CBS4/WFOR-TV video: CBS4's Al Sunshine investigates how "Electric Cars" could be largely useless without high-voltage re-charging stations that even its supporters acknowledge are years away in South Florida.
Article at:
Unless you have a long extension cord... how Electric Cars could be nothing but large paperweights in South Florida as govt. bureaucracy stalls high-voltage re-charging stations.
And should the U.S. government even be in the business of giving grants or loans to some syndicates given how poorly the selection process is in this sort of crony capitalism, given the recent experience with
Solyndra?
I'm still waiting for the hard-hitting multi-part investigation by local Miami-area TV stations into how it came to be that in the year 2011, South Florida doesn't have a single successful solar power, wind power or thermal power company down here that employs a reasonable amount of people paying good upper-middle class salaries and that AREN'T dependent on government handouts for its very existence.
Certainly more than even I would have guessed while living up in Washington all those years, the Miami Herald has gone out of its way since I returned to the area in late 2003 -esp. its business reporters!- to avoid publicly asking such basic yet troubling questions of the local business community and its so-called leadership, since if the newspaper was, the answers to those simple questions would be known by the majority of the well-informed populace here.
For those of you reading this who live far from Area Code 305 & 954, the fact that many American states much farther north in latitude are MUCH farther along in developing solar power capabilities than its natural capital, South Florida, should tell you plenty about the inadequate government/venture capital vision, planning and leadership in this part of the Sunshine State.
No, in this area, people with more money than sense still prefer to sink money into real estate and take advantage of out-of-state and foreign buyers.
You know, since they can't sell you swamp land any more.
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EPA worksheet: Clean Alternative Fuels: Electric Vehicles
Map of Broward County electric vehicle charging facilities; 14 as of 2011.
This post was previously at my other blog, Hallandale Beach Blog:
Recent South Beach Hoosier posts are located at the bottom of this front page. To the bottom right are the SBH Media/Blog Links, your portal to everything that's on my mind: past, present and future.
In a tip of the hat to the 19th-Century language once used by the New York Times in their front page's left-hand column, which re-reported news from arriving ships from lands afar, here at South Beach Hoosier, we "are indebted to the Purser of the ship for early delivery of foreign and domestic news."
In our particular case, that's Matt Drudge, the man who, single-handed, changed the American media dynamic from content-provider driven to customer-driven.
Dave's Intentions for South Beach Hoosier
South Beach Hoosier will offer commentary on popular culture, public policy and national politics -largely from a Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) p.o.v., with some policy differences-advertising & marketing news and innovations; the business side of Show Biz, especially the film industry; as well as insight on international trade, financial services and U.S. foreign policy, where from 1988-2003, I had a front-row seat for these and many other contentious and implacable issues on Capitol Hill, and their resultant fallout at DC-area think tanks and policy groups.Fortunately for me, besides being blessed with a great memory for details, I also took copious contemporaneous notes of what I observed first-hand at Capitol Hill hearings -inc. important Congressional mark-ups- as well as at myriad events with policy makers, journalists and news makers at Brookings, SAIS, AEI, the Wilson Center, the Goethe Institute, the Center for Security Policy, the IMF and The World Bank -BEST wine!-the Economic Strategy Institute, et al. Stories that, for whatever reason, NEVER saw the light of day in the pages of the New York Times, the WSJ or the Washington Post. Which naturally had the entirely predictable ripple effect of insuring that these stories and issues NEVER made the airwaves of the TV networks, cablenets or, even NPR.South Beach Hoosier will also examine the latest amusing or not-so-amusing scandals, cover-ups, controversies, contretemps and mis-adventures bedeviling South Florida, something I became used to while growing up in North Miami Beach in the late 1960's and the 70's.Fortunately, because of my news-junkie DNA and myriad magazine subscriptions, and long-standing relationships with media types in Miami, I was able to keep up pretty well with the South Florida area while living in Bloomington, Chicago, Evanston, Wilmette and Washington, D.C./Arlington, VA.Communities where sensible civic activism and high standards of journalism were the norm and not the exception.Due to my own personal/business/political interests and experiences in those cities, as well as my good fortune to have a large number of well-informed and well-connected friends and former housemates while living there, many but not all of whom are or were reporters, columnists, editors, TV/film producers, along with a few who are now well-placed in Statehouses and legal circles across the country, I'll have a deep bench of facts, opinions, point-of-views and fact-checkers to work with. That's the goal for South Beach Hoosier.
