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Chaining off of a recent blog post from Jonathan Sterne:

1. pick up a book which is the closest to you at the moment
2. open page 123
3. find the third sentence
4. post it in your blog (plus the instructions)
5. don’t choose the book, just pick up the one closest to you

As a not entirely sympathetic article in the Boston Globe (October 1, 2000) observed, there were two pieces of medical evidence against him, and both have been scientifically discredited: That particular gonorrhea test is now known to give many false positives, and the “notches” on one girl’s hymen, presented as evidence of penetration, are now known to be normal features in some 60 percent of nonabused girls.

[Katha Pollitt, Virginity or Death!: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time. New York: Random House, 2006.]

This just in from the BBC: according to a Canadian study, homosexuality in males may be caused by their mother’s wombs. And while I’m highly skeptical — biological determinism generally doesn’t sit well with me — I’d love to see how the religious right tries to spin a story that suggests (implicitly, anyway) that the best way to “cure” gay men is to abort them in the first place.

I’m especially fond of the caption proclaiming that “Scientists have not found the biological mechanism for this effect” . . . beneath a sonogram image. Scientists who are still searching for the biological mechanism that results in pregnancy, after all, are probably less than credible sources about the causes of sexual orientation.

I lived in Tampa for nearly a decade, and the house I occupied for most of that time is actually the most long-lived address that I’ve ever had. So even though I’m entirely happy about my move to Minneapolis, there’s still a part of me that feels like I should have at least a little sentimental attachment to my old stomping grounds.

Nearly 48 hours into my week-long return to Florida, though, I’m feeling surprisingly little wistfulness about the town (people, mind you, are another story altogether). The coffee shop that used to serve as my second office lost its lease last summer and, as far as I know, never relocated. The once-bustling shopping “village” where said coffee shop was located is in the midst of a slow and ugly death (which is surprising, given that it’s situated in a neighborhood with more than enough money (and pretensions) to support its upscale ambitions). The supermarket I used to frequent is a cluttered mess of remodeling and renovation. Everywhere I go, it seems, something that was once familiar and charming has been ripped down and either is being replaced by something soulless . . . or it looks like it simply won’t be replaced by anything at all.

Not that I was likely to buy Folger’s anytime soon — I’m way too much of a coffee snob for that — but if this ad is supposed to represent what Folger’s is really all about, then I’m on a very different planet. And hope to stay there.

Today’s Flag Day, one of the quirkier US holidays. On the one hand, it’s a bit odd to have a formal holiday dedicated to a piece of symbolic fabric (do other allegedly civilized nations do such a thing?). Most of the other big holidays are attached to Important People or Major Historical Events (or at least somebody’s idea of what counts as “Important” and “Major”). But unless I’m simply forgetting something, Flag Day stands alone as a holiday in honor of an inanimate object.

To be sure, it’s an inanimate object that’s imbued with a lot of symbolic power for many people — but that’s what makes Flag Day an even odder holiday. Given the reverence that so many people seem to feel towards “Old Glory,” Flag Day is a pretty pathetic holiday. If there are parades or school closings or paid vacation days so that people can pay proper respect to the flag, they’re the exception, rather than the rule. If nothing else, one would think that all those people foaming at the mouth in support of a Constitutional Amendment to “protect the flag” would be equally vocal about the nation’s collective failure to make Flag Day into something much more than it is.

But then maybe the problem here is that the flag simply doesn’t mean what it’s supposed to mean anymore — and even the folks who celebrate it most enthusiastically must know this. The average patriotic citizen may still express pride in his/her country with a modest flag hanging from the front of their home — and that’s fine. But if you really want to see the flag on display as The Flag — undulating oceans of redwhiteandblue as far as the eye can see — the odds are good that the flag-wavers in question are either politicians or car dealers.

Given who the big flag-wavers are, then, the flag’s new meaning seems to be one of dishonesty: i.e., for every flag that you wave after the first one, you’re allowed to tell one big lie and get away with it.

Hmm. On second thought, maybe that’s unfair: there are some honest car dealers out there.

The Tampa-to-Minneapolis move has been a very good one for me. So good that I’m hard-pressed to come up with too many things about my migration north that count as downsides. Still, there are a number of things about Tampa that I will miss. In no particular order (at least not after #1), here are ten of the biggest.

