by Carl Hiaasen
Let’s start teaching gravity as a “theory,” too. And don’t forget the solar system—what proof do we really have, besides a bunch of fuzzy, fake-looking photos, that Mars really exists?
At a recent public hearing in Orlando, opponents of evolutionary teaching rose one by one to assail the proposed curriculum standards. Some had traveled all the way from the Panhandle, and were, like presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, exclusive believers in the Bible’s version of creation.
According to The St. Petersburg Times, one speaker compared Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary science, to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, well-known tyrants and mass murderers. Such loony gibberish is actually good for the anti-evolution crusade, providing the best evidence that the human species has not advanced one iota in the last 100,000 years.
With this in mind, several school boards in North Florida have passed resolutions opposing the teaching of evolution as fact. True, students in those same districts have produced some of the worst science scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, but who needs Newton or Copernicus when you’ve got the Corinthians?
The notion that humans descended from apes has never been popular among fundamentalists, but what of the apes themselves? Given the gory history of Homo sapiens on earth, no self-respecting chimp or gorilla would claim a genetic connection to us.
The outcry against evolutionary instruction has been so heated that 40 members of the committee responsible for the new science standards felt compelled to sign a letter stating, “There is no longer any valid scientific criticism of the theory of evolution.” Caving in to groups that question the soundness of science, the letter warned, “would not only seriously impede the education of our children but also create the image of a backward state, raising the risk of Florida’s being snubbed by biotechnology companies and other science-based businesses.”
Nice try, pinheads, but there’s no sin in being a slightly backward state with extremely modest expectations for its young people. That’s been the guiding philosophy of our tightwad lawmakers for years, and the degree to which they’ve succeeded is illuminated annually in the FCAT charade.
If snubbing is to be done, Florida should be the snubber, not the snubbee. Keep your elite biotech payrolls up north and out west—we’ve got hundreds of thousands of low-paying, go-nowhere jobs that require little training and minimal education.
Should state officials vote this week to put evolution on the teaching agenda, it will be a small yet radical step out of Florida’s backward-thinking past.
Resistance is not futile. We’ve worked hard to keep ourselves so far behind in education, and we must stay the course.
October 10, 2010
Running Scared over Amendment 4
Major homebuilders are uncorking a bombastic media blitz to scare Floridians away from voting yes to Amendment 4. The same people who helped ignite the housing crash and mortgage meltdown are absolutely terrified of giving citizens actual control over growth in their own communities.
The so-called Hometown Democracy Amendment would require local voters to approve any significant changes to a county or city “comprehensive land-use plan,” the map by which municipalities evolve.
If the measure passes—and it needs the support of 60 percent of voters—no massive housing subdivision or commercial development could be built without the project first appearing on a ballot.
It’s not exactly a radical concept, but the opposing special interests will do just about anything to kill it. They’re scared because they know Floridians are fed up with lousy planning and overbuilding and the high taxes that always result.
They’re scared because they know Floridians are sick of watching elected officials cave in again and again to developers, making a farce of land-use regulations.
But mostly they’re scared because, if passed, Amendment 4 has the potential to disrupt the influence peddling and outright corruption that have made it so easy to subvert the will of the public. As things stand now, development interests can thwart opposition to projects by simply buying off the politicians whose votes are needed to make it happen.
Typically, that’s achieved by hiring connected lobbyists, who then approach a receptive county commissioner or city council member. In many cases, the lobbyist has raised money for the officeholder’s election campaign, so a favor is perceived to be owed.
And a threat is implied, too: If you don’t line up behind the project, don’t expect any donations for your next campaign.
Occasionally, if the elected official is exceptionally greedy and dimwitted, a cash bribe or some other illicit benefit is arranged. Public hearings are often a formality, a minor road bump. Plenty of earnest folks show up to question the impact of a proposed subdivision or shopping mall upon their neighborhoods and lives, and the politicians pretend to listen. By that point, though, the deal is already sealed, the necessary majority of votes secured.
This cynical charade has been going on since the beginning of statehood. It’s the reason so many Florida cities look like they were planned by chimpanzees on LSD. It’s also the reason we now have an estimated 300,000 homes and condos sitting vacant statewide, while leading the nation in foreclosures as well as mortgage fraud. The term “growth management” is a joke.
Amendment 4 isn’t a perfect solution. Much will depend on how the language is interpreted—for instance, determining how large a project must be before it goes to a vote.
Many thoughtful people, including some professional planners, fear that the amendment will generate an endless spate of elections in fast-growing counties. They’re also worried that deep-pocketed developers will be able to sway the outcomes with slick advertising campaigns.
Another issue is the wisdom of holding a countywide or citywide referendum on a building project that might affect only one neighborhood. At the very least, the amendment is bound to spawn lawsuits until the courts clarify its reach.
Despite such concerns, it’s hard to imagine a system for managing growth that could possibly be more dishonest, or deaf to the public interest, than what we have now. Nobody with half a brain believes that development pays for itself. Study after study shows that residents are the ones who pay big-time for sprawl, which is why taxes are so brutal in Florida’s most densely populated counties. So is the cost of living. Clogged highways, overcrowded schools and jails, water shortages—we pay for all of it.
