Category: Florida

Young doctors should move to Florida?

by philg

May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month. What better time to talk about health care in the Sunshine State?

The Great Plains are traditionally the best places for doctors to work when salaries offered are compared to house prices and overall cost of living. But not everyone wants to live in the Dakotas, which, presumably is why a dermatologist can get paid $600,000 per year for showing up.

We’ve noticed that it is tough to get an appointment with almost every kind of doctor in Palm Beach County. Concierge medicine, in which people pay $3,000 or $5,000 per year to a primary care doctor to get the kind of service that was standard in the 1950s (pre-Medicare/Medicaid), seems to be much more common here than it was in the Boston area. Getting in to see a dentist can also be tough, with the high-rated providers backed up for 1-2 months. A physician neighbor who moved here less than a year ago and joined a private practice says that he is already busy.

I’m wondering if the Great COVID Migration has opened up a lot of opportunities for young doctors to establish themselves in Florida. The migration to Florida from the lockdown states wasn’t a randomly selected group. The first element of selection was a love of freedom. Doctors get half of their income from the government and nearly all of the other half is heavily regulated by the government. Doctors get paid more when low-skill migrants are admitted to the U.S. (a larger population leads to larger Medicaid payments, if nothing else). The typical doctor, therefore, is not aligned with “small government” state politics in Florida. The second element of selection was an ability to work from home. It was a lot easier for someone in engineering or finance to move than a doctor who sees patients in person. Finally, there is the question of state licensing and regulation. It is illegal for a doctor to move from one state to another and hang out a shingle. He/she/ze/they must first get licensed in the new state. A dentist friend who might otherwise want to escape Massachusetts says “It is very tough to get a license in Florida. They make it next to impossible for dental.” A cardiologist friend said that it would take her six months to get a license in Florida.

If the above list of selection effects is correct, there should be a smaller percentage of physicians in the group that migrated to Florida from California and the Northeast in the past two years than the percentage of doctors in the general population. In other words, the state has been flooded with new patients but hasn’t received too many new doctors.

What do readers think? Is Florida a good place for a doctor finishing residency/fellowship?

Some inspiration for docs… our minivan (Bugs and Daffy covering the massive holes left by the Maskachusetts front license plate installation) at a nearby strip mall next to a $400,000+ Rolls Royce SUV.

I don’t think that the lady who owns this marvelous (other than the severe door ding from our Odyssey) machine will quibble about $5,000 per year for concierge medicine.

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Sun ‘n Fun 2022 report

by philg

We made a family trip to Lakeland, Florida’s answer to Oshkosh, i.e., Sun ‘n Fun. It was a great experience with much more manageable traffic, hotels, food, etc. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds were the main airshow attraction and the USAF also brought a B-1 bomber, of which roughly 45 continue to fly. (Happy Tax Day and, if you’re one of the minority of Americans who pays income tax, thanks for your contribution to the B-1!)

The fun starts in the parking lot:

The Florida Air Museum’s Boeing 727 (converted to classroom and conference room spaces) was open for a walk-through, prompting the 6-year-old to note “We just came out of the plane’s butt.”

There were about 75 classic and antique cars just inside the gate, including one that is perfect for a Jacksonville Jaguars specialty plate”

A Jacksonville-based U.S. Navy unit also uses the “Jaguars” name:

The most unusual planes from World War II at the event were the Boeing B-29 and PBY Catalina. Both were giving rides and drawing crowds.

The B-1 cockpit was open for tours:

I wonder if these Harley-Davidson of Brandon, Florida hats are more popular in the Let’s Go Brandon age:

Try to go with a friend who owns a Cirrus because the company provides a nice lounge and observation deck. The Thunderbirds were awesome, but I wonder if they should kick off the air show rather than start at 4 pm when people have already been sitting since 1:30 PM.

One of the announcements during the airshow was from a person who said that she identified as a “Black woman” (however Ketanji B.J.’s team of biologists might define this term) and also that, despite what she characterized as an obstacle/hardship, she could fly an airplane. Within the crowd of 50,000 aviation nuts there were no doubt quite a few who were familiar with competent 12-year-old pilots. Thus, the effect of the message was that one should ordinarily expect a person who identifies as a “Black woman” to be less capable than a 12-year-old (I happen to disagree with this expectation, but if we do credit the expressed concept, why do we limit important jobs such as Supreme Court justice or Vice President of the U.S. to people in this category?). No other gender or race ID was advertised during the airshow as an obstacle to learning to fly.

