INSIDE WEEK OF MARCH 29-APRIL 4, 2012 www.FloridaWeekly.com Vol. II, No. 25 • FREE PUTTING The Norton exposed THE BRAKES Museum displays old and new photographs. B1 w ON VIOLATORS Planning to park illegally BETTY WELLS / FLORIDA WEEKLY in a disabled spot? Palm Beach Gardens Police Capt. Tom Murphy, left, and volunteer Mike Molenda patrol parking lots throughout the city looking for It’s going to cost you. vehicles improperly parked in spaces designated for the disabled. BY TIM NORRIS [email protected] Parking violations by the numbers Networking n the engineering and emotion of parking, the ■ Nearly $104,000 was collected in 2011 in fines for See who’s out and about in most provocative zones wear blue. tickets in unincorporated Palm Beach County. Palm Beach County. A19-20 w I Two of these four distinct spaces here at Westwinds in south Palm Beach County, outlined ■ The fine for illegally parking in a handicapped spot in a familiar azure, posted with the unmistakable is $250, plus $86 in court fees. logo, a white wheelchair on a background of the same blue shade (Pantone Blue 294 or Permatone ■ Handicap placards and license plates in Florida DMS 293C, marketed now by some paint compa- increased from 439,896 in 2008 to 544,196 last year. nies as “handicap blue”) are vacant on this recent weekday morning. ■ A law set to take effect July 1 calls for random They almost crackle, though, with impending reviews of handicap parking permit-holders by the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles and easier drama. reporting of abuse online or by phone or mail. Handicap parking spaces invite emotions built through lifetimes. In the daily press of motor vehicles across Palm Beach County, some driv- No joke, it’s valuable ers and onlookers seeing the blue-marked spaces Some collectibles are sources simmer with righteous fervor; others cave to for April Fool’s jokes. A17 w temptation. SEE PARKING, A8 w Downtown at the Gardens to bloom big for spring event SPECIAL TO FLORIDA WEEKLY Spring will be busting out all over March 31 and April 1 at Downtown at the Gardens. Meet Chuckie It’s the mall’s annual “Downtown in Bloom”: Live entertain- ment, showcase gardens, gardening and landscaping seminars, a Can you give this Jack Russell kids’ zone for fun and education, a gardens market, rides on the Terrier mix a home? A6 w new train, a charity garden walk. And lots more. “It will be bigger and better than ever,” said Kendall Rumsey, marketing director for the mall. “It’s a wonderful spring event for Download the whole family. The showcase gardens are going to be spectacu- our FREE lar this year.” New this year is a charity garden walk, a fundraiser. App today Seven charities will be given a 10-by-10-foot space. The charity Available on COURTESY PHOTO will choose a designer to create a display. The garden creation the iTunes App Store. w Downtown in Bloom will include showcase gardens, as well as SEE BLOOM, A15 w entertainment, seminars, a kids’ zone and market. PRSRT STD OPINION A4 BUSINESS A18 EVENTS B6-7 U.S. POSTAGE PAID HEALTHY LIVING A16 REAL ESTATE A21 FILM B11 FORT MYERS, FL PETS A6 ARTS B1 SOCIETY B19-23 PERMIT NO. 715 ANTIQUES A17 ROGER WILLIAMS A2 PUZZLES B8 THET HEART IT’SS AATTACKTT RISK FREE.EE. pbgmc.com/heartscreenings IT’S 561.625.5070 AASSESSMENTS PRICELESS. A2 NEWS WEEK OF MARCH 29-APRIL 4, 2012 www.FloridaWeekly.com FLORIDA WEEKLY COMMENTARY Boots on the ground are the bona fide red white and blue Lincoln and Truman were both hard- massive peace has followed World War II, In uniform that day, Pvt. Hilliard was n nosed pragmatists. As presidents, each a peace whose aberrations — Korea, Viet- surprised and moved by French citizens, might well have been asked to consider a nam and possibly Iraq — have not become many of them crying, who approached and rogerWILLIAMS variety of muscular military options. Mexico world wars and probably should not have hugged or kissed him, offering consolation [email protected] and Canada, for example, could have been occurred at all. for the loss of his president. ours for the taking in 1865. They were errors — but patriotism does Then he rode back to his barracks. What Germany both east and west, along with not exclude errors, any more than living or moved him the most, he recalled, was the On at least two distinct occasions in the eastern Europe and Russia, not to mention loving does. sight of 12 very tough combat veterans, history of the United States, the nation China, could have been ours for the taking Patriotism merely excludes the defending most of them older than him and all of found itself equipped to take over the world. beginning in 1945 or ’46. of errors out of pride, vanity or jingoism. them recuperating