What Nathan Bedford Forrest Says about Us
” … this raw of racial animus that seems to be the putrid compost behind Jacksonville’s magnolia blossom gentility: http://bit.ly/1bv8eCH
Bold Bean Coffee Unplugs
To promote conversation, Bold Bean Coffee Roasters unplugged its wifi connection on weekends beginning September 21. The Stockton Street coffee brewery and coffee-house promotes webless weekends as a flashback to 1994 with good coffee, a better haircut and real-time with real people. A Sunday New York Times article on September 20 detailed how the overtaxed and always connected are beginning to carve out device-free zones. A fashion marketer at Vanity Fair told NYT reporter Caroline Tell that when he goes out with friends for dinner, everyone stacks their phones in the middle of table. Whoever looks as his device first pays the bill.
St. Johns River official state paddling trail
Florida DEP designated the St. Johns River the state’s 48th paddling trail today. The 310-mile long river, from its headwaters in Central Florida flowing north to where it meets the Atlantic Ocean in Jacksonville, is the state’s longest paddling trail. The St. Johns River Alliance applied for the designation. The group is funded by the St. Johns River speciality license tag. In a press release announcing the designation, the St. Johns County Board of Commissioners offered the designation would help in winning state grants, presumably for river access points — as well as foster appreciation for the river, increase eco-tourism and promote new outdoor recreation opportunities.
Protesters say we need energy innovation not more crude from Keystone XL pipeline
In moving, homespun individual testaments, a gathering of more than 50 young, old, tattooed and bermuda shorted protesters on Crescent Beach in St. Johns County on Sept. 21 explain why they oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline. The individual parts are more meaningful than a summary, so I won’t summarize beyond headline. The protest was organized by the St. Augustine-based Environmental Youth Council, the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org. The video ends with a beautiful aerial photograph by Walter Coker of the protesters in silhouette, lined behind a long unfurled roll of black plastic that symbolizes the pipeline.
Jim Morrison bummed FSU rejects him but goes on to greatness anyway
A beefy faced Jim Morrison poses as a kid who can’t get into Florida State University in this 1964 public service promo from the Florida State Archives.
Ex-Lt Gov Jennifer Carroll in weapons biz
Broward/Palm Beach New Times is reporting that Palm Beach arms dealer and manufacturer GDSI has hired Jennifer Carroll, ex-Florida lieutenant governor and former Northeast Florida state representative. GDSI lists Carroll as its future president and CEO, New Times reports. Carroll tendered her resignation to Gov. Rick Scott on the same day law enforcement swept in to arrest on racketeering charges the principals in an Internet gambling charity that had at one time hired Carroll as an consultant.
More than 400 march for Justice through downtown Jacksonville
A march through unjust places
More than 400 people marched through downtown Jacksonville on Saturday seeking justice for Trayvon Martin, Marissa Alexander and Jordan Davis. At the Duval County jail, they massed 20 deep chanting in unison “Free Marissa Now” and “Let Marissa Go” in support of 32-year-old Marissa Alexander, a Jacksonville mother of three who has been sentenced to a mandatory 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot at her husband to end a violent fight. The protesters in Jacksonville were among thousands who rallied at more than 100 cities across the country in National Justice for Trayvon Day. In Jacksonville, the Southern Freedom Movement, the Dream Defenders and the New Jim Crow Movement first marched from Hemming Plaza through downtown Jacksonville to State Attorney Angela Corey’s Office and then to the jail in what organizers billed as a “walk for dignity” and “a walk thru unjust places” before returning to Hemming Plaza for a rally.
“This is about the injustice of justice,” said Artemis River as he held a hand-lettered sign up high and flashed a victory sign while looking up at the 12-story, bunker-like concrete pre-trial detention center. Marchers raised their arms in the air and peered at narrow slatted windows that let natural light into the jailhouses’ cells. Inmates climbed up onto the top bunk of their cells so they could see the crowd and waved to let them know they saw the protesters. From the street, one could only see tiny hands moving across the darkly tinted windows. One man pointed at brown hand waving from one of the windows about halfway up the building and said it was Alexander. Continue reading
Buying Leverage in game of Internet sweepstakes
Here’s a 2010 story in final edits I wrote for Folio Weekly on Allied Veterans and the $$$ they put into lobbying for a Jacksonville ordinance on Internet cafes and slot machine-like electronic sweepstakes parlors. . . . The ordinance is 2010-0326.
Buying Leverage
When Jacksonville City Councilmember Kevin Hyde introduced a bill in April to outlaw sweepstakes machines in Duval County, it was simple and straightforward: It would shut down most Internet cafes and sweepstakes gaming parlors completely.
According to the bill, any gaming machine that looked and sounded like a slot machine would become illegal in Duval County. And since most of the machines at Internet cafes bleep and roll rows of cherries like real one armed bandits, Shad’s proposal seemed destined to shut them down.
The bill was partly a response to neighbor complaints about the so-called Internet cafes, outfits that, at least outwardly, appear to be gambling dens. Residents of many struggling neighborhoods have complained that the businesses attract unsavory characters and sell false hope of striking it rich.
But the residents who initially got the bill moving didn’t have a seat at the table last week, when a new version was hammered out. The players in those discussions were indeed << players >> – well funded, politically connected and above all, represented by an army of high-priced lawyers, lobbyists and public relations executives. The legislation that emerged was a raw show of how money can buy power and drive legislation in Duval County.
“In the eight years I’ve been on City Council, there were more people hired for this than anything else I can remember,” says councilmember Art Shad. Indeed. The issue brought in more lobbying power than the fight over the $750 million Trail Ridge Landfill contract renewal, more than in the protracted battle between the residents of Arlington and the Jacksonville Aviation Authority over extending the runway at Craig Airport. Shad wryly observes, “It must be very profitable.” Continue reading
Not-so-sweet charity: Allied Veterans’ nonprofit prorities
Here’s final edit of a Nov. 9, 2010, story on how much money Allied Veterans raises and how much $$$ it gives to charity that I wrote for Folio Weekly.
I’m posting a version with edits in it that I have in my personal archive because Folio Weekly has not posted its 2010 content in the archives of the newspaper’s redesigned website.
Not-so-sweet charity: Allied Veterans’ public financial records raise questions about its nonprofit priorities
by Susan Cooper Eastman
Allied Veterans of the World, Inc. makes a great show of its charitable giving. Under an image of a fluttering American flag and over strains of patriotic music, the nonprofit group’s website features a video attesting to its amazing generosity. The group “raised and gave away more than $2.5 million,” engaged in “tireless fundraising” and made “phenomenal donations,” the video claims. Even U.S. Rep Ander Crenshaw (R-Jacksonville) chimes in, saying, “It’s great to have an organization like Allied Veterans to step up.”
Just how generous is the nonprofit? It’s tough to say. Financial disclosure records filed with both the state and the IRS are contradictory and often impenetrable. Allied Vets insists its primary mission is helping veterans, but a state charitable spending database finds the group spends a paltry one percent of its revenues on charitable efforts.
First Baptist thanks Jacksonville City Council for confirming we live in bigoted backwater
Jacksonville’s conservative and powerful First Baptist Church took a moment during its September 2 service to individually thank Jacksonville City Council members who voted against amending the city’s Human Rights Ordinance to protect gays and lesbians on August 15. The City Council voted 10-9 against adding protections against discrimination for sexual preference to the ordinance after months of discussion. As their names were called during the church service, the council members who killed the amendment stood up. Even Johnny Gaffney was there. He surprised supporters of amendment when he cast the deciding vote against it voting in committee to support the amendment.
Susan Cooper Eastman 