What's right in front of you and never been used...
Above, the pathetic little sign erected on the side of the city's North Beach complex, facing away from most passing traffic, is the perfect reminder of the sort of over-paid geniuses who populate Hallandale Beach City Hall. January 21, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
Per my last blog post on the longstanding fiasco that is Hallandale Beach's two-story North Beach facility, located just steps from the Atlantic Ocean, and which despite being given to this city's residents for FREE on August 3rd, 2007, has NOT been open to the general public but once in those intervening 41 months, my plan for the blog today was simple.
I'd post numerous photographs of the facility from several different angles and perspectives so those of you who come here regularly could get a better sense of just what is at stake here, and why the vast majority of this city's concerned and well-informed residents, full-time and seasonal, are VERY ANGRY at HB's mayor, city manger and city commission for squandering a valuable and dynamic resource for what is now three-and-a-half years.
A facility that communities in South Florida not located on the ocean, like Hialeah, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Miami Lakes, Sunrise, Tamarac, et al, would positively kill to have in their city, especially for FREE. (And then there's the observation deck on top, too...) Yes, those are just some of the many South Florida communities which, however poorly-run they might well be on a day-to-day basis, you know with certainty have at least some elected officials who would've had the common sense to see what a dynamic facility it could be, and who'd have done everything in their power to "fix" and and open to the public ASAP. All the more so so they could pat themselves on the back at the public dedication.
Now contrast how those hypothetical and presumably enthusiastic dedications elsewhere might've been to the very somber and subdued one that will surely take place in Hallandale Beach on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., where the very people who are most responsible for totally mismanaging this and screwing-over the residents of this city, are going to be present, and try to say with a straight face to them that the only way that you residents can utilize it is if you pay for it.Yes, it's been one slap in the face after another for 41 months.
(Not like it's the only city boondoggle in this city, since the city's municipal storage parking lot on Ansin Blvd., near1-95, that cost well over a million dollars, had but seven vehicles utilizing it the other day when I paid my most recent visit of the past several months, leaving what seems like hundreds of parking spots empty. It was very weird!Oh, trust me, dear readers, I have literally dozens of photos and video of that facility, too, just waiting to see the light of day here.)
Yes, Tuesday afternoon here promises to be yet another "only in Hallandale Beach" moment for this city's beleaguered citizen taxpayers, one more civic insult for them to endure, individually and collectively.
I was also going to post video here of the North Beach facility, showing just how close it is to State Road A1A/South Ocean Drive, the sand and surf of the beach, as well as the neighboring Beach Clubcondos, which are the three tallest buildings in the entire city.
Well, there's been a change of plans for the blog today.And a concurrent change of philosophy in how some things will be done going forward into the future.
Late Saturday night I received an unexpected phone call from a friend who is more aware than most of the stories and personalities that have come to animate this blog over the past four years.
Someone noted for their candor and savvy who knows a lot more about me than most people I know and deal with regularly in Hallandale Beach and South Florida, and who has been encouraging when it was needed, but also pointed-out mistakes or areas that needed improvement when they were needed, too. In the case of the latter, both in the blog and in my life.
As it happens, this person is also pretty aware of many if not most of the blog posts that never made it online, for whatever reason, since they're part of the sounding board that I consult from time to time when I rethink something that seemed genius, funny, or insightful at the time, but which... well, maybe not so much.
This person reminded me of some of the things that we had discussed just a few weeks ago when talking about things we'd both learned in the past year and some things we both wanted to avoid in this new one, as well as some new ideas and traditions we wanted to inaugurate. One of the things on that short list of mine, which I've hinted at here but written about more forcefully in emails to friends, with very specific examples, was to stop enabling South Florida's lazy and dis-interested news media.
To stop making excuses for the middling mediocrity that characterizes far too much of what passes for news media in South Florida, and their sorry excuses to me and others privately when they pump us for information and either don't do the story at all, or do it in such a piss-poor way that I don't even recognize it, and wish I had never wasted my time talking to them.
(You know, like my bad experience with Channel 4's I-Team, which proved to be a one-way street just months after I was invited down to the station in Doral and met everyone. Unfortunately, I got sucked-in and didn't wise-up and cut them out-of-the-loop until months after I should've.)
