Airborne Stupidity

Stupidity is airborne in Florida, by Diane Roberts.

Diane Roberts: Epidemic freaks me out; what if stupidity is airborne?

From Context Florida

I don’t know about you, but this latest epidemic is really freaking me out. The experts say it’s hard to catch — you can’t get it merely by living in the same state as infected people or being exposed to toxic campaign ads.

But what if they’re wrong? What if stupidity is airborne?

Everywhere you look there’s a new outbreak. Rick Scott, asked what the minimum wage should be, said, “How should I know?” Doesn’t “the private sector” decide all that?

Er, pro tip, Mr. Scott? The government sets the minimum wage. It’s written down in a law and stuff. Perhaps one of your staff can explain.

Then there’s Attorney General Pam Bondi, fighting fiercely to protect the God-sanctioned institution of marriage from those sinister gays. She says children should be “born to and raised by the mothers and fathers who produced them in stable and enduring family units.”

Bondi’s been divorced twice herself. Straight divorce, of course, the kind God favors: she’s currently fighting the attempt of a lesbian couple who contracted a civil union in Vermont in 2002 to split legally.

At least we’re clear on where the AG stands on marriage equality, however backward and idiotic. Not the governor. Rick Scott says he:

Supports “traditional” marriage

Is against “discrimination”

Isn’t a scientist.

Contact with extreme stupidity can lead to panic. The mayor and city commission of South Miami, exasperated by the governor’s inability to grasp the obvious and extremely damp reality of global climate change, have voted to secede from the rest of the state.

No matter how often streets in South Florida flood, no matter how much sea water gets into the aquifer, Rick Scott doesn’t get it. Hallandale Beach had to shut down six of its eight wells. The water’s salt.

But at least nobody’s getting gay married in Hallandale Beach.

In 2013, Scott and that gaggle of imbeciles known as the Florida Legislature tossed out the state’s small but significant program to deal with climate change, probably because Charlie Crist championed it.

The state’s surrounded on three sides by ocean; 2.4 million people live within four feet of the local high tide line in Florida. If the sea rises just a few inches — and it will — their houses are gone. People with 30-year mortgages will find themselves under water in a whole new way. And one good hurricane? Bye-bye Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa.

Naples, too. Rick Scott owns an $11 million mansion there, right on the beach, one foot above sea level. When the Tampa Bay Times asked if he was worried, Scott said, “No. I’m not a scientist, but I can tell you what, we’re going to make sure we continue to make the right investments in the state to take care of our environment.”

Nope, definitely not a scientist, though he finally met some scientists who wanted to talk about climate change. Of the half-hour he granted them, he spent 15 minutes asking what kind of jobs their students get after graduation.

South Floridians blame North Florida for this infestation of ignorance, and given that the state capital is represented in Congress by a man of awe-inspiring, even proud, stupidity, I take their point. Steve Southerland don’t hold with that global warming and anyway, Jesus’ll fix it.

Southerland’s district has a lot of Gulf coastline and the state’s most productive estuary. Nevertheless, he wants to gut the Clean Water Act. He represents a lot of impoverished people, but wants to cut food stamps. He voted against the Violence Against Women Act, claiming, “it came straight from the Senate, was thrown on the floor,” and he didn’t have time to read it.

Two weeks elapsed between passage of the Senate bill and its appearance in the House. Maybe there were too many big words?

I should point out that Rep. Southerland is an undertaker by profession. He actually profits from death.

Speaking of death, Rick Scott now declares he’ll Protect Us From Ebola. Word is there are four, four!, people in the state whom the Centers for Disease Control say may have been somewhere near Ebola-land.

Of course, you have a better chance of being eaten by a panther, throwing a touchdown pass in the FSU-Florida game, or marrying Donald Trump than catching Ebola. But don’t let knowledge and reason stand in the way of a good, dim-witted panic, y’all. No doubt Pam Bondi will insist she’s cracking down on Ebola mills, Steve Southerland will suggest we build a wall around Africa, and the Republican National Committee will buy up airtime to explain how the whole thing is all Charlie Crist’s fault.

Meanwhile, the sea rises. And rises. And rises.

