South Beach Hoosier: Where's the Disney World gun story in the Miami Herald?

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Where's the Disney World gun story in the Miami Herald?

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Below, an email I sent earlier this afternoon to Miami-area resident and longtime South Beach Hoosier favorite Matt Drudge, with the hopes that he'd turn his immensely powerful combination telescope and microscope of The Drudge Report in the general direction of Orlando and Miami.

This illuminating Orlando Sentinel story by Scott Powers and Jason Garcia is perhaps as good an example as any I'm familiar with that properly illuminates both the 'fixer' mentality and backroom-dealing culture of Tallahasseee, and the Miami Herald's own clueless-ness in the year 2008: a large organization that is neither deft enough nor quick enough on the draw to properly use the myriad resources it possesses, to the detriment of its remaining number of readers.

As to my own original thoughts below about the future of the Herald Building itself, consider yourself warned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IMG_1642.jpg

And yes, I'll admit, I completely forgot about the Terra Group's purchase of the building, but the general point still holds true.

Winner of the 2005 Best Architectural Eyesore: The Miami Herald Building, 1 Herald Plaza,
Miami, FL 33132-1609
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/bestof/2005/award/best-architectural-eyesore-42698

See also: http://www.miamisunpost.com/archives/2006/07-27-06/eightstoryfrontpage.htm

Sometime soon, I'll share some thoughts on what it was like to be in that huge building in the late 1970's, and look out towards the bay from the desks of the Sports Dept. of the late and much-missed Miami News.
___________________________
Thursday July 3rd, 2008
12:30 p.m.

Dear Matt:

I'm somewhat dumbfounded that you haven't yet linked to the infuriating story about Disney once again playing its Bigfoot card behind the scenes to carve out some special treatment for itself.

The story in today's Orlando Sentinel by Scott Powers and Jason Garcia is as clear and to the point as you could ask for.

Now, personally, me being me, I'd like for the article to have asked State Rep. Stan Mayfield, who helped craft the legislation, to publicly identify these lawyers" (i.e. lobbyists), who were able to $weet talk him and his committee into inserting such a patently deceitful exemption 'exception' on behalf of Disney & Co.
Yeah, I'd really like to know who they are.

The fact that the reputed largest newspaper in the state, the Miami Herald doesn't mention this story anywhere in the paper today, a front page story to be sure, and on its antiquated and third-rate website, rather than have their own reporters ferret out the true facts, runs two AP dispatches, the most recent of which contradicts/clarifies the first, is another larger question worthy of discussion.

Clarification: Parking Lot Guns-Disney story
http://www.miamiherald.com/775/story/591998.html

Disney says it's exempt from new gun law
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/592379.html

That's a question that might more reasonably be brought up in the not-too-distant future, when, aping the recent moves of The Tribune Company, McClatchy will likely raise the idea of selling the property where the Herald HQ is located, right on Biscayne Bay, where it's long been the largest eyesore on the Bay.

You can place this example of the Herald once again ignoring the troubles of a large state employer on the agenda/autopsy page, right after that delicious item I told you about the day it happened last September.

That was where the Herald ran a story in their third-rate Sunday opinion section, Issues & Ideas, shortly before a Dem presidential debate at the U-M, where one of their Latin America experts wrote that Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico was actually born in Mexico, which would surely come as shocking news to his mother, who was in Santa Monica, CA when Bill was born.

You'll recall that I stated to you at the time how this merely confirmed my own doubts about the tenuous grasp of the U.S. Constitution by most reporters, other than the Second Amendment, and in this case, not only the individual reporter at the Herald who wrote this, but his editors as well. A two-fer.

That this simple "fact" could've been discovered and refuted by a nine-year old in all of about 30 seconds via Richardson's own presidential or gubernatorial website, or that the newspaper never ran a correction, is just one of the many reasons why the Miami Herald has been in economic and editorial free fall for years.

Matt, I can hardly wait 'till the geniuses at The McClatchy Company try to re-assure their stockholders that they won't have any trouble getting the City of Miami or Miami-Dade County to change their zoning laws to accommodate McClatchy's desire to sell the property, and turn it into bayside luxury condos. (What else!)

That's when I think you'll see South Florida residents (inc. bloggers) decide that "what's good for the goose is good for the gander," and decide it's time for that area to become the beautiful bayside park it should've always been.
(The one the city and county completely botched with Bicentennial Park years and years ago, and are now trying to fix with their current equally flawed project.)

Then we'll see how dedicated to the concept of transparency and accountability the Miami Herald's Editorial Board is, when South Florida civic activists make it their business to give the proposed deal the highest possible degree of scrutiny.
You know, just for ol' times sake.

