It's Friday...so here are some heartwarming dog videos

Flight Attendant Adopts Stray Dog Who Wouldn’t
Stop Waiting For Her Outside Hotel


Shelter Dogs Serve As ‘Ball Boys’ At Brazil Tennis Open

Fred Grimm is not quite ready to hang it up

Fred Grimm (back in the day)

Fred Grimm (now)

You don't need a Masters degree in journalism to know that the Miami Herald ain't what it used to be.

But the one thing that hasn't changed over the years is the quality of the columns produced by Fred Grimm.

Every time I read one of Fred's columns I felt as though I'd learned something new, and I put down the paper feeling just a little bit smarter.

Something else about Fred: He's a good listener.

Last February after some local TV stations had posted a bizarre mug shot of a man arrested in Broward County, I learned that the man in the mug shot was a combat veteran who had served three tours in Iraq and was now suffering from PTSD.

I got Fred on the phone and asked if he could make it right....and he did.

But after noticing that his columns weren't appearing as often, I dropped him a note asking why that was.

Fred got back to me saying that he was now "semi-retired," writing one column a week, and adding...

I feel lucky to have this forum. And I'm sincere about being able to spend more time reporting and writing. Three columns a week in 2016 entails a lot more time consuming non-writing, non-reporting work than three columns a week in 1991 -- headlines, posting photos, pull-out quotes, pull-out facts, hyperlinks, search engine optimizer words that one hopes will catch the attention of the Google algorithms, earlier deadlines, with fewer copy editors.

[But] we're in an era when it's all about the metrics and apparently my metrics sucked.

(A tiresome refrain from former newspaper guys about "how great we used to be" utterly discounts how fucking hard our reporters are working in today's newsroom. I know. I've been around the Herald since 1976, back when reporters could do great stuff and would still have time to write novels right there in the newsroom. That would be unimaginable in 2016. These people work like dogs. And I'm an old dog.)

Anyway, the numbers are simply the inarguable reality of the digital age. And that's the age in which we live. It ain't 1991.

-Fred

Forty years ago this week they found Johnny Roselli's body in an oil drum in Biscayne Bay

Forty years ago today, WTVJ's Al Sunshine reported on the discovery of an oil drum found floating in the bay near Aventura that contained the body of mobster Johnny Roselli. 





Google News Archives: The "grisly murder" of dapper and debonair mobster Johnny Roselli.

Thirty years ago this week they broke ground for the Miami Arena

Aug. 4, 1986: Ground is broken for the Miami Arena.



video via Wolfson Archives


Two years later, in July 1988, the facility the Miami News called a "$52 million gamble," would open its doors to the public.

The Miami Heat played its first game at the Arena on Nov. 5, 1988.

Eight years later, in October of 1996, Heat head coach Pat Riley told reporters that the Miami Arena was one of the worst venues in the NBA. 

On December 28, 1999, after just 11 years at the Arena, the Heat played its last game at the facility.

Twenty years after it opened — in September of 2008 — demolition began on the Arena.

"The Miami Arena was obsolete from the moment it was built," Ron Turner, an executive at a sports architecture firm told the Los Angeles Times in 1996.

Donald Trump talking about 'the Zika' yesterday....

ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos

....is every student ever who didn’t read the book and is trying to wing it when the teacher asks what they think it was about.

____________________

Via Marc Caputo's Florida Playbook:

Donald Trump paid homage to [Gov. Rick] Scott amid a two-city swing that brought him to Daytona Beach and Jacksonville. Trump sounded out of his depth. But he was fortunate enough to have a TV reporter who asked no challenging follow-ups. The transcript:

-- TRUMP: "You have a great governor who's doing a fantastic job - Rick Scott -- on the Zika. And it's a problem. It's a big problem. But I watch and I see. And I see what they're doing with the spraying and everything else. And I think he's doing a fantastic job. And he's letting everyone know exactly what the problem is and how to get rid of it. He's going to have it under control. He probably already does."

-- Q: What about Congress convening an emergency session to pass the bipartisan $1.9 billion Zika-aid legislation?

-- TRUMP: "I would say that it's up to Rick Scott. It depends on what he's looking to do. Because he really seems to have it under control in Florida."

But here's Caputo fact checking Trump:

ZIKA IS NOT UNDER CONTROL!!!! - First: Neither Scott nor anyone else has Zika "under control." Last year, there were no Zika virus infections in Florida. Now the infection count stands at 351 (only 15 of which have been locally transmitted). Second: the "spraying" might not actually work on the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Third: Since when is a CONGRESSIONAL session "up to Rick Scott" or any governor?

Attend a Donald Trump rally and you'll see all sorts of child abuse

You wouldn't dress your kid in a KKK costume, so why
would you do this? [Source]

__________________

Via the New York Times:

[A] crying baby was initially welcome in the Trump event [today in Virginia,] or so the crowd was led to believe.

“Don’t worry about that baby. I love babies,” Mr. Trump said. “I hear that baby crying, I like it. What a baby, what a beautiful baby. Don’t worry, don’t worry.”

But Mr. Trump’s pacifying platitudes did nothing to comfort the howling infant, whose persistent wails seemed to be getting on the candidate’s nerves.

“Actually, I was only kidding, you can get that baby out of here,” Mr. Trump said a few beats later with a slight smirk as laughs and a few gasps escaped from the crowd. “Don’t worry, I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking. That’s O.K. People don’t understand. That’s O.K.”

Perhaps Trump could learn a thing or two on how to deal with fussy babies from President Obama. But when you have a major empathy deficit, like Trump, that's close to impossible.

June 4, 2015 “At the President’s insistence, Deputy National Security
Advisor Ben Rhodes brought his daughter Ella by for a visit.
As she was crawling around the Oval Office, the President
got down on his hands and knees to look her in the eye.”
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) [Source]