Category: Florida

Parking at Art Basel: the high school across the street (also some masketology)

by philg

If you’re going to Art Basel (today and tomorrow are the last two public days; the elites went on Tuesday and Wednesday), the pro move is to park at Miami Beach Senior High School, where the PTA opens the vast parking lot as soon as school closes (3:15 pm is the end of classes). Navigate to 2231 Prairie Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida 33139 and hand over $20, which will fund PCs, printers, and other classroom items. Ferraris, C8 Corvettes, and Lamborghinis are assigned to an “exotic area” in the grass where nobody can hit them with a door. (I wonder if Miami Beach during Art Basel has the world’s highest ratio of maximum theoretical car speed to actual car speed?)

The event closes at 7 pm and three hours is enough to see most of what you’d want to see. Reserve for dinner at Bella Cuba afterwards so that you skip most of the post-event traffic.

Remember that you need to show vaccine papers before the Art Basel folks will give you a “COVID-19 Certificate Checked” wristband. The good news for the unvaccinated is that you show a picture of your CDC card on your phone and therefore the name on the certificate is too small to be matched to your photo ID (not that there is any serious attempt to do so).

Here’s the vaccine papers check tent:

And the precious result:

(Wouldn’t it be a lot simpler if the U.S. adopted Philip’s RFID chip-in-the-neck idea?)

A couple of hours earlier, a mid-career artist at a party said, “You’re not going to get a grant unless your work is about BLM or LGBTQ.” If she is right, here’s an artist on track for a grant:

Masks are required inside and, since it is Florida and people can’t be expected to carry masks, they’re handed out by official Mask Karens. Not everyone can be reached by #Science, however…

Here’s one of the official Mask Karens demonstrating proper under-nose mask position:

Given the international crowd and the near-certainty of being exposed to the Omicron variant (state-sponsored media reassures us by quoting an innumerate 79-year-old who reminds us not to panic), did a lot of folks choose to use a fresh N95 respirator combined with hand-washing, hand-sanitizing, and never touching the mask? No. Cloth masks, which have been proven useless in a randomized controlled trial, were by far the most popular choice. These had been pulled from purses and pockets and therefore were pre-soaked with whatever bacteria and viruses can thrive on a moist face rag. A lady walking in front of me did not notice that she’d dropped her cloth mask on the sidewalk while getting something else from her purse. I picked it up (by the loops) and handed it to her, confident that the sidewalk germs will eventually be on her lips in addition to Omicron.

The people who are there to transact business (I didn’t hear of anything for sale at less than $220,000) were generally unmasked. In other words, those most likely to have come off multi-hour flights from plague centers were the least likely to be masked. Example:

Overall, I would say that the COVID-related aspects of the affair were handled exactly as well as you’d expect in a country that has to import all of its LCD and OLED displays and most of its integrated circuits (“chips”) from more detail-oriented nations. When it comes to COVID-19 vigilance, Yoda reminds us “There is No Try” (title of the 2020 work below by Tom Sachs):

Do. Or do not. But also, it is okay to do sometimes and sort of. And make sure to vaccinate The Child (Grogu, not to be confused with MIT’s Grogo).

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Karen’s workaround to a ban on checking vaccine papers

by philg

If you read the news, you might think that Floridians are protected from demands to show medical records, such as vaccine papers. A November 18 story about a new law (passed by the actual Legislature; unlike other states, Florida is not simply ruled by executive order under emergency powers):

  • Private Employer COVID-19 vaccine mandates are prohibited.
  • Government entities may not require COVID-19 vaccinations of anyone, including employees.
  • Educational institutions may not require students to be COVID-19 vaccinated.
  • School districts may not have school face mask policies.
  • School districts may not quarantine healthy students.

How can Karen work around the spirit of this law? From the Baker art museum in Naples, FL:

  • Guests ages 12 and over must provide proof of a professionally administered rapid antigen test taken no more than 24 hours prior to the performance date or a professionally administered negative COVID-19 PCR test taken no more than 72 hours prior to the performance date.
  • In lieu of a negative COVID-19 test, voluntary proof of being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 may be presented.
  • In all cases, a valid matching photo ID must also be presented.
  • Ticket holders who do not comply with these policies will not be allowed into The Baker Museum or events on the cultural campus and may be required to leave.

