When we spent three months in Portugal, my daughter and I vowed to kiss the ground in front of Publix after we returned. I love the store! And I’m not surprised that they gave a bunch of money to Adam Putnam: both Publix’s founding family, the Jenkins, and the Putnams are old central Florida people. (You know there’s a county named Putnam, don’t you?) I’m also not surprised that some customers are outraged at Publix’s spending “our” money to take sides in the gubernatorial election. The solution: ban corporate contributions to candidates. We did that before, but the US Supreme Court ruled that money was free speech. We should overturn that. Read More
Doris writes a weekly column for LaGaceta, the nation's only trilingual newspaper, which has pages in English, Spanish, and Italian. Begun in 1922 for Tampa's immigrant community, it continues to thrive more than a century later. Her column is titled "In Context," as it aims to put contemporary issues in the context of the past.
Grandparents, Parents, and Maybe Too Much Information
May 21, 2018
By the time you read this, I’ll be in Arkansas, in the middle of a weekend celebration for my younger sister’s 50th wedding anniversary. She is the fifth of my parents’ six children to reach this milestone; my younger brother will do so two years from now. When I mentioned this to my doctor at USF Health, she said, “That must be some kind of record.” I demurred, and she went to the outer office and posed the question to the staff. It turned out that no one ever had heard of such a big family in which everyone reached their 50th anniversary. I really hadn’t thought of it that way, and I’d be interested in what you think. I also apologize if you think I’m bragging: I don’t intend that. So, in all humility and recognition of unusually good fortune: Read More
Two NRAs
May 14, 2018
Hubby and I like to watch old movies on TCM, and at the beginning of one from 1934, there was an emblem featuring the letters “NRA.” I recognized it in its context, and wondered how many other viewers would. Too many today probably would think that the National Rifle Association was active already back in the days of black-and-white movies -- but during the Great Depression of the 1930s, NRA stood for the National Recovery Act, or perhaps the agency that carried out the law’s purposes, National Recovery Administration. Its logo was a blue eagle stylized to reflect modern industrialism, and the eagle usually was accompanied by the NRA slogan, “We Do Our Part.” Read More
The Real News
May 7, 2018
You’ve heard that the physician who claimed that Donald Trump was the healthiest presidential candidate “ever” did not actually write the letter proclaiming that. Trump did. The real news: He writes? Whole letters? On stationery? Who knew? Read More