Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

KICK ASS Carl Hiaasen

For all those who care about Florida.

You just cover a lot of territory and you do it aggressively and you do it fairly and you don't play favorites and you don't take any prisoners. It's the old school of slash-and-burn metropolitan column writing. You just kick ass. That's what you do. And that's what they pay you to do.

—Carl Hiaasen

Preface

Since 1985, Carl Hiaasen has written some 1,300 columns for the Miami Herald, all of which I've been privileged to read as a single body of work, though choosing among them to create an anthology of reasonable length meant eliminating far more than I would have wished. While many great columns had to be omitted because of limited space, those gathered here represent some of Hiaasen's finest writing as an advocate for realistic growth and decent government in Florida. Taken as a whole, this collection constitutes a history of sorts, chronicling a decade and a half of the issues, struggles, and personalities affecting the development of the state and the welfare of its residents. Individually, each column provides the distinct pleasures associated with reading Carl Hiaasen—inspired outrage, hilarity, incredulity, and passion—in language brilliantly wielded against two targets in particular: hypocrisy and greed.

While fans nationwide can find his novels anywhere, Hiaasen's biweekly columns have thus far been essentially inaccessible after their appearance in the Herald or one of the other papers through which his work is syndicated. Even ardent fans would find it difficult to search archives for past columns, especially those from five or ten years ago. This anthology was therefore originally intended to answer the need for a more permanent record of Hiaasen's career as one of the country's most influential and articulate journalists. But what also emerges from the collection, most significantly for those of us who care about Florida's future, is a clear picture of Carl Hiaasen's continuing role as an uncompromising and eloquent defender of this state.

I'm indebted to many people at the Miami Herald for their time and generous cooperation—to Lory Reyes and Michael Clark of the research department; Doug Clifton, former executive editor; Sam Terelli, general counsel; Jim Savage, head of the investigations team; Dave Satterfield, former city editor, now business editor; Bob Radziewicz, assistant city editor; Gene Miller, associate editor for reporting.

I must also thank Anthe Hoffman, Janette Johnson, and Melanie Almeder for their help and encouragement throughout this project.

Information concerning Florida's real and projected growth was condensed from Hiaasen columns; various editions of the Florida Statistical Abstract (compiled by the Bureau of Economic Research and Development at the University of Florida); Florida in the Twenty-first Century, by Leon Bouvier and Bob Weller (Washington, D.C.: Center for Immigration Studies, 1992); and South Florida—The Winds of Change, edited by Thomas Boswell (Miami: Association of American Geographers, 1991).

—Diane Stevenson

Acknowledgments

For years I resisted the idea of compiling my newspaper columns into a book, because it would have required re-reading each one myself—a columnist's worst nightmare. Most of us can't bear to look at something we wrote last week, much less a decade ago. That's because the nature of daily journalism is fleeting, today's words made instantly stale by tomorrow's headlines. There is simply no time to look back.

This collection would have been impossible without the keen eye, unflagging enthusiasm, and heroic stamina of Diane Stevenson. She pored through many hundreds of columns to find those that best stood the test of time, and also presented a vivid panorama of a confoundingly diverse state. They reflect my own bent view of the place, so whatever wrath these pieces provoke should be directed at me alone. For her brave job of culling and organizing them, Diane deserves nothing less than a medal.

I am also indebted to the many talented reporters and editors at the Miami Herald, past and present. Their guts, ingenuity, and pit-bull persistence produced the news stories that inspired these columns. I feel fortunate, and proud, to be employed by a newspaper that knows what newspapers are supposed to do: Turn over rocks. Dig out the truth. Kick ass.

—Carl Hiaasen

Islamorada, Florida

Introduction

In 1953, Carl Hiaasen was born in Plantation, Florida, a tiny suburb of Ft. Lauderdale at the westernmost edge of then-rural Broward County. By 1960, around the time he got his first typewriter, Plantation's population of 4,800 was roughly that of Ft. Lauderdale in 1922, when Hiaasen's grandfather moved down from North Dakota to eventually found the area's first law firm.