Live chat Tuesday; new blog category

Two things:

(1) Let's have a weekly live chat on Tuesday at noon. Topic A will probably be the baseball stadium, but let's keep the floor open for anything else folks want to bring up. After all, the Legislature will be doing who-knows-what... just come by TroxBlog at or after noon and look for a new post with the headline, "The April 22 chat is OPEN." I'll also post a pre-chat announcement for folks to suggest topics.

(2) I've gotten into the habit some days of commenting on several different things in the news. So I've gathered those posts from recent months into a new category over in the left-hand column titled, "Daily Roundups." They might be an interesting reminder of some of the things that have happened in recent months.

Happy Friday to all, and have a good weekend. My Sunday column will be about the "energy bill" in the Legislature, a mix of "green" ideas and stuff the electric utilities want...

I'm back, finally

Hello. It's the afternoon of Monday, April 14 and I'm finally back at work. The reason I disappeared for more than a week should be all too familiar to folks in my general age group -- my father had a serious problem involving two visits to the hospital. The reason I put it that way is that a lot of folks I know close to my age have had to go through this experience at one time or another, with all the accompanying issues. Ironically, when he finally ended up in critical condition in intensive care, I knew I could come back to Florida -- he's getting attention and exactly what he needs to get better. Some general observations about hospital life will be the subject of my Tuesday column, a copy of which I'll post here as well.

I do not see that anything major and irrevocable happened while I was gone. The hot-button issue in the Legislature was the guns at the workplace bill. Looks like the gun-rights folks are winning the day over the private property-rights argument of the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups. Me, I think an employer or business ought to be able to have a no-guns-on-campus policy, but looks like I am on the losing end. Before I was called away I wanted to write more about the extensive energy bill moving through this session of the Legislature. If anybody knows of other issues that aren't getting much attention, let me know.

Have they built that baseball stadium yet? I see they had another public hearing at City Hall, with lots of speakers on both sides. I'm still waiting to see the terms of the business deal, both for redeveloping Tropicana Field and for building the new stadium at Al Lang Field, and whether there is any open-ended risk to taxpayers -- the Tropicana project has to pay for the new stadium, and the city can't be accepting any uncapped liability for the enviro stuff.

What else has caught your eye? Man, I am glad to be back. No live chat this Tuesday, while I get caught back up, but maybe next week...

Away

Please accept my apology as well as the short notice -- I have to tend to a family matter out of state for a few days. This probably means no live chat on Tuesday after all. Take care and I will see you on the other side.

Howard

For the record...

My column today as posted below refers to Gov. Charlie Crist as a "product of the Florida State University law school." But his undergraduate degree is from FSU; his law degree is from Cumberland. Thanks to reader Doug for pointing it out!

Happy Monday, Feb. 18

Okay, here's why I disappeared last week. I started writing my master's thesis and originally was going to take Mon-Wed off just to get a good start on it. But it was going so well that I ended up taking the rest of the week off -- and e-mailed the finished draft off to my thesis committee yesterday afternoon. So I am One Happy Puppy.

In case you have the slightest interest, not that you should, the title of my thesis is, "Electoral Abuse in the Late Roman Republic." (My M.A. is in ancient history.) The Romans had a Republic for 500 years before they traded it in for another 500 years of emperors. They had annual elections, checks and balances and a form of term limits, too.

My thesis is on the idea that the collapse of the Republic was preceded by an increasing pattern of abuse of the elections through delay, rule-bending, religious obstruction, violence, bribery and so forth, which devalued the meaning of free elections and made it easier to give them up. In fact, they gave them up while denying that they had done so.

Not that this has any modern relevance or anything. So, what's going on otherwise? Did they get that stadium thing figured out? Do I understand correctly that while I was gone the Board of Education  agreed to label gravitation as "just a theory"?

Three days off

I'm going to spend the next three days working on some personal stuff, which means no live chat on Tuesday. My apologies --- I should be back here on the blog on Thursday and back in the newspaper next Sunday.

Check out the lead editorial in this morning's newspaper (Council errors plague debate on new stadium), which reflects some of the themes I pointed out in Sunday's column. Exit the theories on "Times conspiracy to ram through stadium" and cue the theories on "Times conspiracy to kill stadium."

