South Beach Hoosier by David Bruce Smith: Janet Reno

Showing posts with label Janet Reno. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

It's not justice -it's Broward justice!

South Beach Hoosier and Hallandale Beach Blog wanted to call your attention to one of the best blog postings he's seen in quite some time, made all the better because it's an all-too-accurate
account of the way things are often done in this part of the Sunshine State.

This wonderful post ran almost three weeks ago in Justice Building Blog, the blog of the Richard Gerstein Bldg. in downtown Miami.

That building was no stranger to fascinating stories even before the advent of the Internet Revolution or cell phones allowed well-founded whispers to become "common knowledge" within minutes.

South Beach Hoosier knows all too well that's true because he recalls what things were like at the Dade County Courthouse, where he spent quite a lot of time from the mid-'70's to the early '80's, as a kid growing up in North Miami Beach, and still later, while back on Flagler Street as an IU student home on summer break.

(Usually after a trip first to the Dade County Main Library, a SBH favorite, and buying this delicious fruit bar snack that was sold at a Flagler shop right across the street from One Biscayne Tower.)

SBH often caught a taste of American jurisprudence up close and personal, when there was a big or controversial case going on, often swinging by to see what was up on one of his rare days off from one of the three summer jobs he had, in order to pay that out-of-state tuition that was three times what native Hoosiers paid.

This started back when Dick Gerstein was the Dade States Attorney, and sometimes interacted with SBH's father, who worked in that building for years in law enforcement, and when SBH sometimes saw fathers of his NMB childhood/Optimist team friends ply their trade as defense attorneys, or "experts" of one sort or another.

This routine continued once Janet Reno took over when Richard Gerstein retired before the end of his term as DA.

(Still another time, one of my old teammate's father -a really nice guy who not only came to every game we played at Victory Park, but to every evening practice, too- actually served as a juror on an extremely high-profile murder case that had South Florida completely transfixed.)

In case you're a little fuzzy on Gerstein and his career, see:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,723869,00.html and
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/family/jacques_mossler/10.html and
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE4D8143CF93BA15757C0A964958260

I first became aware of this great post on Broward County's brand of justice thru JAABLOG, the wonderful Broward County judicial blog run by Sean Conway.

His efforts to be a straight-shooter who call 'em as he sees them in the area of judicial criticism, has often put him squarely in the sights of some folks who'd like to use ABA protocols like a bludgeon to silence reasonable criticism of Broward judges who think they are not subject to either rules of common sense or decency.

I've mentioned his efforts twice previously at South Beach Hoosier in December:
http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2007/12/follow-up-to-sean-conway-blogfirst.html

http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2007/12/lawyer-may-lose-license-for-blog-entry.html
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Thursday, February 28, 2008
ONE IN A HUNDRED: BROWARD DOES THEIR PART
by RUMPOLE

One in a hundred americans is in prison or jail, and here's why Broward is helping to keep that number high:
The Broward Blog contains the welcome news that Broward Attorney Valerie Small-Williams was acquitted of the misdemeanor charge of failure to obey a police officer.

The disturbing facts of the case are that Ms. Small-Williams was stopped for speeding and then ordered out of her vehicle (a Jaguar) while her small child was in the back because the officer thought he saw a second drivers license in her wallet. She was arrested, cuffed, and initially charged with a slew of crimes, although the "second license" was never located...

To see the rest of the story, see:
http://justicebuilding.blogspot.com/2008/02/one-in-hundred-broward-does-their-part.html

Friday, February 8, 2008

Ocean Drive Magazine's 2008 VolleyPalooza on Sat. & Sun. from 10 a.m-6 p.m., Lummus Park

Well, it's that time of the year in South Florida, before baseball's spring training starts in earnest, when a young man's fancy hasn't turned to pitchers and catchers but to watching good-looking AND athletic fashion models play an exciting brand of volleyball before a very large and appreciative, sun-drenched crowd on South Beach, with alcohol and music nearby -and plentiful.

Yes, it's time for Ocean Drive magazine's 15th annual VolleyPalooza celebration of sand and surf, music and limber models.