I needed to stop pretending that certain people I'd met in the local news media really gave a crap about Hallandale Beach,Hollywood or Aventura specifically, or Broward and South Florida in general -or the intricacies of public policy- when they called or emailed, wanting information from me or access to something or someone I could arrange. Instead, go back to using the measuring stick that I'd used so well -usually- in Bloomington and Chicago and Washington, where the benchmarks were genuine accountability and actions spoke louder than words.
It probably won't surprise many of you that over the past four years, I've tried many times to get the local Miami TV stations and local South Florida newspapers to give various compelling stories I knew about some play, and in the case of the North Beach facility in particular, had many sit-down discussions with reporters and columnists about the facts and context of what has or hasn't taken place, even sharing chronological photos to show that nothing was being done for LONG periods of time.
All so that something positive would come from it, and that people here in HB could actually gain some use and enjoyment from something on the beach that already belonged to them, and which had been, in essence, stolen from them by Hallandale Beach City Hall's custodians.
To paraphrase that very animated phone conversation with my friend, here's a taste, and I should mention that this savvy person used to make a lot of money in media circles:
"Why the hell are you going to run photos and video on Sunday of that facility and video or whatever of that oblivious Antonio guy totally stepping all over HB's citizens at London's meeting, with his totally unacceptable comments to citizens about who works for who, when you know that the press down there is so f-ing lazy that they will use whatever you've done, ignore you, and then try to make it seem like they always knew what was going on, just finally decided to do something about it themselves?
Dave, don't help them, ignore them or beat them at their own game, but whatever you do, DON'T make their job any easier. Better yet, start FINALLY doing those video reports you kept talked about doing months ago, and simply go around the news media and post your stuff to your YouTube page. And though I know you already know this well, let me just remind you: reporters are NOT your friends."
So that's what I'm doing.
The promised photos and video will be up soon, but I'm no longer making public promises here on the blog about that sort of thing when there's nothing positive to gain from it.
Believe me, last night, once I realized I was changing my plans, I was very keen on publicly revealing what news and print reporters and columnists and correspondents have taken information from me in the past, who has called me up or who has sat across a table from me and promised me that finally -finally-their editor or producer or news director was going to let them file that story.
But as my friend reminded me, there's no point in burning a bridge when they don't have to know they're being burned -digitally. Eventually, it'll sink in when they don't hear from me anymore. No more promises. Results, not words. The old benchmark is back in play, and there will be no substitutions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTiHz9D1ckA New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on making tough decisions -Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, January 16, 2011; he's NOT interested in running for President in 2012
Governor Christie Responds To Teacher During Town Hall http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkuTm-ON904
New York Times Public Workers Facing Outrage as Budget Crises Grow By Michael Powell Published: January 1, 2011 FLEMINGTON, N.J. — Ever since Marie Corfield’s confrontation with Gov. Chris Christie this fall over the state’s education cuts became a YouTube classic, she has received a stream of vituperative e-mails and Facebook postings.
Marie Corfield, a teacher in Flemington, N.J., challenged Gov. Chris Christie over state education cuts at a town hall meeting in September. Their tense exchange was posted on YouTube.
“People I don’t even know are calling me horrible names,” said Ms. Corfield, an art teacher who had pleaded the case of struggling teachers. “The mantra is that the problem is the unions, the unions, the unions.”
Read the rest of the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/business/02showdown.html
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: Day of Reckoning Governor Christie speaks on accountability at a Town Hall meeting in Perth Amboy, N.J., June 15, 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evtt-R7Rmdw
Part 1: Palin for President?Sarah Palin on future and possibly entering the 2012 race.12/17/2010 http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/part-palin-president-12428592
Part 2: Palin on MotherhoodFormer VP candidate on marriage and raising five kids.12/17/2010 http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/part-palin-motherhood-12428604
In 2006 Sarah Palin defeated an incumbent governor of her own party in order to get the Alaska GOP gubernatorial nomination. After winning that nomination battle against longtime GOP U.S. Senator and sitting governor -and pork-loving blow-hard- Frank Murkowski, father of recently-re-elected U.S. Senator -and permanent sour face- Lisa Murkowski, Palin then got to run against the Democrat, another recent former Alaska governor, Tony Knowles. And won. As of two years ago, there was not a single LIVING Democratic politician in the entire United States who had ever run that sort of gantlet to get elected governor of their respective state.Just saying...
