The Grimm Truth

With Rudy, They'll Need A New Patsy Fast

So this is the end of Rudy Crew?

The defeat of Evelyn Greer changes the math of a school board that had managed to resist making Crew the one-man embodiment of the brutal economics that have befallen the state's public schools. The giant cuts that have devastated school budgets across Florida became, in Miami-Dade, the election-day purposes, the failing of a single administrator.

It was demagoguery, of course. And this school board electioneering only served to let South Florida's legislators, who were responsible for the budget-shortfalls, off the hook. If it was all Rudy Crew's fault, then Marco Rubio and his gang of  self-anointed "reformers" who invented this mess can't be held accountable.  When the school board candidates railed that the Crew was wasting vast amounts of money, they were not only torturing reality, they were creating the impression that the state cuts of hundreds of millions really aren't the cause of the layoffs and there elimination of beloved programs.

But the anti-Crew faction have set themselves up for a brutal reckoning. First, the new majority must find $700,000 in a depleted budget to pay Crew's severance. Then they'll find themselves, not some straw man occupying the super's office, responsible for another $48 million in cuts. More funding cuts are coming after the election to account for unanticipated declines in sales and property taxes. And there's shrinking enrollments. Each lost student means $7,000 less money from the state.

They'll miss Rudy. Without him, who're they gonna blame for the next crisis?    

Why There Ain't No Orchids In Heaven

When the religious right finds out what orchids have bee up to, they're sure to go berserk.

The preachers who rail against what they term as "perverted" sex acts, known as gay sex in less fervent circles, have heretofore been quiet about the perversions of certain fauna. Namely orchids. But that won't last.

While compiling news stories about the flower for a column about the Fort Lauderdale orchid smuggler who copped a plea in U.S. District Court, I came across some very disturbing scientific research. Stuff that is sure to incite demands for Congressional action against this very kinky plant.

The September issue of Harpers Magazine reports, "Scientists discovered a sexually deceptive orchid so convincing that male wasps will mate with it to the point of ejaculation."

It gets even more perverted. "It was determined that male bees prefer sex or Ophrys orchids to sex with female bees." No wonder there have been widespread reports of honey bee hives "collapsing." It's because orchids are undermining bee family values.

The same Harpers feature, a compilation of recently published scientific research, also reported the discovery that "watermelon rinds possess a Viagra-like chemical and were hoping to breed a race of aphrodisiac super-melons wherein the flesh, too, will possess the chemical." 

If that happens, Fourth of July picnics will begin to look more like Mardi Gras.

A Hero For Our Times. Or Maybe For Chicken Sandwiches.

Just as I was becoming a little depressed about America's slacker generation wasting away their lives watching spider monkeys play cello on YouTube, Blake Peebles rescued me from my malaise. Apparently, where I only saw sloth and and an utter lack of ambition, wildfires of 21 century aspirations were blazing away.

I didn't see it. Not until I saw this item in the Raleigh News & Observer:

Blake Peebles, 16, of Raleigh, dropped out of school last year to devote himself to playing 'Guitar Hero,' and his parents agreed to have him home-schooled. 'I usually play till I can't anymore,' Blake says.

My mistake, of course, is trying to imagine me, at 16, breaking the news to my father, a fellow who harbored some rather uncompromising early-20th century notions about education. He was a mathematician and a research chemist who thought my incessant devotion to fiction and history was the the pursuit of whatever they called slackers in the 1950s and early 1960s. "Dad. I've decided to drop out of school and chase a new heroic dream."

I wondered what rewards one garners from Guitar Hero perfection. The story provides plenty of incentive. "Among the prizes he's won playing "Guitar Hero" tournaments: gift certificates, gaming equipment and chicken sandwiches."

That's what I would have said, just as the old man started wailing on me. "But Dad! Think of the chicken sandwiches."

Orchid Fever Undid My Column

An orchid smuggler entered a guilty plea and, I confess, all I saw was the irony in a fellow charged with sneaking contraband flowers into South Florida, a smuggler's paradise for drugs, guns and illicit human cargo. But a couple of readers reminded me of more serious ramifications when someone like Mac Rivenbark  attempts to bring 1,403 exotic orchids into South Florida.

Mike Hunt of Homestead wrote that my column  "reads like this is almost funny. I, for one, am not laughing."

Hunt writes: "

"You reported part of the story in 'Smuggler of orchids is a rare species'. The part that you did not get is that even though this type of activity decimates wild populations, the smuggling of plants, fruits and vegetables into the United States is almost certainly responsible for the introduction of many of the plant diseases and insects such as citrus canker and citrus greening, to name two.

