Round-up, 02.09.09

Slow news day. A few things I want to highlight, though:

Sarasota Herald-Tribune:
“Question: ‘Morning Joe’ or Sen. Joe?”

The Herald-Tribune speculates that Pensacolian Joe Scarborough could run for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat in 2010, based on his open-ended answer when they asked him if he’d consider running for public office again:

“I haven’t closed it off,” said Scarborough, a Republican who is scheduled to address the Manatee County Republican Party at its annual Lincoln Day Dinner on Feb. 20. “I’ve been getting some calls from some fundraisers in Florida.”

Mr. Scarborough represented Pensacola and the rest of the first Congressional district in Congress from 1995-2001, and he currently hosts MSNBC’s Morning Joe.  Unless he’s just got that public service bug, I don’t see Mr. Scarborough giving up a popular TV show and the salary that comes with it for what in best possible conditions would be a very tough electoral fight.

Rick’s Blog:
“Who will greet the King and Queen?”

Rick asks who the federal government will send to greet the King and Queen of Spain when they visit Pensacola later this month.

A commenter, “Jay Jeff”, offers some pretty funny suggestions for someone to represent us locally.

Mark O’Brien:
“Blogs offer Pensacola new views”

The PNJ columnist rounds up the various members of Pensacola’s little blogosphere, throwing out some kind words about Progressive Pensacola in the process.

A key to a progressive community is having diverse sources of information, and the various quality Pensacola blogs help us get there. The PNJ simply doesn’t have the resources, especially given the state of the newspaper industry and the penny-pinching nature of its corporate owner, to cover everything going on in Pensacola. One of the reasons I started Progressive Pensacola is because people kept telling me that they simply didn’t know about the things going on at City Hall, because the PNJ and WEAR simply weren’t covering them.

Pensacola City Councilman Sam Hall started a blog when he was first elected to Council 2+ years ago. Now two other Council members, Maren DeWeese and Megan Pratt, have followed suit. Maintaining blogs makes these Council members more accessible to their constituents, encourages public dialogue, and hopefully increases transparency.

Krispy Kreme in danger?

Yahoo! Finance listed Krispy Kreme, who stock is down 50% from one year ago, as one of its “15 Companies That Might Not Survive 2009″:

The donuts might be good, but Krispy Kreme overestimated Americans’ appetite — and that’s saying something. This chain overexpanded during the donut heyday of the 1990s — taking on a lot of debt — and now requires high volumes to meet expenses and interest payments. The company has cut costs and closed underperforming stores, but still hasn’t earned an operating profit in three years.

Uh-oh! I’m not a big donut fan, but I like a hot fresh donut and a bottle of ice cold milk from time to time. I know some Krispy Kreme fanatics that would be heartbroken if their beloved donut dealer went under.

Celebrate Pensacola lectures

Celebrate Pensacola, the group organising events for Pensacola’s 450th anniversary celebrations, will present two lectures this week:

• Tomorrow (Tuesday), 7:00 PM: “Maritime History of Pensacola Based on Shipwrecks”
• Thursday 2/12, 10:00 AM: “Archaeology & the Emanuel Point Wrecks (1559)”

Both lectures will be held at the offices of the Florida Public Archaeology Network, in the L&N Marine Terminal Building, located at 207 East Main Street.

Contact FPAN at (850) 595-0050 for more information.