Next week, CL food critic Brian Ries announces the 64 meatmeisters doing battle in our culinary version of March madness, "The Tournament of Burgers." In anticipation of the event, he asked readers of his blog to pay tribute to hamburgers in haiku form; some of the best efforts are reprinted below. (Read all 70 at eatmyflorida.com.) Also this week, readers began sending their ideas for how to fix Tampa Bay to our new blog, fixitnowtampabay.com. And one letter writer who read about Alex Pickett's waterboarding experiment on blurbex.com wrote in to commend his efforts; read more about them on p. 10.
Hamburger Verses
Pinning my ears back
Dive face first into grilled meat
Condiments splatter
– Todd
The Whopper I eat
causes vegans to recoil.
So gratifying.
– TheLogan
Juicy pink center
Fatty juice drippings bubble
Carcinogenic
– icblenke
To spite fork and spoon
The cow jumped over the moon
Ruminant eclipse
– icblenke
How cute their flippers
their tender meat so yummy
Manatee burgers
– cleancut
All the Fixin's
Just had to write and commend you on that GREAT article "Fix It Now" (By Wayne Garcia, Feb. 27) in the latest CL. I've read your work many times and always find it informative and thought-provoking; this article really hit home, as did your interview on Flashpoint last week. Wish those lunkheaded commissioners et al would pay attention to us. Keep up the great work, Wayne!
Ron Thuemler, Florida Master Naturalist (and native West Tampanian!!)
What Tampa Bay is missing are politicians with a "vision" and developers with a passion to make our area better. It is all short-term thinking, band-aid patchwork and IQs dwindling. I have wrote a letter to the newly formed Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Area (TBARTA) suggesting that they hold their meetings during EVENING hours — not at 1 a.m., while the commonfolk are WORKING and/or STUCK IN TRAFFIC! Typical government, let's say we want input from citizens but let's hold the meetings when no one can show up. I say hold the meetings in various public libraries throughout the area @ 7 p.m. and work with the newspapers to do some community advertising to announce the meetings.
Frederick Van Den Abbeel
Here's a thought: Ride the bus to work for a change. The system isn't going to serve your interests until you start to take advantage of it. Traditionally, HART has primarily served to ferry the communities' poorest citizens to and from work. In effect, HART serves as a subsidy to those businesses that employ low-wage workers. While that role will continue to be essential, HART needs to expand its service to those patrons that would otherwise drive to work. We can't burn gasoline and widen roads forever. Hillsborough needs a true alternative to the car. Unfortunately, middle-class commuters don't see HART as an alternative. Why should they? It wasn't designed with them in mind. Most urban transit systems suffer from what I call the "chicken/egg" problem. Service won't improve until there are more patrons. Middle-class patrons won't get on board until the service improves to suit their needs. As citizens, we need to break this paradox and take the first step. Bite the damn bullet. GET ON THE BUS!
Scott Gunsaullus
Re: "Suburbia is spreading unchecked" (#1) and "The value of urban density is ignored" (#2). The lack of understanding of the issue is truly exposed by the cover photo. I have to ask, do your editors really only see "Tampa Bay" as the southern two thirds of Pinellas County and the eastern half of Hillsborough County? …Suburbia is good for those who need the affordability it provides. It isn't the devil that causes the problems and issues we face. The problems come from the lack of an infrastructure to move people by something other than autos…
DanC
Testing The Water
Re "I was waterboarded" (By Alex Pickett on Blurbex.com, Feb. 27): I think it's great that someone who wants to report on such things is willing to not just make casual observations but report a firsthand experience about a very real and current issue. Kudos!
Ian
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2008.