Secret service in training …
Bush immortalizes his legacy in two simple words: So What?
Somebody else is talking about G.W.’s legacy – and if you missed it on World News last night, you’ve got to read this transcript of Martha Raddatz’s interview with him. His admission to Raddatz that al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq until after the U.S. invaded that country kept me up last night with a sick-to-my-stomach […]
The difference between disloyalty and dissent
This work was written in October 2006 — it’s the only column the Pelican Press ever refused to run in my Reality Chick column space, though they did run a slightly altered version in the op/ed pages. ————— Friday, September 27, 2006. High Tea with Sandy and Vern Buchanan. At the Ritz. With extra-special guest, […]
Dodging shoes? Surely a bit better than dodging bullets.
I don’t know, geez, I felt a little sorry for George Bush. For about a nano-second. Dodging shoes? Not so much fun as you close down your faux-presidency. But I guess it’s a helluva lot more fun than dodging bullets without a Kevlar vest and getting up close and personal with a roadside bomb while […]
Bush League
This column first appeared in 2006. An article in last Sunday’s New YorkTimes on money and class issues in America got me thinking. Our country’s class systems used to run along lines that while certainly financially based were also at least partially skewed by education, lineage, a good backhand, and knowing how to spoon soup […]
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 […]
Making marriage moral … really moral, not fake moral
I’m passionate about the rights of same-sex couples to marry! Here’s a column I wrote in December 2007 — but it’s doubly important now. Please look into your heart and vote NO on Amendment 2. Last week, sponsors of a proposal to ban gay marriage in Florida announced that they’ve secured enough signatures to put […]
Pounding out the dents in democracy
As if last year’s blow to Sarasota’s election integrity — found in the August 15th 2006 letter from ES&S (Election Systems & Software) that was received but not disclosed to the public by the local Office of Elections — wasn’t enough, this year we have an entire Senate race missing from the absentee ballots mailed […]
Vox populi
Voting, Lyndon Johnson said, is the “first duty of democracy.” I’d go one step beyond LBJ and say that voting is the first duty to one’s self, and an absolute imperative in duty toward family and community. And for those among you who, perhaps as discontented as I with the current state of intellect and […]
Morgan’s my man (for State Senate)
At a lunch meeting today with a prospective client, I mentioned Morgan Bentley — only I referred to him as Morgan Stanley! Good grief; at least the client only razzed me slightly. Then, tonight, I was sitting outside on my stoop with my cat, Boomerang, on his cute little red leash. Covered in cat hair […]