Jeffrey Lalloway (Irvine Councilmember)

Transcription

1 2101 N. Tustin Ave. Santa Ana, CA A Weekly Adjudicated Newspaper of the Place Your Legal Notices With The Notice (See Pg. 13) NONPROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE PAID SANTA ANA, CA PERMIT NO. PI 793 A non-profit organization Local Paper VOL. IX NO. V Friday June 6, 2014 Follow us on: Take Notice: Jeffrey Lalloway (Irvine Councilmember) Spotlight Feature IRVINE (CA) Participating in local government was a natural transition for a seasoned attorney and Irvine City Lalloway Councilmember Jeffrey Lalloway. Although Lalloway had worked for a few political campaigns, including one for former New Jersey State Senator William Gormley, his decision to run for public office still managed to surprise his wife, he tells me during a phone interview. Before relocating from Philadelphia to Irvine in 2003, Lalloway managed his own family law practice. When his wife received a job offer to work on cancer research in Southern California, the couple visited several cities before they fell in love with Irvine. I quickly realized what a great city it was, he recalls. The allure and beauty of Orange County just grabbed me and wouldn t let me go. With a growing sense of appreciation for the city, came an ever-expanding sense of duty. I ve always thought each of us should give back to our communities in the ways that we can, Lalloway says. For Lalloway, this coalesced into providing emotional and legal counsel for families going through a time of crisis, such as divorce and child custody litigation. In 2009, Lalloway was given an opportunity to further his commitment to his community when Councilmember Christina Shea appointed him to be Vice Chairman of the Irvine Finance See, p. 4 NEW YORK (AP) Private elevators, personal shopping assistants, sixbedroom suites with their own postal codes. Even helipads. This is what the super-rich have come to expect from hotels. For others, vacation now means renting someone s apartment, a spare room, maybe just a couch anything to save on the cost of a hotel. As the gap between the wealthiest travelers and everyone else has widened, so has the way people are experiencing vacations. The wealthy are looking for ever-more pampering. Many others are seeking new ways to economize. NoticeCA Support The Notice With a Subscription! Details on pg. 2 Airbnb: Will That Be a 6-Bedroom Suite or Just a Couch? Report by Scott Mayerowitz Christopher Rugaber OC Recorder Celebrates First Year of Saturday Openings Press Release by OC Clerk-Recorder Last May 17th represented the 12th consecutive month in which Clerk- Recorder Hugh Nguyen has opened his offices to the public one Saturday per month. The pilot program was implemented shortly after Nguyen was appointed as Clerk-Recorder by the Orange County Board of Supervisors in April The Saturday openings have turned out to be very popular with wedding parties and other customers. The Saturday hours make it easier for families and those who work during the week to obtain services usually offered just on weekdays. For example, to obtain a passport for a child under the age of 16, both parents must be present to obtain the passport. The Saturday hours make this process easier for the parents of small See, p. 3 Mishelle Farer poses for picture in her apartment, where she rents a room on Airbnb, in New York. Farer is an avid user of Airbnb, a website that allows travelers to rent other people s homes or rooms. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) children. Since implementing the special Saturday openings, the department has issued 1,707 marriage licenses, performed 1,027 marriage ceremonies, and issued 675 vital records. The department has also processed 185 passports. In addition, more than 5,000 customers have been served and more than 5,300 guests have witnessed their family members or friends tie the knot at the department s marriage facilities. I m extremely proud of our Saturday office openings, and I want to recognize my staff for volunteering to work on Saturdays and working hard to serve and meet our customers needs, Clerk-Recorder Hugh Nguyen said. I love to see whole families come and take advantage of our marriage and passport services this is what serving the public all is about. The Old County Courthouse in Santa Ana will again be open on Saturday, June 21st from 10 am to 3 pm for marriage licenses, civil marriage ceremonies and passport applications. The department s branch offices in Fullerton and Laguna Hills will also be open for copies of property records, vital records, as well as marriage licenses and civil marriage ceremonies. Free parking will be available at all three locations. Appointments for marriage and passport services are recommended due to high demand. Passport services are only available at the Old County Courthouse in Santa Ana. For more detailed information about our Saturday hours, appointments and about the services available at the Clerk-Recorder Department, please visit us at:

