Don’t mind the helicopters, it’s just practice, Miami-Dade police say

If you see military helicopters buzzing through your neighborhood sometime soon, don’t freak out. It’s probably a military training exercise.

Miami-Dade police sent out a warning Monday that multiple police agencies would be providing support for a joint military training exercise somewhere over Miami and elsewhere in the county. The exercise will include the use of military helicopters.

When and where will this happen? Police didn’t say.

The police statement said the training locations and times “were carefully selected to minimize negatively impacting the citizens of the City of Miami/Miami-Dade County and their daily routines.”

But it also acknowledged that there would be some impact on residents.

“This is routine training conducted by military personnel designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirement,” the police statement said.

This isn’t the first time such training has been done in Miami. In April 2011, military helicopters buzzed through Brickell, leading to sleepless nights for some people and a lot of griping on social media about it.

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At Obama’s church service, hymns, prayers – and a tweet?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – There was preaching, praying and singing at President Barack Obama’s church service on Inauguration Day on Monday. But was there tweeting, too?

As Atlanta pastor Andy Stanley wrapped up his sermon at St. John’s Episcopal Church across from the White House by urging Obama to leverage his power for the greater good, a tweet went out from the president’s own Twitter feed.

“I’m honored and grateful that we have a chance to finish what we started. Our work begins today. Let’s go. -bo,” said the tweet, which went to more than 26 million Obama followers.

Obama typically designates tweets that he writes himself by signing his initials in lowercase: “-bo.” That led to questions over whether the president had tweeted from church – and perhaps provided a new chapter in the debate over the appropriate use of social media.

But a White House spokesman said Obama did not send the tweet in the middle of the church service.

That means it could have been done by Obama in advance and timed for release while he was in church, or that it was posted by Organizing for Action, the non-profit group that now operates the president’s Twitter account.

The new group, which is led by Obama’s former campaign team, plans to try to build public support for the president’s policies.

The group did not immediately comment on the authorship or timing of the tweet.

Even if Obama had sent out the tweet from church, such messages from the pew are no longer taboo, said Scott Williams, a pastor and consultant from Edmond, Oklahoma, who works with ministries to use social media to spread the word and engage members.

“It’s definitely OK – it’s relevant,” he said. He cited a verse from the prophet Isaiah: “Like a crane or a swallow, so did I twitter.”

“‘Thou shalt twitter in church’ is a way that I present it,” Williams said in an interview, noting that many people now used Bible apps on their mobile devices in the pews.

Stanley’s North Point Community Church in Atlanta produced a Christmas music video for iPhones and iPads that has been viewed 3.7 million times on YouTube, said Williams, who is familiar with the 33,000-member ministry.

Stanley delivered his sermon in a very “old-school” setting. St. John’s, a yellow church with white trim, was built in 1816 and often is called the “Church of the Presidents” because every president since James Madison has attended it at least occasionally.

The service included a mix of traditional hymns such as “Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past,” a gospel solo by singer Ledisi, and an African-American spiritual, “Great Day.” It also included readings and prayers from Jewish, Christian and Catholic clergy.

Stanley talked about a passage in the Bible where Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, setting an example of equality.

“What do you do when it dawns on you that you’re the most powerful person in the room? You leverage that power for the benefit of other people in the room,” Stanley said.

“Mister President, you have an awfully big room,” the pastor said. “It’s as big as our nation. At times, as you know, it’s as big as this world.”

(Editing by David Lindsey and Peter Cooney)

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Diane Lane Fashion Flashback

With classic good looks, killer style and a body that puts women half her age to shame, Diane Lane, 42,  just seems to get better with age.

Join us as we look back at Diane's most stunning red carpet looks over the years!

Related: Who Are The Most Desirable Women of 2013?

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Loving our country

John Podhoretz

Yesterday’s inaugural festivities brought great joy to President Obama’s supporters — including, it must be said, the vast majority of the press corps, who treated the day as though they were attendees at a family bar mitzvah. And, of course, the occasion brought a certain degree of angst and foreboding to those who oppose him and his agenda, for they and their cause lost, and lost painfully.

These days we are hearing from some on the Right distressing parallels to emotions expressed on the Left after George W. Bush’s re-election victory in 2004. In each case, those upset see these national referenda as indicating the corruption and sinfulness of the American body politic — and weaknesses within the very American system.

AP

Easy for them to celebrate: President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama reviewing the inaugural parade near the White House yesterday.

