Editorial Opinion

Jags QB Trevor Lawrence was recently spotted at European Street Cafe in Jax Beach and, according to my source, he ate a tuna fish sandwich (no deets on the kind of bread). This coupled with the fact he is 6’6” (as well as my love of “The Office”), inspired me to give him a nickname: Big Tuna. Make it happen, people. #bigtuna16   Speaking of the Jags, legendary wide receiver and Pride of the Jaguars honoree Jimmy Smith is back on the field as part of Madden 23. And check that rating! (Is there a petition to get J. Smooth …

Bouquets To Farmery Bodega and Bakery. A joint effort between Green Legacy Farm and Mena’s Legacy Kitchen and Catering, this family-owned business at the corner of Main and Third streets in Springfield aims to connect the community with fresh, healthy food from area farmers. Fresh produce, baked goods, prepared meals, smoothies and other healthy items are on the menu  with an emphasis on quality, sustainability and local pride.  To Jacksonville’s air quality. According to the 2023 State of the Air report produced by the American Lung Association, Jacksonville is ranked one of the top 25 best cities in the nation …

BOUQS To Sulzbacher’s new Urban Rest Stop Social Services Bus, a joint venture of the City of Jacksonville and Sulzbacher. The mobile unit provides social services such as case management and housing placement to people experiencing homelessness who are still living on the streets in downtown Jacksonville.   To TeachMusicWeek.org for partnering with music schools, stores, private instructors and other organizations to offer free trial music lessons or classes March 20-26, 2023. The benefits of playing music are vast. We think this free trial option is pretty awesome.     BRICK To the Jacksonville City Council members who voted to approve the …

April Fools’ Day is right around the corner, but foolishness of all kinds is already well underway, and here are just a few recent examples. We’ll start in Florida, where fights get started over food on a daily basis. These fights are usually stupid and unnecessary but not in this case. A man in Fort Myers attacked his roommate after he ate an entire Key lime pie that the man had specifically bought for his mother’s birthday, as he should. The roommate responded by dumping cold water on his head for which he was booked for battery on a person …

BOUQ: Sulzbacher’s new Urban Rest Stop Social Services Bus. A joint venture between Sulbacher and the City of Jacksonville, the mobile unit was designed to bring “Hosing and Hope on Wheels” to anyone experiencing homelessness in Downtown. Available services include housing placement and case management. The bus is in addition to Sulzbacher’s Healthmobile which provides outreach health services.   BRICK: Gov. Ron DeSantis for requesting data on transgender students who sought gender-affirming care at Florida’s public universities. While the data will not include information identifying individual patients (as per HIPAA regulations), this is still an extremely troubling action as many …

Words by Shelton Hull    Well, we’re now settled into 2023 quite proper, and any hopes that this year will herald a return to relative normalcy have been dashed faster than a Tourette’s patient using Morse code.  MGA Entertainment, best known for making Bratz dolls, is now facing legal action over its new Poopsie Slime Surprise, little unicorn dolls that poop, which isn’t a problem itself. The issue is their theme song, “My Poops,” is a transparent ripoff of “My Humps” which was a big hit for Black Eyed Peas in 2005. The suit also claims that the leader of …

Brickbat To the chumps who tried to cheat their way into Best of Jax honors. Some people may chuckle at the results (don’t blame us; we just tally the votes), but we take the Best of Jax nominating and voting process very seriously. So when a few amateur cyber-sleuths tried to cheat the system (that’s called fraud, folks), we tracked them down and called them out. Then disqualified their asses. Maybe next year we’ll start a new category for Worst Best of Jax Cheaters just for them. It’s not like we don’t know who they are.   Bouquets To the …

Bouquets  Jacksonville International Airport For opening a new military lounge in time for holiday travel.  The lounge is for active-duty servicemen and women.    The Fresh Market They are focused on several new trends for 2023 but one we found compelling is Climatarian eating which is an eating lifestyle about eating for the health of the planet while making choices based on environmental impact. Eating more local and organic ingredients to reduce carbon emission from transport, to eating plant based diets with crops that are good for soil. Microgreens for example, which are harvested and eaten a week to 10 …

  Words By Shelton Hull   One of the weirder phenomena to emerge in 2022 is the organized vandalism of classic paintings by rogue environmentalists, using assorted foodstuffs. Incidents were documented in this column earlier this year, a couple of times, so let’s begin this edition with two more.  Mashed potatoes were the weapon of choice in Potsdam, Germany, with “Les Meules” by Claude Monet as the protesters’ target. This came just days after tomato soup was deployed against Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” one of the most important works of art ever created, at the National Museum in London. In both …

Words by Shelton Hull Honestly, we could do this month’s entire column about all the weird, wild stuff that related to the life and death of Queen Elizabeth II, and, in fact, we did. (You can read that special edition right now in the October digital entertainment issue.) We now return to your regularly scheduled programming… Aug. 17: Archaeologists in Poland made a disturbing find while excavating a cemetery from the 1700s: a possible vampire. The alleged vampire was even found with a literal sickle wrapped around her neck and nailed into the ground, as well as a padlock around …