Opponents claim that Amendment 4 will actually raise taxes, one of many straight-faced lies that will saturate the airwaves between now and Election Day. This is well-financed desperation. While the amendment’s supporters have raised only about $2.4 million, the opposition had a war chest of $12 million by midsummer.
The biggest donor is the Florida Association of Realtors—what a shocker—followed by some of the biggest homebuilders on Wall Street.
Here’s the killer: Many of the companies bankrolling the ad campaign against Amendment 4 are recipients of a congressional bailout, in the form of humongous tax refunds earlier this year.
According to an industry magazine (headline: “Builders Cash In on Tax Refunds”), Lennar Homes has already taken $251 million in taxpayer-funded relief. Yet somehow the firm scrounged up $367,000 to fight the Florida Hometown Democracy movement.
Pulte Homes accepted $800 million in federal bailout refunds while kicking in $567,000 to a political action committee opposed to Amendment 4.
So, when you see all those dire-sounding, fright-filled TV commercials, remember who’s paying for them. You are.
These guys are using your money to keep your voice and your vote out of the neighborhood planning process. Think about that when you’re standing in the voting booth on November 2.
Do the thing they dread the most: Read Amendment 4 and decide for yourself.
February 26, 2011
Pill Mills Thrive as Governor Scott Nixes Database
Last week, as drug agents secretly prepared to raid more than a dozen South Florida pill
mills, Gov. Rick Scott reaffirmed his staunch opposition to a statewide computer database that would track prescriptions of Vicodin, Percocet, and other dangerous narcotics. Said Scott: “I don’t support the database. I believe it’s an invasion of privacy.”
His statement raises numerous questions, none of them comforting.
Has Florida finally elected a certifiable wack job as governor?
Is Scott himself overmedicating? Undermedicating? Why would any sane or sober public official go out of his way—very publicly—to protect pill pushers and crooked doctors?
Thirty-eight states use databases to keep track of oxycodone and other painkillers that are now the most widely abused (and lethal) drugs in the country. Florida is the largest state without such a database, and the undisputed epicenter of the sleazy illegal pill trade.
In the first six months of 2010, doctors in Florida prescribed nine times more oxycodone than was sold in the entire United States during that same period. Pain mills here have prospered wildly and proliferated—in Broward County alone there are 130.
Two years ago, the Republican-controlled Legislature approved a painkiller database, which would be privately funded. Law enforcement officers say it’s an absolutely essential tool for attacking storefront clinics and the drug dealers who flock to Florida from throughout the eastern United States.
The database should have been up and running by now, but bid disputes with private contractors have delayed implementation. Authorities were hoping to have the computerized system in place this spring, but then Scott took office and announced his intention to kill it, along with the state anti-drug office that conceived it.
No one can fathom why.
Top law enforcement officials, legislators, and even the governor of Kentucky (a state that has been saturated tragically with pills from Florida) have asked Scott to reconsider, but he won’t budge.
Last week’s raids, carried out from Miami to West Palm Beach, gave another squalid glimpse of the crisis. The clinics operate as high-volume dispensaries, sometimes with armed guards on patrol. Huge amounts of pills are prescribed by staff doctors to walk-in “patients” exhibiting few, if any, symptoms. Typically the buyers then go peddle the painkillers on the street for up to 10 times the amount they paid.
According to a federal indictment, seven clinics in Broward and Miami-Dade were controlled by a model citizen named Vincent Colangelo, a convicted heroin dealer. Apparently, pharmaceuticals now offer juicier profit margins than smack.
Over a two-year period, Colangelo allegedly distributed more than 660,000 oxycodone pills, enriching him and his partners to the tune of $150,000 a day.
Fortunately, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has its own methods for tracking suspicious prescriptions, and the generous prescribing habits of several doctors attracted the agency’s attention. One of them was Dr. Zvi Perper, who wrote scripts for 387,000 oxycodone tablets in six months at a Delray Beach pain clinic.
Ironically, Zvi Perper is the son of Dr. Joshua Perper, the Broward County medical examiner. Given the sky-high overdose statistics in South Florida, it’s not farfetched to assume that the elder Perper has performed autopsies on some of the younger Perper’s pill-popping customers.
One view of Gov. Scott’s opposition to the drug database is that he’s an ideological extremist who doesn’t like any form of government snooping. Perhaps there are hard feelings left over from his days at Columbia/HCA, when the feds were nailing the company for massive Medicare fraud.
In any case, one can’t help but wonder if Scott’s concern for shielding the privacy of dope dealers will extend to other criminals. Perhaps next he’ll suggest abolishing the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, which maintains a fiendishly thorough computer list of every automobile, truck, and motorcycle registered in the state. Heck, does a police officer really need to know if the car he’s pulling over at 4 A.M. on I-95 is stolen?
Among the many lawmakers in Tallahassee who are unhappy with the governor’s vision is Sen. Mike Fasano, a Republican from New Port Richey and an energetic supporter of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.
