It's Black Male Mugshot Day at the Miami Herald, apparently. Dominating the web site are mugshots of two youths accused of committing armed robberies. They are immortalized in short Web article by Natalie P. McNeal. They are accused of, first, committing a "string" of robberies, then later in the article it's "rash" of things. The exact number isn't specified, but I'm pretty sure a rash is more than a string. Isn't it? Ah, who cares, really. Let's just put their faces on the lead headline of the homepage and make everyone half-believe they committed all the damn robberies in both Broward amd Miami-Dade.
Dubious play, I say, dubious play. Under those mugshots is
another one, this time of former Black Panther (or, to be specific, a violent offshoot of the famous group called the Black Liberation Army) member Harold Taylor. In the accompanying AP story we learn that Taylor is one of seven former militants arrested for the killing of a San Francisco cop during a "seige" on the police station by the group in 1971 and he lived in Panama City. Thin local peg there (Panama City could just as well be Tuscaloosa as far as most of us are concerned) but that IS one of hell of an interesting story.
On stretching the local peg thing, the Outlook section had a big cover story about the unfairness of property taxation and the homestead exemption in Sunday's paper. Only thing it was an Orlando Sentinel piece that was full of nothing but Orlando people and neighborhoods. I suppose the story is still instructive, but it sure didn't seem right.
