Forty-years ago, Miami Dolphins football in December had genuine significance and gave South Florida a real sense of identity, excitement and togetherness that it had never before enjoyed. I know -I was there. But now...

TIME Magazine, December 11, 1972

Building For The Super Bowl - Miami Coach Don Shula

Forty-years ago, Miami Dolphins football in December had genuine significance and gave South Florida a real sense of identity, excitement and togetherness that it had never before enjoyed. 
I know -I was there.
But now...

Some, including many who should know better, foolishly say that South Florida has become "a basketball town."
That's NOT true, of course, since real basketball towns support both professional AND college basketball with equal affection.
I ought to know, because I've lived in two of them: Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Miami is nothing like them.

Still, given the anemic showing the Dolphins have made on the field the past 15 years, and the equally amateurish, dog-chasing-its-tail sense of ineptitude and stupidity shown by the two most-recent ownership groups off-the-field, it's not easy to rebut those foolish claims with a straight face, especially when the Miami Heat have won two NBA championships in the past 6 years.

What's happened is that the Dolphins have slowly bled the heart and evaporated the soul out of many of their most loyal fans and sent them into hiding underground.
They watch the games on TV, but going to see them in-person, with the current crew in charge, is too painful.

When you know what real professionals look like and act like, because you've seen them with your own eyes, and in fact, have grown up with them, it's very hard to accept second-rate and lackluster effort.
Accept such a consistent lack of fundamentals in basic aspects of the game, or the lack of knowledge of the rules, or lack of personal accountability on the field.
And then to be asked to applaud that?
I know I can't, and I'm far from alone.


nitroradio99 YouTube Channel: Highlights of Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins. December 20, 1970. Uploaded April 27, 2011. http://youtu.be/3wtp94Ffg3w
This 1970 game was the first Dolphins game I ever attended in-person at the Orange Bowl, with my Dad. I was nine-years old, the Dolphins but five.



Jean0987654321YouTube Channel: Intro of 1973 AFC Championship: Oakland Raiders at Miami Dolphins, December 30, 1973. Uploaded May 26, 2012.
http://youtu.be/Z-PjSiKm1-M


monteroed YouTube Channel. Uploaded October 27, 2010
http://youtu.be/ErvySdmZqWY



sluggotv YouTube Channel: Chicago Bears at Miami Dolphins. December 2, 1985. Uploaded May 22, 2011. http://youtu.be/_m0SzNtY9WI

The day of this game I was wearing the same trademark aqua-colored Dolphins cap I'd worn all week around Evanston in predicting that Don Shula was not going to allow the undefeated Bears to come into the Orange Bowl and emerge unscathed.
It was weird how confident I was, but having seen all the '72 Perfect Season home games in- person, perhaps it was the the fight-or-flight kicking in!
And my intuition has always been my strongest trait.


I watched the Dolphins-Bears game from the Norris Student Union at Northwestern University in Evanston, where I had moved that summer, and planted myself at a table underneath one of the large TVs they had on the side of the columns. 

I'd often watch the network evening newscasts there and grab a bite to eat while waiting to meet my friend, ace lifeguard, boater, guitarist and very talented singer Susan Smentek, who worked in the art gallery there, and whom I even watched sing a few times in their bar.
Susan was also my creative arts/film friend muse with whom I finally saw "Back to the Future" with when it premiered back then! 

Susan was the sort of wonderfully kind and well-grounded friend you always hope you have on your side when you need to sort your head out and make some difficult choices.
For me, at that time, Susan was the friend and confidant whose opinion I cared about so much that I'd rather have disappointed my own parents and sisters than her, because she's the one who actually listened intensely, and the one person who helped me and cheered me up more than anyone else did the two years I lived in the Chicago area.

Frankly, much as I'd like to write otherwise, those two years along the shores of Lake Michigan were not the happiest of times for me, as I had to deal with a lot more personal anguish and professional disappointment in a short period of time than I'd ever had on my plate at one time before, despite what I thought at the time had been more than enough planning and preparation on my part before heading up to Chicago.
I leaned on Susan a lot, and though I tried not to over-do it, I know that sometimes it was too much, so those times when I knew I'd really disappointed her, I was really racked by intense pangs of guilt. 

I deeply regret that I fell out of touch with Susan not long after after she visited the Washington, D.C. area around 1994 while touring in support of her CD, Siren Song, and I got a chance to see perform yet again, that magnetic voice of hers as strong and impressive as ever.
Which made Siren Song such a perfect name for her!

