Showing posts with label South Beach Hoosier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Beach Hoosier. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Trust me, in 2015, unlike 2014, I'll follow this advice. Really! 2015 is going to be completely different. Årets nyhet: du! Ett helt nytt och obrukat år är här. (New this year: you! A brand new and unused year is here.)

Close-up photo of the cute head-turning window display at the Apotek Hjärtat -Sweden's largest independent pharmacy chain- located at Ringvägen 113, near the Skanstull T-bana in Södermalm, Stockholm.
The sign reads, "Årets nyhet: du! Ett helt nytt och obrukat år är här. Just nu känns det lite lättare att välja om, förändra vanor och bryta gamla mönster. Vi hjälper gärna till. Du vill, du kan, du törs!'
(New this year: you! A brand new and unused year is here. Right now it feels a little easier to choose, change habits and break old patterns. We're happy to help. You want to, you can, you dare!
Sounds like good advice that I ought to actually follow in 2015, unlike 2014! 

January 12, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier.© 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Friday, December 20, 2013

On a truly momentous day for Indiana Hoosier fans, players and coaches, one that'll result in $40 Million making the long overdue renovation of basketball icon Assembly Hall a reality, where's The BigTenNetwork with any coverage and original content? Nowhere to be found! Isn't that supposed to be what THEY do?; @BigTenNetwork @DavidWoods007 @DustinDopirak @HoosierFaithful @IndianaMBB @insidethehall @iubbhoosiers ‏@IUBloomington @Justin_Albers ‏@OurIndiana @rickbozich



IUAthletics YouTube Channel video: IU Athletics Receives Historic Gift: Fred Glass and President Michael A. McRobbie. Uploaded December 19, 2013
http://youtu.be/ev5UgwK27PQ
"Indiana University President Michael A. McRobbie today announced that IU Athletics has received a $40 million gift - the largest in its history - from IU alumna Cindy Simon Skjodt to provide much needed renovations to Assembly Hall and launch IU Athletics' ambitious and unprecedented $150 million "Catching Excellence: The Campaign for Indiana University Athletics" capital campaign. President McRobbie also announced that in honor of the landmark gift made by Catching Excellence co-chair Cindy Simon Skjodt and her philanthropic organization, the Samerian Foundation, IU will rename Assembly Hall the Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall."


On a momentous day when Generosity, Hoosier Love and Big Bucks come knocking, IU Hoosier AD Fred Glass knows to open the door and welcome them in. Result? $40 Million to the IU Athletic Dept. and the over-due renovation of basketball icon, Assembly Hall. But where's the BigTenNetwork with any coverage? Nowhere to be found!

Below is the Indy Star's video of the complete 2:30 p.m. announcement, including remarks by philanthropic Hoosier Cindy Simon Skjodt, followed by links to their stories by Zach Osterman@ZachOsterman https://twitter.com/ZachOsterman

By the way, in case you were wondering about the name and any prospective name changes in the future, IU's policies rule out corporate names, so at least that's a positive.
No worry about being changed to give some PR to insurance names, car parts manufacturers, et al, like has happened at Joe Robbie Stadium, which has been desecrated with awful corporate names -including bankrupt companies- over the past 20 years, none of which I use on this blog. :)





IU's Assembly Hall: Its origin and its future 
By Zach Osterman, zach.osterman@indystar.com 
Includes renderings and schematics

IU icon to become Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall 
By Bob Kravitz and Zach Osterman, bob.kravitz@indystar.com 
8:30 p.m. EST December 19, 2013
http://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/indiana/2013/12/19/indiana-university-assembly-hall-basketball/4123963/


So, did you see happen to turn your TV dial to The BigTenNetwork on Thursday to see how they were bringing its viewers around the country up-to-date on what happened in Bloomington on Thursday afternoon, a moment that could prove so very important to the future success of Hoosier Nation and its legion of fans and former players -and future fans and players- who want more consistent success, but with the requisite amount of class we've come to expect and demand?

No, of course not, because they didn't do a damn thing.
I'm writing and posting this online more than 12 hours after that press conference at Assembly Hall has been over, and there is still no original content of any kind about the story of a very generous IU alum with control over $40 Million knocking on the door and Fred Glass being smart enough to hold the door wide open.
And what might happen next as a result of that.

There's no original content of theirs of consequence about this subject on The BigTenNetwork website anywhere. 
Not even the video that most of us have now seen more than a few times.
Why?

I thought one of the principal reasons for the network being created in the first place, besides the need by the Big Ten office to make even more money from national and regional advertisers and give millions of that to the athletic departments, was to be able to directly service and connect fans and alumni from Big Ten schools, often located far from those campuses, like me here in South Florida, with what was actually going on.
The sort of thing that leads some fans to even finally start giving some money back to their schools, even if not quite $40 Million.

But here we are, more than six years after its creation, and all my doubts over the years about what they were actually doing, producing and seemingly settling for, have proven more true than I wanted in one big strikeout for Hoosier fans across the country.

The BigTenNetwork is NOT a Community College alternative radio station in the Quad Cities or a student-run newspaper run out of a Columbus office building by some silver spoon legacy whose father owns the building, they're supposed to be a professional media organization that has the resources and common sense to know in advance of a big story to ACTUALLY have people in place to cover the story and tell an original and compelling story that's different than the one told by the ambitious beat reporters for the school newspaper or the breezy comments offered by national reporters doing drive-bys on cold winter days.
So where were they?


WISH-TV, Channel 8, Indianapolis videoIU's Assembly Hall to be renamed after donation
By Jeff Wagner 
Updated: Thursday, December 19, 2013, 7:59 PM EST 
Published: Thursday, December 19, 2013, 2:38 PM EST
http://www.wishtv.com/news/local/iu-makes-major-announcement

13 WTHR Indianapolis

WTHR-TV, Channel 13 Indianapolis video: Philanthropist donates $40M for Assembly Hall renovation  
Updated: Dec 19, 2013 6:21 PM EST
http://www.wthr.com/story/24262048/2013/12/19/sources-iu-renaming-assembly-hall

My other blog, to be rejuvenated in the new year, is South Beach Hoosier:
http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/

Monday, December 10, 2012

The #8thStar fell in Alabama! Hoosiers’ Quest For Eight is Mission Accomplished! Hoosier goalie Luis Soffner pitches third shut-out in a row in leading Hoosiers to 1-0 win over Georgetown to earn their 8th NCAA soccer title; Jordan Hulls shows Hoosier Pride!; #Q48, #8thSTAR, @JordanHulls1


Today, when you go to the IU Athletic Dept.'s website, you're now greeted by this great photo of lots of happy Hoosiers celebrating their well-deserved NCAA title yesterday afternoon.