"Just these two diseases have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in economic damage to the citrus industry in Florida, not to mention the costs to taxpayers. There is no longer a Lime industry in Florida because of canker.

"I believe that as a grower, Mac Rivenbark should know the dangers of smuggling plant material into this country and should rightfully go to jail for a long time to discourage him from doing the same thing again and hopefully dissuade others"

Louis Rodriguez, a member of the American Orchid Society, the Coalition for Orchid Species, and the East Everglades Orchid Society, that my column describing the smuggling of "orchid species native to the Philippines was particularly disturbing.

"The actions of Mr. Mac Rivenbark reflect nothing less than pure unethical greed rather than pure orchid-crazed obsession. His actions are a direct opposite of the mission of the American Orchid Society. The mission of the American Orchid Society is to promote and support the passion for orchids through education, conservation and research.

"Conservation includes preservation of orchids; conservation of and advocacy for habitat, and influence global regulations on orchids.

"I hope that in addition to being punished with a hefty fine, Mr.Rivenbark is banned from further participation and exclusion of membership in the AOS. Furthermore the dept. of Agriculture should also discipline this greedy thief of species that are protected by many Federal and International laws that protect these beautiful and rare flowers from precisely the crime committed.

"I certainly hope the legal arm of the AOS will punish this criminal with stiff penalties in order to prevent acts like this from ever happening again."

I admit. There were important issues here that I ignored.

Gang Banging Without A Valid License

Rapper DMX was arrested in Miami Thursday. Normally, accumulating a rap (hence the name) sheet is considered a normal and necessary exercise in image making for an urban hiphop artist. An occasional stint in the lock-up also helps market someone like Rapper DMX as a street poet who lives his own lyrics.

But Rapper DMX was busted, initially, for parking in a handicapped space outside a WalMart. WalMart is well known as a suburban bargain shopping outlet. It is not, however, likely to boost DMX's living-on-the-edge image. Maybe if DMX, also known as Earl Simmons, had been nabbed trying to knock over a WalMart. But hogging a parking space reserved for a disabled drivers is not the stuff of outlaw legends.

He was, it turned out, wanted for skipping out on a drug charge back in in Arizona. Maybe that will help . . . I don't know. He also has a couple petty drug arrests in Miami. But earlier in the summer, he was arrested in Miami on a charge almost sure to fire up sales of his next record: driving without a valid drivers license.

What I Wrote About the Pettit Case; And What I didn't

Gracious. The readers comments and the e-mail in connection with my column on the shooting of the customs officer have been wild. Much of the criticism wasn't what was actually written in the column but what was inferred. What some readers thought they saw lurking, like a nefarious rodent, between the lines.

I didn't write that the search for the cabbie killers was inadequate. I wrote:

Hollywood police sent a swarm of patrol cars and police dogs on a serious search for criminals so depraved that they'd kill a man for 40 bucks.

Note the word "serious."

I don't begrudge the overwhelming show of force South Florida police officers demonstrate when a fellow officer is shot. If I had been bothered, I would have had earlier opportunities to complain following the deaths of four law enforcement officers in the last year. I wrote:

The massive police turnout in Pembroke Pines conveyed the grim warning that if someone shoots a law enforcement officer, he can expect an overwhelming, unified, angry response.

That was a complaint. It was an observation. It's the reality. But my column pointed out that this particular case seemed incongruent with such a reaction. The indications were that the slain customs officer was not involved in a law enforcement matter. That he and his assailant were involved in a foolish road rage incident. He chased the retiree into the post office parking lot and the retiree shot him. Wrongly, of course. It was a criminal act. It was a horrible, stupid, tragic crime. Whether or not the crime holds up as first degree murder is another question altogether. But the shooting of Donald Pettit was, in my view, both criminal and outside the bounds of civil society, no matter what loopholes are afforded the shooter by the state's very loose self-defense laws. I'm glad they got him.

But surely, most police officers must secretly think that some small percentage of culpability might be attributed to the victim for allowing a fit of temper between two drivers to escalate into a face-to-face confrontation. Pettit's actions seemed inconsistent with that of a responsible law enforcement official.

It struck me that most street cops looking for Pettit's killer last week knew from experience that irrational rage can lead to life-altering acts. Irrational rage, after all, is what can make a police intervention in a mundane "domestic disturbance"  so potentially dangerous. It's hard to imagine a responsible policeman pursuing another motorist in a pique over a traffic incident. Not with his daughter in the car. Not in South Florida. Where so many people are armed, disaffected and ready to explode.

