FL Senate Race: Marco Rubio on Fox & Friends, CNN's "The Situation Room"; WSJ articles on Rubio vs. Crist; Rubio video: "Ideas To Reclaim America"

Much to the consternation of the MSM, the "Anybody but Marco" campaign is not working despite the summer swelter and Charlie Crist 24/7 TV. Very soon we'll ponder in this space what Kendrick Meek's next job will be based on his experience as an inherited rubber stamp.
I invite suggestions to this space.

Rasmussen Reports

Poll of Likely Voters, Florida Senate Race, July 6, 2010

Marco Rubio 37%

Charlie Crist 33%

Jeff Greene 18%

500 Likely Voters, MOE +/- 4.5%

Marco Rubio on 7/21/10 Fox and Friends

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_ojR45bbMo



Wall Street Journal
Crist Uses His Old Party as a New Foil Senate Push Gains as Florida Governor Sets Himself Off Against State's GOP, With Some Firepower From Obama Camp
By Peter Wallsten

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla.—Florida's Republican-led legislature will gather Tuesday on the order of Gov. Charlie Crist—and then is expected to quickly refuse his call for a state-constitution ban on offshore oil drilling in Florida waters.

While no real legislative action seems likely to come of the special session, the showdown has become a signal event in Mr. Crist's campaign for the U.S. Senate and in his transformation from a rising Republican star to a political free agent.

Read the rest of the article at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704229004575371810495691530.html

-----

Wall Street Journal
Washington Wire blog
Fla. Senate Race: Intrigue on the Democratic Side
By Peter Wallsten
July 20, 2010, 7:00 AM ET

Among the many intriguing aspects to the Florida Senate race is the drama unfolding on the Democratic side. Polls show a dead heat between the party’s establishment favorite, four-term Congressman Kendrick Meek of Miami, and political neophyte Jeff Greene, a billionaire former derivatives trader.

There are competing schools of thought within the party about what result to hope for from the Aug. 24 primary, and what the result might mean for the general election.

Read the rest of the post here: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/07/20/fla-senate-race-intrigue-on-the-democratic-side/

-----
Marco Rubio on 7/20/10 "The Situation Room" on CNN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7YRpFkypSk



-----

Rubio Launches "Ideas To Reclaim America"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAh0R-HlXlE



Rubio campaign web site: http://www.marcorubio.com/ideastostrengthenamerica/

Biggest-selling U.K. single by Female (Duo) - Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson: I Know Him So Well (1985); Marie Serneholt

Completely coincidental to David Cameron's first visit to the U.S. as British Prime Minister is the posting today by ABBA super-expert Shay in Dublin of the video of the biggest-selling U.K. single in history by a Female Duo, Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson performance of I Know Him So Well from 1985, written by ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus & Benny Andersson along with Tim Rice for the Musical "Chess."

Nothing is so good it lasts eternally
Perfect situations must go wrong
But this has never yet prevented me
Wanting far too much for far too long...

Be sure to click the additional info below the video that Shay has written, which includes lyrics. Shay's YouTube Channel of ABBA group, individual and ABBA-related songs and memories is among the most amazing you'll ever find. http://www.youtube.com/user/2Shaymcn
(But sorry, no A*Teens. See bottom.)

But then Shay lists his occupation as "Feeding The Fältskog Fever!!" so you know his heart is really in it.
And the audio quality of his videos is simply awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hqnfbkxLlo





See also: Elaine Paige On Sunday which airs on BBC Radio 2.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006wqwz

-----The following post was updated with new blog info re Marie and a posting of her SVT appearance from YouTube on November 21, 2011-----

A*Teens performing "Mama Mia" LIVE on Top of the Pops, May 1999.



Speaking of A*Teens, is it true that I've always been a sucker for the smiling face of Marie Serneholt?
Guilty as charged!

Marie's new blog, chock full of photos and her latest adventures: http://marie.elle.se/

Here's Marie back on January 28th appearing on SVT's Gomorron Sverige (Good Morning Sweden) talking about the new production of Grease in Stockholm along with cast mate Sebastian Karlsson.

http://youtu.be/ZL9cM6rQQPk

Love her!

