Sunday Morning Coming Down

I've now watched the movie Secretariat at least as many times as I've watched any other movie.  Casablanca, Easy Rider, The Longest Day, Patton.  I'm sure it is not an academy award winner like the Cider House Rules but the Secretariat deserved a movie to be made of his life. Lawrence Scanlon called him "The Horse God Built" in his biography of the horse and groom. The movie was about the horse, the owner, the trainer and the Triple Crown.  A coin flip, more than a little bit of luck and the rest was history. I saw the race with an uncle who knew his way around a race track.  He told me a story about past posting his barber/bookie once.  I watched the movie The Sting and imagined Uncle Wil beating the barber out of a couple of bucks on a .25 bet. The Belmont in 1973 was a once in a lifetime race according to my uncle.  I'd never seen one like it before or since.  The movie filled in some lapses in my memory of the Triple Crown that year bu...

Originally from Chicago, the pro football season was defined by the Bears and Packers.  If the Bears beat the Packers the season could be considered at least a partial success.  There were no playoffs, but there were rivalries.  It was a much simpler time before fantasy football teams, there was the AFL but it was a while before the Super Bowl.  In Miami, the yearly ritual is the 1972 Dolphins drinking a toast to their perfect season and breathing a sigh of relief that the record will last another year.  The guys on that team are getting a little bit long in the tooth and the record of the Patriots and this year's Packers overshadows whatever the "old Dolphins" did.  I'm of the opinion that the game has changed enough that this yearly comparison is as irrelevant as how I used to look at Green Bay versus Chicago. Dolphins! What have you done for me lately?

I had a good day on Saturday.  I placed third in a handicapping contest and got my picture taken in the Winner's Circle at Hialeah Park.  Had the favorite won would have won first prize of $2,500.  I picked three winners and a 2nd in five races .  I studied the program dilegently and did better that I usually do but wonder if I was just lucky or really smart.  I think I was a little smarter than the average player and lucky.  It is rarely an either or question.

This is a repeat of some old news.  Trailer is left to burn to the ground because the owner did not pay for fire protection from the local fire department.  The trucks came but when they realized the owner had not paid the fee and there was nobdy in danger from the fire it was left to burn to the ground.  The fire department's response was what incentive would any one have to pay the $75.00 fee if they could get the service for free or pay only after the fact. If there ever was a reason for some things being mandatory.  Isn't that the reason that some properties are sold on the courthouse steps because the "owner" did not pay the property taxes.  This issue doesn't come up often in more urban areas because the danger of fires spreading is much greater.  Rural Tennessee is pretty close frontier land and I'm sure that people think it will never happen to them.  What if the poor person in a trailer paid his rent and the owner did not pay the fire fee....

On what planet do you spend most of your time? I was struck by this comment by Barney Frank(I'll miss him).  He was dismissing a comment by a constituent.  At least you knew where he stood most of the time.  It says something about the quality of the political discourse these days and where people are coming from.  The rightousness of people in the political field is off putting.  The chest thumping that has replaced policy making and governing and makes running for higher office something that would distress most political scientists.  Why should the most extreme members of each party have so much power in selecting candidates and setting policy limits. Unfortunately, the most of the analysis breaks down into a discussion of flip flopping versus a lamentation about the lack of leadership.  Add the impact of campaign money and fund raising 24/7 and gerrymandering is there any wonder we are in such a deep hole these days. ...

There are more than a few things I don't understand about occupy Wall Street and all the things it is and isn't.  But I think that there is enough corruption in government and it needs to be cleaned up and until it is the democratic process is in danger.  Some people are rightly confused about the role of government.  If you have lots of money you can get things inserted in the tax code that should benefit you, your company and get you access that most could only dream of.  This is not the only reason the 1% became the 1% but it sure explains how difficult it is for government to level the playing field. Wishing won't make it and camping out to dramatize the situation is not a long term solution either.  The hard work of electing people whose first goal is not getting reelected needs to be addressed. How will OWS deal with reapportionment?  Is their a way to get incumbants to be responsive if they are in districts where the 99% is divided 60% dem...

I'm getting amused.  The Broncos win again.  This time I'm not sure what to think.  TT would not have been my choice as firster for the Dolphins.  They need a quarterback but my excuse is that anybody that played for UF is suspect.  I went to the UM and some issues never die.  I'm happy for the success this guy has had as a QB.  Maybe he should be promoted to Congress.  If there is ever a sorrier group of folks who need a leader, he fits that bill.  Not sure what his degree from Gainesville was but he seems to be a hard worker and a relatively quick learner.

Local Public Broadcasting Station had the original Thin Man Movie on last night and I liked it.  I think I'm getting into the mystery genre a little bit.  Dick Francis, Arnuldar Indriasson, NCIS, Charlie Chan and now Nick and Nora Charles and their dog Asta? This was not the dark murder mystery with Gibbs and the crew providing closure, justice, or saving the country.  Nick seems to think that it is 5:00 somewhere and hanging around a fancy apartment in NYC is the place to be. I've been to places that Dick Francis wrote about.  Some day I'll get to Iceland and the road trips of the Honolulu Detective are something to dream about.  Gibbs visits West Virginia regularly. Using the dog for comedy is a good light touch and while the costumes always date these movies from the 30's and the characters are pretty much stock, this is not the SVU or CSI pulp that fills too many hours on TV.  The touch is lighter and let's you go to sleep without worring about ni...

