Spring Break at Babalú

For the last few weeks or so, Henry "Economist" Gómez has been completely occupied, entranced and mystified by an article published in Tropic Magazine in 1988 where author John Dorschner predicted what Miami would be like in 2008. As if this guy were Nostradamus, Henry has devoted five lengthy posts (and a sixth has been announced) to reproducing and evaluating Dorschner's predictions. But, who is this guy and why does what he thought 20 years ago matter? He couldn't even predict that The Miami Herald would scrap Tropic Magazine in 2000. Or that some teenager who missed the story the first time around would, 20 years later, open his time capsule, which everybody at The Herald had forgotten or dismissed as irrelevant, and regale the world again ad nauseum with his speculations about 2008 (hey, we're here already!).

While Henry has been ensconced at the Public Library accessing The Miami Herald archives for free (free copies, too?), Val has been remodelling his house, or, from the looks of the photograph on Babalú, levelling it. This at a time when the real estate market is dead and capital improvements mean only capital losses. Since Val is apparently doing it all himself, he laments that he has little time at present for blogging. I guess Castle Prieto comes before Empire Prieto.

With the "Father of the Cuban Blogosphere" on sabbatical from Babalú while auditioning to be the Cuban Bob Villa for Telemundo (wait, Bob Villa is Cuban) and with Henry wrapped-up in his mystical studies of the New Oracle at Delphi, the blog's newest (and sanest) writers have been given the opportunity to reform Babalú, but, sad to say, they are not taking advantage of it, as they appear also to be following their bliss elsewhere.

Spring break at Babalú, I suppose.