the 941

— Red County Editor Richard Swier may have been blown away by a recent presentation by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio, but not everyone felt the same way…

— A Dodge dealership owned in part by Rep. Vern Buchanan is on the list of those being closed by GM.

— Kim Cartlidge reports on a networking event that aims to connect snappy young professionals with nonprofits in need of some desperate heeeeelp… (Sorry, Nate Dogg took over for a minute there.)

— Ho. Ly. Shit. Wild Thing aka Chrissie Siggelakis aka Christina Cummings aka Christy Hartburg responds to our piece about her Russ Meyer-connected background, and guess what: Everything we wrote has now been confirmed. Believe me, we’ll have more about this later in the day.

— It’s official. Rep. Vern Buchanan is staying put. (Don’t you love how the decision is portrayed as a principled stand, instead of political expediency? ”It feels like the right thing, for the district and for me,” Buchanan told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. If so, why’d he have to wait for Crist to announce his plans first?)

— Sarasota has more than 1 million square feet of vacant commercial property. In. Credible.

— “The Downtown Sarasota Merchants Association and the Downtown Partnership are in the final stages of merger talks to once again work under the combined name, the Downtown Association.” Really, the “Downtown Association”? Couldn’t they have come up with a more distinctive name? I vote for the Globo-Downtown Alliance.

— Wild Thing aka Chrissie Siggelakis aka Christina Cummings aka Christ Hartburg cries watching Miss California’s press conference: “God bless her, she is a special person.”

— “If Gov. Charlie Crist announces he is running for the Senate on Tuesday as expected, Buchanan is unlikely to run for either the senate or for governor. Instead Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, is expected to announce that he is running for re-election to the 13th Congressional District.” That’s how the dominoes will fall, in Jeremy Wallace’s estimation.

— The Bradenton Herald has a pretty wonderful feature about a formerly homeless family finding transitional housing thanks to an innovative church program called Family Promise.

— MC Coolidge — Creative Loafing’s newest print columnist — has words of praise for the new, sleek Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

— Is this really the kind of fucknut garbage Richard Swier wants to publish on Red County Sarasota? Here’s the headline: “Obama June Speech to Muslims: ‘How to Behead America’?”

Because we often find ourselves desperately searching for role models, we’re introducing a new feature this afternoon. Daily Hero doesn’t need much of an explanation — we’re simply looking for people to inspire us, to lead us, and perhaps to wear their drawers outside their pants. As the name so subtly implies, we’ll be scouring the world, or more likely the Internets, every day for our hero. But as always, if you’ve got a suggestion, let us know in the comments or dash a missive to max at creativeloafing dot com.

Our inaugural Daily Hero is well known around these parts. The last year for Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent has been — how do we put this? — craptastic. She presided over one of the least credible elections in modern U.S. history and was hounded by “pesky activists” — then news broke that she’d known about the problems with the voting machines two months before Vern’s “victory.”

We tend to go into a funk when our root beer goes flat. But when faced with Michael Brown-esque adversity, did Kathy Dent slink away? Hell no. Because Kathy Dent has pluck, people. She’s got more pluck in her pinky than you do in your whole —

Okay. We can’t anymore. According to Jeremy Wallace, Kathy Dent is thinking about running again for Supervisor of Elections again in ’08, and really, we can’t think of anything more ridiculous than the idea of her being reelected. It seems so bullheaded. So stubborn.

So … heroic.

Kathy Dent, we salute you.

Tragedy in Minneapolis.

