Hallandale Beach Blog

Sunday, June 3, 2012

From the blog's cold storage vault, circa 2010: Another Hallandale Beach story the South Florida news media originally ignored for YEARS: faux journalism & crony capitalism with taxpayer dollars for allies of HB City Hall

Above, the never-ending embarrassment for us as Hallandale Beach taxpayers and the world of journalism. October 8, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

The City of Hallandale Beach subsidizes one-sided propaganda thru $50k grant to FAUX newspaper

What follows is a Draft of a March 2010 blog entry that while it contains certain elements regular readers may recognize from previous posts here, was never itself posted online this way. And was, of course, 100% true when I wrote it, too.

Looking at it now, I can't help but wonder if Broward Inspector General John W. Scott and his crew of investigators, who are already busy investigating the city, have spoken yet to former Hallandale Beach CRA Manager Bobby Robinson or former HB Director of Development Services Richard Cannone, now of Calvin, Giordano & Associates.

(At HB City Hall Cannone is now considered a registered lobbyist and has visited HB City Hall numerous times on behalf of The Related Group's Beachwalk proposal on the Intercoastal that was unanimously rejected in January by the HB Planning & Zoning Board, but which, this being HB, comes back anyway to the entire City Commission this coming Wednesday night. More on that in a separate blog post on Mo0nday.)
If not, Mr. Scott & Company should definitely be making a VERY STRONG effort to do so -now.

I can personally think of about a hundred or so concerned Hallandale Beach citizens who, given enough of a head's up, would be happy to bring a cup of coffee with them from Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts and then plop down $10 a piece to sit down and observe an interview held in the middle of the auditorium of the HB Cultural Center, so we could finally hear their own accounts of what was REALLY going on that had/has so many HB taxpayers rightly upset.

How public information about development proposals was kept from the public, or so we can all find out which squeaky wheels in town were asking to be greased via CRA funds, with an almost guaranteed lack of appropriate accountability or follow-up.

Reminding you again, the following is from March 2010...

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The City of Hallandale Beach subsidizes one-sided propaganda thru $50k grant to FAUX newspaper.

Above, the document that memorializes the fact that the City of Hallandale Beach subsidizes one-sided propaganda thru a grant and loan to FAUX newspaper.
And yes, that is the same FREE fake newspaper that gives Mayor Joy Cooper a "column" to extol her particular brand of ill-informed nonsense and half-truths without fear that a Letter to the Editor will EVER appear that directly refutes and corrects her serial mis-statements.

The Sun-Times not only DOESN'T run them, they DON'T print ANYTHING the slightest bit critical of Hallandale Beach City Hall, Mayor Cooper or City Manager Mike Good and his high-paid staff.
Just so you know, as of just a few months ago, HB's city manager and staff made more in salaries than the Hollywood City Manager's Office, despite the City of Hollywood being well over THREE TIMES larger in both size and population.
Guess who'd never ever mention that salient fact?

Yes, Craig Farquhar's faux newspaper that serves as propaganda arm to Hallandale Beach City Hall.

The faux newspaper that serves as propaganda arm to Hallandale Beach City Hall

November 8, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier

The faux newspaper that serves as the propaganda arm to Hallandale Beach City Hall and the Joy Cooper & Mike Good Regime, the South Florida Sun-Times.
This particular vending machine is located but two feet away from one of the emergency fire exits of The Flashback Diner on U.S.-1/South Federal Highway, across from Gulfstream Park.
In a normal, well-run city, they'd be removed to another place on the property.

But in Hallandale Beach, a trio of vending machines can be placed right next to an emergency exit in a building one block from HB City Hall, and nobody there EVER notices the self-evident violation!
They are deaf, dumb and blind to everything around them. .

Twenty years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Hallandale Beach, Florida still needs glasnost!

November 5th, 2009 Update re South Florida Sun-Times, above.At yesterday morning's Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting, I heard the new official Hallandale Beach City Hall stalling tactic regarding the actual citizens and taxpayers of this city being able to see the documents regarding City Manager Mike Good's decision to give $50,000 in city CRA money as a grant to the faux newspaper called the South Florida Sun-Times, above.

Mayor Joy Cooper was practically gloating Wednesday when she foolishly said that she thinks that the particular documents are "proprietary" and can't be shared with public!
Can she really be that arrogant and anti-democratic in public, he said rhetorically.

