A recent study has shown that motorcycle fatalities in Florida have risen since the repeal of the helmet law. Another study showed that the risk of a car crash is a lot higher for elderly drivers. And a third study showed that there’s no end in sight of studies that prove the obvious.
*It’s illegal for virtually all Americans to travel to Cuba. But not Libya. Postcards from the shores of Tripoli — but not the Malecon. Why not make it official and require U.S. citizens to show their passports before entering Miami?
*St. Petersburg continues to distance itself from its old “Wrinkle City” and “God’s Waiting Room” image. A happening downtown and a vibrant arts scene are a big help. Now the city is the hometown of a world champion boxer, newly-crowned, junior middleweight Winky Wright. Definitely not your parents’ St. Pete.
*A lot of us look forward to “March Madness,” the NCAA’s 64-team national championship basketball tournament. This amateur bracketologist among them. Nothing like the David-and-Goliath scenarios created by the Valparaisos, Eastern Washingtons, Libertys, Monmouths, Princetons, and Vermonts taking on the Dukes and Kentuckys. But at the risk of hoops heresy, I have to admit that 64 teams is too many. But that’s not to disparage the Davids. They all won something to get into the “Big Dance.”
It’s a knock on the Goliath wannabes. If a team has proven over the course of a season that it is the fifth, sixth, seventh and even eighth best team in its conference, it has no business playing on for a possible national championship.
*From the looks of the “undervote” (unmarked ballots) in Broward County’s Democratic primary, “Flori-Duh” jokes could, alas, be recycled. What shouldn’t be countenanced, however, are complaints from the “disenfranchisement” crowd. Still not knowing how to vote — which in and of itself calls into question the quality of a ballot, per se — is not the same as being “disenfranchised.” But it is the same as being stupid.