Everybody, I suspect, has this list – even if it’s just in your head. Doable things that you would really, really like to do some day. Somewhere on my list — along with taking a hot-air balloon ride/check; attending a game at Yankee Stadium/check; visiting the Catacombs/check; bussing the Blarney Stone/check; and meeting Timothy Leary/indeed, [...]
A shuttle launch is best seen as a culminating activity. It’s worth a pre-game, if you will, visit to the Kennedy Space Center. Especially worthwhile: *The Shuttle Launch Experience. Sights, sounds, gut-feelings of a vertical launch. But more interesting than exciting. Don’t think Disney or Busch Gardens. But do think frame of reference that’s available [...]
Sen. Mel Martinez is stepping down from his position as chairman of the Republican National Committee. He wants to devote his energies, he says, to his main responsibility as a senator from Florida. The upshot: He can now concentrate on doing just one job poorly.
*“September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn’t that terrible.” – Doris Lessing. For openers, you’d think a Nobel Literature Prize winner could be more precise with the language. Surely she didn’t mean to say that 3,000 people dying a death by [...]
Time was when a societal reference to “green” mainly meant hard-core, environmental activism. It conjured up the Sierra Club, pricey solar panels and visceral opposition to the pave-over-paradise crowd. And it connoted trade-offs: What’s the economic downside to tree-hugging naiveté? That time has long passed, says Portland, Ore., economist Joe Cortright. He’s the author of [...]
Recently the TECO Line Streetcar System celebrated its fifth anniversary. It was an occasion to reflect on more than the record ridership that exceeded 437,000. It was also an opportunity to ponder the role of the streetcar, an easy, controversial target of criticism for certain pundits and politicians. The point is this, and it’s worth [...]
Attention all non-profit organizations that have specific needs. And who among you doesn’t? Well, some of those needs could be met by the Junior League of Tampa. One of the JLT’s annual projects is the Treasures for Tampa. It is merchandise — from new to “gently used” — that has been requested by organizations in [...]
Maybe you’ve had this experience. My wife Laraine and I certainly have. You make dinner-for-two plans. It’s special. It’s special because the company is still special. And the occasion still mandates all the traditional touches. A favorite restaurant, where the view, interior ambience and menu are perfect complements. Where countryclub-casual attire looks — and feels [...]
Ybor City, to be sure, remains a work in progress. It is, of course, the historic, immigrant soul of Tampa, but since the oxymoronic heyday of urban renewal, it has been in identity-crisis mode. No need to re-chronicle that here, but suffice it to say that wooing business relocatees, residents, shoppers and diners to a [...]
The year was 1986. Crack cocaine was a scary, mushrooming epidemic. Inner cities were being ravaged. Some of its overdose victims, such as Boston Celtics’ number one draft choice Len Bias, were high-profile. Authorities were implored to do something. And Congress did. The result: sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine that were off the [...]