The longest weekend of the year is half done.  Thursday morning included a last minute trip to Winn Dixie and the store and parking lot was busy at 7:00 AM.  The meal was quiet but good and there are plenty of leftovers.  Lunch for today and Sunday.  Friday was quiet but I still got up early, I spent some money but missed the crowds.  I might make more purchases this year on the internet and let them worry about shipping the stuff. Next week Gulfstream opens and the following week Hialeah park opens.  The season begins and I've studied enough.  Los Alamitos closes for a couple of weeks so I can go to bed early.

The biggest thing about much of the discussion about fiscal policy is the red herring of class warfare.  This is a complicated issue.  I've heard that celebrities that are celebrities for celebrities sake are the job creators for this country.  I know there is some truth to this statement.  Where would the E-Network and People Magazine be without the Kardashians.  There are so many choices for people and theoretically the market makes the decisions about winners and losers. There are some values that need to be considered along the way.  Equality of  opportunity is not the same as a guarantee of equality of outcome.  Efficiencies of scale make certain occupations worth more but I would like a real study whether CEO's are always worth 425 times what a worker makes.  Is a CEO worth $10,000,000.  Lot's of people scoff at movie stars, entertainers, sports figures and how much they make.  Once you become a celebrity executive...

Sometimes it makes no sense to have replays of certain shows.  Newspapers and News Shows might be interesting as history but if you are replaying a show from a couple of weeks ago it is neither history or entertaining.  Unless you live under a rock you may already know who won the football game being discussed.  Sometimes it is just better to go forward and watch something new or listen to music or read a book. Maybe we ought to look for something other than NBA Basketball.  I'm rooting for the Heat to start up again.  But I'm not convinced that there will be a season this year because I think this lockout has a personal nature that the owners want to teach the players something?  This is kind of stupid because owners listen to agents who convince players that they are worth the millions of dollars they are asking for because of the percent of revenue CBA that exists.  Socialism of this sort is fraught with a whole bunch of problems because at the ma...

Lately I've caught a few of the Dan Patrick on the Radio/ TV Shows.  I think he has some interesting guests but I think he drops too many names and is more than a little bit full of himself.  The genre needs some help.  He could do a little more given his exposure. 

Thursdays and Fridays I have a little job for which I'm paid.  Employment these days is a good thing even if it doesn't pay all the bills.  If it contributes to paying down fixed costs after covering marginal costs the only thing to worry about are the opportunity costs.  In other words unless you have something better to do you should go to work.  The NBA season seems to be in doubt.  I have not missed them, although being in Miami I guess we have more to lose than some of the other places where basketball is played.  I follow sports on the radio and I'm not sure which of the parties I have any sympathy for. Will the players be hurt by the lockout.  The answer is a definite yes.  However I'm struck by the image of Michael Jordan as one of the hardline owners who think the players are not worth 60, 50, 49, or 47% of the revenue generated by playing games.  There is something wrong with this picture.  I thin the issue is simply...

Walker Evans and James Agee worked on this book about the people of the first great depression in the 30's.  Pictures and words of poverty, the dust bowl, and a time before the current social safety net. A TIME MAGAZINE parody of the situation in 2006 was the "desperate plight of the merely rich to keep up with the new super rich.  An investment banker is upset to realize that he makes less than a former colleague who runs a hedge fund and less than an outfielder for the Mets who hit .260.  Or the women disturbed that she delivers her kids to the Country Day School in a 2006 Escalade rather than a 2007 Porsche Cayennes. It costs a lot of money to support this kind of lifestyle and like the New York Times said I guess we are having a revolt of the fairly wealthy and a second front in class warfare. Are these people the job creators?  I think they have just set a new level of conspicuous consumption fueled by low tax rates and working the system rather than ...

NPR, Morning Joe, and an interview with his daughter.  This guy has a good PR man.  He is able to communicate as well as any politician I have ever listened to whether I believed him or not.  I think he has some good ideas and was lucky to get out before congress became the joke it has become.  I also think he does not have the problem of the current president where everyone else is against what they were previously for.  Electoral results yesterday showed the steamrolling of bargaining rights has slowed and there are some reasons for belief that the country may be swinging back to the middle. Joe Paterno and Penn State University hopefully learned a lesson about mandatory retirement.  FSU learned about it a year or so ago.  The situation they face now is of their own doing.  This situation has been going on for a long time and the university has been way too loose in the way they have handled this sick situation.  Had Joe Pa retired at age...

The line from Casablanca from Captain Renault being shocked about gambling at Rick's applies to Miami and Florida.  There has always been a lot of gambling in Miami and the fact that we might be a destination gambling site soon is just a natural progression.  Lots of places would love to be a gambling destination if they could get away with it.  A really big resort type casino would suck some money out of other businesses.  It only makes sense if it really brings a lot of new people to Miami.  Sort of like having a year round Superbowl, Boat Show, Orange Bowl or something else that keeps us humming.  The existing slot machine warehouses currently give locals a place to go and bored tourists in the area a place to spend a few hours in the evening.  Maybe to location of the Genting Property will bail out the Arsht Center and bring some high rollers to baseball games in the summer as well, and a few construction jobs along the way will certainly help in t...

I think it's great he went out on top.  I think he spent enough time managing baseball teams at the major league level and I'm glad there is another opening for someone who needs a job.  I'm not a big fan of the way he changed the game with relief pitchers for certain innings and how it has made being a starting pitcher one with a pitch count.  George Will may think differently but I don't agree with his politics either although we are both Cub fans. The World Series is over for this year and it was a good one with competitive games, drama, lots of scoring and some interesting story lines.  If it had lasted a little longer we might have had a game snowed out.  Thankfully that did not happen.  I think the best team won.  Football and hockey will not have to compete with basketball for my attention although this year the Dolphins are so bad that I will be spending even more time watching races on TVG.  I don't bet on football or the other m...

