A nation's prayer is answered -'Hawaii Five-o' returns!; TV Barn's Aaron Barnhart: The awesomest ‘Hawaii Five-o′ marching band video ever

HAWAII FIVE-O 2010: "OPENING THEME"

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


Well, after months of waiting, and with CSI Miami shuffled off to Sunday night at 10 p.m.. Hawaii Five-o returns to network TV tonight, with bells and whistles and a full-court media PR schmooze-fest orchestrated by CBS-TV, with gleeful assistance from hundreds of websites and blogs that have been chronicling the return for months.

For awhile, I thought I'd do that, too, but why be the fifth-wheel when the first four are already working, so I've been sitting on this for months. But first, to appreciate how much people have longed for a QUALITY re-make of this show, it's important to see what came before.

From the banal to the brilliant: Surfside 6 to Hawaii Five-o in the blink of an eye.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAqxpGgXdU0

Hawaii Five 0 - Intro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AepyGm9Me6w

Theme from Hawaii Five-O. University of Notre Dame Marching Band
Sept. 18, 2010, at Michigan State University, East Lansing MI., USA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dxrBbyKZ3A




TV Barn
The awesomest ‘Hawaii Five-0′ marching band video ever
by Aaron Barnhart
September 20, 2010

Remember when NBC, the fourth-most-watched network on TV (unless USA is having a good night), told you they were remaking “Bionic Woman” and “Knight Rider” and then you tuned in and realized that these were just signs that NBC had hung on entirely different shows that happened to have a cyborgian female and a cyborgian internal-combustion vehicle in them?, CBS is taking a different tack with its remake of 1970s police staple “Hawaii Five-0.”

True, it’s been turned into a buddy action show rather a procedural starring Jack Lord and his hair. But in many ways, as you’ll see tonight, there are attempts to honor viewers’ memories of the show — which makes sense, since at least some of “Five-0′s” run was seen by millions of boys who are now men in Nielsen’s 25-to-54-year-old demo.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.tvbarn.com/tv-barn/the-awesomest-hawaii-five-0-marching-band-video-ever/

http://www.tvbarn.com/


Hawaii Five-0 - Rebooting the Theme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Loyy7MmwY




Hawaii Five-0 -Meet the Team
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRZ3vuYP-iY


Hawaii Five-0 - Riding the Wave
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/hawaii_five_0/video/?ttag=mktg_hawaiifive0




Hawaii Five-0 - Hollywood Meets Hawaii
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/hawaii_five_0/video/?pid=nv7w3YgZ3bXJH_p_c_n32uZiQTshGqZj&vs=Default&play=true



http://www.cbs.com/primetime/hawaii_five_0/


New York Times
For ‘Hawaii Five-0,’ a Music-Filled Push From CBS
By Stuart Elliott

There have been police dramas on television called “Hawaii,” “Hawaiian Eye” and “Hawaiian Heat,” but the biggest gangbuster was “Hawaii Five-O,” which appeared on CBS from 1968 to 1980. Lush scenery in living color, a catchy theme song and a memorable catchphrase, “Book ’em, Danno,” all contributed to a successful run in prime time.

Because, as Fred Allen once said, imitation is the sincerest form of television, it is not surprising that CBS is remaking the series; the new version will be broadcast at 10 p.m. (Eastern and Pacific) on Mondays, starting on Sept. 20. The revived “Hawaii Five-0”— with a zero in place of the “O,” perhaps to signal it is version 2.0 — is one of five new series that CBS plans for the 2010-11 season.

Read the rest of the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/business/media/30adco.html


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykByH7wpsi8


http://www.youtube.com/user/cbseyelab

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/hawaii_five_0/video/?ttag=mktg_hawaiifive0

Hollywood meets 'Hawaii Five-0' w/ USC Trojan Marching Band (video)
http://www.rbr.com/media-news/advertising/27583.html

Rania Abouzeid in Foreign Policy Magazine: The World's Worst Place for Women Just Got Worse

The World's Worst Place for Women?

So many possible "winners" but the answer is Pakistan.

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FOREIGN POLICY

What the Waters Washed Away
The rural, conservative refugees from Pakistan’s floods have not only lost their homes, but also their entire way of life.