2 Page 2 Friday June 6, 2014 Odd News Reports By: Associated Press 115-lb Woman Wins Illinois Hot Dog Eating Contest BLOOMINGDALE, Ill. (AP) Michelle Lesco is petite, but the 115-pound competitive eater still managed to gobble down more than 28 hot dogs and buns to win an eating contest in suburban Chicago. The (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald reports ( bit.ly/1mfpowx ) the Arizona native won Saturday s qualifiers for the July 4 hot dog-eating contest at New York s Coney Island. The competition in Bloomingdale, about 20 miles from Chicago, was one more than a dozen preliminary rounds before the main event. Eight people faced off to see who could eat the most hot dogs in 10 minutes. Lesco set a new Illinois record and beat Eric Badlands Booker, who gobbled more than 27 hot dogs. He weighs about four times that of Lesco. After winning, Lesco said: I can t wait to burp. Dunkin Donuts Patron Sounds Carbon Monoxide Alarm CARLE PLACE, N.Y. (AP) A Dunkin Donuts customer looking for a morning cup of coffee was in the right place at the right time with the right equipment. Authorities say an ambulance technician wearing a carbon monoxide detector entered the store in Carle Place, New York, at around 4 a.m. Friday. The tech s detector went off, indicating high levels of the poisonous gas. The technician hustled the employees out of the fastfood joint and notified authorities. An investigation found a vent in one of the ovens was the problem. Carbon monoxide is odorless and colorless, and prolonged exposure can be fatal. Fake Officer Accused of Pulling Over a Teal One ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (AP) Police say a man impersonating an officer face charges after signaling a real detective to pull over on a road in Florida. St. Johns County authorities say 20-year-old Matthew Michael Lee McMahon activated a red and blue light Monday while driving behind an unmarked sheriff s car. Detective Chance Anderson pulled over and was shocked to see an unknown face behind the wheel of the other car. First Coast News ( ) reports that during his more than 10 years of service the detective has arrested several police impersonators. But none had ever ordered him to stop his car. McMahon is charged with impersonating an officer and unlawfully displaying blue lights. He was released Tuesday after posting $5,500 in bail. It wasn t clear whether he s hired an attorney. Drug Smugglers Pretend to be Federal Agency TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) It looked like a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service truck. But the U.S. Border Patrol says it was actually the latest in a long line of creative attempts by smugglers to get illegal drugs from Mexico into the U.S. Agents spotted the white truck with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decals along a boundary fence in Douglas, Arizona, on Monday, while responding to reports of possible drug smuggling. When agents tried to contact those inside, the vehicle suddenly stopped and two people fled into Mexico. Agents say they found 3,200 pounds of marijuana stashed in the truck worth an estimated $1.6 million. Smugglers have used catapults, tunnels and panga boats to get drugs across the U.S. border. The Notice (Office Locations) Santa Ana Main Office Norwalk Branch 2101 N. Tustin Ave E. Firestone Blvd Santa Ana, CA For More Information: Norwalk, CA Call (714) Or Visit Anaheim Branch Compton Branch 250 East Center Street 725 W. Rosecrans Ave. Anaheim, CA Compton, CA The Notice takes pride in featuring local news and including members of the community. If you have a suggestion, comment, or question for us please send us a letter to the editor. Submissions may be featured in our paper with your permission. Please send all submissions/attachments to editor@thenoticeca. com in Microsoft Word or JPEG format. When submitting either a letter or a image to the Editor, please make sure that proper credit is given where necessary. Looking to Publish Legal Notices or Ads? Get a quote by or Phone: Advertise@thenoticeca.com Notice@thenoticeca.com (844) NOTICES (844) Subscribe to The Notice: $20/year (52 Issues mailed to your address) $35/2years (104 Issues mailed to address) Make checks or money orders payable to: The Legal Aid Society of Orange County 2101 N. Tustin Ave., Santa Ana, CA *Based on average prices of multiple OC Newspapers OR *Less than 1/3 of competitors rates! Call us at: (714) to pay by credit/debit card