'Chinese wall' and all that.

Hmm... as of Noon, there were only 346 Orlando Sentinel reader comments on their website. That's like, what, the total of all comments to the Herald in a good week?
Exactly, hence my email to you now.

Please consider adding it before the 4th of July.

Adios!

Dave

Orlando Sentinel
Walt Disney World fires back on guns at work
Scott Powers and Jason Garcia, Sentinel Staff Writers
July 3, 2008

Walt Disney World employees won't be packing any heat in the company parking lots anytime soon.

The giant resort has declared that much of its sprawling property is exempt from a new state law that allows Floridians with concealed-weapons permits to keep firearms locked in their cars at work.

Disney, which has 60,000 employees and a long-standing policy against allowing guns on its land, cites an arcane -- and late-added -- loophole in the new law, which took effect Tuesday.

To see the rest of the story:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/custom/tourism/orl-disneyguns0308jul03,0,4282076.story
________________________________________
Reader comments at:
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/orlando-sentinel/T7AB2CU04R1EK4NK0

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Sebastian the Ibis, the Spirited Mascot of the University of Miami Hurricanes

Before going to my first U-M game at the Orange Bowl in 1972, a friend's father often would bring me home an extra 'Canes game program. That's how I came to have the Alabama at U-M game program from Nov. 16, 1968, which was the first nationally-televised college football night game in color. (A 14-6 loss to the Crimson Tide.) After that first ballgame against Tulane, as l often did for Dolphin games if my father wasn't going, I'd get dropped off at the Levitz parking lot near the 836 & I-95 Cloverleaf in NMB, and catch a Dade County Park & Ride bus, going straight to the Orange Bowl. Onboard, I'd get next to the window and listen to WIOD's pre-game show on my Radio Shack transistor radio. A few times, I was just about the only person onboard besides the bus driver, which was alright by me. Once at the Orange Bowl, if I didn't already have a ticket, I'd buy a game program for myself and one or two for friends or teachers before heading to the ticket window, since you usually couldn't find a program vendor once inside. I probaly had a friend or my father with me for just under 40% of the U-M games I ever went to, but you have to remember that the team, though blessed with several talented players, like Chuck Foreman and Burgess Owens, was just so-so to average at best, and the games were usually played on Friday nights, so it wasn't exactly high on everyone's list of things to do. Depending upon the opponent, if I was alone, I'd often have entire areas of the Orange Bowl to myself. (Wish I had photos of that now!) For instance, I had a good portion of the East (open) End Zone to myself against Oklahoma in the mid-70's, when the Boomer Schooner and the Schooner Crew went out on the field after an Oklahoma TD, and the Schooner received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from the refs, as would happen years later in an Orangle Bowl Classic game. (Against FSU?) I was there for the wins and losses under Pete Elliott, Carl Selmer & Lou Saban, and the huge on-field fight in '73 when under eventual national champion Notre Dame (under Ara Parseghian), they called a time-out with less than a minute to go, and already up 37-0. Their rationale? To score another TD and impress the AP football writers; final score 44-0. Well, they got their wish and beat Alabama 24-23 for the title at the Sugar Bowl. A year later, thanks to my Mom's boss, she and I saw Ara's last game as head coach of the Irish in the Orange Bowl Game from the East End Zone -in front of the Alabama cheerleaders!!!- in an exciting 13-11 Notre Dame win over Alabama and Bear Bryant, a rematch of the '73 national title game. I was also present for the U-M's huge 20-15 win under Pete Elliott against Darrel Royal's Texas Longhorns, the week Sports Illustrated's College Football preview issue came out with Texas on the cover, below. I was also present for lots of wins against schools called College of the Pacific, UNLV and Cal-Poly San Luis Obsispo, which I'd then never heard of before.

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.

It's All About "The U"

South Beach Hoosier's first U-M football game at the Orange Bowl was in 1972, age 11, against Tulane in the infamous "Fifth Down" game. In order to drum up support and attendance for the U-M at the Orange Bowl, that game had a promotion whereby South Florida kids who were school safety patrols could get in for free IF they wore their sash. I did. Clearly they knew that it was better to let kids in for free, knowing their parents would give them money to buy food and souvenirs, perhaps become a fan and want to return for future games. The ballgame made an interesting impression on The New York Times, resulting in this gem from the "View of Sport" column of Oct, 14, 1990, labeled 'Fifth Down or Not, It's Over When It's Over.' -"In 1972, aided by a fifth-down officiating gift in the last moments of the game, Miami of Florida defeated Tulane, 24-21. The country and the world was a much different place that fall because The New York Times took time and space to editorialize on the subject. ''Is it right for sportsmen, particularly young athletes, to be penalized or deprived of the goals for which they earnestly competed because responsible officials make mistakes? The ideal of true sportsmanship would be better served if Miami forfeited last week's game.' South Beach Hoosier hardly needs to tell you that this was YET another New York Times editoral that was completely ignored!