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/

Fashion TV: Daria Werbowy -Like a taller Canadian/Slavic combo version of Cali's Amy Smart -whom we LOVE!; Josefina Boston & Tess Montgomery in London

Fashion TV video: A bit closer with Daria Werbowy.
She's sort of like a taller Canadian & Slavic combo version of Cali's Amy Smart -whom we LOVE!
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005442/

Some say Daria's the "world's most-hyped model." As if that was a bad thing!
HBC "The Room"
http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/noje/sofismode/article7310866.ab



See more photos and video of Daria over at The Daria Files http://dariawerbowy.onsugar.com/

When you're finished watching the vid, head over to Absolut Boston and see what fashion forward Josefina is up to these days in London, a far cry from our own summer nights in South Florida trying to avoid the heat, humidity and heavy thunderstorms. http://absolutboston.se/

Our guess? It'll involve fashion, her friends and clubbing!
Yes on all three!

First a little Cricket, then Thai food with friends in Notting Hill, plus a plug for her good friend, Tess Montgomery, who also has a Spot Life blog. http://tessm.se/
Now that's the life!

Tess is the model featured here for British-based Seksy Wrist Wear by Sekonda

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWy3TA3Hw3o



and here at their website, http://www.seksy.co.uk/

Josefina is someone who SHOULD absolutely -Absolut, get it?- have a TV crew following her every move for a reality TV show worth watching, since she's always on the move and doing interesting and amusing things.

She's sort of the alter ego for so many of the female bloggers in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe who are heavily into fashion, but while they mostly just talk about it, she's actually doing it for Escada AND talking about it.

Plus, she's a savvy trend-spotter!

Meanwhile, it just rains and rains here in South Florida...
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mfl/

Hoosier in a Hurry: IU Hoosier Field Hockey star Mutsa Mutembwa, Rhodes Scholar selection, is bound for Oxford

The BigTenNetwork's Kara Lentz profiles Indiana Hoosier Field Hockey star Mutsa Mutembwa, a math and economics double-major and now a Rhodes Scholar, leaving Harare, Zimbabwe and Bloomington behind for her two years of study in Oxford. The daughter of Amman and Priscilla, she plans to become a financial economist and return to her native country to help solve Zimbabwe's profoundly tragic struggle with hyperinflation.

http://www.bigtennetwork.com/videos/indiana-hoosiers.asp?bcpid=41652681001&bclid=1612710067&bctid=101554555001



For more on Head Coach Amy Robertson's IU Field Hockey team, including roster and 2010-11 schedule, see http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/sports/w-fieldh/sched/ind-w-fieldh-sched.html


See an early profile of Mutsa here: http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/sports/w-fieldh/spec-rel/100807aaa.html


See more news on Indiana University athletes and teams at http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/index-main.html and http://www.bigtennetwork.com/schools/indiana/

http://www.bigtennetwork.com/

Gus Lubin of Business Insider on Brookings study: 18 Cities Whose Suburbs Are Rapidly Turning Into Slums; includes original report

Over the weekend I came across this interesting bit of news from The Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/ in my email and thought it worth sharing.

See economic slide-show of the 18 cities at http://www.businessinsider.com/15-suburbs-that-are-turning-into-slums-2010-7#new-york-29-poverty-shift-to-suburbs-1


---------
Metropolitan Opportunity Series
Number 4
The Suburbanization of Poverty: Trends in Metropolitan America, 2000 to 2008
By Elizabeth Kneebone, Senior Research Analyst, Metropolitan Policy Program, and Emily Garr, Senior Research Assistant, Metropolitan Policy Program, The Brookings Institution

Read the entire report at:
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2010/0120_poverty_kneebone.aspx#

A 'Gentleman's F' for Effort for laggard School Board Integrity Czars Butterworth, Seiler & Allen

Above and below, July 13, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier looking south at the Broward County Schools HQ, 600 S.E. Third Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, FL.


So, did you see or hear anything in the newspapers or on TV about the long list of qualified applicants hoping to succeed Ed Marko for the General Counsel's position with Broward County Schools?
The man who has held that position since... well...

BEFORE Don Shula was ever the Dolphins head coach; BEFORE microwave ovens were common in every home; BEFORE the Florida Turnpike's Homestead extension was completed and trips to The Everglades on non-air conditioned school buses from North Miami Beach took HOURS while you slowly melted into the plastic seat you sat in; and back when attending the New Year's Eve Orange Bowl Parade was nationally televised on NBC-TV from downtown Miami, and was one of the real entertainment highlights of the year for many South Florida kids?

See BrowardBeat's June 24th post Bar Brawl Expected When Lawyers Fight For Ed Marko’s School Board Job by Buddy Nevins,
http://www.browardbeat.com/school-board-will-discuss-ed-markos-fate-big-money-legal-job-could-open/

I mean the depth and breadth of their professional educational experience, the cultural diversity of the backgrounds of the applicants, blah, blah...

