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The following is a true story written by John DeGroot:

At 41 years and crippled, Jason Roy Thomas says he will not take his life before 2008 – something he tried and failed to do this Thanksgiving past.

In a proud act of faith, Jason has decorated a small tree in the one-bedroom condo he shares with his cat in Fort Lauderdale and plans to ring in the new year.

“Somehow,” he says, “I know I’ll still be here.”

Trouble is, Jason must deal with a huge burden of physical and emotional pain brought on by a horrific accident last New Year's Eve, which is what prompted him to choke down a would-be fatal assortment of pills as Thanksgiving approached last November.

“I was tired of living with it,” Jason says. “I know it was selfish and self centered, but I just wanted to end it all. Then someone found me before I could die, which I is how I ended up in the mental ward at

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Nobody really knows what to expect from Sam Zell when he takes the reins at Tribune Co., but I think it's safe to say that, good or horrendous, it's going to be a hell of a lot more interesting than anything the button-downed and oh-so-corporate entity that owns the Sun-Sentinel has ever done before.

One clue, though, is Zell's hiring of Randy Michaels, a man who took his name from a radio jingle (the name he was born with is Benjamin Homel). Michaels is by all accounts a pioneering shock jock and brilliant businessman who built Clear Channel into the evil empire of radio. Michaels is responsible for two of the more grotesque figures crawling about the national media landscape, Sean Hannity and Dr. Laura. But, hey, he makes money. And he isn't dull. A 2001 Salon article by Eric Boehlert on the rise of "big bully" Clear Channel quotes a radio executive on Michaels: "Everything's a food fight with him. He's paranoid, disingenuous, pathological. That's what makes him so lovable."

Paranoid, disingenuous, pathological ... that doesn't sound so different than what's in charge now, come to think of it. But there's no doubt about it: Zell, with Michaels' help, is going to shake this company up like a dirty martini. Let's just hope he remembers that good investigative journalism is the straw that stirs the drink.

Some believe Zell will sell (including a recent succinct commenter on the Pulp). I'm going out on a limb and predicting just the opposite: He's going to buy. I think the guy wants to become the biggest media lord in America, sort of the new William Randolph Hearst. I don't know whether to be excited or mortified - I just know we're in for a ride.

This came into the New Times about this morning's Sun-Sentinel story on cop killer Michael Mazza:

DATE/TIME: December 18, 2007, 3:12 am MST

SUBJECT:
Sentinel

LETTER:
As a former S-S staffer, I would love to read DeGroot's take on the
miserable story in today's paper about Michael Mazza discussing why he
killed the sheriff's deputy.

* The guy already murdered the deputy. Now you're allowing this nut job
the opportunity to murder his memory by publishing his undisputed
claims.

* Big deal, you have the damn videotape of his interrogation! In the
rush to be first, is the S-S really practicing responsible journalism?

* Doesn't the publication of this story, and the posting of the taped
interrogation, taint the possible jury pool for this guy? At least have
some legal experts quoted in the story discussing this.

* This is a perfect example of rushing to be first without doing a
thorough and responsible journalistic job.

PERSONAL INFO:
Sentinel Sam

Yeah, I'd like to hear DeGroot's take, too. I, for one, don't agree with Sentinel Sam in the least. I think it was an interesting story by Tonya Alanez that needed to be told. Of course every reader has to bring their own skepticism to what this degenerate criminal says, but it's news any way you look at it. I notice, though, that the comments feature has been disabled and the link to the video of Mazza's confession didn't work. Could the Sentinel be buckling under the pressure?

Dennis FitzSimons, CEO of the Sun Sentinel-owned Tribune Co., is checking out on the day that Sam Zell checks in to buy the company. Don't worry about FitzSimons, though, his landing will be very soft, cushioned by the $40 million in cash he's taking with him.

In other big media news, an inside jab I made in the comments of this blog was in the Miami Herald this morning. The newspaper has a story, in which the Pulp plays the role of big bad wolf, on the demise of Stuck on the Palmetto. Reporter Evan S. Benn writes that the term for a blogger leaving because of conflicts with work is "dooced."