I'm a little over 60.  Sunday morning in my 20's was trying to shake off a hangover sometimes.  Then I used to visit Hialeah Park during "the season" to watch the horses work out and maybe get to info on a future race.  Then I discovered Sunday Morning with Charles Kauralt.  Then I started going to the local Unitarian Universalist Church.  In Miami the tourist season isn't exactly what it used to be.  It is a much more year round thing.  Hialeah closed but has reopened with slots in the future.  I've been back to watch the quarter horses work out and it is almost the same thing but the cowboy hats make me feel a little bit strange.  And Charles Osgood has replaced Karault, and I can't remember the last time I had a beer on Sunday Morning in spite of the title of this blog. One habit replaces another and so it goes.  I am happy seeing people on Sunday Morning at church.  And the isolation of earlier times is gone. 

A Republican lawmaker is surprised that you need a birth certificate, social security card, and two documents proving address to renew your drivers license.  Now he wants to change the law.  Surprise surprise and these are the folks that want to reduce regulations.  This was just another road block for voting that nobody admits to but it is.  This only becomes obvious when some one comes up against it, and what should be easier is a real bite. Or is this some other plot, that I can only imagine.  We in Florida have many drivers that could use some further review and identity fraud is a real issue but I doubt that a birth certificate,social security card and proof of local address will help if you need to renew a drivers license. Marco Rubio is under review by the birthers.  I thought the issue was jobs, jobs, jobs.  Actually for many it is the conflict between I've got mine, keep things exactly as they are and some thing is...

There are some big differences between Occupy Wall Street and other disaffected groups like the Tea Party.  One is younger, the other is older, one seems to be more concerned about social issues than the other, and in the end there probably some difference in how they deal with issues regarding the democratic process although the uber concervative control freaks and anarchists on the left are not very functional. I sympathize with the 20-30 year olds that are having problems with finding jobs that pay enough to cover college loans and get a start on life.  Sadly they may have difficulty converting the outrage against the current distribution of wealth and jobs in this economy because they don't vote in the numbers they should.  Young adults (the invincibles) have had a lower voting rate than their older counterparts. It is easier to complain than do the hard work of organizing and putting the organization in business and then making sure the new organization follows u...

I wish I had more patience and that I could share any surplus.  The last few days have been filled with honking horns an people in a hurry.  I understand the being in a hurry but there were a couple of times when people were hitting the horn almost the instant the light changed.  I have had to make multiple calls to a government customer service center that has a lot of work and little staff.  At least after calls almost too numersous to count contact with a human was made and hopefully something good will come of it.

Visited Krome Detention Center yesterday.  Got a phone # and an address in Broward County.  ICE Enforcement.  Another car ride and given th fact that they did not answer a couple of phone call probably more of a run around.  A Libarian had a sign at occupy Wall Street.  "You know things are messed up when a librarian is protesting.  Makes sense, but is more than a little disconcerting.

This may be a hard promise to keep.  I'm tired of the horse race coverage.  Why don't these folks just do some legislating.  Let's forget about the big deals.  If there is a bridge between Ohio and Kentucky that needs fixing let's do it.  Maybe this a better use of time than saying we want something but don't want to pay for it.  This seems to be the way we do stuff these days.  Eventually things get out of hand.  This includes taxcuts, tax increases, tax credits, government and policy in general.  If everyone was as consistent as they claim to be why would there be deficits and this includes both political parties.  Some of the foreign policy issues, military industrial complex issues, financial system issues, and health care issues would be less intractable if they were dealt with a less political frame work.  Even the class warfare issue is a red herring because it seems to deny issues on both sides of the problem, be they wealth...

This morning we are off to the Krome Detention Center.  Details to follow.  Did not sleep well last night.  Many issues that seem unsolvable at this level still need resolution.  It's a federal holiday so my expectations are low.

A few years ago I visited a website to "Save Hialeah Park".  This is a beautiful place with some really old buildings.  It was a great race track, home to Citation and many other great racehorses.  It reopened two years ago with quarterhorse racing.  It it also the a place where I used to spend Sunday Mornings.  I used to eat breakfast their and watch the horses from up north work out before going to the races at Calder, Gulfstream, or Hialeah.  I went a couple of times with some Silver Bullets and cooler in hand also.  Why would anyone wake up really early on Sunday Morning and drive to Hialeah?  It's all about the sounds of the place.  The flamingos were still sleeping in.  It wasn't hot, but the sound of horses galloping and breathing in the morning is like nothing you will ever hear.  It's quiet, not silent, but it's busy and all sorts of busy fast, slow and quiet at the same time.  A magical way of going that is as ...

I'm not entirely disappointed that the NBA strike may last longer than some people anticipated.  It will not help the Miami Heat or Lebron James.  In Miami it will be a non issue because sports fans down here need to be hit in the head like mules to get their attention. I was struck by an article related to the business of sports that talked about the impact of the strike on local businesses. I realized that there were taverns that used football to generate traffic for beer, wings, burgers, and fries.  They breathed a collective sigh of relief when the football lockout was resolved.  NASCAR was not going to fill the bill on Sunday Afternoon, and college football is not ubiqutious except in college towns.   The service industries in downtown Miami will miss the economic activity generated by 41 events at the Triple A. Venues in Memphis, Orlando, Portland, Sacramento will indeed have a tough season even if the franchises lose less money by not playing....