3 Friday June 6, 2014 Apartments as Hotels (Continued from page 1) And the lodging industry is adapting at the high and low ends to meet the diverging needs. Luxury hotels are catering to financial elites from Russia, China, Brazil or the Middle East who now routinely hop around the world and don t mind dropping $20,000 a night for a glamorous accommodation. High-end travel in the air, on the sea and on land has never been more robust, says Steve Carvell, an associate dean at Cornell University s School of Hotel Administration. There are more people with more concentrated wealth. Luxury hotels are arising even at iconic middle-american tourism spots such as Walt Disney World. Four Seasons will open a 444-room resort there in August with 68 suites, including a nine-bedroom royal suite sporting a 1,000 square-foot (93-square-meter) private terrace with views of the park s nightly fireworks. During the Great Recession, many resorts dropped resort and spa from their name. The idea was to appeal to corporate organizers who didn t want trips to seem extravagant. Excess now appears back in style. In November, Four Seasons added the phrase and residences to its mountain resorts in Vail, Colorado; Jackson Hole, Wyoming; and Whistler, Canada. It s pursuing families seeking a residential experience with the pampering of a hotel staff. The six-bedroom suite in Vail fetches $15,000 a night. You get three living rooms and a movie room. The suite includes a dedicated assistant who can arrange airport transfers, private ski lessons and after-hours shopping. The return of extravagance reflects one characteristic of the recovery: After paring their vacations along with everyone else during the recession, the wealthy have rebounded with force. Since 2009, hotel spending by the wealthiest 20 percent of Americans has risen about 6 percent, according to inflation-adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle 20 percent are still spending nearly 3 percent less. To stretch their discretionary dollars, middle-income vacationers are fueling one of the industry s growth areas: limited service lodgings. At Marriott s Fairfield Inn, Hyatt Place and Holiday Inn Express, you get free Wi-Fi and breakfast. But there s no bellman, concierge or restaurants. The idea is to draw travelers who feel priced out of full-service hotels. People can still say, I m staying at the Marriott, even if it s the Fairfield Inn, says Bjorn Hanson, dean of New York University s hospitality school. But many people are seeking deeper savings through increasingly popular sites such as Airbnb that arrange for people to rent rooms or apartments. The number of listed accommodations has soared since Airbnb s founding in 2008 to 550,000 not far below Hilton s 685,000 rooms worldwide. Some studies suggest that Airbnb could be cutting into budget hotels revenue. Robin Lynch, 34, of New York City put 14 relatives, including her in-laws, in five Airbnb facilities in Brooklyn for her wedding last year. She estimates she paid roughly $200 a night, on average, compared with the $300 she d expected for a hotel. That amounts to a lot of savings over seven days, she says. High unemployment and flat paychecks have spurred more people not only to stay in Airbnb rooms but also to list their own homes. Eric Worley, 30, and his girlfriend stayed at an Airbnb home in Columbus, Ohio, for $59 a night half the lowest hotel rate they could find. Not only am I saving money, I m also helping out another person... by Page 3 giving them some extra money, he says. I d much rather do that than have a corporation overcharge me for what is essentially the same service. Sometimes, the cut-rate experience goes further that visitors had expected. Ann Carman, 32, of Yellow Springs, Ohio, had always wanted to stay in an Airstream trailer. When she and her boyfriend visited Austin, Texas, in December 2013, she found one in a backyard. They weren t alone. Sharing their accommodations were a pig named Fern, two dogs and a rooster. I was like, They ve got a pig in their backyard, we ve got to stay there, she says. Airbnb hosts can charge less than hotels because they typically don t pay accommodation taxes or meet safety or disability regulations. That s sparked grumbling from hotels and from localities that lose out on tax revenue. The luxury sphere is also trying to expand its base. Chains such as the Ritz-Carlton and the Mandarin Oriental are pursuing not just the uber-rich but increasingly the merely affluent. My father would never have stayed in a luxury hotel, Hanson says. He didn t think he belonged there, even though he might have been able to afford it. As more modestly rich travelers have checked in, these hotels have sought to provide more for the ultra-wealthy. With the recently opened St. Regis Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, architects considered how much privacy to provide its most sumptuous suites, says Paul