Looking for Love
Week ending on April 18, 2025
I'm starting this newsletter, blog post, whatever, nearly in tears. There's so much going on in the world that is heartbreaking. We have students being snatched off the street by men and women in masks with no identifying clothing for having the audacity to ask their school president to listen to students. There's ongoing murder of refugees in multiple countries, the worst of which is...Sudan.
And of course, China's human rights abuses continue undeterred.
Patrick Wintour
Rachel Savage
There's a request from the United States to the dictator of El Salvador to build five new prisons for United States citizens in El Salvador. It's just a lot. I know this newsletter is about South Florida, or broadly, Florida, but I've just got to say, during this Holy Week for (most) Christians, I'm weeping for the world. Anyway...
Finite Disappointment
Then they came for the scientists and I wept, for they are my friends and my heroes, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, students and children
This one hits home. Hard.
Alexandra Kelley
Moving on?...This is about Flat Earthers, and how I love the current administration
Everyone knows the Earth is flat and the center of the universe, with the Sun and the stars revolving around it, right? Yep, and viva 47!
Despite people still believing that the Earth is flat to this day, most of us know that it is untrue. Yet, just a couple thousand years ago, most people believed it was true, saying things like, "Everyone knows the Earth is flat and you can't change that," perhaps even in court, arguing that a round Earth that rotates around the sun is an affront to their rights somehow. I'm just saying...maybe we should listen to scientists and not just assume everyone thinks the way we do.
"Don't you know you can count me out?"
Someone asked me to ponder the need for using violence this week (I forget who) and...for fuck's sake. I strongly agree with the line, "War is failure of diplomacy." Did the former US House Member from Michigan, John Dingell popularize this quote? Or was it UK politician Tony Benn? I don't know, nor does it matter. Violence and war are always a failure of something. Always. Don't come at me wanting violence--I don't care who it's against or what it is for, unless you've been in a war zone and understand the consequences.
So, yeah, if I were President Franklin Roosevelt, I would have declared war on Germany, too.
When my Dad died about 11 months ago, he finally got some rest from the PTSD he had shoved on him in Vietnam. The man broke his hip a while back diving on the ground because of thunder his brain interpreted as shelling. He'd been out of the theater since 1968, and this happened in maybe 2010. Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee suggested in the Rama series that war may be unavoidable but that the people who fight in them are no longer fit for society after the violence ends. I disagree that former combatants aren't fit for society...but the intensity of the thought has merit.
And large-scale violence always has collateral damage. Read--innocent civilians die. If you've read my stuff you know how I feel about killing civilians.
To be clear: killing civilians is always bad.
You say you want a revolution, well, you know
We all wanna change the world
You tell me that it's evolution, well, you know
We all wanna change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out? --Revolution by The Beatles
Kind of funny that songs that people associate with revolutions are songs against revolutions. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Bernie. Also, looking at the people who think destroying Teslas is going to help any cause other than sympathy for Musk.
I mean, c'mon.
The Beatles performing Revolution
My steaming hot take on cancel culture dropped this week
Are you excited? tl;dr I don't think it exists.
Historic Interlude
Tax Day, April 15, 1980--The Mariel boatlift begins
The impact on South Florida and the entire United States of the four major mass migrations from Cuba to Florida since the Castro regime seized power in Cuba in 1959 cannot be understated. The house I'm writing this in was built for American military families stationed near the Everglades on the edge of a small city near an air port. The neighborhood soon became known as "Little Cuba" (Little Havana is a smaller, but more distinct section of Miami), the airport became one of the largest universities in the United States and the largest Spanish speaking university in the world and Miami is now one of the biggest, most important metropolitan areas in the United States. Rather than one of 365 entries in my favorite source for these little interludes, This Day in Florida History, I recommend some incredibly important books.
