"What would our readers have thought if I stayed silent? I couldn't. The only way I knew to let our readers know it's business as usual was to do the same kind of tough column on Dave I would do on anyone," Hiaasen says. "It put us in a helluva position." The column in which he takes on his own boss (who was less surprised perhaps than others at the Herald, Hiaasen says, and who remains to this day a friend) begins with that customary punch:
It's definitely something in the water. First there was Mayor Loco, now we've got Publisher Loco.
David Lawrence, Jr., the head honcho of this newspaper, is considering a run for the governorship of Florida. Seriously.
Lawrence has never held public office. He has no fund-raising organization, and thus no funds. Most voters in Florida don't have a clue who he is. And the primaries are only five months away.
But that's our Mr. Lawrence, optimist to a fault. Since he's the Big Cheese around the newsroom, I ought to be circumspect about this bizarre situation. So here goes:
Dave, have you completely lost your marbles?
Although Hiaasen claims he took no real risks in criticizing his own publisher, such columns illustrate why former city editor Dave Satterfield likens their impact to "a baseball bat to the forehead." Calling him "one of the strongest voices in Miami," Satterfield says that because Hiaasen looks at issues in terms of right and wrong rather than according to some narrower agenda, he appeals to a wide readership. "He's looked up to throughout the community not only to be the voice of reason, but to deliver," Satterfield says. "You can cross any of those racial, ethnic divides in Miami and everyone agrees, 'Boy, Carl hit the nail on the head.' He has a very good sense of what's right."
Instead of being the voice of conscience, however, Hiaasen believes he articulates the common-sense view of an already existing but previously unrepresented constituency that has grown over the years. "People were fed up with corruption and overdevelopment," he observes, "but nobody said what everybody was thinking." Now, if an elected official is exposed by the Herald as having taken checks from taxpayers and bribes from special interests, Hiaasen weighs in. "Does that person deserve to be ridiculed and shamed? You bet," Hiaasen says. "He deserves to be miserable and wretched and go right off to jail and think about what he's done."
Doug Clifton, who believes Hiaasen's greatest gift is using an "incredible command of the language to translate his raw passion into something that ignites passion in others," maintains that people read Hiaasen to be outraged, to experience the same emotion he directs toward those who have violated the public trust. Such a response in readers, Hiaasen thinks, can help prevent corruption from becoming acceptable. Such passion in Hiaasen himself—outrage composed of disappointment, anger, incredulity, and scorn, always freshly felt—argues that his reputation as a cynic might be based more on his choice of words than on his view of human nature. That he can still be disappointed at all, after having seen and commented on the worst of Miami's graft, suggests in fact an abiding or renewable belief in the possibility of human decency. While his outrage might express a deep sense of betrayal and loss, he refuses, as Jim Savage says, "to be silenced by anybody or anything."
"When you quit trying and you accept it, that's when you're the ultimate cynic," Hiaasen says. "When you don't speak up and when you don't fight back and when you don't raise hell, that's the ultimate act of cynicism, and it's effectively surrender. It's saying, 'Things are so bad that it's now acceptable.' [But] it's not acceptable, it can't be acceptable."
While a true cynic would maintain that nothing will or even can change, over the years Hiaasen has seen what he terms "small victories" brought about by the cumulative effort of many people. Fifteen years ago, for example, candidates ran for office without even mentioning the Everglades, because "they didn't think anybody cared, but the truth is, millions of people cared," Hiaasen says, and now environmentalism and water quality are big agenda items in Florida because writers, journalists, concerned citizens and activist groups spoke as one voice. Ten years ago, the buddy system allowed graft to be punished by a slap on the wrist, but now, Hiaasen says, "You have judges and prosecutors talking very, very tough about corruption."
Some of Hiaasen's colleagues at the Herald, however, would assess his impact and influence as being more individually direct, enough to determine elections in some cases, according to Jim Savage, and enough to make "government officials hold their breath every Thursday and Sunday," according to Bob Radziewicz, assistant city editor. About the quality of his work, his colleagues are in accord: Hiaasen has few, if any, peers but can, according to Gene Miller, be considered "as good as the dead ones. H. L. Mencken, A. J. Liebling, and Izzy Stone."
Always modest, Hiaasen hopes his column will be remembered as sincere, passionate, and consistent. While certainly embodying those qualities, his work over the last thirteen years has contributed to the history and future direction of Florida in a unique way, perhaps best understood in the context of his move to the Keys when others were fleeing. Why, after all, he asks, does one sit with a dying relative?
For Hiaasen, Florida does seem a form of flesh and blood, and his kinship to it as elemental and profound a relationship as there can be, based on love, time, gratitude, and a devotion that tells us something about the meaning of home. Hiaasen wants for us, I think, what he described John D. MacDonald as wanting for his readers: to care about Florida as deeply as he does, to celebrate it, marvel at it, laugh about it, grieve for it, and even fight for it.
Welcome to South Florida
Carl Hiaasen's South Florida stress test
Now you can figure your stress quotient
October 29, 1985
Once again the Guardians of Miami's Image have been stung by a bolt of rotten publicity—the national Urban Stress Test that ranked the city dead last, citing overcrowding, lousy water and rampant crime.
The establishment has resounded with the usual indignation, outrage and silly whining about how darned unfair the whole thing is. (I don't know precisely what the Chamber of Commerce thinks Miami's national image is, but I promise that the rest of the country wasn't exactly stunned to see us at the bottom of this list.)
At the risk of joining the apologist chorus, I have to admit that the stress test was sort of a cheap shot: There's no way to compare Miami with any other city in America. We're a special place and we deserve our own special standards.
So here's the South Florida Stress Test that I'm proposing for next year.
Scoring is simple: 30 points or less means minimum stress—you're doing fine. Forty to 80 points means it's time to restock the Valium.
Anything over 80 points and you'd better pull the kids out of school, call the moving van and start house-hunting in a quieter place. Say, Beirut.
CARL HIAASEN'S SOUTH FLORIDA STRESS TEST
1. On the average, how many nights a week are you awakened by the sound of gunfire?
* Every night (10 points)
* Four nights or fewer (5 pts.)
* I sleep right through it (1 pt.)
2. Judging by your experience, what kind of gunfire is it?
* Saturday Night Special (1 pt.)