James, head of Starwood Hotels and Resorts luxury properties. Part of the Abu Dhabi conversation was: Where does the helicopter land? James says. More of the wealthiest travelers are now booking on shorter notice sometime less than a day. The St. Regis Mardavall in Mallorca, Spain, got a call from a 30-something German asking about the local weather. The receptionist reported 85 degrees and blue skies. The traveler booked the largest available suite and said he d arrive in an hour. He made the call from his private jet circling above Madrid. The elite traveler s experience was precisely what the Rosewood London had in mind when it opened its Grand Manor House Wing in December. The sixbedroom complex offers three living rooms, a library and a dining table for eight. It has its own street entrance and private elevator. For $42,000 a night, guests get some extra bragging rights: Their suite has its own postal code. Mark Herron, general manager of the Four Seasons Vail, notes that his hotel recently arranged for a guest to feed elephants at a local zoo even though the zoo was closed. Then there was a celebrity who had a craving for Kentucky Fried Chicken. The nearest one was 28 miles (45 kilometers) way. The hotel first tried to make it but couldn t match the recipe. Plus, the celebrity wanted the bucket, Herron says. Within an hour, the guest and his 21-person entourage had 10 buckets full of traditional and extra-crispy chicken. Cornell s Carvell has a theory about why anyone makes such extravagant requests. They ll sometimes do it just to see if it can be done, he says. They don t want to hear the word no. Screen shot of Airbnb s website:

4 Page 4 Friday June 6, 2014 FDA Taking Another Look at Mercury in Seafood Report by Lauran Neergaard Mary Clare Jalonick WASHINGTON (AP) The Food and Drug Administration is updating its advice for pregnant women on the appropriate levels of mercury in seafood. Commissioner Margaret Hamburg says the agency won t require mercury labels on seafood packages. In a wide-ranging interview Friday with The Associated Press, Hamburg said the agency will update guidance on mercury in different varieties of seafood and what that means, a long-awaited move aimed at helping women better understand what to eat when they re pregnant. It s an advisory, not an effort to mandate labeling, Hamburg said. Different seafood products do contain different levels of mercury, and so different seafood products can be rated in terms of levels of mercury. Eating fish is part of a heart-healthy diet, and many types are good sources of omega-3 fatty acids that are important for brain development. But fish also can absorb small amounts of mercury, a neurotoxin, from streams and oceans and a small number of varieties harbor higher levels. For most people, accumulating mercury from eating seafood isn t a health risk. But for a decade, the FDA has warned that pregnant women, those who may become pregnant, and young children avoid certain types of high-mercury fish because of concern that too much could harm a developing brain. Consumer groups have sued the agency, saying the warnings weren t clear enough about what to avoid, and seeking labeling to help so that shoppers wouldn t have to remember which products are OK during pregnancy or for youngsters. We can t ask consumers to memorize two different lists of fish, said Photo courtesy of Katinka Kober Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, one of the groups that sued. DeWaal said the new advisory will be an improvement if it gives consumers better information, especially if that information could be kept at fish counters in grocery stores and retail outlets. The seafood industry says the government shouldn t look at mercury by itself, but at the benefits of seafood. Jennifer McGuire of the National Fisheries Institute says the original FDA guidelines warning against some types of fish for pregnant women just served to decrease overall seafood intake. That would be very concerning if there was a good fish, bad fish list, she said. The government s 2010 Dietary Guidelines incorporated See, p. 6 Councilmember Lalloway Commission. Having once worked as a tax attorney, navigating the nuances of the city s budget came naturally to Lalloway. During the same year, he served on the Citizen s Advisory Commission for the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) where he reviewed various transportation projects and services. In 2010, Lalloway was elected to city council and made maintaining the excellence of Irvine one of his highest priorities. A few things make Irvine such a great place to live, one of those being the wonderful school districts. The promise of providing a great education for our kids is one of the reasons why we live here, Lalloway states. He intends to maintain and