At the beginning of 2008, Sam Zell - then the new owner of the Tribune Company - visited the Sun-Sentinel with his sidekick Randy Michaels. The event was held in the auditorium of the Museum of Art across the street. Michaels seemed by far the more modest of the two, as Zell, eschewing the steps, pulled himself up onto the stage, used the lectern the way a drunk uses a lamppost, and then laced his talk with expletives. Michaels' most colorful aspect was his wardrobe: high-belted pants and, under his dark sportcoat, the sort of flowery shirt that benighted northerners think is fashionable in Florida.
They received a warm, at times enthusiastic, welcome. People were no doubt thinking: For years we've been mismanaged by well-dressed, well-spoken men, why not give the vulgar billionaire a chance? But I thought it strange that, supposedly coming to learn about us, they did almost all the talking. And I also thought of my mother, who had raised me to be polite and respectful of my superiors. How devastated she would be, I remember thinking, to know that these clowns were now my bosses.