It's my hope that this'll help me offer up pinpoint criticism, whether of national and South Florida pols, media organizations and sports or show biz personalities, that have heretofore evaded public scrutiny, transparency or accountability -as well as well-aimed brickbats. To examine the proverbial case of the latest dog that doesn't bark, or analyze why the latest case of media conventional wisdom has -again- been proven wrong, and why.This is especially true of The Miami Herald, the morning newspaper I grew-up with and have suffered with since first leaving North Miami Beach for Bloomington in the fall of '79, as its most talented people jumped ship and the paper become evermore a shell of what it once was: an excellent newspaper with talented and respected reporters and editors telling compelling and intriguing stories of intrinsic value to its readers throughout polyglot and transient South Florida. Television news-wise, when I'd return to South Florida from school or work in Bloomington,
Evanston, and DC, whether for Christmas vacation, Baltimore Oriole spring training games or visits for weddings, I could still see that Miami had the kind of scrappy and innately curious reporters who make a tangible difference in a community.The sorts of enterprising reporters that so many of my friends at Ernie Pyle at
IU, and Medill at Northwestern were already well on their way to becoming. http://www.idsnews.com/ ,
http://journalism.indiana.edu/news/erniepyle/ ,
http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/ Reporters who might have the talent and ability to convey to the waves of newcomers and visitors to the area, a nuanced sense of South Florida's decidedly mixed historical past, by writing with the proper amount of factual research, balanced perspective and sense of disbelief, to describe the events unfolding around them. Then, ending the piece by dropping the hammer on whichever local corrupt/incompetent miscreant, pol or agency hack was the target of their ire, for attempting to perpetrate yet another in a long of of dubious acts against the people of South Florida.Sadly for the people of South Florida, things have gotten so bad now that The Herald's numerous flaws are as much for what they don't publish, as much as for the self-evident mediocre quality of its writing and reporting, lack of thorough fact-checking, and inadequate search for conflicts of interest.
For all the talk of improving the paper by the new McClatchy management, it shows no tangible signs of changing for the better any time soon, a great disappointment to its readers.It's common knowledge within the industry that The Herald's website is a joke compared to the efforts of many smaller circulation newspapers. www.miamiherald.comFrankly, the website itself remains a constant source of embarrassment for Herald reporters and columnists, who are constantly besieged by readers and told yet another horror story about not being able to find recent Herald stories that should be on the paper's website but aren't.The reporters can do little more than shrug their shoulders in response.
