About the columnist

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

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THE GRIMM TRUTH

Disparate thoughts and random opinions of longtime Miami Herald columnist Fred Grimm

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In My Opinion

Paranoia is justified on charter-school bill

In their despair, people who care deeply about public education in Florida sometimes get a little carried away.

Charter schools seek construction money

In My Opinion

Snake vendors hiss at Glades study

Oh my…. Rabbits. You really don’t want to see bunny rabbits at a reptile show.
In My Opinion

Gambling war may be over, but skirmishes linger

Ever read a history of the confounding relationships, intricate strategies, shifting coalitions, mighty egos and stunning miscalculations that led to the First World War?
In My Opinion

When voters speak with forked tongue

Good government got lost in the rhetoric.
In My Opinion

Will Miami-Dade voters finally give commissioners a raise?

The last official Census put Lafayette as the least populated county in Florida, with 7,021 residents, a tenuous ranking that could have changed with a one-night stand, given that Liberty County only managed to muster 7,022.
In My Opinion

Maybe Florida’s governor needs glasses

Normally the grand opening of an eyeglass store at a suburban mall on Kendall Drive would not be so very grand.
In My Opinion

What Florida needs: Driverless cars

Driverless cars are hardly a new concept on South Florida freeways, where the oblivious, drunk and distracted swerve in and out of lanes. If they’re not kamikaze, they’ve got to be comatose.
In My Opinion

Tattoos and other privatization fantasies

First off, after my new company wheedles a contract to privatize a state prison, I intend to do away with traditional prison tattoos. Instead of tear drops or daggers or skulls or spider webs or barbed wire, none of which enhance an inmate’s commercial value, only corporate logos and slogans will be permissible.
In My Opinion

Online drivers’ ed makes sense for course vendors

Last semester, 1,619 Miami-Dade public school kids exploited the satirical potential of a new state law that adds an online class to their mandatory curriculum.
In My Opinion

Broward towns try to slither out from under strict ethics rules

Slick move. Ask the voters in your little city to approve an ethics amendment “consistent with and limited to the requirements of Florida law.”
In My Opinion

Cockfighting just needs a good lobbyist

There it was, a veritable gambling paradise, smack dab in the Snake Creek Basin.
In My Opinion

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.: Safe icon or radical organizer?

It’s a case of mistaken identity.
In My Opinion

Poitier: Still crooked after all these years

Remorse for an ethical transgression was not much on display as Sylvia Poitier left her sentencing hearing in the Broward County Courthouse Wednesday. “I want the whole world to know that I’m not guilty.”
In My Opinion

Florida’s budget solution: Ban the kids

Pondering the budget Gov. Scott sent to the Legislature, I’m overcome with something similar to the sentiment suffered by adults in the lobby of Disney World’s Animal Kingdom Lodge.
In My Opinion

How Scott Rothstein became the toast of Fort Lauderdale

My town. My tawdry, wannabe town. And Scott Rothstein knew what we wannabe. He called it a “rock star lifestyle.”
In My Opinion

Why pythons should eat politicians

Job-killing government regulators are at it again. Now they want to take away our beloved pythons.
In My Opinion

This year, anyone coulda been a contenda

If nothing else, the presidential candidates who dominated the news in 2011 brought an old guy a new revelation. Made me feel like Brando. Made me feel like shouting from the waterfront, “I coulda been somebody.” (“Instead of a bum, which is what I am.”)
In My Opinion

Miramar cops won’t fess up in Caravella case

It wasn’t much, considering what the Miramar cops did to Anthony Caravella, but last year Circuit Judge Thomas M. Lynch offered an apology on behalf of “the criminal justice system of the state of Florida.”
In My Opinion

Law turns kids into commodities

Compared to modern school kids, I was a downright worthless student.
In My Opinion

Charter school mess is no surprise

Unrestrained conflicts of interest. Little accountability. Slip-shod ethics. Lax oversight. Add landlords and developers and for-profit management companies to the formula. Tempt them with $400 million dollars of public money.

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