Hank Williams Jr. get bounced from as easy gig singing are you ready for some football and it's about time.  In spite of this country's tolerance for freedom of speech there are some analogies that just don't work. The use of Hitler analogies is a bridge too far for all but the white supremecist groups in this country.  Unless you put on an armband, start making the Hitler salutes or you see a national leader doing the same this is one use of words and symbols that needs to be stopped. 

Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz was interviewed by Vanity Fair Magazine where he lamented the current state of government and the economy where 1% of the population have almost 40%of the wealth and receive an extremely high percentage of the income also.  He asserts that much of the increase in the concentration of wealth in the country and the growth in income of the wealthiest is as much a function of the wealthiests ability to game the tax rates.  They are able to do this by the access that money can buy through political contributions.  Lincoln said it was government of the people, by the people, and for the people.  Stiglitz says it is government of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%.  If you include multinational corporations as people is it any wonder that jobs can go overseas to places where the wages are lower and companies are able to escape taxation in the United States. These are the laws that have been passed by our own democracy....

I lived through the Mariel Boat Lift.  I remember the dislocations it caused in the Magic City with tent cities under expressways, overcrowded schools, hospitals and some issues related to crime and drugs in the process and this happened with a generally supportive Cuban community. Last year it was Arizona, last week it was Alabama that passed an even stricter law related to immigration. This country needs real immigration reform.  I'm skeptical of the state by state approach.  In too many ways immigration and illegal criminal aliens are being confused and the public policies of this country are subject to hysterical rants of politicians.  A good immigration policy can help us attract good hard working people and help us grow and prosper as a country. Stepping up efforts to identify and deport everyone here without proper immigration paperwork won't work.  In fact many people came to this country legally and just not followed up with an increasin...

There are proposals to close post offices throughout the country.  The last two times I went to the post office were to get a passport and to mail a package.  I do drop off letters at the South Miami Office regularly.  Our church mails about 150 newsletters monthly to those who don't pick it up on the last Sunday of the month and pays first class postage  Whether I get mail on Saturday or Monday doesn't make much difference to me.  Even in a wealthy congregation there are many that don't follow stuff electronically.  Most of these people are older. The Economist Magazine was also commenting on the number of states that are adjusting their voting rules to require picture IDs.  There are many people without government issued picture IDs.  They are mostly poor and elderly or younger adults that don't drive.  Supposedly these changes are done to stop voter fraud.  I live in Miami and the fraud that has occurred has to do with abs...

I had two UU moments this week.  One was to think about something I was passionate about and share it with someone in a small group at church.  I mentioned something about getting better communication.  After the group broke up I mentioned to a complete stranger from a different group that what I was really passionate about was cold beer.  The later being something about which I thought often and with a sense of anticipation regularly. The second UU moment was a UU minister trying to explain the symbolism of Steve Bartman.  Allegedly he interfered with Moises Alou catching a foul ball and continuing the Cubs streak of ineptness.  Steve had to be lead from the stadium with police protection ans became a perfect example of a scapegoat for this UU minister who was interviewed for the ESPN series 30 on 30. Last night was a good night for baseball.  The lead up to the wild card may be even better than anything the playoffs will produce unless Detro...

This is something I have been thinking about a lot.  Sometimes people need to be fired even though they work hard, you mostly agree with them, but they just don't quite get the job done.  Much has been said about leadership these days.  As an academic exercise the arguments always make sense.  You have to fire the manager because you can't fire all the players.  The sports analogy applies but the consequences are not pretty.  The facts are that leadership is a fleeting thing and sometimes what is leadership to one person also motivates an opposite reaction.  Not all followers are on the same page even though they need leadership these days possibly more than ever.  Children need functional parents to succeed.  Businesses need leadership to make produce something and make a profit.  Why should it be different with government?  The policies of government are not always as negative as those who decry taxes would make t...

I went to the second last game the Florida Marlins will play in their former home field in Miami Gardens.  There was a rain delay, it was warm, the field looked like there had been a football game a few hours ago and yet I view with some trepidation the new stadium.  Honestly there has always been something missing at JR, PP, LS and lately Sunlife Stadium. Even though the stadium has hosted several World Series Games, College National Championships in football and more Superbowls than I can remember and the place has been around for a while, it is not a place that generates a lot of excitement even though there have been exciting games there. I hope the new Marlin Stadium is comfortable, easy to attend, but most importantly I hope it can generate some excitement and make it a venue people will want to go to.  Too often JR, PP, and Sunlife have been a place where it is an easy ticket but even worse a place better appreciated on TV rather than in person. The ...

This week I has the good fortune to watch two movies that I enjoyed.  And I have to admit that at times there have been some classics on TCM that have filled some of my retired hours in the evenings. Almost a year ago I saw Secretariat at the movies.  Rewatching the movie on the small screen was almost as enjoyable as it got me back to a book about Secretariat.  Sometimes movies lose their luster if you know the story but I remember like it was yesterday watching the Belmont with my Uncle Wil in California on TV.  I knew that race was special.  I've written elsewhere that there has not been a bad movie made about horse racing.  The sport appeals to me but I think there is something about the track that would appeal to me even if you could not bet.  The second movie of the week was "The Lemon Tree", which was a story about a Palestinian women whose lemon grove was condemened to better protect the defense minister in Israel from terrorism....