At dusk people get ready for 7:30 pm night airshow (Kyle Fowler in the background of the center picture doing aerobatics in a homebuilt Rutan Long-EZ).

In contrast to an underwhelming experience with a coordinated drone show as Oshkosh, the one organized by Great Lakes Drone Co. for this year’s Sun ‘n Fun was amazing. There was also a powered parachute aerobatic night demonstration! Nathan Hammond in the fireworks-carrying Super Chipmunk was a favorite, but Manfred Radius delivered something new in a sparkler-trailing sailplane. The fireworks at the end of the night airshow made the typical city’s July 4th fireworks look like three 10-year-olds running around with sparklers (fortunately this is strictly illegal in Massachusetts, perhaps because there is too much risk that an “essential” marijuana supply will be ignited and thus put human health at risk until a trip to the dispensary). There is a massive fireball at the end. During the minivan debrief session, extended by only about 15 minutes due to the crush of getting out of the parking lot and out to the Interstate, the 6-year-old asked the 8-year-old if he’d seen it. “Of course I did,” was the response. “I’m not blind.”

Due to the fact that Lakeland, Florida is so far from the center of the U.S., there aren’t as many interesting airplanes as at EAA AirVenture. That said, if you have any reason to want to come to Florida in early April and you have any interest in aviation, Sun ‘n Fun is a rewarding destination. Budget two days to see everything and one more if you want to hang out and chat with people or take homebuilding seminars.

Related:

  • Sun n Fun (2014)
  • Sun n Fun report (2017)
  • combat history of the B-1 (bombing Iraq in 1998, about 30 years after development was funded; bombing Yugoslavia to help Kosovo separate into its own country; bombing Iraq some more in 2003; bombing Muslims in Afghanistan and Syria at least through 2018)
  • TBM 960 introduced at Sun ‘n Fun, a $4.8 million FADEC (finally!) turboprop that might be the first example of an airplane that can update its own navigation database via mobile data (like an Android phone circa 2008!): “It is also the first application for the Garmin GDL 60 data transmitter, which allows automatic database uploads and links with mobile devices.” (but maybe not? perhaps it requires the pilot-owner to download updates first to the phone or tablet?). The plane was introduced in 1991 for $1.3 million (Flying), which corresponds to $2.6 million in 2022 Mini-Dollars according to the BLS calculator. Thus the official rate rate of inflation since 1991 is 100 percent while the actual rate for anyone in the TBM market is 270 percent.
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How Florida’s ‘don’t say gay’ law could harm children’s mental health

by philg

“How Florida’s ‘don’t say gay’ law could harm children’s mental health” (The Guardian, today):

LGBTQ+ parents and pediatric psychologists say the law stigmatizes being gay or transgender and could harm the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth.

Stella, 10, attends a private school in Atlanta, Georgia, and explains to friends that she has four moms. Two of them are the lesbian couple that adopted her. The other two are her birth parents, one of whom recently came out as a transgender woman.

“I’m so grateful that [Stella] is somewhere that sees” the family “as what it is: her moms just love her”, said Kelsey Hanley, Stella’s birth mother, who lives in Kissimmee, Florida.

But Hanley, 30, worries that children who have multiple moms or dads or are LGBTQ+ themselves won’t get the same acceptance in Florida.

That’s because the state recently approved legislation that bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through third grade and prohibits such lessons for older students unless they are “age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate”.

(It is unclear how this anecdote relates to Hate in Florida because a 10-year-old with four moms, six moms, or any other quantity of moms would be in 5th grade and the new Florida law prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity only in grades K-3. Also, young Hanley’s four moms have sent her to a private school and the new law does not apply to private schools.)

What I find fascinating about this story is that, in the context of children’s mental health, it shows mentally healthy children outdoors in the baking Florida sun in rated-low-risk-by-the-CDC Hillsborough County… wearing masks:

Note the range of styles from covering face to under-nose to chin diaper and that none are N95 masks that could provide some protection against the unmasked. How can we be sure that these children are mentally healthy? The new law hasn’t taken effect yet, so these masked-outdoors children are among those whose mental health has presumably been maximized by unfettered public school sexual orientation and gender identity instruction starting in kindergarten.

