Sunday Morning Coming Down

Living in Florida means you have early bird specials, blue hair specials and a lot of senior citizen discounts especially if you live on the West Coast of Florida.  I live in a modest condominium community in Miami where there are a lot of retirees and a few young families.  The ethnic demographics are also diverse with folks from a lot of different countries.  About 15% of Miami Dade County’s population is above 65 years of age.  One of the faster growing demographic groups is the 90+ cohort Living in Florida also meant that there are complete communities for those over 55.  Your grandchildren can visit but they can’t stay.  Charlotte County Florida has a population that has almost 34% of the population over the age of 65.  It’s even more pronounced in Sumter County where about 43% of the population is over the age of 65. According to 2012 population estimates about 18% of Florida’s population is 65+.  The average in the United Sta...

I rented a room on top of a pretty big hill in Morgantown, West Virginia, while attending graduate school at WVU.  It's said the West Virginia would be as big as Texas if they flattened out the hills and mountains.  The room was in my price range $200 a semester.  Even adjusting for inflation it was a fire trap in the days before smoke alarms.  But it had location, location, and location.  Graduate school without a car and little money required some adjustments.  The room was close to the student union, three college bars, almost all my classes and not much further to the library and downtown Morgantown. The hill was significant.  The direct route from University Avenue to the room had no sidewalk, but it did have steps, the stairway to heaven.  Now I wish I had counted those steps and the change in elevation.  It was a hike and I wish I had some easy access to pictures. The neighborhood was called Sunnyside. I wish I had a step counter...

Oh Canada, you're worried about frozen ponds in the winter? The NHL is the first professional league to work on a report regarding their environmental impact according to its Commissioner.  Ironically I think the NHL has only recently gone outside to play a few games.  The temporary rinks probably still need something to make sure the quality of the ice is up to speed. All the professional sports and major college sports have some environmental impact.  Buildings cost money and heating and cooling those buildings uses energy.  And going to and from sporting events uses fossil fuels in massive amounts.  The area needed for parking or the parking garages that need to be built for is considerable and all this stuff doesn't include the subsidies taxpayers give to team owners in many different ways. Golf courses have environmental impacts.  Ponds may be stocked with fish, and birds may have trees, and various animals may have habitat to live in.  But ...

According to Icelandic Review, Iceland has been named the most peaceful country in the world for the seventh consecutive year.  Runners up are Denmark, Austria, and New Zealand. Factors the index takes into account are, among others: the proportion of the population in jail, freedom of the press, perceived willingness to fight in wars, access to weapons, violent crime, gender inequality and political corruption. Despite its high standing, Iceland’s peace GPI has deteriorated slightly since last year, mostly due to increased defense spending.  

Australia has a compulsory voting law.  Citizens are required to show up and vote.  After the election, if you don't vote, you get a letter, and must either explain your non voting or pay a fine of about $20.00. I have some philosophical problems with this approach to require voting but the situation in this country is getting so so bad that we need to get past the games played by the parties now to something that would make the whole process more democratic. Instead of getting more difficult to vote it should be easier to vote.  Turn out which is already too low, would be higher and as a result fringe ideas which get over represented now would still exist but maybe folks in the middle who seem to have no where to go might actually get represented. I think it would also be easier to dispose of folks that misuse their office. I realize this would probably cause the local election departments to grow and might add to the bureaucracy but it may also change the voting...

NCAA basketball players can get a technical foul if they don't have their jersey tucked in.  Having your jersey tucked in might make slightly more difficult to grab if you are running down the court on your way to a dunk.  I doubt that safety is a concern. It's much more likely a response to the Marquette University and their creativity in marketing their basketball uniforms.  The Wikipedia website shows sixteen different uniforms the school has used. Two of those uniforms were banned by the NCAA.  One had horizontal stripes and it was alleged to disorient opposing players and was subsequently banned by the NCAA. The other uniform that was eventually banned was designed to not be tucked in. Marquette was on the bottom of the shirt, close to the belt line.  The jersey was designed by Bo Ellis a star player on the 1977 NCAA Champion Team.  A little creativity can go a long way.  It's posited in the movie Untucked that the uniform was a key catalyst...