So you need to bring part of your medical record (recent COVID test) or show a different part of your medical record (vaccine card). Either way, it is all voluntary.

On the other coast, the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach:

  • The health and safety of our guests is a top priority for the Norton Museum. Beginning October 1, 2021, guests (ages 12+) visiting the Norton Museum of Art will be required to show proof of a negative COVID-19 professionally administered PCR test taken within 72 hours; or a negative COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Test conducted within 24 hours; OR voluntarily show proof of COVID-19 vaccination (together with a valid photo ID for ages 18+).
  • Masks are required at all times regardless of negative tests or vaccination status,

How about the pop-up Art Basel at the city-government-owned Miami Beach Convention Center?

  • Every visitor age 12 and older will be required to provide proof of a negative, lab-administered COVID-19 test in order to gain access to the halls. Alternatively, visitors may opt to voluntarily provide proof of a completed COVID-19 vaccination or documentation of recent recovery from COVID-19 – issued by a licensed healthcare provider or facility – to gain entry.
  • In compliance with the Art Basel Miami Beach policy and safety regulations, wearing a mask covering mouth and nose will be mandatory inside the venue for anyone age 2 and older, whether vaccinated or unvaccinated.

Some photos from a 2018 visit to Art Basel (mask-free and no medical records check):

And, for Joe Biden:

(The Leader of the Righteous: “Unless we do something about [busing for desegregation], my children are going to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle with tensions having built so high that it is going to explode at some point. We have got to make some move on this.”)

Speaking of the Biden family, I wonder how many of Hunter Biden’s $500,000 paintings will be shown at Art Basel. It would be worth showing one’s vaccine papers to get a close look at these. Considering gallery fees and taxes, if Hunter Biden can sell only 20 works at $500,000 each, he will have recovered the $2.5 million that his child support plaintiff earned.

Maybe the requirements are looser back in Maskachusetts, since Covid has been controlled via universal vaccination, indoor mask orders for adults, school mask requirements for kids, and after-school sports mask requirements? (only 2,500 cases per day currently, compared to 2,400 in April 2020) From MassMoCA:

The plague-carrying unvaccinated cannot even think of entering, no matter how high the stack of PCR tests. Harvard has a similar policy for its museums, which were entirely closed for 1.5 years:

  • All visitors age 2 or older, regardless of vaccination status, are required to wear a face covering.
  • All visitors age 12 and older are required to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test. Visitors age 17 and older must also present a valid driver’s license or government-issued form of ID, such as a passport.
  • Vaccination documentation must be authentic and reflect that visitors are fully vaccinated, having received their final dose at least two weeks prior to the day of their visit. Acceptable proof of vaccination includes a CDC COVID-19 vaccination card and vaccination records of COVID -19 World Health Organization-approved vaccines. We will accept photo of the card records or a digital vaccine record (such as may be displayed through an app like Bindle or a digital medical record like MyChart).

Some screen shots capturing this most epic of web pages:

I am longing for the day when every American will be able to get the purely voluntary RFID chip in his/her/zir/their neck so that vaccine status can be checked efficiently and contact tracing can be performed after a variant outbreak is discovered. Nobody will be required to get a chip, of course, but the “chip-hesitant” person will find that he/she/ze/they cannot go to restaurants, museums, airports, etc. Or maybe a chip-hesitant American will have to wait in a 45-minute line for a paper document check if he/she/ze/they wants to do anything outside his/her/zir/their home.

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Florida is a blue state, according to the Federales

by philg

From the #Science-following experts at the CDC:

I hope that everyone is inspired to come visit in the near future, just in case our blue status does not last. Here’s the forecast for Jupiter, Florida (apologies to European readers for using the temperature units that God prefers):

#Science proves that you should be in Florida in the winter! (but, if the raging plague of summer 2021 is any guide, try to be somewhere else in July and August)

Separately, where in the above map can we see the effect of differential vaccination rates among states? If vaccination rate doesn’t affect transmission rate, why are we so obsessed with harassing the hesitant?

