Week ending September 26, 2025
Table of Contents
Introduction
It's been another week in 2025 and I've got to say, I don't care for it much.
I had to put down a cat earlier this year. My mom had to put down my dog-brother (her dog) this week. My dog has been sick. The news is...good grief can we please stop killing people? Or, can we maybe keep track of people we detain?
So, I just sent you a gif from The Office and John Oliver had thoughts this week on Last Week Tonight about friends who send you gifs of The Office.
Don't worry, this is only 52 seconds of your life.
Anyway, let's get in to the week for me and for South Florida.
Finite
Disappointment
My Dog-Brother has gone over the rainbow bridge to be with daddy
My brother and sister-in-law found Shane, nee Bane, several years ago with a shirt that read, I believe, "adopt me." Shane (my parents renamed him because they believed Bane to be a villain's name, though, as is the case in all DC characters, its complicated) had been abused and needed a new home. The person who gave him to my parents stopped by for some time periodically to check on Shane and his new home.
I can't thank him, or my human brother, enough for finding this dog for my parents. Shane was the perfect good boy for them.
When our dad passed in May of 2024 Shane was there for our mom when my human brother returned to his house and I returned to Florida (They all live in my hometown of Sacramento). He continued to be the perfect good boy.
I like to think he's gone on to be with his daddy. That man and that dog loved each other so much. My dad was a great lover of pets.
Anyway, pour one out for a very good boy and if you're the praying type, pray for my mom.
My dog-son has pneumonia (but not cancer!)
Last week I reported the Bear the History Hound was sick and that it was maybe cancer. Thank you for the prayers and well wishes. Bear does not appear to have cancer. He does have some ****ed up lungs right now full of something. So he's been using a nebulizer twice a day (which he tolerates because it comes with intense snuggles) and antibiotics, that Bear takes delight in spitting out no matter how you got them in his mouth. He seems to be doing better though, so praise whomever or whatever you prayed to!
The abomination persists: despite misplacing hundreds of detainees and an (now overturned) order this summer to close, Alligator Alcatraz is still open.
The screenshots of comments on my Facebook posts (here's the reel, here's the normal post) about the 8th prayer vigil were full of inaccuracies or misconceptions that I have tried to address here:
Philip Cardella
There are many reasons why one should want the South Florida Detention Center (aka Alligator Alcatraz) closed. In my opinion, any one of these should be enough to get a person to want it gone: It is costing Floridians hundreds of millions of dollars; it sits on one of the most diverse and yet most fragile and unique ecosystems on the planet and the detention center is already having a major impact; it is within several FEET of "backyards" of people living along US 41 by the gate so it absolutely IS in someone's backyard; it sits atop South Florida's Biscayne Aquifer and is a threat to the drinking water for 6 million people (and yet the inmates have been forced to drink toilet water); it was built without proper environmental reviews, it was built without any of the normal permits; it is lining he pockets of politicians' allies with taxpayer money; it is not temporary and is likely part of a permanent land grab; the property was appraised at nearly $200 million in February and yet Miami-Dade County, which owns it, has not been properly compensated (if we've been compensated at all); the operators, most of whom are private security guards rather than trained detention professionals, have misplaced hundreds of detainees (are they dead? Deported? In a different facility? On the streets?); the site has been hit by several "major" category 3, 4 and 5 hurricanes over the years and yet it is designed to withstand only lesser category 1 and 2 hurricanes and has only a two lane road for evacuating thousands of detainees and guards on site in the case of a hurricane; the majority of ICE detainees have no criminal record whatsoever and yet detainees are being tortured, there are often worms in their food, they are denied access to sanitary spaces and their lawyers--clear human rights violations--while women and children are being held in these conditions at the site.
This is a partial list of issues with the site. If you can't find even one issue that makes you say, "OK, it has to go," you didn't read the list.
Half the outraged citizenry would be gone if they simply moved it to the site of the immigrant children's detention center that was opened down the road from this site at Homestead Air Reserve Base in 2019 and then shuttered after public outcry, costing Florida tax payers millions in the process. Also, while only open a few months, this prison for children racked up its own list of major problems. If you're new to Florida it is worth noting that both facilities were opened by the same governor.
Florida
Gonna Florida
Political violence is wrong. Always. Sadly, apparently this needs to be said. Fortunately, when a Florida Man tried to assassinate then candidate who was also then former President Donald Trump, no one was hurt. In and of itself, none of that is worthy of a Florida Gonna Florida post. It is tragic that this man tried to end the life of another and it is worth celebrating that he was thwarted without anyone being injured. Still, is that Florida Man material?
