Wednesday, June 29, 2011

While crime and flash mobs roil Chicago-area residents, City Hall, Police, Tourism & Business Establishment act like ostriches. Sounds familiar!

View more videos at: http://nbcchicago.com.


WMAQ-TV (Chicago) video: Woman Believes Beach Violence Covered Up. City officials say incidents handled promptly.

Hard as it is to believe, all indications are that the City of Chicago and the Chicago downtown business establishment are STILL trying to deny what so many thousands of Chicago-area residents have seen LIVE over the past few weeks, and what tens of thousands more Americans have now seen via posted videos on YouTube, thanks to quick-thinking witnesses.
It's indicative of many troubling things, not least, a giant fundamental govt. dis-connect to reality.

View more videos at: http://www.nbcchicago.com.


WMAQ-TV (Chicago) video: The Talk: The Real Story Behind the Beach Closure.
Amy Schwartz talks with host Marion Brooks.

The situation in Chicagoland and how poorly it's been handled from the beginning, months before Rahm Emauel was elected mayor, gives you some real insight into how a similar situation down here in South Florida would likely be handled, where much-smaller city governments already have their heads firmly in the ground like ostriches, about what everyone in their own towns (plus visitors) can already readily see for themselves 24/7 about the general state of govt. incompetence, longstanding corruption and the lack of sufficient and properly-trained law enforcement in places where it can make a positive difference.
This despite the fact that Police & Fire personnel costs make up the clear majority of local cities' budgets.

See this post from the CTA Tattler blog,
Flash mobs ride CTA to commit crimes, mayhem on Near North Side


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WLS-7 TV (Chicago) video: Security stepped up for Taste of Chicago

Here where I live in South Florida, in the SE corner of Broward County, as I've often commented with exasperation on this blog, the Hallandale Beach Police Dept. STILL does NOT regularly patrol the actual public beach, even on crowded, three-day holiday weekends.
Like what's coming up in a few days...

But if you ask me, I can tell you exactly where I've watched them sit in their patrol cars on the road for 5-10 minutes with their A/C going when they have shown up to "investigate."
Or, later, where they stand in the shade (of The Beach Club) when they do actually get out of the patrol car -to smoke or check-out the female 'scenery'.
That's many things, but it's NOT the kind of serious patrolling HB taxpayers have a right to expect at one of the main public areas in the city.

Is it true that there are more HBPD police cars than there are actual HB police officers and administrators, and if so, why are there seemingly DOZENS of police cars that NEVER EVER move from the HB City Hall parking lot, no matter what time of the day you happen upon them?

Some answers to these questions may well be forthcoming, but I don't think I'm ruining the suspense when I tell you that I don't think you'll like the facts I have to share with you on this matter.

It's just more of the same inexplicable, inefficient, wasteful and status quo mentality we deal with here on an everyday basis.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

I accept the resignation of myopic, ethically-dubious Hallandale Beach City Attorney David Jove with long-overdue, indignant & disgusted glee. Adios!

The positive news below from Comm. Keith London this afternoon about the end of the oblivious reign-of-ruin of David Jove comes at a very opportune time for this city's beleaguered citizen taxpayers, as the public budget workshops begin soon.

But this year, they will be workshops where the onus will squarely be on the city to explain away and defend why SO MANY city employees, city programs and the CRA consistently perform in completely unprofessional and unsatisfactory ways, and why so much money from HB taxpayers continues to find its way into the wallets and purses of the same familiar cronies, year-after-year.
Yes, the corruption tax we pay in Hallandale Beach.

Yes, at long last, David Jove will no longer be able to continue to cause the sort of permanent, lasting damage to the credibility of public policy and adherence to the rule of law at Hallandale Beach City Hall.
FINALLY.

Jove will long be remembered by concerned Hallandale Beach citizen taxpayers not for good reasons but rather for bad ones, very bad ones -over-and-over again.

He was nothing if not the model of consistency in his bad judgments, unsound speculation and general acquiescence to whatever ridiculous and ill-supported policy Mayor Joy Cooper, former City Manager Mike Good and current City Manager Mark Antonio desired, regardless of how damaging it was to the spirit and letter of the law, democratic/civic practices and the financial bottom line of this city's residents.