Related:

  • The happiest children in Spain live with two daddies (“children who lived with their two mothers were extremely unhappy”)
  • One reason that Hillsborough County is “low risk” is that the CDC completely changed its standards in March 2022 (NPR: “Critics of CDC’s new approach say the agency seems to have moved the goalposts to justify the political imperative to let people get back to their normal lives.”)
  • CDC gives us a new canonical example of chutzpah? (after locking down children for a substantial percentage of their lives, the CDC now alerts us to poor mental health among children)
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Should Disney World offer a ride educating kindergartners on sexual orientation and gender identity?

by philg

“Disney pledges to help repeal Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill” (The Hill):

Disney has pledged to help repeal Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which was signed into law on Monday by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

The Walt Disney Company issued a statement shortly after the bill was signed on Monday that said, “Florida’s HB 1557, also known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, should never have passed and should never have been signed into law.”

“Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that,” the spokesperson said.

“We are dedicated to standing up for the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ members of the Disney family, as well as the LGBTQ+ community in Florida and across the country,” the spokesperson added.

The bill is set to go into effect on July 1 and will prohibit primary school teachers from classroom instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity, while educators of all grade levels will be prohibited from instruction on those topics that is not “age appropriate or developmentally appropriate” for their students.

Note that public elementary schools are not prohibited from providing classroom instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity. The prohibition is only for kindergarten through third grade. Starting in 4th grade, a student could receive 2 hours per day of instruction on these topics, which would prepare him/her/zir/them to “earn salaries ranging from $329,000 to $430,000” as a diversity, equity, and inclusion administrator in a state university (source: the dreaded Fox News, which seems to have pulled public salary data) and, perhaps, even more at an elite private college.

The question for today is why Disney can’t act directly, rather than trying to overturn the law passed by the Florida Legislature? Disney has announced an official corporate policy in favor of sexual orientation and gender identity instruction for K-3 children. Millions of K-3-age children visit Disney World every year. Many of them are from Florida and thus, due to this new law, are at risk of being denied “classroom instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity”. Why can’t Disney step in to fill the gap? In the photo below, a (masked outdoors) Disney employee (maybe in California?) holds a sign reading “Help us teach our children kindness and inclusion”. But, with a captive audience of millions, Disney shouldn’t need any help to teach whatever it wants to teach.

How about a dark ride along the lines of It’s a Small World? Children of all ages, including K-3, could travel in a vehicle shaped like a Mazda Miata and learn about myriad options for sexual orientation and gender identity. By including video screens, the ride could be kept continuously updated with the latest Science and, e.g., newly developed gender IDs.

You might say that sexual orientation and gender identity isn’t as much fun as some other topics, but if Disney isn’t passionate enough about 2SLGBTQQIA+ to offer this to the children who are already on site, can we accept their passion for 2SLGBTQQIA+ in the public schools as sincere?

Readers: What should the scenes of the sexual orientation and gender identity dark ride include? I can start with the cisgender heterosexual section. A “man” and a “woman” (Kentaji will bring in a biologist to assist with these terms) are alternately bored to death by each other’s company and annoyed to death by their biological children. A banner overhead reads “Marriage means that we solve problems together… problems that we wouldn’t have if we had stayed single.” The second scene is family court where the plaintiff asks for “permanent alimony” under Florida family law. The third scene is a pickleball court in The Villages where the now-leathery heteros congregate in single-gender groups while their adult children are ignoring them from 1,000 miles away.

A separate idea: Because Americans don’t have to work anymore, every Disney World ride requires waiting in line for 1-3 hours, even on weekdays. K-3-targeted sexual orientation and gender identity instruction could be provided to those waiting in line, a literal captive audience.

Potentially inspiring, scenes of African and Mexican life from It’s a Small World (September 2021):

Related:

  • Carousel of Social Progress for Disney World? (see image below)
  • “I got a ‘dress code’ violation at Disney World over my revealing top” (New York Post), in which K-3-age children were protected from seeing some portions of a 23-year-old’s body. Disney prohibits “clothing which, by nature, exposes excessive portions of the skin that may be viewed as inappropriate for a family environment.”
  • LGBT rights in Saudi Arabia (Wikipedia): “Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal. LGBT rights are not recognized by the government of Saudi Arabia. … Homosexuality and being transgender are widely seen as immoral and indecent activities, and the law punishes acts of homosexuality or cross-dressing with capital punishment, fines, public whipping, beatings, vigilante attacks, vigilante executions, torture, chemical castrations, imprisonment up to life and deportation.” (Disney Plus operates cheerfully in Saudi Arabia and Disney has not suggested any changes to these laws and customs.)

