Deep Something

They Did Not Find $678 Million in Waste

July 22, 2026July 25, 2026 B. John 409 Views 0 Comments government waste, taxpayer spending, indigent health care, budget oversight, political ideology, public accountability, Hillsborough County Commission, Hillsborough County DOGE, county budget

This entry is in the series Hillsborough DOGE Report Analysis

The Hillsborough County DOGE committee says it found roughly $678 million in potential savings. That sounds impressive, until you look at what the number actually includes: entire public programs, contract limits, fund balances, possible management changes, and spending choices committee members simply do not support.

In my latest essay, I take a closer look at the report and the difference between finding real waste and labeling any disliked program as waste. The committee may have raised some fair questions about fleet use, software licenses, contracts, and oversight. But cutting a service is not the same as making government more efficient, and a large number is not proof.

Crack Pots Featured Places Tampa Politics Legislature Society Education

The Price of Political Playacting: Michael Owen’s Assault on Hillsborough Schools

July 9, 2026September 16, 2026 B. John 450 Views 0 Comments Public Education, Hillsborough County, Culture Wars, Local Governance, school referendum, state preemption, Michael Owen, political overreach

This entry is in the series 2026 Elections

This entry is in the series Education

Hillsborough County Public Schools, the seventh-largest district in the nation, is facing a top-down assault disguised as “local accountability.” State Representative Michael Owen’s House Bill 4027 calls for a referendum to eliminate our professionally appointed superintendent in favor of a partisan elected office. The schools are already governed by an elected board of education. This change is not about transparency; it is a calculated effort to force a toxic culture-war agenda into our local classrooms and strip our school system of seasoned, professional leadership.

The structural fallout of this power grab is devastatingly clear. Instead of an experienced educational administrator focused on student performance, our district risks being handed over to a political partisan. Under an elected model, policy decisions on curriculum, budgeting, and student safety will inevitably bow to the need for campaign survival, turning every fourth year into a multi-million-dollar reelection spectacle. This essay shows how Owen’s legislative overreach, paired with his habit of distorting local facts for political points, threatens the shared institutions our children rely on.

Politics Congress Constitution Election Religion Society Culture Featured

What Are We Going to Do Now?

July 5, 2026July 9, 2026 B. John 534 Views 0 Comments Political Participation, 250th Anniversary, Democracy, Civic Engagement, Social Justice, American Democracy, Citizenship, We the People, American Values

This entry is in the series The 250th 4th

Essay 3 of a series examining where we are at 250 years

That question is easy to ask but far more difficult to answer. It is tempting to surrender to cynicism, retreat into anger, or simply conclude that one person’s voice no longer matters. Yet history tells a different story. Every major step toward a more just America began because ordinary people refused to believe that tomorrow had to look exactly like yesterday.

This concluding essay in my 250th Fourth of July trilogy is not about despair. It is about responsibility. It is a personal reflection on the kind of citizen I have decided to be, regardless of the political climate, and an invitation for each of us to consider the role we will play in writing America’s next chapter. Because history will move forward. The only question is whether we will help hold the pen.

Places Tampa Politics Legislature Society Crack Pots Featured

Is Karen Gonzalez-Pittman Representing South Tampa or Tallahassee?

June 29, 2026 B. John 371 Views 0 Comments local control, Tallahassee preemption, housing policy, infill redevelopment, school boards, wage recovery, South Tampa, Karen Gonzalez Pittman, Home Rule

This entry is in the series 2026 Elections

Karen Gonzalez-Pittman represents South Tampa, but her voting record raises a fair question: is she representing this community, or carrying Tallahassee’s agenda back home? Again and again, she has voted for bills that take decision-making power away from local governments, local school boards, and local voters.

From housing and tenant protections to infill redevelopment, school policy, civilian oversight, and local employment standards, Gonzalez-Pittman has sided with state preemption over home rule. For South Tampa, where traffic, flooding, housing pressure, schools, and neighborhood character are intensely local concerns, that record deserves much closer scrutiny.

