Week ending February 27, 2026
It's been a month of Sundays across from the racist joke nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz," Ann Coulter makes a racist statement about Secretary of State Marco Rubio that should enrage every South Floridian, the Everglades is dying but it's also filling me with hope, and it turns out someone lied about who was paying for Alligator Alcatraz. It's been another week in South Florida and TWIFL has some unique perspectives to offer, even if they are getting somewhat redundant(?).
“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
One of the most racist things I've seen–and it was directed at a Miamian–or maybe ALL Miamians.
I wrote this (the rant below) this week in response to the following per The Daily Beast:
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter has suggested that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is too foreign to ever be president.
“That beautiful ending to Trump’s SOTU address reminds me why we can’t have a second-, third-, or fourth- generation immigrant as president. Love for our country has to be in your genes,” Coulter wrote in a post on X following President Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
Please check it out. the tl;dr version is: I can't stand Marco Rubio but Marco Rubio is plenty well qualified to be president or vice president on paper. The problems aren't his heritage as Coulter claims, they're his actions.
Philip Cardella
The Federal Government won't pay for Alligator Alcatraz after all
Liv Caputo | Florida Phoenix
My understanding is that this is so that the environmental lawsuit against the Federal Government won't be successful but it is interesting that this means Florida taxpayers are on the hook over half a billion dollars–dollars pulled from our environmental emergency fund that helps us recover from hurricanes.
The Everglades is dying
I finally started listening to NPR's A Bright Lit Place, a podcast made by the local NPR affiliate, WLRN, and distributed nationally in 2023. The first two episodes are, to say the least, depressing and enraging.
"The Everglades is a test. If we pass it, we may get to keep the planet," Environmental journalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas once said. So far, we're failing the test. The podcast is depressing, but also invigorating: the Everglades is worth saving and can be saved, if only we have the will power to do so.
NPR
This was supposed to be in the Infinite Hope section...maybe next week's update will be
Miami's state of the art, envy of the world, almost incredible $50m mental health center stands ready to open in six months with County Commission final approval. Just like it has sat since 2023. Read more with the article I wrote below.
Philip Cardella
Florida
Gonna Florida
The headline speaks for itself, I think.
FOX 35 Digital Staff
Historic
Interlude
February 25, 1964 Miami, Florida was the scene of a major upset that would upend the sport of boxing–8:1 underdog Cassius Clay, who had recently declared he was a Muslim though he would announce he was a member of the Nation of Islam a few days after the bout–beat World Champion Sonny Liston in seven rounds.
While the highlighted story in the Herald, the one just below the Herald's banner on the front page, on the day of the fight was that Clay, who would later change his name to Cassius X and then Muhammad Ali, was about to get his butt kicked, the story the day after wasn't the upset, it was that Clay was "Yelling, Babbling" and fined at weigh-in. The fact that Clay beat the 8:1 odds and won the World Championship was all but an afterthought near the bottom of the page, except, that was a story about Cassius...the horse, not the new World Heavyweight Champion, who happened to be Muslim.
If that reeks of racism, well, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and smells like a duck...
As far as I can tell, the Miami Herald didn't acknowledge Clay's victory until February 27, 1964, the second edition to be printed after the fight, when Clay was shown to be a member of the Nation of Islam. This proved to be a much bigger controversy than Sonny Liston getting pulled over doing 80 mph in a residential zone in his car, which was littered with empty vodka bottles.
Liston, of course, was a Black man just like the man later known as Muhammad Ali, but unlike Liston, Clay, as he was then known, was a Muslim, which bigots considered to be a Black religion, as if there would be something wrong with being a Black religion, and ignoring that millions of Muslims are, of course, white. Again, at the time of Clay-Liston I, Clay hadn't professed his alignment with the Nation of Islam (a group that in 1964 under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad did consider that branch to be a Black religion) only that he was a Muslim.
Miami being Miami, these weren't the only controversies, though. Apparently Clay and Liston had signed a secret agreement to schedule a rematch before the bout, which violated World Boxing Association rules. This led to assertions Clay's victory was illegitimate, rigged and made having that rematch challenging as most states wouldn't allow it to happen per their agreements with the WBA.
In other words, Clay-Liston I, the big fight in Miami Beach in 1964, had racial, religious bigotry and gambling controversies coursing through it.
Nevertheless, just over a year later the rematch did happen and it managed to go worse for Liston than the first match as he was knocked out by the man by then known around the world as Muhammad Ali.
All that history is known to boxing fans the world over, though. Less known is that Muhammad Ali visited Miami's oldest mosque, known to muslims as a masjid, Masjid Al-Ansar, repeatedly over the rest of his life. The air conditioning ducts in the masjid were a gift from the Heavyweight Champion.
Masjid Al-Ansar is a member of Miami's largest grassroots organizing organization, the interfaith coalition known as People Acting for Community Together and is a vital and vibrant part of the Miami community. I've been a guest there a few times and thus sat in the cool provided by Muhammad Ali himself.
Pretty cool, literally.
Infinite
Hope
The place that fills me with hope and peace...the Everglades
My oldest kid and I got out into the Greater Everglades this week and it did not disappoint. Lots of pretty bird photos in the link below.
Philip Cardella
The pressure continues to mount on the so-called Alligator Alcatraz
With foreign elected officials now calling for the closure of Alligator Alcatraz, pressure continues to mount to close it. Also, it's pretty cool that WLRN published a photo I shot, not gonna lie. That said, if you don't know how this works, I've yet to be paid for any of the photos I've had published because they don't pay for photos unless you're on staff and I'm not. At least not yet!
Sergio R. Bustos
My full write up on the 30th weekly Sunday prayer vigil includes lots of photos and videos from the vigil that is both depressing and inspiring and, yes, hope filled.
Philip Cardella
Bear
The History Hound Finds
A lot of interesting stories this week that Bear and I think you'll enjoy. Bear and I know these don't get a lot of clicks but they should. Pick one. Read it or skim it and tell us what you thought about it!
Paul Krugman
Shaun Walker
Ewan Palmer
Ramtin Arablouei
Charlotte Clymer
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