-

ter relay track team at the Summer Olympics in London. She won the gold with Allyson Felix, Bi-anca Knight and Carmelita Jeter in world record time. The lawsuit also names her husband, John Bartoletta.

Spokesman: Athlete focused on career, programs

The athlete and her husband live in the Tampa Bay area.

Brian Butler, spokesman for Tianna Madison and Bartoletta, said the couple was not going to comment publicly on the accusations.

“This should be a time for not just Tianna, but her family to celebrate all she has gone through and her winning a gold medal,” he said. “That is what she is going to focus on at this time.”

Butler said Tianna Madison is very much fo-cused on continuing her athletic career and the programs she has started to help inspire young girls.

“And, I think, she is trying to take some time to enjoy the fact that she won an Olympic gold med-al,” he said.

The parents’ lawsuit seeks more than $25,000 each in compensatory and punitive damages.

The Associated Press was used in compiling this report.

WALLY SKALIJ/LoS ANGELES TIMES/MCT

From left, USA’s Bianca Kinght, Allyson Felix, Tianna Madison and Carmelita Jeter celebrate after winning the gold medal in the 4x100 relay in world record time at the Summer Olympics in London, England, on Aug. 10.

Bobby Brown lands a BET reality showEURWEB.COM

Do we really need anoth-er reality show starring Bobby Brown?

Are we ready for another “un-scripted” demonstration of this man’s life? Seriously?

Apparently BET is willing to take that risk. A new project star-ring the troubled New Edition singer and ex-husband of Whit-ney Houston is currently in the works. Sources say the new se-ries will revolve around Brown’s “life and businesses.”

The project will be executive

produced by James DuBose, who has developed several oth-er celebrity-based reality shows for BET. Shows include the high-profile series centered on Phila-delphia Eagles star Michael Vick, who staged a comeback after be-ing imprisoned for his involve-ment in a dog-fighting ring.

No other specifics on the Brown project, including the ti-tle, airdates or the number of epi-sodes, were avail-able.

Brown, recent-ly checked him-self out of rehab following a three-week stay. His wife, Alicia Ether-edge-Brown, has been in the news recently after being hospi-talized for seizures.

Bobby Brown

Jay-Z andBeyonce will host fundraiserEURWEB.COM

Hip-hop’s first couple, Jay-Z and Beyonce, will host Pres-ident Barack Obama at Jay’s own 40/40 Club in New York next week as a fundraiser for his reelection campaign.

The president is stopping by for a dinner, where he’ll be joined by 100 friends who will have each paid $40,000 for the honor.

The couple’s friendship

with Obama goes back to the president’s inauguration. Jay-Z and Beyonce performed at a tribute concert honoring the newly elected command-er-in-chief on the night before Obama took his oath of office.

Just one week ago, the pres-ident appeared in a video clip, which opened Jay-Z’s set at the Made In America festival in Philadelphia. Obama im-plored the crowd to vote and said he is a fan of the rapper’s music.

Beyonce also has been in-volved with the Obama cam-paign. After a letter Beyonce posted on her blog went viral, the campaign tapped her to read the note – an apprecia-tion of Michelle Obama – in a web video.

The 40/40 fundraiser is scheduled for the evening of Sept. 18.

Jay-Z and Beyonce

will cybil

tojtojB6 FOOD SEPtEMBER 14 – SEPtEMBER 20, 2012

Smoked NorwegiaN SalmoN aNd Pearl Barley Salad

Serves: 4 3/4 pound smoked Norwegian Salmon �

1/2 cup pearl barley, soaked in cold �water overnight4 1/2 cups water, divided�

1/2cup olive oil�

2 tablespoons wine vinegar�

3 tablespoons fresh orange juice�

Salt and pepper, to taste�

1 cup broccoli florets�

1 carrot, cut into small cubes or strips�

1/2 onion, chopped�

1 red bell pepper, cut into smallcubes �or strips1 cucumber, cut into large cubes�

2 tablespoons chives, chopped�

1 tablespoon parsley, chopped�

Dice salmon into 1/2 x 1/2-inch cubes (or if already sliced, cut in strips) and set aside in refrigerator.

Drain water from barley. Simmer on low heat in 1 cup water with sprinkle of salt for approximately 30 minutes or until soft.

Drain barley and transfer to bowl. Immediately add oil, vinegar, orange juice, salt and pepper, mix well and set aside to cool.

Bring remaining 3 1/2 cups water to boil and add plenty of salt. When water boils vigorously, add broccoli and carrots and let cook for 30 seconds. Remove vegetables immediately with slotted spoon, plunge into ice water, and then take out of water to drain.

When barley is cold, gently mix all ingredients together and serve with whole-grain bread or sprinkling of bread croutons on top. Vegetables and herbs can be varied according to your own preferences.

