Martha K. Huggins Ph.D

Martha K. Huggins

Tulane Professor Emerita and scholar of Brazil, Huggins has researched police violations of human rights in Brazil for 40 years. Huggins is now transforming that work to the US, where she is studying municipal government and the insurance industries' direct complicity in promoting, covering up, and hence rewarding police violence.

Peary Court Purchase Plan B and the Cornfeld Group

May 062016

by Martha K. Huggins, Ph.D…….. Commissioner Jimmy Weekly has announced a “Plan B” for the City’s involvement in Peary Court: A “family business” is interested in purchasing Peary Court with Key West City government kicking in 12.5 million in Land Authority money to sweeten the deal. For its $12.5 million portion of the Peary Court purchase, Key West government would lock the Robert Cornfeld “family business’” into a deed-restriction requiring that existing Peary Court properties be dedicated in perpetuity to ‘affordable’ rentals—that is, “affordable” for [continue reading…]

May 6, 2016 Posted by Martha K. Huggins at 1:04 am ~ Opinion ~, Editorial, Issue #165 6 Responses »

President Dilma Rousseff and Male Politicos’ Gender Crisis

Apr 292016

by Martha K. Huggins, PhD……. As votes accumulated for President Dilma’s lower-house impeachment, “Good Bye, Dear” (Tchau Querida!) spread across the placards gripped by political opposition’s men and some women. Brazil’s Senate may soon try the country’s first woman president for “corruption” and if impeached Dilma Rousseff will be stripped of presidential powers for some of the alleged crimes committed by lower-house and senate legislators. The chutzpah of federal legislators should not surprise me, having done research in Brazil for 40 years on police, crime, and [continue reading…]

April 29, 2016 Posted by Martha K. Huggins at 12:48 am Issue #164, Martha Huggins No Responses »

Key West and Brazil: Democracy and Police Accountability

Apr 012016

by Martha K. Huggins, Ph.D……… Living and conducting research in Brazil over a number of years during its 21-year military dictatorship taught me the importance of police accountability. Sometimes when police showed up at a residence they were following government orders; sometimes they were acting alone. In either case their objective was to scare people into submission, by merely paying an unannounced visit, or by trashing a family’s possessions, or through violence against them. The victims of such police over-reach had absolutely no recourse: very [continue reading…]

April 1, 2016 Posted by Martha K. Huggins at 12:48 am Martha Huggins 12 Responses »

Peary Court Purchase: Speculators Win; Key West Loses

Mar 112016

Commentary by Dr. Martha K. Huggins……. Key West, an island seven miles long with 7.4 square miles of land mass, is saddled with almost $107 million dollars of long-term debt. City Commissioners have asked voters to approve yet another $55 million dollars in debt. Their appeal is couched in humanitarian concern for low-paid workers who need “affordable” housing, Ironically, such workers are often employees of the very City Commissioners who want KW government to subsidize housing for their exploited employees. Key West needs affordable housing, [continue reading…]

March 11, 2016 Posted by Martha K. Huggins at 12:39 am News 14 Responses »

The Peary Court PAC: Who Is “Housing First”?

Feb 122016

Martha K. Huggins, Ph.D……. I am about to tackle the most onerous task of all: Preparing my family’s income tax. But before I take this unwanted leave from Key West’s Blue Paper for a few weeks, I want to address, “Who is Key West’s ‘Housing First’?” The Needle In a Haystack. It took longer to get the answer that question than to earlier find out “Who is White St Partners?” It just should not be that difficult, I thought beginning research on the “Housing First [continue reading…]

February 12, 2016 Posted by Martha K. Huggins at 1:08 am ~ Opinion ~, Issue #153, Martha Huggins 19 Responses »

Who Owns Peary Court?

Feb 052016

by Martha K. Huggins, Ph.D…….. A burning question was finally asked on Wednesday (2/3/2016) in a Key West Citizen Editorial—“Who is White Street Partners?” Well, that’s the wrong question if you’re after Peary Court’s current owners. Peary Court Holdings, LP (a Delaware limited partnership)– registered in Florida as a “foreign partnership”– is Peary Court’s owner of record. However, in fact, the current partners with financial interests in Key West’s Peary Court–who together constitute its owners, include: Peary Court Holdings, LP; White St Partners; and the [continue reading…]

February 5, 2016 Posted by Martha K. Huggins at 1:28 am ~ Opinion ~, Issue #152, Martha Huggins 49 Responses »

“Capitalist Animal Farm: Beware, Technocrats!”

