“Klotz” As In “Blood”

…which, spelled backwards, is “Rise to Vote, Sir.”

I know this because I’m a founding member of member of MAD (”Mothers Against Dyslexia).”

Yes…anyway, Tuesday of this week we good citizens of Florida are supposed to do our duty and vote. Whatever. As a registered member of the Green Party, I don’t have the pleasure of voting against anybody this year, but if I could, I’d vote against Edwards and/or Romney, depending. Why don’t these two plastic panderers merge and run as one person on a third party ticket? Who would know the difference? Or give a rat’s ass?

Locally, I get to vote for the mayor and one commissioner in the Hollywood horse races. I live in District One, where four candidates are competing. The incumbent commish is Cathy Anderson, who has served for 35 straight years. Rumor is she’s borderline senile. Well, shit. I have seen her in action and heard her speak, and, in my judgment, No, she’s not borderline senile at all.

But here’s one of her competitors, Mr. Luis Prada, responding to a question in the Sun-Sentinel, about his priorities:

Q: Where in the city budget would you like to decrease and increase spending?

The budget could be immediately reduced by eliminating the use of motorcycles by the Police Department. They are not used at night or during rain or inclement weather. In addition, there is no more expensive insurance than that charged for our motorcycle fleet. — SFSS

Okay. There you are. A deep thinker, a true visionary in the spirit of Jefferson, Franklin, and Kinky Fucking Friedman. This is why Hollywood, Florida, is sometimes confused with ancient Athens, where democracy began.

Can I vote for Nader again? Please?

One reason health care costs are so high is the astonishing level of fraud committed, especially here in south Florida. A story in today’s paper details nine individuals (headed for jail) whose fraudulent claims with Medicare totaled $56.6 million for unnecessary durable medical equipment and infusion therapy.

Medicare data shows that Miami-Dade County alone had more paid durable medical equipment claims than 44 states combined. Only the most populous states — California, Texas, New York, Michigan and Ohio — bill Medicare more than does Miami-Dade for DME claims.

The average Medicare recipient in Miami-Dade each year is named in paid DME claims worth $6,200. In the rest of the nation, the average is $1,200. — Miami Hurled

That’s impressive, isn’t it? What is it about the local market and population that inspires such breathtaking achievements? Maybe we should embrace whatever it is — consider it a reason for celebration and have a parade in its honor. I mean, if we can have Self-Esteem Day and Fat Loss Competitions, perhaps the community characteristic that encourages medical fraud should be lauded as well.

Somebody call Orka Winfrey. She’s usually very good at identifying these sorts of etheria, and lends her name to all kinds of similar causes.

Just an Irrelevant Postscript:

“And, having interviewed Calderón many times over the past 15 years, I have no doubt that his heart is with the Cuban dissidence.” — Andres Oppenheimer in the Miami Hurled

I’m pretty sure he meant “dissidents.” Helluva word for the local paper to get wrong.

This guy had a lot of explaining to do….

Seth and Kelly Levy, of Palm Beach Gardens, hold their 10-month-old cat, Gracie Mae. The cat sneaked into Seth’s suitcase for a flight to Dallas/Ft. Worth and landed in Texas. At baggage claim, another passenger mistakenly grabbed the suitcase and when he returned home Gracie Mae jumped out…. Gracie Mae returned safely home Sunday night on an $80 plane ticket.
–SFSS

Yeah, I bet she did. The anonymous passenger who grabbed the wrong bag is probably still trying to explain the strange pussy he got caught smuggling in.

Another reason not to bogart that joint….

The active ingredient in marijuana may suppress tumour invasion in highly invasive cancers, according to new research in Germany.

Cannabinoids, the active components in marijuana, are already used medically to reduce the side effects of cancer treatment, such as pain, weight loss and vomiting. But the new study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, finds that the compounds may also have an anti-cancer effect.

However, more research is needed to determine whether the laboratory results would hold true in humans, the authors wrote. — peety-passion.com

More research, hey? I call my bud (”bud” — get it?) Herb, who’s been advocating medicinal uses of marijuana since before Woodstock. The first Woodstock.

“Take a number, get in line, and bring lots of reading material,” he advises.

But Herb — we’re talking about cancer treatment. Fucking cancer. Doesn’t that trump the usual anti-THC prejudices?

“Not in your lifetime, dirty hippie,” he says (nicely). “Marijuana still sets off all the alarm bells it always did — from sexual mania to communism. You think one little study’s gonna change that, you been smokin’ Kool-Aid!”

I understand, Herb. But the authors want more study! Where do I sign up? What’s it pay?

“Get real. There won’t be any grant funds, if that’s what you’re thinking. We’re rather see people die in agony and rot from cancer than let loose the dogs of dope. The tobacco companies are in retreat, the alcohol industry doesn’t want the competition, and the pharmaceutical giants are dead set against anything they can’t patent and prescribe.”

Herb! We’re talking about cancer!

“No we’re not, grasshopper. We’re talking about money, law and order, politics, and prejudice. We’re talking about fear, sex, and crime. We’re talking about disrespect for authority, bad drivers, flower children, and ‘colored people.’ We’re talking about Never City. Give it up.”

Well, shit. And really, my reaction is just knee-jerk anyway. I quit years ago when all dope was doing for me was putting me to sleep, making me paranoid, and wiping out entire decades of memory. I think.

