After a state panel recommended yesterday that the Bro Bowl skatepark in Tampa deserves historical preservation, Mayor Bob Buckhorn blasted the decision, calling it "ridiculous" and "not grounded in reality."
Really, Mr. Mayor? There's a battle between different camps about giving the park historical status, which would prevent the city from going ahead with plans to do a multi-million dollar makeover of Perry Harvey St. Park, but a state historic preservation official says even if the bowl does win federal historic status, it would have "no effect on the eventual preservation or demolition of the bowl." So maybe the rhetoric might cool down a bit?
Yesterday we wrote that we were very surprised that Tampa area Democrat Kathy Castor voted to oppose a measure in Congress that would have severely limited the NSA's ability to collect data on Americans' telephone records, since she spoke very critically about such surveillance when Edward Snowden spoke out last month.
Well, maybe it's not so surprising now after reading Foreign Policy report that Nancy Pelosi was able to persuade a number of House Democrats not to oppose the president on the issue.
And we've noted in this space for months how far to the right Marco Rubio has gone this year, seemingly to stave off criticism from his base for his support for comprehensive immigration reform. Now Rubio is talking of shutting down the federal government unless "Obamacare" is defunded. That led North Carolina Republican Senator Richard Burr (no moderate) to tweet that it was "the dumbest idea I've ever heard."
Moving on......the best film (so far) of the summer, Fruitvale Station, arrives in Tampa Bay area movie theaters today. CL saw it while in California last week, and we strongly recommend it to you.
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn unveiled his budget yesterday, with the highlight being city workers finally get a raise.
And earlier this month CL interviewed Chris Ruen, author of the well written book, Freeloading, about Internet piracy and why you shouldn't be part of it.