Even in the year 2008, The Herald still DOESN'T have a permanent Public Ombudsman to represent the interests of both its readers and basic fairness, like many newspapers with much smaller circulation numbers!Meanwhile, with much more to fear and lose, The New York Times has an independent Public Editor, currently Clark Hoyt, who weekly takes the Times' policy, owners, editors, reporters and columnists to task publicly, even providing links back to the original story or column in question, unlike the once-in-a-while effort at the Herald. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/thepubliceditor/index.html?8qaMeanwhile The Herald's Sunday attempt at high-minded opinion-shaping and public policy, Issues & Ideas, is so embarrassing and muddled on so many different levels that it's all one can do to not laugh from crying, so feeble is its effort, so low is its aim, so puny the actual result.Yet rather than seeking the creative input of bright and knowledgeable new faces who familiar with the real problems of South Florida, The Herald still regularly farms-out the Guest Op-Ed space in the paper to people living outside of the area, more than any other newspaper in America I've ever read. They continually run long excerpts in their editorial space from parochial interest groups whose political sentiments echo that of the the Herald's own Editorial Board. Even worse, if possible, in many cases these particular guest editorial tangents have already appeared in other forums or publications! And speaking of the Herald's Editorial Board, who's on that exactly, anyway?It's a great mystery that nobody seems able to fully explain away, yet The New York Times, under the guidance of Andy Rosenthal, has an entire webpage specifically devoted to detailing the background and credentials of its Editorial Board. http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/editorial-board.htmlHmmm... call me old-fashioned, but SouthBeachHoosier prefers transparency!With more news coming out of South Florida than once ever seemed possible, and with the area's annual dance with hurricanes always fraught with danger, this area desperately needs an All-News radio station more than ever before, yet there's NO sign of one on the horizon to replicate the crucial role once served by CBS Radio affiliate, WINZ-AM 940.Even worse, if possible, there's no LOCAL 24 hour cable news channel to replicate the important role played by a NewsChannel 8 in Washington, D.C., http://www.news8.net/which gives a depth of coverage to D.C. and the VA/MD suburbs that people in South Florida can only dream about with envy: LIVE call-in TV programs with tough reporters who weekly or monthly grill the DC Mayor, Virginia and Maryland governors, as well as the VA and MD County Managers or Supervisors, the REAL powers in the area. But then it's not like COMCAST is stepping up to the plate, either!
If there's one constant gripe in South Florida, regardless of your age, race, nationality or political persuasion, it's about the fundamental lack of PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY here among Florida's state, regional and local govt./agency officials.South Beach Hoosier aims to be a small step towards regaining some of that needed accountability, whether it's thru simple public scrutiny, or requires a degree of investigation and follow-up public exposure of incompetency, cronyism or negligence -South Florida's usual "
Perfect Storm."
In other words, a catalyst for positive change.
"And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen."
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Preacher Purl encouraging the Hickory basketball team before the title game against South Bend Central in Hoosiers, 1986 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091217/
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...
South Beach Hoosier Sports Coverage
South Beach Hoosier will also offer up analysis of the Indiana University Hoosiers, the University of Miami Hurricanes, the Miami Dolphins, the Baltimore Orioles, and the Florida Marlins, as well as the media that covers and critiques them.
In the future, besides commenting on current Hoosier teams, I'll try to offer some anecdote-filled thoughts and observations on the myriad Hoosier teams I observed while in Bloomington from 1979-83, where I was close to the action on the court, gridiron, cross-country fields, gymnastics mats and even the swimming and diving pools at Royer, due to friendships with many IU athletes and administrators.
That long list -a subject for future posts- includes, among others, #20, Fort Lauderdale Nova's James (Jim) Thomas, a member of IU's 1981 NCAA basketball championship team and the 1981 NCAA All-Final Four Team, and the 1978-79 Mr. Florida Basketball. A forensics major who was self-less and generous to a fault, Jim was also one of my very first friends at IU, and a very talented and thoughtful guy who possessed a tireless work ethic and a sense of dedication that was palpable at all times. Those qualities weren't just on display at Assembly Hall during IU's games and practices, but at many other times and places over the years, with yours truly as a witness, when there were no cheering crowds around. For instance, on those cold days and nights when I'd meet Jim over at the HPER track, and we'd go up to the upstairs basketball court, where for about an hour, I'd help Jim with various skill drills by throwing or passing him basketballs and watch him go thru his paces: shooting, rebounding, passing and free throw shooting.It was just Jim and his desire to be the sort of IU student & player who made his family, friends and teammates proud to be around him -and Hoosier Nation proud that he chose to wear the Hoosier cream and crimson with so much grace and dignity;
IU track & marathon star Cyndie Brown, from Kettering, OH. My friend Cyndie was not only one of the most-talented and driven women I've ever met in my life, but also, clearly one of THE most beautiful.(Think a young Deborah Norville as a perpetually-tanned Danish SAS flight attendant with a killer smile, but with the athletic ability to run MUCH faster than you can possibly think of a good metaphor or simile!) As if all that and her great outgoing personality weren't enough, Cyndie was also a wonderful cook, known by her friends for her insanely good cheeseburgers! In fact, I was eating one that ill-fated night of Dec. 8th, 1980, when the Dolphins played the Patriots in a Monday Night Football game. That was the night that Howard Cosell delivered the shocking news to the nation that John Lennon had been murdered on his way home in New York, and I think Cyndie was probably the first person I spoke to about it.
