Herald: a person or thing that precedes or comes before; forerunner; harbinger.
Herald.com: the receptacle of grammatically poor and intellectually flat commentary that sets us back the to The Dark Ages.
I wonder if Henry M. Flagler looked up the definition when he bought The Miami Evening Record and renamed it The Miami Herald. Or maybe he just got the name from an existing paper. And that’s okay. I forgive him for not getting creative with the name of our daily paper, after all he was connecting trains to Key West for Christ’s sake.
I think about Mr. Flagler a lot. Particularly in the mornings when I drive through the 826-836 bridge/merge/mess construction-situation that is happening directly under the exit sign that bears his name. There is another sign too, the one that proudly boasts a completion date of 2016. Clearly the County government and the D.O.T. are aiming to get out of finishing the project, as they’ve projected the end-date after the Apocalypse.
I also think of Mr. Flagler when I visit Herald.com. I used to receive a physical paper, but I ended my subscription on the day I opened the travel section and found a full spread about visiting Egypt – on the same day the State Department issued a travel restriction due to the flipping revolution. Just a minor oversight.
I now subscribe to the New York Times, but I still get some local tidbits from the Herald’s online edition. But, really, I just like to read the comics.
This town needs so much more than another Henry M. Flagler.
Mari de Armas 