Leftovers: March 2026

According to my metrics, last month’s ‘Leftovers’ post was kind of a hit. So much so that I’m beginning to suspect some of you prefer shorter and lighter reads. Which is fine, I suppose. I’m not mad or anything. I’m just a little surprised. I mean, why couldn’t someone have mentioned this? All it would have taken was a small note like “too longwinded” in my comments section. Apparently that never occurred to anyone.

Thank you, Coral Gables! I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.

But seriously, folks, some posts are long and dense because they have to be (you try exposing a nefarious multi-year-long political phishing operation in a few short paragraphs), while others are long and dense because, contrary to those main-character-syndrome types who apparently think this Substack should serve as their individually tailored newsfeed, I happen to have a fairly large audience with genuinely diverse appetites. Many of my readers, believe it or not, enjoy long-form content. I know this because they tell me, privately and politely. And oddly enough (though not really), these readers tend to be my heaviest hitters, disproportionately D.C., Tally, and other .gov types with local ties for whom my little Reflections on the Revolution offer a small respite from the much bigger problems they’re paid to solve.

Nevertheless, as Gandhi once said, “you’ve got to give people what they want.” Or maybe that was Kim Kardashian. Whatever. Same difference. The point is, I strive to write for all my readers, and if some of you want more leftovers, then more leftovers you shall have. Bon appétit.

A.I. Yai Yai.

For those of you who find Dr. Castro's unjust occupation of elected office as insulting as it is dispiriting, allow me to offer some much-needed schadenfreude. A couple of meetings ago, during the ceremonial protocol section (proclamations, acknowledgments, etc.) our MacArthur Genius Award-winning commissioner produced what might be the single cringiest moment of the entire KFC era.

While assembling for a group photo with a girls' gymnastics team (way to go, Tumblebees!), the commission settles into that particular hush that precedes a camera flash, when suddenly a cheerful synthetic voice rings out from the room’s speakers, “I hear there’s a bit of background noise and a few voices around you. No worries. Take your time. I’m here whenever you’re ready to chat more.”

At first, the group does its best to politely ignore this odd interruption. But then the voice calls out again: “If you need a moment to settle things or if there’s something in particular on your mind, just let me know. We can pick right up when you’re ready.”

Suddenly, a visible chagrin sets in across Dr. Castro’s face. For maybe the first time in her adult life, she breaks her patented Miss Bogota pose mid-shoot and scurries back to her seat to retrieve her phone, revealing the source of this bizarre interruption: it’s the doctor’s AI chatbot, voice mode fully engaged, calling out to its master to continue their conversation over a deliciously hot mic.

Based on the AI’s offer to continue an existing conversation, we can safely assume Dr. Castro was actively working on something, most likely one of the many synthetic scripts she so obviously relies on to get through even the most rudimentary agenda items.

But that means she was working on something right there on the dais. Instead of being present—and I mean genuinely, humanly present—for a roomful of children who showed up to be recognized, Dr. Castro was busy consulting with her AI chatbot. I mean, I get that she’s all but forced to outsource literally every ounce of cognition to a machine. But does she have to be so insufferably lazy? Does she have to do it right there on the dais like a kid copying last night’s assignment in homeroom?

And while we’re at it, could she perhaps work on some self-awareness? I don’t mean superficial self-awareness. That she has in spades. She’s exquisitely, exhaustingly aware of the camera angle, the lighting, the geometry of her hair, the drape of her blouse, the exact tilt of her chin required to achieve that particular studied pose she deploys before every photograph.

No, I mean the situational kind. The kind that might prompt a person to consider, before placing a live phone next to a live microphone, whether her open and running “how to beat Vince Lago” chat session might benefit from being minimized first. The kind that recognizes just how rude and uncouth it is to loudly pop open a carbonated drink while the mayor reads a proclamation to a group of proud and deserving kids.

Qué barbaridad. That, if nothing else, is what she should work on, not for the sake of her political future (she doesn’t have one), but for her life after politics. The one that is set to begin much sooner than she’d like.