Diane Roberts lives in Tallahassee and has been heard on NPR. Column courtesy of Context Florida and Eye On Miami.

Florida's Big Election

I really like the Eye On Miami Blog and this essay on why Charlie Crist the former Republican governor turned Democrat should be re-elected makes for worthwhile reading. Because I am a Democrat it's easy for me to like Crist even though I am leery of ever hoping for much from our politicians whose campaign expenses feed television budgets and are bought by the oligarchs that really run the country. However one wonders what South Florida might look like were Big Sugar and the Fanjul family ever to get a bloody nose. Could Crist be the man to deliver it? Incumbent Rick Scott presided over the worst case of medicare fraud in US corporate history with his company fined $1.7 billion, but the bright sparks we call Florida voters thought he was a good choice to lead the state. He has been working hard to ingratiate himself with the voters offering money like an old time feudal lord buying off the peasantry but I still prefer Crist. Hmm...a glimmer of optimism, what a strange sensation for me.

Charlie Crist  versus Rick Scott

Why voting for Charlie Crist is good for Florida … by gimleteye

US Senator Marco Rubio really doesn't like Charlie Crist. That much is clear in a hostile letter mailed to Florida Republican voters.

Where's the sugar, Marco?

Remember when Charlie Crist was governor, he tried to fix Everglades restoration with a dramatic purchase of more than 150,000 crucial acres south of Lake Okeechobee to restore the dying River of Grass. The Fanjul billionaires were "outraged" (no one crosses the Fanjuls!) and were biggest supporters of Rubio in his campaign for US Senate against Crist.

Hating on Charlie Crist is what Big Sugar does.

Rick Scott fits squarely into Big Sugar's long plans for developing sugarcane lands into suburban sprawl.

Recently, US Sugar ratcheted up the stakes for taxpayers funding Everglades restoration, easily pushing past the Hendry County Commission a plan to develop 67 square miles of its sugarcane into more Florida sprawl.

That's land Charlie Crist wanted to purchase for the Everglades and was criticized by Republicans for saying it would cost too much. Well what, dear readers, what do you imagine the cost will be, now that industrial, commercial, and residential zoning is attached to it? And when US Sugar paid for Republican legislators to hunt in luxury at the King Ranch in Texas, Gov. Rick Scott was right there -- but he wasn't talking business, he says.

Florida's Republican leaders don't like Charlie Crist, but they are not telling you how they are lining their pockets by wrecking so much of what Floridians value. For instance, everything to do with restoration of America's Everglades is a work-around of Big Sugar.

Republican leaders believe that if government can put a monetary value for corporations on any action, then government can afford to pay for protecting what is harmed by that action. The problem with the formula is that it depends on mis-pricing. Put a higher value than a government regulation is worth and underspend what is necessary to protect the public.

That's exactly what Republicans lead by Gov. Rick Scott did by destroying the agency charged with growth management in Florida. They claimed that the Florida DCA was a "jobs killer" but that was vastly over-stating the case, and cost, against growth management. Instead, after years of under-cutting regulations -- "government-designed-to-fail" is the best description of what Florida Republican leadership believes in -- Gov. Rick Scott simply delivered the final blow, destroying what took decades of bipartisan consensus to build.

It's sweet for them and sour for us. Do once, and, repeat. It's gaming the system, and no governor has been better at gaming Florida than Gov. Rick Scott.

For Republicans, the problem with Charlie Crist is that he can never be one of their cronies, helping to mis-price government action in order to fatten their net worth. These days, that's a very low bar and a very good reason to vote for Charlie Crist.

Ten Years Later

This weekend will be a media orgy of remembrance and flag waving and demands that we "never forget" as though that were possible. 2977 people from 90 countries killed and here we are now, thousands more Americans dead in the deserts of Iraq and the poppy fields of Afghanistan, while at home we happily surrender our civil and political liberties in the name of safety. We suffered an act of terrorism, not " terror." Terror is how we reacted as a nation when the bastards flew the planes into the buildings in an act of terrorism, an act designed to provoke fear in we the survivors. We gave the terrorists what they wanted, a nation in terror. We sucked on the teat of fear and drugged by beery promises of safety agreed to be afraid and quiescent.


