h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Florida,USA - A3636245
Author: shagbark - U170775

Info most websites on Florida leave out

A very amusing look at some parts of Florida

Could do with a bit of proofreading for capitalisation. You could probably also include a bit more practical information, if you're unsure what you might include, have a look at some other recent state entries - I know Washington, Missouri and Ohio have been put up within the last few months.

Also, if you'd like another link to include, there's an Edited Entry on NASCAR, which started in Daytona (and should be firing up any day now, I think...) A3151955

There are plenty of other places to look for practical information like what hotel fares,the weather, driving times between the major cities. This is not that kind of entry. I have added two more h2g2 links for those who think that is a requirement .

This entry suffers from the problem of talking about things before explaining what they are, or not ever explaining them. Take it that the person who is reading this has never been to Florida, so they won't know what a Florida cracker is, or the Orange Bowl, or possibly even the Everglades.

It also suffers from too much use of the word "also". THere's more to writing an interesting and amusing entry than stringing together a load of facts about Florida in sentences starting with "also".

Good, but it needs a fair bit of work.

since that is a bit of work I don't want to do I thinkl I will just remove from peer review for the time being.

Pity.

conversation continues at F48874?thread=602121 back in peer review

I don't know if the author has ever even been to Florida. From reading the article, it appears they haven't. There are a few things I want to clarify however, considering that I'm a Florida native and a life-long resident of the state.

Florida Crackers are BORN here, they didn't "move" here as the author inaccurately stated. Florida Crackers got their name from the fact that many early Florida residents were cattle herders. (The state used to be one of the most prolific cattle states before tourists took over after Flagler and Plant built the main railroad system.) The term "cracker" came from the sound of the bullwhips "cracked" over the cattle to drive them from one place to another. In fact, the term "cracker" is used to designate a person born in Florida from a "Floridian" family (as opposed to a person born to parents who weren't born here, but moved here from somewhere else).

The author is also wrong about the weather, including areas that freeze. The entire Panhandle area, down into Polk County, routinely freezes, not just a small area in the center of the state. It is not unusual for us to get freezing weather even farther south into Charlotte, Hardee, Lee, and Collier counties (which are on the southwest coast, not far inland (there is no far inland on this peninsula). While temperatures here can get hot, temperature-wise, it is nearly always tolerable due to the pleasant sea breezes we consistantly receive, from both sides of the state (also a major cause of the summer thunderstorms) and nearly all homes, buildings, and cars have air conditioning. (I went to Arizona last July and nearly died because the breezes out there are HOT, and they stay hot, even after dark, unlike Florida, where even if you get into the shade the temperature immediately feels cooler.) And while yes, Florida is a "wet" state, the author neglects to mention that actually, we are coming out of a severe, nearly 5-year long drought that has devastated our water tables. (So while we didn't enjoy last year's hurricanes, we were greatful for the huge amount of rain they brought.)

The author also neglects to mention important reasons people flock here, such as a greatly reduced cost of living compared to northern states and mild winter weather. The author did accurately report the lightning frequency, we are considered the "lightning capital of the world," but the reason more people get struck here than anywhere else is also partly due to the major outdoor lifestyle. Golf courses are everywhere, and when you take a long outdoor walk carrying a long metal stick, you are inviting trouble. And golf is a sport that can be pursued all year round here due to the great weather. (A lot of lightning victims are golfers.)

I realize that the author was attempting to be funny when they talked about two seasons, "tourist season and hurricane season," but the truth is that the 2004 hurricane season was an anomaly. I live in Charlotte county (where hurricane Charley hit) and I realize that many outside Florida have the erroneous impression that the entire state was devastated, and that's simply not the case. There are small swaths of destruction, and larger areas of lesser damage, but overall, the state is intact, and the worst of the damage on the east coast was due to two hurricanes hitting nearly identical places in less than a 6 week period.