The World According to Rip

I’m only putting this here to serve as a little palate cleanser between the two main courses. It would appear that after having solved hurricanes, created free energy, and discovered an army of evil Space Lizards living amongst us, Rip Holmes has now turned his attention to the most important question of all: Who owns Aesop’s Gables?

G.K. Chesterton famously said “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” You can tell which side of the political divide understands that.

Censure Smenshure

You’ve probably heard about this already, as it’s been shared and discussed within multiple community chats. But given that ‘civility’ was such a prominent theme during the last campaign season, I thought it deserved the extra attention.

At the February 24th commission meeting, Dr. Castro, as is her wont, introduced yet another pointless resolution about a random cause she just discovered sometime last week (human trafficking) and decided she would champion despite having done virtually nothing to understand it, much less materially advance it. It doesn’t take penetrating insight to see that if it isn’t money, status, and attention, she simply doesn’t care. Empathy, curiosity, concern…for Dr. Castro these are not mental states but rather poses, tones of voice, and facial expressions one deploys in front of a camera. This is my concerned face, this is my caring voice, etc. These are to her what Blue Steel was to Zoolander.

Anyway, she arranged for a gentleman named Tony Diaz, who apparently is running for state representative in a district beyond the Gables, to speak in support of her resolution during public comment. Everything seemed fine until shortly after the meeting Mr. Diaz decided to post an Instagram reel accusing Lago of “attacking him multiple times” and then declaring, because he’s so real™ and relatable™, that “all Lagos are pieces of shit.” See for yourself:

Personally, I could never vote for a man whose chosen aesthetic screams “I’ve got Anakin Skywalker chained up in the back of my scrap yard on Tatooine.”

But that’s beside the point. The point is that, as you can see from that little floating icon at the bottom, Dr. Castro reposted this on her official Instagram account, thereby deliberately endorsing Mr. Diaz’s message.

The significance of this, of course, is the fact that it wasn’t all that long ago when KFC, overcome with righteous indignation, censured Lago for comments he made on Spanish radio—he basically called KFC a bunch of unemployed moochers, which was kind of mean but also kind of true.

At the next meeting, Lago raised the incident but declined to pursue a censure. He acknowledged, essentially, that censures are useless political theatre and said as much from the dais. Which is the correct position, and also, not coincidentally, a far more devastating blow to Dr. Castro than any censure could have been. Because useless political theatre is, in its entirety, Dr. Castro's political philosophy. Her one tool, her north star, her reason for being. To have the man she just publicly called a piece of shit by proxy dismiss the very instrument she wielded against him as beneath his time constituted a nice little example of Straussian erasure.

But hey, it’s good to see Dr. Castro rubbing elbows with such high caliber political talent. The seat Mr. Diaz is running for may not be in the Gables, but you can tell his heart is. You can tell he really understands the community, its stakeholders, and the issues that matter most. You can tell he’s a serious person and a real “ideas” guy:

One More Thing

There’s apparently a rumor circulating that I intend to run against Ariel Fernandez. I’m genuinely unsure how this started.

For the record, I have no particular desire to hold elected office. I’m comfortable sharing my views with whoever will read them, but I have a fairly deep aversion to imposing them on anyone. There’s a meaningful difference between opining and governing, and the latter, making rules that bind other people, does not appeal to me at this stage of my life. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with people who want to govern. It’s a job that has to be done, and done by someone. I simply lack the innate disposition for it.

That said, I do believe the dais will not be fully restored until every last remnant of KFC has been removed from it. And while I fully expect Ariel to be seriously challenged by serious people, and while I think he’d lose to the proverbial ham sandwich, I’ll be watching. If the field looks thin, if the moment calls for it, I’d consider getting involved. Not out of ambition, but to ensure that Ariel Fernandez leaves the Gables political stage thoroughly, methodically, and irrevocably, with no plausible path back.