For many anti-Bushites, the 2004 election was a validation of an unmistakable turn toward meanness, cruelty, torture, war, imperialism, hatred. They spoke of emigrating to Canada and dubbed those parts of the country that voted for Bush “Dumbf--kistan.” In their minds, Bush appealed to the worst in Americans — who, by re-electing him, showed they might be beyond moral, spiritual or political repair.

For many anti-Obamans, the 2012 election is a sign of the corruption of the American electorate, seduced by all manner of public bribery into voting for a president with a dreadful record. In the critics’ minds, that the American people accepted the bribes reveals a nation forever changed and on the road to ruin.

Of course, it’s also possible that these elections featured two candidates, one of whom got a few million more votes than the other guy — in a country that’s fairly evenly divided ideologically, and has been for decades.

No matter. It appears that, for many people, love of country has become conditional. So long as the country is on the course they choose, they’re full of joy in its traditions and ceremonies, and happy to pay respects to its officers and to ruminate on its remarkable progress over the centuries.

When things don’t go their way, the ceremonies are meaningless, the traditions are empty; the nation’s officers deserve no respect, and it is only making progress toward evil.

Which raises an interesting question: If love of country is conditional in this way, is it love of country — or really love of self substituting for love of country?

Love is not a transitory emotion, as infatuation is. We love our parents and kids with a bond both deep and elemental, as basic as the impulse to breathe. There’s no falling in or falling out of love in these cases, even when hate and rage and disappointment are mixed in. That love is permanent.

And it usually extends outward to the homes we live in, especially if there is a multigenerational tie to them. It attaches as well to schools we attend, the town or city from which we hail, the state we’re from — and ultimately to the nation.

Does it matter who governs it, or even how it’s governed? The Russian writers of the 19th century loathed their leaders and the national system, but had a mystical belief in the greatness of Mother Russia. The greatest patriotic poetry in the English language is in Shakespeare’s “Richard II” and “Henry V,” both of which are also about crimes of governance.

Thus it was that even the radical philosopher Bertrand Russell, no flag-waving jingoist, could say that his “love of country” was “very nearly the strongest emotion I possess.”

In America over the past 50 years, this affection has been supplanted by an odd sense among the politically active that the country is only worthy of their love when they consciously consider it lovable — when it stands for the things they believe in and acts in ways of which they approve.

There is something almost unnatural about this. It’s the elevation of the abstract over the real — over the love of what one wants rather than what one has. Not to mention the insult to the United States of America — which, more than any other nation, deserves the love of all its people because of the inestimable bounties of freedom and prosperity it has provided.

jpodhoretz@gmail.com

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Three-generation family businesses share their secrets of success

In 2009, when Larry Zinn took over as sales manager for the Infiniti dealership that his father owned, he had a great idea: retrain the sales staff in a team approach and offer customers complimentary add-on services for the first year.

Some salesmen who were used to selling the same way for decades up and quit. But that didn’t deter Larry from insisting a new sales culture and value proposition for new car buyers was necessary. “I was persistent with everything I’ve believed we needed to do going forward. People were going to embrace change or move on,” says Larry, 28.

The resistance quieted, however, after Larry recruited young salespeople and had them trained in the new advantage program. The new approach helped push sales volume up 72 percent. "We had a lot of success with it,” he says.

Larry Zinn’s experience is not unusual for family-owned businesses that survive into a third generation and employ new tactics to keep from becoming obsolete.

Nationally, family-run businesses account for nearly 35 percent of the largest companies including Ford, Koch Industries, Hilton, Wal-Mart, Loews and Ikea. In South Florida, family-run businesses are particularly prevalent and account for a majority of the largest Hispanic companies, including Goya, Bacardi, El Dorado and Sedano’s Supermarkets.

But while more than 30 percent of all U.S. family-owned businesses survive into the second generation, only about 12 percent are passed onto the third generation, according to Family Firm Institute, a Boston-based association for family enterprise professionals. Those that do survive have a few intriguing commonalities: an ability to stay relevant, think bigger and take a long term view.

“They try to figure out where they want to be in 10 years and take steps to make that target,” says Wayne Rivers, president of The Family Business Institute in Raleigh, N.C.

Most third-generation family businesses, particularly those in South Florida, were started by a scrappy entrepreneur who saw business ownership as a way to provide for the family. Those businesses include grocery chains such as Sedano’s, restaurant operators such as Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine and airport concessionaires such as NewsLink.

Typically, in those businesses, the founder brought his kids with him to work, put them in the kitchen, the stock room, the sales floor, and taught them on-the-spot business lessons. Those kids eventually came to work full time and helped the company evolve beyond a seat-of-the-pants start-up into a more sophisticated business with processes and systems.