While it's easy for people to throw stones at Palin, especially from a distance, doing what she did, as mayor of a small and otherwise obscure city in Alaska that even most well-informed people in the Lower 48 had NEVER heard of, was and is pretty amazing. That no LIVING Democrat has done anything like that is the proof. I've always liked women with moxie, and Sarah Palin has that in abundance. As far as I'm concerned, whatever else she may lack, that particular quality will always help compensate for an awful lot, and endear her with average American voters, who quickly tire of pretentious, self-promoting phonies like John Kerry or John Edwards, whose innate shallowness, self-deception and disconnectedness to most of the country's genuine concerns eventually shines thru, no matter how talented or skillful their speechwriters.
The Washington Post'sChris Cillizza chimed in on Sarah Palin's political future on Friday from his WaPo blog, The Fix, pondering aloud, "Why Sarah Palin could struggle in 2012."
Transcripts of his Friday morning "Live Fix" online and video chats are at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2009/08/19/LI2009081903062.html
Here's the interactive schedule for the Washington Post's reporters, columnists and bloggers http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/liveonline/
Yes, you're right, South Florida, in the year 2010, soon to be 2011, the Miami Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel have nothing even close to this in terms of breadth of quality or quantity.Why? Now, that's a good question. Why don't the publishers of these two newspapers want to address those issues with concerned readers in South Florida?
Sarah Palin's Alaska:http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/sarah-palin-alaska/
America by Heart -Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag by Sarah Palin http://www.harpercollins.com/books/America-Heart-Sarah-Palin/?isbn=9780062010964 http://files.harpercollins.com/AudioFile/9780062026910.mp3
YouTube videos mentioning Sarah Palin are added daily, almost hourly, regardless of whether they are pro or con.This chron link should provide you a way of seeing the most recent additions. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_filter=1&search_query=%22Sarah+Palin%22&search_type=videos&suggested_categories=25%2C43%2C23&uni=3&search_sort=video_date_uploaded
See also: http://abcnews.go.com/nightline http://abcnews.go.com/gma http://www.youtube.com/user/ABCNews
My Shanghai - H&M Fashion Video -The H&M film crew tags along with fashion designer and entrepreneur Lûlû Han as she shows you some of the sights and sounds of her professional and personal life in Shanghai.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df_t0kzByCI As of Saturday, there will be 3H&M'sin Las Vegas and 3 in the entire state of Florida: Orlando, Palm Beach Gardens and Sanford. If only the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex here in Hallandale Beach had one! That'd bring in the customers! C'est la vie. ------
Las Vegas Sun World’s largest H&M store will open Saturday in Las Vegas By Amanda Finnegan December 8, 2010 3:46 p.m.
The largest H&M store in the world is scheduled to open Saturday on the Las Vegas Strip.
The Swedish clothing retailer will open its doors in the recently closed FAO Schwarz location at the Forum Shops at Caesars.
The three-level, 55,000-square-foot store will house women’s, men’s and children’s clothing, shoes and accessories.
So, do you recall seeing on TV from time to time how crazy many Japanese fans of pop star Michael Jackson were when he came to visit, and the sorts of worshipful antics they engaged in when they finally saw him in person?
Well, prepare to be amazed as members of South Korean boy band 2PM-a group you've heretofore never heard of-gets THAT sort of worshipful treatment at an autograph-signing session in Seoul from one particularly zealous and talkative female fan named Jihyun.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2PM At times, because Jihyun is talking SOFAST, it actually sounds like she is barking like a dog.Really.At one point, one of the band members even thoughtfully asks if it hurts her throat. LOL! I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard that!
Jerry Seinfeld could have a field day with this little video, so all I can say now is prepare to be amazed. This video is in Korean but has English subtitles to make it easier to follow, which is sometimes hard to do mainly because one second you're laughing, and the next you're cringing.
