“Witness to Evil,”
Aug. 5, 2004
The story: Pinellas Park electrician Kerim Mesanovic survived the brutal Omarska prison camp during the ethnic cataclysm of the early ’90s that broke up Yugoslavia. Three times in 2003 and 2004, Mesanovic testified at The Hague against former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and other alleged war criminals believed responsible for the deaths of thousands in the Balkan region.
What happened next: Resolution has been a scarce commodity both for Mesanovic and for those he testified against. Milosevic’s inconstant trial is tottering toward its fourth year, with the ailing former leader in charge of his own defense. The first witness has yet to be called in the trial of the Omarska commander, Zeljko Mejakic, two years after his arrest. The International Criminal Tribunal has referred his case to Bosnia, and Mesanovic says he expects to return to testify despite concerns that he could be in physical jeopardy there.
Mesanovic still has not come to terms with the horror he experienced in his two months at Omarska. Outwardly living a good life surrounded by friends and family, he confesses that “deeper in my soul something is different. I never gonna forget what happened.” He’s still beset by nightmares about the blood and the beatings, but the normality of his waking life, Mesanovic says, is a “guarantee for my mental life.”
He isn’t concerned about the slow pace of justice. Milosevich is 64, and Mesanovic feels even 10 years in prison would leave the despot deep in the twilight of life. The future is brighter for Mesanovic. Next spring, he and his wife Nada will raise their hands, recite an oath and become U.S. citizens.
Melvin Baker
“Calling Dr. Vegas,” March 30, 2005
The story: Vegas Brown, a USF med student, faced the excruciating Match Day process, which determined where he’d spend the next several years of his life. The graduating class gathered at Skipper’s Smokehouse to find out where they would complete their residencies. Vegas, a Sarasota native, hoped to stay at USF. But the computer had other ideas. Vegas Brown was headed to … Detroit.
What happened next: Vegas spent a week with his family, then went north to Sinai Grace Hospital in the Motor City. When I caught up with him by phone in early December, he was grocery shopping in between shifts at the hospital. The 80-hour weeks have been rough, he said, and the cold is brutal.
So far, Vegas hasn’t spent much time in the emergency room (he wants to be an ER physician), but his turn in the rotation is coming up, and he’s looking forward to seeing some action.
As for his new hometown, Vegas had few complaints, aside from all the Pistons fans. (He’s a die-hard Heat man himself.) And he misses his family, the folks who were so proud of him last March. “I probably won’t see them again until April,” he said. “That’s the biggest challenge for me. Not being in Florida isn’t that tough.”
Max Linsky
“Hope, Organic Style,” May 25, 2005
The story: In December 2004, Esther Morris was given five years to live. Doctors diagnosed the 72-year-old Atlantan with stage IV — the most severe — metastasized breast cancer and recommended chemotherapy. But having watched family and friends suffer and die during the stringent treatment, Esther refused. At the beginning of this year she chose to undergo Gerson therapy, a philosophy developed by German physician Max Gerson in the 1920s. The therapy pushes an organic, low-fat, low-sodium diet supplemented by minerals and coffee enemas. Gerson believed the regimen could repair damaged cells and detoxify the body, curing, among other diseases, cancer. Despite anecdotal testimonies praising the diet, prominent cancer facilities and organizations, including the American Cancer Society, have denounced the treatment. But Esther rebuked such notions and started the diet — consuming almost 20 pounds of organic food, swallowing more than 40 pills and performing four coffee enemas per day.
What happened next: In June, six months after starting the Gerson therapy, Esther underwent a petscan that revealed the cancer lumps in her lungs and neck area had multiplied and increased in activity. Despite the ominous news, Esther continued the diet. But two weeks ago, after another petscan in November revealed the same verdict, Esther decided to start a mild dose of chemotherapy — two four-hour sessions a week.
“I wanted to take a more rigorous approach,” Esther says. “It couldn’t hurt to at least try chemo for a bit.”
She says the chemotherapy has made her tired and has caused her to slightly lose her voice. But her new doctor allows her, she says, to continue the Gerson diet. He has asked her, however, to add protein into her regimen. Gerson advocates claim cancer feeds off protein, but Esther says her doctor argues that protein helps the body repair and renew itself.
By the end of this year, Esther will have consumed approximately 7,300 pounds of organic food, used about 1,400 rolls of toilet paper and spent more than $15,000 on grocery bills.
