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Andy Griffith’s Widow to Raze His Home

Associated Press — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:08:09 +0000

By Martha Waggoner of The Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The widow of actor Andy Griffith has gotten a permit to tear down the house where he lived for many years on the North Carolina waterfront, upsetting friends who had hoped it would be preserved as a museum or Graceland-type estate.

Cindi Griffith obtained the demolition permit Monday, according to Dare County records. County officials and friends confirmed the permit is to demolish a smaller house along the Roanoke Sound that Griffith bought in the 1950s, not the larger house that he and Cindi built nearby several years ago.

William Ivey Long, the Tony Award-winning costume designer whose parents were friends with Griffith and his first wife, Barbara, said Griffith told him in 2007 that he wanted to preserve the older home as a museum. The two discussed the possibility when Long had an exhibit of his costumes at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, Long said.

“We compared notes,” Long said in a phone interview from his studio in New York City. “I had to fit mine into an existing museum. I told him, if you’re doing yours, you can make it however you want it.”

The Andy Griffith Quiz: Test you knowledge of the TV classic

Griffith, who died last July, was best known for playing the wise Sheriff Andy Taylor on “The Andy Griffith Show” and folksy lawyer Ben Matlock on “Matlock.” He starred as the manipulative Lonesome Rhodes in the movie “A Face in the Crowd.” One of his last roles was as a cranky diner owner in the movie “Waitress.”

Griffith wanted the museum to include items from his TV shows, along with memorabilia from his music career, Long said. They didn’t discuss whether it would compete with the Andy Griffith Museum in Griffith’s hometown of Mount Airy, Long said.

Cindi Griffith didn’t return messages Wednesday. Her husband’s will doesn’t mention a museum or the property. The will — dated May 3, 2012, two months before Griffith died — turns over most of his property and estate to the trustee of a trust, whose records aren’t public. The attorney for the will declined to comment.

The demolition contractor, Calvin Gibbs, also didn’t return a call. It wasn’t clear Wednesday if the demolition had begun.

Della Basnight of Manteo, whose family was friends with Griffith since she was a child, said she understood that Cindi Griffith had the right to do whatever she wanted with the property.

But concerning the demolition, Basnight said, “When he gave her the power to do anything, I don’t think he thought she would want to do that.”

Many of Griffith’s older friends met him while they worked in “The Lost Colony,” an outdoor drama that tells the story of the 1587 colony on the North Carolina coast that mysteriously disappeared.

Ira David Wood III, who is the show’s executive director this summer, first worked at “The Lost Colony” in 1968. He recalled going to Griffith’s house and taking a pontoon boat to a sandbar where Griffith and his guests played volleyball for hours. “He hated to lose, and he did cheat,” Wood said, laughing at the fond memory.

He said he was shocked to learn the house would be demolished. “I always assumed the property would be eventually preserved and opened to the public,” Wood said, saying he thought it might be maintained like Elvis Presley’s property Graceland in Memphis, Tenn. Just as Presley is buried at Graceland, Griffith is buried on the large piece of property he owned on the North Carolina coast. It was not immediately clear how far Griffith’s grave is from his older house or the newer one.

“I imagine Cindi has her reasons, and I don’t pretend to know what they are,” Wood said. “It’s a beautiful bit of property with a lot of memories attached to it. I just hope they’re not moving too fast.”

Griffith bought the house the first time he had any real money and raised his two children there, Basnight said.

“I had really sort of always thought it would be secured,” she said. “I always thought it would remain.”

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

FDA Requires Lower Doses for Sleep Medications

Associated Press — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 05:32:56 +0000

By Matthew Perrone of The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration is requiring makers of Ambien and similar sleeping pills to lower the dosage of their drugs, based on studies suggesting patients face a higher risk of injury due to morning drowsiness.

The agency said Thursday that new research shows that the drugs remain in the bloodstream at levels high enough to interfere with alertness and coordination, which increases the risk of car accidents.