Can she really think that she can trump the State of Florida Constitution and the protected rights that Florida citizens enjoy under our Sunshine Laws, forever, and that there won't be legal and political consequences for her personally and the city?

To answer my own question, yes, Joy Cooper is indeed that arrogant, that anti-democratic and that egotistical. Proprietary?

Sure, because in the current economy of the year 2009, actual for-profit companies want to model their own behavior on an inferior product like the faux newspaper, the Sun-Times, that doesn't actually generate a profit, has a very poor reputation and that rather than accurately reflect the news of the community in its pages, good and bad, exists as a propaganda arm of Hallandale Beach City Hall and the mayor and city manager who give it money, just like the Hallandale Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Twenty years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Hallandale Beach, Florida still needs glasnost!

Below, the phony "story" the city placed in the faux newspaper the week before the 2008 election:

The phony story the city placed in the faux newspaper before 2008 election

This is the phony, one-sided story Hallandale Beach City Hall had placed in the faux newspaper the week before the November 2008 election, in order to try to ensure that Anthony A. Sanders got elected.

It was dis-honestly titled Setting the Record Straight: On the Purchase of Eagles Development Center, and carried no byline or identifying author information.
Most well-informed people in the city have long-believed that it was actually written by someone in the HB City Manager's Office, likely one of the Asst. City Managers.

Which is to say that some highly-paid city employee, whose salary and pension are paid for with taxpayer funds, was instructed to concoct a lie masquerading as a news story, in order to placate at least one elected city official, in order to ensure that facts about an interim City Commissioner were covered-up and that said interim City Commissioner was elected.

That's how absurd life in Hallandale Beach is, and where was the South Florida news media when this originally happened, even after they were repeatedly told what was going on?
Completely Missing in Action, as usual!

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Hallandale Beach Blog is where I try to inject or superimpose a degree of accountability, transparency and insight onto Florida and local Broward County government and public policy issues, which I feel is sorely lacking in local media now. On this blog, locally, I concentrate my energy, enthusiasm, anger and laser-like attention on the coastal cities of Hallandale Beach and Hollywood.

If you lived in this part of South Florida, you'd ALREADY be stuck in stultifying traffic, paying higher-than-necessary taxes and continually musing about the chronic lack of accountability among not only elected govt. officials, but also of city, county and state employees as well. Collectively, with a few rare exceptions, they couldn't be farther from the sort of strong results-oriented, eager work-ethic mentality that local residents deserve and expect.

This is particularly true in the town I live in, the City of Hallandale Beach, just north of Aventura and south of Hollywood. There, the "Perfect Storm" of years of apathy, incompetency and cronyism are all too readily apparent.
Sadly for its residents, HB is where even easily-solved, quality-of-life problems are left to fester for YEARS on end, because of myopia, lack of common sense and ineffective supervisory management. It's a city with lots of potential because of its terrific location, yet its citizens have become numb to its outrages and screw-ups after years of the worst kind of mismanagement and lack of foresight. On a daily basis, they wake up and see the same old problems that have never being adequately resolved by the city in a logical and responsible fashion, merely kicked -once again- further down the road.

I used to ask myself, not always rhetorically, "Where are all the enterprising young reporters who want to show that through their own hard work and enterprise, what REAL investigative reporting can produce?" Hearing no response, I decided to start a blog that could do some of these things, taking the p.o.v. of a reasonable but skeptical person seeing the situation for the first time, and wanting questions answered in a honest and logical way that citizens have the right to expect.

Hallandale Beach Blog intends to be a catalyst for positive change.

If there's one constant gripe in South Florida, regardless of your age, race, nationality or political persuasion, it's about the fundamental lack of PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY here among Florida's state, regional and local govt./agency officials. Hallandale Beach Blog aims to be a small step towards regaining some of that needed accountability, whether it's thru simple public scrutiny, or requires a degree of follow-up investigation and public exposure of incompetency, cronyism or simple negligence -South Florida's usual governing style.

