One minute Michael Hardy gets a raise from the Performing Arts Center Trust, the next he gets let go.

Man, fall is really here. We’ve got the hurricane season’s last gasp rattling our windows. Traffic is ridiculous and the violent crime rate is up. Our e-mail inboxes are stuffed with invites to an absurd number of events, each billed as spectacular and not to be missed, even if it’s just the bartender’s birthday at the club du jour.

One of these events that actually looks good is Sleepless Night, which features 13 hours of free cultural events throughout Miami Beach, starting this Saturday night. Just about every artist in town will be doing something interesting in a park, bandshell, theater, museum or on a street corner. If you’ve never attempted to use the public buses, this is the night to park and ride until dawn. If it works, this could be one of those nights when you remember why you still live here.

Meanwhile, across the bay, the much-maligned Carnival Center for the Performing Arts decided to end the windy season by blowing out its oft-criticized CEO, Michael Hardy. In typical Magic City fashion, this came about a month after the Performing Arts Center Trust gave him a 42 percent raise. This week, they voted to ditch the Hardy boy and bring in Lawrence Wilker, a former chief executive of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and principal of TheatreDreams, a theatrical production company.

It’s tempting to fret about the time and money lost under Hardy’s inadequate leadership, but I’m going to go the other way and wish Wilker well. We’ve sunk something like half a billion dollars into this culture pit already. But given enough time and the right execution, the Carnival Center could actually be worth it. Almost.

I feel the exact opposite about the Miami Dolphins. Or to be more exact, Wayne Huizenga. I think Huizenga should stop jerking Miami around and sell the team. He hasn’t picked a winning coach in a decade and there’s no reason to think that’s going to change. Some say it’s karma for his treatment of franchise legends Don Shula and Dan Marino, but I think he just has a tendency to listen to the ass-kissers he hires instead of the fans.

It’s been clear since Huizenga dismantled the 1997 World Series Marlins and then unloaded the team that he couldn’t care less about mere fans. That point was illustrated again by the Dolphins participation in the NFL’s London expedition.

The NFL will never be more than a curiosity to the English, a circus featuring (in the Dolphins’ case) a wizened ringmaster with the beady eyes and pock-marked face of a classic comic book villain.

The best sports are local. They’re built from the ground up, by youth leagues and high school games and college teams and then at the professional level. You need that infrastructure for a sport to catch on in a big way. Trying to make Dolfans out of the British makes about as much sense as paying an aging David Beckham $250 million to revive American soccer. A better strategy would be to figure out how to turn home-grown Dolfans into the type of frothing maniacs British soccer teams regularly turn out.

And now for something completely different. PUT THIS COLUMN DOWN RIGHT NOW AND GO VOTE!

Early voting started Oct. 29 and runs through Nov. 4. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 6. If civic duty is not enough to motivate you, perhaps a small bribe will. Miami Beach has this program (called Vote Miami Beach) whereby all registered voters get 10 percent off purchases at participating businesses. Many of these businesses will up the discount to 15 percent during early voting, if you show them proof you voted (you’ll get a little card at the poll, either at City Hall or at the North Shore Library).

The businesses offering the discounts range from restaurants to spas, jewelry stores, pet shops, hotels and even Déjà Vu's Love Boutique on South Beach, which seems only a fitting end to the dirty business of politics. For more information, see www.miamibeachfl.gov/vote_miami_beach/vote_miami_beach.asp

One last thing on voting: For those of you who have no idea who any of the people running are, both the SunPost and Miami Herald last week made their recommendations, and they are as good as any. I take the long view, which is that if we prove we’re willing to get out and vote en masse, whoever is elected will have to pay attention.

Last week, at a candidate forum held at the Miami Beach Rod & Reel Club, mayoral candidate Matti Bower presented opponent Simon Cruz with a letter asking him to return all the money he’d accepted from backers of Mount Sinai Hospital.

In a rambling and somewhat incoherent way, she explained to the audience that Cruz hadn’t done anything wrong yet, but a lot of people wondered whether they could trust his judgment on Mount Sinai’s desire to sell the Miami Heart Institute to developers because he’s accepted so much of their money.

Cruz responded by pulling out an old political chestnut, which, with some regional variations, goes something like this: “If you can’t take their money, drink their whiskey, screw their women and vote against ’em anyway, you don’t belong in politics.”

A witty response. I’m not sure, though, that Mount Sinai is locking up its liquor and its nubile females just yet.

Oh, a note to negative campaigners: There’s a right way and a wrong way to point out your opponent’s flaws. Listen up, Jonah Wolfson. I didn’t mind when I got the flyers pointing out Luis Salom’s tendency to embellish his educational record. That’s a legitimate point. But then I read in the Herald that my Spanish-speaking neighbors were getting fliers claiming Salom had business ties to Cuba, sent by a union supporting Wolfson. The claim, true or not, just serves to divide the electorate on an issue completely irrelevant to the business of Miami Beach.