Now comes the third generation, who are more likely to have received formal business education before they return to the company. Often, they are able to leverage that training and move the company forward dramatically. But the succession also comes with challenges. They must keep the respect of longtime employees and show the same dogged commitment to seeing their company succeed, even after having already grown up enjoying the fruits of its success.

In successful third-generation businesses, the senior generation often stays on to ensure that commitment, adopting a role as mentor or advisor while creating an environment where younger family members can take on real responsibility, says Rivers, who consults for family businesses. “They get out of the way, let the next generation make their own mistakes, and gracefully exit when it’s appropriate.”

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Police continue hunt after man set afire Christmas night

Miami-Dade police are searching for a group of people they believe are connected to a man being set on fire Christmas night.

The attack happened about a half hour before midnight on Dec. 25, according to police. Darrell Brackett, 44, had gone to a gas station at 4700 NW 27th Ave. after his van ran out of gas.

But, soon after he bought a small amount of gasoline, witnesses told police they saw him running in the middle of the street, on fire.

Brackett was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center for treatment. He was still in Jackson on Sunday.

Since the attack, one man, Alex Cineas, 21, of Miramar, came forward and talked to police. No charges were immediately filed. Police are still searching for a second man, Willie Summersett, 29, of Brownsville.

They also are looking for two other people, an unidentified man and woman who might have information about what happened and might have been involved.

Investigators asked anyone with information to call Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

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Mobile revolution in Myanmar is on the cards, but too slow for many

YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar is on the cusp of a mobile revolution. Only it’s happening way too slowly for many locals.

Last week the government invited expressions of interest for two mobile phone licenses – a first step towards increasing mobile penetration from its current 5-10 percent to 80 percent in three years. That would lift it off the bottom of the world’s ladder of mobile use and put it on a par with neighbors like Bangladesh.

In the meantime, users are chafing at the pace and price of adding connections.

A year ago the informal technology conference Barcamp Yangon was buzzing with rumours of a SIM card that would cost about $ 6 – or 1 percent of its actual price at the time.

A year on, Barcamp is back but the talk is much less dramatic: whether the state-owned operator might this week release SIM cards costing between around $ 100. That would still be half of what the last tranche sold for, but it still leaves many unhappy.

“The clock is ticking,” says Ravi Chhabra, a local technology entrepreneur. “People are frustrated. There is lots of speculation and this creates anxiety.”

Nobody questions the need for more connections, and foreign operators have salivated at what amounts to one of the last major untapped markets.

President Thein Sein has made it clear that mobile telephony is a cornerstone of his policy, and has also vowed that mobile communications would be cheap – a promise he reiterated to a conference of donors on Saturday.

Still, getting it done is not proving easy.

The notice inviting expressions of interest in two licenses was a welcome sign that things were moving, but IT experts and sources close to the communications ministry said the timing was surprising, given that the revised telecommunications law which would define the nature of any investment had yet to be passed by the parliament.

The government said in an appendix to the notice that a new draft of the law – which had been quietly withdrawn last year after criticism about its contents – had been submitted to parliament and was expected to be passed by June.

“After the law is finished then there should be a clear policy before any expression of interest is sought,” said Zaw Min Oo, secretary general of the Myanmar Computer Federation.

On top of that, the next day Telecommunications Minister Thein Tun, who had overall responsibility for mobile licensing, resigned. No reason has been given, and officials declined to comment.

“BIT OF AN EARTHQUAKE”

Sources close to the ministry say his departure had been rumored for several months, but the timing was unexpected, and raises questions about what might happen next.

“It’s been a bit of an earthquake; now we need to sit back and watch, see which buildings fall down,” said one source close to the ministry who, like others interviewed, declined to be named for fear of jeopardizing business relationships with the ministry and its companies.

Not everyone is concerned. Romain Caillaud, a Yangon-based consultant with Vriens and Partners, says both the notice and the resignation “should accelerate the liberalization and growth of the telecom sector.”

Major foreign telecommunications companies are likely to submit expressions of interest ahead of the deadline of January 25, say experts.

Alessio Polastri, a lawyer who represents several such firms in Myanmar, says whatever delay in the process there has been will benefit the government.

“It’s almost an asset in that initial concerns about political stability have disappeared, so, most likely, not only more telecommunications companies will take part in the tender process but also the winners shall be more confident in committing higher investment,” he said.

More thorny for the government, however, may be assuaging local interests. By inviting expressions of interest for two licenses, the government appeared to be committing itself to offering four licenses – two for foreign companies, and two for local ones: state-owned Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications, or MPT, and Yatanarpon Teleport, an internet service provider which is 51 percent owned by MPT.

