It's a busy Sunday morning in the mainstream media. Here's some of the more interesting stuff I found...
A- Herald: Pitts: Dumbing down.
For as much as we obsess over black vs. white and red vs. blue, I suspect the defining division of this technology-driven era will be between those who have and can exploit information and those who do not and cannot. Between intelligence and its opposite. One wonders how long we can continue to equate stupidity with ''keeping it real,'' being a regular Joe or Jane, and hope to continue leading the world.
There's a movie, Idiocracy, which posits a post-intelligent future in which the stupid have inherited the Earth. It's not a great film, but there is a truth to it. You watch the characters watching a reality show that consists entirely of some guy being kicked in the testicles and you realize you wouldn't be surprised to see that show on VH-1 tomorrow.
Why not? In recent years, we have seen intelligence demonized as the sole province of the ''elite,'' a term that once described accomplishment, but is now used to condemn anyone who looks like he might have accidentally cracked a book or had a thought.
B- Herald: Slideshow, Haulover Beach.
C- Herald: Fred Grimm on FIU's hiring of Marco Rubio.
A miracle! Had to be a miracle.
Admittedly, that won't jive with the university's canon of rational inquiry. But no amount of rational inquiry can explain the unfathomable appearance of Marco Rubio on the campus of Florida International University.
Out of nowhere. Out of a budget that was in shambles. Rubio just materialized.
Oh my God, it was freaky supernatural. Earthly hypothesis can't explain how a university that just cut 38 positions, shut down six research centers and eliminated 23 degree program could then concoct a new teaching job for Marco Rubio. Had to be black magic.
The extraordinary news last week could have had students and professors dancing for joy -- except FIU whacked the dance program.
D- Herald: No, Myriam Marquez is definitely not a Ana Menendez. Brace yourself for the hardliner lovefest.
[Rudy] Crew's relations with the Cuban-American community have been strained since the Vamos a Cuba kids' book controversy two years ago. Instead of trying to reach out, he hunkered down.
When a middle-school principal canceled a play that same year because it might offend the Jewish community, no one made a fuss because people understood. Yet few outside South Florida's exile community seem to care what a painful affront that fact-challenged Vamos a Cuba book was to the thousands of former Cuban political prisoners in South Florida.
Crew never seemed to care -- he made no effort to communicate, to explain First Amendment rights while acknowledging exiles' pain.
So Crew's failure to pander to the used-to-being-pandered-to hardliner community is costing him his job? Nope, nothing ever changes in this town.
E- Sun-Sentinel: Be wary of SoFla's latest rip off.
Payton Fuller seemed resigned to paying 10 cents more for a gallon of gas than the posted price on the sign in front of the Mobil gas station at 1862 Nob Hill Road in Plantation. But he still was upset.
"It's a pretty lousy deal," the Plantation resident said as he used a credit card to pay for his purchase.
The station advertises a cash price, but the price is higher for customers who pay with a credit card.
F- Palm Beach Post: Technology for cops.
Car thieves and other criminals beware: Some Palm Beach County sheriff's patrol cars now have cameras that can identify you without the deputy slowing down or lifting a finger.
The sheriff's office is the latest law enforcement agency in the county to use a system that can read license plates and automatically identify cars that are stolen or registered to wanted criminals.
G- CBS4: Are you a survivor?
South Floridians who think they can "out wit, out play, and outlast" any opponent should head to Hollywood, as in Hollywood, Florida, where there's a casting call for the latest incarnation of TV's "Survivor."
CBS4 is holding a casting call Sunday, July 27th at the Improv at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood from Noon to 4:00 p.m.
H- WPLG: Any volunteers?
MIAMI -- Blame it on the traffic. Or the number of new immigrants. Or the allure of the beach. Whatever the reason, Miami has secured the bottom spot -- No. 50 among major U.S. cities -- in new rankings of the percentage of adults who volunteer.
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6 comments:
D- She makes very good points in the article though. And I, being no hard-liner at all, have to agree with the Vamos a Cuba decision.
If it were any public library, fine, leave it. But young children are very impressionable, and this book was one big lie about the state of things in Cuba. Few non-Cubans realize how insulting it is to our community, hard-liners or not.
D: What point? Crew is arrogant because he doesn't answer her phone call or kowtows to the buffoons in the school board? Crew is arrogant. So is the media. Kettle, meet pot.
As far as Vamos a Cuba: "thousands of former political prisoners in South Florida" that's fact-challenged or at minimum hyperbolic. What are the facts that she's going to challenge in "Vamos a Cuba"? For that matter, Abel, what's the big lie in the book? Children in Cuba don't play and study?
Here's one Cuban, a Cuban who by the way was a children growing up in Cuba who played plenty and studied much and who is offended by how people in this community use my country to elevate themselves. How one school board member decided to use my country to get elected -and thankfully wasn't- and how the Cuban American establishment which apparently includes Myriam Marquez as well, applauds and encourages the travesty.
Myriam Marquez is no Ana Menendez and she's definitely no DeFede. Looks like she wants this new gig too much to deliver the honest views she promised in her first column, and that the Herald is desperate to keep as many readers as they can.
D: I was so upset after reading that article this morning that I emailed her to give her a piece of my mind. Her response was that I missed the point of her tongue in cheek article.
I let her know that tone doesn't come across in writing and unless you make some points to back up your tone, tongue in cheek gets missed.
Tongue in cheek? WTF?
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I think it was her way of trying to defend Foot-in-Mouth
Half of the comments her column gets on the Herald website are about how rambling and pointless her writing is. I'm thinking she won't last long.
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