Note that SeaWorld has a 2SLGBTQQIA+ section in the gift shop, but no rides specifically on the topic of 2SLGBTQQIA+. From earlier this month:

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Bubble in the Sun book: even those with the best information can’t predict a crash

by philg

Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression (Christopher Knowlton) explains how Miami Beach was essentially the vision of a single individual, Carl Fisher (a pioneer in automobile headlights, highway development, and co-founder of the Indy 500).

Jane believed the project would be an expensive mistake. When Fisher took her to inspect the property by boat, they entered from the bay side, rowing up a channel lined with dense mangroves. “Mosquitos blackened our clothing,” she wrote. “Jungle flies, as large as horse flies, waited for our blood.… Other creatures that made me shudder were lying in wait in the slimy paths or on the branches of overhanging trees. The jungle itself was as hot and steamy as a conservatory.… What on earth could Carl possibly see in such a place?” But Fisher insisted that he knew what he was doing. Standing with her on the soft sand on the ocean side of the long neck, the surf breaking toward them in slow, white rollers, he sketched out his vision for the area. It would be half beach resort and half playground. “In that moment, Carl’s imagination saw Miami Beach in its entirety, blazing like a jewel with hibiscus, oleander, poinsettia, bougainvillea, and orchids, feathered with palms and lifting proud white towers against the sky,” Jane recalled. “But I looked at that rooted and evil-smelling morass and had nothing to say. There was nothing a devoted wife could say.”

As 1919 unfolded, Carl Fisher made two final and critical changes to his business strategy. The first was to switch his target audience, which had always been the elderly and the retired rich, most of whom still favored Palm Beach over Miami, and always would. As he told Business magazine a few years later, “I was on the wrong track. I had been trying to reach the dead ones. I had been going after the old folks. I saw that what I needed to do was go after the live wires. And the live wires don’t want to rest.” He would concede the superrich and the old money to Palm Beach. Instead, Miami Beach would be for the nouveau riche; for men like Fisher himself, especially those from the industrial Midwest; men who were younger, still making their fortunes, and looking for fun ways to spend their new wealth. He would appeal to them with the sort of activities that appealed to him: contests, races, and other events that featured sports celebrities. Henceforth, Miami Beach would become “a youthful city of indeterminate social standing,” in the words of social historian Charlotte Curtis. Fisher’s second change in tactics was equally radical: he raised his land prices by 10 percent, in part to give the appearance that his lots were appreciating rapidly in value. And to further promote that perception, he offered a return guarantee of 6 percent “to any customer in Miami or elsewhere who purchased lots from us and are not well pleased with their investment.” He assured his buyers that, from then on, he would be raising prices by 10 percent every year. Ten percent was an exceptionally attractive rate of return; 10 percent that seemed virtually guaranteed was even more attractive. Fisher, in trying to stoke a small fire, was about to fuel a conflagration. Behind the scenes, other factors had contributed to the marked improvement in sales. Chief among these was the wide proliferation of the automobile. The machines that Fisher had raced, sold, and promoted back in Indiana had evolved into bona fide consumer products, viable and cost-effective substitutes for the horse and buggy. The automobile, more than the railroad, the streetcar, or any other factor, turned the American landscape from raw land into real estate. It did so by making the land accessible and thus developable: its value could be easily established, enhanced, and commodified. Land then became a far more salable product, one that benefited landlords, lenders, contractors, and real estate agents, to say nothing of the purchasers and renters of that property. Nowhere was this truer than in Florida. And nowhere in Florida was it truer than in Miami Beach, where the road built over the Collins Bridge and the new County Causeway (renamed MacArthur Causeway in 1942) at last made the resort developments there commercially viable—by making them accessible to cars. Miami Beach was on its way to becoming the most widely publicized and most famous resort destination in the country. Fisher was now forty-three years old but still full of vitality. “This is only the beginning,” he announced presciently in an ad that appeared in the Miami Metropolis newspaper late in 1919, adding that he planned to further enhance Alton Beach the following year with “a polo club house, a church, theater, schoolhouse, six store buildings, and ten Italian villas ranging from $10,000 to $35,000 each.”

