Opinion Archive

Growing up in Canada, my first taste of pineapple was from a can.

Those perfectly sliced rings of gold, floating in juice, looked enticing, but they tasted a lot like the can. Pinning them to the side of a Sunday ham and immolating them in an oven did little to improve the taste.

It seems a little hard to believe, but it’s been a little more than four months since I joined the staff here at the Crestview News Bulletin and Santa Rosa’s Press Gazette.

While my primary job as editor has me working with our reporters on stories, organizing the budgets of the papers and of course editing all the stories, photo captions and graphics for accuracy and grammar (I do apologize for mistakes that sneak past me, they annoy me as well), this job has also given me a chance to return to my roots as a reporter and writer.

“God showed up!” a colleague’s Facebook post announced regarding a particularly moving worship service at his church.

“You’ve got that backward,” I remarked to myself, “it is you and your congregation who showed up.”

Heaven still doesn’t have a newspaper subscription. I know. I can’t believe it either.

I also can’t believe it’s been a year since my dad passed away. 365 days have come and gone.

At a recent Navarre Beach Leaseholder meeting, a “news resource” want-to-be told Navarre Beach residents in attendance that approval of the setback variance the developer of the new Hilton is seeking would allow them to add more rooms/condos to the development. That was incorrect.

However, a lie travels around the world before the truth has a chance to put their pants on … someone famous owns that quote.

There’s no need to sugarcoat some things. The pandemic sucked.

Millions of people worldwide died from the virus. It brought undue racist attacks against Asians here in America. It helped to bring a lot of anger to the surfaces in the states and abroad.

In this week’s Eye on Government page, we have a story about a proposed bill making its way through the Florida Senate committees that would allow people convicted of sexual battery on children under the age of 12 to be sentenced to death.

Over the past three decades, my library has become almost completely digital.

When I admit this to colleagues, they wax fondly on the tactile experience of turning pages in a real book hoping, I guess, to spark in me something lost.

This is the kind of stuff that TV movies are made of. Our previous county attorney, Roy Andrews, was fired in December 2020.

Prior to his being fired, he told developers that it was A-OK to build an RV park on Navarre Beach even though the Navarre Beach Lease Agreement does not allow for an RV park. It wasn’t brought up for a vote – it just happened.

The saying goes, “You learn something new every day.” I have something worth sharing. 

During World War II, with all it’s horrible statistics, Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Bible New Testaments with metal covers, a blessing, as follows: To the Army, on the inside cover was our beloved American flag. On the next page FDR, by letter, admonished them to “Read the Bible.”