Tallahassee Democrat Thursday, April 2, 2009/11A

www.TALLAHASSEE.com

Zing! wishes
for a super
contract

Local Conversation

West isnt too thrilled, either.

Write P.O. Box 990, Tallahassee,
FL 32301, or e-mail zing@
tallahassee.com. And you can
add your comments to Zing! at
Tallahassee.com.

Big Read
Each day,
look for
an excerpt
from Ray
Bradburys
Fahrenheit
451, the book chosen
for Leon Countys community read.
Do you ever read any
of the books you burn?
He laughed. Thats
against the law! Oh. Of
course.
Check out the Big Read
blog at Tallahassee.com/
BigRead.

Mary Ann Lindley, Editorial Page

Editor: 599-2178,
mlindley@tallahassee.com

kEEP TALkiNg
n Go to Tallahassee.
com to comment on Bob
Gabordis blog and keep
the conversation going.

Readers opinions
stated succinctly
n $31 million for John
Calipari, $42 million
for Chipper Jones
wheres the outrage? Oh,
thats right, theyre athletes not businessmen.
n The Detroit Tigers cut
Gary Sheffield and he
walks away with $14 million. Wonder if the feds
will void that contract
and spread the money
around to the needy.
n $23 million retirement
for GMs Rick Wagoner?
Thats more than Porter
Wagoner earned during
his entire career!
n There must be some
confusion
about
the name
Indian
Head
Acres;
it is not the Indianapolis
Speedway.
n Thanks to TPD for
working the Magnolia
Drive/Park Avenue area
recently. Please come
back soon for another
profitable day.
n Why not transfer the
sheriff and leave the FHP
guys alone?
n Cant wait for the
gridlock going to and
returning from FSU home
games once Gaines
Street is no longer an
option.
n When is this rain going
to stop? My chocolate
lab will not go outside
because he thinks he
will melt.
n The Wicked Witch of the

CONTACT US

Featured Blog

Big news in
search for
grandfather

the development and production

of renewable energy technologies, the term clean displaces
them with nuclear power. To be
perfectly clear, a Clean Energy
Portfolio Standard is one that
is geared toward bolstering
nuclear energy production in
the place of renewable energy
production in Florida.
In juxtaposition, Floridas
executive leaders support the
development and production
of natural, renewable energy
resources. Gov. Charlie Crist
has stood shoulder to shoulder
with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California to push policies to establish Florida as the
Southeastern leader in renewable energy. Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Bronson was
one of the first to sign up for the
25x25 Campaign a national
campaign to have 25 percent of
our energy produced from natural renewable resources by the
year 2025. Both gentlemen have
walked the talk. Gov. Crist and
Commissioner Bronson provided
leadership by bringing hundreds
of renewable energy entrepreneurs to Florida through the
annual Climate Change Summit

bout 9:30 Tuesday

night, a message
popped into my
Facebook inbox telling
me when
and how my
grandfather
died.
He was
walking
along Lan- Bob gabordi
dis Avenue,
Executive
and a car
Editor
hit him.
The man
in the car was arrested,
and he told police that
a light from another
car blinded his vision
momentarily, and he
heard a noise, and
stopped, and went back
and saw your grandfather on the street. He
was rushed to the hospital, but he had a skull
fracture.
The date was Dec. 26,
1930, in Vineland, N.J.
He and his 16-year-old
bride had a 6-month-old
baby boy at home, my
father.
Ive learned a lot
about my familys history since writing a blog
about the mysterious
death of my grandfather. There were several family versions of
his death, and none of
us had ever found his
grave.
The message I got last
night was from a Facebook friend. Her mother-in-law and I share a
distant relative, a great
aunt.
My friend works for
the Vineland Historical
and Antiquarian Society.
She was able to find a
newspaper story about
my grandfathers death.
My friend ended her
e-mail with this:
Im sorry you never
got to meet him. :(
Im sorry, too.
Weve still not found
his grave, and well

Please see DOBSON, 14A

Please see gABORDi, 14A

John Darkow / Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri

Dont lose chance to be

a leader in renewables
F

lorida has a chance to lead,

but not today.
In 2008, the Florida
Legislature directed the Florida
Public Service Commission (PSC) to
develop rules for a
Renewable Energy
Portfolio Standard
(RPS) for passage
during the 2009
Michael
legislative sesDobson
sion. An RPS is a
policy that requires My View
power generated by
Floridas investor-owned utilities to include a certain amount
of renewable energy resources
by a certain date. The PSC has
asked that 20 percent of all electric generation be from renewable energy resources by 2020.
This standard allows us to use
our abundant sun and robust
agricultural industry to create
energy.
Simply establishing an RPS
will make Florida the leader
in the Southeast, which is not
on the map when it comes to a
reliable renewable energy policy.
A vibrant renewable energy
industry and a green jobs
revolution are, without exception, already under way in the
29 states that have adopted a

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

n Michael Dobson is president
and CEO of the Florida Renewable
Energy Producers Association,
which is based in Tallahassee.
Contact him at michael@mail.
floridaenergyproducers.com.