NorwegiaN SalmoN iN alumiNum Foil

Serves: 44 sheets aluminum foil (12 x 18 �inches, slightly larger than yellow legal pad)2 tablespoons canola oil�

2 medium carrots, cut into thin strips�

1 small leek, cut into thin slices�

1 onion, cut into thin slices�

1 head iceberg lettuce, cut into 8 �wedges1 1/2 pounds Norwegian Salmon fillet, �boneless, skin removed, cut into 8 portions1 tablespoon water for each package�

4 tablespoons crème fraîche or sour �creamSalt and pepper, to taste�

Preheat oven to 350°F.Place aluminum foil on table with

shortest side facing you. All food will be placed in middle of bottom half of foil. Top half of foil will eventually be folded over food. Brush center of bottom half with oil.

Mix all vegetables and spread 1/4 of them over oil. Arrange 2 portions of salmon with vegetables. Add water. Season with salt and pepper. Repeat with remaining three sheets of foil.

To seal pouches, fold top section of foil over. Fold and squeeze edges together to form well-sealed pouch. Place packages on large baking sheet and place in preheated oven. When packages enlarge, they’re ready to serve — usually after about 6 to 8 minutes.

To serve, carefully place each package on plate and open at table with pair of scissors or knife. Spoon crème fraîche or sour cream onto fish and sprinkle with lemon juice. Fresh herbs can be added before or after cooking. Eat straight from package.

FROM FaMily FeatuRes

Whether you’re trying to control your weight or embrace a healthier lifestyle, the food choices you make have to be enjoyable. And deliciously healthy recipes are the key.

“Recipes that use elements from New Nordic Cuisine are a great way to enjoy healthy eating,” said registered dietician and author Kate Gea-gan, MS, RD. “This cui sine is naturally rich in some of the healthiest, purest foods in the world. And, it can be easily adapted to U.S. tastes and lifestyles.”

A plate filled with seafood, especially Norwe-gian Salmon, is a hallmark of New Nordic Cui-sine. “I love how this cuisine is inspired by the sea,” Geagan said. “The ocean provides some of nature’s most perfect pro teins that deliver whole body benefits.”

For example, a serving of Norwegian Salmon is an excellent source of high quality protein and omega 3 fats. It also contains key nutrients, in-cluding selenium (thyroid and cell health), io-dine (thyroid and hormonal health), vitamin D (bone and immune health) and vitamin B12 (red blood cell and neurological health).

Norwegian Salmon is available fresh year-round, so it’s easy to incorporate into your every-day meal planning. For more deliciously healthy recipes, visit www.salmonfromnorway.com.

New Nordic cuiSiNe

Nordic cultures have long enjoyed a reputa tion as some of the healthiest people in the world. New Nordic Cuisine is filled with healthy, hearty foods anyone can enjoy. Deli cious elements of this cuisine include:

Seafood, such as �Norwegian Salmon

Whole grains such �as rye bread, barley and oats

Cabbage and �other cruciferous vegetables

Berries, apples �and pears

Root vegetables�

Poached NorwegiaN SalmoN with Stewed VegetaBleS aNd cucumBer SaladServes: 4

3/4 pound Norwegian Salmon fillet, �boneless, skin removed

4 1/2 cups water�

1 tablespoon salt�

1 lemon�

Stewed Vegetables1 1/4 cups water�

4 potatoes, cut into cubes�

3 carrots, cut into cubes�

1 medium celeriac root, cut into �cubes

2 onions, cut into cubes�

1 medium size leek, cut into cubes�

2 tablespoons fresh parsley or �chives, chopped

Salt and pepper, to taste�

3/4 cup milk�

Cornstarch, to thicken sauce�

Cucumber Salad1 pound cucumber�

1 tablespoon sugar�

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar�

2tablespoons olive oil�

Cut salmon into 4 even pieces and rinse well under cold water.

In large pot, bring water to boil, add salt and then salmon. Immediately remove from heat and let stand to poach for 4 to 6 minutes, depending on thickness of fillet. Be careful not to overcook — the flavors and texture of salmon is at its best when served opaque throughout. Remove from pot with slotted spoon and let water drain off on towel before arranging salmon on plate.

For vegetables, sprinkle water with salt and bring to boil in a large pot. When water is boiling, add potatoes, carrots, celeriac root and onions. Lower heat and simmer until soft.

Add leeks and fresh herbs and simmer for 2 more minutes. Drain vegetables carefully in colander and make sure you keep cooking water.

In same pot, bring milk and cooking water to boil; season with salt and pepper.

Dilute cornstarch in small amount of cold water and add to boiling liquid until you have thick sauce. Add vege tables to milk mixture to reheat before serving.

For cucumber salad, peel cucumber, split lengthwise and remove seeds with small spoon. Cut at an angle in thick slices and mix with sugar, vinegar and oil.

Serve salmon with stewed vegetables and cucumber salad on the side.

Serving Suggestion: A few drops of lemon juice on the salmon is a must.

Norwegian Salmon The cold, clear waters of Norway create the ideal envi-

ronment for ocean-farming flavorful Norwegian Salmon. Tasteful, healthful and versa tile, salmon from Norway of-fers a de-liciously easy way to incorpo-rate more fish into the American diet. Norwe-gians take great care to ocean-farm salmon in a sustain-able manner that’s good for the fish, good for the earth, and good for future generations. To learn more, visit www.salmon-fromnorway.com.