 |
||||||||
 |
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
|
 |
Top stories of 200- (insert any number)
© St. Petersburg Times This is the time of year when newspapers, ostensibly in the public interest and mostly because of the vast, yawning black-hole news void that is part of the season, start publishing top stories of the year. A long time ago, I began putting together an all-purpose list of generic stories that can either be updated with specific facts, or, since nobody reads them anyhow, left alone and still meet the primary requirement of filling space so the advertisements don't slam together in the middle of the page. Hence: 1. Growth: Too many people moved into too small an area too fast but brought too much money for anyone to tell them to go away. They brought not quite enough money, however, to pay for the necessary schools, roads or sewage treatment plants, but area leaders came up with the plan of making a really huge rug under which most of those problems can be swept until they retire and somebody else seeking public office has to deal with the problem. 2. Water: There wasn't enough, except on occasions when it rained, and there was too much because there also hasn't been enough money to spend on flood control or convincing people that building in swamps is unwise. There are various theories as to why there isn't enough. Not enough rain, too much pumping, interference by aliens from a desert planet who can take over only after the last drop is gone, but everyone agrees there isn't enough. The standard solution agreed on is to build more houses to sell to more people who will need more of what we already do not have enough of. 3. Education: Teachers remained underpaid, and classes were too crowded. Some folks (who apparently never took an algebra exam) assumed prayer has been banned from school and were upset about that, the teaching of evolution, the teaching of sex education and the fact that Snow White shared a small cottage with seven dwarves and wasn't married to any of them. A heartening number of bright kids somehow survived their exposure to public education and got scholarships to good colleges. Some of the rest wound up holding up stop/go signs at road projects aimed at making sure we have wider traffic jams. 4. The economy: Things got worse as it became increasingly evident that low-level retail sales and faltering tourism (what with us not having decent beaches or anything) could not provide enough diversity to generate enough money to keep the economy healthy. Experts, except for those already busy screwing up traffic control, water supply and sewage treatment, came up with an innovative program coupling the construction of new strip malls with sign regulations, making it more likely that those trying to figure out where they were would cause rear-end collisions on U.S. 19. Body shops prospered. 5. Government: Area governments began commissioning studies by a variety of federal and private providers so that leaders could use much bigger words than they have been in explaining that they don't know what is going on or what to do about it. Some thought having an election to determine which problems were most important would be a good idea, but then someone reminded them they were living in Florida, and most of us wouldn't live long enough to see all the votes counted. 6. Politics: Continuing defections from the Democratic to the Republican parties by area officials were in the headlines. The remaining Democrats have decided to caucus as soon as they can find an all-night restaurant with a booth large enough to accommodate all six of them. 7. Journalism: A handful of daily newspapers continued a bare-knuckles battle for their shares of the market, and were occasionally dismayed at having to tell people that, no, they don't carry The Osbournes in their pages, don't know whose idea it was to move the horoscope column and can't explain why the other guy has a better introductory offer this week. Columnists were uniformly concerned about a dwindling supply of belly-button lint for them to continue to pick, but nobody else seemed to care much.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
|
Times columns today From the Times North Suncoast desks |