I'm kind of amazed the Rory McIlroy's Dad and three other friends were smart enough to make a bet ten years ago that Rory would win the British Open before his 26th birthday.  The win paid off big.  The following was reported by AOL this morning. According to  Andrew Cotter of BBC , Rory McIlroy's father, Gerry, placed a bet in 2004 that his son would win the British Open before he turned 26 years old. A spokesperson for British betting firm Ladbrokes told Rachel Bridge of  ESPN.com on Sunday that two other bets were made in 2005 by people believed to be Gerry's friends. According to Bridge, Gerry wagered 200 pounds at 500/1 odds while his friends bet 200 pounds at 250/1 odds for Rory to win the British Open by 2015 and another  200 pounds at 150/1 odds for McIlroy to win the tournament before age 50. Bookmaking on just about anything is legal in Britain.

Locally this show is on WLRN in Miami at 4:00 pm on Saturdays.  Some story telling at its best.  I usually catch the back half of the program on the way back from watching some races.  The stories are usually interesting enough that I might sit in the car to listen to the end of the story. Yesterday there was a story about a guy who worked at a bank.  The guy also liked gambling and he had access to cash.  This guy was in almost in all other ways a straight shooter.  Educated, but I could tell by his tone of voice a person, but also a stone cold degenerate gambler.  He took money from the bank ($50,000) and went to the casino in Detroit at lunch. I'm listening and know this isn't going to end well.  I never go anywhere I can gamble with over $100 in my pocket.  I carry a debit card for emergencies.  I've watched little old ladies walk up to the cash advance window and pull out their credit cards and borrow money to play slot machines a...

Ed O'bannon is suing the NCAA for using using his name and likeness in a video game and not paying him. The NCAA has a licensing agreement with a video game company for various college sports but the money doesn't go to any of the players, except very indirectly if you believe the NCAA Why should the NCAA benefit and not the players.  The NCAA says the players receive scholarships and that is a big benefit.  Unfortunately star athletes don't receive bigger scholarships than non star athletes. Almost all college athletes are more like Rudy of Notre Dame fame than Johnny Manziel or Andre Wiggins. One of the more interesting arguments about the case if you believe that scholarships are sufficient compensation for playing big time college football, is what happens to all the other money generated by big time sports. 1) Coaches get paid an obscene amount of money. 2) Stadiums and facilities get more elaborate with sky boxes and other perks for the chosen few. 3) Non re...

The Bolivian Congress has passed a bill that will legalize Child Labor at age 10.  It is awaiting the signature of left leaning President Evo Morales. Legally this seems to be going backwards.  Child Labor is something most countries are moving away from as a matter of official policy, but in some ways it is just acknowledging what is a normal practice.  Lots of kids are working the streets and in some ways the condition of kids in South American cities is something out of Charles Dickens and Oliver Twist. In Bolivia approximately 15% of the labor market are children below the age of 14.  GDP per person is about $1010. The new law requires kids to be attending school and can't work under contract in sweat shops until they are 12.  Kids must be with parents. Obviously, Bolivia's child care programs don't meet the need of parents or children.  I'm not really sure this will help Bolivia move towards more 21st Century Jobs, because I think this will also ...

I realize most folks in government are more than a little bit paranoid when dealing with the press and for lack of a better way to communicate they are told to keep on message.  Repetition is a way to reinforce a message.  The press unfortunately does the same thing by repeating the same question over and over. The Governor of Florida Rick Scott got on the merry go round with the press regarding having on duty police attend a campaign function.  The leader of a local police union complained about the use of on duty officers as window dressing for a political event.  There are Florida Statutes against the practice. Q: Are you doing anything differently to make sure that an event like last week  (having on-duty officers appear at your campaign event)  doesn't happen again? Scott: We're always making sure that we comply with the law, comply with the rules. Here's what's nice. The police chief association I'm real proud that they endorsed me. 40 s...