Related:

  • Optimum COVID-19 American lifestyle: Florida in winter; Maine in summer? (November 2020, just prior to availability of the vaccines that we were assured would halt transmission): Would the optimum lifestyle right now therefore be to live in a single-family home in a low-density part of Florida during the winter and in a single-family home in a low-density part of Maine during the summer? [Now that I am here in Florida, I realize that one need not be a single-family home to avoid public indoor spaces. Unlike in Manhattan or Boston, the typical apartment here is accessible without walking through an indoor lobby.]
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Bumperstickerology in South Florida

by philg

Neighbors in Maskachusetts were so passionate about political and social justice causes that they would run out of space on the liftgates of their cars and/or front lawn space in their 2-acre minimum zoned lot. I decided to do a survey of all back-of-vehicle messages, except for dealer advertising, in a single parking lot. A license plate frame that mentions a sports team counts. The lot in question is in Palm Beach Gardens at an 82-acre soccer, tennis, pickle ball, spray park, and playground facility that hosts after-school soccer (“Palm Beach Predators”).

Note the Jeep, above, that was purchased in Alexandria, Virginia. Even the Yet Bigger Government gravy train couldn’t keep this family from moving to the Sunshine State! Note also that “Just a Mom with Perseverance” does not refer to a family court plaintiff (see the last part of Self-criticism today: photographer asks museum to close his own show), but to the mother of a child participating in Perseverance Basketball, a local youth sports enterprise.

I’m not sure that this is included in the 82 acres, but the courts below are country club-quality clay.:

Readers: Is this a good way to measure the overall level of discontent in a community? If so, I think the Palm Beach County Floridians are pretty happy! According to what’s on their cars, their concerns are kids, kids’ sports, kids’ schools, Disney, and pro sports teams from the frozen post-industrial towns where they used to live.

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Uncle Joe’s restaurant

by philg

On the way to a swamp wetlands boardwalk, we stopped at a strip mall and found Uncle Joe’s:

Here’s the menu:

Depending on who was reading the menu, the General Tao’s Chicken was either $1.85 trillion or “zero”.

(When Uncle Joe is not busy stirring the wok… September 24 Remarks by President Biden:

We talk about price tags. The — it is zero price tag on the debt. We’re paying — we’re going to pay for everything we spend. So they say it’s not — you know, people, understandably — “Well, you know, it started off at $6 trillion, now it’s $3.5 trillion. Now it’s — is it going to be $2.9? Is it…”

It’s going to be zero — zero. Because in the — in that plan that I put forward — and I said from the outset — I said, “I’m running to change the dynamic of how the economy grows.”

)

Another menu, from “Everything in the House Democrats’ Budget Bill” (NYT, 11/18):

Stepping back from this a bit, isn’t this another way to transfer money from hard-working childless Americans to those of us fortunate enough to have kids? A single drone worker in a city is not a “family” and won’t get anything out of the biggest block at top left. The drone probably will earn too much to qualify for any of the housing or health care subsidies. The drone already has a job and is already in the U.S., so won’t obviously benefit from the $133 billion spent on immigration. The drone doesn’t have $80,000 in state and local taxes to deduct (the Democrats’ new limit, up from Trump’s $10,000; average property tax rate in the U.S. is about 1.08 percent, so this new tax code will be perfect for anyone with a $7.4 million house).

How about the birdwatching from the boardwalk? It was actually better in the strip mall:

I think that the above bird is a Great Blue Heron who identifies as white. We saw some sandhill cranes on the highway just before turning into Grassy Waters Preserve. After a few minutes of strolling, we learned that immigration is detrimental to natives:

We also learned that birds and alligators do not show up when tourists want them to…

(I think the tricks for wildlife spotting in South Florida are (a) wait until mating season for animals that migrate from the north, and/or (b) wait until the mid-winter dry season when animals collect near the remaining water.)

Most bizarre thing about the boardwalk? Even in the shaded heavily wooded parts… no bugs!

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What is the practical highway speed limit in Florida? (and in other states)

by philg

I caught an Uber from Jupiter to PBI the other morning. My Colombiana driver (I did not actually ask for this driver’s gender ID; should it be Colombianx?) blasted down the left lane of I-95 at 90 mph.