I didn't dooce Rick, of course. Rick dooced himself. But that didn't keep one reader from being so mad at what he thought I'd done that he decided never again to read the Palm Beach Post. Hey, well-informed boycotts are crucial tools in any capitalist society.

The first is basically just a brief by Breanne Gilpatrick in the Miami Herald, but it's essential to understanding government in Broward County. It's so short I'll include it here:

Potential Broward county commissioners who lobby other local governments won't need to worry about giving up their side jobs, after the county's Charter Review Commission rejected a proposed referendum to ban the practice.

The ballot measure, which died in a 10-7 vote, would have prevented commissioners from lobbying Broward's School Board, cities and hospital districts on behalf of a private client, but not for the county itself.

County Commissioner Sue Gunzburger urged the government reform panel to approve the proposed ban on Wednesday.

''If I'm selling widgets and I go to the city of Hallandale Beach to sell widgets on behalf of my client,'' Gunzburger said, ``I think I have a lot more influence because at one point Mayor [Joy] Cooper might want to come to the County Commission.''

Supporters also pointed out that county commissioners making $92,000 a year probably don't need to moonlight.

But opponents said they didn't want to exclude potential commission candidates.

''We need to look at how we might affect someone's profession and how we might prohibit a certain profession from participating in the process,'' said Charter Review Commission member Hazelle Rogers, who is also a Lauderdale Lakes city commissioner.

Several commissioners have used their clout as commissioners to lobby other municipalities and it has always stunk. Wish I had the time to track down the votes and see which commissioners had their appointees strike down this good rule, but all I have now is Hazelle Rogers, one of the worst politicians in the county. The Lauderdale Lakes commissioner was appointed by Josephus Eggelletion, who, surprise, has done his share of sleazy lobbying on the side. Note to Rogers: Influence peddling is not a "profession." You get what you vote for, Broward.

The next must-read story is this one by Jim DeFede. Not just because it's his first attempt at long-form journalism in years, but because it's an interesting story about Shawn Labeet, a dangerous SOB who should have been jailed a long before he killed a Miami-Dade cop and shot three others in September.

Back from out of town and saw that Stuck on the Palmetto closed shop Sunday night. My initial reaction was disappointment. But just in case you're confused, I didn't kill that blog, Rick did. His overreaction speaks volumes. Not only did Rick spike the blog over a vague comment, he basically blotted out all evidence that it ever existed.

Also, heard that Huizenga is thinking of selling the Dolphins and the guys from the Related Group want to buy it. My feeling is that nobody can do any worse than old Hizzy. The guy has no feel for football, as evidenced most clearly by his hanging onto clodhopper Dave Wannstedt for way too many years. Note to owner (whether it be Hizzy or otherwise): Get rid of Cam Cameron. He's a very nice fellow, but not head coach material. His forte is supposedly quarterbacks and he gives us Trent Green and John Beck? That's just pathetic. As I said before Hizzy hired Cameron, you need to go to Gainesville and bring Urban Meyer to Miami. Ah, to hell with that actually. Bring in Cowher. He'll stabilize the program at the least and possibly bring it to greatness.

To the multitudes of Pulp readers in Los Angeles, I'm gonna be on the radio there this morning talking about the Liberty City Six (they lost one in the first trial). It's gonna be on Pacifica radio (90.7 on your FM dial) and mostly about this.

In what many reporters believe to be a troubling move, Sun-Sentinel Publisher Howard Greenberg announced to staff Thursday that the newspaper's Internet site -- including news content -- is being taken over by a marketing director, according to a memo that made its way to the Pulp.

"Vice President and Director of Marketing Jeff Levine will add responsibility for interactive content, audience development, new product
development and media partnerships," Greenberg wrote in the memo. "He will also continue to lead our marketing efforts. His new title will be Vice President and Director of Marketing and Interactive."

Levine was a driving force behind the Sentinel's "Help Team" -- which emphasizes consumer-oriented news over traditional journalism (and has been mercilessly lampooned on the Pulp).

