The more of Thursday we burn looking back at Wednesday, the closer we get to Friday.
As the first-ever Skyway 10K approaches, folks are waking up to the fact that all northbound traffic across the bridge will be shut down for hours on Sunday morning, and some aren't happy about it. "What about the weekend commuters?" "What about people who need to catch a flight out of TIA?" What about planning more than four days ahead? I lived on Davis Islands during the filming of Cop and a Half; you'll survive.
The Tampa Bay area is reportedly in the state's top 10 regions for number of home-schooled children. I'm not sure you're allowed to think home-schooling is funny and weird if you literally haven't spoken to another living human being since you taught your parents to use iMessage.
A high school student in Volusia County was rushed to the hospital after being bitten by a venomous coral snake he picked up and brought onto the campus. Aren't we teaching "red and yellow kill a fellow" in Florida anymore? He probably would've known that were he being home-schooled.
And finally, Florida Governor Rick Scott, who these days seems a lot less like he might turn to smoke in order to waft under your door at night and steal your dreams as you slept, was in Tampa yesterday touting his new $500 million plan to help prevent school shootings. His plan includes mental health care initiatives, an increased law-enforcement presence at schools and a website where individuals can leave anonymous tips. Some of which is great, though it falls short of the semi-automatic assault-style weapons ban many are calling for. But a website for anonymous tips, focused mainly on teenagers? It's gonna cost more than $500 million to hire enough people to sift through shit like "Don't sit next to Bobby he farts" and "Melisa is a Tallyban" 24 hours a day.
This article appears in Mar 1-8, 2018.