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Freddy the Croc in the Flamingo area of Everglades National Park. He's a hundred miles from a city but he's also a part of the unique place that is South Florida. Copyright Philip Cardella 2025.

This Week in Florida is an independent publication launched in April 2023 by Philip Cardella. It was started as a way to communicate with my friends and family outside of Florida what South Florida is really like. That is, its more Florida Man than most people think, but also far more diverse, interesting, beautiful and, you're not going to believe this, normal, than most people think.

An osprey with a fish in a dead tree in the Flamingo Area of Florida's Everglades National Park. Copyright Philip Cardella 2025

I try to keep it real, keep it reasonably positive and if possible, funny.

If Bad Boys and Miami Vice taught you what Miami is all about--well, they didn't.

Men on stilts advertising for the Universoul Circus during the Annual MLK Day Parade in Liberty City, Florida. Copyright Philip Cardella 2025

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I am using Pixelfed for an Instagram substitute.

For photography, follow me on pixelfed.social

I'm also on Xitter and Facebook and working on getting on TicTok, God help me. Apparently, I'm too old and dense to figure out how to link to those right now. Smh.

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On my perspective

I am not shy about my love for my church, Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ (Coral Gables UCC), or the non-profit interfaith group I volunteer with, People Acting for Community Together (PACT). I have worked for the Democratic National Congressional Committee in the past, though neither they nor I would like to repeat that.

I stand with Coral Gables UCC and PACT because of our shared values.

PACT's most recent headline in The Miami Herald. Miami-Dade County Mayor Levine Cava is in the foreground.

To be clear, on this website, I do not represent Coral Gables UCC, PACT or any former employer in any capacity. I am employed by neither Coral Gables UCC nor PACT and if I say something stupid that's on me, not them.

You can extrapolate my preferences from those things.

Oh, yes, I'm also an avid Sacramento Kings fan.

Sacramento Kings center Domantas Sabonis (11) helps his son Tiger light the beam after the team’s 109-98 win against the Phoenix Suns during an NBA game at Golden 1 Center on Sunday, April 13, 2025. The Kings will play the first play-in game in Sacramento on Wednesday. Hector Amezcuahamezcua@sacbee.com In case it isn't clear enough--I did not take this photo, lol.

Beyond that, it is not my intention to endorse anyone or anything--aside from human rights for all people--on this site through my "coverage" of them. I've got protesters from the very far right and the very far left on here, and by taking a picture of them or acknowledging they exist and have a right to speak, I'm in no way implying I agree with them.

I believe that killing innocent civilians is wrong. Period. A civilian is never responsible for the crimes of the country that they reside in. I think the world should be ashamed that it is not considering all of the atrocities going on today, particularly in Sudan (this piece is from six hours before writing this) and China, with the same vigor that it does atrocities in other places. If you read this as me supporting a country or its actions in this, you're reading it wrong. Killing civilians is wrong--I don't care who does the killing or what they're mad about.

Sudan in ‘world’s largest humanitarian crisis’ after two years of civil war
NGOs and UN say country is ‘worse off than ever before’ with wide-scale displacement, hunger, famine and attacks on refugee camps
The GuardianRachel Savage

Do I have opinions? Oh yes. Is this the place I'll express them? Sometimes, yes. But I try to be very careful about that and usually, it's about things like ad software or John Stamos supposedly being canceled from--what--Full House re-runs?

I created this site to tell what I see in South Florida. There are amazing things here that defy almost every depiction in the media. And there's absurd Florida man shit that supports some of the most embarrassing depictions in media. It's an amazing place. I want you to see that on this page.

That's a whole ass crocodile--NOT an alligator--on Key Biscayne, a thousand feet from condos, in the wild, "gaping" to cool off, in Crandon Park. In the United States you can ONLY see that in South Florida and I think that's freaking amazing. Photo Credit Philip Cardella Copyright 2025.

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