Tough love
Remember the Dollars?
A couple charged with torturing five of their eight adopted children accepted a plea deal Wednesday and were sentenced to 15 years in prison and 15 years of probation, to be served consecutively.
John Dollar, 59, and his wife, Linda, 52, were accused of using a cattle prod, mallet, pliers, chains and other items to abuse their children over a period of years. Authorities say the Dollars also deprived the children, ages 16 and younger when the couple were arrested, of food and sleep, bound them with chains and forced them to live in a closet.
But they were simply being loving Christian parents.
A Citrus County couple accused of torturing and starving five children agreed Wednesday to 15-year prison sentences, then said the crimes occurred because they took their religious beliefs too far.
"We are sorry that the children are hurt," John Dollar said. "We are firm believers in the God almighty ... because of those principles we were led to do certain things."
Those "things," prosecutors say, included pulling out the children's toenails with pliers, starving them and shocking them with a cattle prod.
......Disturbing details of the Dollars' life soon surfaced.
The family had operated a private Christian school in Tennessee, but many of the students rarely saw the Dollar children.
When the family moved to the Tampa Bay area, they changed homes frequently. Between 1990 and 2004, the Dollars bought and sold a half-dozen homes in Hillsborough County, from Plant City to Riverview to Valrico.
A closet door at one of their Hillsborough homes had a lock installed on its outside, as if it were meant to keep someone inside, not out.
A bag of what appeared to be toenails was found in the family's motorhome.
......Seven of the Dollars' eight adopted children lived with the couple in Pine Ridge, a central Citrus development.
Prosecutors say five of the seven were abused. The oldest Dollar child, Shanda Rae Shelton, 26, moved out of the home a couple of years ago. She is now married and has a child of her own.
About a dozen people sat in the courtroom gallery, including Citrus Sheriff Jeff Dawsy and the lead investigator, Detective Lisa Wall. Both approved of the plea deal, prosecutors said.
The children were not there. According to prosecutors, some of the children are staying in foster homes and others are living in a residential treatment program outside of the county.
Shelton didn't attend the hearing, either. No one came in support of the couple.
Christian love
Dr. Dobson's Newsletter: June 2002
Meanwhile, the boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.
Based on my work with adult homosexuals, I try to avoid the necessity of a long and sometimes painful therapy by encouraging parents, particularly fathers, to affirm their sons' maleness.
BlogWood Redux: Ronda and Ronnie’s world First posted on July 18.
First came the broken bones. Then, the vomiting spells. Then, bruises and scrapes. At first, no one knew who or what kept sending little Ronnie Paris to the hospital. But by the time the 3-year-old died it was clear his life was far too short and none too sweet.
It became even clearer on Wednesday after a forensic pathologist detailed the results of an autopsy on the boy during his father's murder trial. His face scarred and head bruised, signs of abuse were written all over the toddler's body, said Hillsborough County associate medical examiner Dr. Sam Gulino.
"It's my opinion that the injuries that caused his hospitalization on Jan. 22 and eventually his death occurred as a result of blunt head trauma," Gulino said.
Prosecutor Jalal Harb argued Wednesday that the boy's father, Ronnie B. Paris Jr., delivered the fatal blow. Paris, 21, was charged with murder and aggravated child abuse on Feb. 1. Wednesday marked the second full day of testimony in his trial.
Nysheerah Paris didn't say anything about the beatings at first. She didn't want to get in trouble. She wanted something good to happen, for her son to come back, for him to start breathing on his own. She wanted him to be "Little Ronnie" again - his father's first and only son.
But 3-year-old Ronnie Paris didn't come back that day, or the next. Instead, he died Jan. 28 after he was taken off life support at St. Joseph's Hospital.
The boy's death came a week after his father gave him the beating of his life, prosecutors say.
It has been five months since Ronnie B. Paris Jr. was charged with murdering his son. On Tuesday, the boy's mother testified against him in court. She did not remember much about the six weeks she spent with her son after caseworkers moved the boy back to his parents' home from foster care. But she said she remembered the day she saw Paris Jr., 21, beat her son to death.
"Ronnie came in the kitchen. He was upset, and he slammed the baby up against the wall," Nysheerah Paris said.
The next day, the boy was acting strangely, she said.
