Word: florida
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Greetings from Florida, where the winters are great...
...crisis to go with our housing crisis. We're first in the nation in mortgage fraud, second in foreclosures, last in high school graduation rates. Our consumer confidence just hit an all-time low, and our icons are in trouble - the citrus industry, battered by freezes and diseases; the Florida panther, displaced by highways and driveways; the space shuttle, approaching its final countdown. New research suggests that the Everglades is collapsing, that our barrier beaches could be under water within decades, that a major hurricane could cost us $150 billion. (See pictures of Miami: Paradise Lost...
...Florida was once a swampy rural backwater, the poorest and emptiest state in the South. But in the 20th century, air-conditioning, bug spray and the miracle of water control helped transform it into a migration destination for the restless masses of Brooklyn and Cleveland, Havana and Port-au-Prince. Florida developed its own ventricle at the heart of the American Dream - not only as an affordable playground and comfortable retirement home with no income tax but also as a state of escape and opportunity, a Magic Kingdom for tourists, a Fountain of Youth for seniors, a Cape Canaveral...
...Journey's die-hard fans - and there are plenty - have embraced Pineda with open arms. When Nell, who did not want to reveal her real name, started an Arnel Pineda fan site in December, the Florida-based Web developer says angry Journey fans left death threats on her answering machine. The band's traditional fan base is mostly white and American, and some are upset that Pineda is neither. "Journey is supposed to be an all-American band," one fan complained in an online forum...
...Eating contests weren't limited to hot dogs, however. New York Yankees outfielder Ping Bodie competed in a 1919 pasta-eating contest against an ostrich in Jacksonville, Florida. (Again, according to legend, the ostrich passed out after its 11th bowl and Bodie won by default.) In 1958, a pair of American and Soviet weightlifters fought their own version of the Cold War by eating eight lobsters and six squab in front of 250 onlookers at a New York restaurant. They didn't even touch the dozen lamb chops and 10 steaks waiting for them, and ultimately declared themselves failures...