The way that IU was dominating Georgetown in the first-half with their sharp, up-tempo offense that saw them control the ball in front of the Hoya goal for minutes at a time, I actually thought the score could very well turn out to be something like a 4-0 rout.
But 1-0, on Nikita Kotlov’s lone goal in the 64th minute of play yesterday off a nice header by  Eriq Zavaletaproved more than enough with Luis Soffner in goal for the Hoosiers to shut-out the Hoyas, his third shut-out in a row.

One minute-video of title game highlights at: http://www.ncaa.com/sports/soccer-men/d1

I must admit to feeling very dumbfounded at how little actual video of the game is available online the day after, as the Indy TV stations have nothing and neither does ESPNU, despite the fact that they were the ones who televised the game.

Defense drives Indiana's title run
By Greg Ostendorf, ESPN.com
Updated: December 9, 2012, 8:05 PM ET
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8730456/with-stingy-defense-little-luck-indiana-won-national-title-men-soccer-college-cup

http://www.indystar.com/article/20121209/SPORTS0601/121209010/College-soccer-IU-captures-8th-national-title-1-0-win-over-Georgetown

http://btn.com/2012/12/09/track-live-indiana-plays-georgetown-for-ncaa-soccer-title/


Andrew Wittry YouTube Channel: Indiana Men's Soccer National Championship Reception Postponed. Uploaded December 9th, 2012. http://youtu.be/RpJAVPws_qE
Above, the great Chuck Crabb , IU Assistant Athletic Director, explains to some disappointed Hoosier fans last night why the planned 8:30 p.m. reception for the team at Assembly Hall was postponed, owing to bad weather in Nashville, where the team stopped on their way from Birmingham back to Bloomington. More on Chuck at bottom..

It was great to see that Hoosier basketball star Jordan Hulls was in the stands for yesterday afternoon's game, and drove the 8 hours down to Alabama after the Hoosier basketball game Saturday night  against Central Conn. State, the school that my friends and I had never heard of, but which at Spring Break in FTL during early 1980's boasted a disproportionate amount of the most good-looking coeds.
Jordan Hulls @JordanHulls1  twitter.com/JordanHulls1


IU soccer championship gear is here: http://iuhoosiers.cbscollegestore.com/store.cfm?store_id=406 

-----
This is what I wrote about Chuck on my other blog, South Beach Hoosier, when I started it in 2007: 


The IU sports administrator most responsible for helping me make sense of all things Cream & Crimson, was IU's do-it-all, 24/7 Renaissance man, Chuck Crabb
With equal amounts of enthusiasm, hard work and patience, Chuck lovingly and masterfully managed IU's Student Athletic Board, an organization to which I devoted many thousands of hours to -and loved every minute.


Both the more difficult times, like trying to manage things and stay dry during downpours at IU soccer games at Bill Armstrong Stadium, and those that were more fun, like helping out with the logistics of running the lengthy IU cheerleader and pom squad tryouts, up on the HPER's beautiful second floor wooden gym, with very precise routines all set to Prince's genius music, circa 1982, which was blaring out of the speakers. 
Fun and hard work!

After all those hours and hours of watching those carefully choreographed routines to his music -routines that I can STILL see in my head- I could never hear Prince's songs again without thinking of those tryouts and smiling. 
And of all those eager but flushed and exhausted Hoosier faces, anxious to help project Hoosier Pride to Hoosier Nation.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

For another consistently lousy year of journalism at the Miami Herald, esp. covering Broward County, more lumps of coal in the Christmas stocking of One Herald Plaza -Part 1


Miami Herald vending machine in front of Denny's restaurant, Hallandale Beach, FL.July 3, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Below is the email that I sent last Friday afternoon to David Landsberg, President and Publisher of McClatchy's Miami Herald, with cc's to Herald Executive Editor Aminda Marques and Managing Editor Rick Hirsch, along with certain Broward County elected officials and activists I keep in regular contact with. 


This is the first of two emails sent directly to him about the Herald's considerably lackluster performance for the year 2011, where sins and errors of the past were neither corrected nor forgiven but merely repeated over-and-over to an inexplicable fair-thee-well. 


In the subject header that day, I wrote: More lumps of coal in your Christmas stocking for such a consistently lousy year of journalism at the Miami Herald covering Broward County.
-----


December 16, 2011



Dear Mr. Landsberg:


You're the publisher and president of the Herald, and yet as of 4 p.m., it's now been more than 65 hours since the Broward County Commission formally approved new district maps based on 2010 Census information, and as of right now, your newspaper has printed absolutely NOTHING about it in-print or online. 
http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=redistricting
Nada!


But then the Herald also NEVER wrote in-print about any of the myriad issues arising out of the many public meetings that've been held in the county the past few months about that required redistricting in Broward.
Nothing about what the maps might look like given that some members will soon be termed-out, or even whether or not it was likely that a 'Hispanic-majority' district might somehow be carved-out of it somewhere, which might necessarily change the county's current dynamic.
http://www.broward.org/Redistricting/Pages/Default.aspx


Congratulations!


That's certainly entirely in keeping with the strange and counter-intuitive journalism decision-making that beleaguered Broward readers have continued to see coming out of 1 Herald Plaza the last few years, with enough bad decisions having emerged to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to your remaining Broward readers that you all consider Broward to not just be terra incognitabut almost persona non grata as well, given how Broward barely exists at all in your blogs, too, regardless of the subject area.


To my eyes, among the worst and most unforgivable sins for a media enterprise that still contends that they're RELEVANT now is how week-after-week, month-after-month, NOT a single instance of an article, column or essay written by a Miami Herald employee -or even a Guest Op-Edwill appear in that embarrassing excuse for a Sunday public policy section, Issues & Ideas, that directly concerns issues, people, pols, government and personalities of and in Broward County.
Month-after-month-after month!


The self-evident facts, the actual newspaper itself, don't lie, and they could hardly be more
glaring or damaging to the newspaper's faltering credibility.


Here we are at the end of the year 2011 and there is NOT a single Broward-oriented columnist appearing in print in your newspaper.
How can you possibly think that's a good idea?