Religion Society Methodism Stoicism Featured Politics

What We Choose Together

June 12, 2026June 12, 2026 B. John 991 Views 1 Comment Stoicism, government, justice, Civic Engagement, common good, Faith250, Citizenship, The New Colossus, public life

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

Politics can make otherwise reasonable people turn strange. It can harden conversations, flatten human beings into talking points, and tempt us into anger, contempt, or despair. But avoiding public life entirely is also a moral choice. If government is, as Barney Frank once said, “the things we choose to do together,” then citizenship is one of the places where our values become visible.

This essay reflects on a recent Citizen Engagement training at Hyde Park United Methodist, the beginning of the Faith250 series, and Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus” as a way into a larger question: what does a Stoic owe to public life? The answer is not withdrawal. It is disciplined participation, rooted in justice, guided by wisdom, restrained by temperance, and sustained by courage.

The Stoic citizen does not control the whole outcome. But we can still show up with clarity. We can still speak truth without surrendering to hatred. We can still widen the circle, lift a lamp, and choose together as wisely and justly as we can.

Featured Places Tampa Politics Society

When Principle Gets Called Partisan

June 11, 2026June 12, 2026 B. John 540 Views 0 Comments political bias, motivated reasoning, Democracy, confirmation bias, public discourse, moral principles, Civic Engagement, civic responsibility, partisanship

After a civic engagement event I helped organize, a woman approached me with a question that stayed with me. She wondered what a similar event held by “the other side” might look like. Would they just sit around saying ugly things about “us”? When I explained that our event was designed to be nonpartisan, focused only on helping people engage with public officials on whatever issue mattered to them, she looked at me and said, “Well, I’m here to tell you this was definitely partisan.”

That moment got me thinking about the difference between being partisan and being principled. We often call something partisan because it actually promotes a party, candidate, or ideology. But sometimes we use the word because something made us uncomfortable, challenged our assumptions, or touched a moral concern we have already sorted into a political box.

This essay explores how bias shapes what we hear, why two people can sit in the same room and experience almost different events, and why civic responsibility itself has started to feel suspicious in our divided culture. Democracy cannot survive if every effort to help people use their voice gets treated as a political threat.

Election Society Education Featured Politics

Hillsborough School Board District 2: The Choice Between Proven Dedication and Outside Ambition

May 13, 2026May 13, 2026 B. John 1054 Views 0 Comments Education Leadership, Public Education, Hillsborough School Board, District 2, Chris Taylor, Brittany Lyssy, Campaign Finance, Local Governance, Tallahassee Influence

Is a seat on our local school board up for grabs by the highest out-of-county bidder? For months, the District 2 race was a focused contest between candidates with deep, functional ties to our classroom, including professionals like veteran educator Chris Taylor, who has spent years in the trenches of our district. Chris understands student achievement because he has managed it from the front lines, and his commitment is rooted in the actual lives of the students he has taught and the teachers he has led. His vision is focused on stability, inclusivity, and the professional integrity our schools need to thrive.

In sharp contrast, the late entry of attorney Brittany Lyssy introduces a jarring shift toward outside influence and corporate-backed interests. While Chris Taylor’s support is local and organic, an analysis of Lyssy’s campaign finance reports reveals that nearly 45% of her total donations—excluding personal loans—flow from outside Hillsborough County. Backed by Tallahassee-based PACs and out-of-county law firms, her candidacy suggests an agenda more beholden to a state-level political machine than to our community. Hillsborough deserves a board member whose only “client” is the child in the classroom, not a strategist using our schools as a policy laboratory.

Featured Politics Society Crack Pots County Commission

The Architecture of Abandonment: The Performance of Josh Wostal

April 30, 2026 B. John 1029 Views 0 Comments Patrimonialism, Hostile Wostal, Hillsborough County Commission, Public Transit, Developer Subsidies, Fiscal Conservatism, Local Government, Voter Suppression, Asset Stripping

This entry is in the series 2026 Elections

In the sterile halls of the Hillsborough County Center, he is known as “Hostile Wostal”—a man who treats the public treasury like a distressed asset ripe for liquidation. While he preens for social media as a fiscal hawk, his actual record is a masterclass in calculated abandonment, trading essential bus routes in South County for high-end sprawl subsidies that line the pockets of mega-developers like Lennar and Homes by WestBay. It isn’t “saving” when you strip the foundation of a community to pave the private driveways of the donor class; it is patrimonialism disguised as prudence.

