The Cleveland Daily Banner Sunday, January 10, 2016 | Page 30

30—Cleveland Daily Banner—Sunday, January 10, 2016

Family works
By Rob Coombs
ID. Min. Ph.D.

Speaking on teen driver’s license
How does it happen so fast?
In a mere 700 weeks a child,
whose time has been consumed
by playing with his favorite toy
car, is now holding the keys to
his own car.
Can I go for a ride?
Already, he has discarded his
crumpled learner’s permit. Now,
with the real thing carefully protected behind laminated plastic
and securely tucked in his back
pocket, he knows that his childhood days are but a distant
memory.
His license is his ticket to freedom, to power, to independence.
The time has passed (and not a
moment too soon) when he had
to depend on Mom or Dad, (or
maybe a big sister or brother) to
taxi him around. He can go on
his own. He’s ready, or at least he
thinks he’s ready.
Good parents encourage their
children toward independence
while fearing the potentially staggering consequences. Far different from scraping a knee while
pushing his favorite toy car at
two, the 16-year-old may break
that knee or lose it altogether.
Although parents tend to preach
about the potential risks and the
awesome responsibilities of actually being behind the wheel, most
teens tend to dismiss the reality
that an accident could happen to
them.
Of course, teens are more likely to have an accident than not,
as almost 75 percent of teens
have an accident during their
first three years of driving. No
wonder moms and dads don’t
sleep well until they hear the
footsteps of their child returning
home.
In order to minimize the risks,
to impress our children about the
immense responsibilities of driving, and to remind them that the
freedom to drive is directly related to being responsible on the

road, on their 16th birthdays we
placed both our children on a
two-year driving contract.
As part of the 16th birthday
celebration, we all signed the
contract and placed it on the
front of the refrigerator where it
hangs as a tangible reminder of
the agreement made. Upon seeing this contract, several parents
have asked for copies to use with
their children.
For this reason, I have decided
to share the contents of the contract through this column. Feel
free to adapt it for your own particular child.
Upon receiving the keys to my
car on my 16th birthday, I,
[teen’s name here], do agree to
the following conditions:
— I will pay for the gas and
scheduled oil changes.
— I will be responsible for
cleaning this vehicle and maintaining it in an orderly manner.
— All passengers will wear a
seatbelt whenever the car is moving.
— Any visits from the man in
blue (i.e., speeding, parking, failure to stop, etc.) will result in my
paying the ticket, plus losing
driving privileges for one month.
— Driving under the influence
of alcohol or any other drug will
result in the loss of the car for six
months.
— Additional costs incurred for
insurance resulting from an atfault accident will be my responsibility.
— Mom and Dad will make
_____ percent of my monthly car
payment.
— Mom and Dad will make
_____ percent of the monthly
insurance payment.
— Mom and Dad will pay _____
percent of scheduled maintenance fees.
— Items not addressed in this
contract will be negotiated as
needed.

Wigs
From Page 29

instructions,
according
to
www.pantene.com/en-us/experience-main-section2/beautifullengths:
Clean, shampoo, and/or condition hair, without any styling,
hairspray, or additional hair
products. Gather hair at the nape
of the neck. Create a ponytail
with an elastic band. Make sure
the band is tight around the hair
to keep the hair together after
cutting. If it comes out of the
band, it won’t be included in the
donation. A second hair band can
be placed around the middle of
the ponytail to keep the hair
together.
Ensure that the elastic band is
just below where you want to cut
your hair. Measure the length of
the ponytail from the elastic band
to the tips, making sure it’s at
least 8 inches long. Donations
shorter than 8 inches will not be
used, because this is too short for
making a wig.

