Steve Geller's antics; cowardly Miami Herald editorial board
Monday February 4, 20083:45 pm
Just wanted to call your attention to some interesting news I discovered via the Orlando Sentinel a few minutes ago, via email.
Don't think I ever mentioned it here before, but I subscribe to the Orlando Sentinel's excellent political blog, Central Florida Political Pulse, which seems, thus far, to have the great advantage of being able to call 'em like they see 'em with much more freedom than is generally common with other political blogs affiliated with newspapers. Say, unlike the Miami Herald's political blog, Naked Politics, to name but one.http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/ That low-hanging target, which for the better part of its existence didn't have even a single link to other Herald blogs on their site, still doesn't link to any other newspaper political blog, even ones within the state. Now that's using technology!(Sounds like a Kim Marcille directive to me.)The Pulse had an item today that FSU's President, T. K. Wetherell, has suddenly realized the true nature of his job situation, after what only seems like Fourscore and seven ethical lapses and arrests among FSU athletes.That is, that he was, in fact, within the FSU hierarchy, the wagging tail, not the lead dog.Well, at least now he knows the score!He's been chasing the tail all this time, getting damn frustrated.
Now, he's chagrined to discover that he's just like the dog on that hysterical Comedy Central show of a few years ago, TV Funhouse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_FunhouseI've always loved the term the NCAA uses in documents to describe situations less egregious than this one at FSU, albeit, usually at non-winning schools that can't sell merchandise and get big TV ratings all around the country like the Seminoles: lack of institutional control.See SMU and death penalty, circa early 1980's.Unfortunately for my tastes, the Miami Herald continues to walk a far-too-careful tip-toe around the very curious actions and puzzling behavior of Steve Geller, where there's never any telling from moment to moment which of his many 'hats for hire' he's wearing, a topic that both of my blogs will be addressing in the future.One minute, Geller is the esteemed State Senator and top Senate Democrat of the fourth largest state in the country, a wheeler-dealer in a tiny govt. town who's in love with the sound of his own voice, and who proudly proclaimed his role at the time, complete with trademark smirk and sarcasm, in moving up the date of the presidential primary.An hour later, Geller is the corporate lawyer/bully, trying to not only prevent Hallandale Beach residents living near the proposal -his constituents- at a City Commission meeting fromopposing his client's bad plans to build an over sized bldg. near their homes, but even worse, he'sactively trying to prevent them from even being able to speak during the public comments portion of the commission meeting.(Months ago when it happened, I actually was so appalled by Geller's antics that I called a Herald reporter I respect on my cellphone, and then gave her a play-by-play of what happened.That was really my only card to play because the Herald didn't think to assign someone to a public meeting that produced the largest building in Broward on U.S.-1 south of downtown Fort Lauderdale, the DOMUS project across from Gulfstream Park.)Later, Geller wears the lobbyist hat he probably loves most, where he gets paid to alternately persuade/schmooze/ply city officials -also his constituents- to grant favors to or accept the plans of his myriad corporate clients who pay him handsomely.Clients that doubtless make campaign contribution$, wouldn't you guess?Yes, it's really quite a circle of love, isn't it?Fortunately, the Sentinel and their blog runs accurate-but-negative things about the ethically-challenged State Senator Geller, who'll continue to mis-represent me and my neighbors up in Tallahassee for a few more months until he's term-limited out of his cozy confine$ in the lap of power.(Geller has a big fundraiser in Tallahassee this week amongst his pals and clients for an election two years from now, when he'll try to take away Suzanne Gunzburger's seat on the Broward County Commission.He's not even letting the fact that his Cooper City house isn't legally in the district prevent him from raising money.He's Steve Geller -he does what he likes.)The Sentinel blog carried the amusing item below about Wetherell, the former pol and FL House Speaker put in his cushy job by his pals to run a college whose reputation around the country, such as it is, rests almost entirely on its gridiron prowess, not its contributions to anything of real note or consequence, which may be a good thing in the end.Well, okay, save for some NOAA hurricane/weather forecasters and some very cute FSU coeds, famous for smiling while wearing skimpy outfits at football games.See http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2680844980098792027WIsYXc andhttp://www.cybersportsblog.com/2005_archives/dec_daily_news/956-FSU-hotties.htmlAnd, quite naturally, trying desperately to hang onto that 15 Minutes, witness Jenn Sterger, whose fame first came at the FSU at U-M game a few years ago. http://www.jennsterger.com/ Jenn at Wrigley Field: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/jenn_sterger/07/26/mailbag/index.htmlOne last thing, and it's troubling to me in so many ways that I can't even begin to get into here, but here's the gist of it, with more posts about the subject in the near future, when I post some reviews about aspects of the Herald that I've been sitting on for months.