And how's this for irony, she now lives in Elmhurst, the very town that I was originally slated to live in when I first moved-up there in 1985.
But if I had, I'd never have met Susan, which proves the wisdom of the saying, "Friends Are God’s Way of Taking Care of Us"
Dziękuję, Susan!

That table at Norris where I watched the Dolphins beat the Bears was the same exact table where seven weeks later, I watched the Space Shuttle Challenger launch and subsequent explosion as it happened, which not that many people there were watching a mere five minutes beforehand.
Yet within 15 minutes, seemed to have half of the Northwestern campus there, much of it consumed in tears and sobs, the rest in varying looks of astonishment and bewilderment.

Beguiling Alyona Minkovski zeroes-in on TIME's "100" list and fillets some particularly dubious celebs we're supposed to admire -but DON'T!

Russia Today America video - Alyona Minkovski zeroes-in on TIME's "100" list and fillets some particularly dubious celebs we're supposed to admire -but DON'T! http://youtu.be/nHkWwtnwa58

This week, TIME magazine's annual embarrassment to journalism, their "100" list, came out.

"Meet the most influential people in the world..."

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1984685,00.html

Yeah, I know, I know, Breakling News... same old tired MSM faces and Usual Suspects, with the lovely Blake Lively's tossed in for a wild-card.

Supposedly, this list is comprised of some of the most influential people around, but RT America -formerly Russia Today America- host Alyona Minkovski throws a red flag on the whole embarrassing enterprise by simply highlighting the fact that MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, self-promoting author Amy Chua and actress Blake Lively are on the list.

I like Blake, but admittedly, it's hardly anyone's Murder's Row of deep thinkers!
http://justjared.buzznet.com/2011/04/22/blake-lively-chris-colfer-times-100-most-influential-people/

I wrote about Blake here on March 24th, 2009 with the title, Blake Lively: A Smile That Can Fill a TV Screen!



Above, screenshots I took of Gossip Girl star Blake Lively on CBS-TV's Late Show with David Letterman, March 24th, 2009.
My photos are larger at http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/blake-lively-smile-that-can-fill-tv.html

No, not the professor or researcher or historian whom you've never heard of who is doing some amazing and revolutionary work in an esoteric area you otherwise think little about, but whom within a year or so, will absolutely rock our world view, dumbfound us with their discoveries or create an antidote or cure for something that we think is a death sentence now, but will seem self-evident years from now.
Someone who could use some kudos to get over the hump.

U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the DWS pal?
Really?
She's not even the most influential politician in her own state -Gov. Jan Brewer is.

And not that it has anything to do with the video, but I would absolutely pay money to watch the lovely and personable Alyona -who is really looking better than ever- absolutely pummel some of the more exasperating female reporters, experts and consultants that currently get trotted out on TV with regularity now, both verbally and physically.

She can start with the distaff crew at MSNBC, since I don't watch it at all anymore but recently heard yet another eye-rolling story about Contessa Brewer that just reaffirms my decision.

At this point, it hardly matters if it's true, Contessa's hopelessly smug and unctuous eye-rolling attitude over so many years, her refusal to believe something that conflicted with the Beltway MSM orthodoxy, and her cuteness being completely negated by her vacuousness and self-deception, means nobody I know takes her seriously.
And neither should you.
If you put your ear up to her ear, you can hear what sounds like a wind tunnel.

Alyona Show YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlyonaShow

You can watch RT America here LIVE:
http://rt.com/on-air/rt-america-air/

57 states of Obama Nation feeling blues as TIME's Mark Halperin says "Obama's alienation of independents and white voters" may lead to GOP Congress

The 57 states of Obama Nation are already starting to feel the winter blues as TIME's Mark Halperin says that "Obama's alienation of independents and white voters" may lead to GOP Congress.

And clearly, some of those new GOP seats will definitely be coming in Florida, perhaps even Ron Klein's that hugs Broward and Palm Beach Counties.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2010/07/allen_west_blacklisted_cystic_fibrosis_klein.php

Whatever they do, they can't make stiff and humorless John Boehner the Speaker, and should instead select Hoosier Mike Pence like I've been saying all along, or Eric Cantor of Virginia.


