JosŽ Varela, a regular free-lance cartoonist (a cartoonist!) at the
Miami Herald's sister paper El Nuevo Herald, barricaded
himself in the building on Friday, armed with a gun that turned out to be
fake, complaining about sinister (pro-Castro, or at least
insufficiently-anti-Castro) things happening that the two top editors were
somehow responsible for. He gave himself up after three hours or so, with no
damage. Actually, marital and financial woes might have dominated him more
than Castro, and El Nuevo might have seen it coming six days
earlier, when it published his 'toon, titled "The Speed of Modern Life,"
with a bride and groom exchanging vows in one panel, then the bride gunning
down the groom in the next panel, captioned "Damn liar!" [Miami Herald main
story] [Miami Herald Varela profile]

A Kinder, Gentler Version of Michael Richards The city manager of a place called Golden Beach (pop. 919 mostly-rich
people, between Hollywood and North Miami Beach) said she never meant any
harm when she referred to her assistant (a black woman) as "mammy." But
then, apparently mortified that she'd upset the woman, she tried to get back
on her good side by assuring her just how much she's always loved "Aunt
Jemima." Seriously, she did. [Miami Herald]

Sarasota County's (and Florida's) Voting Problem: Lobbyists After the 2000 fiasco, many Florida leaders wanted to vault quickly from the
Bush-Gore voting swamp all the way to Best in Show for 2004, and as a result
were dazzled by space-age touch-screen machines and especially by the
lobbyists who could have bought second homes with the fees they earned
peddling them. (Wait a minute . . Florida . . lobbyists . . who wouldda
thought?) The companies laid out the glitz and assured the tech-challenged
election supervisors that nothing could go wrong, and many bought in,
bypassing the safer standby (optical-scan voting, which not only yields a
paper "receipt" but requires that the actual voting itself take place on
paper). [St. Petersburg Times]

Follow-Ups Gretchen Morales's explanation for her self-abduction (from Polk County to
St. Petersburg last week) [The F State, 11-21-2006, 11-20-2006] was a
disappointment. She just wanted to win her husband back, and she said the
abduction shtick came to her in dreams (and she also can't now
understand why the Dept. of Children and Families is reluctant to return her
kids right away). [Lakeland Ledger]

The St. Petersburg Times went more into the story of that
ex-parking officer/stalker Michael Mehill (who hovered around a St. Pete
Beach woman for 15 yrs) [The F State, 11-17-2006]. His psych report said he
is "socially retarded" and, besides, has a hygiene problem. [St. Petersburg
Times]

Your Daily Loser(s) Brothers Tevin, 14, and Hariel Anderson, 16, of Apollo Beach (near Tampa),
were arrested for felony grand theft from jewelry burglaries when they posed
wearing the bling on their MySpace.com page and were spotted by the victim's
son, who was browsing. [Tampa Tribune]

More Things To Worry About Today The president-designate of the Christian Coalition, who had planned to move
the headquarters to Orlando and increase the outreach, resigned when the
board told him that "Christianity" doesn't so much mean helping the less
fortunate as it means stopping gay marriage [Orlando Sentinel] . . . . .
Former TV male twinkie, Howie Handsel, who had volunteered to serve
Thanksgiving dinner at the Salvation Army shelter in Orlando, was kicked out
for stylin' and profilin' to the cameras instead of serving [Orlando
Sentinel] . . . . . After a two-week search for a 38-yr-old New Port Richey
woman, it turns out she fell behind some furniture, got wedged in upside
down and suffocated, and if you assume that means foul play, it means you've
never stood on a bureau and leaned down behind a bookcase to plug a TV set
into a low-lying wall socket. [St. Petersburg Times] . . . . . Your daily F
State child-porn arrest: a Jacksonville guy named (seriously) Mr. Wizard
Knight Pendleton [FirstCoastNews.com] . . . . . Gang leader denies
membership to girl, as not ready for prime time, unless she shoots someone,
whereupon her brother-in-law lends her his gun, and she accidentally kills
him (and thus, is now ready for prime time?) [FirstCoastNews.com] . . . . .
The vast majority of teenage chat room girls seeking sex with older men are,
of course, undercover cops, but this one was real, and an Orlando guy is now
looking at 145 yrs, plus he had to fly 5,500 miles to meet her [Honolulu
Advertiser] . . . . . In Tampa, residents of one upscale community became
gated, to protect themselves from their riff-raff neighbors who live in
houses only in the $600k range [St. Petersburg Times] . . . . . In High
Springs, 300 cats (and if you think that means something bad, well, you've
been living in Florida too long, 'cause it's a sanctuary!)
[Gainesville Sun]

This article appears in Nov 22-28, 2006.