Jove is, supposedly, among other things, the pro-active person at HB City Hall who is in charge of limiting potential liability to Hallandale Beach taxpayers, yet for years he has continually ignored, avoided or been oblivious to numerous state laws that the city has been in clear violation of, as well as the city's own ordinances.
(Ones I have photos of that drive home how truly oblivious Jove was.)

Oblivious to them despite the fact that he sees them EVERY DAY, some, even right at City Hall while walking from his reserved parking space to his office.
But ignores them he does, at the peril of this city -and any sharp-eyed lawyer who wants to make an example of this city.

Jove should've been fired years ago but wasn't because Mayor Joy Cooper liked having a legal lapdog that did her bidding and who was well-trained enough to do that bidding sometimes without her always having to explicitly spell it out at City Commission meetings.
She relied on his infamous obliviousness and desire to hold onto his job -at any cost.
(And now, thanks to Comm. London, we are learning at what co$t that was, aren't we?)

And Jove did what he could to make sure that dynamic never changed.

I'll leave it to another time in the future to discuss whether or not the former Assistant City Attorney -who spoke-up for both the law and HB citizens' rights once in a while at various city meetings I attended- was abruptly fired two years because she ACTUALLY followed the spirit and letter of the law -and her conscience- by asking or raising questions about some very dubious shenanigans going on in this city that David Jove has ALWAYS signed-off on and winked at.
Or, was she fired because she was a lesbian? Hmm-m...

Personally, I think if this woman filed a lawsuit against the city and told just a little of what she knew about what has been going on in this city for years, she'd win in court.
I only wish it was testimony at a Grand Jury.

This woman's the best-qualified person to be the new City Attorney here, but she will never be asked because Mayor Cooper DOESN'T want well-informed people who ask reasonable and logical questions about what transpires at City Hall to be in a position to change the stealthy and unhealthy dynamic the mayor has created there that gives her the means to get whatever she wants, even if it is completely counter to good public policy.
Especially when it is counter to good public policy!

Like the preposterous Golden Isles Overlay she desperately wants that interferes with HB homeowners rights.
Or, suing HB residents like my friend and fellow civic activist, Michael Butler of Change Hallandale, who want to take advantage of the state's Sunshine Laws in the state Constitution to make sure that the public has timely access to PUBLIC information in the possession of City Hall, information the mayor would prefer to keep quiet.

David Jove? Good riddance to rubbish!

------
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Keith London
Date: Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 12:50 PM
Subject: Resignation Hallandale Beach City Attorney David Jove - Guess how much you will pay him?
To: "Commissioner, Hallandale Beach - Keith London" <klondon@hallandalebeachfl.gov>


Everyone,

City Attorney David Jove has tendered his letter of resignation the last day of employment with the City of Hallandale Beach will be Friday, July 29, 2011

I am attaching the following documents:

  • The resignation letter
  • The 2003 employment contract referred to in the resignation letter (signed and negotiated exclusively by Mayor Joy Cooper)
  • David Jove’s 2010 statement from Principle Financial showing how the estimated pension he will be collecting ($4,400 - $4,900) for the rest of his life from the taxpayers of Hallandale Beach and thanks to the contacts signed by Mayor Cooper

Hiring of a new city attorney will be on one of the next City Commission agendas.

In addition I am providing the following link to Muni Code and the City of Hallandale Beach Charter showing duties of a HallandaleBeach City attorney.

DIVISION 1: - CITY ATTORNEY

There shall be a city attorney of the city, appointed or removed, by a majority of the full commission, who shall serve as chief legal advisor to the commission, the city manager and all city departments, offices and agencies and who shall assure that the city is represented in all legal proceedings and perform any other duties prescribed by this Charter or by ordinance.

(Ord. No. 94-20, § 3, 8-30-1994; Ord. No. 2003-28, § 2, 11-18-2003)

I would like input from “our” residents now and at the City Commission meetings regarding the hiring and compensationof a future Hallandale Beach City Attorney.

