Dear Barack Obama:

Anita Stewart • Operation Itch Contributor

 Congratulations to you and Michelle for making history. Now I will be honest and tell you now that I did not vote for you. I belong to the Green Party. I and many that I know expect you to do the right thing by the American people. I would love to see you keep your promises. This cannot be just a honeymoon moment. I hope that you can lead us with the same amount of integrity, honesty and fortitude that led you to Chicago to study and serve your local community there years ago. I would love to see America respected around the world again. Can you make that happen? I have a firm commitment to make sure that I spread the word to everyone I know, that we as Americans can never, ever again take our liberty for granted. Liberty is free, but we must all do our parts to maintain it. It can disappear quickly with the simple flick of a pen to the bottom of a document. And in bits and pieces. Will you continue to do what the people want or bow to the corporations and lobbyists and powers that be? Will you do the right thing and restore those rights that were viciously taken away from us in a very calculated way, bit by bit during King George’s Reign of Terror?

In the Quiet and Stillness..

 Anita Stewart • Operation Itch Contributor

No one can say that Florida has an industry or industries that are uniquely “Floridian.” Two industries that seem to thrive in this state are Tourism and Medical/Health with Real Estate running a close third. Certainly year round industries, but more prevalent when the “snowbirds” are here visiting. Hospital census is up, doctors are busy, appointments are booked, the roads on the way to clinics and hospitals are tied up during rush hour traffic. White-haired highways with sightings of seniors driving their cars with assorted license plates from up north, Michigan, Ontario, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio…anywhere up there that has constant reports of freezing temperatures and drifts of snow and cold fronts.

In the years that I have been in Florida, not only the roads, hospitals and doctor’s offices have been full to capacity during the winter, but the beaches, hotels, restaurants, shopping malls, garage sales, mini-golf, Dollar Stores, parks, rental properties and amusement parks are always crowded during tourist season. Florida’s tourist season is usually from right around the holiday weeks and lasts until Easter. It can include everyone from the well heeled yuppies, to couples and families, some foreigners but for the most part, well off seniors that can afford to maintain a home up north and a smaller home down here. 

The HooDooed • Is this Extortion? Forcing people to pay for a new Nuclear Power Plant!

Anita Stewart • Operation Itch Contributor
After attending and speaking at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Progress Energy’s open meetings last week in Crystal River, Florida concerning the Levy County’s proposed Nuclear Power Plant it is pretty easy to see that this meeting was stacked. Most of the speakers and the people attending were either from Progress Energy or the NRC therefore almost all of them had a vested financial interest in having the plant built in their neighborhood. It was clear to see that this is pretty much a done deal. The Levy County Nuclear Power Plant will cost Floridians approximately $17 billion dollars (including $3 billion for transmission lines). The planned site is in 3,100 acres of pristine Florida wilderness. Once the plans commence, the ecosystem there will be changed forever. 

One woman named Irena came up to this writer to tell her that she works at the Crystal River Nuclear Plant and that she was originally from Chernobyl and that she had tested positive for cancer recently. She also said her cancer did not come from living at her previous location in Russia nor from working at the plant here in Florida. Another man was one of the speakers and mentioned that he had lived near nuclear power plants all of his life and it had not affected him at all, yet he could not uncurl his hands.