mantatory RPS. Meeting energy

needs with native renewables
instead of conventional fuels
from out of state keeps jobs and
dollars in state and strengthens
Floridas economy.
The Legislature may very
well pass up this opportunity in
lieu of a policy that replaces the
phrase renewable energy with
clean energy. Tuesday, the Senate Communications and Public
Utilities Committee passed
SB 1154, which does just that.
While this bill moves us forward,
developing a public benefits fund
to be collected from a gas tax
and possible federal stimulus
dollars, the onerous and glaring
portion of the bill is the allowing of nuclear to intrude upon
renewable energy. While such a
proposal may seem inconsequential, it has serious implications
for Floridas green energy future.
Instead of an RPS that increases

We (mostly) celebrate 30 years of cameras in court

D

uring the 36 days

of courtroom
drama and street
theater after the 2000
presidential
election,
somebody
took a
huge aerial
photograph
of the
Bill Cotterell
mob scene
between the Capitol
Capitol and Curmudgeon
the Florida
Supreme Court, showing
the giant TV trucks and
satellite dishes lining
Duval Street.
Somebody else Photoshopped the picture so
that the network trucks
were labelled Maybelline and Max Factor
and Revlon, e-mailing
it around town as a shot
of Secretary of State
Katherine Harris weekly
makeup delivery. But the
camera really doesnt lie,
unless we make it.
This month, there
will be a special exhibit
in the rotunda of our
Supreme Court, marking
the 30th anniversary of
its decision that permitted all that live coverage
of Tallahassees moment
on the world stage. Its

hard to imagine, now,

that having cameras in
courtrooms was controversial. Opening the
daily dealings of the judiciary to public viewing
has been a big success.
But there was good
reason for skepticism at
the time. The press has
periodically disgraced
itself in big trials, from
the Lindbergh baby
kidnapping to Dr. Sam
Sheppard to O.J. Simpson. We will piously
invoke the First Amendments guarantee of
press freedom, as if it
trumps the Sixth Amendments assurance that
the accused will have an
impartial jury.
Probably not many
wrongly convicted
inmates sit around their
cells, thinking, Well, I
was railroaded by press
hysteria, but at least the
publics right to know
was protected.
The equipment used
to be big and loudly
intrusive, not to mention the people operating it. In the Lindbergh
case, before television, a
camera was a single-shot
Speed Graphic with flash
bulbs that sometimes

While the fear that cameras would cause

unseemly courtroom antics has proved
groundless, so has the hope that they would
improve public understanding of the judicial
branch.
exploded. Broadcasting was a dozen radio
guys one-upping each
other with breathless
accounts of the evidence
and shouting questions
to witnesses, whether the
jury was within earshot
or not.
About the same time
Florida acted, I was on
an advisory committee
to the Georgia Supreme
Court on cameras and,
despite my open-everything prejudice, it wasnt
as simple as it seemed.
By then, photographers
could compensate for
not using a flash, but a
motor-driven Nikon (the
preferred 35 mm camera
at most newspapers)
sounded like an adding
machine, whirring and
clicking.
Now, its digital and
almost soundless. The
Supreme Court has video
cameras, fore and aft,

that are remotely controlled for an impartial

online feed. Dugoutlevel still photography is
allowed, without flash.
One time, a rather
new editor asked me to
get some reaction comments from justices after
a big oral argument. I
explained that, unlike
the other two branches of
government, they dont
do interviews. And thats
important because, even
with cameras present,
the judges are in control
of decorum.
There was some fear
that attorneys, witnesses
and judges might mug
for the cameras. That
hasnt happened. There
are ambush interviews
on the steps and sidewalk shots of witnesses
walking away, but those
were common long before
cameras got inside.
Judges can protect vic-

tims, especially children,

or shut off the cameras
for a good, common-sense
cause. When necessary,
a speedy public trial
can be had with reporters carrying just pens
and notebooks, without
impairing the publics
right to know.
But while the fear
that cameras would
cause unseemly courtroom antics has proved
groundless, so has the
hope that they would
improve public understanding of the judiciary.
You can probably learn
more about the courts
from watching Law and
Order but, if TV and
movies are as accurate
about the legal system
as they are about newsrooms, thats probably
an unreliable source of
knowledge.
Its not the courts
fault. Its the medias
fault. The courts opened
themselves, and the
mass media cut and
spliced the information into clips for cable
TV shows with titles
containing the words
most shocking or most
amazing. You can watch
trials on Tru-TV (used

to be Court TV) during the day, but most of

prime time seems to be
filled with tapes of police
chases, jailhouse fights
and when they get
to court occasional
violent disruptions, with
crying victims shouting
at defendants or people
leaping the rail to punch
somebody.
The Florida state
courts showed remarkable wisdom, foresight
and courage 30 years
ago by breaking away
from the conventional
thinking that had barred
cameras from courtrooms
across the country for
more than four decades,
Chief Justice Peggy
Quince said in issuing a
proclamation marking
the 30th anniversary.
Unfortunately, the
federal courts are still
camera shy. You cant
even bring in a little digital audio recorder. With
most state courts operating in the Internet age,
it would be nice if their
federal overseers could
at least get into the late
70s.
n Contact Bill Cotterell at
(850) 671-6545 or bcotterell@
tallahassee.com.