Here we go again.  If you are having problems with the current tax code but don't want to raise taxes you can casually mention that 50% don't pay income taxes now. The unemployment rate is 9.1% in the nation as a whole and if it was 9% in Miami now we would think things were a lot better than they are  A lot more people qualify for food stamps and unemployment also and for all the problems in the administration of these programs the money is spent and maintains a level of demand that is helpful to the economy.  Those working part time instead of full time understates the employment problem we have. The "righteous" 50% that do pay taxes need to ask the question of themselves what is the "righteous" tax rate for the working poor family of four with two minimum wage earners and a family income of $30,000.  If you go to a grocery store or fast food establishment, the baggers or clerks are adults.  These jobs used to be filled by teenagers.  This is...

I wonder how many people fight about air conditioning.  It's either too hot or it's too cold.  I can put up with a little bit of sweat because I dislike getting electric bills beyond a certain amount.  It colors much of what I do and how I live.  Some people think I walk on my elbows to save shoe leather.  There is a lot of truth in this matter.  In fact the latest repair of my truck's ac unit was because I think I will get most of the money spent on the repair back when I trade in the car. There are some things I take religiously and that it is difficult to air condition Florida and way too many places leave their doors open to entice customers or to get you to do thing to just cool off.  After Hurricane Andrew and for a shorter period of time after Katrina or Wilma I had no electricity.  I was without power for 5-21 days.  It was a disaster for some and for others a massive inconvinience.  I made appointments to wash my clothes, I ...

The Miami Herald did a front page story on how much money public sector employees make in retirement and how it is bankrupting local governments.  This as most reporting about government will be cited to justify distrust and to vilify public employees.  And they talk about class warfare.  There are abuses in public pension plans and they take place because elected officials don't do their jobs.  This is as much a story about shoddy accounting, political corruption and self dealing as anything else. The City of Miami is financially in trouble because its police and fireman can retire making more money in retirement than they ever did while working.  AND highly paid supervisors are able to job the system to inflate their pensions by doing some unseemly things in the period just before retirement to maximize the payout.  Assigning themselves overtime and other payouts can inflate compensation levels that dramitically affect pensions. Should supervisors...

This last weekend I listened to Joe sing an anti war song and then this morning I watched as the camera show Mika ponding away a text message on her phone.  This is something different.  I'm not sure that there is anything new in the political dicussion although the tone is a little more civil than most on tv these days. Moviewise it was a quiet day as I did some job searching in the morning and then was waiting for a call to coordinate some transportation issues.  Then in the evening I visitied Parie Meadows and made some money.  For this I am thankful.  The announcers must really need to have strong backbones as they tout and seemingly have bigger bank rolls and still manage to burn the rent money. There are 800 numbers for people that watch that show too much.  I find it somewhat more soothing that since I have access for about twelve hours a day I don't have to make a desparate play or do too much chasing.  I can target my action and ...

Sometimes I think that there are names no one should be allowed for commercial purposes.  Given what has happened to the "Bank of America", I think the reasons are evident.  The responsibility of having such a name is great and to treat the name as poorly as the directors and managers have by some of their practices is shameful. I'm a customer of Bank of America by default.  A community bank is bought by a larger bank, that is bought by another bank and then Bank of America buys that bank.  This has happened over 40 years in Florida and one of Bank of America's latest screw ups is buying a mortgage company that issued a lot of really crappy loans for housing in Florida.  And they call Social Security a ponzi scheme. It has been announced that there may be as many as 30,000 jobs lost as BOA is going to "downsize". I also had a small account at a community bank known as Bristol, bought by the Bank of Florida, that was not  too big to...

I'm glad yesterday is over and we can do something other than watch airplanes crash into the WTC.  It was beyond terrible ten years ago.  On a related note the first pick 3 series at Belmont Park in New York was 911.  You just sort of notice these things, like the digital time when you are driving in the morning.  But there doesn't seem to be a way to escape these reminders big and small. In an effort to escape the 24/7 nature of the 9/11 remembrances I watched some old movies on TCM.  They had Pride of the Yankees and Casablanca on at various times.  "Pride" was a really great baseball movie and human story.  The courage and attitude to say you are the luckiest guy on the face of the earth while facing a terrible disease was historic at the time and is no doubt repeated on a daily basis as people face down mortality.  Gary Cooper made a career of these kind of roles and I thank for his judgement. Bogart and Bergman in "Casablanca" d...

The College Football season has started.  I'm not sure which story line will be the biggest as the year goes forward.  Will the University of Miami get the "Death Penalty"?  What will come of other programs under investigation?  Will there be any reforms in college football?  What of the realignment of conferences? There is a potential that the possible realignment will make the names BIG TEN, BIG TWELVE, and PAC TEN something from another era.  The talk is that is all about the Benjamins, television contracts, conference playoffs, and again more money as the football factory programs get bigger and the rest of the schools not in the biggest four conferences less relevant. I think that rivalries will become less important as the push will become even more desperate to get to what will morph into a "playoff" of sorts to determine a national champion in football that might pass muster for the public and the NCAA. So much for being a student athlete....

I'm dreading the coming week.  Ten years might seem like a long time and it is but I think I've heard enough about the 9/11 attacks.  My Mom, two cousins, an aunt died within a couple of weeks of the time of the attack on the twin towers.  I thought it might have been the beginning of the end of the world for a short period.  It was a trying time. A few simple memorial services would be in order but that is not the way of the world these days.  There is so much space to fill that next Sunday will have way too many replays of stuff we have already seen too many times.  What have we learned in ten years?  Two wars, and too many changes in the way we live to count and the lessons who knows if they were the right lessons.  I avoid airports.  I figure just about any privacy I thought I had is gone.  This country has embraced globalism and at the same time become scared of people from foreign countries whether they are from the Americas or...

