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 

As you, dear regular readers, may know, Hubby has been in the hospital most of the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  He fell, landing on his head and detaching a retina and fracturing a neck bone.  He came home for a few days after the eye surgery, wearing a neck brace, but he never has completely come out of the anesthesia for neck surgery.  Read More 

You've heard about the three purposed new highways in central and western Florida that our Republican legislators want to build.  Anyone with experience of the not-so-good-ole boys in Tallahassee can tell you that these roads are not so much about improving hurricane evacuation, but instead about land development.  And especially about the guys who own the land for which we, the taxpayers, will spend big bucks.  Read More 

I spent hundreds – probably thousands – of unpaid hours on Hillsborough County boards and committees back in the 1980s and 1990s, mostly as an appointee of Pam Iorio and the late Phyllis Busansky.  In addition to implementing the county's innovative indigent health care program, we fought to slow down the era's unregulated growth and environmental trashing.  It may be hard to see now in our much larger population, but we did meet a bit of success with improved planning and zoning.  This was especially because of the imprisonment of three county commissioners – all white men calling themselves conservatives – who took bribes from land developers.  Read More 

For some time now, I have been intending to write about a new local book, La Mia Famiglia:  Never let them Steal Your Name.  It was delayed because the autobiography merited serious attention, as well as a little research.  I wanted to meet with the author, Anthony Scarpo, as well as with some people who are knowledgeable about Tampa in the 1960s and 1970s.  Hubby and I have lived here since 1972, but the book reveals many things that differ from a time that I thought I knew. Read More