If you talk to most Florida residents, they wouldn't want to live anywhere else, even with the risk of hurricanes. Unlike other places, like the midwest with its tornadoes (which, collectively over the years the tornado damage far outweighs hurricane damage in terms of death tolls) that give you five minutes or less warning (compared to three to five days or more for hurricanes), or California with earthquakes (absolutely no warning) and mudslides and wildfires, or the northest (blizzards), we consider ourselves lucky. And the fact that we can't stop people from moving here seems to support that as well.

The article reads more like a book report than an review from someone who's visited or lived here, and sounded rather more like someone poking fun at the state over the political issues. Like the fact that most of the 2000 election debacle was due to Democratic officials in Dade and Palm Beach counties who screwed up and caused most of the problems. Had they done their jobs properly in the first place, there never would have been an election snafu. Governor Bush had no say in the outcome of the election (and I am no fan of his, believe me). It was Katherine Harris who had the jurisdiction over that mess. More careful research would have revealed these facts in the article.

Overall, I think the article should have been researched more in-depth and should have focused more on facts not found on most travel or chamber of commerce sites. I also think that if the author wanted to poke fun at the state, they should have done their reasearch a little more carefully before doing so. Beleive me, I will be the first person to poke fun at this state. Even author Carl Hiaason, when asked where he gets his ideas, stated that all he had to do was look at the daily headlines. I mean, really, where else but in a state that has a safe haven law for mothers to surrender newborns would a woman make up a wild story about rescuing a baby that was thrown from a car? (Later it turned out it was her baby.) But a lot of our problems don't stem from the people who are "old Florida," they are people that have transplanted their particular form of lunacy here from other locales.

I would have liked to see the author point out more positive information about Florida, like the Spanish influence in places like Ybor City (the author makes a generalization about Miami without even mentioning Ybor city, which has a much greater historical impact on the Cuban-American story than Miami), or our large Greek population in historic Tarpon Springs, or even a more accurate and fuller-featured accounting of why NASA has their computer and lauch system set up the way they do. (Again, the author seems more interested in poking fun at the state. I'm sure their purpose was most likely an attempt at satire, but it falls far short due to a lack of information and thorough research.) Or how Florida is generally a more tolerant state in reality than is perceived by the rest of the world (why else would we have such a large gay and lesbian population moving here?), how Florida has passed legislation to prevent the elderly and those on limited incomes from being taxed out of their homes (the Save Our Homes Act), how Florida is agressively pursuing environmental conservation policies such as protecting endangered species like the manatee, how Florida works to make great advances in fisheries conservation and replenishment, how it is a great laboratory in developing more and better environmentally friendly development methods to preserve as much greenspace as possible, how it's home to the oldest continuous settlement in the nation, etc, etc, etc.

Respectfully, I feel the author needs to go back to the drawing board, look at why they want to write the article, pick a point they are trying to make, and re-write from that direction. As-is, most of the information can be more accurately obtained from other sites, offers no particular "ah-ha" types of insight, and is, in fact, factually inaccurate in places. (Among the other items I've already cited, my recollection of the state flag debate differs from what the author reports.) It reads as if what little research was done came from a few newspaper articles or is the result of someone who is disgruntled at the election process/results. Personally, I would never attempt to write a "factual" article about the electoral process of the UK, especially having never lived there. I would never attempt to write about the history of Australia unless I'd spent hundreds of hours meticulously researching the issue. Likewise, the author needs to put more time and effort into their article.

I feel this article, as-is, would not make a good addition to the Guide when compared to the guidelines and other articles I've already read. If the author rewrites with a clearer focus (and more in-depth research) and makes it sound more like an article rather than a commentary, I would be willing to reconsider. But not in it's current version. It's not the derrogatory points I object to, it's the factual inaccuracies they are derriving their points from that lead me to believe that research is lacking and their motive is not to inform, but influence, regardless of how inaccurate their points are.

I have not only lived but also worked in Florida. Since this article was not going in the direction the scouts wanted it to they have requested and I have agreed to remove it from Peer Review. One nice thing about not being an edited article is I can now add pictures.

It really won't do to have both threads with the same name
so this one is now AMR( Ante My Reviewers) and PMR(Post My Review)