TIME
One Nation
Dems Start to Panic As Midterm Reality Sets In
By Mark Halperin
Monday, Jul. 19, 2010

President Barack Obama during a meeting with house speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid on financial reform at the White House, April 14, 2010

Under pressure, the Democrats are cracking. On both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, there is a realization that Nancy Pelosi's hold on the speakership is in true jeopardy; that losing control of the Senate is not out of the question; and that time, once the Democrats' best friend, is now their mortal enemy. Since January, when Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat, the President's party has tried to downplay in public what its pollsters have been saying in private: that Obama's alienation of independents and white voters, along with the enthusiasm gap between the right and the left, means that Republicans are on a trajectory to pick up massive numbers of House and Senate seats, perhaps even to regain control of Congress.

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2004646,00.html

------
Politics Daily
Nearly 6 in 10 Lack Confidence in Obama to Make Right Decisions
By Bruce Drake
July 13, 2010

Nearly 6 in 10 Americans say they have "just some" or no confidence in President Obama to make the right decisions for the country, and they give even lower marks to congressional Republicans and Democrats, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted July 7-11.

Read the rest of the story at:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/13/nearly-6-in-10-lack-confidence-in-obama-to-make-right-decisions/

-----

National Journal
RULES OF THE GAME
New Battle Lines Drawn Over Redistricting
Reformers Admit It's Still A Battle, But There's New Passion Behind Transparency Efforts
by Eliza Newlin Carney
Monday, July 19, 2010

The golden nugget of this article for my purposes is this:
In the House, the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition has backed legislation authored by Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn., that would pull back the curtain on the secretive redistricting process and force more public participation and input.

"The present system makes bipartisanship difficult and sometimes virtually impossible," said Tanner when the Blue Dogs endorsed his bill, the Redistricting Transparency Act, earlier this year. Tanner pointed to data from the Cook Political Report showing that fewer than 100 of 435 House districts are competitive within a 4-point margin of error.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/po_20100719_6570.php

See also: http://www.fairdistrictsflorida.org/home.php

As most of you who come to this blog fairly regularly know by now, I'm a Blue Dog Democrat.
It's hardly a secret.

To go to a website full of compelling, fact-filled arguments against all the bad public policy prescriptions now flying around D.C. go to http://www.house.gov/melancon/BlueDogs/

The BDC advocates fiscal responsibility, with an emphasis on cost-saving and bipartisan common sense. Not surprisingly, given that approach, the only member from Florida is Allen Boyd from North Florida.

Thinking the way I do so publicly in Broward County means constantly running into people here who are extremely liberal and who have drunk the Obama Kool-Aid straight, with no chaser, and who for reasons of either birth, convenience or lack of perspective, have Broward or South Florida or The East Coast as the center of the universe, with no earthly conception of genuinely competitive congressional races.

Similarly, for them, the small-town life of inter-dependence depicted so tellingly in NBC's fabulous Friday Night Lights might as well be set in Mars, as it's terra incognita for them.

It also means that, more often than not, these people have no conception of people like Stephanie Herseth Sandlin or Baron Hill and what makes them or the blue-collar constituents they represent in Congress from South Dakota and Indiana, respectively, tick.

This is reflected in the fact that they actually think they are clever by calling someone like me or others names, simply because we have a different opinion about how one goes about actually solving genuine problems, with the Broward NewTimes and Sun-Sentinel Broward Politics blog comment forums being their preferred sites, though they know not the first thing about me, or, judging by what they write, this country.

It's all rather pathetic and self-serving to a fair-thee-well, of course, but then look at who does it and consider as well who the South Florida news media regularly shows as the Broward County man with the real power in the Democratic Party, lobbyist Mitch Caesar.
Now there's a role model!

He's a person who despite all his lip service about community, somehow never saw fit to make it his business to speak before the Broward Ethics Commission to share his thoughts on what was going on in this corrupt county amongst his friends, even while folks like myself and Charlotte Greenbarg were both speaking on the record and writing about it.
But not him.

And as you know from previous posts here, his bosom pals like Broward Comm. Stacy Ritter chose to use their visits there as a chance to rip people they disagree with rather than to distinguish themself.

http://www.redstate.com/etcartman/2010/04/07/lt-col-allen-west-responds-to-democrat-lies-and-accusations/

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2010/01/monday_quick_takes.php-

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/search/index/collection:all/keywords:stacy+ritter/sort:dateDesc/

Mitch Caesar's bluster, even at supermarkets reportedly, makes him personally toxic and a member in good standing of Broward's endemic culture of corruption.

