Today in Florida

Florida is a weird place. Maybe you already knew that. It might be because we have the highest percentage of ex-convicts in the nation, or because we're no-fault-everything (insurance, divorce, you name it; nothing is anybody's fault), or because the heat just melts people's brains. I'm not sure. Last night I watched the gubernatorial (and what a couple of "gubers" they are!) and I found myself wishing there was another option. As usual, I will vote for the lesser of the two evils, and I guess others will do the same, even if they see evil differently than I do. But that isn't the (very) weird part.

Last night as I was watching television, I saw an Amber Alert come across the screen. About five minutes later it was canceled. That may not be super-unusual, although over the weekend there was a story about a missing eleven-year-old boy who had spent the night at a friend's house without telling his mother. The police had been searching for him, helicopters circling the area. He saw himself on TV and said something like, "I'm not missing; I'm right here!" Apparently the mother of the kid whose house he stayed at had realized around midnight that he hadn't gotten permission to stay, but said it was too late for him to walk home and he should stay until morning. Um, hey lady! You could have given him a ride! Anyway, back to the Amber Alert . . . I saw on the local news that a St. John's County police sergeant had been arrested for taking her son, of whom she does not have custody. Minutes after the alert was issued, she was found with her son and arrested in a restaurant in Nassau County. (Both of those counties abut Duval, where I live.)

I learned about that case because I got a news alert on my phone about a warning being issued in Duval County for mosquito-borne illness, St. Louis Encephalitis. As if we don't have enough health warnings going around right now! And how are you supposed to protect yourself from mosquitoes? I am allergic to insect repellent, and while I have my Off-clip (a little fan that blows out some kind of repellent that doesn't make me break out worse than insect bites), I don't wear it every minute. Just one more thing to worry about.

And here is the weirdest story of all: South Florida wants to secede from Florida and become its own state. The new state would consist of about the lower half of the state, from Orlando down. The big reason, from what I can tell, is that the rest of Florida isn't adequately concerned with South Florida's risk of falling off into the ocean. Well, it isn't just that; the mayor of Miami doesn't think officials in Tallahassee are taking global warning seriously enough and, in his view, it's a bigger problem in the southern part of the state than in the northern part because that part is closer to sea level than some parts of North Florida. The mayor's referendum passed in a 3-2 vote in the city commission meeting earlier this week. The new capital would be in or around Orlando. As if Florida isn't enough of a spectacle! Now the center of the newly-formed South Florida (if indeed it comes into being) will share space with Disneyworld. That's what I call Mickey Mouse politics.