Have a good three days...

Blog note: new category

I figured that since we've had so much talk on TroxBlog about the proposed baseball stadium for downtown St. Petersburg, and since we'll be talking about it a lot more this year, it deserves its own category in the archives. You'll see it over there in the left-hand column with the heading, "Baseball Stadium? What Baseball Stadium?"

The archive includes every blog post, chat transcript and collection of reader comments so far that pertains to the stadium. I imagine the topic will be the subject of more live chats as well -- unless, of course, the St. Petersburg City Council opens the proposals in March and says, "Nah, we've changed our minds." Fat chance!

Ask the candidates

Times' editor Paul Tash is a moderator at the Jan. 24 GOP presidential debate in Boca Raton, and he wants to make sure your concerns are addressed. If you have a question in mind for the candidates, time to step up to the mike!
Submit your question at politics.tampabay.com/debate.

TroxBlog on vacation until Nov. 26

I've got to take care of some things, and this seems like a fine time to take care of them, with an early Thanksgiving holiday coming up to boot.

So I'll be gone until Monday, Nov. 26.

I hope that everyone has a good Thanksgiving season and that you'll consider coming back by TroxBlog after the break, when we'll resume our weekly live chats and catch up with the news.

Best wishes...

No Tuesday 8/7 Chat; Back Wednesday

Got an out-of-town family birthday and a few days' mini-trip planned, so the Pinellas grand jury and the Devil Rays will just have to soldier on without me. This means, unfortunately, no weekly online chat on Tuesday, Aug. 7, but I'll be back on TroxBlog making fresh posts the following day and chats will resume the following Tuesday as usual.

Best wishes for a good weekend...

TroxBlog Returns July 9

This seemed like a good week to step away. Wish I could call it "vacation" but there's a ton of stuff to catch up with outside of work. So I'm taking a week off -- no print columns or blog posts until next Monday, July 9. (That means no 7/3 live chat either.)

Best wishes for a fine Independence Day to all...

Coming Friday: The First (And Maybe Last, Maybe Not) TroxBlog TGIF Weekly News Quiz

After trying a couple of weekend news quizzes, I thought I would try one on a Friday morning to celebrate the end of the week. Ten easy questions, no wagering allowed... check it out tomorrow morning!

Here's the May 19 news quiz

Here's the May 12 news quiz

Coming Saturday: The Second (And Maybe Final, Maybe Not) TroxBlog Weekly News Quiz

Well, a few people did try their hand at last Saturday's First (And Maybe Only) TroxBlog Weekly News Quiz, so I figured I'd try it again... 10 multiple-choice questions based on stories over the past week from Florida's Best Newspaper. Coming tomorrow morning...

Last week's quiz

Three Upcoming Things

Coming Saturday: The first (and maybe the only, maybe not) installment of The TroxBlog Weekly News Quiz.

Coming Sunday: My print column will probably focus on Pinellas County's controversial plans to carve out part of the Brooker Creek Preserve for water-treatment plants, other utility uses, and sports fields. I'll post extra photos and other material here on the blog.

Coming Tuesday: Don't forget the weekly live chat here on TroxBlog from noon-1 p.m. about current events in Florida and the Tampa Bay area. Last week's chat kicking around the session of the Florida Legislature set a record for page views and comments -- check out a transcript here.

Hello? Is This Thing On?

Hey, Howard here. This is TroxBlog. We were gonna call it "Howard's End" but figured that name would be, you know, the butt of too many jokes.

I don't know what this is going to become, but here is how it is going to start out. I'll make morning posts that summarize, update or look ahead at my columns in the St. Petersburg Times, as well as posts that offer a quick new take on the morning's events.

There'll also be frequent posts summing up the best of reader e-mail criticism & reaction. Heck, I'll probably also post the worst, just to reflect what people are saying.

Every couple of weeks (if there's enough interest) I'll spend part of an afternoon in more or less "live" chat with anybody who wants to talk, via the comment function on this blog.

By the way, this is my dog Harry. I just wanted to make sure I could get the photo-putter-in-ner-thing to work. Looks like I can. Now, if you will indulge me with a couple other matters as well...