The couple took him to a friend's house for Bible study. The boy spent most of the day asleep on the couch. They had just ordered pizza for dinner when she noticed something was wrong with her son.
"We was quoting Scriptures and stuff, and I looked over at my baby and saw he wasn't breathing," she said.
Even though the boy would shake and wet himself, his father, Ronnie Paris Jr., would box with the 3-year-old, slapping him in the head until he cried because he didn't want his son to grow up to be ``a sissy,'' the boy's mother testified Monday.
Others corroborated Nysheerah Paris' testimony as the prosecution built its case during the first day of the capital murder trial of Ronnie Paris Jr., 21, accused of abusing 3-year- old Ronnie Paris until the boy slipped into a coma Jan. 22.
He died six days later with swelling on both sides of his brain.
``He was trying to teach him how to fight,'' said Shanita Powell, Nysheerah Paris' sister. ``He was concerned that the child might be gay.''
Ronnie Paris would shake, wet himself and vomit as his father forced him into a box and repeatedly slapped him on the head in an effort to prevent him from being gay, the child's mother, Nysheerah Paris, testified Monday. The boy was 3 years old when he died from swelling on both sides of the brain on January 28.
......"He didn't want him to be a sissy," Shelton Bostic, the defendant's Bible-study friend, testified.
It really is a very small step from legislating hatred and intolerance to eliminationism and murder.
Ronda Storms attacks Planned Parenthood as “Pro Death,” cuts educational funding
On Thursday, Ronda Storms led the rabid pack of fundamentalist commissioner dogs on a personal attack against one of the few sources for unbiased women's health care in the Tampa area.
The idea came from Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms: eliminate funding for a teen educational program sponsored by Planned Parenthood.
Commissioners went along with her Thursday, while expressing none of their personal feelings about the nonprofit group that supports women's reproductive rights.
But Storms had made her feelings clear in a conversation last week, said Barbara Zdravecky, who oversees Planned Parenthood in 15 counties, including the Tampa Bay area.
Storms supports life - Zdravecky remembers hearing her say - and Planned Parenthood supports death.
"I have to say I was pretty shaken," Zdravecky said. "I'm used to taking hits. But I was surprised at her lack of humanity."
Zdravecky, other nonprofit officials and proponents had just finished lobbying the commission the night of July 21 and were standing around after nearly three hours of budget discussion.
They wanted commissioners to give them $39,500 during the next two years for Source Teen Theater, a $130,000 program in which Tampa teens teach other kids about such topics as sexual activity, drugs, gangs and family violence.
Storms remembers the conversation, too.
She had called for Planned Parenthood's removal from the budget. Zdravecky asked her to reconsider. Surely, Zdravecky asked, the commissioner must support preventing teen pregnancy, even if she doesn't support Planned Parenthood.
"There is nothing you can say or do for me to support you," the commissioner said, according to Storms' version of the conversation. "Thank you very much for your comments."
But Zdravecky pressed on.
"I am prolife and you're not," Storms remembers saying.
Storms thanked them and told them she could not support the request. She even remembers that she smiled at them.
......Zdravecky remembers a more blunt conversation where Storms said, "I am prolife, you are prodeath" twice.
"I believe anyone who professes to be a proponent of Christianity would treat me with more dignity than the way I was treated," Zdravecky said.
......Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Central Florida has been in Hillsborough for at least 25 years and operates a clinic in Temple Terrace. About 95 percent of the 65,000 clients Planned Parenthood sees annually in the region aren't coming for abortion services, Zdravecky said.
......During the budget discussion that led to Thursday's 5-2 vote, Storms didn't comment other than to call for the elimination of the project's funding.
Commissioner Brian Blair spoke at length about how he favored the way the Pregnancy Center of Plant City operated. He said that its crisis pregnancy counselors encourage "the young women to choose life" and that its executive director raises money without asking for county help.
......Castor said that Hillsborough had $8-million to give to nonprofit groups.
"Their request," she said, "was one of the more modest."
Previously, Ronda has suggested that the working poor obtain birth control so that those pesky little babies stop falling out of financially challenged uteri. Now she is responsible for de-funding a program that encourages kids to think and act responsibly.
I honestly think that some stray shards of glass may have migrated north from her scarred and bloody elbows and become lodged firmly in her fundamentally flawed brain.
