First post of the new year: TWIFL in 2026
Introduction
I started 2026 with one foot in California and one foot in Florida. Okay, both feet started New Years Day in California and both feet got off a plane Miami on New Years Day (many) many hours later. With my mind on family and friends in California (and the mountains, golly I miss the mountains) and my heart set on building the best community I can in Miami, 2026 will be pulling me in many directions.
As This Week in Florida continues to grow there are some things I am considering while the new year starts.
- At the start of 2025 the South Florida Detention Center, commonly known by its controversial (and deeply racist) nickname Alligator Alcatraz, didn't exist. I didn't know that I'd be spending dozens of hours out there and dozens more editing photos and video from it. Unfortunately, as that abomination is going to continue so will my coverage of it. In fact, I'm thinking of expanding coverage to include at least one print publication and a multi-episode podcast.
- 2025 started with a lot of protests that slowed down as the year progressed. Whether it was because Elon Musk was an easy target at the start of the year with Tesla and DOGE dominating the news and then all but disappearing (hiding?) or due to some fatigue or just plain acceptance of change, the protests slowed. There is already another No Kings protest scheduled for July 4, 2026 and surely more to follow. I'll try to continue to provide a unique perspective to any protests (no matter who is doing them) in South Florida as much as possible.
- Community was a theme I landed on towards the end of the year and I was reminded of that as I watched two community themed movies on my very long flight from California to Florida: Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four: First Steps. If you haven't seen them, they're both Marvel movies and both silly fun, for the most part. But both movies have a deep commitment to the importance of togetherness, whether that's found family or biological family. The community I saw built around the prayer vigils across from Alligator Alcatraz was inspiring and as I've invested more time and energy into my church in Coral Gables, I've found a deeper sense of community than I've had in a long time. Factor in my work with People Acting for Community Together, the non-profit that tries to get stuff done for our neighbors in Miami-Dade County and I've got a lot of community going into 2026. I hope to continue to highlight these sorts of things and more this year.
- I hope to start making money with this extremely time consuming but very rewarding (otherwise) project. I hope to start offering monthly subscriptions (it'll always be free to read though) with incentives for joining and sharing soon as well as some other opportunities to support the work, like the opportunity below.
- And, obviously, I'm going to continue getting into the South Florida Outback, the Everglades, Big Cypress National Preserve, Biscayne National Park and more as often as humanly possible.
Breaking News: The US attacks Venezuela, the country of birth of 300,000 Miami-Dade residents
I had this TWIFL post loaded and scheduled for this morning when my spouse woke up at 4:30 to train for a marathon and I checked my phone, like a dorkLow and behold there was breaking international news that deeply impacts Miami-Dade County: the United States had conducted a major military operation in Venezuela and captured the country's president* Nicolás Maduro and Maduro's wife.
I went out to Doral this morning, home to approximately 50% of all Venezuelan born people in the United States to see if I could see a reaction. I saw none but the professional reporters at the Herald and other outlets had a better sense of where to look and they absolutely found celebrations.
Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías are arguably the biggest reason so many Venezuelan born people live in Miami-Dade County and may in fact be key to why Donald Trump won a second term as President of the United States: While most Americans were at least concerned with the number of people claiming asylum in the United States under President Biden, the vast numbers of asylum seekers were driven by authoritarian regimes in South America, like Maduro's, that were both inhumane and outright terrible at basic economics.
I imagine there will be nary a tear for the fall of the Maduro regime and the Chavez regime he inherited. That said, regime change is a major driving force in people fleeing their country as is evidenced by Colombia's immediate reaction of fortifying its border against people fleeing Venezuela.
As the sun rises in Miami-Dade County today it'll be interesting to track this story, which, aside from Caracas, Venezuela, may be the most telling place to watch these events unfold. Wherever you are reading this, I've personally found the Miami-Herald and WLRN, the local NPR station here, to be the best sources of American news on Venezuela. I'd gift link the Herald stories but that ability isn't working for me right now.
*Maduro claimed victory in Venezuela's most recent Presidential election by all accounts, except his own, he lost.
A podcast in 2026?
I've long been interested in putting together a podcast despite, well, not liking many podcasts. It's weird and self aggrandizing, I guess. But I like telling stories and the podcasts I do like I simply love.
