What is This Week in Florida?

So often, people ask us what it is like living in Florida right now or even something more benign, such as, how is your year going? As The Atlantic noted in 2023, there are so many cultural confrontations going on right now that it is hard to keep track of them all—and most of them are centered on public education. Public education is the most important thing in all four of my household's lives.

But as I update this page in November 2024 after a nearly year-long hiatus, I'm tired. I'm tired of negativity, both around and within me, and of the deluge of awful but important news around us.

When I started this, I wanted it to be a weekly news overview from a South Florida, or really, Miami-Dade County perspective. That was more work than I anticipated, and the legion of negative stories hung like a millstone around my neck, dragging me increasingly into the abyss of dispair. I need positive things. I need to see what's worth fighting for here rather than describing the fight itself.

So I'm changing gears, focusing less on what I read and hear and more on what I myself see. The reality is, much of what I see is amazing, awe-inspiring, and good, even though I myself have a hard time recognizing it. There's a sort of resistance to the tsunami of negativity in finding time to create and express oneself. So, I'm going to use this space more for my hobbies of writing and photography as a catharsis for myself.

I'm going to try to get back to updating it weekly.

What exactly will I update weekly? Mostly photographs I take/make (photographers like to talk about "making" photos rather than "taking photos"). These will mostly be neutral or positive things but occasionally dabble in photojournalism, as the opportunity arise.

Honestly, this is an experiment, and like most of my writing experiments, I expect it to fail before it really gets going. Since the move from Substack, I'm adding some additional features, which at this time will be, "Life in South Florida," which will be a mix of fun and positive things I observe and, well, other things, and I'll try to add to "This week in Florida history," which will look back at the last 500 years of history in Florida, as often as I can.

We’ll see if this takes off at all and we’ll see if we need to moderate comments—I will be quick to implement tools for keeping hostile conversation starters (trolls) at bay, if needed.

As for now, I’ll post my first real post tonight and I really hope that you take the time to read it. The first people I’ve signed up for this (ha ha!) are all immediate family, so this is literally for you. I very much would appreciate it if you took a look and offered feedback.

You can follow me on social media at @polonius916@pixelfed.social