"Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez's lame explanations about granting pay raises to a cadre of his closest advisors -- as he was telling taxpayers we would all have to sacrifice in these tough times -- begs the question.
"I prefer to think he's clueless, which is dangerous enough in this fiscal crisis. "
And on the Herald's front page, reporters Jack Dolan and Matthew Haggman reveal that the mayor's claim that he eliminated jobs as a part of a reorganization of his staff was all just smoke and mirrors:
["M]any of the executives whose jobs disappeared are still working for the county, in some cases at higher salaries -- raising questions about how much the cutbacks have saved taxpayers."
"Long before Super Size Me, the 2004 documentary about a McDonald’s binge, I knew that a steady diet of hamburgers would systematically destroy my heart, my liver, my cardiovascular system, and my sex appeal. But no movie or medical study could prepare me for what it would do to my brain.
For 65 days this summer, I ate basically nothing but burgers."
The story first appeared on the Herald's web site last night.
(Reuters reported this story back on Aug. 7 which Miami New Times duly noted a few days later.)
Among the story's "revelations:" when toilet paper runs short, Cubans use "day-old copies of the Communist party's newspaper Granma."
When I read it my first thought was, "how much more deprivation can the Cuban people endure? Thank you Juan Tamayo for opening my eyes to yet another indignity forced upon the Cuban people by the ruthless, dictatorial Castro brothers."
And then I started digging.
Miami Herald, December 21, 1987, CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS Herald Staff Writer
"Let's put it this way," said Tulio Quirantes, whose father and uncles own seven Ortopedia Quirantes supply stores. "I have relatives in Cuba and when we write to them, we write with very big letters. Because after they finish reading the letters, we want them to be able to use them as toilet paper."
Miami Herald, April 21, 1991, LIZETTE ALVAREZ Herald Staff Writer
"Most newly arrived Cubans still lambaste the country's 32- year-old system of repression. But widespread shortages of food, fuel, clothing and toiletries are the main culprits forcing them out. ... "They tell of crushing wild herbs to use as soap, using the official Communist party newspaper Granma as toilet paper, and spending the little money they earn to buy stolen clothing and food on the black market."
Liz Balamseda writing a story on gossip in Miami beauty parlors in Tropic, June 1991
"It is here, between the mirrored walls, amid the hair dryers and curling irons and wafts of acetone, that the regulars catch up on the details of daily life in Cuba . They discuss the food shortages and lack of toilet paper while America gives them French manicures. "
Miami Herald, June 17, 1991, MIMI WHITEFIELD Herald Staff Writer
"Food isn't the only thing that's in short supply. Among the most coveted and scarce items are soap, laundry detergent and toilet paper (some people buy the newspapers mainly to use as toilet paper)."
Miami Herald, March 10, 1993, PETER SLEVIN Herald Staff Writer
"Buses come late, maybe not at all. Office and school cafeterias shut down. Shops are short of shoes, meat, eggs, milk, soap, writing paper, toilet paper, tampons."
One day, perhaps soon, the Cuban people will be freed from the yoke of Communist tyranny and they'll be able to get all the toilet paper they could ever hope for.
And maybe, just maybe, there will come a day when story ideas will no longer be in short supply at the Miami Herald.
"Liberty City, together with its families, opened its arms to me with my camera, just like Paris once did. And now they've both become for me, the City of Love.-Bruce Weber, photographer
A post on the South Florida Daily Blog this morning reminded me, once again, why we need blogs and why blogs are here to stay.
Yes, we still need the Miami Herald. And the New York Times and its Baghdad bureau.
I'd never heard of this film until I read Rick's post this morning. I did a search and couldn't find a thing written about it in the Herald.
(To be fair Miami New Times mentioned the film three weeks ago, even if staffer Kyle Munzenrieder was a little too quick to dismiss Weber as just a shooter of black and white soft porn.)
Weber, who has a home in Golden Beach, which is about as far removed from Liberty City as any place can be, shows us in his new film that beauty is all around us.
He's never forgotten the lessons he learned in Paris as a student in the early 70's when he says, "learning about photography was as easy as walking down its boulevards with my only busted up Nikon."
Weber now turns his lens on Liberty City and shows us that there's more to this wonderful Miami neighborhood than drive-by shootings and shooting galleries.
It's not the first time that Weber has drawn inspiration from - or used South Florida's sometimes forgotten neighborhoods as a backdrop.
In 1986 he shot a Calvin Klein Obsession perfume campaign on the roof of the Breakwater Hotel on Ocean Drive.
But "that [shoot] captivated other photographers and helped spread the word in the tightly knit fashion industry that Miami and South Beach have a certain allure for the camera," the Herald wrote two years later in 1988.
So thanks to Rick for his post. I guess the Herald will get around to writing about this sooner or later. But until then, we've still got the blogs!
