Testing Grounds The latest industry being outsourced to India is clinical drug trials. And any number of tragic things can happen on the way to your medicine cabinet.
Friday Night Rewind It doesn't matter which team you cheer for. We've got video previews of every high school football program in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando County.
Barack Obama probably wasn't thinking specifically of Florida when he made the comments that got him into a mess of trouble. Speaking to a gaggle of donors, the senator from Illinois opined that many Americans feel powerless, ignored. So they "cling" to religion, prejudice, and guns.
Half the country teed off on Obama, but come on: Is he wrong? Look at the Florida Legislature. Okay, our lawmakers are hardly powerless, and alas, it's becoming impossible to ignore them. But they are definitely clinging to religion, prejudice and guns — clinging like limpets with abandonment issues.
It's enough to make you bitter.
Look at the legislature's priorities: pushing "I Believe" license plates sporting a cross and a stained glass window. Voting to sneak the teaching of "intelligent design" into high school science classes. Forcing pregnant women who want or need an abortion to undergo an ultrasound — and making them pay for it, too. Filing bills against the scourge of boys in baggy britches. Making sure you can you can tote your Smith and Wesson to the day care center, the mall, or that downsizing construction company — the one you're kind of mad at. And debating whether the faux bovine cojones known as "Truck Nutz" should be banned from the backsides of Florida vehicles.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously said, "There is no such thing as Society." Now, the Republicans who run Florida don't cotton much to foreigners: You can tell by those bills they're touting to crack down on the dangerous illegal aliens cleaning your pool and mowing your lawn. Nonetheless, they are clearly disciples of the Iron Lady's "I got mine" ethos. "Society" only matters if you think other people are connected to you in some sort of common enterprise, or if you believe in the "collective good" (you communist!). In Florida, we're all about the individual, not the group.
Unless the group is the multi-billion-dollar rail company CSX. It's due to score $641-million of taxpayer money in fulfillment of a secret deal by Jeb Bush. The newspapers call it a "sweetheart deal," though that's like calling Eliot Spitzer's liaison with the hooker a "romance."
But hey, in a tight budget year you have to choose between corporate welfare and throwing chump change at hospice patients, pregnant women, foster children, the developmentally disabled, the blind, minimum-wage workers, and the poor.
Florida's Republican masters say that the state must live within its means, just like "Florida's families." The Legislature must make "tough choices." But here's what I don't understand: If my family didn't have the money to adequately feed and house us, we might look for a way to make more. Get clever about increasing our resources; look for a better-paying job; hell, hold a big bake sale.
If Florida legislators could locate their brains among their "Truck Nutz," they could get creative and generate some revenue to address this state's needs. Why not raise "sin taxes" on tobacco or booze — Christian Taliban types would surely approve. Or get rid of some of those sales tax exemptions for services. House Democrats had the good idea to close a tax loophole and make the megacorps who make megabucks in Florida cough up their fair share. Companies like Wal-Mart benefit from huge tax breaks, passed when Florida was flush. Of course, that bill was voted down.
Meanwhile, the Legislature has moved on, not to education, not to insurance, not to poverty, but to bestiality. There's a bill up to make it illegal for you to have sex with your goat. Or dog. Or cow. Evidently, hot interspecies congress is yet another of our urgent social problems.
Let it not be said that your Florida Legislature does not serve you. Especially in an election year.
Diane Roberts is the author of Dream State, a book about Florida.
[Last modified: Apr 27, 2008 02:14 PM]
Comments on this article
by Heath
Apr 27, 2008 2:14 PM
No, thank the flying spaghetti monster for Diane Roberts.
by Layne
Apr 25, 2008 12:54 PM
Well said, Ms. Roberts. Let us be clear: The trivial nature of this session is orchestrated by the GOP majority in both houses. Furthermore, one judges another by their budget management and piorities. These antics are why I am a FORMER Republican.
by Jon
Apr 24, 2008 11:50 AM
Uh, Kevin, since when do we pay well for teachers in this state? Teachers average $32,000 per year, about $1000 more per year than legislators, so it seems teachers make a make a hobby salary, too.
by kevin
Apr 23, 2008 3:43 PM
Maybe paying more for a legislator's salary would help buy a better quality legislator, make office holding a real job not a hobby. It works for education.
by numi
Apr 22, 2008 8:19 PM
All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster! You're so right, Tom. Open the door to mythology and everyone's mythology deserves equal time. Bring back Druidism, too. After all, the Wiccans are a federally recognized religion. Stupid is as stupid
by Wally
Apr 22, 2008 8:17 PM
And I thought I was bitter...
by Tom
Apr 22, 2008 9:59 AM
Look on the bright side: Thanks to Rhonda Storms, teachers will be able to teach that the Flying Spaghetti Monster (www.venganza.org) created the world! Freedom of thought, right, Rhonda?
(btw, I'm a different Tom from the previo
by geezer
Apr 22, 2008 9:39 AM
Well said! And btw, polls show that the only ones who teed off on Obama were the pundits, the media and Clinton. Why haven't we heard the same about Clinton's little flap denigrating party activists on tape?
by TOM
Apr 22, 2008 8:43 AM
Thank God for Diane Roberts!
by TOM
Apr 22, 2008 8:43 AM
Thank God for Diane Roberts!
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