Thank you,


Keith

Keith S. London

City Commissioner

Hallandale Beach

954-494-3182 Cellular


2 attachmentsDownload all attachments
David Jove Resignation Letter 6-2011.pdfDavid Jove Resignation Letter 6-2011.pdf
24K View Download
David Jove Contract 6-2011.pdfDavid Jove Contract 6-2011.pdf
330K View Download


Coral Gables planning firm Dover, Kohl & Partners is focus of mounting taxpayer anger in Arlington County (VA) -their charrettes are "charades"


Link
Well-meaning but gullible Arlington County residents attending a charrette on Saturday in the
Columbia Pike neighborhood of Arlington County (VA), who don't understand that their role in this particular "planning" process: cameo appearances. The pro-development and patronizing Arlington County Board is going to ram high-intensity development down their throats whether they like it or not, regardless of how many suggestions they make on the docs and maps at this charrette or how impassioned and logical their comments. The narrative has already been written -they're just props! And in this case, it's been captured on video here by a front group that's paid for by Arlington County Government. i.e the taxpayers. IF Arlington residents in this neighborhood don't want the unhappy future of more people and traffic congestion that the County Board has in store for it, that's tough. That's how they roll.
http://youtu.be/IUGPi9ggVBw

Coral Gables-based planning firm Dover, Kohl & Partners is the focus of mounting taxpayer anger in Arlington County (VA), where beleaguered residents believe they are trying to
Link ruin their neighborhoods along the Columbia Pike Corridor with MORE intense development in the future, altering the fundamental nature of the neighborhoods and the reasons why some people move into them -and leaving them hefty living expenses tabs in the meantime.

http://www.doverkohl.com/

http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/CPHD/forums/columbia/current/Columbia_Pike_LandUse_Housing_Study.aspx

Columbia Pike Form-Based Code: http://www.doverkohl.com/project.aspx?id=9&type=1

The savvy, well-informed and heavily-taxed citizens of Arlington County, including many of my friends still living up there, have already been calling the company-led charrettes "charades" for quite a while now, and when taxpayers are paying $5,000 a day in hotel costs for the visitors from
South Florida, as some opponents allege, it's REALLY galling.

Hallandale Beach Blog favorite Arlington Yupette and her blog's readers are all over the story and they are NOT mincing words about their disgust and anger, even as the Washington Post is -surprise- completely under-reporting the depth of that animus.
http://arlingtonyupette.blogspot.com/

Monday's post is a perfect example, but there are ample examples:

Pike Corridor Post-Redevelopment 'Open Space' : Your Front Lawn

Hi, Yupette,

Talk about a planning charade, tonight's open space planning meeting at the Career Center was a hoot. The County's open space planning consultants talked parks and playgrounds, but the reality is that there won't be much open space left after in-fill yuppification for anything but Pike Corridor residents to hie to existing parks and recreation centers (including the future aquatic center, indoor soccer area, and boathouse) and use single family residential neighborhoods for their parks and recreation.
Read the rest of the post at:
http://arlingtonyupette.blogspot.com/2011/06/pike-corridor-post-redevelopment-open.html

According to reports, Arlington County Yuppie/Infill Czar and Commissioner Chris Zimmerman was present at some of these meetings in order to keep the high-paid consultants in line and not veer from County Board orthodoxy, which is Moscow-on-the-Potomac, circa 1974.


http://audreyclement.org/2011/06/21/recycling-on-columbia-pike/

While it's true that a
collaborative community process yields better communities, what you have in Arlington County is a top-down planning process that allows unelected people to have far too much power and influence, and since those people are selected by elected officials to do their bidding, where's the checks-and-balances?

And more importantly, what's the point of participating if you are just a prop and the process is a charade?

The above is not just the favorite template of Arlington County but also the favored plan here of Hallandale Beach under the ruinous reign of
Joy Cooper/Mike Good/Mark Antonio & Company.

In Arlington County, because the county government don't miss a single trick -
and wants to try to crowd-out opposing points of view- they have even created a 'front' organization that is supported by taxpayer dollars called the Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization -CPRO. They're the ones who made the video at the top of this post.
http://www.columbia-pike.org/


See this story at Greater Greater Washington blog about problems encountered by some residents in the affected area and how they heard about it from the county's top-heavy information distribution system:

I've told you all before in this space a little about about the over-size ego and relentless patronizing and condescending tone of Zimmerman, and what's happened to Arlington under his reign of ruin, where middle-class people have to flee.

