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We live just over a mile up a main thoroughfare, NW 22nd Avenue, from little Elian Gonzalez's temporary Miami home.   No matter on what side of the issue, one has to agree that this has been a horribly expensive and disruptive sideshow.  The entire block just off 22nd Ave. seemed like a street carnival for weeks and weeks, packed with protestors and the curious.  Local and international media pitched tents across the front of several properties and camped out 24 hours a day.   Food vendors and rolling "cantinas" at both ends of the block offered refreshments:  helados (ice cream), frio-frio (snow cones, literally "cold-cold"), canned soft drinks, cafe (coffee), tamales and croquetas.  Sometimes at the beginning neighbors passed out cold water, Cuban coffee and sandwiches.  At the end they put up their hurricane shutters and locked their gates.  On hot days, Fire and Rescue often parked a truck at the end of the block to care for those overcome by heat stroke, emotion and exhaustion.  Sympathizers left Cuban and American flags, religious symbols and flower arrangements on the home's front lawn.  Prayer rings were formed, press conferences held.  Periodically Elian was brought out, frequently on the shoulders of his uncle Lazaro, to wave and smile at the crowd; some would try to touch him as if he were an icon instead of a little boy.  At one point the family put up a board fence in the rear to try to achieve some privacy and security at play, and zoning promptly made them take it down.  I don't know how the neighbors stood it;  they must have the patience and sympathy of saints.  

At dawn the other morning, a press photographer defined himself for life with a horrific picture of a little boy being wrenched from his fisherman-rescuer's arms at gunpoint.  After these weeks of intense emotion and many exiles' reliving of unimaginable suffering and loss at Casto's hands, it is understandable that Miami blew up.   As commuters were blocked, property destroyed and streets set afire, police moved in with tear gas.  The less emotional or more cautious stayed home for days.   

It is also understandable that many non-Cubans, especially after the immediate knee-jerk high-jinks at city hall, and contemplating the increased tax bills, have had enough, and for the first time, turned out for hours in counter-demonstrations all over the county.  

We don't all have to agree, with each other or with the government.  In the USA, fortunately, we have the right to protest.  We have the right to resist local or federal government laws and actions we disagree with.  What many don't realize is that when we exercise that right, which helps us maintain a free country, and we interfere with others' rights, we must be prepared to pay the consequences.  And we do NOT have the right to demand that others fall in line with our thinking. 

Is it over?  Not by a long shot.  Now City of Miami's three-ring circus at City Hall has kicked in, with protests, accusations, firing and hiring.  Someone has to take the blame, right?-- election time approaches.   Next will come the lawyers and the lawsuits.  Dalrymple, the fisherman-rescuer turned hero, is rumored to be considering a move to Miami to run for mayor or commissioner, despite no experience and being non-Hispanic (maybe a good thing given the climate).   Commission meetings, broadcast on cable, are often the most entertaining show on TV.  One thing we hopefully learn to accept with age is that there are no good and perfect solutions to many problems.  In this case, everyone's attitude and reaction is understandable and even to be expected; those of the Cuban exiles, non-Cubans,  pro-Castro Cuban citizens, police, Mayor Carollo, Fidel Castro, Janet Reno, Immigration  Department bureaucracy and Elian's family.   
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