How this Florida Man chose to handle his trial, on the other hand, is another matter entirely. Okay, technically, this guy is a North Carolina resident, self-stylized mercenary leader who loved to tell people about "his dangerous and sometimes violent plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world, witnesses" told the Associated Press.
After losing, quickly, in no small part due to electing to represent himself, he tried to kill himself in the courtroom–with "a flexible pen designed to prevent people in custody from using it as a weapon, so he did not puncture his skin or otherwise hurt himself, according to a person familiar with the matter," again per the Associated Press.
While trying to kill yourself with a pen that is designed to prevent you from hurting anyone with it is something, and while representing yourself in a trial to determine if you tried to assassinate a former president and (then) presidential candidate is something else, what earns this guy honorable Florida Man status is what he demanded for preparing for the trial.
According to the Miami New Times headline, "Trump Assassination Suspect Has Some Absolutely Wild Trial Requests," and they weren't wrong. He proposed rather than facing a trial, he should get in the ring with the sitting President of the United States, literally. "I think a beatdown session would be more fun and entertaining for fun."
He wrote this in an official legal filing.
If the fight isn't acceptable, he suggested the two men play a round of golf together, "He wins, he can execute me. I win, I get his job." He then added, just to make this as legaleeze as possible, "Sorry hillbilly Vance."
Per the Miami New Times story I'm drawing from under the sub-headline: Female Strippers:
In a September 2 filing, Routh made some unusual requests regarding his living arrangements in jail. He wishes to be in “far off, quiet” with access to documents, phone, visitation, email, a computer and printer, or a “fancy typewriter.” But, more importantly, he wants female strippers and a putting green.
Many props to the Miami New Times reporter Naomi Feinstein (a great reporter IMHO) for deadpanning that "some unusual requests."
Check out her full story:
naomi.feinsteinmiaminewtimes.com
Historic
Interlude
From This Day in Florida History UFP page 162: On September 26, 1958, the Miccosukee Seminoles sent a letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower indicating that they wanted to settle an ongoing dispute they had with the state of Florida and the federal government over money and services they contended were owed to them by virtue of earlier treaties. The response was resoundingly negative, with Bureau of Indian Affairs Commissioner Gleen L. Emmons declaring that the Miccosukee were considered part of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and because they did not live on a reservation, the government did not need to provide them with services or funds.
FOR FURTHER READING: Mikaela M. Adams, Who Belongs? Race, Resources, and Tribal Citizenship in the Native South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016)
Philip's note (all the above is from the book This Day in Florida History, as indicated): with coverage like that in the Miami Herald on September 21, 1958, with the headline "Settle all our land claims NOW! 60 days or else," it is little wonder the US Government rejected Miccosukee claims. Neither the scope of the quoted section above nor this addendum covers the final outcome of the dispute though it will be noted that the Miccosukee were granted federal recognition as the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida in 1962 after some deft political moves. Betty Osceola's father-in-law, Buffalo Tiger (the man speaking in the newspaper article clipped above) was named the first chairman of the Miccosukee.
As Buffalo Tiger defended Miccosukee land and rights in the 1950s on into the 1980s, his daughter-in-law, Betty Osceola continues the family tradition.
Infinite
Hope
On cameras and dads
The first thing my dad ever gave me was a teddy bear named Freddy that I still own. I cuddled with Freddy until my partner and I moved in together on our wedding night (we're old fashioned sometimes). Freddy now resides in a closet so Bear doesn't get jealous and, um, destroy him.
The last thing my dad ever gave me was a giant white Canon 70-200 f2.8 L III lens that took the photos that appeared in this article in the local NPR station, WLRN, this week.
The other lens I had with me that day I also call "Fil," my dad's name, because I traded in some of his camera gear for it.
I get so many compliments from my readers and from people I share the photos with who are in them it is truly flattering and so appreciated. One of the execs at the NPR affiliate here, WLRN praised them, which meant the world to me.
It really fills me up with hope. While the "Finite Disappointment" section above is long and dangerously close to a rant, it is a little awkward that this is short.
But, the hope is powerful. I'm so grateful for the people who read this, the people who thank me for the photos, for the people that share them and for the people, like my dad, who believed in me.
Sergio R. Bustos
Bear
The History Hound Finds
Parker Molloy
Edward Helmore
Heather Cox Richardson