Mardi Gras at church, Ash Wednesday March, Pincho Burgers: the Week ending February 20, 2026
Introduction
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington Dec in February of 1968.
Table of Contents
Florida Gonna Florida and Haitian Americans are rocking Disney+ right now
Buy Local! Not an ad–an endorsement!
Finite
Disappointment
Dr. King, from whom the quote about finite disappointment comes, would be in his 90s right now, old, but younger than my grandma who is hoping I'll call her today. Do you think he'd be sitting at home watching TV during our current moment? Or would he be out spreading the word about injustices?
I'm certain he'd be out spreading the word about injustices, injustices like the multiple ones in the stories below.
In one story, however, there are people carrying out Dr. King's legacy by marching–make sure you check it out.
Those houseplants come with an unbelievable cost
The above story in the Miami Herald is about Florida's houseplant industry.
Own a houseplant? It probably came from Florida, mostly likely South Florida, and it involved conditions you wouldn't believe.
And those conditions are somehow better than the conditions your Valentine roses were grown under.
Lise Josefsen Hermann and Jasper Fabian Wenzel in La Chimba, Ecuador
South Florida is ICE-y but not in a falling iguana way
This is my special report on ICE related activity in South Florida (we don't have solid data on what ICE does but we do know what state and local agencies are doing with ICE). This dovetails into the beautiful Ash Wednesday March for Immigrants in Downtown Miami, which is also in my report. I am trying to keep these short so I moved it there–please take a look.
Philip Cardella
Florida
Gonna Florida and Haitians Americans are rocking Disney+ right now
The videos and images collected in this week's issue (follow the links to my stories and you'll see it) took hours to assembly and put together in post production. Dozens of hours. So, I haven't had time to watch all of the relatively short but highly touted Wonder Man on Disney+. Some are arguing it is the best Marvel TV show ever. That may seem like a low bar to non-superhero fans, but the reality is it is a show for non-super hero fans even though it is about a super hero with ties to...Haiti.
Ties to Haiti and the United States means ties to Miami and sure enough one of the main supporting characters is from Miami.
Haitian Americans from Miami are showing the world that they are here and they are an important part of America.
Wilkine Brutus
Buy
Local! Not an ad–an endorsement!
Pincho Burger, formerly the artist known as Pincho Factory, has been filling tummies and winning hearts in Miami since 2010. While a pincho is a kebab, and those aren't kebabs in the photos, pincho has a range of tasty foods, served up with great customer service, and offer a wonderful array of Miami takes on American classics.
Those little potato things on the hot dog are potato stix and pretty much fries and pretty much a Miami staple for a lot of things. I'm not sure they're all that common outside of Miami–I haven't seen them.
And this place, which denounces the title fast food (it is more fast casual), offers fare at a reasonable price. You can usually get a meal using a special for just $10.
It's hard to go to Shake Shack or Five Guys and feed a family of four for under $80 if everyone is getting a main, a side and a drink. At Pincho? For the Benito Bowl, er, the Super Bowl, they had a deal where they were feeding ten people for $100.
Not into meat? Pincho's got you covered with one of the best vegetarian burgers around (per my vegetarian daughter).
If you're in Miami you've got to check this place out.
Historic
Interlude
February 20, 1864 near Lake City, Florida the sole big battle of the American Civil War fought on Florida soil on February 20, 1864, near Lake City, Florida. Known as the Battle of Olustee or Ocean Pond, it was notable as not only the only battle fought in Florida but also as one that saw the Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry and the 1st North Carolina Colored save an entire battalions of white soldiers ambushed by Confederate traitor forces. The Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry, or perhaps more accurately their white commanding officers, was the subject of the 1989 Oscar winning movie, Glory.
Glory ends with two untrue implications: one, that the 54th was all but annihilated in the Battle of Fort Wagner, and two, that their efforts to take Fort Wagner were ultimately unsuccessful. While literally decimated (which means having a tenth removed) and unsuccessful in their July 1863 assault of the battery at Wagner, not only did the core of the 54th persist, their efforts gained such national fame that they quickly replenished their number and returned to combat readiness. As for Ft. Wagner, the Confederate traitors illegally buried the dead in a mass grave in the sand, including, in what was an unheard of breach of etiquette, tossing Col. Robert Gould Shaw in the pit. Within a few weeks, the stench from the shallow graves was so great the traitors abandoned the fortification, ultimately helping the very same 54th and their sister regiments, the Massachusetts 55th Colored Infantry and the Massachusetts 5th Cavalry, Colored, take Charleston a year later.