Some local businesspeople are questioning the wisdom of this, saying that MPT should not effectively own more than one license.

CHEAP SIM CARDS

Dozens of local IT entrepreneurs last November formed the Myanmar Technologies and Investment Corporation to bid for a license, and are currently lobbying parliament to merge the two local licenses, giving them a better chance of either winning one or setting up with a partner.

“So far the ministries have come back with positive responses and encouraged us,” said Thaung Su Nyein, who is also managing director of local media and IT company Information Matrix. “Even if we don’t get this license we’ve been led to understand we’ll get other business licenses.”

But more pressing is growing public frustration at the lack of progress on the ground.

Last year’s talk of cheaper SIM cards was fuelled partly by MPT’s decision to press ahead with expanding its own network, promising to add 30 million GSM connections by 2016 – financed by allowing contractors building the towers to sell a certain number of SIM cards.

Since then, the rumor mill has been alive with chatter about when new tranches of SIM cards might be available, and how much they might cost. A few weeks before the tech meet up, a previously obscure businessman held a press conference at which he promised SIM cards costing only 5,000 kyat (around $ 6).

While the promise went unfulfilled and the businessman disappeared from view, it started a movement of sorts: stickers appeared demanding 5,000 kyat SIM cards and several people were arrested in small demonstrations, according to exile media.

Those hopes have been dashed, but the shortfall of SIM cards ensures interest in a steady stream of sometimes conflicting reports about another imminent sale. One local media report quoted officials as saying more than 1.5 million SIM cards would be sold on Monday for 100,000 kyat each, or about $ 112.

That would still be out of the reach of most people in Myanmar.

“People want to see faster progress,” said a source close to the ministry. “At least half the country want a phone, and they want it soon.”

(Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

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Mama Wins Arnold Schwarzenegger Flops at Box Office

Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Last Stand came in last place on the box office Top 10 list over the weekend.

RELATED: New on Blu-ray & DVD

The action flick struggled through its debut, pulling in $6.3 million, as audiences couldn't get enough of Jessica Chastain -- the star of Mama and Zero Dark Thirty.

Jessica's films came in at first and second as Mama garnered $28.1 million and Zero Dark Thirty $17.6 million.

Silver Linings Playbook landed in third with $11.4 million.

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Will Mike strike out?

Nicole Gelinas

How long should New Yorkers put up with the school-bus strike? Last week, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 was in charge of the schedule. Mayor Bloomberg should make clear that the city will get kids to school on time and safely — by making it clear that striking workers are risking their jobs.

As temperatures fell below freezing late last week, barely a third of the private yellow school buses that take 152,000 New York kids to school were on duty. That was a drop from Wednesday, the first strike day. Picketers intimidated replacement drivers and blocked buses.

Tomas E. Gaston

Bloomberg can get tougher: NYPD officers keep protesters away as a bus crosses a picket line in The Bronx last week. The mayor should hire new bus companies now.

The last time the union went out on strike, in 1979, it stayed out 13 weeks.

And the city caved in, giving the workers the civil-servant-style job protections that they want to keep now, no matter which private company employs them. (The city’s drive to do away with those protections after 34 years has pushed the union out this time.)

So without decisive action from Bloomberg, New York parents could be looking at chaos till summer — or longer. Your kid may not get to school until the bus drivers run out of money.

But the mayor can take action — by moving to terminate the bus companies’ contracts for nonperformance.

Whatever the city does, it’ll end up in court. Its contracts with bus companies are not well written. Unlike solid contracts that outline who does what in the event of everything from war to earthquakes, the contracts are vague on who — the company or the city — is responsible in a strike. The contracts require that bus companies make “good faith” efforts — and the mayor hasn’t said what he thinks that means.

But the contracts do define what is a violation of the contract. “Failure to conform to and maintain the route,” “exclusion of any rider from a run,” “failure to provide service to a school,” “failure to dispatch the kind of bus specified” and “failure to have the minimum number of spare vehicles” are among violations, with no excuses.

The city can issue fines of $2,800 a day, in some cases per bus route or per child, which could add up to tens of thousands of dollars (or more) a day.

Since contractors aren’t getting paid by the city while their buses are idle, such fines could put them out of business.

In the meanwhile, the city could move up its call for bids for new contractors to now, instead of next fall, signing emergency short-term deals with new bus fleets.

New drivers and matrons, like the old, would have to meet safety qualifications and criminal-background checks, just as the city plans for next year’s contracts.

Killing existing contracts means killing the drivers’ jobs — a threat Bloomberg hasn’t wielded yet.