In reading the article in the Herald last Saturday about the passing of former Herald editorial page editor Jim Hampton, Former Miami Herald editorial page editor dieshttp://www.miamiherald.com/548/story/403335.html , I came across a rather curious comment from a Herald insider, one which caused me to roll my eyes, since I know only too well how drastically the newspaper needs to be turned around to make it relevant and better in a changing environment.After I read this comment, I wondered how many other people in South Florida who care about public policy the way I do had a similar reaction:Hampton's imprint is still apparent on the Editorial Board he helped shape. ''Who we are and how we function is Jim's handiwork,'' [current Heraldeditorial page editor] Oglesby said.Hmmm...By that, does Oglesby mean the way the powers-that-be at the Herald played chicken recently with their readers, when their Editorial Board didn't make an endorsement in either party for the Florida presidential primary?That abdication of basic civic responsibility caused even-tempered Channel 10/WPLG political editor Michael Putney so much indignation, that he felt compelled to mention it to his politically savvy audience last Sunday morning, on his popular TV show, This Week in South Florida.You know, just in case his viewers hadn't noticed its absence in their Sunday Herald while they were munching on their breakfast.Given the current state of the Herald, I don't know if Mr. Oglesby's comments were something I'd be bragging about if I were related to Mr. Hampton.But maybe that's just me.
FYI: Last Thursday, I spent the hour in between the two episodes of SouthBeachHoosier TV favorite Chuck on NBC, reading the wit and wisdom of "DUMP STEVE GELLER," an opinionated person in D.C. -so he says- on various forums on a variety of topics, including tax reform, education and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's bias.I don't know anything about who this person might be, but it's interesting that someone who lives in D.C., if that's true, would have such contempt and antipathy towards him.Mine comes much more natural -geographical proximity.
For more information on the antics of Steve Geller, please see this dead-on Sept. 7th story from five months ago. http://news.tbo.com/news/metro/MGB25AM2A6F.htmlLine In Sand Has Democrats Hopping by William March of the Tampa TribuneWell, what do you know, National Dems are as unimpressed by the blustery comments of Geller as his constituents, and the media who collectively hope he'll get his comeuppance somehow."State Senate Democratic leader Steve Geller of Hallandale Beach, responding to the candidates' threat to boycott the Florida primary campaign over the Jan. 29 date, angrily urged Floridians to withdraw their endorsements for the candidates - and maybe their money."If the DNC chairman and the Democratic candidates choose to ignore our voters, then we can choose to ignore their campaigns," Geller said. "And where we go, so goes our wallets."Of course, months earlier, Geller's penchant for bombast and delusions of importance cost the state of Florida, as this insightful May 17th post by Jason Garcia on the Pulse blog makes all too clear, http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2007/05/geller_to_dean_.htmlThe August 28th response to the post, which references Adam Smith of the St. Pete Times' comments, is one that the Herald and the rest of South Florida would've been smart to share with local residents, but never did.Why do you suppose that is?http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2008/02/wetherell-criti.htmlWetherell criticizes FSU athletic department posted by Aaron Deslatte on Feb 4, 2008________________________________________________________The whole story of Wetherell's self-discoverywww.orlandosentinel.com/sports/college/seminoles/orl-newfsu0408feb04,0,3525431.storySENTINEL EXCLUSIVEFSU president knocks Seminoles athletic departmentDidn't trust athletic department to conduct cheating probeAndrew Carter, Sentinel Staff Writer
The South Florida I Grew Up In
Excerpts from Joan Didion's Miami, 1987,
Simon & Schuster:
In the continuing opera still called, even by Cubans who have now lived the largest part of their lives in this country,
el exilo, the exile, meetings at private homes in
Miami Beach are seen to have consequences. The actions of individuals are seen to affect events directly. Revolutions and counter-revolutions are framed in the private sector, and the state security apparatus exists exclusively to be enlisted by one or another private player. That this particular political style, indigenous to the Caribbean and to Central America, has now been naturalized in the United States is one reason why, on the flat coastal swamps of
South Florida, where the palmettos once blew over the detritus of a dozen failed booms and the hotels were boarded up six months a year, there has evolved since the early New Year's morning in 1959 when
Fulgencio Batista flew for the last time out of Havana a settlement of considerable interest, not exactly an American city as American cities have until recently been understood but a tropical capital: long on rumor, short on memory, overbuilt on the chimera of runaway money and referring not to New York or Boston or Los Angeles or Atlanta but to Caracas and Mexico, to Havana and to Bogota and to Paris and Madrid. Of American cities
Miami has since 1959 connected only to Washington, which is the peculiarity of both places, and increasingly the warp...
