Fred Grimm joined the Herald in 1976. Since 1991 he has written a column about crime, politics and life in Broward.
E-mail Fred at fgrimm@herald.com
Disparate thoughts and random opinions of longtime Miami Herald columnist Fred Grimm
R obert Shelley moved here . . . when? Maybe a year ago. He's not sure. The calendar has a way of eluding him. But 850 LeJuene Rd. was a definite step up from a less prestigious address beneath Interstate 95.
B runo Ferretti, peering out through inch-thick, bullet-proof glass, could see this coming months ago. Two national studies on immigration only put numbers to what Ferretti already knew in his gut. ``I saw it. Definitely. I told my friends. They didn't want to hear it.''
In polite company, we would talk about the shabby streets north of downtown Miami in terms of poverty and disrepair and official neglect.
Such a fine day for an apocalypse. Gray skies. Rainstorms roiling across South Florida. Thunder claps that sent my dog cowering under the desk.
Myrna Mosnowitz was not among the fools and scoundrels who created the mortgage mess. She wasn't one of the Wall Street bankers who dreamed up nefarious loan schemes. She wasn't some broker peddling subprime mortgages to any unqualified buyer who could make his mark.
As long as we're bailing out institutions integral to America's way of life, there's a jambalaya joint over in Himmarshee Village worth saving.
T hey were loud and excited. As adoring as rock fans. They filled the basketball arena at the University of Miami and lent Barack Obama's rally the exuberance political organizers covet.
Remember our millionaire days? You know: back when my little cottage had been magically transformed into a golden palace encrusted with Tiffany diamonds.
Rudy Crew, blamed for so much of the Miami-Dade County School Board's discord, was history. But it was as if he had never left. It was late on the night of a tumultuous day. Earlier, after considerable squabbling, the school superintendent had been jettisoned with a $368,000 buyout. Then came the strange and inscrutable process to appoint Crew's successor.
I n the cloistered offices of a Washington think tank, it might make sense, this notion of Charlie Crist putting Alligator Alley out to bid as if he were offering up Aunt Nelly's antique crockery on eBay.
Norris Gaynor had parents. I suppose that was something I knew intellectually. Still, it was startling to see Sam and Georgia Gaynor at the trial of their son's killer. Before meeting them Wednesday, I had been able to reduce Gaynor to a kind of one-dimensional character.
Murray Greenberg might as well have stood before the school board and yodeled Dixie. Greenberg's pricey legal advice had no discernible effect on Rudy Crew's three most fervent enemies on the school board. They clung to the illusion that they could send Crew packing without paying off the last two years of his contract.
FRED GRIMM fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com T he cost of Ike -- and storms of Ike's ilk -- are calculated by the damage and ruination left after hurricanes crash ashore.
FRED GRIMM fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com Everyone pretended Michael Hernandez was all grown up. Michael said no to the plea deal, and the judge and prosecutor pretended that a mentally disturbed teenager had just rendered the rational decision of a competent adult.
FRED GRIMM fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com I n 2004, the accusation was rejected as crass media conjecture. No, the sheriff insisted. The killing of Deputy Todd Fatta had nothing to do with institutional failures. No policies were violated when BSO dispatched a motley bunch of deputies to arrest gun-wielding, cop-hating, crazy-angry Kenneth Paul Wilk.
Okay. I'll admit it. I'm a fan. I know. Pathetic. A waste of time better spent in pursuit of great reading (though I do get tired reading my old columns) or training my dog Jasper to bark at the UPS truck. I could be helping Charlie Crist plan his wedding. (I'm thinking morning suits with flip-flops.)
So many raving paranoid conspiracy theories flow into my e-mail basket, some days it's like I've got a direct Internet connection with an asylum.
Whisper the word ''smuggler,'' and words like cocaine, guns, heroin and human cargo cascade through a South Floridian's imagination.
M ost places, when the president of a wildly prosperous medical clinic comes under investigation for defrauding Medicare, we first hear about him in the dry text of a federal indictment.
A cabbie was killed in Hollywood. He was robbed, shot, left face down to die next to his blue and white Friendly Checker taxi. His assailants escaped on foot.
