Confession Time
Re: "Final Payments" by Charles Flowers (March 1-7)
Forgive me, Weekly Planet, for I have strayed. Just when "mainstream" journalism got my attention, your staff grabbed it back with a vengeance. Sugg's piece on St. Pete taxpayers getting the short end of the baseball bat from local politicians and the Times and Flowers' investigation into Rosewood wannabee Arnett Doctor were in the same issue was excellent.
While I do not agree with Arnett benefiting from the tragedy, if his presence causes folks to dig deeper into what really happened on Jan. 1, 1923, then his commercialized version may be better than no version at all.
A. Evonti' Anderson
Via e-mail
Rays of Hope
Re: "The Devils Are in the Details" by John F. Sugg (March 1-7)
I think you may overstate the Rays' ranking in the possible contraction list. Montreal must be first, but I suspect the Marlins might rank ahead of Tampa Bay based on their apparent inability to get a new stadium built. My guess is the list would be 1) Montreal; 2) Florida; 3) Minnesota; 4) Tampa Bay; and 5) Oakland. And the losses here are gentle compared with what I read of our expansion cribmates the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Here's a new, related topic for you: Are the Rays the only MLB team who don't have their name on their stadium? Four years into their existence, seven since the franchise was awarded, and still no "Home of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays" on the outside of the Trop. I dunno, but isn't it a good idea, if you do business in a building that big, to offer some indication to the outside world of what goes on inside? "Baseball Game Tonight; Good Seats Still Available!"
Bob Andelman
Tampa
Disposable History
Re: "History Repeats" By John F. Sugg (Feb. 1-7)
The Planet's eccentric political viewpoint is becoming a community embarrassment.
A historian visiting from out of town last week asked me how the local alternative weekly could possibly have reached the conclusion that a local history museum should be compared to corporate welfare or a crooked stadium deal and seen as a taxpayer rip-off.
The best explanation I could provide was to say that the Weekly Planet's editor is so obsessed with the conservative South Tampa "blue-blood, silk stocking, downtown establishment" that he now supports their opponents, the even more conservative white suburbanites who want to censor the Internet at the county library, jeopardize the county's progressive indigent health care system, and also kill the history center.
At some point, could you explain why a history museum is a bad idea? I think most educated people support it, at least in principle, as a place to learn about our predecessors, the choices they faced, and the decisions they made. We can learn from their accomplishments as well as their failures. Some would even say that history is worth studying for its own sake.
As a historian who is working hard to create the new Tampa Bay History Center, I am stunned by the lack of support for a local cultural institution in a publication where one would expect to find it.
Patrick Riordan
Adjunct Professor of History
University of South Florida
and member of Board of Trustees
Tampa Bay History Center
… … …
I have been waiting for 11 years, since the death of my late father-in-law, Joseph D. Myers, local stained glass artist, for a Tampa museum of history to pop up where I could donate a filing cabinet full of 55 years' worth of local everyman's history: The original watercolor sketches of stained glass windows still standing in many area churches, schools and hospitals; letters from pastors and from parishioners now unknown names on brass plaques and other such stuff. But the repository of local history just doesn't happen. It sounds as though the "exclusive clique of culture dilettantes" is awaiting a world-class showcase that demonstrates the sophistication of Tampa's upper crust. (Great Super Bowls in Tampa?) From what you say, I feel I might as well throw what I have in the garbage now. It's definitely not contemporary Tampa's style.
Deanne Young
Tampa
This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2001.