Fading Away
"At some point, all of this, everything and everyone, became memory."
A Good Man? A Bad Man?
"Everything is a strategy. The wisdom of the spider. Everything is food. The wisdom of the shark.”
Hundreds of new voices speaking up to prevent gun violence
Today we had the largest gathering of Moms Demand Action Miami ever. It lasted just about an hour. It was a far cry from the first one I attended just about a year ago. Just a few of us sitting in comfortable chairs in a midtown coffee shop trying to figure out how we'd ever gather the momentum to make common sense gun laws a reality. Our momentum would come from 17 lost souls. The Parkland 17 are raising their voices from their graves and lending them to us to tell their horrible story and the stories of the thousands of Americans who've been affected by the horror of gun violence.
My Absolute Darling
She knows what happened, but why it happened and what it meant, she doesn’t know. There was so much of her life she doesn’t not understand.
The Underground Railroad
Here was the true great spirit, the divine thread connecting all human endeavor. If you can keep it, it is yours, your property. Slave or Continent. The American imperative.
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
George Saunders fills his halfway land of Lincoln in the Bardo with characters, oddities, love, war, laughter, passion, and horror. It sounds a lot like our crowded crazy living world.
Basking in the Moonglow
I never had much of a chance to get to know my grandfathers. One was long gone decades before I was born, the other before I was old enough to make my first Communion.
Avoid a hurricane if you're poor. Oh, you can't.
Hurricane Irma taught me that Miami-Dade County needs a different sort of emergency response plan for low income neighborhoods. That plan should include community-based organizations as part of the response. It must acknowledge that the financial burden of preparing for emergencies leaves low income families even more vulnerable. These communities need a more thorough response. A storm shouldn't allow them to slip further down the economic ladder.
Just what is in the Miami-Dade county budget? More importantly, what's not in the county budget?
How did I spend my Sundays in August and September? Reviewing the Miami-Dade County Budget. I wasn’t alone, and that was a good thing. I’d certainly spoken up in the past for things I’d wanted to see funded, but hadn’t ever really poured through the budget to understand what was funded and what was missing. I have lots of people to thank for helping me dig deeper to understand what's there and what's not. Especially David McDougal & Maggie Fernandez.
Go Home
Governor McAuliffe told the neo-Nazis and white supremacists to "Go Home." They are not wanted in Charlottesville. What are their homes like? What do they talk about over Sunday dinner when they are home?
What costs $24.60? An apartment.
I’m trying to make sure I understand just how hard it is for so many families to make ends meet in Florida, especially in Miami. To help me remember it better, let’s call it a straight $25. That’s how much a person would need to earn per hour to afford a two bedroom apartment, spending the recommended 30% of their income on rent. Guess what minimum wage is? $8.05 an hour. Guess what the average renter earns per hour? $15.46
There's a reason we need to stop the proposed Concealed Carry Reciprocity (CCR) from being enacted by Congress. If the NRA gets their way, and this legislation passes, Florida would be forced to abide by the weakest gun laws in the nation.
A Glass of Wine with a Gentleman in Moscow
It seems as if nearly everyone is connected to Russia these days. I am too. I was drawn into the warm splendor of the dining room at the Hotel Metropol and fell in love with Count Rostov.
People, Get Ready Rod Stewart
Miami, Get Ready. We have never had the ability to mobilize quickly as a community when something we disagree with happens. Many friends and like-minded neighbors have told me that they are willing to be ready to stand up against injustice and nonsense - the minute it happens. Want to be part of it?