"And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen."- Preacher Purl encouraging the underdog Hickory High basketball team before the state title game against heavily-favored South Bend Central in 1986's Hoosiers http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091217/

Audio of pregame speech:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechhoosiersfinal.html

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The South Florida I Grew Up In
Excerpted from Joan Didion's Miami, 1987, Simon & Schuster: In the continuing opera still called, even by Cubans who have now lived the largest part of their lives in this country, el exilo, the exile, meetings at private homes in Miami Beach are seen to have consequences. The actions of individuals are seen to affect events directly. Revolutions and counter-revolutions are framed in the private sector, and the state security apparatus exists exclusively to be enlisted by one or another private player. That this particular political style, indigenous to the Caribbean and to Central America, has now been naturalized in the United States is one reason why, on the flat coastal swamps of South Florida, where the palmettos once blew over the detritus of a dozen failed booms and the hotels were boarded up six months a year, there has evolved since the early New Year's morning in 1959 when Fulgencio Batista flew for the last time out of Havana a settlement of considerable interest, not exactly an American city as American cities have until recently been understood but a tropical capital: long on rumor, short on memory, overbuilt on the chimera of runaway money and referring not to New York or Boston or Los Angeles or Atlanta but to Caracas and Mexico, to Havana and to Bogota and to Paris and Madrid. Of American cities Miami has since 1959 connected only to Washington, which is the peculiarity of both places, and increasingly the warp...

"The general wildness, the eternal labyrinths of waters and marshes, interlocked and apparently neverending; the whole surrounded by interminable swamps... Here I am then in the Floridas, thought I," John James Audobon wrote to the editor of The Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural Science during the course of an 1831 foray in the territory then still called the Floridas. The place came first, and to touch down there is to begin to understand why at least six administrations now have found South Florida so fecund a colony. I never passed through security for a flight to Miami without experiencing a certain weightlessness, the heightened wariness of having left the developed world for a more fluid atmosphere, one in which the native distrust of extreme possibilities that tended to ground the temperate United States in an obeisance to democratic institutions seemed rooted, if at all, only shallowly. At the gate for such flights the preferred language was already Spanish. Delays were explained by weather in Panama. The very names of the scheduled destinations suggested a world in which many evangelical inclinations had historically been accommodated, many yearnings toward empire indulged...

In this mood Miami seemed not a city at all but a tale, a romance of the tropics, a kind of waking dream in which any possibility could and would be accommodated...
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The Lawton Chiles Trail

The Lawton Chiles Trail sign on south-bound U.S.-1 at Broward County/Miami-Dade countyline. Lawton Chiles was a great and humble man, blessed with an optimistic spirit, a tireless work-ethic and unquestioned integrity. I first met and campaigned with in 1976 during his first Senate re-election battle. We talked as we walked up to one NMB house after another -not too far from the county Carter-Mondale HQ in NMB I worked at- greeting lots of surprised voters, as we took turns ringing doorbells, all under the watchful eye of a film crew from Channel 7/WSVN. Over the years, both before and after I moved to the Washington, D.C. area from South Florida, I was fortunate enough to talk to him from time-to-time and get the benefit of his advice and wisdom, as well as enjoy the warm hospitality of The Florida House, across from The Supreme Court. That was the brilliant idea of his wonderful wife, Rhea, with whom he worked tirelessly to make it a reality for visiting Floridians. For more info, see http://floridaembassy.com/ June 22, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Hallandale Beach in The Miami Herald over 25 years ago

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Hallandale Beach in The Miami Herald over 25 years ago
"For years people living in and out of its condo-walled sector east of U.S. 1 have wondered what to do about the city of Hallandale. In the 19th Century the condo giants would have served as ideal fortresses. From top floors of the towers, enemy ships could be readily spotted and blown out of the Atlantic. Oceanfront dwellers could have been protected from the west by the Hallandale Beach Boulevard drawbridge and moat called the Intracoastal Waterway. But this is the 20th Century..."

-Miami Herald Broward Columnist Bill Braucher's first paragraph from July 24, 1983.
To which Hallandale Beach Blog can only say, Bulls-eye!

Hallandale Beach Water Tower on A1A/South Ocean Drive

"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?"

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"Laws and Constitutions go for nothing where the general sentiment is corrupt."
-New York Times, September 22, 1851

"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?"
-Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper at April 2, 2008 HB City Commission meeting, in discussing possible inclusion of Broward County Charter Review Commission's proposal for Ethics Commission to deal with Broward County Commission, on November 2008 ballot.

Six YEARS after the county's voters had overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the County charter requiring its adoption, the Broward County Commission had yet to live up to its legal responsibility. That's why!