+ Just this weekend we were talking about Edwards — a progressive friend loves Edwards’ talking points, we’re not sure how sincere he is. James Ridgeway tries to settle the debate. [mother jones]
+ The Jennings tax problem could haunt her in ‘08. [ht]
+ Interim no more! Van Weez director is gone for “personal and career plans” — we are currently unaware of any other plans that would force someone to leave his job. Oh, right, “they were going to fire me” plans. [ht]
+ Alec Baldwin taking a break from berating his daughter to save the Manatees. Man, some image consultant got creative. “Listen, Al, I know it sounds stupid. But what’s cuter than a manatee? That’s right. Nothing. DO IT.” [huffpo]
+ What?!? iPhone getting whupped in a gadget-of-the-century contest? Wow! Alright! Oh. Crud. [wired]
+ We don’t know how this is news, but it caught our eye, so maybe it’ll catch yours. Stewart doesn’t like the gift baskets they hand out to Daily Show guests. That is all. [romenesko]
+ Hey all you teachers: Heard of Schoopy? We hadn’t ’till about five minutes ago. Could this be a help in the classroom? [schoopy]

Happy berfday, MTV …

+ District 13 Tax Trouble #1: Christine didn’t pay hers. [ht]
+ District 13 Tax Trouble #2: Vern’s raising them, after promising not to. [ht]
+ Elijah Dukes = done. [rays index]
+ We’re officialy convinced that, at some point, Florida cut a deal with the rest of the country where we promised to take in all of America’s horrible parents. What’d we get in return? [bh]
+ Look out for aimless skateboarders downtown. [sarasotagov]
+ The first rave we’ve ever seen in Rants & Raves. [craigslist]
+ Jack Shafer on Rupert. [press box]
+ Great story about the rise of TV in Afganistan. [nyt]
+ Why’s everything going wrong in sports? We knew it! Beckham! [esquire]

We’re still having nightmares…

+ Vern’s on a fundraising tear — guess that’s what you need after “winning” by 362 votes. [bh]
+ McCain? No tear. But there are tears! [huffpo]
+ Nightclubs go green! AP makes grand generalizations in the second graf! Neither all that surprising! [ht]
+ What’s really inside a Red Bull. [wired]
+ Should the budget for the upcoming Census be cut to fund illegal immigrant policing? Well, it was. [nyt]
+ Here’s your Happy Monday Quote of the Day: “They had food; they just chose not to give it to their kids because they were too busy playing video games.” Just so we’re clear, that was the parents who were too busy playing video games. The kids ended up malnourished and in the hospital. [my way]
+ We admit it: We’d watch. [free darko]

+ Listen to the woman. [radar]
+ Good news! If the bad guy hits your car when the cops are chasing, you’re covered. (We can’t believe they fought him on this.) [ht]
+ The next step for Jennings. [bh]
+ The real Friday Night Lights. [nyt]
+ We’re only linking to this because Apple is clearly trying to capitalize on the astounding popularity of The 941 with that screen. [slate]
+ Apparently we shouldn’t be surprised that network news shows pay for celeb interviews — we still are, of course — but $1 million for Paris? How does the market get set on these things? [huffpo]
+ Finally, a great day for New York Boobs. [cnn]

Short, sweet and about two hours late — just the way you like em…

+ PoHo weighs in on the latest with District 13. [cl]
+ Is David Stern evil? If you’re lucky, we might get into this ourselves later on. [slate]
+ Wolfowitz and W — even more alike than you think. [nyt]
+ Dang am I excited for this movie. [alternet]
+ The Gangs of Iraq aren’t who you think. [radar]
+ The more you know, the more you realize how little you know. [huffpo]

 

Saw this bumper sticker on the way into work, my half-asleep brain is still in a knot.

 

 

+ Faces and stories of the VT fallen. [npr]
+ Trying to understand Cho Seung-Hui, an utterly impossible, yet impossible-to-resist task. [nyt]
+ Here’s one way to deal with tradgedy — scoop up domain names! Gotta move quick though, somebody already took vatechbloodbath.com. [wired]
+ Sarasota: The seventh best place for young retirees. Is that a good thing? Shouldn’t we have loftier goals? [ht]
+ OK, so we’re officially no smarter than monkeys. [nyt]
+ Let’s All Hate Toronto. That sounds like fun. [mr. toronto]
+ You know what else sounds like fun? Watching cheese age. (Sorry.) [cheddarvision via metafilter]
+ John Edwards, the working person’s candidate, expenses a $400 haircut. [huffpo]
+ Sitting down? Sounds like a resolution on District 13 is still a ways away. [ht]