Fasano has vowed to do everything he can to get the database running and keep it in place, and he’s got enough clout to do it. Senate President Mike Haridopolis says public funding will be used if necessary.
It would be crazy for Scott to veto the measure, but he seems determined to redefine crazy at least once a week.
Last week’s raids on the pill mills provided some insight into whom and what the storefront dope peddlers fear. High on the list are big pharmacy chains, which have no qualms about using computers.
One undercover agent sat in a room full of pill buyers being coached by a clinic nurse on how to get their hefty prescriptions filled without attracting attention.
“Do not go to Walgreens,” the nurse warned. “I can’t say this enough. They are not your friend; they are the enemy.”
Unlike a certain governor.
Note: Gov. Scott backed down, and a database was implemented allowing authorities to track storefront sales of painkillers.
April 2, 2011
The Best Legislature Money Can Buy
I once referred to a past Legislature as a festival of whores, which in retrospect was a vile insult to the world’s oldest profession.
Today’s lackluster assemblage in Tallahassee is possibly the worst in modern times, and it cannot fairly be compared to anything except a rodeo of phonies and pimps. It’s impossible to remember a governor and lawmakers who were more virulently anti-consumer and more slavishly submissive to big business.
The list of who’s getting screwed in the state budget battle is long and sadly familiar: the schools, college students, foster children, the poor, the elderly, the sick, and the jobless. The happiest faces, of course, belong to lobbyists for corporations, insurance companies, and utilities, who are getting almost everything they want.
It’s astounding that so many voters were suckered into thinking that this new generation of Republicans was going to fight for the common man instead of for the fat cats and their special interests. What a joke. The so-called leadership was plainly bought and paid for by the time their shoes hit the steps of the Capitol.
The House is swiftly moving to deregulate 20 different types of business, including intrastate movers and telemarketers—two occupations that aren’t exactly famous for being scrupulous and undeceptive. Deregulation is estimated to cost the state about $6 million in revenue (and who knows how much it will cost consumers in rip-offs), but just think of all the terrific new jobs it will create. That’s what supporters claim. Seriously.
Just what Florida needs—more telemarketers!
Bills are also sailing through the House and Senate that will allow Florida Power & Light to raise your electric rates over the next five years while at the same time giving the utility a controlling grip on the state’s future solar energy market.
GOP leaders who otherwise love to cheer free-market capitalism have already voiced support of the monopolistic bill, which gives FPL and four other major utilities exclusive rights to develop solar projects, eliminating pesky bids from smaller firms.
FPL achieved this coup the old-fashioned way, by hiring 30 lobbyists and donating about $4 million in campaign contributions to certain lawmakers and candidates for governor.
Renewable energy would be good for Florida, but competition among providers would actually hold down electric rates. Not happening.
More bad news: If your home is one of 1.3 million insured by Citizens—the state-run pool that was established after Hurricane Andrew—your premiums could soon rise by as much as 25 percent.
A Senate subcommittee last week voted to let Citizens jack up its rates and start dumping policies on homes valued at more than $1 million. The idea is to eventually close down Citizens and shunt all Floridians back into the private insurance market.
That would be a swell idea except for the many thousands of residents wh
o live in coastal areas where private insurance companies will not offer coverage or will provide it only at outlandishly high rates. Citizens is indisputably a mess, but if the Senate bill becomes law, many Floridians could be facing a future hurricane season with no homeowners’ insurance and with their mortgage companies breathing down their necks.
You might be wondering what the new Legislature has accomplished so far for the greater public good. The answer is not much. But to benefit themselves, lawmakers resurrected and decriminalized a scummy little gimmick called “leadership funds,” which allow special-interest groups to give gobs of money to special campaign accounts controlled by the leaders of both political parties, who can spread it around as they see fit.
Outlawed by a long-ago Legislature, leadership funds are simply a sanitized way of buying votes, slightly less sleazy than taking cash in a paper bag.
This time around, donors to the politicians will be listed by name, which is supposed to make us all feel not quite so betrayed.
However, there has been at least one instance this spring when the issue of ethics raised its timid little head in Tallahassee.
Sen. Mike Fasano of New Port Richey introduced a bill that would have toughened penalties for crooked officeholders and public officials. However, the measure was quickly snuffed in the Rules Committee by Fasano’s fellow Republicans and Democrat Gary Siplin of Orlando, who all felt that the current laws are quite stern enough to discourage corrupt behavior. It’s hard to know whether to laugh or vomit.
On a faintly positive note, at least one terrible scheme that took seed in the Legislature will not become law, at least for now.
A few weeks ago, Sen. John Thrasher of St. Augustine and Rep. Pat Rooney of West Palm Beach launched legislation that would have let Jack Nicklaus build golf courses in several state parks, starting with the beautiful Jonathan Dickinson tract near Stuart. No one is a bigger Nicklaus fan than I am, but this truly was one of the nuttiest ideas of all time. Naturally, Gov. Rick Scott loved it.