As for your decision to go seven-plus months without an official Reader's Ombudsman, since
Edward Schumacher-Matos left for NPR, and the curious management decision to NOT
replace him, well, there's yet another completely counter-intuitive journalism decision that
further shows the newspaper's lack of seriousness and integrity.
But hey, who's counting all those curious decisions, right?


I mean there's only... well, now that you mention it:


-the longstanding lack of even one South Florida-based conservative columnist with both some historical knowledge of the area and some flair & verve in their writing that could challenge the stagnant South Florida status quo to readers 2-3 times a week


-the complete lack of an Education blog in the year 2011


-the Editorial Board's abject failure to consistently run meaningful well-written dissenting
points-of view in your so-called "Opposing Views," as you instead prefer running columns
and essays that merely replicate the prevailing status quo orthodoxy of the Editorial Board,
even to the point of running crummy columns by Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star that sound eerily like Herald editorials.
But she's even more condescending and patronizing, if that's possible; and she proves it
whenever you deign to put her words into print.


To most reasonable people, Mr. Landsberg, calling something Opposing Views conjures
up a mental image of an actual opposing point-of-view, not merely uttering the same exact
ideological nostrums or cant with someone else's name attached to them.
It's the difference between a voice and a chorus.
A more accurate name for the top of that editorial page in the Herald now would be "The Choir." 


And lest you forget, as we approach 2012, there is NOT a single Broward-oriented blog on the Herald's entire website.
Pitiful!


That said, you sure have managed to corner the market to yourself on useless minutiae on
Cuba, or writing sycophantic stories about commercial and residential real estate 'upturns'
in downtown Miami.
I will give you credit for that, if that's what it is.


At some point in the next few weeks, you might want to avail yourself of a blog post I wrote
on November 27th of last year that connects-the-dots rather well on what I and many other 
well-informed and civic-minded residents of Broward County continue to see as your and the Herald's failings.


How a video of Paramore in Stockholm & Razorlight in London proves the Miami Herald is too damn slow. Iceberg dead ahead!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-video-of-paramore-in-stockholm.html


It's just one of many posts on the decline we've all seen at the Herald, and in particular, your perfectly awful news coverage of Broward County.
I don't know whether you plan on making any meaningful, positive changes to the newspaper and website in the new year or not as part of some collective New Year's resolutions, but if you aren't, you're making a huge mistake.To quote myself from that post:
When specifically is Miami Herald publisher David Landsberg finally going to publicly share with Herald readers what his actual plan is to rescue the newspaper, and make it relevant to readers and news consumers, which it increasingly is NOT by any stretch of the imagination?  It's getting kind of late in the voyage with Landsberg at the helm, and while I'm no expert on icebergs, I can see with my own eyes that the known and unknown icebergs keep getting closer and closer to the Herald's bow as it steers into unchartered waters without a compass or, seemingly, a legitimate plan to get to its destination.  And like you all, I know with absolute certainty that most of an iceberg is unseen -and below the surface.Just like the Herald's myriad problems.But some problems are too big to hide.
Continuing to routinely treat so many of a newspaper's readers with profound condescension and almost child-like indifference is the sort of thing that at other newspapers would quickly get people fired, but is something which at the Miami Herald is simply called business-as-usual or, Sunday.


You can either change that or you can just ignore that.
We'll all see in January which choice you made.


-----


In my original email to Mr. Landsberg on Friday, I made a small mistake.
I called the column on the page opposite the Herald editorial page that, rather than being contrary to the Herald Editorial Board's position as you'd think, based on what they call it, it's usually complementary, "Opposing Voices." 
It's actually called "Opposing Views."


Regardless of what the Herald calls it, the point is not just valid, but still just as sheepishly embarrassing as well.


For those of you who are new to this blog and have never seen it before, when I first started my South Beach Hoosier blog and Hallandale Beach Blog in 2007, I made a conscious point of posting the following as an anchor to the blog -something that would always be present- so that anyone coming to them would know precisely where I stood on the issue of the Herald and its faltering news coverage of South Florida and fleeting influence within it.
I mention this because there are a lot of people in the blogosphere who are Miami Herald sycophants, from whom "seldom is heard a discouraging word..."


The following is what was on South Beach Hoosier in 2008 and 100% accurate at the time it was written, though many changes have taken place since then -just not enough positive ones for South Florida residents who want more 'hard news' coverage in their newspapers more often -everyday.


I hope it provides some helpful context for understanding what I wrote in Part 1 above and
what you'll soon see here in Part 2.


-----



South Beach Hoosier will also examine the latest amusing or not-so-amusing scandals, cover-ups, controversies, contretemps and mis-adventures bedeviling South Florida, something I became used to while growing up in North Miami Beach in the late 1960's and the 70's.
Fortunately, because of my news-junkie DNA and myriad magazine subscriptions, and long-standing relationships with media types in Miami, I was able to keep up pretty well with the South Florida area while living in Bloomington, Chicago, Evanston, Wilmette and Washington, D.C./Arlington, VA.
Communities where sensible civic activism and high standards of journalism were the norm and not the exception.


Due to my own personal/business/political interests and experiences in those cities, as well as my good fortune to have a large number of well-informed and well-connected friends and former housemates while living there, many but not all of whom are or were reporters, columnists, editors, TV/film producers, along with a few who are now well-placed in Statehouses and legal circles across the country, I'll have a deep bench of facts, opinions, point-of-views and fact-checkers to work with. 
That's the goal for South Beach Hoosier.


It's my hope that this'll help me offer up pinpoint criticism, whether of national and South Florida pols, media organizations and sports or show biz personalities, that have heretofore evaded public scrutiny, transparency or accountability -as well as well-aimed brickbats
To examine the proverbial case of the latest dog that doesn't bark, or analyze why the latest case of media conventional wisdom has -again- been proven wrong, and why.