By Rania Abouzeid
September 17, 2010

CHARSADDA, Pakistan-Zeynat wipes her tears away with the edge of her donated, cream-colored dupatta. Her family was separated shortly after raging floodwaters destroyed her modest, mud-brick home, and it has been well over a month since she last saw her three teenage daughters. For the past week, Zeynat and her mother-in-law have been sharing a tent with her friend and former neighbor, Bach Sultan, and four of Sultan's children, in a makeshift settlement here in Charsadda, in the socially conservative and insurgency-plagued Khyber Pakhtunkwa province bordering Afghanistan.

Zeynat's tent, which lies just feet away from the dozens of others pitched alongside Charsadda's Sugar Mill mosque, is sweltering inside. The front and back tent flaps are kept open in the hope of attracting a breeze, but they merely serve to expose the women to the view of passersby. The women say that custom prevents them from idly sitting outside. The camp's proximity to the mosque means that the building's bathrooms are available for use by the flood victims. This ensures them a modicum of privacy absent from many other camps, which lack sanitation or rely on outdoor toilets.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/17/what_the_waters_washed_away


See also:
Foreign Policy
New attacks stun Pakistan
By Imtiaz Gul
September 10, 2010
http://www.imtiazgul.com/Sep_10_2010.html

http://www.imtiazgul.com/

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/

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U.S. Fund for UNICEF: Alyssa Milano on Pakistan flooding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjIhTici7JM

Sunday Multi-tasking: I'm watching the 2010 Swedish election returns LIVE on SVT -AND the Dolphins at Vikings ballgame!

Sunday September 19, 2010
1:33 p.m. Eastern

Dolphins 7, Vikings 0 after first quarter

I had a lot of very interesting things I'd worked on the past few weeks that I was going to run here in conjunction with today's national legislative election in Sweden, for seats in the Riksdag, but due to the many computer problems I've experienced the past 7-10 days -and already running behind schedule today!- rather than post them all here, and maybe miss some of the evolving info and analysis on the election returns, or any of the ballgame action, I'm going to wait until later today, perhaps during the Giants-Colts ballgame to post.

Plus, by then, though it will likely be very close, an actual winner should've emerged, though most experts I've read expect that Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's Moderates will not have a huge lead over its three centre-right coalition partners.


If you're curious to see how they cover the returns, or even if they rely on the same election night visual cliches, you can watch the Swedish election returns LIVE via SVT's complete coverage right here: http://svt.se/2.129956/valet_2010

That SVT site has been crashing a lot today already due to heavy demand, so I've also been watching TV4's coverage, so I don't miss anything important.
In fact, while it's just my opinion, their reporters seem to be hustling a little bit more than SVT's. http://www.nyhetskanalen.se/val2010/

Use your own best judgment and switch back and forth, compare and contrast.

At 2 p.m. Eastern our time, 8 p.m. in Stockholm, they just showed the folks over at the Sweden Democrats HQ, Sverigedemokraterna, jumping up and down after they reached 4.6%.
They are definitely going to get some seats in the chamber for the first time.
http://svt.se/2.128339/1.2153509/valu_sd_in_i_riksdagen

As of 3:54 p.m. Eastern they were up to 6.3% of the vote nationally.

The SD's message is clearly resonating with even more fed-up Swedish citizens than the condescending hipper-than-thou news media thought -and feared!

Seriously, news media, you continue to ignore self-evident problems and appease the un-civil in society, and then you are shocked that the populace wants changes?
Really?

Have you never heard of cause and effect?

Thanks for finally paying attention, late as it is, but guess what?
Many Swedes don't care what you think and definitely don't care for your smug attitude and your bias.

Rhetorical question: Am I talking about the news media situation in the U.S. or Sweden?
Both!

Because she was going to be out-of-town in Karlstad, one of our faves, super-talented singer Molly Sandén voted early on Friday. Molly posted the photo of herself -below- on her blog after she placed the correct color paper ballot in here official voting envelope and licked it, after voting for the first time, since she just turned eighteen-years old rather recently.

It's sometimes hard for me to believe that this really sweet and down-to-earth super-talent is only eighteen, because she has so much confidence and poise when performing, and has been doing so for years.

http://mollysandenblogg.blogspot.com/

Thumbs-up for voting!