The most disturbing aspect of the republican debate on Thursday night was the poll on taxes.  If all the candidates on the stage say they would not sign off on a deal that included $10 in cuts fot $1 in increased revenues in a deal to reduce the budget there is a problem. This is what politics is all about these days.  Everyone seems more interested the campaign that never ends, the fund raising that never ends, the direct or indirect sale of influence, polls and lots of other things that don't have anything to do with governing.  Lobbyists too often seem to tell our representatives what to think say and do as a condition for continued support.  I say this because this is what I read about in the media and its horse race goverage of politics.  This is giving horse racing a bad image.  Serious discussions of politics, policies and sadly even filling administrative positions are now held up for nothing other than the the ability to fund raise fro...

The "U" doesn't have its first game until Monday.  However this Saturday provides more than enough opportunities for a football fix.  I'm not sure if all that many games will mean much because most of the teams schedule cupcakes for their openers. The exception being LSU vs Oregon.  Even this game has lost a little bit of its luster as there are players serving suspensions for bad behavior.  I don't want to go into details because I really don't care too much about either team and if by chance they get to a post season bowl game that will be enough time to do some research. I would like to comment on Northwestern becoming a football factory in the Big Ten, Eleven or Twelve.  Big Ten Football is a good show but it also has some of the crappier aspects of major college football.  All told the opportunity to market the school, entertain the alumni, and get some face time on TV with the band, tailgating and giving "the student body" an excuse to bing...

There are lots of reasons to have a bad attitude these days.  If you don't have a job, no outside income, and limited assets I could see being pissed.  And in the end your attitude about your situation is going to be key to solving your situation.  A lot of people have stopped looking for a job, I realize that it is difficult to get work of almost any kind these days in certain places.  There are a lot more people applying for opening than there are opening.  You might invest in yourself by getting updated skills, you might increase your networking and take temporary employment if you can find an opening.  But at the least you can make sure that you are not being a burden on others by helping out. Cleaning fixing stuff up and helping others is another positive way to spend your time.  Getting up late, bitching, lots of other negative things need to be eliminated.  I think you need to figure out a way to stop the downward trend of unemployment ...

One of the more amazing things on Morning Joe.  Usually you can multi task while it's on.  Watching the panelist make faces as they listen to each other speak is an added benefit.  Sometimes the expression is snarky, sometimes it seems like they are waiting for their turn to respond and you can see the wheels turning.  Or sometimes they are just tuning out.  I don't see this kind of real give and take on other programs.  Maybe it's because the show seems less scripted or the players sometimes look like it is way to early to talk about this stuff or that they might have benefited from a little more sleep.

Once again I'm waking up early to get someone to school.  This is not a bad thing.  If the price of gas was lower, if it did not rain in the morning, if the traffic was not terrible I would not dread this task.  I get up early anyway and this has a tendency to regulate my hours and activities during the evening.  I was reading an AARP magazine and now realize that that I'm a little bit older than Mark Harmon who is also 60 years old.  Sting is also 60.  If NCIS were a little closer to reality Gibbs would really be building that boat in Mexico instead of getting in fire fights with his team.  Sting's music still resonates and I like some of the World Music things he has done. Speaking of music I think one of the thinks that puts you in a certain generation is the music you like or in some cases the music that you listen to.  I guess this is one of the reasons that it something you either keep up with or give up on except for special occasions....

I was struck how much money you would need to have in the bank to get $20,000 in interest these days.  Seems to be about $2,000,000 at the blistering interest rate of 1%.  I missed the run up in gold but am sure that gold has very little nutritional value and eventually will need to be sold to buy food, shelter, and transportation.  The recent volatility in the stock market says something for diversification, but the way the market is moving doesn't give me much confidence in the old buy and hold saving/long term investment ideas I grew up with. I'm getting convinced that much of the balancing of the budget on the back of public employees will not help grow jobs.  Even people who work in the private sector sometimes don't understand the value of economic activity.  Advertising pays for much of the news we read and yet there are many that would eliminate even the ads we endure on the net.  Who will collect and write about the news.  And the cur...

I'm struck by logical inconsistencies in much of the scandalous behavior we hear about.  If it's college football we are disappointed when we recruit star athletes and then are disappointed that they are not great student athletes.  In politics we spend a great deal of time raising money to run for office and then are disappointed that policies are bent to support those that contribute the most.  I keep saying to myself, what were they thinking and sometimes what was I thinking.  A lot of problems are self inflicted wounds.  This is nothing new, but you would think that there would be more progress and that things would get better.  Maybe things are getting better but we just don't realize it.  There are a lot of things happening and sometimes the information we act on is incomplete or there is a certain amount of inertia in things in that we continue to fight the last war or wrongly believe that our own experience is either a reason for things to stay...

A rainy weekend in the Keys is a tropical depression.  Florida has not had a hurricane landfall in about five years but it looks like we have a visit from Irene later this week.  This is my reading of the information on TV.  Let's hope the mountains of Hispanola are able to weaken the storm enough so the weather is not too catastrophic. I lived through Andrew and that once in a lifetime storm was enough for me.  The storm was bad and in many ways the aftermath was even worse.  Losing electricity when it is hot is uncomfortable at best.  If you have storm damage working with insurance companies will be as difficult as finding work before the storm.  If we could only have a selective disaster, one that left people alone but took out some of the vacant properties that the banks can't sell, might mean the end of problems in the housing market in South Florida.  But I should be careful what I ask for.  The power of a direct hit from even ...

