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Bookish: A CLUTCH
OF READING MATERIALS - (6#) -

# Some good news to start off the week: The Baghdad Mutanabi Street Book Market is reviving. It is well-known as "a favorite Friday hangout for intellectuals, artists, and students." AP correspondent Hamza Hendawi says this attests to a hope for a better future.

# California Cultist
Adam Gadahn has a new tape out.
"Puppets of Planet Qaeda"

[You are growing tired... your eyelids are getting heavy... you hear and you obey... his Will has become your Will... you are the Un-Dead slave of Cult Qaeda... you will destroy yourself.]

# SoFlo Broward Alert: Oline H Cogdill reviews Miami lawyer James Grippando's new mystery novel Last Call. The author will be making an appearance in the B&N branch store at 591 S University Drive in Plantation at 7pm this Tuesday.

# LitBlogger Ed Champion has returned with
a new blog and he's trying out a new approach with it.

# A Fiction Best-Seller in Europe: Joseph Olshan reviews Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier. [A teacher discovers a book in a used book store and decides to research its deceased author.] Mercier was born in 1944 and is a professor of philosophy in Berlin, writing under a pseudonym. He previously wrote The Piano Tuner.

# Winter Literary Vacation: In the mood to travel but can't get away? A handful of current fiction books from faraway places, briefly reviewed.

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Bookish: NOSTRUM FOR
THE SEASONAL BLAHS . . . (2#)

# Just when you thought you've run out of books to read because almost every publication is eliminating coverage thereof, USAToday (bless them!) publishes a major and extensive feature by Carol Memmott called Winter Books Preview.

Coming in late January:
Duma Key by Stephen King and
The Appeal by John Grisham.

:: Expect to spend some time there.

# Folks in SoFlo are already chattering about Tom Wolfe's Back to Blood which is set in Miami and scheduled to debut in 2009. I'm a bit skeptical that an outsider's attempt to capture the city's zeitgeist will be cordially received by residents of the area, but if it's anything like Bonfire, maybe he can pull it off and win some new fans.

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SoFlo: REALTOR
CYBERSTALKING CASE and more (5#) -

# David Ovalle writes: "For creating fake, raunchy online escort ads targeting a rival real estate agent, Dean Isenberg pleaded guilty Wednesday to four counts of misdemeanor stalking." [hrld]

#Best of Broweird Stories 2007
:::: compiled by Trenton Daniel.

I remember blogging this one:

FLUSHED! (8-31-07)
Police believe they have finally caught
the notorious Toilet Posse of Topeekeegee...
This is, perhaps, the worst case of
Klepto-Valve Syndrome in Florida history.

# An ex-con former Miami Beach politician has been making the local radio talk show rounds; yesterday, I heard him on Footy's show in the morning; then later, I caught part of his appearance on Topical Currents. But they haven't posted the audio archive link to the latter... at least, not yet.

Wednesday, January 2 '08 - *Topical Currents: Alex Daoud was a Miami Beach Commissioner and Mayor during the turbulent "Miami Vice" era and the molding of today’s glitzy South Beach. Daoud served time in prison and has written an expose of his experiences called Sins of
South Beach.*

+ I'm mostly hibernating, probably until tomorrow.

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MEDIASCAPE - (4#) -

# Dave Barry's
month-by-month year in review --

"Another surprise hit in April is: Alec Baldwin Talks to His 11-Year-Old Daughter the Way Tony Soprano Talks to Somebody Whose Legs He is About to Drive Over in His Chevrolet Suburban." [Enjoy!]

# "IT'S A GRIM NEW YEAR for newspapers. As yet another rough quarter draws to a close, we witness the closing of a venerable Midwestern journal, The Cincinnati Post, as well as an alarming new trend: the outsourcing of advertising responsibilities to India." [Sass]

# "The perfect New Year
resolution for all of us: I will not
put my audience to sleep today."

# Winners announced of the 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest... "bad opening sentences for imaginary novels."