Actually, since I chose not to attend the screening meeting Wednesday and no South Florida print or TV reporter apparently had the time or inclination to attend, either, judging by the complete lack of stories I'm finding anywhere on it at 2 a.m., you and I and the rest of the taxpayers in Broward County have no earthly idea who these applicants are.

Speaking of a story that South Florida reporters have largely slept on, did you happen to notice this story the other day in the Sun-Sentinel -below- about the latest news with the so-called three-legged ethics panel appointed by Broward Schools Superintendent James Notter last October, the group that Broward NewTimes columnist and Daily Pulp blogger Bob Norman accurately called the School Board Integrity Czars?

Guess what? They missed their soft deadline of May for delivering a public report full of recommendations, school ended in June and we're now a week past the Fourth of July.
And school starts again in six weeks.

The working deadline now is.. well, Butterworth & Co. don't want to be pressed for deadlines or mileposts, which is interesting since that's sort of the shifting attitude that's allowed things down here with the school system to snowball to the point where his panel was necessary in the first place: insufficient personal or professional accountability by elected officials or administrators to the public, and a perfect willingness to kick the can further down the road.

Seriously, how many times did I (accurately) use that 'can' analogy to describe the very
unprofessional working ethic I saw from Hallandale Beach City Hall and its employees the first two years of this blog? (Not that this has changed.)

Rather ominously for concerned Broward citizens and taxpayers who hoped for more diligence and speed on their part, panel member Bob Butterworth said "he is confident Broward School Board members "want to do right" and will take the integrity commission's recommendations seriously."
WTF?
For such an accomplished man, Butterworth often seems awfully naive to the grim realities of what his local universe is composed of besides hydrogen, water and sunshine.

He seems not to have learned anything about the fact that in Broward County, and especially in the School Kingdom, where unicorns and rainbows and promises to do better abound, it's much more than just a few people in power or authority who will do whatever they think they can get away, it's probably closer to a good third, and that is pretty reflective of all city, county and state government employees in Broward and Miami-Dade.
The reality all around us seems to accurately reflect that central fact.

One of the reasons that Broward is so corrupt is, simply put, because so many honest, talented and accomplished people with something positive to contribute to society, want NOTHING to do with government.
NOTHING.
This, of course, only increases the odds of success for the crooked folks to make their deals. Chicken or egg?

If you happen to be reading this post from some other part of the U.S. or from overseas, where I'm happy to say I've made a few fans, please understand what I'm saying here.

People here in South Florida don't just say that this area is more corrupt than the rest of the United States because it's a throwaway line and a form of self-deprecation, they say it because it is all-too-true.

Perhaps not to Nigerian email corrupt exactly, but if Transparency International paid a visit and audited local governments and state agencies in Broward and Miami-Dade counties using the standards they use to judge these things for their reports, the truth is that they would fit right in with the low-achieving countries that make Scandinavia look so good in comparison.
http://www.transparency.org/
The World's Most Corrupt Countries
http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/17/haiti-somalia-afghanistan-business-most-corrupt-countries.html

Here in South Florida, the bribery and back-scratching as it were, is always right near the surface, and is practically built into the institutional framework of the organizations, like sitting Broward County Commissioners getting to give input on purchasing decisions, or weighing-in on very important land use/zoning decisions on multi-million dollar development projects while serving on other government panels simply because they are Broward County commissioners, as was discussed repeatedly at the Broward Ethics Commission meetings I attended over the past year that South Florida TV stations completely ignored.

Not that those early morning meetings helped woo TV cameras down to downtown Fort Lauderdale, since South Florida TV reporters are not generally early risers.
-------
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Panel prepares ethics report for Broward schools
Two months behind schedule, volunteer commission readies list of recommendations
By Rafael A. Olmeda, Sun Sentinel
6:26 p.m. EDT,
July 11, 2010

The volunteer panel created to develop ethical reforms for the Broward school district is finally planning to finish its work. But the three-member commission has yet to issue a timetable.

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, attorney W. George Allen, and former Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth were tapped last October to make up the Commission on Education Excellence through Integrity, Public Ethics and Transparency. While no deadline was ever set, they had hoped to put a set of recommendations before the School Board sometime in May.

The school year ended June 9 without a report.

Now, Butterworth said the panel will set a meeting this week to develop a timetable for issuing its report.

