Café chess — très sexy

Here’s a column that ran in 2006, but today, I’m so jonesin’ for my life in Boston, that it feels apropos to post.
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I spent this past Monday morning, a holiday, lazily finishing what was left from the Sunday NY Times. Sitting outside, a cup of Joe percolating through my veins; the day, the city, seemed full of unforeseen possibility.

Throwing a few pens, a notepad, a book, my journal, and a pack of Marlboro Lights – all the accoutrements of café society — in an oversized bag, I headed off for one of my favorite lazy-day activities – hanging in a café, drinking coffee and writing letters. (more…)

Pricking our hearts … giving pelican-style

I heard from All Faiths today, and in just one week, Reality readers have donated $612 to help feed the needy and hungry folks in our community. That’s the equivalent of 970 meals if you can believe it! Isn’t that amazing?

I’m really blessed (and I don’t say that lightly) and very grateful for the response from so many of you. Thank you SO VERY MUCH for participating in the drive.

There’s still time to make donations — the drive continues through December 18th. (more…)

Opening the Kimono — sexy stuff for a stormy Sunday

Sounds sexy, right? And it is. (more on that later)

Opening the Kimono is the name of a book I just finished reading a few minutes ago. Let me set the stage: I woke at 7 am this morning to go outside and tackle my untamed yard. My yard grows rabidly and I’m always behind the eightball when it comes to representing a civilized presence on my street. (more…)

City still offering same-sex benefits despite Amendment Two

(This piece ran in the Pelican Press newspaper November 19, 2008.)

Despite the success of Amendment Two in the Nov. 4 election, the City of Sarasota is continuing to offer a domestic-partner plan that would provide health insurance benefits, similar to those offered to spouses, to the live-in partners of city employees.

The amendment states that “no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized” in the State of Florida, but that’s not stopping the City of Sarasota.

Given the ambiguity of the “substantial equivalent thereof” portion of the amendment, City Commissioner Ken Shelin acknowledges that potential problems could ensue.

“I suppose we won’t really know until somebody attempts to file a lawsuit to prevent some public entity from providing those benefits,” Shelin told the Pelican Press.

But, he said a week after the election, the city “is in the open season for signing up for health care benefits right now, and we’re going to move forward with it until somebody stops us.”

Shelin, who championed the domestic-partner benefit plan when it was up for vote before the city commissioners in September, says he does not think domestic partnerships qualify as “substantial equivalents” to marriages.

“I think they are something less than marriage,” he explained;

therefore, he doesn’t feel the city is violating any aspect of the new amendment. “I’m hoping [the amendment] doesn’t have any impact,” Shelin said. “The proponents have repeatedly said it wouldn’t … so I’m hoping they’re right.”

City Attorney Robert Fournier acknowledges that that the passing of Amendment Two may eventually affect the city’s ability to continue to offer health benefits to domestic partners.

“I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion or an absolute certainty,” he said, but referring to the language about substantial equivalents to marriage, he predicts, “That’s going to be the part that the courts are probably going to be called upon to interpret.”

In the meantime, Fournier says, the city will continue to offer health benefits to employees with qualifying domestic partnerships. However, he added, “We may take a second look” at the wording in the current Declaration of Domestic Partnership the city requires of unmarried employees seeking benefits.

According to Kurt Hoverter, the city’s Human Resources director, the benefit plan is available to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples who live together in a committed relationship but aren’t married. To be eligible for the benefit, Hoverter says the couple must provide a signed and notarized Declaration of Domestic Partnership, attesting to, among other things, that they:

• “have mutually agreed to be in a committed, serious, long-term relationship indefinitely with each other”;

• “are jointly responsible for each other’s basic food, shelter, common necessities of life and welfare”;

• “share our primary residence with each other”;

• “share and coordinate financial responsibilities”;

• “consider ourselves to be a member of the immediate family of each other.”

Hoverter says that though the city has had a number of employees inquire about the domestic partner benefits, few have actually signed up. “People were waiting to see what happened with Amendment Two,” Hoverter said, adding, “We still don’t know how this is going to play out.”