You never heard Caesar ask publicly why Steve Geller waited so long to ACTUALLY move into the Broward County Commission District that he's been running for, in order to meet the residency requirements, did you? Nope.
So even while Geller's over on A1A in Hollywood Beach, his wife and kids still live back in Cooper City? Yes.

To me, Caesar is the personification of what scares much-needed high-tech companies and jobs from coming to Broward, since companies that can actually choose where to locate don't want to have to pay-to-play -and they don't.

Closer to home, if you run around in the same bi-polar circles -round and round and round- like the human defamer West Hollywood Dissident or the the one-man hit squad that blogger extraordinaire Chaz Stevens has quite accurately dubbed Hallandale Beach's own little Unabomber, manifesto writer and Political Commissar, Andrew Markoff, well, need I say more?
The political proof is in the pudding -as well as all around you in Broward County.

See also:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/
http://www.politico.com/
http://www.politicsdaily.com/

South Beach Hoosier Time Machine: Revisiting Tim Padgett's "Revenge of the Hoosiers"

Given the chance that the world and our small
part of it in South Florida could be firmly and
fatally knocked-off its axis at the possibility of
the New York Jets actually making it to a
Super Bowl being played in South Florida
two weeks hence, and the Jets even using
the Dolphins training facility in Davie as
their practice facility if they beat the Colts
later this afternoon -to the apparent delight
of the smug, not-so-bright marketing
geniuses dumb enough to be quoted by name
here, in the perfectly predictable Herald
pre-Super Bowl puff piece full of cliches
http://www.miamiherald.com/614/story/1442833.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1 -
I wanted to bring up a heretofore unmentioned
yet positive reason to root against the Jets:
civility.

Not that another is really needed for the most
devout South Florida sports fans, who continually
despair of continually seeing a certain crowd
who loves to flaunt their so-called 'individuality'
by their wearing of a New York Yankees or
Mets caps, like lemmings.

This is always grating, but most galling when
observed among young kids or adults who
never actually lived there when anyone named
Seaver or Mattingly were playing.

Their much-older counterpart are equally
known to us, droning on incessantly about
stick ball really being... blah, blah, blah...

Sorry, I've already tuned you out.
This isn't 1947 and you aren't some skinny
Italian nine-year old kid in Brooklyn, capisce?

You also aren't Pele wrapping string and tape
together in your poor neighborhood in Brazil
in the early '50's to make a ball because you
are so jaw-droppingly poor.

You're from the largest city in this country,
and yet you are continually crowing and
bragging about things that have nothing
at all to do with anything you or your family
ever did or said.

And need I remind you, you are
living here, too, no?
End of diatribe, sort of.

Well, except to remind you that when the
Jets beat the Colts, Nixon still hadn't been
sworn in.

That reason to bear the Jets animus maximus
is the possible infusion into rude and antagonistic
South Florida of some well-needed Midwestern
friendliness, or if you will, some Hoosier
hospitality.

The nice welcoming cool breeze to wash away
the unrelenting torpor of humid heat and
smugness that so often pervades this place.

Sort of like what we had regularly around the
holidays in the '70's and early '80's when the
Big 12 Conference Champ always played in
the Orange Bowl Game, and tons of
well-mannered alums from Nebraska,
Oklahoma and even Colorado were all over
Miami spending money and enjoying
themselves, sometimes even saying how
much they envied us living down here
with the weather and the water.

The very same ones that grew fed-up with
bad service, high prices and non-English
speaking personnel -esp. in hotel
parking garages- and the ever-present
threat of crime near downtown Miami
and the OMNI when that was actually
something and not just an
embarrassing eyesore.

And they were chased away, too, based on
my conversations with those fans, here and
in other towns where I met them years later.
They felt unappreciated.

If the Colts win as I expect and hope, do you
really think you'll run into quite so many
people playing know-it-all smart aleck
over at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino
in Hollywood, over at The Clevelander
on South Beach or eating somewhere on
A1A in Hollywood, talking far too loudly
about real estate, and how they speculated
in South Florida real estate for years
-hello Radius and Duo!- but were
smart enough to get out in the nick of time,
as we would if the Jets are here?

Let me answer my own rhetorical question:
No, you won't.

Before you watch today's AFC Championship
Game between the Colts and Jets, be sure
to read this almost three-years old piece by
TIME's Miami Bureau Chief Tim Padgett,
a proud and brilliant grad of Wabash College
by way of Carmel, Indiana, and, as it happens,
one of the most prescient Latin America
political reporters in the country.

And I'm not just saying that because he's a
Hoosier.

