Liberty Drip

 It's early morning and the gray is giving way to what will be a clear but muggy South Florida day. I am the eleventh person in one of lines formed on the sidewalk outside the Pembroke Pines DMV. I have business inside and although I have arrived two and a half hours before the office opens, I know there is a chance I won't get in. Readers who live in South Florida will understand that not having a driver license and a car is just not an option down here. I need to drive to feed my family, to run my business. Our lousy, unreliable public transportation system just doesn't cut it. I stand out there for close to two hours. Luckily, I brought my iPad and I'm reading to pass the time. Others are watching videos on their phones or listening to music or striking up conversations with their neighbors. I like to read. So I read. Around 8:30, I am now standing outside the building and a Very Mean Woman who works for the DMV is yelling at people, telling them they'd better ha...

  By Adolfo Jimenez for The Liberty Block In 2018, New York Attorney General Letitia James called the NRA a terrorist organization and vowed to shut them down. This is not the first time that a radical anti-freedom Democrat has  referred to the NRA  in such a way. Now, it looks like she’s now trying to make good on her promise. In the lawsuit announced Thursday, she referred to the NRA’s “charitable mission.” Perhaps she was just using the accepted term for how an organization with the NRA’s tax status describes what it does, but I do not think that she deserves  the benefit of the doubt. Are they charitable (non-profit) or are they terrorists? Not sure the line between the two is a fine one. It would seem that Ms. James is flexible in her terminology. She’s an attorney and as such, language is the bat she swings, but there should at least be some consistency in her messaging. Wouldn’t you agree? The lawsuit alleges that NRA leadership, including long-time chief exec...

I had to walk into my bank today to have a document notarized. Good thing I made an appointment. The other customer who was there, like me, at one minute before opening time was not so lucky. She was sent away. She would have been the second customer in the branch. I’m not sure if the bank would have gotten in trouble for letting her in, but I did hear the banker tell her she was not allowed into the branch without an appointment. She had the mask. It matched her outfit. Bless her heart. I asked if I would need an appointment to access my safe deposit box. The banker said no, just walk right in. I don’t have a safe deposit box there but I’m glad exceptions to the rules of stupid can be made.   We are still being told by the guessers in charge that we should maintain social distancing, not shake hands and not go inside some places or outside anywhere. Unless you want to protest your local police, in which case, get out there! I wonder why many states and the federal government, who ...

I was in the third grade the first time someone called me a Cuban and meant it as an insult. One of my classmates showed up to class with two broken arms and no front teeth. He’d been in an ATC accident. In case you don’t know, ATC stands for All-Terrain Cycle. They were similar to the big four-wheeled ATVs that are popular today but had only three wheels. They were tricycles on steroids. They became illegal at some point because people were getting hurt. Thank you, Big Brother, for always keeping us safe. I asked the kid if he fell and he said, “I ain’t no Cuban. I flipped!”  To which I replied, “At least I have all my teeth and both my arms.” This kid was a jerk. He and I would continue to have run-ins throughout the rest of the elementary years. I don’t think I ever saw him again after that. I sure hope his teeth grew back. My junior high (middle school to you youngsters) was a private school in a predominately black section of Dade County known as Carol City. Most of the kids i...

MAY 23, 2020: I began to write this piece and never finished. Full disclosure: I work at home. My business has been affected by the illegal government shutdown of “non-essential” businesses, but I am still getting by. My wife is apparently an essential person, too. She is working from home as well. Our income has taken a pretty severe hit. We’re losing about sixty percent of our income. Our daughter, who worked her tail off to graduate high school a year early, has been denied her prom and her senior class trip. She is lonely and distanced from her friends. This is harder for all of us because she will be leaving for college in the fall.  Our government’s severe overreaction to the Coronavirus has resulted in a 26% unemployment rate. What is this doing for the mental health of the people who were struggling to get by? How many people will commit suicide when their economic situation becomes unbearable? How many already have? How many marriages will crack under the strain? Any stat...

It’s December 14, 2012 and I’m riding a bus from Hollywood to Aventura mall. It would be a 30 minute drive. It’s a 90 minute bus ride. I’m reading a book. I arrive at the mall and walk to the retail establishment where my dead-end job is located. I tell myself I hate my life. I’ll feel like an idiot about that feeling very soon. I punch in and then jump on line. There’s been a shooting at a school in a little New England town no one I know has heard of. I know Sandy Hook, Connecticut because my sister lives there. A few blocks from the school. I call her and she doesn’t answer. I know my niece and nephew don’t attend that school but it’s still, literally, too close to home. I am a father of four and I’ve always had a soft spot for kids so any tragedy involving a child always hits too damn close to home. We will later this day learn that twenty children and six faculty members will die in that school. They are the victims of a sick young man who will also die there. His day ...