In With the New
Just read your intro and wanted to welcome you to town. I moved here about six years ago and it did take a few years to get over the yahoo element, but I would encourage you to stick it out. I appreciate the optimism in the intro, as many people that migrate from up North complain greatly about overall education levels and how the food is so much better in their hometown. It will be worth it, and you'll find the people generally very nice and with an overall much lower stress level than most of the population up North. Good luck with your new gig and look forward to reading.
—Chris Elmore
Tampa
I am so glad you asked about Tampa Bay's spectacular clouds.
Related to this marvelous meteorological phenomenon, the convection currents that the hot state of Florida supports mean that clouds in Florida literally cannot cool and condense until water-laden vapors reach much higher altitudes. Thus clouds here form at much greater heights, and vast vistas of herds of clouds become visible to the viewer on the ground.
George Brooks
Via e-mail
I am grateful that Jim Harper was the editor. I am sorry that he is gone. Whatever the reasons for why he was apparently forced to leave, professional or nefarious (not on his part), he made the paper better while he was the editor.
The "note from our new editor" made me sad for this city. I suppose Philadelphia deserved better, and maybe now they may get it. Now we get more of the corporate control of the burgeoning Creative Loafing enterprise. At least Warner is not Sugg.
Lee Martin
Brandon
Let's Dig a Little Deeper
Andisheh Nouraee, in response to the Saddam-bin Laden link query, recited the left's talking points rather than addressing the complexities of the issue. The media, in its capacity as successor to the Oracle at Delphi, has determined that the war in Iraq has no correlation to the overall war on terror and seeks to undermine it by proving that the administration's rationale for action was erroneous and therefore illegitimate. This president would not be the first to have maneuvered the country into war and probably won't be the last. FDR schemed for years to get us into World War II in spite of public opposition to it. It was the right thing to do. The peace-in-our-time crowd was wrong then, wrong on Reagan's Pershing II, MX and SDI, and just might be wrong now. Implacable foes tend not to go away just because we want peace.
Thoughtful debate with regard to the above would be a welcome improvement over what we've been getting thus far from the press, including your publication.
Dwayne Keith
Valrico
Role Model
To Tina Engler: You go, girl! You hit the nail on the head when you said, "You don't question your tax dollars going to the Pentagon to kill people, but you don't want to spend money to feed, clothe and give tools to people to survive successfully." How about spending billions of dollars looking for a shred of life on Mars while ignoring and destroying the life on this planet?
Tina, thanks for showing us that success can be creativity, caring and concern, instead of greed, power, dominance and destruction.
Gloria J. Morotti
Bradenton Beach
This article appears in Jul 22-28, 2004.