Tampa notes #3

Apr 12, 2007

At the evening reception, chats with John La Puma about his food-as-medicine mission, Brian Doyle (he attended my blogging session at last year’s conference and started his ADHD blog in August) and Tom Linden about Prairie Home Companion (Tom’s nephew’s band, the Powder Kegs, will perform on the 4/21/07 People in Their Twenties Talent Show), and longtime speechwriter-for-physicians Elizabeth Mitchell, who got me to remembering about my high-school conversations with Fr. Schwartz about how he worked all week to prepare for Sunday’s homily.

Tomorrow, Newt Gingrich will be here. While I was eagerly anticipating Dr. Gerberding’s talk today, I’m dreading Gingrich’s appearance. In Cleveland in 1997 (will have to confirm this), Gingrich gave a talk at Tower City. At one point, to great applause, he proclaimed that all drug dealers should be put to death. This horrified me: Gingrich is supposed to be this smart historian-politician, but here he was advocating a draconian and unrealistic punishment. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow morning if his health care message has improved.

Anton Zuiker ☄