By the mid-1920s, Fisher’s vision was more or less realized:

In her memoirs, Fabulous Hoosier, Carl’s first wife, Jane, captures the surreal nature of the late boom years and how the clientele of their once sleepy resort town had changed: “Pouring into Miami Beach they came, fantastic visitors to a fantastic city. The gold diggers and the sugar daddies, the gigolos, the ‘butter and egg men,’ the playboys and the gilded heiresses, the professional huntresses, the tired businessmen who never grew tired, the gentlemen who preferred blonds. Miami Beach was the playground of millionaires and the happy hunting ground of predatory women.”

Then he tried to do it all over again in Montauk, Long Island and, due to leverage, blew up. The book chronicles the fate of other folks who became billionaires (in today’s debased money) from their efforts in Florida real estate, e.g., George E. Merrick who planned and built Coral Gables and Addison Mizner who is responsible for the Spanish-style architecture that we now see all over Florida. Essentially all of them went bust after staking their fabulous riches on yet more expansion.

What’s the worst that can happen in our current real estate and stock market boom? A retired hedge fund manager friend says that he wouldn’t be shocked to see a 90 percent crash. I think that this is excessive given that Manhattan real estate crashed by only 67 percent from 1929 to 1932 (HBS) and this was much steeper than the nationwide decline.

The book should be an inspiration for more diversification, though 2008 showed how tough that can be to achieve. Here are some $5-12 million houses (Jupiter Inlet Colony) to enjoy while the good times last…

Related:

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Should Disney sell a planned itinerary?

by philg

Disney supposedly has cut its maximum capacity, but the new maximum still results in multi-hour waits for rides, up to a one-hour wait to get through security before even reaching the ticket booths, no way to get food without waiting in an epic line, etc.

We stayed at a hotel near Disney Springs in mid-March and would not have been able to go to Disney if we’d wanted to because all of the reservation slots had been taken. The guests who had planned months in advance and who did go to the hotel reported having a mediocre or bad experience. They paid extra for the Genie+ system that is supposed to enable getting on rides without waiting in line, but using the app was a huge hassle. We heard about some folks paying an out-of-park planner $1800 to manage their Disney app interactions and then text them with instructions for where to go.

Disney obviously has captured 100 percent of the market for people who want to plan their vacations three months in advance, including which rides they’ll do and where they’ll eat, etc. They also have an offering for people who have an extra $850 per hour to spend on a VIP guide. The guide can’t get guests into restaurants, however, as explained in my 2019 review of this experience. In that review, I posted the following idea:

Plainly the mobs are buying a lot of hotel rooms, food, and souvenirs. But I wonder why Disney doesn’t have “Crowd-hater Days” in each park to capture the market of people who would be willing to pay a lot more to have the 1990s experience. There are four core parks within Disney World. Why not say that every Monday through Thursday one of these parks will be designated “Crowd-hater” and tickets will be sold at whatever price it takes to keep max line length down to 15 minutes? If ticket prices were doubled, for example, I think Disney would actually make more money in ticket revenue since demand should not be cut by more than 50 percent. By using a high price to limit admission to only one park at a time they should still be able to keep all of their hotels filled (tourists who don’t value the less-crowded experience will still go to the other core parks and/or the water parks).

Apparently, Disney is never going to do this. So I have a new idea… a pre-planned itinerary that includes reserved meal stops. It will be like Genie+ except that the guest doesn’t have to plan, think, or do anything other than show up at the pre-planned times and pay for whatever is ordered at the meals. The Disney in-house expert figures out in which order all of the rides should be done so as to minimize walking time. I think that this could easily be sold for 2X the price of a regular park ticket plus Genie+ and the cost to Disney and impact on the park should be the same as if someone diligently used Genie+ as designed. Perhaps there is a risk of cannibalizing the VIP guide sales, in which case the price would have to be higher.