This is especially true of The Miami Herald, the morning newspaper I grew-up with and have suffered with since first leaving North Miami Beach for Bloomington in the Fall of '79, as its most talented people jumped ship and the paper become evermore a shell of what it once was: an excellent newspaper with talented and respected reporters and editors telling compelling and intriguing stories of intrinsic value to its readers throughout polyglot and transient South Florida


Television news-wise, when I'd return to South Florida from school or work in Bloomington, Evanston, and DC, whether for Christmas vacation, Baltimore Oriole spring training games or visits for weddings, I could still see that Miami had the kind of scrappy and innately curious reporters who make a tangible difference in a community.
The sorts of enterprising reporters that so many of my friends at Ernie Pyle at IU, and Medill at Northwestern were already well on their way to becoming. 


http://www.idsnews.com/
http://journalism.indiana.edu/news/erniepyle/  
http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/
http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/ 


Reporters who might have the talent and ability to convey to the waves of newcomers and visitors to the area, a nuanced sense of South Florida's decidedly mixed historical past, by writing with the proper amount of factual research, balanced perspective and sense of disbelief, to describe the events unfolding around them. 
Then, ending the piece by dropping the hammer on whichever local corrupt/incompetent miscreant, pol or agency hack was the target of their ire, for attempting to perpetrate yet another in a long of of dubious acts against the people of South Florida.


Sadly for the people of South Florida, things have gotten so bad now that The Herald's numerous flaws are as much for what they don't publish, as much as for the self-evident mediocre quality of its writing and reporting, lack of thorough fact-checking, and inadequate search for conflicts of interest.
For all the talk of improving the paper by the new McClatchy management, it shows no tangible signs of changing for the better any time soon, a great disappointment to its readers.


It's common knowledge within the industry that The Herald's website is a joke compared to the efforts of many smaller circulation newspapers. www.miamiherald.com


Frankly, the website itself remains a constant source of embarrassment for Herald reporters and columnists, who are constantly besieged by readers and told yet another horror story about not being able to find recent Herald stories that should be on the paper's website but aren't.
The reporters can do little more than shrug their shoulders in response.


Even in the year 2008, The Herald still DOESN'T have a permanent Public Ombudsman to represent the interests of both its readers and basic fairness, like many newspapers with much smaller circulation numbers!
Meanwhile, with much more to fear and lose, The New York Times has an independent Public Editor, currently Clark Hoyt, who weekly takes the Times' policy, owners, editors, reporters and columnists to task publicly, even providing links back to the original story or column in question, unlike the once-in-a-while effort at the Herald
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/thepubliceditor/index.html?8qa


Meanwhile The Herald's Sunday attempt at high-minded opinion-shaping and public policy, Issues & Ideas, is so embarrassing and muddled on so many different levels that it's all one can do to not laugh from crying, so feeble is its effort, so low is its aim, so puny the actual result.


Yet rather than seeking the creative input of bright and knowledgeable new faces who are familiar with the real problems of South Florida, The Herald still regularly farms-out the Guest Op-Ed space in the paper on Saturday to people living outside of the area, more than any other newspaper in America I've ever read. They continually run long excerpts in their editorial space from parochial interest groups whose political sentiments echo that of the the Herald's own Editorial Board. 


Even worse, if possible, in many cases these particular guest editorial tangents have already appeared in other forums or publications! And speaking of the Herald's Editorial Board, who's on that exactly, anyway?


It's a great mystery that nobody seems able to fully explain away, yet The New York Times, under the guidance of Andy Rosenthal, has an entire webpage specifically devoted to detailing the background and credentials of its Editorial Board. http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/editorial-board.html


Hmmm... call me old-fashioned, but South Beach Hoosier prefers transparency!

-----


By the way, as I write this post on early Wednesday morning, it's now been exactly a week since the Broward County Commission vote on redistricting and the Herald has STILL NOT published anything in print or online.


Part 2, my follow-up email to the above, will be here soon.

Monday, March 29, 2010

TheWrap's Mikey Glazer imparts great Left Coast intelligence: "Shhhh ... 5 of Hollywood’s Secret Social Clubs"; Hoosiers and Hollywood

Hollywood, U.S.A. and the sign that lures the world

Great Left Coast intelligence at your fingertips

from our well-informed friends at...

TheWrap

Shhhh ... 5 of Hollywood’s Secret Social Clubs

From the poker table to the hardwood to the far right wing, these Hollywood hangouts require a Hollywood pedigree

By Mikey Glazer March 28, 2010

Yeah, that's right -- Hollywood has secret clubs. And it ain't that new spot Drai’s at the W in Hollywood.

For these clubs, it's not enough to know someone to get in. First you have to know they exist.

From hoops to poker to right-wing politics, they’re secretive in nature and selective in membership. And in an appropriate twist, TV super-spy (Zach Levi) belongs to two of them.

TheWrap went sleuthing to bring you the full reveal of Hollywood's secret social scene.

Read the rest of the story at:
http://www.thewrap.com/article/shhhh-5-hollywood%E2%80%99s-secret-social-clubs-revealed-15742


See also: http://www.thewrap.com/ and
http://www.youtube.com/user/thewrapnews


Was planning on running a photo of me with the
Hollywood sign behind me, circa 2000, but
couldn't
find it.

-----


Some Hollywood odds and ends from my other blog,

South Beach Hoosier

http://www.southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/

Hoosiers in Hollywood are Making Their Mark!
But what they'd really like to do is "Direct..."

Hollywood Hoosiers -Bringing together Indiana University
alumni in the entertainment industry in LA and greater
SoCal
for the benefit of a grateful media-consuming nation.
http://www.hollywoodhoosiers.com/


Michael Uslan's funny 2006 IU Bloomington Commencement Address

Michael Uslan
, originator of the Batman films,
describes his long journey from Bloomington to Batman,
and it reads as funny now as it did the first time I read it.

Not unlike IU grad and media & technology genius Mark
Cuban
, this is one very smart, funny and insightful guy
who "gets it."


See
Cuban, Unembargoed from Indiana Alumni Magazine,
November/December 2004
http://www.alumni.indiana.edu/magazine/issues/200411/cuban.shtml

In an entertainment world that actually made sense, Uslan would already have an additional gig as the host of a popular and influential TV program dealing with the intersection of pop culture and media, and the tension between creatives and 'the suits,' but without NPR's usual pretensiousness or PBS' deadly earnest seriousness.

So, where is that program now, exactly, the one you'd expect to already find on Bravo if the Cable TV industry was really giving its viewers what they wanted?

Right now, all the good ideas for it are safe and sound in South Beach Hoosier's head!
http://www.indiana.edu/~ceremony/commencement/uslan_address.shtml


Indiana Hoosiers in the Film Industry, Past and Present

A good source for checking Hoosiers in the film industry
-
No, not Cary Grant pretending to be Cole Porter in
1946's Night & Day
-
is this one from a website run by
former Ball State prof. and chair of the IPAHF board,
and author of Hoosiers in Hollywood (Indiana Historical Press,
2006, $60)
David L. Smith.