As always, there'll be celebs of various stripes and makes -athletic, fashion, music- who come by to have fun and take in the scene, too, some of whom aren't even paid to be there.
Like me, they just like it for what it is.
It doesn't pretend it's educational!

(Now if they'd only play more rock music and a LOT LESS rap/hip-hop. So many people I run into there say that, but nothing ever changes. One of these years...)

Of course much of the fun from this particular event comes from watching the hundreds of people who show up whom your intuition tells you probably wish they were models themself, or at least, looked more the part.
How else to explain their strategic response of dressing or behaving in such a way as to draw inordinate amounts of attention to themself, even while feigning surprise anyone notices them.

Perhaps it's the unusual sunglasses or hat they're wearing, or for the women, wearing almost nothing at all, but with high heels -at the beach!
A classic example of fashion trumping function!

Sort of a funnier and less irritating version of the pathetic loner guy who regularly shows up at the park or beach you frequent, who frequently comes by with a snake around his neck or a parrot on his shoulder, a small remote-controlled car, etc., etc.
You know the type!

While I lived in the Washington, D.C. area from 1988-2003, the most frequent scene for that sort of amusing/oddball behavior was at my favorite people-watching spot in all of Washington, right in front of the Sequoia restaurant in Georgetown, down at Washington Harbour, right across from Arlington, with the Kennedy Center and the Washington Monument .

(Sequoia is just a stone's throw away from another popular SouthBeachHoosier spot, the U.S. Park Service's Thompson's Boat House, where I used to run into then-Attorney General Janet Reno quite a lot, both before and after she'd gone rowing on the Potomac.
She was always quick to notice whaever particular style Dolphins cap I was wearing that day, and say hello or wave or give a nod of the head.

At times like that, I was constantly surprised by the reaction of other people around us, usually some family in town doing the tourist thing for a week, and being so amazed at:

a.) just seeing Janet Reno in person in the first place -with no microphones around!- and
b.) seeing her so relaxed and enjoying herself, and
c.) their apparent surprise that she was so friendly and open -albeit with her armed protective unit nearby- since I'd always known how very personable Janet Reno was, from the days when I'd grown-up and lived in Miami, both before and after she replaced Richard Gerstein as the Dade States Attorney.

(I also once ran into present-day Miami-Dade State's Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle one day over at The Florida House when she was up in Washington for a visit and still working as an Assistant to Reno in Miami, circa '89 or so.
I agreed to walk with her and a friend around the Capitol Hill area for a bit and even took some photos of them in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, while dispensing some suggestions for some things to see and do while they were in town, no doubt for some DOJ meeting of some sort.)

That's one of those things you never really think about or are prepared for, until it happens right in front of you: someone else's apparent puzzlement at something that you already know or consider perfectly self-evident.)

See more on Sequoia at http://www.arkrestaurants.com/section_home.cfm?section_id=1&location_id=2&restaurant_id=15

I spent many spring and summer weekend afternoons relaxing there near the adjoining deck, reading the Washington Post, the N.Y. Times and the N.Y. Post, watching the boats go up and down the Potomac, listen to Oriole ball games, and sipping cans of cold Coke in-between writing down random thoughts or brain storms in my handy legal pad. (If only current blog technology had existed then!)

Whether it was one of the many irritating guys with the excessively loud motorcycle, pulling up alongside the access road entrance of Sequoia near the Sun Dial, who keeps gunning the engine; the guy with the new sports car being a little obvious about wanting attention; the clueless, shirt-less guy who acts like he was just working-out and is now cooling down by making really excessive noises and arm and leg movements; the trippy rollerblading guy who gets a little too close to the people he's weaving thru on the sidewalk...

There, as at VolleyPalooza, the people-watching is half-the-fun, though the models do have a way of refocusing your attention when they're in a good rally back and forth across the net, as they battle for Ocean Drive magazine's Grand Prize trophy and the opportunity to get a trip to the Turks and Caicos.

Unless something quite unusal happens, as per usual, I'll be rooting for the Elite Models, since of all the modeling agencies with offices here, they've always been -by far!- the friendliest to interact with over the years. In that sense, they're more my type -the girl next door.