“Overall, I’m feeling pretty good,” she says. “I’m still able to see plays and visit my friends. I’m not slowing down yet.”
Alyssa Abkowitz
“Save Paradise,” June 1, 2005
The story: In the downtown Tampa office building boom of the 1980s, an international masterpiece of landscape architecture was quietly born: the NCNB Plaza Park, next to the so-called “beer can building” on Ashley. A network of geometric forms, canals and reflecting pools, the park mirrored the mathematical formula of the adjacent structure. But almost immediately upon construction, it was forgotten — by the public and by its owner, the City of Tampa. The water features leaked into the parking garage below and were eventually ripped out, while the crape myrtle became overgrown.
The park was slated for demolition as part of a new Tampa Museum of Art design. But when those plans fell through, a group of architects, landscape architects and urban space advocates rediscovered the gem, which was designed by the late Dan Kiley, widely recognized as among the great landscape architects of the past 50 years.
What happened next: The gardens’ supporters formed a nonprofit group and created a website, www.kileygardens.org. After the Planet cover story, the New York Times featured it as well. Publicity about the significance of Kiley’s work spurred a previously noncommittal Mayor Pam Iorio to promise the gardens wouldn’t be demolished.
Today, the gardens look better, thanks to monthly cleanups by the Friends of Kiley Gardens. One of the park’s leading advocates, Sarasota landscape architect Sue Thompson, has received national recognition for her advocacy on the project. The two young Tampa architects who were pictured on the Planet’s cover, Philip Crosby and Chris Vela, won a “President’s Award” from the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Anne Vela, Chris’ wife, who heads up the Friends of Kiley Gardens, said supporters envision a restored place of contemplation that could be used by artists for sales and display on weekends. Whether it will reach that goal remains to be seen.
Wayne Garcia
Urban Explorer: “Royal Majesty,” June 1, 2005
The story: Dick Ponce’s Central Avenue typewriter shop looked like a relic, but the door was always open, the neon “Open” sign always illuminated. So we spent a day with the ball-busting typewriter man, learning about the old machines and about a sense of pride you just don’t find much anymore.
What happened next: After 43 years in business, Ponce closed his shop Jan. 1. “I was getting tired of it,” Ponce says. “And the market is terrible. People are cheap.”
In June, he told us he’d keep working until he couldn’t walk. “If I retire, what am I going to do — go home and watch TV? Bullshit,” he said then. But it’s time to hang up the ink and keyboards. “I’m happy,” he says. “It’s time to just fool around and do nothing.”
Max Linsky
“The Free Way,” June 8, 2005
The story: I spent six days living for free in downtown St. Petersburg, not allowed to spend a penny. I slept in my car, traded my blood for fruit juice and snuck into movies to kill time. And, when that not-so-fresh feeling got to be too much to bear, I showered at the USF-St. Pete fitness center.
What happened next: I got a slew of e-mails from folks who had also lived in their cars and scammed meals, though most of them hadn’t done so by choice. I also got a letter from a student at USF, who said that there had been some changes at the gym. In the wake of the story, the fitness center staff was re-trained, assigned to rigorously check IDs, and a new gate was installed.
According to Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Charles Brown, the story hit at an interesting time for the university. USF-St. Pete’s campus is growing just as fast as downtown St. Petersburg — the first dorm will open next fall — and the school is trying to balance being part of the wider community with keeping the campus safe.
Brown says that the plans for the gate were in place months before the Planet story hit, but having the gym featured in a story about scamming made the school “push a little harder” to beef up security.
Still, Brown is committed to keeping USF a resource for the wider community. “We don’t want to create a police state,” he says. “We want this to be an open, vibrant campus.”
And they want me to find somewhere else to bathe.
Max Linsky
“The Skeleton Crew,” July 13, 2005
The story: For the first time ever, the City of Tampa forked over unused space for artists to set up a gallery, rent-free. The old baggage building at the Amtrak train station near Channelside, a rustic space with no air conditioning or plumbing, was taken over by the Experimental Skeleton arts collective and turned into a gallery called Flight 19. The set-up was brokered by the city’s Manager of Creative Industries, Paul Wilborn, and artist/Experimental Skeleton head Joe Griffith. The collective moved in knowing that their sweet deal could end at any moment if the city found a paying tenant.
