Grass is my biggest complaint since I moved back. There used to be a great sand beach on the Santa Rosa Sound at a city park, and they have hidden it under grass, which has to be irrigated, fertilized, cut, and reseeded, instead of occasionally being raked. The amount of beach we have left is getting smaller every year.

They really should wait until they can find owners for the half of the condos on the barrier island that are currently empty before they consider building more. ‘There are damn few people left with the money to make a down payment, much less afford to live on the beach, so they need to make sure the beach is clean and the surplus of condos are occupied before they start any new development.

Being Republicans, of course, they will fall for the story of next con artist with a good story, and throw the money away, just like they did with the tobacco settlement money.

Of course I can’t deny that Disney World generates lots of tourism. The difference is that Unca’ Walt built that on a county-sized piece of “worthless” real estate, not smack on top of one of the world’s most beautiful and irreplaceable natural landscapes.

You’d think that eventually the rednecks would figure out that the plantation economy really doesn’t work for them, but somehow that never seems to happen. On the contrary, the rot seems to have spread nation-wide over the past few decades.