I avoid Palm Beach. The homes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are there. The place still has too many remnants of its former "Gentleman's agreement" and "no Jews allowed" snobbery and I still remember once being openly sneered at by a liveried doorman in front of Gucci as I shoehorned my brand new but still too plebeian $60,000 car between the Bentleys on Worth Avenue. It's the sort of place I associate with former Congressman Mark Foley.
It's not that Foley was born with a silver spoon in his mouth or made any great fortune as is typical of the local gentry. In fact he spent some of his youth removing forks and spoons and dirty dishes from restaurant tables. Still, he seems to be seen at the right restaurants and clubs and in the company of the right people; sometimes very far right people.
Foley is back from his brief social exile, having completed as he says, his rehabilitation from alcoholism. As a guest at the ball that opens the Palm Beach Fashion Week, he was celebrated by appreciative well wishers at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Friday night. Although he didn't represent that district, that's where his support and his fountain of funds has always been. Attendees seemed to appreciate all that he did "for the community" which as I remember was to push for poorly conceived laws to shut down nudist camps in the Sunshine State and to make it illegal to draw pictures of minors that Foley saw as hot, hot, hot. Of course he did facilitate that minor miracle of getting a Democrat, Tim Mahoney, elected. I have to be grateful for that.
I presume that Mark has changed his ways and is no longer chasing after minors, and it seems that he is using his former contacts and skills in that frequent fall-back profession of deposed politician: a Florida Real Estate Salesman. He's now open about his male partner; a wealthy Palm Beach dermatologist. I wish him well. I think he's paid for his indiscretion and his hypocrisy. His friends, of course, don't need my best wishes and his party would long since have disappeared if my wishes had any influence in the matter.
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Never been to Florida. You'd think, as a Michigan native, I'd want to run there at the first chance. I mean no ill towards navtive Floridians, but as you cited just two of, the state seems to be full of goofy's....and then there's the (likely mostly ill)legal immigration to contend with. It just always turned me off.
Foley is back from his brief social exile, having completed as he says, his rehabilitation from alcoholism.
Alcoholism was a convenient (and socially accepted) excuse.
I presume that Mark has changed his ways and is no longer chasing after minors
I'm a Psychologist. Child molesters are NEVER "cured", their "habit" at very best, is suppressed and/or hidden, but it will come out again, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They remain a threat for as long as they live.
A $60,000 car? Ye cats! We paid just over half that much for our HOUSE! Golly. I suddenly feel rather poor.
I hope Foley stays out of politics. Regardless of his predilections, he seemed to be a narrow-sighted sort of legislator; the kind who does no one any good.
Many people think of Florida as Miami Beach, Palm Beach or Orlando. That's a bit like judging New York State by looking only at Queens and Staten Island.
We have the largest remaining wilderness east of the Mississippi and the country's biggest cattle ranches. From my bedroom window, all I can see is an endless forest of mangroves, palms and oaks. This small county is mostly agricultural with over 30,000 acres of wilderness.
Legal immigration from Cuba is so very far in excess of illegal immigration from Haiti and Mexico that it's hard to explain the obsession. The Hispanic population in my county, just north of Palm Beach, is about 2%, virtually all citizens who speak some English and work in the citrus groves, but so strong is the stereotype we're furnished with, it doesn't matter.
Most people in this part of the state - the vast majority, in fact, are from New England and the North Eastern States. I've only ever met three people who were born here. It's the Yankees with their conservative idiocy and prejudices who are the biggest negative influence.
Chris,
I have a weakness for Corvettes - I can't help it! :-)>
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