What happened next: Flight 19 has flourished. “The place is a madhouse,” says Experimental Skeleton member Bob Dorsey. “There’s so much going on there. We close one show and open up another.”
It’s one thing for a gallery to put on shows, quite another for it to catch on with the public.
So far, so good. Dorsey says, “It seems like people were waiting for Experimental Skeleton to get back in gear, because they sure are showing it with their attendance.”
Flight 19 has not been a vanity project for Experimental Skeleton members. The gallery has housed the Post Industrial Carnival, featuring USF artists, and another show, Stickyback, that showcased a growing array of sticker art and graffiti-style posters. “It’s kind of guerrilla-style,” Dorsey says. “You have artists coming through there during gallery hours tagging other people’s work. It’s been a lot of fun.”
For more detail on Flight 19 programming, go to www.experimentalskeleton.com.
Eric Snider
“Can This Donkey Be Saved?” July 20, 2005
The story: Although dominant for years and through the start of the 1990s, the Democratic Party in Tampa has hit the skids. It lost control of the County Commission, which has now swung wildly in the direction of right-wing Christian politics. It has only two major officeholders elected countywide. And its current party chairwoman, Janeé Murphy, has proven a controversial and divisive figure unable to pull the disparate factions of her party together and outwork, outthink and outlast her Republican rivals. The Planet’s cover story, written by WMNF’s Mitch Perry, chronicled the fall of the local Democrats. It didn’t help that the account included allegations by the party’s local vice-chairman that Murphy didn’t have a tight rein on party finances, misused a party credit card and failed to raise money or recruit quality candidates.
What happened next: After the Planet’s story was published, all hell broke loose. Intraparty fighting came to a head at a Democratic Executive Committee meeting in September. Its credentials committee cleared Murphy of the charges against her (a conclusion that dissident members still disagree with) despite finding in at least one case she hadn’t complied with financial rules. Then Murphy told a stunned crowd that she was resigning. Within days, however, she rescinded her resignation, and her loyalists on the committee initiated an investigation of Vice Chairman Bob Keenan, whose complaints about Murphy started the ball rolling. Keenan is awaiting a date for his appeal of the local party’s investigation; the local treasurer has resigned; and the head of the credentials committee that investigated Murphy has done likewise. The party remains split.
Wayne Garcia
“Saturday Night Live,” Aug. 17, 2005
The story: Anti-war protesters were just about to stop their weekly vigils at BayWalk in downtown St. Petersburg when a story appeared in the St. Petersburg Times. The gist: BayWalk’s owner, the Sembler Co., had discussed taking ownership of the sidewalks from the city, allowing it to get rid of the protesters.
The gatherings, which had shrunk to about a dozen people, ballooned to more than 100. The Aug. 6 arrest of a 13-year-old boy on trespassing charges (and the subsequent jailing of others who objected to that arrest) further heightened the drama.
The city also erected metal bike barricades to shunt protesters to either side of the BayWalk entrance. Within two weeks, St. Petersburg police were giving traffic tickets to motorists who honked their horns in solidarity with the sign-wavers.
What happened next: Things are calmer now on Saturday nights at BayWalk. A sort of unofficial truce exists, after ACLU lawyers met with the city attorney and police chief. No more arrests. No more citations. No more barricades. St. Pete for Peace still holds vigils every other week or so, but it has also branched out to other locations.
Legal battles continue, however.
“What we’re doing is clean-up stuff now,” said Mark Kamleiter, a St. Petersburg lawyer working on the cases for the ACLU. One protest organizer pleaded no contest to failing to obey a lawful police order and paid a $300 fine. Michael O’Neill, 33, faces a Jan. 10 trial on trespassing charges, and Kamleiter said his client is innocent and will fight the allegations. A third person arrested, James R. Dunson, 21, has pleaded not guilty to obstructing or resisting an officer without violence and failing to obey a lawful police order. As for the teen whose arrest sparked the others? Kamleiter said prosecutors chose not to charge him.
And what about those silly traffic tickets for blowing horns? Well, says Kamleiter, Pinellas County Judge William H. Overton ruled that state law allows tapping your horn only in cases of emergency. He fined the horn scofflaws and withheld adjudication; Kamleiter has appealed three of those cases to circuit court on constitutional and free speech grounds.