Butterworth offered no explanation — or excuse — for the delay other than the busy schedules maintained by the three commission members, all of whom are volunteers with a full-time workload.

"We've had good input from the community, from meetings that we've held and from people who've weighed in online," said Butterworth. "In retrospect, May was an ambitious date, one we were not able to meet."

Without going into specifics, Butterworth praised the School Board for addressing some ethical issues while contending with an academic year that began with School Board members Beverly Gallagher and Stephanie Kraft being under scrutiny for ethical conflicts.

Gallagher pleaded guilty in March to a federal bribery charge, admitting to receiving $12,500 in illegal payments. She is serving a 37-month prison term.

Kraft revealed in October that her husband's business had ties to School Board lobbyist Neil Sterling. Her failure to disclose the relationship sooner was a lapse that carried no penalty until the board later tightened its rules. Now both lobbyists and board members will face sanctions for failing to reveal such ties.

Kraft announced earlier this year she is not running for re-election in August. The Sun Sentinel reported last month she is under investigation by prosecutors in a corruption investigation that recently snagged Tamarac City Commissioner Patricia "Patte" Atkins-Grad, who was removed from office.

Butterworth said he is confident Broward School Board members "want to do right" and will take the integrity commission's recommendations seriously.

"When you're a public official, you have to operate in a way that considers not only the reality of wrongdoing, but the perception of it as well," Butterworth said. "The School Board can do what it wants with our recommendations. It's not a commission mandated by law or by the voters. But they want to do right, and I think in the end they will."

--------

Elsewhere, take a look at this press release page from the Broward School Board's official website. http://www.browardschools.com/press/

Tell me where you see anything about the Screening Committee that met on Wednesday afternoon, or anything announcing the time and date of the two scheduled meetings for parents about Hollywood's Beachside Montessori Village K-8 school not being open for students on time on August 23rd, the day before the primary election?

Or on the School Board's listed web page for the school, http://www.browardschools.com/schoolsplash1/schoolsplash.asp?infoid=2041?

Let me save you the trouble of looking -the pertinent information is NOT there.

Hmm-m-m... not there.
Sort of like how the three public meetings of the preposterously named Excellence through Integrity, Public Ethics and Transparency panel weren't televised or taped for later broadcast on the Broward School Board's own cable TV channel, BECON even though Broward taxpayers have already paid for all the equipment. http://www.becon.tv/

And did you ever happen to take a look at the feeble Integrity website for Butterworth & Company, http://browardschoolsintegrity.org/ which features two news articles for two of their five bits of information "In the News," just as was true many months ago?

How terribly, terribly underwhelming and uninspiring, and when you throw into the mix their lack of use of the TV station and their NEVER having a single meeting in southern Broward County, how can any honest person say that it's not just business as usual, par for the course?

In case you're somewhat new to the blog, I often wrote about that typical lack of logic and common sense with this particular gang earlier in the year when it was happening, even while everyone else with a blog was ignoring the answer to greater communication right in front of them, so just use my blog's search box at the top left and type in Butterfield to find those earlier posts.
The correct information about the two meetings at South Broward High School on Thursday night and on July 21st is at http://www.beachsidemontessori.org/index.cfm, but tell me, if it isn't mentioned on the School's Board's main page and the first web page the website gives for the school -and it isn't- why would people necessarily think there's yet another website with that info for a school that hasn't even opened yet.
Can you riddle me that?

Once again, someone in authority has dropped the ball and not used logic or common sense, always South Florida's fatal flaw regardless of the issue.

Informed speculation on the future of "South Florida blogs" on the Miami Herald's website. Hmm-m-m...

Towards the bottom of the Miami Herald's webpage in the space between BLOGS and COLUMNISTS, you'll find the link for South Florida blogs.

Not that most of you who come to this site regularly have been wondering about it but... yes, people have noticed the minimized role of the South Florida blogs on the Miami Herald's website since they tried to persuade certain bloggers to become part of their News Network.

See my earlier post on this topic from April 13, 2010, and at the bottom of this post, see the article the Herald's own Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos felt compelled to write about certain other Herald news partners.

A week ago today... the road not taken with the Miami Herald and some 411 about Beth Reinhard to consider http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/week-ago-today-road-not-taken-with.html

In fact, to be honest, though I noticed it myself many weeks ago, most of the people who have noticed this change for the worse and mentioned it to me are bloggers who get many more daily hits than I do, and since many of them run ads, unlike me, this change in focus is actually co$ting them, even while it has no real effect on me.

