There is nice, if tragic, irony in that the most frightening global epidemic in decades comes on Trump's watch.  We have known for long time that he can't stand the sight of physical suffering, much less go anywhere near it to help the sufferer.  Remember the elderly man who fell at Mar-o-Logo, and Trump called the blood on the floor "disgusting?"  And the woman there who was bleeding from a facelift?  In both cases, his response was "get 'em out of here!"  Don't look; don't see; everything is about me.  That ought to be his slogan. Read More 

You may or may not remember that election.  It's nearly thirty years ago, but to me, it remains the day before yesterday.  Like so many things, the label came primarily from California, which had two US Senate seats up that year – and chose two women, Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.  Although a few other states had elected two female senators over time, none had elected women to serve simultaneously, so that was a huge historical milestone.  In addition, Illinois elected the first African-American woman to the Senate, and Washington chose Patty Murray.  Pundits mocked her as "a mom in tennis shoes" whose average donor gave a lowly $35, but she's still in the Senate today. Read More 

Our dear columnist friend Steve Otto was writing for the Tampa Tribune back in 2000, when former basketball star and US Senator Bill Bradley ran for the Democratic nomination.  He lost to Vice President Al Gore, and Gore in turn – well, you know that story.  Anyway, when Steve reported that former county commissioner Fran Davin and former state representative Mary Figg were going to New Hampshire to campaign for Bradley, he labeled them "the Thelma and Louise of politics." Read More 

Once you get past the improbability of both novelist Ernest Hemingway and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover being in Ybor City in 1932, you're ok. If you adopt what philosophers call "a willing suspicion of disbelief" and accept time travel, you'll find this book by local writer David C. Edmonds to be a fascinating read. Read More 

You may or may not recall that I've been quiet on the subject that dominated the news since the holidays.  You may or may not recall that back last autumn, I said that I didn't want impeachment to come too soon.  In fact, the last I wrote about it was in December, when I hoped Nancy Pelosi would hold on longer and add to the list of impeachable offenses. Read More 

A couple of weeks ago, an older white woman boarded the tram from the VA's parking garage to its main entrance. (Yes, Hubby still is there).  From her overdressed appearance and her nervous manner, I guessed that she probably was a job applicant, not an outpatient or visitor.  I was right, as she asked for directions to Building 41. (Yes, there are more than 80 buildings connected with the hospital, many of them aluminum portables and some of them literally miles away.) Read More 

I am fortunate to have my work load eased this week because Donna Parrino sent an e-mail that I shall quote pretty much whole cloth.  You probably know or at least know of Donna:  She was with USF for many years, and both then and now, is a leader in Tampa's Latin community.  Retirement brings her an opportunity to read, and she responded to last week's column about what I was reading at Hubby's hospital bedside with her book recommendations.  Here's what she said: Read More 

Hubby remains in ICU, but Patrick doesn't pay me to write about my personal problems, so here's something about my hospital bedside reading.  I said several weeks ago that I was enjoying Rex Stout as clever escapism.  He was a popular mystery writer in the middle of the twentieth century, and I do like his work.  Yet his plots and especially his characters and settings – usually upper-class people in prewar Manhattan – get predictable.  And because mysteries almost axiomatically means murder, I decided this wasn't exactly cheering me. Read More 

Hubby remains in the VA Hospital, where he has spent weeks in both Surgical ICU and Medical ICU.   He's had more complications than you want to know about, but before they arose, he was briefly in a more ordinary room on Fourth Floor South.  Unlike any of the other floors with which I'm too familiar, this one posted a map showing the global origins of the staff.  To be sure, it didn't include any spots in the US, Canada, or Mexico, but there was a multiplicity of pins and names for other parts of the world. Read More 

This is the 20th anniversary of a speech I first delivered in 1999, when an organization asked for thoughts on the new millennium.  I called it "It's About Time," which I intended in several senses.  The main one, though, is that we all have 24 hours in our days and 7 days in our weeks, and electricity has been part of our lives for more than a century – so why don't we use all of the time that is available?  We no longer need to rise with the roosters and go to bed with the rooks, and we would be so much better off if we opted for a genuinely 24/7 world.  Read More