It all felt like a fever dream, the kind from which one awakens and wonders, "What hellish depths of the human subconscious belched forth this farce, and where is my negroni sbagliato?"
In South Florida, we were buffeted by the one-two punch of increasingly bitter culture wars and one of the most destructive hurricanes in the state's history. It was also a year of reckoning hereabouts, as prosecutors took aim at COVID-relief fund scammers, abusive cops, and Proud Boys alleged to have played prominent roles in the January 6 insurrection.
Meantime, the high tide of the cryptocurrency craze receded, revealing the sunburned, naked asses of many an overexposed bro, along with that of Sam Bankman-Fried, who was planning to move his crypto exchange FTX's headquarters to Miami shortly before he was arrested for running what prosecutors deemed "one of the biggest frauds in American history."
In hopes of gaining some closure, we rummaged through the sludge and compiled a list of rapscallions, alleged criminals, and all-around turds in the South Florida punch bowl who stood out as keystones of local dysfunction in 2022. For your perusing pleasure, we present to you, in alphabetical order, our annual Dirty Dozen.