In the dog days of summer, stories that may fascinate at other times of the year somehow seem as soggy as the weather. And when one tries to stir up some excitement with a few phone calls, sources invariably are away at some cooling place like Highlands in North Carolina, which is to Floridians in the summer what the Hamptons are to New Yorkers.
So this month I'll keep it brief, touch on a few topics, then move along toward fall and cooler days. Cole Porter got it right: It's too darn hot.
What I did on my summer vacation.
As the couple of musical references above suggests, I'm a devotee of lyrics and melodies of an earlier time, particularly when interpreted by jazz musicians. So a few weeks ago, when a friend said he was touring Europe with a band of six musicians and invited me to tag along, I jumped at the opportunity. I joined them in Vienna, and for the next week we traveled by bus across Austria and Germany. From small hamlets in the Bavarian Alps to urban centers like Stuttgart and Munich, audiences stomped and hooted to the uniquely American music.
So what does my Teutonic sojourn have to do with Florida, you ask? Well, between gigs we traveled the Autobahn, and it was there that my thoughts turned to Interstates 4, 10, 75 and 95 and other Florida routes in between. Sitting in the front of the bus, I was fascinated at how serious the Germans and Austrians are about driving. Sure, they go 95 mph and faster, but once they pass, they almost mechanically move to the right lane. And they don't pass on the right. It's against the law. And there aren't the distracting, cluttering and offending billboards every few hundred feet. And from Saturday to Sunday night, trucks not delivering food and other necessities are banned from the Autobahn.
To be sure, Germans are a bit rigid by American standards, but there has to be a middle ground between their way and the anarchy that reigns on Florida highways.
Say it ain't so, Joe.
I was shocked, shocked to learn that Joe's Stone Crab, the famed Miami Beach restaurant, discriminates against women. It seems that for decades only men were hired for the coveted table-waiting jobs, coveted because the restaurant has been known to draw as many as 1,800 diners on a Saturday night. And I am told that the tips are enough that some waiters take a vacation from the time the restaurant closes in the summer until it opens again on October 10, the beginning of the stone crab season.
A federal judge, in finding that Joe's broke the law by its "persistent legacy" of hiring men only, said that the restaurant "sought to emulate Old World traditions by creating an ambience in which tuxedo-clad men served its distinctive menu." After the federal suit was filed in 1993, Joe's started hiring women servers, but before that all 108 waiters were men, according to testimony.
Interestingly, the judge noted in his decision that for most of its 84 years, when the restaurant has remained within the same family, "women have predominated as owner-managers." The last of the female manager-owners, Jo Ann Bass, ran the restaurant from 1984 to 1995, when she was succeeded by her son, Steve.
Unintended consequences
One lesson in this month's cover story is the importance many people attach to their children's education. Parents and grandparents have poured hard-earned money into Florida's prepaid education program because they believe it's a safe, sure way to lock in a good education for their children. But as writer Jane Tanner makes clear, the program is becoming a victim of its own success.
At the heart of the problem is the Florida philosophy that everything should be cheaper here than elsewhere. It's a destructive attitude that benefits politicians in office but is undermining all kinds of Florida institutions, including the universities. Not only do Florida colleges charge less in tuition than all but one state university system, but the Legislature also refuses to fund the university system adequately. The result is cheap tuition and low state funding - a lethal combination that will spell disaster for higher education.
And here's where prepaid makes the situation worse: Prepaid requires that tuition remains low, because if it rose as fast as it should to bring Florida's into line with other state university systems, it could threaten the financial stability of the prepaid system and create headaches for administrators and politicians. So the Legislature is keeping tuitions unrealistically low to preserve the prepaid system. As a result, prepaid parents have to pay huge fees beyond tuition to help cover expenses. Inevitably, they will find that the degree they've worked so hard to finance will be devaluated as the state system loses academic credibility.
The whole financing mechanism of the state university system, including prepaid tuition, needs to be reformed quickly before it causes permanent damages to Florida's still-decent university system. The Business/Higher Education Partnership was on the mark in describing higher education in Florida as "the emerging catastrophe."