No lunch beers until you finish rounding up yesterday's news, buddy.
Recent reports say the Tampa Bay area is both third in the nation when it comes to flipping houses, and last among the nation's large metro areas in terms of median household income. So does that mean that house-flipping is just a symptom of localized economic recession, or does it mean that low median household income numbers represent an inaccurate barometer of localized economic conditions in an area where so many homes are being turned over so quickly? It means if you went to Perry and Kendra's free seminar on how to get rich flipping homes on the weekend and then paid $1500 to plug into their proven system for growing personal wealth, you're a moron. That's what it means.
Some super-cute manatees trapped in a Crystal River golf course pond by Hermine's storm surge were rescued and relocated by a group of nearly 100 volunteers. Super-cute and super-eco-spectacular! (Bonus points for the super-unnecessary inclusion of the word "lactating.")
A Pinellas attorney was arrested for attempting to enter the county courthouse with a concealed, permitted and fully loaded handgun. Since the dude was headed for a hearing about his own disbarment, we're gonna go ahead and propose that maybe somebody's life got saved by a security screening yesterday. (This is where the "Yeah, but he could've rid the world of an attorney" joke goes, if you're into that sort of thing.)
And finally, the Tampa City Council voted to spend more than $78K in taxpayer money to settle a lawsuit in which a former UT student alleges she was the victim of unnecessary force at the hands of a Tampa police officer during a 2014 nightclub arrest. Some people who weren't there assume she was being a drunken noncompliant asshole who deserved what she got; some assume a muscleheaded cop with authority issues did what muscleheaded cops with authority issues always do. But here's a fact: every time something like this happens, a lot of money that could be used for something else, something better, turns into a very expensive Band-Aid, and everybody loses. If revisiting police procedure might keep A) citizens from getting hurt, B) cops from getting disgraced and fired, AND C) more municipal funds going where they rightly should, maybe that shit's worth looking into.
This article appears in Sep 15-22, 2016.