Sunday Morning Coming Down

So you rent the Bayfront Park in Miami for the weekend. Put up gigantic speakers and hire the biggest celebrity  DJs in the world. Call it The Ultra Music Festival and you can sell weekend passes for $399. I doubt the city fathers when they approved this event really appreciated what they were getting into. The hotels, restaurants and all the rest of hospitality industry saw dollar signs.  Upwards of 160,000 visitors were expected.  Does the term "Woodstock" mean anything to you all? Yes, Biscayne Boulevard's traffic was screwed up for the weekend, there were lots of gate crashers and a security guard was trampled and in the hospital with a severe brain hemorrhage, and there certainly was drug usage. Unfortunately this wasn't three days of "Peace and Music".  The fences didn't work very well at Woodstock either.  Pictures from a helicopter of the scene were kind of scary as lots folks jumped over the fence at one point.  According to reports th...

There is a show TV called "The Horseplayers" on the "Esquire Station".  Several players are followed as they try to qualify for a big handicapping tournament in Las Vegas where they can win a more than a million dollars.  These guys look the part and they are very good handicappers and make their living doing what they do. I'm a sucker for this kind of show, mostly because the episodes are at pretty places and it doesn't cost anything to see these guys get crushed, even if they have are good at what they do.  Wouldas and couldas and a lot of if, buts and maybes along the way.  You need a lot of luck, you need to have done your homework, and have a bankroll that can keep you in the game. Today is the richest day in racing at Mayden at Dubai, the Florida Derby is being run at  Gulfstream Park, and the Louisiana Derby is happening at the Fair Grounds. The Kentucky Derby Future Book is open and you can make an early wager and then hope your horse has enough ...

Keeping teenagers entertained these days is big business.  And this one of the bigger differences in the fifty years that have transpired since I was thirteen years old.  Cell phones are also game changers but that is for another day I remember getting an allowance.  I remember working around the house, yard, and doing special stuff to earn extra money until I could get a regular part time job washing dishes for $1.25@ hour at the farm.  There were summer jobs at the golf course and working at the waste water treatment plant. Now spring break in Miami for a middle schooler includes beach time, movies, field trips to the water parks, the mall for shopping and providing taxi service from 10:00 am until bedtime.  Summer camp at a local park is for losers.  Breaks from schools make sense, but these days they can also be child care problems. Kids between 14-17 need jobs, just like adults but the economy ain't like it used to be and in some ways we are crea...

College football players recognized as employees by Chicago Office of the NLRB. I thought Northwestern would never be a football factory.  How they ever made it into the Big Ten/Eleven/Twelve is also a mystery worth looking into.  What happened yesterday has the potential of changing college sports in a big way. I can imagine Alabama Coach, Nick Saban having kittens negotiating with players over conditioning practices.  Wind sprints, sit ups, Gatorade... pads, no pads all these things could be on the table.  Oh my! In return for scholarships the schools pretty much regulate the player's lives.  Why shouldn't players be concerned about scholarship guarantees, medical care and practice hours?  Individually players don't have much leverage, but as a group they have some protections and a process for grievances the NCAA leaves to its member schools. How this ultimately shakes out is any body's guess but calling student athletes employees is hu...

The junior senator from the great state of Florida is peeved because he can't get limousine service on demand in Miami.  A taxi might not be big enough for his posse.  He calls Uber and gets told no can do.  The service is available but it costs $70 and you have to wait at least an hour for the service.  The taxi industry in Miami which is regulated doesn't like more competition, but I can see more than a few reasons for regulation.  The most basic reason is the race to the bottom if there were no regulation of taxis.  Unsafe vehicles, unlicensed drivers, scams related to routes and charges would be the rule and folks who visit here would have little recourse. The system may need some updating but for Marco Rubio this plea for deregulation is just a politician asking for a for a free ride and given his history of mixing campaign funds and personal business as a state senator I have my doubts.

