When it opened in 1927, Tampa’s 18-story Floridan Hotel was called the state’s tallest building. For the last two decades, it’s been called many other things — with “eyesore” probably topping any list. The venerable hotel, officially shuttered in 1987, had become a monument to plywood and roosting vultures. What nobody called the erstwhile 1920s-’40s [...]
For those who haven’t been paying attention and never cross Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg has long retired its somnolent “God’s waiting room” label. After fits and starts – including the late, less-than-lamented Bay Plaza effort – to make over its downtown, St. Petersburg found its niche: the arts. Mayor Rick Baker’s acknowledged ambition is for [...]
The baseball season is a quarter of the way through, and this much is apparent around here. The Rays are a more likeable, hopeful, also-ran team. When healthy, its eight position players are collectively better than many other teams’ starters. But the Rays can’t pitch Scott Kazmir every day. After an impressive debut by new [...]
It’s now official. The disaster season for New Orleans started before Hurricane season. Ray Nagin has been re-elected mayor.
Given President Bush’s track record in bringing democracy and stability to the Middle East and the Administration’s ever-eroding moral high ground, perhaps it’s time to think outside the sandbox. Talk to Iran. Being backed into a face-saving, nationalistic corner is no safe place for an apocalyptic leader such as Mahmoud Amadinejad. Kissinger talked to Le [...]
So, Osama bin Laden has weighed in again. Another poke in the eye. This time to say the United States can’t even convict the right person for 9/11 complicity. Actually, it’s yet another excuse to derisively remind America that we have a better chance of finding Jimmy Hoffa than him.
If those 20-something Saudi Arabian men who rode a Wharton High school bus had no malice or deception in mind, why did they initially claim to be Moroccan? Was this, as Ahmed Bedier, the director of the Central Florida Council on American-Islamic Relations, claims, purely a function of a language barrier? Apparently so. And context, [...]
You don’t have to be a linguistics professor to know that as a “living” entity, language is always subject to change. Hence Latin is a “dead language.” But a problem arises when language starts to fast forward – not evolve. Notice how accepting mainstream culture has become of pop parlance? I propose a modest moratorium: [...]
When I was a kid in Philadelphia, my family lived about two blocks from the house where the Phillies’All-Star shortstop, Granny Hamner, resided. (I doubt that anyone other than Tom McEwen, Don Zimmer and Larry Thornberry would remember him.) This wasn’t the Philly suburbs, mind you, but a city neighborhood of row (not town) houses. [...]
Speaking of baseball, anomalies and my home town, the “Philadelphia Inquirer” recently ran a nostalgia piece on Babe Ruth. On Sept. 3, 1923, Ruth, 28, led the New York Yankees to a doubleheader sweep of the Philadelphia Athletics. Immediately afterwards, Ruth left Shibe Park – still in uniform – and was whisked by private car [...]