It's currently accessible by subject
headings of Actors, Actresses,
Musicians, Composers, Directors, Screenwriters, Novelists,
Made in Indiana, Oscar Winners, The Silent Era, and
Non-Native Hoosiers.

http://www.whenmoviesweremovies.com/hoosiersintro.html


The simple insightful wisdom of Hoosiers in film
"A man's life ain't worth a hill of beans except he lives up to his own conscience."
-Jess Birdwell (Gary Cooper), in Friendly Persuasion, 1956
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049233/

Friday, March 12, 2010

Errant driver's crash highlights Broward's embarrassing neglect of property; give that driver an award!

My comments follow the article.
South Florida Sun-Sentinel


http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-broward-government-building-hole-20100312,0,6587586.story

Driver runs red light, puts big hole in Broward government building, police say

By Alexia Campbell and Scott Wyman, Sun Sentinel

March 12, 2010

FORT LAUDERDALE

A vehicle hit Broward County's personnel building early Friday and left a huge hole in a wall, forcing government workers to relocate.

The accident at Andrews Avenue and Broward Boulevard happened at 1:53 a.m., said city Fire Rescue spokesman Matt Little.

A woman ran a red light on Andrews, lost control of her vehicle and hit the wall, said police spokesman Sgt. Frank Sousa.

The woman was treated by Fort Lauderdale firefighters and then taken to Broward General Medical Center, Little said. Her injuries did not appear to be life-threatening, Little said.

No one was in the building at the time, said county spokeswoman Judy Sarver.

Officials determined the building is unsafe until repairs can be made.

The county will have to temporarily relocate its job application processing services, which were handled in the building, Sarver said. People seeking county jobs should go to Broward's government website — http://www.broward.org — to apply online.

Sarver said the damage was still being assessed Friday and county officials were not sure when the building would reopen.

Reader comments at:
http://discussions.sun-sentinel.com/20/soflanews/fl-broward-government-building-hole-20100312/10

----------

Unfortunately for Broward taxpayers, the errant
car didn't
crash into the hideously dirty East side
of the Broward
County Personnel Building facing
Andrews Avenue,
which has been an absolute
abomination for at least three years
-to
the eternal
shame and discredit of County Administrator
Bertha Henry and the entire Broward County
Commission.

I've been taking photos of it for that long, every time
I go to the Broward Govt. HQ at
115 S. Andrews Ave.,
Fort Lauderdale, for Charter Review, Ethics, Planning
Council and County Commission meetings.


It's almost like Broward County is channeling the
management geniuses at Hallandale Beach City Hall!
And by geniuses, of course, I mean the motley crew
of incompetents who make our city a laughingstock.

January 26, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier


Same building a month later.
February 25, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier


January 26, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Above, the Broward Legislative Delegation meeting
of January 26th, 2010 at the Broward College HQ
on East Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, which
met to discuss a bill creating an Inspector General
to be an ethical bloodhound tracking Broward's
many miscreant pols.
http://www.broward.org/legislative/

That's Miami Herald reporter Amy Sherman
on the far left wearing the red top and blue jeans.

Recognize anyone else, public policy sleuths?
Well, there's state Sen. Chris Smith, state Rep.
Ellyn Bogdanoff, the Delegation Chair, and
Broward Coalition president Charlotte Greenbarg
and...


January 26, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Looking north from the SW corner of Andrews Avenue
and Broward Blvd. Fort lauderdale.
You can see where people have written and drawn
things on the dirt-caked wall.

Oh, and there's also a caved-in metal utility cover
directly in front of that building on the corner,
next to that pole, that will absolutely break your
ankle if you're not looking.
You're lucky if you get off just being tripped.
That's been there for at least two years.


February 25, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier

It's like the County, with all the resources taxpayers
have given it, STILL can't quite figure out some way
of getting a pressure-washer there to completely zap
that while building and work its way south to the
Broward Govt. HQ, since the whole sidewalk smells
like an ashtray -with a urine chaser!

What a great welcome for visitors and Broward
taxpayers alike to the official home of Broward
County!

January 26, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier

That area is also where buses deposit the homeless,
with predictable results.



See: Broward Politics Hanging in Stranahan Park
http://www.youtube.com/user/BrowardPolitics#p/u/4/NQCEokl23Hg



and Broward Politics: Billy the panhandler, age 48
http://www.youtube.com/user/BrowardPolitics#p/u/5/rkA-TE_aT-M



On my way to the Broward Planning Council's
meeting re the Diplomat LAC last month, I swung-by
the McDonald's a block away to grab some McMuffins.
On the way back, I snapped this shot of someone, below,
sleeping on the sidewalk of Broward Blvd. at 8:55 a.m.
Two blocks from Fort Lauderdale City Hall.

February 25, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Looking east on Broward Blvd. & Andrews Avenue.,
just north and across the street from the Broward County
Personnel Bldg.

Though I'm not posting photos of it, that whole area is
positively crawling with trash and debris everywhere,
two blocks from Fort Lauderdale City Hall.

That area is a real dump and yet the city and the
county just seem to ignore it, like it'll all just wash
away with the next downpour. Not much of a plan!

I sure didn't see any Super Bowl 44 flags over
there in late January like over on East Las Olas Blvd.,
near the Sun-Sentinel HQ, where it was a bit over-
the-top.


January 26, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier

Looking south on Andrews Avenue & East Las Olas Blvd.,
Fort Lauderdale.



January 26, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Super Bowl 44 sign, looking east on East Las Olas Blvd.
& Fort Lauderdale.


January 26, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Super Bowl 44 sign, East Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale.


January 26, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier

The dirty and dumpy sign in front of the Broward
Govt. HQ at
115 S. Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale.
In the morning, this immediate area smells like an
ash tray in an old abandoned car that's had its
windows rolled-up for years.

Minutes of Broward County Ethics Commission:
http://www.broward.org/EthicsCommission/Pages/MeetingSchedule.aspx

For more video, see:
http://www.youtube.com/user/BrowardPolitics


http://www.broward.org/planningcouncil/

Monday, February 1, 2010

The nexus of South Florida taxpayer dollars, sports teams and stadiums: Dolphins owner Stephen Ross' checkbook

36 years and counting for a 3rd Super Bowl Trophy...
Above, 2007 photo by Mario J. Bermudez

36
years and counting for a third Super Bowl Trophy...