The May 18th, Miami Herald had a story about a report issued by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.  The imbalance between spending on sports and academics is increasing in the football/basketball factories. This report will probably be filed away like a lot of other reports made by committees.  But I think college presidents would be wise to change the way they do business because I think spending on sports has reached a level where some perverse things are happening. The Southeast Conference spent about $246,468 per student athlete.  That's a lot of money and the costs of supporting an athlete that plays football has increased 70%in 10 years while there has only been a 6% increase in support for non-athletes. Houston, we have a problem and there needs to be a complete rethinking of the place college sports have in higher education.  I like college football a great deal but something is out of whack. Scandals and cheating of all sorts seems to ...

I'm tired of the latest coverage of Flight 370 and its disappearance.  Today there is not a single story about the lost plane in the news section of the Miami Herald.  Until the plane is found there doesn't seems to be anything new in this story.  The newspaper is correct in using scarce reporting resources elsewhere.  The reporting of rumor on top of rumor is better left to cable outlets and talk shows which seem to drone on and on and regularly go into overkill mode on stuff that seems to get ratings. I'll be happy to wait until there is something concrete to report for the next story on this tragedy. Meanwhile President Obama is coming to Miami again for a fund raiser.  The evening rush hour near the airport should be a little more screwed up than usual.  This information won't help the situation in the Crimea but it might help some folks avoid what might be a real jam up traffic wise.

Rising at about 6:30 am things were normal enough on Sunday.  Coffee and then off to the Internet to check the news and down load the program from from Remington Park in Oklahoma where there will be some quarter horse racing this afternoon. The headline in the Miami Herald were about hundreds of kids killed because of abuse in spite of having some connection to the Florida Department of Children and Families who is supposed to protect these kids and maintain families when the mother and father have issues.  I'm not sure there are any good answers to this problem and the retirees in Florida are probably doing the best they can being one of the bigger providers of child care in the state while they hope to avoid being sentenced to a nursing home. It's pledge time on NPR and at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Miami and in spite of that I listen to the radio and go to church on Sunday.  I give a 90+ year old lady a ride to church.  Not exactly driving Miss...

Death and taxes are certainties, but I have had conversations with people about taxes, income and seen billboards recently that make me wonder if only death is a certainty. My guru on taxes was my father.  A bean counter if there ever was one.  He was very clear about a couple of things, declare all your income and file your returns.  This makes sense to me.  He enjoyed trying to figure out realities in matters and also believed in taking deductions.  Again this makes sense.  Depreciation was a good friend of his, as were receipts and notes on the receipts. In Miami there are billboards advertising refunds on your federal income taxes based on your family size.  I imagine the amounts advertised are related to the earned income tax credit.  I think the idea of a tax credit for low income workers is a good idea.  Unfortunately lots of folks take liberties with this portion of the tax law and tax preparers often assist in this type of tax fr...

There were a lot of things going on in the Miami neighborhood yesterday.  The Doral Golf Tournament finished up yesterday and the street festival known as Calle Ocho filled a lot of downtown Miami.  I attended neither yesterday.  Both events were on TV and I had other fish to fry. Until recently I would spend money for a pass to the golf tournament and watch the best golfers in the world practice and play in Miami.  Tiger Woods sort of changed that because of all the new fans he brought to the tournament.  The larger crowds made it a different experience and I adjusted by watching also rans who teed off early and then went home watch the leaders on TV in the afternoon.  The golf is great, but it is a different game these days.  They hit the ball a long way and the short game is amazing. I enjoyed a hot dog or maybe a burger and a beer while walking the course.  These days you spend extra and go to an air conditioned tent where the catered food...

Last Thursday was my last day working for the Miami Herald.  Shortly before the end of my route it became difficult to walk.  This is something that happens after the race and not during the race.  The money wasn't that important, the routine, the connection, the exercise and more than a few intangibles were more important.  Counting the product, counting steps, dodging the rain and heat in the summer, enjoying the walk in pretty neighborhoods when the weather was cool, and listening to the radio as I stumbled my way around 600 +/- houses was the deal.  The work did not require a great deal of education.  When I turned in the GPS they used to track their workforce, my Herald contact thanked me. My first job in Florida was with the Miami Herald.  The hiring process taught me something.  I did not get interviewed or hired the first time I applied to work there.  I kept seeing the same ad in the classified section looking for copy clerks and w...