"The general wildness, the eternal labyrinths of waters and marshes, interlocked and apparently neverending; the whole surrounded by interminable swamps... Here I am then in the
Floridas, thought I,"
John James Audobon wrote to the editor of
The Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural Science during the course of an 1831 foray in the territory then still called the
Floridas. The place came first, and to touch down there is to begin to understand why at least six administations now have found
South Florida so fecund a colony. I never passed through security for a flight to
Miami without experiencing a certain weightlessness, the heightened wariness of having left the developed world for a more fluid atmosphere, one in which the native distrust of extreme possibilities that tended to ground the temperate United States in an obeisance to democratic institutions seemed rooted, if at all, only shallowly.
At the gate for such flights the preferred language was already Spanish. Delays were explained by weather in Panama. The very names of the scheduled destinations suggested a world in which many evangelical inclinations had historically been accomodated, many yearnings toward empire indulged...
In this mood Miami seemed not a city at all but a tale, a romance of the tropics, a kind of waking dream in which any possibility could and would be accomodated...
Hallandale Beach Blog
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/
Hallandale Beach Blog is where I try to inject or otherwise superimpose a degree of accountability, transparency and much-needed insight onto local Broward County government and public policy issues, which I feel is sorely lacking in local media now, despite all the technological advances that have taken place since I grew-up in South Florida in the 1970's. On this blog, I concentrate my energy, enthusiasm, anger, disdain and laser-like attention primarily on the coastal cities of Aventura, Hollywood and Hallandale Beach.
IF you lived in this part of South Florida, you'd ALREADY be in stultifying traffic, be paying higher-than-necessary taxes, and be continually musing about the chronic lack of any real accountability or transparency among not only elected govt. officials, but also of City, County and State employees as well. Collectively, with a few rare exceptions, they couldn't be farther from the sort of strong results-oriented, work-ethic mentality that citizens here deserve and are paying for.
This is particularly true in the town I live in, the City of Hallandale Beach, just north of Aventura and south of Hollywood. There, the Perfect Storm of years of apathy, incompetency and cronyism are all too readily apparent. Sadly for its residents, Hallandale Beach is where even the easily-solved or entirely predictable quality-of-life problems are left to fester for YEARS on end, because of myopia, lack of common sense and the unsatisfactory management and coordination of resources and personnel.
It's a city with tremendous potential because of its terrific location and weather, yet its citizens have become numb to its outrages and screw-ups after years of the worst kind of chronic mismanagement and lack of foresight. On a daily basis, they wake up and see the same old problems again that have never being adequately resolved by the city in a logical and responsible fashion. Instead the city government either closes their eyes and hopes you'll forget the problem, or kicks them -once again- further down the road.
I used to ask myself, and not at all rhetorically, "Where are all the enterprising young reporters who want to show through their own hard work and enterprise, what REAL investigative reporting can produce?"
Hearing no response, I decided to start a blog that could do some of these things, taking the p.o.v. of a reasonable-but-skeptical person seeing the situation for the first time.
