Seth McKeelAfter including Seth McKeel in my Friday night callout of local conservative politicos concerning their spiritual leader El Rushbo, I’m going to praise him today. You may know this already, but McKeel has begun to write over at Metro I4 News. He’s focusing on questions of regionalism. I’ve already asked him a couple of [...]
Ya’ll know the smack he’s running. Lots of nice conservatives running for office, or holding office, here in this deep red county. Only Paula Dockery – to my knowledge – has said anything critical about America’s top conservative spokesman. And it’s not gonna help her in a Republican primary, by the way. Any of the [...]
I suspect that many people, like I do, tend to think first of Haiti in terms of its longterm suffering. And somehow the earthquake fits the Jobian narrative we come to expect from that benighted nation. But, it’s easy to lose focus on all the living that goes on among the tales of woe. A [...]
A little musical interlude that manages to hit on most of the talk of the week here in Polk County and Lakeland Local. As I wrote on Facebook, if we’re going to let Big Citrus and Big Strawberry save themselves by sucking dry our aquifer and cratering the landscape, shouldn’t they at least turn us [...]
It’s my favorite time of the year. The Lakeland Chamber on Thursday will host its 23rd annual Economic Forecast Breakfast, in which our city’s luminaries cough up $25 a head to hear macroeconomic predictions from this guy: Back by popular demand, Brian Wesbury will offer his perspective on the national economy. Mr. Wesbury is [...]
The definitions of aristocracy, old-boys-network, and establishment are amorphous. People use those terms all the time without really assigning them meaning. But thanks to The Ledger’s new collection of cool kids, errr, emerging leaders , I’ve now found a definition: “The Ledger sought suggestions from the community and from members of a group of [...]
This particular post highlights the risk involved with including time elements in drafts and then failing to finish promptly. The fact that the decade did not, in fact, end last week mitigates a bit. Anyway, here it goes. I’m sitting on the couch, a few minutes before 7 on Christmas Eve. The egg yolks are [...]
Goodness Gracious. Whatever one thinks of the outcome of the CSX/High Speed Rail/Tri-Rail/Rail Authority/Sunrail monstrosity that finally romanced its way through Tallahassee last week, can we all agree on the general lameness of DOT’s supposed leaders? I’d long since given up on any expectation that Stephanie Kopelousos and her top staffers would actually provide public [...]
And now for something completely different. And yet, not really. I want to direct you to a new story from one of Florida's best investigative reporters, Cynthia Barnett of Florida Trend magazine. Those of you paying close attention may remember that Cynthia wrote the first, and still best, major piece on the Heartland Parkway, way back in 2006.
I spent a not-small-enough portion of my Thanksgiving break rummaging through ancient, partially dry-rotted legal files stored in a small trailer on my aunt's property in Palatka, my hometown. Among the dregs of my great grandfather and great aunt's legal career, I was looking for files related to my Cross Creek Trial/Palatka Klan project that I wrote about here a few weeks ago. [Insert now shameless plug: check out the site "Blogging the Cross Creek Trial".] This was researching with accountability. You never knew which file would fall open to reveal superroaches, otherwise known as palmetto bugs, large enough to bark. I think the CDC could trace the balky throat I brought home and have carried around this week directly to the toxic air inside the trailer. Anyway, one of the files I found both relates to my Cross Creek project, and, in a way, to that other endlessly rewarding family project--annoying predatory railroad companies. And I want to note it today in honor if the deeply entertaining special rail session of the Florida Legislature currently underway.
The CSX/SunRail/High Speed Rail session is underway, and chaos seems to be reigning. The big news, as seen in this Ledger story, is that Rep. Baxter Troutman won't vote because of his interest in a business that stands to profit from the CSX deal. That business, Phoenix Industries, I probably don't need to tell you, is owned by his cousin, JD Alexander. Hilarity ensues. I really figured this thing was a done deal this time for any number of reasons, but I think it might be crumbling again. What a mess. Again.
Just wanted to take a moment to say how thankful I am to live in a vibrant and complex community, with a family I love and friends as diverse and challenging as Chuck and the gang here at the Lakeland Local/Metro I4 News free media empire. That includes you, readers. And I'm thankful to live in a country that acknowledges the right of a loudmouth like me to be loudmouth. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
I read with some interest a few weeks ago that Polk County Commissioner Jack Myers plans to run for Paula Dockery's Florida senate seat. I read with particular interest his brief rationale for running: "Everyone needs jobs. Everyone needs less government," Myers, a Republican, said Saturday. Ah yes, less government. If there's anything Jack is about, it's less government. Riiight. For starters, after running hard against the relatively modest gas tax approved by the 2000 County Commission, he voted in 2005 for the largest tax increase in Polk County history.
This is a truly astonishing poll. 51 percent of Republicans think that pathetic little ACORN engineered a massive conspiracy to turn the 2008 presidential election into an electoral college rout. Only 27 percent are sure Obama actually won. We live in pretty Republican county here, so I want to know what the people's representatives and would-be representatives think: Do you agree with a majority of your party that ACORN stole the 2008 presidential election? If not, does this level of delusion within your party concern you? Email me at bitown1@gmail.com. I will be tracking all of you down for an answer, so you can save time and effort by emailing first.
As I was driving home last night, I heard a WUSF report in which Sen. JD Alexander, R-Lake Wales, waxed patriotic about how it's our duty to support our troops by approving Sunrail. Yes, really. The idea is that the 3,000 daily riders of SunRail will help us wean ourselves from foreign oil, thus making it less likely that our soldiers will need to fight in the Middle East. I wish I could find a link because the actual statement, in his trembling voice, is moving. Given Alexander's obvious deep feeling for the common good of our state and soldiers and his solemn belief that the CSX/SunRail deal is so vital to both, I expect an announcement any day that he's divesting his vast personal business interests in this deal. See them detailed here. Of course, it's just a coincidence that the Winter Haven rail hub CSX will build as part of this deal with $23 million or so of your money will serve JD's personal business interests and those of his partners. With a deal this important to our future, this important to our troops, I'm sure that JD will want to remove any taint that might surround it. That's what a patriot does.
For the last month or so, I have directed the bulk of whatever creative energy I could muster to a new project, a blog study of the almost famous Cross Creek Trial of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Yearling, Cross Creek and a number of other novels focused on the rural area near Gainesville where she lived on and off from roughly 1930 until she died in the 50s. I have a bit of a unique perspective on this trial: My great aunt, who I was very close to, with help from my great-grandfather, represented the woman who sued Marjorie over how she was portrayed in Cross Creek, which was a sort of stylized memoir.
You may have seen that U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood supposedly said recently that Florida won't get high speed rail money unless the state senate agrees to CSX's blackmail payment, eerrr, Sunrail deal. I suspect that Lahood does not intimately know the politics and intricacies of the CSX freight realignment/Sunrail deal and is simply pushing for as many transit deals as possible across the country. But even if that's not true, and he's inarticulately but honestly pushing for CSX/Sunrail, there's a good way for the Orlando folks to get their act together and make it easier for the Florida Senate to support them.
Bio: Billy Townsend was a longtime government, political and general assignment reporter in Polk County and the wider I-4 corridor. He wrote extensively about Polk's unique regional identity and the issues shaping it, including USF Polytechnic, the Heartland Parkway and the CSX rail deal. Billy recently left professional reporting to take a corporate writing job, but he keeps close tabs on news of all stripes (especially political news) and the changes in modern journalism. Billy's wife is Julie Townsend, executive director of the Downtown Lakeland Partnership.They live with their three children in the Lake Morton area. His work at Lakeland Local is his first as an amateur hyperlocal writer.