Sarasota’s No Stones Zone
Todd Ruger reports in today’s Sarasota Herald Tribune that “city leaders have not yet decided how to get to the bottom of the mishandled investigation of an officer seen kicking a handcuffed man on video.” What, precisely, is there to get to the bottom of when it comes to Abbott? There’s nothing to get to […]
Last night … Socrates and Sex steamed up the Sarasota News & Books!
Here are my notes from last night’s talk at Sarasota News & Books … I also spoke extemporaneously a bit about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan … but the text below is the gist of what was discussed.
Pugnacious pitbull no more … Palin plays the petulant pooch
Sarah Palin is a big ole crybaby. Her whining press conference (poor, poor pitiful me with all my legal woes and people being mean!) and her complete abandonment of her responsibilities as governor … . Nonsensical? Check. Boorish? Check. Utterly narcissistic? Double check.
The personal is political … never more so than on Independence Day
This column ran in 2006 in my Reality Chick column with the Pelican Press newspaper. It gives a hint of what was already happening — the pressure from advertisers, the displeasure of some readers. I had written this column as a sort of address to those people who were displeased with the political edge my […]
Marry free … or move to New Hampshire?
This piece will appear in the June 17th print issue of Creative Loafing, and they’ve already posted it online at their website. Read it here or at CL (you can post your comments at either site) or just look for it at newsstands on Wednesday (the 17th) if you prefer! Ah, New Hampshire – that […]
Obama’s moral compass is askew
In his decision to block the release of photographs showing U.S. troops abusing prisoners, President Obama not only flouts the separation between the executive and the judicial branches, he neatly ignores the moral compass of which he has spoken so highly in the past.
Smoke and mirrors in the land of sunshine and stadiums
The Creative Loafing newspaper is running a piece I wrote about last year’s efforts by the County and City to pull together a local land deal in the hopes of landing Red Sox spring training here in sunny Sarasota. The story has enough monkey business in it to read like comedy — and it’d be […]
Smoke and mirrors where there should be sunshine
In less than 60 days, the City of Sarasota will have to cough up a not-so-cool near-$5 million to pay for what turned out to an unrequited school girl’s crush it had on the Boston Red Sox. Last August, operating on nothing more substantial than a hot and heavy “I wanna be your girlfriend” flutter […]
Swan song … or why I no longer appear in the Pelican Press newspaper
Newspapers are our nation’s first line of defense to freedom. When publications become susceptible to pressure from advertisers, which I believe happened in this case, our freedom — our ability to express and exchange differing, sometimes dissenting opinions, and our ability to learn and understand and make decisions and choices about how we want to practice democracy as individuals and as a nation, is dangerously compromised.
The cowardly nation
Oh, I’ve thought a lot about what Eric Holder had to say about these United States as a sort of Cowards R Us. If I had to take one side or the other (which is such a silly way to think …, but if I did …), I’d say that yes, Americans have a strong […]