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Features
Forward thinking
By COLETTE BANCROFT
Published May 29, 2006
SOLDIERS' SALUTE With the toll of military dead in Iraq nearing 2,500, this is a raw Memorial Day for many families. Tampa Bay Veterans for Peace will hold a candlelight vigil from 7 to 9 p.m. today at Bayshore and Bay to Bay boulevards in Tampa. The ceremony will include the reading of the names of the Floridians killed in action in the current wars - 108 as of last week. SUPER SPELLERS If you and the kids got a kick out of Akeelah and the Bee, you can catch the real thing when the Scripps National Spelling Bee is broadcast Thursday. Two hundred and seventy-five kids the largest field ever ages 9 to 15 will try to spell their way to glory. Preliminary rounds are on ESPN from noon to 3 p.m.; the championship rounds move to ABC from 8 to 10 p.m. GEE, NO HURRY The 2006 hurricane season barrels down on us Thursday, and the Senate just might get around this week to confirming the nominee to head FEMA. David Paulison, a former Miami-Dade fire chief, has been acting director since Michael Brown was blown out of the position. Paulison's hearing last week before the Homeland Security Committee hit a snag when senators said they wanted to review some irregularities in his federal income tax returns. ANIME ACTION If you think you're seeing some particularly surreal characters in downtown Tampa this weekend, you are. Metrocon 2006, the largest gathering of anime fans in Florida, will occupy the Tampa Convention Center Friday through Sunday. Now in its fifth year, the con features guests like famed Japanese manga artist Monkey Punch, as well as a film festival, costume and music video contests and an Anime Idol competition. Go to www.animemetro.com for information. DELAYED REACTION White-hot satirist Stephen Colbert takes a break from Comedy Central's The Colbert Report to serve as commencement speaker at tiny Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., on Saturday. We imagine he'll go easier on the bright-eyed grads than he did on President Bush at the White House correspondents dinner last month. But even after that take-no-prisoners performance (iTunes' top download last week), Colbert's faux-conservative act punked supporters of former GOP big dog Tom DeLay so totally that they put a segment from the Report up on DeLay's legal defense Web site, www.defenddelay.com. GOOD GIFTS Each of these celebs has something new to celebrate as well as a birthday. On Wednesday, Colin Farrell, star of the upcoming Miami Vice movie, is 30. Novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry's 38th book, Telegraph Days, will be published Tuesday, and he turns 70 on Saturday. And on Sunday, Angelina Jolie, a mother-to-be at this writing, will turn 31 - and will likely have a new baby.
[Last modified May 29, 2006, 08:32:13]
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Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
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