Funny money business

In the March issue of Sarasota Magazine, a local business leader spoke about a new campaign to improve the public perception of the business community in Sarasota. When asked how a campaign like that would help, he replied, “People didn’t get to Sarasota by working on an assembly line. They’re entrepreneurs. They’re educated, risk takers, capitalists. They really get it when you explain it to them, but we have not done that.”

Oh dear. I’m sure the business leader didn’t mean it the way it sounds. (more…)

Thankful for what matters

Originally published October 2007.

Newspapers – good ones — help foster connections and compassion within a community, and I’m grateful to be a small part of that through the Pelican Press.

But without readers, newspapers (not to mention moi) would be out of business. (more…)

Dateless in Sarasota aka the KitKat Man

Did you know that Sarasota is one of the best cities in the country to be single and dating … as long as you’re over 55 and pulling down $200,000 a year!? I came across that tidbit of information recently in Sarasota Magazine and have been debating moving back to Boston ever since.

Actually, I’m a bit relieved. After all, I’m not 55 and don’t make 200 grand, so, yippee! – I finally know why I’m dateless on Saturday nights in Sarasota. (more…)

Come on, and take a (nearly) free ride

At 50 cents a ride — about a third of what folks pay in other parts of the country — Sarasota County’s bus fares have long offered local folks one of the few good deals they get in this ever-more-expensive town.

Now, the County wants to raise the fare from 50 to 75 cents to offset $750,000 from its looming budget crunch, and they’ve invited the community to comment at three upcoming weekday meetings to be held from 4 to 6 p.m.

Most working folks punch out around 5:15 p.m. If they are bus riders, that means getting from their cubicle chair or from under the chassis of the car they’re working on, or away from the dust-bunnied households they clean for, in time to walk to the nearest bus stop, wait, then ride a circuitous route on a frequently stopping bus in rush-hour traffic, to arrive before the meeting ends at 6 p.m. – all in less than forty-five minutes. Not exactly making it easy for bus-riding worker-bees to voice their concerns.

When the County announced its proposed fare increase, they were careful to specify that it would affect everyone, including persons with disabilities and the elderly. Should they maybe have mentioned that the single biggest block of potential bus users — roughly 2,500 County employees – will continue to be given a free ride?

According to its website, Sarasota County employees can ride the bus for free, anytime, anywhere. Not just to go back and forth to work, but to go to the movies, the Farmer’s Market, the beach, wherever.

I’m not saying County employees don’t deserve a free ride … heck, I’d like one too. And the 25 cent increase, that’s chump change, right?

But 50 cents roundtrip, 300 days a year? I’m here to tell you that for some of us, an extra $150 bucks is all that stands between affording a medical prescription or new pair of glasses … or not.

How about a program where each County employee who doesn’t use the free pass could donate it via a lottery system to some needy citizen who surely would? There’d be some administrative overhead, but I’ll bet it would help fill at least some of the half-empty buses rattling around town.

Or, why not keep the feel-good 50 cent fare for everyone and sell advertising instead? In Raleigh, North Carolina, businesses shell out $1,250 a month for huge vinyl wrap ads plastered onto public buses. If Sarasota sold advertising on just 50 buses, there’s $750,000 right there.

I hate to think of even more advertising in my field of vision. But if it means continuing to be able to provide cheap transportation to those who need and deserve it the most – the environmentally responsible, disabled, elderly, or the simply poor folks who can’t afford a car — then I’ll happily sit in my ancient Camry, or on the back of my bike, and stare at advertising as big as a bus … just as long as all County residents – not just County employees – can take a (nearly) free ride.

S

Lunar romance

The mind is a prickly beast.

It disbelieves almost everything the heart believes. It takes the heart to task for being foolish. It demands that we ignore feelings in favor of facts.

To a large extent, this is a good thing. We can’t run around willy-nilly to the whims of a red, thumping reactionary like the heart. Much wiser to follow the gray, humming pragmatism of the brain. (more…)

A bastion for the blues

Since moving to Southwest Florida nearly three years ago, I’ve been looking for an unpretentious place where you can kick back a bit and maybe take in some live music that doesn’t invoke Lionel Ritchie. It’s a lot easier said than done. (more…)