Send Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Mentally Ill Kentuckians: Your Florida Roundup

Greetings, Wonketeers, from America’s Sam’s Cola, a state so strange and wondrous that all kinds of people are just dying to move here, and then some of them die here, because they are old. One of our newest denizens is a man named Adam Horine, but for some strange reason he did not actually want to come here at all :

In a rambling, sometimes confusing dialogue with the judge, Horine, 31, his voice cracking, said he loved Kentucky, but "they are trying to force me out."

Horine was absolutely right. Just hours later, he'd be embarking — alone — on a 900-mile, one-way bus trip to Florida, courtesy of the Carrollton [Ky.] Police Department.

"I should be in the hospital," Horine pleaded with the judge during the hearing. "I have mental illness, and I say things I shouldn't say. But I would never hurt anybody. I never have."

[District Judge Elizabeth] Chandler responded that Horine looked sick, according to a video of the hearing obtained by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. And she questioned his competence to enter a plea to misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and making verbal threats.

Horine had been arrested for and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct and verbal threat-making charges, and the judge ordered that he receive a psychiatric evaluation. But then them there Kentucky coppers decided, eh, fuck this guy, send him to Florida.

Within hours, a social worker's preliminary evaluation at the Carroll County jail determined Horine was hearing voices, felt suicidal, was not sleeping, had no medication and wanted to hurt "certain people."

The next step was Eastern State, where Horine could receive the treatment the social worker and the judge thought he urgently needed.

But Carrollton police had a very different plan for Horine. They wanted him out of town and out of the state. They wanted to rid themselves of this tormented petty criminal. They wanted to make him someone else's problem.

The put him on a Greyhound and shipped him to Florida’s West Coast, where they assumed he would fit right in with all the voices-hearing, flakka-taking miscreants this state seems to cough up on the reg. After all this became public, the nice Kentucky prosecutor charged Horine with escaping, and got a warrant that brought him back to the land of dumb and bourbon.

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How We Pick Up Chicks

For all the bullshit Florida takes (and insanity it produces), it does have its redeeming qualities. Among them, stunningly beautiful Florida women (like my wife! Happy birthday, Mrs. Florida Correspondent!). But Florida men, being Florida men, often struggle to communicate with them effectively. (You just TRY Tinder-ing here. You’ll wind up in a fucking dungeon.) Florida Man Eduardo Garcia has found a novel means of overcoming this particular difficulty:  

Eduardo Raoul Garcia, 44, was camping in his tent at Lake Griffin State Park Wednesday night when he called 911 to report a harassing phone call he received, police said. While on the phone he told the female dispatcher he had big muscles and asked if she was single, an arrest affidavit said. The dispatcher told Garcia, of St. Augustine, he sounded like he had been drinking and he hung up.

Like any good, jilted Florida man, he was not about to give up.

Police said Garcia called back twice and asked if the dispatcher was single. Fruitland Park Police Department traced the call to Lake Griffin State Park and asked park officials if they had seen anyone who was intoxicated.The park ranger told police they did have a man who checked in that afternoon who looked confused and was easily angered.

Police went to the man's campsite and found Garcia.

Say this for Florida man. He is easily identifiable.

I Said No Cellphones

There are, of course, good people in Florida, people who for all the state’s intrinsic sadness are trying to make things better. Dean Liptak, a high school science teacher in Pasco County, is one such person. He wants to make his students S-M-R-T, and he knows the only way to do that is to keep them off their goddamn iPhones. And so Liptak, being a science teacher who has not yet committed his undervalued talents to making beautiful blue meth, developed a genius strategy for getting the little shits to pay attention :

A Florida science teacher has been suspended for running a signal jammer to prevent his students from using their cellphones in class.

The problem, of course, is that jamming cell phone signals may interfere with, say, a 911 call. Also, it is against federal law. Oops.

All the same, we’re not so sure Liptak should have been suspended — unpaid, NO FAIR — for five days so much as he should have been summarily declared Teacher of the Year. In Florida, however, we save that honor for teachers who go all-in on sex ed .

Oh, Here’s The Florida We Know and Hate

Bryan Goodson, a student at the Jesus-y Providence High School near Jacksonville — the city that progress forgot — did a very brave thing, given the circumstances. He came out as gay, on Twitter. The school reacted about how you’d expect from a Florida institution that models what it calls “Christ-likeness.” It told Goodson to take a hike, because eww, gay .

A local high school student said his Christian school is discriminating against him because he’s gay, and he’s taken to an online petition to fight back. […] The petition reads, “Shortly after I came out as gay on Twitter, I was contacted by a teacher and was told that the Providence School Board decided it would be unwise for me to attend the Pony Awards (the awards ceremony for our school musical, Little Women).” The petition has a goal of 1,000 signatures and as of Thursday had more than 400 signatures.

Denying a young gay access to awards for a school musical: Cruel.

The school told a TV station, “We hold the state of marriage to be an expression of a Biblical standard and the union between a man and a woman.”

Goodson is no longer enrolled, and we imagine that’s for the best.

Fine, We Can Talk About George Zimmerman Now

As we suspected, ole’ Georgie, the quintessential Florida man, may get some hot turnabout-is-fair-play action. You’ll recall, no doubt, that another Florida gun nut named Matthew Apperson recently fired a shot at Zimmy’s SUV, and was arrested for it because Zimmy is not a young black male walking through a neighborhood where he didn’t belong. Now, Apperson is the one claiming he Stood His Ground, which in Florida allows you to shoot unarmed black children with impunity, so why not some fat-ass’s SUV?

 Over to you, Dok :

Following Apperson’s bond hearing Friday, his attorney, Michael Lafay, told a reporter “That’s a good look into the future,” when asked about the possibility of a self-defense claim. “And, of course, as you know, Mr. Zimmerman is no stranger to a ‘stand your ground’ situation.”

A spokesperson for the Gods Of Irony said they were veering between riotous laughter and sighing at the predictability of it all.

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Speaking of baring arms — see what we did there? — a junior at a Fort Myers high school has been stripped of her National Honor Society position because sheis a slutdid not attire herself appropriately. As we Wonksplained at you :

Cameron Boland, a super achiever who’s president of her class and involved in nine million activities, was running unopposed for a post as NHS “Historian” for her county — basically, the job involves doing social media, sending press releases, and the like. On May 1, she attended a district NHS meeting to give her campaign speech at another school in the district. She and a friend decided to dress up a bit in fairly modest sundresses. After all the students had given their speeches, she and the other girl were informed by the NHS advisors that their positions had been revoked because of their horrifying bare shoulders, in Florida, which supposedly violated NHS’s dress code. She had a jacket with her, which she offered to put on so she could apologize and give her speech again, but no, miscreants who can’t be bothered to abide by the rules don’t get do-overs.

This is why we can’t have nice things, Florida. Well, that and Rick Scott.