Wayne Garcia
“The Bipartisan Screw Job” Aug. 24, 2005
The Story: Nowhere is Florida’s out-of-whack system of redrawing political boundaries more evident than in the winding gerrymander that is Congressional District 11 in Tampa Bay. From north Tampa through Temple Terrace to Bradenton and back up over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to south St. Petersburg, the district was drawn to drain black voters out of formerly solid Democratic districts surrounding it. A growing movement seeks to put a referendum before voters in 2006 that would give the power of reapportionment to an independent citizens commission and call for a more common-sense redrawing of the lines.
What happened next: Supporters hit a bump in the road when a St. Petersburg Times reporter counted the number of words in each of their three proposed constitutional amendments and found that one of them was six words over the 75-word limit. So out the window went that draft and the hundreds of thousands of signed petitions that supported putting it to a vote.
Two constitutional amendments remain, and they would be enough to get the job done, supporters say. As of mid-December, nearly 735,000 signatures had been collected, closing in on the goal of 750,000 petitions signed by the end of this year.
If the coalition is successful, it still faces hurdles: First, the Florida Supreme Court will review the wording of the proposals and could rule them off the ballot. The Florida House of Representatives has already voted to spend $50,000 in public funds to fight it in court. Second, it will meet stiff opposition from the Republican Party, which is already closely monitoring the redistricting effort.
Then there’s the third, and perhaps biggest, hurdle: Florida’s voters. Earlier this year, two similar redistricting reform plans went down in flames in front of voters in California and Ohio.
Wayne Garcia
Urban Explorer: “Get Real,” Sept. 4, 2005
The story: We went back to school for the first week of classes at USF with adjunct English professor Alex Duensing, who livened up his composition and creative writing classes by asking his students to design their own realities.
What happened next: Duensing’s reality changed. He hasn’t been rehired to teach composition in the spring. (He’ll still teach two creative writing classes, though.) Director of Composition Joe Moxley wouldn’t say why he didn’t re-hire the professor, but Duensing believes it has something to do with his propensity to hand out A’s. “The students are here to learn, not to know,” says Duensing, who admits some kids might have taken his classes after hearing about his grading habits. “I reward their effort — I want them to be writers for the rest of their lives.”
Unfortunately, his students haven’t been able to write much on wikipedia.org, an assignment detailed in the Planet story. Duensing’s idea — remember, we’re talking about reality design here — was to have students make up words, write definitions, and post their creations on the Internet encyclopedia. Duensing named the practice “wikilexing” and was sure it would catch on.
But Wikipedia devotees had other ideas. Apparently there are strict posting rules, namely that entries can’t be made up. Once Duensing’s idea was detailed in these pages, a flurry of comments were posted on the site, and his assignment never moved beyond the theoretical. “When I said it was going to explode?” Duensing says. “Yeah — wrong explosion.”
His class load may be cut in half, but Duensing’s not done. “I’m really not that depressed,” he says. “Teaching creative writing is more conducive for what I do anyway.”
He’s branching out of the classroom, too. Duensing says he’s planning to launch a massive multiplayer video game that will construct an entire virtual world, putting The Sims to shame. “We’ve got the simulations down,” he says. “Now it’s time to cross over into real-life applications.”
Assuming we know what’s real, that is.
Max Linsky
“Taking the Helm,” Oct. 19, 2005
The story: From the minute Ed Helm threw himself into St. Petersburg’s mayoral race (which happened to be the last possible minute he could’ve filed the paperwork), nobody gave him a shot. He was up against a powerful incumbent with the support of the powerful daily newspaper and had little in the way of finances or name recognition. Still, Ed Helm thought he had a chance.
What happened next: He didn’t. Helm got only 30 percent of the vote, a verifiable shellacking. After three months of neighborhood meeting appearances and canvassing, Helm was exhausted by Election Day. But as he stood at polling station 105, the most liberal in the city, things seemed to be going well. “I thought I was winning 2-1,” he says now. “In fact, the results were the opposite.”
A retired U.S. Department of Labor attorney, Helm is considering “dusting off [his] lawyer’s hat” and working on issues through the legal system. Seems like a good idea — Helm wouldn’t run again, would he?
“That,” he says, “remains to be seen.”
Max Linsky
For a PDF copy of any of the above stories, send an e-mail with the story name in the subject line to: kelli@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Jan 4-10, 2006.