See Molly's post on voting at: Nu har jag röstat!
http://mollysandenblogg.blogspot.com/2010/09/nu-har-jag-rostat.html

http://svt.se/

Successor to Ed Marko? Broward School Board's 2nd round of interviews with General Counsel applicants set for Monday, after Integrity workshop

The Legal Services Committee of the Broward County School Board will meet on Monday afternoon at 4 p.m. -or the conclusion of the scheduled 1 p.m. workshop- in the 11th Floor Large Conference Room of their high-rise HQ at 600 S.E. 3rd Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, for the purpose of conducting the second round of interviews with applicants seeking to replace Ed Marko as General Counsel, a position he's held since LBJ was president.
Really.

Think about that.

Who, other than a person like Rep. John Dingell, who has been in Congress since the first term of President Eisenhower, succeeding his own father, who'd been elected in 1932, could possibly think that having the same person in place for well over 40 years was a satisfactory way of doing things?

Well, that is, unless you're a South American dictator, though to be factual, Marko was in his position in Broward many years before Pinochet was in power in Chile.

I found out about this meeting when I saw a small ad about it in Saturday's Miami Herald at the top of p. 6B.

But as has become a very bad habit with the the Herald the past six months, despite the fact that the public notice ads they are paid to run are also supposed to be posted at their online announcement page, http://newspaperads.miami.com/ROP/Subcat.aspx?cat=3328&subcat=3349 this ad was not.

And now that I think of it, neither, initially, was one I saw in Thursday's paper on p. 5B about an important Hollywood City Commission meeting on the 27th at 6 p.m. about the long-running drama that is Block 55, the property of developer Chip Abele and his Block 55, LLP group.
That's the NE corner of Young Circle and the once-and-possible future home of a the new Publix and condo tower.
http://newspaperads.miami.com/ROP/Subcat.aspx?cat=3328

I eventually found the Hollywood ad and in a few days, will run it here along with some news about what's going on there.

Which is why I had to take a photograph of the ad -at top- instead of simply reproducing a clearer version of the ad here so everyone would know what's afoot.

My previous posts on the topic of Marko's successor were from July 13th:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/mea-culpa-on-marko-meeting-its.html and July 12th http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/mea-culpa-on-marko-meeting-its.html

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The Broward School Board's three-headed "Integrity" committee released its final report on Friday the 17th.
Did you see any reporting about it locally, in print or on TV?
I sure didn't, and I was looking!

And that was supposed to be a big deal, remember?

The final recommendations will be discussed on Monday the 20th at the 1 p.m. Board workshop preceding the post-Marko era interviews I alluded to above.

The final "Integrity" report is here:
http://browardschoolsintegrity.org/core/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Complete-Report-as-a-PDF3.pdf

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BrowardBeat
Deals With Insiders Continue At School Board
By Buddy Nevins

The Broward School Board might be suffering financially, but work must go on.

That includes deals with insiders.

The School Board is scheduled on Tuesday to renew a multi-million dollars lease for a 115,000-square-foot office building in Sunrise owned by the Stiles Corporation though two limited partnerships.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.browardbeat.com/deals-with-insiders-continue-at-school-board/

------

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
South Florida Schools blog

Outside firm says school auditors doing a great job

By Akilah Johnson September 15, 2010 02:50 PM

Much of the recent talk—the last year or so—about the Broward School District’s Office of the Chief Auditor comes with a footnote to findings that stir up controversy and criticism.

Well, here’s some good news for the addendum: District auditors received high marks from an outside peer review.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/educationblog/2010/09/outside_firm_says_school_audit.html

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See also: http://akilahjohnson.com/ and
http://twitter.com/akjohnson2

Proof positive that no photo of Alyssa Milano is without its magnetic CHARM. Not that we EVER doubted it!