Those cool Saturday mornings in the Fall that I'd spend watching Cyndie and the rest of the track team run over at the IU golf course, off of S.R. 46, when the leaves and beautiful hills surrounding us were morphing into golden colors, rank among my most cherished of all IU memories, because they're moments I STILL see so clearly when I close my eyes.
Cheering Cyndie on at the start of a race -sometimes, alongside her VERY proud parents!- and then rushing to the midway point and then finish line to be in position to see Cyndie and root her on, as she came charging by in a rush in her crimson-colored IU kit, a crazy combination of amazing talent, resolve, grace & beauty all in one, well, it was nothing less than AMAZING! It literally took my breath away.Hypotheticallly speaking, IF I'd ever had anything to do with it, post-IU, Cyndie would've become one of those rare and ubiquitous media presences in our life that we come to believe have always been there with us, by becoming one of the stable of track experts at one of the TV networks or ESPN -when she wasn't competing- covering big national and international events. But she also could've become the famous face of any number of upscale, sophisticated products of the sort that you regularly see advertised in Vanity Fair or Conde Nast Traveler magazines by Uma Thurman. Why? Because Cyndie possessed the rare kind of radiant, All-American good looks and dynamic personality that puts a smile on your face the moment you see her-and keeps it there. You simply can't help liking her. Trends and fads may come and go, but THAT is an intangible quality that never goes out of style!; Hoosier swim captain Dave Whitmore -aka David C. Whitmore, Jr.- from Overland Park, KS, now of Bethel, CT. Dave was a wonderful friend blessed with great personal warmth, charm, insight and intelligence, and was a terrific swimmer, yet remained remarkably modest about his many talents and accomplishments. I was fortunate, indeed, that Dave lived in a Briscoe dorm room just a few feet away from mine our first two years at IU, because we never ever seemed to run out of things to do or subjects to discuss. (I still recall the look of satisfaction on his face the night he showed me his Shawnee Mission H.S. yearbook, in an effort to prove his prior claim that a ridiculously high number of girls from his high school -friends no less!- were so talented and attractive that they were members of the popular cheerleaders for the Kansas City Chiefs, the Chiefettes. Well, those photos didn't lie -Dave was 100% right!)
Later, after we'd both moved off-campus, when Dave was the IU Swim team captain, those activities of ours included brainstorming clever stategies on our drives up Old State Road 37 to the airport in Indy, to pick up talented HS swim recruits in for a weekend visit, so we could structure their limited time in Bloomington so they'd fall in love with the school -as Dave and I had- and become one of legendary swim coach James "Doc" Counsilman's newest prodigies. That is to say, both a productive IU student AND teammate. One who'd soon wear the ubiquitous gray IU swim team t-shirts that cleverly combined Bugs Bunny's sense of humor and the proper Doc Counsilman swim technique: "What's Up, Doc?"
Our routine always included taking the recruit to see a screening of Breaking Away at the Indiana Theatre, right where much of the movie was filmed downtown, since Dave and I knew from experience that the film was our secret weapon. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078902/The film was the dynamic intangible that could usually break a tie in IU's favor, because it so thoroughly showed the full scope of the natural beauty of Bloomington and IU's campus. We knew that no matter what other colleges the recruit might later visit, the images of that great film would remain front-and-center when it came time for them to make a final decision about what school to attend.Dave and I knew from experience that after seeing the film, our most important task was to merely show the recruit a large-enough slice of the incredible diversity of life in Bloomington, since the self-evident beauty and great lifestyle of the area sold itself. That explains why so many Hoosiers never leave Bloomington after graduating, just as is true in Austin, Madison, Chapel Hill or Charlottesville. Dave's effect on my life at IU would be hard to overestimate, due to the thousands of hours we must've spent together over the years: over meals, at ballgames, seeing films at local theatres like the Indiana or Von Lee or at the Whittenberger Auditorium at the IMU, and later, once he moved into his great apt. over at Lantern House on 7th Street near Dunn Meadow, the thousands of hours I spent over there watching ballgames on TV, listening to music, talking about current events or what was going on in our lives. And that's not to forget going to the legendary Bruce's Cafe, festooned with genuine Hoosier memorabilia, for breakfast b/w 2-4 a.m., after a late night out, where we often ran into other friends and IU athletes. This was especially the case if we'd gone there after another legendary -but true!- IU Swimmer party, where you came to expect the unexpected -and were NEVER ever disappointed.Another rather obvious positive effect of spending so much time together with Dave was that so many of my friends and classmates eventually became friends of his -and vice versa.
