July 27: Bad Signs In Miami

By Sylvia Gurinsky

Violating local, state and federal zoning, traffic and visibility standards, not to mention messing up your architecture? Hey, if you're the City of Miami and you're strapped for cash, no problem.

Last week, the city commission gave unanimous preliminary approval to a plan by developer Mark Siffin to build two electronic billboards, with one potentially of 250 feet and one of 350 feet, atop a 100-foot parking garage that would be constructed next to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. According to the provisions of the deal, Siffin would chip in a lot of money for an annual permit and millions toward the construction of Museum Park in the former Bicentennial Park.

Is it all worth putting what the defunct South Florida magazine used to call "Architorture" next to the classy Arsht Center? Is it worth putting drivers along 395/MacArthur Causeway distracted by those billboards at risk? Is it worth keeping nearby residents up at night with the lights?

Beth Dunlop, who covers architecture for The Miami Herald, had an apt take:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/24/1744439/big-changes-with-little-thought.html?asset_id=1613439&asset_type=gallery&pageNum=2&mi_pluck_action=page_nav#Comments_Container

The commission will take its "final" vote this Thursday. Expect a lot more opposition at Dinner Key than there was last week.

I put "final" in quotes because it really won't be.

-Not with nearby residents fighting this every step of the way as Miami tries to get approval it doesn't yet have from Miami-Dade County, the State of Florida and the federal government - each of whom have regulations that could prevent the sort of project Siffin's proposing.

-Not with Miami residents likely to take this project to court - which will ultimately cost the city dearly needed dollars.

-And not with questions about how the city, particularly Mayor Tomas Regalado, put this deal together and seemed to skate it past the usual review process. Regalado, who's already ticked off a lot of traditionalists with his recommendation to hold back $100,000 from the Gusman/Olympia Theater in Downtown, is making a lot more people angry with this deal.

The city commission meeting is this Thursday at 9 a.m., and this issue will come up very quickly. Have a good breakfast and head over to Dinner Key - and persuade the commission to reverse itself on what will wind up being a very costly deal.

July 26: Still Needed: Accuracy, Honesty and Accountability

By Sylvia Gurinsky

One of the longstanding rules of good journalism still applies: If your mother says she loves you, check it out.

So do the rules of the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics: No distorted news content. Journalists should admit and correct mistakes immediately, hold others accountable when they don't and live up to the standards demanded of others.

That's more important than ever when those who break the news don't necessarily work as traditional journalists.

During the past week, two entities that fall into the nontraditional category have made their own news - in different ways.

The first was conservative pundit Andrew Breitbart, who evidently did not follow the SPJ Code of Ethics provision concerning distortion when he posted video that took comments by Shirley Sherrod, Georgia director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, out of context. A lot of other media, both traditional and non-traditional, also violated the code by not confirming the context of her statements. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was one of them; he fired Sherrod before he had all the facts, then did a 180. President Barack Obama apologized to her.

No such full showing of remorse as yet from Breitbart, who may be sued by Sherrod for libel. New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 court case that set the standard for libeling a public figure, will get a real test with this one, if Sherrod goes ahead. The standard of that court case includes libel and malice, and heaven knows a lot of the political back-and-forth of the last 15 years or so has certainly been malicious.

Yesterday came news about the website Wikileaks publishing a lot of information about the U.S. conduct of the war in Afghanistan - mostly during the administration of President George W. Bush.

Another Pentagon Papers? Not quite. A lot is already known about how the Afghan war has been conducted; that was not the case when the Pentagon Papers, about American policy in Vietnam between the 1940s and 60s, were published in The New York Times and The Washington Post in 1971.

This time, Wikileaks worked with the Times, the British newspaper The Guardian and the German publication Der Spiegel. All three vetted the website's work.

What is also known is that the rush to publish is more urgent today than it was 40 years ago - and the tendency towards mistakes, wrong assumptions and misjudgments is much higher. Accuracy, honesty and accountability are even more important today.

That means anyone who publishes a website has to abide by those old rules. They're not just for so-called "professional journalists" anymore.

July 22: Motion Picture Home Saga Is Like a Bad Movie

By Sylvia Gurinsky

A Hollywood screenwriter could come up with this story if it wasn't so sadly true.

Next year, the Motion Picture Television Fund will commemorate its 90th anniversary; it was originally the Motion Picture Relief Fund, created by the early giants of movies, including Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. In 1942, the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital was dedicated. For most of its history, the best and the brightest in the industry have lived up to the organization's motto, "Taking Care of Our Own."

Until recently.

Last year, the MPTF announced the closing down of the Long Term Care Facility, with the argument that the organization couldn't afford to keep it open because of a $20 million shortfall.

The Wrap, which covers the entertainment industry, has been chronicling the saga. It published notes from the board meeting where the decision was made, saying that part of the shortfall stemmed from lower reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid.

But in an industry that makes millions each year and an organization that has gotten help from most that work in it, why does this facility need public help?