Storms said she has worked $2.01-an-hour jobs in her life, spent nights at Salvation Army and lived in her car. But she worked and put herself through school, she said, “crawled across glass on my elbows.
No comment
Pastor Accused Of Using Church PC For Child Porn
A pastor has been accused of downloading child pornography using his church's Internet connection, authorities said.
The Rev. Eric Michel Young, of Fort Caroline United Methodist Church in Jacksonville, was arrested Friday and charged with possessing any photo or representation that includes sexual conduct by a child younger than 18.
The arrest followed a two- week investigation by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and federal agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Secret Service.
According to authorities, Young was known online as ``Eric the Awful'' and ``Master Rick'' and made a habit of downloading child pornography.
The 700 Club commends this Jacksonville, Florida, church for showing their youth the love of Christ in a unique and teen-centered way.
Domestic terrorists ignored
A good piece in the PB Post on the state of abortions in Florida. The article touches briefly on the fact that big cities are becoming the only places where obtaining an abortion is possible. This puts an incredible burden on rural dwellers who must take time off of work, possibly putting their job at risk, to travel across the state, bearing the cost of transportation and hotels and being forced to undergo the procedure away from the support of family and friends.
Florida has lost over 50 percent of its licensed abortion providers since 1990.
You should really read the whole piece and not just the excerpts here about terrorism – I've left out huge swaths of information.
Florida 'hot spot' for foes of abortion
Kathy Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, acknowledged that the drop of violent attacks is significant. In the mid-1990s, 52 percent of clinics reported violent attacks, that number dropped to about 23 percent during the last several years. But, she said, it is still way too high.
"Imagine if 23 percent of banks were being robbed," Spillar said. "We would declare a state of emergency."
But, she said, because the attacks are aimed at clinics that provide health care for women the ongoing violence isn't taken seriously.
For years, she said, her organization has pushed for the FBI to classify the attacks as domestic terrorism.
"Too often law enforcement wants to portray it as an isolated incident," Spillar said. "But this is terrorism. It's targeted and it's meant to terrorize. If you don't go after the network that is recruiting, training and funding these extremists, you'll never get to the bottom of it."
Florida clinics are clearly a target. She said it's telling that no arrests have been made in connection with arsonists that hit three Florida clinics, including ones in Lake Worth and Fort Pierce.
And though Planned Parenthood notes that it has not crumbled under pressure and has closed no clinics that provide abortion during the past decade, other abortion providers are extremely wary of even talking about it.
Few clinic owners would comment for this story. One asked, "Pretend I fell off the face of this earth." She didn't want protesters to think she's "running scared, but these people aren't going to let you live."
Others freely discussed security measures, such as cameras and security patrols, but declined to give out their names.
Dr. Ali Azima, who performed abortions at the Venice Women's Health Clinic when it was firebombed and destroyed in 1993, says he's since had his car vandalized and his name placed on a hit list-style Web site.
"You would not believe how many car tires I've had to buy," he said Wednesday. "You can be pro-life if you want to be, but you can't harass people and set fires."
Terrorists force closure of last Palm Beach clinic
Federal agents looking into abortion clinic fire
Federal investigators are looking into a fire that damaged an abortion clinic where protesters have staged weekly demonstrations for more than a decade.
The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined local authorities in investigating the Monday night blaze at the Presidential Women's Clinic.
No one was in the building during the fire and no injuries were reported. There was moderate smoke, fire and water damage, Fire Department spokesman Phil Kaplan said.
It appeared that lighter fluid or a similar accelerant was used to start the blaze, Kaplan said.
Two months ago, authorities investigated an arson attempt at the clinic.
Helen Reid, vice president of public policy for Planned Parenthood of the Palm Beach and Treasure Coast, called on city officials to address the repeated incidents.
"How are they going to protect the citizens of West Palm Beach to make sure anyone who enters any health care facility feels safe? Because the environment in Florida right now has gotten out of hand," Reid said.
The clinic is Palm Beach County's only remaining abortion provider.
"It was an act of terrorism, an act of arson that did a great deal of damage," said Lou Silber, the center's attorney. "This is not going to close us down. We are going to open up as soon as possible and provide women medical services."
As long as the center's doors remain closed, women who have no medical insurance or who need services — such as abortions — that some private doctors won't provide will have to head to Broward County or to Fort Pierce, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Kathleen Mahoney said.