Above, Minnesota Vikings Women's Laser Cut 3/4 Sleeve Pullover Hoodie
Touch by Alyssa Milano http://www.ijcool.com

Behind the scenes at ABC-TV's hit show Castle, with Alyssa Milano:




Alyssa's appearance back in January, A Rose for Everafter, was only my favorite of the season. Wow!
You can watch the episode here in its entirety:
http://abc.go.com/watch/castle/SH559040/VD5569242/a-rose-for-everafter

It's easy to see in mere moments why Alyssa's clever and witty photo site has become one of my personal favorite social media additions this year: http://alyssamilano.posterous.com/

A couple of seconds to take, a few minutes of amusement & delight!
http://alyssamilano.posterous.com/self-portrait-entitled-really-freaking-bored
http://alyssamilano.posterous.com/my-new-favorite-photo-app-for-the-iphone-pict
At the 2010 MLB All-Star Game in Anaheim
http://alyssamilano.posterous.com/this-is-what-i-am-doing-right-now-picture
http://alyssamilano.posterous.com/omg-a-gift-from-asg-fanfest-from-chloroformda
(That's the Roberto Clemente bobble-head in her hands.)


http://alyssamilano.posterous.com/asg-hi-picture-from-the-field
and http://alyssamilano.posterous.com/asg-picture-from-the-dugout
Good morning, this is your courtesy wake-up photo:
http://alyssamilano.posterous.com/good-morning-my-hubby-just-sent-me-this-pictu
"Who can turn the world on with her smile?"
http://www.alyssa.com/touch-clothing/new-nfl-touch-ad/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCL3B5LgUCo

http://alyssamilano.posterous.com/photo-from-the-2010-touchbyam-nfl-commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8MWdNG3wsw

So, you're asking yourself, why did I run the Mary Tyler Moore Show videos here of the famous MTM theme song, "Love Is All Around" by Sonny Curtis, in the middle of Alyssa's Touch NFL apparel photos?
The purple #10 Fran Tarkenton Vikings jersey Mary wears!
(At 0:24 while washing her Ford Mustang)
Always one of my favorite parts of the opening credits!

Compare and contrast with Alyssa at the top of the blog, or here:
Above, Miami Dolphins Full Zip Velour Cheer JacketTouch by Alyssa Milano http://www.fansedge.com/
Trust me, I knew some of them and the "Dolphin Dolls" were never like this!

New York Times
Suiting Up in Jerseys Suitable for WomenBy Tanzina Vega
August 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/business/media/26adco.html

However strange it may seem to actually read in print, the more you pay attention to such things, the more you know that in some very fundamental ways, the current reality is that Alyssa intuitively "gets" the new media universe MUCH better than the McClatchy folks running the Miami Herald and the Tribune Company people running the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. That's our reality.

CNN
What's new with Twitter?August 2010
Jessica Yellin interviews Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/living/2010/08/09/ym.jack.dorsey.twitter.square.cnn.html


http://www.alyssa.com/
http://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano
http://alyssa.mlblogs.com/


Touch by Alyssa Milano:
http://www.nflshop.com/category/index.jsp?categoryId=3294500and http://www.nflshop.com/shop/index.jsp?categoryId=3743308&ab=HP_Include_Touch



http://www.fandalia.com/

SACC New York will be hosting Swedish Election Watch Party at Aquavit on Sunday from 1-5 p.m.

A few days later than I originally planned, I can now finally share some interesting news that some of you out there may want to take full advantage of this Sunday, even while I can't make the scene there myself.

Far from the sweltering heat and humidity all around me here in South Florida, the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce (SACC) is organizing an election watch party at Aquavit on the day of the election to the Riksdag, September 19, from 1 to 5 pm.

The election coverage will be screened in Aquavit's private dining room.

Swedish Election Watch Party
includes smörgåsbord brunch with choice of one Danish Mary, Alliansen, Rödgrönt, Carlsberg beer or juice
SACC members: $45 plus tax and service
Members of Young professionals: $33 plus tax and service

Aquavit
65 East 55th Street, New York City
Sunday, September 19, 1 - 5 pm

Reservations are taken for seating from 12 noon to 2:30 pm.
The Swedish election coverage will be broadcast from 1 pm to 5 pm.
RSVP by September 18 to Aquavit at 212-307-7311.