In Tim's case, a Hoosier-by-birth, as
opposed to my sister and I, who were
Hoosiers-by-choice, as she followed me
from North Miami Beach HS to Bloomington
three years later, in 1982, even staying in
Briscoe Quad, the same dorm near
Assembly Hall and Memorial Stadium
where I lived for my first two years there.

Why does that name Padgett sound so
familiar?

Yes, because in September, as you read here,
Tim wrote the definitive analysis piece on
South Florida in the 21st Century.

His piece was an Internet sensation nationally
precisely because it resonated with everyone
who knows anything about this area, whether
they live here or just visit.

See my original Sept. 6, 2009 post about his
article, which I titled,
Dear Florida, California, Michigan & Illinois:
It's over. See ya in the rear view mirror!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/dear-florida-california-michigan.html

TIME
Florida Exodus: Rising Taxes Drive Out Residents

By TIM PADGETT/MIAMI

There are many things public officials probably shouldn't do during a severe recession, but no one seems to have told the leaders in Florida about them. One thing, for instance, would be giving a dozen top aides hefty raises while urging a rise in property taxes, as the mayor of Miami-Dade County recently did. Or jacking up already exorbitant hurricane-insurance premiums, as Florida's government-run property insurer just did. Or sending an army of highly paid lobbyists to push for a steep hike in electricity rates, as South Florida's public utility is doing.

And you wonder why the Sunshine State is experiencing its first net emigration of people since World War II.

See the rest of Behind Florida's Exodus: Rising Taxes, Political Ineptitude at
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1919916,00.html?xid=rss-mostpopular

A short amusing TIME piece by Tim on
his hometown of Carmel, north of Indy,
and their seeming love affair with roundabouts
or traffic circles, was here:

You Want a Revolution
By TIM PADGETT
September 4, 2008
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1838753,00.html

Carmel in the early '80's was sort of like...
well, for our purposes here, like Miami Lakes
in the late '70's when that was almost like
Dolphin City, with so many coaches and
players living there.

Except Indy had no NFL team then, as that
was Bears and Bengals territory, and we got
all their telecasts on CBS and NBC on the
Indy stations.

Carmel was very affluent, well-educated,
and had lots of smart kids, just like HML
back when they were also the dominant
South Florida high school in sports, even
having lights on their HS field, which meant
the baseball team could play at night when
more people could watch and that their
elite football team could practice in
something other than 94 degree sunshine.

(My senior year, the HML valedictorian
famously ripped the school's emphasis
on competition and sports at their graduation
ceremony, which everyone heard about
as there were both School Board members
and Channel 4 TV cameras present.)

When I was at IU, Carmel meant Mark
Hermann, the Purdue QB, who'd been
a HS star for the Greyhounds.
Carmel bad, Purdue bad!

A Purdue QB from Carmel?
Well, as it was explained to me, not unlike
what Richard Lewis would say about his
dating: two wrongs don't make a right!

IU students from Carmel, like people who
went to Harvard, were always quick to let
you know it.
Didn't mean they were bad, just perhaps
a little too quick to pat themselves on their
back for something that had nothing to do
with them personally.

Hey, that's just like that class of former
New Yorkers in South Florida I was just
impugning a few minutes ago!

By the way, while I was at IU, the NCAA's
HQ was located in Kansas City, and didn't
move to Indy until a few years after I'd said
au revoir, http://www.ncaa.org/

If any of you are interested in the job,
nominations for people interested in becoming
the NCAA President must be received by
March 10th.
See: http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/ncaahome?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/ncaa/ncaa/ncaa+news/ncaa+news+online/2010/association-wide/ncaa_president_description

Revenge of the Hoosiers By Tim Padgett
February 5, 2007
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1585951,00.html



"In the Heart of a Great Country, Beats the Soul of Hoosier Nation." -South Beach Hoosier, 2007

C'est moi!

Dear Florida, California, Michigan & Illinois: It's over. See ya in the rear view mirror!

On Thursday, about an hour after it first appeared

online, I sent the great analysis piece by TIME's

Tim Padgett on the longstanding problems in

Florida, and our part of the Sunshine State in

particular, to about three-dozen media friends

and family members all around the country.

To an extent that surprised even me, the ones

who had responded by Saturday night by email

or phone all said the same thing, more or less:

"Weren't you always saying the same sort

of thing when you were up here in D.C.?"