(Was this unsafe in a subcompact Honda C-HR? Certainly not! We were both wearing masks.)

I assume that an Uber driver knows the real-world speed limit and therefore that 90 mph is slower than speeding ticket territory. That raises the question: how fast would one have to drive on the straight perfectly smooth highways of Florida to be pulled over?

Based on what I have seen, traveling at 80-85 is a 75th percentile speed on I-95 in South Florida or on Florida’s Turnpike towards Orlando. Back in Massachusetts, I would say that the real-world limit is 80 mph (i.e., that one is likely to get a ticket driving above 80; note that Maskachusetts highway standards are lower than in Florida, where everything is newer and can be done to the latest highway engineering textbook standards).

Readers; What’s the real speed limit in your state?

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Florida now has the lowest COVID-19 risk of all mainland U.S. states

by philg

CovidActNow, a Web site for Shutdown Karens (‘We support data- and science-backed policies and decision-making’), starts with a map of “Vaccination progress” by state:

The primacy accorded the vaccine percentage is a good reflection of where America’s Shutdown Karens are mentally right now. The virus itself is no longer that interesting, even if it manages to kill someone (“Thank Fauci he/she/ze/they was vaccinated and therefore died in a state of grace” will become part of our standard eulogy for anyone killed by Covid?). If the reader is interested enough to scroll down, the page includes a map of states color-coded by risk:

The map reminds us to stay in our bunkers because, of course, nowhere is safe. There is no “low risk” state to be found (“risk” is a function of “daily new cases per 100K (incidence), infection rate (Rt), and test positivity”). But there is one state that is only “medium” risk: Florida! The state that explicitly rejects science (at least according to the NYT) has the lowest current COVID-19 risk (if we go beyond the mainland, Hawaii has a slightly lower daily new case rate and soon-to-be-a-state Puerto Rico (Senator AOC!) is substantially lower).

Separately, who can see a correlation between vaccine virtue and risk level? Pennsylvania, for example, has a high vaccination rate and also a “very high” risk level. Is this a Paging Dr. Ioannidis situation? (current COVID-19 vaccines are somewhat effective, but vaccinated people will go out and party more, thus eliminating most or all of the benefit, at least when it comes to infection and transmission; see “Benefit of COVID-19 vaccination accounting for potential risk compensation”)

Related:

  • states ranked by COVID-19 death rate (the Florida Free State now tied with fully-masked and often-shut Maskachusetts, but these data are not adjusted for percentage of population over 65, in which case FL would look much better (not that Floridians would care; they don’t measure the overall success of a society by the COVID-19 death rate))
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One bad thing about Florida: fences around the schools and their athletic fields

by philg

Most comparisons of Florida to our former home in Maskachusetts are positive. The infrastructure here is new, shiny, and smooth. The landscaping in higher income parts of Florida is beautiful (palm trees, flowers, etc.) and that includes our neighborhood of Abacoa, the campus of Florida Atlantic University, the sidewalk behind the beach in Jupiter, etc.

One serious disfigurement of the landscape, however, is that every public school is surrounded in chainlink fence. Where a neighborhood would once have had a nice community feature, i.e., some grass fields on which to stroll or cut across, there is now a big no-go zone that looks like a medium-security prison. You never realized how many public schools a typical town has until you visit a place where schools and their grounds are entirely fenced!

It seems that this is a relatively recent disfigurement… “Fencing among school safety upgrades” (July 7, 2019):

One of the many safety measures school districts must implement to protect school children under a new Florida law is putting fencing up around their schools.

Florida lawmakers passed strict measures after one of the deadliest school shootings in Amercian history when 17 students were gunned down and 17 others were wounded at Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School in Parkland on Feb. 14, 2018.

Charlie Morse, safety director for the Walton County School District, said two schools this summer will get fencing but, “We don’t want it to look like a correctional facility.”

Well… Guess what? When you have a big two-story building surrounded by grass that is then surrounded by 6′-high chainlink fence, it looks exactly like a correctional facility!

