Local blogger BlenderLaw, finds that where you live does make a difference…, and that living in Miami starts to mess with one's perceptions:
Visiting Asheville, NC, after living in Miami for a while, the ingles supermarkets signs looked to me as though they were advertising something English, or for English people (in Spanish) – and this happened the 4th and 5th and even 10th time of reading the signs. I'm not sure I would have read them that way 10 years ago.
I have found what I believe to be one of the last types of information for which search on the Internet remains utterly useless: finding where fireworks stands might located in the South Dade area.
I did discover that there's a store in Key Largo, but that's kinda far.
The big July 4 celebration in Coral Gables at the Biltmore has been canceled again — perhaps permanently. And the family doesn't want one of those boxes they sell in Publix this year…
It was a good paper 15 years ago. And despite some subsequent slippage, there were real signs of life. I thought hiring DeFede was a great move a few years ago; firing him was super-stupid. Other than Fred Grimm and the soon-to-be departed Ana Menendez, who still shine, the local section, which used to be the best part, is a five-minute read. If the kids didn't like the comics so much, I'm not sure I'd keep my subscription.
The Miami Herald has gotten pretty dull.
And the sign of the times that makes me think it's not going to get better isn't the 17% cut in staff detailed at How will staff cuts affect The Miami Herald?, although that's sure to hurt, but rather this gem in the same article:
… a group of 15 distinguished Miami-Dade County leaders quietly have been meeting on their own over the past four months to make recommendations for what they think The Miami Herald should be.
Miami is a diverse, fragmented community with many media options, but because of its wide circulation, The Miami Herald can be the glue that holds us all together, one of the group s members, Florida International University President Mitch Maidique, explained.
Other members include United Way President Harv Mogul; UM trustee and Coral Gables attorney Dean Colson; Marvin O'Quinn, chief executive of Jackson Memorial Hospital; UM President Donna Shalala; Miami-Dade County School Superintendent Rudy Crew; attorney Aaron Podhurst; and Flagler Development Group President Adolfo Henriques.
The Herald didn't pick this committee, but I am pretty sure they'll get a very respectful listen. And the makup of this group exemplifies what's wrong with the Herald. This is not a challenge-the-status-quo kind of a club. But if you want to sell papers, you have to give voice to the afflicted and afflict the powerful.
Want to fix the Herald? Start by putting the guys at Eye on Miami in charge of the Metro section. Or at least give them serious column inches and the power to assign a couple reporters.
President Shalala can be an iconoclast when she wants to be. I wish I thought there were any chance she'd recommend the Herald hire Genius of Despair and Gimleteye. It's hard to see how anything less radical can save the paper.
Congratulations to Jessica Carvalho Morris, JD '03, who is the Director of UM Law's International and Foreign Graduate Programs, for being elected to the National Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA.
Jessica has been the coordinator for the Miami Chapter of Amnesty since January 2004.
According to a recent survey Miami is 29th among the Worlds Richest Cities, by estimated personal net earnings in 2008. And it's fourth among the large US cities on the list.
These calculations are based on wage figures, social security contributions and working hours in 2006 for fourteen widespread professions. Uniform criteria were used with regard to work experience, age, marital status etc. The wage index was weighted by the share of each occupation in overall employment and overall income and also by gender. The figures relate to pay net of taxes and social security contributions. In calculating the 2008 update of the wage index, USB not only took account of exchange rates and inflation, but also factored in that part of the economic growth was due to productivity improvements and was therefore passed on to employees in the form of higher pay.
Of course, Miami is also a leader in poverty. (#1 in a list of poorest American cities with population over 250,000 when ranked by median household income, 2006).
Assuming the validity of the methods — a big assumption — I'm guessing this means we have a low median wage, but a higher average wage due to the presence of a substantial group of some really really rich folks, and of course lots of rich people living off unearned income and/or comfortably retired.
We must have an amazing Gini coefficient.
The University of Miami Law School got pasted in the latest US News law school rankings: dropped 12 places. Our faculty reputation rank still puts UM in the top 50, but lots of the other metrics hurt.
Dean Lynch has sent out a note to the community about it. I'll post the text if and when I get one; in the mean time all I have is this .gif version, which is what they sent us.
Update: .pdf version of Dean Lynch's letter.
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