Florida Man Goes to Disney World

So, the youngest kid turned seventeen this week and wanted to go to Disney World so I did what every responsible parent would do and took the kid to Disney World and spent too much money. But the kids had a blast.

Meanwhile, here in the state where you're always less than 60 miles from salt water (a thing I learned yesterday) its election time! Are you registered to vote? Have you voted in the primary? Remember, some issues and most judges and school board elections only happen in the primary in this "free state."

iwillvote.com is a great place to start if you have questions about when and where you should vote– works in any state!

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington DC in February of 1968.

Table of Contents

Finite Disappointment

Florida Gonna Florida

Buy Local! Not an ad–an endorsement!

Historic Interlude

Infinite Hope

Bear the History Hound Finds

Finite

Disappointment

They give ice a bad name

Remember that Bon Jovi song from the 1986 album Slippery When Wet, the lead single, "You Give Love a Bad Name"? No, that's fine. Anyway, love, is almost by definition a good thing. Here in Florida, ice, is almost by definition a good thing. Heck, the whole world north of the equator should think ice is a good thing. Except when its not.

The stories below are all from the last few days.

‘I was an animal in a zoo’: Venezuelan immigrant describes conditions during ICE detention

According to a written statement from the office of Democratic South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Claudia Rodriguez Caglianone, 28, was released from federal custody on Monday afternoon.

WLRNCarlton Gillespie

‘Stark example of brutality’: Trump’s ICE used court orders in plan to force-feed at least 10 hunger strikers in detention

Exclusive: court records reviewed by the Guardian show that procedures included force-feeding, intravenous forced hydration and involuntary blood draws

The GuardianJosé Olivares

Family to sue after woman released from ICE custody froze to death

Exclusive: Daphy Michel, from Haiti, was dropped off in Pittsburgh in 20F temperatures wearing summer clothes

The GuardianAlba Asenjo Domínguez

Even Republicans in Congress can see how unpopular Trump’s immigration agenda is

Trump’s deportation agenda is underwater in every swing state. Plus, Sabato moves 13 House ratings toward Democrats. Your weekly political data roundup for August 2, 2026.

Strength In NumbersG. Elliott Morris

She Gives Women's Sports a Bad Name

Last year my now seventeen year old discovered the joy of hockey. Was it the local NHL team winning another Stanley Cup that got the kid excited? No, it was discovering the Professional Women's Hockey League. Last fall I went from not knowing that there was a professional women's hockey league to knowing all about the expansion to include teams on the west coast and the expansion draft.

Yay!

Then Sophie Cunningham, a women who plays professional basketball, decided to use her platform as a professional athlete who happens to be female to trash people for having the audacity to be alive.

Charlotte Clymer breaks it down exquisitely including the part where it would be best if we were talking about waves hands.

What Do I Think About Sophie Cunningham?

I’ll tell you.

Charlotte's Web ThoughtsCharlotte Clymer

Florida

Gonna Florida

The headline should entice a click from anyone. So long as they have a barf bag.

Buy

Stuff! Not an ad–an endorsement!

Ok, so Disney World isn't local (so I changed the part where this is meant to be local) though it does support thousands of local jobs. Sort of. But when I was first dragged, kicking and screaming, to a Disney property ten years ago I was immediately taken aback. It's pretty darn cool and to this day I marvel (see what I did there? It was even "Summer of Marvel" at Disney Land on my first visit with my kids) that they can cover the cost of production of their end of night shows at the three parks in Central Florida that have them (Animal Kingdom, sadly, has no end of day show).

Same with the during the day shows. We saw a Lion King show (not my first choice but someone in the group wanted to go) and I was flabbergasted at a) the quality of it b) the number of people required to pull it off and c) that they do it at least a few times a day. With the Florida resident discount we got into the park for only $60 (we had to buy four days worth of passes though they didn't need to be contiguous) and both the Lion King show at Animal Kingdom and Fantasmic at Hollywood Studios almost felt worth the price of admission to the park.

Then there's the food. It's always pricey but more often than not it feels like it has value (read: they give you too much).

This little guy (above) was just $6, normally. My birthday kid got it for free!

Apparently, they also have rides. Ok, we love the rides. Anyway, walk up prices close in on $200 and that's not what I'd call a good deal, especially when you have to pay over $40 to park.

That said, the hotel accommodations that Disney runs start below $200 a night and include free transportation to the parks, free parking if you want to park and free early admission. It's hard to find any property in the area less than $200 a night and those usually come with a fee for parking at the hotel, parking at Disney World and no early entry.

So, yeah, I'm shilling for Disney for free. Not my finest hour but we had fun.

Historic

Interlude

From This Day in Florida History page 127.

On July 30, 1925, the district director of the Immigration Service in Jacksonville wrote to his supervisor about the rise in smuggling of undocumented aliens on the new train lines to the area. The director expressed his fear that Florida would be overrun by nonwhite newcomers. The immigrants, he explained, utilized bootlegging networks that were created to circumvent Prohibition laws. Most of these immigrants were from Asia, in particular China, and had been excluded by law from entering the United States since 1882. They were joined by immigrants from Russia and eastern European countries who were fleeing post–World War I Europe in search of a better life.

FOR FURTHER READING: Lisa Lindquist Door, "Bootlegging Aliens: Unsanctioned Immigration and the Underground Economy of Smuggling from Cuba during Prohibition," Florida Historical Quarterly 93, no. 1 (2014): 44-73.

History doesn't repeat, but it echoes:

Chinese migrant smuggled to Florida shares why she was desperate to flee to U.S.

A woman, part of a group of dozens of Chinese migrants smuggled to Coral Gables, said she had to leave after she spoke out against the Chinese government and faced blowback.

NBC NewsAarne Heikkila and Kimmy Yam

Infinite

Hope

This is probably the hardest section to write right now. My family is stressed about everything from personal finances to work and school to [redacted because Florida isn't free] to national and international drama, it's hard.

This piece by NPR's Throughline helped put that into perspective for me.

Bear

The History Hound Finds

Pulling Up the Ladder

In recent weeks, Republican representatives in Congress have repeatedly insisted that specific groups of immigrants in their communities will never be assimilated into American life, that they pose a serious danger to their neighbors, and therefore that they should be forcefully removed from the United States. On Monday, for instance,

Campaign TrailsKevin Kruse

Seth Cotlar on historical roots of the new Red Scare

“If you look at the 1956 GOP platform, it reads like a center-left policy platform in a contemporary context.”

Public NoticeAaron Rupar and Thor Benson

The Corruption Is the Point

An awful lot of folks are okay with bribing Donald Trump, his family, and his administration. What will the reckoning look like -- or will it happen at all?

Drezner’s WorldDaniel W. Drezner

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