That's what Stephen Ross really ought to be pre-occupied
with.

Things to watch for in the near future...

When
rather than whether billionaire Dolphin owner
and perpetual celebrity-collector Steven Ross uses
his wealth to pay for top-tier lobbyists to help him
put pressure on local pols to do his bidding, and try
to put taxpayers on the hook for HIS stadium
improvements.

It's rather perplexing, but not at all surprising,
that almost all of the articles I've read thus far
on his initial efforts in this regard have gone
out of their way NOT to mention specific
names and firms.

But citizen taxpayers WANT to know the
names and firms involved, and what's more,
want to see someone in the media -anyone?-
illuminate the connections (tentacles) of those
particular lobbyists to specific pols which are
considered solid enough for Ross & Company
to think they'll actually be a good investment.

For instance, is Steve Geller one of those
lobbyists? Have the Dolphins formed a PAC?
Personally, I'd like to know.

Simply saying Ron Book in a story is not really
taking this story to its logical conclusion since he's
a lobbyists for everyone, even Hallandale Beach.

I'd rather see a story about those aspects of this
story than hear yet another lame Super
Bowl 44
puff piece that puts a smile on host
committee head
Rodney Barretto's face.
http://www.miami.com/bowlbuzz

Lesson learned this far:
Ross
will spend his
money for lobbyists, just not for stadium

improvements for his own stadium.


While transferring what I'd originally written
here as an email this afternoon to my blog,
I recalled something I'd written before on my
other blog which incorporated some insightful
Herald stories from 1979 about Joe Robbie
and the problems he had back then with local
pols in Miami who dared him to move the team.

For those of you who weren't living here back then,
trust me, it helps to explain why things are the way
they are now: dysfunctional.

It explains why there is a football stadium on the
Broward-Dade county line and not in Miami,
and how the whole idea of using common sense
in placing stadiums and arenas near areas needing
development, and creating mass transit improvements,
thus allowing the tax dollars involved to produce their
largest possible multiplier effect, and give the largest
number of South Florida residents much-easier access
to attend, was instead replaced by ad hoc parochial
decisions that have shortchanged taxpayers millions
of dollars and wasted years of opportunities
.

Just imagine if the arena for both the Heat and the
Panthers
was near Joe Robbie Stadium and the
crucial Purple Metro Line
had been built.
Instead, we have the waste of resources we have.

Just in case you run into any problems reading those
old Herald articles I've included at the bottom,

move your mouse over them and right-click.

Hit "Open link in new window."

It makes the articles huge and easy to read.



And before I drop some recent articles that touch
on these matters, let's stop and look at a bigger
news story that nobody in South Florida's media
is talking about: how are tickets to Super Bowl 44
being distributed to elected officials?

Meant to post this email from ProPublica
a week ago, but...
Mieux tard que jamais!
http://www.propublica.org/


<span class=ProPublica Header" width="605" border="0" height="128">

Hi,

We need your help.

We need to know which members of Congress are attending this year's Super Bowl, and how they got their tickets. Would you help us call members of Congress this week and ask their staffers two questions: Did the lawmaker go to the Super Bowl last year, and is she or he planning to go this year?

Sign up here for our Super Bowl Blitz, and we'll get you calling instructions and phone numbers. As answers come in, we'll plug them into our online chart and our reporters will begin following the money trail.

The Super Bowl is America’s most expensive sports spectacle, and it has long been used to rub shoulders, gain influence and form ties that help congressional candidates raise the approximately $1 billion they spend on their campaigns every two years. While most of us can’t afford a ticket to the Super Bowl, we know the NFL sets aside a large number of them for public officials and corporations to buy at face value (the cheapest tickets are going for as much as $1,799 on StubHub). Politicians use the tickets to reward big donors, and corporations use them to reward politicians.

The stakes are extraordinarily high this year. The resurgent Republican Party’s victory in Massachusetts last week raises the likelihood of yet another record-smashing year of campaign fundraising in advance of congressional elections this fall. Last week’s Supreme Court ruling, which allows corporations and other groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on ads for or against sitting members of Congress, also will trigger a spending spree.

OK, but why do we need your help?

We're running short on time.

In the next two weeks we need to find out which members of Congress will be watching in the stands -- or perhaps peering down from skyboxes -- and then figure out how those members got their tickets. Being a lawmaker's constituent, or a local or state reporter, will get you answers a lot faster than if we were doing the asking.

The NFL – which is a special interest, like any other -- won't tell us how many tickets it has set aside for politicians, let alone who got them. All we could squeeze out of the NFL was one sentence from NFL lobbyist Jeff Miller: “We respond to requests to purchase Super Bowl tickets from a wide array of groups, including sponsors and other business partners, members of the news media, elected officials and fans.”

We also tried to get information from the political party committees that often organize fundraisers around popular events. For instance, the National Republican Congressional Committee got face-value tickets from the NFL and used them to reward their big donors for 10 years running.

Unfortunately, the major party committees are refusing our requests for information about this year's Super Bowl. In the past month, ProPublica reporter Marcus Stern asked the Republican National Committee, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee, NRCC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee about the Super Bowl events they're planning. Only one - the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee - got back to Marcus, and said it had no events scheduled.

If you're game, sign up here and we'll get you what you need.

Best,
Amanda Michel and Marcus Stern


Got this email from a friend? Subscribe. Unsubscribe.

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. We are located at 1 Exchange Plaza, 23rd Floor, New York, NY 10006


Well, to see the results thus far, see
http://www.propublica.org/ion/reporting-network
and
http://projects.propublica.org/tables/superbowlblitz


Sarah Talalay of the Sun-Sentinel puts
the taxpayer question on stadium improvements
to Joe Robbie Stadium directly to NFL
Commissioner Roger Godell here:

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Exclusive Q&A with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell

By Sarah Talalay
January 31, 2010
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/football/superbowl/sfl-roger-goodell-qa-013110,0,4204783.story


Miami Herald
MIAMI-DADE - DOLPHINS' STADIUM: Miami Dolphins propose raising tourist tax to pay for stadium fixes - One proposal being pitched to bankroll improvements to the Dolphins' stadium: raise tourist taxes. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez says he's opposed.