I know I read this somewhere.  "Just because you are not guilty, doesn't mean you aren't responsible."  This is something that is kind of hard to live up to if you want to minimize the bad and maximize the good. What happens if you have limited connection to a broken system, what happens if you have limited resources to change things positively? What about paradoxes when you get unintended results from something that you do? I guess you can just muddle through things and try not to harm anything or anybody. 

The situation in the UM Athletic Department is troubling but not entirely unexpected.  The "booster" in question is a bad person and has ripped off a lot of people including the UM.  There were players that accepted things that were against the rules.  The development people did not do an adequate background check of this person.  Athletic directors that served the university for the last 20 years were complicit in many of the problems that problems that keep popping up in college football and particularly at the UM.  Sam Jankovich, Paul Dee, Kirby Holcott and the current AD have failed miserably based on the current reports.  There is even talk among the chattering on the radio stations that the president of the university should resign if the allegations prove true. Paul Dee and his relationship the NCAA enforcement committee while this was occuring at the UM is extremely troubling.  Calling out other schools  while your own institution...

Last night I was hardly able to sleep.  The U looks like it will be the poster boy for bad behavior in college football again.  I am going to again invoke the famous saying down here.  "It's a Canes thing".  "You Don't Understand".  Sadly I think too many people will now say it's a Canes thing and we do understand.  I'm an alumni of the University of Miami.  I had season tickets for the football team for several years.  I now only attend games sporadically.  Getting around in big crowds is not worth the expense and effort these days.  I still watch games intensely on TV or listen to games on the radio.  I'm a fan, but not a "booster". Lack of institutional control is a given based on the story written on the front page of MIAMI HERALD.  This is not news among any of the major college football programs in the country.  It's only news if the NCAA has to enforce the unenforceable because things have gotten out of hand and...

Governor Perry should have to resign his office to run for another office.    If President Obama wanted to run for anything other than reelection he should also have to resign from office.  I'm of the opinion that running for office has gotten out of hand and you really can't tell when a politician isn't running for reelection or another office.  As much as they complain about raising money 24/7 and the fact that in the real world fund raising would really put a crimp in being a legislator, the world has been turned upside down and the legislative process is actually much more difficult than dialing for dollars.  A recent campaign to stop donations for incumbants isn't very likely to succeed but many of the long term incumbants are in such safe districts that money raised at home is doled out to other less senior folks as a form of influence peddling or used to scare off primary opponents. As a result talking points, fund raisers, and ...

I've given up a few battles lately.  I now carry a lot of change to feed parking meters.  In the past It was a game about beating the meter minder.  This may not mean much but I think the process of change began when I started picking up a passenger at the parent pick up point at school.  This is a surprisingly intricate process as it meant driving, mindfulness, and sweating or worrying about rain and pedestrians.

I wish I could follow plans that I make in the morning.  By noon I'm usually scrambling and trying to finish up a few things so I can kind of retreat.  I start out fast some times making a few trips to throw stuff out.  I like recycling.  I like doing laundry and I wash the dishes once a day.  (Usually in the morning.)  I over plan and under perform.  Then there is always something to slow me down.  Distraction is something I find simple and satisfying unless it conflicts with other distractions, which compete with having a life and some other dreams I have.

Not sure I agree with or understand current republican pledge to reject a budget deal that would cut expenditures ten times any increase in revenue.  This seems like a deal they should approve of immediately. Not sure which is more important: having a life or having a dream. I like the idea of being who we pretend to be.  Being is the operative verb.  Being is being and is harder to imitate because you can only stretch so far.

I'm kind of newly retired.  Left a job in government/social services and have worked at various part time and substitute teaching positions for the past couple of years.  Now I can say I've been through a few market meltdowns and have a lot of sympathies for people that are looking for their next job.  The skills required for the new jobs that are out there require skills which many don't have and a lot of the low skill jobs or entry level positions are being filled by people who would have gone on to other things but they stay on.  This is one of the reasons that we need to grow this economy.  Newspaper classifieds don't have many jobs and the search engines on the net are frustrating for many.  This is by design because there are so many people out there looking for work.  A successful job search these days is a lot more convoluted these day.

I woke up really early to check out what the financial markets were doing overseas.  The news was bad as there seemed to be financial carnage everywhere.  Then I settled into watching a discusion on Morning Joe where they were discussing the loss of thirty of our finest soldiers when a helicopter was shot down. My head went spinning around.  We are at war, we want to kill the enemy and they want to kill us.  This is not exactly a new concept but the response to the loss of thirty lives in a war as currently fought in the minds of most Americans is strange to me.  There have been about 6100 American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last ten years.  During the Viet Nam War there were almost 58,000 American soldiers killed.  About 20,000 were killed while they were trying to wind down the war from 1969 to 1973 (about 120 a week).  I never served in the military during the Viet Nam War and am not exactly a pacifis...

S&P has spoken.  The same agency that allowed stinky mortgage based securities to have higher than justified ratings until it was too late is wrong again.  To compare the current US debt problems with what is currently happening in Europe as of the August 8, 2012 is over blown. The debt problem is overblown what is not overblown is the country's political response to it's fiscal problems.  A pox on both your houses.  The Ryan Plan to deal with funding issues related to medicare financing was DOA after Republicans realized the political headaches it would cause.  The Democrats coulda, woulda, and shoulda beaten them around the head with policies that would have raised costs for the elderly poor that already made other plans based on current medicare promises. Sadly and I think S&P is correct in saying that the political situation in the country is not positive when dealing with this situation.  The brinksmanship of the debt ceiling deal was ...