The Original Notre Dame Legend

Knute Rockne, November 7, 1927; Sixteen months after his cover appearance, Rockne perished in an airline crash over Kansas on a business trip to California. "Knute Rockne, All-American," the wonderful 1940 film about Rockne's life, starring Pat O'Brien, with Ronald Reagan as ill-fated Irish football legend George Gipp, is a film I've seen at least two-dozen times. Like the best of films, every new viewing of it makes me appreciate some aspect I'd never noticed before, even though I know it by heart. Just like 1942's "The Pride of the Yankees" starring Gary Cooper as Yankee legend Lou Gehrig.

Indiana Hoosiers in the Film Industry, Past and Present

A good source for checking Hoosiers in the film industry -No, not Cary Grant pretending to be Cole Porter in 1946's Night & Day- is this one from a website run by former Ball State prof. and chair of the IPAHF board, and author of Hoosiers in Hollywood (Indiana Historical Press, 2006, $60) David L. Smith. It's currently accessible by subject headings of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Composers, Directors, Screenwriters, Novelists, Made in Indiana, Oscar Winners, The Silent Era, and Non-Native Hoosiers.

http://www.whenmoviesweremovies.com/hoosiersintro.html

1992 Bill Clinton for President buttons

As my friends and family can attest, I was for Bill Clinton YEARS before he ever announced he was running for president -much as I'd been for Gary Hart in 1983- and was even considering running as a Clinton delegate from northern Virginia to the DNC as early as 1990. Still, IF I'd had a vote in the U.S. Senate, I'd have voted to impeach him and remove him from office. You DON"T commit perjury by lying to a federal judge and suborning the perjury of underlings. PERIOD! And you certainly don't countenance your former aides stealing classified materials from The National Archives before their testimony to the 9/11 Commission, a la Sandy Berger. As for the sordid story of one of Hillary's brothers being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby for a presidential pardon from his brother-in-law for a felon client, and nobody from his White House intervening to put the kibosh to that, consider the cast of no-talents left running things in those last few years at the White House after the good people had bailed earlier: lots and lots of Hillary loyalists. As the sign on the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance to The National Archives reads, "The past is prologue." Don't say you weren't warned.

1993 Elvis Presley Stamp -Watercolor of Elvis by Mark Stutzmamn

It was in Memphis specifically, and the Mid-South in general, on our weekend family drives around Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, where I first developed my deep and enduring love and preference for many things: the Mississippi River; rhythm 'n' blues; Al Green; The Andy Griffith Show; Dusty Springfield; Petula Clark; St. Louis Cardinals baseball in the summertime; smoky sweet Memphis-style barbecue ribs; cornbread, and, of course, The King - Elvis. To a devout Elvis fan like me, who knows just about everything there is to know about him, the good and the bad, the best books ever written on Elvis -by far- are Peter Guralnick's masterful "Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley" and the follow-up, "Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley." Each is written with honesty and empathy, free of the judgmental cant and analysis that doomed other books that purport to tell the tale. It was also while living in The Mid-South, that I first became greatly interested in the American Civil War, following a summer day-trip to Shiloh, the site of the bloody April 1862 battle. It was on that summer day trip that I had a chance meeting with a VERY old man on the battlefield itself. A man whose own father had actually fought in the battle. And lived to tell the tale! For more info on Shiloh, see http://www.nps.gov/shil/ Spending a day there is an awesome experience and really puts things into their proper perspective, just as my later trips to Gettysburg, Harper's Ferry, Winchester, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania did as well.

Dr. King Is Slain By Sniper headline in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, April 6, 1968

My family moved from San Antonio to Memphis on Easter weekend 1965, when I was four-years old. We lived in Memphis 'till July of 1968, just weeks after Dr. King was assassinated there. Having lived thru all the chaotic and frightening tumult that took place there in the aftermath of the riots, even remembering the night I watched with my friends and their parents from the sidewalk -during curfew- as fully loaded Army troop transports and tanks rolled past my suburban apt. complex from the nearby Armory on their way downtown, when the opportunity presented itself, my father happily accepted a job offer in Miami. (We flew into MIA the day after Larry Csonka had signed his first contract with the Dolphins, as his face was the one I saw in the Miami Herald vending machines at the airport as we walked -and walked!- to pick up our luggage, me wondering who this guy with the unusual name was.) Because I was a very precocious reader, and was easily bored with kids books, The Memphis Commercial Appeal was the newspaper that helped me learn to read and make sense of the wider world.

