The local officials and newspapers are bashing Amendment One, but the state and the people want local officials to reduce spending to get the taxes under control. But, what do our local commissioners do just in the last couple of weeks? They create four new director positions at salaries ranging from $65,000 to $123,000. They don't care what we the people want or what the state says needs to be done. They snub their noses at the governor and legislature. Hopefully, our state officials will stand up like men and women and force these out-of-control politicians to do what the people want. If not, you will see more leaving Florida than coming. ...more

January 29, 2008

Dumbing Down When I was in high school in the late 1960s, schools graduated students who could read and write at a 12th-grade level. They could also make change for a dollar. ...more

January 27, 2008

READABILITY: The dim, dishwater-gray screen can be difficult to read except in the best light. The screen makes an annoying "flash" when moving from one page to the next. A uniform typeface is used for all text. Slow keyboard display. ...more

December 30, 2007

The operators of the Highlands County recycling program are not making it easy, especially for seniors, to recycle their newspapers and magazines. The sliding doors on the old rusted dumpsters are so hard to open that some seniors cannot open them at all. Also it was published in the local papers several weeks ago that you could now dump magazines and office paper in the same dumpsters with newspapers, however these dumpsters are still labeled "Newspapers only." ...more

December 28, 2007

After what seemed like months of a hectic schedule the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and Yours Truly were enjoying a relaxing evening in the parsonage living room catching up on a pile of newspapers. It is amazing to me how much the new news is like the old news, which only increases my admiration for those who write the news. ...more

December 4, 2007

A question concerning the county's efforts at recycling: Has Hillsborough County stopped doing it? ...more

November 20, 2007

The way the players tell it, they don't seek the information out; it comes to them. ...more

November 10, 2007

SEBRING –– Highlands County went "green" when it launched a recycling program back in 1990. In about a month, the county will be greener, as it begins accepting office paper for recycling. Residents and businesses have frequently been asking Highlands County Recycling if it can add office paper to the items it accepts, said Christy Reed, recycling program manager. For the first time in four years, Reed now can answer that it soon will, by late November or early December. "We plan very soon to add office paper recycling and junk mail recycling to our newspaper recycling program," Reed said Monday. Those items will be accepted as soon as the 22 drop-off recycling bins can be re-labeled, she said. ...more

October 30, 2007

Meet the 22 Community Columnists you'll see appearing on our pages over the next year or so. Each clip contains their name, age, city of residence and a brief biography taken from their own applications. ...more

October 28, 2007

Regarding 'Change Rocks Media World' (Commentary, Sept. 30): Every morning, I huff, sigh, 'tsk' and groan my way through the newspaper. Disasters, warnings, scandals, reversals are everywhere. But the news is also necessarily informative, and often, positive, and I wouldn't be without it. I may go online for information, but it feels less personal - even though it may say 'local' - and reading at length onscreen is uncomfortable. The news connects us as members of a community and functions as our 'watchdog.' ...more

October 7, 2007