I grew up in the rural South where passions ran deep about "the horrible Yankees who invaded our territory and destroyed a way of life." As I got older and studied the Civil War, I realized the reasons the war was fought were more complicated than the emotional tirades I heard as a child. ...more

August 10, 2008

An internal review has found no wrongdoing by jail staff in the death of Dorothy Palinchik, the Pinellas County Jail inmate who died of pneumonia brought on by a staph infection. ...more

July 18, 2008

An internal review has found no wrongdoing by jail staff in the death of Dorothy Palinchik, the Pinellas County Jail inmate who died of pneumonia brought on by a staph infection. ...more

July 17, 2008

If you recall, I mentioned in one of my columns a while back that our family was involved in a volunteer group called "A Soldier's Wish List." Members on their own initative send packages to individual troops in Iraq. As a result of our involvement we have become rather friendly with a medic in Bagdad – Sgt. Michael Bone. He considers himself the adopted brother of our daughter. When he can, Mike, who is from North Carolina, will drop us a line either by e-mail or letter. I would like to share with you the following excerpt from his latest letter. "The area we are patrolling and maintaining is getting better. We are doing good things with the people in the area. The battalion that we are in have been doing a lot of med caps which is an event where we go out and set up a sick call for the people of Iraq and help the Iraqi doctors take care of the people. We are also going around and trying to redo a lot of the schools for the children here in Iraq. So what you see on TV is the bad stuff, just know we do good things as well." ...more

November 10, 2007