You probably join me in being so, so tired of 2020 turmoil.  If we had 20-20 foresight, we never would have allowed ourselves to get into this mess.  Today I decided to give it a rest and go back to the past.  Maybe not eternal verities, as in William Faulkner's work, but as close as I can get.  So if you want more about news and faux news, just stop reading here and skip over to Joe's column.  He'll have the latest and greatest. Read More 

Back in April, when the legislative session was about to end and thoughtless Republican legislators – most of that young frat boys – were patting themselves on the back about their budget?  A reporter who was paying attention to the world outside of Tally asked one about the budgetary effect of the new virus.  "I hadn't thought about that," he replied.  I wrote about it at the time, but it's time to review from another angle. Read More 

I'm not going to belabor what so many others have said so well about the president's appalling – and repeated -- descriptions of soldiers who sacrificed for our nation.  It was good to see the Times bring back their Pulitzer-winning Dan Ruth to write about his father, a "sucker" who volunteered for additional dangerous flights during World War II.  And I can't imagine any sane person standing next to a bereaved family and wondering aloud "what was in it for him."  The Current Occupant truly meets the definition of a psychopath, incapable of empathy. Read More 

I write this on Labor Day, knowing that LaGaceta had its Labor Day edition last week.  Historians are like that:  we want to examine things after they have happened, and we seldom speak prior to an event, even a scheduled event.  So I wanted to see how our local paper, the only one we have, dealt with this day.  Because the Tampa Bay Times no longer prints on Mondays, that meant going to the e-version, where I found what I expected:  zilch.  Read More