Wostal’s governance is a performance of cruelty, evidenced by his crusade to defund the Supervisor of Elections and dismiss 100,000 of our neighbors as mere “ghost voters.” This isn’t about the bottom line; it is about rigging the game by silencing the voices he can’t win over. From stranding essential workers on the roadside to attacking the ballot box, Wostal has shown us that he knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. It is time to decide if we want a county that serves its people, or a family business that serves only its patrons. Follow the paper trail and learn more about how we can build a Hillsborough that belongs to everyone.

Person sitting contemplatively in a crowd.

Featured Society Stoicism

Hierocles: Expanding the Circle

April 27, 2026April 27, 2026 B. John 862 Views 2 Comments Circles of Concern, Community Engagement, Philosophy in Practice, Social Ethics, Stoicism, personal growth, moral responsibility, Hierocles

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

This entry is in the series The Stoics

Stoicism often begins as a philosophy of the self. What I control. How I respond. How I stay steady when life shifts in ways I didn’t expect. But the Stoics never intended it to stop there. At some point, the question changes from how I manage myself to how I show up for other people.

In this essay, I introduce the Stoic philosopher Hierocles and his idea of expanding circles of concern. It’s a simple image with challenging implications. Through his teaching and my own experience, I explore what it means to move beyond inward discipline and begin living with a broader sense of responsibility. Read more.

Society Crime Corruption Crack Pots Featured Places Tampa Politics Legislature

Why Josie Tomkow is Wrong for Tampa

March 17, 2026 B. John 1032 Views 0 Comments Preemption, Local Autonomy, Voter Suppression, Public Education, Josie Tomkow, Tampa Politics, Home Rule, SD 14

This entry is in the series Florida Legislature

This entry is in the series 2026 Elections

For decades, the “Home Rule” philosophy was the bedrock of Florida governance—the common-sense idea that the people who live in South Tampa and Northwest Hillsborough are better equipped to run their communities than a bureaucrat in a distant capital. But after the 2026 Legislative session, that principle isn’t just under attack; it’s being systematically dismantled. At the center of this power grab is Representative Josie Tomkow, a Polk County resident now seeking to represent Senate District 14. While her campaign paints a picture of “common sense” leadership, her voting record tells a different story: one of a reliable “yes-man” for a Tallahassee establishment that views your local autonomy as an obstacle to be cleared.

From voting to strip your city council of the power to host local cultural festivals to supporting state-level takeovers of local zoning boards, Tomkow has consistently prioritized state authority over your backyard reality. Whether it’s placing barriers at the ballot box for USF students or diverting your tax dollars away from public classrooms, her record is a blueprint for centralization. Senate District 14 doesn’t need a proxy for the Governor’s office; it needs a champion for its own streets. We’re taking a deep dive into the specific “preemption” bills Tomkow supported and why her vision for Florida is a direct threat to the independence of the Tampa Bay area.

[Read the full analysis here: The Death of Home Rule and the Rise of the Polk County Proxy]

Featured Religion Science Society Stoicism

Negative Visualization

March 14, 2026 B. John 890 Views 0 Comments philosophy, negative visualization, Mindset, Stoicism, Resilience, Premeditatio Malorum, personal growth

This entry is in the series Stoicism Practices

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

Most people deal with uncertainty in one of two ways. They either worry endlessly about everything that might go wrong… or they assume nothing will. Neither approach prepares us very well for real life.

The Stoics practiced something different. They called it premeditatio malorum — the premeditation of difficulties. Instead of imagining every possible disaster, they briefly considered the challenges that might realistically arise and thought about how they would respond.

This simple mental exercise doesn’t increase anxiety. It reduces it. By removing surprise, it helps us meet life’s difficulties with steadiness rather than panic.