So we take off our shoes and our belts, we cheer torture and collateral damage and forget that our forebears held themselves to a higher standard. They didn't always attain it, certainly, but they tried and sometimes they pretended in the name of civility. We don't even pretend to be above fear, and we certainly don't pretend to be civil to our enemies as our mothers taught us.


Never forget indeed; let's do some remembering I say and remember what life was like before 19 Saudi assholes (not Iraqis) took our faith in ourselves and our values and hung them out to dry in the name of security.


This isn't the time to be chuntering on about Key West and it's streets and it's quirks and it's piddly little problems. This weekend is a time to turn inward and tune out the noise and reflect on what that day ten years ago means to each of us.


Whatever it means to you I hope to see you back bright and early Monday morning refreshed, and ready to enjoy a little window on this peaceful little world we call the Florida Keys.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

New/Old Leaders

Here we have Key West's new mayor Craig Cates in an official campaign photo with his wife Cheryl beaming enigmatically at the camera. Cates beat out the incumbent mayor with no need for a run off vote and apparently not much need for a visible campaign. Cates, whose name is associated with a former car dealership, a former city commissioner (his mother Emma) with assorted other relatives who have served in positions of responsibility. A vote for Cates wasn't exactly an anti-Conch vote. Discussion of Cates' win centers on outgoing Mayor McPherson's failure to keep his mouth shut on a couple of major recent scandals. giving credence to the notion that possibly a lot of people wanted to vote against Big Mac, but didn't want to seriously upset the city management apple cart. Cates was their candidate, he won by not saying much.

His campaign platform is the usual bland order of business, pulling people together, encouraging talented people to use their talent etc etc... He also wants to run the city in a more businesslike manner whatever that means. In a nation beset by gruesome economic problems Key West isn't doing too badly it seems to me, but perhaps we will now lose McPherson's more outlandish, and expensive flights of fantasy, like water parks and buying Christmas Tree Island to allow a developer to develop it and stuff like that.

Cates wasn't alone in getting a seat Tuesday night and if anyone thinks his election was the creation of a new city order look more closely. Jimmy Weekly is back after 20 years of service in city hall he gets another go, back as city commissioner this time. And Clayton Lopez representing a piece of old town centered on Bahama Village gets another term. His election is interesting in that his campaign was reported to be rather frisky in trying to make deals with his opponent to let Lopez have another term, the newspaper said, in return for a non campaign. In the end Lopez won his seat handily, so what his campaign manager was doing trying to make back room deals, seems rather odd and pointless, if the story was accurate.

There has been a lot written about the Randy Acevedo effect, where McPherson spoke out in support of the former school's superintendent at his sentencing, and McPherson was also reported in the paper to be boasting about his role in getting his sister appointed to the Florida Keys Community College Board. She subsequently voted to support the "resignation" of the controversial President who had upset quite a few people with her brusque leadership style. Not least McPherson's brother employed at the College and "reassigned " (demoted) by President Landesberg Boyle. I suppose using your influence to help a friend or relative could have become tiresome to city voters but I suspect there is more to the ouster of McPherson than these two tidbits in the newspaper.

Truman Waterfront is to be redeveloped soon and a player in that land bonanza is the Bahama Conch Community Land Trust whose leader and McPherson failed to get along at all. Reportedly Cates and Norma Jean Sawyer get along much better. Yet Clayton Lopez is no friend to the trust and he got re-elected in a solid vote. The newspaper reported preliminary findings of an audit of the Trust reporting financial problems with the Trust. Cates, Lopez and Weekly will have lots to do as the 34 acres of prime waterfront land is turned from a former military base wilderness into a spectacular developmental showpiece. How that goes may be more a reflection of the election than recent courtroom dramas.

Mr Hitchens and the Woman of Religion

Christopher Hitchens' column in the latest edition of Vanity Fair celebrates the ascension of his latest tome to the heights of the bestseller lists. I dare say this is the first time in my reading life I have bought a book, a hardbound book no less, at the time of its attaining stardom. My usual style is to stumble across a bestseller long after it is forgotten. In this case I bought the book before I took off for Europe in June.