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Corruption Isn't Unique to South Florida, It's the Level of the Stupidity That Is

Corruption Isn't Unique to South Florida, It's the Level of the Stupidity That Is
"[Chicago Mayor] William Hale Thompson was defeated Tuesday after a campaign which he alone made disgraceful. The election was an ejection, a dirty job, but Chicago has washed itself and put on clean clothes. Thompson recognized the [Chicago] Tribune as his chief enemy. The Tribune was glad to earn that opinion. It certainly tried to do so. It has taken the fight to him on every occasion during the long and depraved course of his administration. It is unpleasant business to eject a skunk, but someone has to do it.
For Chicago, Thompson has meant filth, corruption, obscenity, idiocy and bankruptcy. He has given the city an international reputation for moronic buffoonery, barbaric crime, triumphant hoodlumism, unchecked graft and a dejected citizenship. He nearly ruined the property and completely destroyed the pride of the city. He made Chicago a byword for the collapse of American civilization. In his attempt to continue this he excelled himself as a liar and defamer of character. He’s out.
He is not only out, but dishonored. He is deserted by his friends. He is permanently marked by the evidences of his character and conduct. His health is impaired by his ways of life and he leaves office and goes from the city the most discredited man who ever held place in it."

-Excerpts from April 1931 Chicago Tribune editorial following Republican "Big Bill" Thompson's loss to his Democratic rival Anton Cermak. A friend of organized crime during the Al Capone era, Thompson was the last Republican elected mayor of Chicago.
But less than two years later, Mayor Cermak was shot while shaking hands with President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt at Miami's Bayfront Park. He died from gunshot wounds to his lungs three weeks later.

See http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3686.html

Political Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Lies of Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager Mike Good

Political Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Lies of Mayor Joy Cooper and former City Manager Mike Good. March 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier, This photo was taken just days before the Air Supply fundraising/concert on the beach, as Hallandale Beach DPW employees try to make the area "appear" to be well-maintained -when in reality, it hadn't been properly maintained -and thus fool HB taxpayers and visitors alike. This building underneath the city's iconic Water Tower, just steps from both the Atlantic Ocean and State Road A1A, was given to the City of Hallandale Beach for free by The Related Group on August 3rd, 2007, and yet STILL remained OFF-LIMITS to everyday HB citizens, taxpayers and residents, the true "owners" of the building, until July of 2010, 35 MONTHS later. As of November 25, 2011, there hasn't been a single public forum held by the city dedicated to gauging how citizens want to utilize it best. That's because the community wants to actually use THEIR facility, while the city prefers keeping it locked-up. Even worse, the building remains a veritable clubhouse for the cronies and pals of HB City Hall's elected officials and city employees, who get to use it for free. And for many separate periods of time, often six months, the city couldn't even manage to keep an American flag on the city flagpole next to the fountain? Once again, HB City Hall shows their gross incompetency by being unable to manage something as simple as keeping a flag flying. Pathetic!

A fish rots from the head down, and so does local government in Broward County, FL

City of Hallandale Beach Municipal Complex: A fish rots from the head down, and so does local government in Broward County, FL. This monument sign on U.S.-1 and S.E. 5th Street, across from Gulfstream Park Racing & Casino and the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex, alerts you to your proximity to way from the HB City Hall and Police Department. It's a government that by their words and actions has given taxpayers every impression of holding itself apart and above from the citizens it's supposed to serve, often acting like they don't have to follow the laws that govern everyone else in the state of Florida and the U.S., whether of logic and reason, contracts, or, more to the point for this blog, the Florida Statutes on Sunshine Laws and Public Records. City employees in Hallandale Beach routinely refuse to answer reasonable questions posed to them by resident taxpayers, and as I have found out myself, often berated you for even having the nerve to ask! Comm. Dotty Ross has a solid record for her put-downs of the public even before they speak. As it happens, it's also not a very safe area, despite who's supposed to be there, and in the past few years, the public parking lots have been pitch black for 6-9 months at a time, even next to the Police Dept. HQ. The then-Police Chief just shrugged his shoulders, even at City Comm. meetings. As if they couldn't make a worse first impression, at one point, even the lights on this sign didn't work at night for over FOUR YEARS, either. March 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Hallandale Beach Commissioners spending taxpayer $$$ in a hurry -and NOT in the Sunshine!

