|
Features |
Apalachicola sits quietly on the Gulf of Mexico.
TOWN HAS ITS SHARE OF FSU LOVERS
Some have been there since the early 19th century, and some visited last year and decided not to leave. Either way, dozens of Florida State families are living in Apalachicola, the old port where the big river meets the Gulf of Mexico.
They seem to be a major element of the personality of the town.
Their influence comes in a variety of styles, pieces to the puzzle that is Apalachicola charm: a 78-year- old artist who bought an inn; an antique-store owner who grew up there, left, and returned; a graduate student who's published a book about it and his lawyer father who is renovating a historic building; a couple of lawyers who practice in a 1930s courthouse. They live in a little coast town that so far has been renovated but not ruined.
Florida's mercury problem comes on world-traveling winds that circle the earth.
NOT ALL THE POLLUTERS ARE WHERE YOU'D EXPECT
The mercury problem, is not so simple, Florida State's and other scientists have found out.
A few years ago, protestors scaled incinerator stacks and unfurled banners saying "Mercury is Rising" and "Don't Burn Florida". A number of arrests were made.
The protests were understandable. Incinerators in South Florida, coal-fueled power plants near Tampa, and even a car-battery recycling plant near Marianna, are guilty. They produce mercury that helps kill fish in fresh water and, ultimately, mammals, even humans.
YOU CAN'T BEAT THE TECHNOLOGY AT FLORIDA STATE
When it comes to information-age education, Florida State University now can make the strongest of claims that it is the new No. 1. We have yet to be designated No. 1 by Wired magazine or anyone else.
But for now we want our Florida State Times readers know why we make this claim.
If legislators OK the spending this year, Florida State will add a second year to it's existing one-year program.
MEDICAL SCHOOL ON FSU'S HORIZON
The supply of doctors may be low in FLorida, but Florida State University is ready to meet the growing demand. (While the American Medical Association sees a doctor glut in other states, the situation is the reverse in Florida.)
Two legislators Rep. Durrell Peaden, a Republican from Crestview, and Sen. W.D. Childers, a Republican from Pensacola are asking the legislature for $1.4 million to expand FSU"s medical training program with a future possibility of establishing a four-year full-fledged medical school.