That basically means that any pretense that the website will be driven by actual journalism rather than promotion is gone. And, while reporters are concerned about the transition, it shouldn't come as a surprise: The Tribune-owned newspaper has made the merging the marketing and editorial sides of the newspaper one of its top priorities during the past few years. Editor & Publisher actually cited that as one reason for it giving Earl Maucker its Editor of the Year Award.

In yesterday's memo, Greenberg also announced the layoff of Sentinel general manager Kathy Skipper (formerly Kathy Trumbull), a long-time, well-liked boss, as a cost-cutting move. Full text of memo comes after the jump.

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After a joke of a federal trial, a beleaguered federal jury acquitted one member of the Liberty City Seven and failed to reach a verdict on the others (here's the Sentinel version and Herald story).

Now Judge Joan Lenard has called for a new trial on January 7. Seriously, we're going to start this farce up again in three weeks? Is the jury going to hear the truth about the informants this time?

Government, do us all a favor and give it a rest. The people have spoken: Your case isn't convincing. Go catch some real terrorists and put this sad saga behind you.

I don't use the word "outrage" very often, but this is an outrage. Lawyer Sean Conway exposed a horrendous practice by Judge Cheryl Aleman -- a piss-poor judge by any standard -- and for performing that public service the Florida Bar might take his law license away.

The Bar's repulsive message: When it comes to judges in America, freedom of speech goes out the window. Call a judge an "evil witch" and you lose your livelihood? Not in my country, motherfucker.

The best line from Tonya Alanez's article comes from lawyer Fred Haddad, one of the best quote artists you'll ever find:

"There's absolutely no reason that politicians, and that's all judges are here in Broward County, aren't open to criticism. We've got a [Florida Bar] grievance committee that can't even conceptualize the First Amendment. You're dealing with a group of people that are entrenched in protecting each other."

Nova legal poobah Bruce Rogow, meanwhile, goes to the dark side (a place he's not unfamiliar with): "I don't think there's any excuse for that kind of crude and cruel language."

Yes, Bruce, let's be polite so as to protect the corrupt, wasteful, arrogant court system in Broward County.

Fight the Bar and support Sean Conway. Here's a way you can do it, via Bill Gelin at Jaablog, where the controversy began. Contact Gelin at wgelin@yahoo.com to help.

So a bigshot financial analyst at Credit Suisse named John E. Klim says the newspaper business is going to come back strong as soon as the housing market does (most people seem to think that's going to happen early 2009). He says the downturn -- which has seen the worth of newspapers plunge as much as 50 percent -- is not a sea change, but a cyclical blip, so he upgraded the New York Times company and Gannett to "outperform" and McClatchy and other companies to a "neutral" on the market.

Stock prices initially shot up on Klim's recommendation, but by the end of the day almost all the gains had vanished. In other words, the smart guys let the dummies act on Klim's advice and then took their money. The only newspaper stock that has gone up recently and held its gains is Tribune Co., based on hopes that the sale to Sam Zell will go through before the end of the year.

Here's the view of Henry Blodget at the Silicon Valley Insider blog.

There are two schools of thought on the declining newspaper business:

The right one, which thinks the dead-tree-distribution business is dying as readers move online and alternative news and advertising options proliferate, and

The crazy head-in-sand one which thinks the awful performance of leading newspaper companies over the past few years is just the result of the housing bust.

CSFB's newspaper analyst John Klim appears to be a card-carrying member of the nutbag school. He argues that newspapers' recent troubles are mostly cyclical (2/3) and that newspapers are in a great position to benefit from the transition to digital media.

All newspapers have to do, Klim says, is "transform themselves from lumbering dinosaurs into nimble, multiplatform information providers capable of reaching customers in print, online, or by mobile download." That's not all they have to do--they also have to get tens of million of new users who already get much of their news elsewhere--but Klim tosses this transition off as though it's the equivalent of losing 2 pounds.

