Wacky Miami, by gimleteye

What a city this is. On any given day you can go to Prime 112 on South Beach, pay $50 for a steak, and glimpse celebrities like Jerry Springer. Or you can read the front page of the New York Times and bump into people like Efraim E. Diveroli, a 22 year old kid who runs a $300 million Pentagon contract to supply ammo to Afghanis from an apartment on Miami Beach.

I had just finished watching a segment of Frontline's disturbing "Bush's War" and picked up the Times before nodding off to sleep. Top of the fold: a huge photo of tarnished ammo, tied to the story; "... the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22 year old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur." Had to be Miami.

Mr. Diveroli, who would qualify for the Young President's Organization as chairman of AEY Inc., seems a pretty ordinary kid except for run-ins with police for abusing girlfriends. But think about it: running weapons into Afghanistan from Miami Beach: that's a lot of pressure for a young kid.

"AEY is one of many previously unknown defense contractors to have thrived since 2003, when the Pentagon began dispensing billions of dollars to train and equip indigenous forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its rise from obscurity once seemed to make it a successful example of the Bush administration's promotion of private contractors as integral elements of war-fighting strategy."

Ah, privatization!

Apparently, it was only pestering by the New York Times for details on Mr. Diveroli and his company's activity on behalf of the world's only superpower that caused the military to terminate AEY's contract.

I'm guessing someone at The Miami Herald is wishing they had not missed this one. (The Herald plays catch up on today's front page, rehashing the Times' work.)

I can imagine that an entrepreneur like Mr. Diveroli can't be kept down. I'm guessing he will show up as a Miami mortgage broker anytime soon, or, drilling wells for the water management district.

Only in our wacky Miami! Geniusofdespair

I am not making this up I swear.

In Mickey Mouse bribes cheesier than Miami's Columnist Fred Grimm (in the Miami Herald) says that Northern Florida corruption has nothing on Miami -- small scale by comparison. He reports:

"So much untoward behavior among public officials has broken out just north of here that The Palm Beach Post termed it ``the Miamification of Palm Beach County. With all the accompanying political corruption and melodrama that implies.''

In the Miami Herald today there is a story on Aggressive vagrants a tough reality for condo owners. Apparently people bought half million dollar and up condos only to be confronted with vagrants that are bold and harassing. That is not the interesting part. The really interesting part is about the sex offenders. The article states:

"Foremost in everyone's mind at the meeting were the sex offenders living under the nearby causeway."

"Darrell Nichols, an Upper Eastside neighborhood resource office said the ex-cons were tucked under a bridge farther east along the Tuttle than most Blue residents originally thought."

"They are very closely monitored,'' he assured neighbors, "and every day they are visited by an officer at about 4 or 5 a.m., and they have to be there. That bridge is basically their legal address.''

Let's get this straight, we have a bunch of sex offenders living under a bridge and the City knows about it, visits them every day and, in fact, treats the area under the bridge as their legal address? Do they get mail service there: "Sex Offender Joe Blow, Under the Causeway, Miami 33133"?

Only in Miami can you drive over your sex offenders every day.

My trip to New York by Geniusofdespair

You think Miami is a wacky place until you go to New York. I learn something new every time I go. I swear I did not know this, about being Catholic (see below):

Too much to write about today in Miami, the land of OZ. By Geniusofdespair

First we have the letter by former Commissioner Maurice Ferre where he says about the impending HUD takeover of the corruption ridden Miami-Dade Affordable Housing Dept:

"...but the April 25 story "Feds give county ultimatum on housing takeover says": ''Miami-Dade housing is overseen by county government, the commission, which has had the same 13 members since 2005; county manager Burgess was appointed in 2002.''

Ferre says: "That is, during the coming together of this perfect storm. Has this County Commission mended its ways or is it still ''helping'' to administer Miami-Dade County? How can we question HUD's conclusion?" And:

“The county is not heading into a gunfight with a knife, but rather with its hands tied behind its back. HUD is facing today's reality of Miami-Dade. Don't blame HUD, blame our single-member commission-district system.”

The Herald reports on YET ANOTHER example of the County wasting our money, reported by Chuck Rabin: Scam to defraud Miami-Dade County alleged. So far investigators have found $300,000 in stolen funds. Don’t they ever check to see if work is done before paying? I will work as a checker for them. Note, the State Attorney is investigating. You would think this could have been uncovered internally. JUST GO LOOK!

Third article in the Herald: There are millions of dollars tucked into the budget for Miami-Dade . And tucked into that funding list are two surprises. Yes, I was there when Hialeah annexed the land on the other side of the UDB and when they moved the UDB for that land at another meeting. I heard the Mayor of Hialeah, Raul Martinez, boast to County Commissioners that his city was going to build a desalination plant. He said WE (not us) are building it. We in the audience, all supposed that "WE", besides Hialeah, could be with the financial help of the developers, like the Codina group, who would profit by it (they were there at the meeting).