"Presidential is it," Mahoney said.
"They get referrals from just about everywhere in the state," said Dr. Frank Rodriguez, an OB/GYN who has referred patients to the clinic. "People come from out of state and out of the country to that place because they provide a lot of decent care."
.........Florida has a long history of violence against clinics and those who work in them.
In 2003, Paul Hill was executed for the 1994 murder of a Pensacola doctor and his escort outside a clinic. A year earlier, another Pensacola doctor was murdered. The murders prompted the city to adopt the buffer zone.
In the late 1990s, 10 clinics from Orlando to Miami were the targets of acid attacks in a seven-day stretch.
Happy 4th
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would to-day pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, 'are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the every-day practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
Frederick Douglass - What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? Extract from an Oration, at Rochester, July 5, 1852
Palm Beach Pol calls bullshit on Jeb!
Gov. Jeb Bush made clear his opposition to using embryonic stem cells for medical research as scientists gathering Tuesday for the world's largest biotechnology convention said stem cells could provide cures for a variety of diseases.
"I think taking a life to create a life is a huge contradiction morally," Bush said during a visit to BIO 2005.
Bush said Florida would not devote taxpayer money to stem-cell research on his watch and that The Scripps Research Institute would not experiment with embryonic stem cells at its Palm Beach County campus.
......Bush, who personally lured world-renowned Scripps to Florida, came to Philadelphia to pitch the state to the thousands of visiting biotech company executives and venture capitalists.
......Meanwhile, stem-cell research has become increasingly divisive.
In spite of opposition from the Bush brothers and religious leaders, polls show most Americans support embryonic stem-cell research, said Alan Lewis, president of Celgene San Diego.
Even the Republican party is split on the issue. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, supported his state's stem-cell bond issue.
New Jersey is spending $11.5 million to support stem-cell research, while Wisconsin, Illinois and Connecticut have proposed spending millions more. Some openly worry that those biotech-friendly states could leap far ahead of other parts of the country, including Florida.
Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson wants to change Florida's constitution to protect embryonic stem cell research, after Gov. Jeb Bush said he opposes using public funds for such inquiry.
"I am not prepared to sit idly by while the Governor dictates what research Scripps can and cannot do at its new home in Palm Beach County," Aaronson said. "This is like luring a prize fighter into the ring but tying one arm behind his back."
St. Pete NAACP joins chorus of tolerance
Uncle Tom Scott, the only black person on the Hillsborough BOCC, was happy to second Ronda Storms' declaration of war against gays. Uncle Tom says that he is not a bigot, and besides, even if he is, it's not the as bad as slavery.
Thankfully, Thomas Scott does not speak for the St. Petersburg NAACP.
We want you to know that we stand with you in your courageous fight against bigotry and prejudice.
The actions taken by the Hillsborough County Commission are an affront to us all who are actively fighting against racism, anti-Semitism, bigotry and injustice.
Institutional bigotry reminds us of a time not long ago when institutionalized racism was the order of the day in St. Petersburg and throughout the Southern state. It was only tthrough the efforts of decent men and women that we finally changed the hearts and minds of most people throughout the entire country. The struggle is still not over, hence we want you to know, and the Hillsborough Commissioners to know that bigotry has no place to hide anymore and that the dark shadows of injustice will be exposed to a new light of day throughout all of Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties.
Darryl Rouson, President
Trenia Cox, 1st Vice President
Harry Harvey, 2nd Vice President
Norman Brown, 3rd Vice President
Herb Snitzer, Chair, Press
So, where's Tampa's NAACP on this issue?
Also see:
NAACP unit decries vote on gay pride
Some cities give pride a capital P, for popular
Storms Irate At Gay Flier At A Library
Disagreeing with the gay lifestyle doesn't equal intolerance
Businesses fight for fairness
The fallout from Hillsborough's homophobia continues.
Last time there was a fight like this in Tampa, back in the 1990's, the Chamber of Commerce was among the groups supporting equal rights for all, so it's not surprising to see businesses of all types stepping up and proclaiming the wrongheadedness of a policy that will accomplish absolutely nothing and that may well spark an economic boycott and further this area's growing reputation as a backward, fearful region ruled by superstitious moralizing fools.