In South Florida over the past year-and-a-half there have been all sorts of newspaper articles, TV newscast segments and blog posts, esp. by Big Labor-types, calling for liberals to create a group that would be the liberal alternative to the popular Tea Party movement that has fundamentally changed American politics.

But the problem they have is that when you gather lots of people who actually believe in LOTS of government spending -if not more than current- without lots of scrutiny and oversight, much less, a stacked deck of a public policy process, you quickly chase away anyone who knows how to run a successful small business because they know what the reality is of more rules and regulations -less jobs.
And what are you left with?

Lots of patronizing people who want to tell others how to live their lives.

Arlington County is full of these sorts of people, befitting one of the most liberal places in the entire country, but even there, liberal people with successful businesses of their own and who actually have to meet a payroll, have come to see see the reality that the Arlington County government's spending and chronic edifice-complex is beyond out-of-control as that term is generally understood in the U.S., and seems more Soviet-like than even I and others have pointed out from different political and writing perches over the past 15 years.


At some point, as no doubt some of you are already saying to yourself, you run out of people to tax to build your castles in the sky.
And who are tired of being told what to do by others.

For all their talk about diversity, how is shutting-down one of the few low-to-middle class housing sites in the county so that wealthy people can move in -and build and pay lots of taxes to the county- an actually strategy?
But there it is and was discussed by Yupette
in the recent past, as I've noted here

See also:
http://piketowncenter.com/2011/03/plenary-group-eyes-greenbrier-apartments-for-redevelopment/

What happens when liberals who are forever patting themselves on the back with their boasts about their commitment to diversity, chase all the actual living and breathing diversity out of the county, only making it Richer and Whiter?

A lot of things, but in Arlington, heartfelt remorse is NOT one of them.

And seriously, when almost all of the county administrators involved in the planning and bureaucratization of normal social life in Arlington live elsewhere, how can there not be a real dis-connect between County Hall and the average Arlington taxpayer, who seems to be paying for everyone else's needs but their own?


Well, we will see the answer to those questions in Arlington County, because eventually, the people with the golden goose get tired of gold-plating everyone else's neighborhood but theirs.

Keep up the good work, Yupette!

Monday, June 27, 2011

A visit to The Institute for the Advancement of Political Corruption, in Deerfield Beach, is a trip your kids will never forget! And neither will you!

Today I make up for an oversight of mine and give more attention to someone who actually deserves it.
Someone who is the anti-Kardashian - Chaz Stevens.

Despite being at polar ends of Broward County, Deerfield Beach to the north and Hallandale Beach to the south -right next to Aventura in Miami-Dade County- these two cities are Kissin' Cousins in the world of South Florida municipal corruption and indifference to public appearances.

If a different person was in charge at the Broward State's Attorney's office, it's not so far-fetched to imagine that they'd have a temporary office located at those two respective city halls to make it easier for the investigators to get the requested docs -and save gas money from driving to-and-from the SAO's office in the Broward Courthouse in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
But - sigh- we have the person we do until next year's election.

----

Excerpt from an email I sent Chaz Stevens about six weeks ago:

May 15th, 2011
10:55 p.m.

Dear Chaz:

I'd have said something congratulatory to you by now about this morning's Herald article but I've been having constant computer problems all weekend.
Je me regrette!

I'll try to post a comment on the Herald's site on Monday and will, hopefully, reference it on my blog later on Monday, after some time has settled to see which of your naysayers -who've never done anything themselves- come out of the woodwork to rain on your (long overdue) parade.

Longtime bomb-throwers like West Hollywood Dissident and Unowho, et al, who never seem to be right in either their predictions or their after-the-fact analysis when they've publicly attacked you, me, Keith London and many others we could name who want to reform this part of the Sunshine State.

I'm thinking that my comments at the Herald might be better taking one of them to the woodshed, as opposed to my simply saying what I think.

But who knows, perhaps I'll rise above the fray... and pay no heed to the peanut gallery of misfits that spins their wheels on other people's blogs and websites trying to make excuses for their
favorite political pets (miscreants) in Broward that we have been given in such generous amounts!
Instead, perhaps expose them at my blog for the frauds they are.

Cheers!

-----

In my comments above, I was referencing certain people who CONSTANTLY used Bob Norman's then-extant blog at the Broward NewTimes to go off-topic from what he'd written about, to delve into picayune matters that 99% of Norman's readers could care less about, including their various feuds with other readers, anonymous and otherwise.