But first, let's briefly talk about just this one mass migration's impact on the United States in 1980. The 100,000 or more "marielitos," as they became known, quickly overwhelmed Miami forcing President Carter to figure out what to do with them. The South Beach you know, did not yet exist, though there was a neighborhood with that name that featured hundreds of run-down Art Deco buildings that most wanted to be torn down. Because there were not enough jobs for the marielitos and the economy in Miami Beach was largely dependent on Social Security checks from the residents, the situation rife with desperation led to crime skyrocketing.
Another solution to the sudden mass migration--remember, this mass of humans desperate to flee a dictator happened suddenly without warning--was to create tent cities to house them. One of those tent cities was in Arkansas, where then Governor Bill Clinton presided. Clinton lost re-election over the marielitos in Arkansas and it is hard to say if he ever forgave Jimmy Carter for it.
This world drew Hollywood to South Beach to create Miami Vice. The popularity of that show and the efforts of a woman named Barbara Baer Capitman (among others) led to the restoration and preservation of what you now think of when you think South Beach (and for many, when they think of Miami at all). Meanwhile, this mass migration of Cubans to the United States and their subsequent US Citizenship transformed Miami and Florida's political culture and thereby transformed American politics more broadly.
Just one example is Marco Rubio, a Cuban American, who was born in Miami in 1971, before the Mariel Boatlift. The surge of Cuban American voters after 1980 helped him launch his career in the city of West Miami in 1998. He is now the Secretary of State.
Recommended Reading (in order of my preference):
Cuba: an American history by Ada Ferrer
The racial politics of division: interethnic struggles for legitimacy in multicultural Miami by Monika Gosin
Havana USA: Cuban exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1959 - 1994 by Maria Cristina Garcia
Saving South Beach by Mary Barron Stofik
Infinite Hope
My Mommy is Here!
When friends and family arrive on red eyes I always treat them to an immediate trip to the Everglades. My mom, seen here traveling out of California for the first time in over a decade, was no exception.
Ok, ok, ok, she was surprisingly full of energy, by her own standards, after that long flight and I figured, why waste a day! I'm grateful to have her here, as are her grandbabies.
This week in protests
There were several protests at Florida International University this week and at least one across the street from US House member, Maria Elvira Salazar's office.
Tynisa Senior, Dannielle Garcia, Kevin Boulandier, Samantha Sosa
A Different Kind of Protest
I firmly believe in everyone's right to protest and hold their own beliefs. I do not mean that all beliefs, no matter how strongly held, are equal. But I do think that if a group of people stands out in the sun waving signs at cars it might be worth asking why. So, I found a new group that's apparently been out at Tropical Park at least once a month waving signs at cars. I'm grateful for the opportunity to talk to them, even if I disagree with them about a great deal, because I certainly wasn't going to learn anything by waiting for most of the local press.
A democracy depends of freedom of speech--even speech we don't like or agree with. It is not a license to cause harm to others. But as we all have the right to speech, I think it's essential to at least know what is being said. Besides, they are in South Florida and this newsletter is about the things that happen in South Florida.
Someone needs to come get their grandanhinga
Let's call her, "Sally." Sally the anhinga, seen here scratching, as one does, will sit there for at least an hour at a time, within arms reach of humans. I've seen her do this on multiple visits. I figure she must be someone's missing pet (no, I don't, I'm kidding, don't touch her!).
Crocodiles on Key Biscayne!
I've always shrugged off the warnings in Crandon park about crocodiles being present--and then I saw not one but two this week! I suspect they're a breeding pair. The American crocodile is a threatened species in the South Florida, the only place they exist in the United States and the only place in the world where crocodiles and alligators co-exist. Now, Key Biscayne, separated from the mainland by a salt water bay called Biscayne Bay, is a barrier alligators won't cross. But with a special gland that helps them thrive in salt water, crocodiles have no such barriers.
So, in an abandoned zoo, in a major park, I found these two and they brought me great hope. A distinct set of species from other crocodilians for 55 million years, these relatively shy, generally not aggressive to humans (no seriously, you're more likely to be killed in an attack by a racoon), large reptiles represent that some good things can last for approximately forever.