They sang "John Brown's Body" as they marched into the city.
As for February 20, 1864, the 54th had been dispatched to do some menial work, then under the command of Col. Montgomery, the villainous officer who loots and burns a town in the movie, Glory. But when the white regiments fell into a chaotic retreat at Olustee, it was the Massachusetts 54th and the 1st North Carolina Colored that literally saved the lives of the white men. A month after the battle, Confederate deserters wandered into the Union encampment and offered praise of the 54th. "You black soldiers fight like the devil...we know all the Massachusetts flags. You peppered us like hell."
Through the movie Glory, the men of the Massachusetts 54th inspired me to become a historian. I hope you find them inspiring, too. Their story is best told in one of my all-time favorite history books, Thunder at the Gates, by Douglas R. Egerton. While detailed battles will satiate any military tactics lover, the book is mostly about the men in the Massachusetts 54th, 55th, and 5th Cavalry themselves. It is from this book I pulled much of the above history.
The lithograph at the top of the section was printed by the firm of Kurz and Allison in 1894. It depicts soldiers of the 8th U.S. Colored Troops advancing against Confederate entrenchments. While frequently used in the media about the Battle of Olustee, the image is inaccurate and reveals the artist's ignorance about the events. During the battle, Confederates operated well in advance of their prepared positions. Neither side fought from behind fortifications, as the fighting took place in a pine forest. --Wikipedia entry on the Battle of Olustee
Infinite
Hope
While my place of worship takes the season of Lent so solemnly that the only known word to translate the same into every language, "alleluia," a popular word around that church, is prohibited until Easter Sunday, the day after Lent ends.
Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, was always a feast before the fast and the church takes that pretty seriously in a strictly family friendly way. Celebrating together despite difficult and heavy times is an act of defiance and much needed source of hope.
Read more and see more pictures in my story here:
Philip Cardella
Bear
The History Hound Finds
On Liberty City (Black History Month!)
I wish I had written this piece on Liberty City. I love this piece. This is what local history is supposed to look like. If you've been in Miami for a while you at least have an idea how important Liberty City is to the county's history. If you haven't been here long or you aren't in Miami you need to understand that Liberty City is one of the most important majority Black sections of any city in American history. Haven't heard of it? That almost proves my point, doesn't it? Anyway, check this piece out, please.
The Woke Olympics...or is it just The Olympics?
This piece has a great breakdown about the conservative angst over Olympic athletes. Obviously, the author is no fan of the Trump Administration but if you read the piece I think is nonetheless fair. Here's the heart of it:
There’s a subtle reason why Trump, Vance, and lots of other conservatives can’t stand the Olympics. For all the opportunities to chant “USA! USA!,” as far as they’re concerned there’s something a little off about the US team. You can see it in the opening and closing ceremonies, where the athletes from most nations all look kind of alike, but the American team comes in all the hues of our multi-racial country. While the administration nominates white supremacists to high office, attempts to purge the nation of immigrants (especially those from non-white countries), and wages war on diversity, the Olympic team is a living rebuke — a jumping, spinning, flying, super-fit and undeniably hot one — to their entire worldview.
And unlike the “meritocracy” they are trying to build in which white men are restored to their proper dominance, the Olympics are pretty close to a true meritocracy. Conservatives can’t whine that Simone Biles or Chloe Kim must have gotten their spots by pushing aside a more “qualified” white athlete. This year’s US flag-bearers are Italian-American bobsledder Frank Del Duca, who said the honor “feels like a bridge between my family’s heritage, and the country I’m so proud to serve,” and speed skater Erin Jackson, the first Black woman to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Olympics. You can almost feel JD Vance seething at the wokeness.
The entire piece is worth a read–honestly, Public Notice is one of my, er, Bear's, go to sources of analysis.
Paul Waldman
Bear is all about protecting the pack so Bear loved this story about a young man protecting his family and friends in California from ICE.
Jennifer Chowdhury with photographs by Zaydee Sanchez in Santa Maria, California
Finally, this week, Bear found a story that confirms what his family knows: recycling is largely a scam perpetuated by the oil industry. Seriously. You should recycle but the real problem is the oil industry who sees plastic, which is made from oil, as a means to not only keep oil dependence high, but to expand it.
Emine Saner
Where I'll be covering news this week (that I know of on 21 Feb 2026)
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