I bought The Great Deluge to read on the trip, and think about the submersion of New Orleans, which vies with Austin in my pantheon of Best Places to Live. Vied. While I was at Voltaire books in Key West I stumbled across a yellow covered book with the Satanist's name splashed across it. I have been familiar with Hitchens since the long lost era when he wrote for the Nation magazine. Eventually he fell out with the Nation owing to a perceived slide to the right. I, however, viewed his slide more as an acknowledgement of his new found curmudgeonliness, which allowed him to slide into apostasy ( support for the invasion of Iraq was his downfall).

One can only empathize with a man, born and raised in Britain who comes to the US and takes on the plain spoken, boring orthodoxy of a multi-cultural melting pot where humor is, at its mildest, risque, and at its best, "enraging." Hitchens values thinking for oneself and thus it is inevitable that he should end up plowing a path all on his lonesome. But not, apparently as lonesome as he must have first thought.

Indeed in the article he notes that at least half the audience in his book tour's varied stops seemed to think they alone were atheists in their communities. And Hitchens' sense of wonderment at his book's success implies the same about himself in America at large. I suppose he might be Satan but he writes like a man possessed not of the desire to talk down to his audience but of a man convinced that erudition is at large in America. Good for him, and in this picture by William Anthony in this month's Vanity Fair, he seems like your average, common-or-garden, rumpled English intellectual, now proudly waving the banner of US citizenship. Not at all satanic.

Upon diving into God Is Not Great I found a text that articulated for me, more precisely, more eruditely and more completely my own reasons for loss of faith.


I work with a two women who fit into this debate almost perfectly. One, the Mother, is a young mother of four married to a man of Christian puritanism that would it seems puts him high in the Boer orthodoxy of 19th century South Africa. He it is who lays down the law in the family and she it is who is subservient. I have endeavored to keep my feelings on the subject quiet, going so far as to remove the cover from my hardback when it has accompanied me to the workplace. I don't know the Mother that well as she only works with me occasionally, on her overtime shifts.

My other female co-worker is my regular companion on Bravo night shift. She grew up in a harsh uncompromising, but surprisingly variable series of religious edicts from her mother. She fled home and sought refuge in a world of disorder and unconventional living. From that she followed her older, and more passive sister, to Key West and fell into the lap of a good, hidebound job. This daughter repudiates religion in all its forms and coercions.

The daughter worships at the altar of modern living, television, and lives a restrained life such as monastic orders would approve, moderation in all things, faithfulness in matters intimate, and a work ethic that would gain the approval of the slacker Benjamin Franklin. Yet the mention of religion and all its ethical codes gets her out of her chair.

One night we stumbled across a magazine carried to work by the Mother, for her edification. It contained the Christian rendition of one of those banal magazine quizzes, which usually ask something ridiculous like how hard do you please men, and in this case qualified "men" as the Son of Man. With predictable results when the daughter got ahold of the quiz.

The Christian mother took it well, as I spluttered and tried to shut the Atheist up. On the other hand the mother says "fuck" more freely at work than I would expect her to be able to do at home. Perhaps working gives her not only money (to take the children to that den of homoeroticism, Disneyland) but also an outlet from the strictures of the Church.

Its odd to me to find confirmation of Hitchen's intellectual stance in my own workplace, the stark confrontation of abused religious victim and abused religious codependant. Even in my own family, my formerly staunchly anti-clerical brother-in-law, now a grandfather, takes his family meekly to Mass each Sunday, finding time to marvel at the preaching power of the parish's new African priest. Such is the shortage of priests that even in the seat of Catholicism, the former Papal States, they import priests from Africa.

When I was a child I believed God was an old white man with a long white beard and he peered at us through pinholes in a cardboard box, and in that box the earth and the sky were suspended. It seems odd to me that people, as educated as me, still hold this fundamental belief, and worse yet spend time and treasure seeking to prove the unprovable. I think its true that no matter how little we believe, those among us that do express a belief in a god, any god, are expressing a fear of death.

I have often imagined my own death, my departure on that journey to a borne from which no traveler returns, as the saying goes. It seems more satisfactory and productive to spend less time imagining and more time enjoying. Is this what they mean by God's Bounty?