It still seems oxymoronic. The “late Deanne Roberts.” The Tampa native and graduate of the Academy of Holy Names and USF has always been here. Always looking out for her home town. Always a presence, always a force, always our better angel. Sage and savvy beyond her upstart youth. Kinetic and can-do through middle age. [...]

As the Republican presidential primary season rapidly plays itself out, there’s still a number of issues and scenarios with plenty of ongoing shelf life. Especially here in Tampa. To wit: *Will the 50,000 visitors to August’s GOP Convention leave enough hoteliers, restaurateurs and cabbies feeling like it was worth the hype? *Will Mayor Bob max [...]

I don’t take in that many movies. They’re an investment in logistics and money and often an exercise in audience roulette. And not enough are worth it. But I’ve seen three great ones in the last year: “The King’s Speech,” “Midnight In Paris” and “The Artist.” Thank you, Tampa Theatre and CineBistro, venues matter when [...]

We should soon be hearing from that jury charged with ranking the three finalists in St. Petersburg’s replace-the-old-Pier competition. Would that one of the finalists were advocating something more traditional, something that would truly complement–architecturally, aesthetically, historically and commercially–Beach Drive and downtown. Something that would have underscored true choice–not just a choice among would-be icons. [...]

The last fortnight has seen a couple of Tampa-centric national shout-outs, one involving First Lady Michelle Obama, the other, Ariana Huffington of the Huffington Post. *The First Lady included USF’s medical school in a list of other med schools across the country who were doing more than their share to ensure care for veterans and [...]

Looks like Mitt Romney wandered off the rhetorical reservation again–this time plugging the sometimes dubious merits of for-profit colleges as a marketplace solution for the soaring cost of higher education. That’s what happened in New Hampshire and Iowa where the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination gave endorsements to Winter Park’s own Full Sail [...]

Rick Perry and a few conservative talk show hacks can make all of the excuses and rationales they want, but the reality of U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban insurgents is beyond disgusting and disturbing. Granted, the Taliban–and others of their jihadist ilk–don’t play by the Geneva Convention rules. Granted also that what happened to [...]

Let me add my two cents’ worth to that of those who have weighed in on the recent death of Tampa businesswoman and civic leader Deanne Roberts. Deanne was a natural resource–and her legacy is a Tampa better than it would have been without her. The Tampa native was a prominent leader who made time [...]

For a “socialist” continent, Europe has some serious representation in the Fortune Global 500. At last count, there were 172 European corporations among the FG 500, compared with 133 from the U.S.

* “There you have Egypt today–a four-way power struggle between the army, the rising Islamist parties, the smaller liberal parties and the secular youth of Tahrir Square. All of them will have a say in how this story plays out.”–Thomas Friedman, New York Times. * “After years of cold-war competition over the Middle East and [...]