I had, actually, to the consternation of many,

who said that things down here really couldn't
be that bad.
And for a moment, it was like I was back in
Bloomington, trying to describe what South
Florida was like to kids who'd grown-up with
a drinking age standard of 21, not the 18 I'd
had.
Where do you begin...

But then when you explain how long it took

to get rental aluminum luggage carts at MIA...

or explain how during the entirety of the '70's,

the City of Miami refused to have big name

rock concerts at the Orange Bowl, which is

why Fleetwood Mac or Bob Seeger had to

perform at the much-smaller Miami Baseball

Stadium...

Tim, TIME's Miami Bureau chief, had a link

to CBS-4's videos of the recent budget woes

and meetings in Broward and Miami-Dade to

help paint the story that tells the tale of woe

and incompetency with dollops of real estate

speculation.

He's a terrific writer with ridiculously prescient

insight into Latin America, as I've mentioned

here previously, plus, he's a native Hoosier,

from Carmel, and a Wabash grad.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,992330,00.html

Another Midwesterner in South Florida trying

to make sense of it and explain it to others!
Like IU grads Shannon Hori and Jawan Strader

of CBS-4, and Rob Schmitt of Local10.

Tim's all-too-prescient analysis of the mess we

call Florida 2009, was rocking and rolling all over

the Internet soon afterwards, as pundits and reporters

of all stripes and political sympathies were linking

to it and using it as a jumping-off point for their own

perspective on matters closer to home or to prove
a point.

For instance, Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics,

one of my favorites, used Tim's piece to talk about

the grim economic situation in Michigan and Illinois

and noted how they are handling things there -poorly.

Not a lot of can-do spirit, but a lot of tax-hungry pols
eager to ignore reality and reward their pals and the
government bureaucracy.

I touched on this situation in Michigan and New York
on March 3rd and April 24th with these posts:

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/expect-more-new-yorkers-in-broward-as.html

Expect more New Yorkers in Broward,
as NY Post reveals: GOV PLOTS SECRET
TAX HIKE ON RICH

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/many-fleeing-michigan-en-masse-have.html
Many Fleeing Michigan En Masse Have Maps of Florida
-HB Wants Dibs on the Smart & Skilled Ones!

Turns out that more than half of all Michigan college
students leave the state after graduating.
Wonder what it is in Florida?
--------------
TIME
Florida Exodus: Rising Taxes Drive Out Residents

By TIM PADGETT/MIAMI

There are many things public officials probably shouldn't do during a severe recession, but no one seems to have told the leaders in Florida about them. One thing, for instance, would be giving a dozen top aides hefty raises while urging a rise in property taxes, as the mayor of Miami-Dade County recently did. Or jacking up already exorbitant hurricane-insurance premiums, as Florida's government-run property insurer just did. Or sending an army of highly paid lobbyists to push for a steep hike in electricity rates, as South Florida's public utility is doing.

And you wonder why the Sunshine State is experiencing its first net emigration of people since World War II.

See the rest of the story at:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1919916,00.html?xid=rss-mostpopular

Tim's great concluding sentence:

But if Miami and Florida officials can't get their acts together, they can probably expect even lower head counts in the years to come.

Exactly.
It's called voting with your feet, something that the
Broward County Commission and the Broward
County School Board are learning the hard way,
due to the economy and their own longstanding
inability to deliver a satisfactory performance for
the amount of tax dollars they consume.

Each has more than a few members who seem
more interested in financial and political advancement,
and rewarding their financial backers with govt.
contracts, than actually doing the job for which
they were elected to: supervision over the
grab-bag School system that is often going in two
different directions -and none of them are Forward.

Their sense of entitlement is breathtaking as is their
inability to see what's right in front of them.

If you have only heard about Tim's essay second-hand,

but not read it for yourself, I should also mention

that in the online version of the story on TIME's

website, they have a photo with the following

spot-on caption:

A mover prepares household items belonging
to a customer leaving Aventura, Fla., for
San Diego.

That struck me as funny given that as recently

as three weeks ago, the LA Times had a truly

inspired essay by Candice Reed that presaged

this sentimet, about the Golden State having

long its luster for many.

That's just the latest version of that same story,

which gets repeated at least once every ten years,

and which why so many former Californians now

live in Nevada, esp. Las Vegas, or moved to

Oregon, only to be soon inundated by more
people just like themselves.

It's not too dis-similar to why so many former

Floridians now live in North Carolina.