By Matthew Haggman and Douglas Hanks
January 27, 2010

Aiming to raise public dollars to improve their privately-owned stadium, the Miami Dolphins and team backers have hatched a plan: get state legislators to lift the ceiling on Miami-Dade's hotel tax and then ask county commissioners to increase the rate of the so-called bed tax.

Backers of the plan, which has been presented to state legislators in recent weeks, say the move would generate millions of dollars for renovations on the Dolphins' Sun Life Stadium -- along with upgrades of the Miami Beach Convention Center.

State law now caps hotel taxes at 6 percent, the amount already assessed in Miami-Dade County. Revenues from the tax levied at Miami-Dade hotels are largely spoken for after county leaders agreed to use public funds to construct a new baseball stadium.

''This is certainly one of the options,'' Dolphins lobbyist Ron Book said of the plan to seek an increase of the county's tourist tax. But Book -- who also represents Miami-Dade County as a lobbyist -- said other financing proposals are being weighed.

''There is more than one way to skin this cat,'' he said.

But winning public funding to enhance a stadium whose primary owner is billionaire real estate developer Stephen Ross remains a tall order -- particularly at a time governments are strapped for cash and taxpayers struggle through an economic downturn.

On Tuesday, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez said he hasn't been presented with any specific proposals. But the mayor declared his opposition to tax dollars being used for renovations at the Miami Gardens facility.

''I would not be supportive of any public funding for the renovation of the Dolphins' stadium,'' said Alvarez, who said he's against raising the tourist tax. ''Now is not the time.''

Alvarez strongly backed the use of public dollars for the under-construction Florida Marlins stadium in Little Havana, but said Tuesday that this situation is different.

For one, a funding source was available then, unlike now, he said. For another, he said ''the Marlins will play 81 homes games a year here for the next 30 years, rather than paying for improvements to compete for one game every four or five years.''

NFL executives, Miami Dolphins officials and stadium supporters contend that Sun Life Stadium needs more than $200 million in renovations if future Super Bowls are to return to South Florida.

The improvements include partially enclosing the stadium with a roof that would shield fans from rain showers and the glaring sun. The proposal calls for new lighting to accommodate high-definition television -- which the team must currently install every time it hosts a night game.

And the blueprint includes tearing out the lower bowl of the stadium to add 3,000 prime seats and moving the spectator area closer to the field.

Next week South Florida is set to host its 10th Super Bowl, the most for any region in the country.

But some warn it could be the last if the improvements aren't made, as NFL owners move the championship game to newer, better-appointed stadiums.

''Doing nothing would be a huge mistake as we would surely watch cities like Dallas, Indianapolis and New Orleans land more Super Bowls,'' Rodney Barreto, chairman of the South Florida Super Bowl Host Committee, wrote recently.

Alvarez responded Tuesday by saying: ''South Florida in February is a place a lot of people would love to be.''

In recent weeks Dolphins CEO Mike Dee and lobbyist Book have been meeting with state legislators in Tallahassee to discuss the funding proposal.

An effort to rewrite state hotel-tax law could set off a scramble for the millions in extra dollars during a historic budget squeeze.

''Do you know how many people are going to jump on that bandwagon? Museums, performing arts centers, arenas,'' said Stuart Blumberg, the recently retired head of the Greater Miami and the Beaches Hotel Association who also co-chairs a city panel on the Miami Beach Convention Center.

On Tuesday, Dee declined to discuss specific proposals, including raising the bed tax, saying he wanted to give time for a new sub-committee formed by the South Florida Super Bowl Host committee to consider improvements to the Dolphins home and ways to pay for it.

The committee, headed by former Dolphin Dick Anderson, is set to hold its first meeting Thursday.

''I think the discussion about funding comes at a later point,'' Dee said. ''What will take place on Thursday is the opening kickoff. All of us will have to let this subcommittee do its work.''

Yet, time is short.

The reason: presentations to NFL owners to win the chance to host the 2014 Super Bowl come in May. Proponents of a stadium overhaul say plans to update the facility must be in place by then.

''The clock is ticking to show we have some movement,'' said Dolphins lobbyist Book. ''Certainly we have to have something to show the owners, to show what we are doing to keep the stadium in a position that they find acceptable.''

Reader comments at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/story/1447876.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1



Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/columnists/garvin/story/1445911.html
Why don't the Miami Dolphins' owners pay for stadium upgrades?
By Glenn Garvin
January 26, 2010

E
milio Estefan has just published an autobiography, The Rhythm of Success: How an Immigrant Produced his own American Dream.

"The next generation of immigrants needs to learn how we did it,'' he recently told a Miami Herald reporter. "How much hard work there was for us at the time we came to this country.'' My advice is to skip directly to the chapter that explains how to go on welfare, which is what Emilio is doing.

That's right: Emilio and his wife Gloria, who have amassed a net worth estimated at $500 million -- including not just their music companies but an empire of hotels, restaurants and other businesses -- are becoming welfare queens. And the Estefans, who've always thought big, aren't going for penny-ante food-stamp fraud, either: They want a $250 million government handout for the Miami Dolphins, the football team they own a chunk of.

You've probably always thought it would be unpleasant and even faintly humiliating to trudge single-file up to the window in a welfare office. Not now! The conga line for a stadium handout starts with the Estefans, but includes their equally glamorous Dolphins co-owners.

Like Venus and Serena Williams, whose $45 million-plus winnings on the pro tennis tour are dwarfed by their endorsement contracts. (Nearly $100 million just for shoes.) Or Marc Anthony, the best-selling tropical salsa recording artist of all time. And though she's not technically a Dolphins owner, maybe Anthony's wife Jennifer Lopez (estimated net worth: $110 million) will tag along, that is, if she's not too busy with a $15 million movie role.

And don't forget the team's majority owner, developer Stephen Ross. I'm tempted to identify him as "carpetbagging plutocrat Stephen Ross,'' but I hate to kick a guy when he's down, and poor Steve has lost $1.6 billion in the crumbling real-estate market -- which, according to Forbes magazine, means he's now merely the 110th richest person in America.

If it seems to you that Ross and his let's-tan-in-St.-Tropez-this-weekend ownership group could pay for their own stadium repairs by selling off a few Swiss chalets and corporate jets, you're not alone. "This is corporate welfare,'' says a befuddled Philip Porter, a University of South Florida economist who's written extensively on the business of sports. "When we subsidize stadiums, we're giving money to the wealthiest class of people among us.''