-----

Miami Herald
Activist uses email blasts, blog to keep politicos honest
By Daniel Chang
May 14, 2011
Chaz Stevens is not a professional investigator, yet his digging has led to several Deerfield Beach officials facing corruption charges.
Prosecutors secretly admire him. Defense attorneys openly loathe him. And followers of Broward politics can’t seem to get enough of him.
Still, it’s hard to know what to make of Chaz Stevens, the rabblerousing activist who wields email blasts and a website — myactsofsedition.com — like a bludgeon, heaping scorn and ridicule upon, and leveling criminal complaints against his hometown public officials.

Since launching his tech-savvy anti-corruption crusade in 2007, Stevens’ tips to the State Attorney’s Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have led to the arrests of three Deerfield Beach politicians for corruption, including ex-Mayor Al Capellini and former commissioners Stephen Gonot and Sylvia Poitier.

It’s a track record that might earn Stevens a great deal of respect and admiration — if only he didn’t take such conspicuous pleasure in degrading his targets with equal amounts of scurrilous name-calling, innuendo and condescension, delivered with a generous helping of narcissism.

“I have only one thing to declare,’’ Stevens blogged this week after a Broward jury convicted Gonot. “My genius.’’

Indeed, Stevens filed the initial complaint that led to an FDLE investigation of Gonot in 2008, then followed up with leads for investigators and prosecutors, including an email he sent last week to Assistant State Attorney David Schulson, the prosecutor, who had already rested his case but reopened it to share the new evidence with the jury.

Stevens’ tip to Schulson: that Gonot had flown to Las Vegas to participate in a poker tournament the morning after his best friend had cashed a $5,100 campaign check at the center of the state’s theft and misconduct charges.

The evidence provided a plausible motive for Gonot’s theft, and undermined the defendant’s claims that he was overwhelmed at the time with a divorce and the failing health of his parents.

It is unknown whether the revelation swayed the jury’s verdict, but Gonot’s defense attorney, Jeffrey Harris, attempted to discredit Stevens early in the trial, accusing the activist of trafficking in “rumor and innuendo,’’ and questioning why state investigators would take seriously complaints from such a source.

Stevens wears Harris’s remarks as a badge now, and makes no apologies for his clearly biased reporting on Deerfield Beach and on Gonot’s trial, from which he posted exclusive videos of the defendant testifying and provided running color commentary.

“People don’t like me because I am who I am,’’ Stevens acknowledges. “I wish people were smarter to see the message. They get so hung up on the messenger. It’s disappointing.’’

He began his civic activism by ridiculing city politicians with doctored photos and outrageous claims posted on his blog.

An expert in Photoshop, Stevens recalled one occasion where he took a screen grab from TV of Gonot, and edited the photo to look like it was taken from a surveillance camera. Then he alleged the image came from cameras Gonot had surreptitiously planted in city hall.

Stevens shivers as he recalls the “buzz’’ his post created.

“I got calls from city employees,’’ he said, laughing. “The police came and did a sweep of city hall. They didn’t find anything.’’

By 2008, Stevens was looking to take his watch dogging game to another level. He learned to cull public records for the types of facts that could stand up as evidence in a criminal complaint and, eventually, a court of law.

It was a turning point for Stevens’ activism. While his complaints against Gonot and Capellini were based on the investigative legwork of the alternative newspaper New Times and others, Stevens’ complaint against Poitier was the first to originate from his own exhaustive review of meeting minutes, financial reports and other documents.

Stevens launched his crusade against Poitier in 2009, brazenly taking on a matriarch of Broward politics first elected to the Deerfield Beach commission 37 years ago and who also had served on the Broward County Commission from 1985 to 1998.

By his count, Stevens filed 23 criminal complaints against Poitier. But what really seemed to push the 75-year-old politician to the point of exasperation was the incessant taunting and vilifying on Stevens’ blog, in email blasts, on T-shirts and in doctored photographs that he posted online.

In March, Stevens posted a video on YouTube of Poitier on the Deerfield Beach commission dais, threatening to sue the activist for libeling her reputation and calling for “a showdown.’’