And, lest you forget, I remind you that the Herald went ahead and listed me on their webpage without ever contacting me about it, as I noticed it only after I'd been on the "Communities" list for a bit and someone emailed me about it.

If their emails are any judge of what they're really thinking, it sounds to many South Florida bloggers currently on the Herald's site that the newspaper is just trying to string them along until some time in the near-future, possibly the Holiday season, after they've achieved what they deem to be the optimum geographic coverage they've always wanted.

Then they'll "reluctantly" announce a change of plans and simply eliminate the listed blogs they don't have agreements with.

That's a long way to go to cut your own throat, but it wouldn't be the first time this year the Herald's management has made what I and many other readers paying serious attention believe are critical or fatal errors, since for many months, after a lot of initial promotion on the website, as you can see for yourself from the photo I snapped above around 1 a.m., there's currently no photo, graphic or interesting eye-catching icon to call your attention to the "South Florida blogs" on the Herald website.
Just a link in black - South Florida blogs

Personally, I don't think that's by accident.

Miami Herald
OMBUDSMAN
When partner goes too far, who is responsible?

May 23, 2010

By Edward Schumacher-Matos

It used to be said that the best way to get your opinion heard in a newspaper was to own one, a privilege -- and abuse -- that still reigns at some small community papers.

The Herald has recently entered into online alliances with several of them as an innovative way to aggregate community information across South Florida into one site for readers and advertisers. Some, such as The Key Biscayne Times, maintain high professional standards, but Herald editors are finding themselves entangled with the owners of others whose ethics are challenged by readers.

"I cannot believe that The Miami Herald is allying themselves with the Community Newspapers," wrote Doug and Yvonne Beckman, for example, of a 12-paper chain in South Florida. The Herald has partnerships with the chain's South Miami, Cutler Bay and Pinecrest editions, and the chain's owner, Michael Miller, says he is negotiating to add more.

Yet, the Beckmans (no relation to the late Commissioner Jay Beckman) continue: "There [is] no worse example of yellow journalism I have ever seen. In South Miami that rag is commonly known as the 'Mullet Wrapper.' For years and years the owner has openly interfered with politics in South Miami in the most egregious way."

"Michael Miller is no journalist," wrote another reader, Dean Whitman. "He is not governed by any standard of journalistic ethics with regard to accuracy, objectivity or disclosure of conflicts of interest. His goal is simple, to change the zoning governing height and density of commercial property that he owns on 62nd Avenue in South Miami. This property adjoins a residential neighborhood to the west and Miller wishes to increase the currently zoned height from two to four stories."

NOT HIDING
Miller in an interview acknowledges that he writes about the building, for which he has been suing to change the zoning since 1997, but he said he does so openly in his column, without hiding his self-interest.

Reviewing a number of past issues of the South Miami newspaper, I found that most articles were straightforward, offering information on local events and services. Most of the reader complaints, however, concern Miller's weekly "Around Town" column, and I can see why.

It is a compilation of often unsubstantiated political gossip, much of it harmless, some of it playing favorites.

One column was offensive, making reference to an anonymous death threat letter received by Vice Mayor Valerie Newman, an opponent of Miller's zoning change. The letter said she might end up like Commissioner Jay Beckman, who was allegedly shot to death in 2009 by his teenage son.

Miller wrote: "If you know who just might want to waste their time sending such a note to Valerie, please let the police know as they would love to add this to her package of goodies. And speaking of packages, I hear that Valerie will soon get her day in front of the Ethics Commission on the charges that were initiated by the late Jay Beckman.

"Hmmm . . . One big mouth civic activist told me a few months ago that Jay Beckman had 'turned against us.' Golly, I thought, then the guy winds up dead?"

Whitman noted: "Consider what the response of your readers would be if an esteemed Herald columnist such as Carl Hiaasen, Fred Grimm, Leonard Pitts, or even Glenn Garvin wrote such things. Certainly such things have no place in a legitimate newspaper."

Of course, the column did not appear in The Herald itself. The Herald links to its community newspaper partners from the home page of MiamiHerald.com. But the Herald does highlight on its home page some of the articles from the partners. Two or three Herald articles in turn appear on the partner sites. The Herald pays to help develop the partner sites, and splits advertising revenues with the partners.

The arrangement greatly expands the local news in the Herald's Web edition without having to pay for the reporting, Miller noted. The small allies get to tap into The Herald's large Web traffic. Both sides win economically. Readers are better served by the deep information offered by The Herald's site.

