There was lots going on this weekend, both in Tampa Bay and out in the greater world.
As rain continued to pummel Tampa early Friday night, thousands of cars were clogging up the Dale Mabry North exit on I-275 to go see a soccer match between the U.S. national team and Antigua and Barbuda (the U.S. won, if you care).
On Saturday we had the Preakness, the end of the NBA Eastern Finals, the Stanley Cup playoffs, a disputed heavyweight boxing match in Vegas and on Sunday morning, a French Open tennis tournament that still hasn't ended.
Also for those who are into the arts, we had the Tony Awards last night, and yours truly went and finally succumbed to seeing a big Hollywood expensive movie, Ridley Scott's Prometheus.
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I have to say I found the film pretty gripping. Perhaps my expectations were lowered since my office colleague Joe Bardi had spent considerable time chatting up other co-workers about how disappointed he was after seeing it last week. Then I read his review , where his main's bone of contention is how the film ends, which is certainly fair. But though of course it doesn't stand up to the 1979 original Alien, it does stand up to much of the B.S. that Hollywood packages and distributes to thousands of theatres each weekend, or have you not heard of The Chernobyl Diaries? (Incidentally the woman who cuts my hair is from the Ukraine, and she's pissed that that nuclear meltdown tragedy from some 26 years ago is now fodder for some lame entertainment).
In baseball, the Rays swept the Miami Marlins in their spanking new ballpark, which CL visited two weeks ago, and where you can now read our take on that new structure.
Meanwhile, last Friday at noon was the deadline to qualify to run on the ballot this year in Florida. In Hillsborough County's District 4 race, Democrat Mark Nash is running against GOP incumbent Al Higginbotham. And oh yeah, mysteriously the day after Nash announces, a third party "independent" candidate nobody has ever heard of is now also in the race.
With Scott Walker's win in Wisconsin, some people are questioning what's next for public sector employees? On Fox News yesterday, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels says he'd like to see them all lose union representation.
While over on CNN, John McCain called out the Obama administration for not getting involved in Syria. Meanwhile, the atrocities by the Assad government pile up day after day.
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2012.