This is just about my favorite modern building in downtown Bradenton, Florida: a city-owned parking garage at the corner of 12th Street West and Eighth Avenue West across the street from the Bank of America building. Many government buildings here are ugly. This one, despite its humble purpose, looks great.

I subscribed to HBO because of this series. I own most of the McCall Smith “Precious” books, and respected media critic Eric Deggans wrote a favorable review of the two-hour series opener.
A funny culture note: I had always thought of Precious’s “tiny white van” as an enclosed box-on-wheels, but it turns out, according to an [...]

I had planned to write a detailed article, full of numbers, about why the CDS marketplace is a bullshit gambling device for rich people, and how asking the rest of us to pay off their gambling debts is total and complete horseshit. But Cenk Uygur beat me to it in an article at Daily Kos. [...]

Laura ‘Lady Ram’ Ramsey holds a world middleweight championship. By day she’s a (not very) mild-mannered overseer of unruly teenage delinquents in Polk County, Florida. On weekends, she fights. And she’s moving from boxing to MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) because, she says, it comes naturally to her after growing up tough as a tomboy in [...]

It’s called I Came to Sarasota For The Waters. Think of it as a highly local cross between The Daily Show and The Onion. It’s run by One-Eyed Dick, whoever that might be. There is no contact information for One-Eyed Dick anywhere on the page. In fact, all we know about One-Eyed Dick [...]

Let’s stop propping up our broken financial system — and create a new one that works properly.

Just me talking about our current health insurance system and why we need to do something about it SOON!

Gibbs is a 30-year-old aspiring professional boxer who lives in Pinellas County but comes to Bradenton to train with former boxing champ — and notable local boxing coach — Aaron Avalos.
Avalos is unusual among boxing coaches in that he gets right in the ring and spars hard with his trainees. (He’s the one wearing the [...]

I didn’t know goat-raping was a major problem in Florida until I read a local newspaper story headlined Fla. bill seeks to make sex with animals illegal. I’m glad we have dedicated politicians like Nan Rich in Florida. Perhaps, if the rest of the legislature — and the governor — join her crusade, [...]

I’m tired of these obscene Wall Street gambling dens being propped up by tax money. How many people does AIG employ? Around 10,000? Hell, the amount we’ve poured into AIG is more than enough to put them all to work making commuter trains or building roads or doing something else useful — with [...]