It was this case that was bothersome. This case in isolation. This case in particular. This case specifically. This case with the absurd assertion from the assistant chief in Pembroke Pines that the shooting stemmed from a law enforcement matter.

It seems doubly wrong to place this shooting into the same category with the still unsolved murder of Sgt. Christopher Reyka, the well respected Broward sheriff's officer who was ambushed by cowards in the dark of night as he was investigating a drug store burglary.

Sgt. Reyka's murder was one of those brutal incidents that grips the entire community. I felt it. Everybody felt it. His killing was worthy of the overwhelming response. His murder was different from the usual stuff on the homicide dockets. Reyka was killed in the line of duty, protecting society from dangerous criminals. We owed him, in that instance, a massive show of public outrage. And the criminals who killed him, though still at large, must know that all of South Florida wants them brought to justice.

But the case in Pembroke Pines was not the same. That was my opinion, one which I think is defensible, even if someone disagrees with it. What I did not do, despite assertions by e-mail and by reader comments under the column, was besmirch all police officers, disregard the dangers of their job or forget what happened in New York City on 911.

    

When Beer Pong Is Outlawed, Only Outlaw Schools Will Have Beer Pong

   The University of Florida, in a brutal rebuke of academic freedom, has outlawed beer pong.

    Apparently, UF officials have not been pleased by the university's exalted status, according the the Princeton Review, as America's Number One party school. Particularly at a time when Gator football team is considered only fifth best. One can't have drunken students reaching the very pinnacle of collegiate glory while its athletes lag behind several other notable football factories. It is unfathomable that a football coach whose annual compensation makes him the highest paid public employee in the state of Florida has been outperformed by a few Gainesville bartenders working mostly for tips.

Something had to be done. The university took a bold stop last week. No more beer pong. (Also known, among those majoring in international studies, as Beruit.)

My journalistic instincts tell me that ignorance here is a much more useful tool than knowing. Having no idea what beer pong actually entails, I could assume that its a kind of mating ritual popularized at the University of Florida in the 1960s by servicemen returning from Vietnam. That would explain the rumor that Charlie Crist employed beer pong in a desperate attempt ti entice his high society girlfiend into marriage.

Wikipedia says otherwise. Something about players tossing table tennis balls down a ping pong table and attempting to deposit the sphere in a glass of beer. The opponent is then required to drink the entire container empty.  It's difficult for me to figure out being forced to drink beer qualifies as losing. But maybe that explains why university officials have decided that the game must go.

But UF has decided to keep football, a game where spectators are famously sober and determined to stomp out Florida's party school image.

Starving The (Schoolhouse) Beast

   Christian Weiss, Charlie Crist's chief economist, terrified Florida educators with a newsletter announcing the the so-called tax swap envisioned by Amendment 5 would likely be a one-way deal. Crist supports a radical cut in school property taxes. But Weiss stated that the governor was "not supportive of increasing sales taxes, either by repealing exemptions, or by raising the rate, even if the revenues are used to lower property taxes."

   It's a nasty little ploy against public school funding. The governor urges voters to vote in favor of Amendment 5, which would slash the schools millage rate in half and eliminate nearly $9 billion in property tax collections earmarked for schools.

If voters endorse amendment in November, then there's no question: that money is gone. The cut is forever memorialized in the Florida Constitution.

Unhappily, the second portion of the amendment, the other half of the swap, is no more than an ambiguous toothless suggestion. The legislature is given a choice whether to raise sales taxes, or close tax exemptions or make cuts elsewhere in the state budget (an unlikely prospect given that Florida's budget has already been massacred.) Except there's no mechanism to actually force the legislature to make that choice.

Crist's budget boy indicated that the guv would not be pushing the lawmakers to use a sales tax to make up the difference. Crist, asked by the Gainesville Sun, refused to say where he thinks state should find the money to make up for the lost school revenues.

The growing suspicion, of course, is that the Republican anti-government leadership has embarked on a very sneaky "starve the beast" strategy: persuading tax payers to a one-way tax swap that will leave Florida's public schools $9 billion poorer. But they're never quite get around to fixing what they broke.

Fishing Florida Bay For Prozac

Blame it on the bonefish faction.