+ Blogging may be a bit light as I have some errands to get done ahead of the arrival of the expected cold snap; weather should eventually recover, possibly by Friday, despite MSM hyperbole.

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FAMOUS FROM THE TRAIN -
Spotlighting a Movie Classic -

Two of my alltime favorite characters from the Movies are a pair of Englishmen appearing in The Lady Vanishes from Alfred Hitchcock. I was delighted to discover today that someone else appreciates them, too.

Matthew Sweet writes about Charters and Caldicott:

"the film was being colonised
by two minor characters. Two
Englishmen with a cricket fixation."

A wonderful essay, especially for leisurely weekend perusal. If you like The Lady Vanishes, and I certainly do, you can't go wrong with this piece.

:: Guardian Review ::

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LOOK, MA, NO RUBBER CEMENT - (2#) -

As predicted here, the Delhiami Herald has been born.

Starting in January, some copyediting and design will be outsourced to ink-stained wretches in New Delhi, India.

And there is a rumour that this new iteration of the Herald will incorporate a Drunken Elephant Watch into the Traffic Department.

But seriously... I do have some reservations about them trying to moderate comments. I am not entirely convinced that someone from a different society could do that. Other than that, I wouldn't anticipate major problems.

By the way, it turns out, that Indian journalists are familiar with Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry and are already quoting him.

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HAZARD LIGHTS
AHEAD FOR SOTP's "Rick" -

Cyber Stalker May Be Lurking -

It appears that trouble may not yet be over for Rick, who ended the Stuck on the Palmetto Blog recently, because he may have picked up a cyber-stalker along the way.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I have blogged several Cyber Stalker cases here; for example: a young woman attached herself to blogger Rachel North in England.

What I am concerned about is the phenomenon of Spiral Thinking. Once the situation develops thusly, it seems impossible to mollify the stalker. And it is my impression, accumulated over the course of time, that stalking cases, including the cyber variety, do not usually end felicitously; most seem to end tragically.

Remember the case of the woman who was stalking TV star David Letterman? She came to believe that she had a personal relationship with him and then actually moved into his home. She ended up dead. Rachel North's cyber stalker was, I believe, sent to prison.

Rick's cyber stalker does not live in South Florida. He claims to live in New Jersey. There is no evident reason why he would ever come into contact with Rick in the ordinary course of events. But since Rick ended SotP, the cyber stalker has industriously busied himself in his attempts to sow discord between Rick and Alex, as well as among the other bloggers in South Florida.

Once the SotP blog ended, that should have been the end of whatever gripe he had about Rick. Instead, he has only stepped up his enmity by menacing Rick and taunting him. And he's a control freak, too.

"it contains the seed of his anti-Cuban obsession"

I never noticed that Rick had an "obsession" with Cubans. This reminds me of the woman who was stalking Letterman who believed she had a personal relationship with him. Most of the entries posted on SotP were about diverse topics, as I recall.

This is getting creepier and creepier as time goes on. Perhaps you naively believe that if you just ignore someone like this, he will drop his prosecution and forget about it. But they usually don't.

I can only hope the cyber stalker is still in sufficient control of his faculties to stop what he's doing and walk away from further engagement before this situation ends badly.

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~~ Al Qaeda Alert ~~

SKIPPY SPEAKS! - (3#) -
New Skippy bin Ladin Tape Coming Soon...

# The SITE terrorism monitoring group
said Thursday that As Sahab will be
releasing a new Internet message soon.

# Andrew Cochran posts more
information about the new tape.

# And he points to a report from Reuters.

The 56-minute address will be about the Islamic State in Iraq, a spectral al Qaeda affiliate whose spokesman is a computer-generated Max Headroom-type cyber avatar.

It is unknown whether the tape will be in audio or video format, but it is supposedly about "the way to foil plots
in Iraq."