If your hair is not 8 inches,
continue growing it out. There is
no maximum length requirement. Cut the hair just above the
elastic band so that the elastic
band remains on the ponytail
after cutting and keeps cut hair
together. Do not wash or style the
ponytail in any way after it has
been cut off.
Place the ponytail, kept intact
with the elastic band, in a zipperlock bag and seal tightly. Please
ensure that the ponytail is completely dry before sending. Place
the plastic bag with the ponytail
in a padded or plastic envelope
and send to: Pantene Beautiful
Lengths. Attn: 192-123. 806 SE
18th Ave. Grand Rapids, Minn.
55744.
To find out if you are eligible to
receive a free wig, or if there are
wigs available in your area,
please call the American Cancer
Society’s Wig Bank Line at: 1877-227-1596.

Las Vegas gets 42 million-plus
visitors. But who’s counting?
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Visit Las
Vegas in 2015? Count yourself
among the more than 42 million
people traveling to the casino corridor last year, according to the
resort’s biggest travel booster.
It’s a number that breaks
2014’s record visitation of 41.1
million based on estimates from
the Las Vegas Convention and
Visitors Authority.
How do they know? The public
agency’s lead researcher isn’t saying how the widely publicized
number is calculated. The method
is proprietary and the information
competitive, said senior research
manager Scott Russell. But he
said the 40-year-old formula
involves polling most casinohotels directly and takes into
account occupancy levels, travel
habits and airline traffic among
other indicators. It also tries to
subtract out locals from the airline and freeway traffic figures to
get a more accurate count of
tourists.
“There is some secret sauce in
what we do,” Russell said.
The team combs through data,
looking for landmarks that might
be eclipsed. They realized a couple
months ago that the destination
would handily overtake last year’s
record, “but didn’t want to go out
too far on that ledge,” until making the announcement just before

the New Year.
But even though more people
are visiting Las Vegas than ever,
casinos still aren’t making as
much money as they did during
their pre-recession peak in 2007.
That’s when 39.2 million people
visited, with 6.2 million of them
attending conventions and 47.7
million people flying in and out of
McCarran International Airport.
Casinos kept $10.9 billion of what
was gambled during the calendar
year, the most ever, according to
convention and visitors authority
statistics stretching back to 1970.
In 2014, Las Vegas had 5.2 million convention-goers, 42.9 million airline passengers and casinos kept $9.5 billion from gambling.
The difference now, Russell
said, is churn. More people are
visiting but not staying as long as
they might have before, according
to the agency’s annual visitor surveys. It’s a trend Russell said
started about six years ago.
“More visitors per room, per
week, per month, per year,” he
said. “It’s like turning tables at a
restaurant.”
Plus, there are more hotel
rooms, with thousands added
when MGM Resorts’ CityCenter
project debuted in 2009 meaning
more people can fill rooms that
didn’t exist before.

www.clevelandbanner.com

Hawaii’s last sugar plantation
to stop growing sugar in 2016
HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii’s
last sugar plantation is getting
out of the sugar-growing business, signaling the end of an
industry that once powered the
local economy and lured thousands of immigrants to the
islands.
Alexander & Baldwin Inc. said
Wednesday that it will phase out
sugar by the end of 2016. Its
36,000 acre-Maui plantation will
be divided into smaller farms to
grow biofuels and food crops.
Some of the land will be irrigated
to supply pasture to local cattle
ranchers.
The company says all 675 people who work for its Hawaiian
Commercial & Sugar subsidiary
will be laid off. About half will be
retained through the end of this
year’s sugar harvest.
“This is a sad day for A&B, and
it is with great regret that we
have reached this decision,”
Christopher Benjamin, CEO of
Alexander and Baldwin, said in a
news release.
Alexander & Baldwin was
founded by sugar-growing
descendants of Protestant missionaries 145 years ago. Today,
much of its business focuses on
real estate.
Sugar and pineapple plantations run by big landowners once
dominated Hawaii’s economy.
Sugar in particular took off after
1876 when Hawaii, which was
still a monarchy at the time, won
the ability to export the commodity to the United States duty-free.
Plantation owners later played
a prominent role in running
Hawaii after the U.S.-backed
overthrow of the Hawaiian
Kingdom. Plantations remained
the islands’ economic engine
until the launch of passenger jet
travel shortened the length of
flights from the West Coast and
triggered a tourism boom.

