More Herald Typos

I don't want to pile on the Herald, but come on, I keep finding typos on their site. The image is a screen shot (click to see the bigger image) of the front page story about McCain and his new vice presidential choice Palin stumping in Pennsylvania. Except they misspell her name in the headline. Mistake, or are they feeling the pain over there?

I'm back, and picking on the Herald

I guess the Herald is still getting used to all that newfangled technology. The image is a screen shot (click to see the bigger image) of a post to Herald.com and the accompanying, funny comments to the story, which apparently got published without anyone taking a look at it first.

Follow up

It's going to be a light day of posting for me today. I have too much work to do and am battling the apparent onset of a summer cold.

I didn't make it to the Miami commission meeting yesterday but luckily The Coconut Grove Grapevine was there and I got word via email from some else about some of the votes that I was interested in:

The entire commission voted in favor of allowing the Coconut Grove Business Improvement Committee to levy a tax on area property owners within the boundaries of the improvement district. [I early characterized the BIC as a BID, not realizing it hadn't become one yet. I've since corrected that post]. I'm kind of interested in seeing if the money the BID raises will be used wisely. I really like the Grove, not for its good residential qualities, of which there are many, but because it's really an ideal location to do business from. But the Grove has severely mismanaged it's business opportunities and environment in the last 10 years. Let's hope the BID will find it's ground and do the area some good.

The Grapevine also reported that the commission approved the Waterfront Master Plan the the TV show "Burn Notice," which has a large set built there, can stay at the Expo Center until it completes filming. That's a smart move and should help the local economy. Not a fan of the show, though I wouldn't mind seeing more TV production take place here in Miami.

Steve Ruggieri, of Magnolia Park, took the time to email and say that the item on the commission agenda that would have approved billboards on city parks was deferred until Sept. 11.

Still waiting to hear about the results of the rezoning. I'll update later.

Gossip girl

I didn't think that anyone could crawl into my head and extract, word for word, feeling for feeling, exactly what I think about the Herald's so-called gossip columnist Joan Fleischman, until I read [and laughed out loud about] tonight's post on Random Pixels.

The only thing I disagree with is that I think at this point Joan might be paying the Herald just for the privilege of seeing her name in print because truly she does nothing for the paper.

The bus incident

In typical Miami fashion, a guy steals a bus but instead of using it as, say, a getaway vehicle or for a joy ride he instead takes the bus on its route, dropping passengers off and accepting new ones and dropping the bus off at the depot at the end of the day. To me this is hilarious. So is Riptide's take on what they would do if they stole a bus.

Me? I would take the bus and pick up people who could help me re-envision the Merry Pranksters, but Miami-style.

Intimate portraits

I love photography, and I think that photoblogs when done right can be very moving. We're blessed here in Miami with a few good ones, like Matt's photoblog. I'd like to re-post a photo of his but won't do it without permission. Matt kindly gave me permission to re-post the photo. Click on the link or the title to this post to go to his blog.

Play ball, or not?

26th Parallel has a good post, with links, concernng the debate over the Marlins stadium and the megaplan.

Miami Commission meeting, villagers restless

The City of Miami Commission meets tomorrow beginning at 9:00am and there are some interesting things on the agenda:



There's a resolution being introduced by Commissioner Marc Sarnoff that would allow the Coconut Grove BID BIC to levy a special assessment on property owners, who would still have to approve the measure.



Another resolution would allow the placement of billboard advertising on city-owned public parks. [I got an email the other day from someone asking me to turn out in opposition to this one. I'm not opposed to ads in parks as long as they're not for Smith & Wesson, St. Ides, or Platinum Plus and the like. And I want to make sure that any money earned by the city from those billboards goes back to fund the parks. I can dream, can't I?]



The Museum Park is also on the agenda. And the City Manager wants an additional $500,000 for planning and financial analysis in regard to the Orange Bowl site.



I'll also be watching to see how the commission, and Commissioner Sarnoff in particular, votes on agenda item 08-00166zc, which is getting a second reading after the city planning department recommended against. If approved, it would change the zoning on several properties in the Coconut Grove Central Commercial District, Village West Island Special Overlay District and the Coconut Grove Neighborhood Conservation District.

Greenberg land use attorney N. Patrick Range II sure has a busy day tomorrow.

Why is this man smiling?

A new poll suggests that the local Republican incumbents for Congress Lincoln Diaz-Balart and his brother Mario Diaz-Balart are not running so far ahead of their rivals. The Herald reported that the survey of nearly 350 registered voters in each of three congressional districts show the two men: "trailing by single digits four months out from the election. Potentially more troubling for the GOP incumbents, the poll shows neither cracked 50 percent of the vote."

This doesn't surprise me. I been continually amazed at how these two can be elected time after time on a platform that consists of paper-thin measures against Fidel Castro and his cronies. That's all they talk about. I've been at public gatherings where both men were questioned about the local economy and I can tell you their responses are always the same worn rhetoric about lowering taxes on business in order to create jobs. Neither one of these guys knows shit about business. When was the last time that either of them held down a full-time job that wasn't in government?

But don't take my word for it. Go ask either one of them to give you an answer about what they done, and what they propose to do, to stimulate the economy down here and create more jobs in their districts. See if the answer satisfies you.

No compassion among enemies

Riptide posted a bit this afternoon about Miami Police Chief John Timoney's ongoing battle with Fraternal Order of Police union president Armando Aguilar. Now Aguilar is pointing fingers at Timoney because Timoney and his wife put their condo up as collateral for their son's bail back in 2005, in apparent violation of rules that the chief enforces with other officers on the police force.

I'm glad that the reporter, Francisco Alvarado, included the fact that the chief didn't act alone and that he did so with his wife, Noreen. Why? Because his wife has every right to do what she did and shouldn't be bound by the restrictions the chief is held to if, in this case, the property belongs to her, either in part or in whole. Hell, they have a moral obligation to help their son! What would you do? This is so petty on the part of that two-bit Aguilar that it makes me want to spit.

Good Lord, can someone help me find another photograph of Timoney I can use? This one gives me the creeps.

Why we take it

I was reading a post on Eye On Miami this morning that asks the question: Why no outrage? I think in terms of the public's response to political scandal or failings -- or lack of response, as is often the case -- I don't know that Miami can be singled out for having an apathetic citizenry.

I've traveled all over the the country over the last 20 years and I can tell you that apathy has set in in almost every corner of the U.S. especially since 9/11. I don't know if we as a people are just weary, or if we were just jolted so badly by it, and the events that both preceded and followed, that we as a nation succumbed to some sort of false sense of comfort that our leaders would take care of us. It's the only way I can explain how our president could have been chosen to sit in the Oval Office, or for that matter, our county mayor Carlos Alvarez, who I'll say right now seems like a straight-up guy but one who hasn't shown an ounce of true leadership or a capacity to accept political risk. That's in contrast to our governor who at least has got some ambition and is willing to risk something to grab the brass ring.

But I'm getting off the track here. I think that the lack of outrage goes way back to the lack of emphasis on civics in our primary and secondary schools. Kids for the last ten years, or so, have not been taught the power that the political process gives to the citizenry and how they can affect change by being active in that process. And while I'm not one to heed to conspiracies, I do think that the blame here lies squarely on a conspiracy of neglect. A neglect of priorities. Why teach people that they can change their leadership or make leaders bend to their will when we have so many more important things for them to learn like how to better their FCAT score or beat the average on another standardized test?

Street Art

Going back through the blogs I like to visit, I missed this beautiful June entry from Depth of Field.