California Dreaming: Week ending August 8, 2025
Introduction
Introducing the Table of Contents!
I don't know if it is something I just figured out how to use or if the newest update from Ghost, the website that I use to post this stuff, finally allowed it, but I can finally do in-page links, which means I can do a Table of Contents! If you want to jump to a section, just click on the link below.
Table of Contents:
Finite Disappointment yes, it's about the prison in the Everglades, again.
Florida Gonna Florida yes, it is about alligators and cops, again.
Historic Interlude yes, crime in the past is probably worse than you think. Much worse.
Infinite Hope putting money where the mouth is and looking to the mountains
Bear the History Hound Finds American history and Jeffrey Epstein.
California Dreaming
My family is from California, but don't worry, Floridians, we're not trying to invade your space. We miss home and we are in Florida only to work in a job we were asked to do. That said, we get home whenever we can and we're therefore in California this week. That doesn't mean we're not paying attention to the news in Florida. It does mean, of course, we aren't in the same state with our beloved dog and cats...or able to attend events in Florida.
Finite
Disappointment
The Detention Center in the Everglades
The madness at the immigrant detention center in the middle of the southern part of the state continues. While The Guardian is reporting "horrific" treatment of women and children at immigration detention facilities nationwide, and the Herald gives even more details to the story of the American citizen living in Florida who was tortured by ICE and told he had no rights, reports continue to pour in from the Florida facilities, including the one in the middle of the Everglades.
Sarah Rumpf
Court proceedings against the detention center in the middle of the Everglades based on both the environmental impact–experts warn it could pose a huge threat to the highly endangered Florida panther–and the humanitarian crisis it poses.
Documents are emerging that the detention center in the Everglades was never intended to be "temporary" as the Attorney General and Governor repeatedly told reporters, and the two powerful officials are working hard to open a second facility, this one near Jacksonville in the north of the state.
Irwin P. Stotzky, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law (speaking for himself, not the school's official position), wrote a piece for the Herald headlined "Florida's illegal detention center is a constitutional nightmare," where he argues:
Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility. Florida has no legal authority to detain immigrants simply for being undocumented unless that person is also charged with a state crime or subject to a federal detainer. Even then, a judicial hearing must be held within 48 hours to determine probable cause for arrest. This is guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. Yet those imprisoned in this Everglades camp hellhole — many with no criminal record — are held indefinitely without charges, hearings or meaningful access to legal counsel. That is not immigration enforcement; this is state-sponsored kidnapping.
The aggressive immigration crackdowns and deportations are supposed to make us safer, but in order to staff the operations, Florida is aggressively recruiting sheriff's deputies and police officers away from their departments. Of course, the aggressive recruiting of police and sheriffs' deputies is a broader occurrence than just Florida, though Florida is one of the places they are recruiting most aggressively.
While The Miami Herald Editorial Board suggests that you are surprised that the reason why construction on the prison the middle of the Everglades was halted for two weeks was environmental concerns, the reality is, this is what the Miccosukee have been saying all along. And it should make sense, you can't build a tree house in your backyard without a permit, yet that's exactly what happened in the middle of a National Park and on tribal land.
Progress report on our march towards The Handmaid's Tale
KONSTANTIN TOROPIN
Florida
Gonna Florida
Published [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]
Historic
Interlude
It was worse than (most of) you remember...
Miami-Dade County, with its 2.7 million residents, is considered by many to be county with a violent crime problem. With 69, 75 and 103 homicides in 2024, 2023, and 2022 respectively, one can see why.
But when compared to this week in 1985, when The Herald was running stories about crime that were somewhat dismissive of the 425 murders in the county in 1984, which at that time had about 1 million fewer residents, the violent crime today is rather tame.
As the story above notes, residents of what was then called Dade County weren't particularly bothered by the 425 murders in 1984, they were much more concerned about the 41,564 burglaries, 12,519 robberies and 17,572 motor vehicle thefts in 1984.
In 2024 Miami-Dade County saw a total of 19,566 instances of property crimes. That's for a county with half again as many people.
Crime in the 1980s was much worse than it is today and much worse than most Americans remember.
But at least no member of the President's Cabinet was promoting the idea that women shouldn't have a right to vote.
Infinite
Hope
When Money and Mouth Meet
While I was out of town South Florida remained active in pursuing the dream of a community where liberty and justice are for all. Local billionaire Michael B. Fernandez, himself an immigrant from Cuba who escaped the Castro regime, has been putting his money where his mouth is for years. He was featured in the New York Times this week for is actions regarding support for immigrant students at local universities.
He followed the NYT story about him up with an op-ed he pinned in the Miami Herald entitled, "Speaking out for immigrants has cost me, but Miami Republican's silence is worse."
Activism national and local
WLRN News Staff
Looking to the Mountains...
Historically, people who lived within a lifetime's walk of mountains (so, probably not people living in present day South Florida) looked to the mountains for divine inspiration and intervention. My family spent the day in the Lake Tahoe Basin this week and looked to the mountains.
Bear
The History Hound Finds
How can Bear find good stuff for us to read when he's been left in Florida? Well, he's in constant communication with us as the photo above shows. This is from his pup sitters and that's technically Bear, but that's also what we call "Mr. Zooms" who zooms around looking for good stories, especially ones by historians.
Grievance Politics
Bear found two very different pieces on "grievance" politics this week. One by the Miami Herald's Mary Ann Mancuso, a former Republican strategist recently turned editorial writer at the paper, the other by Will Bunch, the legendary editorial writer for the Philadelphia Enquirer. Honestly, I read everything either of these people write, but this week they both had pieces centered on "grievance" and I think both are important on their own, but I also think they belong side by side.
The sordid history of America first
As told by a historian to Public notice
Aaron Rupar
What is America, and for whom?
One of my favorite historians is back, now that he was cut by Georgetown University and decided the United States was no longer safe for him. He relocated his family to Europe and is posting again. His first two pieces since being back are on America's discordant history as a place of liberal and extremely illiberal ideas.
Thomas Zimmer
Thomas Zimmer
The Problem is Bigger than Jeffrey Epstein
Rebecca Solnit