Oh, yes, "Consider the source."
Sometimes, the classic nostrums really do their job, and this is such a case.
Oh, dear!
Soon I'll have to spend some time and energy that could obviously be better spent illuminating a genuine problem hereabouts, constructing a measured and observant character study on this strange character in our midst, someone who seems so eager to be listened to, even while saying so very little of merit and irritating people in the process.
Think of it as a valuable learning experience.
When I do so, I shall paint a picture of him with words that, necessarily, wound his feelings, if any.
So be it.
Soon I'll have to describe just some of the reasons why the majority of local residents who have actually dealt with him or who have, like me, foolishly tried to help him, have so quickly tired of his childish naivete, churlish sensibility and grand sense of importance, where everything is always about him, even when it's clearly not.
A person who seems to view all disappointment as a personal attack on him.
There's just no winning with him -and then he turns on you.
Even more puzzling to many is Markoff's perplexing need to attack some of the very few people in the community who are actually trying to bring about some genuine and long-overdue reform, accountability and transparency to this city, to make it a better place to live in the future.
People like Michael Butler and Comm. Keith London among others.
Yes, a place where real ideas can be discussed openly and intelligently based on commonly-held information, where people are attracted to be part of it in some way, and share something of themselves, not repelled from participating in its civic life.
Above, the Hallandale Beach City Hall monument sign off U.S.-1/South Federal Highway, Hallandale Beach, FL.June 10, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier
In that future post, I'll try my best to keep to a minimum my descriptions of the dozens of hours I spent with him over the course of about two years trying to explain and explore some of the longstanding self-evident problems within this city, describing the historical context for why certain things were the way they were, since logic and reason seldom were apparent.
In almost every case, he knew nothing of it prior to my pointing them out to him -in person- even though he's lived here longer than me.
When he was (illegally) detained by the Hallandale Beach Police Dept. last year, in yet another one of their typical screw-ups to intimidate the people who pay their salaries and pensions, he actually asked me what I thought he should do in response.
I told him that what had happened to him was not new behavior, based on many police-civilian incidents I'd been told about by honest first-hand observers, and I told him that he ought to file a formal complaint.
Later, when mendacious Hallandale Beach Police Chief Thomas Magill and his unethical cronies called him to basically try to talk him out of filing a formal complaint, in part because they have to keep public records of it, Markoff reminded me of their having previously broken state law in a previous incident years before when he'd been a witness to elder abuse, and yet his identity was later revealed to the guilty parties by the HBPD.
All the more reason to file the complaint said I.
But somehow, after my not exchanging more than ten words with him since he asked my opinion, due largely to his complete invisibility at any of the meetings or events that have completely absorbed the community the past year, me, the person who has helped him, I'm now somehow the jerk?
The object of his barbs?
Huh?
Well, my friends and I in this community who have actually done considerably more than simply talking or writing pedantic attack screeds in the New Times, are only too happy to be considered enemies of self-styled HB Political Commissar Andrew Markoff and his creepy behavior.
We wear his scorn and enmity like a golden crown of laurels, since anyone paying attention knows who's really doing something positive in this community, and who's ALL TALK.
Above, the entrance off U.S.-1/South Federal Highway to the Hallandale Beach City Hall and next-door Hallandale Beach Police Dept., Hallandale Beach, FL.June 10, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
Exactly one day after HB City Manager Mike Good was formally fired, there was STILL NOT a single directional road sign in the entire 4.2 square-mile ocean-side city indicating where City Hall or the Police Dept. HQ is located. That's the kind of city it is and has been all these years under Mike Good and mayor Joy Cooper.
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