The Cooler

Just a few things for you as the mainstream media is slow to awaken this morning...sorta like me.

A- Herald: Buy some earplugs already!

It's been almost a decade since Miami Commissioner Arthur Teele Jr. pitched a plan to entice development of the towering condos that would later line Biscayne Boulevard: Permit 24-hour dance clubs in the neglected but adjacent Park West neighborhood to attract crowds from Miami Beach, Coconut Grove and beyond.

It worked. The clubs thrived and the condos rose.

The late politician's vision, however, now has the city in a quagmire -- balancing the business community's needs against those of residents.

Noise from the streets and clubs rage as early-morning risers try to sleep. As the sun peeks across the boulevard, residents on their way to work cross paths with boisterous partygoers dispersing after a night of revelry.

B- Herald: They write letters.

Stupid traffic or drivers?

Anyone who drives in and around Miami-Dade and Broward counties has to have encountered what I like to refer to as ``Stupid Traffic.'' A perfect case in point would be the turnpike to I-75 flyover. The flyover contains two lanes that then narrow down to one at the entrance ramp to I-75. Why are so many people compelled to remain in the outer or right lane until they absolutely have to merge to the left forming a single lane?

Those of us in the right lane have to stop to let them in, stopping traffic. Once on the entrance ramp many people will use the entire ramp until it runs out and then absolutely have to merge, once again stopping traffic.

ALLEN LUNDY, Miami

C- Sun-Sentinel: Lots of new laws on Thursday.

The bong bill (HB 366):

Changes: Makes it a crime to sell bongs or smoking pipes unless they are sold in a shop that gets 75 percent of its revenue from tobacco, cigar and cigarette sales.

Impact: Florida tried to ban drug paraphernalia in the 1980s, but specialty stores still sell bongs, water pipes and other pipes made of wood, metal or ice. The law aims at shutting down those shops.

D- Palm Beach Post: Start them early.

Signs advertising a pain management business were removed from two Boca Raton area high schools this month, within days of one parent's complaint to the Palm Beach County School Board.

Administrators agreed that the banners for Pain Bee Gone, 22749 U.S. 441 west of Boca Raton, should not have been allowed on fences along the Boca Raton and Olympic Heights campuses.

Despite a board policy discouraging certain ads at schools, the signs were posted during the school year, in exchange for hundreds of dollars in contributions from the pain center.

"That's not the kind of advertising that we want high school kids seeing, coming and going to school," said Chief Operating Officer Joseph Moore. "We just thought it was something that was not appropriate for the age group at the school."

E- CBS4: It's time again for our yearly physics lesson.

The City of Miami is pushing a new public awareness campaign regarding violence in the streets of the Magic City. It's called "One Bullet Kills the Party."

[...]

The message to the community is about the dangers of firing guns during the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. Various incidents with stray bullets throughout the years made city officials realize they had to launch this very aggressive awareness crusade, with the campaign message displayed on bus benches and billboards, to remind the whole community that firing celebratory gun shots in the air can hurt or even kill innocent bystanders.

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