'INVENTIVE'
"The partnership with community sites is one of the most important and inventive things we've started this year," Herald Executive Anders Gyllenhaal told me.

And what of the ethical concerns? Is The Herald tarred when one of its partners commits a transgression? Separately, is The Herald validating those transgressions by featuring or linking to them on its home page?

UNDEFINED LIMITS
"Any new project like this will have its struggles, and we are going to continue to work on how this all fits together," Gyllenhaal said. "The idea is that each of the sites has independence, but that we share the website, the content and also the ad revenues.

"Readers' complaints and objections about coverage are going to come up no matter what the publishing system is. If readers don't like something originated by The Herald, we're the ones who respond. If they don't like something from one of the partners, the partners are the place to go with the concern."

My position is that there is a limit -- undefined, still -- about how much The Herald can accept in its partners. The community papers are valuable for being close to the ground, and in a practical sense can't be held to the same rigorous standards as The Herald. But Miller, at least in his South Miami paper, goes too far. The Herald should rein him in, or cut him off.

Mea culpa on Marko meeting -it's Wednesday; Hollywood's Beachside Montessori Village won't open on time in August

July 13, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier of S.E. 3rd Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, looking north at downtown FTL, taken from an 11th floor window of the Broward County Schools HQ, 600 S.E. Third Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. You can see the two River House condo towers and the Sun-Sentinel Building among others.

By the way, per my email and longer blog post of yesterday,
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/tuesday-broward-schools-public-meeting.html
the Ed Marko replacement/General Counsel screening meeting at the Broward Schools HQ is Wednesday at 1 p.m., not today.

I found out the hard way when I showed-up, eager to hear who some of the candidates were. And the 11th Floor Large Conference Room was empty.
Don't think of it as me being wrong so much as me being early!

Additionally, while I was downtown, I heard some news of interest regarding my part of the universe in SE Broward County and then saw that confirmed when I got home and checked the dashboard of my blog account.

The very controversial Beachside Montessori Village K-8 at 2230 Lincoln Street in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Hollywood, WON'T be open when the school bell rings for the first time in August.

Not good news for Broward School Board incumbents running for re-election like Ann Murray or Jennifer Gottlieb, who are already batting widespread perceptions that they are clearly part of the dysfunction junction problem and NOT part of any sensible solution that benefits students or taxpayers.
And it's not just me who thinks that, either.

Jennifer Gottlieb and her myriad problems are, outside of strictly Hallandale Beach issues, by far the most popular topic in emails to your faithful blogger.
But it's definitely not the kind of popularity contest she wants to win!


South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Education blog

New school won't open on time Posted by Akilah Johnson on July 13, 2010 03:44 PM

There’s an “urgent parent meeting” this week for anyone whose kids are enrolled at Beachside Montessori Village, the new K-8 school scheduled to open in Hollywood.

Apparently, the school won’t be finished before school starts on Aug. 23.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/educationblog/2010/07/new_school_wont_open_on_time.html,

Sasha Alexander fans rejoice! Sasha and Angie Harmon in Rizzoli & Isles finally premieres tonight on TNT at 10 pm and 12:05 a.m. Eastern

Above, Angie Harmon as Jane Rizzoli and Sasha Alexander as Maura Isles in TNT's Boston-set drama series Rizzoli & Isles, based on Tess Gerritsen's best-selling novels. Rizzoli & Isles premieres tonight at 10 pm and 12:05 a.m. Eastern, after the season premiere of The Closer.
I've been a fan of Sasha ever since she popped-up on my radar on Dawson's Creek.

http://www.tnt.tv/title/display/?oid=56370

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1551632/

http://www.tessgerritsen.com/blog/

Below, the beautiful and talented Texas-born actress Angie Harmon on the cover of Texas Monthly, September 2000, back when I still lived in Arlington County, VA and was flying pretty frequently.
I bought it in August of 2000 at a Wal-Mart that was located on the drive from DFW Airport to distant Sulphur Spings, halfway between Dallas and Texarkana on I-30, for a fabulous-but-hot weekend that featured the wedding of a dear friend.
That weekend, it averaged between 110 and 115 degrees.


See the article at http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2000-09-01/feature2

When I tell you that every fifth woman in that Wal-Mart looked like a future Miss Texas, I do not lie.
My friend and I were positively mesmerized!

Don't Mess With Texas! U.S.P.S.'s 1995 Texas Statehood Sesquicentennial Stamp