I am sitting here, at Amie and Sherwin’s, for an extended weekend getaway, clinging to the minutes left of being 29 years old. My 30th birthday is tomorrow and I am filled with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. Turning 30 is suppose to mark some milestone in a man’s life and so I can’t help but get caught up in taking stock of my life. As it happens, I am going to keep that inventory to myself, other than to say that,…
The difficulty for being Adam Smith, the St. Petersburg Times political editor (other than his getting dressed for the TV program “Political Connections,” on which Smith displays both an ability for insightful journalism and horrendous wardrobe choices, is that his newspaper spent the last four years sleepwalking through the GOP ascendancy in Pinellas politics. That’s why Smith is forced to write catch-up pieces, such as today’s article debating the apoliticalness (new word!) of the Pinellas-Pasco Judicial Nomination Commission. Smith writes…
Perhaps the compelling, erudite discussion I have heard recently was not at a New Year’s Eve cocktail party, rather it took place online in Slate’s Movie Club. For seven years, Slate’s film critic David Edelstein ,has asked three or four of the most respected film critics to engage in a running discussion on the year in cinema. Joining Edelstein are Scott Foundas, film editor and a critic for LA Weekly, Jonathan Rosenbaum, film critic for the Chicago Reader, and A.O.…
Before Mark returned to Louisville, he fulfilled his promise to take me out for my 30th birthday. Our friend Sharon joined up with us and we enjoyed a rather sublime evening at Bonefish, Ceviche and downtown St. Petersburg. Nothing too noteworthy, other than to say that throughout the night, I kept thinking how blessed I am to have friends that still make me laugh. So many guys have a difficult time keeping a friendship that doesn’t revolve around XBox, Hooters…
The fact that the New York Times publishes a regular column on poker tells you how big the sport has grown in the last few years. Today’s column by James McManus argues that the Poker World is Flat (a play on the title of Tom Friedman’s book that discusses global interconnectivity) and that online gambling is just an oh-so-wonderful phenomenon. McManus provides some powerful statistics to back up his claim. “According to industry research, more than $60 billion has been…
Lynndie England, the U.S. soldier incarcerated for abusing detainees in Iraq, was badly burned in a prison kitchen accident, her mother said on Thursday. England was pictured holding a leash to a naked, hooded Iraqi inmate at the Abu Ghraib prison. England works in the prison’s kitchen, where she suffered second- and possibly third-degree burns from being splattered with grease over her chest as she removed chickens from a tall oven, her mother, Terrie England, said in an interview. “She…
A new poll shows that a majority of Pinellas parents who profess to follow the controversy over teaching evolution vs. intelligent design say the latter should be taught in schools. The Pinellas poll mirrors a national divide. But it also shows that intelligent design has gained mainstream support, even in a politically moderate county not known as a hotbed for Christian conservatives, who are often portrayed as intelligent design’s core supporters. Elsewhere, a report by the Washington,D.C.-based Fordham Institute calls…
