As the holidays approach, things tend to slow down. If you disagree, try journalism. Nearly everyone is on vacation and few public officials are interested in committing any news. While that makes for a not-so-depressing few weeks, it also means that the good-news-train (at least, the non-Christmas miracley one), slows down.
But we did spot a few gems that made us a little less disappointed in the rest of our species.
For one, teachers in Pasco County got a bump in their pay this week. Plus, it was the largest salary increase in the state. Some may think that's not a big deal, but any time something positive happens to those who work tirelessly, often thanklessly, to help our youth realize its potential, it is a win for everyone. Granted, it was a whole 3 percent, but in a state where teachers are subjected to long hours and arbitrary accountability standards (and can be fired if students with shitty parents don't do well on standardized tests), we'll take it.
One big reason people inhabiting "cool" cities Up North laugh at cities in Florida (aside from the former being smug hipster dickbags) is that good indie bands tend to avoid Florida, or just Miami before hightailing it to Savannah. Even though Dr. Dog, Those Darlins, Cotton Jones and a ton of other bands have made appearances here, not to mention the lineups at events like Tropical Heatwave, Don't Stop St. Pete and Plan-B. Further proving those northern/western troglodytes wrong, Neutral Milk Hotel is coming to town May 4. They play Clearwater's recently renovated Capitol TheaterTickets went on sale Friday for a show that may be one of their last, at least for a while.
If cetaceans could clap, they would surely put their flippers together for the news of Sea World CEO James Atchison resigned Thursday. But don't feel too bad for him, as he has a, um, whale of a severance package: $2,443,000. So it wasn't a bad week for him, either.
Governor Rick Scott is giving Christmas a bonus to state employees: a paid day off for Dec. 26, which falls on a Friday. Although, as we mentioned above, nothing happens between Christmas and New Year's, so those employees would have been bored anyway, and it probably would have cost the state more money to keep those offices open anyway. Give them New Year's Eve off as well, like Charlie Crist did, and we'll talk. But at least it wasn't a subscription to the Jelly of the Month Club.
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2014.