Sunday Morning Coming Down

Fidel Castro dead at 90 Late-breaking news of Fidel Castro's death arrived past the printing deadline. Please visit miamiherald.com for the latest news and special coverage. The Saturday Morning paper had no mention of Fidel's death.  Raul Castro announced his older brother's death Friday night.  The party broke out after 1:00 AM in South Florida Celebrations broke out at the Versasailles Restaurant on Calle Ocho and pots and pans were banged in Hialeah as if the Dolphins had won the Super Bowl. I wonder how many editors will be back in their offices this morning scrambling.  The previous reports of Fidel's death have been greatly exaggerated, this time, it looks like he really bought the farm. I anticipate no great return to Cuba but I think Havana will see a spike in tourists from Miami.  It may even be a good and cheap place to retire. And this is the lead from El Herald: Fidel Castro prometió democracia, pero implantó una dictadura comunista que emp...

I enjoy the benefits of clean air living in South Florida.  I also enjoy the benefits of clean water.  Judging by the growth in population in Florida and impact of tourism to help pay the bills, our good environment is important. I attended West Virginia University to get a graduate degree in public administration in 1975.  The mostly rural state has many small towns that were populated by folks that worked as coal miners.  In 1975 there were issues about acid rain which was a byproduct burning coal in power plants.  There were also issues between two different types of mining.  Underground mining meant digging holes into mountains and surface mining that morphed into mountaintop removal and then digging out the coal with heavy equipment followed by "reclamation". Fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas all add greenhouse gases which have lead to higher temperatures, droughts and stronger storms and rising sea levels.  Acid rain hurts forests ...

Richard Spencer's "Hail Trump" was creepy enough.  “America was, until this last generation, a white country, designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation and our inheritance, and it belongs to us,” according to Spencer. Makes Barry Goldwater seem like flaming liberal.

The best tickets to Hamilton on Broadway cost $849 according to the New York Times and Super Bowl tickets might be more than $3000 according to Stubhub.  It is estimated that game tickets for the 2016 World Series was around $1500. I guess I won't be going to NYC for Hamilton, the Superbowl, or the World Series, that is unless I win the Powerball before I die.  

The cast of "Hamilton" had something to say to the VP Elect.  What did he expect? I am reminded of HST: “No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”

The Gettysburg Address was given by A. Lincoln on November 19, 1863. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated...

Lebron Jackson and Phil Jackson have a dust up over the term posse.  About twelve years ago when Lebron James was about 19 years old PJ expressed some doubts about kids out of high school playing in the NBA, making an obscene amount of money and the posses that develop. Somehow or other that has resurfaced. LJ played in Miami, brought championships and his friends and business associates may have been an inconvenience to some but in retrospect I'm damn near positive Pat, Eric, Mickey and the rest of the Heat family would have liked him to stay.  They guy generated a lot of interest in basketball and he has developed wide ranging business interests.  He isn't the last guy on the bench and in Cleveland like Miami, he is the reason they contended for championships. The word posse isn't racist. Although I'm sure that there are folks who would make that jump because rich folks have associates that go on trips with them for various reasons.  When the President of the U...

From the South Florida Business Journal I read the following: Jungle Island, a zoological park on Miami's Watson Island, could be replaced by a hotel and other upgrades if a group investors gets a hold of the property. Aventura-based ESJ Capital Partners and a group led by Bern Levine , who bought the wildlife park back when it was called Parrot Jungle, confirmed with the Miami Herald that a sale is in the works for the 18-acre property. The buyers would take over Jungle Island's lease and its debt. Yes Parrot Jungle left Pinecrest awhile ago to be repositioned on Watson Island and the experiment hasn't been a flaming success.  I've been to the new Jungle Islaand a few times and the attraction is ok.  Its location isn't a fun place to drive to.  Somebody thought that being near cruise ships, downtown, closer to the beach... would be a real boon. The owners fought with the City of Pinecrest about expansion.  The result was a new library, communit...

Coming off of the Chicago Cubs World Series victory I saw several things.  The season is long, it has its ups and downs, the team needs good leadership and talented players.  And probably the most important thing is teamwork where folks lift each other up rather than tear each other down.

The World Golf Championship formerly held in Doral, Florida has been moved to Club de Golf Chapultepec, Mexico City, MEX • Purse: $9,750,000.