I've also posted a popular video of the band below so that you all can see them in action performing a song called I'll Be Back.
[M/V] 2PM "I'll Be Back" from Still 2:00pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMdofhj9WKU I 'discovered' this amazing video at the top of today's post courtesy of a head's up from someone in, yes, Sverige, who said that she couldn't stop watching it and telling people about it! Once you see it, you'll completely understand why.
How a video of Paramore in Stockholm and Razorlight at the Cuckoo Club, London proves the Miami Herald is moving too damn slow in its news coverage. Iceberg dead ahead! A number of months ago -I want to say it was mid-April-when I wanted to prove a few points about how poorly theMiami Herald was serving their increasingly smaller numberof subscribers and readers -esp. the Sports Dept., led by their editor,Jorge Rojas- part of my grand plan was to run photos of what they ranin the newspaper on Saturday and compare that to whatother East Coast newspapers ran that same day, since it's thesame time zone.
The point, obviously, was to skewer the Herald once againthru some easily-understood and rather self-evident anecdotal evidence to demonstrate that their conscious decision to send copies ofthe newspaper to next door Broward County where I live -in my case, right nextto Aventura, only 14 miles due north of the newspaper's HQ on Biscayne Bay in Miami-which contained old news, lots of Wire stories and less local locally-written stories with important context, was only making their well-known problems MUCH WORSE This is most easily demonstrated when you don't see complete sportsstories and scores the next day -or timely election result updates on the website. Some examples of this from this past year:
Monday, January 4, 2010 A TV program we can use more of over here: "Jag ska bli stjärna"; Girls sports in South Florida and the abysmal media coverage of it
As you can see from above, in the interim, I've run a few pieces here and there demonstratingthat central uncontested fact about the Herald's declining quality to a fair-thee-well, using both the coverage of the second NCAA D1 Womens Basketball Semifinal game, and Game Twoof the 2010 World Series, Texas Rangers at San Francisco Giants, the latter of which started before 8:30 p.m. Eastern.
At the time, the other part of my plan was to show that despite allthe technological innovations of the past 15 years that allow legacy media companies like McClatchy'sMiami Herald, as well as bloggerslike myself, to share and post information quickly, the Herald was "movingkinda slow" -like Uncle Joe in front of theShady Rest Hotel in Petticoat Junction- to the absolute detriment of everyone concerned, most notably, news consumers.
One of the ways that I was going to do that was to post a great videoof Paramore performing in Stockholm late on a Friday night/earlySaturday morning, that had been recorded and posted to YouTube, and which later in the early A.M., was sent to me by a friend in Stockholm who'd beenat the concert, and was so wired that she literally couldn'timmediately fall asleep. Naturally, like millions of other people, unable to fall asleep, she promptly started checking her email and surfing the Web.
In her version of the story, after reading my humble blog here for the first time in a few days, and sendingme a note about some things she liked and some constructive suggestions,intent on going to sleep but wanting to check one last time,she typed in Paramore on YouTube, assuming that it was unlikely that anyone at the concert had uploaded something yet.
But she was wrong. Somebody had!
At the top of this blog post is a better quality version of the original video that I saw, but you still get the point nonetheless. Technology and social media allow news, ideas and information to flow freely from all sorts of places. So why is theHerald so laggard at doing the basics, like timely reporting? Why are they consciously turning their back on covering local government in South Florida and losing what precious remaining credibility they maintain?
When I woke up that Saturday morning in April, the newspaper lacked whatI and many other news junkies or sports fans would consider some basic information, yet my email inbox wasALREADYfull of interestingnews, including that hours-old video that was still PIPING FRESH! Since I didn't post that back then when I was of a mind to, I'll do it now, and further buttress my point by posting here yet another video thatproves the point.
Blogger extraordinaire Josefina BostonofAbsolutBostonblog fame,and Escada's London HQ, http://absolutboston.se/shot some interesting video when she and her beautiful model pal Tess Montgomery went over to theCuckoo Club in Mayfair. That is, they did so after they and two other fashion-forward friends hit the openingof the new Dior store on Bond Street, where the champagne was really flowing. http://absolutboston.se/dior-opening-party/
While there for the Cuckoo Club's second anniversary, Josefina filmed this performance by Razorlight from very close-up.