Naturally, that was especially true with IU's talented divers and swimmers, like the unflappable Robby Bollinger from Rockford (IL), the 1982 NCAA 1-Meter Springboard Diving champion, and Laura Seitz from Pittsburgh, my wonderful and thoughtful friend whom I was fortunate enough to meet and hit-it-off with during her very first week at IU -yet another Briscoe Quad alum!
That chance meeting with Laura lead the way to our spending countless hours together over the years, whether at IU soccer games or over movies and meals at the IMU or parties, plus the odd tennis game thrown in for good measure. Always ready with a hearty laugh, a beautiful smile and a clever comeback remark, Laura never looked anything less than radiant when wearing her trademark: a shiny red IU warm-up jacket.A dear friend who'd play a very important part in both my life and Dave's was the beautiful, brilliant and beguiling Tab-drinking, Wall Street dynamo, Linda Sobosan, from Huntington, Long Island, who was already my friend when the three of us lived our freshman year at Briscoe Quad, before she ever met Dave.In some ways, besides our complementary personalities, I suppose my deep friendship with Linda was destined to be strong, given my natural affinity for both New Yorkers and all things NYC, having grown-up surrounded by SO MANY friends from there in North Miami Beach, and being so steeped in the political and cultural history of New York.(Linda was as wonderful and thoughtful a friend as you'd ever hope for, blessed with charm, wit, intelligence in abundance -and common sense to spare!- along with the natural ability to always cheer you up when you were down.)
One very cold winter Friday night in 1980, I made the conscious choice to see Dave's swim meet against Michigan over at Royer, thereby depriving myself of the opportunity to see the historic telecast of the U.S. Olympic Men's hockey team game against the Russians. But I always knew I'd made the right choice!You have to support your friends when they need you.
Space limitations here at SBH prevent me from naming all my friends who were players on IU's 7-time NCAA Soccer champions, whose many exploits & comebacks at Armstrong Stadium under coach Jerry Yeagley I recall like they were yesterday. None of those soccer triumphs were more memorable or deserved than the 1982 NCAA eight-overtime title game victory over Duke, which I witnessed in person over Christmas break at Ft. Lauderdale's Lockhart Stadium, in what remains THE longest game in the history of college soccer. Afterwards, jubilant Hoosier players, coaches, families and supporters -like me- partied all-night in the hallways of the Ft. Lauderdale Sheraton Yankee Trader.The IU sports administrator most responsible for helping me make sense of all things Cream & Crimson, was IU's do-it-all, 24/7 Renaissance man, Chuck Crabb. See http://iufoundation.iu.edu/News/Chuck_Crabb_Biograph.htmland http://www.indiana.edu/~bands/crabb.htmlWith equal amounts of enthusiasm, hard work and patience, Chuck lovingly and masterfully managed IU's Student Athletic Board, an organization to which I devoted many thousands of hours to -and loved every minute.
