Let's brunch on Monday's leftovers.
J.T. Brown, the Lightning forward who raised his fist in silent protest of the deaths of unarmed African-American men at the hands of police before Saturday night's game, was scratched from the lineup for last night's OT win against the Caps. The optics are… questionable.
Dale Gordon resigned her position as executive director of Film Tampa Bay after a four-year stint. In case you didn't know, Gordon's job consisted of competing against every other municipality in North America in attracting film production to Hillsborough County, with basically no resources and no incentives to offer. Four years is a lot of time to spend cold-calling movie producers and asking them to come film in Hillsborough in exchange for a tray of Cuban sandwiches and a hug, and we salute her efforts.
Around 8,000 Pinellas County residents lost power yesterday afternoon when a Duke Energy transformer caught fire. On the heels of Irma, it's almost enough to make one start feeling sorry for Duke. Oh, wait — no it isn't. It's another reason to be outraged that a monopolistic utility is able to hoard profits rather than updating its infrastructure and providing adequate services. That's what it is.
And finally, remember Dade City's Wild Things, the "nonprofit" animal attraction that drew PETA's ire for, among other things, allegedly exploiting and mistreating the tiger cubs that it forced to swim with patrons? Yeah, now it's being sued by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for (again, allegedly) funneling more than $200K into personal accounts and for-profit business. The optics are… not good. Not good at all, really.
This article appears in Oct 5-12, 2017.