possibly one-day increase the nine million dollars of additional funding local schools receive from the city. By making certain the city is in a good financial position, we can ensure our schools financial stability, Lalloway continues. As a member of the OCTA Board of Directors, Lalloway has concentrated his efforts on improving the quality of roadways and transportation in order to lessen time for city commuters. Currently, he is working with the city and OCTA to conduct a study of important traffic lights and roadways that cause the most delays. With the growth of Southern California, there s going to be more people on the road, Lalloway says. We need to make sure people have a good work experience in Irvine and that they re able to get around efficiently to and from work during rush hour. At Lalloway s suggestion, the city also made a deal with the developer of the Orange County Great Park, FivePoint Communities, to build additional roadways and freeway on- and off-ramps in conjunction with park construction. Lalloway worked extensively with OCTA, Caltrans, the Irvine Company, and operators for the park to approve and adopt such new plans. Additionally, Lalloway has supported a recent shift in the design of the park to emphasize daily amenities over venues for one-time events. I really believe the Great Park is headed in the right direction, Lalloway says. Initiatives like these are important to Lalloway for reasons of legacy. He and his wife Laura have two young daughters, named Regan and Sydney. I ll bring my kids to play soccer [at the Great Park], look back, and say We really did a great thing for the city, says Lalloway. It has been a busy term for Lalloway. He balances three full-time jobs as an attorney, a member of city council and, more importantly, as a father and husband. Lalloway believes it s challenging for anyone with a family or full-time work to find the time and energy to participate in local government. My demographic of having a young family and working is one that needs to be involved in the political process. And I don t see it often, he says. That s one of the reasons why we put a term limit ballot measure for November. We need to have citizen politicians instead of the professional politicians we see these days. At the moment, city officials have no hard and fast limit to the number of times they may run for office. Last month, the Irvine city council approved a proposal to set a total limit of two four-year council terms and two two-year mayoral terms for future public officials. As for his second term, Lalloway has yet to make an official announcement declaring his candidacy. Nevertheless, he remains committed to serving Irvine and its inhabitants in any capacity. (Continued from page 1) Negah Mouzoon Staff Writer

5 Friday June 6, 2014 Skip the Website? Page 5 Article by Joseph Pisani NEW YORK (AP) It s cheap. It s easy to do. And it can take less than 20 minutes to set up. Yet more than half of all small businesses still don t have a website. It s just ridiculous, says Jim Blasingame, a small business author and radio show host. Every small business needs a website. Period. Nonnegotiable. Small businesses that don t have one say they don t have the time, think it will cost too much or don t want the rush of orders that comes with being online. But entrepreneurs that have jumped to the digital side say their websites have boosted sales, cut down on time-consuming phone calls and brought more people into their stores. But not everyone wants that. Steve Love has never had a website for the handmade sausage and meat business he s owned since He says a website for LoveLand Farms would boost sales and he doesn t have any more farmland to raise hogs and Black Angus cattle. I don t want it to grow, says Love, who sells his goods at a farmers market in Bloomington, Indiana, and a store in another town that s open once a week. I m already maxed out. I m scared it would blow up on me. But customers expect one. When they ask him at the farmers market if he has a website, he hands them a card with his phone number and a map to his shop called the Sausage Shack in Nashville, Indiana. He has no plans to start a website anytime soon. But it could happen in the future if his kids want to take over and grow the business. I wouldn t say never, says Love. Some owners simply say they have no time. Bill Peatman, who writes blog posts, s and other content for websites for his corporate clients, doesn t have one for his own business. I ve just been too busy, says Peatman, who started his Napa, California, business over a year ago. I haven t come up with a plan with what I want to do. He knows he needs one. People don t think you exist, he says. I want to grow. I want to build my own reputation and brand. He recently bought a domain name. And