http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/school-bio/ind-sab-index.htmlBoth the more difficult times, like trying to manage things and stay dry during downpours at IU soccer games at Bill Armstrong Stadium, and those that were more fun, like helping out with the logistics of running the lengthy IU cheerleader and pom squad tryouts, up on the HPER's beautiful second floor wooden gym, with very precise routines all set to Prince's genius music, circa 1982, which was blaring out of the speakers. Fun and hard work!After all those hours and hours of watching those carefully choreographed routines to his music -routines that I can STILL see in my head- I could never hear Prince's songs again without thinking of those tryouts and smiling. And of all those eager but flushed and exhausted Hoosier faces, anxious to help project Hoosier Pride to Hoosier Nation.And then, because it often seemed like I lived at the IU Student Union, the IMU, the largest in the world, http://www.imu.indiana.edu/ where all IU student groups then had their offices, I'd run off and do some more work on behalf of my other important interest, IU's Student Alumni Council, now SAA, http://alumni.indiana.edu/saa/ ,
also located in the beautiful IU Castle!
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South Beach Hoosier Soccer
Soccer-wise, I hope to offer the occasional insightful thought on developments in the English Premier League, which I've followed closely since my days at J.F.K Jr. High in N.M.B., and continue to watch now on Fox Soccer Channel.Of course, back then, the local Miami PBS affiliate, WPBT, Channel 2, in nearby North Miami, actually showed some initiative and tried to please their viewers -which they don't now- which is how it was that I was able to watch Channel 2 and see tape of a recent German Bundesliga games with play-by-play by announcer Tony Charles. And highlights of other games!That fantastic bit of inspired programming early on Sunday nights resulted in all my friends and I becoming devout fans of Bundesliga players and teams few of us had ever seen in person. It also resulted in our constantly doing our own unique impressions of Charles' very unique broadcasting style, often during our own North Miami Beach Optimist soccer games. The equalizer!!!The young American International has done it again!http://www.premierleague.com/page/Home/0,,12306,00.htmland
http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccerIn Bloomington I'd listen to British soccer games on my short-wave radio in my dorm room in Briscoe Quad, Room 427-A, or, if the weather was nice, I'd listen outside on the grass field just north of the tennis courts across Fee Lane from Briscoe, one of my favorite places, where I spent so much time throwing a frisbee, baseball or football around with friends, while talking about everything under the sun.If the weather was too cold or overcast that particular Saturday or Sunday, as it tends to be from December thru March, I'd bring my short-wave down into the Briscoe Quad cafeteria for lunch. On those occasions, the area near my table would quickly fill up with soccer fan friends from around Briscoe, as well as those I'd invited from around campus, and become, for a short while at least, Little Brittania.There, in between bites and swigs of burgers, pizza and Coke, we'd listen intently to the exploits of the best soccer players in the world, imagining ourselves transported to the stands of some of THE most famous sports stadiums in all the world.See my comments at bottom right about the Miami Toros and Ft. Lauderdale Strikers.
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 Countygovernment 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 unsatisatisfactory 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 eithercloses 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.Hallandale Beach Blog intends to be a catalyst for positive change. http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/
Recordings of IU songs to psyche yourself up before a ballgame!
Recordings of IU songs to psyche yourself up before a ballgame!"The IU Fanfare" and "Indiana, Our Indiana""IU Fanfare" - composed by Scott Davison
"Indiana, Our Indiana" - composed by Karl L. King, adapted by Russell Harker, arranged for the Hundred by Ray Cramer and Dave Woodley
"Indiana Fight!""Indiana Fight!" - composed by Leroy Hinkle, arranged for the Hundred by Ray Cramer
"Hail to Old IU""Hail to Old IU" - composed by J.F. Giles, arranged for the Hundred by Ray Cramer
"Chimes of Indiana""Chimes of Indiana" - composed by Hoagy Carmichael, arranged for the Hundred by Ray Cramer
All recordings are in .mp3 format and are property of Indiana University. Use of these recordings (for non-personal use) without the express written consent of the Indiana University Department of Bands and the Indiana University office of Licensing and Trademarks is prohibited.
All recordings performed by the IU Marching Hundred during annual indoor concerts in Assembly Hall.