And for you Giants and Colts fans in the Tri-State area, remember, kickoff for their game in Indy is Sunday night at 8:20 p.m., so you have plenty of time to be cool and sophisticated in Midtown in the afternoon, and then get home and throw on your respective Manning brothers jerseys afterwards, though I honestly don't know how your Doritos and homemade ranch dip will taste hours after your smörgåsbord adventure.
You are on your own there.http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/gametracker/preview/NFL_20100919_NYG@IND

I like the Colts 31-19.

Given the renown of the restaurant, I shouldn't be surprised to see some TV video of this event via SVT and TV 4 next Sunday night or the usual post-election analysis the following day, and you can be sure that I will look for it via their website.

Or, maybe someone will channel Bergman and Hallström and film some of the scene and share it with the world via YouTube.

I certainly hope so!

As it happens, until this week, there was a very cute TV4 promo animation of the candidates jousting in full knight regalia at http://www.tv4.se/ but because of the delay in my getting this post up, they seem to have pulled it already.

Special thanks to Filip Enocson of SACC New York and Peter Klein of Aquavit for their kind assistance and the Election Watch Party graphic at the top.

Filip and Peter's respective websites are http://www.saccny.org/ and http://www.aquavit.org/restaurant/newyork/index.asp

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I'll have more to say about the election over the next two days, with some videos as well, but until then you may want to check out The Local's Guide to the 2010 Swedish Elections at:

http://www.thelocal.se/28800/20100908/
Their 2010 election campaign webpage is at: http://www.thelocal.se/election2010/

http://www.thelocal.se/

http://www.riksdagen.se/templates/R_SubStartPage____21764.aspx

http://www.youtube.com/user/zagatbuzz

Csaba Kulin brings some common sense perspective to the Hallandale Beach City Manager search debacle of Wednesday night

What follows is a copy of an email from this morning from my friend and Hallandale Beach civic activist, Csaba Kulin, to the Hallandale Beach City Commission, responding to their truly jaw-dropping performance Wednesday night, the subject of my last post.
He watched the commission meeting via the Internet.
http://fl-hallandalebeach.civicplus.com/index.aspx?NID=717

In case you forgot, the cc recipient below, David Jove, is the HB city attorney.

Here's what was supposed to be discussed:

http://fl-hallandalebeach.civicplus.com/files/2010-09-15/Staff%20Reports/00005963.htm

CITY OF HALLANDALE BEACH, FLORIDA

MEMORANDUM

NR10-043

DATE: September 07, 2010
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Commission
FROM: Nydia M. Rafols Sallaberry, Deputy City Manager
SUBJECT: Agenda Item – Discussion of Hiring a City Manager – CAD# 017/10

Pursuant to City Commission’s adopted schedule on the subject, Colin Baenziger, with Colin Baenziger & Associates, will be presenting to the City Commission the list of semi-finalist candidates for the position of City Manager during the September 15, 2010, Regular City Commission Meeting. Furthermore, Mr. Baenziger has advised staff that he will be available on September 16, 2010 to meet with each Commissioner to answer and discuss questions the Commissioner(s) might have regarding the semifinalists’ information. Finally, it should also be noted that per the adopted schedule, the City Commission should receive the semi-finalist materials on September 14^th. Staff will be forwarding these as soon as they are received.

In the meantime, should you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me.

NMR

-------
Here is Csaba's email:

Mayor Joy Cooper
Vice Mayor William Julian
Keith London
Commissioner Dorothy Ross
Commissioner Anthony Sanders
cc Mr. David Jove

Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 12:40 PM
subject Agenda item 7A, Hiring of City Manager

Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor and Members of the City Commission,

I am very disappointed in the way the selection process was conducted and the way it ended.

I was very optimistic at the beginning that a reputable firm was hired to conduct a search for a new city manager, decided on the qualifications of the applicant, identify a certain number of applicants meeting those requirements and the Commission deciding the best person for the job.

Once the above process started, the job was posted in newspapers and other sources a "CONE OF SILENCE" should have been imposed on each and everyone on the Commission. This is the procedure in every other contract the Commission or the City intends to enter into. It is the only fair way and legal way to treat all applicants equally in the process till it is time for the Commission to make a decision on finalists and eventual hiring.

That not the way the process played out. First, the Commission changed the qualifications required to apply from having a masters degree to "preferred" to have one to suit one applicant. At that point the job postings should have been repeated. Some applicants may have decided not to apply due to the master's degree requirement.