How crowded is Walt Disney World now that Americans don’t need to go to work? Disney Springs, which is essentially just an outdoor shopping mall, had 45-90-minute waits for tables at the various restaurants on a Wednesday night in mid-March. Then people would wait in line for another 45 minutes to get a generic ice cream from Ghirardelli. Here are the lines to check out of the Disney trinket shop with $40 T-shirts, to get some BBQ, and to go into a LEGO store that sells the same sets as the LEGO store in your local shopping mall:

The Road to Serfdom is dedicated to “socialists of all parties,” reflecting Hayek’s view that love of central planning is near-universal. Why not a centrally planned no-line Disney vacation?

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Philip’s Book Club: Bubble in the Sun (about the Florida real estate boom 1895-1926ish)

by philg

The latest book… Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression (Christopher Knowlton). I’m enjoying it so far (listening via Audible). Timely, considering that home prices in the decent neighborhoods of Florida have roughly doubled since the lockdowns began in the Northeast and California.

The author notes that at some point in the 1920s, Florida had 60 million single-family house lots mapped out and ready to sell.

Chart of Florida population growth from 1900-1930 (source):

For context, here’s Maskachusetts v. Florida over 120 years:

Note that 1947 is highlighted as an important year for window air conditioners and the 1960s as when home central A/C become standard (energy.gov).

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Florida state politics stir passions primarily among those who don’t live in Florida

by philg

We recently had an election here in Jupiter that generated a fair amount of local advertising, e.g., lawn signs at street corners, and discussion at the playgrounds, soccer fields, dog parks, skate parks, beach, etc. People are very interested in who will be on the town council and who will be the mayor. The hot button issues are real estate development, traffic, and spending on open space and parks.

State politics, on the other hand, don’t seem to capture Floridians’ attention. Far more people in Massachusetts talked about Governor Ron DeSantis, for example, than people here in Jupiter.

Here’s a UK magazine reporting on a statement by a California resident on proposed Florida legislation: “Apple CEO Tim Cook slams ‘deeply concerning’ Don’t Say Gay bill as ‘proud member of LGBT+ community’”: Apple CEO Tim Cook has condemned Florida’s harmful “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which if signed into law would prohibit “classroom discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity”.

The UK’s BBC reports on another California’s opinion: “Disney apologises for ‘silence’ on ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill”.

Walt Disney’s CEO has apologised for his “painful silence” on a Florida sex education bill critics warn will isolate LGBT youth.

“You needed me to be a stronger ally in the fight for equal rights and I let you down. I am sorry,” Bob Chapek told employees.

His comments come amid internal complaints that “gay affection” is routinely cut from some Disney films.

The so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill is due to become law.

It bans discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten to third grade classes (aged 8-9) or when “not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards”.

The BBC article is misleading, I think. It says that “discussions” of 2SLGBTQQIA+ are banned in kindergarten, but, in fact, I think it is only “instruction” regarding 2SLGBTQQIA+ that is banned. So the kindergarteners could discuss the 10 Best Gay Saunas in the USA and the teacher could say which one was his/her/zir/their favorite. But the teacher couldn’t organize a lesson about what happens inside the 10 best gay saunas. (3 out of the 10 best gay saunas in the above-referenced article are actually in Florida, in case an after-school program for K-3 or a pre-school needs to organize a field trip)

The UK’s Daily Mail also wrote about this, March 9, 2022:

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday said a Florida bill that would place limits on instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation is a ‘form of bullying’ against LGBTQI kids.

The Parental Rights in Education bill, dubbed the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill by critics, was passed by Florida’s Republican-dominated Senate on Tuesday and will now head to GOP Governor Ron DeSantis’ desk.

Psaki said the bill ‘would discriminate against families, against kids, put these kids in a position of not getting the support they need at a time where that’s exactly what they need.’

Its text says that ‘classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.’

President Joe Biden himself condemned the bill as ‘hateful.’

A full-scale war in Europe apparently cannot distract the Biden Administration from focusing on Florida politics. Nor does a war in Europe distract news media in the UK from writing about what the Florida legislature is up to.

What do the haters say in favor of this bill, according to the Daily Mail?

[DeSantis spokeswoman Christina] Pushaw pointed out to DailyMail.com that the legislation does not include the word ‘gay’ or single out any one identity or orientation.

‘The idea that it’s inappropriate for adults to instruct kindergarteners about sexual topics should not be controversial in the least,’ she said in response to Psaki’s comments.

