Speculation will now be ratcheting daily about the successor to Pope John Paul II. The world will watch for clues as to which of the 117 voting-age Cardinals seems to have an inside track to the papacy. A Cardinal of color? The Italian Battalion? A Latin American? An American American? The sacrilegious will quote odds. [...]
The World Values Survey, a global network of social scientists, has come up with a study that rates countries’ inhabitants on their sense of well-being. In short, who is happiest? The Stockholm, Sweden-based WVS interviewed 120,000 people on six continents representing 82 societies and 85 per cent of the planet’s population. The U.S. made the [...]
Once again we are reminded that we are truly a global village. This time the validation was provided by an aerial photo of damage done by the recent earthquake in Indonesia. The Associated Press wire photo showed collapsed buildings on the main street of Gunungsitoli, a city on the Indonesian island of Nias. Bordering the [...]
The World Values Survey, a global network of social scientists, has come up with a study that rates countries’ inhabitants on their sense of well-being. In short, who is happiest? The Stockholm, Sweden-based WVS interviewed 120,000 people on six continents representing 82 societies and 85 per cent of the planet’s population. The U.S. made the [...]
It isn’t too often that anything that happens in the Moon Lake part of Pasco County, including murder among the low lives, makes headlines in the Tampa Tribune. Yesterday, March 28th, was the exception, however, in a front page Metro, above-the-fold story about an ex-con killed by two women with criminal pasts. The victim was [...]
To some cities and regions it will be an extreme makeover they could do without, thank you. They are the myriad communities across America now sweating out the prospect of losing a key military installation. There are 425 military bases across the United States – but not for long. The upcoming round of military base [...]
Just when we thought it might be safe to cut Mel Martinez some slack over his pandering-dominated campaigns, doesn’t the rookie senator just go and up the ante again. Recall that the Florida Republican had tacked hard to the right on gays as Bill McCollum found out in the primary. Then Sami Al-Arian became a [...]
Ashley Smith, the former hostage who helped capture Atlanta courthouse gunman Brian Nichols, has been thanked again – this time with more than $70,000 in reward money. As to the city of Atlanta, it got off cheap. It contributed $5,000 of the $70,000 awarded Smith. For relative chump change, it had what remained of its [...]
At its Fogarty-forever seediest, Tampa’s hardscrabble maritime district was still home to an eclectic handful of urban pioneers – mostly of the artistic persuasion. When it became apparent that this warehouse – now Channel — district was morphing into a tony, de facto downtown where people – thousands of them – would actually live, some [...]
Ok, it’s nothing new that America as a society is overly enamored – make that obscenely obsessed — with celebrity. It’s why BTK continued to kill. It’s why parents permitted sleepovers at Michael Jackson’s. It’s why we elect a lot of our leaders. It’s why normal-looking people queue up for autographs of anybody with a [...]