Regulators are ordering drug manufacturers to cut the dose of the medications in half for women, who process the drug more slowly. Doses will be lowered from 10 milligrams to 5 milligrams for regular products, and 12.5 milligrams to 6.25 milligrams for extended-release formulations.

The FDA is recommending that manufacturers apply these lower doses to men as well, though it is not making them a requirement.

The new doses apply to all insomnia treatments containing the drug zolpidem, which is sold under brands including Ambien, Edluar, Zolpimist and in generic forms. It is the most widely prescribed sleeping aid prescribed in the United States. The changes don’t affect other popular sleeping medicines like Lunesta and Sonata, which use different drugs.

FDA officials pointed out that all sleeping drugs carry warnings about drowsiness.

“All sleep drugs have the potential to cause this, so health professionals should prescribe — and patients should take — the lowest dose that is capable of preventing insomnia,” said Dr. Ellis Unger, a director in FDA’s Office of Drug Evaluation, on a teleconference with reporters.

Unger added that the FDA will begin requiring developers of sleep drugs to conduct driving simulation studies going forward.

Ambien has been blamed for several recent high-profile driving accidents in the past year, including Tom Brokaw in September and Kerry Kennedy in July.

The FDA has received more than 700 reports of driving-related problems connected to zolpidem over the years.

“But in most cases it was very difficult to determine if the driving impairment was actually related to zolpidem,” Unger said. “Usually the reports did not contain information about when the accident happened or how much time had lapsed since taking the drug.”

The agency decided to take action after recent driving simulation studies showed that, in some patients, drug levels remained high enough to cause difficulty driving. The data came from company studies of Intermezzo, a new form of zolpidem which was approved in 2011 for people who wake late at night and can’t get back to sleep.

The data showed that 33 percent of women and 25 percent of men taking extended-release zolpidem had enough of the drug in their blood to interfere with driving as much as eight hours later.

When the dose was cut in half only 15 percent of women and 5 percent of men had those same drug levels.

FDA analysis was unable to determine why women metabolize zolpidem so much more slowly than men. According to FDA staff, the difference cannot be accounted for by usual factors like size and weight.

For now, patients should continue taking their currently prescribed dose until they can talk to their doctor about the best way to proceed.

“We really don’t want people to change the dose they’re on. We want them to talk to their health care provider,” Unger said.

Ambien is marketed by Sanofi, Intermezzo by Purdue Pharma LP and Zolpimist by NovaDel Pharma Inc.

Poll: Obesity’s a Crisis But We Want Our Junk Food

Associated Press — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:47:29 +0000

By Jennifer Agiesta and Lauran Neergaard of The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — We know obesity is a health crisis, or every new year wouldn’t start with resolutions to eat better and get off the couch. But don’t try taking away our junk food.

Americans blame too much screen time and cheap fast food for fueling the nation’s fat epidemic, a poll finds, but they’re split on how much the government should do to help.

Most draw the line at policies that would try to force healthier eating by limiting food choices, according to the poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

A third of people say the government should be deeply involved in finding ways to curb obesity, while a similar proportion want it to play little or no role. The rest are somewhere in the middle.

Require more physical activity in school, or provide nutritional guidelines to help people make better choices? Sure, 8 in 10 support those steps. Make restaurants post calorie counts on their menus, as the Food and Drug Administration is poised to do? Some 70 percent think it’s a good idea.

“That’s a start,” said Khadijah Al-Amin, 52, of Coatesville, Pa. “The fat content should be put up there in red letters, not just put up there. The same way they mark something that’s poisonous, so when you see it, you absolutely know.”

But nearly 6 in 10 people surveyed oppose taxes targeting unhealthy foods, known as soda taxes or fat taxes.

And when it comes to restricting what people can buy — like New York City’s recent ban of supersized sodas in restaurants — three-quarters say no way.

“The outlawing of sugary drinks, that’s just silly,” said Keith Donner, 52, of Miami, who prefers teaching schoolchildren to eat better and get moving.

“People should just look at a Big Gulp and say, ‘That’s not for me.’ I think it starts when they are young and at school,” he added.