Well, look who is paying for the desalination plant? US! It is on the list: The Construction of a Water Treatment Plant in Hialeah: $5.3 million. And to add insult to injury: Hialeah Construction of Water Mains for the Annexation Areas: $800,000. I told you, we all pay for the infrastructure outside the UDB. A lot of good programs were cut out of money because of these projects that were SUPPOSED to be paid for by Hialeah. The UDB was moved on the promises made by Hialeah at the meeting. There was no mention that State monies would be used.

And last but not least let’s skip to the SunPost, read about the Jorge Perez, Yellow Shirt fiasco by Rebecca Wakefield. All That Glitters Is Green:The Related Group’s Crack Team Exposed. One Yellow shirt person (those in favor of the development wore yellow shirts) said:

“There were a few people like myself,” he related. “But did you see the people there? 95 percent of them were crack heads. Half of them were asleep.”

The people hired for $100 to wear the yellow shirts in support of Jorge's 3 Coconut Grove Towers at the Commission Meeting, are so confused, now they are calling Mark Sarnoff’s office looking for the money: They are calling the Commissioner who was most opposed to the development!

Darn it Jorge, give those people their hundred dollars. They wore your crummy yellow shirts.

Anna-Nicole and html Code By genius of despair

We all have to face our greatest fears. I faced my thousand pound gorilla yesterday. It was html, the computer code that created this blog.

Gimleteye and I were trying to give you the ability to skip over most of what we write with a “Read More” button. Self-defeating aren't we? Or do we just know your attention span. I decided to take the easy way out.


I contacted my computer savvy brother, a computer engineer in New York who writes code for a living. His response was:
I am embarrassed to say I don’t know html.
So much for family.

I decided to hunker down and do it. I read the blogspot directions. The directions said, when you see “such and such” paste this after it: and there was a lot of code to paste. Well, what they wanted me to look for wasn’t there. So I went to the group pages on blogspot and noticed that no one else seemed able to do this either. I tried following what they described as "easy to follow directions" and they didn’t work either. Everything went wrong when I tested out my code additions. I spent all day on this. My computer teacher always said: "If it doesn't work on a computer, don't do it again, it will not work a second time." Good advice, but in life I do it over so often, it comes naturally to expect different results from my friend the computer when I do the same thing once again. I was in this loop...

Then God came to the rescue, in the form of fellow blogger Gimleteye. As you can see it is now working. You can now skip over my blogs more easily.

Gimleteye might not have figured out how to attract your attention with a racy picture of Anna-Nicole for a column about Anna-Nicole. But, I used her picture to get you to read about my angst with computer code, and if you read up to here: It worked.

I liked Anna-Nicole. She was like Jane Mansfield. I am using pinup pictures now to keep you attentive.

I often wonder: Why do all these people do their "thing" in Florida? The unstable astronaut lady, Anna-Nicole, the anthrax at the National Enquirer headquarters in Boca, some of the 9/11 terrorists lived here, and we even have our own, the Liberty City terrorists. Wacky, wacky Florida. You have to love this place.

Happy Thanksgiving Fellow Wacky Miamians

Check out this article from Time Magazine about Miami: There's Trouble--Lots Of It--in Paradise
Two of my favorite quotes from the article:

"Imagine Miami, a private community-development project, recently asked some 1,600 randomly selected residents to list what they thought were the top "Miami values." What was the No. 1 value? Corruption. "[Miamians] don't trust their leaders or each other," says the group's founder Daniella Levine."

“And a majority of Miamians support Alvarez's efforts to reduce the inordinate powers of their county commission--which include housing-agency oversight--especially since its members have long run Miami-Dade like a collection of venal fiefdoms. A judge has ordered the commission to schedule a referendum on the issue.“

These articles don’t stay on line for long so check it out sooner rather than later.

Thanksgiving story: I sent my spouse out for turnips. Not knowing what a turnip looked like I started to prepare it. I peeled it with difficulty. I boiled it for an hour and a half and it never got soft. Wise at last, I googled pictures of turnips and it is not what I cooked. Being a very stubborn person, I am going to feed it to my guests because I cooked the damn thing. It is very crunchy and tasteless so I will throw a lot of butter on it. I tried to mash it but it is rubbery and wouldn’t mash. Yes rubbery and crunchy seem opposite but that is what this is: both. I tasted some so if I don’t make it till morning, I will post tonight. Have a Happy Thanksgiving from your grumpy, angry blogger who is going to make the Thanksgiving guests eat mystery food. Aren’t you lucky you aren’t coming over?

Welcome by Geniusofdespair

Welcome to Eye On Miami, the place to come to talk about wacky politics and ethically challenged politicians. Tomorrow is election day and the ads on TV have been non-stop. I look forward to Wednesday. Vote "No" for State Amendment 3 and please sign a Hometown Democracy Petition if you can. I am really angry at the Miami Herald all the time because they are short staffed and leave out so much. I toyed with calling myself "Angry Person In Miami" for this blog but, I am more depressed than angry. I don't have a lot to say right now, just want to start the ball rolling. I would rather hear from you.