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PAKISTAN / BHUTTO updates (3#) -

# "Karachi burns for beloved BB"
and other reports at the PK Daily Times.

# Contributing bloggers at:
Metroblogging Karachi report
what it's been like in that city.

# "The question is whether the Musharraf regime has the authority to restore order. The very real worry is that any attempt by it to clamp down on the violence will simply beget more violence throwing a nuclear armed state into potentially revolutionary chaos."

:: From James Forsyth at
-- The UK Spectator's Coffee House Blog.

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THEY'RE THE TOPS -

Readers at Florida Today get to
vote for what they think are the

:: Top Brevard County stories of 2007.

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SoFlo: SURFACED -

Fifteen years ago, Barry Fish, 42 years old, left his parents' suburban Boca Raton home one day, got into his silver Mercedes coupe, and vanished.

He showed up again recently - at the bottom of one of the many canals in South Florida.

His brother, a forensic dentist, identified his remains via his dental records.

:: Story by Michael LaForgia, PBPost.

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PAKISTAN IN TURMOIL (3#) -

Benazir Bhutto Assassinated in Rawalpindi.

In the wake of her assassination,
civil disorder has erupted, especially in Karachi.

Dawn is keeping a running log of updates.

A Pakistani Blog has posted an entry
with an open comment thread about it.

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Bookish: BEST READS of 2007 -

January Magazine presents their
selections for Best Books of 2007.

This list covers Mystery, Detective and
Crime Fiction, including some Offbeat picks.
There is a paragraph or so describing them.

:: BEST LIST ::

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ONE-EYED JACKS - (2#) -

An interesting article in the UK Guardian reveals what happens when a newspaper's left hand doesn't know what its right hand is doing - or is that just a pretense?

Not in our newspapers: ads that claim to be for massage services - but really advertise brothels... The ads were bringing in approximately £600,000 a year ($1 million) for Media Wales, which, to Neagle's eyes, made the group "the richest pimps in south Wales."

While, closer to home, but on much the same theme -

Stacey & Friends: Stacy Honowitz is "the second-in-command at the Broward State Attorney's Office sex
crimes unit."

"Does it really matter that she's lost her most highly publicized cases? Should I care that someone paid by taxpayers' dollars to protect children seems to spend an inordinate amount of time researching and talking about cases half a world away?"

+ Someone may grow hair on the palms of
his hands if he continues in this direction...

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WHERE WE LIVE - (3#) -

It's been somewhat quiet over the holiday here in the Broward Combat Zone. Just a quick spin around to tide
you over.

# Dead in the Water: One of the biggest recent stories in the Palm Beach area swirls around the drowning death of a local tycoon, Seth Tobias. It's already made some New York City publications up North.

* * * * *
One of the hottest issues in Florida these days, especially South Florida is the issue of runaway development gone amok and perceived by many residents to be out of control. Here are two takes related to it:

# "When developers and local
officials get cozy, residents take control."

..... and Broken Windows:
"Candidates are flush with cash."

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TRACKING: FLORIDA BABY JESUS -

OMG, just what South Florida needs:
more publicity about Crime here.

Just before I dashed out to the supermarket to pick up some last minute groceries, I spotted this article featured on the BBC Front Page:

Front: "Baby Jesus statue
in Florida getting GPS to deter thieves"

Inside: "US infant Jesus statue to get GPS - A statue of the infant Jesus on display near Miami in Florida is being fitted with a Global Positioning System device after the original figurine was stolen."

God is watching you! And so is the BBC ;-)

And maybe a couple of Blackbirds...
or even a Black Triangle or two...
or even... uh... a flying saucer...

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WHERE ARE THE BLOGS? - (4#) -
Networking From England to SoFlo -

England is an older society than ours; and the English seem to have a talent for organizing themselves, as this article in a recent edition of the UK Guardian illustrates:

"Mapping Britain's blogosphere: As blogging becomes a national pastime, Guy Clapperton takes a look at some of the writers who have embraced the medium to promote the cities they live in."