Not that there's anything wrong with the regular-sized one!http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000365/ Tess blogs from http://tessm.se/, where she has even more photos of Razorlight performing at http://tessm.se/cuckoo-club-2-ar/ as well as some photos of the Dior event athttp://tessm.se/dior-event-pa-bond-street/ Bon Chic, Bon Genre! Tess even has some good sound advice that's especially practical at this time of the year when she says at one point in her post, "Jag har nämligen som regel att aldrig blanda shopping och alkohol." Which is to say that she's developed a rule aboutnever mixing shopping with alcohol.
That's clearly a lesson that's yet to take hold of many area women, since I often see them over at the Aventura Mallaround 6:30 p.m.or so, as they go straight from drinking with their gal pals to shopping, usually over atNordstrom's. http://about.nordstrom.com/MapPoint/MapResults.aspx?bizid=774
I can't help but think that Tess probably has a good story behind that rule, too, just like Jethro Gibbs oflongtime Hallandale Beach Blog fave NCIS has for his rules. http://ncis.wikia.com/wiki/Leroy_Jethro_Gibbs/Rules So, getting back to the Herald, I know when I look at the Saturday newspapertomorrow and it's ponderous website that is both too-busy and yet NOT full enough of legitimate news stories, I will see so-called "news" that's largely been pre-chewed or eaten with all the turkey leftovers on Friday, on what is traditionally one of the worst weekends for news stories because the varsity news team is away on vacation.
When specifically is Miami Herald publisher David Landsbergfinallygoing to publicly share withHerald 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.
Two reasons why there'll always be a Great Britain: comedy & candor in equal measure
Smithy's Best Man speech - Gavin and Stacey - BBC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGljfvdGiy4
Wedding day - Gavin and Stacey - BBC, featuring the famous line,
"Where to she now?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T-100FEomg
Meanwhile, over at Seven Days on Channel 4, it's another beautiful morning in Notting Hill, and with Laura and Samantha, two rather obvious eaves-droppers at the diner end up getting some free candor with their coffee! Seven Days | A Model Breakfast | Channel 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQHXy93B-ow See also: http://www.youtube.com/user/BBCWorldwide http://sevendays.channel4.com/characters/samantha/thoughts/all http://sevendays.channel4.com/characters/laura-z/thoughts/all http://sevendays.channel4.com/
As I discovered Sunday night quite by accident when my latest"Google Alert"for "Hallandale Beach" arrived in my inbox, ever-modest Michael has a new YouTube Channel of videos of our favorites at HB City hall doing their thing in typical HB fashion!
Michael has already uploaded three videos, which I guess is the hint that I need to actually start spending more time uploading some of the hours of material that I've recorded over the past 13 months.
Sadly for all of us, that archives of mine does NOT include Mayor Joy Cooper's impertinent and unsavory remarks in the summer of 2009, prior to a HB City Commission meeting in Room 257 at City Hall, wherein the mayor referred to her political opponents in town -i.e. you and me, the citizen taxpayers who just want a NORMAL city where the elected officials are both honest AND hard-working, rather than neither- as "Nazis"and referred to Comm. Keith Londonas "a Hitler."
In case you forgot, Cooper said this to Comm. Bill Julian, who, predictably, did nothing upon hearing these remarks, which is par for the course for him, of course, which is the problem we have -the devil-we-know who's so very clueless and disconnected from reality, but who gets to cast a vote that matters.
Go to Michael's site and check out the vids for yourself!
Here's a peek at one of the videos, regarding the city's embarrassing and short-circuited City Manager search. It's from the HB City Commission meeting of September 15th, which saw Mark A. Antonio go from being the former Asst. City Manager and interim-CM, literally, a person the mayor didn't want to even consider for the short-list, to beingHER first choice.
Once SHEhad decided that, SHE wanted to stop the 'search' before it was even half-way completed, so the public would never be assured that the best-qualified candidate actually got the position.