Klim is no dummy: He has ensured that he and CSFB's investment bankers will be hailed as heroes in the offices of newspaper investors and executives everywhere, and newspaper stocks rose on his call. Alas, he has also ensured that other observers of the newspaper business will be forced to conclude that he's a wack job.

Believe it or not, I think Klim has a good point -- there's huge growth to be tapped. But it can only happen if the leaders can turn their "lumbering dinosaurs" into nimble new companies. That's going to take great ingenuity and intelligence, so my view is dim right now based on what these corp.'s have been doing the past few years.

The Stuck on the Palmetto controversy keeps churning over at SotP. Now that Rick's quit, his sidekick Alex is fighting for him:

We embark sometimes in heated arguments which we should be able to keep them confined to opinions and ideas. You don't like somehing you read, attack the idea, not the person. Some people, unfortunately or by training, can't keep themselves from taking that extra step. That's what Bob Norman chose to do. The question is not innocent of course, because he knows. The threat is clear: "I know what is important to you, and I have the power to publish it if you piss me off". It's not a matter of "rights", a word that gets thrown around too often without knowing the meaning. It's a matter of decency and trust. He is privy to information he knows is destructive and he's using it as a weapon to shut somebody he doesn't like.

Then he goes on about how now I'm backtracking and, after his high-minded words decrying personal attacks, calls me a malicious dick (or d*ck, as he more politely puts it). Then he goes on a paranoid tack about how journalists (like me) are out to get bloggers (like Rick).

All this is getting just a little strange. For somebody that doesn't want to lose his anonymity, Rick and his blog sure are drawing a lot of attention to the issue. Not at all what I had in mind, but now they've put me in a position where I need to expound a bit more on the thing (as self-defense, if nothing else).

A little background: Rick is/was probably the most active blogger in South Florida. He mines the newspapers and the larger Internet for his material and posts several times a day, illustrating just about every post. I'd say he averages three to four hours a day on it. Just an educated guess.

Everyone by now has gathered what line of work he's in, thanks to his bullhorning of an obscure jab that was tucked away in a comment on the Pulp. Now it's time for you to put two and two together. I've devoted half my career so far to exposing waste, corruption etc in government. So I'm not going to lie and say my eyebrows didn't raise a notch when I found out what Rick does for a living. It crossed my mind that all that Palmetto time might be better spent doing his actual job, which is not an unimportant one at all.

I barely gave it a second thought, though; this wasn't a job for Pulpman. His blog was decent and who knew how he juggled it with his job to make it happen. But when he started accusing me of bashing police and made himself out to be some avenging angel of law enforcement, it did irk me. It's the one issue Rick -- solid, middle American, mind-numbingly normal Rick -- gets totally irrational about. I knew he why he was biased, but nobody else did. Basically I thought he should admit what line of work he was in, in general terms. We tussled about it a little in the past and I nudged the guy over the weekend. I thought it was harmless.

But he overreacted and spilled it all over his blog and made a huge issue out of it. Why? Ask him, because it doesn't matter what I think. People are making this about me, but it's all about Rick. He's the one who brought attention to the issue. It's his fucking thing, not mine.

Bad news: The Miami web newspaper Category305 is gone. Rebecca Wakefield and Celeste Fraser Delgado gave it a valiant effort, with at least one house second-mortgaged. It just never really took, which is a shame since it was a quality pub.

Here's the death notice, written by Delgado:

From: Celeste Delgado Subject: c305 sendoff Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:01:15 -0500 To: Rebecca Wakefield

Hello Dear Friends,

As you may have noticed, Category305 is no more. I meant to send you
all individual notes before the site went down, but every time I tried it made me too sad. So please forgive me for this group missive, even if a bit late.

We had a great run and it's not all over. Double the Vote is still up and we hope to build on the success of that endeavor. Both Rebecca and I have been hired as contributing editors to MOLI, a new social networking site. Rebecca will be covering the national election starting in January and I'm already covering worthy causes at www.moli.com/p/moliview. We'll be migrating some of our favorite c305 content to a MOLI profile as well. (I have everything saved as pdf files). I'll also be working with Mia Leonin and who ever else I can convince to continue covering the Miami performing arts scene starting in January (check out the profile at www.moli.com/playon).

