| Disillusioned, Club's Big Donors Pull $400K
Walter Curt explained that he and his wife like to use the Curt Family Foundation to support groups such as the Boys & Girls Clubs. "We try to support charities that are right where the people are," he said. "We did everything to help that they asked." Selling Stock Part of the capital fundraising campaign suggested by its fundraising consultant, club officials say, involved reaching high-dollar donors. But Walter and Martha Curt say they did not believe enough of those donors lived in the area to supply the money the consultants envisioned. Club officials now admit the Curts were right. The idea flopped. So in 2007, to invigorate fundraising, the club turned to an idea Walter supported of selling "phantom" stock. The "stock," he said, would have allowed the community to "buy-in" to the club.
Report Summary
This report documents the crippling barriers such families face in pursuing a goal enshrined in Americas founding documenthappiness. Those barriers center around a simple fact. With only rare exceptions, a heterosexual couple where one partner is foreign, one a U.S. citizen, can claim the right to enter the U.S. with a few strokes of a pen.2 They need not even marry: they need only show to a U.S. consulate abroad that they intend to do so and have met at least once before in their lives. (Waivers of the latter rule are possible.) In practice, U.S. immigration is filled with obstacles for many who seek to enter. Any binational family may encounter injustices and bureaucratic barriers on the road to reunification. A flawed and irrational system demands overhaul. But a lesbian or gay couple cannot even claim basic rights.
WILL YURMAN staff photographer
For instance, a drug such as Depakote, approved originally as an adult anti-seizure medication, is now also used to combat bipolar disorder in children, even though it has not been widely tested as a safe bipolar remedy for youngsters. The drug has been linked to liver failure in children younger than 2 and fetal abnormalities in pregnant women. Large clinical tests of children are uncommon, said Dr. Dianne Murphy, who heads FDA's office of pediatric therapeutics. "The fundamental underpinning of a trial is that the person who is participating does so at their own volition with the full comprehension of what they're doing." This makes ethical clinical testing of children difficult, she said.
Even within Monroe County, opinions vary about which medications can be used.
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