he plans to hire someone to build the site, but he thinks it will take him a few more months to get to it. At the way I move, says Peatman, about six months. Fifty-five percent of small businesses don t have a website, according to a 2013 survey of more than 3,800 small businesses conducted by Internet search company Google and research company Ipsos. That s a slight improvement from the year before, when 58 percent said they didn t have a website. Small business owners who want to start a website have lots of options that make it easier than in the past. Companies such as Wix.com, Google, SquareSpace.com and Weebly.com require no coding or technical skills. Users can choose a template, drag in photos and paste in words. And with more people searching for businesses online and on their smartphones, companies without a site may be missing out on extra business. You might as well be a ghost, says Blasingame, who hosts The Small Business Advocate, an online and nationally syndicated radio show. The customers and opportunity pass right through you. Some Small Businesses Still Do Sales at Bad Pickle Tees have doubled since Cyndi Grasman began selling her quirky food-related T-shirts online a year ago. She started the business in 2012, selling shirts with sayings like Oh Kale Yeah! and I Heart Bacon at food festivals. She launched the site using website publishing company Weebly, paying $250 a year. I m reaching a larger audience, she says. Marilyn Caskey says her website has cut down on time-consuming phone calls with customers. The owner of The Garment Exchange launched a website for her San Antonio consignment shop two years ago using a Google program. The store, which she opened in 2008, used to get calls all the time asking which clothing designers the shop resells. I ll be trying to ring up a sale and someone would call, says Caskey, who would read through a list to the caller of all the designers the store does and doesn t buy. Now we refer them to the website. Amy Gilson hopes to be able to do that soon. She hired a company to build a website for her Oklahoma City snack food business Healthy Cravings. She is paying $4,500 for it, but she hasn t been able to find the time to take photos and give them other information needed to finish. All customers see on EatHealthyCravings.com is a message that the site is coming soon. Right now, I do everything, says Gilson. I am the accountant, the marketer, the salesman. When she sells Healthy Cravings zucchini brownie bites or chia cookies at farmers markets, shoppers ask about a website. One customer, who was looking for the fat content of the snacks, took to Healthy Cravings Facebook page to ask if it had a website with more information. I can t wait for my website, says Gilson, who also plans to sell treats from the site. I can just send them there.

6 Page 6 Friday June 6, 2014 In South Africa, Old Custom Becomes Health Crisis Article by Christopher Torchia JOHANNESBURG (AP) The young South African thought he was going to the hills to become a man. He came back with a horrifying injury that made him an outcast. In 2012, Asanda lost his penis to gangrene in a botched circumcision ritual performed by a traditional surgeon wielding the same spear on more than a dozen initiates. He was an unusual case among thousands of men hospitalized after such ceremonies in past years because he broke a code of secrecy about the tradition and spoke out in protest. For that, he endured public humiliation and even a severe beating a few months ago. People would just stare at me, as if I were not a man, 25-year-old Asanda told The Associated Press. He did not want his family name published for fear of a bigger backlash from his community. This month, youths in some rural areas will head to secluded huts for circumcision rituals meant to usher them into manhood, an annual rite of passage during the current South African winter, and in the summer at year s end. Officials hope to prevent another wave of injuries and deaths triggered by factors including infection and the tight binding of penis wounds, which cuts off blood supply, as well as sleep deprivation, exposure to winter cold and other harsh conditions. Septic shock causes many fatalities. The problem is most severe in the Eastern Cape province, where nearly 500 young men have died in circumcision rituals since 2006, including 83 last year, according to the provincial health department. Officials further north in Mpumalanga province reported 31 deaths in Twenty-three people, including doctors and traditional surgeons, face charges including negligent killing for the Mpumalanga deaths, South Africa s National Prosecuting Authority announced Tuesday. Initiations are mostly practiced by the Xhosa tribe in eastern South Africa. Tens of thousands of young men undergo