Host: Sarasota County Democratic Party
Date: Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Time: 4:30pm - 5:30pm
Location: Corner of Bahia Vista and Rte 41, Sarasota

Join this rally to sign-wave for real health care reform during rush hour at one of the most visible locations in Sarasota. Parking available in the Midtown Plaza by Starbucks.

Jiminy Cricket. I was moved to tears by Obama’s speech. He nailed it. I’m proud to call him my president. I believe in health care reform. I support it. People close to me — people with families, young children, serious medical problems — are going without insurance because of cost. I’m considering letting my own health insurance go because I simply can’t afford the rising costs. It was affordable five years ago — but no more.

I’m so glad, so grateful, that he is America’s President.

Tim Sukits, staff writer at Creative Loafing, sent some good info on the health care issue …. I’m a strong proponent of health care reform — in a way that insures that all citizens have access to good, regular, and affordable health care, so I thought I’d share Tim’s message with my reality readers as well. Your comments — pro or con — are welcome at this post! Read more »

In his decision to block the release of photographs showing U.S. troops abusing prisoners, President Obama not only flouts the separation between the executive and the judicial branches, he neatly ignores the moral compass of which he has spoken so highly in the past. Read more »

(This piece appeared in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on April 27, 2009.)

In 2004, when I returned to my hometown roots of Sarasota, real estate was the hot, hot, hot “topic du jour.” And, while not exactly big league, Sarasota had certainly become big bucks in the years I’d been living in Boston.

Familiar landmarks — like the Simple Sam’s market that used to be a standard stop on the way to Siesta Key — had disappeared, and countless small, knock-the-sand-off-your-feet-style Florida homes had been leveled in a buy-and-bulldoze frenzy. And everywhere I went that first year back, the art of conversation was lost to loud talk of deals in the making, dollars for the taking, and which side of the Trail you lived on. Read more »

Hmmmmm … Absolut Yum! I went tonight to see and listen to Gwen Ifill speak at Hyatt Sarasota to a Sarasota audience about race and politics and the Obama campaign and the future of black candidates in American politics. Read more »

Speaking of newspapers, the demise thereof, and this writer’s potential contribution to said demise, here’s a column I wrote a year back — in response to a reader’s complaint about my use of the term — send the children out of the room for this one, folks — “bed-ability” in my column called Reality in the Age of Chick-ness.
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One reader’s trash …

I recently learned that American children might actually be reading newspapers in this country. In fact, they may be reading this very paper, perhaps this very column, this very minute. Read more »

Dear Editors

Back in the day, you’d buy the Sunday Sarasota Herald-Tribune and be assured of curling up for an hour of juicy reading, drinking one or two cups of coffee while fending off the cats who felt it was their duty to hold the paper down on the floor by sprawling languidly across it, flicking their tails with measured insouciance as you tried vainly to get to the next page.

But now, you can read the H-T faster than you can flip its pages practically, because it seems to be in a frantic free-for-all of diminishing returns on all fronts, and the major loss is to and of the reader. What papers like the H-T are missing is that people will — still — willingly pay for that experience of getting ink all over their hands and fighting the fold. But they want substance for their trouble. Read more »

I spent Inauguration Day glued to my television, working only intermittently on the client work piled up on my desk and in my Outlook e-box. That night, I went to a couple of Inauguration Day parties, beginning with one at the stunning home of A & F — one of the smartest, funnest (yes, I know it’s not a real word!), most hospitable couples in all of SRQ. After spending an inappropriate length of time drooling at their amazing art work, which I do whenever they’re kind enough to let me cross their threshhold, I made my way into the party gathering and found an old — and I mean that in both senses, but kindly — friend about whom I’d written previously in a column entitled Sarasota’s Real Rich.

I hobnobbed with some of the coolest, most interesting folks in Sarasota — including my friend, Ingrid, drank a bit too much (yep, still confusing the word inauguration with inebriation … but I’ll get it right one of these days), inadvertently kissed a complete stranger cum new acquaintance on the lips when I was aiming for his cheek (damn those phony French air kisses anyway!), and left the party early, stopping only to lust after the paintings again as I exited this belle maison and tripped along the way to the next party.

The night was massively windy, as you might recall, and en route, I managed to flash a car with a Marilyn Monroe-esque glimpse beneath my skirt when the wind quite naughtily pulled its own version of a subway grate gust. My flimsy satin skirt flew up to my neck right as I was crossing the street, catching me frozen deer-like in the headlights of a newly arriving party guest. Luckily, I was wearing the blackest leggings to save me from total mortification. Moving on.

Next arrived at the WSLR Inauguration Extravaganza — the People’s Potluck Party for Change — held at the Art Center near Van Wezel Hall. I got another fabulous inundation of art (some very good stuff on the walls — have to go back when I’m less UI) and ran into quite a few people I know. One acquaintance said “Geez, you look ten years younger.” After I got over the implied insult that I must have previously looked ten years older, I decided I AM ten years younger!

Again had the good fortune of running into Sarasota Democratic Club President, Nancy Feehan, who was maddeningly chic in a hot, hot, shiny leather trenchcoat. I basically wanted to kill her. This is me, leaning over her Join the Sarasota Democrats table, politely ignoring her chicness.

Chic? Who cares about chic when you're the Reality Chick?!

By the way, if you want to join the Sarasota Dems — you can easily do so HERE!

So, enough of my rambling. I’m stone cold sober and I better be, right? For the work ahead? For my cats, my self, my community, my clients, my friends and family, the strangers at the gate, and for my country.

Sober, single (still!), and spectacularly happy.

A year ago, I saw Jane Goodall speak at the Town Hall Series. Since that lecture, delivered in a no-nonsense manner, woke me up, I’ve managed to stick with a few changes inspired by Goodall. For example, it’s been months and months since I used a plastic bag at any grocery store or market (read my column about being the “right kind” of bag lady) In fact, I eschew them — plastic bags — in general no matter where I am — bookstores, Macy’s, the drugstore. I’m proud of the change, but know I can do more.

Since Obama’s inauguration yesterday, I’ve been thinking what more can I do for my country right now? There are all sorts of things I’d LIKE to do Read more »