It works. In 1994, Legal Aid lawyers who worked for a private firm under a city contract, similar to the bus drivers today, went out on strike for a raise. Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani immediately moved to terminate the contract. Just as immediately, the lawyers went back to work — on the city’s terms.

The mayor should be clear that striking workers are risking their jobs. Union leaders don’t necessarily have workers’ interests at heart — just as they didn’t in the recent past. When bus companies must make extortion payoffs to the union’s leader, as they did under former chief Sal “Hotdogs” Battaglia, now a felon, that means less money for drivers.

And new bidders are not going to hire minimum-wage workers. All companies need experienced drivers and matrons who won’t walk off the job in a few months’ time for a better opportunity.

Commercial drivers’ licenses and clean records are worth something. If that weren’t true, the bus companies would’ve ditched the union years ago.

The mayor’s duty is to taxpayers, parents and kids. There’s a lot at stake.

The members of a different union, the Transport Workers Union, who staff the subway and bus system, struck in 2005 (illegally, because they, unlike the school-bus workers, are public workers).

The TWU has been without a contract for a year now — and it’s been gingerly testing its power again in recent weeks.

Union members have given out fliers to riders suggesting that the MTA makes subway motormen enter stations too fast for safety — and is reminding the drivers and conductors to “use caution.”

Since work slowdowns are illegal, the TWU has been careful to not tell drivers to slow down.

But TWU leaders not only support the striking school-bus drivers; they’re watching closely.

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s
City Journal.

Twitter: @nicolegelinas

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Miami’s own Vanilla Ice: a one-hit wonder’s remarkable second act

He still remembers that moment, even as the chaos of his life swirled about him two decades ago. On the upside of his epic hit, Ice Ice Baby, Robert Van Winkle surveyed what his soaring career had afforded — the cars, the parties, the good times and this modern pad on Star Island. It was a professionally designed showcase of flash, but deeply bereft of soul.

“I felt like I was living in a nightclub,” said Van Winkle, the rapper who commanded the stage as Vanilla Ice. “It never felt like home.’’

Van Winkle, 45, who has spent more than half of his life in South Florida, re-imagined his space in warm earth tones. For Van Winkle, it was about so much more than decorating, but rather the beginning of the next chapter after a rap career that had been so promising, then careened into pop culture obscurity.

Many turns later, Van Winkle emerged from the wreckage as a successful, self-taught real estate investor, renovation whiz and a popular reality television home star, the seeds first planted that moment on Star Island when his house wasn’t a home.

Van Winkle’s third season of the DIY Network’s Vanilla Ice Project premiers next Sunday in which the rapper — who still tours performs concerts — buys, guts and makes pretty upscale homes. With his easy personality and hearty laugh still intact, plus a newfound Zen after a troubled past, Van Winkle mines South Florida’s rich housing landscapes for homes that can be grabbed, renovated and returned to the market for a profit. He is also the star of a DIY special called Ice My House, airing this Sunday at 11 p.m., and has a new lighting collection called, you guessed it: Vanilla Ice Lighting.

“With the recession, people have been feeling so miserable for so long. People don’t want to put money in an upside-down house,’’ said Van Winkle who lives with his wife and two daughters in a Wellington community. “I wanted a show that motivated people to want to invest in their homes, to get that kitchen they always wanted. I want people to enjoy their homes.’’

The show is just the latest stop in Van Winkle’s transformation, and his leveraging of his monster single.

“Vanilla Ice is one of those figures in pop music who was able to successfully reinvent himself,’’ said Matt Donahue, of Bowling Green State University’s Department of Popular Culture. “ Ice Ice Baby is his signature phrase and he has been able to take it all the way to the bank.’’

The Vanilla Ice Project’s 13-episode season follows Van Winkle and a crew of contractors as they transform a 6,000-square-foot house in a Lake Worth subdivision. “This place was rotten, we had to take down every piece of drywall, gut it down to the cinderblocks,’’ he said. “Everything in here now is custom, with state-of-art in-home technology and made with a whole lot less carbon.’’

On an especially muggy weekday, Van Winkle is taking a break from filming. Tattooed arms outstretched, he is animated as he talks about the plans to make this home a showpiece, a lifetime away from his early days as a rising rapper.

Van Winkle, who grew up in Dallas, exploded on the music scene in the early 1990s — just as rap was settling into its second decade — and sold 15 million To the Extreme albums worldwide on the popularity of Ice Ice Baby, the smash that started as a B-side song. The catchy song — along with Vanilla Ice’s high-stepping in parachute pants — became the first rap single in history to top the Billboard charts.

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