Trust me, it's not for nothing that most of the photos I have from VolleyPaloozas past are of their agency.

Plus, whether by intention or circumstance, to me, Elite has always seemed to be the one agency in South Florida with the largest number of what could pass for "corn-fed Kappa cuties" the alliterative description of IU coeds in the early '80's that Playboy used in their Big Ten issue.
It's a phrase that's obviously deeply imprinted on me. http://www.elitemodel.com/

Not least of all because because the description of that girl next door appeal was 100% true then, as I was blessed to have so many friends at the beautiful Kappa Kappa Gamma house who were Exhibit A of that assertion, with brains and personality to spare.

If I can, I'm also going to try to swing by Collins & 22nd Street and take some photos for future posting purposes here of the W Hotel construction that's now in progess, which I haven't seen
posted anywhere else, though I suppose I could've missed it.
I really loved the W in San Francisco when I was there in 2000 on vacation from Washington!

The artist's rendition of the hotel's exterior, below, is interesting, but could also prove to be eerily iconic for the whole SoBe area after a Cat 4 hits, like those tourist hotels along the shore in Cancun the past 2-3 years that seem suddenly denuded and absurd being where they are. Just a thought.
http://www.oceandrive.com/hybrid/archives/2008_02/stars/index.html

For more photos of the W South Beach project, see: www.starwoodhotels.com and http://www.wsouthbeachresidence.com/EN-presentation-w-south-beach-residences-hotel-condo-hotel-condotel-condhotel-south-beach-miami-beach-florida.html

My prior post on VolleyPalooza was last year, so you might want to check that: http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2007/02/2007-volleypalooza-on-south-beach.html

Information at: http://www.oceandrive.com/flash/interface.html or (305) 532-2544

Some good photos from last year's event at:
http://www.webshots.com/search?query=Volleypalooza+'07

Video at: http://volleypalooza.org/

All but the latter of the following will likely be represented this weekend in the matches.
I've tried to find am list of the competing teams and I've come up dry:
http://www.miamibeachfl.gov/NEWCITY/depts/arce/ei_fashion.asp

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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.

Hallandale Beach Blog intends to be a catalyst for positive change. http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

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.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

It's not justice -it's Broward justice!

Friday, February 8, 2008

Ocean Drive Magazine's 2008 VolleyPalooza on Sat. & Sun. from 10 a.m-6 p.m., Lummus Park

In the Heart of a Great Country, Beats the Soul of Hoosier Nation

#IUBB, #bannersix

Hallandale Beach's iconic beachball-colored Water Tower, between beach and A1A/South Ocean Drive

Hollywood in Cartoons, The New Yorker

Hollywood in Cartoons, The New Yorker

Hollywood in cartoons, 10-21-06 Non-Sequitur by Wiley, www-NON-SEQUITUR.COM

Miami Dolphins

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

Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders, April 28, 2007

Of cheerleaders past and present

It's All About "The U"

The issue I took with me the night of U-M's 20-15 upset of #1 Texas at the Orange Bowl

The Perfect Storm

Miami's Romp in the Rose

Why the University of Miami should drop football

REVENGE!

How Sweet It Is!

My, Oh My, Miami!

Why Is Miami No. 1?

Miracle In Miami

Special Issue: College Football

1984 College & Pro Spectatcular

Pro Football Hall of Fame Special Issue

FACES OF THE NFL

Coming Back

Dan's Last Stand

The War Zone

Down and Dirty

The Sunshine Boys

HOT & NOT

NFL PREVIEW 1995

Sportsman Of The Year

Dan The Man

Dangerous Dan

Super Duper!

Air Raid! Miami Bombs Washington

Rookies On The Rise

New Life In The WFL

Zonk! Miami Massacres Minnesota

Pro Football, Miami Is Rough And Ready

Miami All The Way

It's Miami and Washington

Kiick and Csonka, Miami's Dynamic Duo

Sudden Death at Kansas City

New Pro in a New Town

Old-style "Obie" the Orange Bowl Committee mascot