In the summer of 2010, in a Hallandale Beach City Hall room where regular HB City Commission meetings are NOT held, a room where the proceedings are NOT televised, and on an agenda item that was NOT previously advertised to the public, HB's Commissioners discuss how much to pay in a bonus to then-interim-City Manager Mark A. Antonio, who'd been on the job for all of about six weeks at the time. And talk about putting the cart before the horse, at one point, you actually hear Antonio, one of two city employee who work directly for the City Commission, tell the members to hurry and make a decision on how much he should be given, because "his wife" wants to know. That's both telling and appalling for all sorts of reasons. You will also hear oblivious EIGHTY-something HB Comm. Dotty Ross making the disingenuous, smart-ass crack about "asking the blogger." Ross was only too happy to give away thousands of taxpayer dollars at a meeting where the public didn't know what was going on, and in this case, a bonus to someone for just doing the job they were already getting very well-paid for. With, I might add, NOT very much to point to in the way of positive accomplishments considering the sorry state of the city. It might interest you to know that using their own publicly-revealed figures, in early 2010, the very small group of people working in the HB City Manager's Office received as much in salary as next-door City of Hollywood, this despite tha fact that Hollywood is SIX times larger in land size, and with over THREE times the population size -37,000 vs. 140,000. Chew on those figures! Michael Butler's Change Hallandale video: http://youtu.be/dyM5P3Kl6iQ Michael Butler's informative website Change Hallandale is at http://changehallandale.com/

Hallandale Beach. Actually, it's a city of gross incompetency, red-tape & myopia

Hallandale Beach, City of Choice. The sign that greets northbound drivers on U.S.-1/South Federal Hwy. as they leave the City of Aventura and Miami-Dade County in the rear window; one of the three main streets into Hallandale Beach. Unfortunately, it's the perfect metaphor for the City of Hallandale Beach and its elected officials and employees: short-sighted and lacking in common sense. This sign was originally placed so far west on the median strip -and practically BEHIND a palm tree- that drivers can't actually read it even if they wanted to. In any case, because of the longtime gross incompetency and negligence of the city, the spotlights that are supposed to illuminate the sign at night HAVEN'T worked since about mid-January of 2004. Which is to say, yes, LONGER than the U.S.'s involvement in WW II. Welcome to the City of Hallandale Beach! Begin heavy traffic, chronic red tape and mis-adventures in government! Hallandale Beach, FL; Original photo here was taken January 2007; this one taken May 8, 2008; photo by South Beach Hoosier. The three palm trees that had been in front of it on the median are gone, so now you can REALLY notice that it DOESN'T work! February 2009 update: In order to make room for a left-turning lane at S.E. 5th Street into The Village of Gulfstream retail complex, the 'invisible' sign was removed and placed farther north. As of May 11th, 2012, the lights on this sign STILL don't work! In fact, the light fixtures have been gone for months. Yet another sign of the ruinous reign of Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager's Mike Good & Mark A. Antonio. No attention to detail!

Crown Princess Victoria's moving speech to the Swedish people

Crown Princess Victoria's speech to the Swedish people - Victorias Tal till Svenska Folket på Bröllopet 19 juni 2010. Her short but moving speech that had people laughing -and crying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtoLtHKLD5k Victoria's comments: Kära, kära vänner,jag vill börja med att tacka svenska folket för att ni har gett mig min prins. Vi, min make och jag, är så otroligt glada och väldigt tacksamma för att så många vill vara här och fira tillsammans med oss. Det är en enorm upplevelse, det är vår absolut största dag hittills i vårt liv. Att känna ert stöd betyder mer för oss än ni någonsin skulle kunna förstå. Det är något otroligt. Idag är en dag som vi kommer att bära med oss i våra hjärtan för resten av vårt liv. Tack! My June 20th post on Crown Princess Victoria's wedding and ceremonies was http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/on-her-big-day-crown-princess-victoria.html SVT video of det kungliga bröllopet are at: http://svt.se/2.125172/det_kungliga_brollopet

HBO's "Game Change" film about Sarah Palin, starring Julianne Moore, premieres Saturday March 10th

Trailer

Jay Roach, the director of "Game Change," said on PBS' Charlie Rose Show on March 5th that after seeing the entire film in previews in liberal bastions of the country, even critics of Sarah Palin came away with a much-better understanding of the complex and almost-impossible situation that she was put into during the 2008 campaign. That may or may not be true, but the curious thing to me is that the trailer for the film, which is appearing as an ad on many news websites I go to everyday, seems to have been cut with a very different purpose, and seems to be geared for people who want to laugh at Palin and see her have a meltdown. I know, I know, consider the source. Given that it's on HBO, it isn't really surprising, is it?. HBO Films -Game Change. Premieres March 10 at 9 p.m., starring Julianne Moore, Ed Harris and Woody Harrelson, directed by Jay Roach http://www.hbo.com/movies/game-change