AP Photo

tHIs FILe PHOtO shows workers in a cane field on the Hawaiian Commercial Sugar plantation in
Puunene, Hawaii. Hawaii’s last sugar plantation is getting out of the sugar-growing business. Alexander
Baldwin Inc. said Wednesday that it will phase out sugar by the end of 2016.
The plantations drew immigrants from China, Japan,
Korea, the Philippines, Portugal
and elsewhere to work in the
fields, giving Hawaii the ethnic
diversity still evident today.
Benjamin said Alexander &
Baldwin “made every effort” to
avoid ending sugar growing. But
he said it suffered $30 million in
agribusiness losses last year and
expected further red ink if no
changes were made.
A&B doesn’t have any plans
for large land sales, though it
may sell some small parcels as it
has in the past, Benjamin said.
The entire property is zoned for
agriculture, and the company

plans to keep it that way.
It’s not yet clear what crops
will be grown on the land,
Benjamin said in an interview.
Sorghum and other grasses have
shown promise in research trials
conducted at the plantation, he
said.
If successful, Benjamin said,
those plans could support
Hawaii as it tries to achieve food
and energy self-sufficiency.
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz said he
was deeply saddened by the
news.
“For over 130 years, sugar production on Maui was more than
a business, spawning a way of
life and generations of hard

working women and men who
made our state remarkable and
great,” he said in a statement.
Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa
said his heart goes out to workers who will lose their jobs, but
the change was inevitable. “Fruit
trees, taro, bio-mass, papayas,
avocados and much more have
all gone through trial testing,
leaving us very confident that
while sugar cane is dead, agriculture will remain very much alive
here,” he said in a statement.
Benjamin said the company
was providing enhanced benefits
and one-on-one assistance to
help those being laid off move
into retirement or a new job.

‘Orange’ star trades jailbird jumpsuit for designer denim
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Now
sought-after for her edgy,
androgynous style, actress
Ruby Rose initially struggled to
find her niche.
“When I first started in the
industry back home in Australia
at 18 there was a lot of push
and shove as to how I should
dress, if I was allowed to cut my
hair short, if I had too many tattoos,” Rose said in an interview
Tuesday. “If I didn’t get a campaign or if I didn’t get a role,
they would always come back to
‘well, she dresses like a boy.’”
Times have changed for the
“Orange is the New Black”
breakout star, who recently
swapped her Litchfield Prison
uniform for distressed overalls
and cutoff shorts as the face of
Denim & Supply Ralph Lauren.
Rose, who counts Vivienne
Westwood, Annie Lennox and
Madonna among her style icons,
teamed with model Hailey
Baldwin for the brand’s latest
social media and global ad campaign.
She credits her hit Netflix
series along with Amazon’s
“Transparent” for sparking a
dialogue about gender identity

and acceptance in the entertainment industry and beyond.
“People were waiting to start
this conversation,” said Rose.
“Someone had to ignite it and
once that happened, it was just
a snowball effect where you had
celebrities and all different people coming out and saying, ‘I’m
gender fluid’ or ‘I’m transgender,’ and people feeling more
comfortable in their skin.”
The 29-year-old also praised
Louis Vuitton’s latest womenswear campaign featuring
actor-rapper Jaden Smith.
“I mean he’s so amazing but
the reason that’s so special is
because that’s how he dresses,”
said Rose. “It’s not like they just
went ‘OK, we’re going to grab a
guy that’s popular, that people
like, and we’re going to put him
in a dress.’ It’s not done in a
tasteless way. It’s just this is
who he is.”
Though it has not yet been
announced if her “Orange”
character, Stella Carlin, will
return for season four, Rose is
busy with upcoming films
including “John Wick 2” and
“Resident Evil: The Final
Chapter.”

