I am a fan of the television show Dexter.
Can’t help it. There’s something about a serial killer who goes after serial killers that just piques my morbid sense of justice.
But that’s not where I’m headed with this.
On the show, the Dexter character always talks about his dark passenger, which is the alter ego of his serial killer self, as opposed to the public self that is a blood spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department.
It’s irony wrapped in a conundrum and it just makes me smile.
But anyway, it’s the dark passenger bit that brings this column to light this week.
You see, I have picked up my own dark passenger.
Early voting for the Jan. 31 Presidential preference primary is now open. People can vote until Jan. 28. And everyone should.
Just because there is only a Republican Presidential primary going on doesn’t mean voters other than registered Republicans won’t have business at the polls, either early or on Jan. 31.
The biggest item on the ballot for everyone that day is the Monroe County Schools half-mil tax diversion referendum.
I know that I promised I wouldn’t make fun of crazy drivers for a few months, but that is a resolution I’m going to have to be forced to break because, well because I’ve just been handed so much easy fodder in the last two weeks.
It’s kind of like passing up a bet that the rock falling from the top of the building will hit the ground. You just have to take someone up on it.
Three weeks ago, wait. If it happened prior to the time I made the resolution, it doesn’t really count does it?
Anyway.
Yesterday was the deadline for Monroe County to have implemented what could be devastating new local land regulations to make sure the Federal Emergency Management Agency and US Fish and Wildlife Service can adequately protect endangered species that call Monroe County home.
And rest assured that statement doesn’t make sense to local officials either.
At issue is a court-approved lawsuit settlement between FEMA, USFWS and environmental groups that has been in the courts for more than 20 years. The groups sued USFWS claiming it was abdicating its responsibility to protect endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act by allowing FEMA to continue to subsidize flood insurance in sensitive habitat areas.
Since I so brilliantly limited myself to what I’m allowed to make fun of in certain time frames last week, this week I must search wide to find some subject, any subject, upon which I can opine.
But there is one subject I did not declare taboo for any length of time, thus I will have to broach that subject.
And that is cell phones.
Actually, what we used to call cell phones are now mostly miniature computers with an established internet connection that allow us to keep in touch virtually unimpeded by location, weather or circumstance.
For instance, while we’re driving down the road, we can search for and download the movie of our choice to our phone, and actually play the darn thing while behind the wheel.
This could make for some very interesting stories to insurance companies when the inevitable vehicle crashes occur.
The Florida state judiciary last week decided to end its years-old policy of requiring a mediation session between lenders and borrowers prior to a foreclosure action.
And that is a slap in the face to Florida homeowners.
The mandatory mediation policy was hailed as a consumer-friendly breakthrough in 2007 when the housing bubble began to burst and lenders began filing foreclosure actions on tens of thousands of people who had bought homes during the boom of the early 2000s only to have some “creatively” structured loans not pan out.
Wasn’t yesterday Independence Day?
At least that’s the way it feels. And now they tell me that Sunday is January 1, 2012.
Here comes a new year and I still haven’t caught up to the old one.
I haven’t even had time to think about a new set of New Year’s resolutions. Usually I try to make resolutions that I know I can keep, you know the type that don’t require you to do anything different than you already do to be successful at year’s end and give you a sense of accomplishment.
But there hasn’t been time to think of what I can do successfully. There hasn’t even been time to think of the things I know I can’t accomplish.
So here’s a stab at some resolutions that maybe, just maybe, I can keep in the coming year.
As 2011 flips over into 2012, it might be time to take a look back to find out how we as Americans got where we are today.
Unfortunately, what we are witnessing is the fabric of a once-great nation being torn asunder by a partisanship we haven’t seen before in our history.
With the increasing popularity of the internet, and the lack of any limits on decorum, truth and compassion, nearly all online conversations these days break down into a series of name-calling, foul-mouthed opinions and one-upsmanship. The days of civil, rational, thoughtful debate are behind us.
While this holds particularly true in political circles, we see it in other walks of life as well.
I have finally found a legitimate excuse to carry this thing on my side called a SmartPhone.
Just today, I found an application on the internet that allows me to track the movements of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve through the phone. (For those interested it’s supposed to be in the app store for any operating system, to learn more www.noradsanta.org)
Now I will know exactly when the fat guy in the red suit is getting ready to descend onto my neighborhood and I can meet him with a new coconut launcher I’ve been working on.
You see, Santa is a great legend. He’s also a parent’s worst nightmare.
State leaders really need to figure out what it is they want from Monroe County and the municipalities inside its borders.
Recently, the new state Department of Economic Opportunity, which now houses the state Department of Community Affairs and has become the land-use watchdog, said it could support an additional 100 transient unit licenses in Marathon because the city has been doing so well in its quest to provide central wastewater.
And in the same breath, it is requiring as part of Monroe County’s yearly work plan that new hurricane evacuation clearance time models be run to make sure the county can get all of its people out in under 24 hours.
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