To be fair, Ross and his merry band of looters insist the stadium improvements aren't for the Dolphins. That 17-percent decline in season-ticket sales over the past four seasons of Miami football mediocrity has nothing to do with this. We should kick in a quarter of a billion to fix up their stadium for our own good.

Without a roof and more luxuriant seats for the pale, tender butts of corporate aristocrats, Ross says, the NFL will stop bringing the Super Bowl to South Florida. And pffft! -- just like that! -- we lose the $460 million that comes with the game.

The problem with that argument is that it's -- how do I put this politely? -- a monstrously bald-faced lie. The economic impact of big one-shot events like Super Bowls is easy to track through sales-tax receipts, and literally dozens of studies have shown that they bring in far, far less than the Dolphins and their local-government toadies are claiming.

(Of course, the Dolphins have a study from a lobbyist company to back up their estimate. Funny how they won't let anybody see it.)

In a winter tourism center like South Florida, the impact of a February Super Bowl is diluted even further. We're already overrun this time of the year; Super Bowl visitors just crowd out other tourists, and the only real economic spike will be in hotel prices. That feeds the coffers back at the hotels' corporate headquarters but doesn't do much for the locals. Paris Hilton should be sending us a thank-you note, or at least a shout-out in her next sex tape.

But you don't need to pore over a stack of economics journals to understand how patently false the claim of that $460 million windfall is. Just ask yourself this:

A brand-new state-of-the-art stadium can be built for $490 million (that's the price tag on the Marlins facility that started construction last year). Why doesn't the NFL simply take over some little town like Yeehaw Junction, build its own stadium and tourism infrastructure the way Disney did in Orlando, and pocket all that Super Bowl money itself? After the first year or two, it's pure profit forever and ever.

The answer is that the $460 million is as mythical as Monopoly money. The only people who will benefit from this stadium boondoggle are the Dolphins' indolent gazillionaire owners. As Gloria Estefan likes to sing, "I'd do anything for you.'' Except dig into her own pockets.

Reader comments at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/columnists/garvin/story/1445911.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1
-----
To understand in part why and how we got to
this point in time, where there's widespread
voter opposition to local pols getting involved
in trying to micromanage what happens with
sports stadiums in South Florida, I'm going
to excerpt some of my own older posts at
South Beach Hoosier, my second blog
which I plan on retrofitting soon:
-----

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

SouthBeachHoosier Time Machine: Reviewing the Battle of the Orange Bowl

Continuing with the decision by U-M President
Donna Shalala
and the U-M Board of Trustees
to do what's right for the school, the team and
the vast majority of South Florida's Hurricane
fans by leaving theOrange Bowl Orange Bowl
in the rear-view mirror, what follows is the
March 16, 1979 Miami Herald story by
Bill Rose, which ran about two months before
the Bill Braucher column that was the basis
for my last post.

It traces the history of how Dolphins owner
Joe Robbie got the better of Dade County
Mayor Steve Clark and Commissioner
J.L Plummer by publicly embarrassing them,
simply by telling the truth to the gathered NFL
owners in Hawaii, which, unhappily for Clark
and Plummer, was a history replete with
broken promises to Robbie and the Dolphins,
and real threats for them to move out of Miami
if they didn't like it.

Joe Robbie
, who'll be the future subject of a
South Beach Hoosier post dealing with his
role as the Dade County Democratic Party
chair, lived long enough to call their bluff
and have the last laugh!

Yes, the fights over beer sales, and the fights
in court when the Dolphins prevailed and the
City of Miami didn't like it and appealed
-and lost again- the threat to prevent the Dolphins
from actually playing a preseason game in the
Orange Bowl, et al.


This as the NFL owners convened to decide
among other things, the site of the 1981
Super Bowl, which turned out to be Detroit,
even as Miami officials took it for granted that
they were in the driver's seat.


(That was Super Bowl XVI, where the
49ers beat the Bengals 26-21, the first
of their Super Bowl meetings, with the
second coming in SB XXIII in Miami,
with the 49ers winning 20-16.)


Just as was the case with the
Braucher
column post, I'll try to write out the story in
the future here in case you can't read it
completely.



Miami Herald
Reviewing the Battle of the Orange Bowl
Bill Rose
March 16, 1979

SouthBeachHoosier Time Machine: The Orange Bowl Isn't Worth Drive to Dade

This Bill Braucher story is an insightful piece
of South Florida history which, to me at least,
speaks volumes for all manner of current and
past public policy problems/govt. projects that
have beset South Florida for the past forty
years: inertia, apathy, incompetency and finances.

I've been keeping it at the ready since first having
it printed out at the Miami-Dade County Main
Library downtown, and seeing the downtown's
myriad problems "up close and personal" for the
first time in months...

This March 18, 1979 Bill Braucher column
below, which ran on the front page of the Sunday
Broward news section, serves as a painful
reminder that even when or IF you were to
eliminate all the current incompetent people
in the City of Miami responsible for the
disgraceful current condition of the Orange Bowl
-and have you seen the city's website for the
OB, which seems like something a junior high
school kid did over a weekend, with none
of the sorts of historical photos that you'd
expect to give it context,
http://www.orangebowlstadium.com/pages/-
it's important to keep in mind that, just like
cholesterol, it's not just environment, it's genetics
which determines a patient's health.

The City of Miami has very recessive genes.
Logical result: The Orange Bowl has been
sick for decades!

To read this column from those pre-cable,
pre-internet days is to be reminded all over again
of the sorts of half-assed things that were
commonplace back in 1979, when Dolphins
owner Joe Robbie was getting screwed-over
once again by the kangaroo court that was
Miami's powers-that-be, principally Dade County
mayor Steve Clark.

To date myself, yours truly was then a senior
at North Miami Beach Senior High School,
a true-blue fan who never missed a Dolphins
or Hurricanes home game.

Titled Orange Bowl Isn't Worth Drive to Dade,
Braucher, the Herald's former Dolphin beat writer
-who later became their Broward editor- when I
was growing up as a kid in the '70's, mentions some
very telling anecdotes that perfectly illustrates that
the City of Miami's bad attitude isn't just a recent
phenomena, rather it's a living, breathing entity
that's been around for decades, regardless of its
core competency to solve the problem either
intelligently or in a financially prudent fashion.

At a future date, I'll try to write it out for those
who can't read it completely when you capture
it with your computer mouse.





Miami Herald, Broward edition
Orange Bowl Isn't Worth Drive to Dade
Bill Braucher
March 18, 1979