Love is a Game-Changer

Mia Love has a killer smile and a winning personality. Who, you ask? She's from Utah. A Republican, Mormon...and Black. Born in New York to Haitian immigrants, she just may be the first African-American GOP Congresswoman ever to be elected in the US. She's already been the first Black Mayor from that Grand Ole Party elected in Utah and, mark my words, she's going places nationally. Love is most certainly a game-changer.

But the game-changing aspect is not simply that she may be the first Black Republican woman elected to Congress; it's that the Republican party itself is actively transforming itself before our eyes. Mia Love is not an anomaly but part of the new face of the party. She is 37 years old, in an interracial marriage, mother of three, living in Utah. Imagine the possibility of a not so distant future in which Mitt Romney wins, becoming the first Mormon President. His VP, the very conservative Marco Rubio from Florida, a first-generation Cuban American, is as right-wing as we have in this country. But he's Hispanic and will sway voters on that fact, irregardless of his views. Congresswoman Mia Love will be leading the charge for family values, fiscal responsibility and personal responsibility.

I will relish the photo the GOP will flaunt of the Romney family standing tall with the Rubios-- Marco and Jeannette, his blond, former Dolphin cheerleader wife and their four kids next to the interracial Loves. That's America today and it's not the Dems that will be leading.

The GOP bombed with Sarah Palin in the last election. But with LOVE on their side, success may be at hand...Dems need to pick up the pace if they think otherwise.

The "New" Urban Nomad: the Mobile Homeless, Pt.1

On Venice Blvd 2012

There is a category of Urban Nomad which is serious and growing: the Mobile Homeless. No, this isn't a joke and it doesn't mean those who have no cell coverage. The Mobile Homeless are a group of nomads who have lost their homes and find shelter in RVs, campers and cars. Well, the lucky ones are in RVs and campers, parked where they can find space on the streets. The less-than-lucky are in their cars; the unlucky, on the streets. The victims of the housing crisis are mounting in numbers unprecedented in US history. Most of us, living in our houses, are unaware just how large this community has grown.

The Mobile Homeless need to move everyday. They are in an all-consuming and constant search for survival, dependent on the streets to provide electricity, water and a place to park. Society is not kind to them, as a general rule. They play a "cat and mouse" game with the police. Neighbors complain about RVs and unruly vagrants on their blocks. Police are called in to move and/or ticket them. In Venice Beach, CA a federal lawsuit against the city and LAPD claimed that cops were not only rousting RV dwellers based on the kind of vehicle they were in but also that dilapidated motor homes were targeted for traffic stops and tickets. 

This video was made in 2008, four years ago. At that time, they were claiming that "since the beginning of the mortgage crisis, one and a half million Americans have lost their homes." According the the NY Times, all told, "roughly four million families lost their homes to foreclosure between the beginning of 2007 and early 2012." (April 2, 2012) Contrary to reports of economic revival, this situation has not gotten better. In California, it has worsened dramatically.
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Coming in Part 2: Mobile Parks?

Miami 2012

We used to say that "the best thing about Miami was its proximity to the United States." Having recently returned for our first guerrilla-type house-hunting trip, I can say that things haven't changed so much since we left that contiguous land nearly nine years ago. Foreign territory it remains.


Spanish is still the first language that greets you. But our favorite Cuban "cafeteria" in Miami Beach is now serving schnitzel and beer. It is called the "Hofbrau Miami"and claims to be the best German Bavarian Restaurant and Beerhall in the county. Our favorite fish market underneath the Julia Tuttle Bridge, gone. Alrighty then!


Miami architecture used to be known for either its Deco pastels or its "too much is never enough" style of Morris Lapidus and his peers who built the iconic behemoths of the 1950s and 60s like the Fountainbleu and Eden Roc hotels. The blues and greens of the 1980s defined by Michael Mann's Miami Vice brought in a whole other design that propelled the city for the next two decades. Well, times have changed and a new trend has risen. I'll simply call it Steroidal Construction. Buildings on steroids. The  downtown area, which used to be a charming (and yes, seedy, in certain areas) series of blocks running down the Biscayne corridor to Brickell,  is now a canyon of architecturally rockstar buildings, all nestled next to each other in disharmonious clutter. RitzCarlton, W, JWMarriott, Viceroy, Setai, Mandarin Oriental, even Canyon Ranch have set up shop in Miami or Miami Beach.  Frank Gehry built a concert hall. Adrienne Arsht who used to own TotalBank is now the name of the Opera House and Center for the Arts straddling downtown's main thoroughfare. It's hard to see all of the new landmarks, squashed as they are,   competing for your attention in the glistening sun and steel. A decade ago there weren't enough rooms; today, the competition is fierce, although the service still remains "foreign." 


There seem to be more Haitians, Brazilians, Argentines visiting and young Northerners looking to party.


But we had a mission on this last trip: see the changes and gauge how we felt in anticipation of a possible next move.  So after viewing dozens of open houses, dilapidated condos, school interviews, foreclosure lists, our guerrilla search made us realize something very important: to a couple of middle-aging Urban Nomads, Miami is still...home.