The U.S. always had prisons, but now in Florida you can own a $2 million house that is right next to what looks like a prison. (I wonder if these hideous new creations have devalued houses that formerly got a boost from being near the greenspace of a school.)

I’m not sure what the convention/custom was before the fencing went up, but currently it seems that the taxpayers are barred from any access to the school fields at any time. There are a couple of chokepoints where cars can drive through the fence, but I think these are closed after school hours. In any case, I have never seen anyone on a school field after school hours.

Even if the Second Amendment were repealed, and President Harris confiscated all privately owned guns, the fences would stay up forever, right? There might still be someone with a gun in the basement and there is no price too high to pay for children’s safety, I am sure everyone will agree.

At the very least, Florida proves that this is truly a horrible idea for suburban/urban planning. In addition to being ugly, the fenced schools present an obstacle to getting around on foot (essential in a country that will soon have a population 400+ million and no congestion pricing for the roads).

Related:

  • “Nikolas Cruz’s birth mom had a violent, criminal past. Could it help keep him off Death Row?” (Miami Herald), regarding the perpetrator of the shooting that led to the above rule: His birth mother, Brenda Woodard, was sometimes homeless, and panhandled for money on a highway exit ramp. His adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, stayed home to manage a 4,500-square-foot, five-bedroom house in the suburbs, with a two-car garage and a sprawling yard. A career criminal, Woodard’s 28 arrests include a 2010 charge for beating a companion with a tire iron; she also threatened to burn the friend’s house down. Lynda Cruz had a clean record. Conventional wisdom suggests that Nikolas Cruz should have taken after the woman who raised him from birth, rather than the one who shared only his DNA. But little of Cruz’s story is conventional. While, by most accounts, Lynda Cruz was thoughtful and disciplined, her adoptive son was violent and impulsive — characteristics he seems to share with the birth mother he never knew. (i.e., follow the science, except when science tells you that criminality is heritable; see also The Son Also Rises and this scholarly article regarding Nikolas Cruz’s sister)
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New England versus Florida (“wear a mask at your discretion”)

by philg

The police in New England will drive out to hassle kids playing soccer outdoors and arrest the unmasked for disorderly conduct (example).

What about their counterparts in the Florida Free State? I went to the Jupiter (Florida) Police Department (brand new palatial building; let’s be grateful to the folks who pay property tax on $10 million houses!) to get fingerprints that I could send to the FBI for a background check that is required for the Portuguese golden visa/passport program (seemingly a better investment every day given the proposals we’re hearing from our rulers in D.C.!). Visitors are told to “Wear a mask at your discretion”. I went into a small room with a guy about my age (i.e., prime target for Delta variant!). He was not wearing a mask.

Related:

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Things that are difficult to buy in Florida

by philg

Florida is not lacking in big box stores and the ones we’ve been in so far have generally been nicer, cleaner, and newer than their counterparts in Maskachusetts (exception: Costco in Palm Beach Gardens, but they’re expanding/renovating currently so perhaps there is hope). Our neighborhood is walkable, but we’ve certainly spent a fair amount of time at Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and Costco and in adjacent strip malls. Here are some things that I find perplexing….

It was baking hot in mid-August. I bought a sun hat at Walmart that was marked down and used it for about a month before a rogue wave smashed me into the sand and took away the hat, complete with chin strap. I went back to Walmart on September 30th to try to get a replacement, but couldn’t find any. I asked a clerk and she said that they didn’t have any “this time of year.” Daily high temps were still mid-80s with plenty of sun. “When will you have more?” I asked. She looked at me with an expression of patience that might have been prepared for a slow-witted 3-year-old. “In the summer.”

Our apartment, despite costing only about as much as we paid for property tax and lawn mowing/snow plowing back in the Boston suburbs, includes a huge balcony. I figured I would get something like the following:

Some specialty outdoor furniture shops exist and they could have it made in 3-6 months for $5,000+, but nothing was in stock and the Big Box stores didn’t have any of the Chinese-made outdoor seating. The IKEA Web site shows some outdoor furniture, but it isn’t even displayed in the Sunrise, FL store, much less stocked (see below as well). Given that nearly every house here seems to have some sort of shaded patio and most apartments have shaded balconies, how could there not be a market worth serving for Target, Walmart, and Home Depot?