AP photo

Actress
Ruby Rose
poses for a portrait in Los
Angeles. The
“Orange is the
New Black”
actress Rose
trades her
Litchfield jumpsuit for distressed overalls
in a new campaign for Denim
& Supply Ralph
Lauren. Rose
stars alongside
model Hailey
Baldwin in the
brand’s spring
2016 social
media videos
and global ads.

Mazzolini
From Page 29

together. He wanted to run a
marathon but we settled on half
marathons. My dad is my real
inspiration. We run together
almost every day.”
Staying in shape, caring for her
family and finding time to study
for a special certification cannot
be easy, but Mazzolini make it
look easy because she loves what
she does. She also sees the connection between helping others
and helping herself.
When asked what it takes to be
a good teacher, she responded,

“To be a good teacher I think you
have to put your students first —
but you also need to take care of
yourself, too. You have to take
care of your health and wellbeing. That’s a major thing that
running does for me. It makes
me feel better and when you feel
better you do better. It’s a good
way to burn off stress, to feel
alive and have more energy. I feel
the same way about nutrition. I
try to eat as well as I can,
although I have a major sweet
tooth. Running helps with that.”

The fact that she is not complacent — that she keeps trying
to get better as a person, as a
professional and as a parent,
speaks volumes about who
Michelle Mazzolini is, and is
striving to become. One would
never know that she is basically
a shy person who struggles to
meet new people. But even that
has become a personal project
for her growth as a person.
“Now, I’m trying to broaden my
horizons and make more friends
— be more social,” she said with

a smile. “Having kids has definitely forced me to go out of my
comfort zone in a lot of ways —
especially with Hank. Hank
never meets a stranger. He wants
to talk to everybody. He’ll just go
up to somebody and hug them. I
learned a lot from him.”
Ever learning, unafraid to step
out of her comfort zone and look
for opportunities for selfimprovement, Mazzolini is proving that one does not have to
simply go through life, but can
also grow through life.

Fast-food price fight: Combo deals center stage
NEW YORK (AP) — Another
price fight is breaking out
among the country’s biggest
burger chains, this time with
meal combos designed to make
people forget about the once
ubiquitous dollar menus.
The new “bundled offers”
show how hungry McDonald’s,
Burger King and Wendy’s are to
win over deal seekers, and how
quickly a popular idea gets
copied in the fast-food indus try.
The latest trend on the value
front popped up in late 2015
after Wendy’s rolled out a “4 for
$4 deal,” which includes a Jr.
Bacon Cheeseburger, chicken

nuggets, small fries and a small
drink.
This week, Burger King followed with a similar “5 for $4”
deal, and McDonald’s introduced a “McPick 2 for $2” deal to
kick off the new year.
“People look at what other
folks are doing, and if they think
they’re getting traction, they say
we need to do a version of that,”
said Tony Pace, former chief
marketing officer at Subway who
now runs a marketing consulting firm.
Though typically not big profit
generators, promotional deals
can steer people in the door who

might not have stopped in otherwise. And chains do their best to
make sure regulars stick to the
pricier meals they usually order.
At a New York City McDonald’s,
an employee said she was told
not to suggest the $2-for-2 deal,
but wait for people to order it on
their own.
The additional food tacked
onto those bundled orders helps
drive up sales as well. That’s
what happened when Burger
King tested its “5 for $4” deal in
recent months, said Alex
Macedo, who heads the chain’s
North America business.
“We believe it’s going to be

very profitable for franchisees,”
Macedo said in a phone interview.
The new deals come after fastfood chains struggled to raise
prices on value menus without
scaring off customers, even as
commodity costs rise.
McDonald’s shifted from its
hugely popular Dollar Menu to a
“Dollar Menu and More” that
featured a range of prices. Steve
Easterbrook, who took over as
CEO this past March, conceded
the company’s failure to come
up with an adequate replacement for the Dollar Menu has
hurt sales.