The Democratic Party would do well to use this as a wedge issue with the moderate fiscal conservative types who are open minded and realistic enough to see the huge economic downside to alienating a group of people in which (pdf link)
97% Took vacations in the past 12 months (national average is 64%)
86% Took at least one short (1-3 nights) US domestic vacations, 46% took 3 or more short (1-3 nights) US domestic vacations
81% Took at least one long (4+ nights) domestic US vacation; 50% took 2 or more long US vacations
82% Spent 5+ nights in hotels
72% Rented cars, 18% with 15+ days of car rentals
20% Took at least one cruise (national average is about 2%)
40% Traveled on business, and 57% of those book known “gay friendly” airlines, hotels, etc. when on business trips
36% of those who traveled on business flew first class; 39% flew in business class; 47% spent 11 or more nights in hotels
76% have household incomes above the national average ($40,000+)
30% have household incomes of $100,000+
84% Hold a valid passport (national average is 29%)
67% Belong to frequent flyer programs (national average is about 25%)
53% Spent $5,000 or more per person on vacations in the past year
32% Plan to increase their vacation spending in the coming year; only 16% indicated a planned decrease
Only 7% reduced travel over the past year due to terrorism/security concerns, and only 3% due to SARS
82% Are college/university graduates (national average is 29%)
72% of those who took the 2003 survey are gay male, 23% are lesbian; 61% are in a committed relationship; 5% have children at home
55% Hold professional/executive/management positions
An economic boycott is called for and likely to happen. Ronda Storms and her bootlicking lackeys will be responsible for lost jobs, lost revenue, and maybe even a lost Super Bowl, thus pissing off workers, sports fans, and the business community.
On Monday night, in a small room down the hall from a church sanctuary draped in rainbow banners, several dozen business people, some gay, some straight, flexed muscles in the growing fight over the Hillsborough County Commission's ban on promoting gay pride.
A lesbian financial planner vowed to contact Jay Feaster, the Tampa Bay Lightning general manager.
"I go to his church, St. Stephen's Catholic in Valrico," said Catherine F. James, controller of Priority One Financial Services.
A gay clothing store owner, some of whose customers play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, said he'd try to work them for access to owner Malcolm Glazer.
Michael Brill, an associate vice president at Raymond James, said he made it clear to his co-workers that "if you're working with people who discriminate against me, then don't come to me for help. They need to know how upset we are."
Moral outrage has driven opposition to the commission's 5-1 vote that requires government to "abstain from acknowledging, promoting or participating in gay pride events."
But in the wider business community, the outrage is linked to a fear that the region's economy may have been irreparably harmed.
"What happens when we don't have the Super Bowl here?" said Scott Farrell, a Tampa lawyer who is running for the congressional seat that Jim Davis will vacate. "Don't kid yourself. It could happen.
"That's a language that people understand," Farrell told the business people, part of a 700-strong gathering at Metropolitan Community Church on Monday. "They're not buying the human rights/civil rights issue, but they do understand economics."
......Hillsborough Commissioner Mark Sharpe, who ran for his commission seat on a probusiness platform, was among those who voted in favor of the measure last week.
He said Tuesday he didn't think the plan would have any impact on the business community.
"I wouldn't do anything that would harm our ability to compete economically," he said.
Some business leaders aren't so sure.
"It sends a terrible message both inside and outside the community," said Peter Kageyama, 40, president of CreativeTampaBay Inc., a nonprofit grass-roots group dedicated to promoting economic and community development. "This is the stuff companies find absolutely repugnant. "Why would I want to bring myself or my company there?' "
......Ben Wacksman, president and CEO of Capital Realty Investors LLC, said Monday, "Lifestyle is more important now than tax incentives to relocating companies."
A former Hillsborough County commissioner, Wacksman is a current member of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce's board of directors, which will meet Thursday. "The chamber needs to take a leadership role in seeing that our community is seen as tolerant and inclusive," he said.
Mark Sharpe was elected last year on a pro-business platform.
There's Sharpe, the Republican Party favorite who supports lower impact fees and other business incentives to build a "strong economic engine" in Hillsborough County. He said his priority as commissioner would be luring new companies and businesses to the area, and helping the ones already here.
Did he even consider the impact this policy might have on local business, or is he so cowed by the wicked witch that he simply flew after the friends of Dorothy on the evil one's command?