Sebastian the Ibis, the U-M mascot

Like longtime U-M fans everywhere, including me, Sebastian the Ibis, the U-M mascot, hasn't had very much to cheer about lately, given the general state of mediocrity and underwhelming performances coming from the Hurricanes. Isn't it about time for fans to finally see some tangible signs that the new AD is moving things in the right direction? Where are the signs? I'm NOT seeing them. The woeful U-M Women's program is largely composed of teams that are NOT even close to being competitive for NCAA titles like their ACC competition, and they don't even field Women's Lacrosse or Field Hockey teams. It's embarrassing! Click on Sebastian for retrospective photo gallery of The Orange Bowl

Change Hallandale Beach

Change Hallandale Beach- A fact-based website run by my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach civic activist, Michael Butler, which goes directly after the longtime incompetency and crony capitalism at Hallandale Beach City Hall with cold-hard logic, quantifiable figures, graphs, charts and videos. The kind of evidence that Mayor Joy Cooper, City Manager Mark Antonio and the Rubber Stamp Crew -i.e. City Commissioners Dotty Ross, Anthony A. Sanders and Alexander Lewy- CAN'T refute with any of their serial lies, half-truths, mis-statements of fact, or exaggerations from the dais. Theirs is a strange Looking Glass world of un-reality that can quickly confuse -or frighten!- normal people not prepared for such self-evident mendacity. Which is where Michael comes in stage-left and I come in stage-right...

See the evidence for yourself and see what's REALLY going on in Hallandale Beach from Michael's informed perspective at http://www.changehallandale.com

When the subject is pet adoption and puppy mills...

ActsofSedition video: The April 4th, 2012 Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting promised HB residents and pet lovers the opportunity they've been waiting for for several years, but when so many people showed-up and wanted to have their voices finally heard, they got a first-hand lesson in how Mayor Joy Cooper does things -her way or the highway- as she is heard threatening to toss members of the public out. Mayor Cooper remains defiant as always, but Comm. Keith London and HB resident (and longtime opponent of puppy mills) Michele Lazarow comment to Local 10's Ross Palombo on what happened last week and the spectacle that is HB City Hall under the wearisome reign of the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew. April 11, 2012. http://youtu.be/UNEn1jgTvw4 See my April 12, 2012 post about this at: http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/when-subject-is-pet-adoption-and-puppy.html

Fabulous! Deconstructing fame and film industry thru the prism of actress who personifies sexy

Blogger and Internet guru iJustine's photoshoot for Maxim magazine; Justine Ezarik

iJustine photoshoot for Maxim magazine; Blogger and Internet guru Justine Ezarik http://youtu.be/YLKU4tkWH2s Photos at: http://www.maxim.com/amg/girls/girls-of-maxim/91021/ijustine.html Justine Ezarik's media portfolio consists of the following portals: ijustine.com, twitter.com/ijustine, youtube.com/ijustine, youtube.com/otherijustine, youtube.com/ijustinereviews youtube.com/ijustinesiphone, youtube.com/ijustinegaming, ijustine.spreadshirt.com, dailybooth.com/ijustine, facebook.com/ijustine, myspace.com/ijustine

Bella Tech - Summer Song (2011)

Bella Tech - Summer Song http://youtu.be/0Q5x7NfbhP0 A very, very catchy song from the Los Angeles-based band that features lead vocals by Jennifer Åkerman. I commented on this oh-so catchy song back on August 3rd and have listened to it every day since then, and I'm not alone, since lots of other curious people are coming here from all over the world to listen to it as well. Read Swedish-born Jennifer's always interesting blog about her life in Los Angeles at http://blogg.veckorevyn.com/lalife/

Full Of Keys - Desolate/Suicide Bridge (Official Video), August 31, 2011

Timoteij - "Stormande Hav" - 2012 Melodifestivalen, Second Heat, Göteborg, Sweden, Feb. 11, 2012

SVT's Skvallerbyttan & Ylva Hällen watch Molly Sandén perform in Leksand, Feb. 18th

Karpe Diem "Tusen Tegninger" (with Kork & Traces), Oslo Spektrum, 2011

Karpe Diem performs "Tusen Tegninger" (A Thousand Drawings) with Kork (Norwegian Radio Orchestra) & Traces Gospel Choir of Oslo. National Day of Remembrance for Attacks in Oslo and Utøya, Oslo Spektrum, August 21, 2011. My Sept. 7th, 2011 blog post on this was titled "The powerful performance by Karpe Diem doing "Tusen Tegninger" in Oslo last month -with Kork & Traces- that put another big lump in my throat that day" http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/powerful-performance-by-karpe-diem.html No matter how many times I see it, this performance ALWAYS gets to me, and makes me sad all over again. The first time I saw it, LIVE via NRK, I cried.