Indeed, while three-quarters of Americans consider obesity a serious health problem for the nation, most of those surveyed say dealing with it is up to individuals. Just a third consider obesity a community problem that governments, schools, health care providers and the food industry should be involved in. Twelve percent said it will take work from both individuals and the community.

That finding highlights the dilemma facing public health experts: Societal changes over recent decades have helped spur growing waistlines, and now a third of U.S. children and teens and two-thirds of adults are either overweight or obese. Today, restaurants dot more street corners and malls, regular-sized portions are larger, and a fast-food meal can be cheaper than healthier fare. Not to mention electronic distractions that slightly more people surveyed blamed for obesity than fast food.

In the current environment, it’s difficult to exercise that personal responsibility, said Jeff Levi of the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health, which has closely tracked the rise in obesity.

“We need to create environments where the healthy choice becomes the easy choice, where it’s possible for people to bear that responsibility,” he said.

The new poll suggests women, who have major input on what a family eats, recognize those societal and community difficulties more than men do.

More than half of women say the high cost of healthy food is a major driver of obesity, compared with just 37 percent of men. Women also are more likely than men to blame cheap fast food and to say that the food industry should bear a lot of responsibility for helping to find solutions.

Patricia Wilson, 53, of rural Speedwell, Tenn., says she must drive 45 minutes to reach a grocery store — passing numerous burger and pizza joints, with more arriving every year.

“They shouldn’t be letting all these fast-food places go up,” said Wilson, who nags her children and grandchildren to eat at home and watch their calories. She recalls how her own overweight grandmother lost both her legs and then her life to diabetes.

More than 80 percent of people in the AP-NORC poll said they had easy access to supermarkets, but just as many could easily get fast food. Another 68 percent said it was easy for kids to purchase junk food on their way to school, potentially foiling diet-conscious caregivers like Wilson, who doesn’t allow her grandchildren to eat unhealthy snacks at home.

“If they say they’re hungry, they get regular food,” she said.

Food is only part of the obesity equation; physical activity is key too. About 7 in 10 people said it was easy to find sidewalks or paths for jogging, walking or bike-riding. But 63 percent found it difficult to run errands or get around without a car, reinforcing a sedentary lifestyle.

James Gambrell, 27, of Springfield, Ore., said he pays particular attention to diet and exercise because obesity runs in his family. He makes a point of walking to stores and running errands on foot two to three times a week.

But Gambrell, a fast-food cashier, said he eats out at least once a day because of the convenience and has changed his order at restaurants that already have begun posting calorie counts. He’s all for the government pushing those kinds of solutions.

“I feel that it’s a part of the government’s responsibility to care for its citizens and as such should attempt to set regulations for restaurants that are potentially harmful to its citizens,” he said.

On the other side is Pamela Dupuis, 60, of Aurora, Colo., who said she has struggled with weight and has been diagnosed as pre-diabetic. She doesn’t want the government involved in things like calorie-counting.

“They should stay out of our lives,” she said.

The AP-NORC Center survey was conducted Nov. 21 through Dec. 14. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,011 adults nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

___

Associated Press writer Stacy A. Anderson and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

Banned for Life

Tammy Gordon — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 20:50:43 +0000

Felice Shapiro

Felice Shapiro is a writer, entrepreneur, and publisher as well as the founder of Better After 50, a weekly online magazine. In addition to being a teacher and avid runner, hiker, and yogi, she is an AARP contributor.

Lance has been teetering from grace for a while but this week he fell off the bike. My Livestrong bracelet is off my wrist until I can create my own separation between the cause and the person.

Lance’s fall has got me thinking about cheating. How is it that a black and white legal rule can be rationalized into a shade of gray? It seems like getting caught is the only deterrent to cheating —at least in Lance’s case. How can that be?

Clearly there is a hierarchy of cheating ranging from outright illegal all the way down the ladder to hand slapping. The severity of the transgression is defined by the playing field. Professional sports offer more defined rules than recreational sports. However, no matter which playing field one is on, pushing the edges of the rules seems to be a sport in and of itself.