I stopped by a CVS branch near UM to buy a couple of things and as I walk out I realize the check out area now has been completely taken over by scanners and a single minder that will help you through the process if you are technologically challenged or are underage and want to buy beer or wine I guess.  They may agree you are over 21 or they may not care and just swipe their card for you, affirming you are 21. This is the ultimate answer for customer service.  Provide no customer service and you check your self out. I realize I'm getting old.  But I do shop on line and buy stuff from Amazon and have used other websites as well and enjoy sending packages to myself, I'm not a complete Luddite. There is something in a personal touch these days that is going out the window as stores realize they can almost do away with sales clerks and cut back on baggers because more than a few folks now think it is normal to bag your own groceries. Some MBA probably did a study s...

I live in a neighborhood with some parking issues.  There is some on street parking in the neighborhood but who is the parking for?  During my lifetime we have gone from being a one car family, to a two car family, to a car for every driver in the house type family.  This may be as big a change in the "modern family" as any that have happened.  On the other hand there are also more folks riding bicycles, and a lot of folks that really don't want to own a car, if they can get away with it. About 30 plus years ago I had a friend buy a one bedroom apartment at the southern end of South Beach. The apartment included a parking space in the garage.  Buying early in the preconstruction phase of the multi story development he also bought a private garage for what at the time seemed like a lot of money for the time for the ability to close a garage door and even have space for over flow stuff from his apartment.  He initially thought of it as a good investment bec...

Today's sports section in The Miami Herald asks a poll question about Brazilian fans crying after losing to Germany in the World Cup Semi Finals. A) It shows their deep passion for the sport. B) Get over it, it's only a game. I have a third option. C) I guess I bet too much money on that game and how am I going to tell my wife. I did not have a dog in that fight and I certainly did not bet money on a team that would be playing without one of its best players.  Germany really covered the spread on that game and as thing like that go I wonder if the Brazilian coach is looking for another gig. Tom Hanks said there's no crying in baseball in the movie: A League of Their Own.  I watched the Chicago Cubs flame out in 2003.  I don't remember the camera man panning the crowd looking for sobbing Cub fans, but that doesn't mean a few tears weren't shed, maybe not in public on TV, but privately, after they got back to the car, or at home staring in disbelief at ...

One day I post something about "truth, knowing, and ignorance".  The next day I read something in USA Today which says a lot of the stuff we "know" is wrong, incomplete, distorted, and subject to revision. A lot of stuff in medicine changes every day, so I can understand the scientific idea that our knowledge is both incomplete and subject to revision.  How many doctors do you see smoking these days?  If you had a doctor that smoked in his office, you might get a friendly opinion about your smoking habits, but how good is that opinion? I doubt he would advise anybody to start smoking but they did at one time in medical history. The article also reminded me that information about our economy like GDP numbers and unemployment numbers are revised almost on a monthly basis and as more information is received they can be revised again. And politicians are experts in distorting stuff for their own purposes to discredit an opponent or take credit for something they d...

According to the Harper's Index, May 2014 there was a minimum of $280 billion in wage theft in 2012 where workers were not paid overtime, the minimum wage, illegal deductions, working off the clock, employee mis classification, or not being paid at all. In 2010 the Miami Dade Board of County Commissioners passed a local ordinance which outlawed wage theft and amazingly it was one of the first local governments to pass such an ordinance. The Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division is the federal agency charged with enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.  According to Wikipedia there are only 1100 inspectors to investigate these kinds of complaints for a workforce of 135 million people in over 7.3 million businesses. Women, the foreign born and undocumented workers are at the greatest risk for being victims of wage theft but it can happen to anyone and even workers at Walmart have had continued problems with compliance with the FLSA of 1938. From personal experien...