Sissel Kyrkjebø - Til ungdommen (To Youth) LIVE, Minnesceremoni, August 21, 2011

Sissel Kyrkjebø - Til ungdommen (To Youth) - LIVE, National Day of Remembrance for Oslo & Utøya; Minnesceremoni, Spektrum, Oslo, Norway, August 21, 2011, http://youtu.be/gKZa6hNFouw Sissel followed Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's heartfelt speech with this great performamce of "To Youth," which concluded the afternoon's memorial program that was full of heartache and tears. My August 23, 2011 blog post on this was titled simply, Amazing Sissel leaves them proud! Sissel Kyrkjebø - Til ungdommen, National Day of Remembrance for Oslo & Utøya; Minnesceremoni http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/amazing-sissel-leaves-them-proud-sissel.html

Downton Abbey theme - Did I Make The Most of Loving You? sung by Mary-Jess

Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, a.k.a. Yohanna. Her talent is transcendent!

Per my very enthusiastic and positive May 22nd, 2009 blog post about singer Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, a.k.a. Yohanna. Since first hearing her sing Is It True back on February 15th, at Söngvakeppni sjónvarpsins 2009, earning the right to represent Iceland at the 2009 Eurovison Song Contest in Moscow in May -where she placed 2nd- I've listened to every one of her songs, all genres, watched all of her videos. She's never less than flat-out amazing! Her enormous talent could hardly be more obvious!

Sunday, June 3, 2012

From the blog's cold storage vault, circa 2010: Another Hallandale Beach story the South Florida news media originally ignored for YEARS: faux journalism & crony capitalism with taxpayer dollars for allies of HB City Hall

What follows is a Draft of a March 2010 blog entry that while it contains certain elements regular readers may recognize from previous posts here, was never itself posted online this way. And was, of course, 100% true when I wrote it, too.

Twenty years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Hallandale Beach, Florida still needs glasnost!

Amazing! Arctic Motion by Tor Even Mathisen

In the Heart of a Great Country, Beats the Soul of Hoosier Nation

The NCAA Championship Banners

A Day to Remember in Bloomington

This is Indiana (Official Music Video) -Brice Fox & Daniel Weber

The Lawton Chiles Trail

Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and Village at GP retail complex, Hallandale Beach, FL

Gulfstream Way at Gulfstream Park Race Track in Hallandale Beach, FL

The View from the Hallandale Beach/Hollywood city line

Looking east on State Road 858/Hallandale Beach Blvd.

Hallandale Beach in The Miami Herald over 25 years ago

Hallandale Beach Water Tower on A1A/South Ocean Drive

"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?"

Corruption Isn't Unique to South Florida, It's the Level of the Stupidity That Is

Political Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Lies of Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager Mike Good

A fish rots from the head down, and so does local government in Broward County, FL

Hallandale Beach Commissioners spending taxpayer $$$ in a hurry -and NOT in the Sunshine!

City of Hollywood City Hall

Related Group's The Beach Club, consisting of three condo towers

Trump Hollywood, Westin Diplomat, Crowne Resort

Hallandale Beach. Actually, it's a city of gross incompetency, red-tape & myopia

Blake Lively and Leighton Meester of Gossip Girl, Rolling Stone 1075, March 2009.

Blake Lively -A Smile That Can Fill Up a TV Screen

Lynda Carter: Brains, Wit and Beauty!

Crown Princess Victoria's moving speech to the Swedish people

Still the best newspaper film ever made!

The Bad and The Beautiful

The Beatles - If I Fell -BBC Studios, Bush House, London, 1964

Winning Our Future PAC video: Obama's Dream Debate, Part 1

Obama's Wall Street by American Future Fund

HBO's "Game Change" film about Sarah Palin, starring Julianne Moore, premieres Saturday March 10th