Shopping in Florida is a different experience compared to in Massachusetts. It has been two months and no retail clerk has asked whether I would like a bag and, if so, what kind of bag. How about when it is time to dispose of items that have been brought home in the free plastic unasked-for shopping bags? One of my last experiences in New England was being recycling-shamed by a friend’s wife. Trying to be helpful, I had scraped some plates into the garbage, careful not to scrape them into the recycling. “That should go in the compost bucket,” she scolded. How does it work in our apartment complex? Garbage is picked up every evening at 8 pm and it all goes into a huge compactor at the back corner of the parking lot. This includes plastics that folks in MA would send to Asia (where they’d landfill or burn it!), aluminum that actually could be recycled efficiently, food scraps, cardboard, etc. You can’t save Mother Earth by doing a better sorting job. The townhouse owners just to our north, on the other hand, do seem to be saving the planet. They have regular trash cans, plus blue (containers) and yellow (cardboard) bins.

(The trash disposal system overall seems to work better than in Massachusetts. Senior Management has repeatedly remarked that it is cleaner down here, e.g., along the highways or local roads (though she previously remarked that Massachusetts was super clean compared to the San Francisco Bay Area, whose roadsides were strewn with debris even before you got to any homeless encampments).)

How about stuff for the beach? At least in August-September, it is tucked away at Walmart/Target and not easy to find.

Everyone here has a gas grill. Our apartment complex has three that are available for common use, right next to the pool, and powered by natural gas. Grilling equipment and accessories are impossible to find at Target, though Walmart and Home Depot do have them.

It is always warm so there should be a lot of ice cream shops, right? Wrong. The density seems considerably lower than in frigid Massachusetts. Our neighborhood has a big shaved-ice shop where you’d expect to find an ice cream parlor. One can get ice cream at the mini golf course.

We just moved in so it is time to get some furniture at IKEA, right? Almost everything that we considered was out of stock at the stores near Miami, to the point where we wondered who would even bother going to the store. What would they actually buy? (How did Americans manage to consume so many more houses, apartments, and IKEA furniture sets? We do have millions of migrants arriving every year, but the shortages seem too severe to be accounted for by the newcomers. Nobody can sit on two chairs at the same time, right? And nobody needs two houses in the same general area, right? How did we run out of both houses and chairs to the point where prices are being bid up to insane levels?)

What if you wanted to buy some labor to assemble that IKEA furniture, assuming that you were able to buy the furniture? We are told that immigrants are a ready source of labor and millions of migrants show up at the southern border every year, so it should be easy to hire a handyperson (not to say “handyman” since that excludes 50 other gender IDs). In fact, it is almost impossible. I wonder if the shift from immigrant workers to immigrant asylum-seekers and refugees means that an increase in immigration no longer means an increase in the supply of labor, at least for labor traditionally performed by those who identify as “men”. The people best-situated for asylum are single moms and their children and unaccompanied minors (or unaccompanied young people who say that they’re under 18; as they have no documents there is no way to verify age). Since these folks will generally required housing and furniture, but not work, maybe this explains how the U.S. could be sold out of housing and furniture and at the same time have nobody available to do “handyman” chores.

One thing that I couldn’t leave behind in Maskachusetts and for which I am not sure a replacement can be found locally… my Pride-wrapped Listerine:

This was purchased right near the front door of the Watertown, MA Target. It is almost empty. I have been to three Targets so far in South Florida and none of them carry this product. Fortunately, this is still available at Amazon (review from a hater: “Not really LGBTQ colors.” and also complains that the colors are only a veneer on a wrapper, not embedded into the bottle).

Aside from Pride-themed household products, what do I miss? Apples! Macoun and similar cultivars are impossible to find here. Publix has some plastic bags of prepackaged McIntosh. Senior Management regularly braves a thicket of pavement-melting SUVs to enter Whole Foods and they have a minimal selection of mostly-insipid apples. A quick search reveals that a handful of orchards ship freshly picked apples, but they’re priced like melons in Japan, e.g., $62 for 18 apples, including shipping.

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