Someone who wanted questions answered in a honest and forthright fashion that citizens have the right to expect.
Of cheerleaders past and present
Given South Florida's unique version of the melting pot -con salsa- demographics and mindset, these women in the photo above are surely what most South Floridians would consider attractive women. But for this observer, who's spent hours & hours at IU cheerleader tryouts and who has known dozens of cheerleaders -and wannabes- in North Miami Beach, Bloomington, Evanston and Washington, D.C., the whole time I was watching these members of the Dolphins' squad perform, I couldn't help but compare them and their routines to those of some IU friends of mine who ALWAYS showed true Hoosier spirit & enthusiasm.
Sitting at my table right near the stage and still later, while watching the long lines of Dolphin fans of all ages waiting to snap photos of themselves with the cheerleaders, I couldn't help but think about those friends who always left me and other Hoosier fans feeling positive & optimistic.
Was there anyone I saw in Davie who possessed these valuable intangibles: the dancing precision of IU Red Stepper -and Captain- Gail Amster, my talented and spirited Phi Beta Kappa pal from Deerfield (IL), who always sat next to me in our Telecom. classes as we took turns entertaining the other; the ebullient spirit & energy of two Hoosier cheerleaders -and captains- from Bloomington, Wendy (Mulholland) Moyle & Sara Cox; the hypnotic, Midwestern, girl-next-door sexiness of Hoosier cheerleader Julie Bymaster, from Brownsburg; or, the adorable Southern girl-next-door appeal of former Hoosier Pom squader Jennifer Grimes, of Louisville, always such a clear distraction while sitting underneath the basket?
Nope, not that I could see. But then they were VERY tough acts to follow!!!
And that's not to mention my talented & spirited friends like Denise Andrews of Portage, Jody Kosanovich of Hammond & Linda Ahlbrand of Chesterton, all of whom were dynamic cheerleaders -and captains- at very large Hoosier high schools that were always in the championship mix, with Denise's team winning the Ind. football championship her senior year when she was captain -just like in a movie. That Denise, Jody & Linda all lived on the same dorm floor, just three stories above me at Briscoe Quad our freshman year, was one of the greatest coincidences -and strokes of luck for me!- that I could've ever hoped for.
You could hardly ask for better ambassadors of IU than THESE very smart, sweet and talented women. In a future SBH post, I'll tell the story of one of the greatest Hoosiers I ever met, the aforementioned Wendy Mulholland, the Bloomington-born captain and emotional heart of the great early '80's IU cheerleading squads, and the daughter of Jack Mulholland, IU's former longtime Treasurer. The acorn doesn't fall far from a tree built on a foundation of integrity & community service!
(After he retired, Mr. Mulholland was the first executive director of the Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County. I used to joke with Wendy that her dad's name was the one that was permanently affixed to the bottom of my work-study checks for years, while I worked at the Dept. of Political Science's Library, first, at the Student Building in the old part of campus, and then later, after it was refurbished, in magnificent Woodburn Hall, my favorite building on campus.)
In that future post, I'll share some reflections on Wendy's great strength of character and personality; my intentions of returning to Bloomington a few weeks before Fall '82 classes started, so I could help Wendy train and work-out to rehab her knee, so she'd feel confident in trying-out for the squad again, following a bad knee injury that'd left her physically-unable to try-out for the squad the previous spring, a big disappointment to those of us who cared about both Wendy and the team; my incredulity at, quite literally, running into Wendy while walking down a sidewalk one afternoon a few years later in Evanston, IL, when we were astonished to discover we were both living there, with me trying to hook on with a Windy City advertising agency, and Wendy then-attending Kellogg (KGSM) at Northwestern, right when the WSJ had named Kellogg the #1 Business School in the country.
I'll also share a story about Wendy performing a true act of kindness towards me in 1982, when I was having a real emergency, and she went above-and-beyond what I had any logical reason to expect. Yet, Wendy, along with her very helpful dad, Jack, came through for me when I was in a very bad time crunch. I've never forgotten Wendy's kindness towards me, and her true Hoosier spirit.
There's NOTHING I wouldn't do for Wendy Mulholland.
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