Besides, who needs the aggravation? Fifty bucks buys you a bottle of Partida Reposado. If that doesn’t get you laid, you might as well die from cancer anyway.

Dreamhost, which houses this website, has been a nightmare for a few days, making it very difficult visit this blog, let alone post on it. Bear with me and I’ll try to get today’s post up there before the spring thaw.

Meanwhile, thanks for your patience and comments.

Venezuela’s controversial President Hugo Chávez has revealed that he regularly consumes coca — the source of cocaine — raising questions about the legality of his actions.

“I chew coca every day in the morning . . . and look how I am,'’ he is seen saying on a video of the speech, as he shows his biceps to the audience. — Miami Hurled

It’s people like this that give drug users a bad name.

It’s good news that Rick, former caretaker of Stuck on the Palmetto, has plans for a new blog, scheduled to launch on February 5. I learned about it late last night when I reviewed my email. So this morning, when I found its URL in Critical Miami (and again on Miami 411), I figured I’ll pay a visit.

But here’s the page that confronts me:

“This blog is open to invited readers only”

http://southfloridadailyblog.blogspot.com/

It doesn’t look like you have been invited to read this blog. If you think this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation.

You’re signed in as ssklotz@gmail.com - Sign in with a different account

Guess I shouldn’t take this personally, even though it has my name right on it. No doubt (as Alesh would say) I did something wrong when I clicked on the link: that shit happens all the time (and evidently exclusively to me. Nobody else in the universe has these problems. Ask Fake Fake Steve Jobs).

So Rick, I can’t add your new blog to my blogroll yet, but perhaps you’ll be kind enough to help those of us who find Blogger impossibly dense and aggravating navigate its shoals and impenetrable barriers. Even if that class of consumer consists of one.

According to the Miami Hurled, folks in town are all a-twitter about Tom Wolfe’s new novel, set in Miami.

Back to Blood [as in Klotz], Wolfe’s new work, will explore race and crime, sex and class, plus immigration, a complex issue the author has been hankering to tackle since the 1980s when he pounded out The Bonfire of the Vanities, the electrifying saga that skewered New York’s pageant of Wall Street millionaires, street shysters and race warriors.

Except for I Am Charlotte Simmons, his last novel, my collection of TomWolfe books is complete, going back to The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby (1965). Wolfe has the kind of nasty, cold-eyed satirical bent I enjoy, which serves well his decidedly conservative perspective, and he delights in trashing trendy fact-hostile politically correct orthodoxies that liberal academics love to mouth, stifling genuine discourse.

He will portray Miami as a steaming pile of bullshit slathered with plantain peels and blood. He’ll jeer at the shallow, plastic upper class society bred here like dengue fever skeeters, and note how in REAL metropolises they’d be sniffed out and shunned for the hollow second raters that they are. He’ll delight at the triangulating racism of Latin, Black, and White societies, and the lack of compassion — a/k/a contempt — each has toward the other.

Yes, it should be a revealing book, and an honest treatment from a third party observer.

This hasn’t stopped Miami’s finest from embracing the attention they anticipate from a Tom Wolfe visit and novel. Read the coverage: everybody’s thrilled that Tom Wolfe has come, seen, and gone away with a Haitian boat-people sized raft of material. Either they never knew, or they’ve lost sight of the fact that much of what we accept as inevitable in Miami doesn’t measure up to what the rest of the nation considers acceptable or civilized.

Yeah, I know. The weather is wonderful.

“[T]ake the high road. There’s less traffic.” –Leonard Pitts, Miami Hurled.

It’s a given that Broward County public schools can’t teach anybody anything. They’re simply not in the education business any more. Schools exist to keep kids off the streets for a few hours a day, and to provide mediocre wages for unionized workers, that’s it. If you’re a parent intent on an education for your spore, you cough up the cash for a private academy somewhere, or you leave the state.

The school board is very adept at arguing weighty issues among themselves with fashionable buzzwords like “diversity,” “self-esteem,” “nutrition,” “outcome-based reform,” etc. Forget reading. Skip social studies. And for sure, ignore the arts.

But kids’ clothing? They have spoken:

After a lengthy debate Tuesday, Broward School Board members voted 7 to 2…that current policies on uniforms are too strict. Those policies say that the only way to opt out of the policy is to raise objections based on religion.

If the change is adopted, kids wouldn’t have to wear a uniform if their parents object in writing within the first 10 days after their children enroll in school.

[S]chool district research shows “that there were no differences in attendance, discipline, and incidents in uniform versus non-uniform schools.'’ — Miami Hurled

“We don’t care what your research shows,” one parent stated disdainfully. “We don’t give a damn about facts. We want somebody else besides us to make rules for our kids because they won’t listen to us. And we ‘re tired of always making our kids behave. We have lives, you know. What do you think we are? Parents?”

A school board spokesman agreed. “Look, we all know we can’t get them to come to class and behave, let alone learn anything,” she explained. “But at least we can concoct senseless, enforceable rules about the clothes they wear so we can pretend we have authority!”

The board concluded debate with a vow to study the matter further. “A firm stance and final determination might jeopardize our reelection,” explained one member, requesting (cowardly) anonymity. “Besides, so long as we have this issue to distract voters, we won’t need to address evolution and creationism, or anything else that might actually impact the quality of education in the county.”