The debate over health care reform has entered an unreal world where facts can always be shouted down. Several letter writers have said they don't want the government choosing their doctor, but do we have a right to choose our own doctors? When I went to work for the City of Fort Lauderdale years ago, I was given a list of doctors I was allowed to go to if injured on the job. More recently, I worked for an international conglomerate. My health benefits could indirectly be set by a board of directors that met in another hemisphere, whose minutes are circulated in an ideographic language. Actually, that company gave me a free annual checkup, one of the best benefits I've ever had. My employer chose the doctor, of course. On a temporary job, I once collapsed while wearing a maladjusted gas mask. I was taken to a doctor chosen by the employer. A nurse put a thermometer in my mouth and said that I had a temperature of 120 degrees. A few minutes later they figured out that their newfangled electric thermometer wasn't working. ...more

November 2, 2009

When the music video for "Take On Me" by Norwegian band a-ha was getting heavy rotation on MTV in the mid-'80s, its mix of animation and live action seemed like a breakthrough. ...more

January 29, 2009

A group of seven or eight men get together for lunch every Wednesday in the back room at the Valencia Garden restaurant. They are older than dirt. Buck Setzer, who just turned 94, asked me to join them last week. ...more

January 9, 2009

Glen Powell came to the courthouse prepared. He was armed with a .45-caliber handgun, 71 extra rounds of ammunition, a gas mask and a long-blade knife. ...more

May 9, 2008

St. PETERSBURG - Glen Powell, the man killed in a gunbattle with two bailiffs at the downtown courthouse Wednesday, had 71 more rounds of ammunition in his backpack, sheriff's authorities said today. ...more

May 8, 2008

AVON PARK — Just in case they haven't been paying attention to the news, Judy Puffen gave high school students a personal account of what Iraq is like: frequent sandstorms, constant danger, grinding poverty, unvarying boredom. "Please let me come home before I die," former Sgt. 1st Class Puffen said she would think. She was one of the first American soldiers to go there after Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced in 2003. "It was all sand over there," she said. "The first thing I wanted to do when I got home was kiss the grass. It was like biblical times. The houses were made of adobe — mud." "What kind of weapon did you carry," asked one student in Amy Love's American History class. "An M-16," Puffen said, a 22-year veteran. Even though her job was administrative and financial, she carried a rifle. ...more

February 23, 2008

The old Southern term "breaking bad" means to behave in a violent, wanton or outrageous manner for no discernible reason. ...more

January 17, 2008

Children carried gas masks to the playground. Military officers commanded civilian courts under martial law. Residents feared enemy troops would parachute into the mountains and then swarm the beaches. ...more

December 7, 2007

LAKELAND - The biological father of a Lakeland teen facing weapons and child pornography charges was arrested on drug charges late Thursday. ...more

November 2, 2007

LAKELAND - Shawn Newberry, the 18-year-old who had an arsenal of weaponry and was arrested on a school weapon charge, was charged with 26 counts of possession of child pornography today, police said. ...more

November 1, 2007