Some of the industry's current best and brightest have been campaigning to keep the closure from happening - George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon among them. Many more - including industry professionals, the families of current and former residents of MPTF's facilities and others - have joined efforts to keep the facility open, including a petition drive.

Still others are asking how the shortfall happened. The answer is pretty much the same as it's been in a lot of corporate America recently: Glitzy renovations in various MPTF facilities that weren't crucial, and lots of money for the executives running the facilities, which the Los Angeles Times also chronicled.

Lawsuits have already been filed over the long-term facility closure, and the battle continues.

The MPTF's board includes plenty of people who have made movies about the downtrodden and who have supported the Democratic Party - you know, the one that got health care reform passed. One has to wonder why the board members are acting like the people they profess to be against.

July 21: C'est La Guerre, Stupid

By Sylvia Gurinsky


The Republican Party's continued standoff against a United States Senate vote to approve benefits for Americans who have been jobless more than six months gets more ludicrous the more the party argues against adding to the deficit.


That's because without those benefits, those jobless won't be able to pay their bills. Now that adds to the deficit - and to the bad economy. No payments, no business.



Another culprit in the deficit hike is actually two culprits - the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that G.O.P. leaders decided not to pay for with a war tax. Until Vietnam, each war that Americans fought overseas included a tax increase to pay for it.


It's not the jobless who are creating the deficit. To quote the French, c'est la guerre. Guerres.

July 19: Tweak Bridge Tender Numbers

By Sylvia Gurinsky


Removing distractions such as televisions and DVD players from bridge houses is a good idea to improve bridge tender safety. So are more supervision and better training.

But there's another idea that might need addressing: Adding more bridge tenders.

The shifts are eight hours long and the tender is alone. It's difficult enough to stay focused on any one thing for so many hours, but it's crucial when lives are at stake.

And they have been at stake in Broward County in particular during the last few years. Last year, 80-year-old Desmond Nolan died crossing a bridge at Sheridan Street in Hollywood because the bridge tender did not see him while opening the bridge. Nolan's family filed a lawsuit against Florida's Department of Transportation and the company it employs to operate that bridge. A couple of weeks ago, 76-year-old Miguel Borda was lucky to escape with his life while the bridge at Hallandale Beach Boulevard went up.

There's a large population of elderly residents in Broward's coastal sections, and they are likely to walk across bridges for various purposes, including shopping, fishing and exercising.

For a bridge tender, what's on the bridge - pedestrians and cars - should get priority before the boats that cross. A bridge tender also has other duties - including paperwork. On weekday shifts, the tender can face rush hour traffic.

Imagine the outcry if there was a single air traffic controller in the tower at Miami International or Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

FDOT and its contractors need to add more, as well as better trained, employees. On Broward's busiest bridges, one, apparently, is not enough in the bridge house.

July 15: The Rules Aren't Different Here

By Sylvia Gurinsky

The rules are the same for any candidate for public office - even one who has worked a lifetime in the private sector.

In Florida, this year's election has two candidates for statewide office who fit that bill: Democrat Jeff Greene in the race for United States Senate and Republican Rick Scott in the race for governor.

They're both high in the polls in their respective primaries, but they haven't gotten with the program yet in terms of disclosure. Floridians are still waiting to hear the details of Greene's tax returns, and concrete explanations from both men of their business dealings.

If they win their respective elections in November, they will take public responsibility for Florida's future. They will not be able to hide behind the doors of fancy offices.

If they believe they can keep a distance from the public responsibilities of office, they might want to ask Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzeneggar - two men who weren't "career politicians," but have certainly known the pains of holding public office.

As long as they want - and possibly hold - those public offices, Scott and Greene have responsibilities to be open and honest.

July 14: Reading the Tea Leaves From Cuba

By Sylvia Gurinsky

If image is everything, as some say, the question is what's behind the recent images coming from Cuba.

The first images came a couple of weeks ago, with a now-teenaged Elian Gonzalez talking about his life and his brief, tumultuous time in the United States in 1999-2000. Clearly, the Cuban government was trotting him out on the 10th anniversary of his return to that island as a propaganda victory - specifically over the Cuban exile community in South Florida.

The next images came a few days ago, with a skinny Fidel Castro in a supposedly live interview (more likely, to quote an expression NBC once used for its Olympics coverage, "plausibly live"), talking about this and that, including the possibility (for him, anyway) that the United States will launch a nuclear war.

Why those images? Most likely because Cuba is trying to avoid the images, at least for its own people, of its release of 52 dissidents. Also most likely because Fidel's brother, Cuban president Raul Castro, is trying to keep the peace in the country. Nothing like a "Fidel's Greatest Hits" release to do that.

But the Cuban people have shown many signs that they want to head into a peaceful, prosperous and open future - including a friendly relationship with the United States. Those signs are far more telling than these pathetic forays into the past. Fidel Castro may be feeling a little healthier these days, but he can't turn back the march of progress in Cuba anymore.