H.L. Mencken once said: Better to tell the truth than lie, better to know, than be ignorant, and better to be free than a slave.  I heard this quote on a program and no credit was given to its author.  And then almost immediately I fumbled around trying to remember what the second better thing was.  I remembered clearly about telling the truth and the comparison between being free and a slave, but really had to puzzle over remembering that it was better to know than be ignorant. In fact I googled the quote to see who wrote it and jump start my memory.  The quote lead to Wikipedia and some facts about Mencken, who became known as the Sage of Baltimore.  Mencken was journalist and author who wrote The American Language. The guy was an unapologetic atheist. I wouldn't doubt that he read about Robert Ingersoll,  and was folksy and funny like Mark Twain. "Deep within the heart of every evangelist lies the wreck of a car salesman." "The men Americans admi...

Yes there is a lot more buzz about soccer these days and I've even watched USA play their matches. Twelve years ago I got up at about 5:30 am to watch Brazil play in the finals against Germany.  The bar opened early and you could eat breakfast while you watched the match.  Even then there were a lot of folks from Brazil in Miami and Houligans Bar was an interesting venue, even if playing in South Korea made the time difference a pain. This year Miami was alive with soccer again.  David Beckham and partners are looking for a handout to build a stadium downtown, first at the seaport, then maybe if they would fill in a part of the bay they had dredged to house maybe another cruise ship, and finally in a space near the Marlins Park site of the old Orange Bowl.  TBA I guess. I'm entertained by the gushing praise given the team this year.  Getting to the Sweet Sixteen is much better than not qualifying for the Soccer Big Dance, but it is hardly like playing in t...

I'm afraid I have to admit that I stole this line from a thoughtful atheist.  The atheist's website is whygodwonthealamputees.com.  Check it out if you feel like it.  I not sure prayer to a god works, but there certainly are good things to be said about meditation and thinking about whatever problems you might have and then asking for help when it is needed. The title suggests the futility of certain actions and I would generally agree that planning on winning the lottery to solve your financial woes is a probably not going to work, but getting good legal advise, good medical advice and a trade or skill that pays good money will solve a lot of problems. I must admit one thing.  I have lived for about 10 years longer than I might have because of a hip replacement.  The quality of my life has been good and I am anticipating having to get the first replacement replaced eventually if something else doesn't trip me up.  Before hip replacement you were most l...

There is a lot of hand wringing going on about the border these days.  The problem on the border isn't one problem but a lot of problems on the border, that is a long border and almost impossible to defend, if defend is the correct term which it probably isn't. A significant factor in the growth of population in this country is net positive immigration in spite of record numbers of deportations of undocumented immigrants.  Some sources say that about 400,000 are deported on a yearly basis.  Drugs are brought into the country across the border, there are a great number of economic refugees looking for better jobs which don't exist in their country, and now there are an estimated 50,000 unaccompanied minors crossing the border due to unrest and dangerous conditions in their country. I remember quite well the immigration situation in Miami in April of 1980 when the Mariel Boat Lift took place and about 125,000 from Cuba arrived between April and the end of October. Presi...

Swett, South Dakota is for sale.  $400,000 for a bar, a workshop, three trailers, and a house. Swett is two hours south east of Rapid City is sort of where the highway ends and the Wild West begins according to a local bar patron.  The Swett Tavern is the only place in a 10 mile radius where you can get a drink.  The joint serves cowboys and wheat farmers. My mother's family comes from Grund, Manitoba. It's not the end of the earth but if you have binoculars you can see it.  I used to get the United Farm Catalog which listed houses, farms, ranches, and businesses that seemed to be miles from nowhere.  I've bought and read the book, Miles From Nowhere: Tales from America's Contemporary Frontier, by Duncan Dayton. I looked at a 70 acre goat farm in Williston, North Dakota before the fracking boom.  Crime in Miami in the late 70's kind of freaked me out for a while and I thought it might be time to blow this pop stand.  Being a financial aid counselor...