To use a sports metaphor, Mayor Cooper stopped the 'search' at halftime. The public NEVER got to speak on this issue that night before the final vote took place. Par for the course under the anti-democratic Joy Cooper regime.
For the record, public accountability and transparency lost 3-2 that night in Hallandale Beach, with Keith London and Anthony A. Sanders voting to keep the process moving forward, so that the best candidate was actually selected to manage the affairs of this poorly managed city of 4.2 square miles. Yet another dark day for this city which has seen so many the past 7 years. This is how the City of Hallandale Beach Commission hires its City Manager
When I saw last Tuesday that ABC News Nightline would be doing a segment that night on teen singer Justin Bieber, I must admit that I was of two minds about actually watching it.
The first was the old default attitude that I grew-up with as a guy coming of age in the 1970's, one that had usually proven so accurate, which was that if 95% of a singer's fan base consisted of young teenage girls, with posters in their bedrooms of unicorns, or, if they were REALLY wild, posters of unicorns AND whomever the singer/group was -Bay City Rollers, perhaps?- chances were pretty good that most self-respecting teenage guys wouldNOT respect them as an artist.
History is replete with examples proving this music & social theorem so there's no point in my kicking that can all over again. And certainly every news video I've seen of Bieber over the past year prior to last Tuesday, if I even paid attention to it, showed that his fan base was... well, about as expected, albeit perhaps with less unicorn posters these days, and in the U.K., probably also including posters of girl group, The Saturdays. http://www.thesaturdays.co.uk/
On the other hand, for all of Bieber's apparent popularity, and knowing who he was, I'd never actually listened to one of Bieber's songs, since I don't actually listen to Miami's FM radio stations and couldn't name one of his songs to save my life, though I could, to save my life, name the entire Dolphins' or Orioles' 1972 roster, or recount key plays, good and bad, from closely following the Dolphins since 1970 and the Hurricanes from 1973, in-person at the Orange Bowl, complete with commentary on the sights and sounds around me.
Yeah, if my life depended on it, I could even tell you which teams baseball Hall-of-Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander pitched for and why the legacy of his greatness and toughness can never be challenged. Or tell you that the semi-fictionalized biopic on him, starring Ronald Reagan and Doris Day, was much better and more accurate than 75% of the sports-themed films made in the past thirty years. http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=319902&titleId=12906
(Or more honest and heartfelt than anything Alex Rodriguez will ever say or do.)
But Justin Bieber, well, he might as well have been the 2010 Slovakian contestant for the Eurovision Song Contest. Except, of course, that I might've actually heard of THEM, for reasons that I've previously discussed here in discussing my music interests and education, such as it is. --------- In fact, in a March 7th post aboutTimoteij, I even included the original version Kristina Pelakova didof Horehronie,this catchy song that I was humming to myself over-and-over after first seeing the national entry video.
I found myself humming it while stuck at red lights or in check-out lines at stores, which, living around here, means that I was doing a LOT of humming. And once it's in your head, that's it -it's there forever. But then who doesn't love great singing with flutes and drums? http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/look-out-world-here-comes-timoteij.html That post of mine five months ago also included an interesting fan video of the song that featured a scenic travelogue of that part of central Slovakia, with its verdant hills and beautiful mountains, which, then as now, seems so very, very far from here and our gridlocked traffic next to oh-so ugly buildings. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0CaeDo-wEY Here's Kristina Pelakova performing Horehronieat Eurovision in Oslo back in May with her dancers and musicians.
(I mentioned in March that a former housemate of mine now work for the U.S. State Dept. in Slovakia, so I'm a little more conscious of things going on there than I was before.) --------
On the other hand, any thirteen-year old kid who has the self-confidence to pull a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey when he meets and auditions for one of his idols, Usher, can't be all bad. I will give him props for that!
And at sixteen, for better or worse, he seems intent on ignoring YES Men and is going to do things his way, however that winds up in the end years from now. Kudos to the kid.
What's right in front of you and never been used...
Above, the pathetic little sign erected on the side of the city's North Beach complex, facing away from most passing traffic, is the perfect reminder of the sort of over-paid geniuses who populate Hallandale Beach City Hall. January 21, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
