I'm surprised at myself for saying this, but I've had enough of Michael Cohen.  Of course I appreciate the truth that he is telling – but didn't we know all about his sleazy and stupid former boss years ago?  The confirmation is nice, but please, news people, there are other stories you should be covering.  Yet almost every time I walk past the (usually muted) TV, the headlines are all Michael, all the time.  Every talking head in America seems to feel the need to repeat what every other talking head talked about. Read More 

If you listened to radio's "Prairie Home Companion," you know that Garrison Keillor regularly imagined throwing guys in suits off of cliffs.  Those most likely to be pushed were managerial sorts who were unkind artistic and intellectual sorts.  Righteous wrath always triumphed, as the businessmen who branded themselves with suits and ties could be heard screaming as they fell to the rocks below.  Craig Kopp, the newish general manager of WMNF Radio, doesn't appear to be wearing a suit in his Linked-In profile picture, but his attitude seems to be the same as that of guys in suits:  he appears to believe that his managerial role gives him the right to threaten thoughtful newscasters.  Or maybe his firing of community radio hero Rob Lorei is just plain jealousy. Read More 

If BBC ever sent us a bill, Hubby and I would owe a lot.  A big majority of our TV time goes to watching things produced by the British Broadcasting Company.  We like stories set in the British Isles, of course, especially unusual places such as the series about Britain's Atlantic Ocean island of Guernsey, which was occupied by the Nazis during World War II.  Other favorites have been set in colonies in Africa, India, the Caribbean, and more places of the far-flung Empire.  BBC just does a better job than American television of delivering not only interesting settings, but also of character development and plots that make sense. Read More 

I recently had the pleasure of reading the manuscript of the next book by Floridian Robert N. Macomber. This is the 14th in his series of naval novels with very accurate historical backgrounds. All of the titles include some form of the word “honor,” and in “Honoring the Enemy,” the enemy is Spain, as the US sided with Cuban rebels against their longtime European ruler. It is the second in a planned trilogy on the Spanish-American War of 1898 – which of course hits close to home: most of the soldiers destined for warfare in Cuba departed from Port Tampa. The first of the trilogy was largely set in Ybor City, where Cuban emigres planned the revolution.  Read More 

If you read this on Friday, it will be only a few hours after our local League of Women Voters has held a program on gun violence. If you missed it, you get a chance to redeem yourself with another event on an important, if generally unnoticed issue, the national popular vote. Put it on your calendar: Wednesday, February 20, at 5:30. It’s at the Children’s Board headquarters, which is at 1002 Palm Avenue in Ybor City. And yes, plenty of safe parking is available there, and yes, men are welcome to join the League. The speaker will be a national expert, and I expect to learn something.  Read More 

If I didn’t follow the news so closely, I might be tempted to agree with The Donald that his own Justice Department is out to get him. But I do follow political issues closely and believe that the indictments are legitimate – and if not, that the accused will get their day in court. But of all of the shady people Donald Trump has chosen as associates, I am particularly gratified by the indictment of Miami’s Roger Stone. You may remember I’ve said before that I think he is key to everything. Like the biggest of current big guys, Stone loves to be key to everything – or at least would have you think so. I’ve detested him for decades, ever since he was proud to lead CREEP, the Committee to Reelect the President, who at the time was Richard Nixon. I didn’t know until recently that Stone has a tattoo of Nixon on his back, a truly eerie example of devotion to dirty tricks.  Read More 

I think of myself as knowledgeable about the US Constitution, but former Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor reminded me in a recent speech of an important point that somehow had slipped down in my mental list. As she said, we all hear a lot from late loser Adam Putnam and other self-proclaimed sellouts to the NRA about the Constitution’s Second Amendment. That, of course, comes in the Bill of Rights just after the vital First Amendment, which assures the fundamental freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. As a refresher, here’s the Second Amendment in full: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  Read More 

Because Hubby was born in 1943, I gave him a calendar for that year from one of those too-many catalogs that you get in the pre-holiday mail. I’ve read the January anniversaries and marked some to share with you.  Read More 

• Did you notice the look on Mike Pence’s face when Arizona’s new US Senator, Krysten Sinema, chose to swear her oath of allegiance TO the Constitution ON the Constitution, instead of on the traditional Bible? Indeed, the Founding Fathers included the wording of the oath that members of Congress take in the 1789 Constitution, and neither it nor any other part of the Constitution refers to the Bible. Read it. And let’s talk about others following her lead and swearing their oaths to uphold constitutional principles on that very document.  Read More 

We somehow missed the annual rerun of Charlie Brown’s Christmas show, but we have watched it so often that we know almost every word about his sad little tree and his frustrating attempt to direct a Christmas pageant. We did see the Grinch again trying to steal holiday joy from Who Ville and then repenting of his meanness, and it made me think about literature’s roots as morality plays. Long before the Grinch tried to ruin life for Little Cindy Lou Who – indeed, dating all the way back to pre-Christian days -- the great Greek playwrights used the medium of drama to raise questions of right and wrong.  Read More