There have been more than a few stories about the evils of proprietary schools.  In these days when it seems to be more and more important to have credentials, I think it is very important to review the credentials of the school one attends before they pay a lot of money to attend classes. Many of these schools spend a great deal of money recruiting students but don't spend as much money on placing these students in jobs after they complete classes if they indeed complete their classes. Maybe these schools schould be more selective in the actual enrollment of these students.  Many would be considered high risk students with poor records of achievement and little chance of successfully completing a technically demanding class. I would have two suggestions that would help the situation.  Strangely to some I would encourage those that are in a tough situation where they have lost a job that is unlikely to come back to go back to school and improve your skills in an a...

Congress wants to leave DC to continue the 24/7 campaign.  There is a lot of unfinished business.  There has been a lot of talk about appropriating money for the FAA.  Appointments from the Administration for the Consumer Protection Agency, judicial appointments and working on appropriations could all use some serious attention but it does'nt look like it is going to happen.  This is not a partisan issue.  Congress is just being congress and we are not being well served.  And they have the gall to suggest that others have too much vacation time.

There are a ton of phrases that should not be used if you are an elected official or are engaged in political speech.  Tar Baby can be safely added to the list.  If you have been elected or want to argue about politics these days even as a member of the public or just talking around the table and have not vetted everyone about who they voted for in the last election you might want to consult the political code word dictionary before you open your mouth.  Not everyone can be bailed out of a bad situation or has enough back class or a life time of work like Juan Williams who has been been able to land on his feet and write a book about it. At best you should just bite your tongue.  Don't try to be too folksy or descriptive.  It's hard enough trying to explain yourself without having labels like racist attached to everything you do or say these days.

Summer in Miami requires figuring out a way to escape the heat.  Since my retirement I've been reading more and the latest book was about letters between John and Abigail Adams.  I'm working on Stieg Larson trilogy and spend the better part of Saturday afternoon at the Flagler Dog Track that has been renamed the Magic City Casino.  This seems reasonable as I do some volunteer work and work two half days a week for the Miami Herald and don't have any self destructive habits to fill in the rest of the schedule.  At least that was what I thought until last week.  I've upgraded my cable and get a lot more channels. Nerdishly I used to watch CSPAN, MSNBC, and the occasional USA marathon.  Now with more channels I've learned the equivalent of speed dial on the remote and have access to TVG which shows live horse races accross the nation.  In my opinion Hialeah Park compares favorably with Saratoga as a venue.  Ojala that they could run the th...

This question is asked on several talk shows.  I think it's an interesting wrap up to a show.  A few days ago I learned that Congressman Allen West of Florida does not live in the district he represents and that the practice is legal.  The Constitution only requires residency in the state for service in Congress. I wonder if the people that voted for him care about where he lives.  Ironically he lives in Debbie Wasserman Schultz district and he could not vote for himself and probably would have lost to Wasserman Schultz had he run against her. Sunday evening I learned that passage of the debt ceiling in the House of Representatives will require a lot of conservative and moderate democrats vote along with a relatively small number of republicans.  I know the legislation to be passed is complicated and relates to a plan to reduce the deficit along with passing the increase in the debt ceiling and won't satisfy the more extreme positions in ...

This is one more time the vaunted two party system has already failed this country.  Saturday night I listened to one senator after another say we needed to raise the debt ceiling and then go off depending on their politics to say we need to lower the deficit, reduce spending, tax the rich, protect the poor, elderly, defend medicare, medicaid and lots of other things. Earlier in the week, the Pew Center released a study about the wide gap in wealth between ethnic groups in this country. The median afro american household has less than $7,000 in wealth, while the median anglo family has about $123,000 in wealth.  There were also statistics that the weathiest are getting wealthier faster than ever before.  In Florida which has some of the richest zip codes in the country, the unemployment rate in Miami Dade County is a little over 13%.  Tourism jobs are rebounding but there is still a need for efforts to grow the economy and stabilize things. The politics of...

There have been several legislative initiatives to make it harder to vote for students, minority groups, and the elderly by using id requirements more stringent, making it harder to register on election day, and shortening the period for early voting.  This is being done in the name of stopping fraud related voting.  A more candid explanation might be to game the voting process to lessen the impact of poorer, vulnerable, and liberal voters. One of the answers to increasing voter turn out is to make the process more voter friendly.  I don't believe voter fraud is that big an issue and to the extent that it is an issue you can find anecdotal stories that involve both democrats and republicans. Voting rights are fundamental to a functioning democracy and the insiders are messing with the process when it favors one group over another as some of the proposed and newly passed legislation seems to. This may just be another little piece of the incumbent forever mentality ...

I like sports of almost any variety, but I don't get all the sports talk about the end of the NFL lockout.  It would seem that this has been a contrived by talk shows because they need to fill some air time and they have all been programmed to follow the season(s) as dictated by the NFL. I'm not even sure if the Hall of Fame Game has been cancelled and my interest in the pre-season is limited.  I don't have a fantasy team and am able to get enough football information through The Miami Herald.  I realize that a lot of money is gambled on football games and a lot of time is spent in front of TVs, at sports bars, and for all too many people Sunday is organized around when the game is going to be on TV.  I would vote to start the Sunday Service at my church at 9:00 am to avoid any conflict with a 1:00 pm kickoff.  There is a lot of time, effort, and treasure for a home game if you have bought tickets for the game.  I can't dispute the impact of...