The Cooler

Here are a few of the more interesting items I was able to pull out of the mainstream media this morning.

A- Herald: Keep Tabby locked up.

The mutilated bodies of three cats were found in Southwest Miami-Dade this week, adding to the dozens that were already maimed and killed this month by an apparent serial cat killer.

The bizarre crime spree has left residents of Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay reeling as cats have been found skinned and gutted, left dead on their owners' lawns.

[...]

Authorities are warning residents to keep their cats indoors at night when these killings seem to be taking place.

B- Herald: Pitts on not letting the terrorists win.

The difference is, the 2001 attack was so vast and horrific it did what none of the others could: It caused us to reconsider the very values that make us who we are, including the right to privacy, the right to free speech and worship, the right of habeas corpus and the right not to be waterboarded into a false confession. If history is a guide to the future (and it is) then terrorists will hit us again, no matter who is president, no matter what policies he or she sets. Dick Cheney knows this, yet he preys on our fear with politics.

No one denies a need to take every reasonable precaution for security. But we need to get over the idea we can guarantee we are never hit again. You simply cannot make that promise and have left a country worth living in. Or as President Eisenhower reputedly said, ``If you want total security, go to prison.''

Some of us would prefer not to. Some of us realize that a degree of risk is inextricable from any degree of freedom.

And some of us think freedom is worth it.

C- Herald: Hot for teacher.

When police wanted to question a teacher accused of having an affair with an eighth-grader at a private religious school, she was out of town -- vacationing at Disney World with the student.

Upon her return Saturday, 32-year-old Maria Guzman Hernandez, a sixth-grade teacher at Hialeah's Our Lady of Charity, admitted to Hialeah police she'd had sex with the 15-year-old.

Hernandez was charged with sexual battery on a child over whom she had custodial authority, a charge similar to statutory rape.

[...]

Rumors began circulating at the school around May 20. For two days, principal Xenia Torres struggled with whether to report the rumored affair to DCF's abuse hot line, but a school attorney insisted they had no choice under a state law that mandates the reporting of all suspected child abuse or neglect...

[...]

Though the school identifies itself as a Catholic private school in state Department of Education records, Our Lady of Charity is not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, said Mary Ross Agosta, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Miami.

D- Herald: About time.

The Miami Police Department's crime scene photographers will soon dump their film developer fluid for the last time.

They're finally going digital: replacing their 35mm cameras, chemical batches and darkroom with digital Single Lens Reflex cameras, computers and a server.

[...]

Lazaro Fernandez, the forensic investigations supervisor, offered a reason for the delay:

Courts were initially reluctant to allow digital photography to be admitted as evidence because they wrongly feared the images could be easily manipulated, he said.

E- Sun-Sentinel: Chan Lowe.

F- NBCMiami: Party like you don't have a job.

The Seminole Hard Rock is one of several South Florida hot spots hosting "Pink Slip Parties" to help people who have lost their jobs. The event is at 88's Dueling Pianos from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and is free for the jobless masses. Another Pink Slip Party will be held in Miami on Thursday night at the Martini Bar on Sunset Place. The two parties are being hosted by JobsDirectUSA.

[...]

The "parties" are really networking opportunities that attract hundreds of the newly jobless and potential new gigs. The social/business get-togethers have become popular nationally, but not all are free, which is kind of a bummer for the people organizers are trying to attract - you know, the people who don't have any money because they don't have a job.

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