Good morning Tampa Bay!
Oh, a little too enthusiastic for you this morning? No doubt there are lots of grumpy people this morning walking around like zombies. The loss of an hour due to the move to Daylight Savings Time this weekend is truly kicking in this early Monday morning, and it's not a pleasant thing to watch.
I hope your weekend was fun. Myself and a few thousand friends clogged Curtis Hixon Park this past Saturday afternoon for the first annual Gasparilla Music Festival, and I have to say it was pretty spectacular. A fine mix of quality local and up-and-coming national acts dotted three stages from noon until past 10 p.m., another indication that Tampa is getting its act together.
In the news, yesterday's tragic killing by an American soldier of 16 civilians in Afghanistan just spells more trouble for that decade-old conflict, and now Newt Gingrich says the U.S. needs to pull our troops out of there.
It was announced over the weekend that political satirist Bill Maher, who can't seem to stay out of the news, will be performing in Clearwater on August 30, which happens to be the final night of the Republican National Convention. Maher and another major comic, Louis C.K., have gotten in trouble in the past week, as the right tried to find a comparison to the outrage directed at Rush Limbaugh for his recent comments regarding that law student.
And what do you know – for the first time since George H.W. Bush was president, USF is going to the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Though we love basketball, we've become less enamored of the college game over the past decade.
This article appears in Mar 8-14, 2012.