Tampa Tribune gave Daniel Ruth the ax in the layoffs, one of 18.

[madfloridian]

He has been in the newspaper business for 36 years. I always associate the words "crusty" and "grumpy" with him. Sometimes he got on my nerves, and I did not always read his columns.

Tampa Tribune Lays Off 18 In Newsroom

TAMPA - The Tampa Tribune laid off 18 newsroom employees today as the newspaper works to reduce its costs and cope with a worsening advertising economy.

The job cuts included top managers, mid-level editors, photographers, reporters and some of the paper's most visible faces, including longtime columnist Dan Ruth, who has worked more than 36 years in the newspaper industry, and editorial page editor Rosemary Goudreau.

"We have tried to make these cuts so the results are not so obvious to the reader," said Janet Coats, executive editor of the Tribune. At the same time, she said "We've tried to make these reductions early enough so they have an effect in 2009, because it has become clear the economy is not looking any better."

Media companies across the nation were already cutting back operations this year as advertising dollars shift to the Internet and other venues. Media companies in Florida are dealing with added problems, including the near collapse in the real estate market and the end of the political advertising season.

Lately he had some real jewels. One of his favorite targets was Sarah Palin.

"Look! The Empress is wearing new clothes"

Whew, if this sackcloth and ashes tour had gone on much longer, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin would have shown up for her Tampa visit looking like Edith Bunker meets Ma Joad to try to convince everyone of her K-Mart blue light special tastes.

Well, with only seven days left in the campaign, it's entirely possible by the time we get to next Tuesday, Palin will be campaigning in a housecoat and slippers with curlers in her hair in a craven attempt to suck up to the mythical Joe Sixpack crowd.

It was probably just a teensy hint during her Sunday stop in Tampa that Palin, the GOP's answer to "What Not To Wear," was in something of a crisis management mode when she enlisted the help of Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who makes Britney Spears look like Sandra Day O'Conner, to introduce the Alaska governor. Hasselbeck is one of the chattering panelists on "The Spew," which offers all the intellectual stimulation of the Three Stooges eying a table filled with cream pies.

Donna Karan!

And he recently reminded us that although the Tampa area is famous for the huge huge Confederate flag flying near I-4...that they managed to go blue for Obama. He was proud of that.

County with Confederate flag goes blue for Obama

In a few more moments the country would officially elect its first black president at the end of a campaign more than 200 years in the making, winding through Selma and Birmingham and Watts and Hough and all the other stations of the cross of the American civil rights movement.

.."And just then, Florida - stumblebum Florida, the state that has historically been little more than a Wal-Mart gift card for the Bush family - was declared in favor of Obama.

..."Tuesday night, Barack Obama carried Hillsborough County, the same county where a bunch of narrow-minded simpletons fly a massive Confederate flag near I-4. That's hardly atonement. But it is a giant step across the breach of bigotry. One step down, more to come."

Thanks for the jewels, Daniel Ruth. Sorry to see you leave.