From: http://www.indiana.edu/~bands/recordin.html
Photos by Dr. M.T. Hallock MorrisWanted to call your attention to these terrific photos on flickr.com of the 2008 Insight Bowl game between IU and Oklahoma State at Sun Devil Stadium, Tempe, AZ by Dr. M.T. Hallock Morris,
assistant professor of political science at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville.Her photostream includes lots of interesting shots of the ballgame, Sun Devil Stadium, the IU Red Steppers, the Marching 100 Band, some pre-game and post-game activities, plus trips to the desert of various ruin sites.http://flickr.com/photos/swampgoddess/sets/72157603576048962/
Thoughts on The Pentagon and the 9/11 Attacks
Let me relate a 9/11 anecdote that gives you some sort of insight into me, and informs my posts here. I lived for about 15 years in Washington, D.C., and while there, worked on behalf of some of the top law firms and business groups in town, doing all sorts of things on both Capitol Hill and along the K Street corridor. While doing so, I was fortunate to meet and befriend lots of very talented, committed and impressive people, including many from the media, think tank and public policy sectors, as well as the diplomatic community.
On 9/11, I was working on a project for Crowell & Moring, in an office in their DC office right across the street from the FBI & DOJ, and next to the Naval Memorial. After the initial reports of the attack in New York City and on The Pentagon, from our vantage point on the large patio overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue, we could see past the Old Post Office across the street, and could clearly see the smoke rising up from The Pentagon to our southwest.
Being equidistant to both The White House and the U.S. Capitol -and thus, in a direct position to have seen any attack on either- once we received word to evacuate the building because a plane within range of DC still hadn't been accounted for -what we would all later all know as United 93-I decided to forego playing the role of a sardine in a can on the Metro, and decided instead to walk the 7-plus miles to my home in north Arlington: via K Street, M Street in Georgetown, and finally Lee Highway in Arlington.
When I got a few blocks away from the office and was near Metro Center, whom do you suppose I walked right into, but the one man, whom, IF things had fallen differently, might've played a much larger role that tragic day?
(As I walked and walked, it was while listening on my Sony AM/FM/TV portable radio, via ABC News' Good Morning America -the same program that had informed my entire floor for 90 minutes before when we gathered en masse around my radio in our floor lobby area- that I first learned that some of the planes involved in the attacks had departed out of Boston's Logan Airport.
That news made my heart sink, and made the walk home seem far longer than it normally would, since one of my former housemates in Arlington, Jennifer Dugan, a wonderfully sweet, thoughtful and immensely adorable University of Rhode Island grad, was, in fact, a flight attendant for US Airways, working out of Logan.)
That man I'm referring to was George Terwilliger, then of the DC office of McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe LLP, whom I knew from 1627 Eye Street, the location of the New York Times' DC bureau, who's now at WhiteCase, http://www.whitecase.com/gterwilliger/ Mr. Terwilliger was the man that much of the Washington press corps and Beltway Crowd thought was the likely first choice for President George W. Bush to be FBI Director, and a person that many of my friends at 1627 had an enormous amount of respect and admiration for, even if they disagreed with him politically.When I saw him in passing on the sidewalk, with a pensive look on his face, like everyone passing us on both sides and spilling out onto the roads, all I could think to myself was, "Be careful what you wish for."
Courtyard Los Angeles Century City/Beverly Hills
Courtyard Los Angeles Century City/Beverly Hills
Instead, though, I usually stay at the very nice Courtyard by Marriott Century City/Beverly Hills, which I highly recommend due to its GREAT location: near the Fox Studios lot, 2 miles from Westwood & UCLA, 5 miles from the Santa Monica beach -and across the street from a great Ralph's. Avoid rooms facing Olympic Blvd. and DO try to book one facing the pool! You won't be disappointed.http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/laxce-courtyard-los-angeles-century-city-beverly-hills/
SkyNews and The Sun Website/Links for Madeleine McCann
Comparing PLAYBOY and The Princeton Review's List of the Top 20 Party Schools
Comparing PLAYBOY and The Princeton Review's List of the Top 20 Party Schools
Still somewhat mystified by the August 2007 results of The Princeton's Review's annual list of the Top 20 party schools. Hmmm... Biggest surprise? IU only ranking 8th or U-M not on the list at all?This list reads somewhat suspect to South Beach Hoosier, since the University of Virginia, and University of Wisconsin aren't listed. Anyone who's ever been to either campus knows they both belong in that élite company.