The second point is, from the very beginning all through the process there was praise of one applicant from all of you. Recently when the Commission hired a new auditor I did not hear you constantly praising the then current auditor. There was a "cone of silence".

My third point is that during the September 15, 2010 City Commission meeting Agenda item 7A said "discussion of hiring of city manager". That is not what transpired. Your Honor, you started out with a statement that in a nutshell said that you decided that you want to hire Mr. Antonio and let us stop the process and hire him. How is that fair to all the others who took the time, effort and money to apply. If you took that approach to selecting an auditor, I would think the City would find itself in court.

Now I just wait for the "other shoe to drop" and see the Commission to give Mr. Antonio a contract like Mr. Good had with a large increase in salary. Just for comparison sake, Cuyahoga County in Ohio (over a million residents) looking for a new County Administrator (manager). The salary is $175,000.00. Salaries in Florida should be lower than up North due to the nice weather year around and much lower in a city of about 38,000 residents.

I hope each and everyone of you look at the fairness of the process and ask yourself if you think it was the best this City Commission can do? How can you be sure that you hired the best applicant you had? The process was so tilted to one way that we may never know. There is always going to be a question as to what if?

I know, you are going to argue that hiring a city manager is different from hiring an auditor, but in honesty, is it?

I intend to bring this issue up during the public meeting and ask our city attorney if this process conformed with the letter and the spirit of the law. Please do your research ahead of the time I will ask the question.

Sincerely,

Csaba Kulin

President, Fairways North, Inc.

VP, United Condominium Associations of Hallandale Beach

Hallandale Beach City Commission short-circuits their one good idea of the year -votes 3-2 to begin process of hiring Mark Antonio as City Manager

Above, Three Blind Mice: Julian, Ross & Cooper, circa 2008

Below is an excerpted version of an email I sent out at 1 a.m. Thursday morning, after I got home from the Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting to find lots of emails from other outraged Hallandale Beach citizen taxpayers who'd watched the proceedings via the Internet.

------

Thursday September 16th, 2010
1 a.m.

I will have much more details on Thursday, but wanted to share this with you now, less than 90 minutes after the city committed voluntary euthanasia on itself at 11:30 p.m., on a 8 pm agenda item that didn't even begin until 10:30 p.m. because they were on Joy Cooper Time...

Commissioners Keith London and Anthony A. Sanders voted to continue the City Manager search, since as London reminded everyone a few times, you don't declare someone the winner halfway thru the race, and don't want to undermine the eventual CM's credibility by tainting the process.

He then went on to make the most important point of all: that you want the person eventually selected -and the city's residents- to feel that the best person was selected in a fair and open process.

But as usual, logic was on holiday at HB City Hall as Mayor Joy Cooper threw the city's hired consultant for a loop and announced at 10:30 p.m. that she wanted to abandon the public search for a new city administrator, and to begin contract negotiations immediately with interim City Manager Mark A. Antonio.

And just weeks ago, Cooper didn't even want him to be considered at all.

Guess what?
The public never got to speak on the agenda item.
Surprise!

There were less than 7 HB citizens in the chambers, counting myself, when the ominous vote finally came.

I told the consultant in charge of the search many weeks ago that regardless of how experienced he was, he had no idea of what kind of people he was dealing with at HB City Hall.
Now, he knows that I was only telling him the all-too-true sad truth.

HB City Commissioner William "Bill" Julian will rue the day he played the imbecile joker at a city commission meeting one time too many on an important issue.

His self-evident dis-connectedness from reality, and Dotty Ross's as well, are a direct threat to the future Quality-of-Life of this community, and THEY MUST go as soon as possible.

Fortunately, there's an election in 47 days, and we can 86 Julian and his dim-witted and archaic ideas.

Ross will take more time, of course, but there is a lot more popular sentiment to recall her from office than you might think, as I've written here before.

And, of course, lest we forget, she didn't want to fire former City Manager Mike Good in the first place.

Many of you are now quite familiar with my quite negative feelings about HB City Commission candidate Alexander Lewy, in some cases, because of what I've written and documented in previous fact-filled emails, but I've never ever thought he was a dummy.