from battle wounds, The first occurred beginning in April of But Lincoln and Truman understood But what does patriotism include? Left- who weren’t playing cards. They weren’t 1865, at the end of the Civil War. Never in something some other Americans didn’t ists, rightists and centrists in America prob- shining their boots. They weren’t writing history had so much military power been and still may not: The greatest American ably agree on this: that patriotism requires love letters home, or eating or drinking. amassed together with so much experience weapon of all — the greatest strength we love, allegiance and defense of country. Instead, they were crying, too. and effective ability as President Lincoln’s. had and still have — lies not in our sophisti- How we define those qualities varies con- From Paris, he joined a unit ordered to He wielded that power only near the end cated killing tools or our ferocious ability to siderably. Is the U.S. a geographic location help disarm the Germans — all of which, of his life (he was shot on April 14, 147 years employ them and to wage war. or a set of values — or both? by that time, would have qualified him as a ago, and died the next morning). Instead, it lies in our ferocious ability to Does patriotism exclude criticism? Or on bona fide American patriot. The second occasion occurred at the end employ and wage peace — to play the role the contrary does it require criticism and But Pvt. Hilliard wasn’t through being of World War II, when an Army general of of Samaritan or capitalist, not conqueror, self-inspection? a patriot. Between April and late fall he such magnitude as George Patton suggested even when we’re both or all. Whatever it is, we know that any grand helped save about 10,000 Jewish survivors we take advantage of our muscle to put Lincoln’s greatest general, Ulysses Grant, plans or philosophies like those of Lincoln’s of the Holocaust — not from Germans but down the Soviets. He wanted to wield the started the peace war on Lincoln’s behalf or Truman’s always come down to individ- from Americans who neglected them, cut- Third Army right down their throats, along beginning at Appomattox. After Robert E. uals on the ground, men and women who ting off the food and medicine they needed with everything else we had. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Vir- get dirty, damaged or dead being patriots. unless they were recompensed with favors. That period of unmatched American ginia on April 9, Gen. Grant allowed each I was reminded of all this when I finally All that is documented and painful to power arguably stretched into the early man to walk away with his rifle (and a mule met writer and author Robert Hilliard, now admit. 1950s, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur advo- or horse if he had one). a month or so shy of his 87th birthday. He stopped it by writing a letter home — cated nuking the Chinese. At the time, the Truman, meanwhile, waged peace with Dr. Hilliard (he earned a doctorate from with 600 copies for all the friends and fami- Chinese were supporting the North Korean the Marshall Plan, providing aid to our for- Columbia University 14 years after World lies he and his pals could contact — begging effort to swallow the south. They were bel- mer enemies, restoring their economies and War II) came from New York City to fight for food and supplies. President Truman ligerent Communists, just like the Soviets. ending their suffering almost on the spot. as a teenager at the Battle of the Bulge, from ultimately saw the letter, investigated, and But after that suggestion, Gen. MacArthur So in my book, Lincoln and Truman are Dec. 16, 1944 to Jan. 25, 1945. ended the abuse. (a belligerent democratist) found himself two of our greatest patriots. He survived, unlike 19,000 other young It amounts to this: Two patriots waging not only in the Korean War but right back As for Lincoln, no other wars have Americans who were alive when that five- peace — Pvt. Hilliard and President Tru- out of it, relieved of duty by a hot-tempered occurred between Americans. And 150 years week horror kicked off. By April, he had man — did what Americans do at their best. civilian from Missouri with no West Point later, societal discrimination based on race been wounded, shipped out and hospital- They put down the prejudices or cal- education and only aging memories of his is gone. (Yes, it flares up from time to time in ized in Paris, where he found himself on lous indifference of their own people, and own service more than 30 years earlier in individuals, as recent events suggest.) April 12, 1945, when President Franklin Roo- painted tolerance and charity in red, white World War I — President Harry Truman.