I admit, it was a fisher of bonefish who put the unfortunate idea into my head, who led me into the perils of lobster politics. He predicted that the lobster mini-season would pile up human fatalities. Indeed they did. Five dead. I was impressed. Those five fatalities represented five times the average number of Florida game hunters killed every year as they stumble around the woods with powerful semi-automatic rifles.

The premise was correct. But the reaction, from mini-season devotees (just now sober enough after their lobster hootenanny to peck out an e-mail) was unkind. Lots of salty language. Several references compared my intelligence to the spiny lobster. Thanks to that damn column, my special status as an esteemed beloved folk hero of the alcohol-impaired was seriously damaged.

I should have known not to listen to a some, what? I'm not sure of the term. Bonefish fisherman? Bonefisherman? Bonefish angler? Whatever the correct term, they are well known as the manic depressives of water sports.

For hours, in pursuit of their passion, they remain dispassionately erect in the bow of little boats, in water so shallow that you can spit into the water and raise a cloud of dirt, hoping for a glimpse of an elusive, inedible ghost-like fish, the mythical Albula vulpes, which may or may not exist. I've never seen any evidence. But they just stand there, while the ultraviolet light sizzles their retinas. No moving around the boat. No gulping beer -- the can might drop and frighten the fishies. No laughing aloud. They just stand at attention on their boat looking about as joyful as mourners at a funeral, as reticent as secret service agents guarding the prez, about as much fun as watching C-Span sober. Venturing onto the water with someone obsessed with the gray phantom of the mud flats is like going to a Ingmar Bergman movies with an geek cinema aficionado.

To think, in a moment of weakness, I was unduly influenced by a bonefisherman's complaint about mayhem called the lobster mini season. I knew. I should have known, anyway, that the that the real reason bonefishermen despise the mini-season, and its mass invasion of drunken, hapless divers, has nothing to do with the self-inflicted dangers or the damage to the reefs or the crowded waters on those two mad days or the general rowdiness when they come ashore. Its that bonefishermen hate anyone who might send a ripple across the glassy surface on Florida Bay. They hate any unexpected sound. They hate anything that splashes. They hate the wind near as much as they hate people. They hate anything that might send their notoriously antsy fish zipping away.

I'm assuming bonefisherman have some smidgen of humanity. They might, for instance, tolerate a sleeping child locked in a sound-proof room. Other forms of the species are merely irritants. Besides, bonefisherman, on those rare and perhaps apocryphal occasions when they claim to actually catch a bonefish (no evidence exists other than some possibly photo-shopped snapshots), they proceed (supposedly) to unhook the fish and toss it back into the water.

Lobsters guys, meanwhile, keep what they catch. Good eating. Especially with a Jack Daniels chaser.

No wonder bonefish fisherman develop that incessant faraway stare and that glum outlook. They're consumed with lobster envy. 

I'm Fat. I'm Dumb. I'm The People's Choice

I ain't much, but I'm fit to be president.

A headline in the Wall Street Journal wondered whether the electoral prospects of Barack Obama were as slight as his waistline. "Too Fit To Be President?" the Journal asked. "Facing an Overweight Electorate, Barack Obama Might Find Low Body Fat a Drawback."

Obama was already in trouble with the finicky American electorate for being too obvious about being smart. Too well dressed. Too popular. Too smooth. Too well spoken. Too charismatic. Too well read. Too elitist. Too mindful of his diet. Too lousy a bowler. As if what Americans really want, in their president, is a beer-swilling redneck no-account who barely got out of high school.

I was thinking, hey, I ain't much of a bowler but I used to waste hours and hours in a pool hall, while the like of Barack Obama were hitting the books. I'm just what the American people are looking for.

It was just an idle thought. Something that occurred to me between gulps. Hey. You gotta think about something while you're sitting around waiting for football season to start.  But along came the Wall Street Journal heralding yet another of my qualifications. The Journal asked that "in a nation in which 66 percent of the voting-age population is overweight and 32 percent is obese, could Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability?"

The Wall Street Journal was saying, in Essenes, that Americans want a fat, stupid president. Why it was practically an endorsement. It was as if the Journal was trying to bait me into running. Telling me that because I'm unfit, I'm fit to be prez. Because if skinniness is a liability, I'm the man. Why I see it, my only real competition, in the campaign to win over middle America, is Bubba, my plumber. He's no dumber than I am, but he outweighs me by 20 pounds.

On the other hand, Bubba finished two years at community college and I overheard him tell someone that he has read Marley And Me, almost to the end. I'm not worried. Americans aren't going to vote for no damn pipe wrench elitist.