Jan 292016

by Martha K. Huggins……. Set-Up: Results of Interactive Journalism This play about Stock Island’s landfill and its chemicals springs from last week’s contributions to my, “Let’s Write a Play: Scripting the Economics, Science, and Politics of Death: “Fifteen Shameful Lethal Acts,” in the Blue Paper (1/22/2016). Jerome Grapel, Alex Symington, and John Donnelly pointed out that any discussion of dangerous and polluting chemicals, and how these are handled by government, had to include: (1) The role of capitalism in the economic and political system in [continue reading…]

January 29, 2016 Posted by Martha K. Huggins at 1:15 am Island Voices, Issue #151, Martha Huggins 17 Responses »

Let’s Write a Play: Scripting the Economics, Science, and Politics of Death: “Fifteen Shameful Lethal Acts”

Jan 222016

by Martha K. Huggins, Ph.D…….. In 1940, my father-in-law, George Findlay Willison, created and edited, Let’s Write a Play (Harper), a compendium of plays written by children attending the Hessian Hills School that he Co-Directed (1929-1935). A private progressive school located in New York State’s Croton-on-Hudson, designed in the spirit of John Dewey and other progressive educators, was fertile soil for eliciting the best from youthful minds. In 2016, I am transforming George’s work and his collaborative spirit into a project of ‘interactive journalism’: Will [continue reading…]

January 22, 2016 Posted by Martha K. Huggins at 1:08 am * Featured Story *, Issue #150, Martha Huggins 13 Responses »

Let’s Write a Mystery Novel: “The Turkey Hawk Brief—A Key West Mystery”

Jan 082016

by Martha K Huggins, Ph.D……. The Pitch: Everyone’s Good Ole Boy meets a softball champ at work. When the “Softball Queen” gets buried in debt from wagering in Good Ole Boy’s personally lucrative sports betting operation, she turns to pilfering money from her employer, just a little at a time over four years. Fortunately her colleague, “Turkey Hawk Stan”–as Good Ole Boy is called–is their employer’s computer programming expert. He can help hide “Softball Queen’s” monthly revenue shortfalls. But her alleged thefts are very belatedly [continue reading…]

January 8, 2016 Posted by Martha K. Huggins at 1:18 am * Featured Story *, Issue #148, Martha Huggins 7 Responses »

To Monroe County Taxpayers and School Board: How the Early Learning Center’s Shortfall Gets ‘Disappeared’

Jan 012016

by Martha K. Huggins, Ph.D……. Today’s Citizen (1/1/2016) reports that a Monroe County School System computer technician, Joseph Patrick Clements—nicknamed, “Joe Weed”—has been running a sports betting operation with “over $10,000 a week in wagers.” This was big enough to bring in the FDLE, FBI, DEA, and Homeland Security. “Joe Weed’s” alleged gambling operation was–guess what?: discovered in December 2014, the same month that the ELC’s ‘disappeared’ shortfall was revealed by a Horace O’Bryant Principal. Criminology 101: Illegal gambling schemes often lead losers’ with debts [continue reading…]

January 1, 2016 Posted by Martha K. Huggins at 12:36 am Editorial, Issue #147 6 Responses »

Immigrants, Crime, Terrorists, and Humpty-Dumpty

Dec 112015

by Martha K. Huggins, Ph.D……. I’m still stunned by a letter to the Key West Citizen’s editor last April (4/22/15), stating that, “Black people are born three times more likely to commit crime than white people.” Cringing at this historically racist and supremely incendiary statement, I was reminded of criminology’s long history of explaining crime as caused by genetic, physiological, psychological, and religious factors. Nineteenth-century physician Cesare Lombroso measured the skulls, arms, and heads of imprisoned poor Italian inmates and concluded that one very dangerous [continue reading…]

December 11, 2015 Posted by Martha K. Huggins at 1:08 am * Featured Story *, Martha Huggins 5 Responses »

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