Right now I'm listening to audio I collected in 2025 across from the prayer vigils across from the South Florida Detention Center (Alligator Alcatraz) and trying to build something unique, uplifting, powerful and informative.
Here are a few podcasts I do love, or, rather, loved. I think they're all gone now, with the possible exception of "all there is" by Anderson Cooper.
Hosted by WLRN News
A print publication in 2026?
I'm trying to get a bunch of super busy people together to create a magazine type of thing promoting the prayer vigils at the South Florida Detention Center (Alligator Alcatraz), document it, and, after a fashion, celebrate the community that has been built there on the side of the road across from the facility despite the awful circumstances. Let me know if you want to help!
New unique-ish stories
While cement manufacturing is one of the biggest contributors of greenhouse gases in the world, Miami is home to a lot of cement plants. I don't think this gets talked about, really, at all here. So I want to look into it more. You know that strikingly blue water off the west side of the Turnpike? That's mostly limestone mining for cement, from what I understand. Then there's the Titan America Pennsuco Cement Complex (see photo above) that's the largest cement processing plant in the state and sits near Doral, Florida.
I've also been thinking about the gleaming mountains of Florida.
"But Philip, the highest point in Florida is Britton Hill in Walton County and at just 345 feet (105 meters) it hardly counts as a mountain...oh...you're talking about the landfills aren't you?"
Yes, I'm interested in documenting the staggering amount of landfills along the turnpike and beyond. If the list of highest points in the state includes multiple landfills it might be worth thinking about. And when many of those mountains of trash are either full or nearly full it's certainly a topic to consider, I think. So, I'm going to spend some time thinking, photographing and writing about Florida's mountains of trash, I hope.
These stories are, in at least one way, linked. Doral is fighting hard to move the county's trash incinerator, which is in a Doral complex with a landfill, anywhere but there due to pollution concerns. And the fact that the incinerator incinerated in 2023 spewing toxins into the air, surely contributes to that. Yet, the state's biggest cement manufacturing facilities quietly sits on the edge of Doral making a massive contribution to greenhouse gases and air pollution. To be clear, my understanding it is the final stage of cement mixing that produces the majority of the greenhouse gas emission associated with cement, but in a county constantly using concrete to expand the nearby turnpike, build buildings etc, this is noteworthy.
Red mangroves at Coot Bay in Everglades National Park, part of the Everglades Wilderness Waterway. Photo Credit Philip Cardella 2025.
Crazy hopes for 2026
Born out of the idea that there is nothing particularly dangerous about The Everglades, I have long wanted to cross the vast "River of Grass" by kayak or canoe. I'm training to make the 99 mile Everglades Wilderness Waterway trek from the "West Coast" of Florida (they call it the West Coast here people who haven't lived here--to Floridians, everyone else calls California the West Coast and sometimes Washington and Oregon, but those are often called the Pacific Northwest) to Flamingo and the Florida Bay.
The hope is sometime in the Winter of 26/27 I'll do just that.
Send TWIFL a tip!
Another great way to help TWIFL out is to send a tip about something going on in South Florida, especially something that is important to our community but may not be getting the coverage it needs. This can be anything from an ice cream social put on by kids to support a local retirement home to a protest for or against the current administration to an endangered species thriving or being threatened.
Bear the History Hound Finds
This labor of love is hard and takes a lot of time and energy. Documenting the prayer vigils alone has consumed at least 50 hours just recording and editing (19 prayer vigils attended x 1 hour minimum per vigil, plus 3 hours of photo and video editing is...more than 50 hours, and that's not even considering travel time).
Likewise, trips to the Keys to cover protests there that have, to my knowledge, been ignored by the press, or the events such as the starting point of the southern caravan of the first No Kings protest at Mar-a-Lago, which, again, seemed scantly covered by the press if at all, takes a lot out of me.
Honestly, with one kid in college and one kid about to be in college, I've set a goal of $20,000 in funds raised (through donations, sales and contracted work) from TWIFL in 2026 that can be applied to, well, my kids' educations.
Any donation to the new (to me) lens would be appreciated. Any donation over $50 will receive their pick of 8x10 or 8x12 photos from my gallery as a thank you gift.