Commentary
DeSantis betrays Florida, insists the solution to climate change is burning more fossil fuel
Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth and I was in high school, I was part of a singing group that traveled around to Panhandle churches and performed religious songs. No, really! I’m not making that up! No one would have confused me with Andrae Crouch. You could accurately describe my singing style as “monotone baritone.” […]
Lucy Morgan’s mission was to ‘roam around Florida and cause trouble’
Untold numbers of Florida politicians spent their careers in fear of Lucy Morgan. Lobbyists and cops, too. As they should have, especially if they were lying or on the take or abusing positions of power or groping female employees — which they too often were. Jack Latvala, a Republican former senator from Pinellas County, once […]
Old Florida growth rules thwarted development that would have made Idalia worse
Last month, when Hurricane Idalia clobbered the sparsely settled coast of Taylor County in Florida’s Big Bend region, it sent my memory spinning back nearly 20 years to the first time I visited that area. I was there to report on what was happening to hundreds of acres of swamp and salt marsh in an […]
Gerontocracy in U.S politics endangers the country
For the second time in two months, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suffered some type of health crisis, stiffening and freezing up during a press conference. McConnell – one of the longtime political powerhouses of the U.S Senate – was unable to answer questions directed to him. In each case, he stood motionless at a […]
Game time: College football reflects America as it really is
It’s college football season in Florida and you know what that means: trash talking, martial metaphors, peculiar rituals involving animals, bizarre clothing in colors not found in nature, bad grammar, mansplaining, and racism. College football is violent. Beat-your-brains-out violent. Repeated hits to the head cause degenerative brain disease. The guys who play the game risk […]
Under DeSantis, FL has become the bellwether state for voter disenfranchisement
This commentary is available for republication as part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org. The book “Laboratories of Democracy” appeared in 1988, positing that individual states were poised to experiment […]
Using chemicals to treat Florida’s algae bloom problem is like taking aspirin for a brain tumor
When our kids were little, one of the things my wife and I taught them was the order in which they should carry out certain tasks: Look both ways BEFORE you cross the street. Ask permission BEFORE you take a cookie. Finish your homework BEFORE you have a light-saber battle with your brother. (Those two […]
Trump’s trial will be televised. That transparency comes with a cost
The first of the televised sessions in former President Donald Trump’s conspiracy trial in Georgia aired Sept. 5, and it was dull as a butter knife: Two of the 19 alleged conspirators arguing to have their cases separated from the mob and from each other. It was an inauspicious start to what is potentially the […]
Welcome to Florida: Crazy and cruel sell well here
Florida, eh? If it isn’t hurricanes, it’s massive oil spills. If it isn’t the court slapping down the governor’s racist congressional map, it’s some of his Nazi pals putting on a sidewalk parade in Orlando. Then there’s Florida’s 2024 U.S Senate race. As you probably know, Rick Scott is running for reelection. Or is he? […]
To see Jimmy Buffett’s best legacy, look at Florida’s manatees
The first time I encountered the Mayor of Margaritaville, he was playing a concert at my college back around the Cretaceous Period. Despite the passage of so much time, I will never forget the experience. What made it so memorable was not Jimmy Buffett’s laid-back musical stylings, or the dazzling craftsmanship of his Coral Reefer […]
Labor Day: Unions, groups galvanized by attacks, politics, extreme policies forced down on us
All elections have consequences, but some trigger an even more powerful backlash. That’s what is happening in Florida today in response to the state legislature and governor’s office bulldozing their way over so many basic rights while ignoring the essential needs of everyday Floridians. These hyper-partisan Tallahassee politicians waged distracting culture and “woke” wars endangering […]
Ron DeSantis is a tad more diplomatic than George Wallace was
Despite all those Ohioans and Michiganders moving to The Villages or Margaritaville or other white folks’ play pens, despite the cosmopolitan sheen of the coastal cities and the impossibility of getting decent grits in Miami, when it comes to race, Florida is a Deep South state. Florida’s plantations were worked by thousands of enslaved people; […]