LeBron James has taken a heaping of abuse for how he left the Cleveland Cavaliers almost two years ago to "take his talents to South Beach" and suit up for millions of dollars to play hoops for the Miami Heat. With teammates Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, sportswriters blew up this latest "DreamTeam" as perhaps having the potential to be one of the greatest basketball teams ever.
You know the rest. The backlash was massive, and other than the folks in South Florida, seemingly everyone who cares about the NBA was happy when LeBron and company lost to the Dallas Mavericks for the championship last summer.
The fear and loathing continues, which is why with the threat of their season ending last night in Boston, LBJ had one of the greatest nights of his illustrious career as the Heat dominated the Celtics, bringing it back to South Beach tomorrow night for the deciding game.
Anybody want to bet against him and Wade closing out the Celts? It could happen, but it doesn't feel like it's going to. Then we'll get LeBron against the second greatest basketball player in the world, Kevin Durant in next week's Finals.
Okay, back to the real world…
Nothing new to report on the standoff between the feds and Rick Scott regarding the voting purge of non-citizens. Last night MSNBC's Chris Matthews led off his program on the subject.
As Connie Mack continues his dominance in the polls against George LeMeiux for the GOP Senate race, he's now blowing off a just announced prime time televised debate against LeMieux and his other opponents for the primary. And apparently the RPOF is just fine with that.
The other night when we saw former (but possibly future) Orlando area Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson, a member of Occupy Tampa asked him for advice on where the Occupy movement should go next. Grayson gave out some tough love in response.
Neighborhood activists in the V.M. Ybor neighborhood are still pissed that a soup kitchen to feed the hungry is coming to their 'hood.
And In the current CL we've got more details on what's going on in terms of trying to help out the homeless in Tampa and HIllsborough County. Check out contributor Lisa Marzilli's story here.
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2012.