Was Wednesday the day that your hope finally guttered, like the sputtery pilot light on a too-old water heater, out in the garage and years beyond its most recent receipt of care? Unfortunately, they don't make Hallmark cards for that.
On the very first day of the new Congress, two Republicans introduced a measure to outlaw abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy — a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. If only there were a metaphorical joke to be made about stopping this new and unwanted Congress while it's still developing, before things progress beyond some artibrary point of no return…
St. Pete's Development Review Commission approved a proposal for a new 15 million-gallon wastewater storage tank at the facility next to Eckerd College, despite strenuous objections by the school on the grounds that the open-topped tank doesn't match the other tanks aesthetically, is larger than necessary and might produce the same wafting funk we all know from reclaimed-water sprinkling systems citywide. The commission plans to plant additional palm and sea grape trees between the tank and the campus, because everybody knows they smell strongly of CK One and Febreze.
OK, see if you can keep up: Largo Commissioner Curtis Holmes wants Largo City Manager Mac Craig fired, because Craig refused to "fire or otherwise discipline" two city employees who commented negatively about Holmes downloading questionable material — sexually suggestive material and crude/possibly racist jokes — to his (Holmes's) city-owned iPad to email to himself. The downloading incident and negative comments about Holmes occurred last summer, and apparently this shit is still the talk of commission meetings. Let's make a deal: If everyone involved agrees to grow up, apologize and put it all behind them, then I'll get a 14-year-old to teach them all how to do everything everybody did without getting caught.
And finally, a Riverview man discovered he's a finalist in the Doritos Crash the Superbowl contest, meaning he may win $1 million and have his commercial shown during the most-watched TV event of the year. Unlike many of the others who entered, he read the fine print, and as a result was not disappointed to discover that the $1 million won't be paid in Doritos. He is, however, a little sick of having to correct friends and neighbors asking him how many Doritos he had to eat to become a finalist.
This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2015.