Florida Voices

During the past week to 10 days, House and Senate negotiators have worked on scores of details, big and small, in the $74 billion state budget for the fiscal year starting  July 1.

Robyn Blumner
Tampa Bay Times

‘It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself — anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.” — George Orwell, 1984.

Paula Dockery
Florida Voices

When Rick Scott first broke onto the scene in 2010, he hit the airwaves with brilliant campaign ads that sent the simple but effective message to a weary electorate.  Over and over, he stuck to the message of “Let’s Get to Work.”

Leonard Pitts
Tribune Media

Ordinarily, I’d thank you for writing.

But truth is, I am not grateful you wrote; your note last week was one of the more troubling things I have read. I do not blame you for leaving it unsigned.

“We stand together,” I had written. “We stand defiant. And we stand with Boston.”

You disagreed.

Robyn Blumner
Tampa Bay Times

From the “nice work if you can get it” desk, the New York Times business section offered this headline the other day: “Pay Stretching to 10 Figures.”