Clearly, the fear of getting caught can be enough to keep one well within the boundaries of the rules unless you believe you are above the law.

As kids we were all taught not to cheat (hopefully). In school, the consequence of failure or expulsion, was enough to get me to wipe the penned notes off my hand before heading into a test. The fear of getting caught kept my eyes glued to my math quiz no matter how much I wanted to check out my smarter friend’s answers.

How much are we willing to risk to win? In Lance’s case, he obviously never thought he would be caught. So maybe doping didn’t feel risky to him. What does that mean to believe you are above the law, that you are untouchable and that you just don’t have to play by the rules?

For the spectator, we count on those rules being followed. It’s tough to be a cheerleader if you think the game is rigged. How could Lance love biking so much but willingly jeopardize its integrity? Those medals meant the world to biking fans. I, for one, was a huge Lance fan and cheered him from tour to tour. Now I feel duped. How come Lance’s moral compass didn’t kick in? Didn’t he care about anything but the win?

One Small Voice of Change

Tammy Gordon — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 02:27:33 +0000

Felice Shapiro

So bright-eyed and passionate, Malala. Her small voice may hopefully become the ammunition that helps defeat the Taliban’s ban on a girl’s right to be educated. Is she too small, too alone and too wounded to effect change? Apparently not!

On October 9, 2012, Malala, just 14 years old, clings to life. She was shot in the head on her way home from school by an “unidentified person” who fired on her bus. This shooting has not quieted her message, however. In fact, it has gone global.

There are candlelight vigils throughout Pakistan, a community outraged (hopefully not temporarily) by this shooting.

At 14 years old, this child is a target of the Taliban. She has chosen to speak out about her fundamental right to an education and for all girls to have the right to go to school. I watch this and am fascinated to learn how her father has encouraged her to speak out. He is an educator and it is his girls’ school that has been closed. He is outraged, she is outraged and chooses to speak out.

Her story is on the front page of every newspaper in Pakistan. She is inspiring a movement in her country to stand up against the Taliban. Our stomachs flinch as we watch this story from afar. As parents we are in fear for this child’s life. Malala could be any of our children.

We are not exempt as we too have been drawn into the fight against the Taliban. To what effect? But now there is this small child who is taking on this monster. The David to the Goliath. It’s the voice of truth. The voice of a child speaking from the heart, honestly, unprotected and courageous. We are afraid for her yet we cheer her on. What would we do if it were our child? Would we encourage her to go out into the lion’s den knowing the risks?

Yet, her voice and message could perhaps create the groundswell that finally effects change for these girls. The whole world is watching.

There is something hopeful here. Her country is responding to the cruelty of this shooting. Her outspoken position illustrates the power of children to wake up both the leaders and the people. Hopefully her story will be the catalyst to make a change. We are not looking for Malala to be a martyr–we are praying for her recovery so she can continue her life’s work. Keeping her story alive is our best way to help impact the movement to give girls everywhere the right to an education.

My vigil for Malala began by watching all the Youtube videos I could find. An amazing video by Adam Ellick tells the incredible backstory of Malala, her dad and her commitment to her education and her message.

I learned her father had been an incredible force in her life as he ran the girls’ school where she studied that was closed by the Taliban in 2009. The Taliban had come down hard in the Swat region of Northern Pakistan close to the Afghan border where she lives, and she feared them as she and other girls walked to school every day.

Malala committed at the age of 11 to become a children’s rights activist. She started to write a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC, and reported about the challenges of going to school.

You can see the 12-year-old Malala, her father by her side, meeting with Richard Holbrook, President Obama’s top official in the region, requesting help for the education of girls. His response made me wince –it is empty and clearly another impetus for her to take the fight into her own hands. This was two years ago.

AARP Response to Medicare Letter

Ian Cunningham — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:19:12 +0000

UncategorizedThe following is a guest post from Jeff Davis, SVP Media Relations Led by Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Congressional Republican physicians recently sent a letter to AARP, emphasizing the importance of addressing the challenges facing Medicare. AARP’s Nancy LeaMond responds.