Lewy may be -well, actually is- to quote myself, the devil-we-don't-know, but at least he's not a walking-talking imbecile like Julian, the devil-we-know, who plays the role of dummy while Cooper plays the ventriloquist.

As I've written here previously, and as Arlington Yupette blogs from her secret location back there, http://arlingtonyupette.blogspot.com/despite all its many natural pluses, Arlington County (VA) was and is a very frustrating place to live, largely because of the county's neo-Soviet bureaucracy, obtuse and never-ending rules and confiscatory love of taxes for well-meaning but almost always poorly-managed government programs.

But even Arlington County was rarely as thoroughly rotten to the core on an issue as Hallandale Beach was Wednesday night with me in attendance for the sorry performance.

I've seldom, if ever, been more appalled to live somewhere than I am right now.
And I am far from alone in that sentiment.

100 Days Missing: Lynda Meier of Hallandale Beach has been gone for over 14 weeks, so where are all the "missing" flyers around town?

Back on July 1st, even though I then already knew what the sad and damnable answer was to my rhetorical question, I went ahead and asked it here anyway, thinking that perhaps someone else in South Florida had noticed the same queer and unprofessional thing I had:
What's THE worst possible thing you can do during an active search for a 'missing person'? Another tale of HB incompetency under Police Chief Magill

This week, you will all finally see that answer clearly for yourself.

Spoiler Alert: It was right in front of you the entire time!

Mendacious and incompetent Hallandale Beach Police Chief Thomas A. Magill, who continues to make this small ocean-side city in Broward County a never-ending laughingstock thru his self-serving words, highly questionable actions and disreputable behavior.

You will see the dots connected thru the use of contemporaneous photos I've taken since the first few days following the disappearance of forty-year old Hallandale Beach resident Lynda Robin Meier.

If you're any kind of reasonable person, you will be both angry and shocked when you hear what's been going on here for the past 14 weeks: nothing but unfettered incompetency.

Good news: 2 Days left to change Hallandale Beach's future; Bad News: Washington & Jefferson still dead, Spock & Jean-Luc Picard not yet born

First, the Good News: there are 2 days left to change Hallandale Beach's future for the better; the Bad News: Washington & Jefferson are still dead, Spock & Jean-Luc Picard are not yet born.

Seek thou which was lost: full-fledged participatory democracy in Hallandale Beach, Florida.

Last weekend, in order to drum-up some interest and make the citizenry aware of the need for a second pro-reform City Commission candidate to apply before the deadline passes on Wednesday afternoon, I made copies of the Public Notice at the top that appeared in the Miami Herald -but NOT on the public notice board at Hallandale Beach City Hall last week. (Surprise!)

I posted them at a number of high-profile places around town, including at what passes for the HB version of the Algonquin Round Table, the Panera Bread restaurant at 1729 E. Hallandale Beach Blvd., in front of The Duo's twin condo towers that overlook the Diplomat Country Club to the north.

But even as you read this, I've known for a while that some pro-reform wheels were already in motion, below the radar.

It's my hope that these efforts will bear some fruit in the near future, since with two commission seats up on November 2nd, and with me and everyone I know in this city planning on voting for proven pro-reform Comm. Keith London, having to decide between the other two candidates already in the race, the Devil-we-know, William Julian, and the Devil-we-don't (well, I do but many of you don't YET) Alexander Lewy, that choice among lessers is no choice at all.

After everything we have witnessed over the past two years, the blatant misrepresentations, the chronic lies, the utter contempt for the state's Sunshine Laws and the numerous attempts to keep important PUBLIC information at City Hall away from the PUBLIC, this city desperately needs a second strong and unwavering voice on the Hallandale Beach City Commission that will fully represent the long-term best interests of the majority of its citizen taxpayers, and NOT just the usual longtime cronies with special interests, who have made out like bandits with the taxpayers dime.
Your dime.

A second strong voice on the city commission that will not only expect but demand increased public accountability, transparency and competency among the hundreds of city employees, many of whom have been isolated, unproductive, rude and unprofessional for years.

Which is to say, practically stealing money from you and your family, with the full expectation that you will pay their pension, to boot.
That has got to end right now.