1) Lots of folks who voted, left the line where you voted for President of the United States blank.  The obvious statement being I don't like either candidate of the major parties.  And the result is you are stuck with the decision that someone else made because they did fill in that bubble and you did not. 2) A not insignificant number of voters voted for third party candidates who really had no chance to win.  Again you will be stuck with the result of your decision. 3) A lot of other folks may be stuck with the result of protest votes like this.  Let's hope folks with preexisting conditions don't get kicked to the curb if Obamacare is repealed without a replacement in the wings. 4) The "wall" may not be the best way to deal with many complicated immigration issues and large scale deportation of folks who overstayed tourist visas, work in the hospitality industry, agriculture may cause other unintended results. 5) Tax code changes may again benefit the ...

The latest voting totals for 2016 presidential election are: Clinton/Kaine 59,419,852 Trump/Pence  59,233,335. Electoral College Trump/Pence  279                              Clinton/Kaine 228 The Senate and the House will remain in Republican hands. Everybody is ringing their hands about the election results in the "Blue Firewall" that included Michigan and Wisconsin.  There were issues in 2016 that affected the results in these two states. I would suggest that folks look back at the results of the 1972 Democratic Primary and the vote totals in Florida, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Wisconsin: George McGovern finished #1                    George Wallace     finished #2 Michigan:  George Wallace  ...

I'm not sure the pollsters got it so wrong when you put it all together.  There were almost 116,000,000 ballots cast in the presidential election and there was a difference of about 500,000 votes and the sum total of that 500,000 votes made a pretty significant difference in the electoral college and swung the election to the republicans and Donald Trump. If you got out of the city, in farm country, coal country or in the oil patch, and drive a pick up truck you were in Trump Country.  It's different out there and farm prices are down, oil prices are down, and maybe the factory where you worked is gone. A tale of two cities, some places are doing very well and for other places things are not going well.  It doesn't help to call out people as deplorable, nobody feels like they are deplorable, it just pisses them off more.  There are more than enough angry folks out there.  I hope things get better, they might get  worse but eight years ago things were pr...

And I say so what else is new?  If you live in Miami, Florida, a lot of people overstay their 2-B visas.  Tourists get sand in their shoes and don't really want to go back home.  When the seas are calmer, there are folks smuggled into this country.  I know it's an issue that needs to be dealt with. This almost isn't news, except that the person in question is the current wife of a presidential candidate.  It is at best ironic that a presidential candidate became its party's nominee saying he would build a wall and question President Obama's birth certificate. Johnny Cash wrote a song: "What Is Truth?".

I've been getting a lot of calls asking who I am voting for this year.  I wish the first question before they go through all the other questions was "Have you voted".  Click #1 for Yes or Click #2 for No. If you answer yes the preferred response would be thank you for your time and effort.  Good bye.

I really hope the Cubs accept the invitation to visit the White House from President Obama. 

Fowler hits a home run leading off.  The team that scores first in the seventh game of the World Series has gone 15-1. The Cubs built a lead of 5-1 and folks were starting to count down to a Cosmic World Series. In the 5th inning the wheels started to come off.  A bad throw by Ross the catcher, allowed Cleveland to claw back a lot closer.  Ross makes up for his error with a home run in his last game.  The Cosmic World Series is again looking good.  Lester, who had come in for Hendricks settled down, Chapman came in for Lester who had relieved Hendricks.  Baez had hit a home run to make up for an error.  Things seemed good until it became clear that Kluber, Hendricks, and Chapman's arms were tired and the hitters were zoning in after seeing these guys often enough in a seven game series.  Chapman blew a 6-3 lead. The game as headed to extra innings. The game was tied and then it started to rain. About twenty minutes late the Cubs came out and...

Cub bats were hot and the weather in the Cleveland was unseasonably warm. This morning I'm reminded of playing APBA Baseball, a "board game" on a card table in a tiny bedroom with my cousin. The following is a description of the game from Wikipedia. The company's first offering was a baseball simulation table game using cards to represent each major league player, boards to represent different on-base scenarios (e.g. "Bases Empty", "Runners on First and Third," "Bases Loaded"), and dice to generate random numbers. Seitz's product was derived from the game National Pastime, invented and patented by Clifford Van Beek in 1925, [2] a game which Seitz played in his youth. [3] The game can be played against another person or in solitaire fashion. Devoted fans keep track of the results and assess how players' performance compares to their real-life statistics. The game was fantasy baseball before fantasy baseball.  Last ...