He made much hay of this on his website, and even threatened to sue Poitier for defaming his character.

And then the roof caved in for Poitier.

On April 12, state prosecutors charged Poitier with five misdemeanor counts of falsifying records, based on an investigation launched by Stevens’ original complaint. (She has plead not guilty.)

Stevens was overjoyed.

“It’s a glorious day,’’ he crowed in an email blast addressed to the press. Contained in the same email was an example of Stevens’ unflagging activism — a criminal complaint he had filed with FDLE in March, alleging the Deerfield Beach Housing Authority had violated state laws on public bids.

Tom Connick, a Deerfield Beach attorney who represents housing authority director Pam Davis, said Stevens is “flat out wrong’’ about the agency. And though he gives Stevens credit for rooting out corruption among city officials, he takes issue with the manner in which Stevens works.

“There are some things which he has brought to light that appropriately should have been brought to light,’’ Connick said. “There are other things that he claims are problems or issues, and he’s just flat out wrong. They’re not. ... I think the tragedy of Stevens is that he appears to be essentially someone who gets his self esteem by destroying instead of being constructive.’’

Stevens said he piles on the insults and attitude for effect, and suggests it is a strategy.

“It irritates,’’ he said. “It draws attention. ... I’m kind of an attention whore.’’

Connick said Stevens abuses public records laws by issuing broad requests that require hours of manual labor and reams of printed materials. He accused him of making unfounded accusations and degrading women.

But what bothers Connick most is Stevens’ in-your-face style.

“His destructiveness is so overpowering and inextricably woven into his personality,’’ Connick said, “that he’s really a negative factor.’’

To be sure, Stevens’ over-the-top manner has earned him enemies.

He believes someone poisoned his dog, and said he sometimes fears for his personal safety.

Physical threats, though, don’t seem to get under Stevens’ skin like the anonymous comments about him posted online at various local news websites and ridiculing his living arrangements, love life, weight and employment status.

It’s the two-way rule of the Internet, giving equal platform to anyone with a keyboard, a computer and something to say.

Stevens, 46, says such comments used to bother him, but that he’s “grown a thicker skin’’ about the personal attacks.

“It doesn’t matter where I live,’’ he says. “It doesn’t matter if I have a girlfriend or not.’’

For the record, Stevens lives with his parents in Deerfield Beach.

“I travel a lot,’’ he said. “It doesn’t make sense for me to have a house.’’

He works as a freelance software designer and website developer, and estimates that he devotes about 60 percent of his free time to activism.

And though he doesn’t get paid for his work, Stevens does enjoy some fringe benefits — namely the attention, but lately something closer to fulfillment.

“Now it has meaning,’’ he said of his activism. “Now it serves a purpose. It serves a public good.’’

This is not Stevens’ narcissism talking.

In April, on the same day that Poitier was charged, Kessler International, a forensic accounting and investigative firm that has audited Deerfield Beach’s community development division and civic festivals, announced it had created a new award called “The Chaz.”

Michael Kessler, chief executive of the firm, said the award will be bestowed annually to an activist with a proven track record of exposing government corruption.

He credited Stevens for reaching out to his financial investigators with leads, which ultimately led to an audit by the U.S. Housing and Urban and Development’s Office of Inspector General, which ordered the city to repay $224,000 in grants after finding that Poitier and another commissioner, Gloria Battle, had violated federal regulations intended to curb special interests.

“He supplied us with a tremendous wealth of information at the onset,’’ Kessler said of Stevens. “If you followed his blog, there were always tidbits of information.’’

And while Kessler also noticed the heavy doses of scorn, ridicule and name calling on the website, he is willing to indulge Stevens’ personality based on his track record.

“You have to take the whole enchilada,’’ he said, “but I think it brings levity to a very serious situation. That levity sometimes can be detrimental, but ... I don’t think I’ve ever seen an email that he’s written that when we went back and looked at the documentation, that the documentation was false.’’

Stevens points out that he’s not a professional journalist or corruption investigator and has no credo he must follow.