Most important, I want to invite you all to a little sendoff celebration next Saturday .... There will be food and prizes -- and lots of love for all of you who contributed so much.

Hope to see you then,
CFD

Well damn. Rick over at Stuck on the Palmetto took a minor ball-busting of mine a too seriously and quit blogging. (He also accused Critical Miami of "piling on"). I think Carlos Miller's comment, the brunt of which is reproduced below, on Rick's (final?) post sums up my reaction:

But really, if you would not have made such a huge issue about Bob Norman's words, then his comments would have disappeared and would have been forgotten by most people.

But now it all becomes very clear to me. No wonder you were so pro-cop.

My advice to you, Rick, is to just go with it and continue blogging as if nothing had happened.

Carlos Miller

This might be confusing to many of you, but it's one of those things that the more that's said, the more (undue) damage is done. So here's my final word on the matter: I am not going to out Rick, never did want to out Rick, and I want to see SotP running again. The sad truth is that it's the first blog I pop on when I do my rolling.

The Megan Meier suicide is going to make for a helluva made-for-TV movie, no doubt. You know the story. Girl meets boy online. Boy belittles her online. Girl commits suicide. Boy turns out to be the creation of a neighbor girl's mother.

Now all the well-meaning dolts in America are trying to come up with a new law (sorry, Megan's Law is all ready taken) to outlaw being cruel on the Internet. Assistant Broward County State Attorney Stacey Honowitz, who yaps so much she's gotten to be a regular cable TV chattering head, got on CNN last week and talked about how the Internet is a horrible thing and all it does is hurt people and we need ways to put these people in jail. This is her exact quote:

Well, everyone thinks it's so fabulous, this superhighway. And I can tell you, in doing the work that I do, I see nothing but problems with the Internet. I see it with soliciting kids for sex, soliciting kids for things that are absolutely disgusting. Something like this takes place and it's not regulated enough.

Nothing but problems, eh? Way to give a measured take on the situation, Stacey. It's good that a Browardite is contributing such intelligence to the national debate.

Sun-Sentinel columnist Ralph de la Cruz has also jumped on the issue in his blog. Well, of course he has, since he's "Papi" and he crusades for our most valuable resource, our children. He laments the fact that the mother hasn't been charged with a crime.

Well, turns out prosecutors believe there's no statute that will allow them to prosecute anyone.

The one good thing is that the small town near St. Louis where the Meier family lives has passed a law making Internet harassment a crime.

Our legislators seriously need to become not only more e-literate, but e-proactive.

Poor Papi, he confused. Think about it. People have been mean for a long time -- hell, centuries even. Before the Internets were invented. People say things that are ugly, horrible, and sometimes suicide-inducing. But in a free country, it can't be illegal. The right to be mean, even nasty, is part of the freedom of speech. You can't help but to feel sympathy for Megan and her family and scorn for the idiot mother who played the prank (one Lori Drew). But it's one of the casualties of freedom and a knee-jerk reaction to throw people in jail for such things would be a foul crime indeed.

Ellen Dalton informs the Pulp that the Sentinel has killed its "North Palm" edition. Damn, they tried though. Talk about pissing money into the wind. Let Dalton do the talking:

So the Sun-Sentinel has quietly done away with its "Palm North" zoned edition, thus ending a weak foray into the Palm Beach Post's backyard. The important thing to understand is that all the reporters covering the northern part of the county remain in place (though it's a horrible mismatch against the hometown Post) and that they're still covering news up there. What's gone away is the S-S's "cosmetic zoning" -- moving stories around the B-section between its Palm North and Palm South editions in order to create the illusion that they were "covering" more news up north. Another victime of the pre-Sammy Zell cost-cutting, it would seem. (Gotta pay down that bilion-dollar debt, ya know.) After all their furious marketing and claims that they want to want to "own" Wellington, I bet they don't sell more than 500 paper there and that the Post still OWNS Wellington.