The Princeton Review 2007 List:
1. West Virginia University
2. University of Mississippi
3. University of Texas, Austin
4. University of Florida
5. University of Georgia
6. Penn State University
7. University of New Hampshire
8. Indiana University, Bloomington
9. Ohio University, Athens
10. University of California, Santa Barbara
11. Randolph-Macon College, Va.
12. University of Iowa
13. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
14. University of Maryland, College Park
15. University of Tennessee, Knoxville
16. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
17. Arizona State University
18. Florida State University
19. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
20. State University of New York, AlbanyPLAYBOY'S MUCH more accurate 2006 List:http://www.playboy.com/girls/coeds/features/top10partyschools/collegeguide.html
1. University of Wisconsin, Madison
2. University of California, Santa Barbara
3. Arizona State University, Tempe
4. Indiana University, Bloomington5. San Diego State University
6. Florida State University
7. Ohio University, Athens
8. University of Georgia, Athens
9. University of Tennessee, Knoxville
10. McGill University, Montreal, Québec
Herman B. Wells on Campus Freedom
Herman B. Wells on Campus Freedom"For me, there really was no question about support of Kinsey's research. I had early made up my mind that a university that bows to the wishes of a person, group or segment of society is not free and that a state university in particular cannot expect to command the support of the public if it is captive to any group. It must be a free agent to deserve the support of all the public.. and the only way to keep it free is to be willing to fight when necessary... Observers of the American academic scene have called Indiana University's winning of its battle to protect Kinsey's Insititute for Sex Research from those would have eliminated it a landmark victory for academic freedom."
Being Lucky: Reminiscences and Reflections, Indiana University Press, 1980. (p.178-179)From http://www.indiana.edu/~kinsey/about/hwells.html
South Beach Hoosier Hall of Fame: Jacquie Cherbocq
South Beach Hoosier Hall of Fame: Jacquie CherbocqSouth Beach Hoosier will always have a special place in his heart for one truly thoughtful Hoosier named Jacquie Cherbocq.A friend and fellow Briscoe Quad resident, Jacqui helped make it possible for me to see all of IU's home basketball games to begin my life as a Hoosier.
For two years in a row, 1979-80 and 1980-81, she graciously lent me her pink fee receipt, so I could use it to purchase both the "A" and "B" schedule tickets at the IU Fieldhouse during class registration, back when the ticket packages were split up, supposedly, so more students could attend games.One package always contained the Purdue home game, while the other was either the Kentucky game if we had UK in Bloomington, or, the best opponent not named Purdue if we were playing UK in Lexington that year.
I've never forgotten Jacquie's thoughtful kindness to me, especially since she brought me such amazing luck. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_HoosiersThat first year, 1979-80, it made it possible for me to have seats in the third row behind the north basket in the regular season's last game, where Butch Carter sank clutch free throws to give us a 52-50 victory over Ohio State for the Big Ten Championship -my first time ever rushing the court.My second year, 1980-81, a source for many future posts, was a year that was full of magic and wonder since it ended with our winning the NCAA basketball championship, beating North Carolina 63-50 in Philadelphia.
Bloomington and IU in Postcards
Bloomington and IU in Postcards
I only wish that when I first arrived in Bloomington in the fall of 1979, I'd thought to visit some of the Mom-and-Pop type shops that were still in town, near the Courthouse and along College and Walnut Avenues, and bought some of these sort of old-fashioned iconic postcards. The sort that continually get placed behind the newer post cards on the metal rack near the front counter, until there are only a few left. Wow, I could kick myself now!http://www.cardcow.com/c/66005/us-state-town-views-indiana-bloomington/IU Visitors Center E-cards:https://www.indiana.edu/~iuvis/cards/
Indiana University in the News!
Maps for the Hoosier on the Go!
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