-----------

9/3/09 Real Clear Politics Blog

What Michigan Can Learn From Florida

By Tom Bevan

http://realclearpolitics.blogs.time.com/2009/09/03/what-michigan-can-learn-from-florida/

---------

9/3/09 Real Clear Politics Blog

Read Hynes' Lips: New Taxes

By Tom Bevan
http://realclearpolitics.blogs.time.com/2009/09/03/read-hynes-lips-new-taxes/

He concludes with this crackling barb about

Dan Hynes' recent comments and his desire

to run against the incumbent governor in the

primary:

Given the crappy economy, the public's generally sour mood and its specific disgust with the state's endemic corruption and the left over fumes of the Blagojevich administration, building your candidacy as a Democrat around the issue of raising taxes doesn't strike me as the smartest campaign strategy.

------------------

Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-reed16-2009aug16,0,5811934.story

Opinion
Dear California, I'm dumping you
I thought it would last forever, but you've changed and I want out.
By Candice Reed
August 16, 2009

Dear California,

I've been thinking about this for a very long time, and I've come to the conclusion that we should go our separate ways. I thought I loved you and it would last forever, but I was so very wrong.

I know that our relationship has lasted 50 years and that we should fight to stay together, but you've changed so much that, frankly, I don't know who you are anymore!

When we first met I was young and rather naive, and I loved you unconditionally. I spent years running with abandon across your sandy beaches in the bright sunshine, playing in your beautiful parks and attending your top-rated schools, which were a national model for the other states. For 18 years or so, I can honestly say that I was truly in love with you, but then came your first major transgression: Proposition 13.

Oh sure, you tried to tell me that property taxes were bad for our relationship, but I knew you were lying. Low taxes, you said, would bring us closer together. You wanted to have your cake and eat it too. You said we could build schools and roads and parks without that tax money, but even back then I knew you were in denial.

I didn't leave because I thought you'd get over it and we'd still have a future. But, to be totally honest, I stayed with you mostly for your weather. No other state has your perfect little sunsets (don't get me started on that sexy Pacific Ocean), your 364.5 days of sunshine each year and your mild climate even in winter. I know you occasionally turned on me with your random earthquake tantrums, and you tried to chase me away with flames more than a few times, but I forgave you. I always forgave you, which I suppose says something about me. I was weak when it came to you, California. But now you're hurting everyone we know, and I can't stand by and watch.

You've totally lost perspective, and I'm sinking into depression! We can't pay our bills, and the phone is ringing off the hook with creditors calling from all over the world. Children across the state are losing healthcare, more than 766,300 Californians lost their jobs in the last year, and we're at the top of the foreclosure charts. You need to change, and you refuse to admit it. For the first time in our relationship, I'm embarrassed to say that we are together.

There's no doubt that I still have feelings for you, but since I lost my job in the newspaper industry and my house is being sold under duress, I want out. I'm leaving you, California, and you might as well know the truth; there's another state and I'm falling for it hard.

Never mind where it is, let's just say that it's above you and leave it at that. What I will tell you is that I can afford to live there without stressing every day that my expensive electricity will be shut off, or that my water, which I can use only sparingly, will dry up.

Oh, and my new state still has jobs in the newspaper business, which I will admit makes my heart go pitter-pat, and I find myself daydreaming about healthcare benefits again. I know my new state isn't perfect. Oh sure, the weather isn't as nice as yours, and it's got its own budget shortfall, but it's coping, and I can dress in layers. Nothing is perfect.

So that's it, California, it's over. You've cost me too much. I'm starting over, but I can see happy times ahead. Like we once had.

Please don't call my mother to try and find out where I live. You could be a great state again, but I can't wait for you to turn it all around. Good luck!

Hasta la vista,
Candice

Candice Reed starts her new job in Chelan, Wash., in September. She is the co-author of "Thank You for Firing Me! How to Ride the Wave of Success After You Lose Your Job," which will be published in February.

re 4/20/09 Miami Herald: Broward commissioners ask for help to stay out of jail

My comments follow the article.

--------------------------------------

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/1007757.html

Miami Herald

April 20, 2009

Broward commissioners ask for help to stay out of jail

Broward County commissioners voted last week to invite South Florida's U.S. attorney, R. Alex Acosta,

to come to County Hall to instruct them about how to avoid being arrested on federal corruption charges.

Commissioners are jittery since federal corruption probes led to guilty pleas by three Palm Beach commissioners and two West Palm Beach city commissioners over the last three years.

''It's a very scary thing,'' said Commissioner John Rodstrom, who raised the issue.