Closer to home, in the aftermath of Stuck on the Palmetto (SOTP) closing down, there has been some speculation that Critical Miami might be its successor, but I don't think that prospect looks very good. SOTP was at least nominally located in Pembroke Pines which is just over the Dade line in Broward County, forming a sort of bridge between Dade and Broward. And, although the Miami bloggers are noisy, the SoFlo blogging scene actually stretches from south of Miami in the Florida Keys up to Palm Beach. The problem is: South Florida is a lot more than just Miami.

Like a now-phantom amputated limb, SOTP continues to reverberate in the SoFlo Blogosphere. Perhaps that's because it still constitutes some sort of focal point even while defunct.

Carlos Miller continues to churn out pulplike Apocrypha about it, some of which is quite entertaining, including the spinoff parodies discussing the issue. His latest chapter is: Stripped of the Palmetto - Episode IV.

Doesn't noisy Miami have its own aggregator? Isn't anyone keeping tabs on the SoFlo Blogging Scene?

A Communications professor at the University of Miami keeps tabs on it. And Prof Alex recently partitioned his virtual machinery to establish a new blog called Stone Soup. Somehow, he manages to keep up with the latest developments using RSS, I believe, to stay current.

I don't know of any aggregator for Miami; SOTP was the closest to it. Their sidebar links were set to float blogs with new entries to the top of the list.

That leaves the South Florida Blogging Scene still in disarray. Unlike our English cousins who seem to have an amazing ability to organize for High Tea in the jungle or to organize blogging networks even in obscure neighborhoods we've never heard of.

As one SoFlo Blogger recently put it: the end of SOTP mean that the rest of us need to step up our game. And maybe more readers of blogs need to become bloggers themselves...

+ typos corrected: mon/dec24/1:20pm/xxx.

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SoFlo: POST-MORTEM RENT DUE -

A quintessential Broward County Florida story...

A guy dies suddenly and afterwards the landlord claims that the dead guy "abandoned" his lease by dying. The landlord is now demanding three months rent which he claims is due him until January when a new tenant moves into the apartment.

But here's the best part of the story: "An interpretation of the lease will be made in January by a Broward County judge."

Broward County Florida is like another country in which it is entirely possible this dead man's relative could end up getting thrown into prison and maybe not get out anytime soon, even if he has a lawyer.

:: Local 10 News ::

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AROUND FLORIDA updates - (3#) -

# Goose Creek Incident Update: Motion to suppress evidence contends that search "was not based on reasonable suspicion of unlawful acts but upon nothing more than his own biased, unlawful racial profiling." [spt]

# Boca Mall Murder Update: Goggles may be a signature,
according to the FBI special agent studying the case. [pbp]

# Former State Rep Bob Allen is included in a Rolling Stone magazine article which recaps scandals of 2007. The piece appears in the magazine's "Yearbook 2007" special double issue.

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SoFlo: LOCAL BLOGMATICS - (4#) -
..... JAABlog and SotP .....

# Lawyer Sean Conway and JAABlog
get an article in the Daily Business Review:

*critical comments he posted
on a Web log about a controversial Broward judge*

Some of the guys at JAABlog are ribbing Conway about the spurt of attention he's been getting. One anon commenter says:

"I just saw Conway's picture
plastered on the side of a city bus.
Is his TV show already on the air?"

* * * * * * * * * *

# The saga of SotP (the acronym for Stuck on the Palmetto blog) continues with at least 140 comments at Critical Miami blog, which Carlos Miller reprises at his blog.

Commenter Nonee Moose muses:

"This saga has officially spawned both fan-fiction,
and now updates. Where’s the merchandising?"

At least two things are happening with this phenom, I think: first, the grief process continues over the loss of the blog and, second, the ripple effect that ensues from the shock which is like a pebble being thrown into a pond. The pebble has sunk and the SotP blog has disappeared, but now the ripples remain. Eventually, they will subside, I expect.

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