Florida's Gulf Coast

Florida's Gulf Coast was featured in the Travel section of the Sunday Washington Post. The main article described the islands on the southwest coast.

Anna Maria Island (with less development and more nature) and Siesta Key (with a huge, beautiful beach) sound particularly nice.

A strange wedding

It would have been a nice story: man wins lottery and employs struggling working-class couple that he knows, enabling them to move out of a drug-infested neighborhood.

But...

The man teaches Wiccan at a New Age shop, the young man claims to be a pagan, and the young woman claims to be a witch. And the happy couple gets married in a ceremony that combines pagan and Christian elements. (Mike will be glad? to know that they had a unity candle!)

Read all about it here.

Science Fiction

Dappled Things has an interview with John C. Wright, a distinguished writer of science fiction, in which Wright discusses the origins of science fiction and the features of good drama (in all areas, not just science fiction). He also deplores writers ruining their stories to share their opinions about politics.

My objection is not to stories that have a point, even stories that have a political point, my objection is to sneaking little advertisements for your political or religious views into tales where they do not belong.

Along the way, he discusses Utopia, Animal Farm, Star Trek, and other famous stories.

(via First Thoughts)

Logistics of Mass Vaccinations

I gave an on-air interview about our research this morning on WTOP, the news radio station here. You can find it online here.

How to avoid an untimely bad surprise

Doug McGuff wrote a post about 12 ways to avoid an untimely, unexpected injury or death.

On a list that includes cleaning gutters, flying planes, and cutting down trees with chainsaws, I was surprised that he didn't include skydiving.