“Who cares if you have to put up with my stupid foibles?’’ Stevens said of his brand of activism. “It’s a little greedy that you want a corruption fighter and a grown up.’’
-----
Following his missive this morning:

Subject: DBHA BSC: The Institute for the Advancement of Political Corruption

If you have the misfortune opportunity to have listened to Anus T. Connick's rave review of Deerfield Beach Housing Authority Executive Director Pamela Davis*, you'd not ever want to second guess her credentials. However, according to the published Roles and Responsibilities of the Board Commissioners, doing just that is at the top of their to-do list.

So being that the existing BOC won't allow you and I (mostly me) a chance at that discussion, let's take a moment this morning to discuss an issue regarding Davis' performance and you decide for yourself if she makes the grade.

Speaking of which, we are *not* grading on a curve.

Read the rest of the post at:


I wrote the following to Chaz this morning:


Come for the lack of oversight - stay for the star-spangled corruption!

And closer to us, hard by the Broward/Miami-Dade County line, coming soon: another look at what former Congresswoman Carrie Meek has been doing with all that free land and the tens of thousands of dollars that Miami-Dade County has been funneling her way for years.

Teaser Alert: Putting lots of photos of herself on a fact-free website DOESN'T make the project she promised the county an actual success.
Just saying...
Link
-----

Question in L.A. Times column after USA-Mexico debacle: "In what other country would the visitors have home-field advantage?" Answer: Miami


U.S. Mens National Team vs. Mexico: Highlights - June 25, 2011, Rose Bowl, Pasadena, California: Mexico 4, USA 2.
http://youtu.be/6fTvZqC-ycE

Answer: Miami, the Capital of Latin America.
At least it is according to the Miami Herald and their super-sensitive Editorial Board and cronies in the South Florida community that not only DON'T welcome honest discussions of U.S. immigration policies and related issues, but that also has shown over the years that it is NOT interested in dealing with valid, fact-based complaints about their reporters and editors' personal bias bleeding into actual news coverage and reporting of facts.

Question asked at the end of sports columnist Bill Plaschke's column in the Los Angeles Times about the ugly scene at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena Saturday after Mexico's 4-2 win over the USA Mens National Team: "In what other country would the visitors have home-field advantage?"

(Saturday's match was, to soccer-loving me, a completely meaningless game that has about as much portent for the future of the U.S. team as the Dolphins' 1973 exhibition game loss at the Vikings had for their success later that season. That loss got me so upset I almost cried after it was over, which sounds even more ridiculous to me as I write it than it could possibly sound to you reading it since... well, a.) I was there, and b.) they still won the NFL title again, beating -yes- the Vikings in the Super Bowl in New Orleans.)


Less than 24 hours after this Bill Plaschke column went online, approximately 887 reader comments bombarded the L.A. Times forum site.




In fact, 21 hours after column was posted online, the L.A. Times, showing they'd learned little from the Chicago Tribune after their politically-correct news stories on flash mob criminal activity in downtown Chicago by African-American youths, wherein the Trib intentionally refused to describe what the assailants looked like or had in common, rushed this warning online:
L.A. Times Moderator at 7:42 PM June 26, 2011
Note to readers and commenters: Because of repeated inappropriate posts, we will now be reviewing comments on this article before they are posted. We are also in the process of removing comments that violate our terms of service.
My blog post on that situation, from June 12th, is here:

-----
Los Angeles Times
In Gold Cup final, it's red, white and boo again
Mexico rallies for a 4-2 win over U.S. behind overwhelming support at Rose Bowl. In what other country would the visitors have home-field advantage?
By Bill Plaschke
June 25, 2011, 10:15 p.m.

It was imperfectly odd. It was strangely unsettling. It was uniquely American.

On a balmy early Saturday summer evening, the U.S soccer team played for a prestigious championship in a U.S. stadium … and was smothered in boos.

Its fans were vastly outnumbered. Its goalkeeper was bathed in a chanted obscenity. Even its national anthem was filled with the blowing of air horns and bouncing of beach balls.

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IF the game was really so important, how come the Miami Herald only devoted 13 sentences to coverage of the game in Sunday's newspaper? Thirteen.

IF the Women's World Cup in Germany is so important, and women deserve as much coverage as the men -which I believe they do- then why does the Herald not send their soccer writer, Michelle Kauffman to cover it?

Because it has degenerated into a third-rate, yet-pretentious newspaper that won't put its money where its mouth is.
Which we already knew, didn't we?