‘Children should never be sexualized. 4-9 year olds are far too young to be learning about these topics in school. If a student has any questions about sexuality or gender, it’s solely up to that child’s parent or guardian to decide how they want to answer those questions. This is not an LGBT issue, and most Floridians – gay or straight – are fully in favor of child safeguarding and parents’ rights.’

Separately, if we combine Ukraine and 2SLGBTQQIA+, we find a 2021 article, “‘Constantly pursued’: Ukraine’s LGBT+ activists attacked online and in the street” (Reuters):

Ukraine legalised gay sex in 1991, but conservative elements in the mainly Orthodox Christian nation often speak out against rights for LGBT+ people, and members of the far-right regularly target groups and events linked to the community.

The LGBT Human Rights Nash Mir Center, which monitors anti-LGBT+ violence in Ukraine, recorded 24 attacks on LGBT+ centres and events last year, more than double the figure for 2019.

From Wikipedia:

Article 51 of the [Ukraine] Constitution specifically defines marriage as a voluntary union between a man and a woman. No legal recognition exists for same-sex marriage, nor is there any sort of more limited recognition for same-sex couples

Will it soon be time for a NYT history rewrite in which Ukraine is presented as a long-established haven for the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community?

Circling back to the original topic… the most powerful political entities in Florida seem to be counties. They collect the lion’s share of property taxes, leaving the sales tax scraps for the state. Counties run the schools and parks that residents are passionate about. I wonder if the Florida legislature and governor are actually staging some of the stuff that they do simply to see how much they can wind up people in California, Washington, D.C., and New York.

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Florida rejects Science regarding COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children

by philg

A hot war rages in Ukraine and Americans have the leisure to argue about the extent to which 5-year-olds should be given an emergency use authorized vaccine against a disease that kills the elderly.

For the past 16 months, friends who are physicians have been saying

  • vaccinate everyone over 50 or 60 (threshold varies by doc)
  • vaccinate no healthy person under 30
  • offer the COVID vaccine to people between 30 and 50/60

(See Is it ethical for a physician to vaccinate a healthy 20-year-old against COVID-19? from January 2021, for example)

Horrifyingly, it seems that a public health bureaucrat agrees with the Deplorable Docs in my social circle… “Florida to recommend against Covid-19 vaccine for healthy children” (CNN):

The CDC recommended that children get vaccinated in November, when the shot became available to most kids. Since then, about 22 million children have become fully vaccinated, including 1.1 million Florida kids.

But Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said the state is going to issue separate guidance urging parents not to vaccinate their kids. Ladapo did not say when that guidance would become official and provided few additional details.

The Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics was also critical of the decision.

“The COVID-19 vaccine is our best hope for ending the pandemic,” chapter President Dr. Lisa Gwynn said in a statement. “The Surgeon General’s comments today misrepresent the benefits of the vaccine, which has been proven to prevent serious illness, hospitalizations and long-term symptoms from COVID-19 in children and adolescents, including those who are otherwise healthy.

“The evidence is clear that when people are vaccinated, they are significantly less likely to get very sick and need hospital care. There is widespread consensus among medical and public health experts about the life-saving benefits of this vaccine.”

Ordinarily, CNN loves to celebrate immigrant success stories. In the case of the above-cited Science-rejecter, according to Wikipedia, the journey began with five years of unmasked childhood in Nigeria, migration to the U.S., and an education at Harvard Medical School. In addition to his M.D., Dr. Ladapo holds a Ph.D. in health policy from Harvard, yet CNN does not consider this migration journey worth highlighting.

From Friday, a mother and child who narrowly escaped a New York tourist’s attempt to vaccinate them both:

(in front of the electric utility’s (free) manatee lagoon)

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Prius sighting in Florida

by philg

Two middle-aged ladies were in front of us at Lion Country Safari:

Biden/Harris, Black Lives Matter, and Eat More Kale plus an Imagine there’s no hunger license plate (proceeds to the Florida Association of Food Banks). The “UU” sticker likely is for “Unitarian Universalism”, a pro-Palestinian church (settler colonialism by Jews in Israel is bad; settler colonialism in North America is not so bad that any Unitarian Universalist church needs to give back its land to the nearest Native Americans).

The next day, we found the “Prius Eater” in the Costco parking lot:

Through the window at Lion Country Safari:

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