The commissioners' workshop will examine whether the elected officials should prohibit themselves from soliciting contributions from lobbyists and others to benefit charities or the campaigns of political allies. The practice is commonplace but becomes problematic when those solicited later turn up at the county seeking contract approvals or other favors. Representatives from the United Way and other charities appeared Tuesday to implore commissioners to continue to help them raise money, saying the needy would otherwise suffer.

Commissioners were sympathetic, but they want guidance. They told County Attorney Jeffrey Newton to compile a list of everyone in the country who has been convicted and sentenced under the federal honest services statute. A workshop will be held within 60 days, Newton said.

-- DAN CHRISTENSEN

Reader comments at: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/1007757.html?commentSort=TimeStampAscending&pageNum=1

__________________

April 20th, 2009

Headline of the year!

I've often told many of you all in the past, thru the occasional email and citation of some specific incident since I returned to South Florida five years ago from Arlington County, that politicians down here really

are MUCH more corrupt than other places, it's just that the sunshine and warm weather makes it seem somehow more mundane and innocuous, plus there's no Faulkner or Robert Penn Warren to tell the tale, or make the guilty seem even a tad sympathetic, if permanently flawed.

Seeking "guidance" from the U.S. Attorney won't be any help, esp. considering that it's the unscrupulous and unethical acts of their spouses that are actually a large part of the back story here, and the fact that the various Broward County Commissioners keep acting like they're continually "surprised" to discover what their own spouses have been doing to make a fast buck, was, in fact, illegal, unethical or just downright creepy, is but a symptom of the disease.

In the end, the problem is that they simply can't help themselves.

They are never truly remorseful, just sorry they got caught.

The truth is, many have been living beyond their means for so long because of their official position, of traveling with an entourage and legion of govt. flacks on the taxpayers' dime, all around the world and the country for often dubious reasons.

Likewise, their spouses having had access and entree to potential clients and patrons that they'd not have otherwise had, so the idea they might have to give that all up is very hard to accept.

Yet even with the economy here being so bad because it's so dominated by real estate and tourism, two areas that are so price-sensitive, they still resist common sense cuts and see the Obama stimulus as the Golden Fleece.

And the worst part is that other institutions in South Florida are just as unsavory if not worse, since this sort of unethical chicanery exists in the county school systems down here FAR beyond what would be acceptable in VA, MD, and yes, even D.C.

I say that as someone who knows most of the D.C. Schools' scandal stories of the past 25 years.

For a good example of what I'm talking about, see this excellent piece by Bob Norman from last Tuesday titled simply, School of Corruption: The Broward School Board awards a million dollars in work to an unlicensed company

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2009-04-16/news/the-broward-school-board-awards-a-million-dollars-in-work-to-an-unlicensed-company/#Comments

with this addition from yesterday,

Deputy School Superintendent Is "Appalled" By Employees

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/04/deputy_broward_school_board_superintendent_michael_garretson_memo_to_jim_notter.php

This in a school system, Broward County, that last Fall, thought nothing of simply using their govt.

website to run propaganda about the then-upcoming State Constitutional ballot questions in November.

Not just running incomplete and clearly misleading information that seriously mis-characterized the proponents' p.o.v., but NOT even displaying the ENTIRETY of the individual ballot questions, just selected excerpts, without acknowledging they were just excerpts, because if

parents/taxpayers read the whole thing, they'd likely be for it, based on their own experience

with the spending patterns and priorities of both the Broward County Commissioners and the Broward

County School system.

You see, the Broward County School Board wasn't content to just channel Chicken Little and cry on cue for the TV cameras, but actually used Broward taxpayer-funded govt. facilities, resources and personnel to make overtly political messages and place them on a website paid for and maintained by taxpayers.

Naturally, nothing happened to any of the people responsible for this because that's the political and ethical culture here.

They arrange to have their attorneys tell them what they want to hear and then the puppet says what the puppet-master wants to hear.

Or, if you prefer, His Master's Voice!

The dog keeps good rhythm, but isn't much of a watchdog!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master's_Voice

That's the characteristic level of govt. accountability and scrutiny in the state's 4th-largest county, which is losing thousands of students and families every year just as much, if not more, for Quality of Life reasons as economic ones.

They're voting with their feet, and that's a sure vote of No Confidence.

Perhaps we're heading towards a TIME magazine redux...

PARADISE LOST? SOUTH FLORIDA

November 23, 1981