As our favorite curmudgeon gets some much needed R&R this week, the lovely Kate Bradshaw and I will write this column. Try and keep things together until Scott gets back next week, would ya, world?
Happy Pi Day, y'all. As the world spins at a dizzying rate, the protests mount and the Tweets fly, the primordial ooze that started this whole crazy thing we call life has lodged a complaint with the Universe that we're making it look bad.
Scientology leader David Miscavige will meet privately with most of Clearwater's city council, ostensibly about a proposed retail district. Look, feel however you want about Scientology, but the reality, folks, is that meeting privately isn't unethical. Anyone can arrange a meeting with a city council member, and nine times out of ten, they're private by their nature. Let me put it this way: Would you give a rat's red ass if the owner of Iberian Rooster met with each St. Pete councilmember? No, of course you wouldn't — and you likely wouldn't even know, because, the local daily paper of record doesn't have a history of bird dogging you.
Westboro Baptist — also known as honey-crusted nutbars, at least in my mind — announced plans to arrive in Tampa on Sunday to protest, among others, Sacred Heart Catholic church? Well, I'm certain they have a typical hate-mongering reason, like the possibility the Church will relax its stance on homosexuality, or perhaps— wait, what's that? Architecture? Westboro, I don't feel like you're bringing your A game, here. Sounds like a certain rabid hate group wanted to go on spring break.
In happy news, kudos to a Brevard county deputy and a harbor pilot who saved two women tooling around near Port Canaveral in a Jet Ski when they flipped said Jet Ski... while a Carnival cruise ship was bearing down on them. Sure, that sounds like a happy story, but what's more disturbing is these two ladies thought it was a brilliant idea to take a Jet Ski anywhere near a busy cruise ship port. These people vote, y'all. And they reproduce. The real hero in the story? Whoever has to wash that deputy's pants after he almost became intimate with the ship's starboard hull.