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U.S. National Team YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/ussoccerdotcom

View more videos at: http://www.nbclosangeles.com.



For those of you seeing this outside of South Florida, it should be noted for the record that these Mexican/M-A fans in SoCal talking about rooting for Mexico, despite living in the U.S., sound remarkably like South Florida Jews talking about any subject involving Israel for local Miami TV newscasts. Entirely predictable!

The video above of the man who has been living in the U.S. for 40 years but who speaks Spanish to the KNBC reporter instead of English, is too good to be true as far as local TV cliches go.
In that sense, it sounds exactly like Miami TV.

If only the reporter had interviewed him at a sports bar, THAT would've been a sports cliche grand slam!

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Pop culture kitsch and traditions straight from the heart of summer-loving Sweden -Lotta på Liseberg 2011 - A new year of music memories begin

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TV4 Play video: Lotta på Liseberg - Direkt från Liseberg i Göteborg bjuder Lotta Engberg på allsång och kända artister June 20, 2011.
http://www.tv4play.se/noje/lotta_pa_liseberg?title=lotta_pa_liseberg&videoid=1711216&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=permalink&utm_campaign=tv4play.se

Pop culture kitsch and traditions straight from the heart of summer-loving Sweden -Lotta på Liseberg 2011 - A new year of music memories begin.

Yes, I have the whole sixty-six minute long first show of the summer here, above, plus the TV commercials that will no doubt give some of you some insight into the minds of what Swedish ad agencies think will catch the attention of savvy, consumer-friendly Swedes.

Lotta's musical guests: Alexander Rybak, Orup & Le Kid, Loa Falkman, Sanna Nielsen, Matts Paulsson... with band conductor Curt-Eric Himquist.

Oh, and EVERYONE knows the lyrics.

Nobody loves celebrating sun-filled summer like Swedes, even when they have to wear jackets to a summer ritual like Lotta på Liseberg in Göteborg, a weekly Monday night music and pop culture get-together for eight weeks that's a middle-class family entertainment TV tradition that appeals to cute Soccer Moms, IM-ing teens and their younger siblings and blue-haired grandmothers -and everyone in between.
(Like the Indy 500. Feel the need, the need for speed.)

It's sort of like a combination of the current Live with Regis & Kelly TV show and the 1960's Lawrence Welk Show but on tour on a cruise ship-cum-beloved amusement park, yet with impressive audio and video technology and a pop sensibility that is uniquely Swedish, heavy on the cornpone -and schlager.

Yes, in that sense, it's got a lot in common with the next few months before the Iowa Primaries -especially the part closest to Minnesota!

The required rituals that make that political dog-chasing-its-tail routine what it is: national news reporters from New York and Washington complaining about the candidates, the summer heat -and corn- and the bicycle races -and their boredom- and corn- and pancakes breakfasts...

All of which is likely to be organized to a 'T" by someone whose last name is Petersson, Larsson, Luhrsen or Svensson, displaying some sharp organizational and logistical skills that are in very, very short supply in South Florida, as the evidence all around us clearly shows.

(Editor's Note: The Quad Cities in summer - with no ocean breezes: Good times! LOL!)

Because this particular episode of the show aired LIVE nationally on Monday night at 8 p.m., June 20th, it'll only be available to watch on TV4's Play website until probably about 6 p.m. or so Sunday U.S. Eastern.
There's currently a six-hour time difference between Sweden and Miami, and they DO keep to those time constraints, so if you are west of me and want to watch this, even for a few minutes out of curiosity, you best keep that deadline in mind.

http://www.visitsweden.com/sweden/

TV4 Play's homepage for Lotta på Liseberg is chock full of embeddable clips from the show if you want to just see the songs and not the banter. More get added with each show.

Par exemple, here's a clip of Sanna Nielsen from Monday singing I'm in Love, which was actually taped during one of the show's commercial breaks, since they want to keep the vibes going with the LIVE audience at the famed Gothenburg amusement park.

While there is, of course, no sign, per se, at the park's entrance that says "No Hipsters Allowed," it's just sort of assumed that they would never go anywhere so happily middle-class and fun, hence, the lack of signage.

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Sanna Nielsen - I'm in Love - Lotta at Liseberg, Gothenburg, Sweden, June 20, 2011