U.S.P.S.'s 1995 Texas Statehood Sesquicentennial Stamp

I was born in San Antonio, the Home of the Alamo, at the Lackland Air Force Base Hospital during the first month of the JFK presidency. At the time, my parents worked at next door Kelly AFB, my mother for Kelly's base commander, my father in the Flight Surgeon's office. (They each saw President and Mrs. Kennedy the day before he was killed, when they Air Force One flew into Kelly and went thru the official receiving line. Our family has a photograph of them at the base that day that I've never seen published anywhere else in the myriad books and film footage of that time frame.) My maternal ancestors were Poles from a region of Prussian-controlled Upper Silesia, in what is now southwestern Poland, not far from the present day Poland-Czech Republic border. Overnight, those ancestors became Texas Hill Country pioneers, whose proud descendents have lived in Bandera ever since 1855. Due in large part to its large number of Polish, German and Czech immigrants, Bandera County was one of only a handful of Texas counties that voted AGAINST seceding from the Union at the state convention in Austin in 1861. A book I HIGHLY recommend on Texas' complicated history is "Lone Star Nation: The Epic Story of the Battle for Texas Independence" by H.W. Brands (2004), www.hwbrands.com

Coincidence of birth? Message: Don't Mess with Texas!

The week I was born in San Antonio, the cover subject of TIME magazine (dated Feb. 10, 1961) was Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn of Texas, who held that title for 17 years. As Speaker, Rayburn won a reputation for fairness and integrity -and toughness. He was also a longtime personal friend and advocate for Lyndon Johnson in Washington when LBJ was the Senate Majority Leader. JFK's election as president three months before this issue, with LBJ as Vice President, and Rayburn as Speaker, started the tradition of a Boston-Austin axis within the Democratic Party that has existed ever since, witness Dukakis-Bentsen. See http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,967986,00.html Nine months after appearing on this cover, Rayburn died of inoperable pancreatic cancer. The largest and most prestigious of all the House buildings on Capitol Hill is named after him. Over the 15 years I lived in the Washington, D.C. area, I spent literally thousands of hours in this amazing building: at congressional hearings of both great and little importance, and in speaking/persuading/cajoling Members and Staff. That also includes lots of hours spent transfixed by the great annual party thrown in the Rayburn courtyard by the late Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez of my hometown of San Antonio, where it was packed cheek-by-jowl with great Mexican food, cold beer flown in from Texas, a kick-ass Mariachi band dressed in costumes with cute dancers, and tons of great looking women from Texas and those who were Texans-for a-Day every year at Henry B.'s party! Whatever his views on issues and policies, in person, he was a warm and gracious gentleman whom we could use a LOT MORE of on Capitol Hill. See the Rayburn cover story at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,872094,00.html Cover Credit: Alfred Eisenstaedt

1972 Miami Dolphins team photo at The Orange Bowl

The same color photo of the 17-0 Undefeated Team that for six years, rested in a frame on top of my bedroom dresser at my home in North Miami Beach. There it stayed 'till that fateful day in August of 1979, when I began packing for my new life in Bloomington. The photo made the trip to Bloomington intact, where it remained on my desk in Briscoe Quad 427-A for two very eventful years at IU, the latter being the year we beat North Carolina for the NCAA title. I placed it right below my 8' x 11' b&w glossies of the Miami Herald's All-County Gymnastics team. That was a tremendous team that featured many friends from all around Dade County, as well as my own talented friends and classmates at North Miami Beach High.

Twice as Nice in Baja

North Miami High School grads Yvette and Yvonne Sylvander, January 8, 1976. The week this issue came out, only a month after we (NMB) won the Florida state HS soccer championship, many of my friends and I wondered how in the world, considering how many dozens of people we knew at North Miami High, could two such good-looking and well-adjusted sisters have been just two miles away from us all that time -and we'd never heard of them? It was quite a conundrum! The Sylvander sisters were the best-known twins out of North Miami High until the emergence of the talented gymnastic sisters, Debbie and Donna Reiser. Debbie and Donna always represented the Pioneers with class and grace in all their gymnastic meets, against NMB as well as at the GMAC's, the Greater Miami Athletic Conference (Dade County) championships.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Where's the Disney World gun story in the Miami Herald?

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