1. People. Live somewhere for the better part of a decade, and you’re bound to make a friend or three. And at the top of my “most missed” list are various Tampa peeps who I won’t be seeing anywhere near as often as I used to. It’d be bad form to name names here, since I’d probably leave out someone I shouldn’t. So instead I’ll borrow a line from my (non-Tampa) friend Carol Stabile and tip my hat in the direction of my Tampa family: they know who they are.
2. Weather. This one’s almost too easy — especially since it’s the only Tampa-Minneapolis trade-off where the north country comes out a clear loser. I’ve always been a hot weather person — sweating is much better than freezing — and I will most definitely miss being able to wander around town in shorts and sandals in January.
3. Inkwood Books. On the whole, Tampa isn’t a good bookstore town, but this little indie is a major exception. I placed almost all my coursebook orders here during my time at USF, even though there’s an 8-mile gap between the two.
4. Beaches. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t take advantage of my proximity to the Gulf as often as I could have. But there’s still a lot to be said for being close enough for spontaneous day trips to sun-drenched expanses of sand and surf. The Mississippi’s an impressive body of water in its own right … but it lacks the salty tang of Passe-a-Grille or Treasure Island or Fort DeSoto Park’s East Beach.
5. Koba Sushi. Is this the best sushi in Tampa? Maybe. Maybe not. There are other strong contenders for the title, and I wouldn’t want to slight the nice folks at, say, Ichiban or T.C. Choy’s. But Koba was three short blocks from my house. And in a city that’s not generally navigable by foot, there’s something extra special about great sushi that’s only a five-minute walk away.
6. Exotic wildlife. Tampa’s got far too much pavement to be mistaken for a pastoral village — or even a terribly green city — but it’s still home to a broad range of tropical creatures that one simply doesn’t see in the wild too many places outside of Florida (at least not in the continental US). There are numerous examples here, but my favorite is the four-foot tall wading bird (a heron? an egret? I’m not sure) that occasionally used my front yard as a stopping point on his/her daily travels.
7. The Tampa Theatre. A 1920s picture palace, which has since been restored and re-opened as an “art” cinema. That story is something of a mixed bag politically speaking (Janna Jones tells the tale better than I can), but the theatre itself is a glorious place to watch a movie.
8. Tampa Bay Brewing Company. They brew their own beer (duh) and it’s the best in town. While the Ybor City party animals prowl Seventh Avenue in search of two-for-one specials on Miller Lite, right around the corner at the BrewCo, there’s better beer at better prices . . . and there’s never a wait. The food’s pretty tasty too.
9. Skipper’s Smokehouse. As the name suggests, there’s a restaurant here . . . but it’s the outdoor concert venue side of the business, rather than the seafood, that I’ll miss the most. The most reliable place in town (and probably for many miles beyond) to see live blues shows.
10. Sweet tea. Tampa’s not really the South (as the old saying goes, “In Florida, the further south you go, the further north you get”), but it’s got just enough Dixie in its soul to make pre-sweetened iced tea a readily obtainable beverage in any halfway respectable eating establishment.

A cynical reader might suggest that if my Tampa Top Ten has to get rounded out with something as semi-generic as “sweet tea” (i.e., a beverage that can be found all over the real South), then perhaps life in Tampa, whatever its charms, still leaves something to be desired. And while I don’t want to be that cynical about a place I called home for nearly a decade, I also have to admit that the companion list of things I love about my new home (details forthcoming in some future post) was far easier to compile without any padding.

But then that’s why this has been a Very Good Move.

I’ve tried starting up a blog twice before. Once via livejournal. Once in the virtual space you’re reading right now (albeit with a different name than currently appears above). Neither effort lasted longer than a single entry — and it was more or less the same entry each time. Hopefully, I’ll be a bit more persistent (and productive) this time around.

Even before the Internet age, my journaling habits have always been somewhat spotty. At various moments from the age of 12 on up, I’ve managed to maintain diaries/journals with some regularity for months at a stretch. But then the wind shifts somehow, and my scribbling drops off, and I’ll wind up with a half-filled notebook (or, more recently, a pathetically under-used virtual space) that gathers dust for ages before I remember that I’ve failed to keep up with my journaling.

But the time has come to shake the dust off those old skills and put them to use once more. This time, I promise to finish more than one entry.