Sunday Morning Coming Down

Barney Fife tells Andy "Nip it in the bud".  A truism if there ever was one.  It's memorialized on YouTube and the episode is on cable periodically.  This is something easy to talk about but hard to execute.  Talk is cheap, that's why there is so much of it.  Lots of strategies to do stuff fall apart because they are unpopular or because they are not big enough to be effective in the short run and we limit effectiveness by having contradictory policies and values. There has been a lot of righteous hand wringing about Miley Cyrus and her performance on the Video Music Awards.  I didn't see it when it happened but it sure did what was intended and maybe a little bit more. It's not easy to protect kids from stuff these days and if you are overly protective it can boomerang easily and meanwhile the sea level is rising.  Elementary school is a cake walk compared to Middle School and High School. The business terms span of control, micro management, ...

College football starts shortly, it is still hot but in about six weeks it should start getting cooler, somewhere around Columbus Day, maybe if we are lucky.  The hurricane season has been mysteriously quiet this year so far but it still has a way to go before December 1. While stumbling around on Thursday there was a feature on the radio about Cuban Coffee and the time, and the area code for South Florida.  This is a marketer's trifecta.  A small shot of Cuban coffee is pretty much routine at almost any Miami Office and it might well happen at about 3:05 pm.  Rituals are like this and it is one thing I miss since retiring. Watch in your local market for a new brand of Cuban expresso called 305.  Pilon and Llave (the current local Cuban Coffees) are roasted by the same company might need to give up some shelf space if this catches on.  If you are in Doral at the right time of day you can smell coffee being roasted.

It has been said that 1972 Miami Dolphins are a bunch of bitter old farts.  It's been reported they drink a toast every year honoring the team that beats the last undefeated team during the NFL football season.  Each year their record as the only team with a perfect season gets a year older. I remember that championship season, I lived in Miami and it introduced me to a uniquely Miami celebration technique.  Folks stood on corners and banged on pots and pans.  This was inspired in comparison to Morgantown, West Virginia where they burned old furniture. President Obama invited the team to the White House to celebrate the perfect season and probably as a shout out to the National Football League. Not very strangely these days several members of the team decided to boycott the event.  Jim Langer, Bob Kuechenberg, and Manny Fernandez have opted out for political reasons.  These guys have all benefited from their careers in pro football and they have ...

I'm writing this down so if and when I start forgetting stuff I might remember 8/18/2013. This was one those Sunday Mornings that started slowly but had a mission.  Sometimes the mission is as simple as reading the Miami Herald, making coffee, and going to church. Other times it is checking lottery numbers and down loading the results from Los Alamitos after I've fallen asleep watching "The Quarters" on TVG. A quick check of Facebook gave me something to do.  Randy Weidner, trainer for Thunder Struck had an entry in the Northern Plains Stallion Stakes at Canterbury Park and after the race he would be moving on to Prairie Meadows for their meet that opened on Saturday night. Downloading the past performances I remembered Randy saying he had a shot at a futurity race somewhere down the road.  I guess this was it.  On paper it wasn't a slam dunk.  A 4th last out against maiden $7500 claimers might give one indigestion and a reason to sit on your ...

People fighting for your business.  Economists call it competition.  It will be interesting to see if South Florida will be able to support all the gambling venues that are now open.  Hialeah Park is the latest casino to open. The State of Florida has allowed slot machines at Miami Dade and Broward County race tracks and Jai Alai Frontons to allow them to better compete with Indian Bingo and Slots. It took some time for the anti-gambling folks to stop fighting the parimutuel industry, and the crappy economy has made down look like up.  New jobs and updated places for tourists to visit after the sun goes down will also provide locals with something to do and places to hang out when they are bored and they have not drained their monthly social security checks. Jai Alai will pretty much give you a fin in "free" play on an almost daily basis with a players card, the local dog track has the senior crowd standing in line for a chance to win free play or a c...

My representative in Congress is Illeana Ros Lehtinen.  She represents the 27th District in Florida.  She is a Republican and more or less moderate unless it upsets the more elderly Cuban Americans in her district.  She has been in Congress a long time.  To some of her Republican Friends in Congress, (not from Florida) I'm sure they think of her as a hair on fire liberal. I visited her office in support of her support for more comprehensive immigration reform.  She is a member of the Gang of Seven members of the House trying to reform the immigration mess that this country is in.  If you listen to her staff, her views on the issue are similar to our views on immigration.  You would think a Cuban American's relatively enlightened view on the good things that can happen if immigration policies are fair, relatively inexpensive, and understandable would hold some influence on the matter. Legislatively, Cong. Ros Lehtinen is a g...

Saturday afternoon on the way to some politically incorrect activities: gambling and blood sports I was exposed to some even more political incorrectness on of all places on NPR. I wasn't shocked that we have enough DNA from Martha the last Passenger Pigeon to bring back a species from the extinct list.  I was actually kind of amazed that the Audubon Society hasn't been actively been doing the scientific research to bring back the passenger pigeon.  Another interesting nugget was the fact that the passenger pigeon died off at the hand of man through over hunting and that at one time the bird had been so prolific and almost tame that hunters threw nets over them and sold them off as cheap source of protein.  Unfortunately for the pigeons the process was way too efficient.  We now have a way to correct the errors of our ways, bring back the passenger pigeon. The second politically incorrect idea of the hour was actively messing with the weather to slow down climate...