This will be the last What Works column. I reserve the right to occasionally report on any program I run across that shows results in saving the lives and futures of African-American kids. But this is the last in the series I started 19 months ago to spotlight such programs.
Raise your hand if you actually believe that offshore oil drilling will bring down gasoline prices at the pump. Raise your other hand if you believe in Peter Pan, unicorns and variable-rate mortgages.
So here we go again. Time magazine, with breezy, near-sadistic delight, undertakes a lengthy survey of Florida's all-too-obvious troubles for the second time since 1981. And now some of us have got our sweaty Under Armours in a knot.
TO OUR READERS
Two elements in today's paper deserve special attention. One is a startling report on the front page about the role that convicted criminals are playing in Florida's mortgage troubles. The other is the first column by our new Metro columnist, Myriam Marquez.
MIAMI HERALD OMBUDSMAN
Many of you clearly care about The Miami Herald. Nearly 175 of you responded thoughtfully to my request for ideas on what content the paper should emphasize in an era of staff cuts. I can't reprint all of your responses, but following are representative excerpts. I hope the writers will understand that I edited their excerpts for space. All letters are being shared in full internally. Let's keep talking.
COMMENTARY
The U.S. Army has done something remarkable in its new history of the disastrous first 18 months of the American occupation of Iraq: It has conducted a rigorous self-critique of how bad decisions were made, so that the Army won't make them again.
When a suicide car bomb killed scores of people at the gate of the Indian Embassy in Kabul a few days ago, the shock waves reached Washington. The attack was a grim reminder that Pakistan's army and military intelligence are still more worried about archenemy India than about curbing militants in their own country. This poses a huge problem for Afghanistan -- and for the United States.
NORTHWESTERN HIGH GRADUATION
Deirdre Anderson wasn't sure she wanted to go to Northwestern High's graduation. She wasn't sure she wanted to revisit her pain. At the last minute, however, she changed her mind. She walked into the Jackie Gleason Theater on June 11, smiling, with her daughters and grandchild at her side.
OVERTOWN
When she hears gunshots, Eleanor Wilson gets on the phone. She calls each one of her family members. She doesn't stop until everyone responds.
VIOLENCE CLAIMING YOUNG BLACKS
In a small Miami-Dade courtroom, Arleen White stared at the man who killed her 15-year-old son, Anthony, and spoke of her pain -- and her gratitude to God:
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Success breeds separation. That's the thing no one tells you, the thing sometimes you don't realize, the thing that might make a child turn from his own potential. Success is like a pyramid, broad at the bottom, but narrow at the summit; the higher you go, the fewer people go with you.
COMMENTARY
When I was growing up in Colombia many years ago, kidnappings were already becoming common occurrences. The prospect of captivity was terrifying, even if the news of acquaintances and their families falling into that dreaded purgatory became less and less rare.
GUATEMALAN ADOPTIONS
The 24-year-old Guatemalan mother had already given up her baby once. Now, months later, the baby girl was back in her lap, smiling and playing with her mother's fingers.
Newly freed former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt said she began to realize a year ago that Colombia's largest guerrilla group was having troubles when supplies could no longer easily reach the jungle camp where she and other kidnapped hostages were held.
MIAMI HERALD OMBUDSMAN
One of the most treacherous stories for The Miami Herald to cover is Israel, not because of the wars and terrorism there, but because of the passions among readers here.
Martin Luther King's final campaign in Memphis was a march into a violent maelstrom of hatred and righteous defiance. Share your thoughts below on our coverage of the anniversary of the assassination and see what other readers are saying.
All bets are off in the Republican presidential primary. Frontrunners become underdogs, longshots become contenders, and the winner at the end of the race may come down to the candidate with the best timing.
Mike Huckabee would later write about that day in 1996 as his ``crucible moment.'' Jim Guy Tucker, the Democratic governor of Arkansas and a newly convicted felon, was reneging on his earlier pledge to resign. His I'm-staying-after-all phone call came as Huckabee, a Republican and then lieutenant governor, was rehearsing the speech he had planned for later that day, when he expected to become the state's chief executive.
He spoke out against putting dope dealers in federal prison, opposed a bill to crack down on child pornography and voted against the Iraq War. Then Ron Paul announced that he was running for president -- as a Republican.
When Mitt Romney was 14, Dwight D. Eisenhower came to his family's house for dinner. Ike had just finished his eight years as president -- it was around 1961 -- and he came because he knew Mitt's father, George, then the chairman of the American Motors Corp.