ritual circumcisions every year, according to the South African Medical Association, which urges practitioners to have a male doctor, preferably one who had been through the ritual himself. Last week, the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa, which promotes traditional values, blamed casualties on untrained opportunists seeking to make money from initiates families, and announced a partnership with the state and medical professionals to educate villagers about safe circumcision. Asanda was circumcised near Lusikisiki town in the Eastern Cape on June 18, He fled the initiation school, but was forced to return and was beaten, said Dingeman Rijken, a Dutch doctor who later treated him. A bandage on Asanda s penis cut off blood flow and he was hospitalized, according to Rijken. After the gangrenous flesh fell away, Asanda was discharged with a catheter to help him urinate. Rijken said an injured penis with dry gangrene eventually falls away from the body by itself, while a penis with wet gangrene sometimes has to be amputated to prevent further infection. Amputating a penis is not something you do easily, because of the mental implications, Rijken wrote in an . We know that these boys are going to lose their penis, but they will often blame the doctor for taking it off. Most of them come with hopes that it will become all right or grow again (which is what they are also being told by traditional nurses). On arrival, they are tired (sleep deprivation), malnourished (diet restrictions), dehydrated (fluid restriction): it takes a number of days for them to be able to discuss these things. A 21-year-old man who identified himself only by his first name, Bheki, described in an AP interview how he lost the tip of his penis in a ritual. After overcoming extreme distress, he said he is in a romantic relationship and can have sex because part of his penis remains intact. He also plans to continue his studies in university. I know God has good plans for me and I have big dreams, said Bheki, who is reluctant to tell his father about his injury and did not want to give his family name for fear he would be humiliated in his community. Ashamed and weakened, Asanda told his girlfriend that he had injured himself by falling off a bicycle, and she suspected him of cheating on her because of his aloofness. Asanda shocked his community by complaining about unsafe circumcisions at a local meeting. The next morning, Asanda was beaten by several villagers and accused of being an impipi, or traitor in the Xhosa language, he said. I would always feel like sitting on my own, he said, describing his ordeal. It would feel like I m not alive. Asanda left his home village but now wants to return. He s not sure when he ll go back, though, or what kind of reception he ll receive. Seafood Mercury (Continued from page 4) FDA s warnings to say that pregnant or breastfeeding women should consume 8 to 12 ounces of a variety of seafood per week. But it said they should not eat tilefish, shark, swordfish and king mackerel because of the mercury content and it advised limiting white albacore tuna to six ounces a week. On other food-related issues, Hamburg said deciding which businesses will have to post calorie labels has been one of the more complex undertakings of my tenure as FDA commissioner. The food industry is closely watching FDA to see which establishments are included in final menu labeling rules, which are expected this year. Congress required the labels in 2010 health overhaul, and supermarkets and convenience stores have lobbied aggressively since then to be excluded. But the restaurant industry says that all establishments serving prepared foods should have to post the labels. She said the increasing amount of caffeine in a whole range of foods has gotten our attention and concern and that the agency needs to better understand the role of the stimulant in non-traditional products, especially on children. She said the science is not absolutely clear about its effects. The agency is investigating the safety of energy drinks and energy shots, prompted by consumer reports of illness and death. FDA is also looking at caffeine in food as manufacturers have added caffeine to candy, nuts and other snack foods in recent years. On genetically modified foods, Hamburg reiterated her support for voluntary labels, and said a considerable amount of scientific study does not suggest the kinds of public health concerns that some consumers have worried about. Advocates for GM labeling have been pushing state laws that require the labels. As such, she says she does not believe FDA should have to do a mandatory safety review of all engineered foods. FDA now reviews the safety of GM animals, but has a voluntary review for companies that want to sell modified crops for consumption.