TT: Nine hours a day, five days a week, Tommy Smith watches television from a chair inside the tiny office at his father’s workplace. Since graduating LaVoy Exceptional Center in May, the blind and autistic man hasn’t had any place else to go – except to work with his dad, a single parent who provides [...]
Archive for February, 2004
Florida fags file for fairness
February 25, 2004
SPT: More than 170 gay men and women sued a court clerk Wednesday, challenging the Florida law prohibiting them from obtaining marriage licenses and adding their voices to the growing nationwide crescendo on the controversial social issue. The suit, filed in Broward County court, is believed to be the first formal legal challenge to the [...]
Greenspan wants old and poor to pay for Bush’s reckless tax cuts for the rich
February 25, 2004
NYT: Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve’s chairman, called on Congress and the Bush administration today to cut spending and rein in Social Security programs to narrow the record budget deficit and protect the “vigorous expansion” now under way in the American economy. …… In addition to spending cuts in the overall budget, Mr. Greenspan said [...]
Taxpayers subsidize mall image makeover
February 24, 2004
Centro Ybor, that pile of bricks with the same shops and restaurants that can be found from Des Moines to Orlando, thinks of itself as special, and it just can’t fathom why everyone else does not just love it for its bubbly cuteness and its non-threatening inoffensiveness: Darrin Spardello had pushed eight quarters into an [...]
Tampa PATRIOT Act forum this Thursday
February 24, 2004
TT: T he USA Patriot Act and the balance between civil liberty and security will be the subjects of a televised forum this week sponsored by the League of Women Voters. The law, crafted after the Sept. 11 attacks, was designed to deter and punish terrorists by expanding investigative tools for police. Opponents worry it [...]
Bush divides
February 24, 2004
NYT: President Bush said today he supported a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, declaring that such a measure was the only way to protect the status of marriage between man and woman, which he called “the most fundamental institution of civilization.” In an announcement fraught with social, legal and political implications, Mr. Bush urged Congress [...]
Pinellas deputies extort seized property
February 24, 2004
One of the many big problems with our nation’s war on drugs is the backward policy of rewarding police departments with seized “drug assets.” The system is rife with abuse, with the cops often acting aggressively to seize property first and worry about justifying the seizures later in the rare instances when they are actually [...]
Support the Immokalee Workers
February 24, 2004
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers are still fighting Taco Bell. IMMOKALEE, Fla. — The early-morning fog and darkness were still two hours from lifting, but the parking lot of the La Mexicana grocery store was filled with 200 farmworkers waiting to be driven to vegetable fields so they could earn $20 to $60 for the [...]
Get Up with MorningWood
February 24, 2004
Get Up with MorningWood, on Community Radio WMNF 88.5 fm, Tampa, and streaming at wmnf.org. 4 to 6 am every Tuesday! Studio line: 813-239-9663. Call or email the studio anytime! Today on MorningWood Thanks to Mike Bagley for dropping what he was doing and paying attention to me when I asked him for a favor [...]